On Lutz on Laudan and demarcation

Posted on May 20, 2011 by

In his (draft) paper On an Allegedly Essential Feature of Demarcation Criteria of Science, Sebastian Lutz claims that demarcation does not require a criterion that is both a necessary and sufficient condition, as had been discussed in Laudan’s famous paper The demise of the demarcation problem. In a succinct counterargument, Lutz explains that we might have a sufficient condition allowing us to say that something is scientific and a distinct necessary condition allowing us to say that something else is not scientific; in short, that “Laudan’s demand that [the necessary and sufficient criteria] be one and the same is supererogatory”. Lutz goes on to propose that Laudan’s admission that most candidates for necessary criteria are implausible implies that some are not, and furthermore that Laudan’s comments suggest that, since we have an ordinary use sense of the demarcation between science and non-science, there must also be a plausible sufficient condition. Consequently, there may be a necessary condition and a separate sufficient condition for demarcating scientific theories.

I want to defend Laudan’s paper on several grounds. Firstly, it does not follow from our everyday use of demarcation that a philosophically rigorous sufficient criterion exists. Although we might, as Lutz posits, try to enumerate what we ordinarily call science, it is precisely this attempt that – along with the search for a necessary criterion – has failed. When Lutz argues that this ordinary criterion, although possibly very weak, can “already decide important cases”, the implication is that our ordinary use of the term science is enough to work with and build upon; but Laudan’s requirement of the enumeration is that it should be an “adequate explication” and “must exhibit epistemically significant differences”. We therefore need to show why our ordinary use provides a sufficient condition that will survive philosophical scrutiny, rather than starting from it.

Moreover, and on the other hand, if this ordinary use suggests that we have some kind of sufficient criterion, we should also be fair to Laudan’s invocation of it and note that our typical understanding of demarcation involves a criterion that is both necessary and sufficient. Lutz’s criticism is perhaps slightly uncharitable insofar as Laudan explicitly discusses a demarcation criterion that we assume will do the work of identifying both what is and what is not science. This captures our ordinary use of demarcation as a means of division rather than determining that something is x while separately determining that something else is not-y; that is, building upon our ordinary use. After all, this is what we see in examples like verification and falsification: the criterion is intended to demarcate for us on its own. This does not mean we should limit ourselves to seeking a single criterion but only that if we are going to begin with ordinary use then we should be consistent.

Secondly, Laudan does not claim that separate conditions can never be found because he does not need to. Indeed, this early part of Laudan’s paper is preparatory work: he reviews demarcation traditions, arguing that they have failed, but the discovery of a successful demarcation criterion would not imperil his main argument, which is not that the demarcation criteria so far identified have failed or that successful criteria can never be found but rather that demarcation is superfluous and beside the point.

I have explained this previously but demarcation’s demise is thus not due to the lack of a philosophically rigorous demarcation criterion but instead because it turns out that, for Laudan at least, demarcation is unhelpful and unnecessary. Much like the objection I made to the invoking of parsimony as a methodological rule, the merits or otherwise of an idea only become apparent after we have investigated it. Even those that seem straightforwardly to be hopeless may subsequently prove to have something to recommend them and we are extremely unlikely to discover this if we reject them ab initio. Note that this does not imply that all ideas will have such merits in due course, or that we should set aside time, money and other resources to conduct the investigation. If advocates of an idea wish to see it succeed, it is for them to pursue it and, when a case can be made, to present it in a stronger form.

For Laudan, this investigation would result in our being able to say whether or not the idea turned out to be well-founded and well-confirmed, but it could also be that philosophical examination provides additional criticisms or supporting arguments. Whatever the case, the idea or the theory it becomes is ultimately assessed based on how it survives this period of scrutiny. There is no need to pre-judge this process via demarcation because that removes or hinders the possibility that what seems like a bad idea might turn out to be useful or successful. Although this may sometimes be unpalatable if we want to give a final answer on ideas we dislike or have reasons to associate with ulterior motives, it is this openness that allowed science to develop and for some originally discredited theories to eventually prove their worth.

If it were the case that we have or could one day find a necessary and sufficient demarcation criterion, or if we could identify separate criteria as Lutz suggests, Laudan’s argument in The demise of the demarcation problem would not be threatened because, as he says in closing his paper, the status of claims is irrelevant; what really matters is their credentials. We should perhaps be careful not to put the cart before the horse: it is because an idea seems to have little to recommend it that we reject it, rather than seeking to reject or accept it from the outset. Although it is tempting to try to shortcut this process, science might turn out to be the poorer for it or, if this view had been applied in the past, not have developed at all.

References:

Laudan, L. (1983) The demise of the demarcation problem, in R. S. Cohen & L. Laudan (Eds.), Physics, Philosophy, and Psychoanalysis (pp. 111–127). Dordrecht: Reidel.
Lutz, S. (2011) On an Allegedly Essential Feature of Demarcation Criteria of Science [Draft]. PhilSci Archive, http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/8609/.

Posted in Philosophy of Science | Tagged , | 15 Comments

Second Response to ‘The Politics of Demarcation’

Posted on May 3, 2011 by

Abstract. The most widely disseminated arguments against Intelligent Design have failed to produce invariant and objective demarcation criteria sufficient to establish that ID cannot be a matter of science. Ultimately, ID opponents rely heavily upon the fact of there being a strong tie between ID and religious thinking. Even this tack, however, ends up seeming more a matter of ideology than of either science or philosophy.

In his paper, Can’t philosophers tell the difference between science and religion?: Demarcation revisited, Robert Pennock displays, at the beginning of his article, this quote from the opinion issued for the Kitzmiller v Dover case:

“[W]e have addressed the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not, and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents.”

Such a statement should quickly strike philosophers (and especially philosophers of science) as being at least somewhat troublesome – philosophically speaking – for reasons well enough covered here, here, and here.

As discussed in the First Response to ‘The Politics of Demarcation‘, there is no necessary incompatibility between science and religion even when “methodological naturalism” is put forth (as it is in Pennock’s paper) “as a ‘ground rule’ of science.” Accordingly, the judge in the Kitzmiller case is at least on extremely dubious philosophical grounds when he so closely associates the non-science standing of ID with religious antecedents. In fact, such antecedents are philosophically irrelevant for the reasons discussed in the references cited in the preceding paragraph.

Pennock says that:

even if Laudan had been correct that philosophers viewed demarcation as a pseudo-problem, that would not mean that it is a pseudo-problem in other settings or for scholars with other interests.

