(October 23, 2019 at 7:55 am)FlatAssembler Wrote: 1. In science, unfalsifiable claims are (and should be) rejected a-priori.
Yes, good. I think we're making progress.
In science, unfalsifiable claims are rejected. (Science can't say whether they're true or false, only that they are not something the scientific method can deal with.)
In other fields, unfalsifiable claims may be valuable.
Now, why do you think that Thomas was writing science? Most people would say that he was writing metaphysics, and metaphysics, by definition, is not science. So why should we expect it to be falsifiable?
It looks as though you are making a category error, applying something about science to writing which isn't science.
Quote:2. Proust is read for fun. You are proposing to read Aquinas to find out what the truth about God is. So, this is a completely wrong analogy.
All right, you acknowledge that some books (e.g. Proust) are not books which we demand to be falsifiable. So some books need to be falsifiable and some don't.
And I agree that Thomas wants to say true things about what God is.
Why do you think that Thomas was intending to write a book of the type that should be falsifiable? What makes you think that it was supposed to be a science book?
If you had read and understood Thomas, you would know that repeatable empirical tests are not something he proposes for God. He is clear that science-type evidence is not what he's talking about. So I don't see why you are holding him to criteria that he never claims to follow.
Since at least the time of Plato, everyone knows that God is not the sort of thing that repeatable empirical tests can demonstrate. If that's what you're demanding, then sure, no book will meet your criteria. Because they never meant to.
