For and Against Method: How Lakatos Should HaveReplied to Feyerabend? JOUNI-MATTI KUUKKANEN

JOUNI-MATTI.KUUKKANEN@OULU.FI

Opening sceneFeyerabend in the preface of Against Method (AM):

“This essay is the first part of a book on rationalism that was to be written by Imre Lakatos and myself. I was to attack the rationalist position, Imre was to restate and defend it, making

mincemeat of me in the process. Taken together, the two parts were supposed to give an account of our long debate concerning these matters that had started in 1964, had continued, in letters, lectures, telephone calls, papers, almost to the last day of Imre’s life and has become a natural

part of my daily routine. The origin explains the style of the essay: it is a long and rather personal letter to Imre and every wicked phrase it contains was written in anticipation of an even more wicked reply from the recipient. It is also clear that as it stands the book is sadly incomplete. It

lacks the most important part: the reply of the person to whom it is addressed.”

UNTIL TODAY…

My perspective: philosophy of historiography of science:

• Focus not on philosophy of science or methods of science or the nature of science as such

• And not even Lakatos’ specific take on the history of science (methodology of scientific researchprogrammes)

… but: on how history of science should be/can be written

… and on a comparison of ”historiographical research programmes” (e.g. 1979 Vol 1, 103)

Contents

1. Feyerbend’s interpretation of the history of science in Against Method

2. Lakatos’ philosophy of historiography: Basic tenets

3. A Lakatosian reply (and challenge) to Feyerabend

4. Assessment

Feyerabend in Against Method“The only principle that does not inhibit progress is: anything goes … Liberal practice is a fact of the history of science” (AM, 14).

1. Feyerabend’s interpretation in AMTwo goals in AM:

1) Argue that liberalism with regard to scientific method is beneficial in terms of scientificprogress and morally justified

2) Provide an interpretation of the history of science

1. Feyerabend’s interpretation in AMTHESIS of AM: ”This book proposes a thesis and draws consequences from it. The thesis is: the events, procedures and results that constitute the sciences have no common structure … Successful research does not obey general standards; it relies now on one trick, now on another” (AM, “Introduction to the Chinese Edition,” 1)

AM “does not establish it; it makes it plausible” (1).

Does it?

Indeed, the point is not to discuss whether science is inherently rational or not but whether F’s interpretation of the history of science is plausible?

1. Feyerabend’s interpretation in AMF’s ’anarchist’ interpretation historically based. Some examples:

• “This is shown both by an examination of historical episodes … The only principle that does not inhibit progress is: anything goes … Liberal practice is a fact of the history of science” (14).

• “To those who look at the rich material provided by history … it will become clear that there is only one principle that can be defended under all circumstances and in all stages of human development. It is the principle: anything goes” (18-19). ◦ E.g. Consistency condition is false (from Newton’s theory of gravitation, Bohr’s atomic model, special and general theory of

relativity, etc.)→ at least falsificationism is wrong

1. Feyerabend’s interpretation in AMSome more examples:

•“The ideas survived because prejudice, passion, conceit, errors, sheer pigheadedness, in short because all the elements that characterize the context of discovery, opposed the dictates of reason and because these irrational elements were permitted to have their way. To express it differently: Copernicanism and other ‘rational’ views exist today because reason was overruled at some time in their past” (155).

• “Without ‘chaos’, no knowledge. Without a frequent dismissal of reason, no progress. Ideas which today form the very basis of science exist only because there were such things as prejudice, conceit, passion; because these things opposed reason; and because they werepermitted to have their way … There is no single rule that remains valid under all circumstances and not a single agency to which appeal can always be made” (158).

→ Feyerabend suggest that the historical record warrants epistemological anarchism

Imre Lakatos“I hold that all histories of science are always philosophies fabricating examples” (Lakatos 1978 Vol 1, 192).

