Posted: July 18th, 2011 | Author: danny | Filed under: Book Notes | No Comments »
Killing Time: The Autobiography of Paul Feyerabend
I was surprised by the amount of detail spent on reviewing films, theatres, musicians, and restaurants in contrast to the brevity given seemingly more important matters. A great book overall.
I especially liked the story on pages 18/19/20.
Notes below:
Page 4
We [Paul & his father] were friends, sort of, but not very close; I was much too self-centered and much too involved in my own affairs. I had already moved to California when I heard of his final illness; I did not return and I did not attend his funeral.
Page 5/6
Aunt Pepi was married to Konrad Hampapa, a railwayman and a heavy drinker himself. They had two children - Konrad junior, who was retarded, and Josephine. The family visited us on Sundays, and Junior played he accordion. He was an excellent musician and could improvise on any melody he heard. When is father remarried, he tried to make love to his stepmother, Maria. This, he thought, was was the normal function of a mother, for Aunt Pepi, apparently, had made love to him. Maria was a kind but determined woman. She stopped her husband's drinking; but she failed with Konrad junior. He left home, roamed the streets, hid in garbage containers (which at the time were large enough to hold ten people), played his instrument, and raped the women who came to listen. He died in an insane asylum at the age of thirty-six -- at least this is what I heard later, after my return from London. For me (at age ten), Cousin Konrad was just another relative with a great gift for music. I noticed that he was a little peculiar - but so were many people. My attitude changed when the peculiarity received a name, "retardation," and when casual and unintended hints informed me of its social implications. Fear and revulsion were the result.
Page 12/13
Between the ages of three and six I spent most of my time in the kitchen and in the bedroom. Mama moved a bench up to the window and tied me to the window frame. The I hung like a spider and watched the world: major street repairs, colorful steamrollers, the green electric buses that transported the mail, the street performers, and now and then a private car. Once a week a bunch of pigs was delivered to the butcher's shop in the house opposite. On Friday the workers received their paychecks, went to the local pub, and got drunk. Between two and three in the morning - I was in bed at the time, but the noise woke us all up -- their wives went looking for them and brought them home. It was an impressive sight: huge women lifting tiny men up by their collars and shouting with thunderous voices: "You heap of shit! You bum! You asshole! Where's the money? ... " Even the mailman ended up in the gutter with letters, checks, bills scattered all around him.
Inside, wives beat their husbands (and vice versa), parents beat their children (and vice versa), neighbors beat each other. Every morning the ladies of the house assembled at the bassena, the only water outlet on each floor. They exchanged gossip, commiserated, complained about their men, pets, relatives. Most of the time that was that. Once in a while the gossip increased in volume, changed character, and turned into a row. Endearments such as "You whore! You bitch!" filled the corridors. Weapons (brooms and so forth) might be added, but dragging the opponent around by her hair seemed to suffice. Turds on the stairway meant that the janitor had managed to make an enemy or two. It would be wrong to infer that our house was an extreme case, however. The nuns at a well-known Catholic hospital where I had my appendix removed used the same language and treated each other in almost the same way.
Page 16/17
I started school when I was six. It was a strange experience. Having been kept off the streets, I had no idea how other people lived or what to do with them. Papa gave me his military knapsack instead of the customary briefcase. "People will envy you," he explained. I was laughed at. "Defend yourself!" said mama. Next day I did just that. School was over and I started for home. I saw mama at the window, remembered her advice, turned to the main offender, and broke his arm. Gradually things settled down and instruction began. Now I could not understand why I should sit still while the teacher was wandering around; so I wandered around with him. He ordered me back to my place. There I remained, but I began to throw up as soon as the first letters appeared on the blackboard. ...
Page 18/19/20
Once a year, on December 10, my father dressed up (at a neighbor's) in a bishop's outfit, put on a mask, and entered our place as Saint Nicholas. Mama and I waited in the kitchen. There was a knock. "It must be Saint Nicholas," said mama. I trembled with fear and excitement. Mama opened the door and Saint Nicholas came in. I knelt down. Papa asked in a deep voice: "Have you been a good boy? Have you done your homework? Did you obey your parents?" And I had to admit, alas, that I had sinned here and been negligent there and that my behavior had been far from exemplary. Saint Nick came closer, looked at me with a penetrating glance, hit me (gently, of course), and said: "Next time you won't get away that easily"; and then he departed. Outside the door he left a basket with fruit, chocolate, and various sweets. When my father returned, he looked exhausted; he had a leather strap in his hand and explained how he had caught, tied, and gagged the devil while Saint Nick was giving me the third degree. "You know," he said, "you were lucky; this time the devil almost got away and he surely would have beaten you up. He might even have taken you with him!" I believed the story, especially as the neighbors were moving around in the corridor in demonic costumes. "Poor papa," I said. I gave him some of my presents and was proud of the strength that had enabled him to restrain the Evil One himself.
...
The door opened. Here was the old familiar figure: the long white dress, the golden embroider, the staff, the pointed hat, the deep voice. But I also saw my father's shoes, which I had not noticed before, I saw the eyes behind the mask, which I had never separated from the mask, and I heard him, not Saint Nicholas. It was my father; clearly it was my father, yet equally clearly it was not my father but the Saint.
...
I was sad, not for myself but for my father, who, having been a mighty Saint, was now a vulnerable human being.
Page 37
He [Hitler] would begin slowly, hesitantly, in a low but resonant voice: "Volksgenossen und Voksgenossinnen!" -- "Fellow nationals, men and women!" Many people, young and old, male and female, my mother among them, were hypnotized by his voice. Listening to the mere sound they became transfixed. "I loved Hitler, " Ingmar Bergman writes in his autobiography, reporting his impressions as an adolescent exchange student. "The only face among faceless men," was Heidegger's reaction. "He is a phenomenon - too bad I am a Jew and he is an anti-Semite," said Joseph von Sternberg, inventor of Marlene Dietrich, director of The Blue Angel and many Hollywood movies afterward. Hitler mentioned local problems and achievements; he made jokes, some of them rather good. Gradually his delivery changed; in approaching obstacles and setbacks, Hitler increased both his speed and his volume. The outbursts, which are the only parts of his speeches known the world over, were carefully prepared, well staged, and exploited in a calmer vein once they had passed. They were the result of control, not of anger, hatred, or despair, at least while Hitler was still in good physical shape and in command of events. "Here is a man who knows how to speak," said papa, who had been looking forward to the takeover, "not like Schuschnigg" (the Austrian chancellor, an intellectual without temperament or popular appeal.)
Page 42
Later on I met soldiers who wore the Gefrierfleischorden, the frozen meat medal, which they received for having survived without winter clothes.
Page 51/52
Our destination was Poland, the area near Czestochowa. There I was put in command of a bicycle company. I was hardly thrilled - I had never ridden a bicycle, and I fell of when I tried. The soldiers stood around looking puzzled: this is supposed to be our leader? The problem was solved the Russians; in one day the bicycles were already in their hands. And then came two weeks of absolute chaos. Run, rest, build a bridge, cross the bridge, blow up the bridge, remove mines, lay mines, rest, run again. I remember sitting in a house, reading a book, with anxious peasants around me; soaking my feet in warm water when the Russians entered by the back door - I still don't know how I escaped; sleeping in a barn and seeing the Russians through a small crack when I opened my eyes in the morning; running across a field to escape gunfire, with people dropping like flies around me.
...
Then, one evening, in the midst of shooting from right, left, front, back, the horizon aflame with burning houses, my carelessness finally caught up with me. Playing the operatic hero once again, I placed myself at a crossroad and started directing traffic. Suddenly my face was burning. I touched my cheek. Blood. Next, an impact on my right hand. I looked at it. There was a large hole in my glove. I didn't like that at all. The gloves were made of excellent leather and lined with fur; I would have liked them to remain intact. I turned slightly to the left - things were getting dangerous. I slipped and fell. I tried to get up but I couldn't. I felt no pain, but I was convinced that my legs had been shattered. For a moment I saw myself in a wheelchair, moving along endless shelves of books - I was almost happy. Soldiers eager to get out of trouble gathered around me, lifted me onto a sledge, and dragged me away. The war was over as far as I was concerned.
Page 54
I soon recovered but remained paralyzed form the waste down. I was not unduly concerned. I even got alarmed when one of my toes started moving; "Not now, please," I said; "can't you wait until the war's over?" I didn't mind being a cripple - I was content; talked to my neighbors; read novels, poems, crime stories, essays of all kinds.
Page 63
I had not joined the party and I had not been involved in any criminal activities. I can't take credit for that - the occasion simply didn't arise. I don't know what I would have done had I been asked to become a Parteigenosse or ordered to kill civilians.
Page 68
All of us, men and women, were "scientists" and thus superior by far to students of history, sociology, literature, and similar trash.
Page 89/90
Falsificationism now seemed a real option, and I fell for it.
...
Today I regard this episode as an excellent illustration of the dangers of abstract reasoning. There are lots of dangerous philosophies around. Why are they dangerous? Because they contain elements that paralyze our judgement. Rationalism, whether dogmatic or critical, is no exception. Even worse - the inner coherence of its products, the apparent reasonableness of its principles, the promise of a method that enables individuals to free themselves from prejudice, and the success of the sciences, which seem to be rationalism's main achievements, provide it with an almost superhuman authority. Popper not only used these elements, he added paralyzing ingredient of his own - simplicity.
Page 117/118
Paul Meehl was interested in the mind-body problem and in the relation between theory and experiment. The positivists favored an "upward seepage" of meaning, as Meehl called it: observation statements (which we put at the bottom of our diagrams) are meaningful; theoretical statements, taken by themselves, are not but receive meaning via the logical links that tie them to observation statements. Continuing the drift of my 1958 paper I argued then that meaning travels in the opposite direction. Sense-data in and for themselves have no meaning; they just are. A person who is given sense-data and nothing else is completely disoriented. Meaning comes from ideas. Meaning, therefore, "trickles down" from the theoretical level toward the level of observation. Today I would say that both positions are rather naive. Meaning is not located anywhere. It does not guide our actions (thoughts, observations) but aries in their course. Meaning may stabilize to such an extent that the assumption of a location starts making sense. This, however, is a disease and not a foundation.
Page 119
Later, at a monster debate epistemology, I compared Aristotle's philosophy with that of the Vienna Circle. Aristotle's philosophy, I said, was fruitful - it had helped him to found some sciences and to enrich others. Ernst Mach was still making contributions to the sciences themselves, not only to the rhetoric about them. TheVienna Circle, however, merely commented on work already done. It was barren, from a scientific point of view. Or, as Ernst Bloch had colorfully put it, "Die Philosophie ist aus einer Fackeltragerin der Wissenschaft zu ihrer Schleppentragerin geworden" ("Having been the torchbearer of science, philosophy is now carrying its train"). Carnap did not object, but he emphasized the advantages of clarity. ...
