Towards an evolutionary pragmatics of science

Towards ~n Evolutionary Pragmatics of Science

ASHER I D A N - A H A R O N K A N T O R O V I C H

Zusammenfassung

Fundamentismus ("Foundationism") und Skeptizismus-Anarchismus sind zwei entgegenge- setzte Positionen in der traditionelien Erkenntnistheorie und in der modernen Wissenschaftstheo- rie. Zwischen ihnen gibt es einen dritten Standpunkt, den Evolutionismus. Beispiele sind zwei neuere Arbeiten von Putnam (1978) und Stegmiiller (1979). Im Gegensatz zum logisch-statischen Fundamentismus beriicksichtigt der Evolutionismus auch dynamische und naturalistische Ans~itze. Stegmiiller folgend entlehnen wir in der vorliegenden Untersuchung aus der Sprachphi- losophie pragmatische Gesichtspunkte, um die logische Syntax und Semantik, die Werkzeuge des Fundamentismus, zu ersetzen. Wir zeigen die Kraft der Pragmatik bei der Behandlung von Problemen wie Erkennmiswachstum, Begriffswechsel, Theorien- und Bedeutungsdynamik, wissenschaftliche Entdeckung und besonders beim Problem der Inkommensurabilit~it. Unser nicht-fundamentistischer Vorschlag ist ein heuristisches Modell, das auf der modernen genetischen Theorie basiert.

0. INTRODUCTION: FROM FOUNDATIONISM TO EVOLUTIONISM

Foundationism was the dominant view in modern Epistemology since the 17th century. Most of the foundationists (rationalists and empiricists) were logicists and treated scientific method and theories as static entities. Hume's scepticism was directed towards foundationism. Feyerabend's epistemological anarchism was directed towards modern foundationism (falsificationist and verificationist).

On the other hand, modern philosophers of science such as Quine, Kuhn, Toulmin, McMullin and Stegmiiller, have argued from their various points of view that the staticist approach, which analyzes science as a static corpus of knowledge should be replaced by a dynamical one, and that the logicist approach should be replaced by something else. Furthermore, Feyerabend (1975), McMullin (1976) and others showed that logicism and staticism have the same root: foundationism. The reason is that foundationists try to find a secure ("hard rock") basis for evaluating our knowledge (both in the empirical sciences and in the mathematical sciences), by "freezing" the scientific products into static units, i. e. statements, and validating or falsifying them by means of logic.

For the sake of orientation, let us draw a diagram in which we can locate the various basic approaches which are encountered through the history of the philosophy of science. The two basic oppositions in epistemology and methodology, foundationism vs. non-foundationism and formalism vs. non- formalism, can be described by drawing two axes to construct a square of oppositions :

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48 Asher Idan - Aharon Kantorovich

Formalism

Foundationism <

B

Verificationism Falsificationism

Intuitionist Methodology

A

C

Explicationism

Scepticism Anarchism

D

> Non-Foundationism

Non-Formalism

The first modern development in the philosophy of science was the transition from intuitionistic and non-formalistic methods (Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Mill) at A, to formalist-logicist approach (both inductive arid deduc- tive) at B. Then, in the last decades, a new approach emerged which consists of a descriptive, non-normative explication of scientific method which is not intended to be founded on a secure basis, at C. Point D represents both Hume's scepticism and Feyerabend's anarchism, or in general, epistemological relativism.

The new naturalized epistemology may be located midway between C and D, since it might employ formal scientific tools, but not as an end in itself.

We think that unlike their predecessors, Putnam and StegmiJller are fully aware of the following two requirements:

t. the need for a total abandonment of foundationism as the root of staticism and logicism.

2. the need for an integration of the dynamical approach with the naturalistic approach into evolutionism as a basic approach for understanding science.

To sum up, logicism and staticism, which are implied by foundationism are replaced in evolutionism by naturalism and dynamicism respectively, as shown in the following table:

Basic Philosophy Method and Tool The Approach to Change

FOUNDATIONISM LOGICISM STATICISM

EVOLUTIONISM NATURALISM DYNAMICISM

Towards an Evolutionary Pragmatics of Science 49

Naturalism is a doctrine of the kind suggested by Quine in "Epistemology Naturalized" (1968) for treating epistemology as a natural science, and by Tondle (1973), Sneed (1976) and others for developing a science of science.

Dynamicism is a doctrine of the kind which has emerged from Lakatos' methodology. Lakatos carried some aspects of Kuhn's ideas into the Popperian scheme and replaced Kuhn's paradigm and Poppers's static theory (i. e. theory as a set of statements) by a new methodological unit, the scientific research program. This entity is characterized by two main elements, the hard core and the positive heuristic. McMutlin (1976) takes one step further towards a dynamical approach by his suggestion to treat a research program in an holistic manner as a unified and continuously developing body of knowledge, rather than as a series of successive theories, each of which is falsified in its turn. Yet, the developmental or dynamical aspects of McMullin's view are mixed with logicist ones, since he criticizes Lakatos' falsificationism from a traditional logicist's point of view - when he asks whether the positive heuristic can be deduced from the hard core. We will show (in Section 3) that there is no necessary contradiction between falsificationism and evolutionism, in contrast with McMullin (1976), and that dynamical falsificationism can even be integrated into evolutionism. McMullin suggests using the term "theory" instead of "research program," having in mind the non-statement view of theories. We will suggest another terminology, which seems to us more illuminative.

