Yet There Is Method In It

Feyerabend was once labelled the ‘greatest enemy of science’ a title that in his later life he took pride in (he was an iconoclast by nature), but which midway through his career threw him into an enormous depression. The roots of his depression and the crass insults he had to suffer for daring to challenge the orthodox view of science were based substantially upon the misunderstanding of his work. One of the ‘problems’ with his writings is the speed with which he moves from clear point to reductio- thus without a careful reading his supporters and detractors often (myself included) end up reading the reductio as though it were his point of view. Consequently since his death with the major retrospective his work is enjoying – one philosopher going so far as to say that minus the iconoclasms he has been wholly rehabilitated – there has been a scramble to make sense of all of his work in its complexity. Subsequently a great deal of focus has been attached to the interpretations of his best students (themselves now noteworthy academics). What follows are some thoughts of Gonzalo Munevar – a one time student of Feyerabends – and now a Proffessor in his own right.

What are Feyerabends greatest contributions?

- Contrary to being an enemy of science Feyerabend showed how complex and humane science is and ought to be. Of his many contributions, perhaps the most important is that there is no method or rule that can capture science completely. The most excellent idea about the nature of science has to allow exceptions. When we look at the history of science, we discover not only that the great scientists violated the methods proposed by the empiricists, but that they had to violate them, otherwise they would not have secured the great successes through which we know them today.

- Until Feyerabend and Kuhn it was supposed that scientific rationality adhered to certain methodological rules. That science was a shining beacon of rationality. Those rules were inductive. The philosophical problem was that even though we “knew” that such scientific method produced knowledge, we could not prove it. Karl Popper argued that the problem came from thinking erroneously that induction was the method of science. We just needed to realize that science was based instead on the method of trial and error. But Feyerabend’s analysis of the history of science demonstrated that adherence to all proposed methods, from Francis Bacon’s to Popper’s, would impede the progress of science. To progress, then, science needs to act against method from time to time.

- The reason is very simple. All varieties of empiricism assume that experience determines the worth of our scientific ideas. This assumption is presumably justified because through experience scientists learn directly what is written on the book of nature. For example, if all observers see a stone fall vertically, the vertical motion of the stone is an immediate or direct truth given by observation – an immediate truth with which our most profound hypotheses about the world must agree. If a hypothesis implies that the stone does not fall vertically, our observations, our experience will then refute it. Unfortunately for empiricism, as Feyerabend reminds us, the Copernican hypothesis claims that the earth rotates on its axis to give us the day-night cycle, and this claim is refuted by the vertical fall of the stone.

- Munevar goes on to explain why this isnt a problem in the end for Galileo. We rejoin it after the explanation.

- These considerations do not imply that scientific hypotheses or theories always defeat the verdict of experience, but they do imply that such victories by theory are possible. This result implies in turn that all empiricist methodological rules must have exceptions. The reason is that such rules assign a higher priority to experience (over theory).

- Feyerabend rescued Galileo from the preposterous role of being the first and greatest hero of empiricism. By doing so, he allowed us to understand science very differently

What were Feyerabends errors?

- He erred in his proposal that all traditions or ideologies should have equal standing. But eventually he realized that, as Marguerite von Brentano had argued, the Nazis and the Quakers would then have equal access to pursue their goals, even though one of the Nazis’ main goals was to exterminate other cultures.

- He also acknowledged, though reluctantly, my criticism to the effect that a society has the obligation to teach its young the skills and the views they need to survive, and that in a world that depends on science that is what students will have to learn, not astrology or voodoo. He thus came to see that there were drastic limitations to his notion of the separation of science and society.

What influence did John Stuart Mill have?

John Stuart Mills essay On Liberty was a great influence to Feyerabend, Munevar explains how so, and why it is essential we see Feyerabend as part of this libertarian tradition (the better to understand his conclusions).

- Feyerabend points out that we are often unable to even discover important evidence against our favorite theories unless we consider seriously alternative theories that can propose and make sense of counter-evidence… No matter how certain we may be of a theory, a scientist who fails to accept it and develops instead a different theory is doing science a favor. For as Feyerabend says, “We need a dream-world in order to discover the features of the real world we think we inhabit (and which may actually just be another dream-world).”

