Is postmodernism the evil twin of modern science?

I don’t want to flood this place with items from Uncommon Descent, but as we have a certain overlap of members (and  ex members!) and certainly a common set of interests, there’s a post up now that I found interesting, not because of the board politics (which we will not of course discuss…) but because of an odd equation I see there that I have caught a sniff of before and is here made explicit, both in the OP and in some of the comments.

Its the equivalence between “post modernism” and the provisional nature of scientific inferences.

Which I find extraordinary because it’s always seemed to me that science and postmodernism are on two opposite poles.

The thought seems to be, as expressed by CannuckianYankee, who I have a lot of time for and who sometimes posts here, thus:

It definitely stems from new age thinking whereby “my views are as good as yours.” In an attempt not to offend, they end up offending our logical sensibilities. It’s interesting that this kind of thinking is contaminating scientific inquiry, where commitments to logic, ethics and truth are required

And I can see how something like Asimov’s wonderful essay, The Relativity of Wrong could be taken to imply something sort of post-modernish if you squint at it a bit.

After all, if, as we do in science, consider that all we have are models of reality, not reality itself, it must sometimes look from the outside as though we don’t care about truth, because all models are false, just some are falser than others.

Of course the HUGE difference between “my views are as good as yours” and “my model is as good as yours” is that in science we have a rigorous method of comparing which models are better than which others.

And that is what makes science the opposite of post-modernism, not its twin.

Yet, judging by that thread, and indeed, by many of the criticisms of science in general, whether of cosmology, string theory, Darwinian evolution, or neuroscience, the idea that scientists are really just dealing in subjectively validated inferences that are only as good as the scientist making the inference.  That we are not interested in Truth, and have sold our birthright for a mess of models.

Discuss.

15 thoughts on “Is postmodernism the evil twin of modern science?

  1. Fair enough, Elizabeth. But let me through a bit of monkey-wrench into these distinctions, just to see what happens.

    Let’s start by saying that good scientists (and intellectuals who respect scientific procedures and discoveries) are fallibilists. A fallibilist is someone who thinks that all empirical statements are subject to revision in light of sufficiently compelling evidence. (We can leave it professional epistemologists to tell us the criteria for “sufficiently compelling” might be.) All well and good.

    But notice that there’s a hair’s breadth between fallibilism and (certain versions of) “postmodernism”, and that hair’s breadth turns on two questions: (a) are the *criteria* for assessing “sufficient evidence” also revisable? and (b) what’s to prevent the revisability from going all the way up to include supposedly “a priori” or “analytic” statements?

    Here’s Quine, no doubt one of the foremost logicians and philosophers of the 20th century:

    “Any statement can be held true come what may, if we make drastic enough adjustments in the system [of statements]. Even a statement very close to the periphery [of observation] can be held true in the face of recalcitrant experience by pleading hallucination or by amending certain statements of the kind called logical laws. Conversely, by the same token, no statement is immune to revision. Revision even of the logical law of the excluded middle has been proposed as a means of simplifying quantum mechanics; and what difference is there in principle between such a shift and the shift whereby Kepler superseded Ptolemy, or Einstein Newton, or Darwin Aristotle?” (“Two Dogmas of Empiricism”, 1950).

    And, as a minor but I find very interesting historical aside, one of the first people to translate Quine into French was none other than Jacques Derrida.

    The upshot is, one way of configuring the problem-space is whether the distinction between fallibilism and post-modernism can be maintained, and if so, if that distinction requires maintaining a distinction between empirical statements and non-empirical statements (the a priori statements of logic, mathematics, and ethics).

    A different but related point concerns the idea of “convergent realism” (as philosophers call it): the idea that one model is better than another (e.g. yields better predictions, explains what the previous model couldn’t) *because* it is a better “map,” so to speak, of reality. Though convergent realism is an attractive view — I’m strongly inclined towards it myself — there are serious difficulties with it as well.

    Carl

  2. Which I find extraordinary because it’s always seemed to me that science and postmodernism are on two opposite poles.

    I think most scientists would agree with that.

