From owner-bhaskar Fri Sep 27 15:41:36 1996
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 1996 13:36:47 -0600
Message-Id: <199609271936.NAA01015@marx.econ.utah.edu.econ.utah.edu>
From: Hans Ehrbar
Subject: rts2-15a
5. ONTOLOGY VINDICATED AND THE REAL BASIS OF CAUSAL LAWS
In Section 3 I argued that only if causal laws are not
the patterns of events that enable us to identify them
can the intelligibility of experimental activity be
sustained. But causal laws are, or have seemed to
philosophers to be, pretty mysterious entities. What can
it mean to say that they have a real basis independent of
events? The answer to this question will be seen to
necessitate the development of a non-anthropocentric
ontology of structures, generative mechanisms and active
things.
The ontological status of causal laws can best be
approached by considering the divergent responses of
transcendental realism and idealism to the problem of
distinguishing a necessary from a purely accidental
sequence of events. Both may agree, in their modern
versions, that without some conception of a generative
mechanism at work no attribution of necessity is
justified. For the transcendental idealist, however,
this necessity is imposed by men on the pattern of
events; the generative mechanism is an irreducible
figment of the imagination. For the transcendental
realist, on the other hand, the generative mechanism may
come to be established as real in the course of the
ongoing activity of science. Indeed he will argue that
it is only if existential questions can be raised about
the objects of scientific theory that the rationality of
theory construction can be sustained. For without them
science would remain, as in empiricism, a purely
46 A Realist Theory of Science
internal process - with the familiarity of image
replacing the reinforcement of sensation, still lacking a
rational dynamic of change.
Now once it is granted that mechanisms and
structures may be said to be real, we can provide an
interpretation of the independence of causal laws from
the patterns of events, and a fortiori of the rationale
of experimental activity. For the real basis of this
independence lies in the independence of the generative
mechanisms of nature from the events they generate. Such
mechanisms endure even when not acting; and act in their
normal way even when the consequents of the law-like
statements they ground are, owing to the operation of
intervening mechanisms or countervailing causes,
unrealized. It is the role of the experimental scientist
to exclude such interventions which are usual; and to
trigger the mechanism so that it is active. The activity
of the mechanism may then be studied without
interference. And it is this characteristic pattern of
activity or mode of operation that is described in the
statement of a causal law. It is only under closed
conditions that there will be a one-to-one relationship
between the causal law and the sequence of events. And
it is normally only in the laboratory that these enduring
mechanisms of nature, whose operations are described in
the statements of causal laws, become actually manifest
and empirically accessible to men. But because they
endure and continue to act, when stimulated, in their
normal way outside those conditions, their use to explain
phenomena and resistence to pseudo-falsification in open
systems can be rationally justified.
Only if causal laws persist through, which means
they must be irreducible to, the flux of conditions can
the idea of the universality of a *known* law be sustained.
And only if they have a reality distinct from that of
events can the assumption of a *natural* necessity be
justified. On this view laws are not empirical
statements, but statements about the forms of activity
characteristic of the things of the world. And their
necessity is that of a natural connection, not that of a
human rule. There is a distinction between the *real*
structures and mechanisms of the world and the *actual*
patterns of events that they generate. And this
distinction in turn justifies the more familiar one
between *necessary* and *accidental* sequences. For a
necessary sequence is
Philosophy and Scientific Realism 47
simply one which corresponds to, or is in phase with, a
real connection; that is, it is a real connection
actually manifest in the sequence of events that occurs.
The world consists of mechanisms not events. Such
mechanisms combine to generate the flux of phenomena that
constitute the actual states and happenings of the world.
They may be said to be real, though it is rarely that
they are actually manifest and rarer still that they are
empirically identified by men. They are the intransitive
objects of scientific theory. They are quite independent
of men - as thinkers, causal agents and perceivers. They
are not unknowable, although knowledge of them depends
upon a rare blending of intellectual, practico-technical
and perceptual skills. They are not artificial
constructs. But neither are they Platonic forms. For
they can become manifest to men in experience. Thus we
are not imprisoned in caves, either of our own or of
nature's making. We are not doomed to ignorance. But
neither are we spontaneously free. This is the arduous
task of science: the production of the knowledge of those
enduring and continually active mechanisms of nature that
produce the phenomena of our world.