Page 124/125
My friend Joan McKenna, a bigmouth with a heart of gold and a certified witch, tied an experiment. Having been introduced as a guest lecturer she talked for about twenty minutes; then she stopped and invited questions. Her answers were unfair, sarcastic, authoritarian. Nobody intervened. On the contrary, people next to her victims moved away a little - we don't want to have anything to do with a loser like you, they seemed to say. Now Joan explained the setup and its purpose. "Loo at what you are doing!" she exclaimed. "I give ridiculous, authoritarian answers. You not only swallow them but treat the only students brave enough to resist like outcasts. No wonder a professor can et away with anything!" After that we discussed how to deal with the bastards of the profession. Assume one such superior being says thins that sound silly or incomprehensible. What do you do? You get up and ask for clarification. Assume you are silenced by an authoritarian gesture. Well, somebody else gets up and repeats the question: "I didn't understand either." More anger, more sarcasm. A third student gets up: "You are supposed to teach, not to make fun of us; so please explain." "Don't be insolent!" "He wasn't being insolent," a fourth student says. "He was asking for information, and you wouldn't give it." -- and so on. Sooner or later, I said, there will be a more accommodating response. "We can't do that," some students replied; "we'll get bad grades." "We won't do it " was the reaction of others. "It's not worth the effort."
Page 126
I didn't always accept the advice of the student leaders. For example, I didn't participate in the strike they declared. On the contrary, I cut fewer lectures during the strike than either before or after. "Didn't you feel any solidarity?" Grazia asked when I told her. "With the students, yes; with the organizers of the strike, no. They presumed to speak for all students just as Johnson presumed to act for all Americans - the old authoritarianism again." Besides, I thought a student strike was rather silly. Industrial strikes cause a shortage of goods. Student strikes are a nuisance, nothing more. (I have changed my mind since then. Professors without students are as useless as screwdrivers without screws - and they feel it.) I would have stopped lecturing if my students had demanded it, but when I asked them, some said yes, some said no - and we spent the rest of the time debating the issue. Eventually I moved off campus, first into students' quarters, then into a church. Now the administration got on m back: teachers were supposed to remain in assigned lecture halls. Consulting the regulations I found no such rule, and continued as before. For some of my colleagues,John Searle especially, this was the last straw; they wanted to have me fired. When they realized how much paperwork was involved, they gave up. Red tape does have its advantages.
Page 128
"Science has many holes," I said in passing. "A Popperian triviality," shouted Imre Lakatos, who came to every lecture. That shut me up; but I soon smiled at the incident. Lakatos had used a familiar trick: assuming that your audience does not know too much history, you can increase the stature of a modern midget by burdening him with age-old discoveries. In the present case the ancestors were clear - they were the ancient skeptics. Unfortunately this only occurred to me hours after the lecture.
Page 134
"It's your own fault," said my friends. "First you denigrate reason, then you expect people to say something interesting." I saw things differently. I never "denigrated reason," whatever that is, only some petrified and tyrannical versions of it. Nor did I assume that my critique was the end of the matter. It was the beginning, a very difficult beginning - of what? Of a better understanding of the sciences, better societal arrangements, better relations between individuals, a better theater, better movies, and so on.
Page 142/2143
Today I am convinced that there is more to this "anarchism" than rhetoric. The world, including the world of science, is complex and scattered entity that cannot be captured by theories and simple rules. Even as a student I had mocked the intellectual tumors grown by philosophers. I had lost patience when a debate about scientific achievements was interrupted by an attempt to "clarify," where clarification meant translation into some form of pidgin logic. "You are like medieval scholars," I had objected; "they didn't understand anything unless it was translated into Latin." My doubts increased when a reference to logic was used not just to clarify but to evade scientific problems. "We are making a logical point," the philosophers would say when the distance between their principles and the real world became rather obvious. Compared with such doubletalk, Quine's "Two Dogma's of Empiricism" was like a breadth of fresh air. J.L. Austin, whom I heard invited Berkeley, dissolved "philosophy" in a different way. His lectures (later published as Sense and Sensibilia) were simple, but quite effective. Using Ayer's Foundations of Empirical Knowledge, Austin invited us to read the test literally, to really pay attention t o the printed words. This we did. And statements that had seemed obvious and even profound suddenly ceased to make sense. We also realized that ordinary ways of talking were more flexible and more subtle than their philosophical replacements. So there were now two types of tumors to be removed - philosophy of science and general philosophy (ethics, epistemology, etc.) - and two areas of human activity that could survive without them - science and common sense.
...
Nor is there one way of knowing, science; there are many such ways, and before they were ruined by Western civilization they were effective in the sense that they kept people alive and make their existence comprehensible. Science itself has conflicting parts with different strategies, results, metaphysical embroideries. It is a collage, not a system. Moreover, both historical experience and democratic principles suggest that science be kept under public control. Scientific institutions are not "objective"; neither they nor their products confront people like a rock, or a star. They often merge with other traditions, are affected by them, affect them in turn. Decisive scientific movements were inspired by philosophical and religious (or theological) sentiments. The material benefits of science are not at all obvious. There are great benefits, true. But there are also great disadvantages. And the role of the abstract entity "science" in the production of the benefits is anything but clear.
Page 145
Most critics accused me of inconsistency: I am an anarchist, they said, but I still argue. I was astonished by this objection. A person addressing rationalists certainly can argue with them. It doesn't mean he believes that arguments settle a matter, they do. So if the arguments are valid (in their terms), they must accept the result. It was almost as if rationalists regarded argument as a sacred ritual that loses its power when used by a nonbeliever. "He says A," the critics exclaimed when I formulated a premise they accepted to produce a result they did not, "but he obviously opposes A; therefore he is inconsistent." Were philosophers really that unaware of the function of reductio ad absurdum? ...
Page 151/152
What do I think of AM today? Well, scientists have always acted in a loose and rather opportunist way when doing research, though they have often spoken differently when pontificating about it. By now this has become a commonplace among historians of science. In analyzing Galileo's telescopic observations, I indicated how Galileo, without much theorizing, achieved authoritative reports. More recently, historians have suggested that observational levels form entire cultures, whose criteria and rules differ considerably from those of the theoreticians. And in analyzing Galileo's theoretical achievements (in connection with defense of Copernicus - the Two New Sciences are a different matter), I suggested that they involved a deceptive restructuring of the fundamental ideas and relations. Today such processes are being examined in considerable detail. I am far from claiming that the historians engaged in these new types of research have necessarily read AM and were educated by it - nothing would be further from the truth. But it is pleasant to see that some armchair view of mine are being held by scholars working in close contact with scientific practice.
Other armchair views did not fare so well. I am referring to my "relativism," to the idea that cultures are more or less closed entities with their own criteria and procedures, that they are intrinsically valuable and should not be interfered with. To a certain extent this view coincided with the views of anthropologists who, trying to understand the confusing complexity of human existence, divided it into (mostly) non-overlapping, self-contained and self-maintaining domains. But cultures interact, they change, they have resources that go beyond their stable and objective ingredients or, rather, beyond those ingredients which at least some anthropologists have condensed into inexorable cultural rules and laws. Considering how much cultures have learned from each other and how ingeniously they have transformed the material thus assembled, I have come to the conclusion that every culture is potentially all cultures and that special cultural features are changeable manifestations of a single human nature.
Page 164
People, intellectuals especially, seem unable to be content with a little more freedom, a little more happiness, a little more light. Perceiving a small advantage, they seize it, circumscribe it, nail it down, and in this way prepare a New Age of ignorance, darkness, and slavery. It is rather surprising that there are still people who want to help others for personal reasons, because they are kindhearted and not because they have been intimidated by principles. It is even more surprising that some of these people can work in institutions despite the greed, the incompetence, the power struggles that seem to surround the noblest cause. But there are such people, and my wife, Grazia, is one of them.
Page 172/173
I felt that writing papers and giving lectures was on thing, and living was another, and I advised students to seek their center of gravity outside whatever proession they might choose. It was in this connection that I ridiculed the notion of intellectual poperty and the standards that force a writer to refer the most insignificant intellectual fart to its proper source. I knew that refusing to define my life in terms of a profession or a specific actions did not yet give it content, but at least I was aware that there was such a content apart form this or that particular activity. I was aware, but I was not particularly concerned. At any rate, I felt no urge to pursue the matter.
Today it seems to me that love and friendship play a central role and that without them even the noblest of achievements and the most fundamental principles remain pale, empty, and dangerous. And when speaking of love, I don't mean an abstract commitment such as a "love of truth" or a "love of humanity," which taken by themselves, have often encouraged narrow-mindedness and cruelty. Nor do I mean emotional fireworks that soon exhaust themselves. I can't really say what I mean, for that would delimit a phenomenon that is a constantly changing mixture of concern and illumination. Loe lures people out of their limited "individuality," it expands horizons, and it changes every object in their way. Yet there is no merit in this kind of love. It is subjected neither to the intellect no to the will; it is the result of a fortunate constellation of circumstances. It is a gift, not an achievement.
Page 174/175
Looking back at this episode, I conclude that a moral character cannot be created by argument, "education," or an act of will. It cannot be created by any kind of planned action, whether scientific, political, moral, or religious. Like a true love, it is a gift, not an achievement. It depends on accidents such as parental affection, some kind of stability, friendship , and - following therefrom - on a delicate balance between self-confidence and a concern for others. We can create conditions that favor the balance; we cannot create the balance itself. Guilt, responsibility, obligation - these ideas make sense when the balance is given. They are empty words, even obstacles, when it is lacking.
But what can we do in an age like ours that has not yet achieved that balance? What can we do while our criminals, their judges, and henchmen, while the philosophers, poets, prophets who try to force us into their patterns, and while we, who are collaborators or victims or simply bystanders, are still in a barbaric state? The answer is obvious: with a few exceptions we shall act in a barbaric way. We shall punish, kill, meet violence with violence, pit teachers against students, set "intellectual leaders" against the public and against each other; we shall speak about transgressions in resounding moral terms and demand that violations of the law be prevented by force. But while continuing our own lives in this manner, we should at least try to give our children a chance. We should offer them love and security, not principles, and under no circumstances should we burden them with the crimes of the past. They may have to deal for generations with the physical, juridical, and financial consequences of our actions and with the chaos we leave behind; but they are free of any moral, historical, national guilt. As for myself - I certainly cannot undo my wavering and unconcern during the Nazi period. Nor do I think that I can be blamed or held responsible for my behavior. Responsibility assumes that we know the alternatives, that we know how to choose from among them, and that we use this knowledge to push them aside through cowardice, opportunism, or ideological fervor. But I can report what I thought and did, what I think about these and did, what I think about these thoughts and actions today, and why I changed.
Page 180
I urge all writers to who want to inform their fellow citizens to stay away from philosophy, or at least to stop being intimidated and influenced by obfuscators such as Derrida and, instead, to read Schopenhauer or Kant's popular essays.
Posted: July 16th, 2011 | Author: danny | Filed under: Book Notes | No Comments »
Against Method (Fourth Edition)
This is one of the most interesting books that I've ever read.
My favorite quotation:
An Anarchist is like an undercover agent who plays the game of Reason in order to undercut the authority of Reason (Truth, Honesty, Justice, and so on). Against Method, 23
Some quick references:
PAGE 124 American Medical Association!
PAGE 156 Good Diagram
PAGE 205, 211 -> Incommensurable
Page 218 -> Quite Excellent
On page 25, I drew a connection between consistency theory and the network science concept of preferential attachment.
"Consistency theory is path dependent; exhibits scale free behavior we economize by choosing it."
Here are the passages I found most interesting, challenging, or enlightening:
Page 7
The results obtained so far suggest abolishing the distinction between a context of discovery and a context of justification, norms and facts, observational terms and theoretical terms. None of these distinctions plays a role in scientific practice. Attempts to enforce them would have disastrous consequences. Popper's critical rationalism fails for the same reason.
