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22353
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One view says objectivity is making a successful claim which captures the facts [Reiss/Sprenger]
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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.
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From:
Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 2)
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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.
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22356
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An absolute scientific picture of reality must not involve sense experience, which is perspectival [Reiss/Sprenger]
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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.
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From:
Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 2.3)
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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).
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22359
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Topic and application involve values, but can evidence and theory choice avoid them? [Reiss/Sprenger]
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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?
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From:
Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 3.1)
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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.
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22360
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The Value-Free Ideal in science avoids contextual values, but embraces epistemic values [Reiss/Sprenger]
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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.
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From:
Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 3.1)
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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.
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22362
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Value-free science needs impartial evaluation, theories asserting facts, and right motivation [Reiss/Sprenger]
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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).
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From:
Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 3.3)
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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.
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22364
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Thermometers depend on the substance used, and none of them are perfect [Reiss/Sprenger]
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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.
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From:
Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 4.1)
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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.
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10438
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Definite descriptions are usually rigid in subject, but not in predicate, position [Sainsbury]
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Full Idea:
Definite descriptions used with referential intentions (usually in subject position) are normally rigid, ..but in predicate position they are normally not rigid, because there is no referential intention.
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From:
Mark Sainsbury (The Essence of Reference [2006], 18.5)
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A reaction:
'The man in the blue suit is the President' seems to fit, but 'The President is the head of state' doesn't. Seems roughly right, but language is always too complex for philosophers.
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8983
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If 'red' is vague, then membership of the set of red things is vague, so there is no set of red things [Sainsbury]
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Full Idea:
Sets have sharp boundaries, or are sharp objects; an object either definitely belongs to a set, or it does not. But 'red' is vague; there objects which are neither definitely red nor definitely not red. Hence there is no set of red things.
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From:
Mark Sainsbury (Concepts without Boundaries [1990], §2)
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A reaction:
Presumably that will entail that there IS a set of things which can be described as 'definitely red'. If we describe something as 'definitely having a hint of red about it', will that put it in a set? In fact will the applicability of 'definitely' do?
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8986
|
We should abandon classifying by pigeon-holes, and classify around paradigms [Sainsbury]
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Full Idea:
We must reject the classical picture of classification by pigeon-holes, and think in other terms: classifying can be, and often is, clustering round paradigms.
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From:
Mark Sainsbury (Concepts without Boundaries [1990], §8)
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A reaction:
His conclusion to a discussion of the problem of vagueness, where it is identified with concepts which have no boundaries. Pigeon-holes are a nice exemplar of the Enlightenment desire to get everything right. I prefer Aristotle's categories, Idea 3311.
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8984
|
If concepts are vague, people avoid boundaries, can't spot them, and don't want them [Sainsbury]
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Full Idea:
Vague concepts are boundaryless, ...and the manifestations are an unwillingness to draw any such boundaries, the impossibility of identifying such boundaries, and needlessness and even disutility of such boundaries.
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From:
Mark Sainsbury (Concepts without Boundaries [1990], §5)
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A reaction:
People have a very fine-tuned notion of whether the sharp boundary of a concept is worth discussing. The interesting exception are legal people, who are often forced to find precision where everyone else hates it. Who deserves to inherit the big house?
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8985
|
Boundaryless concepts tend to come in pairs, such as child/adult, hot/cold [Sainsbury]
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Full Idea:
Boundaryless concepts tend to come in systems of contraries: opposed pairs like child/adult, hot/cold, weak/strong, true/false, and complex systems of colour terms. ..Only a contrast with 'adult' will show what 'child' excludes.
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From:
Mark Sainsbury (Concepts without Boundaries [1990], §5)
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A reaction:
This might be expected. It all comes down to the sorites problem, of when one thing turns into something else. If it won't merge into another category, then presumably the isolated concept stays applicable (until reality terminates it? End of sheep..).
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22357
|
The 'experimenter's regress' says success needs reliability, which is only tested by success [Reiss/Sprenger]
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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.
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From:
Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 2.3)
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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.
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7877
|
Only phenomenal states have an explanatory gap; water is fully explained by H2O [Levine, by Papineau]
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Full Idea:
Levine says the explanatory gap is peculiar to phenomenal states. Once water has been identified with H2O, or temperature with mean kinetic energy, we do not continue to ask why H2O yields water, or why mean kinetic energy yields temperature.
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From:
report of Joseph Levine (Purple Haze [2001]) by David Papineau - Thinking about Consciousness 5.1
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A reaction:
Everything is mysterious if you think about if for long enough. What about a representational gap? Why do those neurons represent that tree (if the neurons aren't tree-shaped)? To understand qualia, we must understand the whole brain, I suspect.
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10431
|
Things are thought to have a function, even when they can't perform them [Sainsbury]
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Full Idea:
On one common use of the notion of a function, something can possess a function which it does not, or even cannot, perform. A malformed heart is to pump blood, even if such a heart cannot in fact pump blood.
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From:
Mark Sainsbury (The Essence of Reference [2006], 18.2)
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A reaction:
One might say that the heart in a dead body had the function of pumping blood, but does it still have that function? Do I have the function of breaking the world 100 metres record, even though I can't quite manage it? Not that simple.
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