Home | Bibliography | Parts 1 to 4 | Parts 5 and 6
Background: How are sense and nonsense distinguished in philosophical discussions? That is the topic I have called "logic of language", using Wittgenstein's form of expression as my jargon, and it is the background to this paper. Nevertheless, although the account given here may be consistent with Wittgenstein's thinking, it should not be taken to represent his own views about philosophy of science.
M. O'C. Drury's Philosophy of Science
A theory can never become a fact. An hypothesis remains an hypothesis to all eternity. (M. O'C. Drury, The Danger of Words p. 102) [Note 1]
Throughout these pages I have used the word 'hypothesis' to mean 'a statement of fact that has yet to be tested for its truth or falsity'. Sherlock Holmes speaks of his "working hypotheses" which are confirmed or disconfirmed (verified or falsified) by the facts of the case, in those cases where the facts become known (and in those cases, one can indeed say that an hypothesis becomes a fact). But that is not how Drury is using the word 'hypothesis'.
As Drury uses the words 'hypothesis' and 'theory' they are equivalent in meaning. So that Drury is writing about what I would call -- never very clear about its meaning -- a 'scientific theory'.
"models, pictures, maps"
... to communicate these new discoveries and to pass them on to the next generation, a new language is required, new words, new concepts, but most important of all new schemata: models, pictures, maps. These new models, pictures, maps are scientific hypotheses. (DW p. 99-100)
A scientific theory is a selection of facts plus imagination, because imagination is what those "models, pictures, maps" are. The invention of other schemata is always possible, as may be the selection of other facts (Galileo). By 'scientific theory' is meant a picture that is self-consistent and consistent with a selection of facts, but the imagined picture is not itself one of that selection of facts.
[Note that facts must not only be conceived (although they must be conceived); they must also be perceived, and to be perceived they must be perceptible to the senses. And so, if reality is not confined to what is even in principle perceptible to the senses, then scientific theories are not about reality in itself but are only ways of organizing a selection of perceptible data or the conceived facts. (Note also that imagination not only organizes facts; it also fills in any gaps in the available facts with "missing facts" the theory presumes to exist.) Again, a theory is not an insight into reality in itself: it does not make it possible for us "to hear God thinking".]
["How can I -- or anyone who is not a scientist -- talk about this?"]
Outline of this paper ...
Part I
- Movement is Relative = 'Movement' is a Relational Concept
Part II
Part III
- 'Scientific hypotheses' are Models, Pictures, Maps invented to Summarize a Complex Mass of Factual Data
- The "reality behind phenomena"
- Is 'the Earth is Round' a Theory that has become a Fact?
- Replacing the Complex Mass of Facts with a Picture of Selected Facts
- A 'Statement of Fact' is either True or False and is Particular (not a Generalization based on Facts, i.e. Hypothesis)
- Overlooking the Facts that Don't Fit into the Picture and Unjustified Extensions of the Picture's Application
- The Assumptions of "the Mutation Selection Theory of Evolution"
Part IV
- When a Theory stops Summarizing Facts and begins to "Prescribe Facts", it becomes a Myth that is not an Hypothesis
- The Pythagorean counter-earth
- A Theory as a Point of View, and Darwin's Example of an Unjustified Extension of a Theory (Call for a propaganda war)
- Some Facts that Don't seem to Fit into the Picture
- A Scientific Theory is not "the Reality Behind" Observable Phenomena
- Preface to my study of the Philosophy of Science
Part I
Movement is Relative = 'Movement' is a Relational Concept
Movement of the heavenly bodies. Is the statement 'The planet moves' a case where the meaning of 'moves' is given when the method of verification is given? -- That is, without a method of verification is the statement nonsense?
If we ask questions like 'Does the earth move around the sun or does the sun move round the earth?' and 'Does the sun go behind the clouds or do the clouds block the sun?' then is the correct reply 'That depends on where you are standing'? 'All movement is relative to a point (or frame) of reference' -- does that belong to our concept 'movement' (i.e. is it a rule of grammar (in Wittgenstein's jargon), a rule or convention for using the word 'movement')?
It is reported that if you are flying by sight and you fly into thick clouds, then 'up' and 'down' have no visual meaning for you, because you have no method of verification -- i.e. when you enter the clouds you lose the point(s) of reference that give meaning to those words. (Cf. On a bankless river, which is moving, the boat or the river?)
*
That is obviously not an account of how a child learns to use the word 'movement'. The child first learns that 'moving' contrasts with 'still' (just as 'flat' contrasts with 'hilly'). -- But aren't those words defined ostensively for the child? Yes, and that is as far as instruction in the use of those words ever goes for most children, and probably for many adults. It is unusual in everyday life for there to arise a question of which of various objects is moving, and then we speak of which is "really moving" and which is "really standing still". Most children may have their first experience of this question when looking out the window of a train when another train passes on the next track, or in an automobile when driving through a tunnel and passing or being passed by other cars (The walls of the tunnel have no features that stand out, like trees on the horizon e.g., to be readily fixed on as points of reference). Then a child might most naturally be introduced to the concept 'frame of reference'.
[But that is not quite right. Because we know that the engine of the car is running, that the tires are pulling the car along the road, and that if the engine stops, the car's movement will stop. We have ways of measuring movement other than visual. So we cannot simply say that whether the car or the wall of the tunnel is moving is relative to a point of reference. There are more factors in the concept 'motion' than that. (How, or if, that would apply to the sun and earth, I don't know.)]
In day to day life and language, we do not picture ourselves living on a round and spinning earth -- i.e. that is not the frame of reference of our everyday language. In that language the earth is a fixed point (i.e. point of reference): the earth stands still and objects move in relation to the earth. -- And it is in this context that we first learn to ask the question of 'what is really moving'.
It is only when we introduce the picture of the round and spinning earth that our everyday grammar becomes unusable -- because then it is robbed of its fixed point of reference, i.e. the motionless earth beneath the child's feet. And day to day language is the first "language game" the child learns to "play" with the word 'movement' -- i.e. the child's instruction in our language does not begin with the child's being taught that the earth is round and spinning on its axis.
*
Geocentric, Heliocentric, Etc., Models
Once upon a time, I imagine, human beings set out to map the universe. They regarded the earth as a fixed point -- the heavens moved, the earth did not. Now, a map (and, especially clearly, a map of things in motion) is a model. This one is called the 'geocentric model'. And it can be made to work: a model can be made of recurrent patterns, or, regularities of movement, consistent with all observation, for the heavenly bodies with the earth at their center. However, these patterns get extremely complicated, the "epicycles of Mars" e.g.
So that, an alternative, simpler model would be attractive. The heliocentric ("Sun at the center of the universe") model would do, because the heliocentric model is simpler than the geocentric ("Earth at the center of the universe") model. But there is no reason, from the point of view of model making as such, why the earth or the moon or any other heavenly body should not be placed at the center of the system. Nor why the orbits should not then be pentagons or discontinuous -- if such a model were consistent with astronomers' observations of the relative positions of the heavenly bodies.
So that, we have (at least) two models, equally valid -- i.e. 'valid' in the sense that they both account for all the observations, and order them in a self-consistent way, which is what is essential to a 'model'. The heliocentric model is less complicated --.
