From owner-bhaskar Sat Mar 8 14:16:24 1997
Date: Sat, 8 Mar 1997 12:09:12 -0700
Message-Id: <199703081909.MAA02889@marx.econ.utah.edu.utah.edu>
From: Hans Ehrbar
Subject: BHA: rts2-24
Actualism and the Concept of a Closure 91
4. ACTUALISM AND TRANSCENDENTAL REALISM:
THE INTERPRETATION OF NORMIC STATEMENTS
In Section 2 the critical conditions for a closure have
been developed and in Section 3 the concept of action
implied by them has been brought out. Now two questions
of great significance may be asked of any closure:
(i) are the conditions for the closure universally
satisfied or is the antecedent of the law-like statement
for which the closure is defined instantiated in some
open system?
(ii) were the conditions for the closure artificially
produced or did they occur naturally or spontaneously,
i.e. without the active intervention of men?
One could usefully distinguish here between
`universal' and `restricted' closures; and between
`artificial' and `spontaneous' ones. Only a universal
closure is consistent with the empiricist concept of a
law as a universal empirical regularity. For to say that
the antecedent is instantiated in an open system is just
to say, according to the criterion of Section 2 above,
that given the antecedent the consequent fails to
materialize on at least one occasion in the space-time
region for which the system is defined. In general if a
closure has been artificially established it cannot also
be universal.35 It is of course precisely the ubiquity of
open systems in nature that makes necessary an
experimental rather than a merely empirical science.
Once this is accepted, the idea of invariance over
space-time must give way to the idea of invariance under
experiment as a criterion of the empirical basis of a
science. Moreover, strictly speaking, the invariance is
that of a result, not a regularity. In general the
result will be invariant to space and time, but not over
them. On the other hand, it is clear that if the notion
of laws as universal empirical
35 However a closure might be both universal and
artificial if a generative mechanism had endured as a
latent potentiality of nature until awakened by science
under experimentally controlled conditions or if it had
never been activated in its experimental range. But to
the extent that the sciences are concerned with
structures that not only exist but act independently of
them (and so explain what goes on in the world outside
the laboratory) the first possibility will be
exceptional; and to the extent that they are concerned
with the conditions under which these structures act the
second possibility will.
92 A Realist Theory of Science
regularities is retained, then the same logic that led to
the regress of interactionism will lead to the demand for
a closure of all interacting systems until - if
everything is assumed to be in interaction - we have what
might be called a `global' or `Laplacean' closure. (Such
a slide can only be avoided if it is supposed that a
non-interacting eternally closed system can be found -
without this affecting anything in the system.)
Now confronted with the instantiation of the
antecedents of laws in open systems, i.e. in systems
where their consequents are not invariably realized, the
empiricist must abandon either the laws or his concept of
them, viz. as universal empirical generalizations. For
whatever is empirical must be actual. And in open
systems laws if they are to be actual cannot be
universal; and if they are to be universal cannot be
actual. So he must say either that they are not laws; or
that laws are not universal; or that laws are not
empirical. The first position, which may be
characterized as `strong actualism, was in effect adopted
by Mill in his doctrine of laws as `unconditional
sequences'.36 The trouble with it is that there are no
unconditional sequences known to science. The second
position, which may be characterized as `weak actualism',
involves restricting the application of laws to closed
systems. This may be done by making the satisfaction of
a ceteris paribus clause a condition of the law's
applicability. The trouble with it is that it leaves
unanswered the question of what governs phenomena in open
systems. Moreover it cannot provide a rationale for
either the experimental establishment or the practical
application of our knowledge (ironically in view of its
sponsorship by self-styled `empiricists' and
`pragmatists'). The third position is that of
transcendental realism. It rejects the idea, common to
both forms of actualism, that laws are empirical
statements or statements about events. Instead, it
regards them as normic or transfactual statements that
apply in open and closed systems alike. On this view,
closures are important in the experimental establishment
of our knowledge. But they do not affect the ontological
status of laws. On the contrary, the transcendental
realist asserts, it is just because the things to which
laws are ascribed go on acting in their normal way
independently of whether or not a closure obtains that
the scientific investigation of nature is possible.
36 J. S. Mill, A System of Logic, Vol. I, p. 378.
Actualism and the concept of a Closure 93
The empiricist, when confronted with the phenomena of
open systems, i.e. the non-availability of universal
closures, is faced with the trilemma of choosing one of
the forms of actualism (which involves either preserving
his philosophical integrity at the expense of science or
abandoning his integrity to justify science) or
succumbing to transcendental realism. My strategy will
be to argue that weak actualism is not a genuine
alternative and if pushed must collapse into one of the
other two.
One way of describing these options is in terms of
their different responses to the identifying mark of an
open system, viz. the non-realisation of the consequent,
given the instantiation of the antecedent of a law-like
statement. For the strong actualist this means that the
statement must be false, for the weak actualist it may be
inapplicable, for the transcendental realist it can be
both applicable and true. It must be false for the
strong actualist because a law-like statement asserts the
invariance of the conjunction between antecedent and
consequent. It may be inapplicable rather than false for
the weak actualist, if the ceteris paribus clause,
subject to which it is regarded as being formulated is
not satisfied. It can be both applicable and true for
the transcendental realist, if it correctly describes the
working of a generative mechanism and the mechanism was
really at work in that instance. Moreover for the
transcendental realist the statement can be known to be
both applicable and true, namely if the statement has
been independently verified (e.g. under experimentally
closed conditions) and there is no reason to suppose that
the nature of the thing possessing the tendency whose
operation is described in the law has changed.
The weak actualist is immediately faced with a
problem here. For although the law-like statement may be
inapplicable, viz. if the CP condition was not
satisfied, rather than false, viz. if it was satisfied,
there is no way on actualist lines that he can decide
between these alternatives. The way in which this is
normally settled is to see if the consequent is realized;
if the consequent is not realized this means that the CP
clause was not satisfied. But this involves using the
law (thus presupposing both its truth and applicability -
the latter in virtue of the satisfaction of the
explicitly mentioned antecedent conditions) as a
criterion of the stability of the circumambient
conditions. Hence any attempt to use the stability of
the circumambient conditions as a criterion
94 A Realist Theory of Science
of the applicability of the law is viciously circular -
as the law's applicability would be already presupposed
in the test for the stability of the conditions. The
situation in which the weak actualist finds himself has
been expressed as follows:-
When a prediction turns out to be false, the situation as
regards the general laws used in making it is
indeterminate: it cannot be known with certainty whether
one or all the general laws have been disconfirmed or
whether the ceteris paribus condition has not been
fulfilled.37
It might be thought that the situation would be improved
if an independent means of verification for the law was
available. But supposing a law were experimentally
verified its use in open systems would presuppose a
general principle sanctioning the applicability of laws
when their consequents were unrealized. But this is
precisely what is in question here and what both forms of
actualism deny.
Now the strong actualist can only justify the
retention of a law-like statement whose antecedent is
instantiated in an open system as a temporary proxy or
stand-in for the yet to be discovered unconditionally
universal statement. But can the weak actualist do any
better? For we are bound to ask him: if laws are
restricted to closed systems what governs or accounts for
phenomena in open ones? His options here are limited:
either nothing does or something does. The former
entails complete indeterminism. But the latter sets the
weak actualist on the road to strong actualism. For to
suppose that something accounts for the phenomena and to
hold that current laws are inapplicable only makes sense
on the assumption that open systems may be eventually
closed. So it seems that the incomplete or non-atomistic
descriptions that we currently call `laws' must be
replaceable in time by complete atomistic ones which
(given only that regularity determinism is true) will
after all be both strictly universal and still empirical.
So that the weak actualist too comes to regard present
`laws' as temporary stand-ins for the Laplacean hour.
The trouble with weak actualism is that it is
prepared to acknowledge the fact of open systems without
generating the means for science to cope with it; that
is, it is prepared to differentiate but not to stratify
reality, thus removing the
37 E. Grunberg, `The Meaning of Scope and External
Boundaries of Economics', The Structure of Economic
Science, ed. S. R. Krupp, p. 151.
