>"Not necessarily. Philosophy may deal with physical reality. It simply is
>not necessarily *limited* to it. Some philosophers -- metaphysical
>naturalists -- actually deal exclusively with physical reality, and their
>practices are very close to science. W.V.O. Quine, for example. And then
>there's the fact that there is philosophy *of science*. Philosophy is not
>to be seen as a type of inquiry which simply picks up where science leaves
>off; it is the most general kind of inquiry, and in fact *encapsulates*
>science."
>
>I do not disagree with these general statements. I studied the philosophy
>of science in undergraduate school and took courses on logic and
>introduction to philosophy, plus I have continued to read selected works
>since then, so I understand certain basic concepts. Your level of knowledge
>already exceeds mine, but I think you will find that some things you believe
>now will be contradicted by your professors as you start the program.
Well, of course I agree that I will find some of my beliefs contradicted as
I further pursue philosophy. But I'm not sure if that's the case regarding
the general issues I raised here. Do you have any specific point in mind?
>One thing I will admit, however, is that I overstated my case. The
>metaphysical works I have read suggest that there is Reality, which can then
>be divided into Physical and Non-physical reality.
This is the view of many philosophers, but metaphysics itself is not
*necessarily* dualistic.
>Physical reality in turn
>can be divided into Objective and Subjective physical reality (all these
>terms are my own). Objective physical reality (OPR) is that which we can
>interact with; finally there is scientific OPR, which we can observe and
>study because it is predictable and reproducible. This leads to what I
>believe is one of the best definitions of science I have ever read: science
>is the human attempt to understand the predictable, reproducible aspects of
>nature, with nature defined as that part of the physical universe with which
>we can interact.
I agree with your view of science.
>In any event, I should have said "scientific reality" whenever I said
>"physical reality". Of course philosophy can deal with physical reality,
>even OPR, but most philosophers I have read or spoken with agree that
>philosophy should not try to deal with scientific reality, because it
>invariably makes arguments that turn out to be grossly wrong when science is
>finally able to test them.
What is "scientific reality"? Is it different from plain old reality?
>The concepts of geocentrism, impetus,
>phlogiston, spontaneous generation and vitalism (the biological version)
>were based almost entirely on arguments that were founded on the
>philosophical view of rationalism, which believes that the exercise of
>reason, rather than empiricism, provides the only valid basis for and source
>of knowledge.
That's not really true. Even Rationalists accept that empirical evidence
*can* tell us things about reality.
>Yet every one of these concepts has been proven wrong by
>people like Galileo, Kepler, Priestly, Pasteur and Wohler (to name a few),
>who used the philosophical view of empiricism to demonstrate, by observation
>and experimentation, that when these concepts were tested against scientific
>reality they were not real, despite all the rational arguments that said
>they were.
I do not support Rationalism myself, but you should realize that
philosophers who *do* have no reason to accept what you say. That is, you
argue that Rationalism is wrong because empirical methods contradict its
results. "Well," a Rationalistic philosopher might respond, "so what? You
are begging the question here, and simply *assuming* that Rationalism is
wrong and Empiricism is right."
>Which is not to say that empiricism alone is sufficient to do science. The
>main reason why scientists like Cuvier, Sedgwick and Agassiz could not
>accept uniformitarianism was that, as strict literal empiricists, did not
>try to interpret the rock record but read it directly. Uniformitarianists
>used reason and inference based on empiricism to fill in the gaps in the
>rock record, and this basic method is still used in much of science today.
>Both rationality and empiricism are philosophical disciplines being used by
>science as tools to try to understand scientific reality, so in that sense
>philosophy can be used to study scientific reality. Where this differs from
>people like Hegel, however, or concepts like the ones mentioned above, is
>what you observed yourself: the scientific method. These philosophical
>disciplines, when used properly to collect and interpret data, create
>theories that are based on physical evidence and which can be tested against
>scientific reality, rather than concepts based on no physical evidence and
>thus have no existence as scientific phenomena.
Why would someone who does believe in the validity of exercises in pure
reason agree with you here? Again, it seems like you are saying "the
scientific method contradicts your results, therefore you are wrong".
That's not any kind of substantial argument.
>"What? Premise (1) is true if and only if all elephants are pink. If there
>are no pink elephants, them premise (1) is untrue. This is no different for
>the philosopher than it is for the scientist."
>
>When I said a philosopher would believe it, I meant that he would believe
>the argument, not the existence of pink elephants. That's why I said
>philosophers are willing to entertain the possibility of things that are not
>real. A scientist on the other can only entertain the possibility of things
>that ARE real.
But scientists too entertain the possibility of things which aren't real.
This is what happens every time a scientist makes a hypothesis that turns
out later to be incorrect. The point is, both scientists and philosophers
consider an argument to be unsound if it is untrue. They will entertain
possibilities, but will not *accept* them as truth unless there really are
compelling reasons to think they are true.
>My college logic professor used this very syllogism to hammer home this very
>point: that what makes a valid logical argument is not whether it is
>factually true, but whether it obeys the rules of logic.
Yes, but validity is not the only precondition for *soundness*. Validity
says only that an argument has the correct form; soundness requires both
validity and the truth of the premises.
>I had a discussion
>with him after class about how this differs from science and he used the
>very same story I told you. And like you I asked him if a philosopher would
>believe in pink elephants if he had a valid argument establishing their
>existence. He said no, of course not, then added that the difference
>between science and philosophy (in general) is that philosophy routinely
>deals with concepts most people, including philosophers, know or strongly
>suspect do not exist, but which cannot be shown to not exist by empirical
>observation.
