Timeline for Should viable philosophical theories not always be consistent with science?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
9 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 6, 2018 at 21:30 | comment | added | Cort Ammon | Or, perhaps more to the heart of science, science observes that humans seem to be able to "make an empirical observation." But science has notable challenges capturing what that means (see my discussion with Conifold to see a few of the sticking points around the word "fact"). Metaphysics provides a way to dig deeper into the question of what it means to observe something. | |
| Mar 6, 2018 at 21:28 | comment | added | Cort Ammon | @quaestioeresponsum I'm not sure if the relationship between metaphysics and physics should be the "what" and "what exactly" as you say. I don't think metaphysics, as most people use the term, exists as a generalizer that paves the way for physics. They have a much more complicated relationship than that. As an example, I can turn the relationship around. Science observes how people act and comes to the conclusion that people can "make decisions." That's a "what." Metaphysics then comes through and explores exactly what it means to "make a decision." | |
| Mar 6, 2018 at 7:15 | comment | added | user19423 | @quaestioeresponsum Re GR, yeah, exactly, with "special_case~approximation" just a different choice of words. More precisely, there's a regime of applicability where the special_case theory agrees with observations to the available experimental accuracy. But beyond that regime, the special_case theory's observably inaccurate, and just an approximation to the more general theory. | |
| Mar 6, 2018 at 5:26 | comment | added | user9166 | The Greeks not only "could have done that", they did it. Ptolemaic astronomy had better precision than Heliocentric astronomy between Copernicus and Kepler. It took Kepler's notion that orbits were elliptical, not circular, to save it. (But one conic section is simpler than several circles, and we knew of parabolas in ballistics -- so conic sections win, and we ultimately get the square term in the law of gravity out of it...) This makes the 'rules' of science very ambiguous: when do you choose simplicity over outright success? | |
| Mar 6, 2018 at 3:51 | comment | added | quaestio e responsum | And when refer to a theory of quantum gravity vis-a-vis General Relativity, do you mean that when such a theory is finally available, it will be similar to how Newtonian Mechanics are considered a special case of General Relativity at relatively slow speeds? | |
| Mar 6, 2018 at 3:47 | comment | added | quaestio e responsum | Thank you. I really like your formulation here, and yes, your point about my imprecise use of "science" is well-taken. To be clear, I do not mean that metaphysics and physics/science should be fully equated. Rather, metaphysics should tell us the what and "physics" should tell us the what exactly (to the degree possible). For instance, metaphysics should be able to tell us, using logic and evidence, whether the basic "stuff" of the universe is matter (as opposed to spirits, god, or otherwise), and physics comes to tell us the nature of such matter in empirical terms. | |
| Mar 6, 2018 at 2:18 | history | edited | user19423 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 343 characters in body
|
| Mar 6, 2018 at 2:13 | history | edited | user19423 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 343 characters in body
|
| Mar 6, 2018 at 2:05 | history | answered | user19423 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |