Can the constructive empiricist be a nominalist? Quasi-truth, commitment and consistency

In this paper, I explore Rosen’s (1994) ‘transcendental’ objection to constructive empiricism—the argument that in order to be a constructive empiricist, one must be ontologically committed to just the sort of abstract, mathematical objects constructive empiricism seems committed to denying. In particular, I assess Bueno’s (1999) ‘partial structures’ response to Rosen, and argue that such a strategy cannot succeed, on the grounds that it cannot provide an adequate metalogic for our scientific discourse. I conclude by arguing that this result provides some interesting consequences in general for anti-realist programmes in the philosophy of science.     

The development of the Neurath principle: unearthing the Romantic link

Otto Neurath’s thoroughgoing anti-foundationalism is connected to the recognition that protocol sentences are not inviolable, that is they are fallible and their choice cannot be determined: ‘Poincaré, Duhem and others have adequately shown that even if we have agreed on the protocol statements, there is a not limited number of equally applicable, possible systems of hypotheses. We have extended this tenet of the uncertainty of systems of hypotheses to all statements, including protocol statements that are alterable in principle’ (Neurath, 1983, p. 105). Later historiography has called Neurath’s extension of Duhemian holism the Neurath principle. Based on a study of Neurath’s early works on the history of optics, the paper investigates a previously unnoticed influence on the development of this principle, Neurath’s reading of Goethe’s Theory of colours. The historical and polemical parts of Goethe’s tripartite book provided Neurath with ideal examples for the vertical extension of Duhem’s thesis to observation statements. Moreover, Goethe’s critique of the language of science and his views on the theory-ladenness of observation, as well as on the history of science show strong parallels to many of Neurath’s ideas. These demonstrate the existence of surprisingly direct textual links between Romantic views on science and the development of twentieth-century philosophy of science. Neurath’s usage of Goethe’s examples also indicates that the birth of the Neurath principle is more tightly connected to actual scientific practice than to theory-testing, and that by admitting the theory-ladenness of observation reports and fallibility of protocol statements Neurath does not throw empiricism overboard.     

Rehabilitating theory: refusal of the ‘bottom-up’ construction of scientific phenomena

In this paper I inquire into Bogen and Woodward’s (1988) data/phenomena distinction, which in a similar way to Cartwright’s construal of the model of superconductivity (1995)—although in a different domain—argues for a ‘bottom-up’ construction of phenomena from data without the involvement of theory. I criticise Bogen and Woodward’s account by analysing their melting point of lead example in depth, which is usually cited in the literature to illustrate the data/phenomenon distinction. Yet, the main focus of this paper lies on Matthias Kaiser’s (1995) case study of the plate tectonic revolution, the most extensive case study that has been put forth to support the bottom-up construction of phenomena. On the basis of new historical evidence, which has been overlooked not only by Kaiser but also by the entire historical literature on the plate tectonic revolution, I demonstrate that phenomena are not constructed from the bottom-up but rather, admittedly counter-intuitively, from the top-down.     

Symmetry, asymmetry, and the real possibility of radical change: reply to Kochan

In his critique of my book Heidegger and Marcuse, Jeff Kochan (2006) asserts that I am committed to the possibility of private knowledge, transcendent truths, and individualism. In this reply I argue that he has misinterpreted my analysis of the Challenger disaster and Marcuse’s work. Because I do not dismiss Roger Boisjoly’s doubts about the Challenger launch, Kochan believes that I have abandoned a social concept of knowledge for a reliance on the private knowledge of a single individual. In fact, I consider Boisjoly’s observations just as social, if not as scientific, as the results of rigorous scientific study. Kochan’s reliance on a principle of symmetry derived from science studies to explain such politically charged technological controversies tends to mask the role of power and ideology in social life. Kochan interprets Marcuse as a failed Heideggerian who regresses from Heidegger’s social conception of human being to traditional individualism. I am accused of sharing this view. This interpretation overlooks the importance of the Hegelian–Marxist category of ‘real possibility’ in Marcuse’s work and so mistakes his critique of conformist politics for individualist romanticism. Marcuse always attempted to ground radical opposition in a community of struggle without abandoning the heritage of a long critical tradition. This view I willingly share.     