Let us make a distinction between two different levels (or categories) to which theories and research programs belong. Lakatos makes this distinction (at least implicitly) in some places, while in other places he does not and thus Lakatos' theory is an ambiguous one. The two levels are the level of ideas and conceptual schemes about the object of scientific research and the level of scientific activity as a human activity. The first level is that which is seen from the viewpoint of the scientist who constructs theories about his object of research, and which is analyzed, clarified and explicated by the traditional methodologist or logician. This is the level of scientific products which the scientist produces and the traditional philosopher of science assesses.

The second level is that which is seen by the meta-scientist e. g., the theorist of science, the sociologist, or the psychologist, who studies the activity of scientists who conduct research, their cognition, language, action and presup- positions. Thus, entities such as theories, hard cores and their peripheries, and statements, belong to the first level. Whereas, Lakatosian positive and negative heuristic, instructions, plans of action, procedures (see Dascat and Idan, 1982) and institutions belong to the second level. Like all human beings, scientists are dual creatures. They act and contemplate on their actions. Thus, a research program generates information about the world (the first level), and at the same time it is a plan and a flame about how and what to do in order to produce and to improve that information.

It is natural to apply the science of science to the second level. An appropriate tool for describing this level is the pragmatics of science, which can


be regarded as an extension of the pragmatics of language. By this, we follow Stegmiiller's suggestion for the pragmatization of methodology:

"it may perhaps turn out to be a starting point for a systematic pragmatics which has been overdue for a long time. We shall speak of 'concepts of an unquestionable pragmatic kind' if they refer to persons and human institutions, to knowledge situations and beliefs, to confirmation test procedures, to historical time interval, etc." (1979:29)

We will enrich Stegmiilter's suggestion by integrating it with other ideas from the philosophy of language such as the importance of use (Wittgenstein 1953), and the distinction between regulative and constitutive rules (Searle 1971).

The content of the two levels of science is shown in the following table:

Level 1

Level 2

Discipline

Logic of Science

Science of Science

Tools of Analysis

Syntax and Semantics

Pragmatics

Object of Study

Theory

Action

Lakatos' Terminology

Theories and hard cores

Positive & negative Heuristics

1. Logic as One of Several Regulative Systems of Methodological Rules

1.1. The Poverty of Logicism

Logicism, which was dominant in the first half of the twentieth century, has its origin in the domain of the foundations of mathematics (mainly Frege and Russell). Quine (1968) argues that the logicist-reductionist program in the foundations of mathematics was used as a comparative standard for epistemology in general and specifically for the philosophy of science.

Quine found two insurmountable difficulties inherent in the logicist program in mathematics and in science: one concerning meaning and the other concerning truth. The conceptual question about meaning is, how to clarify concepts by means of definitions, such that some concepts will be defined in terms of other concepts. The doctrinal question about truth is how to establish rules by proving them, such that some will be proven from others. From the conceptual point of view, employing set theory in addition to logic in the reduction of mathematics was disappointing because set theory does not contribute to clarification. As to the doctrinal question, Quine says:


"We know from G6del's work that no consistent axioms can cover mathematics when we renounce self evidence. Reduction remains philosophically fascinating, but it does not do what the epistemologist should like of it." (1968:70)

According to the above-mentioned comparative standard from the foundations of mathematics, Russell in (1912) and Carnap in (1928), tried to reduce empirical knowledge to sense experience. From the conceptual point of view this meant to define physical bodies in terms of sense data. From the doctrinal point of view, this meant to justify our knowledge about empirical truths ,in terms of sense data.

Quine argues that both Russell's program and Carnap's project do not overcome the Humean criticism on the possibility of such a reduction (the above-mentioned Humean scepticism). Thus, Quine suggests abandoning the original program of logical construction of physical bodies from sense data, or from any other "hard rock" basis, and asks:

"Why not just see how this construction really proceeds ? Why not settle for psychology? . . . That was disallowed in earlier time as circular reasoning." (1968:76)

According to Quine, this circularity arises when one tries to justify empirical sciences by empirical psychological research. This circularity will disappear if one stop dreaming of deducing science from observation.

Thus, according to Quine, two mistakes were committed here by foundationists: 1. the project of logical construction of the physical bodies from some kind of "hard rock" basis (sense data for example) ; 2. the "dream" of deducing science from observation. He suggests, therefore, that the logicist approach should be replaced by a naturalistic approach in which we simply try to understand the link between observation and science and not to justify science.

