Re: [asa] Natural Agents - Cause and Effect, Non-Natural Agents

Hi Dave,
 
You suggest that philosophy can be 'added to scientific understanding.' What I'm looking for from you, as perhaps the lone philosopher active here, is more of the opposite; showing how science is added to philosophical understanding. That would help to balance some of the 'oh, that's just philosophy' sentiments. Didn't you enjoy the Grant quotes from my previous post?
 
You add: "ID and metaphysical naturalism (philosophical naturalism, scientism) belong to philosophy, not science."
 
Actually, Keith Miller himself called MN a philosophical assumption.
 
Are you suggesting there is no philosophical assumption in your 'interpretation' of MN?
 
Instead of MN one could call it methods of studying nature, and only nature (MSN-ON). This would distinguish two things: 1) the discussion belongs *only* in natural sciences, i.e. the sciences that (among other things use methods to) study nature, and 2) it would remove the ideological connontation of the -ism implied in 'naturalism,' which is sometimes (but not always) inconsistent with theology and transcendence or immanence of non-natural or divine action. Oh, yes, and I guess 3) it would pluralize the word 'methods,' thus indicating what HPS has 'discovered' - there is no single 'scientific method,' but multiple methods use in various places and situtations.
 
Such a move, done intentionally with an aim to improve one's grammar, would satisfy all of the parties who have spoken in this thread. And, thank goodness, it would exclude me, because you would just be speaking about natural sciences and not all sciences. It would then allow people space to discuss the non-natural agents that have so obviously been mainly avoided, but you'd have no human-social scholars to entertain you. : - (  
 
Gregory __________________________________________________________________ Be smarter than spam. See how smart SpamGuard is at giving junk email the boot with the All-new Yahoo! Mail. Click on Options in Mail and switch to New Mail today or register for free at http://mail.yahoo.ca

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Wed Apr 15 03:05:23 2009