The innocent looking move in the conjuring trick
"But why suppose reality, or, the universe, to be less rather than more complicated?" That is the innocent looking mistake we make (Philosophical Investigations § 308) -- i.e. supposing that the selection of one model rather than another expresses a judgment about "reality beyond the facts". There is no "reality beyond the facts" -- because the facts are reality. Remember: what has a model to do with reality? -- Only this: that it is consistent with the facts. And what are the facts in this case? The astronomers' observations. But the model is the facts -- plus imagination. And the products of imagination, i.e. myths, are not reality; they are what is distinguished from reality.
The combination of words 'the reality beyond the facts' is nonsense in exactly the way that 'the reality beyond reality' is.
My aim is to teach you to pass from a piece of disguised nonsense to something that is patent nonsense. (ibid. § 464)
And a model cannot be "the reality beyond (or behind) the facts" in the sense of 'further facts' either, because a model is not a fact.
*
"Common sense" believes in a spatial absolute
... the Ptolemaic and the Copernican systems of astronomy are both adequate to describe the Planetary movements and it is a matter of convenience which we choose. But is this not to go against common sense, to go against it fragrantly? Most people believe that either the sun goes round the earth or the earth goes round the sun; they would find it hard to believe that one or the other of these statements is not the absolute truth of the matter. Common sense believes in a spatial absolute. One of the tasks of philosophy is to expose the error of this belief -- and then wonder comes in in the right place.
Wittgenstein once said to me, laughingly, that he thought of taking for the motto of his second book the sentence "You'd be surprised" -- a frequent remark of his. Only he wanted surprise to come in in the right place. ("Letters to a Student of Philosophy", ed. Desmond Lee, in the journal Philosophical Investigations, Volume 6 (1983), p. 168-169)
Note carefully the language Copernicus uses in the following: 'seem', 'think', 'believe', 'absurd'. But is it a question of belief? In order to say that it is a question of belief Copernicus must appeal to a privileged point of reference, treating that point as if it were immovable ("absolute", "the perspective of God"), because it is not possible to see what -- or rather, see as -- Copernicus describes.
And why not admit that the appearance of diurnal revolution belongs to the heavens but the reality (veritatem) belongs to the earth? And things are as when Aeneas said in Virgil: "We sail out of the harbor, the land and cities move away." As a matter of fact, when a ship floats on over a tranquil sea, all the things outside seem to the voyagers to be moving in a movement which is the image of their own, and they think on the contrary that they themselves and all things with them are at rest. So it can easily happen in the case of the movement of the earth that the whole world should be believed to be moving in a circle.
It is not a question of appearance ("seems") but of a point of reference.
I will add that it seems rather absurd to attribute movement to the container or to that which provides the place and not rather to that which is contained and has a place ... (Nicholas Copernicus, On Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres [1540], Book I, "Answer to the Aforesaid Reasons and Their Inadequacy", tr. Wallis (1939))
The question is not of what strikes someone as absurd or not absurd, but again, of points of reference, chosen not of necessity but only for convenience. 'Movement' is a relative, or, relational concept. (Obviously I am not deprecating Copernicus' imagination, but only anyone's attributing reality to a scientific model.)
*
At times you could say that a theory replaces what we know with what we imagine. -- According to strict rules, of course.
The Keplerian Revolution
Historians of science speak of the "Copernican Revolution" rather than of the "Keplerian Revolution", but I think the important step was not placing the sun at the center of the system, but getting rid of the requirement that was brought to the investigation (PI § 107): the requirement that celestial bodies move in circles at uniform velocity. This requirement did not come from the evidence: no one had ever observed it: the circles were taken over from Greek notions of perfection. It was the discarding of this requirement -- the sticking ever closer to the observed evidence alone -- that made the revolution.
The important step was not taken by Copernicus alone (After all, the Greeks and Romans had been aware of the heliocentric model too, not only of the geocentric), but also by Kepler. (If I know the history of what I am talking about, and I often don't know.) Note that although, of course, many great thinkers contributed to the revolution, which of them it is named after shows what one takes the revolution to have been.
The fewer the requirements we bring to our theory-making, the fewer the preconceptions we bring to our theory-constructing, the closer we are to the ideal of science (as of philosophy). With Newton's absolute space and time -- They are "absolute" because they are not items of created reality: instead they are attributes of God himself -- we are still in the world of mythology (of metaphysics, of natural theology), of pictures brought to (imposed on) the investigation.
Copernicus, Kant, and Kepler
And so I said, I don't think Copernicus is as important as Kepler. Because Copernicus' model is still dominated by metaphysics: the planets are still treated as if they were divinities that must move with uniform circular motion. It was getting rid of that notion that was the revolution: Kepler invented scientific astronomy by making a clean break with metaphysics. (Although, of course, there might never have been Kepler's system had it not been for Copernicus.) On the other hand --
Kant took the Copernican change of perspective ("pattern shift") as his own model when he critiqued metaphysics: Copernicus, he says, could not move his work forward while using the geocentric model, and so he tired looking at things a different way: he placed the sun at the center of his system rather than the earth (Critique of Pure Reason, Preface to the 2nd Edition). There was nothing remarkable in itself about putting the sun at the center of the system: because 'motion' is a relational, not an absolute, concept, anything might be placed at the center of the system -- the sun, the earth, the moon, Mars, etc. It is a question of convenience: e.g. no one wants to deal with epicycles.
Brahe's Model of the Solar System
In Tycho Brahe's model, the sun moves around the earth and the rest of the planets go around the sun. This is a third model, besides the Ptolemaic and Copernican, although it still made use of epicycles because again circular motion was a requirement imposed on it.
Note that none of these are models of "the solar system" -- rather, they are the solar system. The fact, the reality, is the data the model is based on, not the model itself (which is a creation of the imagination).
Kepler's Ellipses and the Interconnection of Theories
Could Kepler simply have said that: if you construct the model this way, then you get the simplest model. Was there any need for Kepler to justify his ellipses? This is a reminder that a theory tends to be interconnected with other theories, so that if anyone proposes a new theory, these other theories will be treated by him as part of the given, as if these theories were facts themselves (just more celestial observations, as it were).
In the case of the "theory of circular orbits" (Obviously no one had ever observed these mythical orbits), were these not a pre-conception (prejudice, i.e. pre-judgment)? Was there any need for Kepler to justify discarding them? I do not know the history.
*
"A Model offered as a Statement of Fact"
As a statement of fact, how would the proposition 'The earth takes an elliptical orbit around the sun' be verified? Would it be necessary to stand at some point -- i.e. some point designated as fixed (i.e. unmoving) -- in outer space watching the relative positions of the earth and sun (for many, many earth years)? But the words 'designated as fixed' put an end to this answer, because they show that we would still only be making a model. No point is fixed, except by designation, and a reference point is only defined by its relationship to other reference points: not only the designated origin but the Cartesian grid itself must be motionless -- but it can only be motionless relative to a reference point outside itself; that belongs to the grammar of the word 'movement' -- i.e. 'absolute motionlessness' is undefined.
Various points of reference could be chosen to prove various theses about what goes around what, but the only statement of fact that could result from this would be: 'Seen from this particular perspective ... [e.g. the earth circles the sun]'.
