(July 30, 2011 at 7:52 am)Emanuel Wrote: Well, from what I've understood, Statlor Wardof was saying that science's purpose isn't to discover Truth (with capital "t"). That is the purpose of philosophy. By "Truth" I suppose he meant things like whether there is some objective purpose for human life, in what it consists, what is the origin of the universe (by this I mean the issue of a creator, and whether it's personal and so on), etc.. The pursuit of these "Truths" belongs to philosophy. Science only tries to observe the natural world, understand how it works and also possibly make predictions based on the observations. For example, science discovered the Big Bang. Now science's job is done, and philosophy takes over trying to understand what it means, what implications does this have on a certain worldview, and so on. Science cannot do these things. If a scientist tries to talk about these things, he's stios being a scientist, becoming a little phiolosopher.
This is what I think he meant. May he correct me if I'm wrong.
Statler is a YEC, so no, I doubt that is what he meant. He probably believes science is no more valuable than the material applications of the findings as they pertain to the values of human beings (so he can reap the benefits while denying the implications) where as the rest of us would say that empiricism is the epitome of reason and thus the most pertinent aspect of any conclusions about the nature of reality. From there I would state that philosophy deals with values in light of empiricism when done properly (Quinean philosophy) or despite empiricism when subjective values are held as of higher importance ("continental" philosophy). Statler is clearly in the latter camp.
.