Actualism and the Concept of a Closure
Possibility that in our ascription of laws we are
referring to a way of acting or a level of structure that
is not confined to closed systems. The necessity to view
the satisfaction of the CP clause as a condition of a
law's applicability vanishes once we realize that it is
precisely a key function of the concept of law to apply
transfactually, in open and closed systems alike. The
satisfaction of the CP clause is, on the other hand, a
condition for a decisive test situation (its verification
depending necessarily upon the applicability of
`auxiliary' or bridge laws). But the truth of any normic
statement is in general determined quite independently
of, and antecedently to, its explanatory and other uses
in open systems.
Given only a knowledge that the antecedent is
instantiated and the absence of specific reasons for
supposing that the tendency is no longer possessed by the
thing we can then be justifiably sure that the tendency
is being exercised or as it were in play; although only
if we have grounds for supposing the system closed does
that certainty license the prediction of its fulfilment.
The citation of a law presupposes a claim about the
activity of some mechanism but not about the conditions
under which the mechanism operates and hence not about
the results of its activity, i.e. the actual outcome on
any particular occasion. This will in general be
co-determined by the activity of other mechanisms
too. Indeed it is precisely because it is non-committal
about the nature of the circumambient conditions that a
statement of law does not in general justify a claim
about events, let alone experiences.
Strong actualism regards the appearance of open
systems as a mark of ignorance and initiates
interactionist and reductionist regresses in an attempt
to overcome it. Weak actualism acknowledges the de facto
existence of open systems but then proceeds to fence them
off from science. For strong and weak actualism alike,
open systems fall outside the pale of science. In this
way empiricism understates its potential scope of
application. Lacking from both forms of actualism is the
concept of generative mechanisms which endure, so that
the laws they ground continue to prevail, in open and
closed systems; so making possible the scientific
understanding of things and structures which exist and
act quite independently both of our descriptions and the
exercise of our causal powers.
96 A Realist Theory of Science
Braithwaite falls into the same trap as weak
actualism by arguing that a tendency statement is a
conditional with an unspecified antecedent.38 For if it
is unspecified we cannot know when to apply it. It is in
fact vital to distinguish the explicit conditions in the
protasis of the law-like statement from the unknown
conditions that the CP clause may be required to cover.
The satisfaction of the former is a condition for the
applicability of a law. But neither a knowledge (strong
actualism) nor the stability (weak actualism) of the
latter can be a condition for the applicability of a law.
There are three reasons for this. First, it is in
principle impossible to specify all the conditions that
the CP clause may be required to cover. Indeed, if one
could do so, there would be no need for the CP clause in
the first place. Second, as has been seen, the
satisfaction of the CP clause cannot normally be verified
independently of the actualization of the consequent;
hence to make it a condition for the applicability of the
law is circular. Thirdly, as the satisfaction of the CP
clause is time-dependent (being trivially satisfied
instantaneously), acceptance of it as a condition for the
law's applicability generates absurd and totally
counter-intuitive results. For example, on it a law may
be applicable for every five-minute interval in a day,
but not for the day overall. The proper place of the
phrase `other things being equal' is not as part of the
protasis but at the tail-end of the statement as a
reminder that, because the system in which the thing's
behaviour occurs may not be closed, the tendency
postulated in the statement may not be actualized.
Satisfaction of the CP clause is not a condition for
the applicability of a law. It is, however, a condition
for the actualization of the tendency designated in the
statement (for which it is sufficient, although not
strictly necessary). And from this are derived its two
main roles: first and foremost, as a signal of the normic
nature of the proposition being expressed, as a reminder
that the tendency designated may not be actualized; and
secondly and derivatively, as a warning to historicists
and pseudo-falsifiers, cautioning the former that the
prediction of the tendency is not deductively justified
and the latter that if the tendency is unfulfilled the
statement should not - on that ground alone - be held to
have been falsified. Thus the CP clause does not place a
condition on explanation, for one can explain an
38 R. B. Braithwaite, Scientific Explanation, p. 302.
Actualism and the Concept of a Closure 97
event in terms of tendencies when the latter are never
realized. Rather it places a condition on prediction and
falsification.