- Feyerabend also acts against the important tradition of Plato and Descartes, whose obsession it was to discover the correct path to unique truth. Mill was the first important philosopher who rebelled against the goal itself. In his essay On Liberty, Mill argued that it does not favor society to force its members to accept the official point of view – no matter how certain it seems to be. By allowing the development of different points of view society profits, for if the official point of view is false, we gain the opportunity to replace with another that might be at least partially true. And if the official point of view turns out to be true anyway, comparing it with alternative points of view allow us to understand it better. Feyerabend’s accomplishment in this area comes from extending Mill’s philosophy to science.

- Feyerabend’s ironic sense of humor led him to proclaim anarchy in the philosophy of science and to suggest that “anything goes.” But he never offered anarchy as a sort of anti-method method. Anarchy is the description that a traditional rationalist would give to the way science should be done according to Feyerabend, and particularly the description that rationalist would give of pluralism. It is that rationalist who finds it obvious that rationality consists in behaving in accordance with the rules of the method of empiricism. And it is that rationalist who recoils in horror at the “anything goes” attitude in science a la Feyerabend.

Interview extracted in paraphrases from here.

What follows is a short outline of the main thrust of Feyerabends analytical account of the origins of science, his rejection of Karl Poppers thesis and his espousal of epistemological anarchism. This is extracted as a whole from Straw Dogs by John Gray and is one of the better, simpler accounts of Feyerabends thought.

Science’s Irrational Origins

As portrayed by its fundamentalists, science is the supreme expression of reason. They tell us that if it rules our lives today, it is only after a long struggle in which it was ceaselessly opposed by the Church, the state and every kind of irrational belief. Having arisen in the struggle against superstition, science – they say – has become the embodiment of rational inquiry.

This fairy tale conceals a more interesting history. The origins of science are not in rational inquiry but in faith, magic and trickery. Modern science triumphed over its adversaries not through its superior rationality but because its late-medieval and early-modern founders were more skilful than them in the use of rhetoric and the arts of politics.

Galileo did not win in his campaign for Copernican astronomy because he conformed to any precept of ‘scientific method’. As Feyerabend argued, he prevailed because of his persuasive skill – and because he wrote in Italian. By writing in Italian rather than Latin, Galileo was able to identify resistance to Copernican astronomy with the bankrupt scholasticism of his time, and so gain support from people opposed to older traditions of learning:

Copernicus now stands for progress in other areas as well, he is a symbol for the ideals of a new class that looks back to the classical times of Plato and Cicero and forward to a free and pluralistic society.

Galileo won out not because he had the best arguments but because he was able to represent the new astronomy as part of a coming trend in society. His success illustrates a crucial truth. To limit the practise of science by rules of method would slow the growth of knowledge, or even halt it:

The difference between science and methodology which is such an obvious fact of history… indicates a weakness in the latter, and perhaps of the ‘laws of reason’ as well… Without ‘chaos’, no knowledge. Without a frequent dismissal of reason, no progress. Ideas which today form the very basis of science exist because there were such things as prejudice, conceit, passion; because these things opposed reason; and because they were permitted to have their way.

According to the most influential twentieth-century philosopher of science, Karl Popper, a theory is scientific only in so far as it is falsifiable, and should be given up as soon as it has been falsified. By this standard, the theories of Darwin and Einstein should never have been accepted. When they were first advanced, each of them was at odds with some available evidence; only later did evidence become available that gave them crucial support. Applying Popper’s account of scientific method would have killed these theories at birth.

The greatest scientists have never been bound by what are now regarded as the rules of scientific method. Nor did the philosophies of the founders of modern science – magical and metaphysical, mystical and occult – have much in common with what is today taken to be the scientific worldview. Galileo saw himself as a defender of theology, not as an enemy of the Church. Newton’s theories became the basis for a mechanistic philosophy, but in his own mind his theories were inseperable from a religious conception of the world as a divinely created order. Newton explained apparently anomolous occurrences as traces left by God. Tycho Brahe viewed them as miracles. Johannes Kepler described anomalies in astronomy as reactions of ‘the telluric soul’. As Feyerabend observes, beliefs that are today regarded as belonging to religion, myth or magic were central in the worldviews of the people who originated modern science.

As pictured by philosophers, science is a supremely rational activity. Yet the history of science shows scientists flouting the rules of scientific method. Not only the origins but the progress of science comes from acting against reason.

J.Gray, Straw Dogs -thoughts on humans and other animals, p21-23.

