Professor Silliman discussed the ramifications of his own rather unorthodox interpretation of Aristotle. If, as he contends, Aristotle is maintaing that women can reason, it is only that they are never listended to, than perhaps Aristotle is committing what Matt called an empiric fallacy. For only the reason that something happens or is happening, it does not follow that it must happen, or that it ought to happen. As a side note, I am particularly taken with this reading of Aristotle.
The empiric fallacy may pose problems, though, for some of the natural sciences. It is pure empirical observation upon which these entire disciplines depend. Must physicists maintain not that what goes up must come down, but rather that what goes up has typically come back down? I suppose I am merely wondering, given this fallacy, if there is any degree of mere observation that is sufficient for arriving at an adequate cause, or adequate law of nature.
I appreciate your (at least pre-critical) interest in my interpretation.
ReplyDeleteI have posted a slightly more articulate explanation of it on Skeptiblog.
Regarding your second point, the answer is yes, physicists must indeed maintain that the so-called laws of thermodynamics, for example, are statistical rather than categorical. Any prediction based on such regularities is but a strong (sometimes very strong) induction. The trickier problem for empirical investigation is when to stop describing what you find and start making normative recommendations. Many climate scientists were culpably slow to acknowledge this imperative for several decades, for example. Part of the problem is that scientific training is essentially technical, and neglects both moral philosophy and the inherent, dialectical inter-relationship between Epistemology, Ontology, and Ethics.
ReplyDeleteI think that's correct. Unfortunately, I do not forsee a solution to this problem until individuals studying the sciences understand the need to be better versed in philosophy, especially, perhaps Ethics. I am slightly uneasy about making philosophy study mandatory, but then again, they are pursuing a degree which would make them doctors of philosophy, so perhaps that is the answer.
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