cross-posted at New International Times
It might just be the result of a media class dominated by pseudo-intellectual journalists or, more likely, it could simply be an effect of the fact that human beings tend to speak and write these days thinking only of the manner in which their words and phrases will be represented by the media. But, in any case, one gets the disturbingly powerful impression that certain debates and discussions (even between people who may not be entirely devoid of an elementary philosophical education) increasingly resemble primitive tribal struggles in which the winner is the one who has given out the greatest number of clubbings and in which delicate terms are used if they were bricks.
A typical example is the heated discussion which surrounds such terms as “relativism” and “fundamentalism”.
But what does “relativism” actually mean in philosophy? Well, first of all there are many relativisms:
1) epistemological relativism (also known as “perspectivism” or “irrationalism”) is the thesis that, as Nietzche best expressed it, “there are no facts, only interpretations.”
It is currently espoused by certain rare philosophers of science in the tradition of P.K. Feyerabend and Thomas Khun who beleive that science does not pursue truths or anything approximating truths but only offers alternative narratives or “paradigms” each of which are incommensurable with one another.
2) Ontological relativism is the very subtle thesis that “objects”, “events” and “things” can only be defined within the context of an overarching intersubjective conceptual sheme which is ultimately mind-dependent. The objects and/or propositions about them do indeed exist objectively but can only be demonstarted to be real to the extent that they are indispensable to out best available scientific theories and to the degree of confirmation of the truth of these theories themselves.
Or, quoting from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philopophy:
According to this line of argument, reference to (or quantification over) mathematical entities such as sets, numbers, functions and such is indispensable to our best scientific theories, and so we ought to be committed to the existence of these mathematical entities. To do otherwise is to be guilty of what Putnam has called “intellectual dishonesty” (Putnam 1979b, p. 347). Moreover, mathematical entities are seen to be on an epistemic par with the other theoretical entities of science, since belief in the existence of the former is justified by the same evidence that confirms the theory as a whole (and hence belief in the latter). This argument is known as the Quine-Putnam indispensability argument for mathematical realism.
Mathematical entities in this view are on a par with quarks and other such invisible entities whose existence is inferred precisely from their effects on scientific prediction and on the verification of certian events which would not take place without them. It is called “relativism” because even our “best” theories may be falsified and replaced by better ones (closer to the truth) which posit other entities dependent on (relative to) the new theory.
This position is mathematically realist but anti-Platonist and has been adopted in recent years by W.V.O. Quine and Hilary Putnam.
3) Moral relativism can be subdivided further into two theses:
a) the thesis that our values and norms cannot be judge to be true or false except within the context of a certain culture. There are no human universals or human nature. I cannot judge the Japanese army’s behavior in covering up the systematic raping (or the raping itself) of Japanese women during the Second World War becaese I am not a member of Asian culture and consequently do not “understand” their “values”.
b) the thesis that an individual’s values and norms cannot be judged at all since the ultimate arbiter of moral jugement lies in subjectivity.
There is much confusion betwen moral relativism and a comletely different concept called “moral pluralism”. Moral relativism is not the same as moral pluralism, which acknowledges the co-existence of opposing ideas and practices, but does not require that they be equally valid. Moral relativism, in contrast, contends that opposing moral positions have no truth value, and that there is no preferred standard of reference by which to judge them.
With regard to fundamentalism, things are much simpler.
Fundamentalism is the doctrine that the words of certain sacred texts (the Bible, the Koran) are literally true.
Catholicism, in this sense, cannot be fundamentalist. This is because Catholic texts are interpreted exclusively
by the hierarchical authorities of the Catholic Church. The ordinary Catholic has no place in the process. The Catholic Church early on adopted the hermeneutical tradition of people like Thomas Aquinas and Augustine which allowed for metaphorical and allegorical interpretation.
What is often referred to as “fundamentalism” in the Catholic Church (it’s rigid positions on abortion and stem-cell research, for example)and in Islam is not fundamentalism, but what in Italy is called “integralismo” (integralism).
To adapt from an artcile by Umberto Eco in L’Espresso magazine, integralism is simply the attempt to bridge the gap bewteen Church and State: the idea that religious principles should become models of political life and the source of laws for the State.
It might be objected to all of this that it is just a question of semantics. No, in the words of Eco, it’s a question of extremely subtle philosophical, theological and political discorse which gains nothing by being reduced to a brick-throwing match of ritualistically invoked word talismans.
Interesting diary.
My philosophical education is relatively limited, heh, but.. I find John Ladd explanations in Ethical Relativism intriguing:
What I wonder is that if the skepticism necessarily leads to nihilism or neutralism… Why can’t one declare themselves a relativist and be skeptical yet acknowledge scientific evidence, or rather use scientific thought as a basis.
Hmmmm….his distinction between postitive and negative skepticism seems to me to be sui generis: I have been sdutying this stuff for a long time and have honsetl never heard it mentioned in the literarute as a major topic. Not that it’s not intriguing though.
