Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM, Mark Fisher and Reiss,J/Spreger,J

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15 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 5. Objectivity
22353 One view says objectivity is making a successful claim which captures the facts [Reiss/Sprenger]
     Full Idea: One conception of objectivity is that the facts are 'out there', and it is the task of scientists to discover, analyze and sytematize them. 'Objective' is a success word: if a claim is objective, it successfully captures some feature of the world.
     From: Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 2)
     A reaction: This seems to describe truth, rather than objectivity. You can establish accurate facts by subjective means. You can be fairly objective but miss the facts. Objectivity is a mode of thought, not a link to reality.
22356 An absolute scientific picture of reality must not involve sense experience, which is perspectival [Reiss/Sprenger]
     Full Idea: Sense experience is necessarily perspectival, so to the extent to which scientific theories are to track the absolute conception [of reality], they must describe a world different from sense experience.
     From: Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 2.3)
     A reaction: This is a beautifully simple and interesting point. Even when you are looking at a tree, to grasp its full reality you probably need to close your eyes (which is bad news for artists).
22359 Topic and application involve values, but can evidence and theory choice avoid them? [Reiss/Sprenger]
     Full Idea: There may be values involved in the choice of a research problem, the gathering of evidence, the acceptance of a theory, and the application of results. ...The first and fourth do involve values, but what of the second and third?
     From: Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 3.1)
     A reaction: [compressed] My own view is that the danger of hidden distorting values has to be recognised, but it is then possible, by honest self-criticism, to reduce them to near zero. Sociological enquiry is different, of course.
22360 The Value-Free Ideal in science avoids contextual values, but embraces epistemic values [Reiss/Sprenger]
     Full Idea: According to the Value-Free Ideal, scientific objectivity is characterised by absence of contextual values and by exclusive commitment to epistemic values in scientific reasoning.
     From: Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 3.1)
     A reaction: This seems appealing, because it concedes that we cannot be value-free, without suggesting that we are unavoidably swamped by values. The obvious question is whether the two types of value can be sharply distinguished.
22362 Value-free science needs impartial evaluation, theories asserting facts, and right motivation [Reiss/Sprenger]
     Full Idea: Three components of value-free science are Impartiality (appraising theories only by epistemic scientific standards), Neutrality (the theories make no value statements), and Autonomy (the theory is motivated only by science).
     From: Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 3.3)
     A reaction: [They are summarising Hugh Lacey, 1999, 2002] I'm not sure why the third criterion matters, if the first two are met. If a tobacco company commissions research on cigarettes, that doesn't necessarily make the findings false or prejudiced.
22364 Thermometers depend on the substance used, and none of them are perfect [Reiss/Sprenger]
     Full Idea: Thermometers assume the length of the fluid or gas is a function of temperature, and different substances yield different results. It was decided that different thermometers using the same substance should match, and air was the best, but not perfect.
     From: Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 4.1)
     A reaction: [summarising Hasok Chang's research] This is a salutary warning that instruments do not necessarily solve the problem of objectivity, though thermometers do seem to be impersonal, and offer relative accuracy (i.e. ranking temperatures). Cf breathalysers.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 3. Levels of Reality
16062 A necessary relation between fact-levels seems to be a further irreducible fact [Lynch/Glasgow]
     Full Idea: It seems unavoidable that the facts about logically necessary relations between levels of facts are themselves logically distinct further facts, irreducible to the microphysical facts.
     From: Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], C)
     A reaction: I'm beginning to think that rejecting every theory of reality that is proposed by carefully exposing some infinite regress hidden in it is a rather lazy way to do philosophy. Almost as bad as rejecting anything if it can't be defined.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 5. Supervenience / c. Significance of supervenience
16061 If some facts 'logically supervene' on some others, they just redescribe them, adding nothing [Lynch/Glasgow]
     Full Idea: Logical supervenience, restricted to individuals, seems to imply strong reduction. It is said that where the B-facts logically supervene on the A-facts, the B-facts simply re-describe what the A-facts describe, and the B-facts come along 'for free'.
     From: Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], C)
     A reaction: This seems to be taking 'logically' to mean 'analytically'. Presumably an entailment is logically supervenient on its premisses, and may therefore be very revealing, even if some people think such things are analytic.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 6. Physicalism
16060 Nonreductive materialism says upper 'levels' depend on lower, but don't 'reduce' [Lynch/Glasgow]
     Full Idea: The root intuition behind nonreductive materialism is that reality is composed of ontologically distinct layers or levels. …The upper levels depend on the physical without reducing to it.
     From: Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], B)
     A reaction: A nice clear statement of a view which I take to be false. This relationship is the sort of thing that drives people fishing for an account of it to use the word 'supervenience', which just says two things seem to hang out together. Fluffy materialism.
16064 The hallmark of physicalism is that each causal power has a base causal power under it [Lynch/Glasgow]
     Full Idea: Jessica Wilson (1999) says what makes physicalist accounts different from emergentism etc. is that each individual causal power associated with a supervenient property is numerically identical with a causal power associated with its base property.
     From: Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], n 11)
     A reaction: Hence the key thought in so-called (serious, rather than self-evident) 'emergentism' is so-called 'downward causation', which I take to be an idle daydream.
14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 3. Experiment
22357 The 'experimenter's regress' says success needs reliability, which is only tested by success [Reiss/Sprenger]
     Full Idea: The 'experimenter's regress' says that to know whether a result is correct, one needs to know whether the apparatus is reliable. But one doesn't know whether the apparatus is reliable unless one knows that it produces correct results ...and so on.
     From: Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 2.3)
     A reaction: [H. Collins (1985), a sociologist] I take this to be a case of the triumphant discovery of a vicious circle which destroys all knowledge turning out to be a benign circle. We build up a coherent relationship between reliable results and good apparatus.
14. Science / C. Induction / 6. Bayes's Theorem
22365 The Bayesian approach is explicitly subjective about probabilities [Reiss/Sprenger]
     Full Idea: The Bayesian approach is outspokenly subjective: probability is used for quantifying a scientist's subjective degree of belief in a particular hypothesis. ...It just provides sound rules for learning from experience.
     From: Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 4.2)
24. Political Theory / C. Ruling a State / 4. Changing the State / a. Centralisation
22370 Big central government only exists as a focus for anger - not to act [Fisher]
     Full Idea: The specter of big government is there to be blamed precisely for its failure to act as a centralising power, the anger directed at it much like the fury Thomas Hardy supposedly spat at God for not existing.
     From: Mark Fisher (Capitalist Realism [2009], 8)
     A reaction: The point is that the power resides with the leaders of capitalism, and central government is largely a side-show. Sounds somewhat true, and the politicians are largely unaware of their role.
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 11. Capitalism
22368 It is hard to imagine the end of capitalism [Fisher]
     Full Idea: It is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism.
     From: Mark Fisher (Capitalist Realism [2009], 1)
     A reaction: His book addresses the question of whether complacently accepting capitalism is the right attitude. I read it because I am complacently resigned to living with capitalism. If we started again, would capitalism be a rational choice?
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / a. Aims of education
22369 Are students consumers or products of education? [Fisher]
     Full Idea: Are students the consumers of education, or its product?
     From: Mark Fisher (Capitalist Realism [2009], 6)
     A reaction: As a teacher I have been increasingly obliged to treat pupils as customers, meaning that my main task is to keep them happy. Admittedly, pupils who are interested are usually happy pupils, but as a main objective happiness seems wrong.