Physics, ideology and dialectics
rabhegmarlen
An examination of the outlook of Richard Feynman
by William Westwell
ONE ASPECT of the genius of Richard Feynman, winner of the Nobel Prize for
Physics, was an ability to convey to an audience in language of great
simplicity and clarity the central ideas of 20th century physics.
These ideas which grasp the essential nature of matter and are described in
the equations of quantum mechanics are usually presented in a way that makes
them unapproachable.
This is in part a legacy of their discoverers to whom the essential
contradiction of material particles, that they behave at one and the same
time as both waves and particles, and that their behaviour can be best
described by probabilities, was counter-intuitive.
It is certainly contrary to our experience of matter in our daily lives.
It is for that reason that an awareness of the nature of matter as it is
best understood at present needs to be assimilated into a materialist
outlook to enrich and deepen it.
In that way, philosophy can learn from science.
It is rare for scientists to learn from philosophy, a fact which Frederick
Engels in his work 'Dialectics of Nature' in the nineteenth century had
frequent occasion to point out.
Feynman, almost notoriously, took a cavalier view of formal procedures in
mathematics to achieve lasting insights into the nature of matter.
In the mid-60s the BBC approached Feynman to deliver a series of lectures at
Cornell University on 'The Character of Physical Law' and the series was
duly published.
It is a very philosophical piece of work, full of insights from a most
informal perspective.
However, philosophy too demands precision, and our method of dialectical
materialism particularly so to maintain its independence from bourgeois
thought.
A comparison between the theory of knowledge of Marx and Engels and
Feynman's is therefore revealing, because, whilst Feynman's knowledge of
physical reality was profound in revealing new dialectics in nature, Engels
armed only with the best (and worst, which he criticised) of 19th century
science had the deeper philosophical insight.
Paul Davies' introduction to the lectures hints at why Feynman was reluctant
to take philosophers too seriously, describing an encounter with him in
which he tried to persuade him of a wrong position:
'Yet, Feynman had an abiding suspicion of philosophers.
'I once had occasion to tackle him about the nature of mathematics and the
laws of physics, and whether abstract mathematical laws could be considered
to enjoy an independent Platonic existence.
'He gave a spirited and skilful description of why this indeed appears so
but soon backed off when I pressed him to take a specific philosophical
position.'
In the last lecture, Feynman himself declares, in discussing the completion
of physical knowledge:
'The philosophers who are always on the outside making stupid remarks will
be able to close in, because we cannot push them away by saying, "If you
were right we would be able to guess all the rest of the laws," because when
the laws are all there they will have an explanation for them.'
Feynman's experience of philosophers in general was not happy then.
He saw them as outsiders living off the work of scientists but not
contributing, and worse as reductionists, substituting their philosophies
for the workings of nature.
For Engels, the distinction between philosophers is the division into
idealists and materialists. Of the latter, the dialectical materialists are
the only consistent materialists, incorporating an understanding of the
nature of motion.
For example, he writes in 'Dialectics of Nature' in the fragment 'On the
Classification of Judgements',
'What, therefore, in Hegel appears as a development of the thought form of
judgement as such, confronts us here as the development of our empirically
based theoretical knowledge of the nature of motion in general.
'This shows, however, that laws of thought and laws of nature are
necessarily in agreement with one another, if only they are correctly
known.'
This is a revolutionary observation clad in simple language.
It incorporates the materialist premise that in the human mind nature
becomes conscious of itself, turning the old dualism of mind/body into a
nonsense.
For our nuclear physicist Feynman, that last step of the journey was never
quite taken, but it is apparent that his investigations into nature had
taken him nearly the whole way.
In the lecture 'Seeking New Laws', Feynman begins by explaining his
materialism:
'I will tell you a little, then, about the stuff on which all of these
principles (of theoretical physics) are supposed to. have been working.
'First of all there is matter - and remarkably enough all matter is the
same.
'The matter of which stars are made is known to be the same as the matter on
the earth......
'The same kinds of atoms appear to be in living creatures as in nonliving
creatures; frogs are made of the same "goup" as rocks only in different
arrangements.
'So that makes our problem simpler: we have nothing but atoms, all the same,
everywhere.' He goes on to list the constituents of the world, electrons,
photons, gravitons and neutrinos on the one hand, neutrons and protons on
the other (all with their associated anti-particles) and makes the claim for
them:
'With these particles that I have listed, all of the low energy phenomena,
in fact all ordinary phenomena that happen everywhere in the universe, so
far as we know, can be explained......
'For example, life itself is supposedly understandable in principle from the
movements of atoms, and those atoms are made out of neutrons, protons and
electrons.....
'...... we would find that there is nothing new in physics which needs to be
discovered in order to understand the phenomena of life.'
These are essentials of materialism.
A problem for physics at that time, and the work is not finished, was a
complete understanding of the forces inside the nucleus of the atom, and
some new thinking was required, including a theoretical excursion into ideas
about symmetry and partial symmetries in the relationships between nuclear
particles.
Feynman has a particularly nice way of expressing his relationship with
nature:
'This kind of game, of roughly guessing at family relationships and so on,
is illustrative of the kind of preliminary sparring which one does with
nature before really discovering some deep and fundamental law.
'Examples are very important in the previous history of science.
'For example, Mendeleev's discovery of the periodic table of the elements is
analogous to this game.'