2. Lakatos’ philosophy of historiography: Basic tenets

(i) Hierarchies of interpretation;

(ii) Non-realism;

(iii) Comparative historiography of science

(i) Hierarchies of interpretation

“(a) Philosophy of science provides normative methodologies in terms of which the historian reconstructs ‘internal history’ and thereby provides a rational explanation of the growth of objective knowledge”;

“(b) two competing methodologies can be evaluated with the help of (normatively interpreted) history”;

“(c) any rational reconstruction of history needs to be supplemented by an empirical (socio-psychological) ‘external history’.” (”History of science and rational reconstruction,”1)

Lakatos’ methodologies: inductivism, conventionalism, falsificationism and his own methodology of research programmes.

Lakatos disagrees withthose who recommendcollecting more examplesbefore philosophisingabout history:“such an inductivist theory of historiography is utopian. History without some theoretical ‘bias’ is impossible. Some historians look for the discovery of hard facts, inductive generalisations, other for bold theories and crucial negative experiments, yet others for great simplifications, or for progressive and degenerating problemshifts; all of them have some theoretical ‘bias.’… History of science is a history of events which are selected and interpreted in a normative way”

(i) Hierarchies of interpretationThe key realizations of Lakatos:

• Thus: there are always interpretative frameworks, methodologies and ‘philosophies of science’ that are used to make sense of the historical record; ALL history-writing includes a THEORETICAL BIAS of some kind and is indeed normative in this sense;

• The same historiographical data yield several comparable meaningful interpretations; • All methodologies are conventional and their source is historian-philosophers

Cf. narratives within methodologies – a narrative of inductive development of science (from Kepler, Galileo, Newton, etc…)

(ii) Non-realism

• Gives up the pretentions to write history ‘as it really happened’ - no ‘philosophy of science’ is true (cf. pretension to ‘just describe’ by Latour et al.)• Cf. contemporary “descriptivists” in science studies• Jan Golinski: one should give up on a “pretence of just telling like it was” (even in sociology) (Making Natural

Knowledge, 204)

• Ian Hacking: “Lakatos’s problem is to provide a theory of objectivity without a representational theory of truth” (Hacking 1979, 384)

• Enables paying attention to criteria needed to choose between different interpretations/methodologies/’philosophies of science’

• Lakatos avoids the pitfalls of realism AND relativism: methodologies are compared in pairs with regard to their rationality• Million dollar question: how to compare and assess different frameworks

(iii) Comparative historiography of science

• ‘Internal’ account of science not enough, ‘external’ needed as a necessity: to fill the explanatory gap with regard to theory decision: “[T]he history of science is always richer than its rationalreconstructions”

• However!: Lakatos regards any recourse to external factors as a failure of a methodological school

• Rationality is the metacriterion to choose between different methodologies• all provide rational explanations of historical episodes; the aim is to maximize rationality and leave as

little as possible for external explanatory factors• alternatively: the aim is to present as much of ‘actual science’ as rational as possible• different methodologies imply different principles of rationality• COMPARATIVITY

(iii) Comparative historiography of science

•But why rationality?!

• Belief in the natural rationality of scientists? NATURALISM of Lakatos: Philosophers and historians can learn from scientists (with regard to theories of rationality).• “A rationality theory … is to be rejected if it is inconsistent with accepted ‘basic value judgments’ of the scientific community”

(Lakatos 1979 Vol 1, 145).

• Cf. Brendan Larvor: Lakatos’ commmitment to Hegelian substantial operating rationality• f.i. Proofs and Refutations

Historiographical realism or rationalism?

3. A Lakatosian reply (and challenge) to Feyerabend

On what is Feyerabend’s interpretation of the history of science as anarchistic based?

Two options:

(1) Historical realism: because that’s how it ”really” happened;

(2) Some other criteria of interpretation that yields the anachistic interpretation.

(1) Historical realism:

• cf. ref. to facts above (”Liberal practice is a fact of the history of science”); Feyerabend was realist also in philosophy of science

• However: • “Science know no ‘bare facts’ at all but the ‘facts’ … are already viewed in a certain way and are,

therefore, essentially, ideational” (AM, 11).• Agreement with Lakatos?!

