[analytic] Gricean Implicature and the Turing Test
J L Speranza
In my previous post in reply to D Language, "Re: [analytic] Language as a
function of knowledge...and consequences that follow.", I elaborate on the
so-called Turing Test, which I attempted to apply, not so much to an
analysis of "thinking that...", as Turing proposes, but rather to "knowing
that..." (as per our discussion of Chomsky's use of _cognition_). My appeal
to Turing involved the idea that it's the "believing that..."-component
presupposed in an ascription of "knowing that..." which gets a
clarification via the Turing Test. However, in that post, I showed a
certain unfounded scepticism about the proposal and suggested that we ten
assume a specific kind of "physical material realisation" for the
ascription of "believing that p" (which may become an instance of "knowing
that p"). While functionalism does assume "multiple physical realisations",
the controversial issue seems to be whether a physical realisation which is
not _neuro-physiological_ would fit the bill (leading to questions of
semantic paronymy, etc). That may look as an arbitrary definitional
decision about one's use of one's words. In this post, I rather provide
some material suggesting that the Turing test runs into difficulties of a
methodological kind vis a vis the standard method in analytic philosophy,
as suggested by the host of the Turing paper mentioned in my previous post,
and found as per below and where some arguments suggesting a certain
circularity (or "sloppiness" as the author puts it) concerning of the
Turing Test are analysed.
Best,
JL
============================================================
Notes on "The Turing Test, or how we use the verb "to think"" -- from link
quoted above. Slightly edited by JLS. (c) Abelard.
http://www.abelard.org/turing/tur-hi.htm
"K. Lashley, after studying the "memory unit" for 30 years, supposedly
stated that he was not even sure if the his "engram" (unit of memory) even
_existed_. Some still imagine that it is as yet not possible to define
"thinking that p". After much study, I do have some idea of the nature of
what does "thinking that p"/"believing that p" while being aware what a
most complex issue it still is. And then Turing suggested this Test, since
widely known as "the Turing Test" as a yardstick -- no less -- for
determining whether a "digial computer" could be regarded as "thinking that
p". Simply put, what Turing proposes is..."
a machine automaton A may be deemed to think that
p if and only if A can act in such a manner that a
human being cannot distinguish the agent A from human
merely by asking questions via a mechanical link.
"We are then, testing the A's "intelligence" (or A's ability to think that
p) via the A's ability to _fool_ our own "intelligence" within a particular
context. Put yet another way, if we are not intelligent enough to solve the
riddle, we will call the A _intelligent_ (like us?)."
"As a negative exposition, this could be thought as rather a _ropey_
definition, or it might be seen as mighty similar to
defining a mouse as _intelligent_
(or able to think that p) if and only if
the mouse fails to distinguish an elephant from
another mouse without having sight or
sound or smell of the pair.
"On the other hand, if we can _not_ tell the difference, we could consider
that it's _our own_ intelligence that is limited or lacking. What we are
ultimately testing, then, is the ability of A to _fool_ an individual
humans, and, perhaps, labelling that ability to deceive us as "thinking
that p"."
"Yet another possibility is that the human being, used as the comparison
standard in the test, could perhaps persuade the tester that they were a
machine. It's interesting that Turing uses chess as a test-bed for working
out early ideas on computers. He also works with many of the leading chess
players when developing the code-breaking method during the Second World
War. Despite his considerably great mathematical insight and creativity, he
was by comparison an amateur at chess. It is probable that chess players
need different
qualities, including a dash of deviousness (The strongest chess machine so
far developed is now able to push, and often defeat, even the greatest
practising modern players)".
"A frog can distinguish "near" from "far": An object that is "near" and
flying around is conceptualised as "food", so the frog sticks out tongue &
eats it. An object flying at a distance is a likely nuisance, who may in
its turn imagine _you_ as lunch, so dive for cover." Does this mean that
the frog "thinks" that object x is near while object y is far?
"You can distinguish between many individuals on the basis of looks, but
also often intelligence. There is a clear theoretical intellectual
difference between Einstein and Darwin, on the one hand, and a Down's
syndrome individual, a child, or a duck on the other. Intelligence is not
merely "there" or "not there" but presents on a continuum where we are
potentially able to make some distinctions."
"I have noted that when most people use the term "is intelligent" (can
"think", etc), they are inclined to mean something like "That's a fine
fellow. He agrees with me". Or, rather, though less often, "My, he _is_
impressive’ (Most tend to emphasise the first, for admitting the
impressiveness of others is not widespread in
human society apart from where people's own offspring are concerned).
"Psychologists say that intelligence may be defined as "the ability to
solve new problems": problem-solving heuristic abductive reasoning. Thus,
if one has experience of IQ tests, those tests become less valid."
"Further, if you come across a person who has gained some skill in a
field of which you know little, that person may be thought impressive or
_intelligent_ -- a good thinker. Alternatively, it may merely be that the
person has received effective education in that skill. It is often
difficult in this complex society to distinguish intelligence (actual
thinking) from learning."
"Bernard of Chartres used to say, "We are like dwarfs on the shoulders
of giants -- so that we can see more than they, and things at a greater
distance, not by virtue of any sharpness of sight on our part, or any
physical distinction, but because we are carried high and raised up by
their giant's size". Thus also do we build our skills brick by brick.
Whether we build a large, complex, and impressive structure can depend much
upon persistence. As E A Poe used to say, genius is 1% inspiration -- 99%
perspiration."
"Thus, also our computers exert much high-speed perspiration, while we
are much _less organised_, but rather better at forming associations.
However, this skill of organisation we are also slowly learning to teach to
our inorganic friends. Currently, we have advantage in that our peripherals
for gaining input from
the outside world are comparatively more efficient. As Thomas Aquinas said,
"All knowledge is first in the senses" ("Nihil est in intellectu quod
fuerit primum in sensu")."
"Intelligence" -- "thinking that p", like "being hot" or "being heavy",
is a property of an agent. It is
not an _object_ of itself. It is something an object/agent does. As such,
intelligence may be regarded as inherent in every object down to the level
of stimulus-response (or even the "equal"/opposite reaction of
Newton’s descriptions)."
"So to the first result of this analysis of the Turing test, is "yes,
computers are "intelligent" -- we can say that an mechanical agent "thinks
that p"."
"The problem then becomes "_how_ intelligent?" -- which expands outward
into "how does this relate to _human_ intelligence?’ How, then, does this
_distinguishing apart_ advance our understanding, assuming that it does?"
"It is clear that the test suggested by Turing has generated much
thought. As may be seen, what is regarded as "being intelliget" is much
bound up with the various levels of "knowledge" of various subjects,
ourselves and of computers. As we provide our computers with ever better
sensory peripherals and increasing databases, it is likely that
increasingly we will think of them as "being intelligent"."
"But let us return to the possibility of distinguishing human vs
computer intelligence, while remembering that computers *solve* problems
generally by different methods than humans: we humans most often perceive
intelligence in the sense of stimulus and response from the outside, where
we say, "Hey! That person is real clever". We are not always distinguishing
between sheer creativity and mere learning."
"It is fairly clear that Turing did not make such fine distinctions in
his test and Turing’s Test. It does seem strange that humans should so
often concern themselves with _the manner_ in which computers produce their
impressive results, rather than the striking fact that _they do_.
"Turing, being a rather superior sort of fellow, one assumes that he
was rather more confident and objective than average Jo and, therefore,
that he meant "being intelligent" in the "my, that is impressive" mood,
rather than the previously noted more common form, "they must be bright
because they agree with me". Turing also chose the human as his yardstick
for intelligence, despite the considerable intelligence often shown by
other animals. He is clearly assuming a human intelligent enough to make
the necessary distinctions."
"Now, humans vary in their capacity and ability and knowledge. As a
considerable sophisticate on these matters, I would expect it to be far
harder to fool me in such a test than the average Jo, although there is
that rather arbitrary 5-minute rule proposed by Turing in the original
test. I do rather like to take my time to consider problems, which could
put me at some disadvantage as humanity's representative. I am also rather
prejudiced in that I rather like the idea of some intelligent computers as
company. After all, they may well be rather more rational and friendly than
most humans I meet."
"Thus we gradually refine Turing's meaning to that of whether a
reasonably bright human can tell the human apart from the computer."
"Off now on another side track. Could I distinguish a computer from a
particularly _dull_ human that communicated in grunts, especially if the
computer were primed to respond with similar crudity. In such
circumstances, I might doubt my own ability to discriminate."
"Which human, then, is to carry out the test? Which is to be the human
to represent humanity in this rather strange task of _proving_ that
computers are or are not intelligent, or at least not able to fool us into
thinking that they are human?"
"Chess computers have some interesting personality traits, they do not
go round bleating "Did you win - Did you win - Did you win", an incantation
widely heard at chess congresses. Pointless to explain that one learns much
more from a loss than a win. Chess is a good way to learn, to keep the
brain fit and the ego in check, a mental form of your local gymnasium.
Those who see chess merely as a means of self-proof make the game
experience uncomfortable and drive many of the better, more sensitive
brains to analysis, correspondence, problems, studies and the like. But a
computer is another matter: it is a a friendly, tireless, patient
and is steadily becoming able to produce more interesting games than the
games provided by weak, fallible and emotional humans. With a computer, you
may repeatedly try different approaches in interesting positions or access
data-bases of hundreds of thousands of games by able players. Further,
computers can _learn_ by various means to improve their game. I watch with
mischievous joy as the computers steadily overhaul human arrogance and ego.
Time perhaps we leave winning to our new friends, the machines, and
remember that we are merely human."
"What if the human comparator in the test were to deliberately simulate
a computer-like response? Well again, some may get very good at such a
task. Again, this may make errors quite likely. Humans are indeed very able
dissemblers. In the test, then, we have yet _another_ hidden assumption: an
honest test subject and an honest tester."
=============================
"Whe then see that the Turing test provides a rather sloppy definition
of "thinking that p" as opposed to an analysis via truth-conditional
necessary/sufficient conditionas a la classical analytical philosophy. And
it is certainly not to be taken as a very _clear_ definition of "being
intelligence" or "thinking that p"".
==============================
"It's better to regard the Turing test as a particular benchmark for
growing intelligence (or the ability to think that p) in a mechanical
agent. That is, it is just one particular stage in the process of defining
the nature of "being intelligent" or "thinking that p"".
"The test may have the potential for contamination by elements of
duplicity. Perhaps we should also consider whether the human is really
trying (though unfortunately there is no clear or fool-proof manner in
which we could test for veracity). This consideration would rather seem to
undermine the usefulness of the Turing test."
"If our computers become sufficiently fluent, perhaps they may learn
also to dissemble in order to claim the great prize of our approval of
"being intelligent"."
"I will, however, try to further confine the test to rather less
obscure considerations. One may refine the Turing Test still further: can a
reasonably intelligent human discern another reasonably honest and
intelligent human from a similar culture apart from a computer? Maybe the
ability to fool is a more interesting question than the original, rather
sloppy, attempt to define "being intelligent" or "thinking that p". Turing,
clearly one of the great thinkers and contributors to the advance of
knowledge last century, achieved one of the more important functions of the
creative scientist: he asked interesting questions. Whether he gave us a
useful test of machine intelligence/thought is another matter."
"Consider for the moment a reverse question: can a machine tell us (any
of us) apart from any other machine? If a machine cannot make such a
distinction, are we still to call the machine _intelligent_? Or if it
cannot, should we move to withhold the accolade? Perhaps this gives us a
caution that we may have a prior difficulty and need a method for deciding
just what we mean by _being a human being_ from _being a machine_. Perhaps
we must consider whether there is any useful distinction worth attempting,
rather than just considering the nature of _being intelligent_ by this
rather haphazard and sloppy means".
"The real world includes the continuities of space and time. It is
merely a human convenience and limitation that we seek to reduce so much to
on/off logic. _Being intelligent_ is a graduated measure because it is an
inherent function of the real world. It is not an on/off process. It has to
function with analogue problems and is a spacial object. Chess is a digital
construction of our limited human minds, as are our attempts at intelligent
test construction, and even the digital manner in which we presently
understand and describe our neuronal minds."
"When we reduce _being intelligent_ still further to some single rather
simplistic test like Turing's, we do mayhem to the reality we seek to
understand, however interesting or usefully provocative the exercise may
prove. Clearly a chess computer playing over a link would already defeat
maybe all human attempts to distinguish it from a human player. It would
already play more effective chess than the vast majority of human players."
"Kasparov claimed to be able to distinguish computer play from human
play. During a simultaneous event over the Internet, he once stopped
playing a certain game, saying that he was up against a computer (it was
supposed to be human opposition). (He was losing at the time!). Kasparov
has also claimed, while losing against a computer, that the computer was
being given human assistance!"
"A number of chess players would fancy their chance of distinguishing
humans from computers by virtue of the style. Mere strength of play alone
therefore hardly proves they cannot so distinguish. Similar claims have
been made with respect to jazz and computers. Also, some knowledge-based
computer systems are far more effective than their human competitors, e.g.
those for plant-diseases and the identification of chemicals."
"I know very little of the workings of mechanical objects such as motor
vehicles. It's then highly likely that a discussion with a well-organised
knowledge-based computer programme would quickly leave me baffled with
science, leaving me without any useful questions to ask the car computer
genius. How then could I decide whether the computer is "intelligent" or
not? Could I perhaps decide that it was a computer on the basis that it
knew far more than myself, or even that it was more consistent than the
average disorganised human? I would then be deciding that it was a machine
because it was superior in its behaviour than me. How then am I to call the
computer less intelligent than the human because it is more effective?"
"While discussing the intelligence of machines, or our inclination to
ascribe "propositional thoughts to thm", Turing even suggests injecting a
certain dose of _irrationality_ into the functioning of a computer aimed at
emulating human intelligence. Likely he had another good point."
"Consider a very likely scenario when a computer, or even the web,
gives access to so great and well structured a knowledge-base that the
machines know more than any individual. This is not a difficult assumption,
after all our great libraries are already such oracles. The only difference
with our growing computer technology is that interactivity and retrieval is
steadily growing more efficient than is the
case with libraries."
"I think it rather clear then that the Turing test offers a useful
basis for clarifying our relationships with and our understanding of the
wider world. The test also gives us ideas upon the means by which we may
make our silicon friends more like us where that is useful".
"But, I would submit, it hardly gives us a clear manner of
distinguishing a computer from a human".
"It has been said that much human progress is just a matter of adding
another decimal point of accuracy to our knowledge. While such view is
simplistic, that is a function well-suited to computer-based information."
NOTES & REFERENCES:
Notes and References: Bernard of Chartres is in John of Salisbury (tr by D
McGarry), Metalogicon. bk. 3, ch. 4. A Turing's essay in Mind 'Computing
Machinery & Intelligence', available from link above. Cf The mathematical
cornerstone of VonNeumann's theory of games as the "minimax theorem". Its
elaboration and
applications are in the book he wrote with O Morgenstern in _Theory of
Games & Economic Behaviour_. The minimax theorem says that for a large
class of two-person games, there is _no point_ in playing. Either
player may consider, for each possible strategy of play, the maximum loss
that he can expect to sustain with that strategy and then choose as his
_optimal_ strategy the one that minimises the maximum loss. If a player
follows this reasoning, he can be statistically sure of not losing more
than that value (called the mini-max value). Since that minimax value is
the negative of the one, similarly defined, that his opponent can guarantee
for himself, the long-run outcome is completely determined by the rules. In
computer theory, VonNeumann did much of the pioneering work in logical
design, in the problem of obtaining _reliable_ answers from a machine with
_*un*reliable_ components, in the function of "memory", in machine
imitation of "randomness" and in the problem of constructing automata that
can reproduce their own kind. -- "Robotics"
was coined by K Capek who introduced the word in "Rossum's Universal
Robots". It was Asimov who developed a set of ethics for robots and
intelligent machines that greatly influenced other writers’ treatment of
the subject. He called his rules the three laws of robotics: 1. A robot may
not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come
to harm. 2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings, except
where such orders would conflict with the (1). 3. A obot must protect its
own existence, except where such protection would conflict with the (1) or
(2) -- On the other hand, the preponderance of books on chess concentrate
mainly on the cramming great masses of fact and experience: a constant
stream of opening
variations, endings, combinations, principles, and tricks. All of this is
merely memory and calculation, functions much better performed by a
computer than a creative human (v. A Degroot, Thought and Choice in Chess
-- the interesting "Zugswang", that chess position in which you are
compelled to move because it is your turn, but any move that you make will
weaken your position, so you would rather not have a move.
"By way of conclusion, I would imagine that, by any reasonable
assessment, computers have already gone far toward the goal of "passing"
the Turing test. By the way, remembering from where I started (memory),
human memory is primarily associative, but that is for another essay.
=====
Finally, I repeat below the Gricean links, with some further comments. For
Turing, I am referred to the work of A. Hodges, of Wolfson College, Oxford.
For Gricean conversational pragmatics and AI, to the work of Y. A. Wilks,
of Sheffield, England.
Some Turing/Grice links:
Conversation, context, & computers: References. Grice, HP. 'Logic and
conversation', for the introduction of the notion of conversaional
implicature, and whether we can programme a computer to produce and
recognise them. Also citing Turing, AM. Computing machinery and
intelligence. Mind 59,
http://www.cyborganic.com/People/jonathan/Academia/Papers/Web/cc-n-c.refs.html
Natural-Language Conversational Agents. Citing Grice, HP. 'Logic and
Conversation', for the definition of conversational implicature' and
Turing, AM. Computing Machinery and Intelligence. Mind 59
http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~bdrake/NLP/Overview.html
Troubles with Functionalism. Discusses a "sort of Turing machine" --
totally different from a Turing Test, that is. A Turing Machine (introduced
by Turing in an earlier article than the one discussed here) cannot really
pass the Turing Test). Ned Block here views the Turing machine as the model
below contemporary functionalist theories of the mind, such as the seminal
essay by HP Grice in "Method in philosophical psychology" - in _The
Conception of Value_.
http://www.hps.elte.hu/~gk/books/cog/block.htm
Can a Turing machine tell us what she thinks of Picasso? (Turing's own
example). No context-sensitive automaton can ever master the rules of
Grice's conversational implicature -- based as they are on heuristic
abductive and defeasible problem solving reasing patterns, but maybe it
will. Work by Reichmann, Grosz, etc.
http://www.wolfson.ox.ac.uk/~floridi/pdf/chapter%205.pdf
Grice & Turing. Meaning, thinking & implicature: Inter-disciplinary
foundations, by Richard Thomason, the literary executor of Montague, and a
proponent of so-called accomodation theory attempting to link Grice's
intention-based theory of meaning with Grice's later work in
"conversational implicature".
http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~rthomaso/documents/nmk.pdf
=====
(c) 2001 by Analytic
http://analytic.ontologically.com/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/analytic/
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Larry Tapper
> ============================================================
> Notes on "The Turing Test, or how we use the verb "to think"" --
from link
> quoted above. Slightly edited by JLS. (c) Abelard.
> http://www.abelard.org/turing/tur-hi.htm
>
Speranza,
Interesting site. One wonders, who is this Abelard? Hints from Heloise
are called for.
Some comments on the chess examples, which are unlike the others in
that I know something about them...
...
Ooh, that hurts: chessplayers like me have watched over the last
couple of decades with mixed fascination and dismay. Some relevant
background, for those who may not know the story already:
In the 1950s a few learned articles appeared in philosophy journals
arguing that of course computers could never play chess better than
their programmers, because they could do no more than embody the
codified wisdom of their creators. Some early AI optimists countered
with the view that machines could be built with clever learning
heuristics.
The skeptics turned out to be embarrassingly wrong, though for reasons
that had almost nothing to do with clever heuristics. What's been
discovered over the last decade or two, is that a computer endowed
with only the most rudimentary sense of what it's aiming for (more
material, king safety, checkmate is a very good thing, etc.) can play
extremely well, so long as it analyzes deeply enough. And this is
largely a question of raw speed, coupled with the appropriate parallel
processing and tree-pruning technologies.
In terms of practical strength, in other words, brute calculating
force has turned out to be a good substitute for "understanding",
whatever that may be. A human who knows his way around the chessboard
and looks at a few hundred possibilities is roughly comparable to a
computer which has little inductive knowledge to speak of, but which
looks at millions of possibilities in the same amount of time.
So, as the AI people say, most of the currently successful chess
programmers are in the business of "emulation", not "simulation". The
attempt to make a computer think like a grandmaster was largely
abandoned long ago. The point now is simply to play as well as one, or
even better.
It seems to me that this lessens some of the force of the proposal to
use chess as a Turing test. However, as Abelard notes, there remains
the possibility that in this dry, restricted context an emulating
machine could fool the tester as well as a simulating one (though I
suppose a dissimulating one would work best of all):
There are indeed little quirks of style that suggest computer play,
but it's hard to say what that proves. For example, computers are
noticeably *fearless* compared to human players --- they'll take what
appear to be massive risks to win a pawn or two, if they don't "see"
anything specifically wrong with their greedy adventures. However, it
would be possible to program a chess computer to be more timid, hence
a better candidate for the role of Turing contestant. The thing is,
this would most likely be a step backward for a program whose main
objective is winning.
...
> "(2) -- On the other hand, the preponderance of books on chess
concentrate
> mainly on the cramming great masses of fact and experience: a
constant
> stream of opening
> variations, endings, combinations, principles, and tricks. All of
this is
> merely memory and calculation, functions much better performed by a
> computer than a creative human (v. A Degroot, Thought and Choice in
Chess
> -- the interesting "Zugswang", that chess position in which you are
> compelled to move because it is your turn, but any move that you
make will
> weaken your position, so you would rather not have a move.
> "By way of conclusion, I would imagine that, by any reasonable
> assessment, computers have already gone far toward the goal of
"passing"
> the Turing test."
In this final passage I think Abelard has underestimated the roles of
imagination and general inductive reasoning in human chess play. One
way of putting it is: now the mystery is no longer how computers can
play as well as people, but how people can play as well as computers.
In this article, Abelard shows that he's kept up with some recent
developments --- but the very idea that chess is an important Turing
test strikes me as a bit old-fashioned, based on assumptions that
seemed more plausible before very fast machines came along. So your
conversational example about the aesthetics of "Shall I compare thee
to a summer's day" strikes me, for a variety of reasons, as a much
more interesting candidate for the Turing treatment.
Leaving aside love and lust, maybe the *cognitive* capacity that's
hardest to mimic is the ability to jump nimbly from one frame to
another, as Gregory Bateson used to put it.
Regards, Larry
Roger Bishop Jones
Not having seen much recent history I don't know what
topics have been done to death or what are likely to
be of sufficient interest for discussion.
My own philosophical leanings are much at odds with
contemporary analytic philosophy and most closely
sympathetic with the general tenor of logical positivism.
I see that recent literature includes a certain amount
of re-evaluation of logical positivism (e.g. a book of papers
entitled "Reconsidering Logical Positivism" by Friedman)
and wonder whether there would be any interest in revisiting
the merits of the various aspects of logical positivism
on this list.
Roger Jones
Daniel Language
I recall that I suggested you check out the group in
reply to your query on the philos-list. Glad you could
make it. Regarding your invitation for a discussion
into the tenets of logical positivism, I may mention
that I am only just getting around to reading Ayer's
book (truth, language, logic) and I must say his
unapologetic daring is rather amusing. Aside from that
I simply can not agree with the verificationist
method; that sentences that can not be verified by
observation are meaningless. In my mind, this is
thorough confusion about the nature of meaning and the
understanding of the basis of facts. Facts are not
based on sensation, therefore any kind of reduction
attempt, by me, is faulty-logic, not to mention,
pointless. However, I am sympathetic to the
understanding that philosophy consists primarily in
logical analysis with the intent at definition,
followed by a comprehensive account of the
consequences that follow from such definition. Yet, in
my mind, the type of definition that Ayer refers to is
not what I would regard as logical analysis,
particularly in the fact that he takes up Russell's
method as logically useful. Logical positivism, on the
whole, suggests to me a good step forward in its
denial of metaphysics, yet its view was, I maintain,
much too radical in many respects. I suppose it is all
a matter of a more comprehensive understanding and
this, I am certain, will necessarily come into being
(yes, I think there is still a place for the
dialectic). It is a curious thing to me, metaphysics.
Mostly, I suppose that they seek to answer the
question of existence. At times, I suppose that they
could be helped in this endeavor if they considered
certain aspects of consequence, value, and the
dynamism of meaning. Of-course, they suffer from the
fact that they can not do logical analysis directly in
their investigation. This surely puts them in a
certain disadvantage, yet only a relative one (so its
best not to be condescending). At any rate, I do not
deny metaphysics as meaningless, indeed, the
definition that logical analyis intends is necessarily
meaningless (as I see it, the definition is the exact
resolution of any possible meaning, as its sole
interest is to identify function) and therefore I
believe that the logical positivism position was a
conclusive step in a good direction, yet it faltered
in a misunderstanding of meaning and the basis of
fact.
best,
Daniel
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J L Speranza
"Not having seen much recent history I don't know what topics have been
done to death"
Hey hey _and_ hey: some respect for analytic philosophy, bitte! Analytic
philosophical topics are, by circular definition, DEATHLESS, like the
deathless army of the Tennyson poem.
"or what are likely to be of sufficient interest for discussion."
Anything from you as far as I'm concerned since I like the way you express
yourself. Music to my Speranglish ears.
"My own philosophical leanings are much at odds with contemporary analytic
philosophy"
Who's talking contemporary? H. P. Grice (I know -- you were not quoting
him) was born in 1913!!!! If that's contemporary, I'm Dutch (which I'm
not). If you mean LIVING philosophers, they are old already. So never mind
being at odds with anything, will you.
"and most closely sympathetic with the general tenor of logical positivism."
Fair enough. I was wedded to Logical Positivism for a time. No way you can
actually come to love GRICE (with the undying love I do) if you don't tread
that path, I say (i.e. if you have not been a logical positivist, in
plainer English). (cfr. Grice's metaphor of the Pilgrim's Progress in
PGRICE (ed. R. Grandy et al) mentioned below).
"I see that recent literature includes a certain amount of re-evaluation of
logical positivism (e.g. a book of papers entitled "Reconsidering Logical
Positivism" by Friedman)"
Who's the man, and full list of contents, with author names included,
please! None of your summaries here :). I hope he is England-based, since
my hobby is England's analytic and post-analytic philosophy. I'm doing a
PhD on England's Philosophy in the 21st Century -- few books so far!
"and wonder whether there would be any interest in revisiting the merits of
the various aspects of logical positivism on this list."
Course there is! Merits and de-merits, of course.
I. MERITS: (acc. to JL, that is -- you can call me "Speranza" as they do in
here. It makes me feel more famous. I can call you Jones).
1. It's such an English thing (unless you're Welsh -- and I say, it's such
a Welsh thing). Without LP (henceforward Logical Positivism) there wouldn't
have been GRICE, inter alia.
2. It's so OXFORD. Ayer was Oxford's _enfant terrible_ (Grice's moniker)
for a time, and Grice's mentor. They met at All Souls, Oxford, every
Thursday night, along with Austin and Hampshire and Urmson and Hare and a
few others. Freddie Ayer was just a genius.
3. AYER changed the face of England's philosophy. That book Daniel is about
to finish reading must be the most important book in England's 2oth c.
philo, after Grice's _Studies in the Way of Words_ that is. (Ayer was not
strictly Anglo-Saxon, but born in London -- there is a town he was proud
of, called "Ayer" in Switzerland -- I read his Bio).
4. It's easy to understand, it's in plain English, and it's anti-Bradleian.
PL is.
5. Yes, it's a wee bit too over German-oriented (Ayer having learned it
from the Vienesse Circle (Kraus?) upon that rather naive advice by Ryle
(who wasn't that kind, so he probably was jealous of Ayer's intelligence,
and wanted him far far far from _his_ Oxford. As a revenge. Freddie became
Sir Freddie while Gilbert was always just Gilbert -- but then, it was
before the WWII so you _can_ forgive that (Also, I'm told once and again
but I forget: Austria is NOT Germany -- see the Waltz and Wittgenstein).
6. It's all-pervading and all-inclusive. It deals with metaphysics (or the
negation thereof which is by circular definition also a metaphysics) as
Daniel points out, but it's also a theory of ethics, and all!
7. It's a bit rough in the dealing of English syntax, but you can't have
everything, can you. Also, you wouldn't have had Grice if LP served as a
good analysis of English usage! (see WARNOCK, A Hundred Years of English
Philosophy).
8. It's consistent with Grice. Since Grice is Russellian of _Principia
Mathematica_, and so is LP (as Daniel notes).
9. It's original. Positivism was I think first used by French sociologist
Auguste Compte in Sociology (I think he also coined the word "sociology" --
a hybrid if ever there was one. I must check the OED). So, the idea to have
a new philosophical "-ism" was very innovative at the time.
10. etc.
II. DEMERITS (slightly exaggerated, since I don't adhere to any of the
propositions below).
1. It is an affrent (if that's the English word -- I meant shameful
violation, or something) against English usage. Nobody would say that
"Killing people is wrong" is truth-conditionally equivalent to "Don't kill
people!" (see our discussion with Silcox -- analytic-prize winner - here)
2. It's blind. Since it does not consider the history of philosophy. Just a
kow-tow to Hume and Kant (this relates to Daniel's doubts about the
analytic/synthetic distinction, which I share). The LP-ists just BOUGHT
Kant's distinction as a DOGMA, as they shouldn't! (cfr. R. Vanegas and Quine).
3. It's naive. Since it's based on a pre-Albert-Einstein physics. I.e.
deterministic Newtonian physics. With Einstein and relativity (and the
Hiroshima bomb) and Heisenberg, you cannot just hold that physics is the
ultimate science of reality. Since quantum mechanics involves
indeterminacy, theory-laden observation, anti-Humean non-causality, etc.
4. It's political. Since Ayer did not like Greek and Latin (as he wasn't
upper class as Austin and Grice were -- England's public school tradition
and all that) and hoped to change the way of doing philosophy at Oxford,
based as it has always been (and SHOULD be -- recall it's :) here) on Greek
and Latin Studies. Recall at Oxford Philosophy is a branch of the Belles
Letters (as diff. from Cambridge).
5. It's un-English, since the English way of doing philosophy is, by racial
temperament, subtler, and Ayer can be so schematic and unsensitive about
things. And obviously he can't believe the thing he promotes, since he
married, had children, and was even politically involved! (pacifism).
6. It's silly. As the history of the trials and tribulations of the only
thing of merit in PL, viz the Verification Principle, was the laughing
stock of 20th Philosophy -- see Mundle's book. A Welshman he. And the
famous article on the "History of the Verification Principle", repr. in
Ayer's book, ed. LP. (an excellent collection that, with papers by Ramsey,
et al et al).
7. It's NOT philosophy! Since it denies metaphysics and metaphysics is all
philosophy must ever dream of (see Hamlet in Shakespeare -- "more than your
philosophy can ever dream about). See also Grice in his publication
unlisted in his festschrift, PGRICE, viz: _The Nature of Metaphysics_ (ed.
DF Pears, BBC Third Lectures programme), and his 'Reply to Richards' in
PGRICE Philosophical Grounds of Rationality: intentions, categories, ends.
(Grice never used in his later days the "H" of his name, hence the
incomplete name of the festschrift. It should be HIGHER philosophical
grounds of...).
8. It's unacademic. Since it presupposes that you don't need an education
to have a philosophical post. This was Barnes's criticism in a book I've
got ("The Philosophical Predicament"). As I recall, Barnes taught at the
prestigious Durham university, and he was amongst the millions of academic
philosophers who opposed Ayer (cfr. T P Uschanov on Gellner's criticism.
Uschanov being our latest analytic-prize winner).
9. It's Cambridge! Since it's based on Russell and Ramsey, who were
Cambridge. It's ultimately furrin, since it started in Wein...
10. etc.
Now, after that meaningless tirade from yours truly, you DO pose some
specific point you want to discuss, willya! :)
Best,
JL
The Grice Circle
PS. Thanks to Daniel for bringing RB here!
================
R.B. Jones writes: "Not having seen much recent history I don't know what
topics have been done to death or what are likely to be of sufficient
interest for discussion. My own philosophical leanings are much at odds
with contemporary analytic philosophy and most closely sympathetic with the
general tenor of logical positivism. I see that recent literature includes
a certain amount of re-evaluation of logical positivism (e.g. a book of
papers entitled "Reconsidering Logical Positivism" by Friedman) and wonder
whether there would be any interest in revisiting the merits of the various
aspects of logical positivism on this list".