There is an additional methodological mistake which is made by the logicist who copies from natural science the method of treating isolated or "ideal" systems (as first approximations), ignoring their dynamics and the interactions with other (external) systems or phenomena for the sake of formalization. However when logicists develop their theories of science, they treat them not as first approximations but as the concrete reality of science. Thus, Feyerabend says about this approach:

"The domain is separated from the rest of history and given a logic of its own. A thorough training in such a logic then conditions those working in the domain: it makes their actions more uniform and it freezes large parts of the historical process as well." (1975:19)

Here Feyerabend links logicism with staticism ("freeze") in methodology. The above three misconceptions are mainly mistakes concerning the logical

capacities of philosophers of science. There is a fourth mistake concerning the logical capacities of scientists. Suppes (1974) argues that philosophers of


science charitably assume that practicing scientists usually work, infer and write logically. But, as Moulines and Sneed explain Suppes' ideas:

"it is not always clear how different theories are related to each other and to their applications - the features of the world they tell us about. Even in the physical science - usually regarded as paradigm of rigor - practicing scientists rarely express themselves professionally in ways that provide clear answers to questions like this . . . such ambiguity and fuzziness may be quite harmless in the literature of ongoing empirical sciences." (1979:61)

The above remarks refer to drawbacks of logicism and lead us to suggest, following Quine, that it would be better to stop treating logic as the dominant system of rules which define the methodological activity (thus forming a constitutive system - see next Section). Instead, we may treat logic as one of several complementary systems of rules which regulate the methodological activity (thus forming a regulative system). Other regulative systems of science are metaphysics (see, for example, Agassi, 1975), Technology (Agassi, 1975, Stegmiiller, 1976), and the use of language (Kuhn, 1962).

We call this plurality of regulative systems, the separation of powers in methodology, in analogy with the well-known revolutionary suggestion by the 18th century political-philosopher, Montesquieu (t755):

"there are three sorts of power: the legislative: the executive in respect to things depend on the law of nations: and the executive in regard to matters that depend on the civil w a r . . , there is no liberty if the judiciary power be not separated from the legislative and executive." (p. 151-152)

It is just natural that after throwing away the king ofrnethodology, i.e. logic, someting else would come instead. Pluralism should replace any kind of monism: the authority of the church, of the tyrant, of experience (in empiricism or positivism), of reason (in rationalism), and of a crowned method (in logicism).

1.2. Pluralism, Anarchism, and the Authority of Method

Searle (1971) argues that scepticism and anarchism (of Wittgenstein's kind) in the philosophy of language stem from a failure to distinguish between different sorts of rules, in a way which he explains in the following remarks:

"Some (rules) regulate antecedently existing form of behavior: for example, the rules of efiquete regulate interpersonal relationships, but these relationships exist independently of the rules of etiquete. Some rules, on the other hand, do not merely regulate but create or define new forms of behavior. The rules of football, for example, do not merely regulate the game of football, but as it were creates the possibility of or defines that act ivi ty. . . I call the latter kind of rules constitutive rules." (1971: 41)


Let us carry Searle's distinction from the domain of philosophy of language over to the domain of the philosophy of science. Searle, himself, borrowed his distinction from Rawls' distinction in the philosophy of law. Scientific activity is just one of the various kinds of institutional and individual activities of man. The distinction between regulative and constitutive rules is appropriate for explaining important aspects of the interaction between the speaker and the linguistic institution and between the citizen and the political institution. Thus, it is not unreasonable that this distinction will also be appropriate for explaining some essential aspects of the interaction between the scientist and scientific institutions such as empirical evidence, metaphysics, technology, etc.

Before Montesquieu suggested separating the authorities, many states were governed by one authority (king, aristocracy, etc.) which served as the source of a constitutive system of rules, or laws, for the state. The three authorities suggested by Montesquieu serve as three regulative systems of rules for the state. These three regulative systems are connected with each other in a circular way. In politics, it is widely accpeted now that plurality and circularity is better than monism since in such a system there is room for criticism, control and improvement of the activity of each authority. It is no wonder that Quine (1968) succeeded in showing how the traditional argument against circularity will disappear if one stop looking for a logical justification - which is a kind of monism in methodology.

According to Popper (1945), an open society (of citizens, of scientists, etc.) can develop only by plurality and circularity of authorities. Methodological pluralism and the lack of a constitutive system in science are two of the main reasons for the dynamics andflux in science. One can compare the regulative system of rules of methodology with the static~constitutive system of rules of games (like chess) in order to be convinced that what we call power separation in methodology is very important for scientific evaluation. Circular justification and ad-hoc modifications can now be seen in new light. They can be regarded as the product of a feedback process between the different institutions and between the systems of rules and the working scientists. The system of rules is dynamic rather than unchangeable. The scientist himself modifies the rules, not as a matter of caprice, but by taking account of constraints like rationality, cooperation, relevance and human intellectual abilities; the influ- ence of scientific progress and cultural change is essential. In Sections 2 and 3, we attempt to trace the patterns of the evolution of the methodological rules.

