Methodological Variance: Essays in Epistemological Ontology and the Methodology of Science

450 Pages·1991·28.58 MB·English

by  G. L. Pandit (auth.)

METHODOLOGICAL VARIANCE
BOSTON STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
Editor
ROBERT S. COHEN, Boston University
Editorial Advisory Board
ADOLF GRONBAUM, University of Pittsburgh
SYLVAN S. SCHWEBER, Brandeis University
JOHN J. ST ACHEL, Boston University
MARX W. WARTOFSKY, Baruch College of
the City University of New York
VOLUME 131
G. L. PANDIT
Department of Philosophy, University of Delhi, India
METHODOLOGICAL
VARIANCE
Essays in Epistemological Ontology and
the Methodology of Science
SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.
Library of Congress Cataioging-in-PubUcation Data
Pindit. G. L• • 1946-
Methodologlcal var lance : essays In eplstemologlcal ontology and the
methodology of selenee
p. eg. -- (Boston studles In the phl1osophy of selenee ; v.
131 )
Includes blbllographlcal references and lndBxe~.
ISBN 978-94-010-5400-3 ISBN 978-94-011-3174-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-011-3174-2
1. Sclence--Phl10sophy. 2. SClence--Methodology. 3. Ontology.
4. Knowledge. Theory of. 1. Pandlt, G. L., 1945- II. Serles.
C175.M5418 1991
501--de20 91-653
ISBN 978-94-010-5400-3
Printed on acid-free paper
AlI Rights Reserved
© 1991 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Origina1ly published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1991
Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover Ist edition 1991
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.
To Sir Karl Raimund Popper
and
all those physicist-philosophers who could
very clearly recognize that the glory of
science lay not in any kind of game of
playing safe in the situations of interaction
with nature but in its tortuous search-cum-discovery
procedures of exploring the subjects of objective
knowledge without one's rational belief in this
or that scientific problem ever coming in the way.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE xiii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS XXl
NOTATION AND ABBREVIATIONS xxiii
PART ONE
CHAPTER 1 / ON THE OBJECTS OF OUR SUBJEC-
TIVE KNOWLEDGE 3
1.1 WHAT IS WRONG WITH TRADmONAL EPISTEMOLOGY? 3
1.2 THE NATURE OF SUBJECTIVE KNOWLEDGE: TRADI-
TIONAL ANALYSIS 4
1.3 RATIONAL BELIEF, OBJECTIVE KNOWLEDGE AND
HUMAN INTERACflON 10
1.4 ONTOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSmONS OF TRADmONAL
EPISTEMOLOGY 15
CHAPTER 2 / HUMAN KNOWLEDGE AND HUMAN
INTERACTION 18
2.1 OF THE PHILOSOPHER'S OBSESSION WITH PERCEPTION 18
2.2 THE PROBLEM OF PERCEPTION 19
2.3 ON INTERACflON WITH WHAT OUR THEORIES INVARI-
ABLY SINGLE OUT AS OBSERVABLES 25
2.4 THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN INTERACflON 30
2.5 ON UNDERSTANDING THE CONCEPT OF HUMAN KNOWL-