(c) 2001 by Analytic
Roger Bishop Jones
| Welcome to the list Roger!
Thanks, its nice to be back.
| Regarding your invitation for a discussion
| into the tenets of logical positivism, I may mention
| that I am only just getting around to reading Ayer's
| book (truth, language, logic) and I must say his
| unapologetic daring is rather amusing.
"language truth and logic" was my starting point in
philosophy, and I don't believe I have ever moved
very far away from it.
As to the "unapologetic daring" this is surely typical
of great philosophical works.
| Aside from that
| I simply can not agree with the verificationist
| method; that sentences that can not be verified by
| observation are meaningless.
I agree that the verification principle is untenable.
I don't think that's quite as obvious as you suggest
it is, but I accept that the various criticisms and
failed attempts at its repair have shown this to be
the case.
However, though the verification principle is
frequently represented as being the essence of
logical positivism, this seems to me a misrepresentation.
It certainly doesn't seem to play a significant role
in Carnap's philosophy, and it is Carnap with whom
I now feel the closest affinity among the logical positivists.
(though my acquaintance with his work is fairly recent)
| Facts are not
| based on sensation, therefore any kind of reduction
| attempt, by me, is faulty-logic, not to mention,
| pointless.
Carnap was not dogmatic about reduction to
sensation. He attempted this, and also other kinds
of reduction, and had a liberal attitude expressed as
his "principle of tolerance".
As to the general merits of reductionism, I think
one should take it and leave it, which is exactly
what science does.
Scientists seek a "theory of everything", which is a
reductionist enterprise, but also continue to develop
particular theories of particular areas of science without
being inhibited by a reductionist dogma, or an antireductionist
one.
This is consistent with Carnap's principle of tolerance.
| However, I am sympathetic to the
| understanding that philosophy consists primarily in
| logical analysis with the intent at definition,
| followed by a comprehensive account of the
| consequences that follow from such definition. Yet, in
| my mind, the type of definition that Ayer refers to is
| not what I would regard as logical analysis,
| particularly in the fact that he takes up Russell's
| method as logically useful.
I myself am extremely unsympathetic to the idea
that it is possible or desirable to characterise
philosophy in general.
This leads to one philosopher attempting to dismiss
another on the grounds that what he is doing is
"not philosophy".
Of course we are all free to chose what kinds of
philosophy we want to engage in, but I don't believe
that anyone should arrogate to themselves any authority
to legislate for philosophy as a whole.
[I'm not suggesting here that that was what you were doing]
As to analytic philosophy, well that phrase also covers
many different kinds of analysis as like as chalk and cheese.
I like the term "logical analysis" as a description of a kind
of philosophy, and a kind in which I have a particular
interest and consider important, but one which seems
to have fallen into disrepute.
[I like also the even stronger "formal logical analysis"]
I should say however that my own interest is not in
the logical analysis of language.
It is in the logical analysis of philosophical problems
and of philosophical arguments, with a particular
emphasis on eliminating verbal confusions and focussing
on real problems.
On the matter of metaphysics I think you have to consider
the historical context.
At the turn of the last century, when Russell and Moore
conspired to make philosophy "analytic", the then dominant
source of nonesense in philosophy was metaphysical idealism.
The logical positivists, in attempting to move forward the
program begun by Russell (quite distinct of course from the
kind of analysis initiated by Moore) and contributed to in a
influential if ambivalent way by Wittgenstein's Tractatus,
naturally attempted to characterise that kind of nonesense.
They were not successful.
However, logical analysis does not depend on solving this problem.
It suffices to have clearer conception of logic.
Today the dominant source of nonesense is ordinary usage,
and the view that one can coherently undertake philosophy
in a language whose semantics is to be sought in that usage.
Roger Jones
Roger Bishop Jones
The following response will show that it is possible to
be in sympathy with a philosopher without agreeing
with anything that he says.
| Nice hearing from you, Roger (I'll call you R.B. :))
RBJ is a good short handle.
| "My own philosophical leanings are much at odds with contemporary analytic
| philosophy"
|
| Who's talking contemporary? H. P. Grice (I know -- you were not quoting
| him) was born in 1913!!!! If that's contemporary, I'm Dutch (which I'm
| not). If you mean LIVING philosophers, they are old already. So never mind
| being at odds with anything, will you.
By contemporary I mean "of the last forty years".
I confess to being entirely ignorant of Grice.
| "I see that recent literature includes a certain amount of re-evaluation of
| logical positivism (e.g. a book of papers entitled "Reconsidering Logical
| Positivism" by Friedman)"
|
| Who's the man,
see: http://www.indiana.edu/~alldrp/members/friedman.html
| and full list of contents, with author names included
all his own papers:
CONTENTS
Preface page xl
Introduction
Part One: Geometry, Relativity, and Convention
1 Moritz Schlick's Philosophical Papers 17
Postscript: General Relativity and General Theory of Knowledge 34
2 Carnap and Weyl on the Foundations of Geometry
and Relativity Theory 44
3 Geometry, Convention, and the Relativized A Priori:
Reichenbach, Schlick, and Carnap
4 Poincare's Conventionalism and the Logical Positivists 71
Part Two: Der logische Aufbau der Welt
5 Carnap's Aufbau Reconsidered 89
6 Epistemology in the Aufran 114
Postscript: Carnap and the Neo-Kantians 152
Part Three: Logico-Mathematical Truth
7 Analytic Truth in Carnap's Logical Syntax of Language i6~
8 Carnap and Wittgenstein's Tractatus 177
9 Tolerance and Analyticity in Carnap's Philosophy
of Mathematics 198
Bibliography 235
Index 245
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521624762/factasia/
http://www.bookshop.co.uk/ser/serdsp.asp?shop=68&isbn=0521624762&DB=224
| 1. It's such an English thing (unless you're Welsh -- and I say, it's such
| a Welsh thing). Without LP (henceforward Logical Positivism) there wouldn't
| have been GRICE, inter alia.
Not really!
Austrian.
| 2. It's so OXFORD. Ayer was Oxford's _enfant terrible_ (Grice's moniker)
| for a time, and Grice's mentor. They met at All Souls, Oxford, every
| Thursday night, along with Austin and Hampshire and Urmson and Hare and a
| few others. Freddie Ayer was just a genius.
But Ayer was the odd man out here.
Logical positivism never really caught on at Oxford.
| 3. AYER changed the face of England's philosophy. That book Daniel is about
| to finish reading must be the most important book in England's 2oth c.
| philo, after Grice's _Studies in the Way of Words_ that is.
Quite possibly, but if it had any influence on English philosophy
it was to encourage Oxford philosophers to find an alternative
to this species of philosophy which was concerned with logic
and science and to engross themselves in the analysis of
ordinary language.
Ayer talked past the establishment to a wider audience
who bought his book in large numbers but did not influence
the course of professional philosophy.
| 7. It's a bit rough in the dealing of English syntax, but you can't have
| everything, can you. Also, you wouldn't have had Grice if LP served as a
| good analysis of English usage! (see WARNOCK, A Hundred Years of English
| Philosophy).
I see very little sign of Logical Positivism seriously attempting
the analysis of ordinary english usage, and this is in my mind
an important merit.
| 9. It's original. Positivism was I think first used by French sociologist
| Auguste Compte in Sociology (I think he also coined the word "sociology" --
| a hybrid if ever there was one. I must check the OED). So, the idea to have
| a new philosophical "-ism" was very innovative at the time.
The original is really Hume, and the proximate positivistic influence is Mach.
The logical positivists were much more interested in physics than sociology.
| II. DEMERITS (slightly exaggerated, since I don't adhere to any of the
| propositions below).
I shall therefore minimise my response.
| 1. It is an affrent (if that's the English word -- I meant shameful
| violation, or something) against English usage.
Here are some pukka English alternatives:
affront to [meaning "open insult to"]
violation of [meaning "breach of"]
| Nobody would say that
| "Killing people is wrong" is truth-conditionally equivalent to "Don't kill
| people!" (see our discussion with Silcox -- analytic-prize winner - here)
But this is one minor corner of LP on which we can
agree it was rather weak.
| 2. It's blind. Since it does not consider the history of philosophy. Just a
| kow-tow to Hume and Kant (this relates to Daniel's doubts about the
| analytic/synthetic distinction, which I share). The LP-ists just BOUGHT
| Kant's distinction as a DOGMA, as they shouldn't! (cfr. R. Vanegas and Quine).
It is rooted in a philosophical distinction which is very ancient.
You are correct to cite Hume, but the philosophy disagrees
with Kant (though taking up some of his terminology).
Quine's "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" is itself
much more dogmatic than the doctrines it criticises
and a great deal less well-founded in its critique.
| 3. It's naive. Since it's based on a pre-Albert-Einstein physics. I.e.
| deterministic Newtonian physics. With Einstein and relativity (and the
| Hiroshima bomb) and Heisenberg, you cannot just hold that physics is the
| ultimate science of reality. Since quantum mechanics involves
| indeterminacy, theory-laden observation, anti-Humean non-causality, etc.
This is quite incorrect.
See the first section of Friedmans book which is largely
given over to discussions about relativity.
Friedman observes "Einstein was on close terms with several
leading members of the logical positivist movement" who were
very concerned to understand the philosophical implications
of the theory of relativity.
| 4. It's political. Since Ayer did not like Greek and Latin (as he wasn't
| upper class as Austin and Grice were -- England's public school tradition
| and all that) and hoped to change the way of doing philosophy at Oxford,
| based as it has always been (and SHOULD be -- recall it's :) here) on Greek
| and Latin Studies. Recall at Oxford Philosophy is a branch of the Belles
| Letters (as diff. from Cambridge).
This has no bearing on Logical Positivism but only on
its presentation and reception in England.
| 5. It's un-English, since the English way of doing philosophy is, by racial
| temperament, subtler, and Ayer can be so schematic and unsensitive about
| things. And obviously he can't believe the thing he promotes, since he
| married, had children, and was even politically involved! (pacifism).
But substantially inspired by Russell, who is as English as they come.
Russell's influence on the programme of logical positivism is,
contrary to popular opinion, much more important than that of
Wittgenstein, who was miscontrued as a disciple of Russell and
whose main contribution was the ill-fated verification principle.
| 6. It's silly. As the history of the trials and tribulations of the only
| thing of merit in PL, viz the Verification Principle, was the laughing
| stock of 20th Philosophy -- see Mundle's book.
You need to look beyond the verification principle, but
even that is not silly.
Its a representative of an ancient class of philosophical
errors about semantics which are still being made to this day.
[usually by the most distinguished philosophers]
| 7. It's NOT philosophy!
Denying that something is philosophy is close to the
weakest assault you can possibly make upon it.
| 8. It's unacademic.
Thank god for that.
| 9. It's Cambridge!
Hardly.
Though Russell was a Cambridge philosopher his philosophical
influence there was very quickly eclipsed by that of
(mid and late) Wittgenstein.
...
| Now, after that meaningless tirade from yours truly, you DO pose some
| specific point you want to discuss, willya! :)
I'll let the dust settle on my initial two responses first I think.
Roger Jones
Daniel Language
Thank you for your reply, I do enjoy your style (if I
may endulge a bit).
--- Roger Bishop Jones <rbj...@rbjones.com> wrote:
> in response to Daniel Language Wednesday, July 18,
> 2001 2:33 PM
>
>
> | Welcome to the list Roger!
>
> Thanks, its nice to be back.
>
> | Regarding your invitation for a discussion
> | into the tenets of logical positivism, I may
> mention
> | that I am only just getting around to reading
> Ayer's
> | book (truth, language, logic) and I must say his
> | unapologetic daring is rather amusing.
>
> "language truth and logic" was my starting point in
> philosophy, and I don't believe I have ever moved
> very far away from it.
> As to the "unapologetic daring" this is surely
> typical
> of great philosophical works.
Typical? Yes, maybe, but even Ayer mentioned that
there was a bit more unrestrained emotion (though not
in those words) than most philosophers care to show in
their work. But let's remember that he was only 24 in
writing the book...wonder if this explains anything.
>
> However, though the verification principle is
> frequently represented as being the essence of
> logical positivism, this seems to me a
> misrepresentation.
> It certainly doesn't seem to play a significant role
> in Carnap's philosophy, and it is Carnap with whom
> I now feel the closest affinity among the logical
> positivists.
> (though my acquaintance with his work is fairly
> recent)
I have only read a few articles by Carnap and I do
find his approach rather stimulating; however, I am
not familiar enough with his program in order to
comment on it in much depth. I would be interested to
discuss his philosophy if you would be willing to
recommend a good starting place.
>
> | Facts are not
> | based on sensation, therefore any kind of
> reduction
> | attempt, by me, is faulty-logic, not to mention,
> | pointless.
>
> Carnap was not dogmatic about reduction to
> sensation. He attempted this, and also other kinds
> of reduction, and had a liberal attitude expressed
> as
> his "principle of tolerance".
>
> As to the general merits of reductionism, I think
> one should take it and leave it, which is exactly
> what science does.
> Scientists seek a "theory of everything", which is a
> reductionist enterprise, but also continue to
> develop
> particular theories of particular areas of science
> without
> being inhibited by a reductionist dogma, or an
> antireductionist
> one.
Well, it does seem that these types of debates are
seldom appreciated by scientists; I suppose because
scientists, more or less, go ahead with whatever works
best in a theoretical approach. I wonder if scientists
care to speculate whether or not their approach could
be described as reductionistic. And this is not a
critisicm; its merely a matter of the relative
importance of this kind of inquiry in either
department. It is an enduring position of mine that in
philosophical inquiry it must be possible to identify
logical grounds upon which the validity of any
reductionistic approach may either be substantiated or
conclusively denied. I do not agree that it is simply
a matter of whether reductionism works or not in
practice because I hold as an important insight that
it is possible to describe a scientific theory as
reductionist and non-reductionist. Since it is a
description it is only a matter of a shift in the
frame of reference in order to regard, say, Newton's
formula as a reduction of experimental data or as a
higher-level synthesis (it would seem that there could
be no such thing as a "reductionist method" as a
program by which one practices). It seems to boil down
to what one regards as accomplished by a theory. Yet,
naturally, the logical grounds that I was referring to
have yet to be demonstrated at this level of debate
and this is why I maintain that there is a great deal
more that can be accomplished by logical analysis than
has, at yet, been appreciated.
Well, I hope that my ungarded statement would not lead
to such an implication. I would not propose to dismiss
anyone's work as illegitamte philosophy (whatever that
means), however there is nothing inconsistent with my
view that all philosophical problems are to be solved
by logical analysis because this is a necessary
dimension of my view, in that, if I were to claim the
contrary then my program could not be maintained. I
hope one understands that it is necessary to the
understanding of logical analysis that I intend that
all philosophical problems must be solved from the
definitions that are to be concluded by such a method.
The reasons for this are, naturally, complicated, but
it has much to do with the fact that I regard language
as a function of knowledge, and thus logical analysis,
being the method of definition, in consequence
(meaning) is necessarily comprehensive of all types of
knowledge. In any case, I do not propose that this
method is "better" or "more important" than any other
because, to me, that is purely a claim of subjective
value and anyone is entitled to value whatever they
please. This is also a logical consequence of the view
that I maintain.
>
> Today the dominant source of nonesense is ordinary
> usage,
> and the view that one can coherently undertake
> philosophy
> in a language whose semantics is to be sought in
> that usage.
I do not consider "nonsense", especially in ordinary
usage to be a "problem" (indeed, i prefer to regard
philosophical "problems" as "mis-understandings", and
I realize, once again, that this may sound like a
contention when it is only a re-description from a
different viewpoint). I don't believe that
philosophers need another language to deal with
philosophical problems, they just need to understand
language at a greater depth and thus learn how to use
it differently. The reason that I say this is because,
the objectives or purposes that we undertake in
ordinary use are distinct from the objectives we have
in a philosophical use, therefore this should
necessarily effect a different kind of use of
language. One could say, a more "technical and
conscientious" usage.
At any rate I would garner that there is considerable
possibility to the method of logical analysis, than
has been explored to date.
best,
Daniel
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J L Speranza
Fascinated to learn you are Austrian. I hope you mean
Oesterreich-_born_ (ge-boren)! Wonder if you've read that book by
London-born (geboren) philosopher S.E. Toulmin (written in collaboration, I
believe, with a Finnish female philosopher? His wife -- or am I dreaming?)
called _Wittgenstein's Vienna_? I never. But I was told makes for a
fascinating read. I wonder how many of the philosophers of the Vienna
Circle were Austrian born (maybe you're Vienna-born, even!)
Anyway, I'll discuss your comment on My Merit No.9:
"9. It's original. Positivism was I think first used by French sociologist
Auguste Comte in Sociology (I think he also coined the word "sociology" --
a hybrid if ever there was one. I must check the OED). So, the idea to have
a new philosophical "-ism" was very innovative at the time."
RBJ comments: "The original is really Hume, and the proximate
positivistic influence is Mach. The logical positivists were much more
interested in physics than sociology."
If you are Austrian (Vienna-born) you may not be interested in details of
English usage, but then, I was born in the middle of no-where and I am. So
go figure! Anyway, I leave an edition (by yours truly) of what the OED says
about "positivism" for the ps. I realise that what the OED says
specifically about LOGICAL positivism is found under "logical" -- which was
a rather tricky editorial policy I thought.
Nothing in here meant as a refutation of anything you said. I was just
curious about the expression, and would have to analyse closely some of its
more interesting "usages" below (call it Grice's heritage! :)).
Best,
JL
PS. In here, Randall Helzerman (who I wish would contribute more often in
here -- since I love his sense of humour and irony) calls me an obscure
historicist.
====
From the OED. A. About "Logical Positivism". Under "Logical".
The OED writes: "A "special collocation" of "logical" is:
Logical POSITIVISM: name given to the theories and doctrines of
philosophers active in Vienna (the Vienna Circle), which were aimed at
evolving in the language of philosophy formal methods for the verification
of empirical questions similar to those of the mathematical sciences, and
which therefore eliminated metaphysical and other more speculative
questions as being logically ill-founded. Hence logical positivist.
FIRST QUOTE IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE:
===============================================
1931 Blumberg & Feigl Jrnl. Philos. XXVIII. 281
To facilitate criticism and forestall even more unfortunate attempts at
labelling this aspect of contemporary European philosophy we shall employ
the term "logical positivism".
================================================
1934 Philos. Rev. XLIII. 125
The logical positivism of the Vienna Circle is based upon this
consideration of empirical meaning
1968 M. Black Labyrinth of Lang. vi. 147
Logical Positivism has seen its best days.
1931 Jrnl. Philos. XXVIII. 291
The principle of causality is for the logical positivist not a categorical
necessity of thought.
1967 J. Passmore in Encycl. Philos. V. 55/1
The logical positivists ordinarily took for granted the substantial truth
of contemporary science. Thus, it was a matter of vital concern to them
when it became apparent that the verifiability principle would rule out as
meaningless all scientific laws.
=====
Ayer is regarded by the OED as a logical "empiricist" rather than a
logical positivist:
"Logical empiricism: name given to philosophical theories which replaced
those of logical positivism.
1936 A. J. Ayer Lang., Truth & Logic 10
Our own logical empiricism to be distinguished from positivism.
1937 Mind XLVI. 345
Logical Empiricists are not attempting to be metaphysical, when they
distinguish between language and reality. On the contrary, the distinction
refers only to certain rules of usage for statements and modes of speech.
Since we have investigated the rules of speech in empirical sciences, we
are justified in calling our viewpoint "Logical Empiricism".
=====
B. About positivism in general.
POSITIVISM. From the French "positivisme" (Comte). From "positive" +
"-ism": "la philosophie positive" being Comte's name for his system. "La
philosophie positive" occurs first in St. Simon's, "Introduction aux
Travail Scientifique", _Oeuvres_ I, p.198.
USAGE 1.1: a system of philosophy elaborated by Auguste Comte which
recognizes only positive facts and observable phenomena, with the objective
relations of these and the laws that determine them, abandoning all inquiry
into causes or ultimate origins, as belonging to the theological and
metaphysical stages of thought, held to be now superseded.
USAGE 1.2: a religious system founded upon this philosophy, in which the
object of worship is Humanity considered as a single corporate being.
USAGE 1.3.: the view, held by Bacon and Hume amongst others (including
Comte), that every rationally justifiable assertion can be scientifically
verified or is capable of logical or mathematical proof.
USAGE 1.4.: the view that philosophy can do no more than attest to the
logical and exact use of language through which such observation or
verification can be expressed.
USAGE 2.: elliptical for "logical positivism".
First usage in English
1847 J. D. Morell Hist. View Philos. (ed. 2) I. i. i. 88
Let those who claim Bacon as the apostle of positivism, give us an
interpretation of this whole division of his system.
1854 Brimley Ess., Comte's Positive Philos. 330
We are obliged to conclude, then, that positivism in M. Comte's hands,
while pretending to take upon itself the regulation of human conduct, fails
to furnish a guiding principle for either individuals or societies.
1865 (title) A General view of Positivism. Translated from the French of
Auguste Comte, by J. H. Bridges.
1866 J. Martineau Ess. I. 21
Such deification of mortals..is the avowed religion of positivism. A.
1866 J. Grote Exam. Utilitarian Philos. (1870) 2 A way of thinking about
morals, which may be roughly called by the name Positivism; by which I mean
the line of thought which endeavours to construct a system of morals..from
observation and experience of fact alone.
1868 (Nov. 8) Huxley Phys. Basis Life Lay Serm. (1883) 140
In fact M. Comte's philosophy in practice might be compendiously described
as Catholicism minus Christianity. [Often referred to as `Huxley's
well-known description' or `definition of Positivism']. ]
1875 Bridges tr. Comte's Syst. Positive Polity I. 264 In the conception
of Humanity the three essential aspects of Positivism, its subjective
principle, its objective dogma, and its practical object, are united.
1892 Monist II. 261 Positivism i.e. the representation of facts without
any admixture of theory or mythology, is an ideal which in its purity
perhaps will never be realised.
1934 W. M. Malisoff tr. R. Carnap in Jrnl. Philos. of Sci. I. 16 In the
following example we deal with the conflict of two theses..which correspond
more or less to positivism and to realism.
1945 K. R. Popper Open Society I. v. 59 Ethical positivism..maintains
that..what is, is good. (Might is right.)
1961 M. Capek Philos. Impact Contemp. Physics xvi. 297 The positivism
prevailing amongst contemporary physicists, who insist on a consistent
elimination of all unobservable factors.
1964 Fodor & Katz in R. Klibansky Contemp. Philos. (1969) III. 303 We
shall therefore examine the two dominant schools of thought in recent
philosophy of language, ordinary-language philosophy and positivism.
1967 Encycl. Philos. VI. 415 Both share the general idea of progress,
but whereas social positivism deduces progress from a consideration of
society and history, evolutionary positivism deduces it from the fields of
physics and biology.
1974 H. Wang From Math. to Philos. p. ix, The much publicized
juxtaposition of logic with positivism (or empiricism or `analytic'
philosophy) has burdened logic with a guilt by association.
USAGE 3: definiteness, peremptoriness. Also Certainty, assurance,
positiveness.
1854 Geo. Eliot Feuerbach's Essence Chr. (1881) 32
Israel is the most complete presentation of Positivism in religion.
1870 Lowell Among my Bks. Ser. i. (1873) 150 The metaphysicians can
never rest till they have taken their watch to pieces and have arrived at a
happy positivism as to its structure, though at the risk of bringing it to
a no-go.
1874 P. Smyth Our Inher. v. xxi. 415
The Doctor..adopts that with positivism.
1894 E. H. Barker Two Summers in Guyenne 404 The decision and positivism
of the Roman character.
USAGE 4: In law, a term derived from "positive law" and applied to
theories concerned with the enactment of law, the reaching of legal
decisions, the binding nature of legal rules and the study of existing law;
which postulate that legal rules are valid because they are enacted by the
`sovereign' or derive logically from existing decisions, and deny that
ideal or moral considerations (such as those of natural law, or that a rule
is unjust) should in any way limit the operation or scope of the law.
1927 M. R. Cohen in Proc. 6th Internat. Congr. Philos., 1926 469 (title)
Positivism and the limits of idealism in the law.
1944 W. Friedmann Legal Theory xv. 135 Positivism in jurisprudence
comprises legal movements, poles apart in every respect.
1945 H. Kelsen Gen. Theory Law i. iii. 52 No sanction without a legal
norm providing this sanction, no delict without a legal norm determining
that delict. These principles are the expression of legal positivism in the
field of criminal law.
1959 Jowitt Dict. Eng. Law II. 1366/2 Positivism, in international law,
this means the method which attempts to present law as actually applied in
State practice.
1961 H. L. A. Hart Concept of Law i. 7 Some contemporary legal theory
which is critical of the legal `positivism' inherited from Austin.
1967 Encycl. Philos. IV. 419/1 The definition of law as the command of
the `sovereign' is no doubt the most prominent example of a form of
positivism.
1967 Encycl. Philos., IV. 419/1 Sometimes `legal positivism' is used to
refer to the view that correct legal decisions are uniquely determined by
pre-existing legal rules.
1969 M. Moritz in R. Klibansky Contemp. Philos. IV. 140 The author
intends to give an empirical account of what is a legal order. He regards
the distinction between natural law theory and legal positivism as being of
secondary importance.
1971 Mod. Law Rev. XXXIV. vi. 632 Positivism regards law as a system of
comprehensive and closely defined rules.
========
Roger Bishop Jones
| Many thanks for your detailed, informative reply, Roger.
| Fascinated to learn you are Austrian.
Sorry, that's not the case.
I intended to assert that "logical positivism" was Austrian rather
than English (though of course it transcends national boundaries),
and had not noticed that you were in fact speculating about
my own nationality.
It may be that I have Welsh roots but I know nothing of them
and consider myself English.
Thankyou for your extensive facts about the use of "logical positivism".
Here are my own brief reactions:
It is my impression that the world "positivism" as used in
analytic philosophy is by many regarded as a synonym for
"empiricism", except where historical questions about usage
are concerned (i.e. except when we are discussing who used
which term).
| Ayer is regarded by the OED as a logical "empiricist" rather than a
| logical positivist:
| "Logical empiricism: name given to philosophical theories which replaced
| those of logical positivism.
| 1936 A. J. Ayer Lang., Truth & Logic 10
| Our own logical empiricism to be distinguished from positivism.
I am suprised at the suggestion that Ayer in
"Language Truth and Logic" was putting forward a
philosophy distinct from logical positivism.
I have not been able to find the quoted passage from
Ayer and so am unable to judge properly its meaning
from the context.
Note however, that he speaks of "postivism" not of
"logical postivism" and without more of the context it
is not possible to be sure that he was not simply making
clearer the distinction between logical positivism and
previous kinds of positivism or empiricism.
My view is that Ayer simply prefers the term "empiricism"
to "positivism", which is a thoroughly English preference
in which I concur with him.
This usage would have the disadvantage that it makes it harder
for contemporary philosophers to indulge their prejudice
against this particular form of logical empiricism while
tolerating the muddle which Quine contrived to replace it.
On the general desirability of knowledge about past usage
I am much less convinced than you appear to be.
In past half century philosophers have allowed
a pretence at coming to a precise understanding
of usage to supplant the need to make their own
usage clear and precise or to understand the usage
of other philosophers.
This is in my opinion highly determinental to addressing
any genuine philosophical questions.
It means that those who attempt to formulate and
answer such questions will invariably be misunderstood,
and that sophistry will be applauded and rewarded in
preference to a genuine and disinterested love of truth.
(plus ca change).
Roger Jones
Roger Bishop Jones
| I have only read a few articles by Carnap and I do
| find his approach rather stimulating; however, I am
| not familiar enough with his program in order to
| comment on it in much depth. I would be interested to
| discuss his philosophy if you would be willing to
| recommend a good starting place.
You could do worse than look at my web pages on
Carnap, which tell you something about his life and
works.
http://www.rbjones.com/rbjpub/philos/history/rcp003.htm
| > Scientists seek a "theory of everything", which is a
| > reductionist enterprise, but also continue to
| > develop
| > particular theories of particular areas of science
| > without
| > being inhibited by a reductionist dogma, or an
| > antireductionist
| > one.
|
| Well, it does seem that these types of debates are
| seldom appreciated by scientists; I suppose because
| scientists, more or less, go ahead with whatever works
| best in a theoretical approach. I wonder if scientists
| care to speculate whether or not their approach could
| be described as reductionistic.
I would be very suprised if there are many scientists
around who do not believe that in some sense all
science is in principle reducible to physics, but that it
doesn't quite work out in practice.
| I hope one understands that it is necessary to the
| understanding of logical analysis that I intend that
| all philosophical problems must be solved from the
| definitions that are to be concluded by such a method.
Unless you are a rationalist (which I doubt) then
you will accept that some problems (will the sun rise tommorrow?)
are not answerable soluble by purely logical means.
Your doctrine therefore amounts to refusing to
recognise any of these as philosophical problems.
This does violence not only to the origins of analytic philosophy
in ancient Greece, but also to the great variety of contemporary
philosophical thinking.
I am like you very interested in what can be achieved by
logical analysis.
It does not help to pretend that this encompasses the whole
of philosophy.
| > Today the dominant source of nonesense is ordinary
| > usage,
| > and the view that one can coherently undertake
| > philosophy
| > in a language whose semantics is to be sought in
| > that usage.
|
| I do not consider "nonsense", especially in ordinary
| usage to be a "problem" (indeed, i prefer to regard
| philosophical "problems" as "mis-understandings", and
| I realize, once again, that this may sound like a
| contention when it is only a re-description from a
| different viewpoint). I don't believe that
| philosophers need another language to deal with
| philosophical problems, they just need to understand
| language at a greater depth and thus learn how to use
| it differently.
Some care is needed in talking about the adequacy
of "ordinary language".
For two entirely different things can be meant by those
who endorse "ordinary language".
Language is a living and evolving thing, and all that
mankind has ever or will ever accomplish is accomodated
by this living cultural artefact.
In this encompassing sense formal languages are an
integral part of natural language.
Not only is it natural and pervasive for every group
of specialists to evolve a special terminology within
our language which enables them to talk with the
precision they need about the matters which concern
them, but also scientists and mathematicians
freely adopt special notations which takes this specialised
evolution of language much further.
The effects of such innovation cannot be separated from
the less specialised aspects of the language.
The meaning and precision with with the concept of "set"
is used in informal english discourse is strongly influenced by
the meaning it has been given in precise formal languages,
and similar claims can be made for many scientific concepts.
However, this evolution of our language is fuelled by
its defects, the language evolves at least in part because
we discover new problems for which it is not ideal.
The philosophy of Wittgenstein and the practice of
much subsequent philosophy flies in the face of these
mundane facts about language.
In the hands of many philosophers the belief that
ordinary language is good enough amounts to a
denial of the right or need of philosophers to do
what all other users of language do, which is to evolve
their usage in accordance with their needs (or whims)
and to adopt greater formality where it suits them.
This is inimical to achieving in philosophy that rigour
which belongs to mathematics but will forever
evade philosophers so long as they decline to adopt
notations and methods adequate for deductive rigour.
I sense that we are not so far apart, and you may
therefore find something of interest in my philosophical
pages at:
http://www.rbjones.com/rbjpub/philos/index.htm
I here distinguish between "analytic philosophy"
and "speculative philosophy" but it is important to
understand that under the rough heading "analytic"
I am concerned primarily with formal logical analysis
(though there is some discussion of the various other
kinds of analysis).
I also use the term "philosophical logicism"
http://www.rbjones.com/rbjpub/philos/logic/003.htm
for my programme in logical analysis.
These web pages have been almost static for the
last couple of years, but I am hoping to do some
more work on them before long, and perhaps the
discussion here on analytic will stimulate me to get
moving again.
Roger Jones
M Murphy
I too would be more than happy talking about Carnap. I'm especially
interested in his lesser appreciated work in the philosophy of science--ie.
his contribution to the debate concerning observational vs. theoretic terms.
Reading your posts thus far, I think we will more likely disagree than agree
on most issues. But it will be nice to meet the name behind the website you
run, which I've visited on many occasions over the years and highly
recommend.