Making sense of nature involves physically engaging with it and the
'sparring' involves bringing some theoretical insights to it from experience
as well as testing those insights in practice.
It also involves the possibility of retreats, set-backs and mistakes, rather
than a straight line of uninterrupted progress.
It is only when we come to Feynman's outlook on the discovery of new laws
that we begin to diverge.
His comments reveal him to be a man of his time, philosophically speaking,
when the prevailing orthodoxy was given by the anti-Marxist philosopher,
Karl Popper, an empirical sceptic. Feynman says:
'In general we look for a new law by the following process. 'First we guess
it.
'Then we compute the consequences of the guess to see what would be implied
if this law that we guessed is right.
'Then we compare the result of the computation to nature, with experiment or
experience, compare it directly with observation, to see if it works.
'If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong.
'In that simple statement is the key to science.'
If that might be interpreted as a statement of the primary role of practice
in the development of theory, then the following passage brings out the
Popperian essence of it clearly:
'You can see, of course, that with this method we can attempt to disprove
any definite theory.
'If we have a definite theory, a real guess, from which we can conveniently
compute consequences which can be compared with experiment, then in
principle we can get rid of any theory.
'There is always the possibility of proving any definite theory wrong; but
notice you can never prove it right.'
He elaborates on this:
'Suppose you invent a good guess, calculate the consequences, and discover
every time that the consequences you have calculated agree with experiment.
'The theory is then right?
'No, it is simply not proved wrong.'
The logic leads to the conclusion that everything we know is waiting to be
proved wrong.
The example brought to bear is the same in Popper as it is in Feynman, with
the difference that we know from Feynman's work that he holds the work of
Newton in the highest regard.
Talking about the fate of theories which continue to be tested under a wider
range of circumstances after they were first proposed, he observes:
'That is why laws like Newton's laws for the motion of planets last such a
long time...
'......it took several hundred years before the slight error of the motion
of Mercury was observed.
'During all that time the theory had not been proved wrong and could be
taken temporarily to be right.
'But it could never be proved right, because tomorrow's experiment might
succeed in proving wrong what you thought was right.'
The phrase in bold above is really a working scientist's correction of an
error.
It is really an acknowledgement of the hierarchies of judgement which
scientists make about the laws they abstract from nature.
Unfortunately, later on, in discussing how relativity theory took over from
Newtonian ideas, he repeats the error:
'It was especially difficult, because for the first time it was realized how
long something like Newtons' Laws could seem right, and still ultimately be
wrong.'
Lenin, writing in 1908, about the denial of matter by a school of philosophy
on learning the electronic nature of it, commented:
'Denying the absolute character of some of the most important and basic
laws, they ended by denying all objective law in nature and by declaring
that a law of nature is a mere convention, a "limitation of expectation", "a
logical necessity" and so forth.
'Insisting on the approximate and relative character of our knowledge, they
ended by denying the object independent of the mind, reflected
approximately-correctly and relatively-truthfully by the mind.'
('Materialism and Empirio-Criticism', Lenin Collected Works, Vol. 14,
p262)
Approximately correct is definitely different from wrong, with the
difference that the second reflects a scepticism about the independent
existence of nature from our minds.
Lenin completes this observation:
'..... and while yesterday the profundity of this knowledge did not go
beyond the electron and ether, dialectical materialism insists on the
temporary, relative, approximate character of all these milestones in the
knowledge of nature gained by the progressing science of man.
'The electron is as inexhaustible as the atom, nature is infinite, but it
infinitely exists.
'And it is this sole categorical, this sole unconditional recognition of
nature's existence outside the mind and perception of man that distinguishes
dialectical materialism from relativist agnosticism and idealism.' (ibid)
At least Feynman has not mired himself in the bog of absolute truth and
falsehood, but he has opened up the question of what it is that was true
enough about Newton's Laws to have proved serviceable for hundreds of years
before being proved 'wrong'.
Engels, in 'Anti-Duhring', notes:
'Truth and error, like all thought-concepts which move in polar opposites,
have absolute validity only in an extremely limited field.
'...... and if we attempt to apply it as absolutely valid outside that field
we really find ourselves altogether beaten: both poles of the antithesis
become transformed into their opposites, truth becomes error and error
truth.'
Engels cites the example of Boyle's Law in which the pressure and volume of
a gas are held to be inversely proportional at constant temperature.
'Regnault found that this law does not hold good in certain cases.
'Had he been a philosopher of reality he would have had to say: Boyle's law
is mutable, and hence is not a genuine truth, hence it is not a truth at
all, hence it is an error.
'But had he done this he would have committed an error far greater than the
one that was contained in Boyle's law; his grain of truth would have been
lost sight of in a sand-hill of error; he would have distorted his
originally correct conclusion into an error compared with which Boyle's law,
along with the little particle of error that clings to it, would have seemed
like truth.
'But Regnault, being a man of science, did not indulge in such childishness,
but continued his investigations and discovered that in general Boyle's law
is only approximately true, and in particular loses its validity in the case
of gases which can be liquefied by pressure, namely, as soon as the pressure
approaches the point at which liquefaction begins.
'Boyle's law therefore was proved to be true only within definite limits.
'But is it absolutely and finally true within those limits?
'No physicist would assert that.
'He would maintain that it holds good within certain limits .....
