Abstract
The relationship between knowledge and politics is one of the main questions of contemporary democracy. There are different ways to analyse this relation. A fundamental one is to use social epistemology to assess the ability of the system science-politics to improve or to weaken the rate of growth of knowledge in science and of utilization of the best knowledge in public policy decisions. The thesis of this chapter is that nowadays the system of science-politics, particularly in Europe, is generating a worsening of these two epistemological features. At numerous levels of government politics has, for many reasons, introduced into the processes of choice and decision-making in science, forms of rationality and values that are close to the bureaucratic and agency model and are far from the rationality and values that are implied in the growth of knowledge. Moreover, politics supported by the theses of contemporary sociology of science and the new philosophy of science has began to undermine the traditional image of science as a truth pursuing enterprise. The scientific community is represented as the reign of political bargaining and egotistic motivations. These two phenomena seem to have weakened on one hand the free production of original knowledge and on the other, the authority of science as the legitimate source of knowledge for public decision making. The perverse effects of these two phenomena is a reduction of the stock of knowledge useful for social and economic ends and a deterioration of the public policy decision making because of the present reduced possibility of relying on a, universally, recognised, uncontrovertible source of knowledge.
The present chapter is based on a modified version of the first half of Viale R. (2001) “Truth Science and politics: An Analysis of Social epistemology” in R. Viale (ed.). Knowledge and Politics. Heidelberg: Physica-Verlag.
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Notes
- 1.
In this chapter I will follow the definition of criteria of acceptance as rational rules of choice, and criteria of justification as epistemological principles justifying the rational rules of choice.
- 2.
Alvin Goldman presents a simpler account of the tasks of social epistemology (1992, p. 184). It considers only the beliefs, that is the object of evaluation, and the alternative bases or source of evaluation.
- 3.
The critique to the general claim of the empirical existence of a social and collective dimension should introduce the debate and the arguments for and against methodological holism and methodological individualism. In recent papers I introduced a variant of methodological individualism, called methodological cognitivism. Its program is the reduction of social phenomena to the causal mechanisms of individual reasoning and decision making (Viale 2000, pp. 3–24; Boudon and Viale 2000, pp. 41–56; Viale 2012).
- 4.
The rules constitute the ethos of scientific community. They are present in the presentation of the knowledge—communal vs proprietary—in the context of research—universal vs local—in the social role of researcher—disinterested vs authoritarian—in the problem formulation—original vs commissioned—in the methodology—skeptical vs expert. CUDOS rules represent the ethos of academic science. PLACE rules correspond to the behaviour of contemporary scientists.
- 5.
With the term inferential rules, I intend the pragmatic rules of reasoning and decision making. They can be based on pragmatic regularities (pragmatic scheme) on values (deontic rules) or on empirical generalisations about the world (empirical rules) (Cheng and Holyoak 1985). They can be informal or can derive from formal rules (for example the rules contained in laws or regulations).
- 6.
I would emphasize the opposition belief vs. acceptance. The first can be by degrees (for example of probability), is passive and involuntary, whereas the second is “yes or no”, is active and voluntary. One can accept a theory and work according to it even if he doesn’t believe in its truth (Cohen 1992; Viale 2001a). A different problem is if we can identify the accepted theory with justified knowledge. According to some authors (Goldman 1986) justified knowledge can be identified only with true beliefs generated by reliable processes. In this kind of naturalizing epistemology program the identification of justified knowledge with a mental representation—a concept or a set of concepts—generated by reliable processes and verified by reliable processes—excludes the acceptance of a theory as an example of justified knowledge. A subject can have a mental representation of a phenomenon corresponding to a belief or a mental representation of the same phenomenon corresponding to an acceptance. In the second case the subject puts the given mental representation as a premise for inference and action even if he does not believe it, and the mental representation is not justified (because it is not generated and verified according reliable processes). In scientific research the acceptance of an hypothesis can correspond to the initial phase of a research program. Later, after successful repetition of the processes of discovery and verification the acceptance of an hypothesis might turn in a belief in the hypothesis (according Cohen terminology) or in a justified knowledge (according our terminology).
- 7.
