The Science Of Superstitions :: essays research papers

<a href="http//www.geocities.com/vaksam/">Sam Vaknins Psychology, Philosophy, Economics and Foreign Affairs Web SitesThe debate between realism and anti-realism is, at least, a century old. Does scientific discipline describe the real world or are its theories true only within a certain conceptual material? Is science only instrumental or empirically adequate or is there more to it than that? Jose Ortega y Gasset said (in an unrelated exchange) that all ideas stem from pre-rational beliefs. William crowd concurred by saying that accepting a truth often requires an act of will which goes beyond facts and into the realm of feelings. Maybe so, but is there is little motion today that beliefs are somehow involved in the formation of m any scientific ideas, if not of the very endeavour of Science. After all, Science is a gay activity and humans always believe that things exist (=are true) or could be true. A distinction is traditionally made between believing in somethi ngs existence, truth, value of appropriateness (this is the way that it ought to be) and believing that something. The latter is a propositional attitude we think that something, we wish that something, we feel that something and we believe that something. Believing in A and believing that A - are different. It is reasonable to assume that belief is a limited affair. Few of us would tend to believe in contradictions and falsehoods. Catholic theologians indicate about explicit belief (in something which is known to the believer to be true) versus implicit one (in the known consequences of something whose truth cannot be known). Truly, we believe in the probability of something (we, thus, express an opinion) or in its certain existence (truth). All humans believe in the existence of connections or relationships between things. This is not something which can be proved or proven false (to use Poppers test). That things consistently follow each other does not prove they are related in any objective, real, manner except in our minds. This belief in some order (if we define order as permanent relations between break away physical or abstract entities) permeates both Science and Superstition. They both believe that there must be and is a connection between things out there. Science limits itself and believes that only certain entities inter-relate within well defined conceptual frames (called theories). Not everything has the potential to connect to everything else. Entities are discriminated, differentiated, classified and assimilated in worldviews in accordance with the types of connections that they gush with each other.