[lit-ideas] Re: Philosophical points
- From: Eric Dean <ecdean99@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 21:28:02 +0000
Phil Enns writes, in response to Robert Paul:
"I probably have not been as charitable as I should be. So let me try again:
If 'All men are mortal' means nothing more than 'every man will someday die'
then the sentence strikes me as being fundamental for some parts of the
actuarial sciences, ergo it has at least one context where it is scientific."
(a) The sentence can certainly mean much more than 'every man will someday
die', but it *does* also mean (or at least entail) that every man will someday
die.
(b) As an assertion an actuary might make, 'every man will someday die' is a
statistical proposition -- something like this: "The rates of return will be
better, all things being equal, for investments made on the assumption that
every man will someday die than they will be on a contrary assumption."
Actually, I suspect it'd be something more like: "there is a number n such that
for any given sample of men, all of them will have died before they reach the
age of n years."
This is pointedly *not* the sense in which Quine and Popper were using the
sentence. Moreover, the actuary's assertion is clearly falsifiable -- if it is
false, then there will be an investment on a contrary assumption that has a
better rate of return than a comparable investment on the mortality assumption,
and that return will be achieved in a finite amount of time after the
investment is made, so if the assertion is false, then the search for
falsifying evidence will be completed in a finite amount of time. Similarly,
if someone can live longer than n years, then if a particular sample is going
to falsify the assertion, we'll know it in at most n+1 years.
Not so the apodictic (i.e. non-statistical) sense in which Quine and Popper
were using the sentence -- to find out if some man *is* immortal, you have to
wait around an infinite amount of time.
Quine & Popper, if I understand their position right, think that things which
could only be proved false at the end of eternity don't qualify as scientific
hypotheses.
Personally, I'm not sure whether or not I think all legitimate scientific
hypotheses must be falsifiable in that strong sense, but I can understand the
caution behind asserting that they do. I am also very comfortable with the
idea that disciplines labeled as 'science' are not the only sources of insight
worth the bother.
Moreover, I am put off by Quine's rhetorical coyness in using this sentence to
make his point. There's a sort of sanctimonious, in-crowd-pleasing arrogance
in using this obvious truth to demonstrate that not every obvious truth is a
legitimate scientific hypothesis. I see Quine, in my mind's eye, winking over
his shoulder at his pals in the special reserved seats behind him on the stage,
while he lectures us rubes, freshman in his elements of logic course. "Watch
this", I can imagine him whispering, "they fall for it every time."
But just because Quine stoops to such manipulative rhetoric doesn't mean the
point is wrong. On the other hand, just because the point is right doesn't
seem to me to have much force either. As I said earlier on this thread, if
such an obvious truth is not a scientific truth, so much the worse for
science's ability to contribute to understanding the human condition. In other
words, it seems to me that accepting Quine's point allows one to see that it
actually backfires by reducing rather than enhancing the worth of science.
That amuses me much more than thinking Quine just blew a basic bit of logical
manipulation.
Regards to one and all,
Eric Dean
Washington DC
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