Richard Miller (1995) holds a version of social epistemology that deals with individual practices such as perceptual belief formation. The norms for evaluating these practices arise from co-operative activity. The social interaction amounts to relying on the assertions of others. Nothing else regarding social concepts is introduced. This approach seems not far from a cognitivist one and could be translated into the variables knowledge, inferential rules and decision makers.
- 8.
Bayes’s theorem in its typical formulation applied to scientific reasoning has the following formula:
$$ \mathrm{P}\left(\mathrm{T}/\mathrm{E}.\mathrm{B}\right)=\frac{\mathrm{P}\left(\mathrm{E}/\mathrm{T}.\mathrm{B}\right)\ \mathrm{P}\left(\mathrm{T}/\mathrm{B}\right)}{\mathrm{P}\left(\mathrm{E}/\mathrm{T}.\mathrm{B}\right)\ \mathrm{P}\left(\mathrm{T}/\mathrm{B}\right)+\mathrm{P}\left(\mathrm{E}/\mathrm{not}\ \mathrm{T}.\mathrm{B}\right)\ \mathrm{P}\left(\mathrm{not}\ \mathrm{T}/\mathrm{B}\right)} $$Where T is the theory, E is the empirical evidence, B is the background knowledge, non-T is the falsity of the theory, P(T/E.B) is the posterior probability, P(T/B) is the prior probability of the truth of the theory given the background knowledge, P(not-T/B) is the prior probability that the theory with background knowledge are false, P(E/T.B) is the likelihood that the evidence is true if the theory and the background knowledge are true, P(E/not-T.B) is the likelihood that the evidence is true if the theory and the background knowledge are false
According to the Bayes’s theorem the probability of a theory P(T/E.B) changes in relation with new evidence E. The positive evidence strengthens the probability and the negative evidence weakens it. In particular the empirical control of evidence that has strong likelihood P(E/T.B)—as in the case of the positive control of a prediction deduced from the theory—increases the probability of the theory. Therefore, the greater the number of positive controls made, the more probable it is that the theory will be evaluated positively by the scientists and consequently that it can be put by them in the unproblematic background knowledge. The same argument applies to the curriculum of the community. The more evidence we have on the quantity and quality—control of evidence with high likelihood—of the controls made in the past by a scientific community, the stronger the support we have for relying on the second premise of the argument from consensus.
- 9.
The methodological behaviour respect a negative evidence can be different according to different theories of science. For example according to the Bayesian theory of science the negative evidence can decrease the subjective probability of scientists on the truth of the hypothesis. Nevertheless it does not become zero. That is the case, instead, of the falsificationist approach of Popper (in his dogmatic version) according to whom every negative empirical evidence corresponds to a falsification.
- 10.
A social utilitarianism that interpreted the production of knowledge as a means to achieve given social and collective goals would have been different. In this case social epistemology would analyse the best way to formulate the priority of social goals; who is delegated to legitimate the knowledge in relation with the social goals; what kind of methodological rules for the production of knowledge are preferable to improve the adequacy of our solution to social problems; and so on.
- 11.
A prototype can be thought as a list of selected properties, accompanied by a mental image, and a metric for determining the distance of a candidate from that list.
- 12.
This account is not inconsistent with some claims of the atomistic account of concepts (Fodor and Lepore 1992; Fodor 1998). It allows the view that concepts are, simply, ways in which people are directly related to individual properties in the world and the view that a great part of concepts are innate. But it claims also that some concepts are acquired complex sets of other concepts and that not all concepts are innate.
- 13.
I would prefer to avoid the traditional equation of knowledge with true beliefs. I’m following the position of Stich (1983), Patricia S. Churchland (1986) and Paul M. Churchland (1981) arguing that the concept of belief belongs to an out of fashion ‘folk psychology’. This theory is being eclipsed by better theories in psychology and neuroscience and, in consequence, it is reasonable to deny the existence of beliefs. Therefore knowledge is better equated to sets of concepts, or mental representations, whose theory is in the mainstream of cognitive science. In this paper the use of belief will be justified by its common use in the epistemological discussion.
- 14.
As examples of inferential structure of concepts we can think of complex concepts like a social organisation or a human organ or a machine whose individual parts are connected through rules. The inferential structure of concepts can be thought similar to a “list structure” (Langley et al. 1987) or to a “default hierarchy” (Holland et al. 1986).
- 15.
A critical discussion of the “little scientist” hypothesis is contained in Viale and Osherson (2000).