Histirically, moral (normative) relativism (thouhg it was certainly implicit in many philsophies and philophers going way back to ancient times), in this century, was derived from cultural relativism in anthropolgy. This kind of relativism,howvere, was purely methodological in its origins. It was forumated by Franz Boas, Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict as an asnwer to the obvious racism
and Eurocentrism which pervaded the field of anthropology at that time. The idea was to try to simly eliminate all prejudice and presupposotions by approcahing things “as if” all cultures were absolutely equal and this implied that one could no judge ondicual practices just decribe them.
Later this ideas became distorted, in part by Margerat Mead herself who was misled by a group of young ladies in Polynesia into beleiving that there was a sort of
“sexual paradise” there where there were no anti-homosexual attitudes and women made love with women as young as 14 years of age and on. Later on, it was revealed that they has been making up stories just to impress this mysterius outsider.
The upshot is that she went on to write about the superiority of the other cultures, engaging in a kind of reverse of the old view and fostering the idea that we couldnìt really judge other cultures until we understood them. This is the basis of the kind of moral reletivism which I referred to in the diary as the cultural form.
I, personally, am opposed to both forms. The indicualistic subjective form (which doensìt really exist in my experience except among sociopaths) gives rise to moral neutralism or nihilism.
The second renders it imposible to forumate moral judgements and come to moral conclusion about the behavior of, say, the Isralai army with regard to the palestinaian.
More importanryl, is is refuted by an enormous amount of evidence from the fields of evolutionary psyhology ethology and linguistuis that human universals do indeed exist. Human beings have evolved a rich armamentarium of group-oriented normative behaviors. This was necessary in oder for the species to survive. Moral behavior and other forms of social organiztion can be seen throuhgout the animal kindgdom, but it is ecpailly prounced among homo sapiens and our closet relatives.
On the other hand, they could have been telling the truth to Mead, and later — when they got tired of the predictable attentions of various sorts, or they were “saved”, or whatever — said, “Oh no, we weren’t really like that, we made it all up”. That seems at least as likely to me, maybe more so.
Nope, Mead blew it.
Link to Skeptical Inquirer is article.
This is the best I could find on short notice, better is to find and read a copy of “The Hoaxing of Margaret Mead” with all of the evidence laid-out.
Exactly, the anthroplogistt who first debunked Mead’s story was Derick Freedman or Freeman(sp??). It’s now generally accepted in that field.
Ah, well, that settles it then. [snicker]
No, the facts settle it. Check out the evidence that Derrick Fredman and others have accumulated and you’ll see why it has been settled.
[quote]
What I wonder is that if the skepticism necessarily leads to nihilism or neutralism… Why can’t one declare themselves a relativist and be skeptical yet acknowledge scientific evidence, or rather use scientific thought as a basis. [/quote]
Skepticism and relativism are entirely different things.
Skepticim (the habit of doubting things until they reach a relatively high level of confirmation) is absolutely indispensable to scientific parctice so long as it doens’t degenerate into the kind of radical skepticism which questions the existence of even scintific fact and truth. When it becomes radical, or gloabl speptisicm as it is called technically, then it obviously faces either self-contradiction or an infinite regress.
the question is how far does your skepticism go? do you dount the existence of other minds, the external world, the self. if that’s the case, then you obviously cannot accept scienfitic evidence. Limited skepticism is healthy and desirbale, univeral skepticism is meanigless.
Relativism is another matter. There are many varities, as I pointed out above.
First off, thanks for your in depth responses.
I wasn’t trying to confuse skepticism with relativism, I was trying to play devil’s advocate with Ladd’s statement that a negative understanding of ethical relativism leads to skepticism which then lead to neutrality.
I think the point you made about how far does the skepticism is precisely the reason why I mentioned science in the post above. Perhaps, that is the line I draw.. but, I am personally more in an investigative phase than an apologist for ethical relativism..
it’s a question of extremely subtle philosophical, theological and political discourse which gains nothing by being reduced to a brick-throwing match of ritualistically invoked words.
“God said it, Bush did it, I like it, and that’s that” is difficult to use as a lead-in to a discussion of epistimological fine points.
Unfortunately, the level of discourse you describe is all that a large fraction of the American populace is capable of having, due to the sorry uneducated state of too many of our citizens.
Would we have Bush if this was untrue?
That’s REALLY hard to deny, I’ll have to admit. Let’s just say I’m hoping that they’re ARE a sufficient number of people out there ,like yourself, who are extremely well-informed about poltics in general and are obviously intelligent enough to use and have a general sense of such terms as “relativism” and “fundamnentalism” but are more curious to find out what the devil they actually mean.
I may have overstated things at the conclusion, but my point is really just to get people to deal a little more clearly with these concepts than they generally do in even in relatiely sophiticated left-wing on-lne discussions sometimes. that’s what really provoked me to right this, not the utopian hope that everyone would suddenyl start engaing in subtle philosphical debates. Just trying to help.