I am currently reading “God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?” by John Lennox. I will post a review in due time but I will give you a sneak preview: he says the answer is no. He is of the view that science can provide evidence of God’s existence. He only mentions Occam’s razor once based on my reading and a check in the index. It seems to me the author has misunderstood the use of Occam’s razor in relation to the anthropic principle.

When comparing the God hypothesis with the many universe hypothesis for the anthropic principle, he states:

“…many scientists feel that an explanation which involves undetectable universes and represents in addition an extreme violation of the Occams’s Razor principle of searching for theories that do not involve unnecessary multiplication of hypotheses, goes well beyond science into metaphysics.”

Setting aside the questionable testability of both of these hypotheses, I will just consider Occam’s razor for the moment. If I suggested the existence of an entity with omnipotence and omniscience, that entity should be regarded as complex. After all, the knowledge of all complexity would itself be complex! This implies an omnipotent God is a highly complex hypothesis and perhaps the maximally complex hypothesis possible. According to Occam’s Razor, any other hypothesis that fits the facts should be preferred. This includes the many universe hypothesis, a powerful but non-omnipotent entity created the universe, the universe had to be in its current form (i.e. creation was non-contingent) or even the brain in a vat scenario. I am very aware that some of those are untestable but I wanted to be clear what Occam’s Razor means in science.

If God interacted with the Earth in an overt and regular way, I think it would be possible to accept physical evidence for Gods existence. Of course this only encompasses a part of the spectrum of beliefs in God – many beliefs don’t include physical manifestation in the modern world or at all.

Anti Citizen One

Here is the famous man himself explaining why he is not a fundamentalist, and defending himself merely as a passionate atheist.

The true scientist, however passionately he may “believe”, in evolution for example, knows exactly what would change his mind: evidence! The fundamentalist knows that nothing will.

An excellent riposte one may think. One problem undermines it, the assumption that theism/atheism can be ‘proved’ or ‘disproved’ by scientific evidence.
Its ironic that he challenges theologians for assuming the existence of God a priori to their ‘proofs’ – which as many theologians will argue are not at all proofs but prerational illustrations that say nothing more than ‘I believe in God heres a good reason why.’ It is ironic because he makes the assumption that the scientific method, which relies on evidence, is the method that proves atheism. How can it be so? Could it be that he did an experiment where he prayed to God for something and neither recieved an answer nor the object that he prayed for? Does this constitute evidence? What are his views on the claims of the mystics who believe they have had an ‘experience’ of God – is this admissable as evidence – is subjective experience in that sense testable? Or does he as I suspect find reasons to render the evidence inadmissable – no cant accept the claims of mystics its just their word against mine!

Altogether relying on scientific method to prove or disprove theism/atheism or any worldview of its kind is liable to be frustrating and disappointing – perhaps that frustration is a reason for his impoliteness? I was reminded by someone of the general applicability of Dawkins theory, can scientific method tell us anything meaningful about other kinds of truth that we take for granted.

is there only one kind of truth – one that is provable and scientific and that is the one by which religion must be judged” and they concluded by asking “what about other kinds of truth – such as artistic, emotional – which we find valuable and enriching?”

I’ve no need to re-write Wittgensteins point on language games that science trying to prove or disprove God is like explaining the game of chess by using the rules of tennis. This quote expressed the point far better than I ever could.

There is no conceptual foothold for trying to prove or disprove the existence of married bachelors or non-physical persons, nor is there one for wondering about metaphysical transcendence. Once this is clear, a great deal of chatter will stop, and a clear-headed silence prevail.

Thus Dawkin’s vulnerability to evidence of the scientific variety -as I assume he does not expect a personal revelation and that he rejects a priori the claims that others have had such experiences- closes him to the possibility altogether and only reinforces the notion (if he is aware of it) that he is a fundamentalist at heart.

Finally his assertion that fundamentalists know that nothing will change their mind is a nonsensical statement. To know something is to be able to test it, verify it and be open to doubt it – do fundamentalists test, verify or doubt their fundamentalisms? If they do then they are not fundamentalists! It would be better if Dawkins had said that a fundamentalist is impervious to even the possibility that their mind could be changed. If he had then he would be on firmer ground, to know something is to make an epistemological statement, fundamentalists go beyond epistemology, beyond knowledge and rest assured in their certainty which is a psychological state of affairs. Perhaps he doesnt want to say this for it would illustrate his own peculiar certainties about knowledge.

