It Takes Two To Tango - Models, Hermeneutics & (I)HPS

It Takes Two To Tango Models, Hermeneutics & (I)HPSSimone de Angelis Center for History of Science University of Graz, Austria

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Harald A. Wiltsche Department for Philosophy University of Graz, Austria

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It Takes Two To Tango

More Thoughts on HPS:Another 20 Years Later

Jutta SchickoreIndiana University

This essay deals with the recent history of the disputes about the relation be-tween history and philosophy of science and the merits and prospects of HPSas an intellectual endeavor. I begin with a brief outline of the debates in thelate 1960s and 1970s. At that time, several philosophers of science arguedthat philosophical analysis was interpretive and that understanding a conceptor practice involved understanding how it came about. More recently, however,philosophical studies of science have been likened to scientiªc theory construction.One basic idea permeates recent debates, namely, that pursuing HPS meansconfronting general philosophical frameworks with historical data. I arguethat this “confrontation model” of HPS is highly problematic and should beabandoned. Instead, we should appreciate (again) that philosophical reºectionon science is interpretive, and that historicist analyses of scientiªc, methodologi-cal, and epistemological concepts augment our understanding of science.

IntroductionThis essay offers some reºections on the recent history of the disputesabout the relation between history and philosophy of science (HPS) andthe merits and prospects of HPS as an intellectual endeavor. As everyoneknows, the issue was hotly debated in the 1960s and 1970s. That was thehey-day of the slogan “history without philosophy of science is blind, phi-losophy without history of science is empty” as well as of the many varia-tions on the theme of HPS as a “marriage of convenience,” “intimate rela-

I am grateful to Theodore Arabatzis, Richard Burian, Jim Capshew, Klodian Coko, andFriedrich Steinle for their helpful comments on previous drafts of this essay. I also wish tothank the students in my graduate course on the history of HPS (fall 2010), in particularPatrick Mc Neela, for instructive discussions about several of the issues raised in this arti-cle, as well as Ronald Giere for giving me access to the typescript of his forthcoming essay.

More Thoughts on HPS:Another 20 Years Later

Jutta SchickoreIndiana University

This essay deals with the recent history of the disputes about the relation be-tween history and philosophy of science and the merits and prospects of HPSas an intellectual endeavor. I begin with a brief outline of the debates in thelate 1960s and 1970s. At that time, several philosophers of science arguedthat philosophical analysis was interpretive and that understanding a conceptor practice involved understanding how it came about. More recently, however,philosophical studies of science have been likened to scientiªc theory construction.One basic idea permeates recent debates, namely, that pursuing HPS meansconfronting general philosophical frameworks with historical data. I arguethat this “confrontation model” of HPS is highly problematic and should beabandoned. Instead, we should appreciate (again) that philosophical reºectionon science is interpretive, and that historicist analyses of scientiªc, methodologi-cal, and epistemological concepts augment our understanding of science.

IntroductionThis essay offers some reºections on the recent history of the disputesabout the relation between history and philosophy of science (HPS) andthe merits and prospects of HPS as an intellectual endeavor. As everyoneknows, the issue was hotly debated in the 1960s and 1970s. That was thehey-day of the slogan “history without philosophy of science is blind, phi-losophy without history of science is empty” as well as of the many varia-tions on the theme of HPS as a “marriage of convenience,” “intimate rela-

I am grateful to Theodore Arabatzis, Richard Burian, Jim Capshew, Klodian Coko, andFriedrich Steinle for their helpful comments on previous drafts of this essay. I also wish tothank the students in my graduate course on the history of HPS (fall 2010), in particularPatrick Mc Neela, for instructive discussions about several of the issues raised in this arti-cle, as well as Ronald Giere for giving me access to the typescript of his forthcoming essay.

