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.     

Incommensurability reconsidered

In his later writings Kuhn reconsidered his earlier account of incommensurability, clarifying some aspects, modifying others, and explicitly rejecting some of his earlier claims. In Kuhn’s new account incommensurability does not pose a problem for the rational evaluation of competing scientific theories, but does pose a problem for certain forms of realism. Kuhn maintains that, because of incommensurability, the notion that science might seek to learn the nature of things as they are in themselves is incoherent. I develop Kuhn’s new account of incommensurability, respond to his anti-realist argument, and sketch a form of realism in which the realist aim is a pursuable goal.     

Polanyi's presagement of the incommensurability concept

Kuhn and Feyerabend have little to say about the thought of Michael Polanyi, and the secondary literature on Polanyi's relation to them is meagre. I argue that Polanyi's view, in Personal knowledge and in other writings, of conceptual frameworks ‘segregated’ by a ‘logical gap’ as giving rise to controversies in science foreshadowed Kuhn and Feyerabend's theme of incommensurability. The similarity between the thinkers is, I suggest, no coincidence.     

Kitcher''s Compromise: A critical examination of the Compromise Model of scientific closure, and its implications for the relationship between history and philosophy of science

In The Advancement of Science (1993) Philip Kitcher develops what he calls the ‘Compromise Model’ of the closure of scientific debates. The model is designed to acknowledge significant elements from ‘Rationalist’ and ‘Antirationalist’ accounts of science, without succumbing to the one-sidedness of either. As part of an ambitious naturalistic account of scientific progress, Kitcher's model succeeds to the extent that transitions in the history of science satisfy its several conditions. 1 critically evaluate the Compromise Model by identifying its crucial assumptions and by attempting to apply the model to a major transition in the history of biology: the rejection of ‘naive group selectionism’ in the 1960s. I argue that the weaknesses and limitations of Kitcher's model exemplify general problems facing philosophical models of scientific change, and that recognition of these problems supports a more modest vision of the relationship between historical and philosophical accounts of science.     

Pure science and the problem of progress

How should we understand scientific progress? Kuhn famously discussed science as its own internally driven venture, structured by paradigms. He also famously had a problem describing progress in science, as problem-solving ability failed to provide a clear rubric across paradigm change—paradigm changes tossed out problems as well as solving them. I argue here that much of Kuhn’s inability to articulate a clear view of scientific progress stems from his focus on pure science and a neglect of applied science. I trace the history of the distinction between pure and applied science, showing how the distinction came about, the rhetorical uses to which the distinction has been put, and how pure science came to be both more valued by scientists and philosophers. I argue that the distinction between pure and applied science does not stand up to philosophical scrutiny, and that once we relinquish it, we can provide Kuhn with a clear sense of scientific progress. It is not one, though, that will ultimately prove acceptable. For that, societal evaluations of scientific work are needed.     

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.     

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.     

Kuhn on incommensurability and theory choice

The incommensurability of two theories seems to problematize theory comparisons, which allow for the selection of the better of the two theories. If so, it becomes puzzling how the quality of theories can improve with time, i.e. how science can progress across changes in incommensurable theories. I argue that in papers published in the 1990s, Kuhn provided a novel way to resolve this apparent tension between incommensurability and scientific progress. He put forward an account of their compatibility which worked not by downplaying the negative consequences of incommensurability but instead by allowing them to reach their natural end: a process of specialisation. This development in Kuhn’s thought has yet to be properly recorded but it is also interesting in its own right. It shows how a robust version of incommensurability—one which really does have severe negative consequences for scientists’ capacity to perform comparative evaluations of incommensurable theories—need make no puzzle of the progress of science.     

More letters by Paul Feyerabend to Thomas S. Kuhn on Proto-Structure

Four letters by Paul Feyerabend to Thomas Kuhn from the 1950s and 60s were found in Kuhn’s Nachlass at the Institute Archives and Special Collections of MIT. Two of them deal with topics that were at centre stage of the controversy between the two authors that was ignited by Feyerabend’s reading of Proto-Structure, the draft version of Kuhn’s The structure of scientific revolutions. These letters are reprinted here. They are probably the continuation of two letters by Paul Feyerabend to Thomas S. Kuhn formerly published in this journal (Hoyningen-Huene, 1995).     

