Digressions&Impressions

Two Dogmas of The Image of Science

An image of science (recall these posts on Hume, Williamson, Spinoza) contains a list of characteristics that function as short-hand for representing science when these characteristics are used in debates where one side (or more) appeals to the (epistemic) authority of science to settle debate. Images of science can circulate within the sciences, in public discussion, and even in philosophy. Here are two dogmas in the contemporary image of science:

(1) While science may be a complex network of collaboration and competition, it also involves a self-correcting and free exchange of ideas.

(2) Consensus is the natural effect of a proper functioning mature science.

Within philosophy, these two dogmas are familiar from Thomas Kuhn's work. Within economics and formal decision theory the dogmas are linked (at least since Aumann (1976), where (1) helps generate (2)).

In some contexts such consensus within science is a species of higher order evidence and generally a cue to defer to the science. And this reinforces how science can settle debate, and thereby open space for public action (assuming that prior to action there is public debate). Lurking in the previous two sentences is the idea that science can provide (some) authority to public policy based on it. So it is no surprise that governments promote institutions that help discover or articulate such consensus. In practice, governments and science, while distinct from each other (and sometimes at odds), frequently lend each other (some) authority by presupposing and reinforcing the two dogmas. 

So far so good. 

But because settled science is so important to authoritative action [and consensus such an important proxy of it], this also creates incentives to generate or organize the appearance of consensus. And there is conceptual space for such organized consensus. For even if one grants that consensus is the natural effect of a proper functioning mature science, this is compatible with consensus also being the effect of malfunctioning science. Let's call the agreement that is the product of malfunctioning science 'ersatz consensus.' (And I'll use 'real consensus' when I distinguish a naturally occurring consensus from the ersatz type.) 

It's worth noting that, despite the way I have phrased it in previous paragraph, participants in malfunctioning science need not have the intent to produce an ersatz consensus. By this I mean two things: first, some strategic agents may well intentionally wish to promote deliberate confusion such that there does not seem consensus at all (think of the tobacco industry on the relationship between smoking and cancer; or the energy industry and man-made global warming, etc.). Second, sometimes an ersatz consensus is the product of the absence of proper exchange of ideas in science (because of bad replication or publication practices, or because of temporary embargoes on circulation of ideas [not uncommon in medical and defense sciences]). So, sometimes ersatz consensus is the effect of top-down organization, and sometimes it's the effect of bottom-up failures of process.

It's not surprising that for outsiders it's incredibly difficult to distinguish between an ersatz consensus and a real consensus, especially if the science is incredibly esoteric and/or interdisciplinary. But sometimes it is very difficult for insiders to know whether the consensus view is real or ersatz in their own science. There need not be anything nefarious about this; all that's needed is that because of say extensive cognitive division of labor even insiders may be unaware (of the nature and extent of) that the process that shapes the exchange of ideas within their own science is malfunctioning. 

Even though I have well known skeptical leanings, I don't want to exaggerate the claim in the previous two sentences. There are forensic techniques that provide signals about such matters. In addition folks in adjoining sciences may have the skill set to notice communicative problems I am hinting at. (In a way that's the story of how the replication crisis got tackled.) But it may take  time to sort such things out.

Notice that so far I have not touched the two dogmas of the contemporary image of the science (although I have hinted that (1) may be an idealization). What I have done is extrapolate some of their mutual entailments. 

As an aside, even without governments nudging us to accept a scientific consensus is authoritative, (2) has very deep roots in the intellectual culture. The Stoic sages and the Spinozistic wise are said to agree, and I am sure you can list a whole number of other examples. But -- pace Kuhn -- it is worth noting that there were scientific periods where within science persistent disagreement over many important issues was not taken to be embarrassing (I think this was common view of late nineteenth century physics if you go look at Poincare, Duhem, Hertz, Mach, etc.). 

For, it is worth noting however that (2) is not self-evident in all contexts. Sometimes different scientific research groups within the same scientific community rely on different auxiliary assumptions or computational shortcuts to generate (say) agreed upon predictions (go check out real-life examples of Quine-Duhem thesis). So even though at one level of description there may be consensus, at another level of description (including the auxiliaries) there is not. I suspect this situation is endemic in a lot of sciences. (Again, over time this may well be sorted out if the auxiliaries start to matter for some reason.)

In addition, in a very neat recent paper, Kevin Dorst has argued (on the Bayesian terrain of Aumann) -- in the context of trying to provide a mechanism for group polarization -- that if evidence is ambiguous we should not expect consensus. (He has a neat scientific example, so go read it.) My view is that in sciences with incredibly robust and mathematically refined background theories (and instruments) such ambiguity of evidence may well be rare, but that in many sciences ambiguity of evidence and, thus, lack of consensus is to be expected and rational. 

Let me stop here for now.

 

 

Machery on Science and Philosophy

How can we be responsible and savvy consumers of science, particularly when it gives us morally and politically pleasing narratives? Philosophers’ fascination with the psychology of attitudes is an object lesson.

Some of the most exciting philosophy in the 21^st century has been done with an eye towards philosophically significant developments in science. Social psychology has been a reliable source of insights: consider only how much ink has been spilled on situationism and virtue ethics or on Greene’s dual-process model of moral judgment and deontology.

...

Hindsight is of course 20/20, and it would be ill-advised to blame philosophers (including my former self) for taking seriously science in the making. On the other hand, philosophers failed to even listen and a fortiori to give a fair hearing to the dissenting voices challenging the relentless hype by implicit-attitudes cheerleaders. The lesson is not limited to implicit attitudes: the neuroscience of meditation, the neuroscience of oxytocin, the so-called love molecule, the experimental research on epigenetics in humans, and the research on gene x environment interaction in human genetics also come to mind.

Philosophers, including myself, have for decades been too credulous about science, being misled by scientists’ marketing and ignoring the unavoidable uncertainties that affect the scientific process: the frontier of science is replete with unreplicable results, it is affected by hype and exaggeration (COVID researchers, I am looking at you!), and its course is shaped by deeply rooted cognitive and motivational biases. In fact, we should be particularly mindful of the uncertainty of science when it appears to provide a simple explanation for, and promises a simple solution to, the moral, social, and political ills that we find repugnant such as the underrepresentation of women in philosophy and elsewhere and enduring racial inequalities in the broader society.--Edouard Machery "Implicit Attitudes, Science, and Philosophy" @Daily Nous

A few years ago (2014), Merel Lefevere and I coined “The-Everybody-Did-It” (TEDI) Syndrome, to discuss symptoms of collective negligence in science and other epistemic communities. We were, of course, not the first to identify group-think nor the first to note that an appeal to TEDI was used by participating individuals as kind of blanket get out of jail card (viz. Machery's claim it would be "ill-advised to blame philosophers"). I mention the date on that paper because it was published before the first study of the The Reproducibility Project was published. In our paper, we draw, en passant, on (1993) Feigenbaum and Levy to alert the reader that different scientific fields have very diverging practices when it comes to replicating results or sharing data and that there are well-known incentives and other formal and informal barriers against publishing replications or dis-conformations.* Our main epistemic point was that one cannot assume that scientific fields are perfectly functioning communicative communities (with a perfect market in ideas). 

This point was not a sudden revelation for me. In my very first (2005) article in the philosophy of economics a decade earlier, I drew on work by Deirdre McCloskey, who had been warning against the cult of statistical significance for a long time, to point out that often, in the absence of robust background theory, the use of statistical significance created the illusion of scientific rigor. I also argued that much of social science, including elite reaches of economics, had a confirmatory bias rather than (with a nod to Popper) what I called a 'stress-testing' attitude.**

In his piece, Machery simultaneously presents himself (and other philosophers) as victims ("misled by scientists’ marketing"), as naïve ("too credulous"), and wishful thinking ("motivational bias") amongst other ills. While I applaud his willingness to take stock and derive lessons from the past, I would argue, by contrast, that Machery and his peers could have done better if he hadn't viewed himself as a "consumer" of science, but as a responsible [since we're in the realm of economic metaphors] co-producer of knowledge. My interest is not to score-keep, but to ensure that we learn the right lessons (some of which Machery also advocates). What do I have in mind?

The consumer model posits a deferential asymmetry between the expert specialist scientist and the philosopher. That's not altogether surprising because the expert is (ahh) an expert whereas the philosopher is not. And so lurking in Machery's narrative is a strict cognitive division of labor in which all philosophers need to do -- when they want to use some bit of social science for their own end -- is sample (say) abstracts and conclusions and then choose the right one that will satisfy their needs. The consumer on this (tacit) model is not or barely responsible for the quality control of the science she selects.

And that's because in the consumer model there is generally a commitment to the proposition that scientific communities have what we might call an efficient market in ideas. And this proposition tends to entail that quality control within science is thorough and rapidly arbitrages away any serious epistemic problems. Machery recognizes that this can't be quite right ("the frontier of science is replete with unreplicable results"), but his main solution (in the post), is to be suspicious of simple solutions for social ills, while undoubted salutary, leaves the consumer model in place.

