Re: BHA: Mainstream Philosophy of Science

[Mervyn Hartwig <mh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Marshall,

>CR provides no substantial grounds for believing
>what that research says to be true?

Could you say what you mean by this a little more? I think the exact
opposite - that CR provides the best possible grounds for believing
scientific truth-claims. Just because CR acknowledges that such claims
are made within history and so will one day be superseded (not the same
as 'rendered false') (epistemic relativism) and are fallible does *not*
entail that it provides no substantial grounds for believing them. When
Bhaskar says that 'capitalism is based on a lie' he means that
capitalism *is* based on a lie and therefore (other reasons aside)
should be changed, cp.

Mervyn


Marshall Feldman <marsh@xxxxxxx> writes
>Hi all,
>
>Thanks for chiming in Ronny. This is very helpful.
>
>I'm more interested in engaging some arguments from what I called
>"mainstream philosophy of science" than in figuring out why RB has not done
>more to further the cause. Here are two comments.
>
>1. Coincidentally, I came across this quote from Adorno this morning. (It's
>in an article about quantitative economic geography, something that's more
>of my home turf.) "Genuine refutation must penetrate the power of the
>opponent and meet him [sic] on the ground of his strength; the case is not
>won by attacking him somewhere else and defeating him where he is not"
>(_Against Epistemology_, Blackwell 1982, cited in Plummer and Sheppard,
>"Must Emancipatory Economic Geography be Qualitative?" _Antipode_ 2001:
>195). One has to wonder about how serious a critique is if it doesn't engage
>the enemy seriously. As an outsider it certainly seems much easier for RB or
>at least his philosophy students to be taken seriously by Philosophers than
>for economic geographers (and other radicals) to be taken seriously by
>mainstream economists. At least the philosophers seem to be interested in
>the same issues, use some of the same ideas, and refer to the same dead
>white men. The economists and economic geographers generally do not share
>even this in common, yet we've made them take notice (admittedly because
>their aspatial irrealism was and is so out of touch with reality that at
>least some of them may have been embarrassed).
>
>2. Issues in the mainstream seem critical for CR. Take for example "truth
>realism." Papineau nicely describes realism as being based on two
>propositions: 1) The world exists independent of our knowledge, and 2) It's
>possible to have knowledge the world. "Truth realism," as I understand it,
>focuses on the second proposition and claims that most scientific knowledge
>is true in that it approximates a correct picture of the world. CR, on the
>other hand, seems to side-step the issue by using the epistemic fallacy to
>deflect much discussion about how true scientific theories are. As we all
>know, "knowledge" in the transient dimension is fallible. This claim, which
>I accept, often seems to license avoiding serious discussion of truth and
>knowledge. Yet how can CR claim to be emancipatory if we have no strong
>concept of truth (alethic truth aside, which as I understand it is truth in
>terms of the world rather than in terms of human knowledge)? On what grounds
>would we, for instance, justify any difficult political action by light of
>scientific research when CR provides no substantial grounds for believing
>what that research says to be true?
>
>BTW, whatever Papineau's own leanings, the particular collection I'm reading
>does seem to have authors of various points of view. The two things I've
>seen that they have in common are: (1) virtually all their examples come
>from physics or, at best, chemistry, and (2) they all seem to suffer from
>what Bernstein calls "the Cartesian Anxiety" in that the fate of realism
>hinges on the philosopher's ability to provide a good, logical argument for
>believing science to be true.
>
>       Regard,
>
>       Marsh Feldman
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: owner-bhaskar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> [mailto:owner-bhaskar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of
>> rsmyhre@xxxxxxxxxx
>> Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2002 9:13 AM
>> To: bhaskar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Cc: ronnym@xxxxxxxxxxxx; rsmyhre@xxxxxxxxxx
>> Subject: Re: BHA: Mainstream Philosophy of Science
>>
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Mainstream Philosophy of Science. Is there such an animal?
>>
>> I think this thread is highly interesting and as a wannabe philosopher of
>> science I feel I have to respond.
>>
>> I dispute that there are any mainstream philosophy of science
>> today. I also
>> disagree with the claim that most philosophers of science is
>> positivists. In
>> the 1950s and the 1960s maybe there was such a beast as
>> 'mainstream philosophy
>> of science' but certainly not today. On the contrary,
>> contemporary philosophy
>> of science (now I am talking about specialists in philosophy of
>> science not
>> other academics) is a highly disputed terrain. I can't think of
>> any central
>> interesting topic that most philosophers of science agree on.
>>
>> Another question is why Bhaskar is almost unknown among professional
>> philosophers. I think some have made to much about this. For two reasons.
>> Firstly, RTS is certainly a original book but it is nothing of
>> the watershed
>> in philosophy of science as some on this list has made it into.
>> An underground
>> tradition of aristotelians have defended causal realism all the
>> time, also
>> during the heyday of positivism. Several philosophers,
>> contemporary with the
>> RTS, developed a realist theory of causal powers - Milton Fisk's
>> 'Nature and
>> Necessity' (1973), Sydney Shoemaker's 'Causality and Properties'
>> (article)
>> (1980), Michael Ayers' 'The Refutation of Determinism' (1968)
>> etc. Several
>> others on this list have mentioned Rom Harre & Edward Madden's
>> 'Causal Powers'
>> (1975), a work, to my mind, more impressive in some ways than
>> RTS. Secondly,
>> there have been some critical engagement with RTS among philosophers of
>> science. Take Alan Chalmers book 'What is this thing Called
>> Science?' a widely
>> used introduction to philosophy of science, for instance,
>> Chalmers discusses
>> Bhaskar and defend him against the alternative realist account
>> developed by
>> Nancy Cartwright. I discovered Bhaskar through Marxism but one of
>> my friends
>> started reading Bhaskar through Chalmers.
>>
>> In any case we have to reflect on any other reasons why Bhaskar
>> is not more
>> widely discussed among philosophers of science. I can think of
>> some reasons.
>>
>> 1) As Ruth notes, to establish oneself as an important
>> philosopher of science
>> takes hard work. You will have to attend to conferences and
>> participate in
>> discussions in journals (especially such as Philosophy of
>> Science, British
>> Journal for Philosophy of Science and Synthese). It seems that
>> Bhaskar has not
>> done any original work in metaphysics and philosophy of (natural) science
>> since RTS. It seems that DPF is more influenced by his reading of
>> Derrida,
>> Hegel, Heidegger and other 'continental philosophers than analytic
>> philosophers. What he writes about philosophy of science in Plato Etc is
>> simply a restatement of what he said in RTS and the artcles
>> published in the
>> 1970s.
>>
>> 2) Bhaskar's style. Bhaskar's books (even RTS but to a lesser
>> degree) is noted
>> by the absence (sic) of critical engagement with other philosophers, both
>> living and non-living. Bhaskar can refute a whole position in one
>> paragraph.
>> This is alien to analytic philosophy, if not 'continental'
>> philosophy. Most
>> philosophers like books where they can learn something through particular
>> arguments. With Bhaskar it is in some way opposite, you will have
>> to accept
>> the whole packet before the particular arguments make sense.
>>
>> 3) Several philosophers have developed positions than
>> transgresses Bhaskar.
>> Bhaskar was undoubtably one of the first to develop a realist account of
>> causal powers and something like realism about possibilities.
>> Today several
>> other positions compete, Cartwright, Salmon, Ellis, Tooley defends causal
>> power realism if not full blown modal realism. I think that
>> Bhaskars account
>> in some ways are superior to those mentioned above, but Bhaskars
>> position need
>> to be enriched and developed by a critical engagement with contemporary
>> metaphysics and philosophy of science. This is a condition of
>> necessity for
>> its survival as a tenable position today in contemporary
>> philosophy of science.
>>
>> 4) This topic has been widely discussed earlier but I have to mention it
>> again. Most analytic philosophers are either reductive or non-reductive
>> (emergent) physicalists. FEW and the books to be published this
>> summer seem to
>> be spiritualist or something like spititualism. Not suprisingly, most
>> philosophers would be put off by this turn. In any case it seems that the
>> project launched in RTS (a philosophy FOR science) looks to have
>> exploded in
>> favour of a philosophy of wisdom, more in commom with Krishnamurti
>> and 'eastern wisdom' than topics discussed by philosophers of science.
>>
>> Maybe I have formulated myself to harsh regarding Bhaskar. But
>> that will be a
>> misunderstanding of my position. RTS, PON is to my mind great
>> works that would
>> enrich contemporary metaphysics and philosophy of science if it
>> became more
>> widely known. But that means that CR need to renew itself by engaging in
>> contemporary philosophy of science.
>>
>> Mervyn:
>>
>> > I think the crucial thing is that Papineau comes out of the positivist
>> > tradition (which as you know Bhaskar submits to withering critique), and
>> > is still fundamentally operating within it in many respects, as are many
>> > who call themselves 'realists' of one kind or another. Even Ellis, e.g.,
>> > in his reductionism is still operating within it. Politically, too, this
>> > kind of approach is supportive of the status quo, and the 'critical' in
>> > critical realism is just too radical for them. The whole tradition
>> > accepts Hume on facts and values.
>>
>> I think this is unfair. Ellis seems to be something like a social
>> democrat, or
>> at least a critic of neo-classical economics. Maybe he would be
>> interested in
>> Lawson's book? Bhaskar's 'withering critique of positivism' would
>> in no way
>> hurt Papineau's position. (Interestingly Papineau supervised Psillos
>> dissertation at the LSE, and Psillos as Howard has mentioned is
>> in some ways a
>> critical realist). It is correct that Papineau is a naturalist and a
>> reductionist but not a positivist. He defends theoretical entities. Some
>> philosophers of this 'tradition' is also committed  to moral
>> realism (Richard
>> Boyd, Mario Bunge) but theirs have been a minority position. Most
>> philosophers
>> of science, I believe, don't have neither time nor strenght to develop
>> systematically their views on ethics. Bhaskar's 'synoptic vision'
>> is in such a
>> perspective highly admirable.
>>
>> Best Regards,
>>
>> Ronny S. Myhre
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>
>
>
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>
>
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--
Mervyn Hartwig
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