Declaration Of Independence (D.O.I): Part 1

One of the most difficult problems for a historical analysis is to avoid taking two words or ideas that exist during two different eras and assume that the words or ideas are synonyms.  As we saw in the last post ordinary language philosophers, such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, created a philosophy that examined the usage of the words to avoid ambiguity between a word in different contexts.  For Wittgenstein, the use of language is called a language-game (Philosophical Investigations, pg 10).  Wittgenstein uses the term 'description' and how that term refers to "description of a body's position by means of its co-ordinates; description of a facial expression; description of a sensation of touch; of a mood".  Hence, the ambiguity comes from the inability to know what the term is referring to.

Comparing Philosophy and Science

Philosophy is the analysis of logical assumptions and underpinnings of a particular subject and/or methodology.  Philosophy differs from science in that science uses empirical investigation to gather facts and test current theories in the field of study that are constrained by the empirical discoveries, whereas philosophy may use (though it is not necessary) empirical facts, but the theories constructed are not constrained by facts.  For example, a scientific theory is defined as the general law that predicts particular events in the physical world.  This is contrasted by the layman use of 'theory' where people define it as a mere guess (this use of the term 'theory' is used by creationist critics of evolution).  In physics, Newton's laws of motion are theories in classical mechanics before it was replaced by Einstein's theory of relativity.  There is a debate in the philosophy of science (the field that attempts to understand the assumptions of scientific methodology) if Einstein's theory was simply a refinement of Newton's theory or if it was a completely different theory that caused a revolution in our thinking (different terms, theory, methodology, etc.).  One reason why many philosophers and scientists see Einstein's theory as a revolution is because, in classical mechanics, Newton's laws must be adjusted at higher speeds.  Thus, the theory cannot solve the problem by itself, whereas Einstein's theory can explain motion at all speeds.  What is interesting, however, is that Copernicus' theory of celestial movement predicted motion better than Ptolemy's prediction, but Ptolemy's theory was more simplistic and did explain motion at a lower level.  It wasn't that Ptolemy's theory couldn't explain motion at higher levels, but rather the tools were not yet developed yet to do so.  Thus, Ptolemy's theory was accepted due to elegance and predicting motion at a lower level more simply. This will be looked out in a later post.