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Science and Reason: Is there an alternative to "faith" for a

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David, your answer seems to imply that the results science offers are necessarily easily understandable and obvious (such as gravity).
It does not imply that. It implies that there are no moral obligations to believe things said by scientists or other people. There are personal moral obligations to accept reality, so the question is whether you should also blindly accept as fact a statement uttered by a person because he claims "I am a scientist". I'm saying that there isn't, but if the guy turns out to be right, you could be in deep trouble if you don't do what he says.

The other implication of my statement is that when scientists abandon reason and betray the trust that is widely given to them, then they should not be believed as a matter of course. When science degenerates to the point that the Foo force has scientific credence, or when ESP studies are considered legitimate "science", or when people think that multi-verses are actually proven scientific concepts, then it's time for some house cleaning.

The answer, as I have said not just once but many times, is to demand the shortest possible distance between the axiomatic and the conclusion. It is never ever ever acceptable to say "It's true because scientists say it is". The proof of the conclusion is always based on some observable fact -- what fact? Complaining "But I can't be expected to pay attention to facts or to understand facts!!" simply comes down to saying that you don't choose to life by reason. Well, that's okay, nobody has to live by reason. At some point, you'll probably get stumped by some complicated relationship between facts that you just can't see -- what I object to most is when people simply roll over and consider science to be some kind of magical black box that you cannot even ask about. When a scientist cannot reduce his knowledge to the axiomatic, that is when you should have an inkling that maybe it doesn't reduce to the axiomatic. (That, or he's tongue-tied)

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When a scientist cannot reduce his knowledge to the axiomatic, that is when you should have an inkling that maybe it doesn't reduce to the axiomatic. (That, or he's tongue-tied)

How would you know if a discovery reduces to the axiomatic, if it was not something which is obvious, and you've read about it in a popular magazine for example?

In order to have a valid opinion of your own, don't you have to research deeper than what that magazine said?

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How would you know if a discovery reduces to the axiomatic, if it was not something which is obvious, and you've read about it in a popular magazine for example?
Start by looking for the axiomatic: if you don't see it, you're done. If you think you've found it, ask "is that really axiomatic?".
In order to have a valid opinion of your own, don't you have to research deeper than what that magazine said?
Of course.
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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm going to speak directly to the OP instead of diving into the discussion above.

The question is much more general than just the sciences. We accept things that others tell us with little question constantly. For instance, I ask you the time, you look at your watch and say it's a quarter past. I now believe that it is a quarter past two. This isn't faith, it's accepting testimony. Is my belief that it is a quarter past two justified? I'm inclined to think so. If the testimony of others can never be appropriate grounds for justifying a belief, we have far fewer justified beliefs than we generally assume.

Anyways, the subject is called social epistemology, and the Stanford Encylcopedia of Philosophy has a nice article on it.

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We accept things that others tell us with little question constantly.
Yeah, but that's like saying that murder is okay because people kill each other all the time. Social "epistemology" is a notational variant of nihilism; it's "the nihilism of cowards". Real men are not inclined to believe things: they grasp facts. Real women do the same thing, too.
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Yeah, but that's like saying that murder is okay because people kill each other all the time.

You misinterpret my argument. I'm not saying it's ok because we do it, I'm positing a reductio. Either there are situations in which we are justified in believing propositions on the basis of testimony or not. If there are no such situations, that means all the beliefs we hold right now on things which we know only through the testimony of others - that Sarkozy was elected president of France, that Hillary Clinton is female, that Jerry Falwell is dead, that Antarctica is a real place - are unjustified. That is clearly absurd. Therefore there are at least some situations where testimony is an appropriate way to arrive at beliefs. If you're willing to surrender the set of beliefs you hold by virtue of the testimony of others, then you can escape the reductio. That seems fairly implausible on its face, however.

Social "epistemology" is a notational variant of nihilism; it's "the nihilism of cowards".

Social epistemology isn't a philosophical position, it's a field of inquiry. That's like saying "sociology is a notational variant of noncognitivism" or "ethics is a notational variant of emotivism". It's the branch of epistemology dealing with whether knowledge gained from others is justified, and if so, when - not a stance on the question.

Real men are not inclined to believe things: they grasp facts. Real women do the same thing, too.

You must be understanding the term belief very differently than I am.

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Either there are situations in which we are justified in believing propositions on the basis of testimony or not.
That's a triviality, so why bring it up? If you had read OPAR ch. 5, you'd understand what a rational concept of justification for asserting a claim is. I haven't seen any evidence that you've done the basic reading.
Social epistemology isn't a philosophical position, it's a field of inquiry.
No, it isn't really, it simply masquerades as an quasi-empirical discipline. The fact that it doesn't even constitute a well-formed philosophical position is an example of the sense in which it is nihilism for cowards.

But really, rather than defending a useless non-systematic Kantian cancer on epistemology, you ought to focus in the essential concept in the relationship between scientists and hoi poloi -- and you should not simply ignore the content of a thread. Concentrate on the concept "trust". We don't need yet another boring school of philosophy to distract us from the important questions.

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That's a triviality, so why bring it up? If you had read OPAR ch. 5, you'd understand what a rational concept of justification for asserting a claim is. I haven't seen any evidence that you've done the basic reading.

You can ignore the tautology. It wasn't neccessary. But I haven't seen any evidence that you've bothered with the substance of my argument. Unless there are at least some situations where it's appropriate to justify beliefs on the testimony of others, you're committed to being agnostic on the question of whether Antarctica exists. You either have to ditch the rejection of testimony or a lot of beliefs you hold on the basis of it.

Are you really saying that a reductio ad absurdam isn't a way to justify a claim?

No, it isn't really, it simply masquerades as an quasi-empirical discipline. The fact that it doesn't even constitute a well-formed philosophical position is an example of the sense in which it is nihilism for cowards.

There are well-formed philosophical positions in the discipline, just as in normative ethics or mereology or any other area of philosophical inquiry. I can't understand what you're driving at. Social epistemology isn't a school of thought any more than metaphysics is a school of thought, and one can't criticize social epistemology for not constituting a well formed position for the same reason one can't do so to ethics or ontology.

But really, rather than defending a useless non-systematic Kantian cancer on epistemology, you ought to focus in the essential concept in the relationship between scientists and hoi poloi -- and you should not simply ignore the content of a thread. Concentrate on the concept "trust". We don't need yet another boring school of philosophy to distract us from the important questions.

Uh, the entire content of the article I posted a link to is a survey of the field of philosophy which is specifically concerned with the epistemic status of expertise and trust of others. The question of trusting scientists is a special case of the more general question of the how epistemology grapples with the relationship between experts and novices. I'm hardly off topic. And what do you mean, Kantian? How on Earth is the entire field of social epistemology Kantian? Hume's epistemology of testimony is a long, long way from Kant's.

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