This account needs qualifying in two ways. First,
if we distinguish between the constancy of intrinsic and
extrinsic conditions (as suggested in Section 2 above)
and between the constancy of more and less important
intrinsic ones (as suggested in Section 3) then the
constancy of intrinsic structure is a condition for the
applicability of a law. Tendencies are only possessed,
and hence can only be exercised, as long as the nature of
their possessor remains unchanged. But this does not
vitiate my account. For law-like behaviour is predicated
essentially of things, which are typically referred to in
the protasis. There is a real asymmetry, which is
reflected in the structure of law-like statements,
between the intrinsic structure or essential nature of a
thing (which in general constitutes its identity or fixes
it in its kind) and the conditions under which it acts in
that a change in the former but not the latter leads to a
change in the thing's tendencies, liabilities and powers.
Secondly, I have said that the CP clause functions
as a reminder and a warning. But such reminders and
warnings are only necessary as long as law-like
statements continue to be formulated and thought of in
the actualist mode. If there were no historicists or
pseudo-falsifiers there would be no need for reminders to
them. Hence a fully realist philosophy of science could
in principle dispense entirely with the CP clause (at
least in this aspect of its work).39 For whatever is
conveyed by `This happens CP' can be equally well
conveyed by `This tends to happen'. (To add CP to this
statement would be to qualify the tendency, not its
fulfilment.) This is not a shallow, equivocal, sloppy or
mean formulation; but the logical form of all the laws of
nature known to science.
I want to turn now to consider in more detail the
character of normic statements. A full analysis of the
logic of tendency statements must, however, be postponed
until Chapter 3.
On the view of science advanced here, power and
tendency statements are categorical rather than, as
maintained by Hume and Ryle, hypothetical. Hypotheticals
provide the empirical
39 There is another possible use for a ceteris paribus
clause, viz. as a protective device in the early stages
of a science's development. This will be considered in
Chapter 3.
98 A Realist Theory of Science
grounds for our ascriptions of powers and tendencies, but
they do not capture their meaning. Tendencies are
roughly powers which may be exercised unfulfilled. They
are thus well adjusted to cope with open systems. If a
system is closed then a tendency once set in motion must
be fulfilled. If the system is open this may not happen
due to the presence of `offsetting factors' or
`countervailing causes'. But there must be a reason why,
once a tendency is set in motion, it is not fulfilled; in
a sense in which it would be dogmatic to postulate that
there must be a reason why the tendency is set in motion.
Once a tendency is set in motion it is fulfilled unless
it is prevented.
The following is my interpretation of the mode of
application of lawlike statements. Such statements, when
their initial conditions are satisfied, make a claim
about the activity of a tendency, i.e. about the
operation of the generative mechanism that would, if
undisturbed, result in the tendency's manifestation; but
not about the conditions in which the tendency is
exercised and hence not about whether it will be realized
or prevented. Because the operation of the generative
mechanism does not depend upon the closure or otherwise
of the system in which the mechanism operates, the mode
of application of law-like statements is the same in
open and closed systems; what does differ is the
inference that can be drawn from our knowledge of the
applicability of the statements in the two cases. Notice
that although the application of a normic statement
warrants a subjunctive conditional about what would have
happened if the system were to have been closed, the full
force of its meaning cannot be understood or captured in
this way. It has to be interpreted categorically and
indicatively to the effect that a generative mechanism
was really at work; which helps to account for, though it
does not completely determine, whatever actually
happened.
The `thing' which possesses the tendency is not
necessarily the same `thing' as that whose behaviour is
recorded in the law-like statement. Indeed it is
characteristic of science to postulate novel entities as
the bearers of the tendencies and powers manifest in the
behaviour of observed things. The class of `things' is
far wider than that of `material objects': it includes
fluids, gases, electronic structures, fields of
potentials, genetic codes, etc.; so we must try to divest
the concept of its normal material
Actualism and the Concept of a Closure 99
object connotations. The idea of a tendency exercised
unfulfilled seems strange if we think of ordinary
material objects such as tables and chairs. People
provide in this respect a better model for the entities
discovered and investigated by science. There is nothing
mysterious about tendency ascriptions to people. We know
what it is like to be in a situation where we tend to
lose our patience or temper and we know what it is like
keeping it. Tendencies exercised unfulfilled; shown,
perhaps, but unrealized in virtue of our self-control.