Any view-point in space is like any other point in space, a relative, not the absolute point; it no more shows the truth than any other point does; it is no more "the point of view of reality" than any other reference point (perspective) would be.
The truth is not unknown or unknowable, but rather it does not exist -- i.e. this language is undefined. There is no eye of God: reality as it is in itself does not exist. But this limit is not set by the nature of man but by man's concepts (i.e. this is not a necessary limit: concepts define phenomena, not vice versa). These are grammatical remarks about whether or not particular combinations of words (as e.g. 'eye of God' = 'absolute point of reference' ... or do you imagine that God has human-like thoughts or concepts or points of reference? Isaiah 55.9 could have God say, "I am as high above you as the heavens are above the earth") -- remarks about whether particular combinations of words are defined or nonsense in our language.
*
'Motion is relative (i.e. to a point of reference)' is a rule of grammar, the definition of a word, not a statement of fact (unless this sentence is used to state a fact about the grammar of our language; it is not as it were a fact about motion).
Or again: "What is going around what depends on where you are standing, because all movement or motion is relative to your point of reference." Another way of stating this rule is, the word 'movement' is without meaning in the particular case unless the method by which movement is to be measured is specified.
*
How do we use the word 'fact'?
Suppose it were suggested that: a model is a 'fact' (the quotes mean: this is a definition) if it is consistent with all observations? But is that how we use the word 'fact'? No. And simply making that rule of grammar would not make models and facts any more alike; -- it would not obliterate the distinction, although it might make it harder to see. Scientific models are based on facts, but they are not facts. [Note 2]
*
How do we actually use the word 'fact'? A "family" of cases; the concept is fluid. We do not always mean a "statement of sense perception" -- or e.g. there would be no historical facts. And not all statements of sense perception state facts about what is perceived, e.g. the statements we make when we look through the eye doctor's lenses. And a fact is not always "something we know"; e.g. we believe the facts of history as we believe other facts that are reported to us. And a statement of fact is not always in some way verifiable; e.g. 'I have a toothache' is a statement of fact.
The question here is: what contrast was Drury making with the words 'hypothesis' (or 'theory') and 'fact'? And that has been shown in the discussion of models above. In those cases, the 'facts' are the observations astronomers make, and the theories are the 'models' that astronomers make based on their observations.
Part II
Hypothesis-making involves Selection, Myth-making
... not only is every scientific hypothesis at the mercy of new data. They all also contain an element of choice. The data we do have can always be interpreted in a number of ways. Consider ... the geological formations and the fossil record. Hegel in his philosophy of nature puts forward the suggestion that the organic forms found in early geological strata never really lived. They are merely anticipations in stone of what was later to be clothed in living flesh and blood. Why do we reject such an hypothesis ...? It is not that we can produce some concrete piece of evidence that refutes it. We do not know that a brontosaurus ever breathed or a pterodactyl ever flew. Hegel's hypothesis accounts for all the data. (DW p. 111)
We don't know that what we call 'brontosaurus remains' were ever "clothed in living flesh and blood". What we do is to make analogies from animals that we have actually observed to what we believe to be the remains of very long ago. But an analogy is not "concrete evidence"; an analogy is no evidence at all. If Hegel's hypothesis is rejected on the basis of anything other than self-inconsistency or an inconsistency with the facts, it is rejected on the basis of considerations inessential to the practice of hypothesis-making as such.
But suppose we were to discover a fully formed "flesh and blood" brontosaurus frozen in a glacier -- would that disprove Hegel's hypothesis? First, that is not in "the data that we do have" (ca. 1973). And second: maybe (i.e. we have to decide what we want to count as disproof; e.g. "Did this creature ever breathe?"; but if we allow nothing to count as disproof, then we are stating a tautology rather than an hypothesis).
Human beings are myth-makers
But is Hegel's hypothesis really an hypothesis -- e.g. how do you verify it?" And that again is the innocent looking mistake. As we have seen, by 'hypothesis' Drury means 'model', and 'to verify a model' is nonsense (undefined). Hegel's hypothesis is just that -- an hypothesis. "But it looks like a myth." It is a myth. Hypotheses are myths (though not all myths are hypotheses). Heliocentrism is a myth. Brontosaurus is a myth. Human beings are myth-makers; nothing more characterizes them. "We make for ourselves models [pictures] of the facts" (Wittgenstein to Engelmann) -- though not in the TLP sense.
*
An Analogy is Not a Proof
"An analogy is no evidence at all." Because anything can be compared to anything else. But that 'can' (possibility) only applies to 'compared in some way or another'. When we consider particulars, a comparison may be true or false; e.g. 'Human beings are like birds in that both have feathers' is a false statement, because human beings do not have feathers. So it is significant -- i.e. theoretically significant -- that a comparison, an analogy, in particulars can be made; 'can' in the sense that it 'is consistent with the evidence'. But that does not make an analogy evidence, except of its own possibility. An analogy is proof of nothing more than itself.
An analogy is no evidence" because it is a selection: "Alike in that ..." It should not lead us to overlook "Unlike in that ..." [The logic of comparison.]
Well, why don't we grow feathers or wings, but have only shoulder blades, bases for wings? (Yevgeny Zamyatin, We, Record 16, tr. Zilboorg)
Look at the base of birds' wings, and then look at the shoulder blades of human beings. Yes, there is a resemblance, but, no, there is no "therefore". Our attention is directed toward a resemblance, which we may or many not see, may or may not accept. But nothing follows from this: if we draw a conclusion, it is "a naked conclusion without premises" -- "Like lightening I saw only the naked conclusion" (ibid. Record 17).
A conclusion without premises is called an 'insight', or a 'delusion'. It is a new way of looking at things. Like an "argument by analogy" (An analogy is not a premise), it is not a proof.
"Human beings once had wings, but they atrophied." -- What would count against this? But conclusively against this? When can you say: a missing link is ruled out? If you are talking about probabilities, you are not talking about facts.
*
'Facts' -- Absence of Doubt is Not Criterion Enough
Drury appeared to take "the fossil record" to be a matter of fact. But that any particular stone with an indented surface is a fossil -- isn't this also an hypothesis? If a question of long-ago causality is involved, then yes.
So, can we say then that a 'fact' is whatever we treat as a fact? A 'fact' is what, for the purposes of a particular investigation -- not for any imaginable investigation -- stands fast for us?
If I make an experiment I do not doubt the existence of the apparatus before my eyes. I have plenty of doubts, but not that. (On Certainty § 337; cf. 342)
In some cases we could say that this belongs to the grammar of the word 'fact'. But we should still distinguish between cases where we make an hypothesis from an undisputed fact and cases where an hypothesis is made on the basis of another hypothesis (e.g. the fossil record). An 'undisputed fact' ... -- What's that when it's at home? That a stone with an indented surface is a stone with an indented surface is something we can verify: there is a doubt -- and a method that removes the doubt. Verification comes to an end: objective doubt requires objective grounds for doubt. (These are all grammatical remarks.) And this does not preclude our being mistaken, e.g. 'Well, we thought it was a stone ...'; for that too belongs to the grammar of 'verification'.