2. Pragmatics of Science as a Branch of the Science of Science

2.1. Pragmatics. Language and Science

Other branches of the science of science such as history, linguistics, psychology and sociology, deal mainly with the empirical aspects of science. Branches, such as the logic of science and system-theoretical and set- theoretical approaches to science, deal mainly with the formal aspects of science. Pragmatics of science should be an interdisciplinary branch which


operates on both levels : formal and empirical. It emerged in the philosophy of language and linguistics, mainly through the works of Wittgenstein, Austin, Piaget and Searle. Its role as a powerful tool for linguistic investigations was emphasized by Bar-Hillel. In the previous section we mentioned one pragmatic concept and its use in the philosophy of science: it is Searle's distinction between constitutive and regulative rules.

Stegm~iller (1979) mentions various (probably non-intentional) uses of pragmatical notions in the works of Kuhn, Sneed, Lakatos and others. Kuhn, for example, borrowed the well-known notion of "paradigm" from Wittgen- stein's philosophy of language (1953). Stegmiiller concentrates mainly on the sociopragmatical aspects of the general use of language. Thus, it can be applied to the specific use of language by scientists and to their actions (Dascal and Idan, 1982).

2.2 Action and Knowledge in Science

Recently, Habermas (1979) has followed Apel in his criticism of the program of reducing philosophy of science to syntactical and semantical investigations of the language of science. Habermas points out that there is an "abstraction fallacy" in this reduction which has its roots in Carnap's program (1934). This fallacy usually occurs when for methodological reasons someone concentrates on one aspect of a given phenomena and abstracts it from the other aspects as if they do not exist, and after a certain period, he or his followers regard that one aspect as the whole phenomena. This fallacy is similar to the "isolationist" policy of the logicist mentioned in Section 1.1. Apel mentions Carnap's program about the logic of science which ignores pragmatical aspects for methodological reasons at the initial stages of the program, and after a certain period he regards the language of science and the natural language as mainly semantical and syntactical phenomena.

Thus, Stegmiiller's suggestion (1979), mentioned in the introduction, comes at the right time. Stegm/.iller concentrates on two main issues: 1. of holding a theory and using it. 2. the evolution of theories. Against Montague's logic of science (1974) - which is a powerful extension of Carnap's program mentioned above - Stegmiiller argues that it is practically unable to treat non-propositio- nal aspects such as intentions, scientific acts, and other social and cognitive aspects of science.

We think that the difference between Carnap and Montague on the one side, and Habermas and Stegmiiller on the other, stems from their different approaches to the relation of knowledge to language and action. The former ignores dynamical aspects of the users and of the contexts of use of theories and of scientific language. Their attitude has its roots in the long tradition of ignoring action as a fundamental aspect of knowledge and language. Although we can find references to action in the works of Descartes and his followers, the importance of action has been fully recognized only by the philosophers of praxis (mainly Hegel and Marx), and by evolutionist philosophers (mainly


Bergson). Piaget, who followed Bergson, and Vygotsky, who followed Piaget and Marx, base their developmental linguistics and genetical epistemology on the basis of theories of action. Piaget (1959) and (1979) argues that both the cognitive and the linguistic capacities emerge partly from body actions in the sensory-motor period. These developments took place mainly in continental philosophy.

In the Anglo-American world, the formal approaches are rigourosly challanged by Wittgenstein's and Austin's stress on action. Austin recasts the discussion of various problems into the broad context of the discussion of human action and behaviour in general. He concentrates on the question of: "How to Do Things with Words" (1962), and his followers deal with the important notion of speech acts. We can ask: what about "scientific acts ?" and what about speech acts in the language of science ?

Polanyi's works (1953, 1966) are deeply effected by Gestalt Psychology and by Piaget. By his notion "tacit knowledge", Polanyi stresses the importance of praxis for the scientist and the relevance of his actions to shaping his thought and knowledge. Polanyi argues that much of the scientist's work is of a practical nature like riding a bicycle or swimming, which needs a lot of tacit knowledge. This kind of knowledge is learned mainly by non-explicit practical training, and this puts a limit to any absolute formalization (which is Montague's ideal).

3. The Pragmatics of the Problem of Incommensurability

3.1. Incommensurability as an Interdisciplinary Problem

Stegmfiller (1979), follows Pumam (1975), who says in his view of the problems of incommensurability:

"We do not have to agree with Sir Karl Popper or with Paul Feyerabend that there is an incomparability between accepting the existence of radical paradigm change in science and accepting the idea of a growth of objective knowledge (of course, Popper and Feyerabend differ on whether to reject radical paradigm change or growth of objective knowledge). We can have our paradigm shift and our objective knowledge too." (1975:281)

Putnam continues to deal with the problem of commensurability in (1978) where he calls it "the convergence problem". We will show how they complement one another. We will first present the two solutions and suggest that the semantical aspects of Putnam's solution can be integrated with the pragmatical aspects of Stegmiiller's solution. Our synthesis can be used to solve problems not only in the philosophy of science, but also in traditional philosophy and in linguistics and common sense knowledge. There is no reason why notions such as scientific research program and paradigm should not be applied to philosophy. We may talk about philosophical research programs and paradigms, or compare the dynamics of the meanings of notions like:


"Atom", "D. N. A." etc., with the dynamics of the meaning of notions like: "Truth", "God", "method" etc.

