Philosophy and science (part 2)

David Weinberger discusses Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions in a recent article at the Chronicle of Higher Education.  I want to discuss that here, because it illustrates where I disagree with much of what is written as philosophy of science.

By far the most consistently attacked idea was what Kuhn referred to as incommensurability, a term taken from geometry, where it refers to the lack of a shared measurement. In SSR it means something like the inability to understand one paradigm from within another. In the book, Kuhn borders on putting incommensurability in its strongest imaginable form: A new paradigm causes scientists to “see the world of their researcher-engagement differently. In so far as their only recourse to that world is through what they see and do, we may want to say that after a revolution scientists are responding to a different world.”

Philosophy and science (part 1)

In a recent post at the Chronicle of Higher Education, Michael Ruse asks, “How can philosophy be done like a science?”  And that’s the question I shall address in this post.

In raising that question, Ruse is expressing some admiration for science.  He goes on to say, “I think science whatever its nature is our best way of knowing, so I wanted to be like a scientist (or as we say in the trade, I wanted to take a naturalistic approach).”  However, when all is boiled down, I don’t think Ruse really does want philosophy to be all that much more like science.  In a more recent post, he states “I respect and admire science. But I am not a scientist. I am a philosopher. And I am and always have been proud to be one.”

Taxing the rich

A recent post at Confessions of a Former Conservative begins with a quote from facebook on grade sharing:

Support Grade Sharing !

This new rule will only affect students with over a 3.8 GPA.
what it will do, is take a percentage of their grade and it will be applied to the students with a lower grade .

Share this with your kids, students, and liberal friends and watch the sparks fly !!!

This apparently comes from an argument on taxation, though I don’t have a facebook account so I haven’t tried to track down the details.