Dear Nick,
Even though it epistemologically grounds itself in experimental results, the empricist philosophy of science is flawed because it presupposes explanatory accounts of how experimental apparatus and instruments work in order to obtain the results in the first place. At basic levels, empiricism presupposes scientific realist interpretations of the experiment in terms of causal accounts of how the experiment works.
Scientific realist and positivistic philosophies of science have both presupposed the same operational metaphysics: that natural phenomena and machine performances are consequences of the same natural principles, laws, and mechanisms.
This metaphysics allows the ongoing technological activities of experimentation to disclose natural phenomena in terms of mechanistic models that are tested by their implementation in future technological innovation.
Hence, both empiricists and realists appeal to the practical value of science in terms of its technological successes when arguing for the epistemological validity of the so-called natural sciences, such as physics, chemistry, and genetics.
However, the tradition within the philosophy of science is to completely neglect
the role of technology in the development of theories and observations within experimental sciences. The traditional view of the use of scientific instruments, such as telescopes and microscopes, is that they are designed to increase our perceptual possibilities and see what is “out there”. The use of detectors, such as X-ray scanners, electron microscopes, and the Geiger counter has supposedly allowed us to understand phenomena in the visible world in terms of otherwise invisible entities. The practical value of such instruments clearly “proves” that science has made considerable advances and progressed. The traditional view is that technology has no further relevance to the philosophy of science.
However, as I argue in my book On The Metaphysics of Experimental Physics, technological innovation has not only made new observations and experiments possible, but it has also transformed our experience and conception of reality. Using a
microscope or a Geiger counter does not merely involve seeing or detecting what is there. One must interpret the behaviour of the instrument in terms of an understanding of how it works. Making observations using novel instruments is bound up with making novel techniques of representing what one sees and how the instrument works. These techniques are ordered into procedures and operations within a technological framework that orders how we use and understand instruments. These instruments did not fall from the sky ready-made with an instruction book. They were innovated as a result of complex labour processes and protracted efforts against a historical background of expectations, challenges, demands, and the results of previous research and technological innovation.
Technological innovation makes new research, observations, and representations possible; it also brings with it new challenges to achieve the anticipated possibilities of future innovation and
investigation. New technologies create observational possibilities and conceptions of the criteria for the possibility of possessing knowledge of natural laws and mechanisms. They produce new phenomena, data, and change how we understand the world. The history of physics shows that technological innovation has changed conceptions of Nature and knowledge considerably in the experimental sciences. It is just as much a history of the innovation of new machines, instruments, and techniques, as it is a history of ideas, theories, and discoveries.
By examining the ways that the world, and the interactions between beings in the world, have been understood and communicated by physicists in terms of a technological framework of innovative technological objects, it is evident that observations and experiences emerge from within a technological framework in which technological objects obtain agency through interaction with each other. The meaning of agency is closely connected
to its context of emergence and cannot be divorced from the purposes it was intended to satisfy. Observation is an activity within a technological framework of interventions, interpretations, expectations, possibilities, and purposes.
The artifice in designing, building, using, and interpreting novel technological instruments to make observations through interventions is a particularly important feature of the novel dimension of scientific discovery in experimental physics. It allows the technological objects within experiments to acquire an agency of their own and become autonomous as the means to innovate and disseminate new experiences, techniques, and instruments. It is this autonomy that allows techniques and instruments to be metaphysically understood and represented as the means to experience and explain the facts of the natural world. It is this autonomy that allows both empricist and realist interpretations of the
experimental sciences to be possible.
Hence, once we take the centrality of technological innovation into account, then we can see how the experimental sciences, from their onset in the sixteenth century, have been bound together with the civic, military, and commercial ambitions of those who fund the research. Once we examine how modern science has transformed our understanding and representations of Nature into something technological, in order to transform natural phenomena into technological object available for experimental investigation, and also transform theories into forms that translate into technological functions, then we can see how the totality of experimental science is completely directed to understand the world in technological terms. Modern science is implicated in the construction of a technological society which promises to improve upon our natural state by providing us with greater power,
certainty, and control.