'This is how things stand with final and ultimate truths in physics, for
example.'
And that is how things really stand with Feynman and Newton. Despite a
pressure to accept the prevailing dogma of Popperian scepticism, Feynman in
practice knew that the laws of planetary motion described by Newton were
correct, within certain limits.
The necessary extension of those laws to account for the perihelion shift of
Mercury involves a fundamental theoretical development from treating space
and time as absolutes, as Newton did, to a unified view of spacetime and its
curvature by gravitational fields.
On the human scale of things, Newton's laws remain correct to minute degrees
of accuracy, and only near the sun does the curvature of spacetime approach
significance.
Einstein's relativity theory subsumes Newton's laws as a special case: they
are relatively true.
A little later on in his lecture, Feynman discusses the development of
physics in terms of throwing out mistaken ideas.
'How can we guess what to keep and what to throw away?
'We have all these nice principles and known facts, but we are in some kind
of trouble: either we get the infinities, or we do not get enough of a
description - we are missing some parts.
'Sometimes that means we have to throw away some idea; at least in the past
it has always turned out that some deeply held idea had to be thrown away.
'The question is, what to throw away and what to keep...
'After all, the conservation of energy looks good, and it is nice, and I do
not want to throw it away.
'To guess what to keep and what to throw away takes considerable skill.
'Actually it is probably merely a matter of luck, but it looks as if it
takes considerable skill.'
Engels' 'On the Classification of Judgements' demonstrates that the question
of what to keep is not quite a matter of luck as it would be if it were
merely a question of formal logic.
Engels begins:
'Dialectical logic, in contrast with the old, merely formal logic, is not,
like the latter, content with enumerating the forms of motion of thought,
i.e., the various forms of judgement and conclusion, and placing them side
by side without any connection.
'On the contrary, it derives these forms out of one another, it makes one
subordinate to another instead of putting them on an equal level, it
develops the higher forms out of the lower.'
He gives Hegel's groupings by name:
1 Judgement of inherence.
2 Judgement of subsumption.
3 Judgement of necessity.
4 Judgement of the notion.
The first is the most particular, a judgement made about individual things;
the last is the most general, with the other two growing out of the first in
stages.
To give an example from nature, Engels turns to the history of heat.
'That friction produces heat was already known practically to prehistoric
man, who discovered the making of fire by friction more than 100,000 years
ago, and who still earlier warmed cold parts of the body by rubbing.
'But from that to the discovery that friction is in general a source of
heat, who knows how many thousands of years elapsed?
'Enough that the time came when the human brain was sufficiently developed
to be able to formulate the judgement: friction is a source of heat, a
judgement of inherence, and indeed a positive one.
'Still further thousands of years passed until, in 1842, Mayer, Joule, and
Colding investigated this special process in its relation to other processes
of a similar kind that had been discovered in the meantime, i.e., as regards
its immediate general conditions, and formulated the judgement: all
mechanical motion is capable of being converted into heat by means of
friction.
'So much time and an enormous amount of empirical knowledge were required
before we could make the advance in knowledge of the object from the above
positive judgement of inherence to this universal judgement of subsumption.
'But from now on things went quickly.
'Only three years later, Mayer was able, at least in substance, to raise the
judgement of subsumption
to the level at which it now stands: any form of motion, under conditions
fixed for each case, is both able and compelled to undergo transformation,
directly or indirectly, into any other form of motion - a judgement of the
notion, and moreover an apodeictic one, the highest form of judgement
altogether.'
This is the conservation of energy which Feynman did not want to throw away.
Engels underlines the reason why:
'In this form, the law attains its final expression.
'By new discoveries we can give new illustrations of it, we can give it a
new and richer content.
'But we cannot add anything to the law itself as here formulated.
'In its universality, equally universal in form and content, it is not
susceptible of further extension: it is an absolute law of nature.'
The modern physicist, struggling with the troublesome infinities which
appear when principles are brought together and which then have to be 'swept
under the carpet' as Feynman puts it, knows he is dealing with flawed
formulations somewhere, and it is not trivial to decide where.
All the same there was a drive throughout the 20th century toward
synthesising a Grand Unified Theory, a theory of everything in physics,
which corresponds to its highest point of development: the apodeictic
(literally: next to god) judgement of the notion.
We should defer to Feynman's grasp of the content of theoretical physics:
philosophy will not answer the question of the errors in quantum mechanical
mathematics until nature properly understood does.
Philosophy can act as a guide by insisting on the independence of nature,
and that our knowledge is a succession of approximations to the truth.
But the nearness of Feynman to a judgement of the notion in physics is
something he expresses with great humility at the end of his lecture, as a
feeling rather than a consciousness.
He says:
'What is it about nature that.....it is possible to guess from one part what
the rest is going to do?
'That is an unscientific question: I do not know how to answer it, and
therefore I am going to give an unscientific answer.
'I think it is because nature has a simplicity and therefore a great
beauty.'
--
http://www.wrp.org.uk
wen...@my-deja.com
> MARXIST REVIEW: September 2000, Volume 15, Issue No 9
> 'This shows, however, that laws of thought and laws of nature are
> necessarily in agreement with one another, if only they are correctly
> known.'
>
> This is a revolutionary observation clad in simple language.
>
> It incorporates the materialist premise that in the human mind nature
> becomes conscious of itself, turning the old dualism of mind/body
into a
> nonsense.
