Science and Modernity: Toward an Integral Theory of Science

303 Pages·2000·15.053 MB·English

by  Srđan Lelas (auth.)

SCIENCE AND MODERNITY
BOSTON STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
Editors
ROBERT S. COHEN, Boston University
JURGEN RENN, Max-Planck-Institute for the History of Science
KOSTAS GAVROGLU, University of Athens
Editorial Advisory Board
THOMAS F. GLICK, Boston University
ADOLF GRUNBAUM, University of Pittsburgh
SYLVAN S. SCHWEBER, Brandeis University
JOHN J. STACHEL, Boston University
MARX W. WARTOFSKYt, (Editor 1960-1997)
VOLUME 214
SCIENCE
AND
MODERNITY
Toward an Integral
Theory of Science
by
SRDANLELAS
University of Zagreb,
Physics Department,
Zagreb, Croatia
KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS
DORDRECHT/BOSTON/LONDON
A C.l.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN-13:978-1-4020-0247-2 e-ISBN-13:978-94-0l0-9036-0
DOl: 10.1007/978-94-010-9036-0
Transferred to Digital Print 2001
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For Jasmina
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE xi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xiii
PART I: DIVINE SCIENCE
CHAPTER I: DIVINE KNOWLEDGE 3
I. Alienation, Autonomy, and Coexistence 4
2. Knowledge: The Identity between Thought and Being 8
3. Knowledge: Purification to
4. Knowledge: Egocentrism 12
5. Rationality 14
CHAPTER 2: THE FIRST SURROGATE: IDEAL LANGUAGE 17
1. Logic of Science 19
2. Logicism and Purification 22
3. Empiricism and the Role of the Subject 26
4. Instrumentalism 29
CHAPTER 3: THE SECOND SURROGATE: OBJECTIVE KNOWLEDGE 32
I. The Ontological Component 34
2. The Semantic Component 37
3. The Epistemic Component 40
4. The Pragmatic Retreat and the Cosmic Language 42
PART 2: MUNDANE SCIENCE
CHAPTER 4: KNOWLEDGE NATURALISED 49
I. The Naturalist Turn 50
2. Knowledge Reconsidered 55
3. Science of Science 59
vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 5: BIOSYNTHESIS 64
1. Life 65
2. Enclosed Selective Openness and Cognition 72
3. Mode of Living 77
CHAPTER 6: EVOLUTION 80
1. Classical Darwinism 82
2. Modern Darwinism 85
3. Receptors and Effectors 88
4. Evolutionary Lesson 93
PART 3: HUMANE SCIENCE
CHAPTER 7: HUMANS 99
I. Humans as Prematurely Born Mammals 100
2. Humans as Retarded Mammals 102
3. Humans as UnspeciaJised Mammals 104
4. Closing the Open Field of Movements 106
CHAPTER 8: NEUROSYNTHESIS 115
1. Nervous System 115
2. The Human Nervous System and Importance of the Body 121
3. Incompleteness of the Human Nervous System 128
CHAPTER 9: TECHNOSYNTHESIS 132
1. The Instrumental View 133
2. The Cosmic View 135
3. Allopoiesis 139
4. The Technical Reason 143
CHAPTER 10: LINGUOSYNTHESIS 149
1. Naming and Describing 150
2. Formatting 152
3. Performing 155
4. Making 157
5. Ambiguity 159
6. Controlling Metaphors 163
7. Closure 166
viii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART 4: MODERN SCIENCE
CHAPTER 11: SCIENCE AND MODERNITY 173
1. Modes of Human Autopoiesis 174
2. The Urban Revolution and the Rise of Science 177
3. Ancient and Modern Technology 181
4. Modernity 186
5. Rational Economic Man 191
6. Science and Modernity 194
CHAPTER 12: MODERN SCIENCE: EXPERIMENT 198
I. Theory and Experiment 199
2. Observation 203
3. Macroscopic Experiment 207
4. Microscopic Experiment 212
5. Natural and Artificial 217
CHAPTER 13: MODERN SCIENCE: LANGUAGE 224
1. Discovery and Generality 226
2. Description and Reproduction 228
3. Explanation and Stratification 233
4. Theory, Determination, and Reality 244
CHAPTER 14: MODERN SCIENCE: SOCIOSYNTHES1S 248
1. Personal Knowledge and its Inputs 249
2. The Strong Programme in the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge 256
3. Public Knowledge and Sedimentation 262
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER IS: SCIENCE AND THE END OF MODERNITY 271
REFERENCES 281
INDEX 287
ix
PREFACE
Modern science has become one among the few fundamental forces that shape
contemporary life and determine the future of humanity. No wonder that it has also
become the phenomenon that has been thoroughly studied from various
perspectives. Looking back at the long history of research, both philosophical and
scientific, on human cognition, and pondering over the vast contemporary literature
on science one gets the feeling that almost everything that has to be said about the
phenomenon was said already, one way or another. Yet it seems that the puzzle
remains unsolved, the pieces stay in disarray, and the overall pattern lingers in the
dusk. Moreover, from the current confrontation between pro-science and anti
science movements it looks as we are now further from a consistent understanding
