From owner-bhaskar Mon Aug 12 11:14:00 1996
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 09:11:23 -0600 (MDT)
Message-Id: <199608121511.JAA12624@smith.econbus.utah.edu>
From: Hans Ehrbar
Subject: rts2-13
3. THE TRANSCENDENTAL ANALYSIS OF EXPERIENCE
The empiricist ontology is constituted by the category of
experience. What transcendental arguments can be
produced to show its inadequacy to science; and, on the
other hand, to demonstrate the intransitivity and
structured character of the objects of scientific
knowledge? Now the occurrence of experience in science
would be agreed upon by all three combatants. Moreover,
it is generally assumed that, whatever its other
inadequacies, empiricism can at least do justice to the
role of experience in science. Now I want to argue that
the intelligibility of experience in science itself
presupposes the intransitive and structured character of
the objects to which, in
Philosophy and Scientific Realism 31
scientific experience, `access' is obtained. This
establishes the inadequacy, in its most favoured case, of
the empiricist ontology. Further I want to argue that,
in virtue of their shared ontological commitment, neither
empiricism nor transcendental idealism can reveal the
true significance of experience in science.
Scientifically significant experience normally
depends upon experimental activity as well as
sense-perception; that is, upon the role of men as causal
agents as well as perceivers. I will consider the two
independently.
A. *The Analysis of Perception*
The intelligibility of sense-pereeption presupposes the
intransitivity of the object perceived. For it is in the
independent occurrence or existence of such objects that
the meaning of `perception', and the epistemic
significanee of perception, lies. Among such objects are
events, which must thus be categorically independent of
experiences. Many arguments have been and could be
deployed to demonstrate this, which there is no space
here to rehearse. For our purposes, it is sufficient
merely to note that both the possibility of scientific
change (or criticism) and the necessity for a scientific
training presuppose the intransitivity of some real
objects; which, for the empirical realist at least, can
only be objects of perception. If changing experience of
objects is to be possible, objects must have a distinct
being in space and time from the experiences of which
they are the objects. For Kepler to see the rim of the
earth drop away, while Tycho Brahe watches the sun rise,
we must suppose that there is something that they both
see (in different ways).8 Similarly when modern sailors
refer to what ancient mariners called a sea-serpent as a
school of porpoises, we must suppose that there is
something which they are describing in different ways.9
The intelligibility of scientific change (and criticism)
and scientific education thus presupposes the ontological
independence of the objects of experience from the
objects of which they are the experiences. Events and
momentary states do not of course exhaust the objects of
perception. Indeed, I do not think they are even the
primary objects of perception, which are probably
8 Cf. N. R Hanson, Patterns of Discovery, Chap. 1.
9 Cf. J. J. C. smart, Philosophy and Scientific Realism, pp. 38-9.
32 A Realist Theory of Science
processes and things, from which events and states are
then `reconstructed'.10 However I do not wish to argue
the point here - as it depends upon a prior resolution of
the problems of causality and induction, upon which their
status as objects of experience must, at least for the
empiricist, depend.11
Events then are categorically independent of
experiences. There could be a world of events without
experiences. Such events would constitute *actualities*
unperceived and, in the absence of men, unperceivable.
There is no reason why, given the possibility of a world
without perceptions, which is presupposed by the
intelligibility of actual scientific perceptions, there
should not be events in a world containing perceptions
which are unperceived and, given our current or permanent
capacities, unperceivable. And of such events
theoretical knowledge may or may not be possessed, and
may or may not be achievable. Clearly if at some
particular time I have no knowledge of an unperceived or
unperceivable event, I cannot say that such an event
occurred (as a putative piece of substantive knowledge).
But that in itself is no reason for saying that such an
occurrence is impossible or that its supposition is
meaningless (as a piece of philosophy). To do so would
be to argue quite illicitly from the current state of
knowledge to a philosophical conception of the world.
Indeed, we know from the history of science that at any
moment of time there are types of events never imagined,
of which theoretical, and sometimes empirical, knowledge
is eventually achieved. For in the transitive process of
science the possibilities of perception, and of
theoretical knowledge, are continually being extended.
Thus unless it is dogmatically postulated that our
present knowledge is complete or these possibilities
exhausted, there are good grounds for holding that the
class of unknowable events is non-empty, and
unperceivable ones non-emptier; and no grounds for
supposing that this will ever not be so.
Later, I will show how the domain of actualities,
whose categorical independence from experiences is
presupposed by the intelligibility of sense-perception,
may be extended to include things as well as events.
10 Cf. J. J. Gibson, The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems.
11 Cf. M. Hollis, `Reason and Reality', P.A.S. Vol. LXVIII (1967-8), p.
279.
Philosophy and Scienctific Realism 33
B. *The Analysis of Experimental Activity*
The intelligibility of experimental activity presupposes
not just the intransitivity but the structured character
of the objects investigated under experimental
conditions. Let me once again focus on the empiricist's
favourite case, viz. causal laws, leaving aside for the
moment such other objects of investigation as structures
and atomic constitutions. A causal law is analysed in
empiricist ontology as a constant conjunction of events
perceived (or perceptions). Now an experiment is
necessary precisely to the extent that the pattern of
events forthcoming under experimental conditions would
not be forthcoming without it. Thus in an experiment we
are a causal agent of the sequence of events, but not of
the causal law which the sequence of events, because it
has been produced under experimental conditions, enables
us to identify.
