tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post481817309356789755..comments2024-03-28T02:54:46.537-04:00Comments on The TOF Spot: Return of the Age of Unreason - Part IITheOFloinnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14756711106266484327noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-54788971836573320752009-12-31T11:50:57.863-05:002009-12-31T11:50:57.863-05:00Jaki's view basically takes a Duhemian view a ...Jaki's view basically takes a Duhemian view a few steps farther, and the current tendency seems to be to try -- to the extent the data allow -- to pull away from Duhem's conclusions and qualify them as much as possible. When that's combined with how aggressively he often argues, I'm not really surprised that he gets a bit of disapproval.<br /><br />A sed contra, of course, doesn't need to be absolutely definitive on its own; and Jaki's a good choice for putting in one because he's nothing if not someone who puts things in a frank and straightforward way.Brandonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06698839146562734910noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-40071166600931507072009-12-29T15:12:46.753-05:002009-12-29T15:12:46.753-05:001. Contemporary muslims have learned that "sc...1. Contemporary muslims have learned that "science=good." Better late than never, I suppose; and there always was that mu'tazilite strain in Islam. But still, all of the faylasuf were persecuted at one time or another and the question is not whether muslims are capable of doing science. They are, so long as they abandon the extreme occasionalism of al-Ghazali. The question is how modern science arose, and that means taking account of attitudes during the Middle Ages. <br /><br />2. Stanley Jaki had doctorates in physics and in theology. That made him an odd fish to most. He was also a Benedictine monk, which put him beyond the pale. The question is whether your professors don't take him seriously because he was a priest, a physicist, or a theologian, or simply because they find his conclusions disagreeable - or disagreeably stated. He could indeed be curmudgeonly. Still, he had to tell physicists like Murray Gell-Mann what the implications were of Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem for the Theory of Everything. Hawking came to it a decade or so later.TheOFloinnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14756711106266484327noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-67941940529626894532009-12-29T11:43:08.899-05:002009-12-29T11:43:08.899-05:001. Contemporary Muslims tend to consider Ibn-Sina ...1. Contemporary Muslims tend to consider Ibn-Sina and Ibn-Rushd as intellectual heroes of Islam. That doesn't detract from your point about how they were considered then, but I think it's significant.<br /><br />2. I've been warned by some of my professors not to use Stanley Jaki as a reference because he's not taken seriously anymore. I have no idea how true this is, or if so, whether it's justified.Jim S.https://www.blogger.com/profile/15538540873375357030noreply@blogger.com