Abstract
As the debate between realists and empiricists in the philosophy of science drags on, one point of consensus has emerged: no one wants to be a manifestationalist. The manifestationalist is a kind of radical empiricist who argues that science provides theories that aim neither at a true picture of the entire world, nor even an empirically adequate picture that captures the world in all its observable respects. For manifestationalists, science aims only at providing theories that are true to the observed aspects of reality. If the guiding idea of empiricism is that experience, and experience alone, provides us with knowledge about the world, then manifestationalism is an exceptionally strict empiricist perspective on science. Manifestationalism has primarily served within a reductio: certain empiricist views and arguments, when taken to their logical conclusion, lead to manifestationalism and so cannot be correct. The reductio works only because manifestationalism is widely agreed to be a non-starter. However, this consensus against manifestationalism is based on a single argument. We contest this assessment of manifestationalism and show that the primary argument against manifestationalism fails to hit its target. We do not intend to offer a manifesto for manifestationalism. Rather, we aim to vindicate it from a false accusation. Manifestationalism may not be the correct view of science, but the objections levied against it so far can be met.
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Notes
Note, as will be important later, that observed phenomena are not limited solely to those observations that scientists make when they are intentionally pursuing their scientific aims. All observed phenomena—regardless of whether or not they are observed “on the clock”—are relevant to science, as realists, constructive empiricists, and manifestationalists can all agree.
It may seem that the difference between M and CE boils down to a disagreement about what things count as observable. But this is not right; rather, the difference concerns the scientific-epistemic relevance of the (shared) conception of the observable. On CE, observability is epistemically important because it corresponds to (some of) the limits of human experience. Since (so far) only humans engage in scientific inquiry, what is observable to them is relevant to science, and what is not, is not (even if much of what there is is unobservable). For M, the concept of observability is no less intelligible, it is simply less epistemically salient for the purposes of science. One way to put it is to say that (for M) since scientific inquiry only directly discloses information about the observed, what is observed is relevant to science, and what is not, is not (even if much of what is not observed is still, in some sense, observable). A second, deeper concern might be that M threatens to collapse into a phenomenalism or even solipsism of the present moment: if only what is observed is relevant to scientific inquiry, then perhaps only what is observed-immediately-here-and-now-by-me will escape certain skeptical worries. This is a concern, but not one unique to M. The slide to solipsism is, of course, a familiar thought of where empiricism ends up in the limit. And so we are cautious not to claim, as does van Fraassen on behalf of CE, that M is somehow the principled stopping point between full-blown realism and extreme skepticism. Whether M is ultimately stable in the face of extreme skeptical challenges goes beyond the scope of this paper. After all, ours is a modest defense of M against the only outstanding challenge raised against it, a challenge that has been convincing enough to preempt further discussion of the view until now. So, if we are right that the extant objection to M fails, we have no reason (so far) to think that M is any less principled or stable a view than CE or any other empiricist view, which are each fundamentally non-skeptical about the external world. No doubt, M by itself does not address extreme external world skepticism, but then neither does CE by itself. M, like CE, is a view about the aim of science that brackets deeper skeptical concerns out of dialectical necessity.
It is worth noting that Railton’s initial formulation is importantly different than ours. Railton defines manifestationalism by first describing a manifest theory, “which says all that the observational theory says about observed observables—past, present, or future—but which is altogether silent about unobserved observables” (1989, p. 235). Presumably, a manifestationalist for Railton is one who accepts only the manifest theory. On Railton’s definition, the manifestationalist accepts a different theory than does the constructive empiricist and the realist. But this is not how we understand manifestationalism. Manifestationalism, like CE and SR, is a view about what science aims to do and what one’s epistemic obligations are in order to do science. Manifestationalists may accept the very same theories as scientific realists, though accepting a theory, for a manifestationalist, means something different than for a realist.
Note that the argument, given the focus of our paper, assumes that constructive empiricism and manifestationalism are the only empiricist contenders.
Cf. (Railton (1989), pp. 240–245). Monton and van Fraassen concur with Rosen’s analysis (2003, p. 407). Alspector-Kelly grants that while the example makes trouble for M, it still pushes empiricists away from CE and closer to M (2001, pp. 416–417, note 3 and 2006, pp. 372–374). Ladyman attempts to turn Rosen’s style of argument against CE, providing a case where it is the constructive empiricists supposedly sticking their heads in the sand (2000, pp. 852–853; see also Rosen 1994, pp. 177–178, endnote 13 and Ladyman and Ross 2007, pp. 109–110). We believe that this anti-CE argument fails for precisely the same reasons as Rosen’s, as we explore below.
Van Fraassen (1980, p. 18): “[T]he anti-realist would, on my proposal, have to accept conditions of the form: If the epistemic community changes in fashion \(Y\), then my beliefs about the world will change in manner \(Z\).”
Here and elsewhere, we have employed apparently modal terminology about what is possible or impossible to observe. Van Fraassen and others have similarly described CE in early formulations, but the propriety of levying such modal assertions on behalf of CE has been challenged, most notably by Ladyman (2000, 2004). Ladyman’s view is that in espousing a philosophy of science that places considerable weight on the ostensibly modal ‘observable,’ the constructive empiricist is committed to modal realism. In response, Monton and van Fraassen (2003) have argued that, understood strictly, CE is neutral on the issue of modal realism since, surprisingly, ‘observable’ is not a modal term (Ibid., p. 411). Rather, claims about observability are facts disclosed by our best theories about the objects and the community of observers. Ultimately, the defender of manifestationalism is much less pressed to explain away modal claims since manifestationalism requires only that we can make sense of the concept of the observed. To the extent that what is observable goes beyond what is observed, manifestationalism is under no pressure to articulate the concept.
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Acknowledgments
Earlier versions of this paper and related material were presented at the North Carolina Philosophical Society meeting and the Midsouth Philosophy Conference in 2011, and more recently to the Department of Philosophy at the University of Alabama. We’d like to thank the audiences at all of the above for helpful feedback. In addition, we owe special thanks to Marc Lange, Alan Nelson, John T. Roberts, Chase Wrenn, and two anonymous referees for the journal for reading and commenting on earlier drafts.
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Asay, J., Bordner, S.S. A modest defense of manifestationalism. Synthese 192, 147–161 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-014-0556-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-014-0556-5