| |
Feyerabend
on Semantic Incommensurability
Feyerabend's later and more comprehensive
statement of his incommensurability thesis is set
forth in chapter seventeen and in a brief appendix
in his Against Method. The centrality of the incommensurability thesis to
his philosophy is indicated by the fact that this
chapter and its immediately following appendix
pertaining to the incommensurability thesis, take up
approximately seventy pages of this three hundred
page book. Later
in his Science and a Free Society (1978) he emphasizes that his intent in
the discussion of incommensurability is to
understand the changes that take place when a new
world view enters the scene, and that this requires
examining it from the perspective of the concerned
parties, and not as it appears or is projected on to
a later ideology years afterwards. The significance of incommensurability is that the concerned
parties experiencing it cannot subject the new idea
to what they regard as their own rationality, and
must allow reason which is accessible to them to be
violated. He
views this analysis from the inside to be of the
utmost practical importance, because it is what
occurs in a scientific revolution, every researcher
should be prepared for such events, which would
otherwise catch the researcher by surprise.
In the opening sentence of chapter seventeen
of Against
Method Feyerabend says that he has much sympathy
with the clearly and elegantly formulated view of
Whorf, and he gives a brief summary of Whorf's
principle of linguistic relativity.
In the appendix following the chapter he
notes that Whorf's principle admits to two
alternative interpretations.
On one interpretation it means that observers
using widely different languages will posit
different facts in the same physical circumstances
in the same physical world.
On the other interpretation it means merely
that observers using widely different languages will
arrange similar facts in different ways.
The former interpretation is the one that
Feyerabend says he uses for his own
incommensurability thesis, and he justifies this
interpretation on the basis of the great influence
that Whorf ascribes to grammatical categories and
especially to the hidden rapport system of language. The covert classifications that result from this hidden
rapport system or central exchange create patterned
resistances to widely divergent points of view.
Feyerabend says that if these resistances
oppose not just the truth of the resisted
alternative views, but the presumption that an
alternative has been presented, then we have in
instance of incommensurability.
This is the closest that Feyerabend comes to
a definition of incommensurability, because as he
says, it is hardly ever possible to give explicit
definition of it, since it depends on covert
classifications and involves major conceptual
changes.
The body of Feyerabend's chapter discussing
incommensurability is organized into three theses,
which are summarized at the end.
His first thesis is that there are in fact
frameworks of thought which are incommensurable, and
he emphasizes that this is an anthropological
thesis. He maintains Whorf's principle of linguistic relativity
applies to scientific theories such as Aristotle's
theory of motion, the theory of relativity, the
quantum theory and classical and modern cosmology,
because they are sufficiently deep and have
developed in sufficiently complex ways that they may
be viewed as widely divergent and incommensurable
natural languages.
And he therefore also maintains that
philosophy of science is anthropology of science and
not logic of science as both the Positivists and
Popper had maintained. In the examination of the incommensurable theories, where
facts asserted by each cannot be compared side by
side even in memory, it is necessary to take the
approach of the field linguist and learn the new
theory from scratch.
The irrationality of the transition to the
new theory is overcome by the determined production
of nonsense until the material produced is rich
enough to permit recognition of new universal
principles. The
initial madness turns to sanity provided that it is
sufficiently rich and sufficiently regular to
function as the basis of a new world view. There is no translation involved; instead there is a learning
process. This
is how Feyerabend sees the transition from classical
mechanics to quantum mechanics and from Newtonian
mechanics to relativity theory.
His second thesis is that incommensurability
has an analogue in the psychology of perception, and
that the development of perception and thought in
the individual passes through stages that are
mutually incommensurable.
This is contrary to the Positivist philosophy
of observation, and Feyerabend references Piaget's
work with perceptual development in children.
His third thesis is that scientific theories
may be incommensurable even when they apparently
treat of the same subject matter and the same
problem. On
a realistic interpretation, as opposed to an
instrumentalist interpretation, incommensurable
theories do not treat the same subject matter.
A new theory such as relativity theory in
physics does not treat the same problem that is
treated by its predecessor, Newtonian mechanics,
when the former replaced the latter.
