describing science as a language is like taking cans for canned food

Categories: Comparisons

An example of an analogy used in writing about science:

"Some philosophers think that a science is just an artificial language…But that is taking cans for canned food. Science constructs sign systems and works with them but only in so far as they can materialise our ideas concerning nonlinguistic objects, such as chemical binding. Furthermore, science is communicable but it does not serve the purpose of communication….Science, in short, has a language but is not a language…."

Mario Bunge

Bunge, M. (2017/1998). Philosophy of Science. Volume 1: From problem to theory (Revised ed.). Routledge.

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Author: Keith

Former school and college science teacher, teacher educator, research supervisor, and research methods lecturer. Emeritus Professor of Science Education at the University of Cambridge.