Now, the previous paragraphs are a bit of caricature (not the least about Machery who has the skillset to engage on quite technical details of science), but treat the consumer model as a provisional ideal type. Here's another norm of science associated with a different ideal type (it's associated with Michael Polanyi's ideas about the republic of science and the role of adjoining disciplines in maintaining quality control in the whole chain of disciplines): when you use science in non-trivial fashion for your own epistemic ends, you re-do the calculations, learn to use the relevant models, and where possible check the evidence and arguments, etc.+ Obviously, that falls short of replicating experiments and being authoritative in the field. (But someone like Hasok Chang may well suggest, go replicate!) If philosophers had done their own forensic job in the uptake of (say) social psychology, the fragility of much of the work would have been transparent to them (or at least noticeable) and could have played a fruitful role in their discussions (and arguably in social psychology). Yes, that's very easy to say after the fact, but as I noted above I was saying some such stuff before the fact.***

Obviously, the kind of work I mention in the previous paragraph is time-consuming and also transforms the nature of expertise of those who use social science for their own ends. On this model philosophers who want to deploy social science for their own ends move from being consumers, who rely on external markers of quality control, to being co-responsible for the 'scientific' supply chain. Of course, there are some epistemic short-cuts (say by teaming up with others, getting advanced degrees in an adjoining field) each with their own risk and rewards, but there are no magic bullets. 

Obviously, there are fields (e.g., climate science, bits of neuroscience, epidemiology, etc.) where the underlying science draws itself on so many kinds of expertise and different kinds of evidence, that a lone philosopher is in a very bad position to do any forensic work. In my view, in such areas to be a responsible co-producer of knowledge requires joining either a research team, an interdisciplinary center with active research meetings, or to cultivate a wide area of diverging scientific 'informants' so that you familiarize yourself with the working discussions of such teams when they evaluate the evidence that the composite parts create and how they evaluate claims of other teams (etc.). 

One way to mitigate the possibility of TEDI, Lefevere and I argue, is to make sure that in epistemic communities dissenting voices are heard and credited. (We think that facilitating this, even seeking out and amplifying critics, is a special role of aggregators [Polanyi calls these (recall) 'influentials']--prominent figures in the field that also interface with other fields and policy areas.) So, I am pleased to learn that Machery agrees (although a bit sad he did not credit us, or Polanyi!) As Machery notes, another way to mitigate the possibility of TEDI, is to seek out directly critics of one's views. 

In a zero-sum (funding and jobs) contest it's not so easy to ensure that the dissenters are heard. I mentioned the Feigenbaum and Levy paper because I also learned (from Levy) that back in the day, they had trouble obtaining grants for follow up research. Unsurprisingly they switched research focus. 

Often nay-sayers and critics are shut up by demanding that they offer an alternative theory or alternative approach to solve some problem. (If one is shaped by Kuhnian ideas or cost-benefit analysis ignoring critics may well be thought rational.) This norm  asymmetrically rewards the most confident voices. But the burden of proof ought to be on the producers of knowledge not on the critics. 

But if we philosophers are also knowledge producers, as I claim we are when we use science for our own ends, then we, too, must be willing to listen and seek out the critics of particular sciences within philosophy. In fact, lots of philosophy of special sciences house folk with critical attitudes toward reigning orthodoxy in a field they study without in any sense being anti-scientific (here are some examples, feel free to add your own): think of Stegenga's work on medical evidence, Femke Truijens (a former student) on clinical validity of clinical research in therapy, Jay Oldenburg and Anna Alexandrova on robustness analysis, Joel Katzav (and his colleagues) on the role of probabilistic assessment in climate science, and a whole range of philosophers of physics who helped develop challenges to 'Copenhagen.'

Even so, I suspects lots of professional philosophers worry that criticisms of particular ruling orthodoxy in science, slides into a kind of anti-science (familiar of now relatively dormant strains in continental/STS or in America's religious right), or might be co-opted by politically noxious forces. As Eric Winsberg, Neil Levy, and I warned, we saw this play out in the recent covid crisis.

In fact, riding on the coat-tails of hyped new science to tenure has been a rewarding rite of passage within analytic philosophy for a long time now. (No, I am not going to name names.) As Machery notes, it is kind of constitutive of "some of the most exciting philosophy" to do so.

We need to have more tools to think about the forensic role of philosophers as responsible co-producers of knowledge (when we are doing so), and the inductive risks involved. In my experience philosophers tend to resist wanting to internalize the inductive risk of our own work because we tend to model/understand ourselves as pure truth-seekers. The moment you critically introduce the incentive structure of the scientists or of the philosophers deploying that science, you are quickly accused of 'doing sociology' and somehow ignoring evidence or epistemic issues (it's an interesting fact that within philosophy and economics 'sociology' can still be used as a pejorative). About that some other time more (or just google 'methodological analytic egalitarianism'). But if we leave the consumer model in place, and the incentives for how we evaluate some of the most exciting philosophy, it is a means of making future generations of philosophers as credulous as ours. Perhaps, that's the human condition, but it would be nice if we could try to do better.

 

Kuhn, Ortega y Gasset, Adam Smith and Mental Mutilation (and even a side comment on Graeber and Wengrow)

Who is it that exercises social power to-day? Who imposes the forms of his own mind on the period? Without a doubt, the man of the middle class. Which group, within that middle class, is considered the superior, the aristocracy of the present? Without a doubt, the technician: engineer, doctor, financier, teacher, and so on. Who, inside the group of technicians, represents it at its best and purest? Again, without a doubt, the man of science...

And now it turns out that the actual scientific man is the prototype of the mass-man. Not by chance, not through the individual failings of each particular man of science, but because science itself-the root of our civilisation-automatically converts him into mass-man, makes of him a primitive, a modem barbarian. The fact is well known; it has made itself clear over and over again; but only when fitted into its place in the organism of this thesis is does it take on its full meaning and its evident seriousness...

But the development of physics introduced a task opposite in character to unification. In order to progress, science demanded specialisation, not in herself, but in men of science. Science is not specialist. If it were, it would ipso facto cease to be true. Not even empirical science, taken in its integrity, can be true if separated from mathematics, from logic, from philosophy. But scientific work does, necessarily, require to be specialised.

It would be of great interest, and of greater utility than at first sight appears, to draw up the history of physical and biological sciences, indicating the process of increasing specialisation in the work of investigators. It would then be seen how, generation after generation, the scientist has been gradually restricted and confined into narrower fields of mental occupation. But this is not the importantpoint that such a history would show, but rather the reverse side of the matter: bow in each generation the scientist, through having to reduce the sphere of his labour, was progressively losing contact with other branches of science, with that integral interpretation of the universe which is the only thing deserving the names of science, culture, European civilisation.--José Ortega y Gasset (1932) The Revolt of the Masses (anonymous translator), pp. 108-110.

One the least flattering elements to science of Tomas Kuhn's philosophy of science is his insistence that most normal science is akin to puzzle-solving of a very specialized kind. And as Kuhn reminds his audience, "it is no criterion of goodness in a puzzle that its outcome be intrinsically interesting or important... intrinsic value is no criterion for a puzzle." It follows from this view, that science -- broadly viewed as a social institution -- selects for a certain kind of narrow, to-be-disciplined ingenuity. Of course, that's compatible with, as Kuhn hastens to add, a whole range of nobler motives in the scientist to join in science and stick with it. Kuhn's treatment of science is a functional analysis not psychological. But at bottom, science flourishes on a socially useful mental mutilation--and if you think that phrase too strong, Kuhn himself, more modern (and so medicalized) uses the euphemistic language of "addiction.

Kuhn leaves unaddressed whether society, which, let's stipulate, largely benefits from the fruits of scientific activity, owes the scientists any concern. Certain kinds of addiction may well be compatible with individual happiness after all. But if one takes a more expansive view of human flourishing, there is something disconcerting about the picture Kuhn draws for the scientist qua individual.

Writing a generation ahead of Kuhn, Ortega y Gasset emphasizes a mental mutilation (notice the 'barbarism') in the vicinity of puzzle-solving: hyper-specialization as an effect of the cognitive division of labor. To underlying claim is pretty clear: in order to advance on the research-frontier, one must focus on increasingly esoteric material disconnected from most other features of one's discipline and the other science. Kuhn himself captures the idea in terms of the effect of 'subdivision.'

Now, earlier in the (short) book than the passage I quoted (from chapter 12), Ortega y Gasset had offered an earnest plea for the continued significance of pure science as the fount of all technical advance (see chapter 9). And on his view this requires that the larger society embraces a set of ideals and mores conducive to people wanting to become scientists. (He recognizes that with rising affluence would be scientists have lots of other opportunities. Although his real interest is in culture.) So, Ortega y Gasset is not a critic of science or scientists as such. 

But, anticipating James Burnham and echoing themes also familiar from Hayek, he thinks both that modern "men of science" ((112)) his is a very gendered view) are the exemplary element in (to use Burnham's terminology) the ascendant managerial class, and that their mental mutilation -- their hyper-specialization -- makes them wholly unsuitable to the task of political and cultural leadership. Because while the "specialist "knows" very well his tiny corner of the universe, he is radically ignorant of the rest." (111) He is an "learned ignoramus." (112) 

The problem is, however, that while most specialists understand their own limitations and stay in their lane, the ones that stray into "politics, art, religion, and the general problems of life and the world" are likely too impressed by their own skills and smarts. (I need not remind you here of the pontificating popular scientist who makes elementary philosophical blunders and seems oddly unread.) Interestingly enough, Ortega y Gasset is not especially interested in the policy failures this may engender. Rather he thinks once these kind of people are empowered to shape society, they will fail to reproduce a culture worth having. And while he understands himself as a liberal democrat, this part of Ortega y Gasset's project is clearly very indebted to Nietszche's musing about the last man.