- 16.
- 17.
In a publication (Viale 1999a, p. 163) I argued for a “default realism” that rejects any universal and objective class of objects and proposes a world made of singular different objects—e. g. every dog or iron isotope is a different thing from the others. Moreover, even our concepts are variable at intrapersonal and interpersonal levels because time changes us and every mind/brain is different from the others. If this is the case, we might suppose that, in principle, every representation at a certain time is unique among the many moments of an individual life and among the same individuals. Therefore, how can we have roughly common concepts that allow us to communicate and co-ordinate with each other? Because our default concepts stem from similar Causal relations of the mind-world. Some of these concepts are innate and are the result of a common evolutionary process. The others come from common inputs from the physical and cultural environment around us. Obviously common concepts means similar, but not identical concepts. The similarity allows us to make similar inferences that are the base of interpersonal and intrapersonal communication and co-ordination.
- 18.
To cope with this difficulty, Putnam (1981, p. 55) proposed a change to the traditional verificationist formula. According to the new proposal ‘P is true if and only if P would be justified under ideal epistemic circumstances’.
- 19.
The metaphor of the technology of truth seeking is analogous to the cognitive theory of scientific discovery as problem solving of Simon and colleagues (e.g. Langley et al. 1987).
- 20.
Base rate fallacy is present when the subject overestimates the prior probability of a hypothesis and underestimates the new evidence related to the hypothesis.
- 21.
“Modus tollens” is a rule of material implication, p → q. When there are the following premises:
-
p → q
-
non q
-
the subject can, correctly, infer:
-
non p.
-
- 22.
The fallacy of the negation of the antecedent is present when the two premises are:
-
p → q
-
non p
and the subject, erroneously, infers:
-
non q.
-
- 23.
The fallacy of the affirmation of the consequent is present when the two premises are:
-
p → q
-
q
and the subject, erroneously, infers:
-
p.
-
- 24.
This justification is one of the central chapters of epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind. For the purposes of this paper it is sufficient to say that we can consider two main options of justification: one is the a priori solution, according to which only a priori epistemic canons can justify our epistemic abilities; the other is the descriptive solution, according to which the source of justification comes from the description of the cognizer himself. How do we generate this source of justification and avoid the circularity (i.e. the normative rules stem from the best “technology” to generate knowledge and the knowledge is justified by the reliability of the psychological processes evaluated according the normative rules to generate knowledge)? One way is the reflective equilibrium between intuition of normativity and rules (Goodman 1965); the second is the scientific generalisation of the ideal type of cognizer (Quine 1969); the third is the “feasibility criterion” according to which the cognitive features of the human mind help philosophy to constrain and to limit its enterprise to generate the normative rules (Goldman 1993; Viale 1999a).
- 25.
As for the case of the justification of the rules of reasoning and perception is not the aim of this chapter to deepen the justificatory claims for methodological rationality in science. My position is that the normative claims of scientific rationality can be generated in an a posteriori way. The main options can be the expert reflective equilibrium (Goodman 1965), the cognitive modelling (Langley et al. 1987) or the hypothetical deductive historical approach (Laudan et al. 1986).
- 26.
The passage from a solipsistic system of knowledge production to a co-ordinated social system, can be seen as a hypothesis of cultural evolution. The reason, in the primitive world, to share and to co-ordinate the pursuit of knowledge, i.e. the representation of the regularities of the surrounding environment, might have been utility and not truth, i.e. mainly increasing the collective ability to hunt and to defend themselves from enemies and wild animals by sharing and exchanging crucial knowledge. Nevertheless the primitive man, wanting to achieve his pragmatic goals, was pushed to establish social interactions and co-ordination to establish shared true representations of his surrounding world.
- 27.
In this abstract reconstruction—from the point of view of an individual truth seeker—of his convergence—because of his epistemological interests—towards the co-ordination and interaction with other truth seekers, I avoid referring to the pragmatic and sociological factors that have played and are playing the causal role in developing science as a collective enterprise. My aim is to show the possibility of an epistemological foundation of the social dimension of science based on the cognitive model of the scientist as a truth seeker, and not to give a historical account of the social development of science.
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Viale, R. (2013). Social Epistemology and Cognition . In: Methodological Cognitivism. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40216-6_9
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