In the OUPbook Postmodernism: a very short introduction, Christopher Butler analyses different themes in postmodernism, particularly its approaches to philosophy, politics and art. In one chapter he considers the postmodern (now reffered to as pomo) approach to science. Generally pomo is characterized as avant garde, anti-realist, irrealist, anti-rational, sceptical and perhaps in some quarters even as anti-science.

The pomo tool of deconstruction when applied to science critically evaluates the role of political and sociocultural influences upon scientific research, funding for the sciences and its technological innovations. A particular focus of concern is concentrated upon weapons development, pollution and industrial exploitation of the worker. A postmodernist critique of science will in general be critical of the notion that the ‘march of science’ equates with progress.

However in Butler’s overview he is generally critical of the pomo approach to science. In fact he appears to support science unconditionally, thus relegating the scope of postmodernism to cultural theory, politics and liberative ethics. This unquestioning adherence to science (for which he doesnt provide a justifying explanation) seems to promote the primacy of deductive reasoning and empirical method over and above all other ways of thinking. Ironically Butler’s pro-science stance would appear to demonstrate what pomo calls the modernist tendency to prejudice. I found this chapter a little hard to swallow as it seems to make an innaccurate generalisation about pomo approaches to science. As is implied in the pomo ‘school of thought’ there is of course no one single approach favoured, thus the anti-science tag would sit uncomfortable with philosophers of science such as Feyerabend and Kuhn, who explicitly accept science as a valid method, but reject its claims to primacy. Such relativistic approaches have sought to legitimise non-scientific and non-rational endeavour (i.e. Religion).

In his chapter, Butler quotes two leading physicists Sokal and Bricmont who responded to the pomo critique. Firstly defending the misuse of some of their work and secondly attacking the pseudo-scientific inclinations of certain philosophers such as Jean Baudrillard. Baudrillard had a tendency in his work to use scientific, or scientific sounding terminology in his writings. Two famous examples were ‘hyperspace‘ and ‘the Euclidian space of war‘. Sokal and Bricmont criticise Baudrillard on two grounds. Firstly it would appear that he is using the terminology in order to give it an air of scientific authority. Secondly, and more misleadingly they accused him of mistaking certain scientific ideas, distorting science, misrepresenting it, and therefore talking unscientific nonsense. This attack was in effect an attack upon the legitimacy of the postmodern critique of science. Butler unquestioningly accepts this attack, I however do not. Baudrillard certainly does use scientific terminology and broaches certain scientific issues. So in response to the critics we must analyse what is happening. There are 3 possibilities.

1) Baudrillard is correct in his use of the terminology, and Sokal and Bricmont are wrong.

2) Baudriallard has redefined the scientific terminology to mean something else. Therefore they only bare a family resemblance to the original meanings of the words, in which case Sokal and Bricmont are at the least mistaken.

3) Baudrillard has misused and misunderstood, or distorted certain scientific concetps. Sokal and Bricmont are right to label this as psuedo-science.

Lets look at the implications of these three possibilities. If 1) is correct then in this case the definitive claims of science are wrong, the edifice has been undermined and science and technology may be about to collapse. I am sceptical about the probability of this outcome (you will be glad to know). If 2) is correct, and I suspect Baudrillard may defend himself along these lines, then the accusations of Sokal and Bricmont are wrong, for they are misunderstood. However Baudrillard does not get such an easy reprieve, for if he has coined new neologisms for old standardly accepted scientific terms, and he has not provided a ready definition then he is responsible for the misunderstanding, and he has done the cause of philosophy a great disservice by creating (rather than destroying) confusion. Finally, if 3) is correct then Baudrillard is guilty of overstepping the barrier between language games and the criticisms levelled against him are justified and correct.

Like I have said, I believe Baudrillard is guilty of causing confusion as opposed to deception. Either way though if in the case of Baudrillard there has been confusion or error then this should not delegitimise the entire pomo approach to science, as Butler would seem to imply. What it does mean is that postmodernists when investigating the epistemological claims of science must be more careful and more vigorous in their critiques. This new sense of caution should not distract pomo philosophers from the fundamentally important task (which is even admitted from within the scientific community) of anlaysing and criticising the sociological and political basis and motivations behind science and scientific research. Particularly where such research has negative technological uses.