The new theory does not solve problems
confronting the old theory, but rather it dissolves
them and removes them from the domain of inquiry,
because the new incommensurable theory has an
ontology that replaces that of the older theory. When the faulty ontology of the older theory is
comprehensive, as in the Newtonian physics, then
every description inside the domain must be changed;
it must be replaced by a different statement in the
new theory or it may be replaced by no statement at
all. The
new ontologies of relativity theory and quantum
theory do not just deny the existence of classical
states of affairs, they do not even permit us to
formulate statements expressing such states of
affairs. Crucial
experiments are therefore impossible, because one
theory cannot establish or refute another theory
incommensurable with the former.
Each incommensurable theory has its own
facts, and it can be refuted only by reference to
its own kind of experience, that is to say, by
discovering its internal contradictions.
Their contents cannot be compared.
Aside from internal inconsistency, the only
basis for preference for one of several mutually
incommensurable theories is some subjective basis,
such as the scientist's metaphysical prejudices, his
religious convictions, or his personal judgments of
taste.
Feyerabend
on Scientific Anarchy
In Science
and a Free Society (1978) Feyerabend says in a
section containing some autobiographical notes that
von Weizsacker (a former student of Heisenberg) has
prime responsibility for Feyerabend's change to his
anarchistic view.
They met in Hamburg in 1965 and discussed the
foundations of quantum theory.
Feyerabend complained that alternatives to
quantum theory had been omitted, but Weizsacker
showed how quantum mechanics arose from concrete
research. Feyerabend
relates that it then became clear to him that
general methodological rules imposed without regard
to circumstances are a hindrance rather than a help,
and that a person must be given complete freedom
with no restrictions by any norms or demands
regardless of how plausible they may seem to
logicians and philosophers.
Feyerabend concluded that such norms and
demands must be checked by research, and not by
appeal to ideas of rationality.
Thus did Feyerabend come to advocate
scientific anarchy.
In Against
Method (1975), Feyerabend's first book, he
expounds his philosophy in terms of this political
metaphor, “scientific anarchy”, which he fully
intends to be intellectually more radical than
Kuhn's metaphor, “scientific revolution".
Feyerabend's metaphor includes his principles
of tenacity and theory proliferation to which he
adds an antimethodological practice which he calls
"counterinduction", a concept of
scientific development that is opposed both to the
Logical Positivist critical method of confirmation
and also to Popper's critical method of
corroboration.
Counterinduction is opposed to all concepts
of scientific rationality and methodology in which
criticism is intended to eliminate some scientific
theories as incorrect.
Feyerabend advocates scientific anarchy,
because he denies that there is any method or
concept of rationality that is adequate to the
history of successful science in any sense of the
term. He
is against all methodologies, because there is no
methodological rule that has not been violated, and
these violations are necessary for science.
The only rule that he admits is that
“anything goes.”
There is no institutional aim of science in
his view, but instead each scientist may formulate
his own individual aim of science, and
"progress" may mean anything one may wish.
In Feyerabend's view scientific knowledge is
an ever-increasing ocean of mutually incompatible
and even incommensurable theories with each theory
forcing the others into greater articulation.
In this view counterinduction aims to
introduce and to elaborate hypotheses, which are
inconsistent with well established theories and with
well established facts.
This perpetual pluralism is possible, because
even the worthiest theory has many anomalies where
it does not fit the facts, while at the same time
all factual statements contain theoretical
assumptions. Not
only is every factual description dependent on some
theory, but there are also facts that cannot be
unearthed except with the help of alternatives to
the theory to be tested.
These facts are unavailable so long as such
alternative theories are excluded.
In Feyerabend's view the practice of
scientific research must not contain any rules
requiring either consistency with so-called
confirmed theories or with the choice between
falsified and nonfalsified theories.
The ocean of anomalies that always surrounds
every theory is concealed by ad
hoc hypotheses and by ad
hoc approximations that are not the result of
limited measurement accuracy, but are adjustments to
the theory to make it fit complicated cases.
Feyerabend illustrates counterinduction in the history of
science with an examination of Galileo's defense of
the Copernican theory against Aristotelian critics.
In Science and
a Free Society Feyerabend says that his views on
Galileo expressed in Against
Method are influenced by Philipp Frank.
The relevant Aristotelian criticism is the
tower argument, according to which a stone dropped
from a high tower would not fall vertically to the
ground if the earth were in motion as Copernicus'
theory says it is, because the movement of the earth
during the time of free fall would make the object
fall at an angle away from the direction of the
earth's movement.
