Talk:Philosophy of science/Archive 3

message: I believe it should stay, but be fixed.  I'm not sure if there is enough knowledge among Wikipedians to give it its own article.  The section is badly informed, because there's a lot of conflict between Taoism and Confucianism, but there are also ways in which the two have integrated parts of each other.  The section seems to see this, because it implies they are interchangeable, and then implies that they're not.  But what is there isn't helpful!  I don't feel well enough informed to say any more.  There is a good two-volume work on Chinese philosophy called Sources of Chinese Tradition, by William Theodore de Bary and Richard Lufrano.  If only I had time to read my copy and write something here myself. Jmchen 03:21, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chinese Philosophy 

message: would you like to publish this article? -- Zondor 22:29, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  publication 

message: * JA: Aside from the fact that phil of math is 'considered' (by me and my army) to be an integral part of phil of sci, the very relation between formal and natural sciences is one of the biggest wings (drumsticks?) that phil of sci has on its plate.  Jon Awbrey 20:30, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Philosophy of mathematics ⊆ Philosophy of Science

message: JA: "Grounds of validity" is a stock phrase that goes way back, probably to Kant, referring to the broader considerations of evaluating, justifying, validating, warranting various types of inferences, laws, methods, and so on.  It is of course not to be confused with the contemporary use of "valid" to describe logical arguments.  Cf. C.S. Peirce, "Grounds of Validity of the Laws of Logic" .  Jon Awbrey 18:20, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Grounds Of Validity (GOV) 

message: I don't want to appear anal, but I think there is a serious philosophical innaccuracy here so I'm trying to correct it.  The section in question is once again:  "The practice of scientific inquiry typically involves a number of heuristic principles that serve as rules of thumb for guiding the work. Prominent among these are the principles of conceptual economy or theoretical parsimony. The practice of shaving away the unnecessaries to achieve best possible parsimony (the heuristic utilized to seek the heuristic of parsimony) has traditionally been called Ockham's Razor (or, "Occam's Razor"), after the 14th Century Franciscan friar William of Ockham. The principle of parsimony is commonly stated something like: "Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity." As interpreted in contemporary scientific practice, it advises opting for the simplest theory among a set of competing theories that have comparable explanatory power, discarding assumptions that do not improve the explanation. In practice, of course, it is not always this straightforward. Theorists quite commonly do not find themselves presented with competing hypotheses or theories of exactly equal explanatory adequacy."
The problem is that Occam's Razor is NOT a heurisitc.  According to wikipedia "a heuristic is a particular technique of directing one's attention in learning, discovery, or problem-solving."  But this is not an accurate discription of Occam's Razor.  Occam's Razor is not a method of directing attention during problem solving, it is a philosophical principle which recommends dispensing with unsupported models when deciding on which theory is best, and it is a justification for doing so.
In case the difference between these two things isn't clear let me try to elaborate.  A heuristic comes into play when you find a problem, and you are trying to generate good solutions to the problem.  Occam's Razor comes into play later, when you've found some good models and you are trying to decide which of them is best.
I hope that helps.
Anyway, since the entire paragraph is discussing heuristics I've copied the previously existing paragraph over it to correct it.  I've left the rest of the section which Kenosis and other have worked on untouched.
I think its important to be accurate with the word heuristic because calling Occam's Razor a heuristic implies in a sense that scientific inquiry can proceed without it, which is wrong.  This is a subtle point which even many scientists (most of whom are not science philosophers) do not understand (even though they employ Occam's Razor implicitly in everything they do).  However clearly its important that an entry in the philosophy of science not be confused on this issue.(unsigned by OverZealousFan)
::A substantial amount of the more recent literature agrees it is a heuristic.  But I wish no further part of this attempt at doing your own interpretation to replace what so many published commentators have said about Occam.  Bye, and good luck...Kenosis 05:55, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Heuristic

message: JA: I have moved the following paragraph here for examination.  I see perhaps one or two points that might be salvaged, though not without quite a bit of work.  But tomorrow.  Jon Awbrey 05:36, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The current revision would be another way of reasonably expressing the issues related to parsimony and Occam.  So long as the the article doesn't get caught in trying to overdescribe the whole abductive process (the opposite of the drastic oversimplification just attempted recently)-- I can see it already--next thing there'll be editors throwing in stuff about noogenesis as evidence of the abductive process...Kenosis 17:12, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Material for examination

message: So how is the concept of causility or "cause and effect" more justifiable than the existence of God? Both cannot be empirically tested; you can not "experience" both with your five senses. I understand that one concept can be "believed in more" than the other; for example, you COULD say that you believe in cause and effect more than you believe in the existence of God. But you can't say, from an empiricist point of view; that you KNOW casualty or God exists. So what I'm asking is how can scientists (and empiricists) believe in the concept of "cause and effect" more than they believe in the existence of God? How iss causility more justified (and therefore, more readily "assumeable") than the existence of God? You can't say you know they both exist according to Hume, if you are an empiricist, but why would anyone be an atheist (not believe in God), but assume that causility exist? 165.196.139.24 21:04, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Causality vs. the Existence of a God

message: Shouldn't this article also deal with the issues of reallying on empirical evidence (the five senses)? Many philosophers have brung up the issue of trusting the five senses; and some argue that only knowledge gained by reasoning should be trusted (this is sort of the opposite of an empiricist).
:Good question. Rationalism is really a historical issue in philosophy--look for it, or add material on it, in the history of philosophy pages. No current or recent philosopher of science makes a serious case that, as you say, only knowledge gained by reasoning should be trusted. Two problems are that it's not clear that anything can be established without the aid of experience, and that it is not clear that there is a sharp distinction between knowledge gained from experience and knowledge gained through reasoning alone. That is to say, skepticism is a live issue in epistemology especially and to a lesser degree philosophy of science, but it's not clear that reasoning alone, if there is such a thing could get you very far. CHE 17:26, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  empiricism v.s. rationalism 

message: I think the opening bullet list looks bad for this article.  Moving this bullet list to the next section and inluding an image, eg,
could be helpful. Lucaas 01:41, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Opening Page poor 

message: Paragraph 1.5 's title should be for me "Constructivist epistemology" whether than "Social constructivism" as the latter is a part of the first. Chrisdel 14:53, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Social constructionism vs [[Constructivist epistemology]] 

message: Some time ago a group of editors set up a "work in progress" page (at Talk:Physics/wip) to hammer out a consensus for the Physics article, which for too long had been in an unstable state. Discussion of the lead for the article has taken a great deal of time and thousands of words. The definitional and philosophical foundations seem to cause most headaches; but progress has been made. Why not review some of the proposals for the lead material that people are putting forward, or put forward your own, or simply join the discussion? The more contributors the better, for a consensus. – Noetica 02:02, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The review of [[Physics]] continues at [[Talk:Physics/wip]]