2010-03-02
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Berkeley and the Passivity of Ideas
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Am I correct in thinking that in the period we are considering, Newton's kind of science (I offer no hypotheses - i.e. I do not attempt to explain) was only about observation and that 'explanation' was left to metaphysics? Newton withdrew his hypothesis that gravity was a force acting at a distance on the grounds that it was a step beyond the observations and therefore not good science. Hume, I suggest, would have had no time for 'explanations' as he aimed to apply Newtonian science to human understanding. He did not try to 'hypothesize' about the 'hidden levers and springs' and, if I recollect correctly, put such questions into the category 'nonsense' - having no meaning for us animals. Currently, science seems more obsessed with explanation than observation as the ART of modeling possible explanations hits the headlines and the observations are either ignored or suppressed (as in the case of some climate data).
One could go further and point to the hypotheses leading the science - scientists being funded (bribed?) to find data to support the hypotheses. Patrons of science in the past may not have been quite so demanding and may have sought 'new knowledge' for its own sake or because it revealed something of God's mysterious ways? Or have i got the wrong end of the stick?
Before we abandon philosophu in favour of science, I think we should examine the credentials of much of today's science.
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