But that an hypothesis "stands fast" for us does not make the hypothesis a 'fact', because there is no (grammatical) possibility of verifying the hypothesis (except 'verifying' in the sense of: determining that it is consistent with the facts, not undermined by known anomalies, not invalidated by self-contradiction).
*
A 'Statement of Fact' may have Five Values
Here we may need to remind ourselves of the fluidity of the concept 'hypothesis' -- i.e. of the variety of different cases to which we apply the word 'hypothesis'. For example, we can distinguish between an hypothesis, say, in a court of law (e.g. one about whether the defendant was where the prosecution claims at the time in question) and a recurrent pattern of events hypothesis (e.g. the movement of Mars in astronomy). In the former case, 'hypothesis' means: an unproved (i.e. unverified) statement of fact.
"But can't the court hypothesis be unverifiable?" -- But why? The end of verification may be to declare a statement of fact not only unverified -- i.e. not "proved beyond reasonable doubt" -- but also unverifiable. We may want to say that a statement of fact has five possible grammatical values: nonsense, untested, true, false -- and indeterminable. But the fifth value does not mean grammatically indeterminable -- which would mean: undefined. It means that we have specified a method of verification, but that the method cannot, as a practical matter, be applied (because e.g. the witnesses are dead or untrustworthy, or the documents our method requires have been destroyed).
*
"But why can't we say that a model that is consistent with all observations is a fact? For that would not preclude the possibility of its being disproved by further observations, any more than our being certain precludes our being wrong (e.g. 'We thought we knew', which does not entail that we were not justified when we said that we knew). For if we say that on account of a possible future anomaly a model cannot be a fact -- aren't we saying that we have a notion of a super-fact, a fact once-and-for-all, an absolute fact? But isn't that notion simply senseless words? For isn't 'There can always be further evidence' a rule of grammar?" In all cases?
Well, but isn't that I have a toothache an example of just such a "super-fact"? 'I have a toothache' is a statement of fact, and it is absolutely certain -- i.e. subjectively certain. Here the absence of doubt does not require grounds (as is the case with objective certainty). But that I have a toothache is no hypothesis; it does not stand or fall to any evidence; it has nothing to do with evidence. [Note 3]
*
The Distinction between 'Evidence' and an 'Hypothesis'
"Is a model not a 'fact' because other observation-consistent models are possible?" Can we say that the heliocentric and geocentric models cannot both be facts -- because they contradict one another, i.e. that they are not like the statements 'The book is on the table' and 'The table is under the book'? The two models do contradict one another, or rather the human beings who use the different models do -- i.e. it is not the statements of fact on which the models are based that contradict one another, but the points of view. Return to the distinction:
Are 'facts' what the evidence demonstrates? No, 'facts' are the evidence, and the 'models' are what is demonstrated.
Then why don't you put a stop to all this? Exclude the word 'fact' from your considerations and make your point with the words 'evidence' and 'theory' alone. Because it is nonsense to say that a 'theory has become evidence' -- or what might we mean by that? What after all is so important about the sign 'fact', which is only sounds, ink marks?" The importance we attach to the word 'fact' is the importance we attach to the words 'truth' and 'to know'.
The distinction between evidence and the model we make on the basis of it -- is a grammatical distinction. And however the word 'fact' is defined -- i.e. whether we allow its application to theories or not -- this distinction can always be made by other means. And it is this distinction that Drury wanted to maintain.
Part III
'Scientific hypotheses' are Models, Pictures, Maps invented to Summarize a Complex Mass of Factual Data
The great philosophical danger in every natural science is to confuse an hypothesis with a fact. A new branch of natural science begins because of new observations, new phenomena not noticed before. Often this is due to the discovery of a new instrument, a telescope [e.g.] ... But always the new data are perceptions. There is nothing in science which was not first in the senses [Note 4]. (DW p. 99)
By 'fact' in science, then, Drury meant a statement of a sense perception that is an observation? E.g. Charles Darwin's "close and accurate observation of plants and insects, of birds and mammals, and the constant interrelation in the lives and deaths of all these creatures" (ibid. p. 100-101). Perhaps we watch a spider spin its web and then watch a fly get caught in it, or watch a robin build its nest and later pull a worm from the ground to feed its babies. We do with "care and accuracy" the looking and listening that we all do in day to day life, e.g. as we cross the street, fix a broken chair, or try to decide whether to water the marigolds. That is, I think Drury meant by 'fact': observations that all of us can make -- or at least have pointed out to us by someone else.
Now to communicate these new discoveries and to pass them on to the next generation, a new language is required, new words, new concepts, but most important of all new schemata: models, pictures, maps. These new models, pictures, maps are scientific hypotheses.
They are ... never dictated by the facts ... but invented by us as ingenious abbreviations to summarize the complexities of the mass of new factual data. Which of a large number of possible hypotheses we accept is ... a matter of choice. (ibid. p. 99-100)
By 'hypotheses', then, Drury did not mean: statements of fact that have yet to be verified. He meant 'scientific theories'. He said that these are a new vocabulary and new "models, pictures, maps" that summarize the facts. In our heliocentric and geocentric models we have examples of "summaries" of "a complicated mass of factual data". E.g. in place of a sky chart or a table showing the relative positions in the night sky throughout years of observation, we have instead a drawing (picture) of Mars tracing an ellipse around the sun. Or perhaps we have a drawing illustrating the epicycles of that planet. We could choose to work with either theory, or with any other that can be made from the sky chart or table. This is the sense that I can think to give to Drury's statement that theories "are not given to us as necessities, never dictated by the facts, never forced upon us" (ibid. p. 100).
The "reality behind phenomena"
But then when an hypothesis has become generally accepted and shown its usefulness, it forgets its humble origin. It begins to masquerade in the logical status of a fact. Something we can't query. Something which is the reality behind phenomena. Something which has enabled us to see behind the curtain of sensation. (ibid. p. 100)
*
Is 'the Earth is Round' a Theory that has become a Fact?
Consider the proposition that the earth is round. Now once upon a time this was a theory. E.g. Aristotle thought the earth to be round on account of the shapes of the shadows that it was believed to cast on the moon. But now we have photographs of the earth taken from spaceships and even from the moon. So that, we may want to say that the roundness of the earth was once a theory but that it has now become a fact. But is this so? Was Aristotle's proposition the same proposition as ours (or is this a case of same sign, different grammars)?
The Greeks had a "complicated mass of factual data" and made a model from it -- the round earth. But we are not referring to their data when we say, on the basis of our photographs, that it is a fact that the earth is round. We can say: we now know something that the Greeks could only theorize about; -- but our knowledge is not based on the same type of evidence as that on which their theory was based; we have not simply accumulated more of the same type of data as they had. We can say that we are now in a position to know things that they were not in a position to know. And, also, that from our new position we are not able (grammatically) to theorize that the earth is round; our position can be a basis of knowledge (of a fact), but it cannot be a basis for a theory. So that, we cannot say that the Greek theory has become a fact.
If we say: "what shape is the earth? -- Let's go and take a photograph of it from the moon", this is a case where 'hypothesis' means: an as yet unverified statement of fact, and not what Drury meant: "models, pictures, maps". (Let the method of verification teach you what the hypothesis is, what the hypothesis hypothesizes; the method belongs to the grammar of the hypothesis.)