In my book, Modern Science and the Capriciousness of Nature, I describe how this societal gamble is premised upon the presupposition of specific forms of the goodness and rationality of science. Modern science is implictly based upon visions of the ideal society, an artificial world within which human beings are free from the capriciousness of Nature (such as natural disasters, disease, premature death, birth defects, etc.), and it is implicitly placed in confrontation with Nature. Modern science is directed to the pacification of the natural world, transforming it into a "better" artificial world, and it finds its meaning and value in terms of its function within the societal project of constructing this technological society.
Thus, in my opinion, it is more the case that we need to question the wisdom of this societal gamble and the vision of the ideal world upon it is
premised. Would such a world be actually good for humanity? Or is it only good for a social elite? And where such a vision is lacking, then we need to question the rationality of the whole societal project of constructing the technological society and the vision of goodness (given in terms of power, certainty, and control over our material conditions) that it presupposes. It may well be the case that the positivistic interpretation of science is nothing more than an irrational, unthinking mode of conformity to the societal project of constructing a technological society.
best regards,
Dear Bob,
A part of what's wrong with science, in my view, is that the scientific community takes for granted an untenable view about what the aims and methods of science ought to be, which I have called "standard empiricism". According to standard empiricism, the basic intellectual aim of science is to improve knowledge of truth, the basic method being to assess claims to knowledge impartially with respect to evidence. But this seriously misrepresents the aims of science. Science both does, and ought to, seek explanatory truth (truth presupposed to be explanatory). More generally, science seeks truth deemed to be important or of value, in one way or another. There are, I have argued, problematic assumptions concerning metaphysics, values and politics inherent in
the real aims of science which standard empiricism fails to acknowledge. The result of this orthodox misrepresentation of the actual aims of science is that science fails to subject the problematic assumptions associated with these aims to sustained critical scrutiny, in an attempt to improve them. And that in turn means that science fails to pursue aims in our best interests. (One has to remember that something like a third of all public funds devoted to research and development is devoted to military research. Is this really in our best interests?) We need a new conception of science - which I have called "aim-oriented empiricism" - which acknowledges the real, problematic aims of science, and requires science to represent its aims in the form of a hierarchy, the aims becoming less and less specific as one goes up the hierarchy, and so less and less problematic, in this way a framework of more or less unproblematic aims and methods being
created (high up in the hierarchy) within which much more specific and problematic aims and methods (low down in the hierarchy) and be critically assessed and improved. For the detailed argument see my "Is Science Neurotic?" (2004); see also my "Can Humanity Learn to become Civilized?" (http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00001709/) and "The Need for a Revolution in the Philosophy of Science", (http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00002449/).
This aim-oriented empiricist conception of the progress-achieving methods of science can be generalized to form an aim-oriented conception of rationality: whenever we are engaged in some worthwhile endeavour with problematic aims, we need to represent these aims in the form of such a hierarchy, so that we can improve specific, problematic aims and methods as we proceed. This aim-oriented conception of rationality is especially relevant when it comes to the endeavour to make progress towards a good, civilized, wise world - an aim that is inherently profoundly problematic.
But the above is only the first step of my argument. It is not just science that needs to change, but even more important, the whole academic enterprise. We need, I have argued, a new kind of academic inquiry that takes as its basic aim to help humanity to realize what is of value in life. Academic inquiry needs itself to put aim-oriented rationality into practice, and needs to help humanity put it into practice in the rest of personal, institutional and social life. The argument is spelled out in some detail in my "From Knowledge to Wisdom" (Blackwell, 1984), and in my more recent "Is Science Neurotic?". For a summary see the article referred to above, "Can Humanity Learn to Become Civilized?" (http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00001709/ , first published in Journal of Applied Philosophy 17, 2000, 29-44).
Best wishes,
Nick
----- Original Message
-----
Sent: Sunday, May 21, 2006 10:37 AM
Subject: Re: Wisdom and its definition
Dear Nicholas,
Are you saying that what's wrong with science is that it cannot deal with values? That is not a fault, merely a limitation, and one which is necessary to the (limited) success that it has. Take the field of medicine; there are overarching values which define and limit what is permissible in the pursuit of medical knowledge. Then there are the standards and
values of good science which aim to produce reliable knowledge. And then there are the values of the doctor in the application of that knowledge to benefit patients. So a scientist evaluating a treatment needs to take steps to allow for and discount the placebo effect in order to arrive at reliable knowledge, but the practicioner may find that this is is the most effective part of the treatment. The fact/ value split is the very foundation of science, but science is merely a tool - the tool of tools perhaps - it can never be a guide to life. It has its own internal values and has value to humanity, but it does not deal with values; yet it takes a place in the heirarchy of values as any medical ethics committee will attest.
