[lit-ideas] Re: Darwiniana
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 26 Feb 2012 13:53:23 +0000 (GMT)
Some comments below on analytic-synthetic, with thanks to JLS for the useful
excerpts from Popper's writings on evolution.
In these, Popper acknowledges a change in his position but in a way that is
perhaps overgenerous and might provide blank ammunition for the less scrupulous
of his critics. His change of view is more a clarification of
what-is-and-what-is-not testable under the guise of 'D' than any radical change
in view: where at earlier times he emphasised important ways in which D is not
falsifiable, he later wished to clearly acknowledge that many D-type
explanations are well-tested. This is not a fundamental change of view as to
the testability of D but amplification based on the fact that different D-type
claims having different degrees of testability.
But D as an explanatory framework (to be contrasted with, say, a Creationist or
Lamarckist framework) remains (almost) as 'metaphysical' as its rivals: for
what observation could ever falsify it? One of Popper's key arguments, for the
'metaphysical' status of D as a framework, remains untouched by his later
clarifications - if we found a planet with traces of primitive life that
corresponded to those from which life on earth evolved, but on that planet no
life further evolved, would that falsify D? And if we found a planet with
conditions for life that corresponded to those from which life on earth
evolved, but where no life evolved, would we take that as falsifying D? Popper
thinks not (we would instead probably explain the absence of evolution of life
in such circumstances by some contingent facts - such that the primitive life
was unable to survive or that the conditions for life, though seemingly
favourable, simply did not trigger the same specific
contingencies that led to the evolution of life on earth). And so it is very
hard, in this vein, to conceive what kind of observable fact would ever falsify
D as a framework:- for it would appear that any pattern in evolution -
including even the failure of life to evolve - could be explained within a
D-type framework.
What has evolved is that Popper came more clearly to see that his own theory of
knowledge is an 'evolutionary epistempology' in the sense put forward by D.T.
Campbell. However, this evolutionary aspect is evident even from Popper's first
book, The Two Fundamental Problems of The Theory of Knowledge. Also young
Popper was hostile to the appropriation of D and ideas of "fittest to survive"
by Social Darwinists, Nazis etc. and wary of D as a pseudo-scientific platform
for vile ethics, and this influenced perhaps his initially circumspect and even
"contemptuous" treatment of evolutionary philosophies. [That said, it might be
noted that Popper thinks Bergson's elan vital is onto something important].
More below.
________________________________
From: "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Saturday, 25 February 2012, 23:50
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Darwiniana
>It seems that, at first Popper was concerned that some claims, e.g.
The fittest survives.
would be _analytic_, rather than 'metaphysical'.
(Only later, when he granted scientific status to Darwinism, did he clarify
that he was against some _metaphysical_ ideas about evolution he would
find in Whitehead, or Bergson).
So it would be good to compare how Popper (who, like Grice/Strawson 'In
defense of a dogma', accepts the analytic-synthetic distinction) relates the
"analytic" (Popper's 'almost tautological', as per the quotes below) with
the metaphysical. >
Here I pause. For to say Popper accepts the analytic-synthetic distinction is
not to say he accepts Grice/Strawson's way of drawing the distinction, and I
suspect Popper's views are closer to Quine's in "Two Dogmas". What might be
noted is that, for Popper, the analytic-synthetic distinction is not to be
confused with the distinction between non-testable/testable by observation. An
analytic statement will be true by definition as it were, and as such its truth
is never testable by observation. But the class of synthetic statements may be
sub-divided into those that are testable by observation and those that are not.
When are we given a statement, like "All swans are white", we cannot tell
whether it is analytic, synthetic-untestable or synthetic-testable simply by
looking at it - we can only tell by looking at the methods used to defend the
truth of the statement. So if we produce what appears to be black swan and
someone says, "But that does not falsify
'All swans are white', because it is not white and so cannot be a swan", their
method of defending the truth of "All swans are white" indicates that, for
them, whiteness is a defining characteristic of a swan and so, for them, "All
swans are white" is an analytic truth. But if they defend the the truth of "All
swans are white" by saying that there is some actual-albeit-unobservable
difference between the black-seeming-swan and an actual swan, and so the
black-seeming-swan does not falsify "All swans are white", then their defence
may indicate that they take "All swans are white" to be synthetic but in a way
that is not testable by observation. If they accept what is observationally the
same as a white swan (apart from its colour) as a swan (albeit black), and so
accept that it falsifies "All swans are white", they show that for them "All
swans are white" is synthetic and testable by observation.
This point is of some importance because Popper, the "tottering, old
metaphysician" as he once described himself, sees metaphysics as seeking
synthetic, substantive truths, albeit not truths that are testable by
observation - and is opposed to views that decry that there can be synthetic,
substantive but empirically untestable truths. He opposes, therefore, the
conception of philosophy as limited to the pursuit of so-called conceptual or
analytic truths, and indeed decries philosophising that engages in this pursuit
(- except to the extent that what is framed as an argument pursuing a
conceptual/analytic truth may be reframed as one for a synthetic, substantive
metaphysical truth).
So to get back to the question JLS raises:
We might say a tautology like "All table are tables" is a kind of analytic
truth, but perhaps not all analytic truths are tautological in this sense - is
"All swans are white" a tautology like "All tables are tables" if whiteness is
a defining property of swans? If tautological, there is no 'almost' about it in
these cases. For analytic truths or tautologies in this sense have no
explanatory content as to how the world is, and this is because they have no
synthetic content: they explain only how words are being used. But in this they
are simply conventions that are being stipulated. It is for this reason that
treating D as analytic or tautologous must be a mistake if we think D is at the
same time some kind of explanation of how things are in the world. So, for
Popper, the interesting content is always synthetic content - whether it is
testable by observation or not. [And 'analytic content' is only interesting
when it is synthetic-content-in-disguise
(hence the importance of the question "Are there interesting analytic
truths?")]
Donal
Who here issues an ongoing apology for spelling and other grammatical errors in
his posts
London
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