Cheers,
M.J.Murphy
`The shapes of things are dumb.'
-L. Wittgenstein
Daniel Language
>
>
> scientists
> around who do not believe that in some sense all
> science is in principle reducible to physics, but
> that it
> doesn't quite work out in practice.
This surprises me. How is such a thing maintained,
even theoretically? If all science is reducible to
physics, in principle, then wouldn't this mean that
every other scientific field is studying a mere
illusion (unless reducible means something other than
I think). Can this conclusion be avoided-(does it even
matter?) I suppose I can't see how you can have both.
Either biologists are studying quantum particles or
they are really studying a complex organic system that
is distinct from its energy composition. What is it
really with these natural "levels"? It always strikes
me as very odd that such levels are a reality, but I
am not quite sure why it should.
>
> | I hope one understands that it is necessary to the
> | understanding of logical analysis that I intend
> that
> | all philosophical problems must be solved from the
> | definitions that are to be concluded by such a
> method.
>
> Unless you are a rationalist (which I doubt) then
> you will accept that some problems (will the sun
> rise tommorrow?)
> are not answerable soluble by purely logical means.
I suppose I would have to disagree. We can define this
question as insoluble, which is to say we can
determine by logical means that such a question,
although meaningful to some extent, is not answerable;
purely because, under "current" conditions, we do not
know how to answer it. Were the conditions to change,
it may become possible to answer this question. Indeed
we can even determine the conditions in which such a
question would be answerable, and therefore, as it
happens, it is soluble by logical means.
> Your doctrine therefore amounts to refusing to
> recognise any of these as philosophical problems.
> This does violence not only to the origins of
> analytic philosophy
> in ancient Greece, but also to the great variety of
> contemporary
> philosophical thinking.
On the contrary I think it vindicates many of the
enduring intuitions of the philosophy of ancient
Greece, particularly that of Plato or Aristotle.
>
> I am like you very interested in what can be
> achieved by
> logical analysis.
> It does not help to pretend that this encompasses
> the whole
> of philosophy.
Well, I am not pretending.
> In this encompassing sense formal languages are an
> integral part of natural language.
> Not only is it natural and pervasive for every group
> of specialists to evolve a special terminology
> within
> our language which enables them to talk with the
> precision they need about the matters which concern
> them, but also scientists and mathematicians
> freely adopt special notations which takes this
> specialised
> evolution of language much further.
Naturally mathematics, science and other specialized
fields, such as economics and so forth, come to
develop their own terminology as suits their purpose,
yet it is senseless for philosophers to do the same.
Formal logic, in respect to the general objective in
treating philosophical problems, is, in my view,
useless and mis-guided.
> The effects of such innovation cannot be separated
> from
> the less specialised aspects of the language.
> The meaning and precision with with the concept of
> "set"
> is used in informal english discourse is strongly
> influenced by
> the meaning it has been given in precise formal
> languages,
> and similar claims can be made for many scientific
> concepts.
I do not deny any of this, simply that a formal
philosophical language (consisting of ulterior
symbols) is a mistake.
>
> In the hands of many philosophers the belief that
> ordinary language is good enough amounts to a
> denial of the right or need of philosophers to do
> what all other users of language do, which is to
> evolve
> their usage in accordance with their needs (or
> whims)
> and to adopt greater formality where it suits them.
No-one need withold the right of anyone to do whatever
they please, philosophers included. This however,
doesn't quite change the fact. I would never claim
that philosopher's should abandon formal languages; it
is not my business. Nevertheless, I believe that it is
a waste of time and effort if it is meant to aid in
solving many of the traditional philosophical
problems.
> This is inimical to achieving in philosophy that
> rigour
> which belongs to mathematics but will forever
> evade philosophers so long as they decline to adopt
> notations and methods adequate for deductive rigour.
This is where I believe you are mistaken. The rigour
that may be achieved by logical analysis is
unparrelleled. That is why it is so throughly
exciting. In a deeper and more comprehensive
understanding of language as function, the rigour and
logical finality of this kind of use excells that of
mathematics only in the sense that a definition of
number is only possible by the kind of use that is
performed in logical analysis. The practice of
mathematics is not at all concerned with the
definition of number, which is precisely what makes
such practice (such use) possible. Yet, naturally,
only in this way do I claim that logical analysis
excells the practice of mathematics since it is
remains a matter of purpose.
>
> I sense that we are not so far apart, and you may
> therefore find something of interest in my
> philosophical
> pages at:
>
> http://www.rbjones.com/rbjpub/philos/index.htm
Thanks, I'll be sure to give it a look.
perhaps the
> discussion here on analytic will stimulate me to get
> moving again.
Looking forward to it...
Best,
Daniel
__________________________________________________
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Roger Bishop Jones
| I too would be more than happy talking about Carnap.
That's good.
| I'm especially
| interested in his lesser appreciated work in the philosophy of science--ie.
| his contribution to the debate concerning observational vs. theoretic terms.
I'm not clear what you are referring to here.
Is this about semantics, or is it ontology?
Any particular books or papers you have in mind?
Roger Jones
M Murphy
I wrote:
>
>
> | I'm especially
> | interested in his lesser appreciated work in the philosophy of science--ie.
> | his contribution to the debate concerning observational vs. theoretic terms.
>
> I'm not clear what you are referring to here.
> Is this about semantics, or is it ontology?
> Any particular books or papers you have in mind?
Partly I am thinking of The Logical Structure, but mostly the short essay "The
Unity of Science" and the late book "Introduction to the Philosophy of Science".
Reduction sentences in the two earlier works seem very like the definitions one
gives of theoretical concepts in terms of observational contexts in the later.
Also, I am thinking of the way Hempel developed Carnap-ian/Positivist accounts of
the theoretical/observational divide in "The Theoreticians Dilemma" and other
papers.
Cheers,
M.J. Murphy
`The shapes of things are dumb.'
-L. Wittgenstein
J L Speranza
Positivism Empiricism
1. This is an atom. 1. This is a table
2. This is a molecule. 2. This is a chair.
3. This is an electron. 3. This is a coat.
=====
Thanks to RB(J) for his reply.
He writes: "I have not been able to find the quoted passage [p.10 of 1936
edn] from Ayer and so am unable to judge properly its meaning from the
context. Note however, that he speaks of "postivism" not of "logical
postivism"
["Our own logical empiricism to be distinguished
from positivism", as cited by OED2]
"and without more of the context it is not possible to be sure that he was
not simply making clearer the distinction between logical positivism and
previous kinds of positivism or empiricism."
Mmm. Let's see. I've got the tenth edition of the second edition. (My, you
_are_ right. The book DID sell: My book mentions: "First published. second
impression, 3 months later (meaning first impression sold out). third
impression, 7 months later. fourth impression, one year and a half later.
second edition ("revised and reset") eight years later. tenth impressions
thereof! in less than ten years!)
Anyway, I hope I can find the sentence in my book!
Not that it will prove anything, of course -- but a slight question of
usage, if at all!
1. For all RB Jones says against the importance of _not_ trying to
"engross yourself" with niceties of English usage (or as I prefer,
"syntax"), I find Ayer's attempt to modify his approach from a narrow
scientist one (where one analyses "atom", "molecule", and "electron") to a
more ordinary-English one (where what one perceives are "tables, chairs,
and coats", as per our six examples above -- from Ayer's section in
"Rationalism and Empiricism" -- within the chapter, "Solutions to
Outstanding Philosophical Disputes").
2. There's also a crucial distinction as to the interpretation of
metaphysics, it seems to me: while the positivists (as per Ayer's
characterisation in ch.1) would say "metaphysics" is nothing short of a
branch of poetry (if that's the way you express it), Ayer seems to be
rightly pointing out that the metaphysician (and they all seem to be
meaning poor old Heidegger at his worst here) is trying to speak sense (and
failing!)... Thus, Ayer is being more provocative than your average
positivist it seems. But I doubt England ever had a metaphysician such as
Germany had Heidegger. Never found one!
3. There's also the minor divergence about how "logical empiricist" Ayer
deals (contra "logical positivists") with "generalisations" (Ayer's
reference to Schlick).
Best,
JL
PS. Thanks to L. Tapper for his interesting remarks on "fictional". I think
Grice and I would say that there's no need to qualify those usages (as
identified by Tapper) as "fictional"! I'll revise my Grice!
Thanks to JL for his kind words! (That's Lynch!) -- i.e. "keep it up"!
(I'll try to think of something re symbolism to recommend!)
Thanks to D. Language for his clarifications re: function/value. I'll
think about it!
====================
* I notice that p.10 (1936) -- as cited by the OED2 -- sounds like
"beginning", but I check with my 2nd edn. and "positivism" is _also_
featured in the index, viz.:
positivism, 135-7
There, Ayer writes (emphasis mine. JLS):
"An explicit rejection of METAPHYSICS, as distinct from a MERE ABSTENTION
from metaphysical UTTERANCES, is characteristic of the type of EMPIRIICSM
which is known as POSITIVISM".
"But we have found ourselves"
My, he was in need of sympathy and corporate support. Oxford's infant
terrible (and an outcast by Oxonian standards, in Jones's view :)), is an
24-year old, as Daniel notes, thinking all the world is behind him. Hate
those majestic "our" and "ourselves" and "we"...! :) (I think Ayer was
later to criticise his own style in _Language, Truth & Logic_ in _Part of
My Life_ - he said he wrote it in a week or something! Because he needed
the money for the wedding?). (It was published by I think Anglo-Jewish
Gollancz - Anglo-Jewish as Ayer was. Oxford's Clarendon Press would not
have accepted it!)
"unable to accept the criterion which the POSITIVISTS employ to distinguish
a metaphysical utterance from a GENUINE synthetic proposition". For THEY"
i.e. the POSITIVISTS
require a synthetic proposition that it should, in PRINCIPLE at least, be
CONCLUSIVELY VERIFIABLE. And as, for reasons which we have already given,
NO PROPOSITION IS CAPABLE, EVEN IN PRINCIPLE, of being verified
CONCLUSIVELY [...] the POSITIVIST criterion, so far from marking the
distinction between
LITERAL SENSE & NONSENSE
as it is intended to"
One (i.e. I) wonders how can Sir Freddie (as I friendily call him) be so
sure what the logical positivists intended to -- a few months at Vienna
don't bestow privilege access on the Vienesse mind, does it? Especially, as
I expect his German wasn't as good. Quine also attended the Vienna Circle
meetings, now that I recall (having read!)).
"makes every utterance NONSENSICAL. Therefore, it is necessary to adopt a
weakened form of the POSITIVIST verification principle". In pratice, very
little of what is allowed to be SIGNIFICANT by this"
i.e. "our"!
"criterion would NOT be allowed also by the POSITIVISTS. But that is
because they do not apply their own criterion consistently."
My, he does sound like a 24 year-old. 13 year-old even! Such teenager
insolence! :)
"It should be added that we"
That's Sir Freddie going majestic. :)
"dissent also from the POSITIVIST doctrine with regard to the signficance
of particular symbols. For it is characteristic of a POSITIVIST to hold
that all symbols, other than LOGICAL constants"
Daniel, recall we've been there!
"must either themselves stand for sense-contents or else be explicitly
definable in terms of symbols which stand for sense contents. It is plain
that such physical symbols as
1. x is an atom.
2. x is a molecule.
3. is an electron.
"fail to satisfy this condition. And some POSITIVISTS, including Mach, have
been prepared on this account to regard the use of them as ILLEGITIMATE.
They"
i.e. the positivists.
"would have have been SO RUTHLESS if THEY had realised that they ought,
also, if they were to be consistent in the application of their criterion,
to have condemned the use of symbols which stand for material things. For
as WE have seen, even such familiar symbols as
4. x is a table.
5. x is a chair.
6. x is a coat.
"cannot be defined explicitly in terms of SYMBOLS WHICH STAND FOR
SENSE-CONTENTS, BUT ONLY IN USE [...] This condition is well satisfied by
the physical symbols which POSITIVISTS have condemned as by the symbols
which stand for familiar material things".
I find Ayer also uses "POSITIVIST" at least on p.37 of my edition -- why it
would be good to have the whole thing digitalised so that we could do nice
searches on it! --(ch 1: the elimination of metaphysics): "In face of this
difficulty, some POSITIVISTS (Schlick, "Causality in Contemporary Physics")
have adopted the HEROIC COURSE OF SAYING THAT GENERAL PROPOSITIONS ARE
PIECES OF NONSENSE."
===
Roger Bishop Jones
[the subject was Reconsidering Logical Positivism]
| --- Roger Bishop Jones <rbj...@rbjones.com> wrote:
| > in response to Daniel Language Friday, July 20, 2001
| >
| >
| > I would be very suprised if there are many
| > scientists
| > around who do not believe that in some sense all
| > science is in principle reducible to physics, but
| > that it
| > doesn't quite work out in practice.
|
|
| This surprises me. How is such a thing maintained,
| even theoretically?
I doesn't have to be maintained "theoretically", it works.
| If all science is reducible to
| physics, in principle, then wouldn't this mean that
| every other scientific field is studying a mere
| illusion (unless reducible means something other than
| I think). Can this conclusion be avoided-(does it even
| matter?) I suppose I can't see how you can have both.
The conclusion is not inevitable.
You can't do Biolgy using the language of quantum mechanics.
You need biological concepts.
In practice these never are defined using the language
of physics.
| Either biologists are studying quantum particles
They aren't, I'm pretty sure most of them would say
that they are not, but I also expect that many
of them would accept some kind of reducibility in
principle to the basic laws of physics.
They would accept perhaps that whatever physics
says there is, really is all that there is and that the
things they study are made up from these kinds of thing.
<snip a whole lot>
| > I sense that we are not so far apart ...
I think I was wrong there!
I am confused about your position.
Do you hold that everything that can
be known can be known by logical analysis?
If so do you hold that everyday facts about the
world and the "empircal" laws of science are
not known or that they are known by logical analysis?
I am not myself interested in attempting to mandate
limits to what philosophy is, though there are many
kinds of philosophy which are not so interesting to
me.
So whatever your position is on what counts as philosophy
I am not likely either to concurr or debate, however
I'd just like to clear up a little my understanding of
where you are coming from.
Another point you might comment on is:
1) why should philosophers be the only people
not allowed to adapt language to their purposes?
2) how can you hold such a position and talk
about "logical analysis"?
Roger Jones
Roger Bishop Jones
Thanks for the many quotes from Ayer.
I conclude from these that Ayer was keen to
distinguish his contribution both from positivism
and from logical positivism, but often fails
to distinguish these two (all the cited sections
referred simply to positivism not to logical
positivism, both Mach and Schlick are referred
to simply as positivists).
Bearing in mind that we think of Carnap as
a logical positivist throughout and that his
philosophy continued to develop up until his
death in the 60s it doesn't seem sensible to
follow Ayer's usage of the distinction between
"logical positivism" and "logical empiricism".
Though Ayer cites Carnap the member of the
Vienna circle whose philosophy he most appreciates
the distinction between their philosophy is quite
substantial.
The two most substantial points which occur
in my mind are:
1) that Ayer makes the verification principle
central to his philosophy, to an extent which
goes some way to justifying the sense that its
collapse renders in doubt the whole.
[whereas in Carnap very little of what I have
read is impacted by the complete abandonment
of this principle]
2) Ayer shows no sign of interest in Carnap's
attempts to use formal notations in philosophy
and science.
| 1. For all RB Jones says against the importance of _not_ trying to
| "engross yourself" with niceties of English usage (or as I prefer,
| "syntax"), I find Ayer's attempt to modify his approach from a narrow
| scientist one (where one analyses "atom", "molecule", and "electron") to a
| more ordinary-English one (where what one perceives are "tables, chairs,
| and coats", as per our six examples above -- from Ayer's section in
| "Rationalism and Empiricism" -- within the chapter, "Solutions to
| Outstanding Philosophical Disputes").
what do you find it????
| 2. There's also a crucial distinction as to the interpretation of
| metaphysics, it seems to me: while the positivists (as per Ayer's
| characterisation in ch.1) would say "metaphysics" is nothing short of a
| branch of poetry (if that's the way you express it), Ayer seems to be
| rightly pointing out that the metaphysician (and they all seem to be
| meaning poor old Heidegger at his worst here) is trying to speak sense (and
| failing!)... Thus, Ayer is being more provocative than your average
| positivist it seems. But I doubt England ever had a metaphysician such as
| Germany had Heidegger. Never found one!
[not sure whether the following really bears upon this observation]
If you read Carnap's autobiography it is clear there that
the main impact of Wittgenstein on Carnap's thought
was to make Carnap more radical in his rejection of metaphysics
and that the verification principle (which Carnap attributed
to Wittgenstein) was an important factor in this.
This is interesting partly because this more radical
feature which Ayer is attributing to positivism does not
seem to have come to Carnap from his positivistic
predecessors (notably Mach) but from Wittgenstein.
Secondly I note that this more radical rejection of metaphysics
seems to me contrary to the general tenor of Carnap's
philosophy.
Carnap's undogmatic temper is there to see in his
"principle of tolerance", in the way he himself tried
multiple approaches to the formalisation of science,
and in his own ready accounts of how he was naturally
inclined to shift his language according to who he was
talking to.
In this and other areas Carnap's character seems to me
to have been diametrically opposed to that of Wittgenstein.
[Wittgenstein, far from adapting his language in
discourse with Carnap declined to speak to him at
all once he knew that Carnap had a mind of his own
and might question the wisdom he was dispensing]
Soon, we must move from discussion of words like
"logical positivism" and "logical empricism" to discussion
of more substantive philosophical issues.
[probably not the verification principle since there
might be a shortage of defenders]
Roger Jones
Daniel Language
--- Roger Bishop Jones <rbj...@rbjones.com> wrote:
>
>
> I doesn't have to be maintained "theoretically", it
> works.
What works?
>
> The conclusion is not inevitable.
> You can't do Biolgy using the language of quantum
> mechanics.
> You need biological concepts.
> In practice these never are defined using the
> language
> of physics.
This is, naturally, my point.
>
> | Either biologists are studying quantum particles
>
> They aren't, I'm pretty sure most of them would say
> that they are not, but I also expect that many
> of them would accept some kind of reducibility in
> principle to the basic laws of physics.
My original question remains that (given that they are
not studying quantum particles) what possible form
could this reduction take? I mean if you take a strict
route then whatever could validate a distinction
between what a biologist studies and what a physicist
studies? I garner a biologist would be hard-pressed to
explain blood-clotting by quanta. This reducibility,
"in principle" is very misleading. It implies that
"blood-clotting" is merely a quantum phenomena, which
I may not disagree with, if someone would first
explain what they would be using this reduction to
mean. In other words, "blood-clotting" is a real thing
and so is the basic energy composition, however, the
relation that can be made between them is an
explanation of quantum particles and their behavior
NOT of "blood-clotting". That quantum particles are
the BASIS of everything is an explanation of what
quantum particles are NOT of what they are the basis.
What I am getting to here is that the reducibility is
NOT one by which, "blood-cells" are to be reduced or
transformed into quantum particles, such that we can
describe and explain blood-cells as quantum particles,
but rather the reducibility is one by which the
structural composition of reality may be understood
and organized. To confuse this reducibility as
implying that blood-cells are JUST quantum particles
is to confuse the structure of reality as stages of
illusion.
> They would accept perhaps that whatever physics
> says there is, really is all that there is and that
> the
> things they study are made up from these kinds of
> thing.
>
> <snip a whole lot>
>
> | > I sense that we are not so far apart ...
>
> I think I was wrong there!
I thought you may come to this conclusion :)
>
> I am confused about your position.
> Do you hold that everything that can
> be known can be known by logical analysis?
Absolutely. If this is to mean that the possibility of
knowledge provides for the kinds of things that we can
know. Whatever is not possible of knowledge is not
possible to know.
>
> If so do you hold that everyday facts about the
> world and the "empircal" laws of science are
> not known or that they are known by logical
> analysis?
You confuse the meaning of my position. I am talking
about the representation of knowledge in language. In
logical analysis we do not treat of the types. To
answer your question very directly I would say the
following:
1. Logical analysis is a definitive method. That is,
its sole objective is a "description of knowledge"
which is what we call "a definition of value (the
world)". In defining language we necessarily define
"the possibility of its use", which defines, by
default (so to speak) any possible use. Thereby we
define the structure of facts, what facts are, what
role they have in the representation of knowledge in
language. We also define meaning, value, kinds, types,
etc...and in doing so we define the world. It is a
confusion to treat this analysis as saying that "we
know that the sky is blue" a priori, for when we have
defined: relations, sentences, meaning, value,
etc...then such considerations are superfluous. In
other words, it becomes natural that the factual
structure of the world can be reformed as the purely
objective representation of knowledge in language. You
should look closely at what Einstein's theory proves
(logical consequences).
2. We can not know anything that is not provided in
the possibility of knowledge.
The so-called "empirical facts" such as "the sky is
blue" do not represent sensation, they represent our
knowledge. There is an "external world" but it is not
"external" to knowledge, for "external world" is only
a kind of description that is valid in a particular
kind of use.
>
> I am not myself interested in attempting to mandate
> limits to what philosophy is, though there are many
> kinds of philosophy which are not so interesting to
> me.
> So whatever your position is on what counts as
> philosophy
Well, as I explained, I myself am not interested in
mandating what counts or what doesn't count as
philosophy. It is again, a matter of value. I consider
an important fact that there are certain (an infinite
actually) positions from which one can describe the
world, yet only certain things follow logically from
any position. It is not that we are able to decide how
the world looks from one position. Either a statement
is consistent with that position or it is not
(objectivity).
>
> Another point you might comment on is:
> 1) why should philosophers be the only people
> not allowed to adapt language to their purposes?
Well, they shouldn't. I believe that you have
miss-interpreted what I tried to say very clearly.
Philosophers are of-course "allowed" (who can stop
them) to do so. It is just a logical consequence of
the position that I hold that such language-adaption
with the objective of solving certain particular
problems is inconsistent and unhelpful.
> 2) how can you hold such a position and talk
> about "logical analysis"?
What is this supposed to mean?
best,
Daniel
>
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J L Speranza
"Soon, we must move from discussion of words like "logical positivism" and
"logical empricism" to discussion
of more substantive philosophical issues. [probably not the verification
principle since there might be a shortage of defenders]"
Yes, I agree. I will try & visit your pages and Friedman's! I see Rodrigo
has just circulated my transcript of the Ayer interview with Magee. Knowing
you, you'll say it's superficial. And it _is_! (i.e. and I agree -- "Ditto"
theory of truth, a la Strawson!).
Anyway, yes, I guess we need to look for some more substantive
philosophical issue (or other). Allow me some breath, tho'! -- and a cuppa
coffee...
Anyway, another funny bit in the ps.
Best,
JL
====
PS. To think you were Austrian! Jones-eberg, rather! :)
PS. I loved it when you write:
"what do you find it????"
(sic with four "?", "?", "?", and "?" -- or as Daniel would say, with four
tokens of the type _?_)
to my pompous:
1. For all RB Jones says against the importance of _not_ trying to
"engross yourself" with niceties of English usage (or as I prefer,
"syntax"), I find Ayer's attempt to modify his approach from a narrow
scientist one (where one analyses "atom", "molecule", and "electron") to a
more ordinary-English one (where what one perceives are "tables, chairs,
and coats", as per our six examples above -- from Ayer's section in
"Rationalism and Empiricism" -- within the chapter, "Solutions to
Outstanding Philosophical Disputes").
Boy, be grateful! I was trying to provide a full bibliographical quote and
got lost right in the mighty mid of it (all)!
I did detect the erratum, but Rodrigo allows 2 posts per day, so "what the
hell", I though. Also, mind, the sentence is (as it stands) _grammatical_
and almost (i.e. all-most) _verifiable_.
You ask what I found? Well, I found Ayer's attempt, OBVIOUSLY!
Quite a subtle thing to find, if you axes [sic. JLS] me!
I confess I was probably meaning [sic. JLS] to find it _interesting_ (or
something), but now that I think of it, I think finding _it_ (i.e. the
attempt by Sir Freddie, that is) is already quite a find, as I say.
(Do you like my English sense of humour? (LIE TO ME in a pleasing manner)).
T P Uschanov
> [Wittgenstein, far from adapting his language in discourse with
> Carnap declined to speak to him at all once he knew that Carnap had
> a mind of his own and might question the wisdom he was dispensing]
Now this is a bit calumnious. Wittgenstein was friendly with a not
inconsiderable number of philosophers who cannot be described as
Wittgensteinians in any sensible sense -- e.g., Turing, Moore,
G. H. von Wright, J. N. Findlay, Georg Kreisel, Peter Munz.
They all "questioned the wisdom he was dispensing," in two cases
writing entire books in criticism of it, in others completely
ignoring it in their own philosophical work.
It seems clear that Wittgenstein's break with Carnap had chiefly
to do with the difference in their outlooks on life. To be equally
unfair to both parties, Wittgenstein was basically a misanthrope,
while Carnap was basically a do-gooder. (I remember reading somewhere
that the immediate context of the break was reportedly a row Carnap
had with Wittgenstein regarding the value of parapsychology.)
> ... sophistry will be applauded and rewarded in preference to a
> genuine and disinterested love of truth.
But philosophy isn't love of truth. In Greek,
"agape" = 'love, affection'
but
"philia" = 'friendship, comity'
Which means a world of difference.
> Not only is it natural and pervasive for every group of specialists
> to evolve a special terminology within our language which enables
> them to talk with the precision they need about the matters which
> concern them, but also scientists and mathematicians freely adopt
> special notations which takes this specialised evolution of
> language much further.
Well, I deny that they do so. (I guess this is precisely what makes
me into an ordinary language philosopher.)
You write that "formal languages are an integral part of natural
language". No. They are in fact *parasitic on* natural language.
Every time a philosopher takes a new formal language in use, he's
already had to define all of its terms and operators in some
natural language (in the case of contemporary analytic philosophy,
usually English). Even in Principia Mathematica, the locus classicus
of formalization, the first thing one encounters when one starts
reading the first volume is "Preliminary Explanations of Ideas and
Notations", written in the finest King's English -- while the second
volume kicks in with a "Prefatory Statement of Symbolic Conventions".
Similarly, all the logic papers and books I've ever seen would be
completely incomprehensible were it not for the use of a natural
language to define the terms and operators in use. Ergo, formal
languages are clear, plain, unequivocal, and incontrovertible only
insofar as the natural languages used to define them are.
"Thus in Russell and Whitehead's Principia Mathematica there occur
definitions and primitive propositions expressed in words. Why this
sudden appearance of words? It would require a justification, but
none is given, or could be given, since the procedure is in fact
illicit." (Wittgenstein, Tractatus §5.452)
To me someone like Russell, who uses English to reprobate the use
of natural languages in philosophy, has the same immeasurable,
very philosophical amusiveness as Parmenides, who moves his lips
and tongue in order to announce that nothing moves.
> In the hands of many philosophers the belief that ordinary
> language is good enough amounts to a denial of the right or
> need of philosophers to do what all other users of language
> do, which is to evolve their usage in accordance with their needs
> (or whims) and to adopt greater formality where it suits them.
What you say may be true, but it needs to be balanced with the fact
that in the hands of many philosophers, arguments to the conclusion
that formalization is legitimate are all too often mistaken for
arguments to the conclusion that attempts to do without it as long
as possible are somehow illegitimate -- which mistaking is as
completely contrary to Carnap's principle of tolerance as can be.
> I see very little sign of Logical Positivism seriously attempting
> the analysis of ordinary english usage, and this is in my mind
> an important merit.
And in my mind it is the chief defect. Sweeping under the carpet
the fact that they needed ordinary usage all the time in defining
their terms, the logical positivists merely made it easier for
themselves to use ordinary language in objectionable ways.
> This has no bearing on Logical Positivism but only on
> its presentation and reception in England.
Still, you mentioned as an especially important merit that
logical positivism didn't attempt "the analysis of ordinary
*English* usage". Exactly why is that?
> Quine's "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" is itself much more dogmatic
> than the doctrines it criticises and a great deal less well-
> founded in its critique.
Now here's something on which I wholeheartedly agree with you!
With unapologetic daring,
T P Uschanov
University of Helsinki
<tusc...@cc.helsinki.fi>
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rbj...@rbjones.com
let me pause for a second to mention that even
before Speranza invited me to flatter him,
and despite my better judgement, I did find myself
beginning to enjoy his amiable banter.
--- In analytic@y..., Daniel Language <danlang7@y...> wrote:
>
> --- Roger Bishop Jones <rbjones@r...> wrote:
> >
> >
> > I doesn't have to be maintained "theoretically", it
> > works.
>
> What works?
Science does, despite its mix of essentially
reductionist theory ("the theory of everything")
with a greater mass of work which pragmatically
ignores the possibilities of reduction.
> This is, naturally, my point.
>
> >
> > | Either biologists are studying quantum particles
> >
> > They aren't, I'm pretty sure most of them would say
> > that they are not, but I also expect that many
> > of them would accept some kind of reducibility in
> > principle to the basic laws of physics.
>
> My original question remains that (given that they are
> not studying quantum particles) what possible form
> could this reduction take?
I don't have an answer to this.
I could start to construct one and doubtless you
could pick holes in it.
This is peripheral to my own concerns.
However, let me say that if you want to take a definite
negative position on reductionism then the burden is
on you to show that no possible explication of this notion
can be constructed which is tenable, and this is a pretty
hard to do.
It does not suffice to pick holes in your own ideas
of what it might mean.
> I thought you may come to this conclusion :)
>
> >
> > I am confused about your position.
> > Do you hold that everything that can
> > be known can be known by logical analysis?
>
> Absolutely. If this is to mean that the possibility of
> knowledge provides for the kinds of things that we can
> know. Whatever is not possible of knowledge is not
> possible to know.
That's not what it means at all.
Do you think that scientists should stop doing
experiments and start discovering their laws by
logical analysis alone?
[skipping loads of stuff here]
I confess I'm not finding it easy to understand
your position, or even to get a grip on any one
of the differences between us.
Let me just pass to the concluding passage.
> > Another point you might comment on is:
> > 1) why should philosophers be the only people
> > not allowed to adapt language to their purposes?
>
> Well, they shouldn't. I believe that you have
> miss-interpreted what I tried to say very clearly.
> Philosophers are of-course "allowed" (who can stop
> them) to do so. It is just a logical consequence of
> the position that I hold that such language-adaption
> with the objective of solving certain particular
> problems is inconsistent and unhelpful.
>
> > 2) how can you hold such a position and talk
> > about "logical analysis"?
>
> What is this supposed to mean?
"Logical Analysis" is a technical term in philosophy.
You yourself use this in a sense in which I have
never previously seen this used (not knowingly).
If you claim that it is never useful for philosophers
to adapt language to their purposes then how do you
justify your usage of the term "Logical Analysis".
Roger Jones
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(c) 2001 by Analytic
Daniel Language
> This is a response to Daniel Language, but
> let me pause for a second to mention that even
> before Speranza invited me to flatter him,
> and despite my better judgement, I did find myself
> beginning to enjoy his amiable banter.
Your condescending patronism is wholly unappreciated.
I have spoken in good faith with valid and consistent
arguments and you have yet to offer any meaningful
counter-argument; at the very least on reductionism,
which I imagine no further explanation for your
understanding is neeeded.
> I don't have an answer to this.
> I could start to construct one and doubtless you
> could pick holes in it.
> This is peripheral to my own concerns.
> However, let me say that if you want to take a
> definite
> negative position on reductionism then the burden is
> on you to show that no possible explication of this
> notion
> can be constructed which is tenable, and this is a
> pretty
> hard to do.
Well, reducionism is not exactly "central" to my
concerns either but since we ARE having a discussion I
will take the time and respond meaningfully. You have
quietly evaded the main strength of my argument
against a reductionism used to mean that the structure
of reality is stages of illusion. Simply because we
can SAY that every number can be broken up into a
series of "1" does not also mean that this reduction
is as to identity; as if 7 and 1 are identical by such
a reduction of the properties of 7. In the same vein,
that we can say that sub-atomic particles are the
property of a human being does not also entail that a
human being is the property of sub-atomic particles.
