Abstract
Systematicity theory—developed and articulated by Paul Hoyningen-Huene—and scientific realism constitute separate encompassing and empirical accounts of the nature of science. Standard scientific realism asserts the axiological thesis that science seeks truth and the epistemological thesis that we can justifiably believe our successful theories at least approximate that aim. By contrast, questions pertaining to truth are left “outside” systematicity theory’s “intended scope” (21); the scientific realism debate is “simply not” its “focus” (173). However, given the continued centrality of that debate in the general philosophy of science literature, and given that scientific realists also endeavor to provide an encompassing empirical account of science, I suggest that these two contemporary accounts have much to offer one another. Overlap for launching a discussion of their relations can be found in Nicholas Rescher’s work. Following through on a hint from Rescher, I embrace a non-epistemic, purely axiological scientific realism—what I have called, Socratic scientific realism. And, bracketing the realist’s epistemological thesis, I put forward the axiological tenet of scientific realism as a needed supplement to systematicity theory. There are two broad components to doing this. First, I seek to make clear that axiological realism and systematicity theory accord with one another. Toward that end, after addressing Hoyningen-Huene’s concerns about axiological analysis, I articulate a refined axiological realist meta-hypothesis: it is, in short, that the end toward which scientific inquiry is directed is an increase in a specific subclass of true claims. I then identify a key feature of scientific inquiry, not generally flagged explicitly, that I take to stand as shared terrain for the two empirical meta-hypotheses. And I argue that this feature can be informatively accounted for by my axiological meta-hypothesis. The second broad component goes beyond mere compatibility between the two positions: I argue that, in want of a systematic account of science, we are prompted to find an end toward which scientific inquiry is directed that is deeper than what systematicity theory offers. Specifically, I argue that my refined axiological realist meta-hypothesis is required to both explain and justify key dimensions of systematicity in science. To the quick question, what is it that the scientific enterprise is systematically doing? My quick answer is that it is systematically seeking to increase a particular subclass of true claims.
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Notes
Take even the practices categorized as “representation.” Beyond constituting a kind of inquiry themselves, I suggest that they are wholly central to systematic inquiry in general. The development of nomenclature and taxonomy, for instance, are informative with respect to, and help scientists track, interrelations that obtain between parts of our theoretical corpus. And it’s not merely that representations afford a better understanding of, and lead to new discoveries regarding, that corpus; they often direct us toward new information about the world. Hoyningen-Huene explicitly includes the periodic table in this context (see 143–144 and footnotes on 248), and one need only consider the successful predictions derived even from Mendeleev’s version (see my 2002).
Also, Hoyningen-Huene discusses “everyday knowledge” and “commonsense knowledge” without hesitation (for instance, ix, 8, 14, 37, 40, 102, 113, 124, 133, 141, 158, 164, 180, 209). And because “everyday knowledge” is the central contrast in his thesis statement, along with his assertions to the effect that science “directly contradicts common sense [i.e. everyday] knowledge” (191), he is clearly not employing the traditional definition of “knowledge.”
He similarly avoids any temptation “to assume or imply” the “definitive absence of truth” (21), which, rather than suggesting he is a realist, accords unproblematically with anti-realisms of the kind offered by van Fraassen and Laudan.
At the end of Sect. 4, I will collect my own reasons for setting aside worries about a demarcation criterion.
By the end of Sect. 5, I will hope to have made clear why I take my own meta-hypothesis to live up to this desideratum.
For instance, he references “certain cognitive goals” (29), discusses “the quest for higher generality of theories” (127), and how the sciences “go about realizing their goal of science completion” (133). He notes that “certain norms can be identified that are relevant in scientific communities” (110).
“The social norms and ...institutions” of scientific communities “must be conducive to the exertion of the cognitive norms that must be operative for the enterprise to reach its institutional goal. In the present perspective, this goal comprises the maintenance and even increase of the systematicity of scientific knowledge in various dimensions” (109). An example of that: “It is obvious that sciences that seek empirical generalizations, possibly of quantitative form, thereby increase the degree of systematicity in comparison to other kinds of knowledge” (49). More on connecting goals to one another in Sect. 5 below.
Here, in accord with Hoyningen-Huene’s own points that we need not equate talk of values with talk of “intentions” (quoted next), I have deliberately left out the clause “Scientists want to explore ...”
In light of these phrases (see also his comment in my footnote 7 above), one may be surprised to see that, even on his own view, it “does not work” (243) to say science seeks “the systematic generation of knowledge that makes a difference” (Börner 2010, p. 53). However, Hoyningen-Huene’s concerns are quite different from those I’m expressing. They pertain, not to “knowledge,” but to axiology as a demarcation criterion: “it is not good enough to distinguish science from other knowledge-seeking enterprises ....” (242).
This postulate is articulated in more detail in my (2005) and (2011). Since it is meant to be an articulation of the end toward which scientific inquiry is directed, its content is not meant to be surprising. Rather, its novelty lies in the fact that achieving that goal requires and promotes certain theoretical virtues whose relation to one another and especially to truth are otherwise unclear.
As I argue in my (2016a) some of the auxiliaries introduced by Schwarzschild were blatantly false and not accepted into the system; on the axiological realist view, these were used as tools for the experiential concretization of the field equation’s (presumed) truth, along with that of other auxiliaries in the background of Schwarzschild’s solution.
Their data rather seemed to serve the experiential concretization of (what the Newtonians treated as) the truth of Newton’s posit conjoined to the posit that light corpuscles have mass.
In another context, namely, discussing the relation between descriptive and normative claims, Hoyningen-Huene hints at a kind of “implication” that falls short of entailment (33).
With explicit reference to Empedocles, Aristotle entertains the possibility that useful features arising in nature—“the front teeth sharp, fitted for tearing, the molars broad and useful for grinding down the food”—were “merely a coincidental result”; “and so with all other parts” in nature, “such things survived, being organized spontaneously in a fitting way; whereas those which grew otherwise perished and continue to perish” (198b25-32, 1984, p. 339). Later Lucretius wrote, “there perished many a stock, unable by propagation to forge a progeny” (1916, p. 222).
Below I will consider this second possibility, that what my meta-hypothesis makes explicit may be implicit in systematicity theory.
Although error may seem to be a broader concept than falsity, one that includes for instance fallacious reasoning (that might nonetheless employ and even arrive at true claims), I posit here that falsity still lies at bottom of such errors; for instance, it is false that such reasoning is valid or, less formally, legitimate.
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Acknowledgements
Research for this paper was supported by the AHRC (Grant No. AH/L011646/1), UK, Grant: Contemporary Scientific Realism and the History of Science. I thank three anonymous referees along with Hasok Chang, Bschir Karim, and Simon Lohse for their very helpful feedback. Thanks also to Joe Breidenstein. This paper is dedicated to my friend and former graduate student Adam Hayden, his wife, Whitney, and their children.
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Lyons, T.D. Systematicity theory meets Socratic scientific realism: the systematic quest for truth. Synthese 196, 833–861 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-017-1561-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-017-1561-2