tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-157110749330008803.post1134594882506420991..comments2024-01-24T01:39:12.413-08:00Comments on William Koch's Philosophy Blog: The First Volume of Speculations and a bit more about ScienceWilliam Kochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05475929050793921568noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-157110749330008803.post-4531826765623031072010-08-21T10:39:02.558-07:002010-08-21T10:39:02.558-07:00Fabio,
Thanks for stopping by and reading my brie...Fabio,<br /><br />Thanks for stopping by and reading my brief comments as well as for posting your own clarifications. Sorry Blogger was misbehaving, blogging is a new experiment for me and I started using Blogger just because several friends of mine seemed to have had success with it. <br /><br />I suspect my only real concern here is that we recognize that "what (we think) science says" will be different depending on which scientists we talk to. This saves science from being a purely realist phenomenon and that is all I was after. <br /><br />You are probably right about the response one would get when asking most astrophysicists about a realist interpretation of theories concerning the formation of the planet but this is due, I suspect, to a lack of care and attention on the part of *some* of the scientists asked and the questioner. If, instead, you asked "What is your view on the literal reality of non-observable theoretical entities?" I suspect you would get a more varied set of answers. It seems to me, however, that both questions can be seen to be asking the same thing.<br /><br />If, as you suggest here in the comments, it is science *as seen by Continental Philosophers* (or perhaps "the views of scientists" as assumed by continental philosophers) that is a realist phenomenon then certainly we end up discussing a whole different batch of issues. We could, for example, distinguish between what Foucault thinks about Science, which certainly seems to be a form of anti-realist position, and what Foucault thinks scientists think about science, which is probably much more realist.William Kochhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05475929050793921568noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-157110749330008803.post-26103401358454812772010-08-21T08:20:11.317-07:002010-08-21T08:20:11.317-07:00Shit I made a mess. Sorry but Blogger now kept tel...Shit I made a mess. Sorry but Blogger now kept telling me that 'Request-URI Too Large' and it seemed like it wasn't posting the last bit... Please erase the two redundant ones. And if I may, consider moving to wordpress! :)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-157110749330008803.post-64666779621387377882010-08-21T08:18:11.638-07:002010-08-21T08:18:11.638-07:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-157110749330008803.post-61957870494971541402010-08-21T08:16:52.709-07:002010-08-21T08:16:52.709-07:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-157110749330008803.post-84148757273087746022010-08-21T08:15:21.833-07:002010-08-21T08:15:21.833-07:00So there seem to be a tension between science as d...So there seem to be a tension between science as done, philosophy of science and speculative realism (and I suspect that Meillassoux’s complete silence about the literature of phil. of science is a hint that he wants to refer to ‘actual’ science). Is that correct? Perhaps it isn’t. And therefore I completely agree with you when you say<br /><br />'Speculative Realism seems very interested in defining itself as a philosophy, or collection of philosophies, with a specific relationship to science. I worry, however, that it may have too narrow a view of what science is and does.'<br /><br />Much more work must indeed be done, especially (once again referring to Meillassoux) when it comes to squaring the relinquishment of the principle of sufficient reason with any kind of philosophy of science. Again, it seems to me that his (cantorian-based) argument about the ‘reasonable trust on the provisional stability of the laws of nature’ works if we think of ‘science as done’, but is not enough of if confronted with the last 50 years of philosophy of science. I am not saying that it’s wrong, I am saying that it should be probed with some critique by philosophers of science (which of course mostly thrive in the ‘analytic’ world and which probably don’t have a book of a French disciple of Badiou as the first item of their reading list).<br /><br />Indeed I believe that the analytic-continental divide is also relevant. You write about my paper that<br /><br />'The general idea is that, while continental philosophy became more and more correlationist, anti-realist and/or social constructivist in the previous century, science was left to be Reality's one remaining champion'.<br />Modify the last sentence into ‘science *to continental philosophers* was left to…’. Perhaps not to scientists and definitely not to (analytic) philosophers of science, I agree.<br /><br />To conclude: I share your skepticism but I am increasingly moving towards a use of philosophy as a tool for intellectual history more than for solving precise epistemological problems (which, I guess, is very continental of me), and my article was meant as an overview more than as an analysis of arguments.