1/Rationality and empiricism were rivals for centuries. Then they allied against tradition, scripture, and intuition, & together killed God.
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Replying to @Meaningness
2/The Scientific Method is rationality and empiricism joined in holy matrimony. A seemingly happy union—but what was the marriage contract?
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Replying to @Meaningness
3/For working scientists, it is obvious you need both rationality & empiricism. Combining them is a practical, not philosophical, question.
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4/Despite extensive effort by philosophers of science, there is no workable account of how rationality and empiricism combine in general.
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Replying to @Meaningness
5/Probability theory is math for empiricism; logic is math for rationality. There seems to be (as yet) no complete combination of them.
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6/There's a quaint superstition that probability theory generalizes logic; this is a dire misunderstanding of Cox's Theorem.
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7/Attempts to fuse probability theory & logic have not yet fully succeeded, as far as I can tell from review articles on this. Surprising!
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Replying to @Meaningness
8/Neither probability theory nor logic has much to do with what scientists (or anyone else) actually does, nor what they *should* do.
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9/We *don't know* what scientists do, much less what they should do. Any worthwhile account has to start with detailed observation.
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Replying to @Meaningness
10/A few anthropologists have done good work figuring out what scientists actually do. I wish more scientists were aware of their insights.
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Replying to @Meaningness
11/But anthropology of science is marred by metaphysical and political axe-grinding; usually plus inadequate understanding of the domain.
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