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Yaowen
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Default Jul 20, 2022 at 03:28 PM
 
I think you are right in a lot of what you say.

A long time ago, a Greek philosopher named Aristotle sought to prove that it is impossible to prove everything. He sought to show that at some point a person has to maintain that certain things are true and self-evident and incapable of proof. There cannot be a series of things without a first thing.

I can say that 2+2=4 and that this can be reduced to A=A. Can I prove that A=A? This is perhaps something to think about.

The fact that everything can theoretically be called into question does not necessarily mean that everything should be called into question. Or should not.

There are many schools of psychology. These schools of thought often share certain features and distinguish themselves by their own ideas which are not accepted by all psychological professionals. People in a certain school of thought can tend to think that their approach is "truer" than others or at least "more helpful" than other approaches.

Sometimes a school of psychology accepts the "assumptions" of another school but disagrees on how those assumptions result in certain conclusions. The attitude then is: "I accept your basic assumptions but disagree with you in your conclusions." Sometimes a school of psychology questions the very assumptions of another school as in: "What you regard as final and self-evident, I regard as controversial or downright wrong."

Maybe an example from another source would be helpful here.

Some licensed physicians believe that herbal medicine has a place in medical practice, that it is helpful in some way. Other licensed physicians believe that it is dangerous for certain reasons and should never even be suggested to patients for both therapeutic and legal reasons.

These are two poles of thinking and there is whole range between these two poles that include everything from enthusiasm for herbal medicine to tolerance of it to complete animosity towards it.

I've had doctors tell me that it is good to try herbal remedies, that it is okay to try them, that is not okay to try them, that it is bad and dangerous to try them.

Intellectual humility is not always found in medical practitioners nor in patients. One group of doctors might say that "best science" and "standard medical practice" dictate what should be prescribed and advised.

I once had a physician tell me that he would like to recommend something but that he couldn't because such advice would go against "standard medical practice" and so would open him up to lawsuits if something went wrong.

I think most doctors want to inspire confidence in their patients, so they purposely do not want to expose their patients to controversial issues in medicine. Same for psychologists I suspect. So perhaps there is a stratum of dogmatism in medical practice.

What prevents totalitarianism is medicine is patients always have the option, in theory at least, of getting second and third medical opinions from other practitioners. Doctor A says X so I am going to Doctor B and see what he or she thinks. Some patients avail themselves of this option. Some don't.

I have never been to a psychotherapist who before starting therapy laid out for me the philosophical and scientific assumptions and scientific underpinnings and such of their approach.

In the academic field it is quite common to find caveats expressed in writing about the medical research conclusions that are presented.

It usually goes like this: "This is our conclusion. However, all medical research is subject to limitations such as size of research study, quality of study, duration of study, objectivity of researchers, confounding factors, research that has come to different conclusions and the fact that new discoveries often revolutionize understanding." Research studies often add this to the list of caveats: "Our research was not funded by special interests and our researchers were not influenced by any financial interests that colored our final conclusions or methods.

Because of these things, I think there is a lot of truth in what you wrote and a lot of merit in what you have perceived. I think that most things are not "black and white." Many values form a kind of continuum where there is black and white and the whole range of greys in between.

I think you are right about there not always being a "personal meeting."

Science deals in generalities. Science, per say, is not that interested in individuals as individuals except abstractly. For example, science might explore the question: "What is vision like for grasshoppers?" But I know of no science that asks: "What is it like to be this particular grasshopper and see things?" "How does this particular grasshopper see things?"

Science as science is interested in grasshoppers in general not this and that grasshopper in their unique individuality, I think.

Maybe this is why a library does not contain just books on science. Libraries also include books on literature and on the fine and applied arts. How sad if there were only scientific books and no literature.

When I read a book of literature I can learn how this person views things and how I might share certain things with that person or be different from that person. That helps me define myself as a person. Maybe I don't see the world the way Van Gogh did, but I still want to see his art work. It helps me and enriches me in a way that science alone cannot.

Science, in general, I think can be both truth and incomplete and inadequate in certain ways.

I can try to read say, almost every book on trees, every scientific treatise and the artistic literature about trees, poems about trees and such, but how poor my life would be if I never saw a real tree and all my knowledge was just intellectual maps.

Of course I could be wrong about what I have written here in response to your post. I am often wrong about things. Sometimes I need to be skeptical of my own skepticism. I think there is a virtue to being intellectually humble. I aspire to that virtue but never attain it.
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