Philosophy discussion

First of all, IS there a "trouble with positivism"? And if so, what, in your opinion, does it consist of?

I'd like to suggest treating this question not only in epistemological terms, but also in cultural terms. Ie, I'm asking not only about the supremacy of the scientific method for securing knowledge, but also about the claim of the possible cultural supremacy of science. Can all the provinces of culture be somehow reducible to or annexed to a science-derived paradigm? Or is there some component of paradigm formation that exceeds scientific interest and that can be considered solely in humanistic terms?

A related question: is scientific knowledge sufficient to human wisdom? Or is there a component of wisdom that exceeds, in principle, even the most ideally complete scientific paradigm? Are there legitimate claims that non-scientific approaches (not only religious, but also ethical-humanistic, philosophical, artistic, etc) can make to being sources of wisdom?

I certainly think the critiques of positivism hold, for instance that positivism is self defeating for the claim of verification itself would need to be empirically verified. Your thoughts on the cultural aspect of positivism is interesting. I would be hesitant to chunk everything under science (what of moral or aesthetic truths or metaphysical truths). In the end a sort of scientism that ignores sciences dependance on logical (the helpfulness of logical laws, rules etc of inferance/deduction), metaphysical (the past is real) and moral (one ought not falsify research) truths is doomed IMO.

I for one am disgusted by too emphatic science-centric thought; but even if I were not, I could find plenty of thinkers to support me in my revulsion for it. I can name some titles as I'm sure most of you can.

The USA is science-and-technology happy, drunk on science, addicted to newness; enslaved to fantasy...but to me its exactly the least important way to examine the human condition. It solves very little in pragmatic terms, and instead usually bedevils us with false progress, foolish mirages, and dangerous delusions.

Technology happy perhaps, but science-happy? It is one of the most (if not the most) science unfriendly nations in the world. Enormous numbers (and high percentages) of people are global warming deniers, do not believe in the theory of evolution, think that the moon landing never happened, refuse to allow their children to be vaccinated, and belief that genetic modification of food is "evil". (view spoiler)[This list is taken from the cover of the March 2015 issue of National Geographic magazine, under the rubric "The War on Science". (hide spoiler)] Certainly some of these issues (not all, IMHO) are open to discussion. But the intense skepticism, even hatred, which science engenders in many in the U.S. is hardly anything to be happy about.

Ah yah.. the conservative hinterland

The problem with positivism is that it can never be proved, and thus must be irrational.

That's not necessarily a bad thing

Sincerely,
Blaise Pascal

Duffy wrote: "The problem with positivism is that it can never be proved, and thus must be irrational."

Ha Ha! That about sums it up.

The problem is that positivism is so restrictive you'd have to throw out most of what we think of as science. Even the most basic of physical objects are difficult, maybe ultimately impossible to reduce to meaningful data as meaningful data would be defined by positivism. Then try applying positivism to more abstract scientific knowledge.
For instance, try proving that there is a past using the scientific method. How do you set up an experiment which doesn't first rely on the assumption that a past exists? You can't do it.

And as Duffy eloquently points out - Positivism doesn't survive it's own rules.

Which is why this stuff didn't survive much past the 50s.

Ted wrote: "Technology happy perhaps, but science-happy? It is one of the most (if not the most) science unfriendly nations in the world. Enormous numbers (and high percentages) of people are global warming de..."

About the US, sadly, yes.

And the rest of the posters have already pointed out that Logical Positivism as per the Vienna school had a brief heyday, but is too restrictive due to its reliance on directly observable evidence.

Elena wrote: " Can all the provinces of culture be somehow reducible to or annexed to a science-derived paradigm?"
That would in great part depend on what we call "science". Even today, there are books full written on the latter subject...

Just as a matter of clarification, the OP isn't asking about the branch of positivism elaborated by the Logical Positivists. It is asking about the soundness of the more general view that considers science the "queen" (ultimate end) of cultural development. That view seems alive and well, and seems to urge that preserving the autonomy of traditional disciplines such as philosophy is culturally regressive. At the most aggressive, this view claims the "death" of philosophy (ie, its ultimate cultural irrelevance), as we've seen via Hawking's quote which started a popular thread on here.

It is true that a popular strand of cultural development in the US veers towards the other extreme and is indeed antipositivist, and at times, fundamentalist. But this has little bearing on the question the OP seeks to pose. Not to betray my own bias too much (I am more interested in probing others' opinions than venting my own in this thread), but I'd say that the absurdity of one extreme does not justify that of the other. Both seem alive and well in various sectors of our culture, and perhaps the aberrations of both have to do with the extreme/antagonizing/exclusivist version in which each is stated. In this way, each extreme formulation preserves and feeds the other. This only proves that there is so little real harmony amongst the various strands of our culture, I think.

Traveller wrote: "Can all the provinces of culture be somehow reducible to or annexed to a science-derived paradigm?"
That would in great part depend on what we call "science".