What Ortega y Gasset, himself a scion of Marburg Kantianism, failed to foresee is that in his own age, philosophy would also turn professional under the leadership of Carnap and Ernest Nagel, And that we, too, have become increasingly a  discipline of specialists. So, by his light (and Kuhn's) we, too, are likely to be mentally mutilated.

Because alienation is associated with Marxism, I am using 'mental mutilation.' Ortega y Gassett's interest in the political significance of mental mutilation is anticipated by Adam Smith.  I don't know whether Smith was the first person to diagnose mental mutilation as a side effect of employment, but his version of it remains striking (recall):

In the progress of the division of labour, the employment of the far greater part of those who live by labour, that is, of the great body of the people, comes to be confined to a few very simple operations, frequently to one or two. But the understandings of the greater part of men are necessarily formed by their ordinary employments. The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects too are, perhaps, always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding, or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become. The torpor of his mind renders him, not only incapable of relishing or bearing a part in any rational conversation, but of conceiving any generous, noble, or tender sentiment, and consequently of forming any just judgment concerning many even of the ordinary duties of private life. Of the great and extensive interests of his country, he is altogether incapable of judging; and unless very particular pains have been taken to render him otherwise, he is equally incapable of defending his country in war. The uniformity of his stationary life naturally corrupts the courage of his mind, and makes him regard with abhorrence the irregular, uncertain, and adventurous life of a soldier. It corrupts even the activity of his body, and renders him incapable of exerting his strength with vigour and perseverance, in any other employment than that to which he has been bred. His dexterity at his own particular trade seems, in this manner, to be acquired at the expence of his intellectual, social, and martial virtues. But in every improved and civilized society this is the state into which the labouring poor, that is, the great body of the people, must necessarily fall, unless government takes some pains to prevent it. Adam Smith Wealth of Nations WN 5.1.f 50

Smith is explicit that the structural cause of the underlying problem is the division of labor. And while the example of those who are confined to a few very simple operations is a limiting case, ,Smith leaves no doubt that social advancements come at the expense of most of our individual capacities. Unlike most members of 'team progress,' he thinks, as he puts it in the next paragraph, that people in 'backward' civilizations actually have better trained and cultivated judgments, including most notably political judgments:

It is otherwise in the barbarous societies, as they are commonly called, of hunters, of shepherds, and even of husbandmen in that rude state of husbandry which precedes the improvement of manufactures, and the extension of foreign commerce. In such societies the varied occupations of every man oblige every man to exert his capacity, and to invent expedients for removing difficulties which are continually occurring. Invention is kept alive, and the mind is not suffered to fall into that drowsy stupidity, which, in a civilized society, seems to benumb the understanding of almost all the inferior ranks of people. In those barbarous societies, as they are called...Every man too is in some measure a statesman, and can form a tolerable judgment concerning the interest of the society, and the conduct of those who govern it.  

I used this very passage (recall) in responding to an essay by David Graeber and David Wengrow, and could re-use it in light of their recent The Dawn of Everything. They attribute something like this insight to Marshal Sahlins, and it informs a lot of the most glorious passages in their book when they describe the statesmen and women of native society in colorful detail. I mention the book, because one effect of their argument is to make me see that for Smith what we may call republican self-government (of the sort promoted by Graeber and Wengrow) of society becomes every more problematic as the division of labor advances to encompass all.* And so there is a sense in which we should not be surprised by the near disappearance of such practices of deliberative self-governing citizen assemblies (that Graeber and Wengrow like): it's a prediction that follows naturally from Smith's theory. Our representative assemblies should then be viewed as a necessary, second best.

That Smith is also concerned with the effects on self-government is clear from the next paragraphs where he holds up as exemplar "Greek and Roman republics." (His main interest is, however on 'martial spirit.') Notice, that size of population or scale are not the issue on limits of self-government. (This is rightly attached by Graeber and Wengrow.) Rather, it's the division of labor that makes us collectively smarter, but individually stupider. 

Now, Smith himself thought that to combat life-long mental mutilation, the state should creative conditions in which kids needed to be taught alongside literacy, the "principles of geometry and mechanics." And in context it is clear that he thinks this, can promote self-government. It's unfortunate that Smith does not explain what the virtues of geometry and mechanics are such that they combat mental mutilation, but he does think that even in extreme division of labor the kind of principles one can discern in them would be regularly re-activated. 

Before one suspects that Smith's criticism of the 'working' classes is meant to open the door to the interest of capital, Smith himself thought the merchant classes could not be trusted with government because they would be too self-interested. But he takes for granted that  landowners and philosophers have room to take in a wider frame and develop good judgment (an important theme in Sam Fleischacker's interpretation of Smith). But since Smith's philosophy of science is broadly proto-Kuhnian, and the Wealth of Nation pretty much starts with the observation that philosophy has become incorporated into the division of labor, he cannot be sanguine about its future.

As an aside, even though Kuhn draws attention to the analogy between political and scientific revolutions, he himself thought that judgments were paradigm relative: "neither a decline nor a raising of standards." So, for Kuhn the problem that is immanent in his work never fully arises.

Writing just as the Great Depression is about to start, Ortega y Gasset's analysis implicitly suggests that Smith was too optimistic. That as the market grows and the division of labor becomes wider, as society becomes complexer, we should not expect good judgment among what passes for the educated classes at all. Because our universities will increasingly churn out hyper-specialists (including specialists in 'governance'); and even where there is book-learning as part of a liberal arts curriculum, political judgment can never be properly cultivated in a society like ours because all of us are always too distant from the conduct of those who govern us until it's too late.*

I should stop here. Yet, I want to add one more comment. The reservoir of nineteenth century bourgeois culture has been emptied. Despite the political implosion of Europe in the 1930s, liberal democracy recovered while the cognitive division of labor (and the economy) expanded greatly. We now have lots of tools that even expert practitioners have to black box (and arguably contributed to causing the Great Financial Recession). Yet our political process muddles through. This raises the suspicion that there is more judgment in our society than Ortega y Gasset has any right to expect, or that judgment is not needed. One cannot help but suspect that the unfolding environmental crisis will test both options severely.

 

 

Contextual Naturalism, Ernest Nagel, and The Philosophy of a Free Society.

It follows that the human scene is as much an integral part of nature, and as valid a subject for the philosopher's concern with basic features of existence, as is any of its other sectors. As contextualistic naturalism views them, man and his works are not inexplicable occurrences, incomparable in every respect with other natural processes. Men come into being and act the way they do only because of the operations of natural forces, and they perish or cease to behave as men when forces no less natural disrupt the normal organization of their bodies and of their fields of behavior. On the other hand, though the conditions of man’s life are thus continuous with the rest of nature, his behavior exhibits features which are discontinuous with other parts of existence. For man is not simply another odd item in the inexhaustible catalogue of created things. He possesses the apparently unique gift of an inquiring mind, which enables him not only to act under the compulsion of internal springs of action and external pressures, but also to direct his impulses and to master many of the forces in his environment.

This gift of intelligence man owes to the organization of his body and the character of his environment, and no supernatural agency or disembodied soul is required to explain it. It is this organization, complicated by the structure of his surroundings, which also accounts for men’s moral and evaluative behaviors. The possession of needs and preferences, and the exercise of reflection upon them in the interest of fulfilling and harmonizing them, are as natural to man as is, for example, the property of a magnet to repel or attract another magnet. In any event, it is in the radical plurality of men’s needs and in the limitations which their physical and social environment impose upon their fulfillment, that contextualistic naturalism locates the source and urgency of moral problems. Accordingly, it does not conceive the primary moral problem to be that of discovering or actually instituting some fixed set of ethical norms valid everywhere and for all time. For basic moral problems are plural in number and specific in character, and are concerned with the adjustment, in the light of causes and consequences, of competing impulses occurring in specific environmental contexts. There can therefore be no general or final solution to the moral predicaments of mankind; the moral problem is the perennial one of finding ways and means for eliminating needless suffering and for organizing in a reasonable manner the energies of men.

The advocacy of a responsible intellectual method, especially in matters pertinent to social and ethical issues as well as in philosophy, is thus an emphatic strain in the writings of contextualistic naturalists. For reliable knowledge is the end-product of a reflective process, involving the use of experimental controls over ideas which initially have the status of tentative hypotheses; and it is this procedure which must be employed if reliable knowledge and reason- able evaluations are to be attained in the settlement of social and moral conflicts. This method of science supplies no guarantees against error, it does not preclude alternative solutions to problems, and it certifies none of its conclusions as eternally valid. But since it is in essence a self-corrective method, and involves the continued criticism of its findings in the light of evidence capable of public inspection, it is a method which can discover its own errors. It is in any case the sole method which has historically shown itself able to yield intellectual and practical mastery over various segments of nature. From the systematic extension of the use of this method to the problems of men, contextualistic naturalists confidently anticipate an increased moral enlightenment. Compared with many fashionable philosophies contextualistic naturalism is almost prosaically sober. It contributes to the current intellectual scene no apocalyptic visions, no thunderous absolutes, no unshakeable certainties. It offers no spectacular promises of salvation. It is essentially scientific and secular in temper, but confident that the concentration of scientific methods upon specific problems will yield a rich harvest of genuine knowledge. It is sane and reasonable at a time when the tides of irrationalism run high in the world and when substitutes for the Appolonian virtues are at a premium. It expresses the convictions of a people confident that a bold but disciplined intelligence is still a creative power in the world.--Ernest Nagel (1947) "Philosophy and the American Temper" reprinted in Sovereign Reason (1954), pp. 56-7 (emphases added).

