by postodave » June 11th, 2008, 9:59 pm
Sounds a bit like Dr Johnson who kicked a stone with his foot and said: 'thus I refute Berkley'
Ben there's a lot of stuff I'd like to get back to especially Aquinas on the hypothetico-deductive method and I will and give you the reference. But here's what keeps striking me. When I read Polanyi's 'Personal Knowledge' or Feyarabend's 'Against Method' or Popper's 'The Logic of Scientific Discovery'. It is pretty clear to me that these are not science books in the ordinary sense. They are not books that could be classed as physics or biology or general science. Yet they are about science. Now you are either going to have to make up a word for them like meta-science or you just call them what most people would call them which is philosophy of science. Bacon's nova organum scientarium would with hindsight be put in the same class. Similarly if someone wants to argue using historical examples that history unfolds according to a certain pattern he will be writing philosophy of history not history. I don't see how this kind of distinction can be evaded.
On the application of philosophy to farming try this:
So I drew my sword and got ready
But the lamb ran away with the crown