hibbsa
2013-04-23 09:28:42 UTC
Building on the theme Popper misassigned the philosophical fragments of
scientists with the status of broadsweeping proxies for Science itself.
A plausible reasoning which may have underpinned the avenue Popper took
his evaluation of Science down, would be his strongly held - and correct
- view that Philosophy was a pre-eminent force with an objective
presence that would tend to enclose and over the longer cycles
increasingly define the direction of all reason and action. Which is
amazingly true. But that insight may have added comfort to the
dependencies introduced by him limiting real visibility of Science to
any useful elements in those philosophical fragments truly reflecting
Science.
Which would have been seriously mistaken, because all those influential
defining traits he was observing about philooiphy, are not properties of
philosophy at all, but arise as the influence of background/enclosing
influences generally. It is in fact a description of physical causality,
in that any enclosing or background influence will exert perhaps a small
influence....on everything. Small or not, the implicit character of
background influences means never any criticism, and as the influences
moves to the back an ever decreasing prospect of ever being picked up by
C&R or any other process.
The consequence is that while enclosed more explicit knowledge evolves
in time, and is continually tested in anger allowing for many such to
drop away altogether, implicit influences never get smaller (i.e. broken
up by new distinctions) so relative to other principles implicit
influences get ever bigger in their effect, moving both to the
background and in the shaping of every new principle to ever higher
degrees. This should be disturbing, because what it means is that the
history of all systems of thought terminates with such status the system
of thought in its entirety is nothing other than a big fat
representation of implicit influences.
But anyway back to Popper. The point is, the influential character of
philosophy that Popper was thinking of, is a physical causality and as
such it is only true when the philosophy really was an enclosing
incluence at the appropriate time back in history. It isn't something
that is retrospectively true. You can't define a philosophy and decide
it encloses everything else and then backdate it to your past actions,
and expect it to be true. And it is for that reason, that the influence
of background and enclosing influences - and so philosophy certainly -
that actually this insight about the influence of philosophy, is a
powerful falsification of any notion Popper had he could use those
philosophical fragments for proxies of Science. They never were
background or enclosing influences. They never had any influence over
the reality of Science. Some like empiricism may contain truths, but
elements of truth - even a large number - are totally useless as proxies
for Science, absent exposing himself to a second independent window into
Science and successfully using it to match the element he thinks might
be true in empiricism or whatever, to its faithful manifestati0n in
Science. Otherwise, what has the 'truth' told Popper new about Science?
Everything is true given the right context...and there's an infinity of
contexts out there.
scientists with the status of broadsweeping proxies for Science itself.
A plausible reasoning which may have underpinned the avenue Popper took
his evaluation of Science down, would be his strongly held - and correct
- view that Philosophy was a pre-eminent force with an objective
presence that would tend to enclose and over the longer cycles
increasingly define the direction of all reason and action. Which is
amazingly true. But that insight may have added comfort to the
dependencies introduced by him limiting real visibility of Science to
any useful elements in those philosophical fragments truly reflecting
Science.
Which would have been seriously mistaken, because all those influential
defining traits he was observing about philooiphy, are not properties of
philosophy at all, but arise as the influence of background/enclosing
influences generally. It is in fact a description of physical causality,
in that any enclosing or background influence will exert perhaps a small
influence....on everything. Small or not, the implicit character of
background influences means never any criticism, and as the influences
moves to the back an ever decreasing prospect of ever being picked up by
C&R or any other process.
The consequence is that while enclosed more explicit knowledge evolves
in time, and is continually tested in anger allowing for many such to
drop away altogether, implicit influences never get smaller (i.e. broken
up by new distinctions) so relative to other principles implicit
influences get ever bigger in their effect, moving both to the
background and in the shaping of every new principle to ever higher
degrees. This should be disturbing, because what it means is that the
history of all systems of thought terminates with such status the system
of thought in its entirety is nothing other than a big fat
representation of implicit influences.
But anyway back to Popper. The point is, the influential character of
philosophy that Popper was thinking of, is a physical causality and as
such it is only true when the philosophy really was an enclosing
incluence at the appropriate time back in history. It isn't something
that is retrospectively true. You can't define a philosophy and decide
it encloses everything else and then backdate it to your past actions,
and expect it to be true. And it is for that reason, that the influence
of background and enclosing influences - and so philosophy certainly -
that actually this insight about the influence of philosophy, is a
powerful falsification of any notion Popper had he could use those
philosophical fragments for proxies of Science. They never were
background or enclosing influences. They never had any influence over
the reality of Science. Some like empiricism may contain truths, but
elements of truth - even a large number - are totally useless as proxies
for Science, absent exposing himself to a second independent window into
Science and successfully using it to match the element he thinks might
be true in empiricism or whatever, to its faithful manifestati0n in
Science. Otherwise, what has the 'truth' told Popper new about Science?
Everything is true given the right context...and there's an infinity of
contexts out there.