The Ontological Tyranny

That’s a really exacting question; I’ll be sure to look over my notes before giving you a response.

The feminists went into the study trying to develop a theory that did a better job in accounting for observed phenomena. If we can agree that their resultant conclusion was the better of the two, then we needn’t occupy ourselves with the last three of your questions.

I think neutrality is unattainable. Nelson goes slightly further than I, though I believe we’re “on the same page”, so to speak.

Duly noted.

I agree in that we can’t just “choose”; the issue is far subtler: the scientific discourse operates within certain boundaries, and under certain restrictions. These restrictions work to legitimate that kind of knowledge scientific research produces, while negating or “refusing entry” to the rest. These restrictions are intrinsic to the discourse: they consist of the “rules” of science, as you’ve said: who can produce knowledge, under what conditions, through what process, after how much verification, in what context, for what purpose, etc.

I think, generally speaking, rules rooted in the ontological tyranny are currently considered essential to proper inquiry. These can be changed, and I think they must be changed, as I’ve said. In short: the discourse needs to be allowed to grow and change.

I know I’m being vague, but that’s not what I’m suggesting: this is a topic that currently interests me, one that I’m currently working through an understanding and conceptualization of. My stance isn’t concrete. However, I am suggesting that science understands itself, and so allows itself to be reproduced, in a certain way: this understanding seems to me to be rooted in the tyranny of ontology. It is this understanding of itself that provides a framework for the scientific discourse as well as, in turn, the restrictions that constitute such a discourse. To overcome this understanding is to alter the discourse and so change the rules of legitimation: it is to change the way science is allowed to be done, the way knowledge is allowed to be produced.

Without-Music, have you read Paul Feyerabend? Nancy Cartwright? Seems like they would interest you.

I have not. Can you suggest a particular work to begin with? I appreciate the recommendation, though.

I haven’t read Cartwright at all - I’ve only had some online contact with her ideas (not personally - just, you know, Wikipedia etc.) I’ve read some Feyerabend, but not much. I had a book called Farewell to Reason for a while, and read an essay or two from it. I think he’s most famous for Against Method though.

Wiki on Feyerabend’s philosophy of science

Wiki on Nancy Cartwright

I’m sure I’ve read some stuff of Cartwright’s (I think from How The Laws of Physics Lie) but I don’t know where. If you try, you might dig something up online.

EDIT: Here’s an online version of How The Laws of Physics Lie

The handling of data is critical to any experiment. We have assumed that the data is collected and processed in a neutral manner. That implies that data which supports or contradicts a theory is accepted and rejected on a fair and equal basis. That is or should be the goal of the ontological tyranny. If a value-laden method is embraced, does it not become legitimate to include more supporting data and exclude more contradictory data? Once the paper is written no one has access to the raw data. How can we decide if the resultant conclusion was better? We decide based on our own values - we side with the sexist male study or the feminist study. I don’t think science like that should be encouraged. We need to move as far away from that as possible.

This is a question that passionates philosophers, most scientists would tend to dismiss it as irrelevant.
Ultimately Realism rests on the principle of economy in science, I guess that many scientists don’t really believe in the (divine) Really Real - as Only_Humean said.
Working on competing metaphysics (because that is what it is) could be valued by scientists only in terms of how much power that could wield to new theories - although they might have more personal leanings for one metaphysics or the other.
Anyway I guess I am with you on this, philosophically ontological tyranny is over. But with one remark: it is rejected for the same platonic reasons and/or for the same principle of economy that led to it. There are over-assumptions in Realism, and they might be not “true” (and not necessary). And this is the same attitude discussed in GS 344 - that I guess you know very well.