    First a quick comment on that UD thread – it is based on a serious misunderstanding of what was being argued. (quick comment ended)

    However, there is a problem between the two cultures, as C.P Snow pointed out. Both traditional philosophy and theology attempt to base everything on logic. But logic is empty. It cannot begin without premises. So both traditional philosophy and theology are in the habit of adopting some starting premises. We see WJM frequently making that point in his posts here.

    Science is not tied to logic in the same way. Sure, science is logical and uses logic. Scientists see logic as a tool, but as only one of several tools. So science doesn’t have the same kind of dependency on logic.

    Here’s an example of the problem: If you assume strict use of logic, then there is no way to get from Aristotle’s science to Newton’s science, and there is no way to get from Newton’s science to Einstein’s science.

    Hmm, I’ll stop there for now, and comment further as the discussion develops.

  3. Neil Rickert,

    Neil Rickert: Here’s an example of the problem: If you assume strict use of logic, then there is no way to get from Aristotle’s science to Newton’s science, and there is no way to get from Newton’s science to Einstein’s science.

    Can you elaborate?

  4. Elizabeth: Can you elaborate?

    Let me give an example.

    According to Einstein’s relativity, there is an observed contraction in length of an object moving at near the speed of light (the Fitzgerald-Lorenz contraction)

    If I am a Newtonian, I know just how to test that. I take that standard metre measuring rod from Paris, put it on the space ship, and speed up to just below the speed of light. Then I use that measuring rod to determine the length of the space ship in the direction of travel. And I will find that the length has not contracted at all. Einstein would have conceded that.

    Based on Newtonian concepts, Einstein’s relativity is obviously wrong. This is, roughly, the point of Kuhn’s “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.” The transition from Newton’s science to Einstein’s science depends very much on a change in the concepts that one uses. Likewise, the transition from Aristotle’s science to Newton’s science depends on concept change.

    Logic is done with a fixed system of concepts; it has no provision that accounts for conceptual change. Sure, it allow defining new concepts in terms of existing concepts. But it has now provision for changing existing concepts.

    I’ll add that Kuhn’s “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” is sometimes said to be postmodernist.

  5. Carl Sachs: Let’s start by saying that good scientists (and intellectuals who respect scientific procedures and discoveries) are fallibilists.

    I doubt that is correct. I would say that scientists are mostly pragmatists, though not necessarily consistent with philosophical accounts of pragmatism.

    A fallibilist is someone who thinks that all empirical statements are subject to revision in light of sufficiently compelling evidence.

    “Revision of empirical statements” sure seems as if it should mean fudging data And that’s a no-no in science. It is the non-empirical statements (theories, for example) that are subject to revision.

  6. Apologies for the delay in your post appearing, Carl. For some reason the spam filter caught it, and I only just found it.

  7. Neil,

    Hi! On your first point, where you said “I doubt that is correct,” I’m not really sure what you had in mind, because on my view, pragmatism and fallibilism are pretty much the same thing. My version of pragmatism/fallibilism comes from the philosopher Wilfrid Sellars, who put it as follows, “For empirical knowledge, like its sophisticated extension, science, is rational, not because it has a foundation but because it is a self-correcting enterprise which can put any claim in jeopardy, though not all at once”. Would you be willing to agree with that?

    As for “revising empirical statements,” I should apologize for lapsing into a certain jargon common among philosophy professors. I’m using the term “empirical statements” as distinct from the non-empirical statements of, say, logic, mathematics, and (maybe) ethics. So all of science, and common-sense, is composed of empirical statements, even the high-level theoretical claims. The distinction I would then need is a distinction between different ‘levels’ of empirical statements: theoretical statements and observation statements.

    By the phrase “revising empirical statements,” all I’d meant was “revising the truth-value of statements about the observable world in light of observations.” Thus, the Michelson-Morley experiment required that we revise the truth-value of “light-waves propagate through a medium” — revise it from true to false. But that’s an empirical statement (in a generous sense of empirical) because it’s a claim about the world as studied by science.

    Better?

    Carl

  8. Carl Sachs: Hi! On your first point, where you said “I doubt that is correct,” I’m not really sure what you had in mind, because on my view, pragmatism and fallibilism are pretty much the same thing.

    I was thinking along the lines of the pragmatism of CI Lewis, who wrote: “the fundamental laws of any science—or those that are treated as fundamental—are a priori because they formulate just such definitive concepts or categorical tests by which alone investigation becomes possible.”

