[tacticalogic]

Methodology should be an aspect of the philosophy of science and the philosophy itself.

Agreed. I've seen it argued that methodological materialism should be discarded, and not replaced with anything, which would leave it with no formally declared methodology at all.

[Alamo-Girl]

I see I butchered my original statement by omitting an important word. It should have read:

Methodology should be an aspect of the philosophy of science and not the philosophy itself.

On your point, I would prefer to see investigators declare up front what they take as axioms or presuppositions in a particular investigation.

[betty boop]

A-G: Methodology should be an aspect of the philosophy of science and the philosophy itself.

tl: Agreed. I've seen it argued that methodological materialism should be discarded, and not replaced with anything, which would leave it with no formally declared methodology at all.

Dear tacticalogic, are you arguing that methodological materialism IS the scientific method?

I had thought methodological materialism is merely a PRESUPPOSITION that gets loaded into the front-end of an application of the scientific method. IOW, you could discard that presupposition without affecting the utility of the scientific method.

The PRESUPPOSITION is that everything in the universe consists from "matter-in-its-motions" alone, these motions being somehow "lawful." (Of course, methodological materialism is silent about how the laws themselves came into existence.)

In sum, methodological materialism requires that we begin with a conclusion. To that extent, it is a rigged game.

JMHO FWIW