Page 9
Science is an essentially anarchic enterprise: theoretical anarchism is more humanitarian and more likely to encourage progress than its law-and-order alternatives.
Page 10
'The external conditions', writes Einstein, 'which are set for [the scientist] by the facts of experience do not permit him to let himself be too much restricted, in the constriction of his conceptual world, by the adherence to an epistemological system. He, therefore, must appear to the systematic epistemologist as a type of unscrupulous opportunist...'
Page 12
The attempt to increase liberty, to lead a full and rewarding life, and the corresponding attempt to discover the secrets of nature and of man, entails, therefore, the rejection of all universal standards and of all rigid traditions.
Page 15, Footnote 1
One of the few thinkers to understand this feature of the development of knowledge was Niels Bohr: '... he would never try to outline any finished picture, but would patiently go through all the phases of the development of a problem, starting from some apparent paradox, and gradually leading to its elucidation. In fact, he regarded achieved results in any other light than as starting points for further exploration. In speculating about the prospects of some line of investigation, he would dismiss the usual consideration of simplicity, elegance, or even consistency with the remark that such qualities can only be properly judged after the event...' Now science is never a completed process, therefor it is always 'before' the event. Hence simplicity, elegance or consistency are never necessary conditions of (scientific) practice.
Page 22/23 *
Now - how can we possibly examine something we are using all the time? How can we analyse the terms in which we habitually express our most simple and straightforward observations, and reveal their presuppositions? How can we discover the kind of world we presuppose when proceeding as we do?
The answer is clear: we cannot discover it from the inside. We need an external standard of criticism, we need an external standard of criticism, we need a set of alternative assumptions or, as these assumptions will be quite general, constituting, as it were, an entire alternative world, we need to a dreamworld in order to discover the features of the real world we think we inhabit (and which may actually be just another dream-world). The first step in our criticism of familiar concepts and procedures, the first step in our of 'facts', must therefore be an attempt to break the circle. We must invent a new conceptual system that suspends, or clashes with, the most carefully established observational results, confounds the most plausible theoretical principles, and introduces perceptions that cannot form part of the existing perceptual world. This step is again counterinductive. Counterinduction is, therefore, always reasonable and it has always a chance of success.
...
One might therefore get the impression that I recommend a new methodology which replaces induction by counterinduction instead of the customary pair theory/observation. This impression would certainly be mistaken. My intention is , rather, to convince the reader that all methodologies, even the most obvious ones, have their limits.
...
An Anarchist is like an undercover agent who plays the game of Reason in order to undercut the authority of Reason (Truth, Honesty, Justice, and so on).
Footnote 3:
'Dada', says Hans Richter in Dada: Art and Anti-Art, 'not only had no programme, it was against all programmes.' This doe s not execlude the skilful defence of programmes to show the chimerical character of any defence, however 'rational'. (In the same way an actor or a playwright could produce all the outer manifestations of 'deep love' in order to debunk the idea of 'deep love' itself. Example: Pirandello.)
Page 24
They will start with a criticism of the demand that new hypotheses must be consistent with such theories. This demand will be called the consistency condition.
...
To speak more abstractly:consider a theory T' that successfully describes the situation inside domain D'. T' agrees with a finite number of observations (let their class be F) and it agrees with these observations inside a margin M of error. Any alternative that contradicts T' outside F and inside M is supported by exactly the same observations and is therefore acceptable if T' was acceptable (I shall assume that F are the only observations made). The consistency condition is much less tolerant. It eliminates a theory or a hypothesis not because it disagrees with the facts; it eliminates it because it disagrees with another theory, with a theory, moreover, whose confirming instances it shares. It thereby makes the as yet untested part of that theory a measure of validity. The only difference between such a measure and a more recent theory is age and familiarity. Had the younger theory been there first, then consistency condition would have worked in its favour. 'The first adequate theory has the right of priority over equally adequate aftercomers.' (emphasis added - danny) In this respect the effect of the consistency condition is rather similar to the effect of the more traditional methods of transcendental deduction, analysis of essences, phenomenological analysis, linguistic analysis. It contributes to the preservation of the old and familiar not because of any inherent advantage in it but because it is old and familiar. (emphasis added - danny) This is not the only instance where on closer inspection a rather surprising similarity emerges between modern empiricism and some of the school philosophies it attacks.
Page 25/29 *
... Hence the invention of alternatives to the view at the centre of discussion constitutes an essential part of the empirical method. Conversely the fact that the consistency condition eliminates alternatives now shows it to be in disagreement not only with scientific practice but with empiricism as well. By excluding valuable tests it decreases the empirical content of the theories that are permitted to remain (and these, as I have indicated above, will usually be the theories which were there first) ...
Page 29/30
John Stuart Mill has given a fascinating account of the gradual transformation of revolutionary ideas into obstacles to thought. When a new view proposed it faces a hostile audience and excellent reasons are needed to gain for it an even moderately fair hearing. The reasons are produced, but they are often disregarded or laughed out of court, and unhappiness is the fate of the bold inventors. But new generations, being interested in new things, become curious; they consider the reasons, pursue them further and groups of researchers initiate detailed studies. The studies may lead to surprising successes (they also raise lots of difficulties). Now nothing succeeds like success, even if it is success surrounded by difficulties. The theory becomes acceptable as a topic for discussion; it is presented at meetings and large conferences. The diehards of the status quo feel an obligation to study one paper or another, to make a few grumbling comments, and perhaps to join in its exploration. There comes then a moment when the theory is no longer an esoteric discussion topic for advanced seminars and conferences, but enters the public domain. There are introductory texts, popularizations; examination questions start dealing with problems to be solved in its terms. Scientists from distant fields and philosophers, trying to show off, drop a hint here and there, and this often quite uninformed desire to be on the right side is taken as a further sign of the importance of the theory.
Unfortunately, this increase in importance is not accompanied by better understanding; the very opposite is the case. Problematic aspects which were originally introduced with the help of carefully constructed arguments now become basic principles; doubtful points turn into slogans; debates with opponents become standardized and also quite unrealistic, for the opponents, having to express themselves in terms which presuppose what they contest, seem to raise quibbles, or to misuse words. Alternatives are still employed but they no longer contain realistic counter-proposals; they only serve as a background for the splendour of the new theory. Thus we do have success - but it is the success of a manoeuvre carried out in a void, overcoming difficulties that were set up in advance for easy solution. An empirical theory such as quantum mechanics or a pseudo-empirical practice such as modern scientific medicine with its materialistic background can of course point to numerous achievements but any view and any practice that has been around for some time has achievements. The question is whose achievements are better or more important and this question cannot be answered for there are no realistic alternatives to provide a point of comparison. A wonderful invention has turned into a fossil.
Page 31/32
Unanimity of opinion may be fitting for a rigid church, for the frightened or greedy victims of some (ancient, or modern) myth, or for the weak and willing followers of some tyrant. Variety of opinion is necessary for objective knowledge. And a mehtod that encourages variety is also the only method that is compatible with a humanitarian outlook.
Page 49
Ad hoc approximations abound in modern mathematical physics. They play a very important part in the quantum theory of fields and they are an essential ingredient of the correspondence principle. At the moment we are not concerned with the reasons for this fact, we are only concerned with its consequences: ad hoc approximations conceal, and even eliminate, qualitative difficulties. They create a false impression of the excellence of our science. It follows that a philosopher who wants to study the adequacy of science as a picture of the world, or who wants to build up a realistic scientific methodology, must look at modern science with special care. In most cases modern science is more opaque, and more deceptive, than its 16th- and 17th-century ancestors have ever been.
...
To sum up this brief and very incomplete list: wherever we look, whenever we have a little patience and select our evidence in an unprejudiced manner, we find that theories fail adequately to reproduce certain quantitative results, and that they are qualitatively incompetent to a surprising degree. Science gives us theories of great beauty and sophistication. Modern science has developed mathematical structures which exceed anything that has existed so far in coherence generality and empirical success. But in order to achieve this miracle all the existing troubles had to be pushed into the relation between theory and fact, and had to be concealed, by ad hoc hypotheses, ad hoc approximations and other procedures.
Page 51/52
... Not only are facts and theories in constant disharmony, they are never as neatly separated as everyone makes them out to be. Methodological rules speak of 'theories', 'observations' and experimental results' as if these were well--defined objects who's properties are easy to evaluate and which are understood in the same way by all scientists.
However, the material which a scientist actually has at his disposal, his laws, his experimental results, his mathematical techniques, his epistemological prejudices, his attitude towards the absurd consequences of the theories which he accepts, is indeterminate in many ways, ambiguous, and never fully separated from the historical background. It is contaminated by principles which he does not know and which, if known, would be extremely hard to test. Questionable views on cognition, such as the view that our senses, used in normal circumstances, give reliable information about the world, may invade the observation language itself, constituting the observational terms as well as the distinction between veridical and illusory appearance. As a result, observation language itself, constituting the observational terms as well as the distinction between veridical and illusory appearance. As a result, observation language itself, constituting the observational terms as well as the distinction between veridical and illusory appearance. As a result, observation languages may become tied to older layers of speculation which affect, in this roundabout fashion, even the most progressive methodology. (Example: the absolute space-time frame of classical physics which was codified and consecrated by Kant.) The sensory impression, however simple, contains a component that expresses the physiological reaction of the perceiving organism and has no objective correlate. This 'subjective' component often merges with the rest, and forms an unstructured whole which must be subdivided from the outside with the help of counterinductive procedures. (An example is the appearance of a fixed star to the naked eye, which contains the effects of irradiation diffraction, diffusion, restricted by the lateral inhibition of adjacent elements of the retina and is further modified in the brain.)
...
Consideration of all these circumstances, of observation terms, sensory core, auxiliary science, background speculation, suggest that a theory may be inconsistent with the evidence, not because it is incorrect, but because the evidence is contaminated. The theory is threatened because the evidence either contains unanalysed sensations which only partly correspond to external processes, or because it is presented in terms of antiquated views, or because it is evaluated with the help of backward auxiliary subjects. The Copernican theory was in trouble for all these reasons.
...
(Note that the experimental results are supposed to have been obtained with the greatest possible care. Hence 'taking observations, etc. for granted' means 'taking them for granted after the most careful examination of their reliability': for even the most careful examination of an observation statement does not interfere with the concepts in which it is expressed, or with the structure of the sensory image.)
Page 58
In the history of thought, natural interpretations have been regarded either as a priori presuppositions of science, or else as prejudices which must be removed before any serious examination can begin. The first view is that of Kant, and, in a very different manner and on the basis of very different talents, that of some contemporary linguistic philosophers. The second view is due to Bacon (who had predecessors, however, such as the Greek sceptics).
Galileo is one of those rare thinkers who wants neither forever to retain natural interpretations nor altogether to eliminate them.
...
The senses alone, without the help of reason, cannot give us a true account of nature. What is needed for arrive at such a true account are 'the ... senses, accompanied by reasoning.'
Page 61/62/63
Perceptions must be identified, and the identifying mechanism will contain some of the very same elements which govern the use of the concept to be investigated. We never penetrate this concept completely, for we always use part of it in the attempt to find its constituents. There is only one way to get out of this circle, and it consists in using an external measure of comparison, including new ways of relating concepts and percepts.
...