Even if all philosophers were to acknowledge that Laudan’s arguments with regards to demarcation were philosophically unassailable, Pennock’s point about “other settings” and “other interests” would still stand. Indeed, nearly thirty years ago, in the Autumn, 1982, issue of Science, Technology, & Human Values, Michael Ruse noted that “the kinds of conclusions and strategies apparently favored by Laudan are simply not strong enough for legal purposes.”

However, all that the Ruse and Pennock points indicate is that the demarcation issue is more a matter of something other than philosophy, and for both Ruse and Pennock that something-other-than-philosophy, those “other settings” and “other interests” are the legal and political domains which are, in the end, extensively identical, certainly as regards the ID issue.

In his essay, The politics of demarcation, Paul Newall reasonably hypothesizes that the apparent abandonment of philosophical rigor by the likes of Ruse, Pennock, and many other philosophers might well be related to thinking of this sort:

Although the [demarcation] problem may be philosophically interesting and there may be philosophical counterarguments to the various criteria thus far presented as viable, the question of how important the objections are has to be weighed against the political problem of preventing intelligent design from being taught in schools.

What Newall refers to as a “political problem” arguably could have been presented in terms of political interests or even cultural or sociological interests. But, it is by describing these interests in terms of “problems” that even those philosophers who are aware of the inadequacy of criteria put forth for the thoroughly objective demarcation of science can justify (at least to some extent and even if only to themselves or their own cadre) the abandonment of philosophical rigor.

In “Conflict and Harmony” (found in The Tyranny of Science), Paul Feyerabend tells the story of “a student of sociology from Yugoslavia” who had been witness to the civil wars there and who had sent Feyerabend “a tape and a letter.” The student had seen the

destruction of houses, of entire cities, killings, mutilations of the most inhuman kind. He had always believed in the power of democracy and free speech, he said in the letter; he had believed that conflicts could be solved by a rational debate – and so on. ‘Now I only trust a man with a gun who is on my side.’ And, indeed, he is right. For who can reason with torturers, murderers and rapists?

Even those with the most passionate devotion to rationality and to “rational debate” can easily imagine there arising circumstances in which attempts at reasoning with some other(s) will prove impotent and fruitless, and, in some of these circumstances, the devotee might judge that it is best for him to abandon (he will hope it is only temporarily so) what he has been regarding as a principle that has guided the development of his self.

However, is the Creationism/ID issue the sort of circumstance that warrants the abandonment of the principle of philosophical rigor?

Noting that the setting is a legal/political one does not itself justify the abandonment by philosophers of the devotion to argumentative rigor to which they are presumed to be devoted. The Creationism/ID matter is anything but a harrowing circumstance; so, as exactly what are philosophers operating when they so willingly sacrifice the philosophical for the sake of the political? Are they anything more than window dressing?

Absent invariant and objective criteria for the demarcation of science, it might be that philosophers could do no more than suggest that science is best regarded – in the legal/political setting – as a sociological entity into which neither Creationism nor ID has been accepted. However, when such a sociological basis for a judgment against teaching Creationism/ID as science is put forth in a political context, the political question can rather easily be recast in terms of whether the public has a right – or is to be allowed – to decide for themselves what will be any of the details that have to do with the acculturation and socialization of their children that occurs within public education.

In the case of the American legal/political setting, opponents of Creationism/ID happen to have at their disposal a legal tradition which has a quite strong bias against any legislation which can have its intent tied to religion. This feature of the legal/political setting provides for a course of argumentation which allows Creationism/ID opponents to discuss the personal religious beliefs as if those unveil the actual public policy intent of Creationism/ID proponents. In terms of philosophy and philosophical argumentation, such a tack is seen as essentially irrelevant especially to ID in and of itself, but this at least mitigates the (philosophical) problems that there are with being able to provide invariant and objective demarcation criteria for science.

In the end, it certainly seems that the demarcation issue is more of a political issue than one regarding the characteristics of science, and while philosophy (especially as distinguished from ideology) can have a significant role within the political, it is anything except apparent that the most oft heard arguments of the ID opponents amount to anything but very poor philosophy (if those arguments are even to be properly regarded as philosophical instead of ideological).

So, we are once again left to wonder just what it is that is being served by the philosophy presented as testimony against the Creationism/ID proponents. If the philosopher’s participation in court cases or in legislative hearings results from attorneys and legislators thinking that philosophical expertise is useful for the overall presentation, in conjunction with the philosophers’ own judgments that it is best that Creationism/ID not be taught within a high school science curriculum, then it is easy to imagine the philosophers thinking of themselves as participating in a public service.

However, when philosophical considerations are restricted or abandoned for the sake of political expediency and to the detriment of the usual notions about what makes a good philosophical argument, then is the philosophers’ no doubt well-intentioned public service a disservice to philosophy? And, if so, is such a disservice under such circumstances ultimately a disservice to the public?

Some of these matters, or similar issues, could also be directed to any philosophers who would argue in favor of having Creationism and/or ID included in a public high school science curriculum. However, it is the Creationism/ID opponents who most rely upon arguments in terms of – and in favor of – demarcation criteria, and the issue at hand here is whether the attempts at demarcation that have been put forth most often are philosophically suitable or nothing more than politically efficacious.

Posted in Current Affairs, Evolution, Feyerabend, History and Philosophy of Science, History of Science, Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy of Science, Politics, Religion, Science | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

First Response to ‘The Politics of Demarcation’

Posted on April 29, 2011 by

Abstract: This is in response to The Politics of Demarcation, but the discussion here is largely limited to matters relating primarily to some assertions about whether demarcation is best regarded as a non-issue.

In the comments section of this blog posting, Jim Fetzer says, “Laudan is wrong about the absence of a criterion of demarcation” and “Pennock’s arguments for such a [demarcation] criterion are stronger than Laudan’s against it”. Whether or not there have been any defenses of Pennock which address the matters brought up in Demarcation’s revisited demise, misunderstandings, misinterpretations, or misrepresentations of Laudan’s position do seem fairly common.

For instance, Fetzer says, “Laudan is wrong about the absence of a criterion of demarcation”, and he also alleges that Laudan has been engaged in “efforts to diminish the distinction between science and pseudo-science”. A better point to take (indeed, likely the point intended to be taken) from Laudan’s writings on this issue is that attempts to derive consistently applicable criteria for distinguishing between science and pseudo-science are sufficiently rife with problems as to be not definitive, successful, or ultimately worthwhile — or even constructive for philosophical or scientific thinking. In light of the commonplace expectation that objectivity is at least the goal of science even if it is not necessary for science, with claims that demarcation is real (in the sense of objectively – and not just subjectively or intersubjectively – actual) comes at least the expectation that there are extant objective measures by which science and non-science are distinguishable.