Let me just add, finally, that I don’t think there is much hope for US politics if the cirusmtamecs you (accuretly enough) describe continue to prevail over the long-haul. Fundamentalism and the howling Rush Limbaugh’s of the right are simply much better at exploiting ignorance than liberal/progressives will ever be.
As I undretand it, there are two alterantive approaches for the left to win back power in the US:
1)populism of the left and strict ideological appeals to the vast majority of voters who have been systmetically aliented and disenfranhised from the system. The probelme with this is that most of these people are compltely uninformed even at the most fundamnatal level of keeping up with the major news events of the day. Is it really desirable to bring in a large penetage of the population to vote on the basis of absoluetly no education and no information whatsoever? who do you think they wold be more likely to vote for when it came time to cast a ballot? Who offers the simplest and most emotionally charged positions and argument.
2) Appeal to the moderates (i.e. the Bill Clinton, DLC approach). if the majoriyt of moderates are ignorant and favored Bush out of sheer stupidity and ignorance, as you claim and I agree, then what this really means is another appeal to ignorance. The Dems will have to potray themslves as Reblicans light, win poer for a few years without making any sustanatial change ant then get trounced when an even midly carismtic and intersting genuine Republican comes along to chhlenge them.
A sad state of afairs indeed. Like the fate of this diary.
Pretty bad, eh, folks??
I agree wholeheartedly with the general thrust of this diary, to point out that various terms, most notably “relativism” are a good deal more complex than they appear on TV. (“I’m not a coherent, easily-defined concept, I just play one on TV!)
But the details of how this is done give me problems.
First off, Kuhn is certainly misrepresented here, and Feyerabend is possibly as well. (I reviewed his last, posthumous book for Publishers Weekly and it struck me as a significant departure from Against Method and his other work reflecting that same approach. He actually argues that “incomensurability” may simply be the result of historical circumstances, and that [implicitly, at least, I don’t recall if he made this next point explicitly] there could quite plausibly be intermediate frameworks that are commensurable with both the “incomensurable” ones.)
Kuhn was never saying that there was no truth, though he did occassionally express himself in a manner that seemed to read that way. He was simply struggling against the dominant viewpoint, and over-swinging sometimes–for which he paid a terrible price. The Karl Popper crowd’s attacks on him were driven by hysteria and devoid of the least bit of historical good sense.
Kuhn was actually after a realist description of how science actually works, as opposed to an idealist mythology that is, in its own way, as much of a fairy tale as the Garden of Eden. It’s pretty damn hard to square this project with the ideas imputed to him. A number of other historians of science were raising similar objections at the time. Kuhn just happened to raise those objections high enough to register on the Popperian’s radar–and he got burned for it.
Ironically, Kuhn’s work is rather compatible, at least in broad outlines, with that Polanyi in Personal Knowledge, but Polanyi was a darling of Popper’s crowd while Kuhn was a demon to them.
Go figure.
As for fundamentalism, Karen Armstrong makes a major point in The Battle For God of stressing that there is no single such thing as fundamentalism, and that reliance on texts is not at all central to Jewish or Islamic fundamentalism.
I could say more, but other duties beckon.
OH HO!! Thanks for your knowledgable and interestering comment.
I have to very brief here in my reply as well:
Thomas Kuhn is almost certainly NOT an “epistemoligical relativist”, I will definetly concede that much. But you have to understand the problem I was to trying to confront: my fundamental goal was try to get across as concisely and summarily as possible the basic concepts. I choose Khun and Feyerabend simply becasue those are the two most famous individuals who came closest to fullfilling the definition of the concept. I stick by the choice of Feyerabend because that REALLY is, according to standard interpretationas and not just my own personal neo-Popperian prejudice (I am not a Popperian in any case), the view adopted in his early writings (e.g. “Against Method” among others).
In any case, believe there is a mountain of difference between Khun and Feyerabend but I didn’t think this would have been an appropiate place to go into such extraordinary depth on the matter. I may be at fault in that regard.If so, I apologize to Kuhn and Kuhnians everywhere.
As to fundamantalism, I think what the auhtor you are referring to intends by the idea that “fundamatlaisn really doenst exist” is that it is practically impossible for people to authentically interpret a text literally without introducing extraneous elements
of their own invention based on ,e.g., the hermeneutaical phenomenon of the model author: we inevitably project subjective or intersubjecitve ellemets of our contruction into the texts we read. this a thesis I wholly agree with.
But the fundamentalists themselves claim to be tranlating the Bible or other sacred text literally. My goal was just to make the disction between those who, at least, beleive they are interpereting the sacred texts literally and those who are aware that that is silly and impossible. And,then, to explain how it is possible for groups to be, what is called in Italy, integralist without necessarily being anything close to that kind of fundmantalism. That is all.
