Dec 22 2009
Our Faith in Scientists
It seems that scientists may finally be violating the public’s trust in their objectivity. In a Washington Post-ABC poll (questions 30-32), respondents report a declining receptivity to what scientists have to say about the environment. Of course, the prestige of science (or, environmental science at least) was bound to take a hit after the revelations of gross and unethical behaviour at the University of East Anglia. This is a good thing, as science is a discipline built on skeptical empiricism, and the political push for a universal, dogmatic consensus on anthropogenic global warming is quite unscientific.
(CC) 2010
Make sure not to confuse scientific skepticism with philosophical skepticism, or scientific empiricism with philosophical empiricism. Science has always been happy to embrace theories that are sound, according to their criteria. The ascendency of science was based on the consensus of these criteria, while the unraveling of metaphysics was effected by the post-Reformation and post-religious-war devolution of consensus. The early modern period did not see the domination of metaphysics by physical science, so much as the inability to form consensus in the former, and the replicable, applicable successes of the latter. What happened was, as Strauss has noted, the dissociation of method in physical science and metaphysics. The strain on the Aristotelian, medieval mind was insufferable. But the method really must be different. I think many people really do see that today, now that theories like psychological behaviorism have run their course.
On a tangential point, also as Strauss noted, the question for political and philosophical inquiry is: can one maintain Aristotelian ethics and teleological analysis without Aristotelian natural science? The moderns having won the battle over science, can we employ a pre-modern approach to politics with metaphysical questions about “The Good”?
I say … possibly. I really think a lot of the difficulty with the beginning of modern philosophy was simply that there really were problems with medieval teleology and syllogistic reasoning, in some areas. Can Aristotle now be reapplied? Only where applicable.
Furthermore, as I indicated above, I think a decent amount of people today actually do accept that you might have to think about the physical world and morals/theology somewhat differently. That opens a space for non-Aristotelian physical science with some kind of a different method for discussions about “The Good,” in an abstract (though relevant) sense. Though, I think we’ve come to understand that this kind of discussion of natural law cannot take us quite as far, or with as much certainty, as people once thought/hoped.
So the question is what are those applicable areas? If reasoning teleologically in the physical sciences isn’t as effective as atomistic analysis, and the “givenness” of human nature recedes vanishingly as we gain the ability to manipulate the stuff of our physical embodiment (which also affects our spiritual/psychic conditions), what makes us think reasoning teleologically about social problems is more effective than scientific analysis of politics?
Don’t we become masters of the natural law after we’ve mastered nature’s laws?
These questions always seem to be muddled by words like “nature,” which have a long history in the debate, but have been used a plethora of ways.
The physical/metaphysical distinction does not always work with our use of “nature,” even though Nature is our translation of “physis.” Variously, human nature might have something to do with our limitations, our animalistic tendencies, our spiritual propinquity, “what separates us from the animals,” or some idea of perfection.
I am not so sure perfection is all that defendable in theoretical, metaphysical reasoning. Rather, I think ascension and perfection in Aristotelian philosophy have more today with how Aristotle organized everything (i.e. teleology). But his analysis of the Good talks explicitly about “flourishing,” and this is the tack I would like to continue to take. Rather than the flavor or Aristotle’s whole system of thought (ascension, gradation, perfection), it seems more plausible to talk about flourishing. In this concept we can incorporate our increased understandings of psychology and sociology, as well as the “virtue” we are stuck with.
Teleology and eudaimonia are not inseparable, you say? I am talking more about the argument that flows from each, and whether it is plausible in the common understanding of discourse. “The point (or end) of A is B” is hard to defend. However, it is easier to talk about whether possible uses of A result, in the long term, in something ike a wholistic flourishing. This flourishing might be a higher state of consciousness, awareness, perception – and in that sense we are able to order relative goods. However, the logic will never work out that we can make as strong a statement as “the end of A is B” – strong enough to proscribe a use like a Christian might want to. The best we have is the vague recognition of a desirable life, and how uses relate to that. That is the reference in natural law discourse, which is the applicable area for non-naturalistic reasoning about “the Good.”
There will always be disagreements between those who see goodness immediately before them, and those patient enough to weed out the things with bad long-term consequences. A Christian’s quarrell with the world, and with his own sinful nature, is generally in the former, but the latter will be open to non-scientific notions of “the Good” because they see these concepts as necessary.