Objections may be made to my proposed reconstitution
of an ontological realm, which question in turn the
intransitivity and the structured character of the
postulated objects of scientific inquiry, i.e. the ideas
of their categorical independence from men and events
respectively. I will consider the two kinds of
objections in turn.
Thus, it might be objected that the very idea of a
world without men is unintelligible because the
conditions under which it is true would make its being
conceived impossible. But I can think of a world without
men; and I can think of a world without myself. No-one
can truly say `I do not exist' but that does not mean
that `I do not exist' is unintelligible; or that it
cannot be meaningfully, just because it cannot be truly
said. It is no objection to the intelligibility of a
statement that it is counter-factual. Indeed it is only
because it is intelligible that we can say that it is
counter-factual.
Someone might hold that to think of a world without
men is not so much unintelligible as impossible; that we
must picture ourselves in any picture. Now it is a fact
about human beings that we can do this. But we do not
have to do it, any more than
48 A Realist Theory of Science
an artist must initial his work. The idea may be
perhaps that a thought must always contain, or at least
be accompanied by, a thought of the thinker of the
thought thinking the thought. Clearly if this were so,
an infinite regress would be impossible to avoid.
However, to be aware of the fact that I am thinking of a
particular topic x, it is not necessary for me to be
thinking of that fact. Such awareness may be expressed
in thought, but when it is the topic is no longer x but
my thought of x. It is possible for A to think epsilon
and to be aware of thinking epsilon without thinking
about thinking epsilon; and unless this were so no-one
could ever intelligently think. Moreover it is possible
for A to think about thinking epsilon without thinking
about his (A's) thinking epsilon. Thinking about
thinking about a particular topic must be distinguished
>from thinking about the thinker of the topic.32
There is no absurdity in the supposition of a world
without men. Rather it is a possibility presupposed by
the social activity of science. It is important to
establish this fact. For we are too liable to
underestimate the power of the pictures, often
unconscious, which underpin philosophical theories. Such
pictures indeed often hold our philosophical imagination
`captive'.33 Our philosophy of science is heavily
anthropocentric, which is why it is important to consider
what it would be possible to say about our world if there
were no men, given that we know that our world is one in
which science is as a matter of fact possible. For
example things would still act, be subject to laws and
preserve their identity through certain changes.
A second kind of objection might focus on the
structured character of the postulated objects of
scientific inquiry, questioning not so much the idea
itself but the interpretation I have given to it; and in
particular the explanatory value of the particular
ontology proposed. Thus it might be objected that, while
the transcendental argument from experimental activity in
Section 3 establishing the distinctiveness of causal laws
and patterns of events, is sound, the introduction of the
concept of generative
32 In fact men have the capacity to be self-conscious in
two ways: first in being conscious of what they are
doing; and secondly, in being conscious of their doing
it. That these two are not equivalent is shown by the
fact that in some contexts a person may know what he has
done but not that he has done it and vice-versa.
33 L. Wittgenstein. Philosophical Investigation, 115.
Philosophy and Scientific Realism 49
mechanisms to provide a real basis for causal laws is
gratuitous.
What does it mean to say that a generative mechanism
endures and acts in its characteristic way? It does not
*mean*, we have seen, that a regular sequence of events
occurs or is experienced; though the occurrence of such a
sequence may, in special circumstances, provide empirical
*grounds* for the hypothesis of the existence of the
mechanism. For the intelligibility of experimental
activity entails that the particular mechanism endures
and at least some mechanisms act through the flux of
conditions that determine whether they are active and
co-determine the manifest outcome of their activity.
That is to say, it entails that generative mechanisms
endure even when inactive and act even where, as in open
systems, there is no one-to-one relationship between the
causal law representing the characteristic mode of
operation of the mechanism and the particular sequence of
events that occurs. In particular, it entails that
mechanisms act in their normal way outside the closed
conditions that enable us to experimentally identify them
and whether or not we do so; i.e. whether or not the
results of their operations are modified, and whether or
not these results are perceived by men. (In the former
case we could talk of a disjuncture between the domains
of the real and the actual; in the latter case of a
disjuncture between the domains of the real and the
empirical.)
