Week 1- Introduction and Overview

Things were a bit of a muddle this week. Practicalities of life took precedence over any desire to cogitate and ruminate. I missed the actual lecture, as I was busy flying over the Irish Sea. Unfortunately, the extent of DCU’s gadgets does not yet stretch to satellite link-ups with aeroplanes. This left me at a bit of a disadvantage; it is definitely much harder to review notes and slides, than be there in the thick of the action.

What I want from this module is the first issue that needs addressing and it’s not a difficult one to answer. I have always been inquisitive and it seems to me that philosophy is about as nosy as one can get. My way of thinking conforms to the traditional stance that philosophy is a kind of ‘meta-discipline’ from which all others spring. By this, I mean that it’s willingness to tackle the fundamental questions and the structured way in which it attempts to do this, are a template for the workings of other disciplines. This course should give me an intellectual backdrop for the history of science I am learning. The more of this course I do, the more important I realise that historical context is to a clear understanding.

I will readily admit that the philosophy I have encountered to date has been a struggle. Reading the ideas of others from an adequately critical stance is not easy. I usually find myself saying ‘Well, that Plato had things pretty much covered, I’d say’, only to read on and wonder why I had not spotted the obvious flaws in his logic or argumentation. This got frustrating, but what I read or learned was still interesting so I did not lose heart.

It has been a number of years now since I did any philosophy and I am hoping that the learning and growing that have happened in the mean time will give me a bit more of that critical perspective. If things get bad I may follow the advice of the infamous marijuana smuggler Howard Marks. After his degree at Oxford, he went on to do a Masters in the History of the Philosophy of Science. He found he had the same problem as me when he read philosophical texts, except when stoned. Then, it took him so many reads and rereads of each sentence to grasp the concepts that he ended up able to think far more about what was written. I think his approach will be a last resort; mixing work and pleasure is not usually recommended.

I am also interested by the way that science has shaped the thinking of philosophers; the symbiotic relationship that I see has grown up between them. This seemed to me to be reflected in this week’s lecture. Historically, the ceiling on philosophers’ attempts at understanding the universe has been the pace of science or ‘natural philosophy’ and what it has been able to say about the world. There seems to be a cyclical pattern to philosophical progression where the questions seem to have been answered as fully as possible with the current state of knowledge about how the world works. It may be that more than one idea is being discussed but there is no way to resolve which is more likely to be right. This leads to a kind of staleness which is only removed when new discoveries in science rejuvenate the debate, making it possible to re-examine the issues with fresh perspective. If you look back at the Greek philosophers they were coming up with similar concepts to today’s thinkers, albeit in a more simplistic framework. They were limited in how much questioning they could do, because there was so little knowledge about how the world around them worked. Next, it was theology that took centre stage, which is understandable because it offered a well-rounded worldview to work from. When the idea of the scientific method became established, and people like Newton were able to produce tangible and rigorously investigated laws about how the universe functioned, another option of investigation was open to philosophers. It gave concrete answers to questions that had long been asked.
 
 
 
 

Week 2 – Positivism, Neo-positivism and Pragmatism

The lecture this week was like ‘Attack of the Killer –Isms’. Trying to cover such a huge swathe of philosophical thinking in one lecture was certainly challenging. It is only after carefully rereading and doing web-based research that I think I am starting to get a grip on what all the different ‘Isms’ mean and, more importantly, how they fit into the historical perspective. The reason I like to do web-based research is because the way I seem to take in information and understand it best is by reading as many different way of explaining the same idea. I recognise that not everything I read will be entirely correct but by being discerning in your sources it is possible to get reliable content.

My current puzzle is as follows – I have been reading Paul Theroux’s Mosquito Coast and am trying to fit the central character’s worldview into the philosophical categories we have been looking at. To describe him briefly is to do injustice to a deeply complex character – but here goes anyway.

