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  3. Relativism amounts to the denial of an objective world about which t

Relativism amounts to the denial of an objective world about which t

游客2024-01-11  51
问题             Relativism amounts to the denial of an objective world about which true and
       false statements can be made; there is no absolute truth, though there may be
       many "relative truths". Scientific skepticism in its simplest form denies only
Line     that we ever know, in the sense of establishing for certain, whether a
(5)      statement made by us is absolutely true or false, for the grounds of what is
       accepted as true themselves require grounds, thus initiating an infinite regress
       of justification. In supplement, Hume noted that reports of experience,
       observation and experiment, do not conclusively justify any prediction
       concerning the future or more generally the unobserved, even if they are held
(10)     to be so solidly based as to need no justification themselves. This may be
       regarded as skepticism about induction, the principal by which Bacon famously
       warranted inference from the known into the unknown. When we abandon the
       dream of conclusive justification, Hume argued, we must become all the more
       skeptical about opinions supported only by experience. Modern skeptics relish
(15)     especially this second discovery of Hume’s: that there exist no grounds
       whatever, conclusive or inconclusive, for anything that we claim to be certain
       of.
           Hume’s argument is indeed open to question, though we ought not assume
       too quickly that his conclusion encourages relativism. Even if skepticism is
(20)     correct, his argument does not concede anything to relativism, for skepticism
       does not recommend universal suspension of judgment or the ruinous doctrine
       that all rational opinion is justified opinion. The level-headed skeptic, the
       critical rationalist, does not doubt that there is truth to be had, but thinks that
       it may be had only by making a lucky guess. If one judges that there is life
(25)     elsewhere in the galaxy, and the other judges the opposite, then one of them
       has hit on a fragment of the truth.
           Remorseless though the logic is, it is at this point that reasonable people
       ask in incredulity: can it be seriously maintained that present-day science is
       simply a more widely accepted form of study of UFOs, dianetics, and similar
(30)     unseemly charlatanism? Scientific hypotheses are guesses no better backed by
       observation and experiment, and have no more claim on our credulity, than the
       fancies of pseudo-scientists. But science is more than the sum of its hypotheses,
       its observations, and its experiments, for from the point of view of rationality,
       science is above the critical method of searching for errors. What is wrong with
(35)         pseudoscience is the manner in which it handles its hypotheses, not the
       hypotheses themselves, though if they are designed to be unassailable and
       unfalsifiable, then unassailed and unfalsified they doubtlessly remain.
       Consequently, though a hypothesis that survives all criticism directed at it is
       preferable to a hypothesis that dies, it does not become a better hypothesis
(40)     through being tested. [br] Which of the following statements would best serve as an introduction to the passage?
选项 A、It is easy to see why the confusion of skepticism with relativism, or of justification with truth, is rationally so debilitating.
B、The presumption that genuine truth is possible without a measure of justification is a most mischievous error.
C、If scientists would stop lauding scientific rationality in the face of reason, irrationalism would be less popular.
D、Scientific hypotheses are not untrustworthy or unreliable except in the sense of being sometimes false.
E、Faced with their detractors, scientists characteristically retort that science, unlike witchcraft, works.
答案 A
解析
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