As I said, I agree with your general thrust. And I understand the difference between pedagogical purposes for a general audience, and full scholastic rigor. It’s just that Kuhn really is so widely misunderstood, I just can’t help myself.
But, as for Karen Armstrong, you’re misunderstanding her and my point: that fundamentalism isn’t necessarily linked to textuality at all. It differs in different cultures, so much so that it might be more accurate to speak of “fundamentalisms.” What does characterize its commonalities is that it is a modern invention that arises out of cultural breakdowns and casts itself as a champion of lost premodern values.
Literalism did not begin with modern fundamentalism. But Armstrong explains that its intense significance for Christian fundamentalists derived from an actual breakdown in ancient understandings–specifically, that there are two distinct realms and modes of knowledge–mythos (inward knowledge of meaning and the soul) and logos (outward knowledge of the world).
Traditionally, mythos was seen as far more important, unified and unifying, while logos was but a collection of useful information and skills. But as the modern scientific spirit grew, mythos seemed to shrink, and the sense of separation between the two shrank, until eventually the two flooded into each other, and instead of it being foolish and demeaning to support religion as “scientific,” it came to be seen as vital.
Thus, ironically, it is the fundamentalists pining for the good old days who are the most thoroughly estranged from them. No wonder they live in such agony.
But the story is not the same for all. Jews, for example, have a very long tradition of interpreting texts, so that their relationship has always been far more interactive and far less passive than the Christian posture. Jewish fundamentalism simply couldn’t take on the same characteristics as Christian fundamentalism. Rather, it really is much more about tribal identity, and about reclaiming the Holy Land. And Islamic fundamentalism differs yet again–as well as internally between Shiite and Suni varieties.
First of all, I did not misinterpret Karen Hughes. I simply haven’t read her work period. All I was trying to do was speculate as to what she might possibly have meant based on your very brief and somwhwt ambigious summarization of what she thinks with respect to fundamentalism. So that accusation is a bit unfair.
I now have a much clearer basis for understanding this view of fundamentalism. I will have to read her work in odrer to be able to formulate a serious and thoughtful judgemenst on the basis of the historical evdience that she provides to defend her thesis that fundamentalaism is basically a pre-modernistic phenomenon for which the literal interpteration of texts is not indispensable.
But I can say this already with some authority and justification in history: One of the central tenets of American fundamentalism, as formulated at the end of the 19th/ beginning of the early 20th century, is indeed the literal interpretation of the Bible. Thus the originators of the American “fundamentalist” movement (I wish I could get the links and demostrate this but I don’t have the time right now) adhered to about four or five simple and ineliminable principles among which must undeniably be counted literalism.
As you admit, the term “fundamentalism” is a relatively modern term. In fact, is derives precisley from the fundamentalist movement at the beginning of the 20th century; they coined it. From that origin, it became popularized and has now been expanded to cover all sorts of anti-modernist and intergrationist movements, including even Catholic orthodoxy.
What I think is going on with Keren Hughes is that she is confusing the “causes” and morivations of all of these various movements which, in my opinon, should all be defined as “anti-modernism” with the original historical [b]definition[/b] of the term “fundamnetlaism” which the Protestant fundamentalists of the late 19th century formulated with extreme and concise precision.
And you’re still getting her argument wrong. She is not saying that it’s a pre-modernist movement. She says its thoroughly modern. It’s just not the same in all cultures, and it’s only tightly tied to literalism in its Christian form.
(Christian fundamentalism per se has its origins with the publication of The Fundamentals, whose primary target was the Higher Criticism, which approached the Bible as human-written text. But there is a long history of precursors to this solidification of anti-modernist Christianity.)
You’re passing a lot of judgement on someone whose name you can’t even get straight.
Hughes, Armstrong, whatever!!
have YOU ever read Curzio Malaparte, Giovanni Boniolo, Paulo Vidali, Gianbruno Gerriero, Alberto Moravia, Giacomo Leopardi, Piergiorgio Odifreddi, Carlo Celucci, just to stick with some random names of Italian authors. I spend my life reading 16 to 18 hours a day. I donìt rely on second and third-hand Encyclopeia or Dictoniary entries. I have been studying philophy for the last twenty years of life.
but sometimes one will confuse a name now and again!!!
Seriosuly thouhg, this is frustrating. I don’t know if you’re deliberately misinterpreting me or if my own phrasoelogy is at fault.
In any case, I am NOT revising me view when I say that I thouhg it was clear from my comment that “pre-modernist movement” meant precisely that these groups were anti-modernist and intent on returnin to a pre-modern age. You used that exact same expression youself in describing Karen [b]Armstrong’s[/b] views.
I also made it chrystal clear that I agreed with her that
the concept “fundamemtalism” is modern in origin.
I underatdn pefectly well that her view is that fundmntalism differs from culture to culture. I then went on to say that I would have to study her works more in depth to see how see supports this thesis.
