Luis Manuel Ledo-Regal
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 Posted: Sat May 24, 2008 10:43 pm Post subject: www.scientific-philosophy.org |
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www.scientific-philosophy.org - Scientific philosophy international
association - 2008
1) What is scientific philosophy?
Scientific philosophy believes that philosophy is one more science and
that it must apply the hypothetical-deductive method like any other
science.
Its object of study is the reality as a whole: it is all that is
relevant to build our vision of the world and our place in it, but it
do not want to look at concrete details, which are the object of study
of other sciences. For example, it wants to know that nature works
with causes and consequences, but it do no want to study concrete
natural causes and consequences.
2) But is not philosophy very different from other sciences?
The hypothetical-deductive method has the following four steps:
1) Problem observation.
2) Elaboration of a provisional hypothesis.
3) Deduction of the logical consequences of the hypothesis.
4) Verification of the consequences with new observations.
It is clear that these four steps are not easy for all sciences. For
example, philosophy has difficulties with the steps of observation (1)
and (4). This is why it is too speculative; but this speculative
character is not a definition of philosophy, but a fault that we must
correct.
In philosophy of mind, we have an example of how the information of
the neurophysiology can help to confirm our hypotheses, and then, the
speculation is obliged to move back.
3) Does scientific philosophy depends on the hypothetical - deductive
method?
Clearly, no: even if the method of sciences was not the hypothetical-
deductive one, this would not concern the fact that philosophy is a
science: simply philosophy should use the method that was considered
to be correct for the rest of sciences. The scientific method is an
empirical knowledge and, as such, it can be corrected.
Nevertheless, the hypothetical-deductive method is compatible with
diverse conceptions of science. This method admits the theoretical
load of the observation into steps (1) and (4); it accepts the
subdetermination of theory by observation, and the step from (1) to
(2) is not inductive; it admits also that elaboration of the
hypothesis should be restricted to the limits of a paradigm; finally
it does not have to decide what is the correct verification method in
step (4).
4) What is not scientific philosophy?
Scientific philosophy is not philosophy of science. Scientific
philosophy deals with the problem of science, but only as one more
question like ethic, politic, epistemology, logic, etc. Scientific
philosophy wants to apply the scientific method to all the problems
and not only to the problem of science.
Scientific philosophy does not want to build a vision of the world
from the information that other sciences give us. Scientific
philosophy does not want to realise the synthesis of all the knowledge
that other sciences give us. Its aim is to apply the scientific method
to its area of study, like any other science, to build a vision of the
reality and of the place that the human being have in it.
Scientific philosophy is not a part of the philosophy or a type of
philosophy: it tries to be the correct conception of the philosophy.
For it, to say "scientific philosophy" and "philosophy" is the same.
It only use "scientific" to distinguish scientific philosophy from
other conceptions of the philosophy that are considered wrong.
5) What is the opposed vision to scientific philosophy?
Scientific philosophy is opposed to the antiscientific vision of the
philosophy typical of the so-called continental philosophy
(hermeneutic, phenomenology, structuralism, etc.), though it appears
also in the analytical philosophy. This antiscientific vision of the
philosophy does not consider that philosophy is a science that builds
models of the reality to understand it, but rather that it is a
critical spirit, a list of questions with no answer, an expression of
our reactions when we look at the world, etc. But this belongs also to
other sciences and cannot make us forgetting the aim to build
knowledge that philosophy must share with other sciences.
Scientific philosophy knows that any scientific theory is never for
ever. But it rejects the philosophical conception that is the base of
the cultural relativism because this conception denies that no truth
can exist. If this was so, the science, and the philosophy, could not
try to approach any truth because they do not exist.
6) The origins of scientific philosophy.
The origins of the scientific vision of the philosophy can be traced
in diverse authors as David Hume, for example. Nevertheless, its
clearer and explicit origin appears in the logical positivism born
around the Circle of Vienna. It considers as metaphysical illusions
everything that is not empirical knowledge, the one of sciences, or
analytical, the one of logic.
Another origin of the scientific philosophy can be seen in the
analytical philosophy, somehow continuing the logical positivism
though been critical with it: some philosophical problems are solved
after an analysis of philosophical language and an elucidation of used
concepts.
The recent experimental philosophy looks for the same aim that
scientific philosophy when it rejects the utilization of the intuition
to elucidate concepts and prefers asking people to know what they
associate with a concept or how they understand a problem.
7) Is there any need to differ from the above-mentioned origins?
The aim of scientific philosophy is to build a model of the reality,
following the hypothetical-deductive method, to understand it.
The logical positivism leads to an opposite side: it reserves the
empirical knowledge for sciences and denies informative content to
analytical truths, and then philosophy loses its aim and is reduced to
be a control of science. When it attacks the metaphysical illusions,
it is a positive action because it destroys philosophical myths and
mistakes; but it does not finish the task because it does not raise a
scientific conception of philosophy.
Analytical philosophy continues this line since its elucidation of
concepts inside linguistic analysis makes a critical task, but it does
not give a status of science to the philosophy.
Experimental philosophy succeeds when it looks for a scientific
philosophy, but when it limits its method to experimentation, it is
being too restrictive without any need.
8) The aims of scientific philosophy.
The aims of scientific philosophy can be exposed as the following
three.
First, its basic aim is to defend the scientific vision of the
philosophy and that it must use the hypothetical-deductive method as
any other science.
A second aim is to theoretically develop the philosophy applying this
hypothetical-deductive method to show that it can make some advances,
not like what appends in the eternal repetition of approaches of
antiscientific philosophy, the speculative one.
Finally, as any other science, a scientific philosophy aim is to apply
in the practice its theoretical developments to show that the
scientific vision of the philosophy can not only build theories but
also use them usefully in the world.
9) How can I know more about scientific philosophy?
How can I help to its diffusion?
If you want to know more about scientific philosophy or if you believe
that it is correct and want to collaborate to its expansion, you can
join the following scientific philosophy talk group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scientific-philosophy/
www.scientific-philosophy.org - Scientific philosophy international
association - 2008 |
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