Theories are tested, and possibly refuted, by facts. Facts contain ideological components, older views which have vanished from sight or were perhaps never formulated in an explicit manner. Such components are highly suspicious. First, because of their age and obscure origin: we do not know why and how they were introduced; secondly, because their very nature protects them, and always has protected them, from critical examination. In the event of a contradiction between a new and interesting theory and a collection of firmly established facts, the best procedure, therefore, is not abandon the theory but to use it to discover the hidden principles responsible for the contradiction. Counterinduction is an essential part of such a process of discovery. (Excellent historical example: the arguments against motion and atomicity of Parmenides and Zeno. Diogenes of Sinope, the Cynic, took the simple course that would be taken by many contemporary scientists and all contemporary philosophers: he refuted the arguments by rising and walking up and down. The opposite course, recommended here, has led to much more interesting results, as is witnessed by the history of the case. One should not be too hard on Diogenes, however, for it is also reported that he beat up a pupil who was content with his refutation, exclaiming that he had given reasons which the pupil should not accept without additional reasons of his own.)
Having discovered a particular natural interpretation, how can we examine it and test it? Obviously, we cannot proceed in the usual way, i.e. derive predictions and compare them with 'results of observation'. These results are no longer available. The idea that the senses, employed under normal circumstances, produce correct reports of real events, for example reports of the real motion of physical bodies, has been removed from all observational statements. (Remember that this notion was found to be an essential part of the anti-Copernican argument.) But without it our sensory reactions cease to be relevant for tests. This conclusion was generalized by some older rationalists, who decided to build their science on reason only and ascribed to observation a quite insignificant auxiliary function. Galileo does not adopt this procedure.
If one natural interpretation causes trouble for an attractive view, and if its elimination removes the view from the domain of observation, then the only acceptable procedure is to use other interpretations and to see what happens. The interpretation which Galileo uses restores the senses to their position as instruments of exploration, but only with respect to the reality of relative motion. Motion 'among things which share it in common' is 'non-operative', that is, 'it remains insensible, imperceptible, and without any effect whatever'. Galileo's first step, in his joint examination of the Copernican doctrine and of a familiar but hidden natural interpretation, consists therefore in replacing the latter by a different interpretation. In other words, he introduces a new observation language.
...
Extraordinary cases which might create difficulties are defused with the help of 'adjustor words', such as 'like' or 'analogous', which diver them so that the basic ontology remains unchallenged.
Page 88/89
... I tested the instrument of Galileo's in a thousand ways, both on things here below and on those above. Below it works wonderfully; in the heavens it deceives one, as some fixed stars [Spica Virginis, for example, is mentioned, as well as a terrestrial flame] are seen double. I have as witnesses most excellent men and noble doctors ... and all have admitted the instrument to deceive ... This silenced Galileo and on the 26th he sadly left quite early in the morning .. not even thanking Magini for his splendid meal ... ' Magini wrote to Kepler on 26 May: 'He has achieved nothing, for more than twenty learned men were present; yet nobody has seen the new planets distinctly (new perfecte vidit); he will hardly be able to keep them.' A few months later (in a letter signed by Ruffini) he repeats: 'Only some with sharp vision were convinced to some extent.' After these and other negative reports had reached Kepler from all sides, like a paper avalanche, he asked Galileo for witnesses: 'I do not want to hide it from you that quite a few Italians have sent letters to Prague asserting that they could not see those stars [the moons of Jupiter] with your own telescope. I ask myself how it can e that so many deny the phenomenon, including those who use a telescope. Now, if I consider what occasionally happens to me then I do not at all regard it as impossible that a single person may see what thousands are unable to see ...Yet I regret that the confirmation by others should take so long in turning up ... Therefore, I beseech you, Galileo, give me witnesses as soon as possible ... ' Galileo, in his reply of 19 August, refers to himself, to the Duke of Toscana, and Giuliano de Medici 'as well as many others in Pisa, Florence, Bologna, Venice and Padua, who, however, remain silent and hesitate. Most of them are entirely unable to distinguish Jupiter, or Mars, or even the Moon as a planet ...' - not a very reassuring state of affairs, to say the least.
Page 99/101
Galileo was only slightly acquainted with contemporary optical theory. His telescope gave surprising results on the earth, and these results were duly praised. Trouble was to be expected in the sky, as we know now. Trouble promptly arose: the telescope produced spurious and contradictory phenomena and some its results could be refuted by a simple look with the unaided eye. Only a new theory of telescopic vision could bring order into the chaos (which may have been sill larger, due to the different phenomena seen at the time even with the naked eye) and could separate appearance from reality. Such a theory was developed by Kepler, first in 1604 and then again in 1611.
...
This, then, was the actual situation in 1610 when Galileo published his telescoping findings. How did Galileo react to it? The answer has already been given: he raised the telescope to the state of a 'superior and better sense'.
Page 106
... almost everyone takes it for granted that precise observations, clear principles and well-confirmed theories are already decisive, that they can and must be used here and now to either eliminate the suggested hypothesis, or to make it acceptable, or perhaps even to prove it.
Such a procedure makes sense only if we an assume that the elements of our knowledge - the theories , the observations, the principles of our arguments - are timeless entities which share the same degree of perfection, are al equally accessible, and are related to each other in a way that is independent of the events that produced them. This is, of course, an extremely common assumption. It is taken for granted by most logicians; it underlies the familiar distinction between a context of discovery and a context of justification; and it is often expressed by saying that science deals with propositions and not with statements or sentences.
Page 110/112/113/114/116/117
In the case of Copernicus we need a new meteorology (in the good old sense of the word, as dealing with things below the moon), a new science of physiological optics that deals with the subjective (mind) and the objective (light, medium, lenses, structure of the eye) aspects of vision as well as a new dynamics stating the manner in which the motion of the earth might influence the physical processes at its surface. Obesrvations become relevant only after the processes described by these new subjects have been inserted between the world and the eye. The language in which we express our observations may have to be revised as well so that the new cosmpology receives a fair chance and is not endangered by an unnoticed collaboration of sensations and olde rideas. In sum : what is needed for a test of Copernicus is an entirely new world-view containing a new view of man and of his capacities of knowing.
...
This need to wait, and to ignore large masses of critical observations and measurements, is hardly ever discussed in our methodologies. Disregarding the possibility that a new physics or a new astronomy might have to be judged by a new theory of knowledge and might require entirely new tests, empirically inclined scientists at once confront it with the status quo and announce triumphantly that 'it is not in agreement with facts and received principles'. They are of course right, and even trivially so, but not in the sense intended by them. For at an early stage of development the contradiction only indicates that the old and the new are different and out of phase. It does not show which view is the better one. A judgement of this kind presupposes that the competitors confront each other on equal terms.
....
Thus the new view is arbitrarily separated from data that supported its predecessor and is made more 'metaphysical': a new period in the history of science commences with a backward movement that returns us to an earlier stage where theories were more vague and had smaller empirical content. This backward movement is not just an accident; it has a definite function; it is essential if we want to overtake the status quo, for it gives us the time and the freedom that are needed for developing the main view in detail, and for finding the necessary auxiliary sciences.
...
How can we convince them that the success of the status quo is only apparent and is bound to be shown as such in 500 years or more, when there is not a single argument on our side (and remember that the illustrations I used to paragraphs earlier derive their force from the successes of classical physics and were not available to Copernicans). It is clear that the allegiance to the new ideas will have to be brought about by means other than arguments. It will have to brought about by irrational means such as propaganda, emotion, ad hoc hypotheses, and appeal to prejudices of all kinds. We need these 'irrational means' such as propaganda, emotion, ad hoc hypotheses, and appeal to prejudices of all kinds. We need these 'irrational means' in order to uphold what is nothing but a blind faith until we have found the auxiliary sciences, the facts, the arguments that turn the faith into sound 'knowledge'.
...
The ideas survived and they now are said to be in agreement with reason. They survived because prejudice, passion, conceit, errors, sheer pigheadedness, in short because all the elements that characterize the context of discovery, opposed the dictates of reason and because these irrational elements were permitted to have their way. To express it differently: Copernicanism and other 'rational' views exist today only because reason was overruled at some time in their past. (The opposite is also true: witchcraft and other 'irrational' views have ceased to be influential only because reason was overruled at some time in their past.)
...
The first step on the way to a new cosmology, I have said, is a step back: apparently relevant evidence is pushed aside, new data are brought in by ad hoc connections, the empirical content of science is drastically reduced.
Page 119
'There is no independent interpretation, ' says Carnap and yet an idea such as the idea of the motion of the earth, which was inconsistent with the contemporary evidence to be irrelevant and which was therefore cut from the most important facts of contemporary astronomy managed to become a nucleus, a crystallization point for the aggregation of other inadequate views which gradually increased in articulation and finally fused into a new cosmology including new kinds of evidence. There is no better account of this process than the description which John Stuart Mill has left us of the vicissitudes of his education. Referring to the explanations which his father gave him on logical maters he writes: 'The explanations did not make the matter at all clear to me at the time; but they were not therefore useless; they remained as a nucleus for my observations and reflections to crystallize upon; the import of his general remarks being interpreted to me, by the particular instances which came under my notice afterwards. In exactly the same manner the Copernican view, though devoid of cognitive content from the point of view of a strict empiricism or else refuted, was needed in the construction of the supplementary sciences even before it became testable with their help and even before it, in turn, provided them with supporting evidence of the most forceful kind.
Page 120/121/122
When the 'Pythagorean idea' of the motion of the earth was revived by Copernicus it met with difficulties which exceeded the difficulties encountered by contemporary Ptolemaic astronomy. Strictly speaking, one had to regard it as refuted. Galileo, who was convinced of the truth of the Copernican view and who did not share the quite common, though by no means universal, belief in a stable experience, looked for new kinds of fact which might support Copernicus and still be acceptable to all. Such facts he obtained in two different ways. First, by the invention of his telescope, which changed the sensory core of everyday experience and replaced it by puzzling and unexplained phenomena; and by his principle of relativity and his dynamics, which changed its conceptual components. Neither the telescopic phenomena nor the new ideas of motion were acceptable to common sense (or to the Aristotelians). Besides, the associated theories could be easily shown to be false. Yet these false theories, these unacceptable phenomena, were transformed by Galileo and converted into strong support of Copernicus. The whole rich reservoir of the everyday experience and of the intuition of his readers is utilized in the argument, but the facts which they are invited to recall are arranged in a new way, approximations are made, known effects are omitted, different conceptual lines are drawn, so that a new kind of experience arises, manufactured almost out of thin air. This new experience is then solidified by insinuating that the reader has been familiar with it all the time. It is solidified and soon accepted as gospel truth, despite the fact that its conceptual components are vastly more speculative than are the conceptual components of common sense. Following positivistic usage we may therefore say that Galileo's science rests on an illustrated metaphysics. The distortion permits Galileo to advance but it prevents almost everyone else from making his effort the basis of a critical philosophy (for a long time emphasis was put either on his mathematics, or on his alleged experiments, or on his frequent appeal to the 'truth', and his propagandistic moves were altogether neglected). I suggest that what Galileo did was to let refuted theories support each other, that he built in this way a new world-view which was only loosely (if at all!) connected with the preceding cosmology (everyday experience included), that he established fake connections with the perceptual elements of this cosmology which are only now being replaced by genuine theories (physiological optics, theory of continua), and that whenever possible he replaced old facts by a new type of experience which he simply invented for the purpose of supporting Copernicus. Remember, incidentally, that Galileo's procedure drastically reduces the content of dynamics: Aristotelian dynamics was a general theory of change comprising locomotion, qualitative change, generation and corruption. Galileo's dynamics and its successors deal with locomotion only, other kinds of motion being pushed aside with the promissory note (due to Democritos) that locomotion will eventually be capable of comprehending all motion. Thus, a comprehensive empirical theory of motion is replaced by a much narrower theory plus a metaphysics of motion, just as an 'empirical' experience is replaced by an experience that contains speculative elements. This, I suggest, was the actual procedure followed by Galileo. Proceeding in this way he exhibited a style, a sense of humour, an elasticity and elegance, and an awareness of the valuable weaknesses of human thinking, which has never been equalled in the history of science. Here is an almost inexhaustible source of material for methodological speculation and, much more importantly, for the recovery of those features of knowledge which not only inform, but which also delight us.