In the above cited comments, Fetzer ties the qualification of hypotheses as “scientific” to “inference to the best explanation (IBE)”, and he then proceeds to argue that neither Creationism nor Intelligent Design (ID) satisfy the conditions of IBE. Even though IBE is itself (even if not consciously or intentionally) an acknowledgment that mind-independent objectivity is either not achieved or not necessary, in terms of IBE, Fetzer can rather easily dispense with “classic creationist hypotheses”, but his manner of dealing with ID is a more problematic matter. This, of course, is no surprise, certainly if ID is seen as a sort of Creationism that has been modified according to Creationism cast in terms of Fetzer’s CC1 (“God created the world and everything therein exactly as we find it today”) and CC2 (“He created life in fixed and unchanging forms”). Indeed, years ago, Laudan himself warned of just such “child’s play” in the form of responsive adaptation.

Addressing the matter of ID (which is Fetzer’s CC3), Fetzer says that “if God created life in all its forms using the laws of evolution … then the laws of evolution are enough to explain those forms of life and the appeal to God is irrelevant”, and, therefore, ID does not qualify as scientific according to IBE. However, what arguably exhibits more “lawlikeness” than the “laws of evolution” are the relatively micro-processes that are the subject of physics/chemistry. This greater lawlikeness, which really amounts to a more detailed observable consistency, might simply be the result of a relatively constricted scope of study whereas the “laws of evolution” amount to a broader description which can be used even while there are gaps in knowledge about just what details/coincidence of conditions are necessary in order to effect the changes that manifest as biological evolution.

Given this sort of broadness, and given the current state of what we know and believe, the only way to succeed with a logical argument against the need for reference to God is to say that science is the study of physical relationships which always has as one constitutive purpose the possibility (or hope) that greater information about physical processes will lead to some sort of enhanced human utilization of the physical. The conjunction of this restricted scope and this purpose gives a fuller picture of what science has come to be. This science has no demonstrated necessity for atheistic metaphysics, and even God as a demonstrated fact would not be a matter for science unless information about God somehow enhanced human capabilities for the utilization (including the manipulation) of physical processes.

From this it follows that the familiar demarcation between religion (in terms of its common definitions) and science is irredeemably erroneous. Such an error is exacerbated when it leads to the claim that ID cannot be – can never be – a matter of science. Belief in God is not necessarily incompatible with science, and ID is not necessarily incompatible with science. Nonetheless, in terms of the description given here with regards to the nature of science, ID is not currently contributory to scientific understanding. Inasmuch as science education – particularly in the middle and high school settings – is first and foremost an introduction to the general conventions of the current science communities (thereby amounting to one aspect of the educational socialization process), it is flatly incorrect to present either Creationism or ID as alternative theories that are currently operative in science communities.

Science communities are best described not in terms of what future investigation they think will prove fruitful; rather, properly construed, science communities are better described in terms of explanations that have thus far been generally accepted, even if any of those explanations are also realized to be in any way lacking. This is to say that, despite the vilifying caricatures of Feyerabend, as far as science communities are generally concerned, anything goes when it comes to new research and research directions, even though the conclusions will not necessarily attain wide communal acceptance. If such communities ever speak in terms of there being ways to demarcate science from non-science or pseudo-science, it is not a mind-independent objective demarcation which is claimed (at least not legitimately so). Instead of demarcation, what is actually at play is judgment, and, instead of the pseudo-objectivity suggested by or associated with the term demarcation, it is more straightforwardly correct to acknowledge and speak in terms of there being judgments that have been made.

See also “Second Response to ‘The Politics of Demarcation’“

Posted in Current Affairs, Feyerabend, History and Philosophy of Science, Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy of Science, Politics, Religion, Science | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

The politics of demarcation

Posted on April 28, 2011 by

Abstract: Is it better to have demarcation criteria that allow us to demarcate in practice rather than ones that are philosophically rigorous? This entry looks again at the demarcation problem and considers the criticism that philosophical treatments of it fail to take into account political contexts. It is argued that far from being ignorant of these contexts, rigorous treatments of the demarcation problem are important on whatever understanding we take of the political role of philosophy because they show that the error lies in supposing demarcation to be the best way to deal with the problem of intelligent design in science classrooms.

Concerns about philosophical treatments of the demarcation problem tend to run something like the following: Although the problem may be philosophically interesting and there may be philosophical counterarguments to the various criteria thus far presented as viable, the question of how important the objections are has to be weighed against the political problem of preventing intelligent design from being taught in schools. Furthermore, it may perhaps be the case that the demarcation problem is insoluble but nevertheless there exist criteria that are good enough that we can use them to characterise intelligent design as pseudo-science or unscientific; indeed, this is what the demarcation project seeks, not a philosophically rigorous final answer to the problem. More importantly, offering philosophical critiques of such criteria or arguing that demarcation should not be used at all can been misunderstood as speaking in favour of intelligent design, since if we cannot characterise it as unscientific then its advocates will seek to present it as such. Given that such advocates have significant political and financial support, weakening this means of preventing its inclusion in school classrooms ultimately proves to be equivalent to aiding intelligent design. (Note that this description leaves out the fact that a flaw in arguments for demarcation does not imply an increased merit for ideas about intelligent design.) We should therefore be careful in making philosophical criticisms of demarcation criteria and the demarcation problem in general because we must remain mindful of the larger political context at issue.

I have already argued at length that a recent attempt to set out a useful demarcation criterion, one that takes account of the political context, fails on several grounds: it does not answer the philosophical objections raised against the demarcation project in general, it does not succeed on its own terms, and it does not appreciate why demarcation may be the wrong approach to take in the first place. However, it could be that these considerations should be secondary ones, pushed to this position by the political dangers of intelligent design. Given these objections to the philosophical treatment of the demarcation problem, what are the implications?

One possibility is that, although we can investigate issues like the demarcation problem, we should not publish any arguments that have this potential to undermine an important political struggle or imply that an opposing position has more merit than it has or than we would wish it to have. This seems like an absurd demand, subjecting philosophical investigation to political oversight. A lesser requirement might be to caveat such investigations, including a more political and/or practical addendum that takes account of the political context within which such arguments – like all arguments, really – exist: we might say “notwithstanding that the demarcation problem therefore seems insoluble, in practice we need to be able to demarcate and to do that we now argue for criteria that, although not to be understood as solutions to the problem, provide a basic means to differentiate between scientific and potentially scientific theories on the one hand and unscientific theories on the other” (something of a mouthful, clearly, but a sentiment along these lines). However, this seems to presuppose that the philosopher investigating the matter both recognises and agrees with the correct side of the political issue and that the political context ought to be taken account of; that is, that the investigation cannot solely be of the philosophical merits or otherwise of demarcation criteria.