We can note that Drury was sometimes talking about cases where the "models, pictures, maps" are essentially not statements verifiable by direct observation (Essence, of course, belongs to grammar). E.g. we cannot turn back the clock and witness "a brontosaurus breathe" or "a pterodactyl fly". And if that is what we require for verification, then we shall never know, no matter how much our "mass of factual data" grows, whether a brontosaurus ever breathed. [Note 5]
That mass of data -- i.e. "the geological formations and the fossil record" -- is "the curtain of sensation". The model of the flesh and blood brontosaurus is the imagined "reality behind" it.
The following remark shares my view that 'The earth is round' was not an hypothesis that has become a [statement of] fact ("proposition" in the quotation's jargon):
That a tennis ball looks [i.e. looking is the method of verification in this case] round is a proposition ['proposition': i.e. a true or false (i.e. verifiable or falsifiable) statement of fact as is determinable by sense-data]. But that the earth is round is only an hypothesis ['hypothesis': i.e. an unverifiable statement, the truth (or "truth") of which is deduced from indirect evidence; a 'proposition' is verified or falsified by direct evidence, e.g. looking and seeing; it is not deduced from other propositions as an hypothesis is]. There is no fact that the earth is round over and above the various facts such as the shape of the shadow on the moon at an eclipse, ships disappearing over the horizon etc ... (Wittgenstein's Lectures, Cambridge, 1930-1932, ed. Desmond Lee (1980), p. 80-81)
(Yes, above we are doing nothing more than defining words and then using those words to make distinctions. But such distinctions are important to anyone who thinks in the spirit of philosophy (as we have it from Socrates) -- i.e. who wants with the greatest care to distinguish between what I know and what I only think I know.)
*
Replacing the Complex Mass of Facts with a Picture of Selected Facts
We fail to see much that the hypothesis doesn't include; we extend the limits of our hypothesis into regions of phantasy. Reality which lies before us at every moment is replaced by the abstract picture we have ourselves created. Reality we are told is [e.g.] nothing but a fortuitous concatenation of atomic particles ... Reality we are told is that long process of evolution from amoeba to consciousness. In speaking like this we have become dazzled by our picture making. (DW p. 100)
[A theory, an hypothesis,] always contains an element of choice, one way of looking at things; one way of arranging an arbitrary selection of material into a coherent picture. (ibid. p. 102)
Think of what would be involved in making a portrait of someone you love. For any picture may be characterized this way. You select a particular angle (just as you compose a photograph), particular lighting, dress, time and place of life ... cf. You are looking through a photo album, and you point to a photograph and say, "This is the way I remember her."
Think of a painting from the 19th Century, with its artist's conception that "reality is really only a succession of moments, of a play of light".
*
Of either our geocentric or our heliocentric models we can say that one point of reference is "selected" (Drury) rather than others, "one way of looking at things" rather than others. And that would seem an adequate criterion for saying: "A theory can never become a fact. An hypothesis remains an hypothesis to all eternity" (ibid. p. 102).
*
Science's disregard of aspects of reality does not make those aspects unreal
Drury quotes F.H. Bradley's remark about discarding Locke's so-called secondary qualities:
It is doubtless scientific to disregard certain aspects when we work; but to urge that such aspects are not fact, and that what we use without regard to them is an independent real thing -- this is barbarous metaphysics. (Appearance and Reality, i)
Science is said to be an investigation of reality ... but mustn't we add: of reality conceived in a particular way?
Reality for some artists has been the geometric mass of things: a house is really a cube; a tree, a pyramid; a rock, a sphere; and so on. For other painters "the real" has been only line or only color. In saying what they "conceive reality to be", they are describing their standards of investigation: this is the kind of thing they look for and accept.
Countless "models, pictures, maps" are possible, not just scientific ones. Science may be said to be one more way of conceiving reality. A 'conception' is characterized by the setting of limits: we "disregard certain aspects when we work". E.g. Wittgenstein's logic is concerned only with the conventional meaning of language; it disregards e.g. affective, or, emotive, meaning (what in literary criticism is called 'connotation') entirely. But a logic is not a conception of reality? Is language not then real? But Wittgenstein's logic does not "urge that" affective "aspects" of language "are not fact"; it simply disregards them. The same cannot be said of the use of scientific theories that Drury is making propaganda against.
Wittgenstein: one conception, one method, elbows all the others aside (Culture and Value p. 60-61 [MS 134 141: 13.4.1947 § 2]). Consider a Greek definition of 'the real' -- what is permanent and not subject to change. So that, the theories of science that present us with a perduring pattern, with the universal as opposed to the particular (or, "accidental" as is said), the species rather than the individual (e.g. population control, where individual deer are slaughtered for the benefit of the abstract -- i.e. non-existent but perduring -- species 'deer'), the cycle versus the dead end ... we are trained to value this type of account, this "one way of looking at things", this one way of conceiving reality, to the exclusion of all others (as if this one type of account were able to capture the whole of reality for us).
Would this way be the way of Charles Dickens' "hard fact men" who wanted the facts without any admixture of fancy (imagination). But, according to Drury's account, science is concerned with facts only in so far as these can be summarized in "models, pictures, maps" -- i.e. in inventions of fancy. And indeed, there is no compelling reason to call the simple collection of facts 'science', because this collecting can be imagined (described in a fictitious ethnology) to be carried out by a people who never make hypotheses. We are taught (i.e. trained, like circus animals) to regard non-science conceptions of reality, e.g. those of artists', as fanciful (idle, silly).
What we call "the scientific world-view" is so pervasive in our societies that at times we may find it difficult to even be penetrated by the thought that science is only one conception of reality, that countless others exist, and that countless others are possible. [Note 6] Perhaps this is because we live in societies so characterized by technological development (and the propaganda of the popularizers), and so we imagine that some great knowledge must be behind these developments. So perhaps it is not strange that we stand in awe -- though we know little, understand even less -- of pure science (i.e. the "models, pictures, maps" as an end in themselves). What We could say: given our upbringing, science cannot be ignored (and so I won't pretend to ignore it). [Note 7]
In Drury's view, the task of philosophy in the midst of this is just to keep everything in its place -- i.e. not to mix up categories, not e.g. to regard hypotheses as if they were facts.
*
A 'Statement of Fact' is either True or False and is Particular (not a Generalization based on Facts, i.e. Hypothesis)
Consider this: that it belongs to the grammar of the word 'fact' that a statement of fact is either true or it is not true. Either you have a toothache or you have not, either the tide came in this morning or it did not, either it is raining or it is not, either the child leapt ten feet or it did not, either you have been to the moon or you have not, either the wine has turned to vinegar or it has not, either the marigolds survived the frost or they did not, either the fish survived out of water or it did not, either you compressed the liquid or you did not, and so on. (Of course, criteria for the application of 'true' and 'false' have to be stated: what if the tide comes part way in, what if some of the marigolds survive, and so on.)
'Facts' are also particular, whereas 'theories' are not. E.g. the difference between 'this fish did not survive out of water' (a statement of fact) and 'fish do not survive out of water' (a summary of a "mass of data", i.e. of facts). Or at least that is the account of the grammars of these words that emerges from these examples.