<br /><br />Anyways, thanks for pushing me to write these clarifications!<br />P.S. – ‘Speculative Realism it is also the first volume of a journal in which every contributor is a philosophy blogger on top of their academic credentials’ - I am really flattered, but in my case that is hardly true :)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-157110749330008803.post-82714395148476146252010-08-21T08:14:33.203-07:002010-08-21T08:14:33.203-07:00Than again, let me give another reading of the iss...Than again, let me give another reading of the issue. I mentioned Van Fraassen, you mentioned Feynman and Hawking. Now, you very rightly remind me that we should always be wary about talking of ‘Science’ and should keep in mind the heterogeneity of methods, aims and results achieved by different sciences. In the same spirit, should we not also keep in mind that there are different kind of scientists and that Feynman and Hawking are hardly representative of the average one? It is a trivial argument, but go in your Astrophysics department of choice, and ask the first member of staff you bump into: ‘do you believe it being an hard real fact that the planet Earth formed approximately 5 billion years ago by the process of accretion in the Sun’s protoplanetary disk?’ They might be cautious about the details, but, yes, he or she would tell you that it actually happened that way. [Note: this is all that Meillassoux needs. He doesn’t really need strong interpretations about big issues like the origin of the universe or about the real nature of time: *any* event prior to the creation of biological bodies able to ground the possibility for the emergence of a transcendental subjectivity will do]. And this ‘average scientist’ is the same one that (prompted by Sokal or by Gross and Levitt) will mockingly ask the ‘relativist’ or ‘constructionist’ to step out of a 30 story building to check if the pavement down below is ‘real’ or not.<br /><br />(For a more refined counter-example to Hawking, take Stephen Weinberg’s claim that [discussing quarks] ‘It seems to me unlikely that the positivist attitude will be of much help in the future’).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-157110749330008803.post-75881294881965204782010-08-21T08:10:35.687-07:002010-08-21T08:10:35.687-07:00So let’s try again. [I split it in two parts]
I h...So let’s try again. [I split it in two parts]<br /><br />I happen to agree with practically everything that you say.<br /><br />Let me clarify some things: the thesis that I put forward in my article is my own interpretation on the origins of SR, not a careful historical reconstruction. As such, I have the feeling that many of those related to SR might disagree with it.<br /><br />Now my main idea that SR can be read as an internal philosophical reaction to the increasing epistemic prestige of science is developed with a Latourian ANT-like spirit (seeking the network of actors that made the movement possible) and with the intention of an early ‘intellectual historian’ trying to find a possible answer to the question: why all this realism right now?<br /><br />This does not mean that I cannot also agree with you that SR (or certain trends within it) incurs into problems on the strictly epistemological level. The same can be said about the science wars, which were a carnival of misinterpretations (from both sides) motivated by much more than mere epistemological disagreements.<br /><br />Indeed, for some time I have had in mind of comparing Meillassoux’s position regarding scientific ‘literal interpretations’ of theories and Van Fraassen’s strongly non-committal stance regarding the reality of the contents of theories beyond observables. I suspect that to Van Fraassen Meillassoux’s work would look like more metaphysical nonsense. (And yet I find amusing that they sort of ‘agree’ on being ‘antirealist’ about the issue of laws of nature, but for completely opposite reasons: Van Fraassen because of his constructive empiricism, Meillassoux for his ‘realism’).<br /><br />[by the way: there will soon be a cross-blog event precisely on science and metaphysics run on Nick’s, Pete’s and Reid’s blogs (http://speculativeheresy.wordpress.com/2010/08/12/science-and-metaphysics/). I am thinking of writing something for that, why don’t you chime in as well?]Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-157110749330008803.post-4343928398400541982010-08-21T08:06:50.866-07:002010-08-21T08:06:50.866-07:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-157110749330008803.post-62796253520510212762010-08-20T16:03:50.428-07:002010-08-20T16:03:50.428-07:00William,
I have just finished writing a response ...William,<br /><br />I have just finished writing a response to you but after pressing 'preview' by mistake Blogger gave me an error message and my comment vanished. <br /><br />I am too much in a rage now to write it from the beginning...<br /><br />For the time being, I just began by thanking you for your comments on my paper: it is nice to see you found it of some interest.<br /><br />I'll try to rewrite it tomorrow.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com