The other day, I called attention to Ernest Nagel's vision for philosophy of science (which is how he is remembered, if remembered at all). I wouldn't call his (1961) The Structure of Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation especially lyrical. But even if we leave aside his role in constructing what became analytic philosophy, his essays -- mostly reviews, polemics, and serious studies of the major intellects of his day -- are full arresting asides and rhetorical gems (below I quote a few more).

The passage quoted above was written for a "European audience, and appeared in a French translation in the Chronique des Etats-Unis, a bi-monthly publication of the American office of Information in Paris, In April 1947" (309). I have found almost nothing about this periodical, but it stands to reason it was an instrument of the US State Department or the CIA. But I assume here that it was written before the cold war was a reality, although Nagel was already (recall) hostile to Marxism. In the following years he would publish withering reviews (in the Partisan Review; and Jphil) of Cornforth's Leninist attempts at refuting Carnap, logical empiricism, and pragmatism. So, while anachronistic, it would not be misleading to call "Philosophy and the American Temper" (hereafter: American Temper) a philosophy for cold war liberalism.

American Temper is a short essay. Part of the argument of the essay is a denial that there is a distinctive American philosophy. (Nagel shows no interest in indigenous thought.) He claims this follows straightforwardly from commitment to a "democratic way of life," which shows itself in a restraint from top-down imposition of an authorized philosophy and the expectation of pluralism that is, that the freedom to develop "alternative conceptions of nature and man" will be pursued (50). 

While I tend to think of Nagel as the leader of the scientific wing of twentieth century pragmatism, in American Temper, Nagel describes pragmatism as a decaying research program (53). That here Nagel is describing his own commitments as a 'contextual naturalist,' we can accept on no less authority than Isaac Levy (writing in the Routledge Encyclopedia). I mention this because while Nagel's association with contextual naturalism was noted by contemporary readers and reviewers of Nagel's essay (see here; here), the term never caught on. In a beautiful essay, Lawrence Cahoone makes an excellent case that Nagel's contextual naturalism is very indebted to Morris Cohen. In American Temper Nagel himself grants (53-4) that it grows out of later writings of Dewey, Sheldon's (1942) America's Progressive Philosophy, which is a species of process philosophy, and a collection edited by Krikorian (1944) Naturalism and the Human Spirit, which includes many philosophers associated with Columbia at mid century.

The cardinal thesis of contextual naturalism is "the essentially incomplete fundamentally plural character of existence, in which no overarching pattern of development can be discerned, and which qualitative discontinuities and loose conjunctions are as ultimate features as are firm connections and regular cycles of change." (54) This is clearly now an unfashionable, metaphysical doctrine.+ But we can hear in its pluralism echoes in the (dappled world, disunity) commitments of those associated with the Stanford School of the Philosophy of Science.* Since Nagel was Suppes' supervisor the connection is not wholly coincidental. 

The point of calling it 'contextual' is explained by the "emphasis upon the contextual conditions for the occurence and for the manifested properties of everything whatsoever--upon the fact a quality an objective constituent of nature even though its existence depends on the relations in which it stands to other things." (55) This generates an anti-reductionism and a general mistrust of eliminativist strategies. (How this fits with so-called Nagel reduction is not my present concern.)

Now, I noted recently, that Nagel's philosophy of science is not attracted to the idea that science is a means of silencing others in the name of a unified authority. Kuhn's philosophy of science is not just a methodological alternative, but also a political alternative. And while science contains differential expertise and skill, Nagel views it more as an open-ended conversation responsive to criticism and reasons. This point is echoed in American Temper: "involves the continued criticism of its findings in the light of evidence capable of public inspection." And in this sense Nagel views science as a model for democratic society worth having. To what degree the science of our day would still be thought of as such an apt model is worth asking.

Alongside this is a rejection of ethics as a monistic, authoritative discipline imposing normative rules on the rest of us. Rather Nagel views ethics more in the spirit of what is now known as mechanism design. Its task is to find local, temporary ethical solutions to practical problems in light of our plural commitments in "specific environmental contexts." If there is an overarching theme it is the elimination of needless suffering. Obviously this slogan does not settle important questions (whose suffering will count; by whose light needless; and at what cost elimination?, etc.), but it gives the sense of the spirit of the project which is really about the never final organization of energy of men. The liberalism on offer is one with affinity to the New Deal.

We can also see that Nagel's vision for the philosophy of science as a template for a democratic society is itself ground in a pluralist metaphysics in which no single perspective is ultimately privileged. In addition this metaphysics provides a kind of template for society: each individual has objective existence, but is simultaneously socially embedded. 

Given that circumstances are constantly changing this is a philosophy of forever-unfinished-business, self-conscious of the fact that any proposed solution in the moment will seem archaic at a later date. As I wrap up, Nagel's comment on this point is worth quoting: 

contextualistic naturalists exhibit a profound distrust of philosophic systems which attempt to catch once for all the variegated contents of the world in a web of dialectical necessity. They are keenly conscious of the limitations of purely formal analysis even when they engage in it. For they recognize that a logic, no matter how subtle, provides no warrant concerning matters of fact unless it is supported by controlled observation. Indeed, they sometimes show an almost pathological fear that those concerned with formal analysis may be deceived into supposing that nature is as coherently organized and as simple as are their intellectual constructions. (54)

I hope readers have noticed that Nagel calls his own contextual naturalism 'sane and reasonable' and a 'sober' alternative to more fashionable and fanciful philosophies. There is an unapologetic willingness to develop the  apollonian edifices of civilization. But this way of framing it, and the acknowledged pathology -- the fear that controlled technique may facilitate a form of intellectual self-deception --, suggests recognition of the fact that some forces in our environment, including our own impulses, have dionysian roots that may haunt us. Nagel's analytic head is conjoined to the heart of a disciplined romantic.  

Models, Politics, Populations, and Public Science in times of Pandemic (III); on Stegenga and Philosophy of Science

What is the role, if any, of philosophy of science during this pandemic and global lockdown?...So far in the lockdown—May whatever-it-is-today—I am not aware of a systematic piece written by a philosopher of science on the pandemic or the policy response...What’s keeping me up at night, though, is this: should philosophers of science be trying to assess the merits of the various scientific arguments pertaining to SARS-CoV-2 that are now having such profound implications on policy, in a rigorous yet publicly visible manner, at a pace which accords with that of the relevant scientific work? This has been a moment of what we might call ‘fast science’. Ought philosophy of science attempt to engage with, contribute to, and criticize fast science, as it unfolds?

Both the harms (broadly construed) of SARS-CoV-2 and the effectiveness and unintended consequences of the social policies meant to mitigate those harms have been underdetermined by available evidence. At issue are the plurality of epidemiological models generating discordant predictions, the reliability of the various models, the empirical substantiation of model parameters, the evidential basis of the effectiveness of many lockdown strategies, and a complicated intertwining of social values and science. Moreover, stances on the pandemic are, obviously, politicized. The pandemic and global policy response seems, therefore, apt for analysis from the perspective of philosophy of science.

...The relevant scientific issues require technical expertise in epidemiology and economics, and up-to-date knowledge of a rapidly shifting epistemic landscape. A meta-level operative principle for any commentator on the pandemic ought to be epistemic humility, especially given the secondary pandemic of over-confidence among policymakers, armchair epidemiologists, and the scientists themselves. Moreover, because positions on the pandemic are often politicized, a philosopher of science who defends the Swedish approach (for example) might be assumed to have values and motivations aligned with, say, Trump supporters.

That said, our colleagues in philosophy of science include experts on scientific models, on methodological problems in medical science, on causal inference, on the relationship between science and values, on inductive risk, and on many other issues pertinent to the pandemic and policy response. Obviously, the stakes are high: some models are telling us that millions of people might die from the virus, while other models are telling us that millions of children might starve as a result of the global lockdowns. Should we be using our expertise to assess these scientific arguments as they unfold? There is a temporal dimension to my question....I am asking if we should be assessing the particular details and predictions of these models, now, and how they are being deployed in policy, today, in a manner that, to the extent possible, reflects the manner of presentation of the pertinent scientific arguments (namely, the speed of their articulation, their visibility, and their impact). Should philosophy of science engage with fast science?

...

So much science having so much impact, yet philosophers of science have been relatively quiet.....

In an email, Nancy Cartwright agreed that philosophers can and should weigh in on serious scientific and policy issues, though she noted that her own skills are at a meta-level rather than assessing particular data and models—I reckon that this is a diagnosis for many of us.  Jay Odenbaugh raised a number of such meta-level questions about models that are especially salient in the present context and that are worth quoting in full:

When should policymakers ignore models and when should they use them for policy guidance? What are good rules of thumb for critically thinking about models for laypeople? Do we need models for policy or can we simply get by with observational studies? How should we determine who is a good or bad modeller? How do epidemiological models compare to other types of models in other domains?

Although persuasive answers to these questions might require the sort of slow, meta-level scholarship that our discipline is accustomed to, such answers might better prepare our discipline for more rapid and impactful engagement in future episodes of fast science, which could emerge from all sorts of phenomena, such as a climate crisis, advances in artificial intelligence, or indeed, another virus.--Jacob Stegenga  "Fast Science and the Philosophy of Science"at Auxiliary Hypothesis BJPS & Dailynous

Today is the third in a series of posts (see the first here inspired by Phillipe Lempoine; and the second here). 