This wasn't revolutionary for Engels, because it had already been
stated by Spinoza in his day.
Both Feynman's and Popper's notions of 'right' and 'wrong' are
extremely rigid, one might say 'wooden'. This is typical of idealist
thought and yet Hegel in his 'Phenomenology of Spirit' has a much more
flexible approach to the concept of 'truth'.
I would suggest that Popper and his 'Philosophy of Science' is
not 'wrong' as such, but merely 'one-sided' as Hegel used to say. The
criterion of truth or falsity is just 'part' (the formal part) of our
knowledge.
wensin
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Stephen R. Diamond
<rabheg...@thefreeinternet.co.uk> wrote:
> 'First of all there is matter - and remarkably enough all matter is
> the same.
>
> 'The matter of which stars are made is known to be the same as the
> matter on the earth......
This is vague. Matter is the same how? If there is no anti-matter in our
vicinity, there is at least one respect in which matter is different in
one place as compared to another.
The correct statement is that the *laws* governing matter remain the
same, independently of time and space.
> Approximately correct is definitely different from wrong, with the
> difference that the second reflects a scepticism about the independent
> existence of nature from our minds.
> "Approximately correct" is different from wrong, but what does
> approximately mean. How does one measure degrees of error? I think
> "partly correct" better describes scientific results, Lenin
> notwithstanding.
srd
Stephen R. Diamond
> I would suggest that Popper and his 'Philosophy of Science' is
> not 'wrong' as such, but merely 'one-sided' as Hegel used to say. The
> criterion of truth or falsity is just 'part' (the formal part) of our
> knowledge.
When bourgeois philosophy remained capable of producing important
insights, its conclusions were best described as one-sided. But Popper
represents bourgeois philosophy in its decadent phase. It is just plain
wrong. (To wit, Popper was reactionary even among bourgeois philosophers
in his open idealism, collaborating with the Moonies, believe it or not,
to spew forth his idealist interpretations of the results of
neuro-science.
srd
wen...@my-deja.com
> > 'First of all there is matter - and remarkably enough all matter is
> > the same.
> >
> > 'The matter of which stars are made is known to be the same as the
> > matter on the earth......
>
> This is vague. Matter is the same how? If there is no anti-matter in
our
> vicinity, there is at least one respect in which matter is different
in
> one place as compared to another.
>
> The correct statement is that the *laws* governing matter remain the
> same, independently of time and space.
There are many things that are assumed to be true by natural scientists
which they cannot, as yet, prove one way or the other. When we speak
of laws governing matter being independent of time and space we are
merely generalising from our own experience within a limited time frame.
> > Approximately correct is definitely different from wrong, with the
> > difference that the second reflects a scepticism about the
independent
> > existence of nature from our minds.
>
> > "Approximately correct" is different from wrong, but what does
> > approximately mean. How does one measure degrees of error? I think
> > "partly correct" better describes scientific results, Lenin
> > notwithstanding.
Approximation is a regular procedure within mathematics and the
sciences. It is a dialectical term because it contains truth and error
within the same term.
Stephen R. Diamond
> There are many things that are assumed to be true by natural scientists
> which they cannot, as yet, prove one way or the other. When we speak
> of laws governing matter being independent of time and space we are
> merely generalising from our own experience within a limited time frame.
Well, only to the extent that materialism is "only" a generalization
from a limited time frame.
>
> Approximation is a regular procedure within mathematics and the
> sciences. It is a dialectical term because it contains truth and error
> within the same term.
>
In that context approximation has a precise meaning. A result is a
better approximation to the extent that it lies closer to the real
value. For scientific laws there is no similar unequivocal meaning for
approximation.
srd
" de...@gis.net
"Stephen R. Diamond" wrote:
> In article <8ptmu8$9op$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, wen...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> > I would suggest that Popper and his 'Philosophy of Science' is
> > not 'wrong' as such, but merely 'one-sided' as Hegel used to say. The
> > criterion of truth or falsity is just 'part' (the formal part) of our
> > knowledge.
>
> When bourgeois philosophy remained capable of producing important
> insights, its conclusions were best described as one-sided. But Popper
> represents bourgeois philosophy in its decadent phase. It is just plain
> wrong. (To wit, Popper was reactionary even among bourgeois philosophers
> in his open idealism, collaborating with the Moonies, believe it or not,
> to spew forth his idealist interpretations of the results of
> neuro-science.
The thought of Popper like that of of many other bourgeois philosophers
had both progressive and reactionary aspects. On the one hand there
is I think much to be said for his hypothetico-deductive model of scientific
inquiry. It is interesting to note that the Italian Marxist Galvano Della
Volpe
developed a rather similar model in his *Logic as a Positive Science*.
Popper was a proponent of realism and an opponent of the phenomenalism
that was championed by many of the logical positivists and other sorts of
empiricists of his time. This realism on certain questions brought him
close
to materialism. On the other hand his thought also contained some of the
most reactionary forms of idealism to be seen in mid-to-late 20th century
bourgeois academic philosophy. He co-authored a book with Catholic
neuroscientist John Eccles, *The Self and Its Brain* which championed
a psychophysical dualism that would have done Descartes proud. Indeed,
Popper's position on the mind-body problem was arguablly more
anti-materialist
than even Descartes'. Popper's position on dialectics was likewise
contradictory.
