Apologists and Thomas Kuhn: A Love Story

The catch-all forum for general topics and debates. Minimal moderation. Rated PG to PG-13.
Post Reply
_Chap
_Emeritus
Posts: 14190
Joined: Mon Jun 11, 2007 10:23 am

Re: Apologists and Thomas Kuhn: A Love Story

Post by _Chap »

Franktalk wrote:Your position on orthodox science is well established. You have drank the koolaid and found it agreeable. That is fine.


Franktalk abuses DrW for having 'drunk the koolaid' because he has articulated a widely held position on dark matter. The implication here is that DrW only holds the opinions he does because he is under the domination of some powerful movement that has extinguished his powers of rational judgement, just as the followers of Jim Jones were persuaded to commit group suicide by drinking cyanide-laced Kool-aid in the forests of Guiana in 1978.

On what criterion does Franktalk seek to persuade us that it is not just as likely that he, Franktalk, is the one who holds his opinions on irrational grounds? I know which way I am inclined to bet on this one.
Zadok:
I did not have a faith crisis. I discovered that the Church was having a truth crisis.
Maksutov:
That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
_ludwigm
_Emeritus
Posts: 10158
Joined: Thu Oct 18, 2007 8:07 am

Re: Apologists and Thomas Kuhn: A Love Story

Post by _ludwigm »

Franktalk wrote:... plasma ...

DrW wrote:...
what one is observing in such cases is particles responding to the field, not the field itself
...


“It is easier not to believe in electrons than in dragons: electrons, at least taken singly, won’t try to make a meal of you.”
— Stanislaw Lem, The Cyberiad: Fables for the Cybernetic Age
- Whenever a poet or preacher, chief or wizard spouts gibberish, the human race spends centuries deciphering the message. - Umberto Eco
- To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin. - Cardinal Bellarmine at the trial of Galilei
_Franktalk
_Emeritus
Posts: 2689
Joined: Wed Oct 05, 2011 1:28 am

Re: Apologists and Thomas Kuhn: A Love Story

Post by _Franktalk »

Chap wrote:On what criterion does Franktalk seek to persuade us that it is not just as likely that he, Franktalk, is the one who holds his opinions on irrational grounds? I know which way I am inclined to bet on this one.


I fully admit that I may be wrong and the universe is not controlled by plasma and charge. I am open to any idea which fits the data. So far the data can be interpreted either way. So some take the dark matter theory and some take the plasma universe theory. I am happy to let the observations over the next twenty years or so determine who may be correct or even if both are wrong. Just because I happen to like a theory does not make it true. In this regard the difference between DrW and myself is quite evident. And if we were to apply the thoughts of Kuhn to one of us I suspect DrW would fall into the camp of those who cling beyond reason to established windmills. But there are those who seek to attack those windmills and they may appear nuts but just maybe they are driven by a quest beyond a mere settling of group think.

I am looking forward to the next post of DrW and how he explains that some scientists hold to the plasma universe theory. I wonder if he selects his science by a show of hands. It appears to me that he does. So that would make him a book and a shallow pond. A common parrot if you ask me.
_mfbukowski
_Emeritus
Posts: 1202
Joined: Thu Jan 28, 2010 9:35 pm

Re: Apologists and Thomas Kuhn: A Love Story

Post by _mfbukowski »

You can argue all you want about Kuhn exegesis, which to me seems a pointless exercise, but it seems no one is aware that from a philosophical standpoint he was a relative lightweight who stood on the shoulders of giants, to simultaneously coin a phrase and mix a metaphor.

What a critic of the church really has to show is that not only that Kuhn was "wrong" but that all of those who believe that the meaning of a proposition is based on its linguistic context and not on some relationship to "the world" were wrong.

That includes every Pragmatist- from whom Kuhn actually got his ideas, especially Polanyi, including Rorty were wrong. They have to show that Nietzsche was wrong and most of continental philosophy was wrong. They have to show that Wittgenstein was wrong and all constructivists are wrong, that postmodernism was wrong, antirealism was wrong, and really much of analytical philosophy was also wrong.

In other words they have to show that a great swath of 20th century philosophy was just bunk and that pretty much only the logical positivists were "right".

Good luck with that.

The usual M.O. around here is to pick the philosopher of the day when such a topic arises and an apologist has enough nerve to bring one up, and have everyone pile on repeating the same mantra "you don't understand his philosophy" until the apologist gives up re-writing the same post a hundred times demonstrating to each critic how in fact he does understand the philosophy and they don't.

It gets tedious and the apologist invariably tires of the tedium and repetition, and knows it is going nowhere.

That's where this thread is clearly headed and perhaps good sense has prevailed with LOAP and he sees the futility of trying to discuss something with a hostile unreasoned mob.