In his essay quoted above, which summarizes and expands on a lively facebook discussion among philosophers of science, Stegenga, distinguishes (implicitly) between fast science and slow science. He implies that slow science is the norm and fast science is the exception due to the (exceptional) "current crisis." He does not define either, but let's assume we understand what he means and accept the distinction. It is worth noting that some of the reasons given by philosophers of science why they might not have anything to contribute to the public debates over unfolding fast science have nothing to do with the fact that it is 'fast', but rather that it is policy apt. So, within the philosophy of science there is a further divide if not in kind then at least in degree between, let's call it, pure science and policy apt science (not to be confused with 'applied' science). 

Much of philosophy of science and the ruling norms within it is still shaped by the dominance of physics, math, and logic in the philosophical imagination. Of course, biology and cognitive science are huge fields in philosophy of science, but when these are studied by philosophers of science, they are not, in the first, instance treated as policy apt. Yes, philosophers of science who work on medicine, economics, engineering, and (say) decision theory, are much more aware that the sciences they study are themselves organized around epistemic norms pertaining to application and practices of justification that presuppose uptake. Even so, I cannot tell you how often, say, decision theorists will balk at the thought that how the formal apparatus is regularly applied is a legitimate form of criticism against the epistemic status of the machinery. (That's 'misuse' and so irrelevant, etc.) I mention this to suggest that thinking about uptake does not come naturally to bread and butter philosophers of science who often pay lip-service to this fact in grant applications and social media presence, but don't internalize it in their work and mutual evaluation.

Of course, the previous sentence is an exaggeration. Thanks to Heather Douglas there is a lively discussion about inductive risk in philosophy of science, and one can now assume knowledge of the concerns and arguments of feminist philosophers of science, which was not common when I was a PhD student a generation or so. Even so, it is no surprise that Eric Winsberg (who has done important work in climate science) and Alex Broadbent (who has done important work on epidemiology) have been so visible as philosophers of science. They have cut their teeth thinking, in part, about the complexities of science in public policy.* Okay, with that in place I want to offer four mutually supporting, but distinct claims.

First, the question philosophers of science should be asking is [A] how should we think about the intersection between fast and policy apt science in a crisis? It strikes me what's clearly needed is real philosophical work on that. One way to assimilate that question to familiar philosophy of science  is to think about that intersection in terms of the combination of scientific norms of controversy and inductive risk (or what in my own work I call 'responsible speech'). It is well understood since Kuhn, that the range of disagreement is constrained in scientific practice. In many ways fast, policy apt science during a crisis has features that are related to the turbulence characteristic of a possible paradigm shift and the intense disagreement familiar from a pre-paradigmatic stage. But in a crisis, these very familiar features play out with possible uptake, mediated by what Polanyi calls 'influentials' and I call 'aggregators,' in policy.

Second, in a policy apt context one can never assume what one may call a free market in ideas, or perfect communicative rationality, which is nearly always tacitly assumed by philosophers of science when discussing scientific controversy. By this I am not pointing to the barriers of entry of who counts as a relevant expert or who has access to the expensive machines. But rather that in in policy apt contexts two features tend to be structurally present: (i) some of the experts are not free to judge or free to say what they think even though they have highly salient expertise. Government scientists may well have gag orders of various kinds. This need not always be sinister--for coordination purposes, it may well be very important that government has a clear message. This is why, for example, Eric Winsberg and I noted that one should be alert to manufactured consensus. (Of course, philosophers of science should model under what conditions a unified flawed message is to be preferred over more noisy signal!) (ii) Governments always have an incentive to withhold inconvenient facts or to nudge scientists in a certain direction. So, what we really should be asking is [B] how should we think about the intersection between fast and policy apt science in a crisis with imperfect communicative rationality.

Third, the way the modern academy is organized is to incentivize and reward hyper-specialization (that is, creating barriers of entry of various kinds).  In one sense philosophy of science is no exception: our work often maps on to particular sub-disciplines in special sciences. But simultaneously, many sciences draw on generic methods and practices common to many sciences. In virtue of the foundational questions we are often free to pursue, philosophers of science often build up non-domain specific expertise about the strengths and weaknesses and features of these generic methods that can surpasse experts within a special  science. Of course, such generic knowledge is not limited to philosophers (e.g., statisticians, computer scientists, etc.) But it's the presence of such domain invariant expertise about generic instruments of science that I have claimed that synthetic philosophy is possible.

Of course, what is characteristic of the present crisis, is that we see the intermingling not just of fast and policy apt sciences, but also many policy questions that have not yet been so defined that they are what I call constrained choice. That is (to simplify) that the relevant issues have been internalized in one science and can be formulated as one kind of policy decision. Rather, the crisis is characterized by evolving recognition that many different kinds of sciences, many different kinds of policies, can have many complex social effects (psychological well-being, rates of hospitalization on incidence of non Covid-19 diseases, supply-chain limitations, public transit and social distancing, etc., etc.). I have suggested that this requires something I have called 'policy apt synthetic philosophy.' So, the question we should ask is  [c] how should policy apt synthetic philosophers of science think about the intersection among many fast and policy apt science in a crisis with imperfect communicative rationality. 

Fourth, policy apt synthetic philosophy is now housed in attenuated fashion in departments of scientific policy/advice that help coordinate decisions that involve multiple sciences and policy domains. There is a need for a class of individuals that study versions of [A; B; & C] alongside the principles of such policy coordination that are not government officials so that they can contribute alongside the scientific aggregators to public discussion in independent fashion. But what this also points to is the need for a more collaborative ethic within philosophy [of science] along the model of what I once dubbed (recall) integrated PPE (Philosophy, Politics, Economics).+ This last point suggests that some of the infrastructure for policy apt synthetic philosophy is already developing, but let me stop here, today.

On Polanyi, Spontaneous Order (yes, Hayek and Kuhn)

The next example of dynamic order will be our main subject, Science. Every scientist in search of discovery is faced with the scientific results and opinions of all other scientists up to that date, both living and dead, which are summed up in text books or-for more recent work-in current publications and public discussions. The scientist differs from the judge in that he is not given his case to decide, but has to select his own problem for investigation. Early in life he specialises on certain branches of science which fit his own personal gifts and his own strongest inclinations. Then he looks out for an opportunity to apply his particular knowledge and gifts; and finally he selects a special problem by the pursuit of which he expects to achieve the most important results. In the setting of his problem and in the way he seeks its solution, he is applying the traditional methods of science and the particular procedure of his own branch: with such possible modifications as he may desire to attempt. His judgment, through which his results are expressed, is based on accepted scientific standards of reliability and precision: again, possibly, with some personal variation of his own. Discovery in the end will be largely based on thousands of previous discoveries; and though the new addition will always modify the previously prevailing ideas to some extent, and sometimes may cause revolutionary changes in outlook, the essential unity of science will be maintained. Scientific discoveries are published without delay, since each scientist desires to get the credit for his own achievements. Discoverers will often defend their claims emphatically against criticism and seek to assure their acceptance by the scientific public.

Science is thus seen to be growing by the characteristic process producing dynamic order. New scientific claims are made in due consideration of all previously established ones; and the results thus obtained continuously modify the previously achieved positions of science.

In the way a scientist, intent on a problem, consults the results and opinions of scientists who worked before him, he resembles a judge referring to precedent. But in the way in which he looks out for a problem to which to apply his special gifts to the best advantage, and later, when discovery is achieved, puts his claims before his colleagues and tries to gain their acceptance for them, he acts rather like the business man, first seeking the most profitable application of his resources and then soliciting the consumers' approval for his goods. We see here a variation in the nature of the methods of adjustment ("internal forces") that are operating in the formation of the dynamic order. Between different judges the adjustments are of a purely consultative character; between business men they are largely competitive ; while between scientists they show combinations of both types.--Michael Polanyi (1941) "The Growth of Thought in Society, "Economica, 8(32): 437.

When I was a PhD student, Mary Jo Nye visited and emphasized the significance of Michael Polanyi. I dutifully read Personal Knowledge, and found it useful to refer to his account of the role of passions in science. But suggestible as I am, I know how the sociological winds blow in analytic philosophy; I am not the first to notice (cf. Stephen Turner) that when the big guns of contemporary analytic philosophy went after know how, Polanyi's account and examples of tacit knowledge simply got ignored

The context of the quoted passage is Polanyi's attempt to graft on the "spontaneous ordering" (432) of "mutually adjusting units" (in context he is appealing to molecules in equilibrium) a description of a "kind of liberty that goes far beyond the claims of personal freedom." (438) The point is that "individuals, participating in the building up of a dynamic order, all act independently," in light of their own judgment. This judgment is not in the service of "the satisfaction of the desire to be left alone, or to do as you please" but rather ""to make discoveries that are important in science-as important as possible....[and to] see these discoveries accepted by science and credited to himself." (445) From this motive they serve the collective endeavor of science. This understanding of freedom Polanyi calls "public liberty." (438) Such public liberty is according to Polanyi constrained by one's own convictions and the judgment of others, and social "incentives" (444).