The ontology of artefacts: the hard problem

We examine to what extent an adequate ontology of technical artefacts can be based on existing general accounts of the relation between higher-order objects and their material basis. We consider two of these accounts: supervenience and constitution. We take as our starting point the thesis that artefacts have a ‘dual nature’, that is, that they are both material bodies and functional objects. We present two criteria for an adequate ontology of artefacts, ‘Underdetermination’ (UD) and ‘Realizability Constraints’ (RC), which address aspects of the dual nature thesis. Assessing supervenience accounts, we find them either wanting with respect to these criteria or insufficiently informative. Next, we argue that a recent application of Lynne Rudder Baker’s constitution view to artefacts cannot (yet) meet our criteria, although the broader view leaves room for improvement. Based on our evaluation of the most promising candidates, we conclude that so far general metaphysical views fail to address the most salient features of artefacts. Although they can account for the fact that artefacts have a ‘dual nature’, they do not offer the conceptual resources needed to describe the relation between these natures; this relation raises a hard problem in metaphysics.     

Scientific realism bit by bit: part I. Kitcher on reference

In this paper, I consider Kitcher’s (1993) account of reference for the expressions of past science. Kitcher’s case study is of Joseph Priestley and his expression ‘dephlogisticated air’. There is a strong intuitive case that ‘dephlogisticated air’ referred to oxygen, but it was underpinned by very mistaken phlogiston theory, so concluding either that dephlogisticated air referred straightforwardly or that it failed to refer both have unpalatable consequences. Kitcher argues that the reference of such terms is best considered relative to each token—some tokens refer, and others do not. His account thus relies crucially on how this distinction between tokens can be made good—a puzzle I call the discrimination problem. I argue that the discrimination problem cannot be solved. On any reading of Kitcher’s defence of the distinction, the grounds provided are either insufficient or illegitimate. On the first reading, Kitcher violates the principle of humanity by making Priestley’s referential success a matter of the mental contents of modern speakers. The second reading sidesteps the problem of beliefs by appealing to mind-independent facts, but I argue that these are insufficient to achieve reference because of the indeterminacy introduced by the qua problem. On the third and final reading, Priestley’s success is given by what he would say in counterfactual circumstances. I argue that even if there are facts about what Priestley would say, and there is reason for doubt, there is no motivation to think that such facts determine how Priestley referred in the actual world.     

Science, truth and history, Part I. Historiography, relativism and the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge

Recently, many historians of science have chosen to present their historical narratives from the ‘actors’-eye view’. Scientific knowledge not available within the actors’ culture is not permitted to do explanatory work. Proponents of the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (SSK) purport to ground this historiography on epistemological relativism. I argue that they are making an unnecessary mistake: unnecessary because the historiographical genre in question can be defended on aesthetic and didactic grounds; and a mistake because the argument from relativism is in any case incoherent.The argument of the present article is self-contained, but steers clear of metaphysical debates in the philosophy of science. To allay fears of hidden assumptions, the sequel, to be published in the following issue, will consider SSK’s prospects of succour from scientific realism, instrumentalism, and a metaphysical system of Bruno Latour’s own devising.     

On the continuity of reference of the elements: a response to Hendry

Robin Hendry has recently argued that although the term ‘element’ has traditionally been used in two different senses (basic substance and simple substance), there has nonetheless been a continuity of reference. The present article examines this author’s historical and philosophical claims and suggests that he has misdiagnosed the situation in several respects. In particular it is claimed that Hendry’s arguments for the nature of one particular element, oxygen, do not generalize to all elements as he implies. The second main objection is to Hendry’s view that the qua problem can be illuminated by appeal to the intention of scientists.     

Science, truth and history, part II. Metaphysical bolt-holes for the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge?

Historians of science have frequently sought to exclude modern scientific knowledge from their narratives. Part I of this paper, published in the previous issue, cautioned against seeing more than a literary preference at work here. In particular, it was argued—contra advocates of the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (SSK)—that a commitment to epistemological relativism should not be seen as having straightforward historiographical consequences. Part II considers further SSK-inspired attempts to entangle the currently fashionable historiography with particular positions in the philosophy of science. None, I argue, is promising. David Bloor’s proposed alliance with scientific realism relies upon a mistaken view of contrastive explanation; Andrew Pickering’s appeal to instrumentalism is persuasive for particle physics but much less so for science as a whole; and Bruno Latour’s home-grown metaphysics is so bizarre that its compatibility with SSK is, if anything, a further blow to the latter’s plausibility.     