There are at least two ways to respond to this. Firstly, we can dismiss it as prima facie absurd: philosophy aims at or at least takes some account of the search for truth, and if the truth does not suit the political context then so much the worse for the latter. Even if the notion of truth sits somewhat uncomfortably, the philosopher wants to learn the merits of an argument and these are what they are, regardless of the political stakes. Secondly, we can perhaps object to the separation of truth or merit from political utility: ultimately we may judge it to be more important that children are educated in a particular way than that we have complete solutions to philosophical problems; or else we may wish to audit the results of our philosophical investigations before we implement any changes they recommend or suggest. An example of this might be the standard response to criticisms of democracy, which is to accept them but say that it is still the “least bad” option. Perhaps we can insist, with some justification, that it is less bad to use philosophically flawed or refuted criteria than to follow arguments where they lead and end up with an unsatisfactory political result. It is probably fair to say that this kind of reasoning is often at work in international relations and in arguments for humanitarian intervention.

We might also consider whether rhetoric plays a larger role in politics than it does in philosophy. If so, and given the reality that arguments are not won or lost on their merits alone but also by their presentation and apparent or actual consequences, we have to take account not just of philosophical rigour but also how both we and our opponents will be able to present these merits and consequences. If not, then we still need to bear this in mind. The main lesson of considering a rhetorical dimension is that few (if any) arguments operate in a vacuum: people have political, religious, cultural, ethical and many other concerns, any of which may influence how they interpret what otherwise seems straightforward, such as that the demarcation problem being insoluble does not imply that intelligent design belongs in a science classroom.

Given this discussion, what could be done with the particular question of the demarcation problem? It is difficult to argue that this issue is one in which the political context is so important that we should not argue against demarcation criteria at all, notwithstanding that it clearly is important to many people and does have political and educational consequences. One possibility might be to reason that since supporters of intelligent design have seized upon the apparent insolubility of the demarcation problem, we could emphasise the perhaps more important argument of Laudan’s paper The demise of the demarcation problem, which is that we should focus on empirical and conceptual credentials rather than demarcation if we wish to protect ourselves from bad ideas and quackery. A more accurate interpretation of this paper is thus not that the demarcation problem is insoluble but that issues are not decided in this manner in the first place: for Laudan, we do not ask “is intelligent design scientific?” but rather “what are the empirical and conceptual credentials of intelligent design?” On finding that there are little or none, we are subsequently inclined to say “… and therefore intelligent design is unscientific” but the question has already been resolved at this point (a similar objection can be made regarding the invocation of parsimony in judging the relative merits of theories). This approach allows the intelligent design advocate to work on the idea to attempt to improve its empirical and conceptual credentials, since we already allow that science is always an unfinished project and that ideas or research programmes that have failed to develop might one day do so, but without the need for an a priori decision that is both philosophically unsound and restricts this potential development in a way that, with the benefit of hindsight, would have hampered science in the past. (This is the argument of the historical turn in the philosophy of science, of course.)

The best response to the objection “so how would we demarcate at all?” is therefore to point out that we judge ideas according to their merits rather than their status post-demarcation. This further allows us to proliferate “alternative” theories; in effect, to point out that, given that geocentrism (to take an example) has empirical and conceptual merits considerably greater than intelligent design, if we wish to enhance the science curriculum by teaching that alternatives theories exist then this (and any number of other possible examples) has more in its favour than intelligent design. (Indeed, geocentrism is a particularly nice example because it includes significant political and religious contexts – historically, that is – that permit the discussion of how and why religious ideas sometimes appear incompatible with scientific results, noting the anachronism in the use of science here.)

The obvious criticism of this approach is to argue that it still ignores the reality of debates about intelligent design: all advocates will do is adjust their ideas or even appeal to miracles in order to save them. Here we can say two things: firstly, of course they do this, which is precisely what we should expect if, as Feyerabend argued, tenacity is a value implicit in science and, by extension, for those who seek to develop scientific theories. After all, intelligent design would have little hope (if the history of science is any guide) of becoming a theory with empirical and conceptual merit if its advocates readily gave up on it, especially since it involves a political context that has been identified – by its opponents – as a threat and therefore presumably as important to those who support it. Secondly, unless we somehow prohibit arguments showing the failure of demarcation criteria (or provide better counter-arguments than have thus far been offered), it may be preferable that intelligent design advocates seek to employ any means to respond to the empirical and conceptual weakness of their ideas. If not, they are able to point to the failure of demarcation criteria or (which probably amounts to the same thing) they can portray philosophical disagreement on this matter as implying that intelligent design is not unscientific and therefore belongs in the science classroom. In both cases, at least moving away from demarcation has the advantage of forcing developmental work to be done and it is unclear why this should be any less successful in addressing intelligent design.

Ultimately what this discussion suggests is that if the adoption and use of poor arguments is to be lamented when undertaken by those advocating intelligent design, surely those opposing it must hold themselves to a higher standard? The implication is thus that if arguments for demarcation criteria continue to fail, if these failures are seized upon by intelligent design advocates and if there are better reasons to dispense with this approach altogether, it is likely that objections to intelligent design on some other basis will be more successful at least in part because they are more philosophically rigorous. Criticising an insistence on demarcation, far from demonstrating a lack of political understanding, actually returns the issue to one of science instead of philosophy and provides a service to the debate rather than acting as an irrelevance or hindrance.

Posted in History and Philosophy of Science, History of Science, Philosophy of Science, Politics, Religion, Science | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Revisiting the Cosmological Argument

Posted on April 13, 2011 by

In a 1994 paper, Quentin Smith reported1 that world-renowned theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking had, in his book, A Brief History of Time, “recently argued that there is ‘no place for a creator’, that God does not exist.” Did Hawking so explicitly deny God? Or, is this Smith’s own interpretation – possibly a misinterpretation – of what Hawking wrote?

In A Brief History of Time, Hawking recounted that it was at a “conference in the Vatican” when he “first put forward the suggestion that maybe time and space together … was finite in size but did not have any boundary or edge.” He noted that his “paper was rather mathematical … so its implications for the role of God … were not generally recognized at the time (just as well for me).” 2

Eventually, what Hawking actually did in the book to which Quentin Smith referred was posit a “completely self-contained” universe “having no boundary or edge” with “neither beginning nor end”. Hawking then put forth what might have been intended as a rhetorical question when he asked, “What place, then, for a creator?” 3

Years later, Hawking had become somewhat less publicly timid and in his book, The Grand Design, was willing to go so far as to state outright that “It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.” 4 Hawking’s statement is not nearly so elegant as Laplace’s response to Napoleon; when Napoleon questioned him about not having mentioned God, Laplace replied, “I had no need of that hypothesis.”