Feyerabend calls the observation of vertical
fall of the stone a "natural
interpretation" of the observation statement
describing the motion of a falling stone, because
the observational sensations are firmly associated
with the linguistic expression of the observation
statement. And
he says that it is very difficult to detect error in
natural interpretations without alternative
statements. In
his examination of Galileo's reply to the tower
argument Feyerabend maintains that Galileo used the
Copernican theory to supply an alternative
observational interpretation, and that Galileo's
reply was a reinterpretation of the Aristotelian
natural interpretation.
In this manner Galileo appealed to the real
motion of the falling stone, by which Galileo meant
the stone's movement relative to absolute space.
Galileo distinguished between Copernican and
Aristotelian motion, and characterized them as real
and apparent motions respectively, arguing that they
are not the same.
Galileo's reply to the tower argument is an
example of counterinduction.
When a theory such as the Copernican theory
is contradicted by facts, the counterinductive
response is to turn around the situation and to use
the theory as a detection device in Feyerabend's
words. This
procedure consists firstly of affirming the truth of
the theory, and then of inquiring what changes in
the facts will remove the contradiction between fact
and theory. In
this way hidden ideological components in the
observation language expressing the facts are
disclosed counterinductively.
Once these ideological components are
disclosed, the next step is to create a new
observation language for the new theory.
This is what Galileo did, and he used some
propaganda to disguise that fact that he had
invented the new observation language himself.
His propaganda consisted in arguing that the
human senses notice only relative motion, while they
fail to notice motion had in common by such objects
as falling stones and the earth, and he also used
the ad hoc
hypothesis that the earth is in permanent motion.
Galileo believed in the truth of the
Copernican theory, and he looked for facts that
supported that theory.
One such fact is that resulting from his
reinterpretation of observed experience, such as the
falling stone.
Galileo’s principle of the relativity of
motion changed the conceptual component in observed
fact. Another
such fact results from Galileo's invention and use
of the telescope.
Feyerabend says that Galileo did not know
enough optical theory to enable the telescopic
phenomena to function as independent evidence for
the Copernican theory.
Use of the telescope for celestial
observation was also problematic to the
Aristotelians, and what Galileo did was to use the
agreement between the Copernican theory and the
telescopic observation to argue on behalf of both of
these views. The
use of telescopic phenomena as evidence for the
Copernican theory had to await the further
development of the auxiliary science of optics.
Neither the telescopic phenomena nor the new
idea of relative motion were acceptable to common
sense at the time or to the Aristotelians, and the
two associated ideas both seemed false.
Yet these seemingly false and unacceptable
phenomena were distorted by Galileo, and converted
into strong support for Copernicus.
Galileo replaced old facts with a new type of
experience, which he simply invented for the purpose
of supporting Copernicus, and he let apparently
refuted theories support one another, in order to
create a new world view.
Feyerabend maintains that Galileo's arguments
violate basic rules of scientific method, which were
invented by Aristotle and canonized by Logical
Positivists, such as Carnap and Popper.
(Feyerabend occasionally calls Popper a
Positivist.) And
he states that Galileo succeeded precisely because
he did not follow these rules. Had Galileo followed these methodological rules, he would
have failed. Feyerabend's
general thesis is that every methodological rule is
associated with cosmological assumptions, so that
using that rule implies that the cosmology in which
it originates is correct.
The rule that the Copernican theory must be
tested is reasonable, but requiring that it be
tested by confronting it with the status
quo is not reasonable.
What is reasonable is the purportedly
irrational practice of waiting and ignoring large
masses of critical observations and measurements,
because the Copernican theory is an entirely new
worldview. It
is necessary to retain the new cosmology, until it
has been supplemented with the necessary auxiliary
sciences, so that the language in which observations
are expressed may be revised.
Feyerabend finds what he illustrates with
Galileo to be no less applicable today.
He says that today's rational sciences
survived, because irrational prejudices were
permitted to have their way, and that it is
advisable to let one's inclinations go against
reason in any circumstances.
Propaganda is of the essence.
Science is more sloppy and irrational than
its methodological image.
Anarchistic deviations from rationality are
necessary for progress.
The image of twentieth century science is
created by technological successes together with a
fairy tale of how these technological miracles were
accomplished. The
fairy tale is that science is not an ideology, but
rather is an objective measure for all ideologies.