EDGE 32
2.6 THE KNOWING SUBJECT AND THE PERCEIVING ORGAN
ISM: THE STRUCTURAL AND FUNCflONAL ASYMMETRY
BETWEEN KNOWLEDGE AND PERCEPTION 36
vii
Vlll T ABLE OF CONTENTS
2.7 THE ESSENTIAL UNPREDICTABILITY OF THE GROWfH
OF KNOWLEDGE AND THE PROBLEM OF THE PREDICT
ABILITY OF INTERACTIONS 40
2.8 FROM AN OBJECTIVISTIC POINT OF VIEW 42
2.9 ORGANIZATION, INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE:
INSTRUCTED INTERACTION VERSUS CREATIVE
INTERACTION 44
CHAPTER 3 / INDETERMINACY OF TRANSLATION:
A NON-QUINEAN FUNCTION OF CONTENT-
INDETERMINACY 55
3.1 SCIENCE AND LANGUAGE: PROBLEMS OF THEORY-
CHOICE AND TRANSLATIONAL INDETERMINACY 55
3.2 QUINE'S THESIS OF THE INDETERMINACY OF RADICAL
TRANSLATION 67
3.3 TRANSLATIONAL DElERMINACY: QUINE'S BEHAVIORAL
CRITERIA 69
3.3.1. Language Viewed as a System of Dispositions to Verbal
Behavior 70
3.3.2. Methodological Indeterminacy of Propositions Conceived
Non-Mentalistically 71
3.4 THE IDEOLOGICALLY NEUTRAL PROBLEM OF THE CON-
DmONS OF TRANSLATIONAL DETERMINACY 72
3.4.1. The Criterial Character of Quinean Indeterminacy 74
3.5 INDETERMINACY OF TRANSLATION: A NON-QUINEAN
FUNCTION OF CONTENT-INDETERMINACY 75
3.6 EPISTEMIC STRUCTURALISM: PROBLEMS AND PROPOSI-
TIONS IN RETROSPECT 76
CHAPTER 4 / ON THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF ANY EN
TERPRISE CONCERNING SELF-KNOWLEDGE
WITHIN TRADITIONAL EPISTEMOLOGY 81
4.1 THE TRADmONAL DOCTRINE OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE
AND THE CONCEPT OF A PERSON 81
4.2 THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF ANY ENTERPRISE CONCERNING
SELF-KNOWLEDGE WITHIN TRADmONAL EPISTEMOL-
OGY 82
TABLE OF CONTENTS ix
4.3 FIRST-PERSON PSYCHOLOGICAL SENTENCES: SELF
CONSCIOUSNESS, OBJECTIVE KNOWLEDGE AND HUMAN
INTERACTION 85
4.4 PERSONS AS A SUBJECT OF OBJECTIVE KNOWLEDGE 91
4.5 THE PHILOSOPHICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF SCEPTICISM IN
HUME AND WITTGENSTEIN 92
4.6 THE 'PRIVATE LANGUAGE' VERSION OF THE PROBLEM OF
SELF-KNOWLEDGE 95
PART TWO
CHAPTER 5 I METHODOLOGICAL ESSENTIALISM
IN SCIENCE AND IN PHILOSOPHY 99
5.1 METHODOLOGICAL CONVENTIONALISM IN SCIENCE
AND IN PHILOSOPHY 99
5.1.1. On the Subjects of Objective Knowledge and Camap's Method-
ological Conventionalism 101
5.1.2. Science and Popper's Methodological Conventionalism 106
5.2 ESSENTIALISM IN PHILOSOPHY: POPPER'S AND WITT-
GENSTEIN'S CRITICISM 115
5.2.1. Philosophy of Science and Methodological Conventionalism of
Popper 117
5.2.2. Conventionalism and the Game-Theoretic Conception of
Science 121
5.2.3. The Tension between Objectivism and Conventionalism 122
5.2.4. Kuhn, Lakatos and Feyerabend 126
5.2.5. Later Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Language: Criticism 132
5.3 MODELS THAT FAMILIARIZE AND MODELS THAT FOR
MALIZE: METHODOLOGICAL ESSENTIALISM IN RETRO-
