Scientific Perspectivism

We believe that the world is knowable: that there are simple rules governing the behavior of matter and the evolution of the universe. We affirm that there are eternal, objective, extra-historical, socially-neutral, external and universal truths. The assemblage of these truths is what we call Scienc…

— Sheldon Glashow, amazon.com

In Praise Of Objectivity Reality Construction Christian Science Eternal Truth

All observational claims made about the object are made in some perspective or other. Before the seventeenth century, the Milky Way, as part of a commonsense perspective on the world, was perceived using human eyes simply as a broad band of light extending across the night sky. From the perspective…

— Ronald N. Giere, amazon.com

Milky Way Scientific Perspectivism Seeing Seeing Against Objectivity Perspectivism

The word planet derives from a Greek word meaning wanderer.

— Ronald N. Giere, amazon.com

Etymology What Words Means Word Origins

But if one imagines a world in which humans never appeared with their contingently evolved visual system, then there is no basis for assigning colors to any object. Why should a surface with a given surface spectral reflectance be called 'yellow'? Without reference to the particular characteristics…

— Ronald N. Giere, amazon.com

Color Relativism Scientific Perspectivism

Humans are trichromats, which is to say, their retinas contain three different types of receptors (called cones for their shape when viewed through a microscope) with three different pigments sensitive to three different ranges of the visible spectrum. These three pigments, conventionally labeled S(…

— Ronald N. Giere, amazon.com

Color Seeing Seeing Three Is The Number

For a perspectival realist, the strongest claims a scientist can legitimately make are of a qualified, conditional form: 'According to this highly confirmed theory (or reliable instrument), the world seems to be roughly such and such.' There is no way legitimately to take the further objectivist ste…

— Ronald N. Giere, amazon.com

Epistemology Perspectivism Science Importance of Multiple Database Entries

The notion of a law of nature did not arise out of the practice of science itself. Sometime in the seventeenth century, it was imported into discourse about science from Christian theology, both directly, and indirectly through mathematics. Originally, laws of nature were understood as God's laws fo…

— Ronald N. Giere, amazon.com

Natural Law Objectivity Secularization Theology Truth

The nature of the knowledge itself was rarely questioned. It was taken for granted that scientists were discovering the objectively real inner workings of nature. These workings are there to be discovered. It only takes effort, sometimes requiring huge expenditures of resources, to uncover them. Thi…

— Ronald N. Giere, amazon.com

Epistemology Objectivity Science

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