The Limits of Reason
What is reason? It is, perhaps surprisingly, harder to define than faith. Philosophy has always been concerned with the search for truth. What do we know to be true? Having established some truths, can we then build upon this to create further truths using reason and logic? If we know something to be true, can we then predict other things, using tools of thought, using logic?
If the use of reason led everyone to the same conclusions, very few competing philosophies would exist. Like religion, philosophy is full of competing and contradictory schools of thought. What is the consensus of all this inquiry?
There is no consensus.
Nothing can be known with absolute certainty.
This is not the same as saying all beliefs are equal. The scientific method has delivered tremendous achievements using rational enquiry. The scientific method works. This consists at a basic level of testing belief. A belief is put forward, logical conclusions about what follows on from this belief are put together and it is then tested against real world experience. The scientific method can be described in much more detail, in a much more complicated manner, but this is basically what the scientific method consists of. Does a belief match up to experience? Does it match up to experience in a consistent and repeatable manner? If a belief matches up to experience in America, it should match up to experience in Russia.
The scientific method really replaces the question ‘What is true?’ with ‘What works?’
Science has not blown away religion or philosophy because there are many things which cannot be tested and because there are many things which can be tested but which do not prove to be as predictable as the behavior of the physical world. The existence of God cannot be tested and while the behavior of humans can be tested it has proved to be much less predictable than the effects of, for example, gravity.
If the use of reason led everyone to the same conclusions, very few competing philosophies would exist. Like religion, philosophy is full of competing and contradictory schools of thought. What is the consensus of all this inquiry?
There is no consensus.
Nothing can be known with absolute certainty.
This is not the same as saying all beliefs are equal. The scientific method has delivered tremendous achievements using rational enquiry. The scientific method works. This consists at a basic level of testing belief. A belief is put forward, logical conclusions about what follows on from this belief are put together and it is then tested against real world experience. The scientific method can be described in much more detail, in a much more complicated manner, but this is basically what the scientific method consists of. Does a belief match up to experience? Does it match up to experience in a consistent and repeatable manner? If a belief matches up to experience in America, it should match up to experience in Russia.
The scientific method really replaces the question ‘What is true?’ with ‘What works?’
Science has not blown away religion or philosophy because there are many things which cannot be tested and because there are many things which can be tested but which do not prove to be as predictable as the behavior of the physical world. The existence of God cannot be tested and while the behavior of humans can be tested it has proved to be much less predictable than the effects of, for example, gravity.
posted by craig fotheringham at 1:59 AM
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