Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community - View Single Post - Quebec: Judge rules "Students must learn about other religions"

jammies · 09-04-2009, 07:32 PM

Perhaps science is seen as a possible way to the understanding of the human condition because philosophy has been such a failure in the same cause. Do we really have any better understanding of the great philosophical questions than the Greeks had over 2000 years ago?

I see "science" as a way of thought, and as a way of thought I don't see how it can be outright dismissed as a basis for understanding the human condition. The idea that science is all about reductionism is plain wrong and a favorite argument of those who don't really understand science and don't have any real desire to do so.

Science assumes that there is an objective reality and then tries to discover what that reality by postulating hypotheses and then testing to see if the results of experiment and investigation match the expected results of the hypothesis. Science is not dogma or a particular method of inquiry, science is much more discovering the method of inquiry that will lead to illumination of the subject you are investigating. It is predicated upon reality being knowable: to say that human thoughts and motivations are beyond its power to elucidate is to claim one of two things: they are not part of objective reality, or they are not knowable.

I am not saying that one of these two things might not be true, but to say that one, the other, or both ARE true is an unsupported assertion, and not any kind of final argument. The idea that thought is physical has already, to my mind, been almost entirely proven, and thus it seems unlikely that it stands apart from objective reality; that it is unknowable might be true, but that doesn't leave philosophy in any better position than science, does it?

09-04-2009, 07:32 PM	#95
jammies Basement Chicken Choker Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: In a land without pants, or war, or want. But mostly we care about the pants. Exp:	Perhaps science is seen as a possible way to the understanding of the human condition because philosophy has been such a failure in the same cause. Do we really have any better understanding of the great philosophical questions than the Greeks had over 2000 years ago? I see "science" as a way of thought, and as a way of thought I don't see how it can be outright dismissed as a basis for understanding the human condition. The idea that science is all about reductionism is plain wrong and a favorite argument of those who don't really understand science and don't have any real desire to do so. Science assumes that there is an objective reality and then tries to discover what that reality by postulating hypotheses and then testing to see if the results of experiment and investigation match the expected results of the hypothesis. Science is not dogma or a particular method of inquiry, science is much more discovering the method of inquiry that will lead to illumination of the subject you are investigating. It is predicated upon reality being knowable: to say that human thoughts and motivations are beyond its power to elucidate is to claim one of two things: they are not part of objective reality, or they are not knowable. I am not saying that one of these two things might not be true, but to say that one, the other, or both ARE true is an unsupported assertion, and not any kind of final argument. The idea that thought is physical has already, to my mind, been almost entirely proven, and thus it seems unlikely that it stands apart from objective reality; that it is unknowable might be true, but that doesn't leave philosophy in any better position than science, does it? __________________ Better educated sadness than oblivious joy.