I then provided an alterntive explation from my own head which suggested that perhaps Karen Armnstrong was confusing the “causes” or motivations of fundamentlaism (i.e. anti-modermism) with the “definition” of fundamentalism as historically defined [b]in modern times[/b] US fundmanalists and subsequently expanded inappropiately, in my opinon, to comprehend what I would prefer to call “anti-modernism”.
I am fairly sure Thomas Khun would be surprised at your classification of him. He did indeed argue that science has waves of paradigms but he did not argue that “science does not pursue truths or anything approximating truths but only offers alternative narratives or “paradigms” each of which are incommensurable with one another.”
Alternative paradigms, or theories as these are embodied, are not the opposite of pursuit of truth if truth is to be defined as the set of knowable and provable facts.
He argued that scientific progress was characterized by common agreement upon a theory, that this theory requires certain experiments, and that the experiments either confirm or deny the theory. Denials require adjustments to the theory. When there are enough little changes in the theory that it is losing coherence, it will be rejected and a new theory would replace the other theory. There are two kinds of progress: incremental and paradigmatic. He did NOT argue that science “does not pursue truths” but rather examined the frail human beings which are part of the progress of science and studies the way in which science progressed. He did argue that older scientists were likely to hand onto older models after the consensus was that the older model was disproven. He did not say that nothing can be known. Yours is an extreme presentation of his views, as I know brevity requires, but it is a misrepresentation without some annotation.
Now in contrast true relativists (like economists I can jokingly say) do NOT adjust the theory when the experiment denies the theory. They criticize the experiment. He did not deny that scientific progress was made but rather argued that the nature of the progress was not the ideal as presented.
Ok, since I have a bit more time on my hand right now, let me try to finally clear this up:
Here’s what Khun actually wrote in 1970:
translation from my Italain version
The problem is that Khun left open a gerat deal of room for misinterpteation and misunderstanding about exatly which parts of a paradign were incommenusrale and which were not. Feyerabend and his followers as well as an extaodrinayr number of post-modernist skpetics took his views as the basis for an attack on the epistemolical foundations of science and the concept of truth, verification, confirmation, etc…
Khun seems top have replaced the idea of confirmation or infirmation by empirical obseravtion (and the whole imprtance of emprirical obserbation istelf) wit the idea of the effeicay or conveneinec of particular paradigms. Since everything important that happens is idologically or ssociologically dtermined (as part of the pardadigm shist) it is doubtful whether thera is still a substantial place for eprircal observation in the work of science. The only way to judge progess is by recurse to history and hisorty itself is subject to interpretation and subjectivity.
Imre Lackatos tried to adress these problems by groundong recaerch traditions in the imprtant concept of “positive heuristic” and “negative heursitic”.
In simple terms, the negative heuristic is the dogmatic
“metaphyiscal” part of a resercah program or trdition and the “positive ” is the hyothetical-dedcutive part which is subkect to falsifactions, corrections and redefintions and so on. At a certin point, when anoihg falsifations have been inflicted on a program’s posotive heurtistic and enouhg verifcations have consequently taken place for an altreantive program, the latranaive program takes over and this constant interplay gives rise to progress over time becuase it is based in ever-increaing process of approxmations to the an extranal reality.
This is somthing which Khun did not suffiently adrees.
Kuhn was trained as a physicist. He was doing PhD work, and became deeply troubled by the deep divide between the Whig history of science as one long march of progress, and his sudden awareness of how profound the shifts of direction had actually been, as a result of teaching a course in which he used (and, for the first time read) older scientific texts. So he went back to school as an historian.
The book he wrote, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions [Wikipedia] was a fairly clear exposition of his view of how this could be explained. It was not perfect, but the attacks upon it came from philosophers–the very sort who promoted and defended the false view that Kuhn himself had once taken for granted–who were singularly incapable of reading it clearly, and discovering its actual weaknesses.
These attacks–based on self-contained rationalist (in a loose sense) theories, with utter disregard for the historical studies Kuhn engaged in–were not just unhelpful in getting at the real weaknesses in Kuhn’s work, they introduced seeming “uncertainties” and “ambiguities” that were simply the result of trying to read a historical text as if it were a philosophical text–specifically, one in their own tradition. This misdirected the entire flow of subsequent intellectual history. Kuhn’s ideas never developed as they should have. Criticism from fields such as sociology of knowledge was crowded out by the Popperians. And, finally, mistaking the Popperian misinterpretations as Kuhn’s actual positions, post-modernists claimed him as a source of support.
However, as the Wikipedia entry notes:
We’re totally misunderstanding each other.
ftsrt off, I’ve actually [b]read[/b] the Structure of Scsintific Revolutions as a ph.D. graduate student ain a analaytic philosophy; I don’t need to realy on second- oe third-hand interpretationsa provided by Wikepedia contribitoros support me arguments.
