What’s the point of all science?

12 Aug, 2022 at 14:44 | Posted in Economics | 1 Comment

Method in Social Science: A Realistic Approach by Andrew Sayer (1992-05-03): Amazon.com: BooksThe point of all science, indeed all learning and reflection, is to change and develop our understandings and reduce illusion. This is not just an external and contingent sociological condition of learning but its constitutive force, which not only drives it but shapes its form. Without this universal necessary condition, none of the particular methodological and ethical norms of science and learning in general has any point. Learning, as the reduction of illusion and ignorance, can help to free us from domination by hitherto unacknowledged constraints, dogmas and falsehoods.

1 Comment

  1. 《I neither know nor think that I know. […] He, O men, is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing. And so I go my way, obedient to the god, and make inquisition into the wisdom of anyone, whether citizen or stranger, who appears to be wise; and if he is not wise, then in vindication of the oracle I show him that he is not wise; and this occupation quite absorbs me, and I have no time to give either to any public matter of interest or to any concern of my own, but I am in utter poverty by reason of my devotion to the god.》– Socrates in Plato’s Apology
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    In short, what if knowledge is illusion?

    Comment by rsm— 13 Aug, 2022 #


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