Relativism and Realism in Science

297 Pages·1988·40.099 MB·English

by  Robert Nola (auth.), Robert Nola (eds.)

RELATIVISM AND REALISM IN SCIENCE
AUSTRALASIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND
PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
General Editor:
R. W. HOME, University of Melbourne
Editorial Advisory Board
W. R. ALBURY, University of New South Wales
D. W. CHAMBERS, Deakin University
R. JOHNSTON, University of Wollongong
H. E. LE GRAND, University of Melbourne
A. MUSGRAVE, University of Otago
G. c. NERLICH, University ofA delaide
D. R. OLDROYD, University of New South Wales
E. RICHARDS, University of Wollongong
J. J. C. SMART, Australian National University
R. YEO, Griffith University
VOLUME 6
RELATIVISM AND
REALISM IN SCIENCE
Edited by
ROBERT NOLA
Department of Philosophy, University ofA uckland, New Zealand
KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS
DORDRECHT I BOSTON I LONDON
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Relativism and realism in science.
(Australasian studies in history and philosophy
of science; v. 6)
Includes index.
1. Science-Philosophy. 2. Science-Social aspects.
3. Relativity. I. Nola, Robert. II. Series.
Q17S.R385 1988 501 88-4516
ISBN-13: 978-94-010-7795-8 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-009-2877-0
DOl: 10.1007/978-94-009-2877-0
Published by Kluwer Academic Publishers,
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All Rights Reserved
© 1988 by Kluwer Academic Publishers
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
FOREWORD vu
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS U
ROBERT NOLA / Introduction: Some Issues Concerning
Relativism and Realism in Science 1
DA VID PAPINEAU / Does the Sociology of Science Discredit
Science? 37
JOHN F. FOX / It's All in the Day's Work: A Study of the
Ethnomethodology of Science 59
PHILIP PETTIT / The Strong Sociology of Knowledge Without
Relativism 81
KAI HAHLWEG AND CLIFFORD A. HOOKER /Evolutionary
Epistemology and Relativism 93
LARRY LAUD AN / Are All Theories Equally Good? A
Dialogue 117
FREDERICK KROON / Realism and Descriptivism 141
GRAHAM ODDIE / On a Dogma Concerning Realism and
Incommensurability 169
GREGORY CURRIE / Realism in the Social Sciences: Social
Kinds and Social Laws 205
ALAN MUSGRAVE / The Ultimate Argument for Scientific
Realism 229
RICHARD SYLVAN / Radical Pluralism - An Alternative to
Realism, Anti-Realism and Relativism 253
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS 293
INDEX OF NAMES 297
FOREWORD
The institutionalization of History and Philosophy of Science as a
distinct field of scholarly endeavour began comparatively early -
though not always under that name - in the Australasian region. An
initial lecturing appointment was made at the University of Melbourne
immediately after the Second World War, in 1946, and other appoint
ments followed as the subject underwent an expansion during the
1950s and 1960s similar to that which took place in other parts of
the world. Today there are major Departments at the University of
Melbourne, the University of New South Wales and the University of
Wollongong, and smaller groups active in many other parts of Australia
and in New Zealand.
"Australasian Studies in History and Philosophy of Science" aims to
provide a distinctive publication outlet for Australian and New Zealand
scholars working in the general area of history, philosophy and social
studies of science. Each volume comprises a group of essays on a
connected theme, edited by an Australian or a New Zealander with
special expertise in that particular area. Papers address general issues,
however, rather than local ones; parochial topics are avoided. Further
more, though in each volume a majority of the contributors is from
Australia or New Zealand, contributions from elsewhere are by no
means ruled out. Quite the reverse, in fact - they are actively encour
aged wherever appropriate to the balance of the volume in question.
R. W. HOME
General Editor
Australasian Studies in History
and Philosophy ofS cience
Vll
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank Rod Home, the General Editor of this series, for
his cheerful encouragement from the time when I first suggested to him
that I might undertake the project of collecting some papers on the
topic of this volume by philosophers who are currently working, or who
have worked, in New Zealand or Australia. I would also like to thank
Jack Smart, a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for the series,
for his assistance in preparing the volume. Others who made helpful
suggestions to me include Jan Crosthwaite, John Clendinnen, Fred
Kroon and Denis Robinson.
All of the papers were specially commissioned for this volume
though earlier versions of some papers have been presented at con
ferences. In particular, David Papineau's paper 'Does the Sociology
of Science Discredit Science?' was originally delivered to the Israel
Colloquium for the History, Philosophy and Sociology of Science.
David Papineau would like to thank the organizers of the Colloquium
and the Van Leer Jerusalem Foundation for their invitation and I
would like to thank them for their permission to publish the paper in
the present volume.
ROBERT NOLA
IX
ROBERT NOLA
INTRODUCTION: SOME ISSUES CONCERNING
RELATIVISM AND REALISM IN SCIENCE
1. INTRODUCTION
Realism is an interpretation of scientific theories nearly as old as
science itself. When Aristotle presented Eudoxus' theory of nested
concentric rotating spheres devised to account for the motions of the
planets and stars, he assumed that it gave a picture of how the cosmos
was actually constructed. His immediate successors were less sanguine
about the possibility that any scientific theory, whether of concentric
spheres or of combinations of epicycles and deferents, could provide us
with such a picture at all. They were early instrumentalists who pre
ferred to regard theories as devices whose task was only, as they put it,
"to save the phenomena". Realism and instrumentalism are rival views
of science; a third rival is relativism.
While realist and instrumentalist interpretations of scientific theory
are of ancient vintage, the relativist interpretation is of much more
recent vintage, but with roots in a philosophical relativism even more
ancient as a doctrine than either realism or instrumentalism. Protagoras
is philosophy's first recorded relativist. However in recording his views,
Plato, in the Theaetatus, delivered the first drubbing meted out to a
