[Air-L] Religious Dimension of Sustainable Development

Charles Ess charles.ess at gmail.com
Tue Jan 8 07:06:59 PST 2008


Dear all,

The philosopher of science / philosopher of religion in me thinks that this
could be an excellent topic for such an intentionally interdisciplinary list
as ours.

Let me suggest that the discussion turn to greater elaboration of the basic
definitions and underlying assumptions of "science" as a mode of knowledge.

I'm not sure, of course, in advance what will happen should it do so - but
as some suggestions from history, the following high points might be useful
references:
 
19th century positivism, taking physics and mathematics as the sole
paradigms of knowledge, thereby requiring the reduction of all empirical
evidence to the quantifiable and what can be expressed in (deductively
certain) cause-effect relationships;
and so, with physics and mathematics (as a formal / axiomatic / deductive
framework) as the sole paradigms - an epistemological "either/or" arises:
something either _is_ a scientific claim to knowledge (because it fits the
positivist paradigm) or it is _not_ (because it fails to fit).  Not
surprisingly, such domains as philosophy and religion are thus written off
wholesale (along with literature, etc.)
But: more and more problems arose, e.g., as sciences such as biology were
not always able to fit the positivist paradigm neatly ...

Relativity theory
the rules of physic are absolute (Einstein later regretted the misleading
nature of the name "relativity" theory) - but simply within the framework of
the observer
Quantum Mechanics 
transforms 19th ct. positivist assumptions about causality to statistical
probabilities, thereby reducing the absolute certainty of the "knowledge"
claimed by positivists as a ground for making physics and mathematics the
sole paradigms of knowledge.
(There's also, of course, the whole business of the uncertainty and
complimentarity principles - often badly misinterpreted and distorted for
the sake of new age nonsense.  Let's just not go there for now, except to
say that they likewise relativize 19th ct. assumptions about the absolute
certainty and completeness of physics and mathematics.)

Gödel's proof (1932): demonstrates that a formal axiomatic system can either
be complete - but inconsistent: or incomplete - but consistent.  Another
blow to 19th ct. positivist assumptions regarding the possibility of
achieving a mathematical account of the universe that would be both complete
and consistent (along with certain).

There are plenty of people on this list who know far better than me the
parallel developments in the philosophy of the social sciences and efforts
to defend especially qualitative approaches as legitimate and justified
knowledge.  It would be interesting to hear what they think of as similar
highlights.

Finally, while not wanting (a) to go into all the reasons in the philosophy
of science in the 20th century that likewise contribute to forcing us to
reevalaute 19th ct. positivism (e.g., the failure of Popper's effort to use
falsification as a marker of real science, the problems that emerge with
linguistic analysis, etc.), or (b) reviewing the rise and at least modest
fall of strong social constructivism in the late 20th ct. - I do think it's
defensible to say this:
Both developments within (relativity / QM / Gödel) and beyond the boundaries
of physics and mathematics have persuaded most philosophers of science known
to me these days that (a) 19th century positivism is simply incoherent -
which means in turn that (b) 19th century assumptions about a simple and
clear either/or between science and everything else as nonsense likewise no
longer hold.
What this further would seem to mean is that we're better off trying to
think of knowledge as something that occupies a continuum of possible
certainties and methodologies (rather than the 19th ct. either/or) -
which certainly makes plenty of room for the social sciences;
and it might make room for philosophical and religious claims as well.

The key question then becomes: what does anyone define knowledge ("science")
to be - including its acceptable language(s), methodologies, sources of
evidence, goals of its theories, etc. - and, even better:
how would one _justify_ these claims (which, for better and worse, usually
pulls one out of "science" as such and into - gasp! - philosophy [or worse]
...)?
(Because without some sort of rational justification, the danger is that one
can fall into a sort of unjustified dogmatism about one's foundational
assumptions - at which point it become difficult to distinguish between the
scientific and religious dogmatist?)
and then: given any such definition and justification - why does it further
follow that alternative knowledge claims are (a) not science - but also (b)
thereby total nonsense?
(Without an either/or at work, "b" does not follow straightforwardly, but
must be further justified.)

Hoping this helps - and looking forward to the discussion!
- charles ess



> 
> 
>> Subject: Re: [Air-L] Religious Dimension of Sustainable Development
>> 
>> it's not sub-scientific. it's just not scientific.
>> 
>> completely different approach. you can't get a scientific proof from an
>> anthropological approach.
> 
> 
> 1) there are different standards of proof, and different methods, used by
>     different fields.
> 
> 2) there is no one thing called "scientific proof" that is commonly held
>     as a standard - you're bashing on anthro with something that doesn't
>     exist.
> 
> 3) your view of anthropology is quite ... constipated.






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