Why do some people think that Science is the only source of knowledge?

[tonyrey]

For some reason you seem to be reacting defensively. Catholics and other Christians do not doubt the value of science, that is self-evident. All we are saying is that science itself accepts as self evident fact the underlying structure of reality with which Philosophy deals. I speak as a Thomist here. And that philosophical perspective helps understand the reasonableness of Faith. But certain, aggressive " scientists " step beyond the bounds of legitimate science to condemn philosophical reasoning, and claiming for itself the sole source of truth.

Linus2nd

Attacks on philosophy are necessarily philosophical!

 

[tonyrey]

Strawberry

Science is based on the power of reason and not any act of faith. Design is a leap of faith, not science.

This is too bizarrely false. Design exists. I am designing this sentence. It is not a leap of faith that I am designing this sentence. Nor is a it a leap of faith that Strawberry designs his sentences. Design exists in the real world. It is a fact of reality. Why should we not be able to see it everywhere we look?

**“A purpose, an intention, a design, strikes everywhere even the careless, the most stupid thinker.” - David Hume
**

 

[Peter_Plato]

You just gave science first place in importance by bringing up Darwin and substituting your own “science”.

Whereas if you didn’t think science is so important you wouldn’t be bothered what it says.

I haven’t seen anyone arguing “against” science so much as arguing for clarity. Likewise, I haven’t seen anyone arguing that science is not important, but that it is important toward a specific purpose - understanding the natural world.

The protests have not been against science but against misusing science or extending the scientific method into where it has no place by claiming science can address issues that are beyond the nature of physical reality even though its methods are inherently limited by physical reality.

Got me wondering now. Those arguing against science doth protest too much, methinks. Are they guilty of scientism all along?

This is a prime example of how flighty and unwarranted conclusions (well, let’s call this one innuendo) can be concocted by those who have absolutely no sense of how logical deduction or inference works.

For someone who has been railing on about how philosophy cannot be true because so many diverse philosophical opinions exist and how evidence must be the final arbiter, it is ironic that you can come up with such an inane notion with no compelling reason to do so except that an ongoing protest exists. As if a protest itself is a compelling reason to think the protestor is surreptitiously harboring affinity for the opposing view.

Perhaps the protest has been ongoing precisely because your irrational posts have been unmitigated and relentless; protests against philosophy which, by your own “logic” entail that you are secretly a philosopher or at least promoting philosophy because you yourself “doth protest too much” against it.

Your inconsistency and incapacity regarding critical thinking should be taken as evidence that you are actually arguing against a faulty depiction of what philosophy is by means of a crippled philosophical framework (your own) which you, rightly it seems, refuse to call a philosophy precisely because because it isn’t a workable philosophy due to its internal inconsistencies. In this analysis, and only in this one, you are correct. What you are doing does not meet the basic criteria for being “a philosophy” since it suffers from a complete lack of internal integrity.

 

[tonyrey]

Strawberry

Science is based on the power of reason and not any act of faith. Design is a leap of faith, not science.

This is too bizarrely false. Design exists. I am designing this sentence. It is not a leap of faith that I am designing this sentence. Nor is a it a leap of faith that Strawberry designs his sentences. Design exists in the real world. It is a fact of reality. Why should we not be able to see it everywhere we look?

If we cannot see it in our own power of reason we shouldn’t trust any of our conclusions!

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I’m arguing that modern professional philosophy can’t rid the world of disease, can’t put a man on the Moon and can’t explain consciousness. It can’t feed the poor, doesn’t look good hanging on a wall, you can’t dance to it, it doesn’t keep you warm in winter. The song is called War, huh, what is it good for only after the producer turned down Philosophy, huh, what is it diddily goodily doddily.

Physicists who are not philosophers like to produce nuclear weapons sufficient to bring on Armageddon.

Only the true philosophers can stop their madness. And then only if there are any true philosophers left.

 

[Latias]

Physicists who are not philosophers like to produce nuclear weapons sufficient to bring on Armageddon.

Only the true philosophers can stop their madness. And then only if there are any true philosophers left.

What’s a true philosopher?

Read this from the American Conservative.

