Minding the Gap : Epistemology and title: Philosophy of Science in the Two Traditions author: Norris, Christopher. publisher: University of Massachusetts Press isbn10 | asin: 1558492550 print isbn13: 9781558492554 ebook isbn13: 9780585339986 language: English Science--Philosophy, Knowledge, Theory subject of. publication date: 2000 lcc: Q175.N595 2000eb ddc: 501 Science--Philosophy, Knowledge, Theory subject: of. Page iii Minding the Gap Epistemology & Philosophy of Science in the Two Traditions Christopher Norris Copyright © 2000 by The University of Massachusetts Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America LC 99-086484 ISBN 1-55849-255-0 Designed by Jack Harrison Set in Adobe Garamond by Graphic Composition, Inc. Printed and bound by Sheridan Books Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Norris, Christopher. Minding the gap : epistemology and philosophy of science in the two traditions / Christopher Norris p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-55849-255-0 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. SciencePhilosophy. 2. Knowledge, Theory of. I. Title. 175 . 595 2000 Q N 501dc21 99-086484 British Library Cataloguing in Publication data are available. Page v For Clare and Jenny Page vii Contents Preface ix Introduction: Epistemology and Philosophy of Science in 1 the Two Traditions 1 32 Theory Change and the Logic of Enquiry: New Bearings in Philosophy of Science 2 66 Treading Water in Neurath's Ship: Quine, Davidson, Rorty 3 100 Structure and Genesis in Scientific Theory: Husserl, Bachelard, Derrida 4 125 Supplementarity and Deviant Logics: Derrida contra Quine 5 148 Excluded Middles: Quantum Theory and the Logic of Deconstruction 6 172 McDowell on Kant: Redrawing the Bounds of Sense 7 197 The Limits of Naturalism: Further Thoughts on McDowell's Mind and World 8 231 Not Quite the Last Word: Nagel, Wittgenstein, and the Limits of Scepticism Notes 261 Index 293 Page ix Preface My main purpose in writing this book has been to provide a critical- comparative review of recent developments in epistemology and philosophy of science. It is unusual in devoting equal attention to work on both sides of the notional rift between 'continental' (i.e., post- Kantian mainland-European) movements of thought and 'analytic' approaches in the line of descent from Frege and Russell. I challenge this conventional view by remarking the numerous points of convergenceas well as the salient differences of emphasiswhich have often been ignored by more partisan commentators. Thus the two central projects of Husserlian phenomenology and Fregean philosophy of logic and language can be seen as jointly addressing a range of issues about truth, knowledge, and representation that cut across the standard disciplinary divide. (See especially my introduction and chapters 1 and 3.) Their different approaches are deeply bound up with the distinctive self-image of each tradition yet offer the prospect of a critical dialogue that would serve to extend and to deepen their powers of self-reflective conceptual grasp. This dialogue is pursued more specifically in chapters on Frege and Husserl; on Bachelard, Canguilhem, and the French legacy of epistemo-critical thinking or rationalisme appliqué; on 'postanalytic' developments in the wake of logical empiricism (Quine, Kuhn, Davidson, and Rorty); on the issue between descriptivist and causal theories of reference as discussed by philosophers such as Kripke, Putnam, Donnellan, and Evans; and on Derrida's early readings of Husserl where he raises questions that should be of interest to philosophers working in the 'other' (mainly Anglo-American) tradition of thought. These topics come together in the book's extended treatment of recent episodes in the history of debate between realist and antirealist philosophies of science. Here I argue that the widespread drift toward forms of antirealismalong with cultural- relativist doctrines like that advanced by the 'strong' programme in sociology of knowledgemay in part be explained as a response to the prolonged (post-1900) 'crisis' in theoretical physics, itself brought about by conceptual problems in the foundations of quantum mechanics. Hence (chapter 2) the appeal of certain Quinean/Kuhnian ideas Page x ontological relativity, paradigm change, radical meaning-variance, the under-determination of theories by evidence, and the theory-laden character of observation-statementsreflecting as they do a more general sense of the limits imposed on our knowledge of reality by factors intrinsic to the quantum-physical domain. However, it is a strange inversion of rational priorities that would claim to derive such radical consequences from a theory so rife with unresolved puzzles and paradoxes. Chapter 5 puts the case for a realist interpretation of quantum mechanicsbased on the hidden-variables theory developed by David Bohmand also for a realist approach to other issues in epistemology, philosophy of science, and philosophical semantics. In particular I reject those varieties of current antirealist thinking, such as Michael Dummett's, which deny that we can possibly have adequate grounds for asserting the existence of objective or 'verification-transcendent' truths. What these arguments amount to is a more sophisticated update on old-style logical positivism that is nonetheless vulnerable to all the same criticisms (including the charge of self-refutation) which undermined that earlier programme. For there do exist alternatives to episte-mological foundationalism which don't entail anything like so drastic and disabling a break with the tenets of scientific realism. In various fieldssuch as non-Euclidean geometry, relativity theory, and quantum mechanicsit is no longer possible to seek a grounding for scientific knowledge in a realm of a priori self-evident truths or primordial intuitions. Derrida's commentaries on Husserl make a similar point as regards foundationalist arguments in geometry, arithmetic, philosophy of mind, the phenomenology of time- consciousness, and other realms of enquiry. But they also demonstrate the 'absolute and principled' necessity of thinking these issues through with the greatest degree of conceptual precision and a rigorous attentiveness to textual detail in the writings of philosophers such as Kant and Husserl. This aspect of Derrida's work has yet to be appreciated by Anglo- American commentatorsDummett among themwho are themselves currently in process of revising the standard 'analytic' versus 'continental' account of developments in the history of post-Kantian thought. Chapters 1 and 3 set out to correct that particular omission and also to encourage a wider critical reassessment of those alternative resources for philosophy of science provided by thinkers in the mainland-European tradition. It is only on a highly artificialhistorically and geographically distortedview that we can treat the predominant problems and concerns of analytic philosophy in the wake of logical empiricism as belonging to a world quite apart from the interests that have typically animated work in the French and German contexts of debate. Indeed, it may be argued that analytic philosophy has run into a number of false dilemmas or dead-end predicaments as a result of its becoming so far out of touch with developments elsewhere.
Description: