Philosophy of Education 6:1

CD/mp3 201, first half of sixth Cincinnati lecture on philosophy of education. Corresponds to CWL 10: 131-45. Sponsored by Jesuit Fathers of Saskatchewan. Discussion moves to the new learning in science. Galileo's fundamental inspiration was the ideal of geometric system, but the other component was a movement from sensible data to possible laws, and this is the fundamental step in an empirical science. But in addition to science as object, there is the scientist as subject. Empirical science lets us study intelligence as developing. The key step is a specification of a required law in the form of a general expression of a mathematical function. The general structure of inquiry in empirical science is a movement to an unknown that is given a name as an indeterminate function, and the movement occurs both from below and from above. The procedure displays a fundamental assumption, that there is to be known an intelligibility that can be expressed mathematically. The mathematician supplies the scientist with a vast range of possible mathematical expressions. The task of the scientist is to select out of that range the particular expression that fits the case in hand, that fits all similar cases, and that does so in a manner that is coherent with the laws found in all other cases. Furthermore, at the step of relating the measurements to one another, science moves totally out of the realm of common sense into an entirely new world. Quantum theory introduces a new element with considerable philosophic implications. A system of laws gives rise to the construction of ideal cases. Our planetary system corresponds to the construction of an ideal case. Quantum theory negates the assumption of mechanist determinism, in which the whole of reality corresponds to a set of ideal cases. We can conceive empirical science as a group of operations that may be characterized by the six canons of empirical method (see chapter 3 of Insight): selection, operations, relevance, parsimony, complete explanation, and statistical residues.

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