As an aside, Polanyi uses the reality of simultaneous discovery in science as an illustration of the existence of shared incentives and judgments and to downplay the influence of individual idiosyncrasy (445). This is a bit peculiar because he also treats individual conviction as a necessary feature of the efficiency of science; it's individuality that allows the possible search space to be explored (see Logic of Liberty, p. 34).* 

Be that as it may, the two main examples of a spontaneous or dynamic order Polanyi develops at any length are science and law. But he is quit explicit there "exist many other systems in the intellectual and moral sphere" that blend cognitive and normative features, including the economy. It is well known (see Caldwell) that these remarks appealed to Hayek. And I am not the first to wonder how much Polanyi shaped Kuhn's ideas. What I didn't previously appreciate is that Polanyi develops these ideas in order to combat both communist and fascist conceptions of science which presuppose social (including democratic) control of science. For me, at least, this makes more intelligible the idea that the initial reception of Kuhn was, in fact, facilitated by the cold war context.

I want to close with two observations. First, Polanyi treats the existence of Knightian uncertainty as real and as a ground to doubt the possibility of planning of science: "The main difficulty in handling men according to a pre-arranged plan lies in the fact that the outcome of human endeavour is mostly uncertain and is often worth while only to the extent to which it is uncertain." (433) It is notable that Polanyi treats the very worth of agency as presupposing uncertainty.

Second, I find it amusing that the image of science (recall) that Polanyi presents is itself grounded in a system studied by science. There is, thus, a fractal like quality to his thought.

Philosophy of Science in The Nobel Prize (Economics) Lecture by Stigler

I propose on this occasion to address the same kinds of questions to an entirely different market: the market for new ideas in economic science. Most economists enter this market in new ideas, let me emphasize, in order to obtain ideas and methods for the applications they are making of economics to the thousand problems with which they are occupied: these economists are not the suppliers of new ideas but only demanders. Their problem is comparable to that of the automobile buyer: to find a reliable vehicle. Indeed, they usually end up by buying a used, and therefore tested, idea.--George Stigler (1982)  Nobel Lecture (Economics), Stockholm.

As regular readers know, the Nobel (Chicago-economist), George J. Stigler, had a lifelong interest in the philosophy, and sociology of science. I have remarked in the past that this interest was not entirely disinterested; it's clear that Stigler's work also aimed at influencing the discipline (for example, encouraging consensus-aiming practices that would allow one to ignore criticisms) and I have argued here that he was rather successful at doing so and so is worth paying attention to how philosophical ideas shape scientific practice.

Somewhat surprisingly and unusually Stigler chose to structure his prize lecture around his interest in the sociology/philosophy of economics. I call it unusual because he won the prize for his "seminal studies of industrial structures, functioning of markets and causes and effects of public regulation," and ordinarily the Nobel lecture is an elegant discussion of and introduction into the material that generated professional recognition often  accompanied with polite recognition of folk who did not get the prize, but paved the way to it. Stigler deviates from the precedent. It's not that he does not discuss these topics at all -- and one could argue that he is discussing the functioning of the markets in ideas -- , but they are all framed by his sociological interests in science. These interests are long-standing, and they were shaped not just by his teacher, Knight, but also his encounters with Merton (a colleague at Columbia) and Talcott Parsons (probably a colleague at Stanford), and his early readings of Kuhn. 

As an aside, Stigler was a world-class historian of economics, even long after that had become professionally non-fashionable. This lack of fashion was itself a consequence, in part, because he would (while echoing Kuhn) tell folk that a sign of scientific maturity was that disciplinary history became of little interest to the puzzle solving economists (thus providing justification for the elimination of history of economics from graduate curricula).

In fact, the previous paragraph is not really an aside. The Nobel lecture relies explicitly on [A] a distinction "between prescientific and scientific stages of a discipline." (This is quoted from the abstract.) It also relies (more implicitly) on a [B] distinction between those (the few) that supply "new ideas" -- akin to Kuhnian legislators --  and those ("most") that "demand" ideas to be applied to the determinate problems with which they are occupied (the Kuhnian worker-bees, or puzzle-solvers). (The quoted material is the second paragraph of the lecture.)

It turns out however that the few are, from Stigler's perspective, unusual characters, I quote the relevant paragraph before I comment:

Those economists who seek to engage in research on the new ideas of the science to refute or confirm or develop or displace them are in a sense both buyers and sellers of new ideas. They seek to develop new ideas and persuade the science to accept them, but they also are following clues and promises and explorations in the current or preceding ideas of the science. It is very costly to enter this market: it takes a good deal of time and thought to explore a new idea far enough to discover its promise or its lack of promise. The history of economics, and I assume of every science, is strewn with costly errors: of ideas, so to speak, that wouldn't run far or carry many passengers (530)

Kuhnian legislators have two roles: being [C] developers of new ideas and, unless they have disciples willing to do the work, [D] persuaders of others to accept them. [D] means there is a need for scientific entrepreneurs and the art of rhetoric in science. It turns out that [E] there are high barriers to entry to become a Kuhnian legislator both because (i) it requires a lot of effort and time to be on top of existing science and develop new ideas, as well as (ii) the risks involved of producing ideas that do not pan out. Some of the costs involved, are (iii) investments in prior social infrastructure of science ("the machinery of intellectual exchange-journals, learned societies, and conferences"(535)) that make a "large expenditure of time, intelligence, and research resources" possible (536). Notice that such ideas may well be true, but if there is no uptake (recall [D]) and so no "prestige, reputation, and income" (530) worth having, then this, too, will be treated as failure.*

Famously, Kuhn divides the immature and mature stage of science in terms of consensus or lack thereof. Stigler had used such a measure, too, in the past. But in the Nobel lecture he offers a different criterion: the pre-scientific stage "is characterized by absence of a set of interacting practitioners who are devoting a large part of their lives to the accumulation of knowledge, and hence it is characterized by the absence of cumulative progress." (530) There are really two claims here: [F] in the scientific stage a science is progressing. More important, [G] a science is characterized by the presence of practitioners who (i) recognize each other as fellow travelers/scientists, who (ii) are professionals (in the sense that science is their main occupation), and (iii) who form a communicative community. It's not always clear if he thinks whether [G] causes [F] or [G] is a symptom of [F.]

One interesting feature of the absence of progress and lack of a scientific community in the pre-scientific stage that Stigler notes is that descriptions of it often (a) "almost totally lack a time dimension." In pre-scientific stages it makes little difference in what order doctrines are discussed. An interesting feature of the presence of a scientific community is that (b) detected errors will be refuted, and "only the detected errors of unimportant economists are spared a prompt reputation." (531)

Another criterion he offers between the pre-scientific and scientific eras, is that in the pre-scientific era the problems of a would-be-science are shaped by the (often practical needs of the) environment. While Stigler does not deny that "new circumstances" (political and technological changes) can spur interest in some questions and even innovation, but at bottom his view is that "an empirical science such as economics is to provide general understanding of events in the real world, and ultimately all of its theories and techniques must be instrumental to that task. That is very different from saying, however, that it must be responsive to the contemporaneous conditions and problems of the society in which it is situated." That is, Stigler [H] denies what in earlier work he had called “environmental theory.” And, in fact, it is accompanied by a further claim  that [I] "A science requires for its very existence a set of fundamental and durable problems." (534) One may say that these problems are part of the identity conditions of the science and the ones that Kuhnian legislators help illuminate.+ But in the moment it's very difficult to distinguish between fruitful ideas and dead-ends. And this means [J] that all sciences will be subject to fashions that after the fact prove illusory in fruitfulness.

Because Stigler treats mature science as a fairly efficient communicative community, the [K] new ideas that will prove to be fruitful must in some sense be a natural and small enough, discrete extension from existing practices ("science also progresses through time without making large jumps" with an explicit nod to Darwin's Natura non facit saltus. ) This commitment follows quite naturally from the way demand in economics is conceived. For [L] any idea to have uptake it most (and Stigler credits his Chicago colleague,  Gary Becker) be deploy-able by applied practitioners (who have specific human capital) with little extra cost and more potential reward (and who are risk averse). It also follows that given the structure  of the market of economic ideas that there is a bias against novelty from the majority because their "capital would be reduced if [their] knowledge were made obsolete by the general acceptance of a new theory. Hence, established scholars should, in their own self-interest, attack new theories." (538) That is to say, [M] there is considerable status quo bias in any scientific discipline that also (and Stigler does not point this out) helps stabilize the boundaries and the identity conditions of the discipline.

In fact, [N] often novel ideas will be subject to controversy, although Stigler points to the uptake of his own work in the economics of information as an exception (there was little controversy). Stigler thinks this was due to the fact that "no established scientific theory was being challenged by this work." (539) So there are for Stigler [O] two kinds of new ideas: those that extend a theory or apply a known tool in a new area (relatively little controversy) and those that challenge existing practices. The latter can form the basis of a true challenge to the status quo [P], "it takes a theory to beat a theory." But Stigler admits that [Q] a true test is rare because it is rare that "a theory in economics has a well-defined domain of applicability." (542) Instead theories are tested indirectly for "fertility,"  by deploying them to "explore a variety of problems." Such [R] indirect tests take time and a theory can linger for a long time before it is ultimately discarded.

Stigler explicitly recognizes that there may be more other interesting factors. But we can treat [A]-[R] as the main factors of Stigler's public choice model of science. (He credits Downs, Buchanan, and Tullock, but seems to have been unaware of Tullock's The Organization of Inquiry, which (recall) anticipates many of his own views.