Weyl’s ‘agens theory’ of matter and the Zurich Fichte

This paper investigates Hermann Weyl’s reception of philosophical concepts stemming from the German Idealist Johann Gottlieb Fichte. In particular, Weyl’s ‘agens theory’ of matter, which he held around 1925, will be looked at. In the extant literature, the—admittedly also important—influence of Husserl on Weyl has mainly been addressed. Thus, apart from investigating some detailed Fichtean inheritances in Weyl’s concepts of causality, chance and continuity, the general difference which Weyl saw between the philosophies of Fichte and Husserl will also be discussed. For Weyl this is above all a difference between an active constructivism and a rather passive phenomenological seeing (Schau). Further, the paper shows in some detail the way Weyl was drawn into a certain reading of Fichte by his Zurich colleague, the philosopher Fritz Medicus. The methodological frame of the paper is that of Konstellationsforschung, a historical and systematic approach which proves to be particularly fruitful when investigating a (broadly speaking) German Idealist context and which allows special attention to be given to the acting subjects within the constellation under investigation. Conversely, Weyl’s agens theory suggests amendments to this methodology.     

The empirical basis of equilibrium: Mach, Vailati, and the lever

About a century ago, Ernst Mach argued that Archimedes’s deduction of the principle of the lever is invalid, since its premises contain the conclusion to be demonstrated. Subsequently, many scholars defended Archimedes, mostly on historical grounds, by raising objections to Mach’s reconstruction of Archimedes’s deduction. In the debate, the Italian philosopher and historian of science Giovanni Vailati stood out. Vailati responded to Mach with an analysis of Archimedes’s deduction which was later quoted and praised by Mach himself. In this paper, my objective is to show that the debate can be further advanced, as Mach indicated, by reframing it in terms of the empirical vs. the logical dimensions of mechanics. In this way, I will suggest, the debate about Archimedes’s deduction can be resolved in Mach’s favour.     

From Cutting Nature at Its Joints to Measuring It: New Kinds and New Kinds of People in Biology

In the received version of the development of science, natural kinds are established in the preliminary stages (natural history) and made more precise by measurement (exact science). By examining the move from nineteenth- to twentieth-century biology, this paper unpacks the notion of species as ‘natural kinds’ and grounds for discourse, questioning received notions about both kinds and species. Life sciences in the nineteenth century established several ‘monster-barring’ techniques to block disputes about the precise definition of species. Counterintuitively, precision and definition brought dispute and disrupted exchange. Thus, any attempt to add precision was doomed to failure. By intervening and measuring, the new experimental biology dislocated the established links between natural kinds and kinds of people and institutions. New kinds were built in new places. They were made to measure from the very start. This paper ends by claiming that there was no long-standing ‘species problem’ in the history of biology. That problem is a later construction of the ‘modern synthesis’, well after the disruption of ‘kinds’ and kinds of people. Only then would definitions and precision matter. A new, non-linguistic, take on the incommensurability thesis is hinted at.     

Looking for structure in all the wrong places: Ramsey sentences, multiple realisability, and structure

‘Epistemic structural realism’ (ESR) insists that all that we know of the world is its structure, and that the ‘nature’ of the underlying elements remains hidden. With structure represented via Ramsey sentences, the question arises as to how ‘hidden natures’ might also be represented. If the Ramsey sentence describes a class of realisers for the relevant theory, one way of answering this question is through the notion of multiple realisability. We explore this answer in the context of the work of Carnap, Hintikka and Lewis. Both Carnap and Hintikka offer clear structuralist perspectives which, crucially, accommodate the openness inherent in theory change. Unfortunately there is little purchase for a viable form of realism in either case. Lewis’s approach, on the other hand, offers more scope for realism but, as we shall see, concerns arise as to whether a relevant form of structuralism can be maintained. In particular his thesis of Ramseyan humility undermines certain conceptions of scientific laws that the structural realist might naturally cleave to. Our overall conclusion is that the representational device of Ramsey sentence plus multiple realisability can accommodate either the structuralist or realist aspects of ESR but has difficulties capturing both.     

Do Newton’s rules of reasoning guarantee truth … must they?

Newton’s Principia introduces four rules of reasoning for natural philosophy. Although useful, there is a concern about whether Newton’s rules guarantee truth. After redirecting the discussion from truth to validity, I show that these rules are valid insofar as they fulfill Goodman’s criteria for inductive rules and Newton’s own methodological program of experimental philosophy; provided that cross-checks are used prior to applications of rule 4 and immediately after applications of rule 2 the following activities are pursued: (1) research addressing observations that systematically deviate from theoretical idealizations and (2) applications of theory that safeguard ongoing research from proceeding down a garden path.     

