Title: What Can We Usefully Learn from the Velikovsky Affair?
Abstract: An important set of philosophical problems arises from cases in which the way we classify people and their actions determines the conceptual structure we use in interacting with them. For example, deep and difficult problems frequently arise when we must make fine but somewhat arbitrary distinctions the basis for different social responses. The boundary between the 'criminal' and the 'criminally insane' may be hard to draw, but it has major implications for their subsequent institutional treatment. Such problems occur even in social systems where rational objectivity is assumed to reign. We cannot escape the political implications of our social classifications. For example, in the psychiatric problem of deciding between what is 'normal' and the various types of 'insanity', the same behaviour may be regarded quite differently in different cultures and at different times. What is claimed as an objective principle of classification thus turns out to be relative to the culture and the political system. Natural science is not exempt from such problems: it too, is a social activity, and must be carried out within social constraints. The assumed ideal of scientific method is that it is completely open and rational; the work of scientists is assessed by 'objective' principles, depending only on arguments and evidence. But we seek to apply our rational ideals of scientific method only to work which merits our attention. If we brought the full machinery of rational deliberation to bear on every suggested scientific innovation, no matter how silly, our attention would be so divided that we would make little progress. Methods must therefore be available which enable us to sort out those ideas which deserve our attention. The scientist must make some kind of distinction between what he considers to be worthwhile scientific work and that of the 'crank'. In practice, scientists seem to act on their intuitions in making this distinction. But the problem arises: can objective principles be set out which give a rational basis for the distinction, or
Publication Year: 1975
Publication Date: 1975-05-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 3
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