A second look at McEvoy's 'witch ducking stool':
In a message dated 3/24/2016 3:01:39 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes (slightly adapted): let's take the example of
the
witches ducking stool and conceive the stool as producing an observation
where an alleged witch is submerged for minutes. In this version, T can be
formalised in terms of two ⊃ propositions:
T1: ⊃-1
i. The individual drowns ⊃ The individual is a witch.
-- under the assumption (auxiliary statement in Putnam's parlance) that God
didn't care to save the individual.
T2: ⊃-2
ii. The individual does NOT drown ⊃ The individual is a witch
-- under the auxiliary assumption (auxiliary statement in Putnam's
parlance) that The Devil dsaved the individual).
McEvoy:
"It is clear this cannot be a scientific test because both observational
outcomes that would test T (T1 & T2) - drowning or not drowning - are
consistent with T (T1 & T2), and so submerging the individual does NOT prove a
"scientific" test of T (T1 & T2): there are no test observational outcomes
that can FALSIFY T (T1 & T2)(leaving aside possibilities like the individual
grows wings and flyes off like an angel, etc). What about 'observation'?"
This is crucial for the exploration of the 'observation is theory-laden'
alleged axiom.
"It depends what level and kind of observation we have in mind. If we say
we observed the individual to be a witch because the individual either
drowned or didn't drown, it is clear this level or kind of 'observation' is so
laden (with the theory it supposedly confirms) that it is not an
observation that is independent of the theory sufficient that it provides any
rational check on its truth."
On the other hand, as Witters would say, and surely Popper had read Witters
when he wrote his "Logik der Forschung"
iii. The individual drowns v ~ (The individual drowns)
is 'vacuous' -- does not depict a fact, state of affairs, or possible
world. Its 'axiomatic' truth is independent of observation: it's a logical
truth, and has nothing to do with observation. So including (iii) in a T that
is
supposed to contain or deal with observables and observation terms would
be otiose and only confusing in the end.
Under what Susan Haack calls 'deviant logic', (iii) may not be vacuous, and
Haack is a very wise woman.
Possibly Putnam admired her.
Cheers,
Speranza
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