This is true.
>As such, they cannot rely on the factual truth of an argument
>for its validity because they could never test it. Scientists, however, can
>only work with what can be shown to be factually true, so for them the
>question of the logical validity of an argument is immaterial.
I disagree! The logical validity of an argument, as well as its factual
truth, is very relevant to scientists and philosophers alike. For example,
suppose I presented this argument to you:
1) Tea leaves grow in Sri Lanka.
2) The city of Dallas is in Texas.
3) Therefore, some elephants are grey.
Now, all the premises of this argument are factually correct, as is the
conclusion. But is this a good argument? No, because the premises do not
*establish* the truth of the conclusion. If scientists were unconcerned
with logical validity, however, they would have to consider that argument a
good one. Would they?
>"As would a philosopher. This is what it means to 'defend a premise'."
>
>Not according to my logic professor, or my logic course textbook. This was
>in fact one of the hardest things I had to accept about logic, that despite
>the example of Star Trek's Mr. Spock, logic was not concerned with factual
>truth, just structural validity (for lack of a better term).
Yes, that is true of logic. It is concerned with structural validity
alone. But logic is not the only thing philosophers are concerned with;
they are also concerned with *rationality*. Logic deals only with one
specific part of arguments: their structural validity. But it does not do
this to the exclusion of other aspects like rationality.
>To defend a
>premise is to create a valid logical argument that concludes that the
>premise in question is true, not by collecting empirical data showing that
>it is true.
That is not *all* you have to do to defend a premise, however. In order to
establish the soundness of your argument, you have to establish the
soundness (i.e., truth) of your premises as well. This means taking into
account the real facts of the matter *as well* as the logical form of the
arguments. The data supporting your argument needn't always be "empirical
data" in the sense of "things I can directly perceive", but there must be
compelling evidence of *some* kind in support of an argument's premises
before philosophers will accept the conclusion.
>One early assignment was to defend the premise that the world
>was round (I forget what the argument was that started with that premise).
>I came up with what I thought was a brilliant defense base on Eratosthenes'
>calculations; I got 1 (out of 10) points for originality, but otherwise
>failed the assignment.
But remember that in a logic course, you are concerned primarily with the
logical aspect, not the rational aspect. A logic course tells you all
about the way premises relate to one another (syllogisms, different kinds
of logic, valid inference forms, etc.) but is unconcerned with the strength
of premises themselves. Philosophy in general, however, is *very*
concerned with the strength of premises.
So, your pink elephant argument is an example of correct logic, yes. But
it is not an example of a good philosophical argument, because its premises
are untrue / rationally unwarranted.
>"It's worthwhile to remember that philosophers concern themselves with two
>matters when examining arguments:
>
>"1) Logical form. Is the argument deductively valid, or inductively cogent?
>Do its premises and conclusion relate to each other in the proper way?
>"2) Rationality. Are the premises themselves true, or likely to be true?
>Ought we to believe them?"
>
>That was the other difficult thing that I had to accept, that logical truth
>was different from factual truth.
Logical form is not really "logical truth" per se. Logical form is simply
a reference to the nature of the argument -- i.e., it ensures that the
argument be such that, if the premises are true, the conclusion is true (in
the case of deductive logic) or likely to be true (in the case of inductive
logic).
>I'm still not sure I completely
>understand it, but the idea is that logical truth is based on what is
>logically possible, not empirical fact. Truth and falsity are properties of
>the statements and propositions. A valid argument is one where the
>conclusion would be true if the premises were all true, but this does not
>assert that the premises are or even must be true.
Right, which is why logical form is not the only consideration when
philosophers consider arguments.
>As such a valid argument
>can have all premises true with a true conclusion, at least one false
>premise and a true conclusion, or at least one false premise and a false
>conclusion; it just cannot have all premises true with a false conclusion.
>In determining the validity of an argument, all that matters is whether the
>conclusion would have to be true IF the premises were true, not whether the
>premises ARE actually true or the conclusion IS actually false.
Again, yes, you are right about logic. But logic isn't the end of the
story when it comes to philosophical arguments.
>"Your pink elephant example does satisfy (1), since it is deductively valid
>(i.e., it is such that, if all the premises are true, the conclusion would
>be necessarily true). But it does not satisfy (2) unless the arguer could
>present a convincing case that all elephants really were pink."
>
>But as I explained above that is not a consideration as to whether the
>argument is valid or logically true.
But it IS a consideration when it comes to whether the argument is sound --
i.e., whether it is a really good or effective argument.
>"Again, the flawlessness of the *logic* in an argument is not the only
>concern for philosophers. Suppose we liken an argument to a building.
>Logic is analogous to the form and design of the building; rationality is
>analogous to the material the building is made of. Just as a building, in
>order to remain standing, must have *both* proper design and the right
>materials, a correct philosophical argument must be both logically
>constructed *and* appeal to rational premises."
>
>I disagree, based on what I described above. I think you are confusing
>soundness with rationality. A sound argument is one that is valid and
>contains only true premises.
.... AND a true conclusion, since a valid argument with all true premises
necessarily has a true conclusion. Rationality comes in when one has to
decide whether, in fact, the premises really are true. That is, the
question we must ask is, are these premises plausible? Ought we believe
them? If so, then if the argument is also logically valid, we ought to
grant that its conclusion is true.
(continued in next post)
Mike Hardie
<hardie@globalserve.net>
http://www.globalserve.net/~hardie/dv/