From: Mark Walker (mdwalker@quickclic.net)
Date: Wed Aug 29 2001 - 19:35:26 MDT
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lee Corbin" <lcorbin@tsoft.com>
> I really think that the categories "correct" and "incorrect" don't
> serve us well here. In science, the degree to which something is
> correct relates very strongly to the degree to which it can be used
> to make successful predictions.
I'm not sure I see your point. One can make an infinite number of successful
predictions from the Ptolemaic system, as Seafarers with sextants will
attest to.
> So you will see in a majority of
<snip>
> On the other hand, even if we tried to cling to your rigid notion
> of "correctness", then we'd be in no position, really, to announce
> that QM or GR is correct; in fact, (as you say), we know that they
> don't cover each other's realms.
>
> Approximate assertions, e.g., "the planets orbit the sun in ellipses"
> should be taken as (a) true, and (b) a correct description of reality.
> Even calling such assertions "approximate" is misleading, because it
> carries the implication that there are assertions that are "certain",
> which is also nonsense.
I don't follow your argument here. 'Approximate' seems to be what
philosophers of science mean by 'verisimilitude', i.e., closeness to the
truth. Thus, it is often said that Newtonianism has greater verisimilitude
than Aristotelianism, and Einsteinianism more than Newtonianism. According
to the proponents of this view, one can maintain this without thereby being
committed to the truth of Einsteinianism. To say that a theory is
approximately true might commit one to some notion of verisimilitude but why
certainty? The former--approximate, truth, correctness--are metaphysical
notions--while certainty is an epistemlogical notion. How do you see them
related? I would have thought that if anything, skepticism would be a
natural bedfellow for this view, not certainty. Mark.
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