Even if Hawking imagines that he has presented what amounts to an argument against the reality of God, even if Hawking explicitly “argued that … God does not exist”(as Quentin Smith reports), is this denial supposed to be a fact of science? Whether such a claim is scientific or merely and woefully scientistic, the fact of the matter is that there is at least one philosophical argument commonly taken as at least suggestive of the existence of God which has yet to be overcome – even in light of Hawking’s work. That argument is the Cosmological Argument.

Cause, Contingency, and Dependence

The Cosmological Argument in any of its forms5 is most often regarded as an argument in support of there having been a First Cause for all that was, is, and ever will be. Of course, it is in the very nature of being a first cause to be also uncaused. Being both first and uncaused, this First Cause seems especially suitable for what are taken to be some very basic notions about the God of Western theisms in particular, and this explains why, as an historical matter, the Cosmological Argument has come to be regarded primarily as an attempt at establishing the mind-independent reality or existence, the actuality of God.

Despite the now prevalent way of thinking about it as an argument for the existence of God, a successful Cosmological Argument, as conventionally explicated, goes no further than to demonstrate the need, the necessity for there having been what is most frequently referred to as a First Cause.

Of this First Cause, one may be inclined to say, “and this we call God”, but, since it goes no further than to establish a First Cause, the Cosmological Argument in and of itself does not establish the fact of existence for either a theistic or even a deistic God.

As Robert C. Koons notes in “A New Look at the Cosmological Argument”6:

Demonstrating the existence of a First Cause is of course not the same thing as demonstrating the existence of God as conceived, for example, in biblical theology. Nonetheless, the result of the cosmological argument is quite useful to the project of natural theology, providing very helpful support to a number of important arguments for theism.

What Koons refers to as the “result” of the Cosmological Argument is likely ordinarily identified with the conclusion of the argument. This identification of result with conclusion, the interchangeability of “result” and “conclusion”, would certainly be wholly appropriate were it the case that the entire content of the argument provided no basis whatsoever for objection or doubt.

It turns out, however, that there have been objections to the Cosmological Argument. Accordingly, the “result” of the Cosmological Argument is something other than, something broader than the conclusion. This is because, even if the argument succeeds despite any and all objections, the objections and the manner in which they are overcome serve to produce content or other results in addition not only to the conclusion but also the premises.

The additional content and these additional results are important inasmuch as they become relevant to any and all other arguments which in any way rely upon or refer to the conclusion of a Cosmological Argument. In effect, the additional results or content born of overcome objections explicate or define the conclusion.

All forms of the Cosmological Argument proceed from the fact that something – whether the world, the universe, experience, what have you – is or exists, and the differences in the forms of this argument arise from differences in the manners employed for characterizing this something which is or exists.

In general, the most common forms of the Cosmological Argument concentrate on either the notion of causal qualities or the notion of contingency or some combination of both. All forms of the argument conclude with either an uncaused cause or something otherwise non-contingent as essential to either the description or explanation for all that is, ever has been, or ever will be.

Accordingly, the objections to the Cosmological Argument pertain to the characterization of causality (including whether causes are mind-independent facts as distinguished from mind-generated concepts) as well as to the nature of contingency (and, thereby, certain versions of necessity). As a consequence of such objections, some versions of the Cosmological Argument also involve considerations about the nature of infinity.

In any event, it is clearly the case that the “result” of the Cosmological Argument involves more than just its conclusion regardless of the form of argument employed. As the assorted objections to the argument(s) make clear, the Cosmological Argument pertains not just to the conclusion of an uncaused cause or the necessity of an origin for reality other than the universe itself. Rather, the “result” of the Cosmological Argument – and, hence, the argument itself – primarily regards the most basic characteristics of the universe: cause and effect as well as contingency and necessity. This is to say that, in the case of a successful argument, the “results” go beyond the fact of the First Cause to indicate characteristics of this uncaused necessity which should, in turn, be taken into account by whatever are the other “important arguments for theism” which Koons has in mind.

The Cosmological Argument proceeds from the observation (or interpretation) that all things which come to be do so as the result (or as the effect) of having been caused by some other things. All caused things are regarded as being contingent at least inasmuch as their having come to be is dependent on other things.

Sometimes this contingency is expanded and described in terms of it being in some way possible that the caused things might not have come to be (or might not have come to be precisely as they are). This is to say that, in addition to a dependency for having come to be, contingency can also indicate the possibility of alternatives to the things which have come to be.

But, even with this type of contingency, all caused things remain dependent on other things in order for those caused things to have come to be.

It is not yet established that possible alternatives are themselves things that come to be without being dependent on some mind(s); this is to say that it is not yet established that possibilities are mind-independent things as distinguished from merely mind-dependent conceptions or conceivabilities. Since the Cosmological Argument, to be as broadly successful as possible, cannot – and, indeed, does not – presume that caused things are all dependent on minds, the contingency within the argument is, at least initially, most properly regarded in terms of dependency rather than in terms of alternatives.

At its most basic, contingency indicates dependence. Continue reading →

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Ockham’s Razor

Posted on April 2, 2011 by

Ockham’s Razor, otherwise called the principle of the economy of thought, is often invoked in debate or arguments, usually to discard or count against one or more theories on the basis that another exists that is simpler or more parsimonious. This entry considers the principle, its domain of application and some associated philosophical concerns, using examples from the history of science to illustrate some of the points at issue. It is argued that Ockham’s Razor is neither as useful nor as important as is sometimes claimed.

The Simplest Explanation

The principle of parsimony is typically stated in the form Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem (“Entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity”). Although referred to as Ockham’s Razor after William of Ockham, a Franciscan living at the turn of the fourteenth century (c.1285–c.1349), this version has not been found in any of his extant works. The closest match (Frustra fit per plura quod potest fieri per pauciora or “It is pointless to do with more what can be done with fewer”) may have been written in quoting others and indeed the general principle was common among Aristotelians. In brief, when explaining a phenomenon or developing a theory, we should refrain from invoking entities that are not necessary in doing so.

As a contemporary example, some people suspect that crop circles are due to extraterrestrial influence, whether directly or otherwise; others suggest that the patterns are the work of dedicated artists or hoaxers and very much an earthly occurrence. Given that the latter group have been able to demonstrate the construction of a crop circle, there is no need to posit aliens to account for why farmer’s fields are routinely invaded in this fashion and hence this explanation is discounted via Ockham’s Razor. If we wish to hold to the economy of thought, we should pick the simpler explanation.