The experimenter's regress as philosophical sociology

I will divide my discussion into two. In the first part I will discuss Godin and Gingras's delicious claim (this volume) that the experimenter's regress is anticipated by Sextus Empiricus's formulation of scepticism. In the second part, I will try to deal with Godin and Gingras's ‘critical argument’, that the experimenter's regress would be redundant if we were less concerned with ‘frightening philosophers’.     

Collecting airs and ideas: Priestley’s style of experimental reasoning

It has often been claimed that Priestley was a skilful experimenter who lacked the capacities to analyze his own experiments and bring them to a theoretical closure. In attempts to revise this view some scholars have alluded to Priestley’s ‘synoptic’ powers while others stressed the contextual role of British Enlightenment in understanding his chemical research. A careful analysis of his pneumatic reports, privileging the dynamics of his experimental practice, uncovers significant yet neglected aspects of Priestley’s science. By focusing on his early experimental conduct and writing on nitrous air, I demonstrate how his methodological and rhetorical devices, far from being consequences of compulsive writing or theoretical naïveté, were deeply entwined with his chemical research. I employ the notion of ‘style of experimental reasoning’ (SER)—derived from A. C. Crombie and I. Hacking—to shed light on the intersection at which Priestley’s unique method, literary style, and epistemology converged to generate scientific knowledge. Establishing Priestley’s SER advances a finer understanding of the interactive character of his pneumatic experimentalism, peculiar dimensions of which have evaded both traditional as well as revisionist scholarship, thus infusing the longstanding historiographic debate over his scientific merits.     

The literature and the science of ‘two cultures’ historiography

This paper discusses the historiography of the ‘two cultures’ controversy. C. P. Snow’s lament about the ‘two cultures’, literary and scientific, has inspired a wide range of comment—much of which begins by citing Snow and his thesis, before going on to discuss very different things. This paper focuses upon one strand of this commentary, the historical analysis of the controversy itself. A ‘historical’ analysis is defined here as one that resists the impulse to enter the argument on behalf of Snow or Leavis, to conceive of their argument in the terms that Snow defined, or to invoke their argument as a precursor to some contemporary issue. Instead, a historical interpretation registers distance between that day and this, takes the controversy itself as its object of study, and explores the tensions and associations that came to be packed into those now familiar terms. As the fiftieth anniversary of Snow’s Rede Lecture nears, this approach—rather than the repetition of clichés about the bridging of cultures—offers both analytical perspective on the controversy and interpretive possibilities for its examination.     

Incommensurabilities in the work of Thomas Kuhn

I distinguish between two ways in which Kuhn employs the concept of incommensurability based on for whom it presents a problem. First, I argue that Kuhn’s early work focuses on the comparison and underdetermination problems scientists encounter during revolutionary periods (actors’ incommensurability) whilst his later work focuses on the translation and interpretation problems analysts face when they engage in the representation of science from earlier periods (analysts’ incommensurability). Secondly, I offer a new interpretation of actors’ incommensurability. I challenge Kuhn’s account of incommensurability which is based on the compartmentalisation of the problems of both underdetermination and non-additivity to revolutionary periods. Through employing a finitist perspective, I demonstrate that in principle these are also problems scientists face during normal science. I argue that the reason why in certain circumstances scientists have little difficulty in concurring over their judgements of scientific findings and claims while in others they disagree needs to be explained sociologically rather than by reference to underdetermination or non-additivity. Thirdly, I claim that disagreements between scientists should not be couched in terms of translation or linguistic problems (aspects of analysts’ incommensurability), but should be understood as arising out of scientists’ differing judgments about how to take scientific inquiry further.     

Probability without certainty: foundationalism and the Lewis–Reichenbach debate

Like many discussions on the pros and cons of epistemic foundationalism, the debate between C. I. Lewis and H. Reichenbach dealt with three concerns: the existence of basic beliefs, their nature, and the way in which beliefs are related. In this paper we concentrate on the third matter, especially on Lewis’s assertion that a probability relation must depend on something that is certain, and Reichenbach’s claim that certainty is never needed. We note that Lewis’s assertion is prima facie ambiguous, but argue that this ambiguity is only apparent if probability theory is viewed within a modal logic. Although there are empirical situations where Reichenbach is right, and others where Lewis’s reasoning seems to be more appropriate, it will become clear that Reichenbach’s stance is the generic one. We conclude that this constitutes a threat to epistemic foundationalism.