*
Overlooking the Facts that Don't Fit into the Picture and Unjustified Extensions of the Picture's Application
The danger of forgetting [that a theory is not a fact] is that we proceed to overlook facts that won't fit into the picture; and we extend the picture to cover aspects of experience to which it has no relevance. (DW p. 102)
These two statements may appear to amount to the same thing: facts that won't fit into a theory (i.e. "inconsistent facts") can also be facts, or, "aspects of experience", to which the theory has no relevance. But it would follow from that account that we should discard the theory, whereas Drury suggests that we might instead choose to limit the theory's application -- to the facts that it actually applies to.
*
The Assumptions of "the Mutation Selection Theory of Evolution"
Drury gave as an example of the forgetfulness he was cautioning against: "what is known as the mutation selection theory of evolution":
The theory that the development of all the multitude of living forms both in the vegetable and animal world can be explained in terms of genetic mutation and survival of the fittest. New forms arise by mutation and survive by natural selection. (ibid. p. 101)
'Survival of the fittest' (not "of the quickest", e.g. the insect that jumps fast enough not to get eaten by others) may be summarized this way: some dread disease or climatic change comes to an environment; those members of the species that survive are said to be the 'fittest'. The expression 'natural selection' means that the members of a species best adapted to their environment leave behind more children than the less well adapted, such that over time the species as a whole (i.e. the majority of its members) becomes better adapted to its environment. (With 'best' and 'better' this looks very much like a tautology.) But Drury discussed (ca. 1973) the "genetic mutation" part of the theory first:
what we really know is that mutation is a pathological process, and we are only guessing when we say that it has ever been otherwise ... I can find no reference to a mutation produced by human interference [-- i.e. in the laboratory [Note 8] --] that is not either lethal or sublethal [-- i.e. mutation, so far as we know, undermines rather than enhances] the viability of the species (ibid. p. 103, 102-3).
[Questions: Is the nectarine an example of a non-pathological mutation, in this case of the peach? However, peach and nectarine trees are equally viable, both flourishing for millennia, and it seems further that this particular mutation is not an example of evolution, because sometimes peaches appear on nectarine trees and nectarines on peach trees and in both cases as healthy fruit. But whether this is an example (of mutation that is not pathological) and a counter-example (to the idea that mutation drives evolutionary change), or unrelated to what Drury is discussing, I am too ignorant to do more than ask.]
Now consider the process of natural selection. The survival of the fittest. Undoubtedly at certain times and under certain circumstances such selection has occurred ... But that all the immense variety spread out over the whole face of nature; that all this multiformity of shape and pattern and habit; that all this is due entirely to a process of natural selection seems to be to be a most far-fetched assumption. (ibid. p. 103-4)
Drury uses the word 'assumption'. He is noting the extension of the theory without facts to support the extension. The assumption is that when (i.e. if) we do have the facts, they will support (i.e. be consistent with) the theory. But that is not something that we know; it is an assumption that things will go that way.
Another assumption of the mutation-selection theory is that evolution is a process of genetic change. But Drury considered "the inheritance of acquired characteristics", and noted that the Norway rat, which in the wild is "fierce and aggressive", after several generations of laboratory life becomes "tame and gentle". But "tameness is an acquired characteristic". (ibid. p. 105-6) So that:
It is sheer dogmatism to assert that all inheritance must be transmitted through the genes of the germ cells: that psychological traits must be dependent on anatomical structure. (ibid. p. 106-7)
Part IV
When a Theory stops Summarizing Facts and begins to "Prescribe Facts", it becomes a Myth that is not an Hypothesis
What a bizarre state of affairs this forgetfulness can foster. Remember where we began: a 'theory' is "a summary of a complex mass of [existent] data"; -- that is, you look at the facts that you have in your possession, the evidence, and on that basis you invent "models, pictures, maps"; then you seek to extend the theory by acquiring more data -- that is, an extension of the theory is only justified by new evidence, new facts. But in Drury's example we appear to have arrived at a point where -- a theory prescribes what evidence is to be found in the world; instead of a theory and its extensions being based on facts, instead of a theory being a summary of known facts, the theory itself is used as a principle that determines what the "facts" are. This is an example of a myth that is not an hypothesis. And it is just like this older example of a myth that is not an hypothesis:
The Pythagorean counter-earth
[The Pythagoreans] became convinced that the elements of numbers are the elements of everything, and that the whole "Heaven" [i.e. "the whole collection of bodies comprised within the apparent vault of the sky" (Taylor)] is harmony and number. So, all the admitted analogies they could show between numbers and harmonies and the properties or parts of the "Heaven" and the whole order of the universe, they collected and accommodated to the facts ...
Up to this point, the Pythagoreans' thinking was scientific: they selected facts and arranged them, using the analogy they chose, into a system. But then:
... if any gaps were left in the analogy, they eagerly caught at some additional notion, so as to introduce connection into their system as a whole. I mean, e.g., that since the number ten is thought to be perfect, and to embrace the whole essential nature of the numerical system, they declare also that the number of revolving heavenly bodies is ten, and as there are only nine visible, they invent the Antichthon ["counter-earth"] as a tenth. (Aristotle, Metaph. 986a; tr. Taylor)
That "some additional notion" is what Isaac Newton called an 'hypothesis' in his General Scholium. It is an extension of the Pythagoreans' theory that is not justified by any known facts (or perhaps even knowable facts -- What is to limit the properties of "counter-earth" if theory-making is allowed to run wild, unrestrained by any evidence?); and so it is an example of a myth that is no longer a scientific theory. It was like the insistence that there "had to be" an arctic land mass to "balance" the antarctic land mass ("counter-arctic"), even though there was no evidence for that, and indeed arctic exploration was to show that a land mass did not exist, as the spaceships traveling behind the moon found no "counter-earth" hiding there, and as explorers found Claudius Ptolemy's land bridge between the east African coast and China not to exist; these were all pictures invented without reference to any actual evidence (The vague stories of mariners and travelers were not evidence; although these legends suggested things to investigate, a suggestion is not evidence).
[Myson (ca. 600 BC)] used to say we should not investigate facts by the light of arguments, but arguments by the light of facts; for the facts were not put together to fit the arguments, but the arguments to fit the facts. (Diog. L. i, 108; tr. Hicks; cf. Plato's axiomatic method in philosophy, which appears to be just the opposite of Myson's rule)
For 'arguments' we can, I believe, substitute the word 'theories'. The tendency to believe in our own myths is clearly as old as we are; so this tendency can be likened to an instinct -- and an instinct is something we have to fight constantly against if we are not to give in to it.
"But don't theories say what can and cannot happen? A theory is often valued precisely because it yields predictions." -- Precisely. That is what 'can' and 'cannot' mean in science: that a theory justifies the prediction that such-and-such will happen ... with some degree of likelihood, which depends on how well established by evidence the theory is. "But isn't a prediction an extension of a theory?" -- Precisely. That is what 'prediction' means -- i.e. that we are not talking about something that we know. If the prediction "comes true", then the theory is extended by one more fact; and that is what 'extension of a theory' means in science.
