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Who Says Only Scientific Statements Make Sense?
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Hello, though new to AnswerBank, I have been reading current and many earlier posts on the 'Religion and Spirituality' threads, and it astonishes me to see so many (though not all) self-proclaimed scientific authorities eschewing all religious and spiritual beliefs merely on the feeble and illogical grounds that they are lacking in scientific validation.
In his early work 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus' Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote: "The right method of philosophy would be to say nothing except what can be said, that is to say the propositions of natural science."
Regrettably for him, the sentences that constituted the Tractatus itself were not propositions of natural science. In consistency, Wittgenstein had to concede that they were nothing more than nonsense. This line of thought is now known as "Ludwig's Self-Trap'
Wittgenstein spent the latter part of his life repenting the claim that only scientific statements made sense. Others it seems are still willing to follow on into similar traps. I see on here the logical-positivist principle being by upheld; ie. meaningful propositions with relationship to religious beliefs must be either analytic of verification or falsification by experience. However, as the verification principle itself is neither analytic nor empirical, it follows that this assertion has to be meaningless. Does anyone disagree?
In his early work 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus' Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote: "The right method of philosophy would be to say nothing except what can be said, that is to say the propositions of natural science."
Regrettably for him, the sentences that constituted the Tractatus itself were not propositions of natural science. In consistency, Wittgenstein had to concede that they were nothing more than nonsense. This line of thought is now known as "Ludwig's Self-Trap'
Wittgenstein spent the latter part of his life repenting the claim that only scientific statements made sense. Others it seems are still willing to follow on into similar traps. I see on here the logical-positivist principle being by upheld; ie. meaningful propositions with relationship to religious beliefs must be either analytic of verification or falsification by experience. However, as the verification principle itself is neither analytic nor empirical, it follows that this assertion has to be meaningless. Does anyone disagree?
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Nice copy and paste job, but you seem to be confusing a discussion about whether or not the subject matter of philosophy is linguistic, with a totally different discussion about whether we should require that our beliefs be based on testable theories and observed facts as opposed to fantasies and fairy tales.
Apparently the logic doesn't stand up to closer scrutiny and Wittgenstein himself abandoned his theory.
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But this line, coincidental or not, is quite revealing..
"...and it was by pulling on this thread that he gradually dismantled the entire work." ;)
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But this line, coincidental or not, is quite revealing..
"...and it was by pulling on this thread that he gradually dismantled the entire work." ;)
While I suppose I dabble in philosophy at some level - everyone does that really, anyway - I generally don't want to buy any philosopher's arguments if they are just words, words, words words. It's not that any argument based purely on a train of thought is wrong, but most of them when it comes to arguing about the science, seem not to understand the science very well anyway, or are too busy fussing about Newton's ideas when they should start looking at Quantum Mechanics and how we got there.
At any rate, it's important to me to have studied and looked at the Science before you start off on a philosophy that attempts to describe how the World works. Morality of course is another issue, and what is truth and all that, too. But that's meta-philosophy, or whatever the term for it is, and is different. More specifically it's different because I don't understand it at all.
So, anyway, what is the point you are trying to make? If something is lacking in Scientific validation it may not necessarily be wrong, but you are living in a world that if you started looking shows that the methodology of Science works time and time again. I mean, you typed that post (or pasted it from elsewhere) on a computer. To build one of those required a deep understanding of electricity and magnetism, on how materials work together, on how to manipulate EM radiation to send precisely the information we want and how to extract that from noise. Right now at CERN they're busy showing how ridiculously far this theory has gone, being experimentally accurate in some cases to the tenth decimal place. If you have ever flown anywhere, or driven anywhere, how do you think we managed to work out how to build planes, fly the across the globe, and navigate successfully? Science may not be the only truth, or only method of obtaining truth, but you have to admit it's phenomenally successful. And because of that it's worth listening.
By contrast, most religious arguments seem to rely heavily on eyewitness testimony, or ancient accounts that may have been fabricated, misheard, misinterpreted, copied badly, or otherwise damaged or changed so that what they were originally does not reflect how we see them now. Again, while it may not be false or a lie, that is shaky evidence on which to base your life and to dictate public policy.
If you are any kind of philosopher then I think it's quite likely that you will be far better at arguing than I am. I am, at least, a genuine Scientist, about to embark on a PhD in High-Energy Physics, so at least I'm not a self-proclaimed expert even if there are some people on AB who are a bit like that. Anyway, I would be interested to know precisely what your point is and own views are. But I do disagree as it stands with your first post.
At any rate, it's important to me to have studied and looked at the Science before you start off on a philosophy that attempts to describe how the World works. Morality of course is another issue, and what is truth and all that, too. But that's meta-philosophy, or whatever the term for it is, and is different. More specifically it's different because I don't understand it at all.
So, anyway, what is the point you are trying to make? If something is lacking in Scientific validation it may not necessarily be wrong, but you are living in a world that if you started looking shows that the methodology of Science works time and time again. I mean, you typed that post (or pasted it from elsewhere) on a computer. To build one of those required a deep understanding of electricity and magnetism, on how materials work together, on how to manipulate EM radiation to send precisely the information we want and how to extract that from noise. Right now at CERN they're busy showing how ridiculously far this theory has gone, being experimentally accurate in some cases to the tenth decimal place. If you have ever flown anywhere, or driven anywhere, how do you think we managed to work out how to build planes, fly the across the globe, and navigate successfully? Science may not be the only truth, or only method of obtaining truth, but you have to admit it's phenomenally successful. And because of that it's worth listening.
By contrast, most religious arguments seem to rely heavily on eyewitness testimony, or ancient accounts that may have been fabricated, misheard, misinterpreted, copied badly, or otherwise damaged or changed so that what they were originally does not reflect how we see them now. Again, while it may not be false or a lie, that is shaky evidence on which to base your life and to dictate public policy.
If you are any kind of philosopher then I think it's quite likely that you will be far better at arguing than I am. I am, at least, a genuine Scientist, about to embark on a PhD in High-Energy Physics, so at least I'm not a self-proclaimed expert even if there are some people on AB who are a bit like that. Anyway, I would be interested to know precisely what your point is and own views are. But I do disagree as it stands with your first post.
Just one comment..what do you mean by a 'scientific statement' ? A statement is a statement, it may be couched in scientific terms or even religious ones come to that but it does not acquire validity because of the language used. It acquires validity (or not) by the quality of the evidence that does or doesn't support it. Science is just a bit more rigorous in it's approach than most other disciplines which are largely based on the opinion of experts. Lots of statements were true long before 'science' appeared, though they were probably not uttered by religious leaders.
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