In *Conjectures and Refutations* appears his famous essay "What is
Dialectics?"
which sought to deflate the claims made on behalf of dialectics by Marxists
and Hegelians. On the other hand his mature thought took a decidedly
evolutionist
turn, which as the Soviet philosopher Igor Naletov suggested in his book
*Alternatives to Positivism*, in so doing became itself dialectical in
character.
A classic case, one might say of the Freudian "return of the repressed."
Jim F.
>
>
> srd
Stephen R. Diamond
> The thought of Popper like that of of many other bourgeois
> philosophers had both progressive and reactionary aspects. On the
> one hand there is I think much to be said for his
> hypothetico-deductive model of scientific
As I see it, there is something *fundamentally* wrong with his theory,
causing it to founder on the problem of "verisimilitude." This problem
should have stopped the Popperian school dead in its tracks, if it
*practiced* the hypothetico-deductive method it preached.
>
> inquiry. It is interesting to note that the Italian Marxist Galvano
> Della Volpe developed a rather similar model in his *Logic as a
> Positive Science*. Popper was a proponent of realism and an opponent
> of the phenomenalism that was championed by many of the logical
> positivists and other sorts of empiricists of his time. This realism
> on certain questions brought him close to materialism.
I don't think a theory that sanctions dualism can come close to
materialism. Realism means many things. It is a doctrine that could be
embraced by a fundamentalist Christian.
On the other
> hand his thought also contained some of the most reactionary forms of
> idealism to be seen in mid-to-late 20th century bourgeois academic
> philosophy. He co-authored a book with Catholic neuroscientist John
> Eccles, *The Self and Its Brain* which championed a psychophysical
> dualism that would have done Descartes proud. Indeed, Popper's
> position on the mind-body problem was arguablly more anti-materialist
> than even Descartes'. Popper's position on dialectics was likewise
> contradictory. In *Conjectures and Refutations* appears his famous
> essay "What is Dialectics?" which sought to deflate the claims made
> on behalf of dialectics by Marxists and Hegelians. On the other hand
> his mature thought took a decidedly evolutionist turn, which as the
> Soviet philosopher Igor Naletov suggested in his book *Alternatives
> to Positivism*, in so doing became itself dialectical in character. A
> classic case, one might say of the Freudian "return of the
> repressed."
I don't have a high regard for "evolutionary epistemology." The
evolutionary process by natural selection requires blind variation.
Scientific progress is grounded in insight, not the random development
of theoretical systems winnowed out by natural selection. To the extent
that natural selection does describe the direction by science, it
implies theories are accepted for extra-scientific reasons. This is
true, but it has nothing to do with science qua science.
srd
deb...@gis.net
"Stephen R. Diamond" <steph...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> In article <39C6C208...@gis.net>, " debfar"@gis.net wrote:
>
> > The thought of Popper like that of of many other bourgeois
> > philosophers had both progressive and reactionary aspects. On the
> > one hand there is I think much to be said for his
> > hypothetico-deductive model of scientific
>
> As I see it, there is something *fundamentally* wrong with his
theory,
> causing it to founder on the problem of "verisimilitude." This
problem
> should have stopped the Popperian school dead in its tracks, if it
> *practiced* the hypothetico-deductive method it preached.
No doubt, since Popper was attempting to solve the problem of
induction by denying that there was such a thing. Hence, his
attempt to show that science does not require induction.
Della Volpe on the other hand while also developing a
hypothetico-deductive model of scientific inquiry did not
deny induction. On the contrary he took the more dialectical
position that induction and deduction are dialectical opposites
that form a circular unity.
> >
> > inquiry. It is interesting to note that the Italian Marxist
Galvano
> > Della Volpe developed a rather similar model in his *Logic as a
> > Positive Science*. Popper was a proponent of realism and an
opponent
> > of the phenomenalism that was championed by many of the logical
> > positivists and other sorts of empiricists of his time. This
realism
> > on certain questions brought him close to materialism.
>
> I don't think a theory that sanctions dualism can come close to
> materialism. Realism means many things. It is a doctrine that could
be
> embraced by a fundamentalist Christian.
Indeed, but Popper was an opponent of subjective idealism
which in the 1930s & 1940s took the form of the phenomenalism
that so many of the positivists embraced. (Ayer in fact
openly admitted the Berkelyian origins of his phenomenalism
in *Language, Truth, and Logic*). On the other hand
while opposing subjective idealisms, Popper was partial
to other sorts of idealism.
I am not so sure that Popper was entirely in the wrong on that.
Most insights in science turn out upon further investigation
to be duds, just as most biological mutations don't go
anywhere either in evolutionary terms. In both biological
evolution and in science, progress depends on both the
existence of process for generating variations and upon
the existence of processes of selection which winnow out
those variations that are maladaptive.
>To the extent
> that natural selection does describe the direction by science, it
> implies theories are accepted for extra-scientific reasons. This is
> true, but it has nothing to do with science qua science.
Popper conceived of the selection process within science as
operating mainly in terms of the falsification of hypotheses.
I would contend that scientific hypotheses undergo selection
on the basis of such criteria as consistency with "known"
facts, predictive power, uselfulness in enhancing our abilties
to control the phenmomena in question, parsimony etc.