Because I have gone on too long for a blog post, I will not offer critical commentary today. I just note one final feature of Stigler's philosophy of science. For, Stigler, thus [Q] a science is characterized by fundamental Knightian uncertainty about its own development ("No one can describe the precise characteristics or content of a new piece of scientific work that will find ready and eager reception from the scientists of a period." (538))** This commitment to Knight's ideas is especially notable because he rejects the thought (which he explicitly associates with his teacher Knight) that the subjects studied by economists are mistake prone and do not grasp the effects of their policy choices (recall also my treatment of his Tanner lectures).

 

Al-Ghazali's Genealogy of Philosophy and Natural Religion

29. Know that the philosophers, notwithstanding the multiplicity of their groups and the diversity of their doctrines, can be divided into three main divisions: Materialists, Naturalists, and Theists.
30. The first category, the Materialists, were a group of the most ancient philosophers who denied the existence of the omniscient and omnipotent Creator-Ruler. They alleged that the world has existed from eternity as it is, of itself and not by reason of a Maker. Animals have unceasingly come from seed, and seed from animals: thus it was, and thus it ever will be. These are the godless in the full sense of the term.
31. The second category, the Naturalists, were men who devoted much study to the world of nature and the marvels found in animals and plants; they also were much taken up with the dissection of animal organs. In these they saw such marvels of God Most High’s making and such wonders of His wisdom that they were compelled, with that in mind, to acknowledge the existence of a wise Creator cognizant of the aims and purposes of all things. Indeed, no one can study the science of anatomy and the marvelous uses of the organs without acquiring this compelling knowledge of the perfect governance of Him Who shaped the structure of animals, and especially that of man. 

32. However, it appeared to these philosophers, because they had studied nature so much, that the equilibrium of the mixture of humors had a great effect on the resulting constitution of the animal’s powers. Hence they thought that man’s rational power was also dependent on the mixture of his humors and that its corruption would follow the corruption of the mixture of his humors, and so that power would cease to exist. Once it ceased to exist, they alleged that bringing back the nonexistent would be unintelligible. So they adopted the view that the soul dies, never to return. Consequently they denied the afterlife and rejected the Garden and the Fire, the assembly and the Recall, and the Resurrection and the Reckoning. So in their view there would be no future reward for obedience, and no punishment for disobedience. Therefore they lost all restraint and abandoned themselves to their passions like beasts. These were also godless men, because basic faith is belief in God and the Last Day — and these men denied the Last Day, even though they believed in God and His Attributes.
33. The third category, the Theists, were the later philosophers, such as Socrates, the master of Plato, and Plato, the master of Aristotle. It was Aristotle who systematized logic for the philosophers and refined the philosophical sciences, accurately formulating previously imprecise statements and bringing to maturity the crudities of their sciences. Taken altogether, these refuted the first two categories of the Materialists and the Naturalists. Indeed, by the arguments they advanced to lay bare the enormities of the latter, they relieved others of that task: “And God spared the believers from fighting (the unbelievers)” (33.25) by reason of the unbelievers’ own infighting.
34. Then Aristotle refuted Plato and Socrates and the Theists who had preceded him in such thorough fashion that he disassociated himself from them all. Yet he, too, retained remnants of their vicious unbelief and innovation which he was unsuccessful in avoiding. So they all must be taxed with unbelief, as must their partisans among the Muslim philosophers, such as Ibn Sina and al-Farabi and their likes. None, however, of the Muslim philosophers engaged so much in transmitting Aristotle’s lore as did the two men just mentioned. What others transmitted is not free from disorder and confusion and in studying it one’s mind becomes so muddled that he fails to understand it — and how can the incomprehensible be rejected or accepted?--Al-Ghazali Deliverance from Error.

In Deliverance from Error (recall and here), Al-Ghazali conceives the origin of philosophy as a atheist revolt against a natural form of theism, one that posits an omniscient and omnipotent Creator-Ruler of the sort that naturally accompanies sovereign kingship [in which the political ruler understands himself as a God, the mirror image  of the cosmic Creator-Ruler). We are not told much else about the natural form of theism, but (given the stringent denials of the original philosophers), we can infer it posited a providential creation story. (I return to this below.) By contrast (on the hostile interpretation of Al-Ghazali) the first philosophers -- one can recognize a stylized picture of the atomists in it -- posit a cosmic order of eternal return without meaning. 

Al-Ghazali is careful not to name any of these original philosophers nor to characterize the natural theism they reject. But they both precede Socrates. There is, in fact, a peculiarity here in that Al-Ghazali ignores the pure forms of Greek polytheism. The natural form of theism is closer to Judaism and (perhaps more likely on his mind) Zoroastrianism; and original philosophy a revolt against it.  

Al-Ghazali's 'naturalists' are a kind of empirical, natural philosophers. (It's a bit surprising he does not mention medicine in this context, but there are hints of Galen throughout the piece.) These find evidence of functionality and design everywhere, there are led, inductively to a theistic designer. But they view a soul as something emergent from or grounded in physical processes and so mortal. Because they deny an afterlife (and resurrection), they become practical atheists. 

It's no surprise that Al-Ghazali sees a tight connection between beliefs about the nature of the soul and, perhaps, more important the existence of judgment day and  observed behavior. (Let's stipulate he is right about observed behavior.) But it is a bit surprising that the charge of immoral behavior is only lodged against the so-called naturalists and not the earlier materialists (a point repeated in paragraph 33!)

I called Al-Ghazali's narrative a 'genealogy.' But it would have been better, perhaps, to call it a 'natural history.' The achievement of the (Socratic) Theists is not just to refute the materialists and naturalists theoretically and to show why the behavior of the latter was truly immoral, but to turn an immature practice into a mature fields ("accurately formulating previously imprecise statements and bringing to maturity the crudities of their sciences.") To put Al-Ghazali's narrative in Kuhnian terms, Socrates is the start of a revolution in philosophy that culminates in Aristotle's achievements.

In the analysis of the after-effects of Aristotle's achievements, Al-Ghazali notices that even theistic philosophy inherit the "remnants of...vicious unbelief and innovation" of the naturalists and materialists relative to the original religion. This entails that Al-Ghazali treats the original religion as a species of (what we may call along with the tradition) true religion. Not for the first time (recall), I notice that Al-Ghazali suggests that that while Muhammad's revelation is instrumentally useful, it is not itself necessary for the existence of true religion. 

 

Darwin's (meta)-Philosophy of Science In The Origin of Species (and a note on his subtle Spinozism and debts to Smith)

The belief that species were immutable productions was almost unavoidable as long as the history of the world was thought to be of short duration; and now that we have acquired some idea of the lapse of time, we are too apt to assume, without proof, that the geological record is so perfect that it would have afforded us plain evidence of the mutation of species, if they had undergone mutation.

But the chief cause of our natural unwillingness to admit that one species has given birth to other and distinct species, is that we are always slow in admitting any great change of which we do not see the intermediate steps. The difficulty is the same as that felt by so many geologists, when Lyell first insisted that long lines of inland cliffs had been formed, and great valleys excavated, by the slow action of the coast-waves. The mind cannot possibly grasp the full meaning of the term of a hundred million years; it cannot add up and perceive the full effects of many slight variations, accumulated during an almost infinite number of generations.

Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this volume under the form of an abstract, I by no means expect to convince experienced naturalists whose minds are stocked with a multitude of facts all viewed, during a long course of years, from a point of view directly opposite to mine. It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as the `plan of creation,' `unity of design,' &c., and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact. Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain number of facts will certainly reject my theory. A few naturalists, endowed with much flexibility of mind, and who have already begun to doubt on the immutability of species, may be influenced by this volume; but I look with confidence to the future, to young and rising naturalists, who will be able to view both sides of the question with impartiality. Whoever is led to believe that species are mutable will do good service by conscientiously expressing his conviction; for only thus can the load of prejudice by which this subject is overwhelmed be removed.--Charles Darwin The Origin of Species, Chapter 14.

Yesterday (recall), I remarked that Darwin likes to bookend/frame his arguments in terms of the ignorance of savages (recall also here). In later editions (from the third onward) of Origin this is accompanied by a further framing: in An Historical Sketch, Darwin gives an informed (albeit potted) history of the "progress of opinion on the origin of species" leading up to "the publication of the edition of the work." The book closes with a kind "prophetic glance into futurity"* in which Darwin sketches a trajectory for the reception of his book which I have quoted above. Of course, the rhetorical point of both (the historical sketch) and the quoted passage above is to promote and influence the uptake of Darwin's theory (and, perhaps, to reward him with  proper credit for the relevant bits of it).

Ever since the work of D.T. Campbell (on 'evolutionary epistemology' a term coined by him in Popper's (1974) Schilpp volume) and David Hull (with his evolutionary approach to development of Science) the idea of applying evolutionary ideas to knowledge has been thoroughly worked out and covers many different kinds of projects. The SEP article by Bradie and Harms suggests that Dewey and the pragmatists were the first to to do so. But I am convinced that evolutionary ideas about knowledge precede Darwin and may well have influenced the development of his views in biology (that's for another time). Even so, the purpose of the present post is to look at how Darwin conceptualizes the sociology of knowledge. 

1. The first sentence above suggests that ideas in biology are influenced by ideas about or dependent on cosmogony/cosmology. That's no surprise because as Darwin is at pains to emphasize, his theory requires an almost unimaginable lengthening of the age of the Earth. For those steeped in Christianity that's a problem; but even among christian deists there was a steady increase in the possible age of the Earth from the seventeenth century onward. Spinozists, of course, had no trouble allowing that the age of the Earth extended backward into infinity (as space was infinite).  That is to say, Darwin is acutely aware that the uptake of his ideas about the living world are influenced by what is taken to be possible and reasonable in other domains of inquiry.