Ockham’s Razor is only a principle; that is, it does not tell us that the simplest explanation is true but instead that we ought to prefer it on methodological grounds. We are counselled to adopt theories which are more efficient, insofar as they can do the same explanatory work with less. Note that this does not imply that we must do so: a direct route to a destination is neither better nor worse than a diversion unless we include the criterion that we wish to get there by the most direct route. Nevertheless, it seems plain enough that we are inclined to favour the simpler explanation, other things being equal. It is this latter ceteris paribus assumption that we now examine.

Applying Ockham’s Razor, part 1: Astronomical theories

Perhaps the best-known example of two competing theories between which a decision had to be made was the seventeenth century controversy over astronomical systems. The long-standing Ptolemaic/Aristotelian model of the heavens was challenged by the Copernicans, who insisted that heliocentrism was simpler than geocentrism. (Note that the question of geostaticism – or the fixed (or otherwise) nature of the Earth itself – was a separate issue.) Since that time, much effort has gone into demonstrating (or refuting) that either system was more parsimonious than the other.

Although Copernicus believed that a sun-centred universe consisting in circular orbits was the most beautiful that could be created, he did so on the basis of thematic assumptions derived from neo-platonic influences and not as a result of any new observations, of which there were none until some years later. (Max Jammer has shown – see this entry for more detail – that Copernicus’s reasoning resulted in his being faced with having to reject either geocentrism or the Aristotelian conception of space. Having no metaphysical substitute for the latter, he was forced to dispense with the former. Ptolemy had actually considered the possibility of circular motion but dismissed it precisely because it did not agree with what was seen in the night sky.) On making the change to heliocentrism, Copernicus found that he still required the assistance of devices like epicycles to save the phenomenon; that is, to make the predictions of his theory agree with what was actually discerned by astronomers. The issue of relative simplicity has subsequently been reduced by some commentators to comparing the number of epicycles but this is beside the point: neither the Ptolemaic nor Copernican system was empirically adequate, leading Kepler to produce another.

The basic error inherent in this counting approach is that of considering theories in isolation, since they always include a host of ancillary presuppositions and exist within metaphysical systems. A comparison with an alternative implicitly or otherwise assumes that all other things are equal when they are not (or, at the very least, we need to show that this requirement is satisfied). Copernicus himself was wary of asserting the truth of his system and only received a copy of his De revolutionibus orbium celestium on his deathbed. When the issue was forced during the so-called “Galileo Affair“, a judgment was sought between two systems whose empirical base was the same and whose practical utility was identical at that time. Galileo sought to delay any choice by invoking the Augustinian principle that it would be folly to ground theological certainties on physical propositions that might subsequently be shown to be false, but his pleas were not heard.

There are several lessons to take from this historical episode. In the first place, we have two competing theories with the same content, and thus a prime candidate for the application of Ockham’s razor. Upon consideration, however, we immediately note that the ceteris paribus clause was not satisfied, for many reasons: the theological consequences were (ostensibly) very different; the political outcome moreso, particularly against the backdrop of the Reformation; the implications for morality were easy to predict but harder to judge; and the metaphysical fallout was just beginning to be investigated. The decision made on this basis did not count the number of postulated entities (which were effectively the same) and did not include an assessment of the relative economies of each theory, since they were also equivalent. In any event, Copernicanism was rejected with scarcely a mention of William of Ockham.

We know now, of course, that a variant of heliocentrism eventually won the day. Galileo’s warning to the Church was not heeded and its decision to assert the reality of geocentrism had catastrophic results for its authority and – later – its credibility. Nevertheless, the history of this change is also illustrative: at no time was there an invocation of the “decisive experiment”, dreamt of by many a philosopher of science. By the time Foucault’s investigations with his pendulum showed the movement of the Earth, confidence in geocentrism had already been slowly eroded over the years. At the only stage in this entire episode where a comparison between rival theories had been insisted upon, the question was decided by “non-scientific” means (notwithstanding the anachronism implying the inverted commas) with Ockham’s Razor playing no part.

The general point raised by this brief study is that Copernicanism required time to develop. Attempting to make a straightforward comparison was disastrous for the Church and for astronomy (and subsequently science) in Italy. Kepler was able to refine the basic Copernican insight because the theory was not limited to the narrow domain in which it was judged. No one needed Ockham’s Razor.

Applying Ockham’s Razor, part 2: Theories of gases

To take a second example from the history of science, consider now a theory, which we call T1, that applies within a domain D. T1 predicts P but the actual state of affairs is in fact P’, which is close to P but such that their difference is beyond experimental possibilities; that is, there is a difference but it is so slight that we could never notice it by investigation. In such circumstances it would be of little use to hope (or even expect) that an increase in experimental capabilities will lead to the discovery that P’ actually obtains because there is no apparent need to refine T1.

Now suppose instead that we propose additional theories T2, T3…, etc, each of which differs from T1 within D and which predicts P’. Ockham’s Razor cannot help us decide whether or not to pursue these new theories. However, when we investigate them further we may find that T2, say, is confirmed where T1 was but also makes novel predictions not given by T1, or else suggests answers to extant problems for T1. In that case, then, we may chose to reject T1 and adopt T2, even though no refuting case has been made against T1.

Although this hypothetical example may be considered fanciful, it is illustrative of what occurred when the kinetic theory of gases was proposed in opposition to the prevailing phenomenological theory. For the phenomenological theory of gases (i.e. based on describing the behaviour of gases via the laws of thermodynamics), Brownian motion was an instance of a perpetuum mobile that refuted the second law of thermodynamics, which expressly disallows perpetual motion. (In brief, the apparently random movement of the Brownian particle seems to go on indefinitely, suggesting that somehow the particle does not run out of energy. In kinetic terms, however, we now say that it is being “bumped” by other molecules, explaining both its behaviour and where its energy comes from). Following his studies of Brownian motion, Einstein was able to entirely recast the phenomenological theory in kinetic terms (see the 1956 edition of his Investigations on the Theory of the Brownian Motion), in spite of having no experimental motivation to do so beyond the known difficulties; after all, the differences in temperature expected, if the kinetic theory was correct, were below the range of detection of thermometers (see Fürth, 1933). Nevertheless, the new theory prevailed when Einstein used it to derive statistical predictions for the behaviour of the Brownian particle by assuming that molecules existed and a mechanical account of the motion could be given. (Feyerabend (1963 (1999, pp.92-94)) made this argument for a different reason, which Laymon (1977) disputed.) This decision could later be justified by the eventual successes of the kinetic programme, but this is only to say that parsimony was discussed after the event, if at all. The possibility of applying Ockham’s Razor was again not considered, nor could it be of any use.

