[Critical-Realism] Summary of RTS 1.2

["Brian Dick" <briandick51@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

Thanks Hans for posting the next section of RTS.  My notes on this section
are posted on the wiki site (link below) and they are reprinted below.  It
would be great if discussion began to refocus on our reading.

All the best,
Brian

http://criticalrealism.wikispaces.com/RTS+Chapter+1+Section+2


1.2 THREE TRADITIONS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE (24)



3 broad traditions in the philosophy of science (viewed historically):

   - 1.) *Classical empiricism*: the ultimate objects of knowledge are
   atomistic events.
      - Represented by Hume and his heirs.
      - Atomistic events: constitute given facts and their
      conjunctions.
         - This "exhausts the objective content of our idea of
         natural necessity."
      - "Knowledge and the world may be viewed as surfaces whose
      points are in isomorphic correspondence or, in the case of phenomenalism,
      actually fused." (24-5).
         - Science: an "automatic or behavioural response to the
         stimulus of given facts and their conjunctions" (25).
         - "science becomes a kind of epiphenomenon of nature."
      - 2.) *Transcendental idealism*: "the objects of scientific
   knowledge are models, ideals of natural order, etc."
      - Originated with Kant, but susceptible of updated and dynamized
      variations.
      - Objects of knowledge are artificial constructs.
         - Not independent of men or human activity in general.
         - May be independent of particular men.
      - Constant conjunction of events: necessary, but insufficient,
      for attributing natural necessity.
      - "Knowledge is seen as a structure rather than a surface."
      - The natural world: a construction of the mind (or the
      scientific community).
   - 3.) *Transcendental realism*: the objects of knowledge are "the
   structures and mechanisms that generate phenomena."
      - Knowledge is produced in the social activity of science.
      - Objects of knowledge are the "real structures which endure and
      operate independently of our knowledge…" (and experience; and
conditions of
      access to the structures).
         - Against empiricism: objects are structures, not events.
         - Against idealism: objects are intransitive.
      - Constant conjunction of events: neither necessary nor
      sufficient for natural necessity.
      - Both knowledge and the world: structured, differentiated, and
      changing.
         - The world: exists independently of our knowledge (but
         not our knowledge of this fact).
         - Experiences, things, and causal laws are normally out of
         phase with one another.
      - "science is not an epiphenomenon of nature, nor is nature a
      product of man."
   - Caveat: "In outlining these positions, I am not offering them as a
   complete typology, but only as one which will be of some significance in
   illuminating current issues in the philosophy of science" (26).
      - "few, if any, modern philosophers of science could be
      unamibiguously located under one of these banners."



'Realism'

   - Normally associated by philosophers with:
      - The theory of perception.
         - Real entity is some particular object of perception.
      - The theory of universals.
         - Real entity is some general feature or property of the
         world.
      - Transcendental realism:
      - Concerned with objects of scientific discovery and
      investigation (e.g., causal laws).
      - Entails particular realist positions of perception and
      universals, but not reducible to them.
   - Empirical realism:
      - Subscribed to by both classical empiricism and transcendental
      idealism.
      - Transcendental realism is in direct opposition to this
      position.



Classical Empiricism

   - Cannot sustain either the transitive (TD) or intransitive dimensions
   (ID).
      - Cannot sustain the intransitivity of events.
         - I.e., cannot distinguish between an event and the
         experience that grounds it (27).
      - Held consistently: involves both solipsism and phenomenalism.
   - Events: must be analyzed as sensations (or other human operations).



Transcendental Idealism

   - Cannot sustain the intransitive dimension (ID).
      - Objects of knowledge do not exist independently of human
      activity in general.
         - If they do, they cannot be known (e.g.,
         'things-in-themselves').
      - "attempts to uphold the objectivity (intersubjectivity) of
   facts…"
      - Can sustain transitive dimension (TD).
   - Types of transcendental idealism.
      - Dynamic: "knowledge is given structure by a sequence of
      models…"
      - Static: knowledge gained through *a priori* rules.
   - Accepts empiricist account of *being* (i.e., 'empirical realism' or
   the 'empirical world').