In finding the lowest common property we have not only
NOW identified everything, only now have we identified
sub-atomic particles as the lowest common property. As
I said, it is a way of meaning the basics, as in, "A
car is sub-atomic particles". Logically, we do not
mean this to say that we can simply replace all our
words and terms with "sub-atomic particles" since NOW
we know that "everything is sub-atomic particles" (on
a side note: do you hold that "is" is a sub-atomic
particle, really?). That it is part of the meaning of
sub-atomic particles that they are the lowest common
denominator in the structure of reality does not mean
that everything is now to be identified as sub-atomic
particles. If that were held then only sub-atomic
particles can be validily said to have identity and
this amounts to saying that everything else has been
an illusion. Reduction can not coherently take this
form of meaning. If it did then statements of the form
"everything is sub-atomic particles" could not even
begin to be formulated, because we would have to
explain how we were able to identify anything but
sub-atomic particles. This is a beginning...if you
would care to respond.
> Do you think that scientists should stop doing
> experiments and start discovering their laws by
> logical analysis alone?
Of-course not. This is a miss-interpretation of the
meaning of my position. In my view, science is
generally subjective because it uses language to
describe the world (value). Some of the basic tenents
of Einstein's theory, when logically analyized, lend
themselves to an understand of this fact and at the
same time an understanding that there is objective
knowledge.
> I confess I'm not finding it easy to understand
> your position, or even to get a grip on any one
> of the differences between us.
This is good, actually, because as I understand
logical analysis to be the only truly objective method
it does not and can not contend with value-laden views
because it is the method by which their possibility is
defined.
>
> "Logical Analysis" is a technical term in
> philosophy.
Not much to go on here. What exactly is a "technical
term"? Do you mean this to be a description of a kind
of philosophy or do you mean that logical analysis is
a technique in philosophy? In my view, the historical
path of philosophy has been guided by an intuition of
such a method. I believe that Wittgenstein was closest
in his tractatus at realizing the understanding of
this method, however didn't appreciate that his later
views were logically commesurable with his eariler
work.
>
> If you claim that it is never useful for
> philosophers
> to adapt language to their purposes then how do you
> justify your usage of the term "Logical Analysis".
Once again, I said that for the objective of solving
particular problems such language-adaptation is
useless because it is precisely backwards. And the
latter part of your statement is wholly lost on me.
Daniel
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Roger Bishop Jones
| > [RBJ]
| > I don't have an answer to this.
| > I could start to construct one and doubtless you
| > could pick holes in it.
| > This is peripheral to my own concerns.
|
| > However, let me say that if you want to take a
| > definite
| > negative position on reductionism then the burden is
| > on you to show that no possible explication of this
| > notion
| > can be constructed which is tenable, and this is a
| > pretty
| > hard to do.
|
| Well, reducionism is not exactly "central" to my
| concerns either but since we ARE having a discussion I
| will take the time and respond meaningfully. You have
| quietly evaded the main strength of my argument
| against a reductionism used to mean that the structure
| of reality is stages of illusion.
I have never understood you to be taking that as the
defininition of reductionism.
It is certainly not the meaning intended by me when
I have referred to the term, and the tenability of
reductionism as thus defined is not a thesis which
I would defend.
| > Do you think that scientists should stop doing
| > experiments and start discovering their laws by
| > logical analysis alone?
|
| Of-course not. This is a miss-interpretation of the
| meaning of my position.
Its actually just a question.
I am trying to understand you and failing.
| In my view, science is
| generally subjective because it uses language to
| describe the world (value). Some of the basic tenents
| of Einstein's theory, when logically analyized, lend
| themselves to an understand of this fact and at the
| same time an understanding that there is objective
| knowledge.
This doesn't help me much in understanding
your position.
Let me remind you what you said earlier.
In response to my question:
> I am confused about your position.
> Do you hold that everything that can
> be known can be known by logical analysis?
You replied:
| Absolutely. If this is to mean that the possibility of
| knowledge provides for the kinds of things that we can
| know. Whatever is not possible of knowledge is not
| possible to know.
Which seems to entail that the laws of science
if they can be known, can be known by logical analysis.
When I enquire further you accuse me of misinterpretation.
| > "Logical Analysis" is a technical term in
| > philosophy.
|
| Not much to go on here. What exactly is a "technical
| term"?
It is one whose meaning cannot be devined by
a study if non-philosophical language, and which
has no single well defined meaning even in philosophy.
So if you use the term you need to make clear what
you mean by it and you should expect that others will
use it in different ways.
| Do you mean this to be a description of a kind
| of philosophy or do you mean that logical analysis is
| a technique in philosophy? In my view, the historical
| path of philosophy has been guided by an intuition of
| such a method. I believe that Wittgenstein was closest
| in his tractatus at realizing the understanding of
| this method, however didn't appreciate that his later
| views were logically commesurable with his eariler
| work.
Did you mean to write ":incommensurable" there?
[that is the received view]
Wittgenstein not only repudiated the specific doctrines
of the Tractatus but that whole approach to analytic
philosophy.
| > If you claim that it is never useful for
| > philosophers
| > to adapt language to their purposes then how do you
| > justify your usage of the term "Logical Analysis".
|
| Once again, I said that for the objective of solving
| particular problems such language-adaptation is
| useless because it is precisely backwards. And the
| latter part of your statement is wholly lost on me.
The use (or misuse) of language in philosophy is continually
evolving.
By using the term "logical analysis" you are complicit in the
adaptation of language for the purposes of philosophy.
Roger Jones
Roger Bishop Jones
| > [RBJ]
| > Not only is it natural and pervasive for every group of specialists
| > to evolve a special terminology within our language which enables
| > them to talk with the precision they need about the matters which
| > concern them, but also scientists and mathematicians freely adopt
| > special notations which takes this specialised evolution of
| > language much further.
|
| Well, I deny that they do so. (I guess this is precisely what makes
| me into an ordinary language philosopher.)
Well I'm pleased to have this confirmation that a distinguishing
feature of "ordinary language philosophers" is that they deny plain
facts about language which don't suit them.
| You write that "formal languages are an integral part of natural
| language". No. They are in fact *parasitic on* natural language.
| Every time a philosopher takes a new formal language in use, he's
| already had to define all of its terms and operators in some
| natural language (in the case of contemporary analytic philosophy,
| usually English). Even in Principia Mathematica, the locus classicus
| of formalization, the first thing one encounters when one starts
| reading the first volume is "Preliminary Explanations of Ideas and
| Notations", written in the finest King's English -- while the second
| volume kicks in with a "Prefatory Statement of Symbolic Conventions".
| Similarly, all the logic papers and books I've ever seen would be
| completely incomprehensible were it not for the use of a natural
| language to define the terms and operators in use. Ergo, formal
| languages are clear, plain, unequivocal, and incontrovertible only
| insofar as the natural languages used to define them are.
Non of this has any tendency to show that the refinement
of language and the introduction of formal notations does not
increase the precision and utitlity of language.
If you are arguing that the use of language A in defining language
B guarantees that language B can be no more precise than
language A then you are simply wrong.
If that were the case the evolution of language would be impossible.
Similar considerations apply to the development of tools of
any kind and to the establishment of foundations.
It cannot be the case that to make a precise tool you
must already have a tool of equal or greater precision, otherwise
we would still be knapping flints and precision machine tools
would never have been possible.
It is also not the case that a foundation has to be build on something
more solid than itself.
Pile driving is one of the techniques which we use to make a firm
base where there was none before.
| To me someone like Russell, who uses English to reprobate the use
| of natural languages in philosophy, has the same immeasurable,
| very philosophical amusiveness as Parmenides, who moves his lips
| and tongue in order to announce that nothing moves.
I'm not aware of Russell having "reprobated" the use of natural
languages in philosophy.
To advocate taking advantage of the advances in modern logic
is hardly the same thing.
| > In the hands of many philosophers the belief that ordinary
| > language is good enough amounts to a denial of the right or
| > need of philosophers to do what all other users of language
| > do, which is to evolve their usage in accordance with their needs
| > (or whims) and to adopt greater formality where it suits them.
|
| What you say may be true, but it needs to be balanced with the fact
| that in the hands of many philosophers, arguments to the conclusion
| that formalization is legitimate are all too often mistaken for
| arguments to the conclusion that attempts to do without it as long
| as possible are somehow illegitimate -- which mistaking is as
| completely contrary to Carnap's principle of tolerance as can be.
Quite so.
My impression is that modern analytic philosophers are intolerant
of linguistic innovation except those which they undertake
themselves (usually "sweeping under the carpet" the fact
that they do this).
Your arguments seem to me calculated to show that all
such innovation is futile and illegitimate.
| > I see very little sign of Logical Positivism seriously attempting
| > the analysis of ordinary english usage, and this is in my mind
| > an important merit.
|
| And in my mind it is the chief defect. Sweeping under the carpet
| the fact that they needed ordinary usage all the time in defining
| their terms, the logical positivists merely made it easier for
| themselves to use ordinary language in objectionable ways.
I see no basis for this description of logical positivism.
I see simply an intolerant attitude to the adoption of formal
notations on your part.
| > This has no bearing on Logical Positivism but only on
| > its presentation and reception in England.
|
| Still, you mentioned as an especially important merit that
| logical positivism didn't attempt "the analysis of ordinary
| *English* usage". Exactly why is that?
Because they were interested in other problems, as I am.
There is a world of difference between making your own
language sufficiently precise for the purposes at hand,
and undertaking an analysis of ordinary usage.
The language of philosophers is rarely ordinary.
Roger Jones
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Daniel Language
>
You
> have
> | quietly evaded the main strength of my argument
> | against a reductionism used to mean that the
> structure
> | of reality is stages of illusion.
>
<> I have never understood you to be taking that as
the
<> defininition of reductionism. It is certainly not
<<the meaning intended by me when > I have referred to
<<the term, and the tenability of
<> reductionism as thus defined is not a thesis which
>< I would defend.
Well let me remind you of something you said eariler:
| >
| > I would be very suprised if there are many
| > scientists
| > around who do not believe that in some sense all
| > science is in principle reducible to physics, but
| > that it
| > doesn't quite work out in practice.
I can't seem to understand this as saying anything
other than that the structure of reality is stages of
illusion. In what other way may this be interpreted?
>
> Let me remind you what you said earlier.
>
> In response to my question:
>
> > I am confused about your position.
> > Do you hold that everything that can
> > be known can be known by logical analysis?
>
> You replied:
>
> | Absolutely. If this is to mean that the
> possibility of
> | knowledge provides for the kinds of things that we
> can
> | know. Whatever is not possible of knowledge is not
> | possible to know.
>
> Which seems to entail that the laws of science
> if they can be known, can be known by logical
> analysis.
Well, what we can do in logical analysis is define
"description", "experimentation", "measurement",
"observation", "fact", "hypothesis", "theory", and so
on. Now, what I meant about Einstein's theory is this:
"that the laws of physics are the same for all frames
of reference" is something which we could have defined
and can define by logical analysis alone. In defining
"description" as a type of logical function that is
one consequence that will follow. The entire point is
that even the relatively recent developments in
quantum physics, such as the uncertainty principle and
the collapse of the wave-function and so forth could
all have been defined by logical analysis, albeit in a
completely different form, yet given the definition we
could easily derive such consequences from it. In
other words, we can define the objective form of the
principles of physics purely by logical analysis and
in doing so, the derivation of said principles could
be demonstrated as a logical consequence. In other
words by the objective definition of language as a
function of knowledge, it is then only a matter of the
derivation of the consequences of such a completed
definition in order to apprehend the so-called "laws"
of physics. For we can also define "time and space,
motion, etc.." by logical analysis alone. So, yes, in
a very latent sense the "laws" (although I prefer
"principles") of physics can be derived from the
objective definitions that we can achieve in logical
analysis.
>
> When I enquire further you accuse me of
> misinterpretation.
Yes, and I apologize; (can't know intent).
>
> | > "Logical Analysis" is a technical term in
> | > philosophy.
> |
> | Not much to go on here. What exactly is a
> "technical
> | term"?
>
> It is one whose meaning cannot be devined by
> a study if non-philosophical language, and which
> has no single well defined meaning even in
> philosophy.
Yes, currently there is not a clear definition "in"
philosophy.
>
> | Do you mean this to be a description of a kind
> | of philosophy or do you mean that logical analysis
> is
> | a technique in philosophy? In my view, the
> historical
> | path of philosophy has been guided by an intuition
> of
> | such a method. I believe that Wittgenstein was
> closest
> | in his tractatus at realizing the understanding of
> | this method, however didn't appreciate that his
> later
> | views were logically commesurable with his eariler
> | work.
>
> Did you mean to write ":incommensurable" there?
> [that is the received view]
No, I meant "commesurable". That's why I said that he
didn't appreciate that fact.
> Wittgenstein not only repudiated the specific
> doctrines
> of the Tractatus but that whole approach to analytic
> philosophy.
Quite correct. But this doesn't really mean much.
>
> | > If you claim that it is never useful for
> | > philosophers
> | > to adapt language to their purposes then how do
> you
> | > justify your usage of the term "Logical
> Analysis".
> |
> | Once again, I said that for the objective of
> solving
> | particular problems such language-adaptation is
> | useless because it is precisely backwards. And the
> | latter part of your statement is wholly lost on
> me.
>
> The use (or misuse) of language in philosophy is
> continually
> evolving.
"Evolving" sounds rather odd. I would prefer to use
"developing" but it doesn't really matter all that
much; unless you have some strange idea about the
"evolution of language"...in the sense that it will
continue to "evolve" until all that we use are formal
languges, although I can't imagine that you would.
> By using the term "logical analysis" you are
> complicit in the
> adaptation of language for the purposes of
> philosophy.
Not quite. I don't think that "logical analysis" is an
adaption by any means. But then I think its more
important what it is than what we find to call it (im
not that interested in etymology).
Best,
Daniel
>
>
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Daniel Language
>
> Similar considerations apply to the development of
> tools of
> any kind and to the establishment of foundations.
> It cannot be the case that to make a precise tool
> you
> must already have a tool of equal or greater
> precision, otherwise
> we would still be knapping flints and precision
> machine tools
> would never have been possible.
I have one question: In what way do you suppose that
formal languages are more "precise" and have "more
utility" than the language that we are using here? It
remains a fact that formal languages fail in many
areas, such as the fact that, in some languages, those
sentences that are completely nonsensical in this
language turn out to be true in formal languages, such
that more elaborate and cumbersome revisions in the
system are needed. In your view what is the merit of
formal languages (what do they help with) and in what
way are they more precise?
Best,
Daniel
>
>
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T P Uschanov
> Well I'm pleased to have this confirmation that a distinguishing
> feature of "ordinary language philosophers" is that they deny plain
> facts about language which don't suit them.
And, again, the plain facts that I deny were...?
> | ... formal languages are clear, plain, unequivocal, and incontrover-
> | tible only insofar as the natural languages used to define them are.
>
> Non of this has any tendency to show that the refinement
> of language and the introduction of formal notations does not
> increase the precision and utitlity of language.
Then give us some examples. Give us a sentence of a natural language
(of your own choice) and a rephrasing of that sentence in a system
of formal logic (according to your own taste). Then explain how the
rephrasing increased precision and utility.
Then repeat the above 4-5 times, so we get a sample of non-trivial size.
> If you are arguing that the use of language A in defining language
> B guarantees that language B can be no more precise than
> language A then you are simply wrong.
> If that were the case the evolution of language would be impossible.
Formal languages are slangs or dialects of the natural languages
used to define them. There is no "language B", only a dialect B of
language A. So your objection mostly amounts to a pun.
> It cannot be the case that to make a precise tool you must already
> have a tool of equal or greater precision, otherwise we would
> still be knapping flints and precision machine tools would never
> have been possible.
But it is nevertheless the case that to take an artificial language
in use, one has to define it in a natural language. Flint-knapping
does not enter into the picture in any manner.
> It is also not the case that a foundation has to be build on
> something more solid than itself.
> Pile driving is one of the techniques which we use to make a
> firm base where there was none before.
No, it is not: in it we transmute the existing firmness of an
existing firm base into a form that has practical uses for us,
just as in the construction of formal languages. One cannot
drive a pile into mire or ooze -- only into solid ground
(which is called "solid" precisely in opposition to these).
> | To me someone like Russell, who uses English to reprobate the use
> | of natural languages in philosophy, has the same immeasurable,
> | very philosophical amusiveness as Parmenides, who moves his lips
> | and tongue in order to announce that nothing moves.
>
> I'm not aware of Russell having "reprobated" the use of natural
> languages in philosophy.
You quote him doing just that (using English) on your own web site:
http://www.rbjones.com/rbjpub/philos/history/brq001.htm#Q002
> To advocate taking advantage of the advances in modern logic
> is hardly the same thing.
First you should demonstrate just what these wonderful advances are.
("Everybody knows" amounts to the fallacy of argumentum ad populum.)
> | ... in the hands of many philosophers, arguments to the conclusion
> | that formalization is legitimate are all too often mistaken for
> | arguments to the conclusion that attempts to do without it as long
> | as possible are somehow illegitimate -- which mistaking is as
> | completely contrary to Carnap's principle of tolerance as can be.
>
> Quite so.
> My impression is that modern analytic philosophers are intolerant
> of linguistic innovation except those which they undertake
> themselves (usually "sweeping under the carpet" the fact
> that they do this).
Well, this is not my impression at all. In every issue (at least
within my memory) of Mind, the Journal of Philosophy, Analysis,
Erkenntnis, Noűs, the Philosophical Quarterly, Synthese, and all
other leading journals, there are papers extremely sympathetic
and congenial to linguistic innovation. But perhaps the
explanation is that you do not follow the leading journals.
> Your arguments seem to me calculated to show that all such
> innovation is futile and illegitimate.
But they're not. I'm sorry if this impression has come across.
> I see simply an intolerant attitude to the adoption of formal
> notations on your part.
For "intolerant," read "suspicious".
> There is a world of difference between making your own
> language sufficiently precise for the purposes at hand,
> and undertaking an analysis of ordinary usage.
> The language of philosophers is rarely ordinary.
That depends on the definition of "ordinary".
T P Uschanov
University of Helsinki
<tusc...@cc.helsinki.fi>
Roger Bishop Jones
| Well let me remind you of something you said eariler:
|
| | >
| | > I would be very suprised if there are many
| | > scientists
| | > around who do not believe that in some sense all
| | > science is in principle reducible to physics, but
| | > that it
| | > doesn't quite work out in practice.
|
| I can't seem to understand this as saying anything
| other than that the structure of reality is stages of
| illusion. In what other way may this be interpreted?
My copy of the concise Oxford dictionary gives the
following explanation of the word "reductionism":
1) the tendency to or principle of analysing complex
things into simple constituents
2) (often derog.) the doctrine that a system can be fully
understood in terms of its isolated parts, or an idea in
terms of simple concepts.
No mention of illusions there (or in anything I said).
Roger Jones
M. A. Rogers
| > I would be very suprised if there are many
| > scientists
| > around who do not believe that in some sense all
| > science is in principle reducible to physics, but
| > that it
| > doesn't quite work out in practice.
>I can't seem to understand this as saying anything
>other than that the structure of reality is stages of
>illusion. In what other way may this be interpreted?
I don't think that I read that as only saying that the structure of reality
is "stages of illusion".
To try to make this short and sweet, by saying that something is an
illusion, we're saying that ontologically something looks or seems like x,
but that we think it is really something very different altogether, namely
some kind of y. One other way that we could interpret "in some sense all
science is in principle reducible to physics, but it doesn't quite work out
in practice", reading the word "science" as "reality" to conform with your
comments, is that ontologically, the world looks or seems like x, and in
fact it _is_ x, however our epistemic representation of it doesn't seem
_exactly_ correct yet--we still have to make some modifications to x, add a
dingle here, adjust a doohicky there by a minute amount, etc. so that when
we're done, we'll have something like x'.
Another way to interpret it, reading "science" not as "reality" but in the
more conventional sense of that term, that is as the metodological
commitment, and the set of hypotheses, experiments, theories, etc. that
results from the methodological commitment, is that although all science is
reducible to physics in the sense that everything in the world is a
composite of particles like electrons, neutrinos, quarks, etc. and their
motions/interactions due to forces, fields, etc., it "doesn't quite work out
in practice" to parse everything that way, because it is much easier to talk
about living bodies in the language of biology, their interactions in the
language of chemistry, etc.
--M.A. Rogers
Larry Tapper
> Roger Bishop Jones wrote:
>
> > Well I'm pleased to have this confirmation that a distinguishing
> > feature of "ordinary language philosophers" is that they deny
plain
> > facts about language which don't suit them.
>
> And, again, the plain facts that I deny were...?
>
> > | ... formal languages are clear, plain, unequivocal, and
incontrover-
> > | tible only insofar as the natural languages used to define them
are.
> >
> > Non of this has any tendency to show that the refinement
> > of language and the introduction of formal notations does not
> > increase the precision and utitlity of language.
>
> Then give us some examples. Give us a sentence of a natural language
> (of your own choice) and a rephrasing of that sentence in a system
> of formal logic (according to your own taste). Then explain how the
> rephrasing increased precision and utility.
>
> Then repeat the above 4-5 times, so we get a sample of non-trivial
size.
Question for T P Uschanov:
Are there examples of this sort to be found on Richard Jeffrey's web
site:
http://www.princeton.edu/~bayesway/
and if not, how do they fail to qualify?
The links on this site include a sort of textbook of subjectivist
probabilistic analysis (#1) and an interesting address Jeffrey gave
entitled I Was a Teenage Logical Positivist (#7), which features some
of Jeffrey's opinions about what happened to LP.
The main theme of #1 is how to adjust one's rational belief system in
the light of new evidence. So in general, we might say that there are
many ordinary-language folk maxims regarding rational belief and
degree of confirmation, and Jeffrey's project is partly to examine
these maxims and their consequences from a formal standpoint.
There are many notorious examples of judgement under uncertainty in
which even well-educated people make systematic mistakes (e.g. the
taxicab problem and the false positive problem, discussed in #1). So
in this sense, at least, the utility of Jeffrey's project, or
something like it, seems quite clear. Furthermore, this doesn't strike
me as a pure example of "science vs. common sense", like modern
physics correcting common-sense Aristotelianism. Jeffrey seems fully
aware of the fact that philosophical questions may come into play
every step of the way.
Pardon me if this proposed example seems off the mark (too
mathematical, perhaps? not "philosophical" enough?). If this is the
case, though, I would be interested in your reasons for thinking so.
Regards,
Larry Tapper
Rudolf.D...@t-online.de
T P Uschanov" writes (Monday, July 30, 2001 8:20 PM):
> Then give us some examples. Give us a sentence of a natural language
> (of your own choice) and a rephrasing of that sentence in a system
> of formal logic (according to your own taste). Then explain how the
> rephrasing increased precision and utility.
I'm sorry to jump in this friendly debate. But, at this point, I would like
to ask Uschanov one Question or two: Do you think Goedel's incompleteness
results have philosophical relevance? If so, do you think one could
establish them on a strictly natural language basis?
Best wishes
R Drieschner
M. A. Rogers
|> something more solid than itself.
|> Pile driving is one of the techniques which we use to make a
|> firm base where there was none before.
>No, it is not: in it we transmute the existing firmness of an
>existing firm base into a form that has practical uses for us,
>just as in the construction of formal languages. One cannot
>drive a pile into mire or ooze -- only into solid ground
>(which is called "solid" precisely in opposition to these).
Oil rigs at sea would be a suitable example of "a foundation built on
something less solid than itself". But I think the problem in the argument
isn't that in fact you must always build on something as or more solid than
what you're building, as T P Uschanov seems to be suggesting, but that the
metaphor is simply misleading. Languages aren't very much like machining
tools or houses or any of these other metaphors.
|> I'm not aware of Russell having "reprobated" the use of natural
|> languages in philosophy.
>You quote him doing just that (using English) on your own web site:
>http://www.rbjones.com/rbjpub/philos/history/brq001.htm#Q002
Russell is not suggesting a proscription of "natural languages" there. He's
instead arguing against a proscription of philosophical senses of terms that
differ from colloquial usages and a proscription of more formal languages
like logic and mathematics. So, he has no objection to colloquial language,
but he does have an objection to the notion that there's something
problematic about using the word "free" in the way that we do in ontology
discussions or when talking about a kind of occurrence of a variable, or
that there's something problematic about stating things like "(x)(Fx-->Gx)"
or "f(x+2) = f(x+1) + (fx)". It's difficult to deny that there are things
we want to talk about as philosophers that don't necessitate arriving at
different senses of common terms or the adoption of neologisms (whether
we're referring to "natural" languages or formal ones).
--M.A. Rogers
Roger Bishop Jones
| --- Roger Bishop Jones <rbj...@rbjones.com> wrote:
|
| > Similar considerations apply to the development of
| > tools of
| > any kind and to the establishment of foundations.
| > It cannot be the case that to make a precise tool
| > you
| > must already have a tool of equal or greater
| > precision, otherwise
| > we would still be knapping flints and precision
| > machine tools
| > would never have been possible.
|
| I have one question: In what way do you suppose that
| formal languages are more "precise" and have "more
| utility" than the language that we are using here?
They frequently (but not invariably) have much more
precisely defined syntax, semantics, and rules of reasoning
than any natural language.
This is achieved partly through their being simpler
languages with more limited scope than natural languages
and partly simply because they have been defined.
Most importantly, we have good grounds for believing
that some formal deductive systems are CONSISTENT,
and even better grounds for doubting the coherence of
any natural language as a deductive system.
| It
| remains a fact that formal languages fail in many
| areas, such as the fact that, in some languages, those
| sentences that are completely nonsensical in this
| language turn out to be true in formal languages, such
| that more elaborate and cumbersome revisions in the
| system are needed. In your view what is the merit of
| formal languages (what do they help with) and in what
| way are they more precise?
I'm afraid you will have to be more specific in your
criticism if I am to answer it.
However a criticism of any specific formal language
will not suffice to condemn them all.
I only argue that some are useful, I can easily invent
formal languages which are unlikely to serve any
useful purpose.
Roger Jones
Roger Bishop Jones
This posting by Uschanov I find quite breathtaking.
It leaves me in grave doubt about whether any constructive
conversation can be expected between us.
Rather than abandon the conversation entirely I propose
to explore the question of how tolerant or intolerant the
parties to the dispute are, this is really as much as anything
a request for clarification from Uschanov on his views
about formal notations.
For my part I do not believe that anyone should ever
do anything without recourse to natural languages.
I am not aware of anything in Russell's writing which
indicates that he did either.
The quotation from Russell referred to by Uschanov
does not contradict this.
I also believe that the majority of philosophical problems
will not benefit from formalisation, but that all deductive
reasoning can potentially be clarified and made more
rigourous (i.e. less prone to error or misconstrual)
by formalisation.
Is it Uschanov's contention that the use of formal
notations in philosophy is:
1) Illegitimate
2) Futile
3) Of limited value
?
Would he accept the possibility that something
useful might be achieved by using formality in philosophy
at some future date after more research on appropriate
methods?
If his views on the applicability of formal notations
in philosophy are negative, does he have similarly
negative views about the applicability of these notations
in science and engineering (including information engineering)?
If formal notations have some possible beneficial
applications in any domain whatsoever, would it be a
legitimate philosophical enterprise to ask what is the
scope of applicability in principle of such methods
and what are the philosophical foundations for such
methods?
Roger Jones
Daniel Language
--- "M. A. Rogers" <doc...@sprynet.com> wrote:
ontologically, the world looks or
> seems like x, and in
> fact it _is_ x, however our epistemic representation
> of it doesn't seem
> _exactly_ correct yet--we still have to make some
> modifications to x,
I'm interested in how you are using "epistemic
representation". Would you consider a mathematical
formula, such as Maxwell's equations, "epistemic
representation" or am I going a bit too far with this?
Would it do simply to regard "words" as epistemic
representations? The reason I ask this is because I
can't quite make out what you mean about making
modifications to x? If x is our description of the
world, then it seems ridiculous to say that the world
"seems like x".
add a
> dingle here, adjust a doohicky there by a minute
> amount, etc. so that when
> we're done, we'll have something like x'.
Still don't see what you are doing here. What is x?
> although all science is
> reducible to physics in the sense that everything in
> the world is a
> composite of particles like electrons, neutrinos,
> quarks, etc. and their
> motions/interactions due to forces, fields, etc.,
But what sort of sense is this? Its not real at all.
It is surely confusing to say that it is "science"
that is reducible in method, because it clearly isn't.
And neither is reality reducible; all we mean is that
we are able to read the stages (from top to bottom).
Now I would say that this is what we want to say when
we use reducible, but there is a danger of treating
"reduction" as saying "this here is the real stuff, at
the bottom, all this other stuff at the top is merely
an appearance." I don't even know if anyone here is
using it in this sense, but the point was to be clear
whether or not we are in agreement in its use.
it
> "doesn't quite work out
> in practice" to parse everything that way, because
> it is much easier to talk
> about living bodies in the language of biology,
...because they are living bodies. By saying "it is
easier..." you make it sound as if it really made
sense to talk about living bodies in the language of
physics. I mean, there are living bodies just as there
are quantum particles (although no-one has ever seen
one; and this is not a quib)...its not as if bodies
are JUST composites. The structure is real.
Daniel
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Robert Kopp
> eariler:
>
> | > I would be very suprised if there are many
> | > scientists
> | > around who do not believe that in some sense all
> | > science is in principle reducible to physics,
> but
> | > that it
> | > doesn't quite work out in practice.
>
meaning "it's not always the most effective way of
dealing with these phenomena." Isn't that the way
practically all of us understand it?
=====
Robert "Tim" Kopp
http://analytic.tripod.com/
(503) 997-1882
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Daniel Language
This is a response to Roger Bishop Jones.
>
> | --- Roger Bishop Jones <rbj...@rbjones.com>
> wrote:
> |
> | > Similar considerations apply to the development
> of
> | > tools of
> | > any kind and to the establishment of
> foundations.
> | > It cannot be the case that to make a precise
> tool
> | > you
> | > must already have a tool of equal or greater
> | > precision, otherwise
> | > we would still be knapping flints and precision
> | > machine tools
> | > would never have been possible.
> |
> | I have one question: In what way do you suppose
> that
> | formal languages are more "precise" and have "more
> | utility" than the language that we are using here?
>
> They frequently (but not invariably) have much more
> precisely defined syntax, semantics, and rules of
> reasoning
> than any natural language.
This is slightly confusing. To begin with, in a formal
language, no-one defines syntax, semantics or rules;
all that is done is to give particular axioms or, in
an analogical sense, rules or conditions for a game to
be played within the context of a game. I would count
such definitions of syntax, semantics, and rules of
reasoning (which I don't seem to have a reference for)
as sub-sets of language syntax, semantics, and rules.
In other words, if a formal system is well-defined it
is only well-defined because the axioms (which I use
as your definitions) are simple to frame, given that
it is an encapsulated and manufactured subordinate
system within language, that, in all aspects, is
derived from within language. The main thread here is
that we can regard a formal language-system as defined
to the extent that it can be framed by giving axioms.
And these axioms are like drawing rules and conditions
for a game-within-a-game; as if we took a chess board
and reduced the squares by so much and the players by
so much and then preceeded to play a mini-version of
chess. Such a game will remain sub-ordinate in every
way to chess and so to will formal language-systems.
The utility of doing this still escapes me; maybe you
can think of one. There can be nothing new.
> However a criticism of any specific formal language
> will not suffice to condemn them all.
> I only argue that some are useful, I can easily
> invent
> formal languages which are unlikely to serve any
> useful purpose
see above.
Best,
Daniel
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Roger Bishop Jones
| Are there examples of this sort to be found on Richard Jeffrey's web
| site:
|
| http://www.princeton.edu/~bayesway/
|
| and if not, how do they fail to qualify?
|
| The links on this site include a sort of textbook of subjectivist
| probabilistic analysis (#1) and an interesting address Jeffrey gave
| entitled I Was a Teenage Logical Positivist (#7), which features some
| of Jeffrey's opinions about what happened to LP.
Thanks for that reference to Jeffrey's writing on LP.
The first book on logic that I bought (back in the sixties)
was by Jeffrey and I am delighted to discover that in the year
2000 he was taking a positive view of Logical Positivism
and arguing a case for logicism.
The time is ripe for a rational reassessment and the signs are
that it is beginning to happen.
Roger Jones
Daniel Language
Well your account of it leaves a lot to be desired.
