Abstract
In his latest book, Hoyningen-Huene develops a theory of the ‘nature of science’ which distinguishes science from ‘other forms of knowledge’ on the basis that science has a higher degree of systematicity than them. He analyses systematicity along nine dimensions. I argue that Hoyningen-Huene fails to offer a cogent account of the nature of science and that the chief weakness of his view is that he leaves out of the picture the whole issue of the epistemic warrant for scientific theories and their claim to a better understanding of the nature of reality.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Notes
The note is critical, but criticism is an essential function of philosophy. Paul Hoyningen-Huene has produced an important book, worthy of serious philosophical engagement.
I have argued in my (Psillos 2012) that although historical and genealogical lineages are important in understanding what makes science special, the narrative should be supplemented with an account of the relation of what we call science with method, justification and reality. The point of a knowledge-based account of science is pressed by Darrell Rowbottom in his review of Hoyningen-Huene’s book (cf. 2013).
For some objections to Wittgenstein’s account of family resemblance account of games, see David Oderberg (2007, 3940).
In her review of Hoyningen-Huene’s book, Mariam Thalos (2015) raises a somewhat similar concern, but with a different focus: some practices (e.g., philately or bureaucracy) are highly systematic without being scientific.
It could be argued that for a discipline to be scientific it should have systematicity to a degree larger than a given threshold. Then, it could be added, a body of everyday knowledge might have some systematicity but not enough of it to count as science. However, I doubt that this is a good move. Not because there cannot be a threshold; but because any kind of threshold will be stipulative. And if it is stipulative, the theory is no longer descriptive, as Hoyningen-Huene intends it; someone should set the threshold(s) of systematicity above which science begins.
In his (2017) Bird takes issue with Hoyningen-Huene’s account of knowledge and argues that the “‘philosophical’ concept of knowledge has an explanatory role in linking science and systematicity” (2017, 3). He also argues that systematicity “is important for the reliability of the conclusions of scientific reasoning”.
It has been put to me that Feyerabend, social constructivists and some writers in continental tradition deny that science is a cognitive enterprise. But I doubt that even these philosophers take science not to reveal to us some truths about the world. The substantive philosophical disagreement concerns the extent of these truths and, more importantly, the nature of these truths.
To avoid a possible misunderstanding: I am not claiming that Hoyningen-Huene adopts the view that the sole aim of science is ‘error avoidance’. In fact, it should be clear that for him there is no ‘sole’ or otherwise aim of science. But I am saying that the closest he gets to saying something about the justification of scientific claims is when he talks about error-avoidance.
A natural way forward here would be to address the realism/anti-realism debate and to argue that it’s hard to have a conception of science as a cognitive enterprise without taking sides in this debate. Hoyningen-Huene all too quickly dismisses the relevance of the realism-antirealism debate to the issue of what makes science what it is. He simply asserts that this debate (and the concomitant “question about truth” is “simply not the focus of systematicity theory” (2013, 173).
References
Bird, A. (2017). Systematicity, knowledge, and bias. How systematicity made clinical medicine a science. Synthese. doi:10.1007/s11229-017-1342-y.
Hoyningen-Huene, P. (2013). Systematicity: The nature of science. New York: Oxford University Press.
Oderberg, D. (2007). Real essentialism. London: Routledge.
Psillos, S. (2012). What is general philosophy of science? Journal for General Philosophy of Science, 43, 93–103.
Psillos, S. (2016). Having science in view: General philosophy of science and its significance. In P. Humphreys (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Science (pp. 137–160). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rowbottom, D. (2013). Review of Paul’s Hoyningen-Huene’s systematicity: The nature of science. Notre Dame Reviews of Books. http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/systematicity-the-nature-of-science/. Accessed 21 October 2013.
Thalos, M. (2015). Review of Paul’s Hoyningen-Huene’s systematicity: The nature of science. Mind, 124, 351–357.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Karim Bschir, Stavros Ioannidis a reviewer and the Editors of this journal for useful comments. The present note was meant to go into a special volume discussing Paul’s book, but for various reasons it did not.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Psillos, S. Systematicity Without Epistemic Warrant?. J Gen Philos Sci 49, 127–135 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10838-017-9384-x
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10838-017-9384-x