BTW the British Analytic Marxist, Alan Carling proposed
a selectionist version of historical materialism which
he has outlined in papaers that appeared in the spring 1993
and spring 1994 issues of Science & Society. I am not sure
exactly what Carling's view of Popper is but I suspect that
he wouldn't casually dismiss Popper's evolutionism.
Jim F.
>
> srd
Stephen R. Diamond
> I am not so sure that Popper was entirely in the wrong on that.
> Most insights in science turn out upon further investigation
> to be duds, just as most biological mutations don't go
> anywhere either in evolutionary terms. In both biological
> evolution and in science, progress depends on both the
> existence of process for generating variations and upon
> the existence of processes of selection which winnow out
> those variations that are maladaptive.
Well, it is not really an *insight* if it turns out to be a dud; rather,
it is only a purported insight. I'm carping, but for a reason. It is a
different matter to claim that scientific *acceptability* is Darwinian
and to claim that scientific *progress* is. (One way Popper goes awry is
in not distinguishing the two.)
Einstein said he was certain his theory of special relativity was true,
before any experiments were performed. How many biologists said, upon
learning of the theory of natural selection, "Why didn't I think of
that?" (At least one, Huxley.)
srd
Stephen R. Diamond
> BTW the British Analytic Marxist, Alan Carling proposed
> a selectionist version of historical materialism which
> he has outlined in papaers that appeared in the spring 1993
> and spring 1994 issues of Science & Society. I am not sure
> exactly what Carling's view of Popper is but I suspect that
> he wouldn't casually dismiss Popper's evolutionism.
I think a synthesis of historical materialism and the selectionist
doctrine called 'memetics' might work. But notice that this claim cuts
*against* science being selectionist. 'Memes' are not selected for their
truth, but for their sheer ability to propagate.
srd
deb...@gis.net
> > Most insights in science turn out upon further investigation
> > to be duds, just as most biological mutations don't go
> > anywhere either in evolutionary terms. In both biological
> > evolution and in science, progress depends on both the
> > existence of process for generating variations and upon
> > the existence of processes of selection which winnow out
> > those variations that are maladaptive.
>
> Well, it is not really an *insight* if it turns out to be a dud;
rather,
> it is only a purported insight.
Thats right. Most purported insights turn out to be spurious.
Subjective certainy is not the same as scientific verification.
>I'm carping, but for a reason. It is a
> different matter to claim that scientific *acceptability* is
Darwinian
> and to claim that scientific *progress* is. (One way Popper goes awry
is
> in not distinguishing the two.)
>
> Einstein said he was certain his theory of special relativity was
true,
> before any experiments were performed.
That is true but those experiments still had to be performed to
verify that Einstein was correct in his certitude. Many people
are after all absolutely certain about matters on which they
are in fact in error. Subjective certainy is in itself hardly
sufficient as a criterion of truth.
>How many biologists said, upon
> learning of the theory of natural selection, "Why didn't I think of
> that?" (At least one, Huxley.)
Yes, Huxley and probably many others did say that but take a
closer look at the history of evolutionary biology. Darwin's
*Origin of Species* convinced most natural historians that
evolution was a fact. However, many of these same scientists
were not so convinced about Darwin's theory of natural selection.
Lamarckianism enjoyed a good run, well into the 20th century.
Many of Darwin's contemporaries were not easily convinced that
natural selection could play the creative role that Darwin
attributed to it. Especially, given the fact that Darwin
was lacking a persuasive account of heredity, many people were
convinced mechanisms other than natural selection must be
responsible for evolutionary development. Darwin was not
fully vindicated on this matter until the emergence of
the neo-Darwinian synthesis during the period from the
late 1920s to the 1950s.
Jim F.
>
> srd
deb...@gis.net
"Stephen R. Diamond" <steph...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> In article <8q7kj6$8ut$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, deb...@gis.net wrote:
>
> > a selectionist version of historical materialism which
> > he has outlined in papaers that appeared in the spring 1993
> > and spring 1994 issues of Science & Society. I am not sure
> > exactly what Carling's view of Popper is but I suspect that
> > he wouldn't casually dismiss Popper's evolutionism.
>
> I think a synthesis of historical materialism and the selectionist
> doctrine called 'memetics' might work. But notice that this claim
cuts
> *against* science being selectionist.
I am not so sure about that though. It seems to me that
scientific communities may consitute special environments
in which memes are selected on the basis of such criteria
as demonstrable predictive power, parsimony etc. as opposed
to the kinds of selection criteria which govern the
propogation of other kinds of memes. It is possible
that a synthesis of the evolutionism of Popper with that
of Thomas Kuhn might prove fruitful in understanding this.
It also, might be helpful
to keep in mind that American pragmatist thought (i.e. C.S. Peirce,
William James, John Dewey) has a tradition of identifying
truth with evolutionary adaptiveness under specific circumstances.
Jim F.
>'Memes' are not selected for their
> truth, but for their sheer ability to propagate.
>
> srd
>
Stephen R. Diamond
> In article <stephend15-31F78...@news.mindspring.com>,
> "Stephen R. Diamond" <steph...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> > In article <8q7kj6$8ut$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, deb...@gis.net wrote:
> >
> > > BTW the British Analytic Marxist, Alan Carling proposed
> > > a selectionist version of historical materialism which
> > > he has outlined in papaers that appeared in the spring 1993
> > > and spring 1994 issues of Science & Society. I am not sure
> > > exactly what Carling's view of Popper is but I suspect that
> > > he wouldn't casually dismiss Popper's evolutionism.