*
A Theory as a Point of View, and Darwin's Example of an Unjustified Extension of a Theory
There is no 'must' in natural philosophy. And yet we find Darwin writing:
Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this volume ... I by no means expect to convince experienced naturalists whose minds are stocked with a multitude of facts all viewed ... from a point of view directly opposite to mine [-- i.e. from the point of view that species were all independently created and are immutable]. Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain number of facts will certainly reject the theory. (The Origin of Species xv)
This has two parts. First, Darwin was acknowledging that he was looking at the "multitude of facts" in a different way (from a "different point of view") than other naturalists were.
And second: why did Darwin "expect" anyone to be "fully" convinced by his theory -- "unexplained difficulties" and all? Why didn't he stop at saying that his theory "explained a certain number of facts"; -- why did he claim extension for his theory beyond the facts that justified it? And, if they could have been persuaded to look at things Darwin's way, shouldn't naturalists have said: perhaps these facts may (for that was all Darwin's theory could claim) have originated this way? Why should anyone have been "expected" to believe that the theory would -- explain everything? (Why should anyone have joined a propaganda war -- and Darwin called for just that -- over different points of view?)
All these have never yet been seen --
But Scientists, who ought to know,
Assure us that they must be so ...
Oh! let us never, never doubt
What nobody is sure about! (Belloc, "The Microbe")
Wittgenstein, in students' notes of a lecture (notes he never saw to revise, had he thought that necessary), apropos of the "Darwinian Upheaval" remarked:
One circle of admirers who said: "Of course", and another circle who said: "Of course not". Why should a man say 'Of course'? The idea was that of monocellular organisms becoming more and more complicated until they became mammals, men, etc. Did anyone see this process happening? No. Has anyone seen it happening now? No.... But there were thousands of books in which this was said to be the obvious solution.... Couldn't there have been an attitude which said: "I don't know; it is an interesting hypothesis which may eventually be well confirmed"? But people were immensely attracted by the unity of the theory, by the single principle -- which was taken to be the obvious solution.
This shows how you can be persuaded of a certain thing. In the end you forget entirely every question of verification, you are just sure it must have been like that. (cf. LC p. 26-7)
Yet a hundred years later Drury found the same "of course" attitude. A theory about things which no one has at any time seen is still being propagandized not as a theory but as a fact -- even to the point that we "overlook the facts the won't fit into the picture" (DW p. 102).
*
Some Facts that Don't seem to Fit into the Picture
Some facts that won't fit into the picture of natural selection seem to me to be: most everything we know about the natural history of human beings. Are the per cent of people with poor eyesight and bad teeth e.g., decreasing with each generation? How much "so that over time" are we expected to wait? With respect to human intelligence, it does not seem to be the case that parents of high intelligence have children of equally high intelligence; indeed the opposite seems to be the case ... according to the way scientists measure "intelligence". And yet, if one characteristic of human beings can be said to be advantageous for their adaptation to their environment -- isn't it intelligence?
But isn't it absurd to require "better adaptation" from a species that so often chooses, rather than to adapt itself to its environment, to adapt its environment to itself? Human beings overcome environmental limits, e.g. they invent eyeglasses, irrigation, central heating, vaccinations ... or, anyway, some human beings do. (Isn't it absurd that what we say about a species is supposed to apply to all its members, but that scientists drop this requirement when it comes to human beings, saying e.g. that "Man has walked on the moon". And yet wouldn't it be a worthless "natural history of man" that left out space exploration?)
Throughout the antique world human beings practiced infanticide, e.g. deformed babies were exposed to the elements to die. But we don't do that. We have different moral values. Do those values make us "better adapted" to our environment than our ancestors were?
As to survival of the fittest, the influenza pandemic of 1918 took the strong and spared the weak.
So that, the theory of evolution is not a valid theory of the origin(s) of the human species -- if that theory is based on what we know. Because the differences between us and the other animals are so much more characteristic of us than the similarities. (And that, of course, is a statement of my point of view, and the examples above are the facts that I have selected.)
*
"One thinks that one is tracing the outline of the thing's nature over and over again, and one is merely tracing round the frame through which we look at it" (PI § 114). -- And that is what I think scientific theories such as evolution and quantum mechanics are: frames. And that those who claim that such theories are "true" or "facts" are merely tracing round a frame over and over again. And so a theory is for them like a pair of eyeglasses that they never think to remove, glasses that aid their vision (i.e. organize selected facts into a more or less coherent picture), but at the same time blind them to anything the glasses do not catch in their net (cf. ibid. § 103 and TLP 6.341 ff).
And so it is comparable to Wittgenstein's characterization of religion: "a passionate commitment to a frame of reference" -- i.e. a way of looking at things that is treated as if it were an actual fact rather than a theory. And indeed in the context of saying we should not mistake temporary constructs for eternal truths, Drury cites the biologist Julian Huxley's Introduction to De Chardin's book Phenomenon of Man as an example of those who make the "fact" of evolution (DW p. 102) the basis of their religion (or, view of mankind's life's meaning) (ibid. p. 107).
An example of the correct use of a scientific theory in my view based on Drury's writings, where I make a distinction between creatures of learning, as man primarily is, and creatures of instinct, as the goose primary is, and concept-blindness resulting in phenomenon-blindness, using the model of the theory of evolution.
*
A Scientific Theory is not "the Reality Behind" Observable Phenomena
... we proceed to overlook the facts that won't fit into the picture; and we extend the picture to cover aspects of experience to which it has no relevance. (DW p. 102)
Drury's objective was not to "reject the theory" of natural selection -- "fully". He wanted to determine the limits of its application, to remind us of the "unexplained difficulties" Darwin mentioned. (Examples of anomalies force-fitted into the theory of evolution.)
Drury alluded to "all this multiplicity of shape and pattern and habit" (ibid. p. 104). Do we really want to claim that the theory of natural selection "explains" the tendency of ravens to "steal" and hoard bright, shiny objects? And if male cardinals are "better adapted" to their environment for being a brilliant red, then why aren't blue jays and mockingbirds and sparrows not less well adapted to the same environment for not being red? Remember, the question is: what do we know and what don't we know? If e.g. we reply that if we only knew the whole of these birds' natural history, then we could explain their present state by means of the mutation-selection theory of evolution, then we have replaced the reality before our eyes with "an abstract picture which we have ourselves created". We have supposed the picture of natural selection to be the "reality behind the phenomena", rather than what it is: a theory, a supposed summary of actual facts. And our reply would be nothing more than a tautology. But tautologies tell us nothing about reality, only about the way we look at it. ('If we could' means that we do not know whether or not we could. And what we don't know, we don't know -- and we don't "sort of" know it either!)
I have always thought that Darwin was wrong: his theory doesn't account for all the variety of species. It hasn't the necessary multiplicity. (Recollections p. 160)
What did Wittgenstein mean here by 'multiplicity' -- that Darwin's theory offers too few possible explanations [types of causes] of phenomena, having only two: natural selection and mutation? I think that is what Wittgenstein meant by 'multiplicity' here: many ("multi") possible causes for lines of development. That is what I am asking about birds, because in our world there are many lines (varieties) of development -- and one cannot say that one type of bird is better adapted to its environment than another; e.g. mocking birds and ducks are both excellent survivors; both prosper in the same world.