But, as I pointed out clearly, I do not belive that Khun was himself a relativist, subjectivist ot irrationist, etc.. I belive itìs clear he often left himeslf open to such interpreations, not just by post-modernists but by people like Feyerabend,Nelson Goodman and the neo-pragmatist Rorty. My quote was an illutration of the kind of thing that could often lead to the such misunsretanding and misinterpratation.
The person who’s comment I was respnging to left th impresion that Khun never mentioned incommesurability and that there were no weaknesses in his epeistomoligial position. This is obviously not true.
He did emphize incemmensuiruibility and never addressed ceratin episemoliigcal probelems left opem by his philophy of science.
This may well have been becasuse he was exceesively focused on tryng to dispute the so-called “standard view” of philophy of science which prevailed at the time. I don’t argue with that.
More fundamently, I’m just tired of being flamed here because of one questionable choice of words regarding Thomas Khun, for crap’s sake. The rest of the damned diary is comletely ignored to focus on whethr Khun is being accurately repersented here or not. . But that is NOT the POINT of the damned diary in any case.
Ohh bOOOOOYY…
I’m just trying to set the record straight. I said at the beginning that I agreed with the general thrust of your diary, and I still do.
That said, I do want to try and clear up some issues.
I was pointing to Wikipedia precisely because of its generalist, yet rigorously group-edited nature, and because it contained the specific text I wanted to highlight. I, too, have read Kuhn, several times over, as well as Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, Against Method and much more in that whole extended conversation. But none of that matters if I can’t clearly express the issues and stakes involved.
It’s true that Kuhn used the word “incommensurable.” My point is that this word means something very different as a description of an historically specific situation (Kuhn’s sense) than it does as an abstract claim about the nature of knowledge. Kuhn was always talking about how science actually worked. “Incommensurable” was a term referring to how different paradigms appeared to contending schools embedded in a historical context, not to any God’s-Eye-View of epistemological truth. He was not writing for philosophers. The “mistake” he made was using a term that was perfectly apt for his own purposes which was highly loaded in another field of discourse. Period. End of paragraph. End of Story.
BTW, the way in which Popper & Co. misunderstood Kuhn is reminiscent of the way in which the Logical Positivists completely misunderstood Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, though with opposite valence. In both cases, a hyper-detailed reading of the text completely obliterated the most basic grasp of the context in and purpose for which the book was written. This is the fatal weakness that pervades much of 20th Century philosophy–a hypertechnical focus on minutia that utterly obscures, misunderstands and displaces the main thrust of truly significant works that it cannot possibly understand because of the poverty of its methods.
Now, I’m sorry that this discussion is going so far off the point you wished to raise. The same has happened me as well, so I know how it feels. But I think there’s a lesson here you might consider. That is, that in trying to present technical issues for a broad audience there is a special art to it that is not in any way inferior to the art involved within the hyper-technical realm. Indeed, it may very well be a higher form of art.
I am not trying to be supercilious or snide, much less am I trying to flame you. I repeat that I think your fundamental point is both sound and very important. It’s because of this that I hope you will devote a little extra effort to perfect the argument and correct the somewhat careless elements I have pointed to.
It’s odd that you say that Khun was “not writing for philophers” when he was so obviously influence by philopher and philopshical ideas for the forumation of all his major “historical theses”.. Just blame all the problems and the fundamental contraditionsn in his own work on the that neo-Popperian conspiracy, I guess, and then call youself a histoirian (as if that left you immune from taking repsonsinility for the absurd and iraationalsitic logical consequences of your arguments!!)That’s a neat little cop-out for Khun, but I don’t think he can have it both ways.
His concept of “paradigms” was undeniably haavily infuencee by Quine’s epistemological wholism (or wholism of confirmation).
Fruthermore, there were four seperate incommesnurainity theses:
As to history, his vision of development of scince has been contested, and in my mind, thoruhgly refuted,by Steven Toulmin, among others.
Was Kuhn influenced by philosophers? Absolutely! Was he writing for them? No! How is it so hard to keep both these simple facts in mind at the same time?
I’ve tried time and again to establish common ground as well as points of disagreement with you. But you are far more interested in showing off your vast realms of knowledge than you are in actually communicating. And that, alas, renders all your knowledge useless–or worse.
This was precisely the same experiene I had in doing coursework in Carnap, Quine & their kind several decades ago. It’s a good part of why I stopped pursuing academic philosophy.
As I recall, Quine himself didn’t understand his own philosophy until that paper by Strawson, I think it was. A real comedy of errors that whole crowd was. Monty Python had nothing on them.
I am right now staring at a copy of a paper written by Thomas Khun in 1970 as part of a symposium in which some of the other partcipants were the philophers Karl Popper, Steven Toulmin, Feyerabend, Imre Lakatos amd Margaret Msterman.
It’s called “Reflections on My Critics” and was published
in the philosophy of science book “Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge” by the philophers of science Imre Lakatis and Alan Musgrave. I feel fairly confident in the aserttion that this paper and this work were intended for a philosopical audience. Therefore, you’re statement that Khun did not write for philophers is false.
