Genuous and Vacuous

This semester I've found myself to be a kind of misanthrope. I'm not finding myself to be this way to the extent that I've abandoned all human contact, but I am certainly exhausted. Mentally, emotionally and intellectually I am exhausted. I find myself tired, and I feel as though I at least need to jot down a few of my thoughts about how to approach my studies. This is because I'm for some reason under the impression that there are those who would believe certain things about me only based on what I've said. While using the words of another person is by no means a bad way to come to grips with understanding this person you must understand that within the setting of a classroom, or within academia in general it will not always be the case that what words one shares will always be expressive of their values, or I should say their "core values"; at least, this is not true within a certain sense.

Whether you're measuring independent and dependent variables in a science experiment, or you are making deductions based on a set of premises, it is often the case that your values need not enter into your judgments about what you are studying. Yes, this brings into question the idea of a "value-free" science, which, for all intents and purposes, is not something that can be so easily subscribed to. This is because of the term "value" that we are using. We think that scientists have particular "values" in use when making their own studies. These values might be something like "being parsimonious" or "being purely empirical". So, then science is driven by values although not "values" like "moral values" in terms of how we judge the moral rightness and wrongness of our actions. There is a normative element here however, and the problem comes in distinguishing one normative proposition from another. In claiming that we have a "value-free science" you commit yourself to say that science is the kind of thing not driven by values, and that the claims made here about what a scientist ought to do is qualitatively different from the kinds of sentences uttered by people making "value claims"(normative claims). But how? I don't believe I see that such normative propositions can be so easily precluded from being "value statements" since they are indicative of a particular approach to science. That is, we may check in our baggage at the door to some extent, but we must keep our scientific baggage to insure the integrity of our own work.

So then, we would probably be better off saying that we leave certain values at the door before actually diving into our scientific meanderings. If we are studying a religion with which we have few sympathies, we attempt to insure that no pejorative language is permitted within the realm of that study lest it taint the study. We wish to step back an simply observe how one thing has affected another, or how one will continue to affect another. Perhaps this is a value in itself? A value science has could be maintaining "objectivity" and by objectivity we simply mean the absence of any language apart from those to which we are assigning our language the "job" of describing a situation in as favorable terms as possible. We may come to the need for a neologism or two, but by creating a theory, or hypothesis that avoids emotionally laden language we still have some way of working within our own "value-laden" system of science and still manage to provide fruitful theories.


"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. "--Aristotle

"How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech." - Soren Kierkegaard

"The whole problem with the world is that
fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves,
but wiser people so full of doubts." -- Bertrand Russell