A re-reading of McEvoy's initial post on this thread.
In a message dated 3/16/2016 4:07:13 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes in response to Geary actually, and comments:
"The inability to face up to mistakes (and pathological evasion of
refutation) may also be called "soft-headed". In philosophy, this tendency is
no
doubt linked to the fact that the subject lacks decisive observational tests
to resolve its disputes. In this context, it is ironic that Putnam argued
for a philosophy of science where scientists were pathological evaders of
refutation and there was nothing in scientific method to stop them."
I suppose "pathological evaders of refutation" is McEvoy's figure of
rhetoric. It is true that Putnam's focus is on confirmation, but 'pathological'
since like a value-oriented word, and not coming from Putnam, I would think.
But I will have to revise this!
McEvoy goes on:
"Putnam's argument is essentially simple (though not the way he presents
it) and relies on confusing a logical possibility with what methodologically
(a) is best (b) drives scientific best practice (this (a) and (b)
dovetail)."
This may be because Putnam's first encounter with science seems to have
been theoretical physics and even mathematics, the latter being ALL about
'logical possibility'.
McEvoy: "Take a refutation where an observation ['O'] appears to falsify a
theory ['T']. No matter how straightforward such a refutation may look, it
is the case that there is more to the picture, logically: we must also
factor in background knowledge ['BK'], for example, and in cases of deriving a
positive prediction we must also factor in 'initial conditions' ['IC']
(because a positive prediction can only follow from T given IC)."
-- which I believe in the essay McEvoy is referring to Putnam calls
'auxiliary statements'. It may do to compare these 'auxiliary statements' and
even the 'background knowledge', especially the latter, with the 'conceptual
scheme, and say, Collingwood's 'presuppositions'?
McEvoy:
"Now consider this supposed 'refutation' in terms of a 'blame game': it is
always logically possible to evade a refutation by saying the error does
not lie with T but with O itself [e.g. the apparatus was faulty]"
I think Putnam, by quoting from Hanson, is subtler: he would say that
observation is theory-laden. This axiom sums up the two keywords for which
McEvoy is providing initials here: "O" and "T". I think Putnam's reference to
the paradigm-change and the Gestalt may relate.
McEvoy:
"or with some hitherto undiscovered flaw in our BK or our supposed IC."
I think Putnam allows for background knowledge to vary -- I prefer to speak
of "common ground". The common ground between Speranza and Geary, is, for
example, that Geary lives in Memphis. If Geary moves to Seattle, that
common ground varies. With "auxiliary statements", that Putnam prefers to
"initial conditions", I suppose that the adjective 'auxiliary' says it all:
they
HELP you, and you can handle a bit, so that they become 'auxiliary'. E.g.
archaeology is said to be an auxiliary science for history of pre-history
(another science) --. The mediaeval commonplace here may well be the idea of
'ancillary' (as when they say that philosophy is the maid of theology).
McEvoy:
"Yet it would be a mistake to treat this logical possibility as showing
that, from the point of view of sound method, we can always evade any
refutation, and it would be a gross mistake to think that the pathological
evasion
of refutation is characteristic of scientific method. Yet both mistakes,
and a few others like thinking IC are always necessary for refutation (they
are not, because a negative and falsifying prediction can be deduced from a
theory T without them), are at the heart of Putnam's paper in Popper's
Schilpp volume."
On one reading, I have expanded on the different views of Putnam on that
essay. He safely uses 'universal gravitation' as the theory ('because my
readers will know of it'), allows that he could have chosen another theory
(Maxwell's, I think he mentions), and goes on to provide various schemata of
how science works. Only the third schemata, from what I recall, refers
explicitly to the logical possibilities, and applies best to theoretical
mathematics. Into the bargain, he quotes from Althusser, Kuhn, Hanson, and a
few
more. In real life, Putnam apparently learned most of his 'philosophy of
science' form Toulmin's textbook on the issue!
McEvoy:
"In that paper [in the Schilpp volume] will also be found several
"priority claims" that though they fit well with Putnam's "arrogant tone" (as
Popper well describes it) cannot be sustained e.g. that Putnam was among the
first to realise that, logically, a refutation can always be evaded, when
Popper for one had recognised this from the start."
Is this priority claim refuted by Popper? In which case we case a
meta-arrogant tone: "Your priority claim is wrong: I realised that before YOU
did!"
McEvoy: "Putnam suggests he is putting forward views that mark a major
advance on anything written by Popper, and as if Popper's views belong to a
bygone age of thought now surpassed,"
-- by Lakatos, Kuhn, Althusser, and Hanson that Putnam quotes in his essay,
plus his own views on the nature of meaning and the analytic-synthetic
disinction. I'm surprised he does not throw Toulmin into the bargain!
McEvoy:
"but the truth is that Putnam's paper did not herald any ground-breaking
new philosophy of science. This is unsurprising given it rests on elevating
the logical possibility of 'always evade refutation' into some kind of
methodological key-stone. It is hard to understand how there has been any kind
of scientific progress if Putnam's views were true as a characterisation of
science (i.e. that the aim of science is to evade refutation)."
We seem to be generalising here: we may distinguish:
-- the aim of science is to evade refutation (or refudiation).
-- the aim of scientist S1 is to evade refutiation of the theory T1 that
scienstist S1 is endorsing.
But Putnam allows for some scientist S2 to 'refudiate' T1, I would think.
After all, his most treasured experience in life was his meeting with
Einstein who totally refudiated Newton's universal graviation!
Putnam:
"So what kind of audience would take Putnam's views seriously? One trained
in modern philosophy after the 'linguistic turn'."
How after -- how much after? Putnam belonged more or less to the
linguistic turn. He made what he called a valuable friendship with Grice in the
early 1950s, when Putnam was Guggenheim scholar at Oxford. Putnam found a
teaching post for J. J. Thomson (with Grice, a member of J. L. Austin's
'ordinary language group' at MIT) and he was interested in stuff that
interested
the linguistic-turn philsophers, like the logical form of ordinary language.
McEvoy: "for to allege the aim of science is to evade refutation is
precisely the kind of paradoxical-sounding nonsense that appeals to some
philosophers, many of whom are scientifically illiterate and also hostile to
science (or what they understand of 'science')."
Well, Putnam's PhD advisor at UCLA was Reichenbach who was not hostile to
science. Via Reichenbach, Putnam became friends with Carnap (who I think
introduced him to Einstein). Putnam was fascinated by Toulmin and the MIT
found Putnam well versed in sicence to nominate him "Professor of the
Philosophy of Sience". I think his favourite science is botany.
Cheers,
Speranza
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