Just for fun Platos cave

Status
This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.
Jump to Latest
Philosophil

Philosophil

Member
Joined 2013
To start some real fun, Bruno Latour actually claims that many of the notions that lie at the heart of modern scientific ideology (e.g. facts vs. values, objective vs. subjective, scientific vs. political, and so on) are really little more than a modern variation on the general them of Plato's cave, except now it is the scientists who claim to have privileged access to the truth of things while the rest of the non-scientists remain bound up within the shadowy world of politics, subjectivity, and so on.

http://books.google.ca/books?id=g-dyxR5I1dUC&pg=PA10&lpg=PA10&dq=plato%27s+cave+latour&source=bl&ots=8OtbyWMrns&sig=31YtJNXSfp1ZYBbJvFA4Lm237fM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=l2sPU_fhHeemygHHuIGICg&ved=0CD4Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=plato%27s%20cave%20latour&f=false
 
Last edited:
M Gregg

M Gregg

Disabled Account
Joined 2010
Philosophil said:
To start some real fun, Bruno Latour actually claims that many of the notions that lie at the heart of modern scientific ideology (e.g. facts vs. values, objective vs. subjective, scientific vs. political, and so on) are really little more than a modern variation on the general them of Plato's cave, except now it is the scientists who claim to have privileged access to the truth of things while the rest of the non-scientists remain bound up within the shadowy world of politics, subjectivity, and so on.
Click to expand...

I must reflect..:) The limitations of perception cannot be perceived...probably due to the confusion they create..the elephant in the dark room..
we already know this, however we are still in the dark.

Regards
M. Gregg
 
Last edited:
Philosophil

Philosophil

Member
Joined 2013
SY said:
Not worth it. Latour is a boob. His only saving grace is that the feminist postmoderns (like Gloria Jean Watkins/Bell Hooks) are even sillier.
Click to expand...
Nothing like a good ad hominem to exemplify and beautifully illustrate the very dogmatism that's being called into question. The final nail would have been to make reference to some 'fact' as a way of silencing any further discussion.

For more, read Latour's discussion of the "epistemology police.".
 
SY

SY

Ex-Moderator
Joined 2002
SYclotron.com
Yes, many postmodernists have praised him. After the Sokal hoax, I have trouble taking them seriously.

I prefer Jeffrey Foucault to Michel. Equal contributions to understanding of how the Universe works, but Jeffrey writes and plays much better songs.

Anyone who wants to get some background in plain English without obscurantist jargon should read "Higher Superstition" and "Flight from Science and Reason."
 
Philosophil

Philosophil

Member
Joined 2013
SY said:
Yes, many postmodernists have praised him. After the Sokal hoax, I have trouble taking them seriously.

I prefer Jeffrey Foucault to Michel. Equal contributions to understanding of how the Universe works, but Jeffrey writes and plays much better songs.

Anyone who wants to get some background in plain English without obscurantist jargon should read "Higher Superstition" and "Flight from Science and Reason."
Click to expand...
I happen to take Latour seriously and I certainly wouldn't consider myself part of the postmodern tradition. If I were to align myself with anyone in the recent philosophical tradition it would probably be C.S. Perice.

As for the Sokal hoax, I don't see how Latour is implicated in that. Latour has explicitly distanced himself from the postmodern social constructionist interpretations of his work. He doesn't try to undermine science or dismiss it in any way. He simply points out (rightly, I believe) that what scientists actually do and how they do it (what's involved in the scientific process) is very different from what scientists think they are doing. No offense intended, but my experience has been that while scientists (and engineers) are very good at what they do, they generally have a very uncritical and philosophically naive understanding of the world and our place within it, including the complex processes, interconnections, assumptions, presuppositions, and so on, that are involved in the work that they actually do.

Latour is very good at highlighting the difference between what scientists think they do (ideologically) and what they actually do empirically), but most scientists don't like what they see in Latour's mirror and so dismiss him as a charlatan (enter the epistemology police).
 
M Gregg

M Gregg

Disabled Account
Joined 2010
Guess what we are probably all wrong!

:D...To err is human...However do we create reality in our own image?
One mans heaven is another mans hell..
What is the great end result? Where are we going? And why?

Regards
M. Gregg
 
Last edited:
SY

SY

Ex-Moderator
Joined 2002
SYclotron.com
Philosophil said:
No offense intended, but my experience has been that while scientists (and engineers) are very good at what they do, they generally have a very uncritical and philosophically naive understanding of the world and our place within it, including the complex processes, interconnections, assumptions, presuppositions, and so on, that are involved in the work that they actually do.
Click to expand...

If 'philosophically naive' means that scientists come up with testable and falsifiable theories with predictive power rather than vacuous woffle, then yes.

There are certainly philosophers of science that do useful work (e.g., Popper, Dennett, Searle...), but they make a key error of writing clearly and succinctly and actually understanding the nuts and bolts of science, rather than creating verbal gas with no important insights but plenty of publication and tenure potential. As Gross, Levitt, and their co-authors in "Flight" demonstrated, philosophers of science like Latour don't bother to actually learn science. Positive reviews of his work by other philosophers who haven't bothered with the messy details of understanding physics aren't terribly convincing.
 
M Gregg

M Gregg

Disabled Account
Joined 2010
The problem is,

Is science making a better world..in the cave does the learner return and help the others or does the learner return and control the others?

Is Empathy a science?

Science would seem to have no motive, however its questionable who is driving it..
With great power comes great responsibility...
We are free to choose based upon what we know...who controls what we know? (what if they are wrong?)

Regards
M. Gregg
 
Last edited:
M Gregg

M Gregg

Disabled Account
Joined 2010
SY said:
Different issue, with more than one answer. But that edges us toward politics, which we do not allow on this forum.
Click to expand...

What I'm saying is, is science biased?

Surly it has to be based upon research direction.
How much philosophy is involved and how much cold hard drive...
To me science should be a driving force for "Good"...but as we know its a duality with a lot of grey areas in between.

This gives a biased view...where philosophy hopefully balances the outcome...

Regards
M. Gregg
 
Status
This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.
Top Bottom