File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_1996/96-09-09.212, message 69


Date: Fri, 23 Aug 1996 19:21:39 -0600 (MDT)
From: hans despain <HANS.DESPAIN-AT-m.cc.utah.edu>
Subject: Re: Science on another planet


The debate about Bhaskar's use of laws has be quite interesting to me.  
In short, this started out as what is the distinction between 
(Structures or) mechanisms versus "causal laws".

And like Hans E., i too think Derek to have a valid complaint, which is 
not merely Bhaskar's choice of words.  There is an ambiguity involved.  
Which seems to give justification to Colin's point about the importance 
in the (real) distinction between the transitive and intransitive.  

However, there is not always a very clear distinction between what 
we understand as a part of the intransitive dimension and what is only 
part of the transitive dimension.  This is what the post-modern tradition 
is able to exploit, and challenge realism with.

Hans suggests the position one takes with regards to this distinction 
reveals something about one's ontological commitment.  More specifically, 
Hans protests against Derek's claim that there is no necesary direction of 
scientific discovery; which implies that the world itself may not be 
stratified (at least in a way we can understand it has it real is).

i have great sympathy for Derek's questioning of (real) stratifiction (i 
expressed this before).  However, it does seem to me that perhaps the 
debate could benefit from pointing out that Hans seems to being 
emphasizing a philosophical ontology, while Derek a scientific ontology.

An argument could be made that science is itself often in a "cellar" 
of darkness, or perhaps lighted by a match.  Hence, only able to see in a 
very limited direction.  Philosophy as the underlaborer of science must 
reflect on the history and history of thought of science (that is it must 
remember the road travelled) to offer it a better prespective of itself.

This does not necessarily mean this (self-)reflection will be correct, 
but it does offer lumination and (micro-)direction.  And it does suggest 
something about the world itself.  

Other times Derek has seemed concerned with epistemological questions, 
while Hans with ontological questions.  And it has been pointed out that 
their respective emphases may tend to give rise to the epistemic fallacy 
and the ontic fallacy.  That Derek at times has seemed to suggest that we 
can have no (certain) knowledge about the world itself, so all questions 
are epistemological, while Hans seems to (sometimes) suggest our 
reflection on the activity of science reveals the world as it real is.

For example Derek says:  "rejecting the skin/cellar ontology makes it 
difficult to use the term 'discover'.  If we were to use it, we should 
say that we do 'discover' the real mechanism, but that our discovery does 
not produce an exact representation. Instead of 'discovering' a 
mechanism, we might say that we learn to represent it. [...]".  This is 
to put it in epistemological terms.  Whether we "learn to represent" 
gravity, does not change the existence of the mechanism itself.  Nor does 
it change its place in the universe.

In another post (Aug. 19) Derek suggests: "scientific explanations" may 
only reveal something about "our own natures" and not about the world itself.
And this itself is a type of "anthropomorphism".  

It does seem to me that this debate has been very fruitful.  Hans has 
suggested that because we know the world is layered, we should be able to 
(sometimes) determine how it is layered.  Derek seems to be suspect of this.

Hans has made some very good points which does seem to suggest to me 
something like this:

(Philosophically) We know the world is stratified and layered.  And we have 
discoveried particular layers, and seem to understand the difference 
between the very big and the very small (for example).  In this sense we can 
reconstruct how we understand the world to be layered.  We can have a 
particular rational and (transcendental) justification to this (ontological) 
ordering.

If we do this Derek suggests we are committing a metaphysical mistake.  
This is because (or so it would seem) that our ontology is based on 
epistemology.  If this is what Derek is saying, surely then this is an 
instance of the epistemic fallacy.  That is because we still must, at 
least, assume an ontology.  In this sense, if Tobin's "wavicles" are 
support of Derek's position, it still remains an epistemological question [?].

Also, when Tobin (Aug. 21) says: "So what I think the issue Derek and I 
are pointing toward is the problematic relationship betwen experience 
[...], the generative mechanisms shaping it, and the rsulting forms of 
knowledge" -- this remains epistemological, none of which necessarily 
changing the world as it is itself.

Moreover, the order in which science itself discovers structures, does 
not mean that the world itself is ordered as such (maybe Hans has tended to 
imply something like this).  However, because our order of discovery is 
biased to our properties and powers as human beings, this itself does not 
(or should not) necessarily commit us to a Kantian duality -- were we cannot 
know the world as it itself is.  Rather we should expect gaps in our 
re-construction of the world.  And would should expect that philosophical 
(and scientifically) what we can say about what layer some mechanism or 
structure is on may be quite ambigious.  But this does not mean the 
world itself is not hierarchially ordered.  Nor that we cannot come to 
know this hierarchy.

Wherefore, we would not expect the emergence of human beings from plant 
life, or the emergence of capitalism from a hunting and gathering society.

Hence, just because some other species might not of 'hung on to 
capitalism' like humans have tended to do, does not mean we cannot make 
ontological statements that are true.

In sum, i would agree with Derek; which would help to avoid the ontic 
fallacy which David suggests can emerge; when he argues the direction of 
scientific discovery does not necessarily imply the layering of the 
universe or world itself.  But in agreement with Hans, our 
epistemological discovers in the transitive dimension, does offer some 
answers to the intransitive dimension itself (through transcendental or 
retroductive arguments).

Although our sciencific activity can give rise to myth construction, the 
myths themselves will not necessarily change the world itself (of course 
our myths can certainly shape and change social reality).  Even in the 
social when our knowledge leds to transformative practice, which changes 
the social structures, the previous social structures (i.e. those 
that constitute Feudalism) remain objects of scientific activity (even in 
their absence).

Here i must stop.

hans d.


   

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