Just wanted to highlight what I bolded above - all we ever have is what is scientifically verified NOW. The set of knowledge/beliefs 1) may be modified, in fact is very likely to be modified, even with some things being later dismissed 2) is what we have achieved SO FAR. A lot of people, even sadly scientists, act as if we have some rather large % of what can possibly be known already known. So ideas that do not seem to fit with the known, even if they do not contradict current research, are often dismissed out of hand. Present scientific knowledge - this set - is limited by technology, intereste, funding, biases - paradignmatic or other - and no doubt other factors. But when ideas are raised outside accepted science but not contradicting accepted scientific knowledge there is a strong knne jerk reaction - often backed up by ‘rationality’ for why these ideas are incredibly unlikely at best. This is not supported by scientific methodology or epistemology yet is endemic.

I think it also needs to be pointed out that all of us use non-scientific methodologies to navigate the world, including obviously the most concrete decision-making. In out social lives, political life, work lives and so on. Even, as I pointed out earlier, it is taken for granted in scientific inquiry itself that there are other modes of coming at knowledge - though there is a in practice distrust of these despite their consistent use.

Anyone who would not believe something unless science verified it would not survive very long.

I have assumed no such thing. I think values enter into all parts of the scientific process. I will enumerate when I have time, later.

What is problematical is not only that our theories of the universe, of space and time, of causation, or of evolution are merely our interpretations of reality, but also that the self of the scientist, from the scientist’s point of view, is itself a product of the putting together, in the mind of the scientist, of various sensations or memories through his thought. In that sense, the self or the subject who does the scientific study, and who is normally taken for granted, is himself an `interpretation’.

Yes, my concern with this thread lies more with the philosophers of science, rather than the scientists themselves. And, thank you for mentioning GS 344: obviously, I had it in mind when I started the thread.

A provocative concept, no doubt. However, to engage it at this point, I think we’d be stretching the topic a little far. I appreciate the input, regardless.

What a great discussion. Without-music, I would like to respond to this question. I hope I will not disturb the careful logic your discourse.

phyllo, when we use the phrase “gathering data” there is already a bias, a perspective taken for granted. The assumption is that the data-gathering is an objective procedure. But scientists know this to be untrue; All scientific data is gathered with a certain intention. Otherwise it is not useful data. Intention is subjective, the subject is biased. The bias determines what is useful - and the word useful here suggests the question “useful to what?” Well, to progress of course. “Progress of what?” Of knowledge! “Of which knowledge?” Of the type to which this data is pertinent!" There is no way out of this loop, science is self-evident to itself. Philosophy has an entirely different angle, a different bias - it can look at science as a mere technique without any relation to meaning, reality or truth.

When one wants to study the behavior of nylon molecules under high tension, one does not wander into the supermarket, aimlessly gather some random items, and wander out to look what may be applicable to the status quo on the laboratory-table. This would be relatively unbiased data-gathering. On the other hand, to collect different items made out of nylon and to start stretching these items is extremely biased. It makes sense, but it is about as far from objectively real as possible. It makes sense precisely because it is through and through subjective, a an aspect of reality intentionally isolated, that such seemingly “hard facts” as science works with can come to be known, so that we can know the answer to the question does x equal y or not? Such questions are the root-substance of science, and the idea that in such questioning (is this that?) reality is addressed, is the scientific bias.

What does this bias produce? Electricity, engines, processors, a lot of useful things. But - useful to what? Here we fail to produce a scientific answer. We fail to do so because we are not even aware that such an answer could be asked scientifically. We are unaware of this because we think that science is unbiased, that it registers the objective truth. We think that our discoveries are simply results of the successful effort to understand the workings of the universe. But they depend solely on our bias of what is valuable, what is considered as “workings” - results of what it is that can be asked, and of in what way things can be asked.
Science operates from well-calculated bias - it knows what it wants to find out, it knows the context in which it is possible to find such out, and it knows how to create that context and how to isolate it from other intrusive elements of reality that do not support the context. In doing so, it determines how we view the world.