Now the reason why the concept of a causal law
cannot itself be taken as ontologically basic is because
its analysis presupposes a `real something' over and
above and independent of patterns of events; and it is
for the status of this real something that the concept of
a generative mechanism is groomed. But then does to say
that a generative mechanism endures and acts in its
characteristic way mean anything more than to say that a
thing goes on acting in a certain way? As stated the
reformulation is ambiguous. For the continuance of a
form or pattern of activity can be interpreted in an
empirical or a non-empirical way. The intelligibility of
experimental activity requires the latter non- empirical
interpretation. For it entails, as we have seen, that
causal laws persist and are efficacious in open systems,
i.e. outside the conditions that enable us to
empirically identify them. Now accepting this
non-empirical interpretation means that reference to
causal laws involves centrally reference to causal
agents; that is, to things endowed with causal powers.
50 A Realist Theory of Science
On this interpretation then the generative mechanisms of
nature exist as the causal powers of things. We now have
a perfectly acceptable ontological basis for causal laws.
For if it is wrong to reify causal laws, and it is wrong
to reify generative mechanisms, it cannot be wrong to
reify things! However, the fact that the transcendental
analysis of experimental activity showed that generative
mechanisms must go on acting (i.e. that causal laws must
be efficacious) outside the closed conditions that permit
their identification means that causal laws cannot be
simply analysed as powers. Rather they must be analysed
as tendencies. For whereas powers are potentialities
which may or may not be exercised, tendencies are
potentialities which may be exercised or as it were `in
play' without being realized or manifest in any
particular outcome. They are therefore just right for
the analysis of causal laws.34
If the analysis of causal laws (and generative
mechanisms) is to be given by the concept of things and
not events (a possibility which I have already rejected
by demonstrating in Section 3 their categorical
independence from events), the consideration that they
not only persist but are efficacious in open systems,
which is presupposed by the intelligibility of
experimental activity, entails that causal laws must be
analysed as tendencies. For tendencies are powers which
may be exercised without being fulfilled or actualized
(as well as being fulfilled or actualized unperceived by
men). It is by reference not just to the enduring powers
but the unrealized activities or unmanifest (or
incompletely manifest) actions of things that the
phenomena of the world are explained. It is the idea of
continuing activity as distinct from that of enduring
power that the concept of tendency is designed to
capture. In the concept of tendency, the concept of
power is thus literally dynamized or set in motion.
In the full analysis of law-like statements we are
thus concerned with a new kind of conditional: which
specifies the exercise of possibilities which need not be
manifest in any
34 A recent antecedent of the view that causal laws
should be analysed as tendencies is contained in
P. T. Geach, `Aquinas', Three Philosophers
G. E. M. Anscombe and P. T. Geach, pp. 10lff. Important
works in the recent development of the concept of powers
are W. D. Joske, Material Objects, Chaps. 4 and 5;
M. R. Ayers, The Refutation of Determinism, Chaps. 3-5;
and R. Harre, Principles of Scientific Thinking,
esp. Chap. 10.
Philosophy and Scientific Realism 51
particular outcome. Such conditionals are *normic*,35
rather than subjunctive. They do not say what would
happen, but what is happening in a perhaps unmanifest
way. Whereas a powers statement says A would psi in
appropriate circumstances, a normic statement says that A
really is psi'ing, whether or not its actual (or
perceivable) effects are counteracted. They are not
counter-factuals, but *transfactuals*; they take us to a
level at which things are really going on irrespective of
the actual outcome. To invoke a causal law is to invoke
a normic conditional. A full analysis of normic and
tendency statements will be provided later. For the
moment, it should be noted that normic statements provide
the correct analysis of the nomic indicative form. A
nomic statement is a transfactual statement, with actual
instances in the laboratory that constitute its empirical
grounds.
35 I owe this term to M. Scriven, `Truisms as the
Grounds for Historical Explanation', Theories of History,
ed. P. Gardiner, pp. 464ff. Scriven uses it to refer to
generalizations grounding historical explanations which
contain modifiers such as `normally', `tendency',
`usually', etc. My use of the term is substantially
different. But it is the nearest thing to an antecedent
for the kind of conditional I am concerned with.
(Section 1.5 will be concluded in the next mailing)
.