    From that point of view, we revise scientific laws because we find better ways of doing things, not because the earlier laws were wrong.

  9. Neil,

    You’re familiar with C.I. Lewis? I’ve only recently discovered him, and I’m very excited! Good!

    Wouldn’t a Real Pragmatist(tm) would say that “the earlier laws were wrong” just gets cashed out to mean “we found a better way of doing things”?

    So, what about this suggestion: firstly, where we distinguish between a posteriori and a priori statements is contextual — it depends on the context, and on the questions we’re asking — and secondly, that the sort of considerations that prompt a revision in our empirical statements are different from the sort of considerations that prompt a revision in our a priori statements. More specifically, we revise our empirical statements based on new results of inquiry, and we revise our a priori statements based on new ways of inquiring.

    Carl

  10. “the fundamental laws of any science—or those that are treated as fundamental—are a priori because they formulate just such definitive concepts or categorical tests by which alone investigation becomes possible.”

    Fundamental laws of science seem to be goalposts capable of being moved. Quantum theory and general relativity seem to be the iconoclasts of 20th century physics. Now they’re the icons.

    One good rule in science is that every empirical law works only within a range of conditions. Newton will get you to the moon and back, but won’t run your GPS.

    I think UD is experiencing what happens when someone refuses to accept the fact that physical phenomena may appear to violate fundamental rules of reason.

  11. Carl Sachs: You’re familiar with C.I. Lewis?

    He’s a lot easier to read than Rorty.

    So, what about this suggestion: …

    In all honesty, I am not a big fan of epistemology.

    An epistemologist defines knowledge in terms of immaterial propositions, and then somehow tries to keep a straight face while criticizing substance dualism.

  12. An epistemologist defines knowledge in terms of immaterial propositions, and then somehow tries to keep a straight face while criticizing substance dualism.

    Touche! Well, we’ve entered the phase of the conversation that, under ideal circumstances, would best be conducted over a couple of beers! Unfortunately, existing technology does not permit that!

    Since epistemology is one of my many hats, though, I do feel slightly compelled to rise to its defense, insofar as I’d describe epistemology as “the ethics of belief”. Which is to say, epistemology, when done soberly and sanely (i.e. not too often) consists of attempts to formulate the norms of assessment of evidence, theory-selection, and so on. In the regard, it is, as you rightly indicated, concerned with a priori principles. But I gladly follow Lewis and Sellars (and even Rorty, in his more careful moments) in thinking that this is a sufficiently innocuous kind of a priori reasoning that’s quite consistent with naturalism.

    Best,
    Carl

  13. Carl Sachs: Since epistemology is one of my many hats, though, I do feel slightly compelled to rise to its defense, insofar as I’d describe epistemology as “the ethics of belief”.

    I don’t have a problem with that.

    My view of epistemology is that it is too much a propositional account, and not nearly enough a behavioral account. How we use propositions is, of course, a behavioral question. And it sounds as if you are part way headed in that direction.

    As a mathematician, I do deal with abstract things so could be described as dealing with immaterial numbers. But it has always seemed to me and to many of my colleagues, that we are not teaching our students facts about numbers. Rather, we are teaching problem solving methods.

  14. Neil,

    Neil Rickert: My view of epistemology is that it is too much a propositional account, and not nearly enough a behavioral account. How we use propositions is, of course, a behavioral question. And it sounds as if you are part way headed in that direction.

    I looked at the “About” section of your blog, and I think I have a better sense of where you’re coming from here. Epistemology has, unfortunately, been haunted by the ghost of dearly departed Kant. I once heard the project of the Critique of Pure Reason described — helpfully, I thought — as being the project of strong A.I. It’s about the design specs, not about implementation.

    At the same time, though, I want to preserve the distinction between epistemology (as the ethics of belief) and cognitive science — where the latter yields explanations of how we actually cognize. Distinction, that is, and not separation — for I do think that the two require each other. And I think that’s because of how I’m trying to maintain this distinction that I seem to be in between a ‘propositional’ and ‘behavioral’ approach.

    Very best,
    Carl

Leave a Reply