Applying Ockham’s Razor, part 3: The special theory of relativity

By way of a third example, consider that when Einstein published his 1905 paper on special relativity the first response remarked on how his ideas had been decisively refuted by Kaufman’s papers of that year and the next in the Annalen der Physik (in issues 19 and 20, especially his Über die Konstitution des Electrons (1906, p.487)). Kaufman began, in italics, by saying that the “measurement results are not compatible with the Lorentz-Einstein fundamental assumptions”. To see how convincing Kaufman’s work was considered at the time, note that Lorentz wrote to Poincaré in March of 1906, saying that his theory was “in contradiction with Kaufman’s results, and I must abandon it.” The latter agreed and could offer no advice. A glance through the journal and the absence of significant (indeed, for quite some time, any) response shows how seriously Kaufman’s objections were taken. (See Feyerabend, 1999, pp.146-148 for more detail on this and the below.)

Planck, however, was committed to Einstein’s ideas because he thought their “simplicity and generality” meant that they should be preferred, even in the face of experimental refutation. He attempted to re-examine Kaufman’s data and demonstrate that there were flaws, but instead he found that they were far closer to Abraham’s rival theory. Thereafter he presented his findings at the Deutsche Naturvorscherversammlung in Stuttgart in September 1906, which proved to be an amusing affair in which Abraham drew much applause by observing that since the Lorentz-Einstein theory was twice as far from Kaufman’s data as his own, it followed that his theory was twice as good (Physikalische Zeitschrift 7, 1906, pp.759-761). Planck tried but ultimately failed to convince Sommerfeld, Abraham or Bucherer that Einstein’s ideas should be given time to develop. Ultimately, of course, they were accepted because of their “inner consistency” (Wien, 1909) or because Kaufman’s experiments lacked “the great simple universal principle” of relativity theory (von Laue – see below), so that the matter was decided well before Kaufman’s results were finally shown to have been flawed (Guye and Lavanchy, 1916).

Thus we find that Einstein’s ideas succeeded because of a large measure of rhetoric from him, Bohr, Planck and others, and because of a commitment to the presuppositions of relativity theory, long after there had been very little doubt (on the parts of very many great and distinguished physicists) that experimental considerations had killed it. Indeed, by 1911 von Laue was writing that “a really experimental decision between the theory of Lorentz and the Relativity Theory is indeed not to be gained; and that the first of these nevertheless had receded into the background is chiefly due to the fact that, close as it comes to the Relativity Theory, yet it lacks the great simple universal principle, the possession of which lends the Relativity Theory from the start an imposing appearance” (see Das Relativitätsprinzip, 1911). Physicists were more interested in how they could use Einstein’s ideas to explain the result of the Michelson-Morley experiment, even though they were still confusing Lorentz’s and Einstein’s theories in 1921 significantly enough for von Laue to address it (see the fourth edition of his text, then entitled Das Relativitätstheorie as acceptance of the theory had grown and hence changed its status from a mere “principle”). As a result of these theoretical and thematic factors, D.C. Miller’s later (apparent) falsification of Einstein was given very little attention at all, even though it again took a long time (almost thirty years) for Shankland to find the mistake (1955, pp.167ff). (See Holton, 1988, for more discussion of these episodes in the history of physics.)

We see, then, that even in this instance in which the notion of simplicity was relied upon throughout, no actual comparison of the number of entities or parsimony took place. The special theory was held to possess greater inherent simplicity both before and after any experiment and in spite of the negative results of Kaufman’s work. Simplicity was invoked as a metaphysical principle rather than a methodological one.

The general case

From these examples we can say that there are two key difficulties with Ockham’s Razor. The first is that, as we have seen, other things are rarely (if ever) equal. The second – and perhaps still more important – objection is that the unknown (or additional) entities parsed away may have explanatory power outside the domain of consideration, or else they may offer further methodological suggestions which subsequently show that the utility (or even truth) granted to the former explanation was too narrow. The extra terms, which rigorous application of Ockham’s Razor would have us discard, may be methodologically interesting and stimulating even if they turn out to be completely in error. As Niels Bohr was fond of saying, parsimony is something we judge after the event. It makes little methodological sense to disallow additional entities before their consequences have been investigated; indeed, the application of parsimony in the examples we have considered above would likely have proved disastrous, at least with the benefit of hindsight.

The lack of evidence for a posited entity is hardly a problem for scientists who are both willing and able to continue their efforts regardless. Moreover, this risks putting the cart before the horse: a theory may predict the existence of an entity for which there is no evidence but – as a result – is subsequently discovered. While there may be a limitless supply of alternative hypotheses (as asserted by the strong underdetermination of theories), or at least enough to require a decision between them (even if only on practical or financial grounds), not all of them will (or may be suspected to) have interesting enough consequences to pursue. The methodological point, once again, is to ask how we can know the utility (or truth) of apparently un-evidenced or unwarranted theories/entities before the fact? Given that so many have turned out to be of benefit in the past (or so goes the historical argument), why assume to the contrary now?

Theories are surrounded by anomalies and additional entities are postulated to explain them; sometimes these are ad hoc, thus maintaining the theory, while sometimes they necessitate a replacement. Since the resulting alternative theories are empirically equivalent and adequate within the domain satisfied by the current theory, disallowing hypotheses that fail the requirement for parsimony presupposes that they will also fail to address the anomalies or predict novel facts. This is the restriction that the Church imposed upon Galileo and hence following Ockham’s Razor leaves us with a dilemma: should we reject theories that appear to violate parsimony and risk stifling (or ending) their development, which may subsequently show otherwise; or should we instead reject the requirement for parsimony and accept that matters are more complex than methodologically preferring what appears to be the simplest theory?

If we return to the theories T1 and T2 in the second example of applying Ockham’s Razor, it could be that T1 employs different assumptions to T2 such that a straightforward comparison is not possible. Moreover, two hypotheses may be successful in different domains but mutually exclusive within their intersection, if there is one (consider complementarity, for instance). The believer in God or in aliens declaring that an agency other than man was responsible for a phenomenon does not make a straightforward choice restricted to explaining a single instance but involves their additional entity in an entire worldview (incorporating the existence of God or extraterrestrials respectively), which also explains or makes sense of a whole range of phenomena. The ceteris paribus clause here might also turn out to have failed: perhaps the confirming instances of T1 are apparently refuted (as with special relativity) but the inclusion of further assumptions can explain these anomalies, or else we could say that neither theory is satisfactory and the proper response might be to withhold judgment. In addition, T2 might have greater predictive and/or explanatory power outside the domain of comparison, making the evaluation within D an interesting but not particularly devastating factor. Rather than straightforwardly dismissing T2 because of its auxiliary (and apparently unnecessary) assumptions, it may instead make methodological sense to investigate what consequences these have.

