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Better Red than Dead—Putting an End to the Social Irrelevance of Postwar Philosophy of Science

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Abstract

This paper asks what is necessary in a theory of science adequate to the task of empowering philosophers of science to participate in public debate about science in a social context. It is argued that an adequate theory of science must be capable of theorizing the role of values and motives in science and that it must take seriously the irreducibly social nature of scientific knowledge.

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Notes

  1. Brenner (1990) and Martin (1991) are good sources on Duhem’s work in context. For a more partisan view, see Jaki (1987). For more general background, see Brenner (2003).

  2. Blackmore (1972) is still the best general introduction to Mach’s work in context.

  3. The literature on Neurath has blossomed in the last twenty years. Among the better sources are Cartwright et al. (1996), Nemeth and Stadler (1996), and Uebel (1992, 2000). For general background on logical empiricism, see Stadler (1997).

  4. The scare quotation marks around “non-cognitive” are to remind the reader that casual use of the expression begs important philosophical questions by implying that values and motives are not integral to some presumably “pure” form of cognition. The ineliminable, often constructive role of values and motives in cognition was a point of great importance to philosophers like Neurath and John Dewey.

  5. For a recent reassessment of the discovery-justification distinction, see Schickore and Steinle (2006).

  6. The English version of Logik der Forschung appeared only in 1959 (Popper 1959), long after Popper had become the loudest voice in post-war British philosophy of science.

  7. For more on the North American background, see Reisch (2005), Howard (2003), and McCumber (2001). On Dewey, in particular, see Ryan (1995); on Cohen, see Hollinger (1975).

  8. Philosophers of science were not alone in failing to defend persecuted colleagues during the 1950s. On the response of the general philosophical community, see McCumber (2001), and for a still broader perspective, see Schrecker (1986). The situation of the sciences during the McCarthy period is the subject of Wang (1999).

  9. Pennock (2001) is a very helpful collection of views on the intelligent design controversy. On the role of the religious right in other controversies about science policy, see Kaplan (2004).

  10. For more on the politics of the “sound science” debate and the growing role of corporate lobbyists in science policy formation, see Mooney (2006).

  11. Golan (2004) is provides a comprehensive history of expert scientific testimony.

  12. Heilbron (1987) gives several examples of historians of science providing expert testimony regarding science policy.

  13. See the recent program solicitation from the National Science Foundation, “Science of Science and Innovation Policy” (SciSIP, NSF 07-547), http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=501084

  14. One noteworthy exception is Susan Haack’s recent work on science in the courtroom, Haack (2003a, b).

  15. Schrader-Frechette (1993) is a rare and praiseworthy example of a philosopher’s substantive intervention in such public controversy. See also Schrader-Frechette (2007).

  16. Some philosophers of science have been thinking and arguing about the social dimensions of science for a long time; Longino (2006) is a helpful survey. But the question at issue here is that of developing a theory of science that empowers effective intervention in public debate.

  17. Ben-Menahem (2006) is provides a helpful, critical appraisal of arguments concerning underdetermination and conventionalism, more generally.

  18. Kitcher’s dismissal of the problem of permanent underdetermination (Kitcher 2001, 31–38) shares with other such (for example, Friedman 2001) the straw-man strategy of taking the thesis to assert that anything goes, that any of one’s favored doctrines can be defended, come what may by way of future evidence, and that there are no rational grounds upon which to distinguish alternative, empirically equivalent theories. Some who use underdetermination arguments to impugn the objectivity of science might argue thusly, but sober, science-friendly proponents of strong underdetermination theses like Duhem, Neurath, and Quine do not. One is tempted to say to Kitcher, “pick on somebody your own size.” Consider the Quinean version of the thesis. Quine emphasizes asymmetries in the “web of belief,” such as relative resistance to revision varying with distance from the center of the web (we don’t give up our logic easily), that provide the scientist with rational reasons for preferring one option to another. On this view, no principle is ever permanently immune to revision (why should it be?), but what drives the scientist’s choices is not just whim or prejudice. Nor does Quine assert that anything goes. What he asserts is that a cherished thesis can always be retained, as long as one is willing to make sufficiently drastic changes elsewhere in the web of belief. The problem for the anything-goes relativist is that the price one has to pay to maintain one’s pet principle is usually prohibitively high, as with denying what others see as obvious evidence. No proof from self-evident first principles will convict the persistent dogmatist of error in such cases, but it is one of several diseases peculiar to philosophers to think that only such proof suffices to secure the integrity of science. Why, in a contingent world, should one not be content with contingent safeguards for the integrity of science?

  19. Yet another factor complicating theory choice in the here and now is that the underdetermination often results not because two competing theories are empirically equivalent but because what one might term the “phenomenal domains” of the theories don’t coincide. One theory might have implications with respect to questions about which another theory is mute. Judgments about which are the important questions to address represent another moment of theory choice in which auxiliary motives might play a big role.

  20. For contrasting views on the question see Pielke et al. (2005) and Mann and Emanuel (2006).

  21. The project on “Wissenschaftstheorie im Anwendungsbereich” (“Philosophy of Science in the Domain of Application”) at Bielefeld University is a commendable if rare example of philosophers of science seeking to address the distinctive characteristics of applied science. Representative of the work emerging from this project is Carrier (2004).

  22. It was Albert Einstein who wrote, about the benefit of studying history and philosophy of science, “A knowledge of the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insight is—in my opinion—the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth” (Einstein to Robert Thornton, December 7, 1944, as quoted in Howard (2005), 34).

  23. See Mirowski (1989) for a critical discussion of the scientific pretensions of neo-classical economics.

  24. Fortunately, philosophers of science who think questions of justice relevant to a socialized theory of science have more resources upon which to draw than just the neo-liberalism of John Rawls (1971), which is Kitcher’s main resource (Kitcher 2001). Those making policy in a contingent, real, social world pervaded by interests of many kinds are little helped by an ideal model of rational calculators operating behind the veil of ignorance in the original position, a model that Neurath probably would have seen as just another example of pseudo-rationalism. One needs tools for theorizing interest. In this one respect, at least, Marx has the advantage over Rawls.

  25. Rudner’s argument was, just as famously, attacked in Levi (1960).

  26. Peterson (1984) is a classic source. For more recent overviews, see Chopyak and Levesque (2002) and Douglas (2005). For examples of philosophers of science tentatively exploring connections between game theory and norms, see Bicchieri et al. (1997).

  27. Some aspects of the reductionism and emergence controversy and the debate between solid state and particle physicists are discussed in Howard (2007).

  28. Kitcher (1996) is an impressive, and rare, example of a philosopher of science seriously engaging the revolution in applied molecular genetics.

  29. Okruhlik (1994) makes this point very persuasively.

  30. Only in 1994 was it mandated by NIH that women and minorities be represented in clinical trials. For overviews, see Caldwell et al. (2004), McMurdo et al. (2005), and Merkatz (1998).

  31. Herzog et al. (2001) provides a helpful review of the funding for research on renewable energy sources.

  32. One takes heart from recent growth of interest in value questions among philosophers of science. See, for example, Machamer and Wolters (2004), Kincaid et al. (2007), and Carrier et al. (2007).

  33. Early failures to replicate Boyle’s results are an important issue in Shapin and Schaffer (1985).

  34. A helpful, sober appraisal of this famously controversial episode can be found in Gliboff (2006).

  35. That we so easily advert to the view that “knowing” is the relevant epistemic modality in science, as opposed to something like “provisional acceptance” or “taking as pursuitworthy,” might be yet another legacy of the individualist bias in epistemology. After all, in the strictest sense, scientists do not know that space-time is curved, while there is general agreement within the relevant communities that this view, a consequence of general relativity, is the best one available at present. For more on the variety of epistemic modalities at play in science, see McKaughan (2007).

