Monthly Archives: March 2008

performance and interpretation

The idea of maintaining a distinction between the substance of matter and the way it performs (see last post) also provokes possible ideas in another discussion. I was pushing the idea of science-as-interpretation recently. In the back of my mind was the thought that you can get away with this at the sub-atomic level (e.g.

Avoiding reductionism

OK, so I’ve questioned whether Poythress is successful in his non-reductionist description of reality. I tend to think not. But can we propose an alternative? Let’s have a go, keeping in mind some of the plus points of Poythress’ scheme. I want to start with matter. Poythress is keen to get away from matter as

Poythress on ‘Scientific Knowledge’ (3)

[Apology before I start: there is no way to divide this into chunks, so the sound-bite culture of blogs goes out of the window right here ] In my last post I discussed Vern Poythress’ take on a non-reductionist view of reality. I said I liked the underlying project of moving away from a completely

Poythress on ‘Scientific Knowledge’ (2)

I looked (briefly) in my last post about Poythress’ view on philosophical perspectives of scince, described in his book Redeeming Science. He couples this with a discussion on reductionism, which I want to start pondering here… I like very much his motivation towards a non-reductionist description of reality. The basis can be summed up neatly

Poythress on ‘Scientific Knowledge’ (1)

I’ve been dipping into Poythress’ book Redeeming Science, specifically the chapter on The Character of Scientific Knowledge. In this chapter he is addressing two issues: First, the different philosophical approaches to science — realist, idealist, empiricist, pragmatist, post-modern relativist. Roughly, these respectively assume that scientific knowledge reflects the reality; that it is simply a reflection

Vern Poythress on-line

I’ve recently found a few on-line articles/books by Vern Poythress, including ‘Redeeming Science’, which I mentioned a while ago. All probably of interest to people reading this blog (whether you agree with him or not). A Biblical View of Mathematics at ‘Theology Network’ Redeeming Physics at ‘Theology Network’ Redeeming Science at www.frame-poythress.org I’ve been dipping