Subject: RE: [IFETS-Discuss] Objectivity and Postmedernism
From: Rick Parkany (rparkany@borg.com)
Date: Fri 26 May 2000 - 01:17:42 MEST
From: Rick Parkany <rparkany@borg.com> Subject: RE: [IFETS-Discuss] Objectivity and Postmedernism Date: Thu, 25 May 2000 16:17:42 -0700
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Well, Bob, after reading a few of your latter postings, I see that you seem to
have committed a fallacy in most of your thinking and argumentation. As a
fallacy, it seems to be an assumption that you don't state that makes many of
your accounts seem so striaghtforward and sensible. You commit the fallacy that
between positive and physical sciences and the social sciences there is a
theoretic or paradigmatic continuum.
I keep before me a simple manner in which I often remind myself of the
distinction between the two *sciences* and the focus of each inquiry. In a word,
the physical sciences deal with non-interactive data, the social sciences deal
with data that *talks back*--that is, this natural data *speaks* in the same
language as the inquirer, in second order logic that includes self-referential,
reflexive propositions. Kurt Goedel, in his studies of second order logic
metamathematically, once and for all broke this assumption of yours concerning
the continuum of the *object* of scientific inquiry that positive science had
struck under the agenda of the Vienna Kreiss. HIS refutation of this continuity
came even from the positive tradition, so it has much more weight as a refutation
than it would have had coming from a Neitsche, Heidegger, or a Weber.
Here, in discussing the *data that talks back with the inquirer*, yea, even data
that collaborates with the inquirer, I'm not talking about the thoeretic modeling
of experience in which flow charts are drafted and all sorts of loops and spirals
enter into the picture and display what appears to be itterative, interactive, or
even, *complex*, *chaordic*, or *self-adaptive* organicity. I'm talking about the
semiotics of our experience and the role it plays in social and cultural inquiry.
You commit the positivist fallacy that assumes a continuity between the physical
and the cultural without at all exhibiting any *proof* or *demonstration* that
such a contunuity exists. This same fallacy underwrites much confounded thinking,
as well, that assumes that *meaning* is somehow to be equated with *knowledge*.
On the other hand, to *postulate* such an extensiveness and then to investigate
accordingly may be a better rhetorical tack while discussing these issues, rather
than to make it appear that those who don't accept this unstated assumption of
yours are in some way thinking clearly, or even, that they are *naturalists*.
But, then again, that just what the Vienna Circle HAD indeed postulated and,
indeed, what Goedel refuted in 1931-33. Therefore...
Come to think of it, the cultural dimension in our experiences, including the
scientific, is quite an overwhelming consideration. Where would we be, for
example, had western science been more concerned with moral improvement rather
than material? or what if Greece had no slave society underpinning its oligarchy?
would we be *seeing* moral issues with the same apparent refinement that we
presently *see* sub-atomic particles? Indeed, Bob, physical sciences are NOT
culturally free (just reflect upon the funding protocol for research priorities
w/i your own Uni! how scientific are THOSE deliberations that do as much to
prdict future evolution of science as any DeChardin would ever, my friend?),
constructivism does NOT have to refute gravity in order to demonstrate that
*sense* is different from *knowledge* being different from *information*, that
*meaning* is as important (or more so) than *models* or *facts*.
In fact (pardon the play on words), all science has a moral dimension, morals
have to do with amelioration and improvement (betterment of the good) of the
human condition, and, therefore, we are all *naturalists* (after DeChardin) in
that our science progresses not apart from the flesh and blood of those of us
creating it. All science is teleological, having to do with evolution and
progress. Accordingly, what *is* is due to where we have looked and how we have
been biased while looking. I'm afraid it all comes down to ontology, Bob, despite
Bill Clinton's shibboleth--it all depends on what *is* is... ;-} rap.
Bob Leamnson wrote:
> [Sorry about yet another rambling essay, but we're between
> semesters and it's far too cold to go outside.]
> Being one of the rabble-rousers who fanned the flames of
> the postmodernism debate, I feel obligated to join the melee.
> The discussion repeatedly flits in and out of that general
> activity we call science. This might be expected because the
> avowed goal of people who do science is to get ever closer to
> the truth, but of course, "the truth" is at the heart of these
> arguments
...SNIP...
> So it is not scientists who claim to be in possession of truth
> or have unerring knowledge. Perfect knowledge of things as
> they really are would make science obsolete. But to leap from
> there to the extreme postmodern position that reality, being
> unknowable exactly, must therefore be subjective or relative to
> social mores, opinions, or points of view, is very careless
> thinking. If gravity is not subjective, then there must be other
> things as well.
> To learn how scientists think and work, one can read
> Popper, Thomas Kuhn, Latour, Michael Ruse, or Lewis
> Wolpert....or one can do science for 20 years and observe what
> one's colleagues are doing.
...SNIP...
> But what we can be sure of, is that X-Rays, MRI, vaccines,
> microchips, and pharmaceuticals were not produced by people
> who believe that what we call "the atom" is simply a social
> contrivance with no objective reality. Even so, we don't have
> to know that objective reality if the atom, whatever it really is,
> behaves exactly like our laboriously constructed model of it.
> Lewis Wolpert says that scientists are "naive realists," and
> that's an appellation most of us can live with.
>
> Bob Leamnson
> Dartmouth MA
-- "Dein Wachstum sei feste und lache vor Lust! Deines Herzens Trefflichkeit / hat dir selbst das Feld bereit', auf dem du bluehen musst." Peasant, Richard A. Parkany: SUNY@Albany Prometheus Educational Services - http://www.borg.com/~rparkany/ Upper Hudson & Mohawk Valleys; New York State, USA rparkany@borg.com--------------------------------------------------------- Forum website: http://ifets.ieee.org/ Forum's contact person: kinshuk@massey.ac.nz Info on Join/Leave List: http://ifets.ieee.org/maillist.html Change your subscription options (digest, vacation hold etc.) at: http://www.topica.com/lists/ifets-discuss/prefs --------------------------------------------------------- ___________________________________________________________ T O P I C A The Email You Want. http://www.topica.com/t/16 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
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