Originally posted by Syntax:
- Empirical evidence is never “true” or “false.” It either exists or doesn’t. Only hypotheses, propositions, and theories can be true or false."
"(This quote from a reply in Catholic Answers Forum demonstrates the illusion inherent in “empiricism,” that sensations are data in the sense that they provide their own identities. In fact, we all have a choice as to what aspects of real entities we elect to abstract. The aspect that we select is only one of the infinite number of possible aspects inherent in every real entity. When we select an aspect, the identity of the item becomes in our mind a relation to prior sensations, and we call the sense of connections “substances,” or classes, or categories. The natural operations of the brain do this and nothing else. This is the structure of thought, or reasoning, both conscious and subconscious. The whole web of such relations we call our “mind.” In short, data is not self-explanatory. Data is intelligible only after it becomes a relation to prior data classes as held in memory. This fact accounts for the common experience of two people seeing “different things” in the same situation. They are merely abstracting a different aspect from their common view but with their different, respective purposes for looking.
This illusion, that sensed data speaks intelligibility for itself, possesses the minds of most, modern scientists and becomes the basis for their dogmatism in such statements as, That is scientifically impossible, and the like. However, philosophically informed scientists know that data is whatever the observer makes of it. It does not speak for itself, as empiricism implies.
Sensed entities are objectively present to the bodily senses, but what the mind makes of sensations is selective. This is not radical subjectivism, for the goal of mind is to adequate reality in the sense of corresponding the mind to mind-independent forms outside it. This is achieved by the memory of multiple sensations of similar objects.
Absolutely! You said it!
In fact, the very skepticism toward scientific methodology is continually proposed by practicing scientists and philosphers themselves such as Kuhn, van Fraassen, Quine, Duhem, Popper, Carnap, Hempel, Salmon, Kitcher, Cartwright, Maxwell, Feyerband, Strawson, etc.
Just yesterday in another thread, I listed a few problems these individuals will mention concerning scientific methodology.
"(1) Problem of our complete incapability of grounding Induction and the non-observability of Natural Necessity (Laws)
(2) Problem of non-epistemic Social factors within the Scientific Community itself which ultimately guide their choices in Theory Change
(3) Asymmetry of Utility and Truth
(4) The mutually exclusive trade-off between Theoretical Explanations and Empirical Accuracy
(5) The Looming Circularity threatening all methods of Confirmation in Test Situations
(6) The Quine-Duhem Thesis of *Underdetermination *which says all Theories will be forever underdetermined with respect to the evidence, and hence truly
unfalsifiable.
(7) The Pessimistic Induction about all past scientific failures
These are not skeptical positions proposed by some whacky post-modern idiot. They are genuine concerns that come from practicing scientists and philosophers themselves. And how we attempt to provide solutions to these problems will have a drastic impact on our view of what science is actually doing and what it consists of. Does scientific methodology really consist of the pursuit of freedom from error, or does it consist in the repeated employment of confirmation biases and untestable assumptions at its core?"
