Re: more squiggly lines

["Gunnar Tomasson" <gunnar.tomasson@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Alan:

Re. the following:

> Now Gunnar, you're trying to have your cake and eat it too.  I have
> not made any claims for Newton's philosophical expertise. On the
> contrary, I explcitly questioned how useful it is to cite physicists
> on epistemology.  And of course I was led to do that by the fact that
> *you* cited Newton.  The fact that marshalling your particular
> citation of Newton in support of your peculiar epistemological claims
> requires a serious misreading of Newton does not change the fact that
> *you* appealed to him as an authority.

> Still I suppose this is progress: your newfound desire to downgrade
> Newton as an epistemologist does indicate that you have belatedly
> discovered that he offers no support for your claims.

First, my "newfound desire to downgrade Newton as an epistemologist" has
been in evidence, inter alia, on The New York Times Science Forum during the
past three years on, say, half dozen occasions.

Second.  The fact that, as E. A. Burtt put it, Newton was a "second rate"
philosopher, does NOT mean that Newton was incapable of stating correctly
that elementary point of epistemology noted by Mason and underscored earlier
by Hume.

But, as F. A. Hahn advised me in an exchange on related issues more than
twenty years ago - and as evidenced in your own comments - "Epistemology is
a very hard subject."

Gunnar