[lit-ideas] Problem Solving: The Analysis
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- Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2015 05:10:27 -0500
Perhaps 'the' analysis, rather than 'an' analysis seems presumptuous, but I
guess I'm trying to be provocative. (Recall that when Strawson published
his analysis of 'entails', he called his work: Introduction to Logical
Theory, and NOT as it is often quoted, AN introduction to logical theory.
McEvoy seems to be opposing a problem-solving approach (to legal matters,
but this is irrelevant) to a conceptual-analysis approach. In particular,
as I see it, he endorses a Popperian approach to a problem-solving approach!
And that may be in need of analysis!
In "All Life is Problem Solving" (implicating All _of Popper's life *has
been* problem solving) Popper seeks to explain the alleged progress of
knowledge – that is, how it is that our understanding of stuff seems to
*improve* (optimism) rather than not (pessimism).
What was the life that Popper saw as solving a problem. Was he having a
particular problem in mind?
Well, yes, Popper's problem (and his life can be seen as attempt to solve
this) is that some stuff simply does not lend itself to being shown to be
false, and therefore, is not falsifiable.
If so, then how is it that some allege a growth of knowledge?
In Popper's view, the alleged advance (or growth, or progress) of
knowledge is just yet another evolutionary process.
Only unlike Darwin, Popper was more of an analytic mind, and looked for
symbols. Popper's formula runs:
PS1 --> TT1 --> EE1 --> PS2
In response to a given problem situation ("PS1"), a number of competing
conjectures, or tentative theories ("TT"), are systematically subjected to the
most rigorous attempts at falsification possible.
This process of subjection, error elimination ("EE"), performs an
ANALOGOUS role for knowledge that Darwin's natural selection (of finches, for
exmaple) performs for biological evolution (of finches) -- See: Darwin's
Finches.
Yes, a stretch of an analogy, but not for Popper!
Theories that better "survive" (where the verb is used totally
figuratively) the process of refutation are not more true, but rather, more
"fit" —
Popper borrows, but never returns, the phrase that Darwin borrowed but never
returned from the analytic philosopher, _avant la lettre_, Herbert Spencer!
In other words, 'fit', which is figurative enough as used by Darwin --
cfr. criticism of survival of the fittest as an ananlytic adage -- "the
fittest survives" -- here means: more applicable to the problem situation at
hand, i.e., the initial PS1.
By 'more applicable' Popper means that the theory that survives is the
_best_ solution to the problem. Since we HAVE to use 'solution', when the
keyword is "Problem Solving". Or even better, the theory that survives
_solves_
the problem.
Consequently, just as a species' biological fitness (e.g. the finch's
fitness) does not ensure continued survival, neither does rigorous testing
protect a theory from eventual refutation.
Yet, as it appears that the engine of biological evolution has, over many
generations, produced adaptive traits equipped to deal with more and more
complex problems of survival, likewise, the evolution of theories through
the scientific method may, in Popper's view, reflect a certain type of
progress: toward more and more interesting problems: the problem situation
"PS2"
in the formula. And so ad infinitum.
For Popper, it is in the interplay between the tentative theories
(conjectures) and error elimination (refutation) that knowledge advances
toward
greater and greater problems -- never mind greater and greater solvings of
these problems.
For Popper, it's a process very much akin to the interplay between genetic
variation and natural selection.
But of course the keyword: problem-solving has been understood variously.
Consider:
Amsel, E., Langer, R., & Loutzenhiser, L.
Do lawyers reason differently from psychologists? A comparative design for
studying expertise.
In R. J. Sternberg & P. A. Frensch (Eds.), Complex problem solving:
Principles and mechanisms (pp. 223-250).
Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
The keyword there, 'complex problem solving', seems to vary from Popper's
interpretation of simple 'problem-solving'.
I hope we may return to the thread: "The Philosophy of Law" under this
light. Indeed, we can add the keyword: 'problem solving'.
The point would be how it proceeds and how Popperian we want to be. I don't
think, from the reading of McEvoy's approach to Pilcher, that he is
committed to the 'evolutionary' view. If so, it may be termed 'utilitarian',
perhaps and ultimately moralistic. But there is problem solving and there is
problem solving.
Another problem solving approach may proceed more 'analytically', and since
I only want to play the Hartian, alla Hart. It would proceed by examining
certain keyterms in the case, such as 'legitimate', 'legal', and so forth.
And when the court decision is held, it may be viewed as a mere application
of those rules that Hart saw as meta-rules, rules of rules, i.e. legal
rules of legal rules.
The evolutionary approach by Popper, as W. W. Bartley, III, well knew, is
'ad infinitum'. As the formula above shows. There is a PS1, and a PS2, but
that is just an abbreviation for PSn. I.e. --> ... PSn. As Bartley would
say, 'everything is convroversial, including this claim'. So it's not like we
reach a definite solving of a problem.
In which case, we may term a Popperian approach utilitarian (since it
relies on the 'survival of the fittest', which is Spencerian and utilitarian or
consequentialist in essence?) and relativistic, in that it entails that the
solving of the problem now reached is not the _ultimate_ (in all the
senses of this word -- fortunately, it only has one!).
The bibliographical reference to this compilation: "Complex problem
solving" is to show that a Popperian approach is JUST one of them. And while
those who read this sort of stuff are hardly to be philosophers (the intended
audience, as the backcover blurb usually has it), I allow that the keyword:
problem solving may have a general philosophical interest.
It may relate to Peirce's idea of ab-duction. Not in-duction, not
de-duction. In this case, the branch of philosophy on which 'problem solving'
falls
is no more no less than the keyword by that brilliant book by [THIS
PHILOSOPHER I LIKE]: aspects of reason. For we are talking of a form of
reasoning. We are talking of assumptions, and we are talking of premises, and
we are
talking of 'conclusions' (the 'decision' in the court room).
Hart, admittedly, was not that much into legalistic REASONING -- but when
it came to the 'grits', if that's the expression -- his debate with Lord
Devlin -- he could, but I'm not sure how much Hart's contribution to the
debate (as a legal philosopher) had a practical effect on the real world
(other
than illuminating his privileged Oxonian students, that is -- especially
those law students that saw philosophy 'in the working' for the first time).
But there were and are OTHER influences to legalistic reasoning in Oxford:
anyone who follows Toulmin's book on inference notices the legalistic
approach --. We sometimes confuse a legalistic approach with a moralistic
approach, but some see 'moralistic' as a term of abuse! (I know Nowell-Smith,
in
"Ethics" did: "I'm NOT a moralist: I'm a meta-ethicist, if you mustn't!").
R. M. Hare was perhaps a different animal, figuratively. His examples of
moral reasoning may be compared to Hart's examples: just replace 'moral' by
'legal' everytime Hare uses 'prescription'. One big difference is that Hare
had some sympathy for deontic (his debates with Kenny on "Practical
Inferences", for example) and Hart would rather be seen dead than using a
symbol
of formal logic --. When he speaks of "A logician landscape" it seems as if
Hart has just come from an exhibition of Turner* at the Royal Academy! (But
I love him!)
Cheers,
Speranza
* After the British landscape painter -- NOW PLAYING.
Cheers,
Speranza
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