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To: Right Wing Professor
Suppose we (scientists) say they don't.

8-) That's an argument from authority. It's not always a bad type of argument, but it is subject to error. And it's ultimately a philosophical argument.

How do you enforce your claim of privilege?

The natural sciences rest on metaphysical presuppositions such as the idea that natural laws are uniform and predictable; that the universe is ordered and predictable; that scientists can trust the evidence of their senses; that something cannot both be, and not be, in the same sense and at the same time; that the whole is greater than its parts; that mathematics has objective value and existence; that objective truth exists, etc.

And metaphysical presuppositions, presuppositions regarding the nature of reality, belong to the realm of philosophy, by definition and by nature. Philosophers determine the scope of the natural sciences. Scientists don't determine the scope of philosophy. The medieval maxim is correct: "Theology is the queen of the sciences and philosophy is its handmaid."

239 posted on 12/10/2004 5:35:44 AM PST by Aquinasfan (Isaiah 22:22, Rev 3:7, Mat 16:19)
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To: Aquinasfan
The natural sciences rest on metaphysical presuppositions such as the idea that natural laws are uniform and predictable; that the universe is ordered and predictable; that scientists can trust the evidence of their senses; that something cannot both be, and not be, in the same sense and at the same time; that the whole is greater than its parts; that mathematics has objective value and existence; that objective truth exists, etc.

You raise some serious issues that I will try to discuss seriously

To conclude; I agree that science requires a small number of metaphysical presuppositions. Those presuppositions are, however, so limited and so universal beyond science that they don't really support the contention that philosophy (or less yet, theology, which presumes an entity whose existence many scientists don't accept) have some sort of essential underlying structural role in science, or that they determine its scope. What philosophers think of science has seldom had any impact on us at all.
266 posted on 12/10/2004 8:44:33 AM PST by Right Wing Professor
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