Feyerabend maintains that science is an
ideology, and that successful science is very much a
result of good luck and false beliefs.
His thesis of scientific anarchy moves him
far along in the direction of historical relativism. But the centrality of historical relativism in his philosophy
of science is not fully evident without examination
of the lengthy evolution of his philosophy of
quantum theory and realism.
Feyerabend
on Quantum Theory
From the time of his writing his dissertation
in 1951, Feyerabend's philosophy of science was
centered on the reconciliation of metaphysical
realism with modern microphysics.
The development of his thought on this matter
might be viewed as a case of the moth and the flame,
where the circling moth is Feyerabend’s realistic
philosophy and the consuming flame is Bohr’s
Copenhagen interpretation of the quantum theory. Initially he was critical of the Copenhagen interpretation,
and particularly of Bohr's instrumentalist view of
the quantum theory's formalism and Bohr's
complementarity thesis.
Feyerabend received his views on metaphysical
realism from Popper, but Feyerabend did not agree
with Popper's attempt to supply the current
quantum-theoretic formalism with the propensity
interpretation.
Instead Feyerabend defended the possibility
of an altogether new microphysical theory.
In the 1960's Feyerabend became involved in a
long debate with Russell Hanson.
As a result he reconsidered the merits of the
current quantum theory, and the likelihood of its
duality thesis and its quantum postulate being
carried forward into a future microphysics.
Then instead of continuing to advocate the
revision of the current quantum theory into a
microphysics that would be compatible with Popper's
universalist realism, Feyerabend revised his concept
of realism in a manner that no longer requires the
universalism that Popper demands.
Generalizing on Bohr's thesis of the
relational character of quantum states when
describing experimental findings with
classical-colloquial concepts, Feyerabend formulated
his nonuniversalist, regional and historical
relativist realism.
Feyerabend sets forth his statement of
Popper's universalist realist philosophy in his
"Attempt At A Realistic Interpretation of
Experience" in Proceedings
of the Aristotelian Society (1958).
This paper is an abbreviated statement of his
doctoral dissertation written in 1951 at the
University of Vienna.
The thesis of this paper, which he calls
"Thesis I", is that the semantical
interpretation of an observation language is
determined by the theories that we use to explain
what we observe, and that the interpretation changes
as soon as those theories change.
But he also states in this paper that one of
the consequences of Thesis I is that we must
distinguish between appearances or phenomena on
the one hand and the things appearing on the other
hand. In
Feyerabend's view this distinction is fundamental to
realism. On
Thesis I the things appearing are those that are
referred to by the observational sentences in a
certain interpretation given by a realistic
explanatory theory.
In both this paper and in his "Complementarity"
in Proceedings
of the Aristotelian Society he criticizes the
complementarity thesis of Bohr's interpretation of
the modern quantum theory.
In all discussions of the quantum theory
Feyerabend always takes Bohr’s statements and
views to be authoritative and representative of the
Copenhagen interpretation.
In these earlier papers he acknowledges the
influence of Bohm and of Popper upon his thinking.
He notes that Bohr's idea of complementarity
is based partly upon empirical investigations in
physics and partly upon philosophical analyses, and
he accordingly distinguishes between the
experimental fact of duality and the philosophical
thesis of complementarity.
The fact of duality is the result of
experimental findings.
Experiments displaying interference effects
can be explained by wave concepts, but they
contradict explanations in terms of particle
concepts. Conversely
experiments displaying absorption and emission can
be explained by particle concepts, but they
contradict explanation in terms of wave concepts.
Feyerabend maintains that there is no system
of physical concepts that can explain all these
experimental facts about light and matter, which is
to say, there is no universal theory of light and
matter. He
states that for a physicist who views wave and
particle as aspects of the same objective entity,
the fact of duality proves that the theories
available at the moment are inadequate.
Such a physicist will search for a new theory
and conceptual scheme, which satisfies two
requirements: Firstly the new theory must be
empirically adequate, and secondly it must be
universal. Such
a theory conforms to what Feyerabend calls the
"classical ideal", which is to say that it
conforms to Thesis I, because it does not just
describe appearances under certain experimental
conditions, but rather it describes what light is
and what matter is, the things appearing, in
reality.
|
|