Allie Fox is an inventor and fixer of things, a Harvard dropout and, despite living in America, a hater of all that the country represents; fast food, television, formal education and the shops full of imports from exploitative Asian regimes. He rejects his homeland and drags his family (wife and four children) to Honduras. Once there, they head upriver in search of unspoilt wilderness for him to mould into the perfect colony for his family and any natives who want to join them. His skill as an inventor leads to a highly efficient water pumping system that keeps them clean and waters their crops and his ultimate triumph is a gigantic structure of pipes and tanks which effectively ‘turns fire into ice.’

What makes him hard to pigeonhole, in the philosophical sense, is that, although he turns his back on technologies like TV and radio, he is driven by the notion that science can be used to construct a simple, efficient and comfortable environment. Allie is also staunchly anti-God; constantly referring to what a bad job He did, if he existed at all. All the rules he lives by are based in scientific theory. The application of them, he believes, can solve any problem – a clearly positivist way of thinking. In terms of Comte’s way categorising thought, Allie has certainly moved beyond theological and we cannot tell if he still thinks metaphysically but his strong belief in science and practicality would suggest not. Every idea he has, is drawn from empirical observation of his surroundings or the use of laws such as those of thermodynamics.

This practical, problem-solving approach could probably be more accurately termed pragmatic. I will admit that Allie Fox turned out to be somewhat of a megalomaniac, only interested in his own ideas and opinions which is at odds with my perception of pragmatism, perhaps he just got the wrong end of the stick.

The reason I say this is that I found myself very taken with pragmatism in the form expounded most recently by Rorty. I find appealing the notion of such progressive thinking, where the scientific method is constantly applied and reapplied to society’s problems, in order to eke out a satisfactory solution. In a system as fluid and complex as modern society I have no problem with an approach that disregards absolutes but instead keeps reassessing what is working and what is not. I will be interested to see how it compares to the Marxist standpoint, as my impression to date is that there is a somewhat similar approach. I mean this in the sense that once revolution has occurred; the aim of the successfully functioning Marxist framework is one that is always working in the interest of and for the benefit of its people. My interpretation would be that in practice this would mean scientists researching solely in the interest of the society. It will be interesting to see if this is correct.
 
 
 
 

Week 3 – Sociology of knowledge

Compared to the last two weeks of intense theory spanning huge swathes of philosophical thought, concentrating on one aspect was somewhat of a blessed relief for the old brain cells. The sociological basis of knowledge was an idea that I was only introduced to on this course. Previously I had not realised what a strong part social interaction had to play in the construction of knowledge. I was entranced by the rationality of science and it’s ability to investigate the world around us. This is still true, but I am now more aware of the uncertainty and subjectivity of the knowledge we have.

When we were introduced to sociology of scientific knowledge last term it was the first time that my ideas about the workings of the world had been seriously challenged for a long time. I considered myself a very open-minded person, always willing to look at any new concepts and consider them in an objective manner. I naively felt that my comfortable middle-class upbringing had moulded me into a progressive and understanding individual. Confronted with a theory that so fundamentally contrasted to my own ideas I realised how people set in their ways can feel.

The notion that knowledge, even scientific, was so heavily entrenched in, and constructed by our social interactions was a big shift for me. I remember that the lecturer who first talked to us about this got a hostile reception from our class who are mostly science trained. He was not the best lecturer in the world, which did not help, but I think it was what he was saying that most people were rejecting. The first reaction was that these sociologists were out to criticise science. In a way they were, but in retrospect, not before time. The unquestioned place in society of science and scientific knowledge is one that I used to have no problem with. Since the seeds of doubt were sown in my head by that lecture, I have wholly revised my opinion.

The more I examined the idea of the social construction of science, the more sense it made. I could immediately see where it was relevant in cases of false scientific theories being believed, but it took longer for me to accept the same thinking could be applied to all scientific practice. Our introduction to semiotics was helpful in making me see how objectivity was a false notion. It was not possible to take some kind of external ‘God-like’ view of events. The conventions and norms of the society in which we live influence everything we do. Even the language we use shapes our interpretation of the world around us.

Once I started to think this way the big obstacle I soon reached was how do the rationality and the socio-historical character of science fit together? If science is entirely socially constructed is it still a reliable knowledge of nature? I am still not sure I have this part totally clear in my head but all one has to do is watch planes fly overhead and see people cured of fatal illnesses to see that something is working. This whole issue fits into the ‘science wars’ debate, so I will fully address it then. Who knows, the debate may make me rethink things once more?

