I was skimming the philosophy blogs today and came across “Should Scientific Methods and Data be Public?” over at It’s Only A Theory (and Brains for that matter). Gualtiero Piccinini argues that scientific matters ought to be made public. My first thought was, “What exactly does G.P. mean by public?” and my second was, “Anyone who doesn’t think scientific methods should be public is bat-shit crazy.” (Yes, I get angry about this stuff. And from […]
Month: August 2009
Happy Birthday, H. C. O.
Today, as Google/Wikipedia tells me, is Hans Christian Ørsted’s birthday. He coined the term ‘Thought Experiment’ and, if he had done nothing else, I’d still think he ought to be remembered far and wide.
Do We Understand the Principle of Charity?
When trying to understand an unknown philosophy (or philosopher) we are taught that we should give that philosophy every possible opportunity to say something relevant. This practice is called using the Principle of Charity and there are various ways philosophers go about implementing it (via Wikipedia): By believing The other uses words in the ordinary way; The other makes true statements; The other makes valid arguments; The other says something interesting. I do not believe […]
Changing Servers
Hi, I’ll be changing servers, so the site may be a bit funky over the next few weeks as I sort out any bugs that arise. Noah