Page 124
So far the argument was purely intellectual. I tried to show that neither logic nor experience can limit speculation and that outstanding researchers often transgressed widely accepted limits. But concepts have not only a logical content; they also have associations, they give rise to emotions, they are connected with images. These associations, emotions and images are essential for the way in which we relate to our fellow human beings. Removing them or changing them in a fundamental way may perhaps make our concepts more 'objective', but it often violates important social constraints.
Page 130
The attitude of the American Medical Association towards lay practitioners is as rigid as the attitude of the Church was toward lay interpreters - and it has the blessing of the law. Experts, or ignoramuses having acquired the formal insignia of expertise, always tried and often succeeded in securing for themselves exclusive rights in special domains. Any criticism of the rigidity of the Roman Church applies also to its modern scientific and science-connected successors.
Page 148/149
The activities which according to Feigl belong to the context of discovery are, therefore, not just different from what philosophers say about justification, they are in conflict with it. Scientific practice does not contain two contexts moving side by side, it is complicated mixture of procedures and we are faced by the question if this mixture should be left as it is, or if it should be replaced by a more 'orderly' arrangement. This is part one of the argument. Now we have seen that science as we know it today could not exist without a frequent overruling of the context of justification. This is part two of the argument. The conclusion is clear. Part one shows that we do not have a difference, but a mixture. Part two shows that replacing the mixture by an order that contains discovery on one side and justification on the other would have ruined science ...
Page 149/150
Finally, we have discovered that learning does not go from observation to theory but always involves both elements. Experience arises together with theoretical assumptions not before them, and an experience without theory is just as incomprehensible as is (allegedly) a theory without experience: eliminate part of the theoretical knowledge of a sensing subject and you have a person who is completely disoriented and incapable of carrying out the simplest action. Eliminate further knowledge and his sensory world (his 'observation language') will start disintegrating, colours and other simple sensations will disappear until he is in a stage even more primitive than a small child. ...
Page 157/158
To sum up: wherever we look, whatever examples we consider, we see that the principles of critical rationalism (take falsifications seriously, increase content; avoid ad hoc hypotheses; 'be honest' - whatever that means; and so on) and, a fortiori, the principles of logical empiricism (be precise; base your theories on measurements; avoid vague and untestable ideas; and so on), though practiced in special areas, give an inadequate account of the past development of science as a whole and are liable to hinder it in the future. They give an inadequate account of science because science is much more 'sloppy' and 'irrational' than its methodological image. And they are liable to hinder it because the attempt to make science more 'rational' and more precise is bound to wipe it out, as we have seen. The difference between science and methodology which is such an obvious fact of history, therefore, indicates a weakness of the latter, and perhaps of the 'laws of reason' as well. For what appears as 'sloppiness', 'chaos', or 'opportunism' when compared with such laws has a most important function in the development of those very theories which we today regard as essential parts of our knowledge of nature. These 'deviations', these 'errors', are preconditions of progress. They permit knowledge to survive in the complex and difficult world which we inhabit, they permit us to remain free and happy agents. Without 'chaos', no knowledge. Without a frequent dismissal of reason, no progress. Ideas which today form the very basis of science exist only because there were such things as prejudice, conceit, passion; because these things opposed reason; and because they were permitted to have their way. We have to conclude, then, that even within science reason cannot and should not be allowed to be comprehensive and that it must often be overruled, or eliminated, in favour of other agencies. There is not a single rule that remains valid under all circumstances and not a single agency to which appeal can always be made.
Page 159
Science needs people who are adaptable and inventive, not rigid imitators of 'established' behavioral patterns.
Page 160/161/162
In this case one class of standards is set against another such class - and this is quite legitimate: each organization, each party, each religious group has a right to defend its particular form of life and all the standards it contains. But scientists go much further. Like the defenders of The One True Religion before them they insinuate that their standards are essential for arriving at the Truth, or for getting Results and they deny such authority to the demands of the politician. They oppose all political interference, and they fall over each other trying to remind the listener, or the reader, of the disastrous outcome of the Lysenko affair.
...
Science is only one of the many instruments people invented to cope with their surroundings. It is not the only one, it is not infallible and it has become too powerful, to practical aim rationalists want to realize with the help of their methodology.
...
Rationalists are concerned about intellectual pollution. I share this concern. Illiterate and incompetent books flood the market, empty verbiage full of strange and esoteric terms claims to express profound insights, 'experts' without brains, character, and without even a modicum of intellectual, stylistic, emotional temperament tell us about our 'condition' and the means for improving it, and they do not only preach to us who might be able to look through them, they are let loose on our children and permitted to drag them down into their own intellectual squalor. 'Teachers' using grades and the fear of failure mould the brains of the young until they have lost every ounce of imagination they might once have possessed. This is a disastrous situation, and one not easily mended. But I do not see how a rationalistic methodology can help. As far as I am concerned the first and the most pressing problem is to get education out of the hands of the 'professional educators'. The constraints of grades, competition, regular examination must be removed and we must also separate the process of learning from the preparation for a particular trade. (Emphasis Added - Danny) I grant that business, religions, special professions such as science or prostitution, have a right to demand that their participants and/or practitioners conform to standards they regard as important, and that they should be able to ascertain their competence. I also admit that this implies the need for special types of education that prepare a man or a woman for the corresponding 'examinations'. The standards taught need to be 'rational' or 'reasonable' in any sense, though they will be usually presented as such; it suffices that they are accepted by the groups one wants to join, be it now Science, or Big Business, or The One True Religion. After all, in a democracy 'reason' has just as much right to be heard and to be expressed as 'unreason' especially in view of the fact that one man's 'reason' is the other man's insanity. But one thing must be avoided at all costs: the special standards which define special subjects and special professions must not be allowed to permeate general education and they must not be made the defining property of a 'well-educated person'. General education should prepare citizens to choose between the standards, or to find their way in a society that contains groups committed to various standards, but it must under no condition bend their minds so that they conform to the standards of one particular group. The standards will be considered, they will be discussed, children will be encouraged to get proficiency in the more important subjects, but only as one gets proficiency in a game, that is, without serious commitment and without robbing the mind of its ability to play other games as well. Having been prepared in this way a young person may decide to devote the rest of his life to a particular profession and he may start taking it seriously forthwith. This 'commitment' should be the result of a conscious decision, on the basis of a fairly complete knowledge of alternatives, and not a foregone conclusion.
...
It seems to me that such a change in education and, as a result, in perspective will remove a great deal of the intellectual pollution rationalists deplore. The change of perspective makes it clear that there are many ways of ordering the world that surrounds us, that the hated constraints of one set of standards may be broken by freely accepting standards of a different kind, and that there is no need to reject all order and to allow oneself to be reduced to a whining stream of consciousness. A society that is based on a set of well-defined and restrictive rules, so that being human becomes synonymous with obeying these rules, forces the dissenter into a no-man's-land of no rules at all and thus robs him of his reason and his humanity. It is the paradox of modern irrationalism that its proponents silently identify rationalism with order and articulate speech and thus see themselves forced to promote stammering and absurdity - many forms of 'mysticism' and 'existentialism' are impossible without a firm but unrealized commitment to some principles of the despised ideology (just remember the 'theory' that poetry is nothing but emotions colourfully expressed). Remove the principles, admit the possibility of many different forms of life, and such phenomena will disappear like a bad dream.
Page 163
Charlatans have existed at all times and in the most tightly-knit professions. Some of the examples which Lakatos mentions seem to indicate that the problem is created by too much control and not by too little. This is especially true of the new 'revolutionaries' and their 'reform' of the universities. Their fault is that they are Puritans and not that they are libertines. Besides, who would expect that cowards will improve the intellectual climate more readily than will libertines? (Einstein saw this problem and he therefore advised people not to connect their research with their profession: research has to be free from the pressures which professions are likely to impose.) We must also remember that those rare cases where liberal methodologies do encourage empty verbiage and loose thinking ('loose' from one point of view, though perhaps not from another) may be inevitable in the sense that the guilty liberalism is also a precondition of a free and human life.
Page 164
I have much sympathy with the view, formulated clearly and elegantly by Whorf (and anticipated by Bacon), that languages and the reaction patterns they involve are not merely instruments for describing events (facts, states of affair), but that they are also shapers of events (facts, states of affairs), that their 'grammar' contains a cosmology, a comprehensive view of the world, of society, of the situation of man which influences thought, behaviour, perception.
Footnote 1:
According to Whorf 'the background linguistic system (in other words, the grammar) of each language is not merely a reproducing system for voicing ideas, but rather is itself a shaper of ideas, the programme and guide for the individual's mental activity, for his analysis of impressions, for his analysis of impressions, for his synthesis of his mental stock in trade.'
Page 171/172
We also find that realism often precedes more schematic forms of presentation. This is true of the Old Stone Age, of Egyptian Art, of Attic Geometric Art. In all these cases the 'archaic style' is the result of a conscious effort (which may of course be aided, or hindered, by unconscious tendencies and physiological laws) rather than a natural reaction to internal deposits of external stimuli. Instead of looking for the psychological causes of a 'style' we should therefore rather try to discover its elements, analyse their function, compare them with other phenomena of the same culture (literary style, sentence construction, grammar, ideology) and thus arrive at an outline of the underlying world-view including an account of the way in which this world-view influences perception, thought, argument, and of the limits it imposes on the roaming about of the imagination. We shall see that such an analysis of outlines provides a better understanding of the process of conceptual change than either a naturalistic account which recognizes only one 'reality' and orders artworks by their closeness to it, or trite slogans such as 'a critical discussion and and a comparison of ... various frameworks is always possible.' Of course, some kind of comparison is always possible (for example, one physical theory may sound more melodious when read aloud to the accompaniment of a guitar than another physical theory). But lay down specific rules for the process of comparison, such as the rules of logic as applied to the relation of content classes, or some simple rules of perspective and you will find exceptions, undue restrictions, and you will be forced to talk your way out of trouble at every turn. It is much more interesting and instructive to examine what kinds of things can be said (represented) and what kinds of things cannot be said (represented) if the comparison has to take place within a certain specified and historically well-entrenched framework. For such an examination we must go beyond generalities and study frameworks in detail. I start with an account of some examples of the archaic style.
Page 173/174/175
... (We have what is called a paratactic aggregate: the elements of such an aggregate are all given equal importance, the only relation between them is sequential, there is no hierarchy, no part is presented as being subordinate to and determined by others.) The picture reads: ferocious lion, peaceful kid, swallowing of kid by lion.
