From owner-bhaskar Tue Jul 2 10:12:04 1996
Date: Tue, 2 Jul 1996 08:08:38 -0600
Message-Id: <9607021408.AA04483@marx.econ.utah.edu.econ.utah.edu>
From: Hans Ehrbar
Subject: rts2-01
Preface
It has often been claimed, and perhaps more often felt, that the
problems of philosophy have been solved. And yet, like the
proverbial frog at the bottom of the beer mug, they have always
reappeared. There was a phase in recent philosophy when it was
widely held that the problem was the problems and not their
solution. In practice, however, this interesting idea was usually
coupled with the belief that termination of philosophical
reflection of the traditional kind would be in itself sufficient
to resolve the problems to which, it was held, philosophical
reflection had given rise.
Whatever the merits of such a view in general, it is
quite untenable for any philosopher who is concerned with science.
For in one science after another recent developments, or in some
cases the lack of them, have forced old philosophical problems to
the fore. Thus the dispute between Parmenides and Heraclitus as
to whether being or becoming is ultimate lies not far from the
centre of methodological controversy in physics; while the dispute
between rationalists and empiricists over the respective roles of
the a priori and the empirical continues to dominate
methodological discussion in economics. Sociologists are making
increasing use of the allegedly discredited Aristotelian typology
of causes. And the problem of universals has re-emerged in an
almost Platonic form in structural linguistics, anthropology and
developmental biology. The spectre of determinism continues to
haunt many of the sciences; and the problem of 'free-will' is
still a problem for psychology.
In this context one might have expected a ferment of
creative activity within the philosophy of science, and to a
degree this has occurred. But the latter's capacity for
autonomous growth is limited. For the critical or analytical
philosopher of science can only say as much as the philosophical
tools at his disposal enable him to say. And if philosophy lags
behind the needs of the moment then he is left in the position of
a Priestley forced,
Preface 7
by the inadequacy of his conceptual equipment,
to think of oxygen as 'dephlogisticated air';1 or, of a Winch
baffled by an alien sociology.2
Hegel may have exaggerated when he said that philosophy
always arrives on the scene too late.3 Yet there can be little
doubt that our theory of knowledge has scarcely come to terms
with, let alone resolved the crises induced by, the changes that
have taken place across the whole spectrum of scientific (and one
might add social and political) thought. In this respect our
present age contrasts unfavourably with both Ancient Greece and
Post-Renaissance Europe, where there was a close and mutually
beneficial relationship between science and philosophy. It is true
that in the second of these periods there was a progressive
'problem-shift' within philosophy from the question of the content
of knowledge to the meta-question of its status as such.4 This
shift was in part a response to the consolidation of the Newtonian
world-view, until by Kant's time its fundamental axioms could be
regarded as a priori conditions of the possibility of any
empirical knowledge. However, those philosophers of the present
who insist upon their total autonomy from the natural and human
sciences not only impoverish, but delude themselves. For they
thereby condemn themselves to living in the shadow cast by the
great scientific thought of the past.
Anyone who doubts that scientific theories constitute a
significant ingredient in philosophical thought should consider
what the course of intellectual history might have been if gestalt
psychology had been established in place of Hartley's principle
of the association of ideas; or if the phenomena of electricity
and magnetism had come to be regarded as more basic than those of
impact and gravity; or if sounds and smells had been taken as
constitutive of the basic stuff of reality and the rich tapestry
of the visual-tactile world had been regarded, like a Beethoven
symphony or the perfume of a rose, as a mere effect of those
primary powers. Suppose further that
1 See e.g. S. E. Toulmin, 'Crucial Experiments: Priestley and
Lavoisier', The Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. XVIII
(1957), pp. 205-20; and J. B. Conant, The Overthrow of the
Phlogiston Theory.
2 p. Winch, The Idea of a Social Science, p. 114.
3 G. W. F. Hegel, Philosophy of Right, Preface.
Cf. G. Buchdahl, Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Science, p.
2
8 A Realist Theory of Science
philosophers had taken biology or economics as their paradigm of
a science rather than physics; or 16th not 17th century physics
as their paradigm of scientific activity. Would not our
philosophical inheritance have been vastly different? As this
is primarily a problem for the philosophy of philosophy rather
than the philosophy of science, I shall not dwell on this point
further here. Its significance for our story will emerge in due
course.
The primary aim of this study is the development of a
systematic realist account of science. In this way I hope to
provide a comprehensive alternative to the positivism that has
usurped the title of science. I think that only the position
developed here can do full justice to the rationality of
scientific practice or sustain the intelligibility of such
scientific activities as theory-construction and experimentation.
And that while recent developments in the philosophy of science
mark a great advance on positivism they must eventually prove
vulnerable to positivist counter-attack, unless carried to the
limit worked out here.
