Philosophical Papers, Volume 2: Problems of Empiricism

268 Pages·1985·17.044 MB·English

by  Paul K. Feyerabend

Problems of empiricism

Problems of empiricism
Philosophical papers
Volume 2
PAUL K. FEYERABEND
CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RP
40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA
10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia
© Cambridge University Press 1981
First published 1981
First paperback edition 1985
Reprinted 1986, 1988, 1989, 1994, 1995
Library of Congress Cataloging-i?i-Publication Data is available.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 0-521-31641-3 paperback
Transferred to digital printing 2004
Contents
Introduction to volumes 1 and 2 vii
1 Historical background: some observations on the decay of the
philosophy of science 1
1 Commonsense and abstract philosophy 1
2 Historical traditions and abstract traditions 5
3 Historians and apologists 8
4 Aristotle 12
5 Philosophical standards and practical methods 15
6 Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos and the end of rationalism 21
7 Political consequences 25
2 Classical empiricism 34
3 The structure of science 52
4 Two models of epistemic change: Mill and Hegel 65
5 Philosophy of science versus scientific practice: observations on
Mach, his followers and his opponents 80
6 Mach, Einstein and the Popperians 89
7 Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations 99
8 Consolations for the specialist 131
1 Introduction 131
2 Ambiguity of presentation 132
3 Puzzle solving as a criterion of science 133
4 The function of normal science 135
5 Three difficulties of functional argument 136
6 Does normal science exist? 140
7 A plea for hedonism 142
8 An alternative: the Lakatos model of scientific change 144
9 The role of reason in science 147
Appendix. Realism and the Bohr-Rosenfeld condition 162
VI CONTENTS
9 Popper's Objective Knowledge 168
1 Content of the book; main theses 168
2 Ontological pluralism; criteria for autonomy; the three worlds 168
3 Mental processes 170
4 The autonomy of world 3 172
5 Zoological analogues 173
6 Abstractions considered in relation to world 1 175
7 Abstractions considered in relation to each other; arithmetic 177
8 Counting; simple arithmetical laws 179
9 Interlude; objectivist accounts of knowledge 182
10 Arithmetic (continued); how to turn an oversight into an existence
proof 185
11 The metaphysics of numbers 190
12 Concluding appraisal of the three worlds 191
13 Critical rationalism and its ancestry 192
14 Refutability of physical theories 197
15 Conclusion 201
10 The methodology of scientific research programmes 202
11 More clothes from the emperor's bargain basement: a review of
Laudan's Progress and its Problems 231
1 Laudan's model 231
2 Relation to other views 233
3 Adequacy of the model 241
Sources 247
Name Index 248
Subject Index 252
Introduction to volumes 1 and 2
The present volume and its companion discuss three ideas that have played
an important role in the history of science, philosophy and civilization:
criticism, proliferation and reality. The ideas are presented, explained and
made the starting points of argumentative chains.
The first idea, that of criticism, is found in almost all civilizations. It plays
an important role in philosophies such as Buddhism and Mysticism, it is
the cornerstone of late nineteenth-century science and philosophy of
science, and it has been applied to the theatre by Diderot and Brecht.1
Criticism means that we do not simply accept the phenomena, processes,
institutions that surround us but we examine them and try to change them.
Criticism is facilitated by proliferation (vol. 1, ch. 8): we do not work with a
single theory, system of thought, institutional framework until circum-
stances force us to modify it or to give it up; we use a plurality of theories
(systems of thought, institutional frameworks) from the very beginning.
The theories (systems of thought, forms of life, frameworks) are used in
their strongest form, not as schemes for the processing of events whose
nature is determined by other considerations, but as accounts or determi-
nants of this very nature (realism, see vol. 1, chs. 11.15P). One chain of
argument is therefore
criticism => proliferation => realism (i)
In the first volume this chain is applied to a rather narrow and technical
problem, viz. the interpretation of scientific theories
None of the ideas is defined in a precise fashion. This is quite intentional.
For although some papers, especially the early ones, are fairly abstract and
'philosophical', they still try to stay close to scientific practice which means
that their concepts try to preserve the fruitful imprecision of this practice
(cf. vol. 2, ch. 5 on the ways of the scientist and the ways of the philosopher;
cf. also vol. 2, ch. 6, nn. 47ff and text).
Nor does the arrow in (i) express a well-defined connection such as
1 This wider function of criticism is explained in my essay 'On the Improvement of the
Sciences and the Arts and the Possible Identity of the Two' in Boston Studies in the Philosophy of
Science (New York, 1965), m.
2 ch. 11.15 means section 15 of ch. 11. This method of reference is used throughout both
volumes.
Vlll INTRODUCTION TO VOLUMES I AND 2
logical implication. It rather suggests that starting with the left hand side
and adding physical principles, psychological assumptions, plausible cos-
mological conjectures, absurd guesses and plain commonsense views, a
dialectical debate will eventually arrive at the right hand side. Examples
are the arguments for proliferation in vol. 1, ch. 6.1, ch. 8, n. 14 and text, ch.
4.6 as well as the arguments for realism in vol. 1, chs. 11,14 and 15. The
meaning of the arrow emerges from these examples and not from example-
independent attempts at 'clarification'.
Chapters 2-7 of vol. 1, which are some of the oldest papers, deal mainly