For it seems very confusing to state that "all science
is in principle reducible to physics" because it
clearly isn't. The study and language of biology can
not be reduced to the study and language of physics.
All that is clear to me in such a definition of a
method of reduction is that it is very similar to the
program of study that is called physics. In other
words, this is what PHYSICS does. Physics disregards
everything but the basics. To confuse this with
something which all science is reducible to is to
negate the validity and value of a study of anything
else but the basics. A physicist always rides the
elevator to the bottom floor; a biologist shall not
find much, if any, use for anything on the bottom
floor.
Best,
Daniel
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Daniel Language
--- Robert Kopp <iconok...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> --- "M. A. Rogers" <doc...@sprynet.com> wrote:
> > >Well let me remind you of something you said
> > eariler:
> >
> > | > I would be very suprised if there are many
> > | > scientists
> > | > around who do not believe that in some sense
> all
> > | > science is in principle reducible to physics,
> > but
> > | > that it
> > | > doesn't quite work out in practice.
> >
> I construe "it doesn't quite work out in practice"
> as
> meaning "it's not always the most effective way of
> dealing with these phenomena." Isn't that the way
> practically all of us understand it?
No, I don't think so. The important distinction that
Roger seemed to be making was that one between things
that are so (or rather possible) "in principle" but
not evident (or not possible) in practice. I can't
seem to make heads nor tails of where "the most
effective way of dealing" comes into this equation.
Best,
Daniel
Roger Bishop Jones
| > | [DL]
| > | I have one question: In what way do you suppose
| > that
| > | formal languages are more "precise" and have "more
| > | utility" than the language that we are using here?
| >
| > [RBJ]
| > They frequently (but not invariably) have much more
| > precisely defined syntax, semantics, and rules of
| > reasoning
| > than any natural language.
|
| [DL]
| This is slightly confusing. To begin with, in a formal
| language, no-one defines syntax, semantics or rules;
| all that is done is to give particular axioms or, in
| an analogical sense, rules or conditions for a game to
| be played within the context of a game.
There is a broad consensus within the disciplines of
logic and computer science that the syntax and semantics
of formal languages can be defined.
Indeed, the definability of syntax (at least) and semantics
(preferably) is the defining characteristic of a formal notation.
A practical test of success in this endeavour is the
completion of rigourous proofs of the relationship
between the syntactic and semantic aspects of a language
definition.
Classic examples of such proofs are found in the doctoral
dissertations of Emil Post (1921) and Kurt Goedel (1931)
who showed that propositional logic and first order
logic (resp) are complete.
I have never previously come across anyone who
has expressed any doubt that these proofs are correct.
Do you doubt this?
| I would count
| such definitions of syntax, semantics, and rules of
| reasoning (which I don't seem to have a reference for)
| as sub-sets of language syntax, semantics, and rules.
| In other words, if a formal system is well-defined it
| is only well-defined because the axioms (which I use
| as your definitions) are simple to frame, given that
| it is an encapsulated and manufactured subordinate
| system within language, that, in all aspects, is
| derived from within language.
It sounds as if you have little familiarity with formal semantics
| The main thread here is
| that we can regard a formal language-system as defined
| to the extent that it can be framed by giving axioms.
| And these axioms are like drawing rules and conditions
| for a game-within-a-game; as if we took a chess board
| and reduced the squares by so much and the players by
| so much and then preceeded to play a mini-version of
| chess. Such a game will remain sub-ordinate in every
| way to chess and so to will formal language-systems.
| The utility of doing this still escapes me; maybe you
| can think of one. There can be nothing new.
Formal notations are used by tens if not hundreds of
millions of people on a daily basis for very practical
purposes (predominantly for communicating with
digital computers).
They are used because they are more precise and
more concise than natural languages for certain purposes.
They are also used for deductive reasoning (usually with the
assistance of computers), including the verification
of digital hardware (by Intel and others)..
There are many commercial companies whose income is
wholly dependent of the utility of formal languages and the
software which supports the use of such languages.
Roger Jones
Roger Bishop Jones
| > [RBJ]
| > My copy of the concise Oxford dictionary gives the
| > following explanation of the word "reductionism":
| >
| > 1) the tendency to or principle of analysing
| > complex
| > things into simple constituents
| > 2) (often derog.) the doctrine that a system can
| > be fully
| > understood in terms of its isolated parts, or
| > an idea in
| > terms of simple concepts.
| >
| > No mention of illusions there (or in anything I
| > said).
|
| [DL]
| Well your account of it leaves a lot to be desired.
My account of what?
| For it seems very confusing to state that "all science
| is in principle reducible to physics" because it
| clearly isn't.
I didn't state that, I stated that:
| > I would be very suprised if there are many scientists
| > around who do not believe that in some sense all
| > science is in principle reducible to physics, but
| > that it doesn't quite work out in practice.
[though in fact I probably would not]
If the claim (of reducibility) were clearly false then
it would be at least be clear.
Given that it isn't clear what the claim means, the only
way to refute it is to show that no possible interpretation
of the claim is true.
I expect it would not be hard to find trivial interpretations
under which it is incontestably true.
| The study and language of biology can
| not be reduced to the study and language of physics.
Which does not entail that biology is not reducible
to physics.
Look again at definition (1) of reductionism.
This is almost co-extensive with "analysis".
Science and engineering are riddled with reductionism
in this general sense which is very much more general
even than the beliefs of scientists about reductionism.
Without the use of methods which fall under this definition
science and engineering would be completely crippled.
How do you design and build anything without analysing it
into (or synthesising it from) components and reasoning
about the whole from what is known about the components?
This indispensible method qualifies as reductionist
under the dictionary definition.
Roger Jones
M. A. Rogers
> > >understanding. By your account, x is our epistemic
> > >representation, correct?
> > Um, no. Again, I said (see previous emails) that x
> > was "the way the world seems to be" whereas our
> > epistemic representation was "any intentional
> > modeling we do of that, from mathematics, assuming
> > we're not just hardline formalists, to words, or
> > anything else that might fit as an intentional
> > model". I suppose you could be saying that you
> > don't see the difference there, but that's difficult
> > for me to understand. Let's say I experience two
> > red dots. That could at least part of how the world
> > seems to be at a given time. Then I assign "this"
> > and "that" to them, or "1" and "2"--that's an
> > intentional modeling, albeit not a very detailed
> > one.
> So let me understand you. You equate your visual
> sensation with "how the world seems to be"?
That's one of the ways you "receive" how the world seems to be--visual
sensation. Also, through other raw sense data, too.
> So our
> "experience", as you have termed it, is only "how the
> world seems to be", correct?
Yes, that's basically correct.
> So when you call those
> two red dots, "1" and "2" then we have our "epistemic"
> representation. I am not sure how you use "epistemic"
The usual way--the adjectival form of epistemology, or theory of knowledge.
An epistemic representation is a kind of knowledge, namely as a
representation of how the world seems to be in this case.
> but it doesn't sound like an adequate description for
> the kind of event you have framed here.
Well, it's "an intentional modeling, albeit not a very detailed one" as I
said. What makes something an "adequate description" or not would be pretty
subjective, and would also be another discussion, I think.
> In fact, I
> can't quite make sense of how "1" and "2" could be an
> epistemic representation of two dots?
It's the beginning of what we'd do to make an intentional modeling of them.
We'd think, "Okay, there are two dots, we'll call them, '1' and '2', or
'this' and 'that'" or something like that. The philosophical interest here
would be that an intentional modeling isn't what it's modeling, which
probably all of us would agree with, but again, that's another discussion.
>In any case, you
> seem to deny that our experience is included within
> language-activity.
Well, you'd have to explain further exactly how you mean that. As stated, I
can't really agree or disagree with it, because there are too many ways I
could understand it.
> See I consider sensation to be a
> fact like any other, although of a different kind.
That's agreeable to me.
> The key is in understanding the way in which knowledge is
> represented.
That sounds fair enough as stated, too.
> > I imagine it being something like the following:
> > given a description "there are two red dots in my
> > field of vision, one at point x (given some
> > understandable means of specification for the frame
> > of reference), one at point y, both apparently 10
> > degrees in diameter . . ." etc., there is an
> > experience of the same.
> Of this, I can't make any sense. If I understand you
> correctly you are saying that there is an experience x
> and then there is a description y and in some sense
> they are the same?
No, read carefully there. " . . . given a _description_ 'there are two red
dots in my field of vision, one at point x (given some understandable means
of specification for the frame of reference), one at point y . . .' " A dot
at point x, where point x specifies the spatial location, and one at point
y. I'm further specifying an epistemic representation, or a description,
which will do as a synonym here, of the red dots that I experience(d).
> Or there is a description y and
> then there is an experience x, of which y is meant to
> be the description, correct? I still don't see how the
> world "seems" like our description of it or our
> description "seems" like the world?
If you mean in terms of qualia, I agree. That's not what I'm talking about,
though. "Seeming" in this sense, is more like "apparency". It's apparent
that there are two red dots with those properties, location at x and y, etc.
and my description matches it. So my description "seems" like the
experience. Not qualia-wise, not as an identity. It's just a kind of rough
matching, which is the best we can do. Descriptions aren't what they
describe, but they can correlate with it in some way.
> You have yet to
> show how the world can "seem" like our description or
> how our description can "seem" like the world.
Okay, I understand that it doesn't seem that way to you :-) Is it because
you were understanding seeming as referring to qualia, or something else?
> Are you
> to imply that we can confuse our description with the
> world or the world with our description?
lol, no. Maybe you're getting confused because I'm mixing in colloquial
ways of talking here?
> > If we put the question in these terms: "Could we,
> > theoretically, at least, explain all of biology in
> > the terminology of physics instead?" I think the
> > answer is clearly "yes".
> This is just the point. The answer is clearly "no",
> given some stipulations. For instance, do you really
> think that it is, even in principle, possible to
> describe the circulatory system of the human body by
> giving mathematical equations of neutrons, protons,
> and electrons and so forth?
Of course. Why wouldn't it be? There are a few reasons I can imagine that
one would claim that maybe it wouldn't be. I can reprint them, or just see
my previous post on this topic to the list, since it's a bit long. Does one
of those reasons explain why you think it wouldn't be possible, or is there
another reason that I missed?
> Even if it were
> hypothetically possible, whatever would be the point?
Well, now we're talking psychology. Depends on the person who'd want to do
it, I suppose. Maybe "just to do it", like the stereotypical reason for
climbing a mountain or something. I can't think of any advantages to it,
offhand, but there could end up being some advantage to doing this. It
certainly would be harder to parse everything in that kind of language.
> We would still be describing a biological phenomena
> (i.e. referring to it) and it would only serve to make
> such a task immeasurably difficult.
I agree. But I understood this discussion to not be able utility or
difficulty, but possibility.
> For some reason
> you seem to think that in doing this we can disregard
> the circulatory system as a "macro-phenomena" and just
> turn it into a system of sub-atomic particles or
> what-not.
No, I don't think that at all. I think you'd still be describing the same
macro-phenomenon, but just in different language. A bit like transmitting
Clive Barker in morse code.
> What you may not realize is all that we
> would have done is to use a method of description
> appropriate for sub-atomic particles to attempt to
> describe a biological phenomena.
Again, I didn't think this thread was about utility or difficulty, but
possibility. I've said at least once or twice in previous posts that I
think it's much easier to talk about such things in the language of biology.
> All that would be
> reduced is our capacity to adequately and clearly
> describe biological phenomena.
"Adequately" I'm not sure I agree with, but again that is subjective.
"Clearly", which is also subjective, I'm more inclined to agree with, since
I think it is much easier to talk about such things in the language of
biology. Implying that it wouldn't be a reduction, again brings up the
question, which I'm not sure anyone has addressed in this thread, of "Just
what do we mean by 'reduction'?" If we mean "translation into another
language, such as the language of physics, of something not usually
expressed in that language", then I think it _is_ a reduction. If we mean
the other common definition, where "reduction" amounts to "an explication of
phenomena by a minimal set of lesser phenomena", then for one, we wouldn't
have to talk about parsing biological language into physical language, even
if we thought it could be done, in order to talk about reductionism, and we
still can reduce something like circulation into lesser phenomena, or into
its "parts" and the processes of the parts, alone, and in concert.
> In a
> >brief and simplistic example: quantum
> >particles--molecules--organisms...
> <You're positing some kind of hierarchical/categorical
> <structure as an objective fact? I'm not sure I
> <understand you there.
> Well, of-course. That is the whole point.
If that's the whole point, we're having two completely different
conversations, I'm afraid. Is that how you define reduction?
> >I was saying that *this* structure is real.
> >No, I don't disagree with you about the composition
> of
> >living bodies although this says nothing for
> >reductionism.
> <Then you'd agree that bodies are just collections of
> <particles in a particular arrangement going through
> <particular processes--but I thought that's what you
> <disagreed with??
> Let me clarify, if I haven't done so already. I
> disagree with this description:
> "bodies are JUST collections of particles..."
> It is correct that "bodies are composed of particles"
> but they are not JUST particles. I went into this in
> much depth earlier. It is a false identification and
> it is immediately transparent.
Well, would you say that _anything_ is "_just_ a collection of particles?"
I wouldn't, and I can't think of anyone else who knows much about physics
saying something like that, either. Maybe I'm taking you too literally, but
a thing that is "just a particle" isn't known to exist. It would be an
abstraction, only. All the stuff we know about is at least particles and
some kind of process, even if it's a process that's just a billionth of a
degree above absolute zero.
So since physics isn't about anything that's just a collection of particles,
or just a particle (except the abstraction of such a thing for theoretical
purposes), saying that biological organisms are also not just collections of
particles doesn't work as an argument against the possibility of translating
biological language into physical language. There'd have to be something
else about biology that you'd think is non-translatable.
> Now, lets say, for
> example, that we have described the quantum world to
> every conceivable detail. There is no possibility of
> interaction unaccounted.
That either seems to ignore the received view of quantum mechanics or you
allow probabilistic statements to qualify as "no possibility of interaction
unaccounted".
> Now, according to the reason
> of your statement, there is no further necessity of
> describing anything at any other level any further.
Hmmm, where did I make a statement to this effect? I wouldn't say that
there was any _necessity_ of describing something in the first place. I
also disagree with the idea of "levels" in things like this, but unless you
did mean something like an "objective, hierarchical/organizational
structure" by "reduction" (which is frankly a sense of "reduction" I've
never encountered before), then "levels" are aside from the point of this
thread, anyway.
> We
> should have, by your lights, deemed that every other
> scientific investigation is superfluous and wholly
> without merit and that there should be no further
> knowledge available.
This has little to do with anything I've said or would say.
> If you say "no, we haven't" then
> you have admitted that bodies are not JUST particles.
No, it has nothing to do with that. let's say, just hypothetically, that
bodies are just particles, and we're able to describe them as such. Now,
whether any scientific investigation is superfluous or not is just an
opinion, isn't it? Say that John wanted to describe bodies in a way that is
correlated to Mayan religious texts, and ends up describing things that he
discovers through experimentation on bodies in that language. Is that
superfluous? I wouldn't say so, even though per our hypothetical
supposition bodies are just particles. The word "superfluous" suggests
"necessity", but a psychological evaluation of what's necessary. Different
people have different psychologies, so what's superfluous to Joe might not
be superfluous to Betty. You might think it's superfluous, I don't. We
can't test anything to see which one of us is correct.
The same goes for "wholly without merit". That's an extremely evaluative
phrase, and someone calling something that or not would just be reporting
something about their psychology. As for whether the Mayan religious text
scientific interpretation of bodies is knowledge, I think it certainly is,
even on the traditional definition of knowledge as "justified true belief".
There would be a potentially infinite (assuming we accept that 'potentially
infinite' is a valid way to talk) number of ways to express scientific
facts, scientific knowledge, or any other kind of knowledge. None of this
is correlated to our hypothetical supposition that "bodies are only
particles".
> Will you then agree that bodies are not just particles
> and an attempt to describe bodies using quantum
> terminology is just a fool's science?
No, I wouldn't agree with that, since I'm a physicalist. I think everything
that exists is just physical stuff--particles and processes, basically.
> If you don't you will be left with the unfortunate and
> frankly, ridiculous, position that a complete
> description of quantum phenomena should render all
> other science superfluous.
But this doesn't follow. It's just an opinion that you have, if you have
it. It also supposes that everything physical is describable by what we
understand today as quantum phenomena. At least if we take that to mean,
"describable in current quantum terminology, and nothing else" I wouldn't
buy that at all. As I mentioned in my last post on this topic, "we're not
done yet."
A way to get at why it doesn't follow that's maybe not so wordy is to think
of something like a computer monitor. Presumably you'd agree that that's an
item that we could easily describe, if not in the language of quantum
mechanics, at least in the language of "engineering physics". That we can
describe it that way, however, doesn't make it superfluous for me to say,
"The screen is blank because the 'on' button isn't pushed in", "Push the
'menu' key so that we can adjust the blank spaces on the edges of the
picture", etc. There is great utility in talking about things that way, and
it's easiest. However, it's not a denial that it is _possible_ to only talk
about these things in "engineering physics", or even something like quantum
mechanics. But in any event, I don't think something needs my judgment of
utility to not be superfluous.
--M.A. Rogers
M Murphy
Roger Bishop Jones wrote:
>
> If the claim (of reducibility) were clearly false then
> it would be at least be clear.
> Given that it isn't clear what the claim means, the only
> way to refute it is to show that no possible interpretation
> of the claim is true.
> I expect it would not be hard to find trivial interpretations
> under which it is incontestably true.
>
> | The study and language of biology can
> | not be reduced to the study and language of physics.
>
> Which does not entail that biology is not reducible
> to physics.
>
> Look again at definition (1) of reductionism.
> This is almost co-extensive with "analysis".
>
> Science and engineering are riddled with reductionism
> in this general sense which is very much more general
> even than the beliefs of scientists about reductionism.
> Without the use of methods which fall under this definition
> science and engineering would be completely crippled.
Thought I might jump in here.
Roger, would you be satsified with a reductionism which is both true and
trivial? Isn't that what you get if you can "reduce" one set of laws to
another set of laws but cannot replace the terms of the definiens with the
terms of the definiendum in scientific utterances?
That is, your analogy between science/engineering and a philosophical project
along the lines of Carnaps' seems very misleading to me. Reductionism in
science means we have a theory that explains certain phenomenon, then comes
along a different theory, perhaps from an entirely different field of
research, and it turns out to explain the same things as the first theory
plus a bunch of other stuff. At that point, historically, the language of
the first theory tends to get thrown overboard. The ultimate point of *this*
kind of reduction, assuming it has one, is that, in the end, we have fewer
terms and concepts to deal with, and possibly a theory of Everything at some
point, where a physicist really could cure your asthma and maybe even your
mental hangups.
But this is clearly not the kind of thing Carnap, for example, is up to. All
he does is put forward a definitional schema in FOL notation that has the
terms of the science to be reduced as the definiendum and the terms of the
science considered more basic as the definiens. There is no practical
reordering of actual scientific language. Therefore, so what?
Cheers,
M.J. Murphy
`The shapes of things are dumb.'
-L. Wittgenstein
Daniel Language
Maybe its a small matter but the use of "seems" here
is suspect. I am distrustful of any account of
perception in which the fundamental reliability and
consistency of perception is doubted. I would say that
we experience "optical illusions" and the like,
because fundamentally sensation (excluding
abnormalities, therefore speaking theoretically) is
not subject to doubt. Skeptisism about perception is
underlied by a subtle misunderstanding of its
function.
>
> > So our
> > "experience", as you have termed it, is only "how
> the
> > world seems to be", correct?
>
> Yes, that's basically correct.
Would you agree with a re-phrase of this as:
"our experience of the world is the world as
experience"
or "the experience of the world is what the world is
as experience"
In other words, "seems" implies a doubt or don't you
mean it in that way?
>
> > In fact, I
> > can't quite make sense of how "1" and "2" could be
> an
> > epistemic representation of two dots?
>
> It's the beginning of what we'd do to make an
> intentional modeling of them.
> We'd think, "Okay, there are two dots, we'll call
> them, '1' and '2', or
> 'this' and 'that'" or something like that. The
> philosophical interest here
> would be that an intentional modeling isn't what
> it's modeling, which
> probably all of us would agree with, but again,
> that's another discussion.
Yes, you're right, it would be another discussion;
possibly about a theory of symbolism. I wouldn't call
such a thing a "modeling" however, since a model has
its limits.
>
> >In any case, you
> > seem to deny that our experience is included
> within
> > language-activity.
>
> Well, you'd have to explain further exactly how you
> mean that. As stated, I
> can't really agree or disagree with it, because
> there are too many ways I
> could understand it.
Essentially, I understand experience as something
which is unintended. We can not intend an experience
although we may very well experience what we have
intended. It may be possible to think of experience as
consequence of action. I see here distinct
knowledgable dimensions; namely the dimension of
action and the dimension of experience. Yet,
fundamentally, I would say that both dimensions are
subject to the domain of language as we could describe
either by language. Indeed it must be impossible to
imagine something that is not subject to language and
thus we can not know anything that could be beyond
language.
>
> > Of this, I can't make any sense. If I understand
> you
> > correctly you are saying that there is an
> experience x
> > and then there is a description y and in some
> sense
> > they are the same?
>
> No, read carefully there. " . . . given a
> _description_ 'there are two red
> dots in my field of vision, one at point x (given
> some understandable means
> of specification for the frame of reference), one at
> point y . . .' " A dot
> at point x, where point x specifies the spatial
> location, and one at point
> y. I'm further specifying an epistemic
> representation, or a description,
> which will do as a synonym here, of the red dots
> that I experience(d).
What I had trouble with was that you said "there is an
experience of the same". The point I was trying to
make, poorly, was that the entire description is also
experienced. I want to ask, "What do you see as the
difference or distinction between the experience of
the red dots and the experience of describing them."
This may sound niave but the point is "is anything
added"?
> > Or there is a description y and
> > then there is an experience x, of which y is meant
> to
> > be the description, correct? I still don't see how
> the
> > world "seems" like our description of it or our
> > description "seems" like the world?
>
> If you mean in terms of qualia, I agree. That's not
> what I'm talking about,
> though. "Seeming" in this sense, is more like
> "apparency". It's apparent
> that there are two red dots with those properties,
> location at x and y, etc.
> and my description matches it. So my description
> "seems" like the
> experience. Not qualia-wise, not as an identity.
> It's just a kind of rough
> matching, which is the best we can do. Descriptions
> aren't what they
> describe, but they can correlate with it in some
> way.
Okay. Yet I still find "seems" suspect, even as a
synonym for correspondence. It seems to suffice to say
"this is a description", doesn't it? It is redundant
(or even potentially erroneous depending on how it is
meant) to say "my description seems like the
experience". Actually, just a minute. It is unclear to
me whether the description you gave could be a
description of an "experience". It seems more like a
description of a fact, stripped of its qualitative
aspects. Do you consider a scientific description a
description of experience?
The main problem I have with this kind of talk about
"matching" and so forth is that I completely deny any
sort of reference, where reference is used to convict
of a "language---world" type of relationship. I find
this very niave. I would immediately be comfortable
with a talk of reference once it has been established
that there is no "other world outside of language" to
which language serves as a referential tool.
--the rest of your message was truncated so I will
respond to it in the next posting.
best,
Daniel
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Roger Bishop Jones
| Roger Bishop Jones wrote:
|
| >
| > If the claim (of reducibility) were clearly false then
| > it would be at least be clear.
| > Given that it isn't clear what the claim means, the only
| > way to refute it is to show that no possible interpretation
| > of the claim is true.
| > I expect it would not be hard to find trivial interpretations
| > under which it is incontestably true.
| >
| > | The study and language of biology can
| > | not be reduced to the study and language of physics.
| >
| > Which does not entail that biology is not reducible
| > to physics.
| >
| > Look again at definition (1) of reductionism.
| > This is almost co-extensive with "analysis".
| >
| > Science and engineering are riddled with reductionism
| > in this general sense which is very much more general
| > even than the beliefs of scientists about reductionism.
| > Without the use of methods which fall under this definition
| > science and engineering would be completely crippled.
|
| Thought I might jump in here.
|
| Roger, would you be satsified with a reductionism which is both true and
| trivial?
I don't understand the question.
I'm not looking for a reductionist theory or attempting to support
any particular reductionist theory.
I am arguing against an attack on reductionism in general.
| Isn't that what you get if you can "reduce" one set of laws to
| another set of laws but cannot replace the terms of the definiens with the
| terms of the definiendum in scientific utterances?
I wouldn't say myself that such a reduction was trivial.
I would also say that in many reductionist theses the reduction of
one theory to another is not accomplished either.
When physicists claim they are searching for a theory of
everything I believe that they probably do accept that their
enterprise is reductionistic but don't expect the outcome
to be a reduction of all other scientific theories to the theory
of everything.
Talking about theories is talking about languages, and
scientists mostly don't think about languages much.
A reductionist thesis need not be a thesis about language.
| That is, your analogy between science/engineering and a philosophical
project
| along the lines of Carnaps' seems very misleading to me.
I am not aware of having put forward any such analogy,
and I have no detailed knowledge of the reductions attempted by
Carnap, so I don't feel qualified to say much about their relationship
with science and engineering.
I suspect however that Carnap's liberal attitude towards the
kind of basic theory which he worked with was in part an
attempt to get his philosophy closer to science.
i.e. phenomenalistic reduction seems more oriented to
philosophical epistemology than to science, whereas
physicalistic reductionism is closer to a neutral formalisation
of accepted fundamental science.
| Reductionism in
| science means we have a theory that explains certain phenomenon, then
comes
| along a different theory, perhaps from an entirely different field of
| research, and it turns out to explain the same things as the first theory
| plus a bunch of other stuff. At that point, historically, the language of
| the first theory tends to get thrown overboard.
I can't think of a single example which fits this description.
| The ultimate point of *this*
| kind of reduction, assuming it has one, is that, in the end, we have fewer
| terms and concepts to deal with, and possibly a theory of Everything at
some
| point, where a physicist really could cure your asthma and maybe even your
| mental hangups.
It would be of great interest to know what physicists mean
when they talk about a "theory of everything".
My suspicion is that what they would consider "the ultimate point"
of such an enterprise is not what you suggest.
First off, I think many of them would regard the "theory of everything"
as being quintessentially what physics is about and in need of no
justification in relation to the rest of science.
Secondly, I think that those who were willing to speculate about
how this might relate to the rest of science would talk about
this theory enabling the solution of problems in other scientific
domains, i.e. they would not think in terms of language but
in terms of reality.
Finally, I expect few scientists would cite conceptual
economy as even a part of the purpose of a TOE.
| But this is clearly not the kind of thing Carnap, for example, is up to.
All
| he does is put forward a definitional schema in FOL notation that has the
| terms of the science to be reduced as the definiendum and the terms of the
| science considered more basic as the definiens. There is no practical
| reordering of actual scientific language. Therefore, so what?
The point of my contributions to this thread has not been
to defend Carnap's reductionism, but to react against a blanket
rejection of reductionism of all kinds.
If the critics of reductionism would home in on any particular
kind of reductionism and offer a cogent critique of it then
I might well be wholly in agreement with them.
In particular I am sceptical about phenomenalistic reductionism,
and have myself doubts about whether a TOE can realistically
be expected and about what practical benefits it would confer.
(even though sympathetic to the idea that there is something
essentially reductionistic about the purpose of physics).
I am also sceptical about gene reductionism in biology.
However, this comes nowhere near accepting a blanket
rejection of reductionism of all kinds.
Roger Jones
Larry Tapper
MJ Murphy wrote:
>
> Reductionism in science means we have a theory that explains a
> certain phenomenon, then comes along a different theory, perhaps
> from an entirely different field of research, and it turns out to
> explain the same things as the first theory
> plus a bunch of other stuff. At that point, historically, the
> language of the first theory tends to get thrown overboard.
and RB Jones replied:
>
> I can't think of a single example which fits this description.
>
Doesn't the phlogiston story fit Murphy's description reasonably
well? In the 17th century, phlogiston was proposed as an extra
substance involved in combustion; in the 18th century, Lavoisier and
Priestley made their discoveries about oxygen; then later, chemical
reactions like combustion were explained in terms of valence
electrons.
It is possible to quibble about such semantic questions as: did
phlogiston really "turn out to be" valence electrons? Do the two
terms denote the same thing?
Setting these complications aside, however, Murphy's criteria seem to
be fulfilled neatly enough: we have phlogiston-talk eventually being
superseded by valence-electron-talk, which draws on a different body
of theory and which has considerably greater explanatory power.
Regards,
Larry Tapper
Daniel Language
> |
> | [DL]
> | This is slightly confusing. To begin with, in a
> formal
> | language, no-one defines syntax, semantics or
> rules;
> | all that is done is to give particular axioms or,
> in
> | an analogical sense, rules or conditions for a
> game to
> | be played within the context of a game.
>
> There is a broad consensus within the disciplines of
> logic and computer science that the syntax and
> semantics
> of formal languages can be defined.
> Indeed, the definability of syntax (at least) and
> semantics
> (preferably) is the defining characteristic of a
> formal notation.
Maybe I stated it poorly but what I meant was that it
is simple to give syntatic and semantical rules and
conditions for a formal language because we are
inventing it. The reliability and precision that is
then a result of this is not something that may be
opposed to natural language as if we have done
something aside natural language. The precision of a
formal language is in fact a possibility of language.
What you call "defining syntax and or semantics" could
just as easily be called inventing rules and
conditions for a sub-set of natural language. And it
is a sub-set because it still remains impossible to
invent a formal notation apart from the government of
natural language. It is true that it is possible to do
something in a formal notation that isn't done in
natural language but the point is it something helpful
or merely something of a novelty? Fundamentally a
formal notation is a novelty unless understanding how
language works boils down to understanding its
structural mechanics. Otherwise I can't see what
utility a formal notation would have toward an
understanding of language other than the possibility
of its being an aid in understanding how systems of
pure notation may be constructed and developed. I
certainly have no objection to such uses and I
wouldn't say that a formal notation is precisely
useless, though, as I have stressed before, it can be
of no utility in solving particular philosophical
problems about language.
>
> A practical test of success in this endeavour is the
> completion of rigourous proofs of the relationship
> between the syntactic and semantic aspects of a
> language
> definition.
> Classic examples of such proofs are found in the
> doctoral
> dissertations of Emil Post (1921) and Kurt Goedel
> (1931)
> who showed that propositional logic and first order
> logic (resp) are complete.
> I have never previously come across anyone who
> has expressed any doubt that these proofs are
> correct.
> Do you doubt this?
I don't doubt it, no. However I do maintain that such
proofs are not as significant as they may at first
seem, because its is clear to me that a logic defined
in a particular manner would be necessarily complete.
If it wasn't then all we would have to do is to alter
various aspects in its formation (conditions and
rules) to make it complete. Given that these logics
are invented I don't see what major significance such
proofs have. Its like playing around with engineering
systems. We can very well invent particular mechanical
systems that work, I mean they complete cycles and
parts move in synchrony and so forth, yet have
absolutely no utility or significance other than that
this particular system functions. We can think of
mechanical system that do not work, such as
Wittgenstein's analogy of the system of cog-wheels
that can not turn (in order to illustrate what we feel
a contradiction does). I liken such proofs to a man
who showed me a mechanical system that runs perfectly
and when I asked him, "Well, what does it do, what
does it mean?" all he could say was, "Can't you see it
works".
>
> | I would count
> | such definitions of syntax, semantics, and rules
> of
> | reasoning (which I don't seem to have a reference
> for)
> | as sub-sets of language syntax, semantics, and
> rules.
> | In other words, if a formal system is well-defined
> it
> | is only well-defined because the axioms (which I
> use
> | as your definitions) are simple to frame, given
> that
> | it is an encapsulated and manufactured subordinate
> | system within language, that, in all aspects, is
> | derived from within language.
>
> It sounds as if you have little familiarity with
> formal semantics
That may be the case, yet I would like to see a formal
notation that is not a primitive language system and
by primitive I mean that given that we have natural
language (its semantics, syntax, meaning conditions,
communicative properties) a formal notation is a
structural model of natural language. Given your
expertise on the matter I am sure you can tell how I
am mistaken in thinking this.
>
> Formal notations are used by tens if not hundreds of
> millions of people on a daily basis for very
> practical
> purposes (predominantly for communicating with
> digital computers).