*
Of course: I don't know. Perhaps I am only making childish propaganda in the manner of Voltaire. Wittgenstein spoke of "savages, primitive people, who hear the expressions of civilized men, put a false interpretation on them, and then draw the queerest conclusions from it" (PI § 194). But if my ideas about evolutionism are silly, I doubt that they are any sillier than the ideas most people carry away from school with their diplomas.
The danger of mistaking a theory for a fact is that we stop asking questions about the theory and about what it claims to explain. I think this is why Wittgenstein accused science of "putting people to sleep" (CV p. 5 [MS 109 200: 5.11.30 § 1c]): because we stop inquiring once the facts are known, the apparent mystery explained away (Socrates: no one seeks to know what he thinks he already knows), and scientific theories are presented to us in school as if they were facts.
*
Preface to my study of the Philosophy of Science
I always think: "Leave philosophy of science alone; you don't know enough about science to consider the philosophy of science." The thing is that -- I never asked to know anything about it. But, like anyone else, I was required at school to "know", that is, to pass exams.... And now I have many confused ideas, e.g. 'theory' and 'hypothesis' (not to mention 'force', 'energy', and 'matter') that I want to un-confuse. And that is one task of philosophy -- in this case the task of the Philosophy of Science. (This is an example of an answer to the question: "How does anyone get into confusion about a particular language?" -- "By being forced to pretend to know what he does not know.")
Wittgenstein's view of Darwin's theory
Wittgenstein is reported to have begun his 1939 lectures on the Philosophy of Mathematics with such remarks as:
How can I -- or anyone who is not a mathematician -- talk about this? ... I can as a philosopher talk about mathematics because I will only deal with puzzles which arise from the words of our ordinary everyday language, such as 'proof', 'number', 'series', 'order', etc.
Knowing our everyday language -- this is one reason I can talk about them. Another reason is that all the puzzles I will discuss can be exemplified by the most elementary mathematics -- in calculations which we learn from ages six to fifteen, or in what we easily might have learned ...
I am going to talk about the interpretation of mathematical symbols, but I will not give a new interpretation. [Note 9]
And I am only talking about puzzles that arise from the words of our ordinary everyday language and that can be exemplified by secondary school science; and while I am talking about scientific theories, I am not offering any theories.
We have always to remember the role of examples in our work. Since we base our remarks on specific examples, we cannot claim any generality beyond those examples. So that, it may only be an accident if our remarks also apply to examples we are either unaware of or that we do not consider. I am not here laying bare the essence of the Philosophy of Science, much less of science itself.
We could also say that I am not talking about science at all, but only about my school-gotten understanding of science. And this may be correct. But it is precisely my school-gotten understanding that perplexes me. [Back to the top]
*
[M. O'C. Drury's Philosophy of Science - Parts 5 and 6 | The philosophy of science of Arthur Eddington | The philosophy of science of James Jeans]
*
Note 1: M. O'C. Drury's "Hypotheses and Philosophy" in his The Danger of Words [DW], p. 102. There are many meanings of the word 'theory'. The type of theory is the type of language-game. (cf. Philosophical Investigations ii, xi, p. 224e) [BACK]
Note 2: By 'fact' I always mean 'statement of fact' and not as it were 'artifact', whether my form of expression makes this explicit or not. [BACK]
Note 3: Here we can easily confuse the question of whether a statement is certain with the question of whether we are certain about a statement. In other words, we can easily confuse a question of objective certainty with a question of subjective certainty. "Easily" -- because we often use the same form of expression in both cases. Sometimes 'I am certain' means: subjectively certain -- i.e. certain, though I have no grounds; and sometimes 'I am certain' means: objectively certain -- i.e. that I have compelling grounds. The sign glosses over the difference -- so we have to remember to look for the use. [BACK]
Note 4: Drury wrote this revision:
I regret now that I used the expression: 'There is nothing in science that was not first in the senses.' This was slovenly and vague. I would now say this. Every scientific hypothesis, if it is to be meaningful, must be begotten of observation and give birth to verifiable predictions. And these initial observations and subsequent verifications must be capable of being described in terms of immediate sensory perceptions. If this is not done the hypothesis is liable to float freely and to give rise to all manner of confusions. ("Fact and Hypothesis", Drury's reply to a review of his book The Danger of Words, in the journal The Human World, Volumes 15-16 (1974), p. 136)
The proposition "There is nothing in the mind that was not first in the senses" (Pierre Gassendi, 1592-1655) seems to have been invented by Empiricists opposed to Descartes' Rationalism (innate ideas). It is a thoroughly metaphysical doctrine, not itself empirically demonstrable.
If a scientific theory is allowed to "float freely", it may give birth to metaphysical theories ("dreams and vain fictions of our own devising" - Newton). Drury gave examples of this, among them "molecules and atoms" and "the unconscious mind". [BACK]
Note 5: This requirement is one which we may or may not choose to impose. cf. Zettel § 259: "For we ourselves made it unverifiable."
Drury was insisting on the requirement, the philosophical requirement, that we say no more than we know (Socrates, Wittgenstein). And, in the context of scientific theories, Drury was not willing to call what we cannot verify by observation 'knowledge'. Someone else may require a different type of verification for applying the word 'know' to whether the theoretical construct 'brontosaurus' ever breathed. "May" because our concept 'knowledge' is fluid. -- "But that will not make the case of the song sparrow and the case of brontosaurus any more alike." And that is an important philosophical point: adopting some forms of expression makes it harder for us to see the facts about what we are saying. So that, someone who wants to emphasize differences among cases will adopt Drury's grammar. [BACK]
Note 6: "You can fight, hope and even believe without believing scientifically." (CV, p. 60 [MS 134 141: 13.4.1947 § 1]) We easily forget that science is a philosophy (cf. ibid. p. 60-61 [§ 2]), although I believe that Newton regarded his work that way (He stated his own "rules for reasoning in natural philosophy", because he knew that others are possible). [BACK]
Note 7: Scientific theories are even uncritically taken into the most humble activities of our life, bread making, e.g. 'gluten'. What we know -- the facts of the case -- is that if we mix the finely ground endosperm of the berries of certain species of wheat (grown under certain conditions and handled properly) with water, we produce an elastic mass. But that elastic mass is not 'gluten'. No one anywhere or at any time has ever seen a gluten strand; gluten is an entirely theoretical construct. And yet countless cookbooks talk about gluten as if it were a matter of fact. [BACK]
Note 8: This is an important element of the concept 'scientific hypothesis': the active seeking through experimentation to find facts -- to "induce observations" -- to support or extend an hypothesis. All science is not based solely on passive observation, as perhaps are certain parts of astronomy. E.g. Gregor Mendel's "simple but painstaking experiments with his dwarfed, wrinkled, yellow, tall and short peas" (DW p. 101). [BACK]
Note 9: Wittgenstein's Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics, Cambridge, 1939, ed. Diamond, p. 13, 14, 13. These again are students' notes of lectures, notes that Wittgenstein never had the chance to revise, had he thought revision necessary. [BACK]
Site copyright © September 1998. Please send Internet mail to Robert Wesley Angelo. Corrections and criticism are always welcome. Last revised: 31 October 2012 : 2012-10-31
The URL of this Web page:
https://www.roangelo.net/logwitt/logwitt9.html
Wittgenstein's Logic of Language - Introduction and Table of Contents | Bibliography | Site Search | Site Map