But fortunately religious discourse IS NOT scientific discourse and has nothing to do with it, and as long as some people recognize that - and they most certainly do- religious discourse will still be seen as "rational".

There are even agnostics who see themselves as in some sense "religious" and see the importance of such types of beliefs, emphasizing seeing God as a "friend" in a human context.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Future-Religion-Gianni-Vattimo/dp/0231134940

Seeing God as man- or Christ as a friend- gosh where have I heard that before?

If your response conceptually includes "You don't understand Rorty" or "But that's not Mormonism" I am not interested in replying. Sorry, I can tell you right now that you have missed the point. I will respond to any substantive points that actually seem to understand this post.
_MrStakhanovite
_Emeritus
Posts: 5269
Joined: Tue Apr 20, 2010 3:32 am

Re: Apologists and Thomas Kuhn: A Love Story

Post by _MrStakhanovite »

Hey! It’s my favorite Pragmatic-Jamesian-Wittgensteinian-Quinean-Nietzschean!
_Darth J
_Emeritus
Posts: 13392
Joined: Thu May 13, 2010 12:16 am

Re: Apologists and Thomas Kuhn: A Love Story

Post by _Darth J »

mfbukowski wrote:.

What a critic of the church really has to show is that not only that Kuhn was "wrong" but that all of those who believe that the meaning of a proposition is based on its linguistic context and not on some relationship to "the world" were wrong.


What a critic of the Church really has to show is that proponents of the Church have not met their burden of proof as to the factual propositions to which the Church's truth claims are inseparably connected.
_MrStakhanovite
_Emeritus
Posts: 5269
Joined: Tue Apr 20, 2010 3:32 am

Re: Apologists and Thomas Kuhn: A Love Story

Post by _MrStakhanovite »

mfbukowski wrote:What a critic of the church really has to show is that not only that Kuhn was "wrong" but that all of those who believe that the meaning of a proposition is based on its linguistic context and not on some relationship to "the world" were wrong.


WTF does that have to do with anything related to this thread?
_MrStakhanovite
_Emeritus
Posts: 5269
Joined: Tue Apr 20, 2010 3:32 am

Re: Apologists and Thomas Kuhn: A Love Story

Post by _MrStakhanovite »

mfbukowski wrote:What a critic of the church really has to show is that not only that Kuhn was "wrong" but that all of those who believe that the meaning of a proposition is based on its linguistic context and not on some relationship to "the world" were wrong.

That includes every Pragmatist- from whom Kuhn actually got his ideas, especially Polanyi, including Rorty were wrong. They have to show that Nietzsche was wrong and most of continental philosophy was wrong. They have to show that Wittgenstein was wrong and all constructivists are wrong, that postmodernism was wrong, antirealism was wrong, and really much of analytical philosophy was also wrong.



Forgetting the fact that Kuhn repudiated a lot of what you mention (his anti-realism specifically, I have a related footnote in my post, he does that explicitly in later editions of his book). I was blown away that Nietzsche had a theory of semantic meaning! Where does he elucidate this? I have to see it.
_Cicero
_Emeritus
Posts: 848
Joined: Fri Jun 22, 2012 9:09 am

Re: Apologists and Thomas Kuhn: A Love Story

Post by _Cicero »

mfbukowski wrote:What a critic of the church really has to show is that not only that Kuhn was "wrong" but that all of those who believe that the meaning of a proposition is based on its linguistic context and not on some relationship to "the world" were wrong.

That includes every Pragmatist- from whom Kuhn actually got his ideas, especially Polanyi, including Rorty were wrong. They have to show that Nietzsche was wrong and most of continental philosophy was wrong. They have to show that Wittgenstein was wrong and all constructivists are wrong, that postmodernism was wrong, antirealism was wrong, and really much of analytical philosophy was also wrong.

In other words they have to show that a great swath of 20th century philosophy was just bunk and that pretty much only the logical positivists were "right".


Gee, is that all? I never realized that criticizing the Church necessarily meant that I was embracing logical positivism (the very thought makes me shudder).

My point is that, unlike you, I fail to make the leap of faith involved in believing that post-modern deconstructions of the grand narratives of empiricism, positivism, realism, etc. should necessarily lead one to believe in the grand narrative of Mormonism.
_mfbukowski
_Emeritus
Posts: 1202
Joined: Thu Jan 28, 2010 9:35 pm

Re: Apologists and Thomas Kuhn: A Love Story

Post by _mfbukowski »

I know.

I don't understand any of those philosophers and Mormonism presents a "grand narrative" in a scientific sense which we are supposed to accept rationally, which means clearly I don't understand what Mormonism is.

Solid proof that I can predict the future. It's that magical thinking you know....
Post Reply