The problems are both logical and philosophical. The logical problems stem from the pre-investigative assumptions that determined how and what questions were asked, and those same assumptions likewise determined post-investigative conclusions. It was no wonder Darwin came up with so many different definitions of “species”. But that is a long discussion in itself.
The idea that natural processes were sufficient to account for the development and diversification of all biological life had unavoidable, stark implications for Darwin. It removed a “pillar” that had borne heavy loads for theistic belief. Before even bringing God’s existence into question, it naturally(!) threatened the idea of man being ontologically unique from the rest of the life on the planet. The idea made man just an ordinary leaf, if big-brained one, on the tree of life. Whatever one thinks of “ensoulment”, Darwin’s idea made man a peer of every other species in a perfectly egalitarian way, biologically.
But the challenge for Darwin, and for us, is not to “reshape reality”; reality is what it is. Rather, what to do about it now that we have beheld things as they are, in a new and more penetrating (and in many cases disturbing) way. “Dark implications” don’t become ‘undark’ by looking away. Futures become and remain bright because of choices me make in light of the facts, and even in spite of them.
I clearly was not using the term “skepticism” in the sense that you are using it. Hence, your response fails to address the issue. There is a healthy skepticism, indeed. There is also a philosophical skepticism that doubts the existence of any truth or genuine knowledge of the world. I was clearly using it in this sense. And to be sure, I associated it with the term solipsism. A good scientist pays attention to details and facts in nature and in text.
It wasn’t clear you were being redundant there, and there’s no reason to think those two are synonyms, as they represent very different concepts. Skepticism – the strong and reasonable application of doubt and testing to any claim – separates knowledge from pretense to knowledge.
You don’t seem to know enough about philosophy or theology to render a competent judgement in that matter. I don’t think any scientist worthy of his profession would pontificate on that in which he has no expertise. Unfortunately, they do all the time, which is one of the reason why Einstein said the man of science makes a poor philosopher. Einstein saw you coming, dude.
Well,
philosophy makes for a poor philosophy, often enough, as does
theology. Talk is cheap, claims and intutions are a dime-a-dozen. Florid language about fanciful, speculative metaphysics and cosmic intuitions are just so much “invisible clothes for the Emperor” until they pass some skeptical evaluation, prove themselves against real world critical analysis.
Scientists do make poor philosophers often enough, as they forget what builds knowledge and what qualifies knowledge, and suppose they are just as able to indulge themselves in fanciful conjectures and pretentious musing as much as anyone else. And that’s their prerogative just as much as it is anyone else’s.
Tell me what the difference is between the two, and, what implications for knowledge does each one have?
- Ideas are that which we know.
- Ideas are that by which we know.
I think “idea” is a poor term to invoke for knowledge – it’s a fuzzy pointer to a “subject of thinking”. A
concept is a set of relationships between subject and objects. To the extent a concept is propositionally isomorphic to a state of the extramental world, or to a analytic framework (e.g. math or some other symbolic calculus), the concept becomes “true” or “false” as the isomorphism between the concept and the external context tightens or loosens.
Concepts then, can be both statements of knowledge, or predicates by which knowledge is derived. Some concepts are simply associative, tautological, and thus not knowledge themselves. Other concepts represent knowledge directly (or not, depending on the correspondence to the external world/framework).
- Concepts represent units of knowledge.
- Concepts represent tools by which we acquire and assess knowledge.
-TS