Hume forged a distinction in his first work, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), between “true” and “false” philosophy. The philosophical act of thought has three constituents. First, it is inquiry that seeks an unconditioned grasp of the nature of reality. The philosophical question takes the form: “What ultimately is X?” Second, in answering such questions the philosopher is only guided by his autonomous reason. He cannot begin by assuming the truth of what the poets, priests, or founders of states have said. To do so would be to make philosophy the handmaiden of religion, politics, or tradition. Third, philosophical inquiry, aiming to grasp the ultimate nature of things and guided by autonomous reason, has a title to dominion. As Plato famously said, philosophers should be kings.

Yet Hume discovered that the principles of ultimacy, autonomy, and dominion, though essential to the philosophical act, are incoherent with human nature and cannot constitute an inquiry of any kind. If consistently pursued, they entail total skepticism and nihilism. Philosophers do not end in total skepticism, but only because they unknowingly smuggle in their favorite beliefs from the prejudices of custom, passing them off as the work of a pure, neutral reason. Hume calls this “false philosophy” because the end of philosophy is self-knowledge, not self-deception.

The “true philosopher” is one who consistently follows the traditional conception of philosophy to the bitter end and experiences the dark night of utter nihilism. In this condition all argument and theory is reduced to silence. Through this existential silence and despair the philosopher can notice for the first time that radiant world of pre-reflectively received common life which he had known all along through participation, but which was willfully ignored by the hubris of philosophical reflection.

By the way, non-philosophers such as a Robert Oppenheimer and Andrei Sakharov were against nuclear proliferation.

 

[edwest2]

What’s a true philosopher?

Read this from the American Conservative.

By the way, non-philosophers such as a Robert Oppenheimer and Andrei Sakharov were against nuclear proliferation.

Oppenheimer and others quickly realized that the more nuclear weapons created, the greater the chance of planetary destruction. That is one reason no nuclear weapons have been used in combat since 1945. They are far too powerful and even a “strategic” use scenario would not be a good alternative. The former USSR and the US operated under a simple concept during the Cold War - MAD - Mutually Assured Destruction.

For some, science has gone from research and development to “science can and will answer all questions, eventually.” All religions can be safely ignored. Or as one person I met back in the 1970s said, “Show me God. If you can show me God then I might believe in him.” His wife followed that by saying, “Your religion tells my son that masturbation is a sin.” which she was not happy about.

Ed

 

[Mount_Carmel]

Hi folks, glad to be back - my last posting being back in March 2014.

Regarding some folks thinking science is the only source of knowledge, well that is largely down to their ‘world view’ of reality and truth and personal bias.

Most of the leading players in the theology vs science perspective are ‘New Atheist’ types such as Dawkins and now most influentially the likes of Stephen Hawking. Their ‘world view’ sees the Judeo-Christian God/Creator as being just yet another ‘god’ created by human imagination and in essence as coming from within and not from outside of the physical and temporal universe - that as science explains away aspects of that type of ‘god mystery’ so then does that ‘god’ shrink - that yet another ‘gap’ is closed {well for now anyway].

As my own maths and physics excelling elder son once put it [albeit with a colourful addendum] - science actually KNOWS very little, what it tends to do is describe observations and only from the point of view of the research ability of the time. In reality science actually knows little of the true nature of the ‘what is’ of most import phenomena - such as gravity and time.

In Stephen Hawking’s latest best seller, he makes a number of major unsubstantiated claims and apart from dismissing God as a reality he now assaults the bastions of philosophy as being totally flawed and irrelevant. The interesting thing is that in dismissing philosophy he actually uses it in order to dismiss itself.

While the likes of Stephen Hawking and even Dawkins are very knowledgeable WITHIN their specialist field, they stray into biased assumption when they stray away from their disciplinary boundaries.

I recommend you listen and watch Prof. John Lennox’s rebuff of Stephen Hawkins latest attempts to replace God and Philosophy with Science.

Google - Bethinking 2/6: John Lennox on Stephen Hawking’s “The Grand Design”

ps. The interesting thing is that if anything the latest ‘revelations’ that science is making appears [surprise surprise] to support the likes of the books of Job and Genesis, and Cold Case detection techniques make an overwhelming argument for the veracity of the Gospels.

I recommend listening to and watching the YouTube presentation by a former cold case detective who used to also be an ardent atheist.

Google - Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels