Newton's flaming laser sword (NFLS) is a philosophical razor devised by Mike Alder in an essay (Newton's Flaming Laser Sword or: Why mathematicians and scientists don't like philosophy but do it anyway) on the conflicting positions of scientists and philosophers on epistemology and knowledge. Alder strongly criticized what he sees as the disproportionate influence of Greek philosophy—especially Platonism—in modern philosophy, and thus created a new razor to counter it. He contrast the scientist's Popperian approach to the philosopher's Platonic approach, which he describes as pure reason. The razor can be summarized as "what cannot be settled by experiment is not worth debating".
The razor is humorously named after Isaac Newton, as it is inspired by Newtonian thought, and is "much sharper and more dangerous than Occam's Razor", according to Alder. The essay was published in Philosophy Now in May/June 2004.
Essay
In his essay, Alder writes that the average scientist does not hold philosophy in high regard, "somewhere between sociology and literary criticism". He illustrates this with the example of the irresistible force paradox.
No comments:
Post a Comment