----- Original Message -----
From: Brad McCormick, Ed.D. <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, November 06, 2000 5:56 PM
Subject: Re: Science and guilt -


> Gerry Reinhart-Waller wrote:
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Dewey Dykstra, Jr. <[log in to unmask]>
> > To: <[log in to unmask]>
> > Sent: Monday, November 06, 2000 12:15 PM
> > Subject: Re: Science and guilt -
> >
> > > > Since scientists provide this rock-bottom
> > > >foundation for our lives, their *stewardship* is even
> > > >greater than a judge's, for all a judge can do is
> > > >decide based on the evidence, but the judge cannot
> > > >verify what the evidence is -- only scientists can do that.
> > > >
> > > >Now! If we live in a world where we
> > > >have very little idea "what's going on",
> > > >but must depend on *scientists* to tell us, how does this differ
> > > >from the role in past of The Roman Catholic Church?
> [snip]
> >
> > Yes, science gives us a monotheistic world in which we either agree to
agree
> > or decide to disagree.  There is no objectivity possible when the thesis
has
> > not be countered by the antithesis.
>
> Isn't "objectivity" itself a "thesis"?  Would the Taliban be much
> interested in "objectivity" (except in the targeting of anti-tank
> rockets, of course!)?

Usually a thesis has an hypothesis such as:  The Taliban is  interested in
objectivity; the opposite i.e. the Taliban is not interested in objectivity
gives us the problem.  Seems to me that in most courts of law, no synthesis
needs to take place.  The hypothesis has been clearly determined to be
false.

> I think Susanne Langer expressed it well, back in the 1940s, in her
> _Philosophy in a New Key_ (not that the key was so new even then,
> but she expressed it well...): The questions we ask are far more
> important [fundamental, etc.] than the answers we get to them.
> Thesis and antithesis are both dependent on the "position" from
> which we orient ourselves in life.

Perhaps.  But who will support the fact that the Taliban is interested in
objectivity, that is other than members of the Taliban?

> I think an interesting question is: Why do we ask the questions
> we ask and not others?  Why do I ask concerning the transcendental
> constitution of experience, and not concerning The Will of J-w-h,
> or even concerning the algorithmical-psychophysical causation
> of my thoughts?
>
> Why is a physicist a physicist and not an astrologer or a
> stock broker?  If I had lived in the 15th century, I have
> little doubt that I would have believed in God (but would
> I have *approved of* His Will?)  Etc.
>
> I think that here we get into very interesting issues which are
> more foundational than "objectivity" (for we are asking here
> why we decide to be objective and not something else)?
>
> I think this gets to be very "slippery" ground, but I do not
> see any way around it: Ultimately, we do what *appeals to us* to
> do.  We do what we *like/want to do*.
>
> Can our "tastes" be e-duc-ated and in-form-ed?  I think they
> can.  But that does not make them cease to be tastes.  Nor
> does it render a "taste" for objectivity indifferently in-different
> from a taste(sic) for going on a jihad.  But it should
> make us "think about what we do, whatever it is [in part...]
> so that those who come after us shall not wish we had
> not done it..." (<-- a phrase I borrow from Joseph Weizenbaum).
> On the other hand....
>
> > But perhaps the most scholarly of
> > pursuits is in melding the thesis with the antithesis to produce a
> > synthesis.  This melding into a synthesis thereby produces the thesis
and
> > the game starts all over again.
>
> (Hegel was good at this, and I have previously referred to
> his -- to my taste -- magisterial and majestic story of
> "The Gentleman and his Valet"...)
>
> Also: Granted that each synthesis becomes a new position
> leading to a further dialectical step, I, for one, would
> prefer to deal with dialectical problems of "the Spirit" than
> those of malnutrition and wasting disease.  I think there
> *is* progress, although I can appreciate if someone genuinely prefers
> having cancer to reading Kant....  (What I have difficulty with
> is when he applies his canon of taste to me!)

I do believe you have strayed from the subject at hand; perhaps you're on
Cloud 9.

Gerry


> I am obviously trying to "stimulate thought" here, but
> I am also being entirely serious (which latter is, in *its*
> turn, a "taste"....).
>
> "Yours in discourse...."
>
> +\brad mccormick
>
> --
>   Let your light so shine before men,
>               that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
>
>   Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)