As I recall the original debate centered around the
utility of formal notations toward solving particular
philosophical problems. I have never doubted that such
systems have utility elsewhere.
> They are used because they are more precise and
> more concise than natural languages for certain
> purposes.
Precisely. For certain purposes none of which include
solving traditional philosophical problems about
language.
It seems that you may have run a-ground with your
original contention. It remains to be established how
a formal notation is more precise than natrual
language (particularly in philosophy).
Daniel
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Daniel Language
>
> | The study and language of biology can
> | not be reduced to the study and language of
> physics.
>
> Which does not entail that biology is not reducible
> to physics.
Well of-course it does. What is biology but the study
and language of biology? The real matter here is
about language. If we were to use the language of
phyiscs to describe biological phenomena all that
would be reduced is our ability to adequately and
clearly describe biological phenomena. If bodies were
JUST particles then such a description would only be
redundant. Furthermore what reduction used in this
manner (as claiming that bodies are JUST particles)
implies is that once the quantum world is described to
complete detail such that no interaction is
unaccounted then this should necessarily render all
other science superfluous such that no further
knowledge would be available. This is clearly not
true. It is a false identification to say that all
science is reducbile to physics. Though I am not
contrary to the use of reduction in this manner if it
is to mean that bodies are composed of particles.
Bodies are composed of particles but biology is not
composed of physics. In other words, descriptions are
not atomic structures (changing a description into
another one (that would be called atomic) is not to
reveal what basic parts where already hidden in it) .
>
> Look again at definition (1) of reductionism.
> This is almost co-extensive with "analysis".
>
> Science and engineering are riddled with
> reductionism
> in this general sense which is very much more
> general
> even than the beliefs of scientists about
> reductionism.
> Without the use of methods which fall under this
> definition
> science and engineering would be completely
> crippled.
>
> How do you design and build anything without
> analysing it
> into (or synthesising it from) components and
> reasoning
> about the whole from what is known about the
> components?
But this is not reduction in the manner that you have
stated earlier. Analysis is not reduction. It is clear
that things have parts but all that we have done in
shifting between what we like to call the "whole" and
the "parts" is a shift in our description. It is not
as if there were some fundamental unreality to
regarding the something irrespective of its parts. To
be composed of various elements does not mean that an
analysis of the components is complete knowledge about
the whole. A whole may very well have distinct
characteristics that can not be accounted for purely
by an analysis of its components (even generatively,
which may only serve to describe the said
characteristics). A generative description can not
delimit the characteristics of the whole (as purely
accounted for by the components) for the
characteristics are, in fact, absent apart from the
dynamic of the whole. In other words, there are added
properties once there is the whole (thus its identity
is irreducible and validated in this manner)...i
wonder if this has something to do with the
metaphysic...
Daniel
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Steven Ravett Brown
>
> MJ Murphy wrote:
>>
>> Reductionism in science means we have a theory that explains a
>> certain phenomenon, then comes along a different theory, perhaps
>> from an entirely different field of research, and it turns out to
>> explain the same things as the first theory
>> plus a bunch of other stuff. At that point, historically, the
>> language of the first theory tends to get thrown overboard.
>
> and RB Jones replied:
>>
>> I can't think of a single example which fits this description.
>>
Also, Philip Kitcher's book, The Advancement of Science (which I highly
recommend) has *lots* of examples.
Steven Ravett Brown
srb...@ravett.com
M Murphy
Roger Bishop Jones wrote:
>
>
> | Isn't that what you get if you can "reduce" one set of laws to
> | another set of laws but cannot replace the terms of the definiens with the
> | terms of the definiendum in scientific utterances?
>
> I wouldn't say myself that such a reduction was trivial.
> I would also say that in many reductionist theses the reduction of
> one theory to another is not accomplished either.
> When physicists claim they are searching for a theory of
> everything I believe that they probably do accept that their
> enterprise is reductionistic but don't expect the outcome
> to be a reduction of all other scientific theories to the theory
> of everything.
> Talking about theories is talking about languages, and
> scientists mostly don't think about languages much.
> A reductionist thesis need not be a thesis about language.
I would simply echo Daniel Languages words in his post of this morning. To put
the same point (I hope) slightly differently, the reduction of one scientific
theory to another of the kind I describe in the last post (and describe again a
little further down), indeed implies a thesis about languag: if x is really just
y then x should strictly speaking be called "y".
I then wrote:
>
>
> | Reductionism in
> | science means we have a theory that explains certain phenomenon, then
> comes
> | along a different theory, perhaps from an entirely different field of
> | research, and it turns out to explain the same things as the first theory
> | plus a bunch of other stuff. At that point, historically, the language of
> | the first theory tends to get thrown overboard.
>
> I can't think of a single example which fits this description.
Larry Tapper's example seems to fit the bill. To give another ( from Nagel's
"The Structure of Science"),
Thermodynamics was reduced to Mechanics in the early 19th century, lost its
autonomy with respect to physics, became a "chapter" of physical theory and not
an autonomous discipline. Any concepts of Thermodynamics could after this point
in history be recast/replaced as/by mechanical concepts. Another example might
be the behaviorist attempt at reducing "folk psychological" concepts to some
version of S&R theory. Thus Watson's claim that thought was *really* just
movements of the throat muscles (subvocal speech, I think he called it), or
Skinner's attempt to eliminate various mentalistic concepts in "Verbal
Behavior". Of course, this attempt at reduction proved woefully inadequate, so
the use of mentalistic concepts in psychology is still common. But the intent
was, at least for a time, to rid scientific language of such concepts.
>
>
> | The ultimate point of *this*
> | kind of reduction, assuming it has one, is that, in the end, we have fewer
> | terms and concepts to deal with, and possibly a theory of Everything at
> some
> | point, where a physicist really could cure your asthma and maybe even your
> | mental hangups.
>
> It would be of great interest to know what physicists mean
> when they talk about a "theory of everything".
> My suspicion is that what they would consider "the ultimate point"
> of such an enterprise is not what you suggest.
> First off, I think many of them would regard the "theory of everything"
> as being quintessentially what physics is about and in need of no
> justification in relation to the rest of science.
> Secondly, I think that those who were willing to speculate about
> how this might relate to the rest of science would talk about
> this theory enabling the solution of problems in other scientific
> domains, i.e. they would not think in terms of language but
> in terms of reality.
> Finally, I expect few scientists would cite conceptual
> economy as even a part of the purpose of a TOE.
I think you are wrong here, but we are not arguing, merely speculating as to the
possible beliefs of physicists, which doesn't interest me. Suffice to say that
the notion of conceptual economy as a reason for the reduction of one phenomenon
to another seems to bulk large in both the history of science and in the
philosophy of science.
I then wrote:
>
>
> | But this is clearly not the kind of thing Carnap, for example, is up to.
> All
> | he does is put forward a definitional schema in FOL notation that has the
> | terms of the science to be reduced as the definiendum and the terms of the
> | science considered more basic as the definiens. There is no practical
> | reordering of actual scientific language. Therefore, so what?
>
> The point of my contributions to this thread has not been
> to defend Carnap's reductionism, but to react against a blanket
> rejection of reductionism of all kinds.
And my point was that you have reduction of sciences to a foundational science
as a philosophical project of the kind the positivists undertook, which requires
no revision of the vocabulary or conceptual apparatus. This kind of
reductionism seems to me to be pointless just because it effects no change in
the vocabulary or "status" of the secondary sciences. On the other hand, you
have the kind of theoretical reduction of theory to theory that has historically
taken place within the various sciences, which does effect such changes, and
which I endorse whole-heartedly. But you seem to be suggesting that you can
have a reuduction of the former variety that takes place between one scientific
and another (ie it is not a philosophical project)
and yet is not trivial (perhaps I am misinterpreting you here again, though) in
the sense meant (ie. it changes nothing). Can you show me an example?
M.J. Murphy
`The shapes of things are dumb.'
-L. Wittgenstein
(c) 2001 by Analytic
Daniel Language
>
> >
> > MJ Murphy wrote:
> >>
> >> Reductionism in science means we have a theory
> that explains a
> >> certain phenomenon, then comes along a different
> theory, perhaps
> >> from an entirely different field of research, and
> it turns out to
> >> explain the same things as the first theory
> >> plus a bunch of other stuff. At that point,
> historically, the
> >> language of the first theory tends to get thrown
> overboard.
> >
> > and RB Jones replied:
> >>
> >> I can't think of a single example which fits this
> description.
> >>
>
> Also, Philip Kitcher's book, The Advancement of
> Science (which I highly
> recommend) has *lots* of examples.
But why is this called reduction? Isn't it clear that
the second theory is just a better description and it
explains things clearer than the first? How is it that
you come to infer that the first is reduced into the
second. If a theory is inflated, its just inflated; in
offering a more concise theory we have not transformed
the first because, really, its still available (its
still a possible description).
Daniel
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Larry Tapper
Daniel,
It seems to me that the sense in which an old theory is "still
available" varies considerably, in detail, from one example to the
next.
For example, if you really wanted to, you could revive the Ptolemaic
theory of planetary epicycles, and still do a pretty good job
predicting where the planets will be. Why not do this? Briefly,
because (a) you don't need to talk about epicycles, elliptical orbits
are much simpler to describe; and (b) the Newtonian solution to the 2-
body problem predicts elliptical orbits.
On the other hand, you'd be on shakier ground trying to revive the
phlogiston theory, because this was just a mysterious postulated
substance involved in combustion, and valence electrons do a whole
lot more explanatory work than phlogiston ever did.
All I really mean to say here, is that the motivations for a
scientific vocabulary change vary widely, in practice.
Regards, Larry
Daniel Language
> We would still be describing a biological phenomena
> (i.e. referring to it) and it would only serve to
make
> such a task immeasurably difficult.
<I agree. But I understood this discussion to not be
<able utility or
<difficulty, but possibility.
I think the point about redundancy is well-made. If
such a description were even hypothetically possible
an ulterior reference would be necessary to establish
that we are talking about the circulatory system.
Indeed I think any physicist would see this as
nonsense. If we really consider the language of modern
physics with its complex talk of wave-functions and
the implications of uncertainty, there just is not a
feasible and meaningful way in which one can describe
something as complex as the circulatory system using
quantum terminology. We shouldn't confuse the
possibilities of language-use as saying something
about a meaningful program of reduction in the natural
sciences. The only point of such a reduction in the
sciences (if it were possible) would be to faciliate a
more conscise and unified description of the world but
such a cross-discipline reduction wouldn't do that
precisely because the natrual organizational structure
of the world does not permit it to be meaningful.
> For some reason
> you seem to think that in doing this we can
disregard
> the circulatory system as a "macro-phenomena" and
just
> turn it into a system of sub-atomic particles or
> what-not.
<No, I don't think that at all. I think you'd still
<be describing the same
<macro-phenomenon, but just in different language. A
<bit like transmitting
<Clive Barker in morse code.
Redundancy again.
> What you may not realize is all that we
> would have done is to use a method of description
> appropriate for sub-atomic particles to attempt to
> describe a biological phenomena.
<Again, I didn't think this thread was about utility
<or difficulty, but
<possibility. I've said at least once or twice in
<previous posts that I
<think it's much easier to talk about such things in
<the language of biology.
But the practical inability of doing this is underlied
by a serious theoretical constraint. We would be dead
in the water before we even left the port. I suppose
you imagine this possibility to be purely about a
whole lot of complexity but it goes far beyond
complexity. We are talking about a new kind of
language here, one in which we would have to devise
methods to move easily through the stages...from
quanta we have to get to amino-acid bonds--molecules
and then to cellular structures but the question is
where is the point that we come into the next stage?
Do we enter the next stage at a particular bond or at
the tiny piece of the bond--or do we come in by way of
DNA later on? Do you see how theoretically impossible
such a program is?
<in order to talk about reductionism, and we
<still can reduce something like circulation into
<lesser phenomena, or into
<its "parts" and the processes of the parts, alone,
<and in concert.
But this is analysis not reduction. A reduction here
would imply that circulation is nothing more than its
parts but naturally there is something added once the
parts are composed in the right way. The whole is
distinct from its parts in identitification.
> <You're positing some kind of
hierarchical/categorical
> <structure as an objective fact? I'm not sure I
> <understand you there.
> Well, of-course. That is the whole point.
<If that's the whole point, we're having two
<completely different
<conversations, I'm afraid. Is that how you define
<reduction?
I don't follow.
<So since physics isn't about anything that's just a
<collection of particles,
<or just a particle (except the abstraction of such a
<thing for theoretical
<purposes), saying that biological organisms are also
<not just collections of
<particles doesn't work as an argument against the
<possibility of translating
<biological language into physical language. There'd
<have to be something
<else about biology that you'd think is
non-<translatable.
I think there is an inconsistency here. If you think
that biology can be reduced into physics then you must
be supposing that there is nothing more to living
bodies than what is described in physics. How else can
you make sense of such a reduction? On a
terminological note your use of "translation" here is
very odd. Do you think we can translate physics into
biology? I didn't think so. Therefore this is not
translation but reduction.
> Now, lets say, for
> example, that we have described the quantum world to
> every conceivable detail. There is no possibility of
> interaction unaccounted.
<That either seems to ignore the received view of
<quantum mechanics or you
<allow probabilistic statements to qualify as "no
<possibility of interaction
<unaccounted".
Well naturally I am speaking about the kind of
descriptions modern physics employs. They do deal with
possible interactions and real interactions
(accelerators).
> Now, according to the reason
> of your statement, there is no further necessity of
> describing anything at any other level any further.
<Hmmm, where did I make a statement to this effect? I
<wouldn't say that
<tere was any _necessity_ of describing something in
<the first place. I
<also disagree with the idea of "levels" in things
<like <this, but unless you
<did mean something like an "objective,
<hierarchical/organizational
<structure" by "reduction" (which is frankly a sense
<of "reduction" I've
<never encountered before), then "levels" are aside
<from the point of this
<thread, anyway.
How is this? If we are not speaking about a real
structural organization within nature and the world
then this thread makes no sense. Our descriptions of
the world are denominated into the distinct disciples
as a theoretical and practical response to the natural
organization of the universe. In what sense do you
object to this?
> We
> should have, by your lights, deemed that every other
> scientific investigation is superfluous and wholly
> without merit and that there should be no further
> knowledge available.
<This has little to do with anything I've said or
<would say.
Well this is the point. This is the logical
consequence of such a position that admits that a
reduction of biology (not to mention all the sciences)
to physics is both theoretically possible and
practically tenable. I mean you can't have it both
ways. Either you say that biology is reducbile to
physics and thereby accept that such a possibility
means that physics alone could describe the universe
in every detail or reject this thesis and thereby
accept that such a reduction is impossible. I hope
that you would not construe such a reduction as a mere
matter of re-naming every discipline under the heading
of physics (i doubt that you do). The distinct
disciplines are defined by their subject, therefore
ultimately this is about whether or not you give
credence to the idea that there is a real structural
organization in the universe or not.
> If you say "no, we haven't" then
> you have admitted that bodies are not JUST
particles.
<No, it has nothing to do with that. let's say, just
<hypothetically, that
<bodies are just particles, and we're able to describe
<them as such. Now,
<whether any scientific investigation is superfluous
<or not is just an
<opinion, isn't it?
No way. How could it be an opinion? We are talking
about facts here. Either it is a fact that bodies are
just particles or it is not. Opinion has no place
here.
<Say that John wanted to describe bodies in a way that
<is
<correlated to Mayan religious texts, and ends up
<describing things that he
<discovers through experimentation on bodies in that
<language. Is that
<superfluous?
I don't really see your point here. We are not
speaking about a mere choice. There are considerable
theoretical and practically real implications to the
point.
<I wouldn't say so, even though per our hypothetical
<supposition bodies are just particles. The <word
"superfluous" suggests
<"necessity", but a psychological evaluation of what's
<necessary.
How did psychology get into this? It is either
possible nor not possible. If it isn't possible then
no choice can change that and if it is possible then
we are certainly free to choose to do so. I can't see
how you are basing any of this on a mere choice.
<Different
<people have different psychologies, so what's
<superfluous to Joe might not
<be superfluous to Betty. You might think it's
<superfluous, I don't. We
<can't test anything to see which one of us is
correct.
You can't be serious. If all science is reducible to
physics then physics alone can describe the entire
universe in its theoretical framework and in its
quantum terminology thereby rendering all other
current scientific disciplines superfluous. This
"superfluous" means that the other disciplines can no
longer validate what they do, theoretically. There is
not a point to having any other science. How you
construe this to be about a mere choice is simply
bizzare.
<The same goes for "wholly without merit". That's an
<extremely evaluative
<phrase, and someone calling something that or not
<would just be reporting
<something about their psychology.
Again, what are you talking about? This is the logical
consequence of the position on reduction that you
take. In what way could any other discipline have
merit if what you say is taken to its logical
conclusion? Maybe the other disciplines would have a
sort of historical novelty or could be played as games
but nothing theoretically serious could be undertaken
within their given frameworks because they could offer
no new knowledge nor could any discovery about the
world be made by their methods and in their respective
field of research. You must be forgetting that if such
a reduction were theoretically possible and if it were
accomplished and physics completed its description
then there simply can not be any room for new
knowledge about the natural universe and this is
precisely why such a position is so absurd.
<As for whether the Mayan religious text
<scientific interpretation of bodies is knowledge, I
<think it certainly is,
<even on the traditional definition of knowledge <as
"justified true belief".
You are naturally neglecting to consider that whatever
claims that such a theory made would have to be
checked by experimentation. Sure it can be known but
this is hardly what we would consider as consistent
scientific knowledge. If it goes against already
established scientific knowledge then it is just a bit
of dogma. You are simply neglecting the fact that we
have established scientific knowledge and it hardly
need be said that no serious scientific or
non-scientific person would take any personal
choice-description as valid knowledge either if it
went against already established principles or if it
were untestable (irrespective of the definition that
you gave).
> Will you then agree that bodies are not just
particles
> and an attempt to describe bodies using quantum
> terminology is just a fool's science?
<No, I wouldn't agree with that, since I'm a
<physicalist. I think everything
<that exists is just physical stuff--particles and
<processes, basically.
Well you may think what you like but this has nothing
to do with whether or not you are a physicalist. The
question is about whether or not it is possible to
reduce all science to physics and your personal
beliefs are aside the point.
> If you don't you will be left with the unfortunate
and
> frankly, ridiculous, position that a complete
> description of quantum phenomena should render all
> other science superfluous.
<But this doesn't follow. It's just an opinion that
<you have, if you have
<it.
Ofcourse it follows. It is the perfectly logical
conclusion. I simply can not make sense of your denial
of this point, particularly because you have not
offered any reason whatsoever why it shouldn't follow
from the position under contention. Let me reiterate
it another time:
1. If all science is reducible to physics then physics
alone can describe the universe.
2. Therefore a complete description of the quantum
universe should render all other scientific
disciplines completely superfluous (that is, if you
say that we can still learn something more about the
universe by studying living bodies or rocks or
galaxies then you have admitted that all science is
not, in principle, reducible to physics).
Please point out any logical discrepancy or
inconsistency in this argument. There is none.
<It also supposes that everything physical is
<describable by what we
<understand today as quantum phenomena.
Well, goodness! Whatever else could such a reduction
mean?
A way to get at why it doesn't follow that's maybe not
so wordy is to think
of something like a computer monitor. Presumably
you'd agree that that's an
item that we could easily describe, if not in the
language of quantum
mechanics, at least in the language of "engineering
physics". That we can
describe it that way, however, doesn't make it
superfluous for me to say,
"The screen is blank because the 'on' button isn't
pushed in", "Push the
'menu' key so that we can adjust the blank spaces on
the edges of the
picture", etc. There is great utility in talking
about things that way, and
it's easiest. However, it's not a denial that it is
_possible_ to only talk
about these things in "engineering physics", or even
something like quantum
mechanics. But in any event, I don't think something
needs my judgment of
utility to not be superfluous.
I have no idea what you are talking about. Why not
stick to the original examples?
Daniel
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M.A. Rogers
> > > So let me understand you. You equate your visual
> > > sensation with "how the world seems to be"?
> > That's one of the ways you "receive" how the world
> > seems to be--visual
> > sensation. Also, through other raw sense data, too.
> Maybe its a small matter but the use of "seems" here
> is suspect. I am distrustful of any account of
> perception in which the fundamental reliability and
> consistency of perception is doubted. I would say that
> we experience "optical illusions" and the like,
> because fundamentally sensation (excluding
> abnormalities, therefore speaking theoretically) is
> not subject to doubt. Skeptisism about perception is
> underlied by a subtle misunderstanding of its
> function.
I don't think this is really pertinent to anything we've been discussing.
The way the world seems to be could very well be the way it is. What
separates this from the epistemic representations I was talking about is
that the epistemic representations involve some kind of intentional
modeling. I am basically a naive realist, so I think that the way the world
seems to be is the way it is, more or less, just like you do, but I realize
that there is no "proof" for this, so anticipating objections from persons
who aren't quite naive realists, I prefer to say "seems", that way, we're
both satisfied.
However, as a naive realist, there is still a difference between perception
and intentional modeling.
> Would you agree with a re-phrase of this as:
> "our experience of the world is the world as
> experience"
Well, it sounds a bit strange, but on first blush, I can't see anything
wrong with it.
> or "the experience of the world is what the world is
> as experience"
Same thing as above.
> In other words, "seems" implies a doubt or don't you
> mean it in that way?
Again, I mean it as an anticipation, and squelching of objections to "my
perception is how the world is", which I agree can be objected to without
much problem. But that's a different topic.
> Yes, you're right, it would be another discussion;
> possibly about a theory of symbolism. I wouldn't call
> such a thing a "modeling" however, since a model has
> its limits.
Okay, I'm not sure if what you or I would call a model is relevant to the
reductionism argument or whether it is that interesting to anyone. I
suppose we may have to bring it up again, but we'll wait until we get there
:-)
> Essentially, I understand experience as something
> which is unintended.
Yes, I do, too, basically, at least, which is how I can distinguish it from
an intentional "modeling".
> We can not intend an experience
> although we may very well experience what we have
> intended.
Well, I think you can kind of do both at the same time, like think, "I see a
computer monitor on top of my desk, and the fan is blowing on me and blowing
the post-it notes, . . . etc." but I agree that's not what we normally do,
and I also agree that you're really doing two things then--having the raw
experience and narrating it.
> It may be possible to think of experience as
> consequence of action. I see here distinct
> knowledgable dimensions; namely the dimension of
> action and the dimension of experience. Yet,
> fundamentally, I would say that both dimensions are
> subject to the domain of language as we could describe
> either by language. Indeed it must be impossible to
> imagine something that is not subject to language and
> thus we can not know anything that could be beyond
> language.
Oh . . . well, I don't really agree with that, although I'm sure part of it
hinges on just what you'd mean by language. I do think that there are many
things that are basically ineffable, but that which we know experientially.
The problem here is the same thing I brought up in the end of the last post,
which most people think is pretty obvious--a description is not what it
describes, so a first person experience of what is being described is
different than the description of it. I also think that you can know things
musically, or in other ways with various arts, for example, but you might
count those kinds of things as language.
> What I had trouble with was that you said "there is an
> experience of the same". The point I was trying to
> make, poorly, was that the entire description is also
> experienced. I want to ask, "What do you see as the
> difference or distinction between the experience of
> the red dots and the experience of describing them."
> This may sound niave but the point is "is anything
> added"?
Again, it's pretty non-controversial that descriptions aren't what they
describe. That's not really relevant to a reductionism discussion, since no
one in a reductionism discussion is claiming that descriptions _are_ what
they describe. At issue, instead, is whether descriptions are reducible to
other kinds of descriptions, say, or whether phenomena are reducible to
other kinds of phenomena.
The part of the conversation you're commenting on here was all intended to
give you some idea of what I meant by a distinction between what you'd call
perception and an intentional description, say, of that perception. "You
experience the same", just means our normal colloquial way of talking that
we experience the same thing that we're describing. We perceive the red
dots, we describe them in some way, and we experience the same red dots that
we describe in some way.
> Okay. Yet I still find "seems" suspect, even as a
> synonym for correspondence.
Well, you probably wouldn't give any strong skeptics on this issue any
leeway. I agree with them that we're at best making a pragmatic claim as
realists in this respect. I don't think there's a problem with being a
pragmatist here, but since I agree there's room for objections, I prefer
that term.
> It seems to suffice to say
> "this is a description", doesn't it? It is redundant
> (or even potentially erroneous depending on how it is
> meant) to say "my description seems like the
> experience".
If we take it literally, yes, I'd agree, but that's a normal manner of
speaking, and I understand what is meant by it--basically what I said above:
We perceive the red dots, we describe them in some way, and we experience
the same red dots that we describe in some way. The description is adequate
to whoever is using it to describe the experience, so in that sense, it is
the "same".
> Actually, just a minute. It is unclear to
> me whether the description you gave could be a
> description of an "experience". It seems more like a
> description of a fact, stripped of its qualitative
> aspects. Do you consider a scientific description a
> description of experience?
Yes, I consider scientific descriptions to be descriptions of experience. I
have sympathies with both logical positivists and phenomenalists here, and
when it comes to laws and such, I am _not_ a realist, but a "descriptivist",
or kind of like what most folks call a "constructivist". I'm a realist in
that I think there is really stuff out there and the kitchen doesn't
disappear when we don't look at it (although I agree that it's logically
possible that it might), but I'm not a realist when it comes to saying,
"this is a 'law' that holds in every situation like this in the universe."
I think that's just a convenient way of talking about our experiences with
things, which are limited and don't really allow statements like that, if we
want to be literal, just like "our description seems like our experience" is
a convenient way of talking, but doesn't really work if we're more literal
about it.
> The main problem I have with this kind of talk about
> "matching" and so forth is that I completely deny any
> sort of reference, where reference is used to convict
> of a "language---world" type of relationship. I find
> this very niave.
Unfortunately, I may be even more naive than that, because I don't
understand the sentence, "I completely deny any sort of reference, where
reference is used to convict (??) of a 'language--world' type of
relationship."
It sounds kind of like you reject the philosophical notion of propositions
outright? I'm not sure why, though.
> I would immediately be comfortable
> with a talk of reference once it has been established
> that there is no "other world outside of language" to
> which language serves as a referential tool.
So you take the world to be nothing other than language?? I'm completely
lost there. I suppose I could imagine a position like that, but it seems
like a very strange thing to claim to me.
--M.A. Rogers
Daniel Language
> For example, if you really wanted to, you could
> revive the Ptolemaic
> theory of planetary epicycles, and still do a pretty
> good job
> predicting where the planets will be. Why not do
> this? Briefly,
> because (a) you don't need to talk about epicycles,
> elliptical orbits
> are much simpler to describe; and (b) the Newtonian
> solution to the 2-
> body problem predicts elliptical orbits.
Naturally, this is not what I meant by "available". I
wanted to transmit the understanding that in framing a
more conscise theory we have not reduced the first, we
only say that because we like to maintain a paradigm.
I used "available" to show that nothing has indeed
been done to the first; IT has not been reduced.
>
> On the other hand, you'd be on shakier ground trying
> to revive the
> phlogiston theory, because this was just a
> mysterious postulated
> substance involved in combustion, and valence
> electrons do a whole
> lot more explanatory work than phlogiston ever did.
I understand what you are saying but I think that you
have mistaken my use of "availability" and
"possibility" for saying something validating
scientific practice. In other words, I am not talking
about whether or not it makes sense to revive the
theory but whether or not it makes sense to talk of
reduction of one theory into another.
>
> All I really mean to say here, is that the
> motivations for a
> scientific vocabulary change vary widely, in
> practice.
Sure but the use of reduction in this manner is
nonsense; as far as it concerns us in understanding
the definition and meaning of reduction. I don't care
much for how science uses reduction; although I would
be glad to point out where their use of it makes no
sense. It would be a misunderstanding of my intent
here to regard this as authoritarian, because, as I
see it, this is the business of philosophy.
Daniel
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M.A. Rogers
>sciences (if it were possible) would be to faciliate a
>more conscise and unified description of the world but
>such a cross-discipline reduction wouldn't do that
>precisely because the natrual organizational structure
>of the world does not permit it to be meaningful.
Again, I take these as psychological. "The point to reduction", along with
what is meaningful, depends on the person we ask, and the answers can be as
varied as our faces, without a "right" one among the bunch. My interest,
aside from the initial issue as to whether we could interpret a particular
sentence in alternate ways, is primarily whether a reduction would be
possible. I'm sure, if we could put up a website today with a description
of blood circulation in physics-only terms that many people would see little
point to it. If we were arguing whether there's a point to it or not, I
wouldn't bother much with it, because it would just be about our
psychological orientations, which could be similar or very different.
>>No, I don't think that at all. I think you'd still
>>be describing the same
>>macro-phenomenon, but just in different language. A
>>bit like transmitting
>>Clive Barker in morse code.
>Redundancy again.
I agree it's redundant. Using your implied definition of "reductionism" as
"translation into another kind of language", I think that, in order to be a
reduction, it really _has_ to be redundant, or it's missing something in the
translation.
If we use a more traditional sense of "reductionism", then it's a bit more
complicated, but I think it still has to be redundant, or we're missing
something.
>>Again, I didn't think this thread was about utility
>>or difficulty, but
>>possibility. I've said at least once or twice in
>>previous posts that I
>>think it's much easier to talk about such things in
>>the language of biology.
>But the practical inability of doing this is underlied
>by a serious theoretical constraint. We would be dead
>in the water before we even left the port. I suppose
>you imagine this possibility to be purely about a
>whole lot of complexity but it goes far beyond
>complexity. We are talking about a new kind of
>language here, one in which we would have to devise
>methods to move easily through the stages.
I'm not sure why it would be a "new language", or why we'd have to devise
methods to "move easily through the stages".
>..from
>quanta we have to get to amino-acid bonds--molecules
>and then to cellular structures but the question is
>where is the point that we come into the next stage?
>Do we enter the next stage at a particular bond or at
>the tiny piece of the bond--or do we come in by way of
>DNA later on?
I suspect that the boundary, like close looks at topological boundaries in
the world, would be a bit fuzzy. There would be parts where it's clearly
not process A, and parts where it is. I don't think that's dependent on
what language we talk about something in. Let's say we just talk about
blood circulation in terms of biology. Let's imagine slowing circulation
down and/or gradually removing blood and replacing it with something else.
At what point isn't it circulation any more? We'd either just come up with
an arbitrary point of definition, or we'd acknowledge that it's a bit fuzzy,
and that clearly normal blood flow and volume is circulation, and a dead
body with no blood in it isn't, and somewhere in between, although it's hard
to say exactly where, is the division.
> Do you see how theoretically impossible
> such a program is?
No . . . I am interested in exploring in depth why you think reductionism is
impossible, but I don't have a grasp on it yet.
>>in order to talk about reductionism, and we
>>still can reduce something like circulation into
>>lesser phenomena, or into
>>its "parts" and the processes of the parts, alone,
>>and in concert.
>But this is analysis not reduction.
It's actually a common sense of "reductionism", but I don't know if there is
much point in quibbling over that.
> A reduction here
>would imply that circulation is nothing more than its
>parts
Hmmm . . . well, this doesn't seem to resemble how you were using the term
"reduction" before, in the translation sense, but anyway, "its parts"
includes the parts processes, and the processes in conjunction with other
parts--those can be seen as "parts", too. I agree that if we make a straw
man reductionism where we pretend that the reductionist ignores, or is
ignorant of, processes, relations, etc., as if they thought that things all
existed statically and in some sort of a vacuum from other things, then
reductionism has problems, but, as that's a straw man, or at best a
misunderstanding, we don't have to worry about that.
>but naturally there is something added once the
>parts are composed in the right way. The whole is
>distinct from its parts in identitification.
Things have processes and relations--those are parts.
>>>>You're positing some kind of
>>>>hierarchical/categorical
>>>>structure as an objective fact? I'm not sure I
>>>>understand you there.
>>> Well, of-course. That is the whole point.
>>If that's the whole point, we're having two
>>completely different
>>conversations, I'm afraid. Is that how you define
>>reduction?
>I don't follow.