Two consequences flow from this. First, the real
basis of causal laws cannot be sequences of events; there
must be an ontological distinction between them.
Secondly, experimental activity can only be given a
satisfactory rationale if the causal law it enables us to
identify is held to prevail outside the contexts under
which the sequence of events is generated. In short, the
intelligibility of experimental activity presupposes that
a constant conjunction is no more a necessary than a
sufficient condition for a causal law. And it implies
that causal laws endure and continue to operate in their
normal way under conditions, which may be characterized
as `open', where no constant conjunction or regular
sequence of events is forthcoming. It is worth noting
that in general, outside astronomy, closed systems,
viz. systems in which constant conjunctions occur, must
be experimentally established.
Both Anscombe and von Wright have recently made the
point that our active interference in nature is normally
a condition of empirical regularities.12 But neither have
seen that it follows from this that there must be an
ontological distinction between the empirical regularity
we produce and the causal law it enables us to identify.
Although it has yet to be given an adequate philosophical
rationale, the distinction between causal laws and
patterns of events is consistent with our intuitions.
Thus
12 G. E. M. Anscombe, Causality and Determination, p. 22; and G. H.
von Wright, Explanation and Understanding, pp. 60-4.
34 A Realist Theory of Science
supposing a nuclear explosion were to destroy our planet
no-one would hold that it violated, rather than
exemplified, Newton's laws of motion;13 just as if
something were to affect Mercury's perihelion it would
not be regarded as falsifying Einstein's theory of
relativity. Similarly it lies within the power of every
reasonably intelligent schoolboy or moderately clumsy
research worker to upset the results of even the best
designed experiment,14 but we do not thereby suppose they
have the power to overturn the laws of nature. I can
quite easily affect any sequence of events designed to
test say Coulomb's or Guy-Lussac's law; but I have no
more power over the relationships the laws describe than
the men who discovered them had. In short, laws cannot
be the regularities that constitute their empirical
grounds.
Thus the intelligibility of experimental activity
presupposes the categorical independence of the causal
laws discovered from the patterns of events produced.
For, to repeat, in an experiment we produce a pattern of
events to identify a causal law, but we do not produce
the causal law identified. Once the categorical
independence of causal laws and patterns of events is
established, then we may readily allow that laws continue
to operate in open systems, where no constant
conjunctions of events prevail. And the rational
explanation of phenomena occurring in such systems
becomes possible.
In a world without men there would be no experiences
and few, if any, constant conjunctions of events,
i.e. had they been experienced Humean `causal laws'. For
both experiences and invariances (constant conjunctions
of events) depend, in general, upon human activity. But
causal laws do not. Thus in a world without men the
causal laws that science has now as a matter of fact
discovered would continue to prevail, though there would
be few sequences of events and no experiences with which
they were in correspondence. Thus, we can begin to see
how the empiricist ontology in fact depends upon a
concealed anthropocentricity.
The concept of causal laws being or depending upon
empirical regularities involves thus a double
identification: of events and
13 Cf. G. E. M. Anscombe, op. cit., p. 21.
14 Cf. Ravetz's `4th law of thermo-dynamics': no
experiment goes properly the first time. See
J. R. Ravetz, op. cit., p. 76.
Philosophy and Scientific Realism 35
experiences; and of constant conjunctions (or regular
sequences) of events and causal laws. This double
identification involves two category mistakes, expressed
most succinctly in the concepts of the empirical world
and the actuality of causal laws. The latter presupposes
the ubiquity of closed systems. Both concepts, I shall
argue, are profoundly mistaken and have no place in any
philosophy of science. This double identification
prevents the empirical realist from examining the
important question of the conditions under which
experience is in fact significant in science. In general
this requires both that the perceiver be theoretically
informed15 and that the system in which the events occur
be closed.16 Only under such conditions can the
experimental scientist come to have access to those
underlying causal structures which are the objects of his
theory. And not until the categorical independence of
causal laws, patterns of events and experiences has been
philosophically established and the possibility of their
disjuncture thereby posed can we appreciate the enormous
effort - in experimental design and scientific training -
that is required to make experience epistemically
significant in science.
The intelligibility of experimental activity
presupposes then the intransitive and structured
character of the objects of scientific knowledge, at
least in so far as these are causal laws. And this
presupposes in turn the possibility of a non-human world,
i.e. causal laws *without* invariances and experiences, and
in particular of a non-empirical world, i.e. causal laws
and events without experiences; and the possibility of
*open systems*, i.e. causal laws *out of phase* with
patterns of events and experiences, and more generally of
epistemically insignificant experiences, i.e. experiences
out of phase with events and/or causal laws.
In saying that the objects of scientific discovery
and investigation are `intransitive' I mean to indicate
therefore that they exist independently of all human
activity; and in saying that they are `structured' that
they are distinct from the patterns of events that occur.
The causal laws of nature are not empirical statements,
i.e. statements about experiences; nor are they
statements about events; nor are they synthetic a priori
statements. For the moment I merely style them
negatively as
15 Cf. F. Dretske, Seeing and Knowing, Chap. 3.
16 Cf. G. H. von Wright, op cit., Chap. 2.
36 A Realist Theory of Science
`structured intransitive', postponing a positive analysis
of them until Section 5.
.