> >
> > I think a synthesis of historical materialism and the selectionist
> > doctrine called 'memetics' might work. But notice that this claim
> cuts
> > *against* science being selectionist.
>
> I am not so sure about that though. It seems to me that
> scientific communities may consitute special environments
> in which memes are selected on the basis of such criteria
> as demonstrable predictive power, parsimony etc. as opposed
> to the kinds of selection criteria which govern the
> propogation of other kinds of memes.
This assumes that a community can control which memes are propagated, an
assumption that is contrary to the memetic doctrine, and vitiates most
of the explanatory power of memetics, which is based on the notion that
the brain's filtering system for memes is necessarily crude.
I think there is an evolutionary process involved in arriving at truth,
but that process occurs in the brain of the scientist (i.e. neural
Darwinism). Although the dud theories outnumber the good ones, there
don't seem to me to be enough dud theories to support a selectionist
account of theory acceptance. Popper writes as though any conjecture is
good enough to be worthy of testing, just as long as it doesn't
contradict existing data, and does not include obviously ad hoc
propositions. The guesses made by scientists may often be wrong, but
they are *intelligent* guesses, not wild conjectures followed by
refutations.
srd
Stephen R. Diamond
> >
> > Einstein said he was certain his theory of special relativity was
> > true, before any experiments were performed.
>
> That is true but those experiments still had to be performed to
> verify that Einstein was correct in his certitude. Many people are
> after all absolutely certain about matters on which they are in fact
> in error. Subjective certainy is in itself hardly sufficient as a
> criterion of truth.
If not, then you must claim Einstein was *irrational* to think he was
warranted in his complete confidence in special relativity, before any
experiments.
Subjective certainty is not the equivalent of insight. The claim that
the soundness of theories often depends more on insight than on
experiments designed to test the theory is NOT the claim that scientists
by and large come to believe theories because of their subjective belief
that they have a genuine insight.
The problem you are driving at, I think, is the question of how
scientists who propose a theory know, as opposed to thinking they know,
the theory is sound. But, that question is really no different than this
one: how do scientists know whether the empirical testing of the theory
has been adequate. The degree of subjectivity is the same; only, the
first knowledge requires a smarter scientist. Or rather, the same
question can be looked at subjectively or objectively, depending on
whether you are trying to explain how scientists arrive at sound
theories or how they come to think they have arrived at sound theories.
The acceptance by the scientific community does not make the theory any
sounder, or even necessarily better proven.
> >How many biologists said, upon
> > learning of the theory of natural selection, "Why didn't I think of
> > that?" (At least one, Huxley.)
>
> Yes, Huxley and probably many others did say that but take a
> closer look at the history of evolutionary biology. Darwin's
> *Origin of Species* convinced most natural historians that
> evolution was a fact. However, many of these same scientists
> were not so convinced about Darwin's theory of natural selection.
> Lamarckianism enjoyed a good run, well into the 20th century.
> Many of Darwin's contemporaries were not easily convinced that
> natural selection could play the creative role that Darwin
> attributed to it. Especially, given the fact that Darwin
> was lacking a persuasive account of heredity, many people were
> convinced mechanisms other than natural selection must be
> responsible for evolutionary development. Darwin was not
> fully vindicated on this matter until the emergence of
> the neo-Darwinian synthesis during the period from the
> late 1920s to the 1950s.
>
I think if one understands Darwinian theory, one knows it *must* be
true. Lamarckianism is merely an ad hoc postulate, once selection from
random variation is seen to be an adequate explanation of the evolution
of life forms.
That scientists thought otherwise only shows they were either not too
bright, had a professional investment in Lamarkianism, or were
prejudiced against Darwinism for ideological reasons. The fact that many
scientists didn't believe the theory means about zero as to its
soundness.
srd
" de...@gis.net
"Stephen R. Diamond" wrote:
I am arguing that scientific communities may constitute environments in
which
the selection of memes may proceed along somewhat different criteria
than occurs in other sorts of social environments. Of course the existence
of such communities must in turn be explained as well but that explanation
must also be an evolutionist one (if we are to remain consistent with the
tenets of memetics).
As I have said before evolutionist approaches to the philosophy of
science should I think be of interest to Marxists. Both Popper and
Kuhn (as well as Feyerabend) were pioneers in the development of
evolutionist philosophies of science, although some of these ideas
were already anticipated earlier by pragmatist philosophers, especially
C.S. Peirce. I am aware that a relatively extensive literature has appeared
on such approaches to the philosophy of science, although I would not
claim to have much familiarity with the more recent work in the field.
Stephen R. Diamond
>
> I am arguing that scientific communities may constitute environments
> in which the selection of memes may proceed along somewhat different
> criteria than occurs in other sorts of social environments. Of
> course the existence of such communities must in turn be explained as
> well but that explanation must also be an evolutionist one (if we are
> to remain consistent with the tenets of memetics).
What you seem to be saying is that communities have evolved by memetic
mechanisms, but to have evolved such that their beliefs track truth.
I am saying such a development is highly unlikely on memetic premises.
It makes science *happenstance*, since memes show only slight preference
for truth. And, it leaves no way to get out of the circle if the
community stops acting like scientists.