Now when a tendency is exercised unfulfilled two
things are not in doubt: (a) that something actually
happens, towards explaining which the exercise of the
tendency goes some way; and (b) that something is really
going on, i.e. there is a real generative mechanism at
work, which accounts for the influence of the factor the
tendency represents in the generation of the event. In
the case of (a) there are two conceptual traps. The
first is to think of the exercise of the tendency
unfulfilled as an action without results, rather than as
an action with modified results. Something does happen;
and the tendency, as one of the influences at work, helps
to explain what. The second is to think of it as if it
were an action fulfilled, i.e. in terms of its
fulfilment. It is a mistake to think of the exercise of
a tendency in terms of the imagery, metaphors or
descriptions appropriate to its fulfilment. Yet Mill in
his unofficial doctrine of tendencies in effect does this
when he argues that `although two or more laws interfere
with one another, and apparently frustrate or modify one
another's operations, yet in reality all are fulfilled,
the collective effect being the exact sum of the causes
taken separately'.40 Mill's mistake here is to suppose
that whenever a tendency is set in motion the effect must
be in some sense (or in some realm) occurring (as if
every time we ran fast we had to be in some way winning).
But Geach (and following him Ryan) in ridiculing this
position make the converse mistake of supposing that
whenever no effect (of a given type) occurs, nothing can
be in motion or really going on.41 But here Mill is right
and Geach is wrong. Balaam's ass is pulled in two ways;
we do just
40 J. S, Mill, op. cit., Bk. III, Chap. 10, Sect. 5.
41 P, T. Geach, `Aquinas', Three Philosophers,
G. E. M. Anscombe and P. T. Geach, p. 103; and A. Ryan,
The Philosophy of John Stuart Mill, pp. 65-6.
100 A Realist Theory of Science
manage to keep our tempers; the market equilibrium is
explained in terms of an exact balance of buying and
selling; when the beam finally collapses it is due to the
real cumulative effect of the woodrot. Mill's mistake is
to think of the exercise of the tendency under the
description of its fulfilment, as if Balaam's ass, in
order to be pulled two ways, had actually to go in both
directions. Geach's mistake is to suppose that because
neither tendency is fulfilled neither tendency can be in
play. In other words, they both make the mistake of
seeing the fulfillment of a tendency a condition of its
exercise.
Let me stress that the scientist's situation is such
that he is never in any doubt that the given an effect
something is producing it; his doubts is only over what
is. Now clearly this does not mean that he is committed
to a realist interpretation of every theory; what it does
mean is that as a theorist his task remains essentially
incomplete until he has produced a theory which correctly
describes the mechanisms by means of which the effect in
question is produced. It is in this light that other
possible interpretations of normic statements must be
considered.
It is misleading to think of normic statements as
`idealizations' or `abstractions'. For both concepts
conceal a crucial ambiguity as to the object idealized or
abstracted from, in which the superior reality of events
or experiences is tacitly assumed. The conception of the
generative mechanism or structure that backs a normic
statement need not be `idealized' or `abstract' in relation
to really existing or the reality of existing structures.
Once the necessity for a redefinition of the objects of a
science as structures rather than events is accepted then
the concept of an idealization must be used in relation
to the reality of that object. And it cannot be assumed
that all theoretical statements are idealizations in this
sense. A model of the intrinsic structure of an atom or
a DNA molecule or the solar system is not necessarily
more perfect than the intrinsic structure of a real atom,
DNA molecule or solar system. The standard of perfection
is not set by men. Of course if one takes `theoretical'
as a synonym for `unreal' (or at any rate `less real')
normic statements will appear as `ideal' in that the
tendency they designate or mechanism they describe is
rarely if ever manifest in unmodified form;42 and as
`abstract' in that they select from what
42 See e.g. E. Nagel, op. cit., p. 493.
Actualism and the Concept of a Closure 101
is in open systems a mesh of influences and
cross-influences just one as the focus of attention.43
But to think like this is to fall into the error of
supposing that events are more real than the structures
and mechanisms that generate them.
