@fresco,
fresco wrote:
Ken likes to play with Wittgenstein's concept of language games, one of which, as I recall was about the difference between "scientific language" and "ordinary language". W promoted "ordinary language" from the ranks in order to disperse" philosophical problems" which he claimed were pseudo-problems caused by philosophers using ordinary language in an idiosyncratic manner ("language of on holiday").
However, there is a macro level of analysis suggested by Kuhn (Structure of Scientific Revolutions) from which we can view Wittgenstein's concept of "language games" as relatively trivial sub-structures within overall paradigms. Such paradigms involve social communities working within a mutual network of interconnected consensual concepts and technological investment. It is at this level where the "philosopher of science" becomes "the general philosopher" (i.e. the commentator on all concepts not just scientific ones), but he can only do so if he has a detailed knowledge of the nature of "paradigm shifts". Such knowledge involves an appreciation of mathematical models, whose symmetry and elegance far exceeds the simplistic "Occam's Razor principle" relied on hitherto. It also involves a knowledge of the politics, economics and ethical aspects of "research" which affect the direction and speed of paradigm shifts. (i.e. the sociology of knowledge).
Scientists are pursuing "what works" and that involves negotiation and consensus. The pursuit of "truth" belongs only in the realm of religion.
I would have thought that what works, works because it is true. Why else would what works, work? In any case, to say that something or other works is to say that it is true that it works, and that does not mean that it works that it works. So, even if you have this view that truth is "what works" you still are confronted with the fact that if something works it is true that it works. The upshot is that you cannot replace the concept of truth with that of "what works" , since you are still faced with the fact, that what you mean by saying that X works is that it is true that X works.
Of course, I am assuming through all of this that anyone has a clear idea of what it means to say that something works, which no one does. However, it someone did have some clear idea of what it meant to say of some theory or belief that "it works" (which no one does) such a person would have to know that the
truth-conditions are of the statement that X works. That is to say, to know what it means to say that X works, we would have to know under what conditions it would be true that X works, and under what conditions it would be false that X works. So, as I have already pointed out, the notion of working supposes an understanding of the notion of truth, and therefore the notion of truth cannot be explicated by the notion of working, and (even more) cannot be reduced to the notion of working.
Of course, to believe that science does not tell us that it is true, for instance, that Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, or that the elementary components of water are hydrogen and oxygen, is simply wrong. You might mean (but who can tell?) that although science claims the it is true that Mars is the fourth planet, science does not claim it is certain beyond any possibility of error that Mars is the fourth planet (while religion does claim that kind of infallible certainty) but that does not mean that science does not claim truths, it means that science does not claim certainty (although religion does claim certainty). Well, that is true, but that is very different from saying that science does not claim truths, but that religion does. That is simply false. You are mixing up truth, with certainty of the truth. What I say may be true, and I may have excellent reason to believe that what I say is true. But, nevertheless, I need not be infallibly certain that what I claim is true, is true.
A few distinctions have to me made, and a little logic used. Unless you do that you will say absurd things like only religion pursues truth, but science pursues "what works". When the truth is that both science and religion pursue truth, but only religion pursues absolute certainty.
You may be disappointed that bumper-sticker slogans ("science pursues what works, religion pursues the truth") are not philosophy, but it would have been silly for you to think that they were.