with the interpretation of theories (for the notion of 'theory' used cf. the
remarks in the preceding paragraph and in vol. 1, ch. 6, n.5). Chapter 1 of
the first volume shows how the realism that is asserted in thesis 1 of vol. 1,
ch. 2.6 and again in ch. 11, is related to other types of realism that have been
discussed by scientists. The thesis can be read as a philosophical thesis
about the influence of theories on our observations. It then asserts that
observations (observation terms) are not merely theory-laden (the position
of Hanson, Hesse and others) but fully theoretical (observation statements
have no 'observational core'3). But the thesis can also be read as a historical
thesis concerning the use of theoretical terms by scientists. In this case it
asserts that scientists often use theories to restructure abstract matters as
well as phenomena, and that no part of the phenomena is exempt from the
possibility of being restructured in this way. My discussion of the relation
between impetus and momentum in vol. 1, ch. 4.5 is entirely of the second
kind. It is not an attempt to draw consequences from a contextual theory of
meaning - theories of meaning play no role in this discussion - it simply shows
that both facts and the laws of Newtonian mechanics prevent us from using
the concept of impetus as part of Newton's theory of motion. Nor is the
result generalized to all competing theories. It is merely argued that certain
popular views on explanation and the relation between theories in the same
domain that claim to be universally valid fail for important scientific
developments. General assertions about incommensurability are more char-
acteristic for Kuhn whose ideas differ from mine and were developed
independently (cf. my Science in a Free Society,4 65fFfor a comparison and a
3 Or, to express it differently: there are only theoretical terms (for his version of the thesis
see my 'Das Problem der Existenz theoretischer Entitaten' in Probleme der Wissenschaftstheorie,
ed. E. Topitsch (Vienna, 1960), 35ff). There is of course a distinction between theoretical
terms and observation terms, but it is a psychological distinction, dealing with the psycho-
logical processes that accompany their use, but having nothing to do with their content (for
details see vol. 1, ch. 6, section 6). This feature of the thesis has been overlooked by some
more recent critics who ascribed to me the 'triviality that theoretical terms are theoretical'.
The best and most concise expression of the thesis can be found in Goethe: 'Das Hoechste
zu begreifen waere, dass alles Faktische schon Theorie ist' ('Aus den Wanderjahren', Insel
Werkausgabe (Frankfurt, 1970), vi 468). 4 (London, 1978), hereafter referred to as SFS.
INTRODUCTION TO VOLUMES I AND 2 IX
brief history. Chapter 17 of my Against Method5 discusses a special case that
shows what elements must be considered in any detailed discussion of
incommensurability). There do exist cases where not only do some older
concepts break the framework of a new theory, but where an entire theory,
all its observation statements included, is incommensurable with the
theory that succeeds it, but such cases are rare and need special analysis.
Using the terms of vol. 1, ch. 2.2 one can tentatively say that a theory is
incommensurable with another theory if its ontological consequences are
incompatible with the ontological consequences of the latter (cf. also the
considerations in vol. 1, ch. 4.7 as well as the more concrete definition in
AM, 269 and the appendix to ch. 8 of vol. 2). But even in this case
incommensurability does not lead to complete disjointness, as the phe-
nomenon depends on a rather subtle connection between the more sub-
terranean machinery of the two theories (cf. again A M, 269). Besides there
are many ways of comparing incommensurable frameworks, and scientists
make full use of them (vol. 1, ch. 1, n.39; cf. also vol. 1, ch. 2.6, n.21 and ch.
4.8). Incommensurability is a difficulty for some rather simpleminded
philosophical views (on explanation, verisimilitude, progress in terms of
content increase); it shows that these views fail when applied to scientific
practice; it does not create any difficulty for scientific practice itself (see
vol. 2, ch. 11.2, comments on incommensurability).
Chapters 8-15 of vol. 1 apply chain (1) to the mind-body problem, com-
monsense, the problem of induction, far-reaching changes in outlook such
as the Copernican revolution and the quantum theory. The procedure is
always the same: attempts to retain well-entrenched conceptions are criti-
cized by pointing out that the excellence of a view can be asserted only after
alternatives have been given a chance, that the process of knowledge
acquisition and knowledge improvement must be kept in motion and that
even the most familiar practices and the most evident forms of thought are
not strong enough to deflect it from its path. The cosmologies and forms of
life that are used as alternatives need not be newly invented; they may be
parts of older traditions that were pushed aside by overly eager inventors of
New Things. The whole history is mobilized in probing what is plausible,
well established and generally accepted (vol. 1, ch. 4, n. 67 and ch. 6.1).
There is much to be said in favour of a pluralistic realism of this kind.
John Stuart Mill has explained the arguments in his immortal essay On
Liberty which is still the best modern exposition and defence of a critical
philosophy (see vol. 1, ch. 8 and vol. 2, ch. 4 and ch. 9.13). But the drawbacks
are considerable. To start with, modern philosophers of science, 'critical'
rationalists included, base their arguments on only a tiny part of Mill's
scheme; they uncritically adopt some standards, which they use for weeding
5 (London, 1975), hereafter referred to as AM.