Transcendental Realism

   - Agrees with transcendental idealism:
      - Reject empiricist account of science.
      - Knowledge requires the social activity of science.
         - I.e., it can sustain the transitive dimension (TD).
      - "Transcendental realism argues that it is necessary to assume
   for the intelligibility of science that the order discovered in nature
   exists independently of men, i.e. of human activity in general."
      - I.e., it can sustain the intransitive dimension (ID).
      - Transcendental idealism views the order of nature as being
      "imposed by men in their cognitive activity."
   - If there were no science there would still be nature.
      - "Whatever is discovered in nature must be expressed in
      thought, but the structures and constitutions and causal laws
discovered in
      nature do not depend upon thought."
   - This philosophical position is presupposed by key aspects of the
   social activity of science.



Philosophical mistakes involved in the empiricist account of being:
'empirical realism' or the 'empirical world' (28).

   - 1.) "the use of the category of experience to define the world."
      - This gives a particular epistemological concept a general
      ontological function.
   - 2.) "being experienced or experienciable is an essential property of
   the world…"
      - This is an accidental property of some things.
         - However, these, in special circumstances, can be of
         great significance for science.
      - 3.) Neglects "the (socially produced) circumstances under
   which experience is in fact epistemically significant in science."
   - Equating the empirical with the real prevents transcendental
   idealist from providing 'surplus element' for law-like statements.
      - Cannot distinguish accidental and necessary sequences of
      events.
         - Merely reflects a difference in men's attitude to them.
         - Structure becomes a function of human needs.
         - Cannot adequately describe the principles by which
         theories are constructed and empirically tested.
            - Thus, it cannot sustain the *rationality* of the
            transitive process of science.



It is impossible to give an ontologically neutral account of science.

   - Thus, the commitment to empirical realism: weakness of both
   empiricist and idealist traditions.
   - "The sense in which every account of science presupposes an ontology
   is the sense in which it presupposes a schematic answer to the question of
   what the world must be like for science to be possible" (28-9).
      - E.g., if a philosopher holds that empirically identified
      constant conjunction of events is necessary for a causal law, given that
      science occurs, they are committed to the belief that there are such
      conjunctions.



Ontological beliefs and commitments.

   - 1.) Ontological beliefs and commitments can only be interpreted
   hypothetically.
      - Entails what must be the case for science to be possible.
         - It is completely contingent that the world is such that
         science is possible.
         - "It is only in this relative or conditional sense that
         an account of science presupposes an ontology."
      - "It is not necessary that science occurs. But given that it
      does, it is necessary that the world is a certain way. It is
contingent that
      the world is such that science is possible. And, given that it
is possible,
      it is contingent upon the satisfaction of certain social conditions that
      science in fact occurs. But given that science does or could occur, the
      world *must* be a certain way."
      - Thus, philosophical argument can establish that the world is
      structured and differentiated.
         - The *particular* structures are a matter of substantive
         scientific investigation.
         - "The necessity for categorical distinctions between
         structures and events and between open systems and closed are
indices of the
         stratification and differentiation of the world, i.e. of
         the transcendental realist ontology."
            - I.e., presupposed by the intelligibility of
            experimental activity.
         - Necessary to distinguish between (29-30):
         - Philosophical ontology: the kind of world presupposed by
         scientific activity.
         - Scientific ontology: processes postulated by some
         substantive scientific theory.
      - 2.) Propositions about ontology cannot be established
   independently of an account of science (30).
      - Note that the order of *analysis* (science à being)
*reverses*the real nature of dependency (or the real burden of
contingency).
         - "…it is not the character of science that imposes a
         determinate pattern or order on the world; but the order of
the world that,
         under certain determinate conditions, makes possible the cluster of
         activities we call 'science.'"
         - "It does not follow from the fact that the nature of the
         world can only be *known* from (a study of) science, that
         its nature is *determined *by (the structure of science)."
      - One commits the epistemic fallacy if one assumes that
      propositions in ontology are "disguised, veiled or otherwise elliptical
      propositions about science."
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