[lit-ideas] Re: Reductive vs. Reductionist
- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2013 15:44:28 -0800 (PST)
I understand that the idea that came to be known as "Occam's razor" isn't found
in exactly this form in Occam's extant writings, but it may be that he said or
wrote things that aren't preserved today. However, Occam's razor (as commonly
understood) doesn't mean that "only one level of explanation [say physics] is
necessary". It means that, when an explanation suffices it suffices, and there
is no need to explain further. If it doesn't suffice, it doesn't suffice, even
if there is several levels of explanation.
O.K.
________________________________
From: "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, March 7, 2013 10:41 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Reductive vs. Reductionist
In a message dated 3/7/2013 4:17:00 P.M. UTC-02, donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx
refers to the idea of a UNIFIED SCIENCE, as when Grice speaks of 'the
scientist', as
"wrongheaded, both as understanding of the natural sciences and of Occam.
For the issue is:- what levels of explanation are "beyond necessity"? Where,
for example, does Occam say only one level of explanation [say physics] is
necessary? Anyone who studies this carefully will see that Occam's Razor
cannot shave off any level of explanation required by reality: so if, in
reality, there are aspects of biology that are irreducible to chemistry and
aspects of chemistry that are irreducible to phyics [or, outside the natural
sciences, if there are aspects of mathematics that are irreducible to
logic] then these irreducible differences ground divisions of subject matter
that are necessary."
Point taken. The fact that he wrote in Latin, when he wasn't a Roman didn't
help. His first language was English, as he was from Ockham, in Surrey.
----
Alas, philosophers (such as Quine, whose PhD was not in philosophy) thinks
that Occam's razor mostly shaves Plato's beards.
--- And Schiffer, trying to be funny (and succeeding) promoted his
"Schiffer's After-Shave".
McEvoy:
"To say "Yes, PHYSICALISM -- a good thing. I don't think chemists know who
they are. I think they are closet physicians." is inadequate. But if you
want to claim everything is reducible to physics ["Yes, PHYSICALISM"], the
place to start isn't perhaps chemistry but something like the order of the
notes in The Magic Flute or the amount of the current trade deficit, and you
should be ready with your testable theory of physics that explains these
things."
Well, surely there is a physical side to Mozart's notes -- not to
Beethoven's, since he was, by nature, deaf --. Aesthetic response, in terms of
pleasure, may be reduced to some reaction in the brain. Most of these things
are
involuntary. E.g. Verdi couldn't stand the music (or notes) by Wagner:
"too loud" -- and would run away from them. Wagner displeased Verdi. There is
a physical consequence to this: he left the theatres when Wagner's music
was being played (The opposite of 'pleasure' is 'pain', which also has a
physical effect, in Wagner's case provoked, in Verdi, by the overuse or abuse
of the percussion group in the Wagnerian orchestra. Maggee possibly wrote on
that. Recall that for the Ancient Greeks, Stoics, etc., 'hedone' and
'lupe' (pleasure and pain) were indeed behavioural, physical, responses.
----
McEvoy:
"If your claim doesn't stretch that far, you are conceding there is more
to be explained than can be explained by physics. If your claim stretches
that far but you have no science to back it up, then you are less than a
closet physician or even a closet philosopher. Without testable science or a
valid philosophical argument in support, the rest is handwaving and
back-of-an-envelope pontificating."
Well, for that matter,
"Shut the door!" or "Don't tell lies!" -- i.e. the realm of morality that
Witters only SHOWED but shut his mouth about, apply as well. A volitionist
(like Grice) will want to reduce a moral imperative ("Do not lie!") to a
hypothetical maxim that has a guaranteed universalizability -- and the only
way morality, such as it is, touches on reality, is by providing some
physical realm where it applies. Or not.
-----
Mind, that 'physicalism' has become a bad word only in the modern
languages. In Greek, "PHYSIS" was almost a sacred thing, that the Romans,
aptly,
translated (if that's the word) as "NATURA". So it's a philosophical
naturalism which is at sake -- rather than a primitive physicalism as such.
Etc.
Cheers,
Speranza
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