by Megan
After a long hiatus, I’m finally returning to blogging. I was feeling incredibly burned out as I was finishing my undergraduate thesis and my other philosophy courses before graduating this spring, but I’m finally feeling the need to write again (which is fortunate since I’m starting a PhD program in philosophy in the fall!).
One of my last undergraduate courses was Philosophy of Science, and I was deeply troubled by much of what I studied. Almost everything I read was skeptical in nature and seemed more concerned with impeding the acquisition of knowledge than enhancing it. I am hesitant to make claims about the entire field being flawed, however, because I know that the instructor of my course sees skepticism as the most important part of philosophy (which I think is anti-philosophical because it becomes nothing more than a destruction of wisdom, and the love of wisdom is entirely absent). So, I’m interested in sketching an outline of what a rational philosophy of science might look like.
A rational philosophy of science should begin by describing the goals of science as they really are, not as a philosopher thinks they should be. Many philosophers of science don’t realize that they aren’t even talking about science as it is actually practiced; rather, they are talking about something much more philosophical than what most scientists are actually doing. For example, some philosophers of science think that the goals of science are explanation and prediction, entirely excluding the goal of knowledge without which our current use of the word ‘science’ would make no etymological sense. Other philosophers of science think that science’s goal is to reach the most rigorous kind of epistemic certainty, which isn’t quite right either given that scientists are always open to new discoveries. If philosophy of science is not about real science, then it is irrelevant. So, philosophy of science must begin by identifying what scientists are really trying to accomplish.
If you look at the way in which science changes over time or ask a practicing scientist, you’ll find out that what they are primarily interested in is knowledge (but not certainty). They are not troubled by the problem of induction because they never claim that all swans are white; they are simply saying that all the swans they have seen so far are white, but that could very well change in the future. Scientists do not see the world as something fixed, waiting to be understood once and for all. Instead, they recognize that the world is always changing, so something that is true today may not be true in the future, whether as a result of evolution or some other natural process of change. The claims of the scientist are always about what they see now, with the tacit understanding that their claims may not hold in the future and a continuous openness to their findings being contradicted. Scientists want to know what the world is like, but they are not interested in being certain about what the world will always be like (with the interesting exception of scientific laws, which will have to be discussed elsewhere). Explanation, of course, sometimes comes in as a more specific goal within the more general goal of knowledge: scientists want to know why or how something is the case as well as that it is the case.
Another important element of a rational philosophy of science is a distinction between science and technology. Technology, which is an application of the knowledge that science collects, has different goals altogether. It seems to me that technology is where prediction comes in because prediction is what allows us to apply the knowledge that science generates to some useful human end. Since technology is where science becomes most useful to humans (although the acquisition of knowledge is of course useful in and of itself to an extent), the needs of technology are part of what determines how “certain” scientists have to be. In other words, scientists only need to understand natural phenomena deeply enough to manipulate them to serve human ends, whether curing an infection or launching a rocket into outer space. As soon as we are unable to achieve a particular end (curing cancer, for example), the standard for scientific knowledge is raised in that area of science, and researchers must seek a deeper understanding.
Only by judging and understanding science in relation to science’s goals can we develop a philosophy of science that builds wisdom rather than destroying it. Imposing philosophic notions of certainty onto a practice that is distinct from philosophy will not do, nor will assuming a global skepticism. I think that by simply gaining clarity about science’s goals, many of philosophy of science’s classic dilemmas could be resolved and philosophers could move on to more productive, knowledge-building endeavors.
After a long hiatus, I’m finally returning to blogging. I was feeling incredibly burned out as I was finishing my undergraduate thesis and my other philosophy courses before graduating this spring, but I’m finally feeling the need to write again (which is fortunate since I’m starting a PhD program in philosophy in the fall!).
One of my last undergraduate courses was Philosophy of Science, and I was deeply troubled by much of what I studied. Almost everything I read was skeptical in nature and seemed more concerned with impeding the acquisition of knowledge than enhancing it. I am hesitant to make claims about the entire field being flawed, however, because I know that the instructor of my course sees skepticism as the most important part of philosophy (which I think is anti-philosophical because it becomes nothing more than a destruction of wisdom, and the love of wisdom is entirely absent). So, I’m interested in sketching an outline of what a rational philosophy of science might look like.
A rational philosophy of science should begin by describing the goals of science as they really are, not as a philosopher thinks they should be. Many philosophers of science don’t realize that they aren’t even talking about science as it is actually practiced; rather, they are talking about something much more philosophical than what most scientists are actually doing. For example, some philosophers of science think that the goals of science are explanation and prediction, entirely excluding the goal of knowledge without which our current use of the word ‘science’ would make no etymological sense. Other philosophers of science think that science’s goal is to reach the most rigorous kind of epistemic certainty, which isn’t quite right either given that scientists are always open to new discoveries. If philosophy of science is not about real science, then it is irrelevant. So, philosophy of science must begin by identifying what scientists are really trying to accomplish.