Scriven makes a similar mistake in contending that
normic statements are `guarded generalizations'.44 The
only thing one need be `guarded' about in using a normic
statement is the assumption that the tendency whose
activity is designated in the normic statement will be
realized. If such statements have been independently and
well confirmed (under experimentally closed conditions)
then we may be completely and rationally confident in
using them. Such confidence is expressed in, rather than
weakened by, our willingness to use the CP clause against
naive actualist objections on their behalf. It is only
if one tacitly views law-like statements as in the final
analysis empirical generalizations that one will feel
that (because in asserting a law-like statement one is
asserting the realization of the consequent), if one
cannot be sure of the realization of the consequent then
one can only assert the law-like statement `guardedly'.
But of course in asserting a normic statement one is not
asserting the realization of the consequent; but the
operation of a mechanism irrespective of its results
(which it is precisely the function of the normic
statement to be non-committal about).
Both these ideas depend upon an implicit recognition
that reality is differentiated in a way that classical
empiricism ignores and so requires something more of
science than it provides. But the possibility opened up
by this recognition is constrained by a continuing
commitment to empirical realism. It is this which
prevents the acknowledgement that reality is not only
differentiated but stratified too. Once the
stratification of the world is grasped it is possible to
see how our knowledge can be both universally applicable
and rarely (empirically) instantiated; and so to resolve
Poncare's problem that `on the one hand, [laws] are
truths founded on experiment and approximately verified
so far as concerns isolated systems. On the other hand,
they are postulates applicable to the totality of the
universe and regarded
43 Cf. Weber's concept of an `ideal type' as a one-sided
exaggeration of an aspect of `concrete', i.e. empirical,
reality. See e.g. M. Weber, Methodology of the Social
Sciences.
44 M. Scriven, op. cit., p. 466.
102 A Realist Theory of Science
as rigorously true'.46 Normic statements speak of
structures not events, the generator not the generated.
In asserting a normic statement one is not making a
guarded or idealized statement about an empirical
reality. Rather one is making a statement, which may be
`guarded' or `idealized' in its own right, about a
different level of reality. Normic statements are not
second best kind of empirical generalizations. They are
not empirical statements at all.
Two further misinterpretations of normic statements
must be guarded against. Normic (or transfactual)
statements are not counterfactual statements. They
legitimate the latter; and, like them, are only
validatable in relation to an antecedently and
independently established body of theory. But whereas to
say that a statement is a counterfactual is just to say
that the conditions specified in the antecedent do not
obtain; in the case of a normic statement these
conditions may obtain, and if they do (and the statement
has been independently verified) it can then be
interpreted quite straightforwardly as a statement about
what is really going on though in a perhaps unmanifest
way. (In the case of counterfactuals antecedents are by
definition unsatisfied; in the case of transfactuals it
is contingent whether consequents are realized.) It is
only if the CP clause is regarded as a component of the
protasis that it is plausible to interpret a normic
statement as making, in its open systemic uses, a
counter-factual claim. This is a postion, most naturally
associated with weak actualism, that has been argued
against above. Normic statements have also sometimes
been justified as `averages' or `rough approximations';
or alternatively as elliptical probability statements.
Both ideas involve a confusion of epistemic and natural
possibility. For, on the one hand, I may be quite
certain about the activity of a natural mechanism on a
particular occasion but incapable of any judgement about
the outcome; and, on the other, I may be sure that some
rule of thumb will hold though quite uncertain about the
reasons why.
I have argued that in open systems consequents may
be unrealized but that despite this we may know that a
law is applicable (a mechanism is at work) if we know
that its antecedent has been instantiated and it has been
in dependently verified. But both antecedents and
consequents are events in open systems. Is
45 H. Poincare, Science and Hypothesis, p. 98.
Actualism and the Concept of a Closure 103
there not an asymmetry here ? Am I not placing a higher
demand on antecedents than consequents? Ontologically
no; but epistemically yes. For a mechanism may be set in
motion and because of the complexity or opacity of the
conditions under which this happens the describer may not
know that it has been set in motion; so that a fortiori
he cannot know that the law it grounds is applicable. To
explain an event by invoking a law I must have grounds
for supposing that a mechanism is at work; but the
mechanism may be at work, given that its stimulus and
other conditions are satisfied, without my knowing it.
Some fields may be incapable of detection.