3.2 Putnam on the Convergence of Scientific Knowledge

Putnam in (1978) uses evolutionary arguments and pragmatical "instru- ments" in his criticism of staticism and of logicism. While Stegmiiller's evolutionism (1979) is mainly a heuristic-methodological principle, Putnam refers to biological evolutionism:

"Something Marx did teach all students of society is that social forms succeed one another somewhat as species of trees succeed one another in a forest, one providing favorable conditions for the appearance of the next." (1978:59)

Thus, if we look at the paradigm as a kind of social form, we can get immediately not merely a dynamical, but more specifically, an evolutionary view of research programs. (We will continue to develop this idea in our synthesis in Section 4.) Putnam explicitly attacks logicism by his evolutionary considerations :

"Human functional organization evolved over one to two million years. There is no reason that it must have a description that would fit into one book, or even into the Bodelian Libra ry . . . to deduce any characteriza- tion at all of such matters from a hypothetical description of our functional organization may well require so much "real time" that the human race will have long ceased before such a deduction is carried out !"

He also attacks logicism by pragmatical considerations like this one:

"Some non-scientific knowledge is presupposed by science, I have been arguing that "refers" and "true" is a foundamental term in logic - a precise science." (1978:73)

Putnam first presents Boyde's account of the positivist's philosophy of science according to which a better theory must imply many of the observation sentences of the earlier theory. Boyde thinks that scientists try to preserve the mechanisms of the earlier theory as long as possible. Then they try to keep the old observational predictions and incorporate the old observational data. This procedure led to important discoveries (like that of Neptune or the positron).

The above-mentioned procedure is based on two beliefs: 1. Terms in a mature science typically refer, and 2. the laws of a theory in a mature science are typically approximately true. Thus, "truth" and "reference" are terms in ~i causal explanation of the

successful behavior of scientists. Putnam shows that their beliefs serve as


heuristic-regulative factors in the processes of discovery and of the growth of knowledge:

"it is a fact that we can assign a referent to "gravitational field" in a Newtonian theory from the standpoint of a relativity theory (though no to "ether" or "phlogiston"): a referent to Mendel's "gene" from the standpoint of present day molecular biology : and a referent to Dalton's "atom" from the standpoint of quantum mechanics. These retrospective references assignments depend on a principle which has been called the 'principle of the benefit of the doubt' ." (1978:22)

This "'benefit of the doubt" is, however, implied by Popper's stress on criticism andfalsificationism, and by his follower, Lakatos. The principle of the "benefit of the doubt" usually finds an expression in the growth of knowledge through the process of conjectures and refutations which enable us to make retrospective references to the already refuted theories from the point of view of the corroborated theory: namely, this principle makes it possible to have the book-keeping of empirical content on which Popper's methodology is based. We can integrate, therefore, falsificationism and the evolutionist non-logicist approach. The dynamics of referents and meanings can serve as a semantic component of an evolutionary methodology which will include an epistemoto- gical component of the kind suggested by Lakatos, while some of Stegmiiller's ideas can serve as the pragmatical component.

The connection between Popper's conception about the elimination of theories by a process of conjectures and refutations and Putnam's conception of the benefit of the doubt and retrospective references is described by Putnam in this way:

"Surely the gene discussed in molecular biology is the gene Mendel intended to talk a b o u t . . , if one believes that the terms of T~ do have referents, then it will be a constraint on T2, it will narrow the class of the candidate-theories." (t978:22)

A mere logical explanation of "narrowing the class of candidate-theories" by a theory of a Popperian kind has much less explanatory power than multidisciplinary semantical-epistemological-pragmatical explanation. Trea- ting intentions and beliefs as pragmatic entities is essential for an understanding of scientific work and of the dynamics of theories and referents.

Furthermore, our suggestion for a multidisciplinary explanation is better than a "global" methodological explanation given in terms of "simplicity" and "true predictions," since by means of "global" rules it is difficult to show clearly the mechanisms for narrowing the class of candidate theories. In this point, Putnam agrees with McMullin (1976), who argues that: "it would not be correct to infer that 'simplicity' was (thus) the criterion governing appraisal of theories" (p. 100).

Let us now take one step further towards our synthesis by presenting Stegm/iller's ideas.


3.3. The Stegmiiller-Sneed System and Incommensurability

Kuhn and Feyerabend and other philosophers regard Stegmiiller's (1976) theory as a "Sneedification of Kuhn". In (1979) Stegmiiller explained that his book (1976) was first and foremost an extension and application of the enrichment which Sneed made (he called it "informal semantics") to Suppes' extension of Bourbaki program to science. The reconstruction of Kuhn's ideas was only a by-product.

