And what about the other methods of inference?Conde Lucanor wrote: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.A_Seagull wrote:Not at all!! Philosophical analysis is merely a description of the scientific method. The scientific method existed long before its philosophical description.Conde Lucanor wrote: 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.
Is there anything wrong with scientism?
Re: Is there anything wrong with scientism?
- Conde Lucanor
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Re: Is there anything wrong with scientism?
And that name was...?thedoc wrote:Actually the scientific method of testing Hypothesis predated Aristotle by quite a bit, but it went by a different name.
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Re: Is there anything wrong with scientism?
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.A_Seagull wrote:And what about the other methods of inference?Conde Lucanor wrote: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.A_Seagull wrote:
Not at all!! Philosophical analysis is merely a description of the scientific method. The scientific method existed long before its philosophical description.
Re: Is there anything wrong with scientism?
Natural Philosophy.Conde Lucanor wrote:And that name was...?thedoc wrote:Actually the scientific method of testing Hypothesis predated Aristotle by quite a bit, but it went by a different name.
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Re: Is there anything wrong with scientism?
Thanks for helping me prove my point.thedoc wrote:Natural Philosophy.Conde Lucanor wrote:And that name was...?thedoc wrote:Actually the scientific method of testing Hypothesis predated Aristotle by quite a bit, but it went by a different name.
Re: Is there anything wrong with scientism?
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 wrote:Thanks for helping me prove my point.thedoc wrote:Natural Philosophy.Conde Lucanor wrote: And that name was...?
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Re: Is there anything wrong with scientism?
I'm not implying it, I'm saying it straightforward. The scientific method came along with modern science.thedoc wrote:You seemed to be implying that "Natural Philosophy" did not employ the scientific method,Conde Lucanor wrote:Thanks for helping me prove my point.thedoc wrote:
Natural Philosophy.
No. You just showed to us that philosophy predated modern science.thedoc wrote:...then modern science predated Aristotle.
Re: Is there anything wrong with scientism?
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.Conde Lucanor wrote: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.A_Seagull wrote:And what about the other methods of inference?Conde Lucanor wrote: 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.
Re: Is there anything wrong with scientism?
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.Conde Lucanor wrote:I'm not implying it, I'm saying it straightforward. The scientific method came along with modern science.thedoc wrote:You seemed to be implying that "Natural Philosophy" did not employ the scientific method,Conde Lucanor wrote: Thanks for helping me prove my point.
No. You just showed to us that philosophy predated modern science.thedoc wrote:...then modern science predated Aristotle.
Re: Is there anything wrong with scientism?
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.
Re: Is there anything wrong with scientism?
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_ ... fic_method
Both articles mention The Edwin Smith Papyrus as the earliest example of the scientific method.
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Re: Is there anything wrong with scientism?
The question that arises is if inductive reasoning is not useless without deductive reasoning.A_Seagull wrote:
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.
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Re: Is there anything wrong with scientism?
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.uwot wrote: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.
- Conde Lucanor
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Re: Is there anything wrong with scientism?
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.thedoc wrote: 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
For your information, Moses is a mythical character that never existed.thedoc wrote:and Moses is the earliest philosopher on record.
Ptahhotep wrote philosophical maxims back in 2200 BC. That's 600 hundred years before your Edwin Smith Papyrus.
Re: Is there anything wrong with scientism?
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.Conde Lucanor wrote: 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.