Science, no. Scientists, often. But the difference is that Nature doesn't care what your bias is.
In science, 'truth' is provisional. That's its strength and why it has succeeded in its mission of increasing understanding of how the Universe works.
A person's present belief that Elvis is alive is not a truth as I understand the term.
I take it you do not believe there is any objective truth?
I believe truth is transient..there is no reason to believe that in 200 years everything we believe now will be still true. (in its present form)
We may be as the middle ages are to us now.
Regards
M. Gregg
I would say there is good reason to believe that in 200 yrs we will have built on the truths
we know today just as today we have built on the scientific truths discovered in the past.
This is assuming the universe is as we think it is...
Its only my belief that its nothing like we think it is...(we filter it based upon existing understanding)....but that's irrelevant.
Its just keeping my mind open to possibilities..back to the cave..😀
Regards
M. Gregg
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I think you can trust science to get you out of the cave into the glorious sunshine.
(You may need a suit in the future but at the moment it is great......I am painting the house)
Cheers
No, devising testable and falsifiable theories with predictive power is one of the things scientists do very well.
The authors you mention are all good philosophers. You'll get no dispute from me on that and there are many others from the analytical tradition that you can add to that list, e.g. Arthur Fine, Philip Kitcher, William Newton-Smith, and so on.
As for Latour, what I find most insightful in his work is not his understanding of scientific theories per se (whether in physics or elsewhere), but his analysis of the broad, complex systems of social and political inter-relations that are intimately involved in and bound up with the production of scientific work.
Belief or holding something as true may be transient, but truth is an ideal towards which all good science should be oriented.
There is the problem..truth is a man made goal.
This was argued by many philosophers over the years.
Please define truth in absolute terms.
Truth and Science
Aristotle.Vs.Plato..
Truth as we know it is linked to our understanding of fact and reality or belief. (depending on how you look at it. 😀)
I'm not saying its right or wrong..but it is interesting..
Its a bit like teaching something then setting the test for your students and then patting yourself on the back because it proves you were right.
There is no third party intervention to say otherwise.<<ie only the human race.
Regards
M. Gregg
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Sorry, but I respectfully disagree. We as humans may aim at the truth and of course what we consider true is "linked to our understanding of fact and reality, but that doesn't make truth "man made."
I like C.S. Peirce's definition of truth which identifies truth as the end of all possible inquiry (human or otherwise). How do we know when we've arrived at the final truth of things? When there are no possible grounds to carry inquiry any further. Since this is an ideal, then practically we need to adopt a provisional account of truth (as was noted above). That, at least, is what Peirce would call a truly scientific approach to the truth (and I'm generally inclined to agree).
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