Immanent philosophy of X

In this paper I examine the relationship between historians, philosophers and sociologists of science, and indeed scientists themselves. I argue that (i) they co-habit a shared intellectual territory (science and its past); and (ii) they should be able to do so peacefully, and with mutual respect, even if they disagree radically about how to describe the methods and results of science. I then go on to explore some of the challenges to mutually respectful cohabitation between history, philosophy and sociology of science. I conclude by identifying a familiar kind of project in the philosophy of science which seeks to explore the worldview of a particular scientific discipline, and argue that it too has a right to explore the shared territory even though some historians and sociologists may find it methodologically suspect.     

Predictivism and the periodic table

This is a comment on the paper by Barnes (2005) and the responses from Scerri (2005) and Worrall (2005), debating the thesis (‘predictivism’) that a fact successfully predicted by a theory is stronger evidence than a similar fact known before the prediction was made. Since Barnes and Scerri both use evidence presented in my paper on Mendeleev’s periodic law (Brush, 1996) to support their views, I reiterate my own position on predictivism. I do not argue for or against predictivism in the normative sense that philosophers of science employ, rather I describe how scientists themselves use facts and predictions to support their theories. I find wide variations, and no support for the assumption that scientists use a single ‘Scientific Method’ in deciding whether to accept a proposed new theory.     

Legend naturalism and scientific progress: An essay on Philip Kitcher's : The advancement of science

Philip Kitcher's The Advancement of Science sets out, programmatically, a new naturalistic view of science as a process of building consensus practices. Detailed historical case studies—centrally, the Darwinian revolutio—are intended to support this view. I argue that Kitcher's expositions in fact support a more conservative view, that I dub ‘Legend Naturalism’. Using four historical examples which increasingly challenge Kitcher's discussions, I show that neither Legend Naturalism, nor the less conservative programmatic view, gives an adequate account of scientific progress. I argue for a naturalism that is more informed by psychology and a normative account that is both more social and less realist than the views articulated in The Advancement of Science.     

Evaluating community science

Community science—scientific investigation conducted partly or entirely by non-professional scientists—has many advantages. For example, community science mobilizes large numbers of volunteers who can, at low cost, collect more data than traditional teams of professional scientists. Participation in research can also increase volunteers’ knowledge about and appreciation of science. At the same time, there are worries about the quality of data that community science projects produce. Can the work of non-professionals really deliver trustworthy results? Attempts to answer this question generally compare data collected by volunteers to data collected by professional scientists. When volunteer data is more variable or less accurate than professionally collected data, then the community science project is judged to be inferior to traditional science. I argue that this is not the right standard to use when evaluating community science, because it relies on a false assumption about the aims of science. I show that if we adopt the view that science has diverse aims which are often in tension with one another, then we cannot justify holding community science data to an expert accuracy standard. Instead, we should evaluate the quality of community science data based on its adequacy-for-purpose.     

Pierre Duhem’s good sense as a guide to theory choice

This paper examines Duhem’s concept of good sense as an attempt to support a non rule-governed account of rationality in theory choice. Faced with the underdetermination of theory by evidence thesis and the continuity thesis, Duhem tried to account for the ability of scientists to choose theories that continuously grow to a natural classification. I will examine the concept of good sense and the problems that stem from it. I will also present a recent attempt by David Stump to link good sense to virtue epistemology. I will argue that even though this approach can be useful for the better comprehension of the concept of good sense, there are some substantial differences between virtue epistemologists and Duhem. In the light of this reconstruction of good sense, I will propose a possible way to interpret the concept of good sense, which overcomes the noted problems and fits better with Duhem’s views on scientific method and motivation in developing the concept of good sense.     

The theory theory thrice over: the child as scientist, Superscientist or social institution?