Science and structure of power is an interesting part of the socio-historic background to science. Today especially, it is clear that not all the scientific research that could be done is done, there is simply not enough money to go round. It means that there are major forces outside of science shaping what is to become new scientific knowledge. The two main funders today are the government and large corporations. To me the corporation element is a worrying but inevitable trend. Companies need to see guaranteed return on their investment. This is understandable, but means that research for its own sake, or ‘blue sky research’ as it is often called, is increasingly poorly funded. In my opinion this is a worrying trend, but there seems little that can be done about it.

There is also a distinction to be made between doing research and applying it. The recent example of genetically modified foods shows that even when the know-how is available, application is not inevitable. Public opinion was somewhat reactionary, but I think they saw that Monsanto’s motivation was money rather than the benefits that they professed. I hope that when genuinely beneficial ideas utilising similar technologies are proposed, they will not be tarred with the same brush by public opinion.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Week 4 – Rise of the repressed

As a white, middle-class male, I have a very comfortable position in Western society. It is very hard for me to understand how it feels to be repressed. However, I have been very lucky (I feel) in my upbringing. My parents are atheists and pacifists with very liberal worldviews. As children, my brother and I were given a black, male doll that peed if you gave it water, to play with. Later we were given Barbie dolls aswell as Action Men. These examples are indicative of the attitudes our parents tried to instill in us.

This upbringing has left me a typical ‘bleeding-heart’ liberal although to date a fairly inactive one. As inactivity is my over-riding state of being, it is not reflective of a lack of commitment to the cause. I think others might disagree with me strongly on that though.

With all this in mind, you would not be surprised to hear that I was pretty familiar with all that was covered in class this week. The part that particularly interested me was the conundrum of the appropriation of knowledge. Once it is recognised that society’s historical perspective has been distorted by it’s limited scope of thinkers and writers, what is to be done with what has so far been recorded? I can understand the extreme reactionary view of movements such as radical feminism and black power but I am reassured by the fact that most people seem to move beyond them. I chose to look at a book called Feminist Perspestives in Philosophy as an example of reappropriation

There was a lot of intriguing views put forward in what I read. Certainly enough to confirm my opinion that a feminist perspective has plenty to contribute in philosophical thinking, aswell as any traditional forms of knowledge production. Interestingly, I found it far easier to find fault in the lines of argument than I do reading any ‘male-oriented’ traditional writing. The reason for this has a number of alternative explanations.

There is the possibility that the proposals are less tightly argued, making it easier to find fault. Although some of the conclusions reached I understand, others seem irrational extrapolations of the facts. I imagine that the feminist would say that either my upbringing in a male-dominated society has warped my perceptions of the facts or because I am a man I cannot possibly understand. Hopefully they would only seriously suggest the first reason as that is a genuine possibility. The second is going too far along the feminist road. Any new knowledge should be rationally argued out so either sex can understand it.

The other explanation is that the argument itself is of somewhat weaker character. It would take a much more in-depth addressing of the work to say something as damning as this though. What I can do instead is comment on some of the more glaring errors that struck me.

There was an essay entitled Autonomy and Pornography by Alison Assiter, a philosopher at Thames Polytechnic. In it she is arguing that pornography reinforces men’s desires to treat women as objects, as means, and therefore, indirectly, it reinforces male power. She claims that by not treating women as autonomous in pornographic lovemaking, porn consequently encourages women’s subordination. This is most likely a valid claim to make but some of the conclusions she draws about how men react to pornography are not based in any fact. Rather, they are based on her view of what a man’s reaction would be. A basic flaw such as this does not help her make a case convincingly.

I am not suggesting that this means a feminist perspective is not valid, but to repeat the mistakes that men undoubtedly made in interpreting women’s thought is to commit a fatal error at the outset.
 
 
 
 

Week’s 5 & 6 – Marxism

There were two problems that reared their heads when approaching the lecture material from these two weeks. First, it was difficult to know where to start when scrutinising a philosophy that has been so rigorously examined and passionately extolled by one’s lecturer. Second, my perspective on Marxism is fundamentally tainted by what seems to have been it’s disastrous embodiment in Communism.

The first problem I dealt with by ignoring the fact and simply diving headlong in to see if anything worthwhile came out of the mix. You can be the judge of that. The second was tougher and I am not sure that I have fully resolved it yet, although I will actively continue to try.

As I have made reference to previously, my own political leanings are essentially liberal and humanist. What I am constantly on the lookout for is a political ideology which will deliver a real equality to every member of society.

I have long been aware of Marxism but I am not clear in where Marxism and Communism diverged. What went wrong in the application and whether it could work if tried again are extensive questions which I am not well versed enough in the facts to answer. My personal reaction, based on the history of the situation I recall, is that if Lenin had survived, the Soviet Union could have turned out very differently.

In my understanding, theoretically, equality could be achieved if Marxism was put into practice successfully. It is the facts of countries around the world, albeit viewed through Western bourgeois eyes, that tell a different story. From my own point of view I admit that the abolishment of private property is a difficult notion to come to terms with. Probably, it is just the capitalist ethic that has conditioned me to feel that way. Nevertheless, without spirituality or material wealth it is hard to envisage what would satisfy one’s selfish side. I think I have strayed far enough into the vagaries of thought that rattle around my mind. It is time to focus on the philosophy and practice of science that is offered by Marxism and Communism.

From the philosophical point of view I have no problems with dialectical materialism. In terms of it’s practical, problem-solving approach, it seems somewhat similar to pragmatism as expressed by Rorty. The application of this worldview to science is potentially a very beneficial one. Looking more closely after the lecture at Bernal, Haldane and Caudwell it is easy to see that the Marxist perspective stimulated and inspired these great minds. For all of them it seemed to be the end of a long and carefully trodden road towards realising a global vision founded on the science they were so passionate about.

As a quick aside I have just read a short story from the new Stephen Jay Gould book – The Lying Stones of Marrakech. It recounts how Haldane used self-experimentation to develop antidotes for mustard gas. He concluded that gas warfare was the most humane way to conduct battles. Haldane claimed that 20% of whites, but 80% of blacks were unaffected by gas attacks. Being used to the sun, he reasoned, the skins of Africans are better able to withstand blistering from mustard gas. Taking black troops from the Empire and the American South, who could bear the brunt of attacks on the front line, would give the Allies an advantage over the Germans in any future conflict. These black troops would need leading however, so Haldane proposed developing diagnostic tools to identify the small number of immune whites from whom the officer class could be selected. To see the howlers such a genius can come up with, leaves us mere mortals with somewhat of a smug grin.

The reservations I expressed, in an earlier entry, about funding in science, could be addressed in a Marxist framework. The example of Lysenkoism, however, underlines the understandable tendency there was in the Soviet Union to concentrate on the most immediately beneficial research. Vernalisation was a Godsend (excuse the pun) for a government in crisis that had to drastically increase it’s crop production. The alternative was even more starvation and greater unpopularity.

Leaving aside the protracted philosophical wrangling between the Lysenkoists and the geneticists, it is easy to see that those dishing out the funding would be far more sympathetic to a man who delivered tangible and much needed results. He also happened to be in tune with the Party’s view that change could be effected on people by altering their environment. If only for the first reason we would have enough motivation for the support that Lysenko received. His personal motivations, on the other hand are more intriguing and in all likelihood will remain ambiguous. Was he opportunist and nothing more? How fervently did he really believe the research he was advocating?

If we move beyond Lysenko and examine what science could be through Marxism, the picture is a lot rosier. As I have said, we have clear examples of great minds that blossomed under the Marxist flag. To return to funding specifically, even under Marxism, all the research that could be done, would not be done. If only because the list is always so long. This being the case, the benefit of the science to society would be the main objective, unlike in a capitalist society where monetary return is the primary concern. From my own viewpoint, this seems a highly attractive prospect. It is quite hard to envisage the society where science is conducted this way, but the glimpses one gets are enough to fill my over-romantic, humanist heart with joy.

It is worth returning to the issue of scientists’ ethical responsibilities which I looked at previously in relation to the atom bomb. I have a tendency towards pacifism but recognise the practical difficulties that are manifest in a world of opposing forces. In the Marxist state scientists may be called on to create new weapons and those scientists would be perfectly justified in doing so, in order to defend the cause they believed in. Indeed, the Soviet Union rushed to become a nuclear power when opposition from the West became obvious.

This sums up my grossly over-simplified view of the situation. The state that Marx and Engels conceived needs, in my view, to be worldwide in order to succeed. The reasons for this conclusion are numerous and pretty self-evident. For one, Communism may have succeeded in spreading out of Russia, but only so far. Being in conflict with other countries seems to me at odds with the chance of success for such a state. Although it may have helped to unite the people against a common enemy, conflict was a huge drain on the Communist’s resources. Who knows how things would have turned out if so much had not been squandered on war?

Week 7 – ‘Science wars’

This week’s debate was very interesting. Declan and Niamh both put forward clear and informative arguments. Manea took a more extreme position and had a hard time defending it. This very brief summation reflects my feelings on the subject. People on both sides of the wider debate make points which make a lot of sense and are not altogether irreconcilable. It is those who hold the more extreme views in the spectrum who turn ‘discussion’ into ‘war’.

Alan Sokal has consistently claimed that war is the farthest thing from his mind and Niamh certainly gave this impression about his book on the issue. I was interested to read a transcript of a speech that Sokal gave at New York University, it was subsequently published in New Politics in late 1997. In it, he stressed that he felt the debate was not primarily about science, or a disciplinary conflict between scientists and humanists, who are represented on all sides of the debate. He believes the principal issue is the nature of truth, reason and objectivity: one that he thinks is crucial to the future of left politics.

The point, as he sees it, is that to defend a scientific ‘worldview’- defined, in short, as for reasoned argument over wishful thinking, superstition and demagoguery and his motivation is political. Sokal feels that a minority of the American Left, particularly the academics, is preventing any kind of progressive social critique. This leads to smart people wasting time, and undermining the possibility of such a critique because they are busy promoting subjectivist and relativist philosophies.

Danger arises out of this because such thinking, plays into the hands of the ‘anti-rationalist’ notions in mainstream American culture. The shining example of this is the perpetuation of Christian creationism is some states despite the mountains of ‘scientific’ evidence to the contrary. Sokal’s supporters like Professor Paul Boghossian of New York University. He defends the stance with a simple critique of post-modern thinking and expands on the example of the Zuni Native Americans that is outlined in Sokal’s speech. An archaeologist, Dr. Anyon, was quoted as saying that ‘Science is just one of many ways of knowing the world. ..[The Zunis’ world view is] just as valid as the archeological viewpoint of what prehistory is about.’ Commonsense alone shows the problem with this. One theory says that the Zunis’ ancestors entered the Americas from Asia across the Bering Strait. The other says that their ancestors emerged onto the surface of the earth, within the Americas, from a subterranean world of spirits. Needless to say one theory is supported by extensive empirical evidence and the other is not. What is difficult to swallow in Dr. Anyon’s statement is the ‘just as valid’ phrase. In their fullest form, these are two mutually incompatible theories: they cannot both be right, or even approximately right.

I also came across similar objections to this dangerously ‘anti-intelligent’ thinking by the American Left from as far afield as India. Science writer, Meera Nanda responds to the deconstructionist thinking that is overwhelming Western culture. She notes the recent rise in political and cultural visibility of the religious right (the Bharatiya Janata Party) in her native India as pause for academics who see rational ‘Western’ science as a source of imperialism and racism. She says:

‘Those of us associated with the [Indian] people’s science movement of the 70s and 80s could use modern scientific knowledge to contest the dominant, largely Hindu world views on caste and women, precisely because we could claim that the content of science was not Western….But when a small but highly influential group of Indian intellectuals, borrowing heavily from Western critics of the Enlightenment, began to argue that scientific rationality itself is a colonial construct, the people’s science movements were left with no principled defence against accusations that popularisation of modern science means internal colonisation. ‘

After this Hindu fundamentalist parties began to replace modern mathematics with Vedic mathematics in public schools. Nanda tells us that this math is no more than a set of clever formulas of quick computation that they are trying to pass off as ancient Indian wisdom. This means, she says, that in the name of national pride, students are being deprived of conceptual tools that are crucial in solving the real-world mathematical problems they will encounter as scientists and engineers.

