science, values, (post)modernism

by e_dog

Posted to WritersAndGenres on 2003-10-29 10:50:00

Parent message is 536148
i wasn’t implying that science isn’t “cool” or “hip” and indeed i fully agree when you say “The periodic table is not a poem….” Exactly. and i nowhere said that physics is just a “narrative.” Narrativity and poetry are usually not relevant to scientific language — though you would be surprised to see how much metaphor finds its way into physics when it isn’t simply expressed mathematically, i.e. when it is translated into terms that are supposed to make it plausible from the perspective of common experience e.g. “string theory” etc. more importantly though, science is rarely relevant to poems or narratives.

the point is this: because natuyral science and ethics are different discourses they do not typically conflict. even if you are correct that biology can give a correct description and explanation of the behavior of people, including their ‘ethical’ behavior, this would not show at all how they ‘ought’ to act. the is/ought distinction or the fact/value distinction is anything but a “post-modernist” position, rather it is a quintescentially modernist position in philosophy (a la Hume or Kant).

furthermore, Sartre’s views on free will are completely ridiculous. his view, as –if not more — absurd as the determinist who claims there’s no free will, Sartre claims that everything is freely chosen — even if you are locked up in prison you have chosen this because you have projected meaning onto it.