As we already indicated, Stegmiiller's evolutionism is mainly formal and is borrowed from biology as a metaphor. The two main ingredients of Stegmiiller's evolutionism are:

1. The differentiation between theories and their applications, and 2. the hierarchial structure, consisting of the fundamental laws, generals

laws and more specific laws is made much more perspicuous by theory nets and core nets than by the method of expanded core (1979:27). This is because the concept of a net enables us to describe the system and its evolution in a more exact and explicit way. The core K is described by Stegmiiller as the quadruplet K= xMp, Mpp, M, C - , where Mp is a set of possible models including the apparatus of theoretical concepts. Mpp is a set of all partial potential models obtained by eliminating the. theoretical components (thus, remain only the pretheoretical components). M is the set of all possible models satisfying the foundamental laws. C is a set of constraints (for example, the constraint of rigidity in classical mechanics). The core K can be an element of a set of higher order: x K, I, Sc, h - where I is the set of intended applications, Sc is a scientific community, and h is an historical time interval, such that Sc intends to apply K to I during h. This system can develop in many ways like: branching, specialization, overlaping, etc. For detailed description of this development, see (1979:62).

By means of this evolutionary framework, Stegmiiller argues that there is no longer place for claiming Kuhn's theory to be irrational both in the context of normal science and in the context of revolutions. Stegmiiller says about points of bifurcation in normal science:

"One must not interpret this as saying that at these points 'rationality come to an end' and therefore have to surrender to 'subjective arbitrariness and irrationality'. For 'irrationality' not means the same as 'theoretical reasoning'. Borrowing Kant's terminology, one could say that at the points of possible progress branching we have to change over from the domain of theoretical reason to domain of practical reason." (1979:35)

Practical reasoning as a pragmatic notion is a key notion in the context of normal science. In the context of revolution the "non statement view" becomes the key notion:

"Part of the scepticism presumably comes from the statement view, i. e. from thinking of theories as classes of sentences. For sentences,


formulated in different language with different vocabulary, seem to be incompatible. Within the structuralist approach, on the other hand, the internal structure of different theories, as expressed in their core-nets and theory-nets, can be analyzed in the same informal language" (1979:35).

Thus, both Stegm[iller and Putnam refer to extralinguistic entities as the basis for intertheoreticat relations ; Putnam refers to references and intentions, and Stegm~iller refers to the acts of using and holding a theory. These entities can be analyzed only by means of pragmatics or "informal semantics". Thus, commensurability by means of the reduction of T1 to T2 can only be approximate because the extralinguistic elements are irreducible.

4. A Model for the Analysis of Incommensurability

4.1. A Dual Evolutionary-Genetic Model

McMullin suggests (1976) to abandon the sharp distinction between "hard" and "soft" parts of the hard core of the research program, since there is a whole spectrum of "hardness" or "softness" degrees. By this, McMullin is in full agreement with Stegmiiller's suggestion for degrees of revolutions and with Quine's hierar'chial epistemic field (1953.) which was borrowed from the Gestalt theory. We think that this suggestion improves Lakatos' notion of hard core. Concerning the second central notion in Lakatos' methodology, the positive heuristic, McMullin treats it as if it belongs to the level of theories. However, the positive heuristic belongs to a different level. The potentiality of growth comes not only from the model standing in isolation, from which theories evolve, but also from the background knowledge within which the model is embedded (Kantorovich, 1979). The background knowledge includes besides the accepted theories and data, partially articulated beliefs which cannot be analyzed by the logicist tools, in the way a well defined set of propositions can. The model which stands in the basis of a research program belongs, therefore, to the tacit level of knowledge, whereas the theory-versions belong to .the explicit level. Thus, the evolution of science proceeds in two parallel levels, which many thinkers (philosophers and scientists) failed to distinguish. To describe this dual evolutionary pattern we borrow a dichotomy from biology which at this stage will serve as a metaphor (though it can evolve from a mere metaphor into a full-fledged theory like Campbell's (1974), which means that epistemic evolution and biological evolution have similar, if not the same, structure). We refer to the phenotype/genotype dichotomy. Theory can be regarded as "methodological phenotype" and the hard core and the positive heuristic can be regarded as "methodological genotype" (Kantorovich, 1983).

The big discovery of modern genetics was that most of the phenomena in the organism which can be observed directly or by a simple microscope are not the causes of heredity but are only products of the genes which are the causes of heredity. The development of an organism is a product of two parallel dynamic


processes of the phenotype and of the genotype. The genotype has two components: the D. N. A. and the R. N. A. which mediates between the D. N. A. and the phenotype.