Nanda describes the reaction she got from her social construcionist friends in the United States. They tell her that her desire to disprove traditional knowledge is a correct representation of nature is a sign of a scientistic mind-set she gained when trained as a biologist. She is then accused of being an incorrigible modernist if she believes that Western science has any democracy-enhancing potential in her part of the world. She admits to believing that science should have an active role in progressive politics. But, she says, the alternative is far worse. Religious fundamentalism.

It is reading an account like this that confirms my own worries about the post-modern stance of the far-left. To leave a situation which in its extremest form leads to a complete anarchy of ideas is an outrageously unethical one. I can fully understand how it has developed and in many cases with the best of intentions. A major problem from the ethical standpoint is that if the idea is that the powerful cannot criticise the oppressed, neither can the oppressed criticise the powerful. This will of course leave a somewhat conservative in nature situation. The only option then is to accept a double standard where an idea held by those in positions of power can be criticised – Christian creationism, for example. But one held by the oppressed, like the Zuni creationism cannot. This practice seems to lack intellectual integrity and has no relevance to the progressive politics that I would like to see going on.
 
 
 
 

Week 8 – Science and religion

Summary of speech – Are science and religion compatible?

Stephen Jay Gould, the highly regarded science essayist has just written a book called Rock of Ages – Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life. In it he states:

‘No scientific theory, including evolution, can pose any threat to religion – for these two great tools of human understanding operate in complementary (not contrary) fashion in their totally separate realms: science as an inquiry about the factual state of the natural world, religion as a search for spiritual meaning and ethical values.’

In his attempt to appease all sides, he leaves many dissatisfied. Particularly on the religious side of the fence where many still cling to the belief that their faith provides answers about the natural world as much as the spiritual one. These people may be in the minority, at least in the Christian traditions of the West, but when creationists can still ban evolutionary theory in the Southern states of the U.S., it is clear they are still an influential factor. Gould next goes on to clarify the roles he sees for science and religion.

‘No factual discovery of science (statements about how nature "is") can, in principle, lead us to ethical conclusions (how we "ought" to behave) or to convictions about intrinsic meaning (the "purpose" of our lives). Theses last two questions – and what more important inquiries could we make? – lie firmly in the domains of religion, philosophy and humanistic study.’

My question regarding this statement would be – what need is there to include religion in the final group? Ethics is a study that can be addressed more than adequately by philosophy and humanistic inquiry so why should there be room for religion?

A far more dramatic-sounding publication entitled God: The Evidence has been penned by a Harvard educated philosopher called Patrick Glynn. He was previously a staunch atheist who has now ‘returned to the fold’. The book documents evidence in science and psychology which he sees as unmistakable proof of a higher power. The first and most obvious revelation he has can be summarised as the anthropic principle: The physical and chemical structure of the Universe, the galaxy, the solar system, and the planet supports huuman life extremely well within narrow tolerances. If the carbon atom resonated at a different frequency, for instance, life could not exist. This is true enough but can be interpreted in two different ways. The one Glynn focuses on is that the Universe was created for us. He finds a number of scientists who have gone on record as echoing this view. What he does not mention is that many, if not most, scientists, who are aware of this principle would interpret it very differently. In their view, of course the Universe supports human life so well: if it did not, we would not be around to talk about it.

Glynn goes on to argue that religious people are more likely to report happier, less traumatic lives than the non-religious. How does such a functionalist examination of religious faith prove the existence of God?

Let us move on now to hear from the brilliant physicist Richard Feynman in his short essay – The Pleasure of Finding Things Out.