2. The second sentence, which restates an important evidential objection against Darwin's theory, reinforces that first point and recalls his ninth chapter which was devoted to refuting the objection. His response there is really three-fold: the geological record has not been exhausted yet; the geological record will always be incomplete (due to constraints on fossilization, and the submersion of previous lands into oceans, etc.); the study of the geological record is itself influenced by the recent "the revolution in our palaeontological ideas." That is, while Darwin is a gradualist about the evolution of species, Darwin conceives of development of disciplinary knowledge as capable of revolutions in thought. I am convinced this idea is indebted to Smith's History of Astronomy.+ Despite the existence of such revolutions, his own 'historical sketch' suggests that there is progress in knowledge. So Darwin is using 'revolution' not in the old-fashioned sense of a circular understanding of knowledge (time, orbits, etc.) but more in the modern sense of a dramatic change, which can (but need not) be an important advance,

Incidentally, as an aside, my mention of Spinozism is not innocent; in that ninth chapter he also writes, "During each of these years, over the whole world, the land and the water has been peopled by hosts of living forms. What an infinite number of generations, which the mind cannot grasp, must have succeeded each other in the long roll of years!" While I am happy to concede to a skeptic that all Darwin needs to be saying here is that there has been a very huge number of generations beyond the mind's possible conception, his use of 'infinite' is politically dangerous--because that implies there need not have been a start at all.** This infinity is repeated in the passage quoted above. 

3. In the second quoted paragraph Darwin then offers a non-epistemic, but psychological error-theory for why a community of enquirers, may be resistant to the uptake of his theory. He claims it is a psychological fact that we require to see intermediate steps before we grant the existence of a great change. And if those steps are not easily visible, we are "always slow" in admitting any "great change." The psychology here is indebted to Smith's psychological-epistemic account (see my book) of how gaps prevent the mind to go along with any claim (and even generate the  painful emotion of wonder--which prompts us to further inquiry). We recoil from such gaps. 

4. This is related to a further psychological point which closes the second paragraph: from the vantage point of the minds of individual epistemic agents, the claims made in geology and in Darwin's theory are fundamentally hard if not impossible to grasp. The point is a quirky one, but can be understood if we take the idea of gaps seriously. It is impossible to inspect visually or manually, as it were, each step in an (unfolding) infinite series. Even if we avoid Zeno style paradoxes here, there is simply no time or resources to do so. The would be knower here, has to allow a form of abstraction that jumps over any would be gaps.++

5. Darwin then closes with a now familiar thought (often attributed to Planck -- "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it --) that scientists who grew up with different conceptual framework are likely to resist to come around to his theory. The epistemic significant point is that Darwin again expresses the idea that background ideas influence the uptake of new theories. In this case the background ideas are deeply entrenched in alternative paradigm. 

6. In addition, Darwin points out that there are really two main kinds of stances toward a theory: (i) one can have a disposition" to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties; (ii) and a disposition that attaches more weight "to the explanation of a certain number of facts." The first (i) is a skeptical disposition; the second (ii) is a confirmatory disposition. The interesting point here is that Darwin recognizes that (i) is a legitimate position and that he does not try to argue against it. But it's clear he thinks that this is nonthreatening because such characters may well find even more problems with other theories.

7. Darwin assumes that the community of knowers is populated with epistemic agents that have different epistemic characters. For in addition to (i-ii), it turns out that (iii) flexibility of mind, and (iv) young age (which he claims is correlated with impartiality) may also impact the uptake of new theories. (I don't mean to suggest there can't be hybrids of i-iv for Darwin.) That is, not unlike his theory of plants and animals, Darwin assumes natural variability within epistemic communities. 

8. Okay, this is a long-ish blog post now. So, one closing observation. The selection mechanism here, which is a kind of bottleneck, is the mind and its  disposition of the epistemic agent. So, it strikes me that Darwin is edging close to a theory of cultural evolution of which his meta-philosophy of science is an example.

A Minor Debate: Kripke vs Dennett

As will be seen immediately, inversion in this sense is a devise for reversing priorities. William James summarized his famous theory of emotions (The Principles of Psychology)...by the assertion, "...the...rational statement is that we feel sorry because we cry...not that we cry...because we are sorry. (p. 450). Many philosophies can be summed up crudely (no doubt, not really accurately) by slogans in similar form: "We do not condemn certain acts because they are immoral; they are immoral because we condemn them." "We do not accept the law of contradiction because it is a necessary truth; it is a necessary truth because we accept it (by convention." "Fire and heat are not constantly conjoined because fire causes heat; fire causes heat because they are constantly conjoined" (Hume). "We do not all say  12+7-19 and the like because all grasp the concept of addition; we say we all grasp the concept of addition because we all say 12+7=19 and the like" (Wittgenstein).

The device of inversion of a conditional in the text achieves the effect of reversing priorities in a way congenial to such slogans. Speaking for myself, I am suspicious of philosophical positions of the types illustrated by the slogans, whether or not  they are so crudely put." Saul Kripke (1982) Wittgenstein on Rules, pp. 93-4 note 76. [HT Jody Azzouni]

In the "preface" to Wittgenstein on Rules, Kripke informs the reader "with "emphasis" that "in this piece of writing" he does not "attempt to speak'" for himself, "or, except in occasional and minor asides, to say anything about" his "views on the substantive issues." (ix) Thus, the present topic is perfect for a Digression.

The quoted passage is a footnote to a restatement (and elucidation) by Kripke of an interpretation he has just given of a politically salient element of Wittgenstein's view as understood by Kripke. (At this point of the overall 'argument' Kripke is presenting Wittgenstein's 'skeptical solution' to the rule following  'paradox.') A deviant individual may be "judged a madman" by the community if his responses do not accord with the community's in enough cases. To be mad by the community's lights is to be (thought) to follow "no coherent rule at all." And then it excludes him from some transactions "such as the one between the grocer and the customer." (93)  On this view, ordinary commercial life presupposes, for example, being a member in good standing of a community.* Somebody whose behaviors can be relied upon.

An impatient reader may be annoyed that I call the discussion 'politically' salient here. On this picture of communal life, from within the community there is almost no difference between the madman, the outlaw (recall this post on Azzouni's aesthetics), the dissident, and the political revolutionary (until she usurps power successfully). A philosopher at odds with her own community better remain silent.

To return to the main point, or better Kripke's footnote, Kripke treats inversion as a device to shift attention and "reverses our priorities." (94) It is notable that Kripke, speaking in his own voice, strictly for himself (and, one may hasten to add, on nobody's authority) does not treat inversion as explanatory at all. Not to put too fine point on it, and to speak crudely for a moment, Kripke sees himself as unmasking a louche gimmick that is widespread in philosophy--William James is famous for some such trick, and so are Hume and Wittgenstein.** 

As it happens, James's version of the inversion is Spinozistic in character: "Our natural way of thinking about these standard emotions is that the mental perception of some fact excites the mental affection called the emotion, and that this latter state of mind gives rise to the bodily expression. . My thesis on the contrary is that the bodily changes follow directly the PERCEPTION of the exciting fact, and that our feeling of the same changes as they occur IS the emotion." (I am not claiming that James is committed to attribute-parallelism here.) And it is notable that the one of the unnamed slogans [we do not condemn certain acts because they are immoral; they are immoral because we condemn them] is also Spinozistic (and Hobbesian).+ What James and Spinoza have in common is a willingness to treat our natural way of thinking as something that can be shown to be illusory even if there is also a sense in which this way of thinking, a manifest image of sorts, can not be eliminated fully from ordinary life. 

One reason why Kripke is unmoved by the inversion, is that he sees in it merely a logical point, after all "a conditional is equivalent to a contrapositive." (94) (P--> Q); (-Q --> -P).  In such instances, to treat the contrapositive as special and more worthy of our attention seems (ahh) crude no better than a slogan. (Of course, a slogan may well be true!) 

But, that's not the end of the matter. Another influential reader of Wittgenstein, Daniel Dennett, treats such inversions as potentially explanatory. And that's because he does not treat them as merely logical. For we can represent how Dennett thinks of the inversions in the following way:

1. You may naturally think that some basic property X is required for the explanation of (observed) properties Y.
2. Where X exhibits some intelligence/mindedness/intentionality and Ys typically do not.
3. But in reality properties Y are needed to explain X.

Throughout his writings of the last decade, Dennett attributes some such strange inversion of reasoning as a key moment in Darwin (natural selection), Turing (computing), Hume (causation), and David Haig (content). It is undoubtedly the case that Dennett has a tendency to say, 'don't look there, look here.' And philosophical critics often trouble themselves with understanding what the point of Dennett's writings are. (Kripke does not mention Dennett, so if you are the sincere type, you can treat the title of my post as click-bait.)

But in Dennett (and James, Hume, etc.) the shift of attention is not the end of the matter, but a heuristic toward a better explanation of the thing (mind, computers, emotions, morality, natural selection, causation, etc.) we're trying to understand. And a key step is to give up, or forego, a natural way of thinking about the issue at hand. To do so frequently is indeed mad. But the first step to a better understanding may well require a willingness to be thought mad by one's community/peers.