of the phenomenon than we were ever before. Don Ihde (1991) detected three major
flaws in the today's portrait of science; those between philosophy of science and
philosophy of technology, Anglo-American and Euro-American tradition, and
theory-prone and praxis-prone orientation in the philosophy of science. Across them
two major camps are engaged in a fierce fight with each other, that recently
exploded into "science wars": the rationalists who take science to be a determined
rational endeavour from which the human subject can be withdrawn, and the
relativists who see science as a contingent social construction made by human
subjects that cannot transcend their local contexts.
The fundamental problem over which the debate revolves is the problem of
legitimation of science, of its right to be as it is. It has two facets: one deals with the
relation between scientific theories and reality, the other with the relationship
between science and society. The two aspects of the legitimisation problem,
epistemological and social, have given rise to two often opposing traditions: the so
called "analytic" or "Anglo-American", and the "hermeneutic" or "continental". The
former attempts to justify science, the latter to demystify it. Many useful insights
have been acquired on both sides, but the general attitudes offered by the parties are
controversial and do not do justice to the real science. As a consequence working
scientists who happen to follow the debate become confused, general public baffled,
and the trust in science shaken. The situation calls for an approach that will amend
the flaws, be balanced and complete.
This book has the ambition to provide such an approach. It is realisation of a
programme started a long time ago in Boston. 1 The programme focuses on the
physical interaction between humans as cognitive subjects and nature as their object.
1 The preliminary results were published in Lelas (1983) and (1988).
xi
PREFACE
The general character of this interaction is framed by the relation between organisms
and their environments, not by the relation between mind and its intentional objects.
So it is reasonable to adopt a naturalistic point of view, that is, to pay attention to
what biology can tell us about the interaction. In humans this interaction is mediated
by culture, and changes historically; and so does our practical and cognitive attitude
toward nature. This must also be accounted for, as continental tradition demands.
Mediation goes through three channels: technology, language, and society.
Therefore, modem science also happens in the same three media and, of course, in
the individual mind. Whatever way one interprets quantum mechanics, and
experimental science in general, an account must be given of the nature of
experimental apparatus, its interaction with the object, and the role it plays in human
cognition. This brings us to the philosophy oftechnology. As the interaction must be
performed in public and transcribed in language, the analysis of interaction
comprises also the traditional well studied topics, the analysis of language and
relevant social relations in the scientific community. Hopefully, then, all will end in
a complete and flawless portrait of the phenomenon.
It could be that not a single colour in the portrait will look original, but I believe
the painting shall; and I hope it will tum out to be more than a patchwork. Today
enough is known about nature and humans for philosophers and scientists to be able
to offer a systematic review of constraints, from biological to historical ones, that
frame human cognition and thereby also modem science. With my finite power and
resources I have tried to do this by opposing: those scientists and philosophers who
hold that science must rest on an indubitable, unchangeable, universal ground;
phenomenologists who think they can derive science from a universal, everyday,
immediate experience, or primordial practice; analytic philosophers who believe that
science is essentially a network of explicit logical inferences; scientific and
philosophical realists who assume that knowing subject can be "weeded out" from
scientific knowledge; those naturalists who fancy that all they need to understand
science is biology and psychology; and social constructivists who reduce science to
social discourse and the interests beneath it. What position is left after all these
oppositions, and how it leads out of the unfortunate pro- and anti-science
confrontation, the reader will find out for him or herself after reading the book. A
sort of summary is provided in the last chapter.
Srilan Lelas
xii