Hilary Putnam on the Philosophy of Science: Section 1
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- Опубликовано: 2 окт 2024
- Bryan Magee talks with Hilary Putnam about the philosophy of science.
Section 1:
• Hilary Putnam on the P...
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• Hilary Putnam on the P...
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• Hilary Putnam on the P...
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• Hilary Putnam on the P...
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• Hilary Putnam on the P...
Why, I must say, this show is simply brilliant! Alas, seldom do we find modern television of this level of intellectual calibre in this modern age.
There is a rumor that, before they shot this interview, Hilary Putnam and Bryan Magee visited the nearby wax museum and, when they left, George Washington's wig was missing.
Lol! I heard a rumor that the wax museum statue of Harry Carey was separated from its trademark thick glasses on the very same date as McGee's visit. (See, e.g., the YT vid of McGee on Schopenhauer)
Not terribly relevant to the discussion, but (for anyone interested) the problem from Hilbert that Putnam mentions (which was Hilbert's sixth problem, not the third) may finally have a resolution, at least that is what is being proposed in Urs Schreiber's recent (and monstrous!) paper "Differential Cohomology in a Cohesive infinity-topos":
arxiv.org/abs/1310.7930
k. thx.
nice contribution to the comments section. Cheers
I really do mean it. I'm sick of having to read people's opinions on comment sections, we need more references to things and data. You're a good man, sir
***** Thank you kindly. :)
A good example on the philosophy of science or the foundation there of, is in the book titled: “Scientific Proof of Our Unalienable Rights.”
I can appreciate Putnam's quasi-empirical view of mathematics, as a replacement for the (long outdated) Kantian epistemology, which upholds 'a priori'. Einstein's theory of relativity was a fatal blow to the notion that our intuitive, axiomatic understanding of space (it's Eucledian form), reflects an absolute truth.
Philosophy is not some pseudophysics, which is what you seem to think. There's a difference between producing knowledge (the domain of science) and understanding (the domain of philosophy). The former is not a subject to interpretation, the latter is - there is no 1:1 mapping there. Example - read In Praise of Idleness by Bertrand Russell and try to formulate the arguments in purely scientific terms. You can't do it without a philosophical context.
R.I.P
مع السلامة يا عم هيلاري.
why can't they make videos like this now? great discussion
@ ogirv101
I agree that there's certainly a difficulty in obtaining empirical evidences for what occurred during the pre-Planck and during Planck era. It is theoretical indeed (so far, we may never know in the future ...), and yes it imposes some questions about the scientific and epistemic value of these theoretical works. I see your point. What value would you give to these theoretical works if they can't be scientific ?
Indeed, science always operates within a philosophical context (I would've been clearer had it not been for character limit), the fundamental error is (somehow vaguely put) the assumption that hard science demystifies things while philosophy mystifies them, which is wrong of course It's kind of sad so many scientists and mathematicians today have no clue about what philosophy even is, at least compared to some of the great minds of the past.
Many thanks flame 0430 for all your videos!!
i love these videos. thank you so much
Also, if you can look past the creepy setting: youtube.com / watch?v=5xpGUU7Tc10
@lourak I don't think Putnam was referring to incorporal entities such as the 'disembodied cosnciousness', but of some high-level psychophisiological elements (memory, association, expectation) which do affect vision. Maybe it's not correct speaking of the 'eye' in a strict sense, but of the so-called 'theory-laden character' of observation (a massive topic in philosophy of science and epistemology).
Where could I find the whole text of the interview?
the joke the guy made did not seem funny to me.
@alexnewby Not really. Putnam is a pragmatist. He thinks the concept of "Truth" can be replaced by "warrant or "justification." Therefore I would not call him a realist. However, unlike Richard Rorty, he does not thing that justification can be considered culturally relative. The postmodernists tend to say that it is, in my view.
@ricomajestic
We use reason and logic from are senses alone via science. In philosophy we use reason and logic outside of are 5 senses but not in science!
Magee is such gangster. He so simple and concise in his classifications. Doesn't have to say much to communicate profoundly.
I wish they would teach this to kids in primary school so I don't have to go on repeating it to shocked audiences wherever I go.
I have always put the breaking point with Russel, Whitehead and the Principia Mathematica though, minor point.
How many stars can I give?
@Redshift313 Well if a paradigm does explain the origin of the universe....could you share this with me because i was not aware science had come to know how the universe came into being? also there is a thing called a Paradigm shift... So not even the paradigm it self is safe from change and correction.
I really can not believe you think science has the answer to how the universe got here? ..are you for real?
@philsci1 David Hume said... "There is No such thing as the Supernatural... there is only the Natural World and Human Ignorance trying to explain it".
Example; look at Lighting... earlier in Human understanding... we attributed Lighting to Zeus. That explanation offered a lot but provided little... much like Religion... offers everything but provides nothing.
Science can explain both HOW Lighting occurs and How the Universe got here... without the need for the Supernatural.
@aaronstately Science HAS provided a working Paradigm... that is in use now and until someone comes up with a better one. To think that Science has NOT provided the How Paradigm... is ignorant of Human Epistemic Knowledge.
The problem is, all we experience is reality but how true you stay within that experience determines your validity. Making shit up and assuming it's true without anything that shows it conforms to our reality is taking things to a place that is not valid. It might have practical uses but just because something is practical does not mean it conforms to reality. If it doesn't conform to reality it can also be used to harm others. Which is what religion does.
more such extraordinary scenarios would at least make methodological supernaturalism the first choice methodology in Science (further one can argue that many such extraordinary violations could be seen as corroborating the existence of some sort of Creator - existing from eternity - in such a way that we can even talk of a provisional truth; of course, as anyone minimally accustomed with Philosophy knows well, defining knowledge does not require epistemic certainty).
Further, these messages invite us to ask it questions, including problems that can be shown mathematically to require for their solution far more computational resources than are, according to our best estimates, available in the universe. We then receive verifiable answers to these questions in ten minutes". This scenario does not corroborate clearly the God hypothesis (if confirmed) but it is enough extraordinary to put methodological supernaturalism on a par with methodological naturalism;
In spite of those who see an 'agnostic' (in the strong sense) science God is at least indirectly confirmable via his actions in Nature, providing extraordinary, objective, evidence of course. Now it is indeed hard to make a clear difference between genuine supernatural interventions and (still) unknown natural causes when strong violations of the known laws of physics are observed (although I am not so sure that this demarcation is impossible).
@WILLTHEWGMAN Materialism (more generally physicalism) is at the basis of some atheist worldviews not science. Science still has at the basis methodological naturalism (and a weak form of realism but rather heuristically) and it is fully open to supernaturalism, idealism and so on provided extraordinary evidence of course. As for free-will science do not really deny it at this time. Still there are good reasons to believe that it is at least severely restricted.
@WILLTHEWGMAN There may be some dogmatics who blindly believe in scientism no doubt but this does not make your argument less of a strawman. Actually good science always involve a healthy dose of fallibilism (unlike religions), including a recognition that there are some fundamental philosophical assumtions at its basis. On the other hand however science, fallible as it is, proved nonetheless to be so far our best 'tool' to make sense of facts...not intuition or metaphysics...
What we need is a philosophy of the psychology of science and scientists. Philosophy is not enough. Why do we believe what we believe? How do we come to suppose scientific results are infallible? or that the way scientists perceive the world is the best way to perceive the world? Inertial Capacity (IC) = 4Pi Area / c-squared, where IC is mass, area is power, and c is the perimeter length of any plane geometrical figure.
@suddenlyitsobvious "true obsession with me"
I'm sure you'd very much like that to be the case. Unfortunately for you the answer is considerably more simple. I googled your argument to see if you were copying and pasting them, a standard practice considering that creationists rarely use their own material. And it turned up this page, where you're spewing the same tripe you are on another page. Are you being paid to peddle snake oil?
@suddenlyitsobvious "Today people have 1 chance in 2 to die of cancer"
According to the WHO cancer was responsible for 13% of deaths in 2007. Not to mention that the older you get the greater your chance for cancer, those telomeres tend to wear out after a lifetime of replication.
"I would LOVE to live in an Amish type society"
Then go for it, though even they generally make use of modern medicine these days.
Established ideas in science are always subject to questioning. The very fact that some scientific ideas are eventually disproven shows that science is a process open to correction and having a basis in objectivity.
Science is quite hierarchical, just like all of our other institutions. Science is not perfectly objective. But apparently, you know nothing about science and are considerably out of touch with reality. That's enough.
@ogirv101
Logic and reason can give us a deductive (not inductive) explanations (perhaps) and hypotheses (certainly).
Sadly, I'd rather say, everyone is better off saying he does'nt know, or he must go back to an epistemological debate. The hypotheses of God as creator can be made, but it is not convincing. To make an hypothese is not the prove an hypothese. Which God, or gods or what force ? Of which know or unknown religion, or what kind of force ? With imagination speculation is easy.
@ogirv101
I can't be certain if you're wrong. But I'd doubt that the demarcation problem has anything to do with the setting of physical laws during Planck era or post-Planck era. As you say, technically, the studies of pre-Planck era and Planck-era belongs to physics. Are'nt they trying in quantum physics and in string theory to figure out what might happened in the Planck era ? Do you consider them to be pseudo-sciences ?
Religious explanations such as : Earthquakes, storms, famines and other disasters were and are by some explained as manifestations of God or gods wrath.
Sciences provide alternative explanations to disasters. Instead of being explained by the wrath of God or gods, disasters are explained by the mouvement of tectonic plates, cold and warms masses of air, bad agricultural technics, etc.
no. here he is critizising the idea of the man of science as a person who just has to put up together all of the pieces of a puzzle (considering him as already having all of the pieces or at least being able of getting all of the pieces of knowledge)
Hes a pragmatist and thinks more of mistakes as singular ideas not being by open(explicit or implicitly) consent compatible with current world views
yet plausible to other views even in future (or past) science
object is distinct from the concept of object so that thinking through the latter doesn't entail the existence of the former. even if there is no conceptual activity on the part of a thinker, you may very well reason that objects can still exist. you don't have to believe that once you die, everyone, every material object ceases to exist. that is the moral we ought to learn from the most naive form of idealism.
Glad you enjoy them!
Yet one can much more easily conceive situations when methodological supernaturalism could become the first choice methodology in Science. For example Dembsky "asks us to suppose that astronomers discover a pulsar billions of light years from earth, the pulses of which signal English messages in Morse code.
@suddenlyitsobvious Yes, the conceptual foundations of science may pose philosophical problems. So do many things, like induction or the idea that the outside world exists. But do you believe that the sun will rise tomorrow, or not? Science does not yet give a satisfactory answer to all questions, but what do you have that does?
@suddenlyitsobvious: The succes of science has nothing to do with its pervasiness in society but is rather explanatory and predictive succes. This cannot 'just as easily signify that foundational errors are being justifed with more errors'. Quite the contrary, the succes of science clearly shows that the foundations on which science lies are the right ones.
@ ogirv101
How am I generalizing ? I don't know that nature comes after the creation of the universe. The creation of the universe itself is a natural phenomenon. Then the religious statement "God created the universe" (let alone the earth, light, living creatures, Adam, Eve etc.), is also, I'd say, a religious explanation of a natural phenomenon.
@ ogirv101
A statement such as "God created the universe and the earth", is it a religious or a superstitious statement ? Is it or not a statement about both the nature of God and nature itself ? Is it or not a religious explanation of natural phenomenons (the existence of the earth and the creation of the universe) ?
@ ogirv101
Considering the previous definition of religion, imagine person who believes he has to sacrefice a goat or has to pray to please the gods which will in return improve his crops. Would you not say that his understanding of agriculture, his explanation of the possible improvement of his crops rely on religious believes ?
idealism is a quite bad doctrine if it simply equates thoughts with reality. if you are looking at a coffee cup and say "there is a coffee cup over there", you certainly don't mean by that " the thought that there is a coffee cup over there occurs to me". for certainly that thought can occur without the presence of coffee cup.( in dream or hallucination for example)
The progressive inductive method,in the right logical direction,will became,in the end a deductive one.Quantum an Relativity Theory are simply distortion in the history of science.I agree Kantian method of a-priori category is right,but you can not add or substract this a-priori,you truly reach in the end the last a-priori axiomatic basis,a unified physiscs.
@philsci1 I don't think metaphysics exists for the same purpose as science. Science only looks at the factical. I think I'm using the right word here, but I'm not sure. I'm curious to hear your opinion on the reasons for metaphysics in comparison to the sciences.
@mrprytania LOL...hey the two can exist happily together. After all most if not all great theory is born through observation of living beings,other than ourselves(the world is a living organism).
Hopefully you get a kick out of the Monty Python Philosopher football...now that is humorous.
@suddenlyitsobvious You seem to think that i both worship, and keep company with people who do worship the mythical being known as "satan". I believe in no supernatural entities, Satan is no more real than the tooth fairy, Zeus, or the God christians so fervently believe in.
606JJ The coordination of science and religion with the truth of reality - the COSAR Principle - A Revelatory Proposition is detailed in Up Close and Personal with The Urantia Book - Expanded Edition. Hilary will appreciate this work. Those that are thirsty for truth will want to explore further
@aaronstately A Scientific Theory IS the explanation... a Paradigm the working model.
The Paradigm implies an explanation or at least a cause.
"god" as you call it has created us and everything around us altough we have shaped some of it, as its " gods "scence that is my veiw but god cannot control us he wonts us to feel good but he cannot help us we are his senceis srry abouty the spelling
Sir, in your introduction, you have glaringly omitted the most important fundamental concept in all of Plato's Republic, and that is "Hey you stupid son of a bitch, I NEVER called your house!!!"
@ ogirv101
Nature started existing when the fundamental forces split. Ok, but then, what science does study what happenned "before" or during the Plank-era ? Is'nt in the domain of physics ?