It Takes Two To Tango“Fundamentally, understanding is always a movement in [a] kind of circle, which is why the repeated return from the whole to the parts, and vice versa, is essential. Moreover, this circle is constantly expanding, since the concept of the whole is relative, and being integrated in ever larger contexts always affects the understanding of the individual.” (Gadamer 2004, 189)

“Generally speaking, we approach the material with a preliminary sense of the whole, drawn from philosophical, sociological, cognitive … theory, and see how far it takes us. But we will usually find ourselves in situations where those conceptual tools that initially appear useful […] turn out to have certain shortcomings vis-à-vis the portion of science we are interested in. So we revise these preliminary notions in light of what we find.” (Schickore 2011, 472)

It Takes Two To Tango“Fundamentally, understanding is always a movement in [a] kind of circle, which is why the repeated return from the whole to the parts, and vice versa, is essential. Moreover, this circle is constantly expanding, since the concept of the whole is relative, and being integrated in ever larger contexts always affects the understanding of the individual.” (Gadamer 2004, 189)

“Generally speaking, we approach the material with a preliminary sense of the whole, drawn from philosophical, sociological, cognitive … theory, and see how far it takes us. But we will usually find ourselves in situations where those conceptual tools that initially appear useful […] turn out to have certain shortcomings vis-à-vis the portion of science we are interested in. So we revise these preliminary notions in light of what we find.” (Schickore 2011, 472)

“The very activity of interpreting science […] is neither a ‘bottom-up’ generalization from the actual phenomena or events […] nor a ‘top-down’ illustration or test of preconceived ideas about scientific work […]. Rather, it is a procedure through which preliminary concepts and points of view and initial case judgments are brought together and modified and adjusted until a cogent account is obtained.” (Schickore 2011, 472)

It Takes Two To TangoNot just Laudan’s particular approach, but any version of “the confrontational model […] should be abandoned even as a mode of presenting the results of metascientific analysis” (Schickore 2011, 476).

It Takes Two To Tango4

What is mathematical truth?

In this paper I argue that mathematics should be interpreted realistically - that is, that mathematics makes assertions that are objectively true or false, independently of the human mind, and that something answers to such mathematical notions as 'set' and 'function'. This is not to say that reality is somehow bifurcated - that there is one reality of material things, and then, over and above it, a second reality of 'mathematical things'. A set of objects, for example, depends for its existence on those objects: if they are destroyed, then there is no longer such a set.t (Of course, we may say that the set exists 'tenselessly', but we may also say the objects exist 'tenselessly': this is just to say that in pure mathe-matics we can sometimes ignore the important difference between 'exists now' and 'did exist, exists now, or will exist'.) Not only are the 'objects' of pure mathematics conditional upon material objects; they are, in a sense, merely abstract possibilities. Studying how mathematical objects behave might better be described as studying what structures are abstractly possible and what structures are not abstractly possible.

The important thing is that the mathematician is studying something objective, even if he is not studying an unconditional' reality' of non-material things, and that the physicist who states a law of nature with the aid of a mathematical formula is abstracting a real feature of a real material world, even if he has to speak of numbers, vectors, tensors, state-functions, or whatever to make the abstraction.

Unfortunately, belief in the objectivity of mathematics has generally gone along with belief in 'mathematical objects' as an unconditional and nonphysical reality, and with the idea that the kind of knowledge that we have in mathematics is strictly a priori - in fact, mathematical knowledge has always been the paradigm of a priori knowledge. The

t The null set is an exception to this statement, of course; but set theory is relatively interpretable in the theory of non-empty sets, provided we are willing to assume that at least one object (other than a set) exists. Thus, 'unconditional' sets are not in any way necessary in mathematics (either in pure mathematics, or in mathematics as part of total science), except as constructions out of' conditional' sets. One might, nonetheless, insist on the a priori existence of the null set an sich; but this seems a little strained, even for a metaphysician.

A CONFUTATION OF CONVERGENT REALISM*

LARRY LAUDANt

University of Pittsburgh

This essay contains a partial exploration of some key concepts associated with the epistemology of realist philosophies of science. It shows that neither ref- erence nor approximate truth will do the explanatory jobs that realists expect of them. Equally, several widely-held realist theses about the nature of inter-the- oretic relations and scientific progress are scrutinized and found wanting. Fi- nally, it is argued that the history of science, far from confirming scientific realism, decisively confutes several extant versions of avowedly 'naturalistic' forms of scientific realism.