But this is an idealised account. Doctors, scientists, and perhaps even friends of wisdom are not motivated solely by love of humanity, but also, and oten more, by desire for money, status, power,
respect and particularly self-respect. I would like to say that I am not like this, but rationally I know that I am, though for much of the time I prefer to regard myself through rose tinted spectacles. Is this what you mean by undesirable desires? But I am not sure that the desire for self-respect is any 'higher' than any other desire - it just feels higher - and that is why I like it - in an older terminology it is one of the seven deadly sins - pride. In the end we, ourselves are the only problem confronting humanity; we are crippled by our desires and our fears and we have very little love. If we could learn to cooperate with each other, the practical problems of the world could be easily dealt with in a very short time, but we are all too greedy and fearful. Science cannot answer these problems, nor can psychology nor can even the non-scientific side of academia(I've heard that there are whole departments that deal in values, literature and art for
example). I am fairly sure that the answer -call it wisdom or love or goodness or enlightenment - cannot be taught by any method, even by osmosis or example. Might it come by grace, when we learn to be honest to ourselves? I don't know, but I think that honesty is the first step.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, May 21, 2006 12:34 AM
Subject:
Re: Wisdom and its definition
Dear Tom,
It was not at all the point of my email responding to the question "Can wisdom be learned and taught?" that defining wisdom is an important thing to do. On the contrary, with slight reservations, I agree with Karl Popper: setting out to define terms really is the wrong thing to do (see his "Open Society and Its Enemies", ch. 11, section 2). What I was really trying to point out was that, when judged from the standpoint of helping to promote human welfare or enhance the quality of human life, knowledge-inquiry - academic inquiry as, by and large, we have it at present - is harmfully irrational. We need a revolution in the aims and methods of academic
inquiry. This point - really important if it is correct - can be made, and perhaps should be made, without appealing to the notion of "wisdom" at all. (In fact, when I first spelled the argument out, in my first book "What's Wrong With Science?" (1976), I did not use the word "wisdom " once. Instead I spoke of "delight and compassion". "Wisdom", for me, was very much an afterthought, merely shorthand for what I think really does matter, our capacity to create a world in which there is less unnecessary suffering and death than at present, a world in which more people are able to realize what is genuinely of value in their lives.)
What are the main problems of living confronting humanity, and what do we need to do to resolve them? What kind of
world should we be trying to create? What changes need to be made to academic inquiry if it is serve the best interests of humanity in the best way? How can academic inquiry best help humanity learn how to create a better world? How do we set about convincing our academic colleagues of the need for change? These are the kind of issues we ought, in my view, to be discussing, not the somewhat scholastic question of how one should define wisdom. "Wisdom" can, without doubt, be defined in a variety of ways, and one might pick on this definition or that, for this or that purpose. Any attempt to pin down the definition seems to me to be misguided.
Best wishes,
Nick
----- Original Message ----- From: "Tom Milner-Gulland"
Sent: Saturday, May 20, 2006 11:03 PM
Subject: Wisdom and its definition
> If we want to sort out the idea of wisdom by by definitions then I suggest
> we have to take account of the fact (as I see it) that wisdom has two
> fairly distinct
definitions, one being the simple grammatical principle
> that it is the nounal form of 'wise' (and therefore is subordinate to the
> notion of being wise, which surely incorporates such concerns as the
> intuition of the agent) and the other being the more tangible notion of a
> body of ideas the astute appropriation of which constitutes being wise.
>
> Perhaps it would be wise for list members to consider that we basically
> know what Nick Maxwell is trying to say, i.e. (IIUC) that knowledge should
> point us in some kind of general direction as regards what is or should -
> by some kind of intuition-based rationality, even if it is imperfect - be
> our common human goals, and it is time to take steps in that direction.
>
> Cheers,
> Tom
>
>
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