He was influenced by philphers, he wrote for philophers and he spoke to conferences of philophers. He also harshly criticized philophers,as he doesn Steven Toulmin, among others, in this paper.
In other words, he was deeply engaged in the process of philosophy citicing and being criticized throuhg a perefeclty legitimate rational process of reciprolac evaluation and cristism of ideas. What you (I don’t think this is true of Khun) want to do is remove Khun from the process of dicussion and criticism of his ideas in the philophical arenea by claiming that: yes, on the one hand, Khun could criticize philosophers all he wanted, but, no, on the other hand, he should and CANNOT legitimately be criticized by them becuase he was actually after all….really a historian and therefore not subject to philophical anylsis. That is called a double-standard. You (and fellow Khunians) can’t have it both ways. Sorry!!!
As to your later ad hominens, I will let them speak for
themselves.
It’s very difficult to deal with non-philoposhers on such delicate matters. You cite “Wikepidea”, I’ll cite slighlty more authoritative Stanford Encycopedia of Philosophy (I’ll get you the link later):
So much for your claim that Khun accepted the existence of an objective, external world!!
The fundamental problem is that Khun, although claiming
to belive in progress and anti-realtivism, never rejected the incommensurbaility thesis and this necessarily leads to the kinds of problemss that I pointed to in my comment: one must replace emprical evidenace with arbirtay decisioons based on convenence simplicyt and other subjective and relativistic conserations in oder to be able to judge between contarating alternatnive theoriees.
He also explicitly rejected the notion that science does anything like appromixate to truth. He did not believe in the exestence of truth. He was therefore a relativist.
The philosophical world as a whole continues to misunderstand Kuhn, and this proves… what?
Kuhn most certainly DID accept the existence of an objective, external world, as the Wikipedia entry, culminating in Kuhn’s own words correctly explains. He simply asserts the obvious–that our descriptions never fully capture it, and we get into trouble by failing to realize this. (The secular version of the religious hubris of claiming specific knowledge of God’s will.)
Kuhn was clearly in over his head as a philosopher. He had nearly gotten a PhD in physics. He wrote a landmark historical work, but failed in mastering a third field. What a loser! (Except, of course, for the minor detail that the third field–philosophy of science–was utterly wrong-headed and in complete disarray, so that no one could truly be said to have “mastered” it.)
Let me try to be “perfectly clear” in the words of a well-known war criminal: Philosophy of science is still obsessed with justification. Kuhn was primarily concerned with description. Philosophers continue to fundamentally misread Kuhn’ descriptive work as if it were about justification.
Frankly, I think the whole enterprise of philosophy of science as presently practiced is ludicrous and absurd. Scientific knowledge does not need justification. It is on far firmer ground than the philosophy of science is. In contrast to such philosophers, Kuhn is actually trying to understand how things work in a way that might actually help scientists better understand the dilemmas they face. He is a realist wrt how science actually works. And that’s the sort of realism that counts the most to me. The philosophers aren’t even talking about science at all. They are talking about each other theories.
Oh, and how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Inquiring minds really want to know.
Yes, of course, you win sir. I really can’t refute these extraodmiytly powerful arguments: It’s all the fault of a cabal of neo-Popperians and philophy is a useless and meaningless profession anyway.
But,on the other hand I take it, all scientists take Khun’s vision of scientific change and development under serious cnsidreation when they engae in so-called “normal! and “revolutionary” science. That’s unassaiable logic for you. Oh. I’m sorry, logic doesn’t count becaess it’s part of that useless and menaignless philophy that people like Gottlob Frege (quantificational logic??) developed which eventually led to the developmen of computer science and the thing your are using right now to type out ridicolously insulting and offesnive comments which can be seen all across the planet.
Or how about the enormouslly profound influece that Einstein attributed explicitly and proudly to David Hume and Ernst Mach concerning the non-existence of absolute time and spece which ispired him to develop the though expetiments (philophical concept!!)that led to the theories of general and specififc relativity.
You are way beyond my level, sir!!
finally, with respect to truth:
especially, Gilgamesh, as you’ve already expressed your exasperation at the way this thread has devolved into a dispute over the interpretation of Kuhn, but in the name of reconciliation:
Isn’t it just possible that the passage discussed in Paul’s Wikipedia entry — the postscript to SSR’s 3rd edition — reflects a transformation on Kuhn’s part, a departure from the earlier, more widely-known views being discussed in the Stanford Encyclopedia article?
I myself was quite surprised on reading what was written about this postscript. Kuhn wrote that? It sounds, well, downright Hegelian. (And no, although I’m analytically trained, I don’t use that as a term of abuse — except when discussing prose style.)
If his thinking at this point was as Hegelian as this little snippet made it seem (to me, anyway), that might provide an interesting way of reconciling the apparently disparate views being attributed to him by you and Paul, respectively. For, of course, for Hegel, what makes one “stage of spirit” (substitute “paradigm” for the parallel reading of Kuhn) superior to its predecessors is not that the later one more accurately represents some mind-independent reality, but that it is more comprehensive and able to give a better account, not only than its predecessors, but of its predecessors. Just a thought, not at all worked out.