It is interesting that postmodern relativism has problematized thinking about science to the extent that we now are no longer even sure how to go about making even the most preliminary definition of science! If we can't come up with some workable, quasi-unitary definition of science, then surely positivism even in its latest avatars has crumbled to dust.

Hmmm, Elena, I would almost have thought that you were making a dig at scientism if you hadn't also made a dig at postmodern relativism... feels like you're waving a carrot in front of our noses here.

Well, I'm definitely more pro po-mo relativism than pro pure positivism... but let's try and break down your post into its constituent pieces.

Firstly you mention : "the more general view that considers science the "queen" (ultimate end) of cultural development. " That sounds a bit like scientism to me, although I am not well-read enough to know exactly to which view you are referring to here. Have you got some names of people who endorse a view that science should be the ultimate end of cultural development?

I know of many theorists who say that issues that cannot be observed or measured, are not meaningful or scientific, but maybe you could expand a little on the idea that science should be the ultimate objective of cultural development as opposed to being merely a tool towards the gaining of knowledge?

I didn't wish to monopolize discussion or overly affect its course with my contribution, but I can't avoid a direct question that asks me to defend the very relevance of the question, which is based on the assumption that there -is- such a thing as a positivist strain left in our culture. You refer to scientism, Traveller, but I see here nothing but a continuity with earlier post-Comtean positivist formulations. So I'll try to defend the assumption that justifies the relevance of the question.

Perhaps I am extrapolating the worldview-implications that emerge from a unifying trend perceptible in separate strands. I mentioned Hawking who questioned the very relevance of philosophy as a cultural endeavour:

"Most of us don't worry about these questions most of the time. But almost all of us must sometimes wonder: Why are we here? Where do we come from? Traditionally, these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead. Philosophers have not kept up with modern developments in science. Particularly physics." Neil deGrasse Tyson launched a similar rhetorical attack against philosophy: https://scientiasalon.wordpress.com/2...

There's Feynman who famously critiqued the notion that the arts have some privileged window into meaning by claiming that only perception informed by scientific understanding can adequately assess the true (non-anthropomorphic, presumably) meaning of experience (see his moving ode to a flower). There's the general movement in the human sciences to naturalize epistemology and the concomitant faith that the human sciences will reinvent philosophy and the various provinces of culture on a surer (ie, scientifically-informed) basis (for a powerful argument in this line, see Lakoff's Philosophy in the Flesh). The implication is that non-scientifically informed epistemological, ontological, ethical or phenomenological work is idle speculation. And then there are the ever-recurring (albeit weak) attempts to naturalize ethics itself, such as Sam Harris' The Moral Landscape.

To be fair, I am not an avid reader of works written from a positivist/scientistic approach; these seem propagandistic and ideological in their own way. I have always been on the side of the humanists because they seem not so threatened by open questions. Thus, I cannot tell if the claim of scientific cultural hegemony is usually so openly and baldly stated. But when several public figures that are held as spokespersons for the scientific paradigm in public culture launch such attacks, one is perhaps not entirely unjustified in claiming there is a cultural movement at hand. I am not saying it is a dominant one, or necessarily one destined to win. Again, these issues are irrelevant to the topic of its validity.

As for carrots, a little bit more self-consciousness about our various idols and their limits would be nice. I usually am dissatisfied with them all, but that doesn't make me easy to peg down politically where you do need much more heavy-handed black-and-white. I leave it for others to discuss their opinions on the matter if they wish to share them.

Elena wrote: "I didn't wish to monopolize discussion or overly affect its course with my contribution, but I can't avoid a direct question that asks me to defend the very relevance of the question, which is base..."

Thank you for that very detailed and well-formulated reply, Elena! First I would like to ask you exactly how recent you mean when you say:
Philosophers have not kept up with modern developments in science. Particularly physics."

Ah, and I see you have referenced Massimo Pigliucci. Okay. Have you read any of his works, btw?

... and I have not read the Lakoff, will have to get hold of it and skim to get up to date with where you're at, and I'll have to read the Harris as well, it would appear. :)

And thanks for tossing the carrots into the fray - it is debate and the dialectical process that keeps philosophy alive, after all! :D

I'll be back in a week or two after I've read a bit more.

Traveller:

"First I would like to ask you exactly how recent you mean when you say:
"Philosophers have not kept up with modern developments in science. Particularly physics."

You would have to ask Hawking. It's his quote. I'd speculate that he's talking about post-Newtonian, post-relativity physics, but I can't say. The introductory passage where this comes from cuts off rather abruptly. Whitehead in his own way made a similar point and strove to formulate an ontological vocabulary for philosophy that is compatible with modern (in his time) physics. (see Process and Reality)

I haven't read Pigliucci. I only came across this article of his. I skimmed the Harris piece, but haven't read it in too much detail as it rehashed in diluted form arguments that I'd seen better elaborated elsewhere (esp in the early utilitarians).