If you look at the way in which science changes over time or ask a practicing scientist, you’ll find out that what they are primarily interested in is knowledge (but not certainty). They are not troubled by the problem of induction because they never claim that all swans are white; they are simply saying that all the swans they have seen so far are white, but that could very well change in the future. Scientists do not see the world as something fixed, waiting to be understood once and for all. Instead, they recognize that the world is always changing, so something that is true today may not be true in the future, whether as a result of evolution or some other natural process of change. The claims of the scientist are always about what they see now, with the tacit understanding that their claims may not hold in the future and a continuous openness to their findings being contradicted. Scientists want to know what the world is like, but they are not interested in being certain about what the world will always be like (with the interesting exception of scientific laws, which will have to be discussed elsewhere). Explanation, of course, sometimes comes in as a more specific goal within the more general goal of knowledge: scientists want to know why or how something is the case as well as that it is the case.
Another important element of a rational philosophy of science is a distinction between science and technology. Technology, which is an application of the knowledge that science collects, has different goals altogether. It seems to me that technology is where prediction comes in because prediction is what allows us to apply the knowledge that science generates to some useful human end. Since technology is where science becomes most useful to humans (although the acquisition of knowledge is of course useful in and of itself to an extent), the needs of technology are part of what determines how “certain” scientists have to be. In other words, scientists only need to understand natural phenomena deeply enough to manipulate them to serve human ends, whether curing an infection or launching a rocket into outer space. As soon as we are unable to achieve a particular end (curing cancer, for example), the standard for scientific knowledge is raised in that area of science, and researchers must seek a deeper understanding.
Only by judging and understanding science in relation to science’s goals can we develop a philosophy of science that builds wisdom rather than destroying it. Imposing philosophic notions of certainty onto a practice that is distinct from philosophy will not do, nor will assuming a global skepticism. I think that by simply gaining clarity about science’s goals, many of philosophy of science’s classic dilemmas could be resolved and philosophers could move on to more productive, knowledge-building endeavors.
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12 comments:
Most critics of the philosophers of science don't realise that philosophy of science has been closely attending to actual science for several decades now...
While I agree with much of this post in regards to its criticisms, I disagree with the alternative it puts forward. Science is _not_ some pragmatic, learn-enough-to-apply-it endeavour, it is the pursuit of knowledge... And certain knowledge, at that. Your characterization of certain implies a Platonic, contextless standard of knowledge; on the contrary, certainty is only possible (or even meaningful) within a certain standard of knowledge. And proper science does lead to certainty: it is certain (within the appropriate standard of knowledge) that the magnitude of acceleration a given force will impart upon a body is directly proportional to its mass. It is certain that certain materials have a small gap between their energy bands, allowing them to act as both conductors and insulators. It is certain that radiation is an effective treatment of cancer. None of this is to say that the above knowledge cannot (or, in the case of Newton's law, has not) been expanded, but even if/when it does get expanded, that doesn't change the fact that the above are _certain_ and _true_ within their context.
There's also a problem with your side remark about the so-called "problem of induction":
"They are not troubled by the problem of induction because they never claim that all swans are white; they are simply saying that all the swans they have seen so far are white, but that could very well change in the future."
This characterization cedes the premise of the rationalist: that induction is merely the counting of seen instances (and thereby implying that only "pure" deduction can lead to certain knowledge). In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. A valid induction can be formed from a _single_ instance, and a million instances can be insufficient to form an induction. Induction rests not on counting swans, but on increasingly abstract layers of causal connections (starting with directly perceivable causal occurrences, such as "pushing a ball makes it roll"). If a causal connection is established, the induction is valid regardless of how many times you've seen a given occurrence, and, if no causal connection is found, a 100% correlation does not lead to a valid induction. For more details and a much better explanation of the above, I strongly recommend Dr. Peikoff's "Induction in Physics and Philosophy" course.
Finally, it seems you have developed a definition of science as "science is what scientists do". This is again a dangerous characterization. If there were no scientists, or if every scientist was acting as a mystic (as more and more are these days), then that wouldn't change the fact that there are valid standards to be applied in science and that there is an appropriate goal and appropriate means to reach that goal. In fact, it is _impossible_ to define science by reference to what scientists do: in order to characterize them as scientists, we must know that what they do is science! Certainly, we can form the concept of "science" by observing the actions of men with respect to a particular goal, but it is only after we do this can we call a man who dedicates his career to the pursuit of that goal a scientist.
For this important and intriguing discussion, I have three suggestions to make.
(1) > "A rational philosophy of science should begin by describing the goals of science as they really are, not as a philosopher thinks they should be."
Defining "science" should be one of the first formal actions of a philosopher of science. Then, once that concept is developed, a philosopher can continue to observe scientists at work--which would be fertile ground for identifying the proper philosophical foundations for specialized science as it should be.
(2) To avoid treating "science" or "specialized science" as frozen abstractions, a philosopher of science should consider a wide range of sciences -- not only fields such as physics and biology but also economics and history, for example.
(3) Philosophers are not merely reporters. Philosophers provide the foundation, and therefore context, for the specialized sciences. A philosopher of science generally has both a descriptive role (describing and explaining what successful scientists have done) and a prescriptive role (describing what scientists should do)--philosophically, that is, in broad abstractions applying to the sciences generally.