The need to show every essential part of a situation often leads to a separation of parts which are actually in contact. The picture becomes a list. Thus a charioteer standing in a carriage is shown as standing above the floor (which is presented in its fullest view) and unencumbered by the rails so that his feet, the floor, the rails can all be clearly seen. No trouble arises if we regard the painting as a visual catalogue of the parts of an event rather than as an illusory rendering of the event itself (no trouble arises when we say: his feet touched the floor which is rectangular, and he was surrounded by a railing...) But such an interpretation must be learned, it cannot be simply read off the picture.
...
(Being able to 'read' a certain style also includes knowledge of what features are irrelevant Not every feature of an archaic list has representational value just as not every feature of a written sentence plays a role in articulating its content. This was overlooked by the Greeks who started inquiring into the reasons for the 'dignified postures' of Egyptian statues (already Plato commented on this). Such a question 'might have struck an Egyptian artist as it would strike us if someone inquired about the age or the mood of the king on the chessboard'.)
...
Archaic pictures are paratactic aggregates, not hypotactic systems. The elements of the aggregate may be physical parts such as heads, arms, wheels, they may be states of affair such as the fact that a body is dead, they may be actions, such as the action of swallowing.
Page 176
Such a realistic interpretation of styles would be in line with Whorf's thesis that in addition to being instruments for describing events (which may have other features, not covered by any description) languages are also shapers of events (so that there is a linguistic limit to what can be said in a given language, and this limit coincides with the limits of the thing itself) but it would go beyond it by including non-linguistic means of representation.
Page 184/185/186
Similar remarks apply to the 'theory of knowledge' that is implicit in this early world view. The Muses in Iliad, 2.284ff, have knowledge because they are close to things - they do not have to rely on rumours - and because they know all the many things that are of interest to the writer, one after the other. 'Quantity, not intensity is Homer's standard of judgement' and of knowledge as becomes clear from such words as ... 'much pondering' and 'much thinking', as well as from later criticisms such as 'Learning of many things does not teach intelligence'. An interest in, and a wish to understand, many amazing things (such as earthquakes, eclipses of the sun and the moon, the paradoxical rising and falling of the Nile), each of them explained in its own particular way and without the use of universal principles, persists in the coastal descriptions of the 8th and 7th (and later) centuries (which simply enumerate the tribes, tribal habits, and coastal formations that are successively met during the journey), and even a thinker such as Thales is satisfied with making many interesting observations and providing many explanations without trying to tie them together in a system. (The first thinker to construct a 'system' was Anaximander, who followed Hesiod.) Knowledge so conceived is not obtained by trying to grasp an essence behind the reports of the senses, but by (1) putting the observer in the right position relative to the object (process, aggregate), by inserting him into the appropriate place in the complex pattern that constitutes the world, and (2) by adding up the elements which are noted under these circumstances. It is the result of a complex survey carried out from suitable vantage points. One may doubt a vague report, or a fifth-hand account, but it is not possible to doubt what one can clearly see with one's own eyes. The object depicted or described is the proper arrangements of the elements which may include foreshortenings and other perspectoid phenomena. The fact that an oar looks broken in water lacks here the skeptical force it assumes in another ideology. Just as Achilles sitting does not make us doubt that he is swift-footed - as a matter of fact, we would start doubting his swiftness if it turned out that he is in principle incapable of sitting - in the very same way the bent oar does not make us doubt that it is perfectly straight in air - as a matter of fact, we would start doubting its straightness if it did not look bent in water. The bent oar is not an aspect that denies what another aspect says about the nature of the oar, it is a particular part (situation) of the real oar that is not only compatible with its straightness, but that demands it: the objects of knowledge are as additive as the visible lists of the archaic artist and the situations described by the archaic poet.
Page 193/194
8. Logicians and philosophers of science do not see the situation in this way. Being both unwilling and unable to carry out an informal discussion, they demand that the main terms of the discussion be 'clarified'. And to 'clarify' the terms of a discussion does not mean to study the additional and as yet unknown properties of the domain in question which one needs to make them fully understood, it means to fill them with existing notions from the entirely different domain of logic and common sense, preferably observational ideas, until they sound common themselves, and to take care that the process of filling obeys the accepted laws of logic. The discussion is permitted to proceed only after its initial steps have been modified in this manner. So the course of an investigation is deflected into the narrow channels of things already understood and the possibility of fundamental conceptual discovery (or of fundamental conceptual change) is considerably reduced. Fundamental conceptual change, on the other hand, presupposes new world-views and new languages capable of expressing them Now, building a new world-view, and a corresponding new language, is a process that takes time, in science as well as in meta-science. The terms of the new language become clear only when the process is fairly advanced, so that each single word is the centre of numerous lines connecting it with other words, sentences, bits of reasoning, gestures which sound absurd at first but which become perfectly reasonable once the connections are made. Arguments, theories, terms, points of view and debates can therefore be clarified in at least two different ways: (a) in the manner already described, which leads back to the familiar ideas and treats the new as a special case of things already understood, and (b) by incorporation into a language of the future, which means that one must learn to argue with unexplained terms and to use sentences for which no clear rules of usage are yet available. Just as a child who starts using words without yet understanding them, who adds more and more uncomprehended linguistic fragments to his playful activity, discovers the sense-giving linguistic fragments to his playful activity, discovers the sense-giving principle only after he has been active in this way for a long time - activity being a necessary presupposition of the final blossoming forth of sense - in the very same way the inventor of a new world-view (and the philosopher of science who tries to understand his procedure) must be able to talk nonsense until the amount of nonsense crated by him and his friends is big enough to give sense to all its parts. There is again to better account of this process than the description which John Stuart Mill has left us of the vicissitudes of his education. Referring to the explanations which his father gave him on logical matters, he wrote: 'The explanations did not make the matter at all clear to me at the time, but they were not therefor useless; they remained as a nucleus for my observations and reflections to crystallise upon; the import of his general remarks being interpreted to me, by the particular instances which came under my notice afterwards.' Building a new language (for understanding the world, or knowledge) is a process of exactly the same kind except that the initial 'nuclei' are not given, but must be invented. We see here how essential it is to learn talking in riddles, and how disastrous an effect the drive for instant clarity must have on our understanding. (In addition, such a drive betrays a rather narrow and barbaric mentality: 'To use words and phrases in an easy going way without scrutinizing them too curiously is not, in general, a mark of ill breading; on the contrary, there is something low bred in being too precise...')
Page 198
The archaic cosmology (which from no on I shall call cosmology A) contains things, events, their parts; it does not contain appearances. Complete knowledge of an object is complete enumeration of its parts and peculiarities. Humans cannot have complete knowledge. There are too many things, too many events, too many situations (Iliad, 2.488), and they can be close to only a few of them (Iliad, 2.485) But although humans cannot have complete knowledge, they can have a sizable amount of it. The wider their experience, the great the number of adventures, of things seen, heard, read, the greater their knowledge.
The new cosmology (cosmology B) that arises in the 7th to 5th centuries BC distinguishes between much-knowing and true knowledge, and it warns against trusting 'custom born of manifold experience'. Such a distinction and such a warning makes sense only in a world whose structure differs from the structure of A. In one version which played a large role in the development of Western civilization and which underlies such problems as the problem of the existence of theoretical entities and the problem of alienation other new events form what one might call a True World, while the events of everyday life are no appearances that are but its dim and misleading reflection. The True World is simple and coherent, and it can be described in a uniform way. So can every act by which its elements are comprehended: a few abstract notions replace the numerous concepts that were used in cosmology A for describing how humans might be 'inserted' into their surroundings and for expressing the equally numerous types of information thus gained. From now on there is only one important type of information, and that is: knowledge.
Page 199
In painting this leads to the development of what one can only call systematic methods for deceiving the eye: the archaic artist treats the surface on which he paints as a writer might treat a piece of papyrus; it is> a real surface, it is supposed to be seen as a real surface (though attention is not always directed to it) and the marks he draws on it are comparable to the lines of a blueprint or the letters of a word. They are symbols that inform the reader of the structure of the object, of its parts, of the way in which the parts are related to each other. The simple drawing overleaf, for example, may represent thee paths meeting at a point. The artist using perspective on the other hand, regards the surface and the marks he puts on it as stimuli that trigger the illusion of an arrangement of three-dimensional objects. The illusion occurs because the human mind is capable of producing illusory experiences when properly stimulated.
Page 200/201
Just as a trraveller explores all parts of a strange country and describes them in a 'periegesis' that enumerates its peculaiarities, one by one, in the same way the student of simple objects such as oars, boats, horses, people inserts himself into the 'major oar-situaitons', apprehends them in the appropriate way, and reports them in a list of properties, events, relations. And just as detailed periegesis exhausts what can be said about a country, in the same way a detailed list exhausts what can be said about an object. 'Broken in water' belongs to the oar as does 'straight to the hand'; it is 'equally real'. In cosmology B, however, 'broken in water' is a 'semblance' that contradicts what is suggested by the 'semblance' of straightness and thus shows the basic untrustworthiness of all semblances. The concept of an object has changed from the concept of an aggregate of equi-important perceptible parts to the concept of an imperceptible essence underlying a multitude of deceptive phenomena. (We may guess that the appearance of an object has changed in a similar way, that objects now look less 'flat' than before.)
...
The elements of A are relatively independent parts of objects which enter into external relations. They participate in aggregates without changing their intrinsic properties. The 'nature' of a particular aggregate is determined by its parts and by the way in which the parts are related to each other. Enumerate the parts in the proper order, and you have the object. This applies to physical aggregates, to humans (minds and bodies), to animals, but it also applies to social aggregates such as the honour of a warrior.
The elements of B fall into two classes: essences (objects) and appearances (of objects - what follows is true only of some rather streamlined versions of B). Objects (events, etc.) may again combine. They may form harmonious totalities where each part gives meaning to the whole and receives meaning from it (an extreme case is Parmenides where isolated parts are not only unrecognizable, but altogether unthinkable). Aspects properly combined do not produce objects, but psychological conditions for the apprehension of phantoms which are but other aspects, and particularly misleading ones at that (they look so convincing). No enumeration of aspects is identical with the object (problem of induction). (Emphasis Added - Danny)
Page 202 *
Now one might be inclined to explain the transition as follows: archaic man has a limited cosmology; he discovered some things, he missed others. His universe lacks important objects, his language lacks important concept, his perception lacks important structures. Add the missing elements to cosmos A, the missing terms to language A, the missing structures to the perceptual world of A, and you obtain cosmos B, language B, perception B.
Some time ago I called the theory underlying such an explanation the 'hole theory' or the 'Swiss cheese theory' of language (and other means of representation). According to the whole theory every cosmology (every language, every mode of perception) has sizable lacunae which can be filled, leaving everything else unchanged. The hole theory is beset by numerous difficulties. In the present case there is the difficulty that cosmos B does not contain a single element of cosmos A. Neither common-sense terms, nor philosophical theories; neither painting and statuary, nor artistic conceptions; neither religion, nor theological speculation contain a single element of A once the transition to B has been completed. This is a historical fact.
Footnote 111:
This fact is not easy to establish. May presentations of A, including some very detailed and sophisticated ones, are infected by B-concepts. An example is quoted in footnote 97 to the present chapter. Here as elsewhere only the anthropological method can lean to knowledge that is more than a reflection of wishful thinking. ...