The positive argument for realism is that it is the only philosophy that doesn't make the success of science a miracle.

-H. Putnam (1975)

1. The Problem. It is becoming increasingly common to suggest that epistemological realism is an empirical hypothesis, grounded in, and to be authenticated by its ability to explain the workings of science. A grow- ing number of philosophers (including Boyd, Newton-Smith, Shimony, Putnam, Friedman and Niiniluoto) have argued that the theses of epistemic realism are open to empirical test. The suggestion that epistemological doctrines have much the same empirical status as the sciences is a welcome one: for, whether it stands up to detailed scrutiny or not, it marks a significant facing-up by the philosophical community to one of the most neglected (and most notorious) problems of philosophy: the status of epistemological claims.

But there are potential hazards as well as advantages associated with the 'scientizing' of epistemology. Specifically, once one concedes that epistemic doctrines are to be tested in the court of experience, it is possible that one's favorite epistemic theories may be refuted rather than confirmed. It is the thesis of this paper that precisely such a fate afflicts a form of realism advocated by those who have been in the vanguard of

*Received July 1980; Revised October 1980. tI am indebted to all of the following for clarifying my ideas on these issues and for

saving me from some serious errors: Peter Achinstein, Richard Burian, Clark Glymour, Adolf Griinbaum, Gary Gutting, Allen Janis, Lorenz Kriiger, James Lennox, Andrew Lugg, Peter Machamer, Nancy Maull, Eran McMullin, Ilkka Niiniluoto, Nicholas Rescher, Ken Schaffner, John Worrall, Steven Wykstra.

Philosophy of Science, 48 (1981) pp. 19-49. Copyright ? 1981 by the Philosophy of Science Association.

This content downloaded from 143.50.232.23 on Sun, 14 Jul 2013 05:56:54 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

LARRY LAUDANt

-H. Putnam (1975)

Structural Realism: The Best of Both Worlds? * by John WORRALL**

Summary The main argument for scientific realism is that our present theories in science are so success-

ful empirically that they can’t have got that way by chance - instead they must somehow have latched onto the blueprint of the universe. The main argument against scientific realism is that there have been enormously successful theories which were once accepted but are now regarded as false. The central question addressed in this paper is whether there is some reasonable way to have the best of both worlds: to give the argument from scientific revolutions its full weight and yet still adopt some sort of realist attitude towards presently accepted theories in physics and elsewhere. I argue that there is such a way - through strucfurul realism, a position adopted by PoincarC, and here elaborated and defended.

Resume L’argument principal en faveur du realisme scientifique, c’est que nos theories scientifiques

actuelles sont empiriquement si efficaces que cela ne peut pas Etre di3 au hasard - on doit en quelque sorte avoir decouvert les plans de I’univers. L’argument principal contre le realisme scientifique, c’est qu’il y a eu des theories scientifiques massivement efficaces qui ont ete autre- fois tenues pour vraies mais sont considerkes aujourd’hui comme fausses. La principale question traitee dans ce papier, c’est s’il y a un moyen raisonnable de prendre le meilleur des deux mondes: de donner tout son poids a l’argument tire des revolutions scientifiques et d’adopter pourtant une sorte d’attitude realiste a I’egard des theories actuellement acceptkes en physique ou ailleurs. Je rnontre qu’une telle voie existe: le realisme sfrucfurel, une position adoptke par Poincare, que je defends et dkveloppe ici.

