Here's the first sentence of the SEP article on MN you linked to:The Pixie wrote: "It" is how science is restricted to physicalism.
The way science is restricted to physicalism is called methodological naturalism.
What bit of that are you not getting? What bit of that is "weaseling"? I thought last time you were getting it, and now we seem to be back to square one. Go read about methodological naturalism. It seemed to work last time. For a few hours anyway.
(emphasis added).In what follows, “methodological naturalism” will be understood as a view about philosophical practice.
The part I'm not getting is that you seem to be conflating two different kinds of things. One is a metaphysical thesis and the other is a thesis about practice. The thesis about practice (aka MN) could not "restrict" science to a thesis about metaphysics, as I've already pointed out. One need not be a physicalist or subscribe to any particular comprehensive metaphysical thesis in order to subscribe to a thesis about practice. Not to mention the fact that it's difficult to see how "science" this immensely messy, sprawling family of activities, could be restricted to a metaphysical thesis, since "science" is an abstraction and does not hold any beliefs at all. It makes more sense to say that to conduct science, it requires holding a thesis about practice, since science is a set or practices. It's not in the "comprehensive metaphysical thesis" business. I could be wrong. Could you direct me to where what you claim, that MN restricts science to physicalism, is written in the article? If you can't, why don't we move on to something else?
Once again, my responses to your posts on this thread have never been about JBS or IMS. I don't know, and don;t care to know, enough about IMS or his thinking to say whether he believes that or not. My responses to you have been about what YOU have written. If you feel uncomfortable coming out from hiding behind them, then let's consign this "disagreement" to all the other "disagreements" we've had, ie the "black box" the "smallpox""scientism" etc discussions, hours of my life I will never see again but so fruitfully spent.So? Are you agreeing with JBSptfn's claim that IMS "is stuck in the science=physicalism only program"
Or not? Or is this you weaseling?
Just repeating something again doesn't amount to an explanation or a defense. What do you mean? As I've said, a scientist has to be a methodological naturalist but does NOT have to be a physicalist. So for that scientist who believes in the supernatural and who's a geologist, how does MN restrict science to physicalism? Draw out a Venn diagram."this" refers to the nature of the restriction. Did you really think it might mean science or physicalism?
The nature of the restriction is generally called methodological naturalism.
Methodological naturalism is how science is restricted to physicalism.