I haven’t seen this 3rd edition, so I don’t have any idea if Kuhn is being correctly represented, or, if he is, whether he discusses how his stance at that point relates to his earlier views. It’d be interesting, at least from a history of ideas standpoint, to find out.
Anyway, thank you for this much-needed diary, and to all for the interesting thread it inspired (whether or not it moved in precisely the direction Gilgamesh had hoped it would).
Insightful diary, sorry to come so late to the discussion.
It is a commonplace of American intellectual life to speak, have the words written down, have the words misquoted, and then have the misquote used against you. The ‘misquote’ ranges from failure to understand to deliberate re-arranging of words, with a short stop at ‘ripping out of context.’ Nietzsche is the poster-boy for this process. So common is the practice a reader must check references to ensure the quote is accurate and in context before continuing to read.
Journalist are the worst as they have a column to write and no effective check on accuracy. In the US, at least, it is not uncommon for them to ‘make stuff up.’
‘Making stuff up,’ by omission is not restricted to journalists, however. Bellesilles received the prestigous Bancroft Prize for a fallacious-through-omission work. The Social Text Affair was initiated by a complete hoax masquerading as a post-modernist paper on Physics. “Intelligent Design” is immediate evidence intellectual vacuousness is not limited to the Left. The surreal rantings of David Horowitz is further support.
Amusingly, television, originally touted as a marvelous educational tool, has overwhelmed more judicious modes of mass communication. The debasing of public discourse by showing two, or more, fools slanging each other over an issue none of them grasp, as “Moderated” by someone who has sat under hot Klieg lights for so long their brain has boiled out through their nose, has propelled witlessness to a goal to be achieved.
Europe may, perhaps, differ but in the US the Bush administration’s, and its allies, assault on Reason has been successful. Science is now “A Point of View.” Research funding seeks to bolster propaganda and is suppressed should it not. Certain research areas are simply forbidden.
And so it goes.
Oh… don’t worry AT, Europe is not immune from this phenomenon. In fact, what inspired me to write this was the current debate in Italy bewteen the Pope and his supportes who want to destroy relativism (without any furhtre clarification of what the heck they are talking about) and the left which lables the Catholic right to be “fundmnatalist”. I think this comment should help to put the whole thing into clearer perspertive in fact.
The Catholics confuse relativism with secularism and secularims with immorality (or someting like that).
The debates, in the mostly Berlusoni-contolled media bit even in other contexts, can get downright silly.
The US is tragically in much worse shape though appearently. Intelligent design and evolution, for example, should be discussed the same way that geocentrism verus heliocentrim is discussed. That is, one is fact and the the other is an ancient discredit belief which relgious dogmatists are terrified to abandon becasue the Bible says “SIX DAYS” and that’s it!!
But another problem is that US television shows and Hollowood movies dominate everywhere. So even that sort of “merda” might be be able to seep thouhg eventually and start working its deleterious effects over here.
Hmmmm. It appears to me that this diary was heavily inspired by Umberto Eco’s article of the same title (in Italian), published recently in the Italian weekly L’Espresso.
A reference to this article should be inserted in your diary.
It was indeed “inspired” by an artcile by Umberto Eco. The content as well as the actually wording of the diary, howvere, are entierly my own. In fact, Umberto Eco (a postmodernist) would probably diagree with 99% of what I’ve been writing here. In that sense, I was less insipred by him, that Thomas Khun was inspired by NR Hanson and Karl Popper.
But I’m sorry to know that your old resentments and antagonism toward me have actually gone so far as to subtly imply an accusation of plagiary, Sneaky.
is that the title is the same and your comparison of the terms is clearly drawn from Eco’s article, even if your argument is different. For your own sake and the sake of this blog, you should cite Eco’s article. It’s what any academic would do.
I don’t know you and I don’t hold any animosity toward you. I was shocked when I saw your diary title, which is identical to Eco’s, and I thought I should give you and readers here a heads up.
I like the title of his articile. Big f***ing deal. I’ve now changed it to a better one.
Nothing else is common between this diary and the article. Period!!
Oh, BTW, if you want to know something about me, please click on that link to the New International Times (yes, the site is kind of awkward and strange-looking—-sorry Kieth) but its’s realy not that hard to accomplish. Go into the second or third category, look for a thread called “The Snug”, go to the very last page and the last entry with my username listed on the side.
If you read it and are not shocked that I am even capable of gettin on-line once in a while, much less writing the way I do, then I haven’t been able to express myslef well enouhg to get across the true depths of horror that I continue to experinece in this life: I’m not a talented enouhg writer to get it across.
it’s the third category called “Comments Serious and not So Serious”. You just click on that and then look for “The Snug”. Click on “the Snug”, etc….