[lit-ideas] Re: Darwiniana
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 26 Feb 2012 12:58:16 -0500 (EST)
In a message dated 2/26/2012 11:53:36 A.M. UTC-02,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes of
Darwiniana (as I may call it) as ultimately 'metaphysical':
>Popper acknowledges a change in his position ... 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.
-Why 'metaphysical', then. Short answer -- and truly Popperian: because
unfalsifiable.
"[F]or 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."
McEvoy:
"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]."
-----
"[T]o 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."
Yes. I think that is important. And I think it may do to open a thread to
consider the 'metaphysical' as such, in Popper, Grice, etc., rather than
stick with Darwiniana, whose 'metaphysical' claims may be a bother to unearth.
McEvoy:
"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",
[or, to use Reichenbach, "All ravens [including albino] are black."
"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."
That looks like early verificationism.
"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 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", ... their defence may indicate that they take "All swans are white"
to be synthetic but in a way that is not testable by observation."
Good point. In the case of the albino white raven, the difference boils
down to a genetic one. I think it was Austin who used the white-swan example,
incidentally (in "How to do things with words"? To what effect?)
McEvoy:
"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."
Cfr. 'synthetic a priori'?
McEvoy:
"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).
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."
So, alla early Verificationism (Logical Positivism), and Wittgenstein,
this idea that they do not 'depict' a fact of the world -- as contradictions
("p & -p") oddly don't either.
McEvoy:
"[T]hey 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?")]"
In unpublished work, preparing for his "Retrospective Epilogue" in WoW,
1989, Grice considers:
Nothing can be red and green all over.
And there is unpublished material as to how Grice would engage with
playmates to his two children about that statement. "No spots or stripes
allowed"
and so on. I may have discussed that elsewhere.
Sampson, in his book on semantics, mentions a thesis by Morley-Bunker,
aiming to test, among Lancaster undergraduates, analytic-synthetic claims such
as:
"Spring follows Winter"
and so on. He fails.
The important, to me, bit about that Grice is the idea of
"synthetic a priori"
which seems what Popper, "that tottering, old metaphysician," was looking
for. Interesting Popper regarded Bergson's 'elan vital' as interesting.
It would do to analyse statements OTHER than
The fittest survive.
as we consider
analytic
synthetic -- a priori
----------------- a posteriori
claims.
Recall that Grice follows Kantotle, so he would be interested in Kant's
displaying the basic facts here. (And where did Kant get his idea from? Sounds
v. scholastic. Baumgarten?) Only THEN we could do with, say, some
neo-Kripkean attempts to mix it all (in "Naming and necessity" and the
addition of
the 'necessary' and the 'contingent').
Recall that, as every Hegelian knows, for Kant, the categories are
analytic vs. synthetic
a priori vs. a posteriori.
This "a priori" is not as naturalistic as Schlick would have it. No
necessary "steps towards the method of its verification", here? It seems that
"a
priori", as Kant uses it, while SUGGESTING a _temporal_ element, is more
about the _justification_ or 'foundation' (alla Walter O, or P. Enns) of, say,
"p". (cfr. Quinton on the 'a priori' vs. the analytic).
The fittest survive.
starts to sound like, Nelson:
Every man should do his duty.
But I'm sure there are less analytic (synthetic a priori, even) claims in
Darwiniana.
It is not difficult to see how Ayer (in his early Gollancz book), who
followed Hume, and attended the Vienna Circle meetings, thought the 'synthetic
a
priori' did not make sense.
In any case, it is THESE type of conditions that we should be concerned
with, in a fresh manner, rather than using labels like 'metaphysic', or
'scientific', or worse, 'pseudo-scientific'?
For "metaphysic", as used by Popper (and alas by Grice), starts to lose its
'standard' "sense", if it had any. (Not to mention 'scientific'). I can
see Popper's mistrust of the evolutionary views by say Nazist theories, but
still...
ANOTHER point to consider is Carnap. Ayer, and Carnap, had their claim to
infame: Metaphysics, alla Heidegger, would be
NONSENSICAL
rather. It is difficult to see how a piece of nonsense (that Carnap uses)
like
"Caesar is a prime number."
Or
"Caesar if then then if not however the the Caesar."
has anything to do with
The fittest survive.
--- Carnap's attack was Heidegger, "Nothing noths" "Das Nichts nichtet").
So, I would think that 'sense' is misunderstood when Carnap identified the
metaphysical with the nonsensical. "Sense" can mean a direction, as in
"this sense", "that sense" (cfr. Frege, Sinn und Bedeutung). But it can also
mean 'sensation' (as in SENSE datum), and when positivists or
verificationists (as I prefer) speak of the 'metaphysical' as the nonsensical
it is this
idea of 'sense' as verification that they are into (cfr. Paul, Is there a
problem about sense data, and Collingwood).
As I recall, Popper had to explain FOR HOURS how HIS criterion was one of
demarcating 'science' and 'pseudo-science' (or metaphysics) rather than
sense and nonsense.
I wouldn't think, indeed, that Popper would buy Strawson's or Grice's idea
of the analytic, but Strawson, for one, was obsessed with this: his "The
bounds of SENSE", a commentary on Kant, is about the limits of
verificationalism, a thread taken up later by Peacocke (another professor of
metaphysical
philosophy, as Strawson was, at Oxford).