relativist, a fate to be repeated down the centuries. Our own century
has been no less unkind to philosophical relativists starting with early
critics as diverse as Lenin 1 and Husserl2 and continuing to the present
with writers such as Passmore,3 Davidson,4 Putnam,S Newton-Smith,6
Bumyeat,1 Rorty and Siegel,9 to name just a few. No matter how much
8
philosophers are at odds with one another they seem, with only a few
exceptions,10 to be united in their condemnation of relativism. However
relativism exerts a strange fascination and a number of philosophers, as
Putnam has noted in his own case, 11 have found it instructive to come
to terms with the ways they find it to be self-refuting or incoherent (if
they find it so at all).
Realism and instrumentalism were the two main rival interpretations
of scientific theory discussed in any detail by philosophers before this
century; the relativist interpretation hardly featured in their debates.
1
Robert Nola (ed.), Relativism and Realism in Science, 1-35.
© 1988 by Kluwer Academic Publishers.
2 ROBERT NOLA
Long an outcast from philosophy, relativism has, for most of this
century, found a home in the doctrines of most (but not all) sociologists
of knowledge and, more recently, in the doctrines of most (but, again,
not all) sociologists of science, several historians of science and a
handful of philosophers of science. Just how much of relativism they
have sheltered varies considerably; in some cases most of the main
features of relativism have been adopted while in a few cases only the
name has been retained, perhaps because of its shock value. Under the
influence of many of these theoreticians relativism has become a perva
sive interpretation of most aspects of the scientific endeavour. Suffice to
mention that relativism has been espoused, in one form or another, at
least with respect to ~a) the methods and canons of reasoning found in
science, (b) the ontology of science (the alleged incommensurability of
pairs of theories being one ground for this claim), (c) observations in
science (the alleged theory-Iadenness of observations and the unavail
ability of a foundationalist epistemology being two grounds for the
claim of observational relativity), (d) truth claims for the theoretical
statements of science (one ground for this being the rejection of realist
theories of truth such as the correspondence theory of truth).
In general, many sociologists and some historians and philosophers
of science have regarded science as a cultural effusion essentially no
different from any of the belief systems and practices with which it has
been traditionally contrasted, such as religion or myth. They have also
alleged that science has no privileged status as a means of gathering
knowledge of the world, as many philosophers have claimed, and have
insisted that it ought to be studied in the same way as one would study
any cultural phenomenon. Just as anthropologists have recorded the
beliefs and practices of alien tribes of people and have drawn relativist
conclusions with respect to both beliefs and values, so sociologists,
along with their fellow-travelling historians and philosophers, have
entered the domains of tribes of scientists to study their beliefs and
practices and have, similarly, drawn relativist conclusions with respect
to their beliefs, norms and goals. As a result of these studies they have
tended to cast aspersions on the picture of the scientific endeavour
traditionally presented by philosophers with a less anthropologically
oriented approach to the study of science. Such studies are, of course, a
valuable contribution to our understanding of science. But need we
accept the relativist conclusions that the sociologists have drawn,
especially in the case of the tribe of scientists? Moreover, what of the
status of the lucubrations of the tribes of anthropologists and sociolo-
INTRODUCTION 3
gists themselves? Are the reports of their investigations and the norms
governing their procedures merely another cultural effusion like the
matters they study, or do they have a privileged status in that they are
based on a firmer foundation? These and other questions concerning
relativism will be taken up again subsequently.
At first glance it would appear that relativism stands in marked
contrast to realism. On the whole this is correct. However if distinctions
are carefully drawn between varieties of realism and relativism it will be
seen that some of the varieties are compatible with one another. For
example, it will be shown below that some sociologists of science are
realists in the sense that they maintain that there is one common reality
to which scientific theorising is a response (i.e., they are not ontological
relativists but ontological realists) while they also maintain that there is
no one theory of scientific method or set of canons of reasoning that
can justifiably be accepted above any other (i.e., they are epistemo
logical or methodological relativists). Clearly not all brands of non
realism are relativistic in character. In fact given the varieties of realism
in science that can be distinguished there emerges a corresponding
range of varieties of non-realism of which relativism in science is only
one. Thus the realisms and relativisms evaluated here are not exhaus
tive of the range of possible interpretations of the scientific endeavour
but they do, on the whole, stand in contrast with one another.
In this introductory survey of the issues which surround both realism
and relativism in science, no attempt will be made to present either a
complete taxonomy of the varieties of realism and relativism that can
be found or to argue for or against the plausibility or coherence of each
kind. What will be offered is a sketch of a number of pigeon-holes into
which some of the varieties of realism and relativism can be slotted and,
in a few cases, some of the difficulties which face these varieties, most
of the difficulties being raised in the case of relativism rather than
realism. Some of the claims made by some leading sociologists of
science will also be discussed to locate them with respect to the
varieties of relativism distinguished. The contributions that the papers
collected in this volume make concerning realism and relativism will be
summarized briefly in the final section of this introduction.
2. VARIETIES OF REALISM
Realism stands in contrast not only to the already mentioned instrumen
talism and relativism but also to phenomenalism, pragmatism, verifica-