@ ogirv101
Why would nature begin after the Plank-era ? If it can't be natural how would you call a physical (to not say natural) and deterministic phenomenon occurring "before" or during the Plank-era ?
Would you agree that scientific explanations renders religious explanations obsolete ? And that it may cause a person to abandon religious explanations, thus a decline of religious belief ?
Fascinating to see "late Putnam" basically repudiating the scientistic, realist outlook he started out with in the 1970s. By the 1980s he was pretty much a pragmatist in the bloodline of William James.
@ogirv101
And what would explain phenomenon occurring during and "before" the Planck era if not science ?
Philosophy gives birth to all scientific discovery. Science is the practise/activity that arises out of theoretical/ logical thinking.
Science is philosophy in action.
(continued) Search for Libet's experiments and other subsequent research (for ex. search in Google 'eurekalert Unconscious decisions in the brain').
Indeed. Don 't forget he was a Labour MP and SDP candidate. A connection perhaps? By the way, Magee was known as Mr. Magoo by certain philosphers.
i find funny that he mentions russell and wittgenstein yet he ommits poor frege... the most profound math philosopher of the last century
lol i have often heard about putnam, but never seen the guy - lol -his looks are great - he wins the award here for the best Kant lookalike
if cognition is language, then we can't attribute cognition to any organisms who don't possess language. that is a very bold claim.
@mrprytania There are plenty of educational videos here. Berkeley, Yale and other universities actually post lectures here.
as ever what holds them back is mathamatics how can anyone understand the ununderstandable if he is trying to make it fit
@ ogirv101
I'm not quite sure why you keep saying that I commit a composition fallacy. I don't think that all religious statements are about natural phenomenons. But there's lot of religious statements about natural phenomenons. Such as the exemple I gave which rely on and implies a certain conception about the nature of God or gods. It is not only superstitious ; you can't think a sacrefice will please a god if you don't have a conception of the nature of god.
we all come for a great place i do not believe we will go there but we come from there i know live is what you make it
and further he says "Kant was no idealist"...? Well I thought the transcendental idealism was his lifework
Proof that Putnam's not human: 8:39
@Redshift313 A paradigm is very different from that of a working explanation.
Maybe a more appropriate way to think about it, is to call philosophy the un-dead, the un-life :P
@jerryhello100
Immanuel Kant was German, and his name is supposed to be pronounced as Putnam did.
oh here we go... first topic you have to talk about religion don't you?
I think that is profoundly mistaken. What do you take philosophy to be, exactly?
Of course I mean as speakers or expositors if you will and not as philosophers.
Putnam errs @ 4:23. It was in fact Oliver Heavisides who cleaned up Maxwell.
philosophy took a wrong turn when it became mathmatical instead of mystical
I was hoping they'd mention some thomas kuhn
Kuhn is more a historian of science than a philosopher of science.
pedants notwithstanding I still would have liked to hear some Thomas Kuhn and the nature of paradigm shifts etc
Philosophy used to be useful, but now is just a bunch of dribble.
That you are assigning attributes to a synonym for "nothing".
man cannot think the thrut into existance it is already here
Tiesiog atgaiva protui. Trumpa diskusija apie mokslo koncepciją bei filosofinę jo pusę.
@ogirv101
Yourself did a naturalistic description of a singularity in the Planck era, is'nt ? Obtained by a scientific method, is'nt ? Yourself said that the study of Planck era belong technically to physics, right ? Why would it technically belongs to physics IF Planck era cannot be studied scientifically ?
I'm still not convinced by the relevancy of the distinction of Planck and post-Planck as an element of demarcation. Beside, you're the first to make such a demarcation, as far as I know.
初めてパトナムの顔みた
its first time i see putnum himself
he looks like a english man not american
It's strange, because Quine is a brilliant writer, especially considering the often dry nature of his subject matter. Maybe he was a better writer than a speaker.
I don't think this is Quine lol
@frank47hammer ignorance is bliss..... unfortunately.
@ 8:40 he stopped himself from yawning
I think Putnam is just being sectarian.
Yes, Magee is the man. And Ayer I might add is exceptional. And Putnam and Searle (why not?), but what's the matter with Quine?
distortion in the history of science.
Philosophy tends to make issues and their nature so much clearer, its a surprise more people aren't pulled towards the study.
Did Putnam ever write about Marxism?
@n080di whatever it was , he's funny
@278augustin and?
bruce lee is a philosopher :D
absolute intelligence = excellent
superrational reasoning = excellent
metafyzikal evidence = excellent
I think your ratio of excellent terms to total words is just too much bro. My mind can only take so much superrational reasoning before the metafyzikal foundations crumble...
The a priori is dead
he doesn't blink!