Fig. 1

The Biological Model The Methodological Model

D. N.A. }

l Genotype R. N. A.

l Polypeptide Phenotype

Hard Core } l Tacit Elements of a

Research Program Positive Heuristic

Explicit Sets of Statements Theory-Versions

The developmental scheme is represented in the formula: genotype + environment ~ phenotype, where the environment operates on the genetic potential and the result is the development of the phenotype. In science, the theory can be regarded as the "methodological phenotype", the empirical data

- as the environmental input and the hard core as the "methodological D. N. A.". The existence of the hard core reflects the Duhem-Quine thesis which says that any element in the theory can be protected from logical refutation. As the presence of the D. N. A. does not ensure the continuity of the organism during the growth process, so the presence of a hard core does not ensure the continuity of the research program (the whole body of knowledge, tacit and explicit). It is the task of the positive heuristic to supply the directions and inscriptions for developing the theory and for adjusting it to empirical data, in analogy the task of the R. N. A. in the growth of the organism. From the information-theoretical viewpoint, the system of science or any of its subsystems can be treated as an information processing system analogous to an organismic system which adapts to nature (Laszlo, 1972, Kantorovich, 1979). We can distinguish between the "software" (genotype) and the "hardware" (phenotype) of the information processing system. In the flow diagram of a dynamic system of science (Fig. 2). We separate the theoretical component into a slowly-changing part - the hard core plus positive heuristic - and the theory which undergoes rapid changes, suppressing the components which mediate the information flow between the theoretical component and "nature".

Fig. 2 HARD CORE + POSITIVE HEURISTIC I 1

t THEORY t

T NATURE


The arrow directed from the theory to the hard core designates rare information flow. The environment operates directly on the theory and indirectly on the slowly-changing part. It is not unsimilar to the frequent changes in the organismic phenotype which does not affect the genotype which is rarely changed by mutations.

The above analogy has an implication on the problem of incommensurability. Organismic differentiation and specialization of limbs are analogous to theory differentation or branching (as Stegmiiller calls it). In the case of the development of an organism we do not say that the organism in one stage is incomparable with the organism in the later stage. Similarly, we will not say that a theory in one stage in the development of the research program is incommensurable to the theory in a later stage. This is trivially true in ontogenetic development. But in phylogenetic development two species which evolved from a common earlier species are not necessarily comparable. Similarly, when two theories evolved from a common earlier theory, they are not necessarily commensurable. Furthermore, in a radical revolution when one species annihilates another species and takes its place in a certain area, we do not expect to find any continuity between the annihilated and the annihilator. Thus, when we extend the model to cover these cases, we might follow Democritus' claim which was adopted by the molecular biologist, J. Monod, as a moto for this book (1971): "everything in the universe is the fruit of chance and necessity." This "everything" might be "methodological species" or a biological one. (Popper would classify it as creatures in world 3 and in world 2 (1974), and Bartley will agree with him in his theory about the "topology of the evolution of theories and'organisms '" (1976). The component of "chance" and the component of "necessity" caused the ambiguity referred to by McMullin in Lakatos' theory concerning the relation between the positive heuristic and the hard core. But unlike McMullin, we think that this ambiguity is inherent to the notion of research program. A theory usually develops from the hard core neither by logical inferences alone ("necessity") n o r only by intuitive or accidental "jumps" ("chance"), but by a combination of logical inferences and accidental "jumps". Thus, when we compare two species (biological or methodological) we will find many kinds of relationships between them of identity, of similarity (partial commensurability) and of difference.

4.2. Commensurability of Games, Theories and Grammars

Let us imagine someone who uses the games of chess and checkers for a symbolic description (simulation) of military situations (battle area, hierarchy of commandment, strategies, etc.). From a first glance it seems as if the chess game is much "richer" than the checkers game for the purpose of simulation. Almost to each element of the checkers game we can find an equivalent element (rule or Man) in the chess game, but not vice versa. At the strating stage the checkers game has only o n e homogeneous kind of men and two


kinds of movement rules. The rules in the game of chess, on the other hand, have at the starting point many kinds of pieces and many kinds of movements. We will call the transformation of the user from the first game, to the second game, the transformation of differentiation.

In the above transformation, we have one invariant element, the board. The chess user can argue against the checkers user that he cannot simulate a "state of affair" in which there are hierarchical military structures since the checkers user has only one kind of men. Furthermore, from a semantical point of view, the chess player can argue that by means of the checkers game, the term "hierarchy" is "ambiguous". Because of several arguments of this kind we can say not only that the chess game is a richer "model" than the checkers game, but that the checkers game is reducible to the chess game, but not vice-versa. However, this reduction is only partial. Even when a set (or a system) A is richer than B, some elements of B may remain irreducible to A.

The model of differentiation was confirmed empirically in developmental psycholinguistics, where McNeill (1966) followed Chomsky in comparing grammars and theories. McNeill argues that the child changes grammar during his linguistic development. Between these grammars there are "partial inclusion" relationships, with invariant elements in the transformation from one grammar to the other. A similar situation was discovered in the development of the ability of the child in games situations (Bruner, et al., 1976). Thus, it is no wonder that Wittgenstein (1953) intensively used the notion of language games not only in a linguistic context but in an epistemological context as well. "Family resemblance" is a central notion in Wittgenstein's analysis of the relationships between language games, but he did not take into account developmental relationships between different language games. It is no wonder, therefore, that Kuhn's notion of paradigm, which was heavily affected by Wittgenstein's, was one of the causes which aroused the problem of incommensurability. Lennenberg (1967) who takes into account developmental and evolutionary considerations in his treatment of Chomsky's ideas about language and cognition, compares the dichotomy of genotype/ phenotype, with the dichotomy of deep structure/surface structure. Castanfida (1976) uses the latter dichotomy in order to explain the transformation from the "language of inscriptions" (or norms) to the "language of description" (or facts). The same can be said about the positive heuristic or "methodological R. N. A." which is composed of the "language of inscriptions": it generates the transformations from the hard core (the D. N. A.) to the theories (the 'phenotype") which are composed of the "language of descriptions." Here we have, therefore, a clear linkage between inscriptions for action and descriptive knowledge.