My subsidiary aim is thus to show once-and-for-all why
no return to positivism is possible. This of course depends upon
my primary aim. For any adequate answer to the critical meta-
question 'what are the conditions of the plausibility of an
account of science?' presupposes an account which is capable of
thinking of those conditions as special cases. That is to say, to
adapt an image of Wittgenstein's, one can only see the fly in the
fly-bottle if one's perspective is different from that of the
fly.5 And the sting is only removed from a system of thought when
the particular conditions under which it makes sense are
described. In practice this task is simplified for us by the fact
that the conditions under which positivism is plausible as an
account of science are largely co-extensive with the conditions
under which experience is significant in science. This is of
course an important and substantive question which we could say,
echoing Kant, no account of science can decline, but positivism
cannot ask, because (it will be seen) the idea of insignificant
experiences transcends the very bounds of its thought.6
This book is written in the context of vigorous critical
activity in The philosophy of science. In the course of this the
twin
5 L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 309.
6 I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, Preface to the 1st Edition.
Preface 9
templates of the positivist view of science, viz. the ideas that
science has a certain base and a deductive structure, have been
subjected to damaging attack. With a degree of arbitrariness one
can separate this critical activity into two strands. The first,
represented by writers such as Kuhn, Popper, Lakatos, Feyerabend,
Toulmin, Polanyi and Ravetz, emphasises the social character of
science and focusses particularly on the phenomena of scientific
change and development. It is generally critical of any monistic
interpretation of scientific development, of the kind
characteristic of empiricist historiography and implicit in any
doctrine of the foundations of knowledge. The second strand,
represented by the work of Scriven, Hanson, Hesse and Harre among
others, calls attention to the stratification of science. It
stresses the difference between explanation and prediction and
emphasises the role played by models in scientific thought. It
is highly critical of the deductivist view of the structure of
scientific theories, and more generally of any exclusively formal
account of science. This study attempts to synthesise these two
critical strands; and to show in particular why and how the
realism presupposed by the first strand must be extended to cover
the objects of scientific thought postulated by the second strand.
In this way I will be describing the nature and the development
of what has been hailed as the 'Copernican Revolution' in the
philosophy of science. 7
To see science as a social activity, and as structured
and discriminating in its thought, constitutes a significant step
in our understanding of science. But, I shall argue, without the
support of a revised ontology, and in particular a conception of
the world as stratified and differentiated too, it is impossible
to steer clear of the Scylla of holding the structure dispensable
in the long run (back to empiricism) without being pulled into the
Charybdis of justifying it exlusively in terms of the fixed or
changing needs of the scientific community (a form of neo-Kantian
pragmatism exemplified by e.g. Toulmin and Kuhn). In this study
I attempt to show how such a revised ontology is in fact
presupposed by the social activity of science. The basic principle
of realist philosophy of science, viz. that perception gives us
access to things and experimental activity access to structures
that exist independently of us, is very simple. Yet the
7 R. Harre, Principles of Scientific Thinking, p. 15.
10 A Realist Theory of Science
full working out of this principle implies a radical account of the nature
of causal laws, viz. as expressing tendencies of things, not conjunctions of
events. And it implies that a constant conjunction of events is no more a
necessary than a sufficient condition for a causal law.
I do not claim in this book to solve any general problems of
philosophy. It is my intention merely to give an adequate account of
science. Philosophers, including philosophers of science, have for
too long regarded the philosophy of science as a simple substitution
instance of some more general theory of knowledge. This is a
situation which has worked to the disadvantage of both philosophy and
knowledge. If, however, we reverse the customary procedure and
substitute the more specific 'science' (or even better 'sciences') for
'knowledge', considerable illumination of many traditional
epistemological problems can, I think, be achieved. And some even, in
so far as the 'knowledge' we are concerned with is that produced by
'science', become susceptible of definitive solution. The result of
this reversal will also be a philosophy which has a greater relevance
than is the case at present for scientific practice. In this sense my
objective could be said to be a 'philosophy for science'. For I
willingly confess to Lockean motives. That is to say, I believe it to
be an essential (though not the only) part of the business of
philosophy to act as the under-labourer, and occasionally as the
mid-wife, of science.8 I have therefore tried in this study both to
relate the philosophy of science to the more general historical
concerns of philosophy; and at the same time to indicate more
precisely than is usual the consequences for scientific practice of
the methodological strategies implied by different philosophies of
science.
We are too apt to forget the frailty of both our science and our
philosophy. There can be no certainty that they will survive and
flourish; or, if they do, that they will benefit mankind.
Civilisation is, like man himself, perhaps nothing more than a
temporary rupture in the normal order of things.9 It is thus also part
of the job of the philosopher to show the limits of science. And, in
this broader sense, to seek to ensure that the Owl of Minerva takes
flight before the final falling of the dusk.
8 J. Locke, Essay
Concerning Human Understanding, Epistle to the Reader.
9 Cf. M. Foucault, The Order of Things, p. XXIII.
Preface 11
I would like to take this opportunity to express my thanks to Alan
Montefiore and Rom Harre for reading earlier versions of this work; to
Rom Harre and Hilary Wainwright for their continual encouragement; to
many other colleagues and friends for their help; and to Mrs E. Browne
for typing the manuscript.
ROY BHASKAR
University of Edinburgh
April 1974
Preface to the 2nd edition
This edition includes a postscript and an index. The postscript
enables me to critically comment on the book. The index fills a major
lacuna in the first edition of the work. Francis Roberts and Robin
Kinross helped me to compile it.
ROY BHASKAR
University of Edinburgh
September 1977
.