BadgerJelly » January 11th, 2017, 5:59 am wrote:..Dandelin is confusing science with scientists. Or measuring stuff with thinking about how things relate beyond an abstract string of numbers, what those numbers mean in themselves, what questions are appropriately framed and such. But now it sounds more like what people call "philosophy"...
Returning to this, Badger, sorry if that was confusing, there was discussion in the thread highlighting differences between areas of sciences and humanities in modern history, extending beyond tertiary education and into civilisation, and thought quick counters might include instances of individuals versed in more than one field. This could include individuals I’ve mentioned in the thread, such as both famed philosophers, Husserl and Putnam, who also studied maths, as well as the video link which talks of the authors of great scientific advance also well versed in philosophy. Just also from my posts are more individuals, such as Whewell as both polymath and philosopher, Darwin who studied theology, and Rovelli, as discussed in the linked thread has credentials in science and philosophy, an author and to take a quote from a review from the recently launched Institute of Cross-Disciplinary Engagement, a physicist-poet
http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2017/0 ... we-can-see . (Another mentioned person was Coleridge, of more philosophical and poetic or artistic fields). Emphasised division may encourage possible dismissal of critique rather than assist possible mutual benefit from interactive critique.
Perhaps, instead of a notion of a clear distinction between sciences and humanities, these might be better considered as closer, as areas of inquiry, differing from fields that don’t involve questions so much, like some religion. I think the confusion referred to could have also been my instancing of individuals in fields described. I saw individuals suggesting differences from science in Rovelli’s discussion, in scientist and communicator, Attenborough, and have seen this in another individual scientist first mentioned in the thread by others, Higgs (A Guardian article paraphrasing translation of a Spanish article in which Higgs speaks of differences between science and dogma
http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2012/12/2 ... 11441.html . I think that accounts for all the famous people I’ve mentioned). Such sorts of differences from dogma may emphasise similarities in fields of inquiry.
And regarding variation within areas of questioning, historically, encyclopaedic lists of fields of inquiry have included such fields as maths, sciences, theology, philosophy, etc.. In considering variation within these fields, (I like that you made a new thread considering this, I've thought about it but hadn't posted in it yet), but think rather than just possibly compounding some more recent, more divisive notions, it might be helpful to reappraise this more fully, possibly including alternatives such as revisiting further back into ancient historical notions, like Greek and Roman. For a start, a brief wiki account about liberal arts,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts_education , here, has an earlier notion of curricula, or course, ‘Rooted in the basic curriculum’ the enkyklios paideia, encyclopaedia, ‘or "education in a circle"’’, such notions may have differing areas blurring and complementing each other, this possibly permeating various levels of complexity, without clear separation. Eco also wrote of the age this notion was at a prime. From the section entitled “Modern usage”, “Some subsections of the liberal arts are in the trivium—the verbal arts: grammar, logic, and rhetoric; and in the quadrivium—the numerical arts: arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. Analysing and interpreting information is also included.” A recent example of such interdiscipline given is, “In 2012, University College London began its interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences BASc degree (which has kinship with the liberal arts model) with 80 students.”
(I find this paragraph hard to write because it is repetitive, but the repetition is sort of reflective or recursive). Questioning and unravelling such fields and accomodating possibly more cohesive, correlated reinterpretations of such fields might also illuminate some notions of scientific methodology. A thorough example of methodology, which could be in keeping with notions of revisiting fields of inquiry, might involve, (borrowing a lot from notions linked)- processes of questioning, more than just questioning or testing empirical data, more testing theories, and possibly interpreting or observing correlational possibilities in such ways as better cohering with more interpretations or observations of possibilities. Networks of theories all interpreted in ways strongly cohering internally, as well as externally with each other, may also strongly cohere better also with ontic physical causation, as generally may be the case, or there may be other options, but questioning and possible interpretations may be involved with simpler through to more complex parts. (An alternative rough, superficial example of this thorough coherence applied to a different methodological stance might be something like applying it to a certain stance that all theories from the start must be predictively testable, which to cohere with cohesion, could give something like the notion that such a view of methodology itself must certainly from the start also be predictively testable for all theories.)
https://www.edge.org/conversation/carlo ... of-physics