Science and Unexamined Philosophical Baggage
A quotation for the weekend:
Scientists sometimes deceive themselves into thinking that philosophical ideas are only, at best, decorations or parasitic commentaries on the hard, objective triumphs of science, and that they themselves are immune to the confusions that philosophers devote their lives to dissolving. But there is no such thing as philosophy-free science, there is only science whose philosophical baggage is taken on board without examination. Daniel Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, 1995, p.21.
Well put. Too bad Dennett is not more aware of, and honest about, his own philosophical baggage.
More on philosophy and worldviews here and here.
There are more posts on Daniel Dennett on this blog (since he will always be "the original" Darwinan Fundamentalist) and you can find them by searching by his name in the search box at the top of this page.
posted by Lawrence Selden @ 10:07 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
I've often thought of Dennett as being more like Dawkins' shitzu. I sort of miss the reviews by Gould which would be followed like clockwork by Dennett shovel and pail in hand, then the response.
I'll be coming back to read your archive, you write an interesting blog.
Reading this over, that shovel and pail are wrong, needless to say, it was only the quotes from him and his Lord and Master that were there to be cleaned up.
He's got to be one of the more overrated intellectuals in the English speaking world today.
Post a Comment
<< Home