4.3. Incommensurability from a Dynamical Perspective

We would like to take one step further to present the dynamics of the differentiation process as a process which goes through alternating periods of change and stability, e. g., (revolution and normal science).


Laszlo (1972) invokes Bronowski's idea about stratified stability for describing the evolution of science. According to his model, as a result of information input from its invironment ("nature"), the science system develops and grows through a series of intermediate stable states on its way to equilibrium with the environment. According to McNeil1 (1966), as a result of the redundancy of information-input, the linguistic system or the cognitive system developes through a process of differentiation. The system adopts not only richer grammars, but it also becomes more flexible by means of Chomskian transformations. The topological description of changes of this kind was widely described by R. Thorn (1972) in his "catastrope theory", which is applicable to biology, linguistics and epistemology.

The evolutionary-probabilistic model which is presented in (Kantorovich, 1978, 1979) employs some of the above mentioned ideas for explicating progress. Let P(T) and P(E) be probabilities which are taken to be representa- tive degrees of rational belief in T - the theoretical component of the system - and in E - the empirical or observational component. Let C(T) - be the degree of confirmation of T. When E is deducable from T then, according to Bayes' theorem, C(T) = P(T)/P(E). When we have AC>o, our research program is progressive (Lakatos' terminology), or our theory is fertile (McMullin's terminology). Progressivness is not only confirmational, but also involves information growth. We can distinguish three kinds of growth. Let I(E) be the function of empirical information growth, and I(T) the function of theoretical information growth, then we define a function R, which will characterize the kind of growth:

R= AI(T) AI(E) "

When R 1, it is a period of revolution, because a big theoretical growth is accompanied by a minimal empirical growth. When R + 0, it is an empirically progressive period of normal science, since an extensive empirical growth is accompanied by a minimal theoretical growth; when R + 1, we have a situation where theoretical growth is "dragged along" by empirical growth in an ad-hoc or a non-progressive manner - which indicates the degeneration of the normal science or the research program (See, Kantorovich, 1979).

In such a period, the empirical growth lacks an explanation since an explanatory theory should be relatively stable according to our conception of dynamical explanation. If we regard the unexplained empirical growth in the period R + 1 as "noise" in the scientific system (like the situation before the appearance of the relatively theory and quantum theory), then the theoretical "redundancy" in the R t period (revolution and a final big theoretical discovery) aims to cope with future "noises". Similar situations were an~ysed by Mandelbrot (1976) in the mathematical theory of communication, by McNeill (1966) in developmental psycholinguistic, and by Thom (1972), in the domain of stability and change in biology.


Scientific research programs (creatures in world-3) like organisms, (creatures in world-2) are dynamic entities which try to cope with nature and with other entities of their kind. In our period of molecular biology, it is well known that a comparison between organisms only in terms of their phenotypes is not enough. If we adopt the organismic conception of science, the same can be said about scientific research programs, where the comparison between their explicit products (the theories) is not enough. We know three facts about changes in science:

1. The rate of change of the hard core + positive heuristic (the "genotype") is much smaller than the rate of change of the theory (the "phenotype").

2. The changes in the genotype are much less frequent (they occur mainly in time of revolution) than the changes in the phenotype.

3. There is a connection (about which we know very little) between a big theoretical change and a rare change in the hard core + positive heuristic. Both changes are different from the gradual change in the observational information (the flow of information from nature). These kinds of changes supply us with three scales of comparison between

different research programs, and thus open new fields of investigation around the problem of incommensurability. The genotype remains static in a R + 0 period, the period of normal science. In a period of revolution, where R 1, the genotype undergoes a radical change.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Let us close our paper by returning to Chapter 1 where we presented the idea of a "closed science" with one constitutive system as opposed to an "open science" with many regulative systems. We tried to demonstrate that evolutionism explains better the growth of knowledge than foundationism. Unlike games like chess or football, which are governed by an imflexible constitutive system of rules of action, science, or language, or organism are governed by flexible regulative and dynamic rules of action.

Science has two principal levels of change. Logic - syntax and semantics - can only cope with the level of the explicit theories (phenotype), while pragmatics can also cope with the level of the implicit hard core, actions and heuristic (genotype).

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Adresse der Autoren:

Dr. Asher Idan und Dr. Aharon Kantorovich, Philosophy Department, Tel-Aviv-University, Ramat-Aviv 69978, Tel-Aviv, Israel

Towards an evolutionary pragmatics of science

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