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From: dcs2e@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson)
Subject: Re: Scientific Epistomology, or "Social Text" Editors Make Ted
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Date: Sat, 8 Jun 1996 12:50:16 GMT
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In article <4pa6aa$fdo@news.nyu.edu>
gans@scholar.nyu.edu (Paul J. Gans) writes:

> I suspect that you and I will never reach any agreement on this
> point.  To me, pi is as real as "final theory" and both are, to
> me, equally ungraspable.  
> 
> You are in possession of a means of getting closer and closer to
> pi.  As you say, c/d will do it, for any representation that we
> can ACTUALLY WRITE DOWN will be in this form.
> 
> More importantly, pi is "real" to you since, to you it is the
> ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.  You have
> no evidence that this ratio is constant, nor do you have any
> evidence that it does not vary with the diameter itself.  Yet 
> you accept what you have been told about pi and thus that c/d
> can get "closer" to pi for better and better values of c and d.
> 
> In spite of the fact that you can be shown a progression of 
> pragmatic theories, you have no evidence that there is a
> "final theory".  As a result, logically, you therefore do not
> believe that there is a "final theory".
> 
> But you believe in pi on the same lack of evidence.
> 
> Please explain.
> 
>       ------ Paul J. Gans   [gans@scholar.chem.nyu.edu]


Explain what?  You've understood me perfectly.  One can pursue the
ratio of c to d; one cannot pursue, e.g., LFKJfgihfieughieuqbvuh,
because one doesn't know what the hell it is.


David

"Resistance to the proposition that the essence of truth is freedom is
based on preconceptions, the most obstinate of which is that freedom is
a property of man."  Martin Heidegger, "On the Essence of Truth," [Vom
Wesen der Wahrheit] translated by John Sallis, in "Basic Writings,"
(old version, 1977) p.126.
