D. Z. Phillips on Theories of Everything
The Problem of Evil and the Problem of God (Fortress Press: 2005), pp. xv-xvi.
What kind of theory is a theory about the
structure of the world? If by "the world" one wants to mean
"everything", there is no such theory. Certainly, science has no such
theory, nor could it have. "Everything" is not the name of one big
thing or topic, and therefore, there can be no theory concerning a
thing or topic of this kind. To speak of a thing is to acknowledge the
existence of many things, since one can always be asked which thing one
is referring to. Science is concerned with specific states of affairs,
no matter how wide the scope of its questions may be. Whatever
explanations it offers, further questions can be asked about them. It
makes no sense to speak of a last answer in science, one that does not
admit of any further questions. Science is not concerned with "the
structure of the world", and there are no scientific investigations
which have this as their subject.
Filed in...

Comments
No comments yet. Be the first to comment.
Lest they devolve into the infantile comments on display at YouTube and elsewhere, comments require registration and are moderated, not for point of view but for quality. » Register or » Login