In section 2 the critical conditions for a closure were
developed and in section 3 the concept of action implied by
them was brought out. In both cases their restrictedness
was noted. In this section a realist account of laws has
been counterposed to the actualist account and its
superiority clearly demonstrated. Once we are persuaded
of the very special conditions presupposed by actualism
and the possibility of an alternative, what havoc must we
make of the doctrines of orthodox philosophy of science?
In nature, constant conjunctions are the rare
exception; not, as supposed by actualism, the universal
rule. And in general it requires human activity to
generate them. To invoke a law I must have grounds for
supposing that the antecedent conditions are satisfied,
so that the mechanism designated is active. But it is
only if I have grounds for supposing that the system in
which the mechanism acts is closed that the prediction of
the consequent event is deductively justified. With this
in mind let us return to the theories expressed in
statements (i)-(v) on pages 634 above. It is only under
conditions of a closure that given the antecedent, the
deduction of the consequent event is possible, so that
the conditions for the Popper-Hempel theory of
explanation are satisfied (ii) or those for the symmetry
between `explanation' and p`rediction' obtain (iii). It is
only then that ex ante criteria of refutation can be laid
down for a theory (iv) or that it makes sense to judge a
theory by its predictive success (v). For it is only
then that the resemblances and sequences between
phenomena, that Mill identified and so confused with
laws, are constant (i).
It is contingent whether some enduring thing or
mechanism is activated. And though, given this, it is
necessary that a certain
104 A Realist Theory of Science .
tendency should be `in play', it is contingent, upon the
occurrence of a closure, whether the consequent of the
law-like statement is realized. In short, to know that
law is effective I do not need to be in a position to
predict any event (and, it might be added, vice versa).
Now once we have grasped the ubiquity of open
systems in nature we will be in a better position to
understand the embarrassment with which textbooks in the
philosophy of science gloss over their failure to produce
a single law or explanation which satisfy the criteria
they so laboriously develop and defend; a fact which
bears eloquent witness to the non-ability of universal
closures of any epistemic significance. We will also be
in a better position to understand not just this failure,
but their absurdity, when they seek to apply these same
criteria to fields such as history and the human
sciences, where the conditions for even a restricted
closure (of a non-trivial kind) are not naturally and
cannot be experimentally satisfied, and where the concept
of action implied by these criteria is patently
inapplicable.
For a closure one each of the system, individual and
organizational conditions must be satisfied. Reflection
on the conditions set out on page 76 above and the
concept of action implied by them (see (i)-(vi) on page
83) shows the patent absurdity of trying to apply the
constant conjunction formula to the domain of social
life. Consider the conditions for a closure as applied
to e.g. the category of persons. Remember that people
are individuals, which means that they are complexly
structured and pre-formed in different ways, so that they
will respond differently in the same external
circumstances (i.e. to the same stimulus). Remember too
that they are subject to a continuing flow of
contingencies, none of which can be predicted with
deductive certainty. And, without calling into question
the applicability of the classical paradigm (with its
assumption that the stimulus conditions for action are
always extrinsic), that they are engaged in activities
such as writing and cooking, bar billiards and chess,
which cannot be plausibly analysed in terms of atomistic
components. In short, where the subjects, conditions or
forms of action are characterized by structure, diversity
or change, the Humean theory of the actuality of causal
laws, and ipso facto the theories of science that are
based on it, just cannot apply.
Conversely, it is just because the very special
conditions for a
Actualism and the Concept of a Closure 105
closure are sometimes satisfied in physics and chemistry
(though they are not normally possible in the other
natural sciences - from cosmology to biology) that
accounts for the prima facie plausibility of these
theories there. But the transcendental analysis of
experience allow us to turn the tables on actualism and
empiricism here. For it is not given conjunctions of
events (or experiences) but structures which are normally
out of phase with the patterns of events (and
experiences) that emerge from it as the true objects of
scientific understanding. This raises the question of
whether there are analogous structures at work in fields
other than physics and chemistry. If there are, we must
bear in mind that it would not even be plausible to
misconstrue them as empirical generalizations. On the
other hand, if we continue to confuse laws and empirical
generalizations we shall never be able to identify them.
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