• In any case, from Lakatosian perspective historical realism is not an option.

Lakatos’ reply (1):

“History without some theoretical ‘bias’ is impossible … all of them have some theoretical ‘bias.’… History of science is a history of events which are selected and interpreted in a

normative way.”

(2) Criteria of interpretation

• Feyerabend recognises Lakatosian fameworks: In the context of Copernicanism: Naïve empiricism, sophisticated empiricism, falsificationsim, conventionalism, and the theory of crisis. Feyerabend rejects all (AM, 144-146)

• And: “But how do we know that science is an evolutionary process rather than a static way of finding more facts and better laws? Either from ‘observed facts about its’ practice’ or from interpretations that are imposed from the outside. … It seems that is what Kuhn really wants, i.e. he wants to settle the question philosophically, not by appealing to facts. I would agree if I knew that from him this is one way among many and not the only possible procedure” (AM, 271).

• If thus no uniquely correct view of the history of science, we are back with interpretative frameworksand comparativity: How to pick a winner from several possible frameworks?

(3a) RATIONALITY as a criterion

From Lakatosian perspective, Feyerabend’s reading of science and scientists as irrational is implausible due to Lakatos’ implied ’normative naturalism’ (surprisingly): “that a rationality theory … is to be rejected if it is inconsistent with accepted ‘basic value judgments’ of the scientific community” (Lakatos 1979 Vol 1, 145)

• Lakatos recognizes the problem of “a caricature of its rational reconstruction”: Standards are too high and make too much of the actual history to appear irrational :“Historians who hold that scientific growth is the paradigm of rationality, tend, if guided by a narrow theory of rationality, either to give an impoverished, truncated account of history, or to twist historical facts in order to make the actual growth of science conform more with their image of rationality” (201). • E.g. in Popper• Striking balance with references to external history and rationality

• Overall: Philosophers should learn from science and not merely export external principles of rationality

Lakatos’ reply (2):

If Newton (for example) turns out as through and throughirrational and supertitious, then it counts against the

interpretative framework.

(3b) OTHER historiographical CRITERIA? (beyond Lakatos)

•If ’rationality’ won’t do, then one should ask what other criteria could be used in judging rival”historiographical research programmes”

• What would be epistemic values of historiography?

• Kuhn: Lakatos’ “improved historical narratives” emphasize a larger body of evidence and eliminate recognised or potential anomalies.

•Lakatos: his frame provide “coherent account of more old, isolated basic value judgments” (Lakatos 1979 Vol 1, 31)

•Possible values: comprehensiveness, scope, coherence, consistency and fruitfulness

→ may link to providing a rational account of historical episodes (without making past science inherently rational!)

What would be Feyerabend’s answer?

Lakatos: the answer is not clear

Assesment

4. Assesment1) A crucial difference bw. Feyerabend and Lakatos with respect to the value of rationalreconstruction:

“Logicians who confine the term ‘argument’ to chains of reasoning involving stable and precise concepts and who reconstruct theories and world-views using equally precise and unambiguous terms are forced to call such connections ‘irrational’ while their opponents can report the ‘discovery’ that science, that alleged stronghold of reason, often violates reason in decisive way. Both are talking about chimeras, not about science and culture as they really are. Things change when we use scientific practice or cultural reality and not logic as our informants, in other words, when we engage in sociological research, not in reconstruction” (AM, 207).

But is this a solution?

For Lakatos it certainly is not:

2) Another fundamental difference is Lakatos’ belief in an inevitable theoretical bias and needfor ’philosophies of science’ vs. Feyerabend’s seeming realism

3) Finally, a third difference deals with the relation between science and philosophy: WasLakatos more humble with regard to scientific practice: philosophers can learn from science and not be merely external judges of ’rationality theory’?