In other words, I'm not defending anything like a notion that there is a
kind of hierarchical/categorical structure as an objective fact. If you say
that's the whole point, then apparently that's at least tightly wrapped up
with reductionism in your view, if it's not how you define it. If you
thought either of those things, I would probably just say, "Wow, that's a
strange view of what reductionism is" and do something else.
>>So since physics isn't about anything that's just a
>>collection of particles,
>>or just a particle (except the abstraction of such a
>>thing for theoretical
>>purposes), saying that biological organisms are also
>>not just collections of
>>particles doesn't work as an argument against the
>>possibility of translating
>>biological language into physical language. There'd
>>have to be something
>>else about biology that you'd think is
>>non-translatable.
>I think there is an inconsistency here. If you think
>that biology can be reduced into physics then you must
>be supposing that there is nothing more to living
>bodies than what is described in physics.
I think that there is nothing more to living bodies than physical stuff,
yes. In other words, I'm a physicalist. However, note that this does _not_
mean that I necessarily think we can describe everything about bodies on
August 22, 2001 in only the terms we find in a physics dictionary on August
22, 2001.
To reprint a small section of a previous post: "One typical approach to
problems like this is to consider whether we can _presently_ translate all
of biology, say, into physics. I don't think we can, but I think this
approach has serious problems in that it assumes, albeit pragmatically, that
what we know about the sciences in question, or worse, whatever the received
view happens to be, is all that the sciences in question amount to. On this
view, if there isn't a law of physics to cover a particular "emergent"
behavior, then it's just not physics in action. That's mistaking, in my
view at least, epistemology for ontology. I don't think they're the same
thing in a strong way."
>How else can
>you make sense of such a reduction? On a
>terminological note your use of "translation" here is
>very odd. Do you think we can translate physics into
>biology? I didn't think so. Therefore this is not
>translation but reduction.
Well, you're thinking that "a translation is only a translation if it's
commutative". I don't agree that that would have to be true, necessarily,
but that would probably be a different discussion, too, although I think it
would be an interesting one. But yes, I think in the cases we're
discussing, at least , it _would_ be commutative, since we could talk about
blood circulation either in biology language or physics language, and make
one the other as far as they go. But you probably mean whether we could
translate all of physics into biology, and I agree that we could only do
this if we did some redefining of biology, where we have something like
"biological potentials", which could be quarks (we could call them other
names, of course), neutrinos, etc. that lead to biological actuals when put
together in certain ways.
>>> Now, lets say, for
>>> example, that we have described the quantum world to
>>> every conceivable detail. There is no possibility of
>>> interaction unaccounted.
>>That either seems to ignore the received view of
>>quantum mechanics or you
>>allow probabilistic statements to qualify as "no
>>possibility of interaction
>>unaccounted".
>Well naturally I am speaking about the kind of
>descriptions modern physics employs. They do deal with
>possible interactions and real interactions
>(accelerators).
So that means choice #2 above, I take it, where probabilistic statements
qualify as "no possibility of interaction unaccounted". No problem.
>>> Now, according to the reason
>>> of your statement, there is no further necessity of
>>> describing anything at any other level any further.
>>Hmmm, where did I make a statement to this effect? I
>>wouldn't say that
>>there was any _necessity_ of describing something in
>>the first place. I
>>also disagree with the idea of "levels" in things
>>like this, but unless you
>>did mean something like an "objective,
>>hierarchical/organizational
>>structure" by "reduction" (which is frankly a sense
>>of "reduction" I've
>>never encountered before), then "levels" are aside
>>from the point of this
>>thread, anyway.
>How is this? If we are not speaking about a real
>structural organization within nature and the world
>then this thread makes no sense.
That's your way of saying what I said earlier--"We're having two completely
different conversations, I'm afraid."
I'm not a realist on laws, at least in the way that is traditionally
understood. The same would go for "levels", which I think is just applying
human concepts to the world as a convenient fiction. As for realism about
"structure", if you just mean "are there real, heterogenous clusters of
stuff in the world, like bodies, bridges, magnetic fields, etc., or is it
just something we apply mentally to a homogenous soup?" then I'm a realist,
but I suspect that you mean something more like being a realist about laws,
"levels", etc.
>Our descriptions of
>the world are denominated into the distinct disciples
>as a theoretical and practical response to the natural
>organization of the universe. In what sense do you
>object to this?
I don't think there's any necessity to it. We could divvy up the
disciplines differently, and in fact we've done so over the years, we could
describe them differently, whether they were divvied up the same or
differently, etc. The present model is just one out of a huge number of
possibilities.
>>> We
>>> should have, by your lights, deemed that every other
>>> scientific investigation is superfluous and wholly
>>> without merit and that there should be no further
>>> knowledge available.
>>This has little to do with anything I've said or
>>would say.
>Well this is the point.
The point is that it has little to do with anything I've said or would say?
:-)
> This is the logical
>consequence of such a position that admits that a
>reduction of biology (not to mention all the sciences)
>to physics is both theoretically possible and
>practically tenable.
Show me the logical entailment here, either formally or informally. How do
we get from a fact about the world to a psychological preference?
> I mean you can't have it both
>ways. Either you say that biology is reducbile to
>physics and thereby accept that such a possibility
>means that physics alone could describe the universe
>in every detail or reject this thesis and thereby
>accept that such a reduction is impossible.
I accept that "physics alone could describe the universe in every detail",
once we're done, at least, but I reject that this "entails" that anything is
superfluous. Again, "superfluous" is a psychological, evaluative term.
> I hope
>that you would not construe such a reduction as a mere
>matter of re-naming every discipline under the heading
>of physics (i doubt that you do).
No, it isn't just reshelving the books in the library.
> The distinct
>disciplines are defined by their subject,
Well, they're defined by us as we engage in them, and they evolve.
> therefore
>ultimately this is about whether or not you give
>credence to the idea that there is a real structural
>organization in the universe or not.
Again, my answer to whether there is really a Platonic realm that divides
the world up into biology, chemistry, algebra, modal logic, etc. is no. But
that's not the same as "reductionism".
>>> If you say "no, we haven't" then
>>> you have admitted that bodies are not JUST
particles.
>>No, it has nothing to do with that. let's say, just
>>hypothetically, that
>>bodies are just particles, and we're able to describe
>>them as such. Now,
>>whether any scientific investigation is superfluous
>>or not is just an
>>opinion, isn't it?
>No way. How could it be an opinion?
Because it's a psychological, evaluative term about whether something is
necessary or needed.
> We are talking
>about facts here.
Well, there's no fact about any description being necessary or needed
outside of a person's mind.
>Either it is a fact that bodies are
>just particles or it is not.
But that's not the same as a "fact" about whether something is superfluous
or not.
>Opinion has no place here.
Then don't bring up whether other descriptions are superfluous or not.
>>Say that John wanted to describe bodies in a way that
>>is
>>correlated to Mayan religious texts, and ends up
>>describing things that he
>>discovers through experimentation on bodies in that
>>language. Is that
>>superfluous?
>I don't really see your point here.
My point is that I've given an example in which we can describe something,
biological bodies, in a couple different ways, just like we could describe
blood circulation in a couple different ways--with the language of biology
or with physics, in our debated example. I was asking if John's Mayan
Religious Text description, or the biological one, was superfluous to you.
>We are not
>speaking about a mere choice.
Hmm, I think we have some major confusion about this, then, too. I wouldn't
say that "the fact that we can describe blood circulation with physics means
that biology language is wrong" or something. Of course we can describe it
in the language of biology, too. There are huge numbers of different ways
that we could talk about just about anything.
> There are considerable
>theoretical and practically real implications to the
>point.
Would you like to discuss them?
>>I wouldn't say so, even though per our hypothetical
>>supposition bodies are just particles. The word
>>"superfluous" suggests
>>"necessity", but a psychological evaluation of what's
>>necessary.
>How did psychology get into this?
Your use of the word superfluous :-)
>It is either
>possible nor not possible. If it isn't possible then
>no choice can change that and if it is possible then
>we are certainly free to choose to do so. I can't see
>how you are basing any of this on a mere choice.
If it's possible to talk about blood circulation in the language of physics,
what fact about the world makes talking about it in biology language
superfluous?
>>Different
>>people have different psychologies, so what's
>>superfluous to Joe might not
>>be superfluous to Betty. You might think it's
>>superfluous, I don't. We
>>can't test anything to see which one of us is
>>correct.
>You can't be serious.
I am serious, and don't call me Shirley.
>If all science is reducible to
>physics then physics alone can describe the entire
>universe in its theoretical framework and in its
>quantum terminology thereby rendering all other
>current scientific disciplines superfluous.
How are you getting from "you can do R in y way" to mean "doing it in x way
is superfluous?" You can do it in x way, too. Why isn't doing it in y way
superfluous? What fact(s) about the world makes such a determination?
> This
>"superfluous" means that the other disciplines can no
>longer validate what they do, theoretically.
Well, that would be psychological, too. "Validating what you do" in a
discipline is engaging in something psychological.
> There is
>not a point to having any other science.
What about the world, outside of minds, determines this?
>How you
>construe this to be about a mere choice is simply
>bizzare.
Okay, so tell me what about the world would determine such a thing. To me,
it just sounds a bit like the naturalistic fallacy.
>>The same goes for "wholly without merit". That's an
>>extremely evaluative
>>phrase, and someone calling something that or not
>>would just be reporting
>>something about their psychology.
>Again, what are you talking about? This is the logical
>consequence of the position on reduction that you
>take.
p-->q
q
|- "wholly without merit"
Does it go something like that? Can you give me how you get to "wholly
without merit" in formal logic?
> In what way could any other discipline have
>merit if what you say is taken to its logical
>conclusion?
Look at it this way: you can play a particular A on a guitar by fretting the
low E at the fifth fret, or playing the open A string. Which one is wholly
without merit?
There are multiple ways to do many things. There's not an objectively
"correct" way when they amount to the same thing.
> Maybe the other disciplines would have a
>sort of historical novelty or could be played as games
>but nothing theoretically serious could be undertaken
>within their given frameworks because they could offer
>no new knowledge nor could any discovery about the
>world be made by their methods and in their respective
>field of research.
Why not? None of this follows from being able to describe a given
phenomenon in an alternate way. You seem to be implying that there would be
something "wrong" with one or the other way. Why?
>You must be forgetting that if such
>a reduction were theoretically possible and if it were
>accomplished and physics completed its description
>then there simply can not be any room for new
>knowledge about the natural universe and this is
>precisely why such a position is so absurd.
I'd love to know how you are arriving at that conclusion. I don't need a
formal argument there, but could you at least forward an informal one?
Let's say that we know A, B, C, D, E, F and G only. We can describe A
through G by pig latin--that's how we first came up with a description, but
we discovered that we can describe them with Joe's "Ninnyton" language, too,
although it's more complicated to do so, since Joe's pretty wacky and
Ninnyton is a pretty crazy language. Now, if we describe A--G in Ninnyton,
are we no longer able to describe them in pig latin? Of course not. We can
describe them in both. Further, does the fact that we know A--G in both pig
latin and Ninnyton mean that we'll never know anything else? Say we
suddenly become aware of H! Now there's something new to describe. And we
could do so in either pig latin or Ninnyton, or probably both. Etc.
>>As for whether the Mayan religious text
>>scientific interpretation of bodies is knowledge, I
>>think it certainly is,
>>even on the traditional definition of knowledge <as
>>"justified true belief".
>You are naturally neglecting to consider that whatever
>claims that such a theory made would have to be
>checked by experimentation.
Assuming I agree with with the point about experimentation (although I
don't--it could just be theoretical, like much of philosophy, say), it's not
true that I forgot about that. Note again that I said, "Say that John
wanted to describe bodies in a way that is correlated to Mayan religious
texts, and ends up
describing things that he discovers through experimentation on bodies in
that
language."
> Sure it can be known but
> this is hardly what we would consider as consistent
> scientific knowledge.
Why wouldn't it be consistent scientific knowledge?
>If it goes against already
>established scientific knowledge then it is just a bit
>of dogma.
What I didn't say was anything about it going against established scientific
knowledge. It's just another way to talk about things.
>You are simply neglecting the fact that we
>have established scientific knowledge and it hardly
>need be said that no serious scientific or
>non-scientific person would take any personal
>choice-description as valid knowledge either if it
>went against already established principles or if it
>were untestable (irrespective of the definition that
>you gave).
I didn't say anything about any alternative ways of talking about things
contradicting other ways of talking about things. We do make personal
choices about how we describe things all the time. And many things that we
consider knowledge--again, many things in philosophy, for example--are
untestable.
>>> Will you then agree that bodies are not just
>>>particles
>>> and an attempt to describe bodies using quantum
>>> terminology is just a fool's science?
>>No, I wouldn't agree with that, since I'm a
>>physicalist. I think everything
>>that exists is just physical stuff--particles and
>>processes, basically.
>Well you may think what you like but this has nothing
>to do with whether or not you are a physicalist. The
>question is about whether or not it is possible to
>reduce all science to physics and your personal
>beliefs are aside the point.
Hmmm, I don't think that's beside the point at all. It sounds like you
_are_ rejecting to reductionism on the grounds that we can't put up a
website today describing blood circulation in the language of physics, and
you seem to be making an appeal to us keeping any philosophical notions out
of the affair. In that case, it would have just been much easier for you to
say, "If we can describe blood circulation in the language of physics, then
have at it, or else we can't, period."
Of course, then those of us more interested in philosophy would probably
start discussing whether we'd ever be able to, but you'd have your interests
satisfied.
>>> If you don't you will be left with the unfortunate
>>>and
>>> frankly, ridiculous, position that a complete
>>> description of quantum phenomena should render all
>>> other science superfluous.
>>But this doesn't follow. It's just an opinion that
>>you have, if you have
>>it.
>Ofcourse it follows.
And I'm sure that in your response to this you gave the formula for it.
Right?
> It is the perfectly logical
>conclusion. I simply can not make sense of your denial
>of this point, particularly because you have not
>offered any reason whatsoever why it shouldn't follow
>from the position under contention.
So you'd agree with, "For all of k1 . . . kn, k1-n follows from p & q just
in case there isn't a proof that k1-kn doesn't follow from p&q"?
>Let me reiterate
>it another time:
>1. If all science is reducible to physics then physics
>alone can describe the universe.
Yes, I agree with this.
>2. Therefore a complete description of the quantum
>universe should render all other scientific
>disciplines completely superfluous (that is, if you
>say that we can still learn something more about the
>universe by studying living bodies or rocks or
>galaxies then you have admitted that all science is
>not, in principle, reducible to physics).
No, I don't agree with this. That we can translate one language, or one
part of one language to another, commutatively, even, to satisfy your
qualification for translations, doesn't mean that you can't learn something
additional in any of the given languages first.
>Please point out any logical discrepancy or
>inconsistency in this argument.
Okay--how was the above?
> There is none.
Does that mean you're not actually going to consider the above for a minute
before deciding?
>>It also supposes that everything physical is
>>describable by what we
>>understand today as quantum phenomena.
>Well, goodness! Whatever else could such a reduction
>mean?
It can mean that we acknowledge that we're not done yet when it comes to any
one of the sciences. What we understand 1000 years from now as quantum
phenomena will be different. Again, see earlier in this post for why I feel
the "we can't do it today" argument is problematic.
>>A way to get at why it doesn't follow that's maybe not
>>so wordy is to think
>>of something like a computer monitor. Presumably
>>you'd agree that that's an
>>item that we could easily describe, if not in the
>>language of quantum
>>mechanics, at least in the language of "engineering
>>physics". That we can
>>describe it that way, however, doesn't make it
>>superfluous for me to say,
>>"The screen is blank because the 'on' button isn't
>>pushed in", "Push the
>>'menu' key so that we can adjust the blank spaces on
>>the edges of the
>>picture", etc. There is great utility in talking
>>about things that way, and
>>it's easiest. However, it's not a denial that it is
>>_possible_ to only talk
>>about these things in "engineering physics", or even
>>something like quantum
>>mechanics. But in any event, I don't think something
>>needs my judgment of
>>utility to not be superfluous.
>I have no idea what you are talking about.
I can't imagine why that example would be so perplexing to you, either.
> Why not
>stick to the original examples?
Because I'm trying alternate ways to get you to understand my point of view.
--M.A. Rogers
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Daniel Language
--- "M.A. Rogers" <doc...@sprynet.com> wrote:
>
> However, as a naive realist, there is still a
> difference between perception
> and intentional modeling.
>
I'm not entirely sure there is. There would be a
distinction between language-use and perception but I
almost think that perception is mediated by ideas,
which may possibly count as intentional modeling
(taking sensations as signs, interpreting them to mean
something else)...seems intentional to me.
Well, yes, language, to me, is the possibility of use,
therefore this definition incompasses, quite nearly
(rather totally) every dimension of human intention
and action. Bascially, then, any motion involves
Language...and this is not, as I see it, a mere
analogy...although all types of language can be
analogically related.
>
> Again, it's pretty non-controversial that
> descriptions aren't what they
> describe. That's not really relevant to a
> reductionism discussion, since no
> one in a reductionism discussion is claiming that
> descriptions _are_ what
> they describe. At issue, instead, is whether
> descriptions are reducible to
> other kinds of descriptions, say, or whether
> phenomena are reducible to
> other kinds of phenomena.
Ok. I realize that I've made several unrelated points
(don't really know why:)
Yes, I think you've narrowed down the point quite well
here. However, I think the point is two-fold. On the
one hand we are talking about whether it makes sense
to regard sentences, in general, and descriptions in
particular, as reducible. Secondly, we are talking
about whether phenomena are reducible to other kinds
of phenomena. The only way in which it makes sense to
speak of reduction here (and probably, anywhere) is in
reference to a paradigm. We wouldn't automatically say
that any given description were a reduced version of
another, unless, of-course, we meant it in respect to
what we are doing; our project. I recently read an
article in Scientific American where they spoke of
biology's "program of reduction" (citing how biology
has gone from cells...on the way "down" to DNA). I
really can't make any sense of how reduction can be
used to describe this. Is there really a non-operative
or non-active sense of the word "reduction"? I mean,
nothing has been reduced. Its possible that they mean
the paradigm of biological study but surely then, it
has only been enlarged. When scientists discovered
DNA, it is clear that the description of cells and
chromosones has only then been enlarged...there is
more to describe. Where is the validation of using
reduction in this manner?
Now, if I grind a block of rock into dust, its fair to
say that I've reduced the original block into dust;
yet only because I can't have it back again. But you
can't really break a description into smaller pieces.
If we take a description such as, "There are two books
on the table in the center of the room." ommitting
"...in the center of the room." I can say that I've
reduced WHAT I had originally described. Since an
infinte variety of descriptions are always distinctly
possible, all that can be reduced is what you had
originally done (the scope of A DESCRIBING, if you'll
allow). Therefore it is not that we can reduce a
description (as if descriptions and sentences in
general were atomic structures that were destructable)
but we reduce what we had originally done (thus our
paradigm).
>
> The part of the conversation you're commenting on
> here was all intended to
> give you some idea of what I meant by a distinction
> between what you'd call
> perception and an intentional description, say, of
> that perception.
If you mean a distinction between a perceptual
description and an intentional description I can't say
that I recognize one.
>
> > Okay. Yet I still find "seems" suspect, even as a
> > synonym for correspondence.
>
> Well, you probably wouldn't give any strong skeptics
> on this issue any
> leeway. I agree with them that we're at best making
> a pragmatic claim as
> realists in this respect. I don't think there's a
> problem with being a
> pragmatist here, but since I agree there's room for
> objections, I prefer
> that term.
Ok, we don't really have to get into a discussion
about perception and sensation...I was already having
one with Speranza but he doesn't seem to believe that
there any other viable accounts of sensation other
than the Gricean...small wonder!
> > It seems to suffice to say
> > "this is a description", doesn't it? It is
> redundant
> > (or even potentially erroneous depending on how it
is
> meant) to say "my description seems like the
> experience".
<If we take it literally, yes, I'd agree, but that's a
<normal manner of
<speaking, and I understand what is meant by it--
Ok, I suppose I was being rather rigid...just wanted
to see if it was underlied by a more important
disagreement.
> Actually, just a minute. It is unclear to
> me whether the description you gave could be a
> description of an "experience". It seems more like a
> description of a fact, stripped of its qualitative
> aspects. Do you consider a scientific description a
> description of experience?
<Yes, I consider scientific descriptions to be
<descriptions of experience.
Don't quite know what you mean. When we describe
colours as waves of light of particular frequency, how
is this a description of an experience? I doubt that
anyone experiences waves of light of different
frequencies; we experience colours. There is a
difference between a description of the experience of
colour and a descripition of colour. One is personal,
the other subjective. On the one hand, it is possible
to say that there is a distinction between colour and
the experience of colour, or do you mean to say that
there is no distinction? I can't see how that could be
validated.
<I'm a realist in
<that I think there is really stuff out there and the
<kitchen doesn't
<disappear when we don't look at it
This comes into part of the point I was trying to make
about sensation earlier. What you've offered here is,
of-course, not the only alternative. I mean, the
kitchen does disappear, in the visual sense. That is,
it doesn't continue to look like anything once you are
not looking at it. Its still there, sure, but not as
visual sensation. For some reason you seem to think
that you're visual sensation of the kitchen is what
the kitchen is whether or not you are looking at it.
The world is not a picture (its not vision waiting to
be seen).
<It sounds kind of like you reject the philosophical
<notion of propositions
<outright? I'm not sure why, though.
No, I wouldn't say that I reject the notion of
propositions. I just really never saw the point, in
the sense that it has been traditionally proposed. I
am content with "type of knowledge" and "meaning".
Though the reason that I deny reference theories is
because they have their basis in affirming an
essential isomorphisim between the world and language.
The picture theory, I think, is one of the biggest
mistakes in philosophy. It bases so much on visual
sensation and therefore is seriously imparied in
understanding what language is and indeed, what the
world is. I deny it also because it proposes that
there is this world (basically, visual sensation as
they have it) and then there is language and language
is used to refer (something like arrows) to this
"external" world. Thus you have theorists like Quine
who talk of distal or proximal stimuli (i can't
remember which as it really makes no essential
difference).
> I would immediately be comfortable
> with a talk of reference once it has been
established
> that there is no "other world outside of language"
to
> which language serves as a referential tool.
<So you take the world to be nothing other than
<language?? I'm completely
<lost there. I suppose I could imagine a position
<like that, but it seems
<like a very strange thing to claim to me.
No. I am not saying that the world is language. Far
from it. I am saying that there is not an external
world to which language is used as a referential tool.
"External world" is a descripition appropriate in
particular contexts; it is a particular kind of use.
What I am saying is that reality is the representation
of knowledge by language.
That is, the world is what we know it to be. Language
is the function of knowledge by which we become part
of the world, in the sense that it is only by language
that we can do anything. None of this implies that the
world is language (that would be utter nonsense).
Daniel
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Daniel Language
>
> Again, I take these as psychological. "The point to
> reduction", along with
> what is meaningful, depends on the person we ask,
> and the answers can be as
> varied as our faces, without a "right" one among the
> bunch.
Again, this can't be psychological. There are
theoretical considerations that would drive any sort
of reduction program in the sciences. These
theoretical considerations are underlied by the
freedom provided by possibility of even attempting to
do such a thing. Regardless of what any individual
*thinks* is the point of a reduction program in the
sciences, and I am sure the consensus would be that it
would facilitate a more concise description of the
world (theory of everything) , we would have to
consider if it is even possible. Purely based on the
points I've raised (seeing how you have yet to provide
a rebutal on them) then I can't see how it is
possible. Therefore we haven't even gotten to the
point where people are free to decide whether or not
to attempt a reduction in this manner. So your
reflections on this point are a bit premature.
My interest,
> aside from the initial issue as to whether we could
> interpret a particular
> sentence in alternate ways, is primarily whether a
> reduction would be
> possible. I'm sure, if we could put up a website
> today with a description
> of blood circulation in physics-only terms that many
> people would see little
> point to it. If we were arguing whether there's a
> point to it or not, I
> wouldn't bother much with it, because it would just
> be about our
> psychological orientations, which could be similar
> or very different.
Well, naturally. That's what I am saying. Whether or
not such a reduction would be meaningful depends upon
whether or not it is even possible. If it isn't
possible, no meaningful attempt could be made (that
is someone could surely try it but what he is trying
to do would be recognized immediately as
meaningless--much like Wittgenstein's comments about
most metaphysics).
> I agree it's redundant. Using your implied
> definition of "reductionism" as
> "translation into another kind of language",
I can't see how any of my comments implicate this
definition. I don't think I ever used "translation"
in referring to reduction (that would be quite
muddled).
I think
> that, in order to be a
> reduction, it really _has_ to be redundant, or it's
> missing something in the
> translation.
Although translation is wholly another issue and I
don't think it applies here I just didn't feel like
cutting this part, on the hopes that it might bring in
some of the initial reasons why talk of translation is
irrelevant, not to mention that translation is simply
another thing--(((It would only make sense to speak of
translation as co-operative in a program of reduction
in respect to a paradigm. If we want to reduce biology
into physics, translation would be totally
useless-fundmentally, because there is no
correspondence (totally distinct paradigms). If we
took a biological description of the circulatory
system there would be no point of correspondence from
which to translate it into a language of quantum
mechanics.)))
For some reason I get the feeling that you include
engineering into physics. Physics is quantum physics.
Therefore if you think biology is reducible to that,
then redundancy must be impossible. If there is
redundancy then it is clear that all science is not,
in principle, reducible to physics. (Do you think of
physics as in physical systems---a description of
engineering types of processes?) If there is
redundancy (if it has been admitted in a reduction)
then the reduction is not complete and it is not
logically consistent, therefore, that what is
redundant, can not be reduced, therefore complete
reduction is impossible.
> If we use a more traditional sense of
> "reductionism", then it's a bit more
> complicated, but I think it still has to be
> redundant, or we're missing
> something.
see above.
> >But the practical inability of doing this is
> underlied
> >by a serious theoretical constraint. We would be
> dead
> >in the water before we even left the port. I
> suppose
> >you imagine this possibility to be purely about a
> >whole lot of complexity but it goes far beyond
> >complexity. We are talking about a new kind of
> >language here, one in which we would have to devise
> >methods to move easily through the stages.
>
> I'm not sure why it would be a "new language", or
> why we'd have to devise
> methods to "move easily through the stages".
>
Again, what do you think such a reduction entails? We
are talking about the reduction of biology into
physics (the only physics there is).
> >..from
> >quanta we have to get to amino-acid
> bonds--molecules
> >and then to cellular structures but the question is
> >where is the point that we come into the next
> stage?
> >Do we enter the next stage at a particular bond or
> at
> >the tiny piece of the bond--or do we come in by way
> of
> >DNA later on?
>
> I suspect that the boundary, like close looks at
> topological boundaries in
> the world, would be a bit fuzzy. There would be
> parts where it's clearly
> not process A, and parts where it is. I don't think
> that's dependent on
> what language we talk about something in
None of this applies to the point. The point isn't
about whether our description will be fuzzy.
>
> > Do you see how theoretically impossible
> > such a program is?
>
> No . . . I am interested in exploring in depth why
> you think reductionism is
> impossible, but I don't have a grasp on it yet.
See above...about redundancy (or much further below
where the point is better made)
>
> >>in order to talk about reductionism, and we
> >>still can reduce something like circulation into
> >>lesser phenomena, or into
> >>its "parts" and the processes of the parts, alone,
> >>and in concert.
>
> >But this is analysis not reduction.
>
> It's actually a common sense of "reductionism", but
> I don't know if there is
> much point in quibbling over that.
Well sure there is a sense. If we want to get a grasp
on what reduction is it is important to understand
where it applies and clearly where it doesn't (such as
in this instance).
> > A reduction here
> >would imply that circulation is nothing more than
> its
> >parts
>
> Hmmm . . . well, this doesn't seem to resemble how
> you were using the term
> "reduction" before, in the translation sense,
I still don't get where I have ever used translation
in reference to reduction??
but
> anyway, "its parts"
> includes the parts processes, and the processes in
> conjunction with other
> parts--those can be seen as "parts", too.
Really? Isn't the process "circulation", and the parts
"blood" and "veins" and "capillaries"? You seem to
want to neatly excise circulation here but clearly we
don't have circulation when we have blood, veins, and
capillaries. The structure is essential. And this
structure, this process, is circulation. We don't have
a chair if we have all its parts laying on the floor.
I agree
> that if we make a straw
> man reductionism where we pretend that the
> reductionist ignores, or is
> ignorant of, processes, relations, etc., as if they
> thought that things all
> existed statically and in some sort of a vacuum from
> other things, then
> reductionism has problems, but, as that's a straw
> man, or at best a
> misunderstanding, we don't have to worry about that.
This is much too simplistic. The point isn't about
whether a reduction ignores the structure but is
really about whether the structure permits a
meaningful reduction. And before you jump on my use of
meaningful here, you should consider that
we are really talking about the independent and fixed
structure of reality. That a reduction of biology into
physics could not escape redundancy is a direct
consequence of the fact that there is an independent
and fixed structure of reality that is both
irreducible and intransendable. The distinctions hold
good.
> >but naturally there is something added once the
> >parts are composed in the right way. The whole is
> >distinct from its parts in identitification.
>
> Things have processes and relations--those are
> parts.
This is surely some kind of non-sense. Are you saying
that the structure of a chair is a part of the chair?
If so, point to it.
>
> In other words, I'm not defending anything like a
> notion that there is a
> kind of hierarchical/categorical structure as an
> objective fact.
Of-course you aren't. You are denying it. I am saying
that there is and that is precisley what prevents
reduction.
<If you say
> that's the whole point, then apparently that's at
> least tightly wrapped up
> with reductionism in your view, if it's not how you
> define it. If you
> thought either of those things, I would probably
> just say, "Wow, that's a
> strange view of what reductionism is" and do
> something else.
And why is it strange? And has strangeness replaced
logical inconsistency as the mark of an invalid point.
The presence of incommesurable redundancy is the
indication that reduction is not possible.
>I think there is an inconsistency here. If you think
>that biology can be reduced into physics then you
must
>be supposing that there is nothing more to living
>bodies than what is described in physics.
<I think that there is nothing more to living bodies
<<<than physical stuff,
<yes.?
But, goodness, this isn't the point at all. Of-course
bodies are just physical stuff but the point is
whether once we have completed our description of the
quantum world, if reduction is possible, we should or
should not have anything further to describe.
< In other words, I'm a physicalist.?However, note
<<that this does _not_mean that I necessarily think we
can describe everything about bodies on
August 22, 2001 in only the terms we find in a physics
dictionary on August
<22, 2001.
Well...um...I hope we've been talking about reduction_
in_ principle.
<To reprint a small section of a previous
post:?<<<<"One typical approach to
problems like this is to consider whether we can
_presently_ translate all
of biology, say, into physics.?I don't think we can,
but I think this
approach has serious problems in that it assumes,
albeit pragmatically, that
what we know about the sciences in question, or worse,
whatever the received
view happens to be, is all that the sciences in
<<<<<<<question amount to.?
This doesn't really apply to our discussion. As it
turns out, whatever science will be like in the
future, (if there is an independent structure to
reality), then reduction will always be impossible.
>How else can
>you make sense of such a reduction? On a
>terminological note your use of "translation" here is
>very odd. Do you think we can translate physics into
>biology? I didn't think so. Therefore this is not
>translation but reduction.
<<Well, you're thinking that "a translation is only a
translation if it's
commutative".?I don't agree that that would have to be
true, necessarily,
but that would probably be a different discussion,
too, although I think it
<<would be an interesting one.
Um...not quite. You actually think its possible to
translate physics into biology? If you do, i can't
imagine what sort of view you have of both these
fields of study.
<<But yes, I think in the cases we're
discussing, at least , it _would_ be commutative,
since we could talk about
blood circulation either in biology language or
physics language, and make
<<one the other as far as they go.?
Well, you've just assumed the point.
<< But you probably mean whether we could
translate all of physics into biology, and I agree
that we could only do
this if we did some redefining of biology, where we
have something like
"biological potentials", which could be quarks (we
could call them other
names, of course), neutrinos, etc. that lead to
biological actuals when put
<<together in certain ways.
Finally I get a picture of what you think such a
reduction would entail. I am not sure I can take any
of this seriously. We are not talking about
translation (see far below)
>Well naturally I am speaking about the kind of
>descriptions modern physics employs. They do deal
with
>possible interactions and real interactions
>(accelerators).