Ayn Rand, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, p. 74, briefly describes the role of philosophers in relation to the specialized sciences and other specialized fields of knowledge.
John,
My course covered only the "classic" (i.e., old) philosophy of science texts, so I'm not familiar with contemporary work in the field. Philosophy of science isn't something I'm particularly interested in focusing on in grad school, but hopefully I'll get to some of the more recent stuff at some point and perhaps revise my opinion.
Cogito,
When I said that science does not aim for certainty, I meant that science does not aim for the indubitable, eternal certainty that many philosophers seek. Scientists are obviously certain about many things within specific situations (e.g., there are seven cells on this slide), but I think that science is different from philosophy in that scientists expect that the world will change or that a deeper level of understanding will eventually become available (even in the case of the laws of physics). Your example of "energy bands" seem like just the sort of things of which we might later gain a deeper understanding when we discover a more precise way to describe the phenomenon in question.
Regarding the problem of induction: while I'm not familiar with Peikoff's course, based on your explanation of what he says, it seems that looking for causation would unfortunately not be of any real help in answering the skeptic. Even when we identify a clear causal relationship in a certain number of instances, the skeptic will object when we assume that the causal relationship itself will continue to hold in the future. Doesn't it require induction to say that cause A will lead to effect B in future instances as well as in the present instance? Causation cannot justify induction without using induction in the process. But I'm interested in pursuing this idea further since I'd be glad to have a stronger response to the skeptic.
I don't think that my definition of 'science' could be summarized as "science is what scientists do," but maybe it could be summarized as "science is an attempt at reaching the goals that scientists seek." Because science is a human-made endeavor, there is no external way of defining it; it is not as if there is some true definition of 'science' that can be discovered outside of the practice that people designate with that word. The circularity here results from the fact that humans created science and is not problematic; science only exists because some people sought knowledge about the natural world and used the word 'science' to refer to their pursuit of that end. But there is also room to say that historical precedence establishes a certain set of goals as the goals of science, so we can now say that some people fail to seek them and are therefore not true scientists.
Burgess,
I think that a good definition of science would be a description of the goals of science. My definition of science would be "a discipline that seeks knowledge about the natural world with the understanding that the world is always changing." Then philosophers could step in and ask whether scientists' current methods are suitable for their goals. I think that practices should be defined in terms of the ends toward which they aim, and it just doesn't make sense to me for someone outside of the practice to choose new ends for it while defining it. Philosophers could, of course, say that the ends of science (i.e., the ends that science was originally created to achieve) are not the right ends to seek and then advocate doing something else instead of science. So philosophers are not merely reporters, but they also have to take facts into account (such as the actual ends of a particular practice) when they make their prescriptive claims. Re-defining the word 'science' so that it no longer refers to anything in the actual world seems like it would only make things more confusing than they need to be.
I appreciate all of the thoughtful comments.
We are all taught Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos, Feyerabend, but rarely Carnap, Reichenbach, Hull, or Hacking, who all attended very closely to the issues in particular sciences at the time they wrote. I was being a little snarky because the message seems not to have reached undergraduate students. Maybe it's just harder to teach some philosophy that is nuanced and contingently reliant upon historical details.
As to science being what scientists do, there is a right sense of that. If you can identify exemplary scientists, like Newton, Laplace, Cuvier, Darwin, and so on, you can identify science as being "like what they did", attending to the internal debates of the disciplines they were part of. This means that while you lack an essentialist definition of science, you are not thereby caught in the petitio that Cogito mentioned, where you need to identify what science is to identify what it is that scientists do.
"As to science being what scientists do, there is a right sense of that."
Sure, it's a form of "A is A".
No, it's a form of "That is definitely an A; those other things are more or less like that A, so they are probably A too". It's not a tautology.
"Science is what scientists do" is not a tautology, but "A is A" is? What's the difference?
As for "That is definitely an A; those other things are more or less like that A, so they are probably A too", that's not even logical, so of course it's not a tautology.
I am definitely Anthony; my twin is more or less like me; so my twin is probably Anthony too?
For a start "Science" is not identical to "Scientist", so the definiens and definienda are not identical. "A is A" is a tautology because the identical terms are used either side of the defining sign.
Secondly, any statement can be expressed in logical form, so one can identify tautologies.
Third, if you have an exemplary case of something ("noon"), then you can identify things that are like it ("daylight"), even if there are no sharp boundaries to it ("dawn", "dusk") and language continues to work well enough...
How did you come up with that definition of "tautology"? What is the significance of something being tautological? What is the purpose of identifying tautologies?
Can't any true statement be expressed as a tautology?
Also, yes, "scientist" is not identical to "science", but the concept of "scientist" is dependent on the concept of "science".
Also, yes, "scientist" is not identical to "science", but "what scientists do" is identical to "science", at least to the extent that the original statement should be understood: "science is what scientists do [qua scientists]".
If your intention was more one of "whatever is done by someone who I have deemed a scientist, is science", well, that's rationalization at its ugliest.
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