Interesting that McEvoy suggests Popper would rather buy something like
Quine's "Two dogmas" view. Grice's and Strawson's essay was, of course, a
reply to that. (But Grice's and Strawson's reading is a qualified one, and
they
have nothing to say about the Duhem-type empiricism that Quine endorses in
the latter sections of his essay). Apparently, as R. B. Jones has written,
Quine took a lot from Carnap -- his idea of the 'meaning postulates' --
only to criticise it, and it should not be too difficult to see how Popper
fits in in the historical context.
I'm not too familiar with Vienna circle proponents, but I treasure the fact
that F. Weismann, an early member, was influential enough in good old
Blighty. But F. Weismann was no standard 'Vienna circle' and would concoct
ideas that look more pragmatic than anything (his idea of 'open texture').
(Of
course early verificationism was popular enough in the Oxford of Grice's
early days, 1930s, under I. Berlin -- his early essay in _Mind_, repr. in
"Concepts and Categories", and Ayer himself -- the "All Souls" pre-WWII
group).
Grice has some disparaging later opinons to air against the Vienna Circle
"red necks" (the expression he uses) and he would instill a lot of passion
into his metaphysical debates, especially as he looked for funds (which he
would rarely get) for this or that 'metaphysical' research programme at
UC/Berkeley. And so on.
So, while we still consider Darwiniana, we should perhaps turn to
metaphysical questions as such. The first idea, then, is that 'metaphysical' is
a
misnomer. It's not against 'physics' that the metaphysical discourse is built
on. Rather, the realm of the 'metaphysical' has to do with the nature of
propositions and how some come up as 'analytic' and why they are protected
from refutation (alla Lakatos: they are in the center of the 'research
programme', observation becomes theory-laden, and counterexamples are excluded
by definition). (And we should recall that Lakatos's early reflections were
on the verifiable status of mathematical truths, or progress/evolution of
mathematical theory). But if we accept the 'analytic' we must accept the
'synthetic'.
McEvoy's emphasis on the 'testable' reminds one of Dummett (Mrs. Dummett
died a few weeks ago, I also read). For Dummett, as an 'intuitionist', was
into, as Peacocke remarks, 'verification' issues as such.
While for Dummett it was 'truth' that was an enigma, it was falsehood that
proved more enigmatic for Popper.
For Popper the falsify/verify distinction pertains to the logical
character: falsification can be rendered absolute. And in this respect, Popper
is
right about a kernel of Darwiniana being beyond total falsification (by its
proponents). In one document Grice speaks of philosophical argumentation:
eirenic vs. diagogic.
By eirenic, Grice is into 'falsification' (refutation). For why would
someone want to _falsify_ what one holds dear? It seems 'falsify' gets best
understood in polemic dialogue.
Towards a monlogical account (Grice and his selves). Popper has it right
when he builds this eirenic effect into the building of 'knowledge',
incidentally. For one can falsify what oneself had earlier thought sufficiently
verified. (And did Darwin change his mind?).
The underlying 'metaphysics' of Darwiniana (as it relates say, to Bergson's
elan vital, which Popper deemed important, etc.) may be worth pursuing.
Grice seems to have been more concerned, when it comes to his reflections on
the 'learned' versus the 'vernacular', with abstract quantum physics. Why
trust Eddington that there is _another_ table, which is almost empty?
As I note, Grice endorsed an 'evolutionary' framework, on the other hand,
in what he called his 'genitorial' programme (and this early enough in his
career, in the philosophy of perception: sense data don't threaten us,
objects/things do). This works under the assumption alla ideal-observer theory.
We see a feature in the behaviour of an item ('reason' in humans, say) and
wonder how reason has helped (or not) survival and continued existence. The
idea of 'telos' seems to fit in. Grice is not thinking that he is engaging
in 'empirical' (or testable?) science when he is doing it, but as a member
of that excellent breed of 'metaphysicians' who are looking for their own
rational reconstrucction! He has the 'genitorial' programme as a
'metaphysical routine' as he would call it, and applied to different
philosophical
conceptions -- notably 'value', or 'value-oriented' items of our vernacular
vocabulary.
As I understand it, Grice saw his 'evolutionism', in the end, in connection
with vintage Aristotle (cfr. 'evolution theory' among the Greeks). Grice's
point is subtle. Like Aristotle, he wants to show that 'life' or 'soul'
(as indeed "number", as Aristotle says) does NOT change meanings as we
proceed from, say, vegetal to animal (or from "3" to "4"). So the 'meaning' of
"soul" or 'life' gets built in a _series_. This series Grice finds
evolutionary -- a 'ladder' as it were -- cfr. Lovejoy.
When we consider this, we see parallelisms with Nikolai Hartmann, but I
would think this would also connect with the type of anti-Popperian
'pseudo-scientific' uses of the allegedly positivistic notion of 'evolution'.
As I recall, Comte, and other early sociologists -- Durkheim? -- were into
a systematics of 'progress', and perhaps this idea relates, oddly enough,
to 'evolution'. For surely historians who speak of 'progress' engage, to
use Ayer's strong language, into some kind of 'emotivist' talk. There would
be no way to speak 'progress' or 'evolution' unless a commitment is made to
a sort of scale of values.
Ultimately, Grice was interested, like Putnam will be, in the fact/value
distinction. Grice was convinced that verificationists had -- more or less
successfully, as far as academic curricula were concerned -- managed to get
value out of the picture of the world -- while for Grice, value is the
foundation of metaphysics -- "The conception of value", 1991). But I wouldn't
know how this connects, in detail, with Darwiniana as such (or not). In any
case, it may: Grice wrote, 'read chimp lit.' and 'read Dawkins Selfish
gene', so he did think that connections occur even where we don't think they
should or will. Or not.
Etc.
Cheers,
Speranza
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