SPECT 147
CHAPTER 6 I OF VARIANCE AND INVARIANCE IN
SCIENCE: EMPIRICAL SCIENCE AS AN ENTER-
PRISE COMPRISING NFCPS SYSTEMS 151
6.1 THE PROBLEM OF THE CONDmONS OF OBJECTIVE
KNOWLEDGE 151
6.2 THE STRUCTURAL-DYNAMICAL ASSUMPTIONS AND
THE IDEAL TYPE ASSUMPTIONS IN THE INDIVIDUAL
SCIENCES 153
x TABLE OF CONTENTS
6.2.1. The Subject-Specific Assumptions in the Individual Sciences:
Some Case-Studies 156
6.3 THE SUBJECT-SPECIFIC METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS
OF THEORY-CONSTRUCTION AND PROBLEM-FORMU-
LATION 167
6.4 TWO CONCEPTS OF INVA RIANCE: THE PROBLEM OF
THEORETICAL UNIVERSALS 169
6.5 THE NATURE OF METHODOLOGICAL VARIANCE: SCIEN
TIFIC REVOLUTIONS AS A FUNCTION OF WORKING
BACKWARDS FROM RULE-ENTANGLEMENT 173
6.5.1. Of the Asymmetry between Scientific and Political Revolu-
tions 174
6.5.2. Philosophy as a Higher-Order Enterprise: Against the Under-
Labourer Conception 184
6.5.3. The Demarcation Problem: Empirical Science Viewed as a
Game of Conjectures and Refutations 187
6.5.4. Methodological Aspects of Science as an Enterprise Compris-
ing NFCPS Systems 189
CHAPTER 7 I FALSIFIABILITY AND METHODOLOG-
ICAL INVA RIANCE IN SCIENCE 198
7.1 THE PRINCIPLE OF FALSIFIABILITY 198
7.1.1. The Argument from Logical Form 199
7.1.2. The Argument from Methodological Conventionalism 203
7.2 THEORETICAL UNIVERSALS: METHODOLOGICAL IN-
VARIANCE IN SCIENCE 206
7.2.1. Epistemic Structuralism and the Problem of Demarcating
Science from Non-Science 212
CHAPTER 8 I THE METHODOLOGY OF THEORY-
PROBLEM INTERACTIVE SYSTEMS 214
8.1 THE QUESTION OF THE NATURE OF A FALSIFIABLE
THEORY 214
8.2 HOW SIMPLE IS THEORETICAL SIMPLICITY? 216
8.2.1. Problems of Simplicity: Different Approaches 216
8.2.2. The Probabilistic Model of Simplicity 230
8.2.3. The Popperian Model of Simplicity 231
8.2.4. Elliot Sober's Model of Simplicity 232
8.2.5. Re-Ordering Theoretical Simplicity: Towards an Interaction-
Theoretic Model 234
TABLE OF CONTENTS Xl
8.3 METHODOLOGICAL IMPUCATIONS OF EPISTEMIC STRUC
TURAUSM 245
8.4 WHAT IS WRONG WITH mE RECEIVED VIEWS ON mE
METHODOLOGY OF SCIENCE? 247
8.5 mEORETICAL UNIVERSALS AND mE PRINCIPLE OF
mE RESOLVING POWER OF A SCIENTIFIC mEORY 254
8.6 mE METHODOLOGY OF THEORY-PROBLEM INTERAC-
TIVE SYSTEMS 257
CHAPTER 9 / THE RESOLVING POWER OF A SCIEN
TIFIC THEORY AS A BASIS OF ITS EPISTEMIC
APPRAISAL 265
9.1 METHODOLOGICAL VARIANCE: FROM NEWTONIAN TO
EINSTEINIAN mEORY-PROBLEM INTERACTIVE SYSTEMS 265
9.2 mE NATURE OF NOVEL PREDICTION: TWO CONCEPTS
OF THE PREDICTIVE POWER OF A SCIENTIFIC THEORY 296
9.3 mE METHODOLOGICAL ROLE OF PHYSICAL mEORY IN
RELATIVISTIC COSMOLOGY 309
9.4 mE RESOLVING POWER OF A SCIENTIFIC mEORY AS A
BASIS OF ITS EPISTEMIC APPRAISAL 314
CHAPTER 10/ EPILOGUE 327
NOTES 363
INDEX OF SYMBOLS 413
INDEX OF NAMES 414
INDEX OF SUBJECTS 418