[lit-ideas] Re: Related issues/Understanding Why Newton Contributed To Human Knowledge With A False Theory
- From: "John McCreery" <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 12:12:30 +0900
On Dec 6, 2007 4:09 AM, <wokshevs@xxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
> W1: Lots of wet, slushy snow on the driveway.
> W2: Walter's state of mind as he shovels the driveway
> W3: The correct use of the precise shovel Walter is abusing.
>
W3 seems wrong to me. I was expecting something like
"W3: A theory that accounts, in the best of all possible worlds, for
both W1 and W2 and why Walter is shoveling his driveway."
Further thoughts,
* A meteorologist might confine his attention to W1, reducing W2 (the
observations with which he is working) to data input into W3 (the theory
that turns data into explanations).
* A phenomenologist would focus his attention on W2, expanding W1 to include
what Walter says and does as he shovels. His W3 would be a theory that turns
observations of the snow and Walter's behavior into inferences about W2.
* Or, an anthropologist who had read Pierre Bourdieu's Logic of Practice
might be trying to do both, expanding W3 to account for both the material
circumstances and Walter's perception of them, to achieve the result
sketched above.
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
http://www.wordworks.jp/
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