Is there anything wrong with scientism?

[A_Seagull]

Science has an epistemology. It derives its methods from philosophical analysis of what its object of inquiry is, how knowledge can be obtained, which are its limits, and even what is worth investigating and for what purposes.

Not at all!! Philosophical analysis is merely a description of the scientific method. The scientific method existed long before its philosophical description.

I must assume you regard the term "scientific method" not as it is understood since the emergence of modern science, that is, the structured, systematized empirical testing of hypothesis, from which causal laws are inferred, but as any empirical research. If you want to date it back to Aristotle, I won't agree, but it's OK. But even so it would be quite adventurous to say that empirical science preceded philosophy. Before natural science was "officially" science, it was natural philosophy.

And what about the other methods of inference?

[Conde Lucanor]

Actually the scientific method of testing Hypothesis predated Aristotle by quite a bit, but it went by a different name.

And that name was...?

[Conde Lucanor]

Not at all!! Philosophical analysis is merely a description of the scientific method. The scientific method existed long before its philosophical description.

I must assume you regard the term "scientific method" not as it is understood since the emergence of modern science, that is, the structured, systematized empirical testing of hypothesis, from which causal laws are inferred, but as any empirical research. If you want to date it back to Aristotle, I won't agree, but it's OK. But even so it would be quite adventurous to say that empirical science preceded philosophy. Before natural science was "officially" science, it was natural philosophy.

And what about the other methods of inference?

Well, first let's correct your assertion that science uses one method of inference and that this method is the scientific method, as if only in science we could find reasoning. By methods of inference we might just limit ourselves to inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning. As far as I know in any type of research program, both of them are used. It is generally agreed that empirical sciences, which are said to use the scientific method, employ extensively inductive reasoning, but to follow the steps of the scientific method and getting anything out of it, logic is required.

[thedoc]

Actually the scientific method of testing Hypothesis predated Aristotle by quite a bit, but it went by a different name.

And that name was...?

Natural Philosophy.

[Conde Lucanor]

Actually the scientific method of testing Hypothesis predated Aristotle by quite a bit, but it went by a different name.

And that name was...?

Natural Philosophy.

Thanks for helping me prove my point.

[thedoc]

And that name was...?

Natural Philosophy.

Thanks for helping me prove my point.

You seemed to be implying that "Natural Philosophy" did not employ the scientific method, if you admit that it did, then modern science predated Aristotle.

[Conde Lucanor]

Natural Philosophy.

Thanks for helping me prove my point.

You seemed to be implying that "Natural Philosophy" did not employ the scientific method,

I'm not implying it, I'm saying it straightforward. The scientific method came along with modern science.

...then modern science predated Aristotle.

No. You just showed to us that philosophy predated modern science.

[A_Seagull]

I must assume you regard the term "scientific method" not as it is understood since the emergence of modern science, that is, the structured, systematized empirical testing of hypothesis, from which causal laws are inferred, but as any empirical research. If you want to date it back to Aristotle, I won't agree, but it's OK. But even so it would be quite adventurous to say that empirical science preceded philosophy. Before natural science was "officially" science, it was natural philosophy.

And what about the other methods of inference?

Well, first let's correct your assertion that science uses one method of inference and that this method is the scientific method, as if only in science we could find reasoning. By methods of inference we might just limit ourselves to inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning. As far as I know in any type of research program, both of them are used. It is generally agreed that empirical sciences, which are said to use the scientific method, employ extensively inductive reasoning, but to follow the steps of the scientific method and getting anything out of it, logic is required.

The trouble is that deductive reasoning is quite useless at inferring anything about the world unless it is used in conjunction with inductive or scientific reasoning, for it is only through inductive reasoning that it can be linked to the real world.

[thedoc]

Thanks for helping me prove my point.

You seemed to be implying that "Natural Philosophy" did not employ the scientific method,

I'm not implying it, I'm saying it straightforward. The scientific method came along with modern science.

...then modern science predated Aristotle.

No. You just showed to us that philosophy predated modern science.

The best I can find now is a date of 1600 BC for the earliest description of the scientific method and 1200 BC for the earliest western philosophy. The Edwin Smith Papyrus is the earliest surviving record of the scientific method and Moses is the earliest philosopher on record.

[uwot]

I keep telling ya; there is no scientific method. What we call the scientific method is essentially empiricism mixed with mathematics. Both of these have been used for at least as long as there are archaeological records, but only in a systematic way since Galileo. The practise was initially codified by Francis Bacon (at least in the English speaking world) in his New Orgenon, which he intended to replace the then dominant old Orgenon of Aristotle. That philosophy was adopted by the Royal Society of London, and pretty much set in stone when the RS published Newton's Principia Mathematica. The basic method was followed by Antoine Lavoisier, who effectively drew a line between alchemy and chemistry. Sticking strictly to that principle, it is only if you take a purely instrumentalist view of science that even physics and chemistry could conceivably qualify. But 'science' is a much more amorphous body than that.

[thedoc]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_o ... fic_method

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_ ... fic_method

Both articles mention The Edwin Smith Papyrus as the earliest example of the scientific method.

[Conde Lucanor]

The trouble is that deductive reasoning is quite useless at inferring anything about the world unless it is used in conjunction with inductive or scientific reasoning, for it is only through inductive reasoning that it can be linked to the real world.

The question that arises is if inductive reasoning is not useless without deductive reasoning.

[Conde Lucanor]

I keep telling ya; there is no scientific method. What we call the scientific method is essentially empiricism mixed with mathematics. Both of these have been used for at least as long as there are archaeological records, but only in a systematic way since Galileo. The practise was initially codified by Francis Bacon (at least in the English speaking world) in his New Orgenon, which he intended to replace the then dominant old Orgenon of Aristotle. That philosophy was adopted by the Royal Society of London, and pretty much set in stone when the RS published Newton's Principia Mathematica. The basic method was followed by Antoine Lavoisier, who effectively drew a line between alchemy and chemistry. Sticking strictly to that principle, it is only if you take a purely instrumentalist view of science that even physics and chemistry could conceivably qualify. But 'science' is a much more amorphous body than that.

That should be the common understanding on the subject: what is called the scientific method is part of modern science. But the approach some are taking, pretends to show us that the scientific method was present when fire was discovered in the Stone Age.

[Conde Lucanor]

The best I can find now is a date of 1600 BC for the earliest description of the scientific method and 1200 BC for the earliest western philosophy.
The Edwin Smith Papyrus is the earliest surviving record of the scientific method

If any empirical research is to be called the scientific method, then any speculative endeavor is to be called philosophy. And since basic human cognition involves rationalization, it's pretty clear that humanity has been doing philosophy since the dawn of civilization.

and Moses is the earliest philosopher on record.

For your information, Moses is a mythical character that never existed.

Ptahhotep wrote philosophical maxims back in 2200 BC. That's 600 hundred years before your Edwin Smith Papyrus.

[thedoc]

That should be the common understanding on the subject: what is called the scientific method is part of modern science. But the approach some are taking, pretends to show us that the scientific method was present when fire was discovered in the Stone Age.

It would seem to me that the scientific method is the most reasonable method to learn to make fire and to pass that knowledge on, so the scientific method was in use from the very beginning of humanity.