  36. Hardwig (1985) emphasizes the point about the large numbers of people involved in particle physics experiments. See Baird (2004) for an interesting discussion of the way in which, starting in the mid-20th century, the knowledge involved in the design, construction, and operation of scientific instrumentation tends to be black-boxed.

  37. No surprise, therefore, that Neurath (1932) contested the phenomenalism advocated by the Vienna Circle’s right wing in the context of the protocol-sentence debate during the early 1930s. For an analysis of the debate, see Zhai (1990).

  38. Boring (1929) is the classic history of the development of experimental psychology; see also Rieber et al. (1980). For recent philosophical and sociological perspectives, see Hatfield (1990) and Kusch (1995).

  39. Two helpful sources are Shimony and Nails (1987) and Kornblith (1994).

  40. See Biddle (2007) for a compelling argument that the important failures were institutional.

  41. Fuller’s unfortunate intervention on behalf of the defendants, hence on behalf of requiring the teaching of intelligent design in public schools, in the Katzmiller v. Dover case of 2005 (Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. 400 F. Supp. 2d 707 (M.D. Pa. 2005)) demonstrates only too well how, from the point of view of serious defenders of the integrity of science, social critique can devolve into what one dogged defender dubs the “New Cynicism” (Haack 2007, 21). Fuller’s statement in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case, “Rebuttal of Dover Expert Reports,” a copy of which can be found at http://www2.ncseweb.org/kvd/experts/fuller.pdf, makes instructive reading.

  42. How to interpret the longer-term implications of Ward Churchill’s recent firing by the University of Colorado is not clear. One is distressed, however, by the alacrity with which charges of plagiarism and other academic misconduct, the subject of old rumors, were investigated and made the legal basis for his dismissal only after his ill-considered remarks about the 9/11 attacks. For a recent, somewhat comprehensive report, see the story about the firing in the July 24, 2007 issue of the Rocky Mountain News: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5642650,00.html

  43. See also Kitcher (1993). The quibbler will say that realism is not a neo-positivist dogma. In fact, the relationship of realism to neo-positivism is more complicated than folklore suggests. Here, just three points out of a much-needed longer analysis: (1) Reichenbach, the teacher of Hilary Putnam (who made famous the “no-miracles” argument for realism), was, himself, a realist of sorts. (2) Thoughtful readers of Carl Hempel’s “The Theoretician’s Dilemma” (1958) all realized that the in-principle eliminabiltiy of theoretical terms promised by the Craig elimination theorem wouldn’t pose a dilemma for the anti-realist. (3) The call for the elimination of metaphysics from science does not entail anti-realism, and the dispensibility of theoretical terms, especially via individual, eliminative definitions, can be viewed as proof of possession of cognitive meaning, not lack of it.

  44. But see also the interesting later collection, Koertge (2005), where the temperature is a bit lower.

  45. See the opinion of Judge John E. Jones III in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case, a copy of which can be found here: http://www2.ncseweb.org/kvd/all_legal/2005-12-20_Kitzmiller_decision.pdf

  46. McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, 529 F. Supp. 1255, 1258–1264 (ED Ark. 1982).

  47. This difficulty and the associated difficulty of specifying necessary and sufficient conditions for cognitive meaningfulness were old news by the 1980s; see, for example, Hempel (1950). Robert Pennock’s expert statement in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case, while arguing that intelligent design is not science, handles the demarcation question with more subtlety and nuance than one found in Ruse’s testimony in the Arkansas case. A copy of Pennock’s statement can be found here: http://www2.ncseweb.org/kvd/experts/pennock.pdf

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  1. Philosophy, University of Notre Dame, 100 Malloy Hall, Notre Dame, IN, 46556, USA

    Don Howard

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Howard, D. Better Red than Dead—Putting an End to the Social Irrelevance of Postwar Philosophy of Science. Sci & Educ 18, 199–220 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-007-9117-3

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