Incidentally, science has since a century discovered that its basic tenets, the either/or way of questioning, result in a problem. But the root of the problem has not been identified yet as the method of questioning. The contradictions of quantum-mechanics were implicit in scientific method all along, the questioning finally running into it’s own proposed limits, unable to understand beyond it, even though it perceives that something real does lie beyond it. It cannot however be accepted as real because it doesn’t fit the terms. There is no evil will involved, just a mind trapped inside its metaphysical circuitry, its language.
The coming decades could be very rewarding times for philosophy, as philosophers are the only ones who understand that all knowledge relies on grammar, especially in science, where grammar is called algebra.

Jakob: Your contributions are always appreciated. I’d like to add only the following. Phyllo, I think ‘the embrace’ constitutes an awareness as well as an acknowledgement. As Jakob has already done well to point out, the question that drives inquiry is always shaped by bias, and the evidence collected is framed and determined by the question. This is how bias initially enters inquiry, and how it is allowed to consistently shape the entire scientific process. To embrace the bias, then, is to make oneself aware of the limits being imposed on the question, to acknowledge the bias at the root of these limits, and to continue the process in light of such an acknowledgment. What this means, specifically, for a given inquiry will depend on that inquiry, its limits, and the bias shaping the question. The only real alternative a researcher has is to pretend his question isn’t shaped by bias, to pretend his inquiry isn’t framed in terms of the question, and to feign objectivity. In such a case, bias is rendered invisible and allowed to impose its limits subversively and unquestioningly. Consciousness of the limitations and restrictions of one’s inquiry, then, for me, marks a considerable shift away from the tyranny and toward something new altogether.

Science provides the best way to understand the world and are the best explanation as to how the physical world works. Being the best explanation doesn’t mean it is the only possible thing it could be however if there is another method you’re free to subscribe to it (there is by the way, its called belief and there are various religions based on beliefs you can buy into).

I don’t think scientists ought to be proclaiming absolute knowledge in any field they are discussing; often times this may get twisted to mean scientists think they know more than what they can actually know and buy into their own methodology as if it were a religion, but this is a false understanding of what science actually is. Please note some sources describing science below, key points in bold, declaring science as not how we scientific knowledge and understanding is an absolute.

What is science?

 Science [b]is the concerted human effort to understand[/b], or to understand better, the history of the natural world and how the natural world works, with observable physical evidence as the basis of that understanding1. It is done through observation of natural phenomena, and/or through experimentation that tries to simulate natural processes under controlled conditions. (There are, of course, more definitions of science.)

gly.uga.edu/railsback/1122sc … TISSCIENCE

sci·ence/ˈsīəns/Noun

  1. The intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.

google.com/search?source=ig& … 79&bih=762

Science is ongoing. Science is continually refining and expanding our knowledge of the universe, and as it does, it leads to new questions for future investigation. Science will never be “finished.”

undsci.berkeley.edu/article/whatisscience_01

Science does however, provides us with knowledge of the universe. It is important to understand what in science is knowledge and what is still being “refined” or can be refined. Technically, anything can be refined. If there is anything that can be tested to show any of the fundamental known facts of science now are wrong, we can go ahead and change that. Until then, there is no valid reason to think we don’t have knowledge on many things, through science.

Science (from Latin: scientia meaning “knowledge”) is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the world.

WW_III: Note, this thread isn’t about what science is, but rather, how science is done.

Yes well as I alluded to it some scientists don’t convey science correctly. We’re all human and I think we can see how they can easily get wrapped up in their undertakings and lose touch with what their method is, yes? But what is there to complain about? Do we see in the media how science and scientists are portrayed as providing absolutes? I do. Is that science? No that’s journalism. Science often gets a bum wrap due to this lack of understanding, because we often hear about scientific works not from reading scientific journals, but from the media who may read them and translate them.

Is there a problem with how science is done as to the proper method of science these days?

there is no need to defend science or the scientific method for understanding the nature of things…
many people do not understand what goes on wth science and are threatened by it…but they dont take the time to really learn about it…

Please elaborate.

The scientific method can be revised, how is it tyranny?

i still do not understand what your position is…
when and if i understand then i will elaborate on my statements…