‘The first source of difficulty [in trying to weld science and religion] is this – that it is imperative in science to doubt; it is absolutely necessary, for progress in science, to have uncertainty as a fundamental part of your inner nature. To make progress in understanding, we must remain modest and allow that we do not know’

This notion of science is in sharp contrast with the workings of religion. Historically, science started to ask questions and get different answers to those that religion had so far put forward. This put religion on the defence and they have been there ever since. Religion has had to withdraw more and more of its claims to knowledge until today, it is regarded in the way that Gould sees it.

Some would argue that science has made mistakes too in what it does and does not know. This is true, but the crucial difference is how they go about admitting it. Religion has always hung on until the evidence is absolutely insurmountable before they will grudgingly give way to the empirically discerned facts. Science, on the other hand, as described by Feynman, is founded on doubt. There is probably resistance in science when any great revolution of ideas occurs. I do not think that this resistance is anything like that from within religion.

Discussion

Again, an interesting topic, interestingly discussed. I am not sure how clearly my own points came across in the debate, but I was well able to understand Una’s argument, and Hazel did well in providing context for the debate. It was a shame that Deidre was not able to attend as I think her views in support of Christianity are a lot more strongly held.

Not surprisingly, what struck me most about the debate, was the amount of spiritual baggage being carried around by my so-called rational colleagues. It came to light by the end of the debate that the others were willing to maintain what I see as an irrational empathy with the idea of a higher power at work. To me this illustrates just how strong an influence one’s upbringing can have over the way one views the world. Helena’s development from nun to atheist is a powerful advocation of the critical rationalisation of stringently applied philosophical enquiry. It seemed that the others realised that similar enquiry was leading in the same direction, but that years of Catholicism had taken it’s toll.

I must admit that my background of atheism prevented me from seeing the strong hold that religion could have over those indoctrinated in its ways. As I mentioned at the time, I have never felt any gap in my psyche, similar to that which was being described. I can certainly see the attraction of religion; the comfort against death; the reassurance that good deeds will be repaid. How to feel with regards to these issues when there is no religion to help is difficult. My deep affection and respect for humankind plus a degree of what may be termed scientism is what sustains me.

By scientism I mean that my interpretation of the facts to date about genes and reproduction has left me feeling that I will live on through my offspring. This is in some senses a kind of rationalisation of the will to live eternally. There is also the drive to leave one’s mark on society, another way to achieve some kind of immortality. As was pointed out to me when I mentioned the reproduction part, I am setting myself up for a fall – what if I cannot reproduce for some reason? True, there is a danger of this but, apart from anything else, I do not think technology is far away from being able to create artificial sperm that can do the job for me if the need arises. Again this is some degree of replacing religion with science – I have ‘faith’ that science will be able to fix the problems that surface. I am well aware that this is a very idealistic outlook, but to date it has served me well enough.

Word count: 6105
 

Sources

Resources on Helena Sheehan’s website(s) including Critical and Cultural Perspectives part
Richard Tarnas The Passion of the Western Mind
Frederick Copleston A History of Philosophy Vols. VII & VIII
Paul Theroux Mosquito Coast
Feminist Perspectives in Philosophy Edited by Morwenna Griffiths and Margaret Whitford
Stephen Jay Gould Rock of Ages – Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life
PatrickGlynn God: The Evidence
Richard Feynman The Pleasure of Finding Things Out
Alan Sokal. A Plea for Reason, Evidence and Logic. New Politics, 6(2), pp. 126-129 (Winter 1997)

Online at: http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/nyu_forum.html

Paul Boghossian. What the Sokal Hoax Ought to Teach Us. Times Literary Supplement, December 13, 1996, pp. 14-15.

Online at: http:// www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/faculty/boghossian/papers/bog_tls.html

Meera Nanda The Science Wars in India Dissent 44(1), Winter 1997

Online at: http://www.igc.apc.org/dissent/archive/winter97/nanda.html

http://encarta.msn.com

Positivism and Post-Positivism at http://trochim.humman.cornell.edu/kb/positvsm.htm

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MSc in Science Communication   School of Communication   Dublin City University