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Marina's picture

the f word?

In Prof. Dalke's discussion section we spent a reasonable amount of time attempting to define foundationalism and from my understanding of the word it is meant to convey something fixed, eternal, and resistant to change. Non-foundationalism, on the other hand, refers to something adaptive and responsive to change. From these definitions it seems that religious beliefs and belief in a higher power would fall under the foundationalism category while biological evolution would fall under the non-foundationalist category. Yet the laws of nature are unchanging, fixed, eternal- are these considered foundationalist as well? 

 I don't agree with Dennett's idea of greedy vs. non-greedy reductionism. Dennett claims that greedy reductionism is using all skyhooks to explain things which leads to gross oversimplification whereas proper reductionism uses all cranes to explain things. I feel like Dennett's use of the term "greedy" is too subjective because those who he deems "greedy" reductionists would probably view the proper reductionists as the true "greedy" ones who rely so much on rationality and are very dismissive of skyhooks. It is alarming how much Dennett opposes sky hooks. I believe we discussed in lecture how sky hooks are still necessary in some situations. In fact, sky hooks can even lead to the discovery new cranes. There are many things in this world that were previously thought of as impossible until further investigation led to a new discovery.

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