<<So that means choice #2 above, I take it, where
probabilistic statements
qualify as "no possibility of interaction
<<unaccounted".?No problem.
Well, actually that is a problem for you. If you are
thinking that the probabilistic equations (such as
shrodingers wave-equations) are able to accomodate and
provide knowledge about living bodies, rocks, and
galaxies, then I am not sure we can really continue
this discussion meaningfully.
>How is this? If we are not speaking about a real
>structural organization within nature and the world
>then this thread makes no sense.
<<That's your way of saying what I said
earlier--"We're having two completely
<<different conversations, I'm afraid."
Um...no. It is interesting that you need not really
appreciate the logical consequences of the position
that you are taking; though it would be nice not to
have to continue on my own--the matter is about an
equivalance which I have stated below (quite a ways
below).
<<< As for realism about
"structure", if you just mean "are there real,
heterogenous clusters of
stuff in the world, like bodies, bridges, magnetic
<<<<fields,
no. I mean that there are distinctions that are fixed
and independent--irreducible and intransendable. For
example that a human body is not composed of energy
but of cells, tissues, blood, etc. Therefore energy is
a distinct component in the structure of reality. I do
believe in the reality of dimensions in this sense.
<etc., or is it
just something we apply mentally to a homogenous
soup?" then I'm a realist,
but I suspect that you mean something more like being
a realist about laws,
<"levels", etc.
Well...don't think much of laws, see them more as
principles (really deducible from logical principles).
>Our descriptions of
>the world are denominated into the distinct disciples
>as a theoretical and practical response to the
natural
>organization of the universe. In what sense do you
>object to this?
<<I don't think there's any necessity to it.?We could
divvy up the
disciplines differently, and in fact we've done so
over the years, we could
describe them differently, whether they were divvied
up the same or
<<differently, etc.?
I would love an example of how we can "divy up" the
disciplines differently (that is, significantly). In
any case, it is not a choice. If it was there would be
no science.
<The present model is just one out of a huge number of
<possibilities.
Neglecting, of-course, that the point is not whether
or not there are other ways in which to do science but
that if there were no independent distinctions then we
wouldn't have anything to study (it wouldn't even be
one thing).
>>> We
>>> should have, by your lights, deemed that every
other
>>> scientific investigation is superfluous and wholly
>>> without merit and that there should be no further
>>> knowledge available.
>>This has little to do with anything I've said or
>>would say.
>Well this is the point.
The point is that it has little to do with anything
I've said or would say?
:-)
Again, this is the point. That you haven't said it is
evidence enough that you have not understood what the
position you have adopted involves to its conclusion.
And that you wouldn't say this should make you abandon
this position, unless of-course you deny that this is
the logical conclusion, at which case I would ask for
a logical reason why it wouldn't be.
> This is the logical
>consequence of such a position that admits that a
>reduction of biology (not to mention all the
sciences)
>to physics is both theoretically possible and
>practically tenable.
<Show me the logical entailment here, either formally
or informally.?How do
we get from a fact about the world to a psychological
<preference?
If there is an independent structure then I can't
really choose whether or not there is. Although, as
I've pointed out before, it is much too premature to
talk about a choice in the matter. We are talking
about whether or not reduction is possible in
principle.
<<I accept that "physics alone could describe the
universe in every detail",
once we're done, at least, but I reject that this
"entails" that anything is
superfluous.?Again, "superfluous" is a psychological,
<<evaluative term.
Okay, so let's not use "superfluous" then. Let me
reiterate once more. If physics alone can describe the
physical universe to every concievable detail then
what possible knowledge about the physical universe
would remain to be described by another scientific
discipline? If you say that there is something more to
describe then you have admitted redunandcy in the
program of reduction, thereby forfiting any claim to a
complete reduction of all science into physics. Its
very clear that you don't like the word "superfluous"
so I hope that the choice of wording here is more
admissable to your psychological constitution.
> The distinct
>disciplines are defined by their subject,
<Well, they're defined by us as we engage in them, and
<they evolve.
You really believe this don't you? So you think that
everything in a scientific discipline is up to us? We
can chose what we describe and how we describe it? So
really there is no world to describe except what we
invent for our own amusement. This could get tedious.
> therefore
>ultimately this is about whether or not you give
>credence to the idea that there is a real structural
>organization in the universe or not.
<Again, my answer to whether there is really a
Platonic realm that divides
the world up into biology, chemistry, algebra, modal
<logic, etc. is no.?
Well...i don't remember saying anything about a
platonic realm. In fact, I am just talking about the
universe.
<But
<that's not the same as "reductionism".
I have no idea where this is supposed to fit into the
point I was making.
> We are talking
>about facts here.
<Well, there's no fact about any description being
<necessary or needed
<outside of a person's mind.
oh..i suppose that true as long as you are willing to
relinquish your sanity. So, I suppose that I can
describe the computer in front of me as a bowl of
cherries as there is no necessity for me to describe
it as a computer screen. I mean we do describe THE
WORLD and therefore, this description must then, at
some point, be responsible to this world, thus if you
are going to describe the world, then there is a
necessity (if you want to be meaningful) that you
describe what is really there (be it a computer screen
or a bowl of cherries).
>Either it is a fact that bodies are
>just particles or it is not.
<But that's not the same as a "fact" about whether
<something is superfluous
<or not.
Well..of-course it is part of that point. If bodies
are just quantum particles then anyone attempting to
describe them as living bodies would be doing
something redundant and therefore, theoretically, it
would be a complete waste of time. Most people would
count this as a good time to use the word
"superfluous".
>Opinion has no place here.
<Then don't bring up whether other descriptions are
<superfluous or not.
Again, to really belabor the point to the point of
exhasution; you have construed the word "can" as
saying that it is a comes down to a mere choice
whether or not a description of the universe is
complete once we have described the quantum world to
every detail. Since we are speaking in principle, what
we want to understand is whether or not it makes sense
to speak of the reduction of all science into physics.
Therefore if it is possible then sure, the choice is
up to us, but if it isn't possible (as I have been
saying) then no choice will really change that. The
point is, in priniple, if it is possible, then it
would be POSSIBLE to describe the universe completely
through a description of the quantum world. Thus, in
this sense, all other science would be completely
UNNECESSARY. This means that, in priniple, all other
science could not contribute any further knowledge
about the physical universe. If you say that there is
further knowledge that COULD be contributed by other
scientific disciplines, then a reduction is impossible
because redundancy is admitted into the program. Now,
as we are speaking in principle, I am saying that, if
reduction is possible, then there is no NECESSITY for
other scientific disciplines. Yet, what I am putting
forward is that there IS a necessity because physics
alone can not describe the physical universe as there
will always be more knowlegde to contribute by a study
of living bodies, rocks and galaxies because,
fundamentally, the universe is not JUST quantum stuff.
Therefore there is then an independent structure to
reality that necessitates descriptions in particular
components of the structure (and since this is all in
principle we do not have to worry about whether or not
we choose to be responsible or whether or not we
choose to be logical)--the point, is nevertheless,
logically substantiated.
<I was asking if John's Mayan
<Religious Text description, or the biological one,
<was superfluous to you.
Listen, I don't think that any science IS superfluous.
That is part of the point. I am saying that in
principle they would be UnnecessarY, thus it then
becomes possible to regard them as superfluous (if
reduction is possible). I am, however, saying, that
they are, in principle, NECESSARY since they can
contribute more knowledge about the physical universe
than can be obtained by a complete description of the
quantum world (therefore reduction is impossible).
> Maybe the other disciplines would have a
>sort of historical novelty or could be played as
games
>but nothing theoretically serious could be undertaken
>within their given frameworks because they could
offer
>no new knowledge nor could any discovery about the
>world be made by their methods and in their
respective
>field of research.
Why not??None of this follows from being able to
describe a given
phenomenon in an alternate way.?You seem to be
implying that there would be
something "wrong" with one or the other way.?Why?
No. I am not saying that there would be something
wrong. I am saying that they would be redundant and
therefore they could not contribute any new knowledge
about the physical universe. You seem to be neglecting
the strong case of necessity here. If reduction is
possible then no other science is necessary, but other
science is necessary because a complete description of
the quantum world is not a complete description of the
physical universe. Therefore in the difference between
all scientific disciplines being necessary, in
principle, and there being not necessary, in
principle, rests the whole case about reduction.
>You must be forgetting that if such
>a reduction were theoretically possible and if it
were
>accomplished and physics completed its description
>then there simply can not be any room for new
>knowledge about the natural universe and this is
>precisely why such a position is so absurd.
<I'd love to know how you are arriving at that
conclusion.?I don't need a
formal argument there, but could you at least forward
<an informal one?
Let me seen then. We are not talking about
translation. We are talking about the equivalence of
"a complete description of the quantum world" and "a
complete description of the physical universe". If
they are equivalent then a reduction of all science
into physics is a possibility. Reduction, here, means
that it is possible to completely disregard all other
science for admitting that possibility is a completed
reduction. In other words, if those statments are
equivalent then we have already, in principle,
performed reduction. But it is clear that they are not
equivalent.
<<Assuming I agree with with the point about
experimentation (although I
don't--it could just be theoretical, like much of
philosophy, say), it's not
true that I forgot about that.?Note again that I said,
"Say that John
wanted to describe bodies in a way that is correlated
to Mayan religious
texts, and ends up
describing things that he discovers through
experimentation on bodies in
that
<<language."
Obviously I meant in accordance with the already
established scientific knowledge.
> Sure it can be known but
> this is hardly what we would consider as consistent
> scientific knowledge.
<Why wouldn't it be consistent scientific knowledge?
Well let's not cut-up the point here (there is a
stipulation-albeit in the next sentence).
>If it goes against already
>established scientific knowledge then it is just a
bit
>of dogma.
<What I didn't say was anything about it going against
established scientific
<knowledge.?It's just another way to talk about
things.
Well if it doesn't go against established scientific
knowlegdge and it doesn't add anything either then its
just redundant. But naturally the point has nothing to
do with how we choose to describe the universe.
>Well you may think what you like but this has nothing
>to do with whether or not you are a physicalist. The
>question is about whether or not it is possible to
>reduce all science to physics and your personal
>beliefs are aside the point.
<<Hmmm, I don't think that's beside the point at
all.?It sounds like you
_are_ rejecting to reductionism on the grounds that we
can't put up a
website today describing blood circulation in the
language of physics, and
you seem to be making an appeal to us keeping any
philosophical notions out
<<of the affair.?
Far be it from me! AS I said, this is all in
principle.
<<In that case, it would have just been much easier
for you to
say, "If we can describe blood circulation in the
language of physics, then
<<have at it, or else we can't, period."
What?
<<Of course, then those of us more interested in
philosophy would probably
start discussing whether we'd ever be able to, but
you'd have your interests
<<satisfied.
Funny.
> It is the perfectly logical
>conclusion. I simply can not make sense of your
denial
>of this point, particularly because you have not
>offered any reason whatsoever why it shouldn't follow
>from the position under contention.
<so you'd agree with, "For all of k1 . . . kn, k1-n
follows from p & q just
in case there isn't a proof that k1-kn doesn't follow
<from p&q"?
Well, I am sorry to inform you that I am not at all
versed in formal talk. You'll have to spell it out in
normal english for me.
>Let me reiterate
>it another time:
>1. If all science is reducible to physics then
physics
>alone can describe the universe.
Yes, I agree with this.
>2. Therefore a complete description of the quantum
>universe should render all other scientific
>disciplines completely superfluous (that is, if you
>say that we can still learn something more about the
>universe by studying living bodies or rocks or
>galaxies then you have admitted that all science is
>not, in principle, reducible to physics).
<<No, I don't agree with this.?That we can translate
one language, or one
part of one language to another, commutatively, even,
to satisfy your
qualification for translations, doesn't mean that you
can't learn something
<<additional in any of the given languages first.
You see, reduction is not translation (they are two
different things). Simply admitting that "a complete
description of the quantum world" and "a complete
description of the physical universe" are equivalent
is already to admit the possibility of reduction (that
is, it is already to perform reduction in principle).
We are not talking about translating the language of
biology into that of physics (nothing that simple) but
rather we are talking about whether or not a complete
description of the quantum world is a complete
description of the physical universe.
>>It also supposes that everything physical is
>>describable by what we
>>understand today as quantum phenomena.
>Well, goodness! Whatever else could such a reduction
>mean?
<<It can mean that we acknowledge that we're not done
yet when it comes to any
one of the sciences.?What we understand 1000 years
from now as quantum
phenomena will be different.?Again, see earlier in
this post for why I feel
<<the "we can't do it today" argument is problematic.
Well, believe it or not, we are talking about the
science that we know, not a potential science sometime
in the future. You seem to think that a reduction
would actually involve some work but it is clear that,
since we are speaking in principle, admitting the
earlier equivalence is already to perform the
reduction, in principle.
Daniel
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M.A. Rogers
Subject: Re: Re: Reductionism & the limits of philosophy
I was initially not going to respond again, as I really don't have the time
to spare engaging in such lengthy correspondence (and whenever I'm involved
these discussions always gradually grow into books), but then I thought a
couple points really needed to be responded to, so I was going to just cut
down the posts significantly. But then I realized that maybe what would be
more beneficial is to try to clarify and focus the discussion. Although
we've brought up many interesting issues, and the longer we go on, the more
we seem to be covering everything that we could call philosophy, I think we
should try to retain focus on the issue of reductionism. With that in mind,
I've done a number of things below.
First, since there has been a lot of confusion over just what we mean by
reductionism in this thread, and no one is coming forth offering explicit
definitions, although many aspects of potential ones have been implied, I
thought it might be helpful to begin with a survey of definitions.
Hopefully, this will accomplish a few things. One, to demonstrate that
there isn't just one thing any of us can mean by 'reductionism', and to
encourage us to narrow down what exactly it is that we _are_ meaning in our
claims. Two, to offer some suggestions for that narrowing, or at least to
supply us with a launching point. And three, to give us some outside input
into a thread that everyone else seems to have lost interest in.
I apologize for the length of this section, but most of the comments seemed
beneficial to this thread:
========================
(A) Michael Ruse, in _The Oxford Companion to Philosophy_ (ed. Ted
Honderich), says about reductionism, "One of the most used and abused terms
in the philosophical lexicon, it is convenient to make a (three-part)
division.
"_Ontological_ reductionism refers to the belief that the whole of reality
consists of a minimal number of entities or *substances. One could be
referring simply to entities of a particular kind (as in 'All organisms are
ultimately reducible to molecules'), but often the claim is meant in the
more metaphysical sense that there is but one substance or 'world stuff' and
that this is material. Hence, ontological reductionism is equivalent to
some kind of *monism, denying the existence of unseen life forces and such
things, claiming that organisms are no more (nor less) than complex
functioning machines. However, one might well be trying to reduce material
things to some other substance, like *consciousness. Alternatively, one
might even think that there are two or more irreducible substances. The aim
would then be to reduce all other substances to these fundamental few.
"_Methodological_ reductionism claims that, in science, 'small is
beautiful'. Thus the best scientific strategy is always to attempt
explanation in terms of ever more minute entities. It has undoubtedly been
the mark of some of science's greatest successes, and not just in physics.
The major methodological triumph of recent years has been the demonstration
that the unit of classical heredity, the gene, is a macro-molecule,
deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). One should, however, keep ion mind that
'small' in this context is a relative term, and one should be wary of making
a straight indentification between methodological reductionism and the
commonly used 'micro-reductionism', especially if the latter implies that
explanation is to be done in terms of micro-entities. The psychologist may
try to reduce major sociological movements to the feelings and behaviours of
individual humans; but may yet (with reason) think it would be silly to
attempt a further reduction to molecules or below.
"Despite its successes, methodological reductionism has been highly
controversial, for it denies the claims of those (especially Marxists) who
argue that the world is ordered hierarchically, and that entities at upper
levels can never be analysed entirely in terms of entities at lower levels.
Especially contentious has been so-called 'biological reductionism',
generally associated with the socio-biological movement, where human nature
is supposedly fully understandable in terms of genetics. It may be doubted
whether anybody has ever truly argued that we humans are mere marionettes
manipulated by the double helix; but it cannot be denied that some senior
biologists have been much given to silly (and socially dangerous) flights of
fancy about the control exerted on our lives by our biology.
"_Theory_ reductionism raises the question of the relation between
successive theories in a field, as between Newton's theory and that of
Einstein. Is it always one of replacement, where the new entirely expels
the old, or is it sometimes one of absorption, or 'theoretical reduction',
where the older is shown to be a deductive consequence of the new? Many
have argued that, as in the Newton-Einstein case and also the
classical-molecular genetics episode, one gets reduction rather than
replacement. IN the 1930s this kind of thinking was taken to the extreme,
with the 'Unity of Science' movement committed to the belief that eventually
all the sciences will (and should) be reduced to one super-theory
(inevitably taken to be something in physics).
"This kind of thinking has been strongly challenged by such thinkers as the
philosopher-historian Thomas Kuhn, who believes that because the terms
between theories are always 'incommensurable', theory reduction is never
really possible. Since this view of reduction is tied strongly to the
picture of scientific theories as hypothetico-deductive systems, and since
this latter picture has now fallen very much out of favor, many philosophers
today would agree with their scientist colleagues that what matters is less
the relationship between old and new than the relative merits of successive
theories through time. This meshes also with conviction of those who have
turned their philosophical gaze from the physical sciences to other fields
such as biology and psychology. Although few would deny the ontological
claim that organisms, including humans, are made from the same materials as
the rest of the physical world, it does not necessarily follow that the
modes of explanation are the same throughout the scientific world or that a
theoretical reduction is always possible or indeed fruitful."
========================
(B) Peter A. Angeles, in _The Harper Collins Dictionary of Philosophy_,
defines reductionism as, "1. In the philosophy of science, the belief that
all fields of knowledge can be reduced to one type of methodology, or to one
science, which encompasses principles applicable to all phenomena. (Physics
can be considered the basic science to which all other sciences can be
reduced and of which they are extensions). 2. In metaphysics, the belief
that all things can be reduced to one kind of thing (substance, process,
matter, God, form, idea) that is ultimate, necessary, and the most real."
========================
(C) Simon Blackburn, in _The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy_, defines
reductionism as, "a reductionist holds that the facts or entities apparently
needed to make true the statements of some area of discourse are dispensable
in favor of some other facts or entities. Reductionism is one solution to
the problem of the relationship between different sciences. Thus one might
advocate reducing biology to chemistry, supposing that no distinctive
biological facts exist, or chemistry to physics, supposing that no
distinctive chemical facts exist (_see also_ unity of science).
Reductionist positions in philosophy include the belief that mental
descriptions are made true purely by facts about behaviour (*behaviourism),
that statements about the external world are made true by facts about the
structure of experience (*phenomenalism), that statements about moral issues
are really statemetns about natural facts (*naturalism), and many others.
Reductionism is properly speaking not a form of *scepticism (for the claims
in the reduced area may be true and known to be true; indeed, one purpose of
the reduction will typically be to show how this is so). Nor is it
necessarily a form of anti-realism (_see_ realism/anti-realism), although it
is often classified that way. Reductionist claims were popular in the
earlier years of *analytic philosophy, and were pursued by such writers as
*Russell and *Carnap in the form of programmes of translating the theses
from the target science or discourse into theses from the domain into which
it was to be reduced. Subsequent recognition of the *holism of meaning, and
the apparent failure of these reductionist programmes, switched attention to
other ways of attaining the benefits of reduction without incurring the
costs of providing the promised translations. _See_ supervenience."
========================
(D) In _The Dictionary of Theories_, Karla Harby first gives a definition
of reductionism under the subheading of "(19th Century)
_Biology/Philosophy_": "Also called mechanism, or mechanistic philosophy.
Associated with Carl Ludwig (1816-95), Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-94),
Ernst von Brucke (1819-92) and Emil du Bois-Reymond (1818-96).
"The theory that life can be understood entirely in terms of the laws of
physics and chemistry. Modern bioscience approaches biology from this
perpective. _Compare with_ VITALISM."
Then, A.R. Lacey gives this definition of reductionism under the subheading
"Philosophy": "Also called reductivism. The reducing of certain kinds of
entities, or of theories, or even of whole sciences, to other, more basic
ones; entities that are reduced may be replaced ('Father Christmas is really
Daddy') or simply explained ('Water is really H2O').
"PHENOMENALISM, for instance, reduces material objects, or sentences about
them, to experiences, or sets of sentences about these. Similarly, one
version of PHYSICALISM claims to reduce the other sciences to physics by
showing that all their concepts and theories can be expressed in terms of
physics without loss of information. Contrasting approaches include HOLISM
and EMERGENCE THEORIES, though intermediate positions can be held.
Reduction in general appeals to empiricists, nominalists, and others who use
OCKHAM'S RAZOR to achieve a sparse ONTOLOGY (or list of what there is)."
========================
(E) Anthony Flew, In _A Dictionary of Philosophy_, and what seems to be one
of the stranger definitions, imo, says, "1. The belief that human behaviour
can be reduced to or interpreted in terms of that of lower animals; and
that, ultimately, can itself be reduced to the physical laws controlling the
behaviour of inanimate matter. Pavlov with dogs, Skinner with rats, and
Lorenz with greylag geese have all used lower animals to illustrate
instinctive bahvioural patterns that can, by analogy, be correlated with
some aspects of human behaviour. 2. More generally, any doctrine that
claims to reduce the apparently more sophisticated and complex to the less
so."
========================
(F) Paul Teller, in _The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy_ (ed. Robert
Audi), including "reductionism" in the general definition for "reduction",
gives a more in-depth analysis: "the replacement of one expression by a
second expression that differs from the first in prima facie reference.
So-called reductions have been meant in the sense of uniformly applicable
explicit definitions, contextual definitions, or replacements suitable only
in a limited range of contexts. Thus, authors have spoken of reductive
conceptual analyses, especially in the early days of analytic philosophy.
In particular, in the sense-datum theory (talk of) physical objects was
supposed to be reduced to (talk of) sense-data by explicit definitions or
other forms of conceptual analysis.
"Logical positivists talked of the reduction of theoretical vocabulary to an
observational vocabulary, first by explicit definitions, and later by other
devices, such as Carnap's _reduction sentences_. These appealed to a test
condition predicate, T (e.g., 'is placed in water'), and a display
predicate, D ('dissolves'), to introduce a dispositional or other
'non-observational' term, S (e.g., 'is water soluble'): (A[universal
quantifier]x) (Tx-->(Dx-->Sx)), with "-->" representing the material
conditional. Negative reduction sentences for non-occurrence of S took the
form (A[universal quantifier]x) (NTx-->(NDx-->~Sx)). For coinciding
predicate pairs T and TD and ~D and ND Carnap referred to bilateral
reduction sentences: (A[universal quantifier]x) (Tx-->(Dx<-->Sx)). Like so
many other attempted reductions, reduction sentences did not achieve
replacement of the 'reduced' term, S, since they do not fix application of S
when the test condition, T, fails to apply.
"In the philosophy of mathematics, _logicism_ claimed that all of
mathematics could be reduced to logic, i.e., all mathematical terms could be
defined with the vocabulary of logic and all theorems of mathematics could
be derived from the laws of logic supplemented by these definitions.
Russell's _Principia Mathematica_ carried out much of such a program with a
reductive base of something much more like what we now call set theory
rather than logic, strictly conceived. Many now accept the reducibility of
mathematics to set theory, but only in a sense in which reductions are not
unique. For example, the natural number can equally well be modeled as
classes of equinumerous sets or as von Neumann ordinals. This
non-uniqueness creates serious difficulties, with suggestions that
set-theoretic reductions can throw light on what numbers and other
mathematical objects 'really are'.
"In contrast, we take scientific theories to tell us, unequivocally, that
water is H2O and that temperature is mean translational kinetic energy.
Accounts of theory reduction in science attempt to analyze the circumstance
in which a 'reducing theory' appears to tell us the composition of objects
or properties described by a 'reduced theory'. The simplest accounts follow
the general pattern of reduction: one provides 'identity statements', or
'bridge laws', with at least the form of explicit definitions, for all terms
in the reduced theory not already appearing in the reducing theory; and then
one argues that the reduced theory can be deduced from the reducing theory
augmented by the definitions. For example, the laws of thermodynamics are
said to be deducible from those of statistical mechanics, together with
statements such as 'temperature is mean translational kinetic energy' and
'pressure is mean momentum transfer'.
"How should the identity statements or bridge laws be understood? It takes
empirical investigation to confirm statements such as that temperature is
mean translational kinetic energy. Consequently, some have argued, such
statements at best constitute contingent correlations rather than strict
identities. On the other hand, if the relevant terms and their extensions
are not mediated by analytic definitions, the identity statements may be
analogized to identities involving two names, such as 'Cicero is Tully',
where it takes empirical investigation to establish that the two names
happen to have the same referent.
"One can generalize the idea of theory reduction in a variety of ways. One
may require the bridge laws to suffice for the deduction of the reduced from
the reducing theory without requiring that the bridge laws take the form of
explicit identity statements or biconditional correlations. Some authors
have also focused on the fact that in practice a reducing theory T2 corrects
or refines the reduced theory T1, so that it is really only a correction or
refinement, T1*, that is deducible from T2 and the bridge laws. Some have
consequently applied the term 'reduction' to any pair of theories where the
second corrects and extends the first in ways that explain both why the
theory was as accurate as it was and why it made the errors that it did. In
this extended sense, relativity is said to reduce Newtonian mechanics.
"Do the social sciences, especially psychology, in principle reduce to
physics? This prospect would support the so-called identity theory (of mind
and body), in particular resolving important problems in the philosophy of
mind, such as the mind-body problem and the problem of other minds. Many
(though by no means all) are now skeptical about the prospects for
indentifying mental properties, and the properties of other special
sciences, with comples physical properties. To illustrate with an example
from economics (adapted from Fodor), in the right cricumstances just about
any physical object could count as a piece of money. Thus prospects seem
dim for finding a closed and finite statements of the form 'being a piece of
money is . . .', with only predicates from phyhsics appearing on the right
(thought some would want to admit infinite definitions in providing
reductions). Similarly, one suspects that attributes, such as pain, are at
best functional properties with indefinitely many possible physical
realizations. Believing that reductions for finitely stable definitions are
thus out of reach, many authors have tried to express the view that mental
properties are still somehow physical by saying that they nonetheless
supervene on the physical properties of the organisms that have them.
"In fact, these same difficulties that affect mental properties affect the
paradigm case of temperature, and probably all putative examples of
theoretical reduction. Temperature is mean translational temperature only
in gases, and only idealized ones at that. In other substances, quite
different physical mechanisms realize temperature. Temperature is more
accurately described as a functional property, having to do with the
mechanism of heat transfer between bodies, where, in principle, the required
mechanism could be physically realized in indefinitely many ways.
"In most and quite possibly all cases of putative theory reduction by strict
identities, we have instead a relation of _physical realization_,
constitution, or instantiation, nicely illustrated by the property of being
a calculator (example taken from Cummins). The property of being a
calculator can be physically realized by an abacus, by devices with gears
and levers, by ones with vacuum tubes and silicon chips, and, in the right
circumstances, by indefinitely many other physical arrangements. Perhaps
many who have used 'reduction', particularly in the sciences, have intended
the term in this sense of physical realization rather than one of strict
identity.
"Let us restrict attention to properties that reduce in the sense of having
a physical realization, as in the cases of being a calculator, having a
certain temperature, and being a piece of money. Whether or not an object
counts as having properties such as these will depend, not only on the
physical properties of that object, but on various circumstances of the
context. Intensions of relevant language users constitute a plausible
candidate for relevant circumstances. In at least many cases, dependence on
context arises because the property constitutes a functional property, where
the relevant functional system (calculational practices, heat transfer,
monetary systems) are much larger than the property-bearing object in
question. These examples raise the question of whether many and perhaps all
mental properties depend ineliminably on relations to things outside the
organisms that have the mental properties."
========================
(G) W. L. Reese, in _Dictionary of Philosophy and Religion_, says, "The
attempt to reduce one science to another by demonstrating that the key terms
of the one are definable in the language of the other, and that the
conclusions of the one are derivable from the propositions of the other.
"(1) It is claimed by some that in this sense Psychology is reducible to
Physiology.
"(2) It is claimed by others that Biology is reducible to Physics and
Chemistry. The adherents of Organismic Biology vigorously dispute the
claim. Nagel has pointed out that in this dispute neither side has
succeeded either in demonstrating, or even in clarifying, its contentions."
========================
(H) Jaegwon Kim, in the _Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy_,
says, "Reduction is a procedure whereby a given domain of items (for
example, objects, properties, concepts, laws, facts, theories, languages and
so on) is shown to be either absorbable into, or dispensable in favour of,
another domain. When this happens, the one domain is said to be "reduced"
to the other. For example, it has been claimed that numbers can be reduced
to sets (and hence number theory to set theory), that chemical properties
like solubility in water or valence have been reduced to properties of
molecules and atoms, and that laws of optics are reducible to principles of
electromagnetic theory. When one speaks of 'reductionism', one has in mind
a specific claim to the effect that a particular domain (for example, the
mental) is reducible to another (for example, the biological, the
computational). The expression is sometimes used to refer to a global
thesis to the effect that all the special sciences, for example chemistry,
biology, psychology, are reducible ultimately to fundamental physics. Such
a view is also known as the doctrine of the 'unity of science'."
========================
Aside from what strikes me as the oddity of Flew's definition, I find all of
the above definitions to be acceptable accounts of what someone might mean
by 'reductionism'. Since 'reductionism' isn't a term I actually use in most
of my philosophy, I don't really have a definition that I favor. Rather,
the only time I usually deal with it is when discussing a criticism of
something labeled 'reductionist', and then I try to discuss what the critic
is objecting to, in their terms. While I don't want to put words in Daniel
Language's mouth, it seems that he is objecting to reductionism, in Kim's
terms, of 'domain absorption' or 'domain dispensation'. It also seems that
Language is possibly objecting to a view of reductionism which equates _all_
reductionism with the 'unity of science' doctrine. But that may not be the
case, and it might just be "domain dispensation" of biology in favor of
phyiscs that he's objecting to.
At this point, I think the most beneficial avenue to pursue might be for
Language to clarify exactly what he means by 'reduction' and exactly what
about it, and with respect to which domain(s) he's objecting to. Surely
part of his objection will be about reducting (whatever it turns out to
mean, exactly, in his usage) biology to physics (or, in his view, quantum
mechanics), but does the objection hinge on taking reduction to imply things
that it doesn't imply under the 'normal defintions' as quoted above, such as
'reduction must be non-redundant, not about processes, etc.'? If so, then I
could end up agreeing with him, under his definition of the term (for
example, I would agree that reduction misses something, when by definition,
it doesn't include something in what it is reducing (it is
'non-redundant')). Later on, Language seems to be arguing not against to
reducing part, or all of biology to physics, but whether "a complete
description of physics could be a complete description of everything in the
universe". Although I see that as a related issue, it's not the same.
Another possible issue is whether there is a realist structure of the
universe, and if so, just what is it? All of these things are good to talk
about, but we should probably try to tackle them one at a time.
Again, aside from whether there would be any point to such a reduction (it's
okay with me to concede that there is or isn't), whether it would be
meaningful to particular persons, whether it would make anything
superfluous, etc. I'd like us to only focus on what such a(n attempt at)
reduction would entail and why it might or might not be possible.
As for saying that physics _is_ quantum physics, that seems highly
controversial to me. Possibly, Language is making an assumption that all of
physics is itself reducible to quantum physics, or he could be taking that
as the final goal of the 'unity of science' doctrine, which he is taking as
the be all and end all of reductionism. As an instrumentalist, I think that
there are many problems with quantum physics language and interpretations,
and I don't see any reason to believe that all physical stuff _must_ amount
to just the kinds of things that current quantum physics descriptions talk
about. On the other hand, it could turn out to be the case that all of
physics amounts to just the kinds of things that current quantum physics
descriptions talk about, but only time can possibly tell. As Ruse points
out in his definition, reductionism doesn't necessarily amount to monism,
and I'm not much of a monist.
--M.A. Rogers
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Daniel Language
I would like to thank M.A. Rogers for his
conscientious and detailed post. There is quite a bit
to work through and so I will take some time to
organize my thoughts and post something I hope will be
as commendable.
Daniel
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