Lakoff's book is important and well worth reading, even if you're not interested in cognitive science or in how the metaphorical nature of our most fundamental concepts must change our traditional model of reason (along with its concomitant epistemologies and ontologies). This is because it offers an exemplary argument against preserving the autonomy of humanistic disciplines (esp. philosophy). I have been greatly influenced by Lakoff's arguments, even though I have come to disagree with his rather extreme formulation. I feel now that some philosophical thinking (esp in phenomenology, some ontology, ethics, politics, and logic - including the enriched description of a priori principles such as Kant attempted) does not need to be scientifically informed. It can be shown to be irrelevant by later scientific developments which show its subject matter to be epiphenomenal, but by its very nature, it must be focused on charting its own conceptual domain and risk being indirectly invalidated after the fact. I'll stop posting on my own thread now. XD

Elena wrote: "I'll stop posting on my own thread now. XD "

If you created the thread, you are its mommy and you need to take care of your baby! XD

Okay, nice, you are talking my language now, though I would have to look up some of your references still.

I had always been faintly interested in cognitive science but not too well read on it, though I have been interested in modern moral philosophy for some time. Classical epistemology always seemed so pie-in-the-sky that I never bothered too much with it until I started to realize it's modern relevance wrt science etc, and so recently I started to develop an interest in modern epistemology and the philosophy of science, and it's wider than I'd realized.

I wouldn't say philosophers lost touch with post-Newtonian physics rather than that they needed to specialize to remain in touch with the various branches of science as science itself became more and more specialized.

In fact, in this talk on modern philosophy of science on some skeptic channel, Pigliucci talks about this very occurrence : http://skepticmedia.org/rsaudio/rs35.mp3

Oh, and by the way, just out of pure interest's sake, here's an early vid of Feynman talking about empirical 'proof' :D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kctmP... The first time I heard him actually talking, I felt a bit surprised at his twang! ...but I guess it was more pronounced when he was young.

I assume, btw, that you had already read the relevant debates as treated by Kuhn, Popper and Lakatos.

Traveller: I am familiar with Kuhn and Popper, though I will have to look up Lakatos. Thanks for the recommendations; I will also look these up, though my reading schedule is already rather packed for some months to come with materials immediately relevant to my research.

Kant is your man. If you haven't read his first critique, it will be worth your time and effort to do so, IMO. If that's the only work in epistemology you read, you won't miss that much because you can already discern present in Kant in germinal form all the various threads of possibility that the various branches of modern epistemology later elaborate. I wrote a gigantic review of his first critique on here trying to argue that.

PS: I think it's grand that people still research references and actually read works in order to inform their responses for such threads! So far I have not met many who were willing to do that. Kudos to you!

OMG Kant! You actually read Kant in the original! *Tips hat to Elena*

I have a shelf called "HegelKantMarx" created with the fullest intention of reading them in the original but I never got to reading Kant or Hegel in the original, not even all of Marx, but because the latter irritated me with his olde worlde patriarchy and his personal hypocricy - and by now I have Kuhn, Popper, Wittgenstein and Feynman added to my list of Iwannaworkthroughtheirpositions...

Lakatos created a synthesis of Popper and Kuhn's positions. Here is a post that summarizes their respective positions: https://coraifeartaigh.wordpress.com/...

But seriously, Kant is supposed to be amongst the densest to crack - I will still get there eventually.

Science ain't God.

G. wrote: "Science ain't God."

I've not been on GR for a few years now, but lately I have started popping back in fleetlingly, and the post above has caught my eye.

The comment does seem curiously succinct in referring to a perhaps rather banal element of the Hawking vs philosophy debate, being that what Hawking seems to get riled up against most, is religion, and that Hawking may have been addressing mainly metaphysics in his rather arrogant statements, rather than perhaps to philosophy as a whole.

I don't know enough about Hawking to know how well-read he is in philosophy and I've not been following his debates. But no matter who you are, it would be rather foolish to dismiss philosophy as a whole so casually when after all, "science" originated in philosophy, when the scientific method itself is defined by philosophy (of science), and science is in itself part and parcel of epistemology.

And very importantly, let's not forget about "ethics" as a branch of (applied) philosophy. Ethics as a discipline can never die as long as there are human beings around, and it is a more basic need for humanity as a whole than even science itself: - it is more important for humans to feel that they have "rules" for co-existing with the rest of the world, than to know the how or why of that world, important as the latter knowledge might be.

The miracle of science is that it is not a miracle.

That's a contradiction.

David wrote: "That's a contradiction."

Was the sentence understood though?

Yes.

The miracles of science are not miracles. Science is no miracle.

Science cannot provide what faith provides which is certainty.

a rooted chair
in the garden -
comfortless chaos

Elena wrote: "First of all, IS there a "trouble with positivism"? And if so, what, in your opinion, does it consist of?

I'd like to suggest treating this question not only in epistemological terms, but also in..."

The trouble with positivism is that it is clueless - it does not address broader survival (assuming that you have your animal needs taken care of). The Philosophy of Broader Survival does, and it is the ultimate mode of thinking (if you care about survival - there are many Philosophies of Death that do not - current fashionably hedonism and cynicism being two of them).