Moving beyond any actual results or possibility thereof, the additional entities rejected by parsimony may not explain any other data in further domains but could nevertheless still provide a stimulus to work that subsequently uncovers further domains in which they are needed, or that shows the previous theory to have been but an approximation. While methodological concerns are important, scientists press on with developing theories, perhaps unaware of or unconcerned with the notion that they should first have applied Ockham’s Razor. This is merely to say that science involves elements of guesswork and certainty of resolve (tenacity, as Feyerabend called it), which prompt scientists to continue working on ideas rejected by many of their contemporaries (plate tectonics, say, or Pauli’s positing of the neutrino), possibly reminded of the changing fortunes of atomism over millennia. In short, epistemological considerations are not sufficient to choose between theories and cannot be expected to account for scientific practice.

Still another way to introduce or justify Ockham’s Razor is to assert that parsimonious theories are more likely to be correct. This is a problematic claim. Suppose we take the case of a theory which is regarded by all as highly successful, but which relies upon unobservable entities (such as sub-atomic particles, say). Is the theory true or just a useful instrument? Is it more parsimonious to suppose that these entities do or do not exist? In the absence of an ability to divine the fortunes of a theory in the years to come (or, in the case of atomism, the thousands of years), how are we to decide? To assume, as many apparently do, that parsimony is important because the universe is fundamentally simple, rather than complex (hence the search for grand theories, underlying all others), merely begs the question.

To summarise, the important point which renders parsimony methodologically unhelpful, if not explicitly detrimental, is that the consequences of additional entities or assumptions are impossible to state a priori. Since science is never complete, we are always trying to assess matters beforehand and never get to a comfortable position in which we can count entities in competing theories, which is the only place parsimony can be introduced, much less judged.

References:

Einstein, A., Investigations on the Theory of the Brownian Motion (New York: Dover, 1956).
Einstein, A., Über das Relativitätprinzip und die aus demselben gezogene Folgerungen in Jahrbuch der Radioaktivität, vol. 4, 1907.
Feyerabend, P.K., Knowledge, Science and Relativism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
Fürth, R., Über einige Beziehungen zwischen klassischer Statistik und Quantenmechanik in Zeitschrift für Physik, vol. 81, 1993.
Guye, C.-E. and Lavanchy, C., Verification experimentale de la
formule de Lorentz-Einstein par les rayons cathodiques de grande vitesse in Archives des sciences physiques et naturelles, 42: 286–299, 353–373, 441–448, 1916.
Holton, G., Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988).
Jammer, M., Concepts of space: the history of theories of space in physics (Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 1993).
Kaufman, W., Über die Konstitution des Electrons in Annalen der Physik, vol. 19, 1906.
Kuhn, T.S., The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957).
Laue, M. von, Das Relativitätsprinzip (Braunschweig: Friedrich Vieweg & Son, 1911).
Laymon, R., Feyerabend, Brownian Motion and the Hiddenness of Refuting Facts in Philosophy of Science, 44, 225-247, 1977.
Physikalische Zeitschrift, 7, pp.759-761, 1906.
Shankland, R.S., A New Analysis of the Interferometer Observations of Dayton C. Miller in Reviews of Modern Physics, vol. 31, 1963.
Wien, W., Über Elektronen (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1909).

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Philosophy in Science

Posted on March 23, 2011 by

What is philosophy of science? Is it in any way useful? If so, for whom is it useful? Is it at all useful to scientists in their scientific endeavors?

Mark Perakh, a physicist, has said, “I dare to claim that the sole value of philosophy of science is its entertaining ability.” Philosophers of science are, of course, to be expected to take umbrage at such dismissiveness, but it is not very likely that many of them could forcefully or convincingly counter Perakh when he says:

I doubt that all the multiple opuses debating various aspects of the philosophy of science have ever produced even a minute amount of anything that could be helpful for a scientist, be he/she physicist, biologist, geologist, you name it.

John S. Wilkins responded to Perakh by citing “operationalism” as one example of work in philosophy of science which has “affected everything from physics to taxonomy.” However, a reference to operationalism neither diminishes the rhetorical force nor deflects the thrust of Perakh’s critique.

Perakh’s point can be reiterated in terms of the problems which science has encountered and which have been overcome by scientists doing science and not by philosophers of science doing philosophy. Perakh might even go so far as to allow that operationalism has some utility for some science and then note that operationalism arose not from philosophers doing philosophy but from a scientist (Nobel Prize winning physicist Percy Williams Bridgman) doing philosophy from within science rather than as anthropology or as the sociology of science.

To reassert his insistence about just how practically irrelevant the philosophy of science is to the great bulk of scientific endeavors, Perakh could point to essays such as are found in The Philosophy of Science1 published by the Oxford University Press. What is to be found there are essays rife with discussions about such matters as realism versus anti-realism and the semantic account of scientific theories as distinguished from the syntactic account – issues which, no matter how interesting they are in their own right or to those immersed in philosophical manners of discussion, are likely to communicate (and, hence, contribute) next to nothing at all to those trained for and directly engaged in the ways and practices of the scientific enterprise.

Wilkins says that “the philosophy of science is about understanding how science is done when it works”, but, to most scientists, this type of thoroughly retrospective focus probably seems more like – and seems to have more to do with – anthropology than science. And even if anthropology were to be regarded more as science than as history, an investigation restricted to retrospection could not help but be the sparest sort of science, because science is no longer simply concerned with how nature is or how the world has been; science is no longer simply interested in how nature functions; rather, science has come to be interested in how nature can be manipulated.

Some may find themselves inclined to regard the interest which goes beyond how the world is to the matter of how the world can be manipulated more a matter of technology than of science. However, it is to be noted that what most impresses about science – what garners the most respect for science – are the results from the application of science, the results from the attempts to manipulate the world. Science has attained its relatively revered status in the contemporary cultures because of its product (what it has produced of a tangible nature), not because it has some alleged method(s). 2

So, when Perakh chortles about philosophers and philosophy of science, it is reasonable that he would have in mind the evident irrelevance which that discipline called the philosophy of science has had to the development – actually the advancement, the progress – of science.

Whereas Perakh simply castigates the philosophy of science, Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, in their book, The Grand Design 3, go even further and proclaim, “philosophy is dead” [p. 5].

When Christopher Norris notes that “[s]cience has always included a large philosophical component”, he makes it quite clear just how ignorant about the nature of philosophy Hawking and Mlodinow have to be in order to think that science could survive the death of philosophy or think that there can be science without philosophical thinking. However, philosophy in science is not necessarily the same as philosophy of science.

To what extent, if any, does the philosophy of science address itself to philosophy in science – to the use of philosophical-type thinking in science? Continue reading →

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