Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Epistemology of Modality', 'On Duties ('De Officiis')' and 'Scientific Objectivity'

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12 ideas

1. Philosophy / A. Wisdom / 1. Nature of Wisdom
21405 Cicero sees wisdom in terms of knowledge, but earlier Stoics saw it as moral [Cicero, by Long]
     Full Idea: Cicero (drawing on Panaetius) treats wisdom as if its province were primarily a disinterested pursuit of knowledge. But earlier Stoics gave purely moral definitions of wisdom.
     From: report of M. Tullius Cicero (On Duties ('De Officiis') [c.44 BCE], 1.11-20) by A.A. Long - Hellenistic Philosophy 5
     A reaction: I would have thought that after long discussion most ancient (and even modern) philosophers would conclude that it is both. The 'intellectualism' of Socrates hovers in the background, implying that healthy knowledge produces virtue.
1. Philosophy / A. Wisdom / 2. Wise People
20871 Unfortunately we choose a way of life before we are old enough to think clearly [Cicero]
     Full Idea: At the beginning of adolescence when our deliberative capacities are weak we decide on the way of life that we find attractive. So one gets entangled in a definite manner and pattern of life before one is able to judge which one is best.
     From: M. Tullius Cicero (On Duties ('De Officiis') [c.44 BCE], 1.117)
     A reaction: Hence it is important to have lots of means for bailing out of education courses, jobs, and even marriage. At least university postpones the key life choices till the early twenties.
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.
10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 4. Conceivable as Possible / a. Conceivable as possible
19440 How do you know you have conceived a thing deeply enough to assess its possibility? [Vaidya]
     Full Idea: The main issue with learning possibility from conceivability concerns how we can be confident that we have conceived things to the relevant level of depth required for the scenario to actually be a presentation or manifestation of a genuine possibility.
     From: Anand Vaidya (The Epistemology of Modality [2015], 1.2.2)
     A reaction: [He cites Van Inwagen 1998 for this idea] The point is that ignorant imagination can conceive of all sorts of absurd things which are seen to be impossible when enough information is available. We can hardly demand a criterion for this.
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)
23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 3. Universalisability
6031 The essence of propriety is consistency [Cicero]
     Full Idea: The whole essence of propriety is quite certainly consistency.
     From: M. Tullius Cicero (On Duties ('De Officiis') [c.44 BCE], 1.110)
     A reaction: This seems to me the key intuition on which Kant built his deontological ethical theory. However, opponents say the consistency requires principles, and these are the enemies of truly good human behaviour, which involves Aristotle's 'particulars'.