Footnote 97 (198):
... (referring to Homer), speaks of a 'knowledge that proceeds from appearances and draws their multitude together in a unit which is then posited as their true essence'. This may apply to the Presocratics, it does not apply to Homer. In the case of Homer 'the world is comprehended ass the sum of things, visible in space, and not as reason acting intensively'
Page 203/204
Precisely the same remarks apply to the 'discovery' of an individual I that is different from faces, behavior, objective 'mental states' of the type that occur in A, to the 'discovery' of a substance behind 'appearances' (formerly elements of A), or to the 'discovery' that honour may be lacking despite the presence of all its outer manifestations. A statement such as Heraclitus' 'you could not find the limits of the soul though you are travelling every way, so deep is its logos (Diels, B 45) does not just add to cosmos A, it undercuts the principles which are needed in the construction of A-type 'mental states' while Heraclitus' rejection of ... and Parmenides' rejection of an ... undercuts rules that govern the construction of every single fact of A. An entire world-view, an entire universe of thought, speech, perception was dissolved.
It is interesting to see how this process of dissolving manifests itself in particular cases. In his long speech in Iliad, 9.308ff, Achilles wants to say that honour may be absent even though all its outer manifestations are present. The terms of the language he uses are so intimately tied to definite social situations that he 'has no language to express his disillusionment. Yet he expresses it, and in a remarkable way. He does it by misusing the language he disposes of. He asks questions that cannot be answered and makes demands that cannot be met. He acts in a most 'irrational' way.
Page 205 *
Remember the circumstancews which are responsible for this situation. EWe have a point of view (theory, framework, cosmos mode of representaiton) whose elements (concepts, 'facts', pictures) are built up in accordance with certain principles of construction. The principles involve something like a 'clsoure': there are things that cannot be said, or 'discovered', without violating the principles (which does not> mean contradicting them). Say the things, make the discovery, and the principles are suspended. Now take those constructive principles that underlie every element of the cosmos (of the theory), every fact (every concept). Let us call such principles universal principles of the theory in question. Suspending universal principles means suspending all facts and all concepts. Finally, let us call a discovery, or a statement, or an attitude incommensurable with the cosmos (the theory, the framework) if it suspends some of its universal principles. Heraclitus B 45 is incommensurable with psychological part of A: it suspends the rules that are needed for constituting individuals and puts an end to all A-facts about individuals (phenomena corresponding to such facts may of course persist for a considerable time as not all conceptual changes lead to changes in perception and as there exist conceptual changes that never leave a trace in the appearances; however, such phenomena can no longer be described in the customary way and cannot therefore count as observations of the customary 'objective facts')
Page 206
How is the 'irrationality' of the transition period overcome? It is overcome in the usual way (cf. item 8 above), i.e. by the determined production of nonsense until the material produced is rich enough to permit the rebels to reveal, and everyone else to recognize, new universal principles. (Such revealing need not consist in writing the principles down in the form of clear and precise statements.) Madness turns into sanity provided it is sufficiently rich and sufficiently regular to function as the basis of a new world-view. And when that happens, then we have a new problem: how can the old view be compared with the new view?
Page 207
Now it seems to me that the relation between, say, classical mechanics (interpreted realistically) and quantum mechanics (interpreted in a ccordance with the views of Niels Bohr), or between Newtonian mechanics (interpreted realistically) and the general theory of relativity (also interpreted realistically) is in many respects similar to the relation between cosmology A and cosmology B. Thus every fact of Newton's mechanics presumes that shapes, masses, periods are changed only by physical interactions and this presumption is suspended by the theory of relativity. Similarly the quantum theory constitutes facts in accordance with the uncertainty relations which are suspended by the classical approach.
Page 209
Whorf ... says that 'time, velocity, and matter are not essential to the construction of a consistent picture of the universe, and he asserts that 'we cut up nature, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are partial to an agreement to organize it in this way', which would seem to imply widely different languages posit not just different ideas for the ordering of the same facts, but that they posit also different facts.
Page 211/212
Page 216/217/218 *
I think that incommensurability turns up when we sharpen our concepts in the manner demanded by the logical positivists and their offspring and that it undermines their ideas on explanation, reduction and progress. Incommensurability disappears when we use concepts as scientists use them, in an open, ambiguous and often counter intuitive manner. Incommensurability is a problem for philosophers not for scientists, though the latter may become psychologically. confused by unusual things. I arrived at the phenomenon while studying the early literature on the basic statements and by considering the possibility of perceptions radically different from our own. In my thesis I examined the meaning of observational statements. I considered the idea that such statements describe 'what is given' and tried to identify this 'given' Phenomenologically this did not seem to be possible; we notice objects, their properties, their relations, not 'the given'. It is of course true that we can give quick reports on the properties of everyday objects but this does not change them into non-objects but only shows that we have a special relation to them. Phenomenologically what is given consists of the same things which can also exist unobserved - it is not a new kind of object. Special arrangements such as the reduction screen introduce new conditions, they do not reveal ingredients in objects we already know. ResultL the given cannot be isolated by observation.
The second possibility was to isolate it by logical means: what is given can be ascertained with certainty, hence I obtain the the given contained in the table before me by removing from the statement 'there is a table' all the consequence that make future corrections possible. This shows that the given is the result of an unreasonable decision: untestable statements cannot serve as a basis for science.
Following this argument I introduced the assumption that the meaning of observation statements depends on the nature of the objects described and, as this nature depends on the most advanced theories, on the content of these theories. Or as I formulated in my first English paper on the topic: the interpretation of an observation language is determined by the theories which we use to explain what we observe, and it changes as soon as these theories change. In a word: observation statements are not just theory-laden (the views of Toulmin, Hanson and apparently also Khun) but fully theoretical and the distinction between observation statements ('protocol statements' in the terminology of the Vienna Circle) and theoretical statements is a pragmatic distinction, not a semantic distinction' there are no special 'observational meanings'. Thus in the same year as Hanson (Hanson's Patterns of Discovery appeared in 1958) and four years before Khun I formulated a thesis a weaker form of which became very popular later on. Moreover, my thesis not only was stronger than the thesis of theory-ladenness, it also came from a different source. For while Toulmin and Hanson were inspired by Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations I I started from and returned to ideas that had been developed in the Vienna Circle - and I said so. Quine, whose philosophy shows close connections to the philosophy of the Vienna Circle, also used a criterion of observability that is rather similar to mine.
...
Now considering any interaction of traditions we may ask tow kinds of questions which I shall call observer questions and participant questions respectively.
Observer questions are concerned with the details of an interaction. They want to give a historical account of the interaction and, perhaps, formulate laws, or rules of thumb, that apply to all interactions. Hegel's triad: position, negation, synthesis (negation of the negation) is such a rule.
Participant questions deal with the attitude the members of a practice or a tradition are supposed to take towards the (possible) intrusion of another. The observer asks: what happens and what is going to happen? the participant asks: what shall I doShall I support the interaction? Shall I oppose it? Or shall I simply forget about it?
In the case of the Copernican Revolution, for example, the observer asks: what impact did Copernicus have on Wittenberg astronomers at about 1560? how did they react to his work? Did they change some of their beliefs and if so, why? Did their change of opinion have an effect on other astronomers, or were they an isolated group, not taken seriously by the rest of the profession?
The question of a participant are: this is a strange book indeed - should I take it seriously? Should I study it in detail or only superficially or should I simply continue as before? The main theses seem absurd at first sight - but, maybe, there is something in them? How shall I find out? And so on.
It is clear that observer questions must take the questions of the participants into account and participants will also listen most carefully (if they are inclined that way, that is) to what observers have to say on the matter - but the intention is different in both cases. Observers want to know what is going on, participants what to do. An observer describes a life he does not lead (except accidentally), a participant wants to arrange his own life and asks himself what attitude to take towards the things that may influence it.
Participants can be opportunists and act in a straightforward and practical way. In the late 16th century many princes became Protestants because this furthered their interests and some of their subjects became Protestants in order to be left in peace. When British colonial official replaced the laws and habits of foreign tribes and cultures by their own 'civilized' laws the latter were often accepted because they were the laws of the king, or because one had no way to oppose them, and not because of any intrinsic excellence. The source of their power and 'validity' was clearly understood, both by the officials and by the more astute of their unfortunate subjects. In the sciences and especially in pure mathematics one often pursues a particular line of research not because it is regard as intrinsically perfect, but because one wants to see where it leads. I shall call the philosophy underlying such an attitude of a participant a pragmatic philosophy.
A pragmatic philosophy can flourish only if the traditions to be judged and the developments to be influenced are seen as temporary makeshifts and not as lasting constituents of thoughts and action. A participant with a pragmatic philosophy views practices and traditions much as traveller views foreign countries. Each country has features he likes and things he abhors. In deciding to settle down a traveller will have to compare climate, landscape, language, temperament of the inhabitants, possibilities of change, privacy, looks of male and female population, theatre, opportunities for advancement, quality of vices and so on. He will also remember that his initial demands and expectations may not be very sensible and so permit the process of choice to affect and change his 'nature' as well which, after all is just another (and minor) practice or tradition entering the process (Emphasis Added -Danny) So a pragmatist must be both a participant and an observer even in those extreme cases where he decides to live in accordance with his momentary whims entirely.
Few individuals and groups are pragmatists in the sense just described band one can see why: it is very difficult to see one's own most cherished ideas in perspective, as parts of a changing and, perhaps, absurd tradition. Moreover this inability not only exists, it is also encouraged as an attitude proper to those engaged in the study and the improvement of man, society, knowledge. Hardly any religion has ever presented itself just as something worth trying. The claim is much stronger: the religion is the truth, everything else is error and those who know it, understand it but still reject it are rotten to the core (or hopeless idiots).(Emphasis Added - Danny)
Page 222/223/230/231 *
After this preparation let us now look at what has been called 'the relation between reason and practice'.
Simplifying matters somewhat we can say that there exists three views on the matter.
A. Reason guides practice its authority is independent of the authority of practices and traditions and it shapes the practice in accordance with its demands. This we may call the idealistic version of the relation.
B. Reason receives both its content and its authority from practice. It describes the way in which practice works and formulates its underlying principles. This version has been called naturalism and it has occasionally been attributed to Hegel (though erroneously so)..
Both idealism and naturalism have difficulties.
The difficulties of idealism are that the idealist does not only want to 'act rationally' he also wants his rational actions to have results. And he wants these results to occur not only among the idealizations he uses but in the real world he inhabits.
...
The difficulties of naturalism and idealism have certain elements in common. The inadequacy of standards often becomes clear from the barrenness of the practice the engender, the shortcomings of practices often are very obvious when practices based on different standards flourish. This suggest that reason and practice are not two different kinds of entities but parts of a single dialectical process.
The suggestion can be illustrated by the relation between a map and the adventures of a person using it or by the relation between an artisan and his instruments. Originally maps were constructed as images of and guides to reality and so, presumably, was reason. But maps like reason contain idealizations (Hecataeus of Miletus, for example, imposed the general outlines of Anaximander's cosmology on his account of the occupied world and represented continents by geometrical figures). The wanderer uses the map to find his way but he also corrects it as he proceeds, removing old idealizations and introducing new ones. Using the map no matter what will soon get him into trouble. But it is better to have maps than to proceed without them. In the same way, the example says, reason without the guidance of a practice will lead us astray while practice is vastly improved by the addition of reason.
...
I shall discuss the answers given by idealism, naturalism and by a third position, not yet mentioned, which I shall call naive anarchism.
