TUT317
Sep 18, 2009, 08:59 AM
A question was raised at a different post which concerns the nature of science and religion. The contributor was largely asking why can't science and religion compromise on certain issues? The standard response to that is, they can't because they deal with entirely different subject matter. Religion deals with metaphysical issues, e.g.. The existence of God while science deals with empirical issues ( the material world). Attempts to link the two throughout the history of philosophy have been unsuccessful.
Kant in his 'Critique of Pure Reason' argues that an important function of metaphysics ( including the idea of God) is to speculate or hypothesize about nature, while the job of science is to investigate nature. Here Kant is making a clear distinction between empirical investigation and hypothesizing. Science can investigate and hypothesize but metaphysics can only hypothesize.
This by no means rules out that metaphysics has in the past and can in the future contribute to the advancement of science. Limited space precludes me from citing a number of metaphysical philosophers who have contributed to the advancement of science, so I will settle for Spinoza. Spinoza attempted to solve Descartes mind/body problem. Spinoza came up with the idea of a double-aspect theory. This theory claims that mind and body are both attributes of the one substance, which Spinoza called God. Spinoza claimed that the logical order of the mind was identical with the physical order of nature. For every thought there is a corresponding physical event and for every physical event there is a corresponding thought. The double-aspect theory eventually lead to the ideas we find in modern behavioral psychology.
The Problem of Verification
Verification in philosophy and science has a long history starting with the Logical Positivists. I will attempt to summarize one hundred years of philosophy in a few paragraphs starting with A.J. Ayer.
Ayer made the distinction between meaningful and meaningless sentences. For example, ' the earth revolves around the sun' is a meaningful proposition. Only madmen and small children would disagree with this statement. Why? Because it is subject to verification. In other words, if you disagree with this statement then we can set up experiments to prove that it does revolve around the sun. 'God created the earth', according to the verification principle is meaningless. Why? Because we can't verify it in a scientific sense. It can be verified through scripture and this is good enough proof for some people, but for non-believers it offers no proof.
It is not as simple as that and Ayer was aware of this so he suggested that verification should be practical in terms of setting up immediate experiments in order to test statements. He also suggested that there should a verifiability in principle clause. This is because I might want to say that there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. At the moment there is no verifiable evidence that there is intelligent life elsewhere. However, in principle it may be possible to build a spaceship which can travel close to the speed of light which would allow us to visit other intelligent civilizations, if they exist. The sentence, 'there exists other intelligent life in the universe' gets the blessing of the verification principle and therefore is seen to be meaningful.
However, as far as I can see it is not that simple. The Ancient Greeks may have looked up at the moon and speculated that there were people just like them living on the moon. Within the context of Ancient Greece such a sentence would be regarded as meaningless if they had access to the verification principle. During this time no one could envisage getting to the moon other than building wings made from feathers and wax.
This begs the question. Why is the sentence, 'there are people living on the moon' meaningless while, 'there exists intelligent life elsewhere in the universe' suddenly meaningful? Other than the fact that one was said two thousand years ago and the other in 2009.
"God created the earth' is meaningless in a scientific sense because it can't be verified but that doesn't mean that it won't be verified in one hundred, two hundred or three hundred years from now. Spinoza's idea of a double-aspect theory was beyond verification, but modern science using M.I.R technology is beginning to map the brain and is starting to provide some useful information for psychologists and scientists. Obviously there is a long way to go as far as the mind/body problem is concerned.
I think to dismiss any statement as meaningless on the basis of a time frame alone is a mistake and it shows an inherent weakness in the verification principle. Our methods of observing nature and the tools we use in the future will improve. What is regarded now as a meaningless metaphysical hypothesis may be scientific fact in the future.
Kant in his 'Critique of Pure Reason' argues that an important function of metaphysics ( including the idea of God) is to speculate or hypothesize about nature, while the job of science is to investigate nature. Here Kant is making a clear distinction between empirical investigation and hypothesizing. Science can investigate and hypothesize but metaphysics can only hypothesize.
This by no means rules out that metaphysics has in the past and can in the future contribute to the advancement of science. Limited space precludes me from citing a number of metaphysical philosophers who have contributed to the advancement of science, so I will settle for Spinoza. Spinoza attempted to solve Descartes mind/body problem. Spinoza came up with the idea of a double-aspect theory. This theory claims that mind and body are both attributes of the one substance, which Spinoza called God. Spinoza claimed that the logical order of the mind was identical with the physical order of nature. For every thought there is a corresponding physical event and for every physical event there is a corresponding thought. The double-aspect theory eventually lead to the ideas we find in modern behavioral psychology.
The Problem of Verification
Verification in philosophy and science has a long history starting with the Logical Positivists. I will attempt to summarize one hundred years of philosophy in a few paragraphs starting with A.J. Ayer.
Ayer made the distinction between meaningful and meaningless sentences. For example, ' the earth revolves around the sun' is a meaningful proposition. Only madmen and small children would disagree with this statement. Why? Because it is subject to verification. In other words, if you disagree with this statement then we can set up experiments to prove that it does revolve around the sun. 'God created the earth', according to the verification principle is meaningless. Why? Because we can't verify it in a scientific sense. It can be verified through scripture and this is good enough proof for some people, but for non-believers it offers no proof.
It is not as simple as that and Ayer was aware of this so he suggested that verification should be practical in terms of setting up immediate experiments in order to test statements. He also suggested that there should a verifiability in principle clause. This is because I might want to say that there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. At the moment there is no verifiable evidence that there is intelligent life elsewhere. However, in principle it may be possible to build a spaceship which can travel close to the speed of light which would allow us to visit other intelligent civilizations, if they exist. The sentence, 'there exists other intelligent life in the universe' gets the blessing of the verification principle and therefore is seen to be meaningful.
However, as far as I can see it is not that simple. The Ancient Greeks may have looked up at the moon and speculated that there were people just like them living on the moon. Within the context of Ancient Greece such a sentence would be regarded as meaningless if they had access to the verification principle. During this time no one could envisage getting to the moon other than building wings made from feathers and wax.
This begs the question. Why is the sentence, 'there are people living on the moon' meaningless while, 'there exists intelligent life elsewhere in the universe' suddenly meaningful? Other than the fact that one was said two thousand years ago and the other in 2009.
"God created the earth' is meaningless in a scientific sense because it can't be verified but that doesn't mean that it won't be verified in one hundred, two hundred or three hundred years from now. Spinoza's idea of a double-aspect theory was beyond verification, but modern science using M.I.R technology is beginning to map the brain and is starting to provide some useful information for psychologists and scientists. Obviously there is a long way to go as far as the mind/body problem is concerned.
I think to dismiss any statement as meaningless on the basis of a time frame alone is a mistake and it shows an inherent weakness in the verification principle. Our methods of observing nature and the tools we use in the future will improve. What is regarded now as a meaningless metaphysical hypothesis may be scientific fact in the future.