Alison Gopnik and Andrew Meltzoff have argued for a view they call the ‘theory theory’: theory change in science and children are similar. While their version of the theory theory has been criticized for depending on a number of disputed claims, we argue that there is a fundamental problem which is much more basic: the theory theory is multiply ambiguous. We show that it might be claiming that a similarity holds between theory change in children and (i) individual scientists, (ii) a rational reconstruction of a Superscientist, or (iii) the scientific community. We argue that (i) is false, (ii) is non-empirical (which is problematic since the theory theory is supposed to be a bold empirical hypothesis), and (iii) is either false or doesn't make enough sense to have a truth-value. We conclude that the theory theory is an interesting failure. Its failure points the way to a full, empirical picture of scientific development, one that marries a concern with the social dynamics of science to a psychological theory of scientific cognition.     

Constructive empiricism, observability and three kinds of ontological commitment

In this paper, I argue that, contrary to the constructive empiricist’s position, observability is not an adequate criterion as a guide to ontological commitment in science. My argument has two parts. First, I argue that the constructive empiricist’s choice of observability as a criterion for ontological commitment is based on the assumption that belief in the existence of unobservable entities is unreasonable because belief in the existence of an entity can only be vindicated by its observation. Second, I argue that the kind of ontological commitment that is under consideration when accepting a scientific theory is commitment to what I call theoretical kinds and that observation can vindicate commitment to kinds only in exceptional cases.     

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.     

Primary source knowledge and technical decision-making: Mbeki and the AZT debate

Demands for public participation in technical decision-making are currently high on the agenda of Science & Technology Studies. It is assumed that the democratisation of technical decision-making processes generally leads to more socially desirable and acceptable outcomes. While this may be true in certain cases, this assumption cannot be generalised. I will discuss the case of the so-called ‘South African AZT debate’. The controversy started when President Thabo Mbeki, after reading some scientific papers on the toxicity of AZT, decided to bar the use of the drug in the public health sector as a means to reduce the transmission of HIV from mothers to children. While the scientific mainstream accepts the effectiveness of AZT in reducing the risk of vertical HIV transmission, a few maverick scientists reject the clinical evidence and argue that the risks of using AZT by far outweigh its benefits. Based on various textual sources and using the ‘Periodic Table of Expertises’ developed by Collins and Evans, Mbeki’s expertise at the time of his intervention into the technical question whether AZT is a medicine or a poison can be classified as primary source knowledge. It is shown that this type of expertise is insufficient for technical decision-making. Mbeki’s primary source knowledge legitimated his presentation of the claims of maverick scientists as a serious contribution to the debate—with tragic consequences for tens of thousands of babies.     

Catching the WAVE: The Weight-Adjusting Account of Values and Evidence

It is commonly argued that values “fill the logical gap” of underdetermination of theory by evidence, namely, values affect our choice between two or more theories that fit the same evidence. The underdetermination model, however, does not exhaust the roles values play in evidential reasoning. I introduce WAVE – a novel account of the logical relations between values and evidence. WAVE states that values influence evidential reasoning by adjusting evidential weights. I argue that the weight-adjusting role of values is distinct from their underdetermination gap-filling role. Values adjust weights in three ways. First, values affect our trust in the testimony of others. Second, values influence the evidential thresholds required for justified epistemic judgments. Third, values influence the relative weight of a certain type of evidence within a body of multimodal discordant evidence. WAVE explains, from an epistemic perspective, rather than psychological, how smokers, for example, can find the same evidence about the dangers of smoking less persuasive than non-smokers. WAVE allows for a wider effect of values on our accepted scientific theories and beliefs than the effect for which the underdetermination model allows alone; therefore, science studies scholars must consider WAVE in their research and analysis of evidential case studies.     

Conventionalism about what? Where Duhem and Poincaré part ways

This paper examines whether, and in what contexts, Duhem's and Poincaré's views can be regarded as conventionalist or structural realist. After analysing the three different contexts in which conventionalism is attributed to them—in the context of the aim of science, the underdetermination problem and the epistemological status of certain principles—I show that neither Duhem's nor Poincaré's arguments can be regarded as conventionalist. I argue that Duhem and Poincaré offer different solutions to the problem of theory choice, differ in their stances towards scientific knowledge and the status of scientific principles, making their epistemological claims substantially different.