According to idealismit is rational (proper, in accordance with the will of the gods - or whatever other encouraging words are being used to befuddle the natives) to do certain things - come what may. It is rational (proper, etc) to kill the enemies of the faith, to avoid ad hoc hypotheses, to despise the desires of the body, to remove inconsistencies, to support progressive research programmes and so on. Rationality (justice, the Divine Law) are universal, independent of mood, context, historical circumstances and give rise to equally universal rules and standards.
There is a version of idealism that seems to be somewhat more sophisticated but actually is not. Rationality (the law, etc) is no longer said to be universal, but there are universally valid conditional statements asserting what is rational in what context and there are corresponding conditional rules.
jSome reviewers have classified me as an idealist in the sense just described with the proviso that I try to replace familiar rules and standards by more 'revolutionary' rules such as proliferation and counterinduction and almost everyone ha ascribed to me a 'methodology' with 'anything goes' as its one 'basic principle'. But in Chapter 2 I say quite explicitly that 'my intention is not to replace one set of general rules by another such set: my intention is, rather, to convince the reader that, all methodologies, event the most obvious ones have their limits' or, to express it in terms just explained, my intention is to show that idealism, whether of the simple or of the context-dependent kind is the wrong solution for the problems of scientific rationality. These problems are not solved by a change of standards but by taking a different view of standards altogether.
...
The limitation of all rules and standards is recognized by naive anarchism. A naive anarchist says (a) that both absolute rules and context-dependent rules have their limits and infers (b) that all rules and standards are worthless and should be given up. Most reviewers regard me as a naive anarchist in this sense, overlooking the many passages where I show how certain procedures aided scientists in their research. For i my studies of Galileo, of Brownian motion, of the Presocratics I not only demonstrate the failures of familiar standards, I also try to show what not so familiar procedures did actually succeed . thus while I agree with (a) I do not agree with (b). I argue that all rules have their limits and that there is no comprehensive 'rationality', I do not argue that we should proceed without rules and standards. I also argue for a contextual account but again the contextual rules are not to replace the absolute rules, they are to supplement them. Moreover, I suggest a new relation between rules and practices. It is this relation and not any particular rule-content that characterizes the position I wish to defend.
(Emphasis Added - Danny)
Page 225/226/227/228/229 *
i. Traditions are neither good nor bad, they simply are. ...
ii. A tradition assumes desirable or undesirable properties only when compared with some tradition ...
iii. i. and ii. imply a relativism of precisely the kind that seems to have been defended by Protagoras...
iv. Every tradition has special ways of gaining followers...
v. ... judging a historical process one may use an as yet unspecified and unspecifiable practice....
vi. There are therefore at least two different ways of collectively deciding an issue which I shall call a guided exchange and an open exchange respectively. ... An open exchange, on the other hand, is guided by a pragmatic philosophy. The tradition adopted by the parties is unspecified in the beginning and develops as the exchange proceeds. The participants get immersed into each other's way of thiking, feeling, perceiving to such an extent that their ideas, perceptions, world-views may be entirely changed - they become different people partipating in a new and different tradition . An open exchange respects the partner whether he is an individual or an entire culture, hwile a rational exchange promises respect only within the framework of a rational debate. An open exchange establishes connections between different traditions and transcends the relativism of points ii and iv. However, it transcends it in a way that cannot be made objective but depends in an unforeseeable manner on the (historical, psychological, material) conditions in which it occurs (Cf. also the last paragraph of Chapter 16).
vii. A free society is a society in which all traditions are given equal rights, equal access to education and other positions of power. ... A free society thus cannot be based on any particular creed; for example, it cannot be based on rationalism or on humanitarian considerations. The basic structure of a free society is a protective structure, not an ideology, it functionslike an iron railing not like a conviction. But how is this structure to be conceived? Is it not necessary to debate the matter or should the structure be simplyimposed? And if it is necessary to debate the matter then should this debate not be kept free from subjective influences and based on 'objective' considerations only? This is how intellectuals try to convience their fellow citizens that the money paid to them is well spent and that their ideology should continue to assume the central position it now has. I have already exposed the errors-cum-deceptions behind the phrase of the 'objectivity of a rational debate': the standards of such a debate are not 'objective' they only appear to be 'objective' because reference to the group that profits from their use has been omitted. They are like the invitations of a clever tyrant who instead of saying 'I want you to do ...' or 'I and my wife want you to to do ...' says 'What all of us want is ...' or 'what the gods want of us is ... ' or, even better, 'it is rational to do ...' and so seems to leave out his own person entirely. It is somewhat depressing to see how many intelligent people have fallen for such a shallow trick. (Emphasis Added - Danny) We remove it by observing:
vii. that a free society will not be imposed but will emerge only where people engaging in an open exchange (cf. vi above) introduce protecteive structures of the kind alluded to...
ix. The debates settling the structure of a free society are open debates not guided debates ..
x. A free society insists on the separation of science and society ... (Emphasis Added - Danny)
Page 248
The idea of a world machine and the related idea that nature is material to be shaped by man should not be blamed on modern, i.e. post-Cartesian, science. It is older and stronger than a purely philosophical doctrine could ever be. The expression 'world machine' is found Pseudo Dionysius Areopagita, a mystic of unknown identity who wrote about 500 AD and had tremendous influence.
Page 253
The playwright (and his colleague, the teacher) must try not to anticipate the decision of the audience (of the pupils) or replace it by a decision of his own should they turn out to be incapable of making up their own minds. Under no circumstances must he try to be a 'moral force'. A moral force, whether for good or for evil, turns people into slaves and slavery, even slavery in the service of The Good, or of God Himself, is the most abject condition of all. This is how I see the situation today. However, it took me a long time before I arrived at this view.(Emphasis Added - Danny)
Page 262
Two events made me realize the futility of such attempts. One was a discussion with Professor C.F. von Weizsacker in Hamburg (1965) on the foundations of the quantum theory. Von Weizsacker showed how quantum mechanics arose from concrete research while I complained, on general methodological grounds, that important alternatives had been omitted. The arguments supporting my complain were quite good - they are the arguments summarized in Chapter 3 - but it was suddenly clear to me that imposed without regard to circumstances they were a hindrance rather than a help: a person trying to solve a problem whether in science or elsewhere must be given complete freedom and cannot be restricted by any demands, norms, however plausible they may seem to the logician or the philosopher who has thought them out in the privacy of his study. Norms and demands must be checked by research, not by appeal to theories of rationality. In a lengthy article I explained how Bohr had used his philosophy and how it differs from more abstract procedures. Thus Professor von Weizsacker has prime responsibility fro my change to 'anarchism' - though he was not all pleased when I told him so in 1977.
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I envisaged a new kind of education that would live from a rich reservoir of different points of view permitting the choice of traditions most advantageous to the individual. The teacher's task would consist in facilitating the choice, not in replacing it by some 'truth' of his own. Such a reservoir, I thought, would have been much in common with a theatre of ideas as imagined by Piscator and Brecht and it would be lead to the development of a great variety of means of presentation. The 'objective' scientific account would be one way of presenting a case, a play another way (remember that for Aristotle tragedy is 'more philosophical' than history because it reveals the structure of historical process and not only its accidental details), a novel still another way. Why should knowledge be shown in the garment of academic prose and reasoning? Had no Plato observed that written sentences in a book are but transitory stages of a complex process of growth that contains gestures, jokes, asides, emotions and had he not tried to catch this process by means of the dialogue? And were there not different forms of knowledge, some much more detailed and realistic than what arose as 'rationalism' in the 7th and 6th century in Greece? Then there was Dadism. I had studied Dadaism after the Second World War. What attracted me to this movement was the style its inventors used when not engaged in Dadaistic activities. It was clear, luminous, simple without being banal, precise without being narrow; it was a style adapted to the expression of thought as well as of emotion. I connected this style with the Dadaistic exercises themselves. Assume you tear language apart, you live for days and weeks in a world of cacophonic sounds, jumbled words, nonsensical events. Then, after this preparation, you sit down and write: 'the cat is on the ma'. This simple sentence which we usually utter without thought, like talking machines (and much of our talk is indeed routine)j, no seems like the creation of an entire world: God said let there be light and there was light. Nobody in modern times has understood the miracle of language and thought as well as the Dadaists for nobody has been able to imagine, let alone create, a world in which they play no role.Having discovered the nature of a living order, of a reason that is not merely mechanical, the Dadaists soon noticed the deterioration of such an order into routine. They diagnosed the deterioration of language that preceded the First World War and created the mentality that made it possible. AFter the diagnosis their exercises assumed another, more sinister meaning. The revealed the frightening similarity between the language of the foremost commercial travelers in 'importance', the language of philosophers, politicians, theologians, and brute inarticulation. The praise of honour, patriotism, truth, rationality, honesty that fills our schools, pulpits, political meetings imperceptibly merges into inarticulation no matter how much it has been wrapped into literary language and no matter how hard its authors try to copy the style of the classics and the authors themselves are in the end hardly distinguishable from a pack of grunting pigs. Is there a way to prevent such deterioration? I thought there was. I thought that regarding all achievements as transitory, restricted and personal and every truth as created by our love for it and not as 'found' would prevent the deterioration of once promising fairy-tales and I also thought that it was necessary to develop a new philosophy or a new religion to give substance to this unsystematic conjecture.
I now realize that these considerations were just another example of intellectualistic conceit and folly. It is conceited to assume that one has solutions for people whose lives one does not share and whose problems one does not know. It is foolish to assume that such an exercise in distant humanitarianism will have effects pleasing to the people concerned. From the very beginning of Western Rationalism intellectuals have regarded themselves as teachers, the world as a school and 'people' as obedient pupils. In Plato this is very clear. The same phenomenon occurs among Christians, Rationalists, Fascists, Marxists. Marxists did not try to learn from those they wanted to liberate; they attacked each other about interpretations, viewpoints, evidence and took it for granted that the resulting intellectual hash would make fine food for the natives (Bakunin was aware of the doctrinarian tendencies of contemporary Marxism and he intended to return all power - power over ideas included - to the people immediately concerned). My own view differed from those just mentioned but it was still a view, an abstract fancy I had invented and now tried to sell without having shared even an ounce of the lives of the receivers. This I now regard as insufferable conceit. So - what remains?
Two things remain. I could follow my own advice to address and try to influence only those people whom I think I understand on a personal basis. This includes some of my friends,; it may include philosophers I have not met but who seem to be interested in similar problems and who are not too upset by my style and my general approach. It may also include people from different cultures who are attracted, even fascinated by Wester science and Western intellectual life, who have started participating in it but who still remember, in thought as well as in feeling the life of the culture they left behind. My account might lessen the emotional tension they liable to feel and make them see a way of uniting, rather than opposing to each other, the various stages of their lives.
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A guided exchange adopts 'a well-specified tradition and accept[s] only those responses that correspond to its standards. If one party has not yet become a participant ... he will be badgered, persuaded, 'educated' until he does - and then the exchange begins.' 'A rational debate', I continue, 'is a special case of a guided exchange.' In the case of open exchange 'the participants get immersed into each other's ways of thinking, feeling, perceiving to such an extent that their ideas, perceptions, world-views may be entirely changed - they become different people participating in a new and different tradition. An open exchange respects the partner whether he is an individual or an entire culture, while a rational exchange promises respect only within the framework of a rational debate. An open exchange has no organon though it may invent one; there is no logic though new forms of logic may emerge in its course.' In sum, an open exchange is part of an as yet unspecified and unspecifiable practice.