Zusammenfassung Das Hauptargument fur wissenschaftlichen Realismus ist, dass unsere gegenwartigen Theo-

rien in der Wissenschaft empirisch so erfolgreich sind, dass sie nicht zuftilligerweise so geworden sein kdnnen - statt dessen miissen sie irgendwie mit dem Plan des Universums Ubereinstimmen. Das Hauptargument gegen den wissenschaftlichen Realismus ist, dass es ausgesprochen erfolgrei- che Theorien gegeben hat, die einmal akzeptiert gewesen waren, aber jetzt als falsch betrachtet werden. Die in diesem Papier behandelte Kernfrage lautet, ob es einen verniinftigen Weg gibt, aus beiden Weltcn das Beste zu haben: dem Argument vom Vorhandensein wissenschaftlicher Revo- lutionen sein volles Gewicht zu geben und dennoch eine Art von realistischer Einstellung gegen- iiber den heute in der Physik und anderswo akzeptierten Theorien einzunehmen. Ich argumentie- re, dass es einen solchen Weg gibt - durch den von Poincart iibernommenen strukturellen Rea- lismus, der hier ausgearbeitet und verteidigt wird.

* (I wish to thank John Watkins for some suggested improvements to an earlier draft; Elie Zahar for numerous enlightening discussions on the topic of this paper; and Howard Stein for his comments on the version delivered at Neuchltel).

* * The London School of Economics and Political Science, Univ. of London, Dpt. of Phi- losophy, Logic and Scientific Method, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE (GB).

Dialectica Vol. 43, NO 1-2 (1989)

LARRY LAUDANt

-H. Putnam (1975)

LARRY LAUDANt

-H. Putnam (1975)

It Takes Two To TangoForthcoming in Synthese (Penultimate Draft)

Extending the Argument from Unconceived Alternatives:

Observations, Models, Predictions, Explanations, Methods, Instruments,

Experiments, and Values

Darrell P. Rowbottom

[email protected]

Stanford’s argument against scientific realism focuses on theories, just as many

earlier arguments from inconceivability have. However, there are possible arguments

against scientific realism involving unconceived (or inconceivable) entities of

different types: observations, models, predictions, explanations, methods, instruments,

experiments, and values. This paper charts such arguments. In combination, they

present the strongest challenge yet to scientific realism.

1. Introduction – The Significance of Unconceived Theories

This primary aim of this paper is to consider how unconceived alternatives of a non-

theoretical variety bear on the scientific realism debate. (This debate is multi-faceted.

It concerns the epistemic status of theoretical discourse in contemporary science, what

counts as scientific progress (or ‘the aim of science’1), the extent to which continuities

in the content of science should be expected over time, and so forth. I am not going to

explore the facets in detail here. I target explicit aspects at various points.) I begin,

however, by presenting what I take to be the strongest version of the argument from

unconceived alternative theories. I do this partly because some of the new arguments I

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 I’d prefer not to use this phrase, but include it because others still do. See Rowbottom (2014a).

4 What is mathematical truth?

LARRY LAUDANt

-H. Putnam (1975)

Encounter with historical evidence

Refine the Theory

Fiddle with the historical material

Refine the Theory

Fiddle with the historical material

Refine and Fiddle

F=mgF=GMm/r2

…theoretical core

F=mgF=GMm/r2

…theoretical core

theory-model

F=mgF=GMm/r2

…theoretical core

theory-model target system

representation

F=mgF=GMm/r2

…theoretical core

representation

raw data

F=mgF=GMm/r2

…theoretical core

representation

raw data

data-model

It Takes Two To Tango“I suggest that at least much of the time [models in science] might be treated as similar to something we are all familiar with, the imagined objects of literary fiction. Here I have in mind entities like Sherlock Holmes’ London, and Tolkien’s Middle Earth. These are imaginary things that we can, somehow, talk about in a fairly constrained and often communal way. On the view I am developing, the model systems of science often work similarly to these familiar fictions. The model systems of science will of course be described in mathematical terms (we could to the same to Middle Earth), but they are not just mathematical objects.” (Godfrey-Smith 2006, 735)

narrative

historical situation

representation

narrative

representation

sources

narrative

representation

sourcessource model

narrative

representation

sourcessource model

abstract pattern

Thanks for your attention!

It Takes Two To Tango - Models, Hermeneutics & (I)HPS

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