The materialist view, as I see it, is that science is NOT a meme, but a
product of genes--an extension of the strong genetic bias toward true
beliefs in the interest of survival. The accoutrements of science are
the result of imitation, but the investigatory impulse, including the
capacity to distinguish the true from the false, inheres in the genes
(together with non-memetic learning).
> As I have said before evolutionist approaches to the philosophy of
> science should I think be of interest to Marxists. Both Popper and
> Kuhn (as well as Feyerabend) were pioneers in the development of
> evolutionist philosophies of science, although some of these ideas
> were already anticipated earlier by pragmatist philosophers,
> especially C.S. Peirce. I am aware that a relatively extensive
> literature has appeared
I think we must have vastly different assessments of the pragmatists.
Admittedly, mine might be one-sided, due to my Healyite training.
Trotsky certainly did not see American pragmatism as converging toward
Marxism; so, you must realize you are swimming against the stream.
srd
wen...@my-deja.com
wen...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> > I would suggest that Popper and his 'Philosophy of Science' is
> > not 'wrong' as such, but merely 'one-sided' as Hegel used to say.
The
> > criterion of truth or falsity is just 'part' (the formal part) of
our
> > knowledge.
>
> insights, its conclusions were best described as one-sided. But
Popper
> represents bourgeois philosophy in its decadent phase. It is just
plain
> wrong. (To wit, Popper was reactionary even among bourgeois
philosophers
> in his open idealism, collaborating with the Moonies, believe it or
not,
> to spew forth his idealist interpretations of the results of
> neuro-science.
Ancient Greek society even in its decadent phase was able to produce
important new insights in philosophy. By that token I don't think that
we should write off all bourgeois philosophy even with capitalism in
its death agony. Marxists combat bourgeois ideology but in doing so
they also develop Marxism itself. To simply ignore bourgeois ideology
because of the reactionary nature of its adherents would deprive
Marxists of a valuable source of development.
It is also important to follow the battles between the different
exponents of bourgeois ideology, because these struggles too can lead
to important insights for Marxists.
No-one would dispute that science and technology can still advance
whilst society stagnates or even goes backwards, yet there is a
mechanical equating of bourgeois ideology with bourgeois decline that
is distinctly un-Marxist in what Stephen Diamond writes.
Stephen R. Diamond
> Ancient Greek society even in its decadent phase was able to produce
> important new insights in philosophy. By that token I don't think that
> we should write off all bourgeois philosophy even with capitalism in
> its death agony. Marxists combat bourgeois ideology but in doing so
> they also develop Marxism itself. To simply ignore bourgeois ideology
> because of the reactionary nature of its adherents would deprive
> Marxists of a valuable source of development.
I'm not sure if you are correct or not. Let's try to look at it in more
detail. What school of philosophy in the decadent phase of ancient Greek
culture do you credit with insights in philosophy and what insight do
you have in mind (one will probably suffice).
But let me also address this point at a general level. Whether or not
ancient Greek society was decadent and yet produced philosophical
insight may well be beside the point. The relevant point is whether the
mode of production has become obsolete. The ancient mode of production
was far from exhausting itself when Greece became decadent.
Note the way Lenin dealt with bourgeois philosophy in Materialism and
Empirio-criticism. He attacked Bogdanov for embracing bourgeois
philosophy, and assumed that following Marx there was no where to go but
backwards.
Bourgeois philosophy is not without value, but I don't know that it has
provided new *insights.* It has provided clarification of philosophical
issues for the contemporary student, by stating the problems (often
including unacknowledged old solutions) in the modern idiom.
srd
wen...@my-deja.com
I'm not sure if you are correct or not. Let's try to look at it in more
> detail. What school of philosophy in the decadent phase of ancient
Greek > culture do you credit with insights in philosophy and what
insight do you have in mind (one will probably suffice).
IIRC, Aristotle wrote at a time of declining Greek civilisation and I
don't know one person who disputes Aristotle's importance to philosophy.
> But let me also address this point at a general level. Whether or not
> ancient Greek society was decadent and yet produced philosophical
> insight may well be beside the point. The relevant point is whether
the
> mode of production has become obsolete. The ancient mode of
production
> was far from exhausting itself when Greece became decadent.
>
> Note the way Lenin dealt with bourgeois philosophy in Materialism and
> Empirio-criticism. He attacked Bogdanov for embracing bourgeois
> philosophy, and assumed that following Marx there was no where to go
but
> backwards.
Lenin attacked Bogdanov for INCORPORATING bourgeois philosophy into
Marxism and creating a new version of revisionism. I'm not suggesting
we should do that.
>
> Bourgeois philosophy is not without value, but I don't know that it
has
> provided new *insights.* It has provided clarification of
philosophical
> issues for the contemporary student, by stating the problems (often
> including unacknowledged old solutions) in the modern idiom.
This is what Lenin had to say in his 'Philosophical Notebooks':-
'Philosophical idealism is only nonsense from the standpoint of crude,
simple, metaphysical materialism. From the standpoint of dialectical
materialism, on the other hand, philosophical idealism is a one-sided,
exaggerated, uberschwengliches (Dietzgen)'" development (inflation,
distention) of one of the features, aspects, facets of knowledge into
an absolute, divorced from matter, from nature, apotheosised. Idealism
is clerical obscurantism. True. But philosophical idealism is ("more
correctly" and "in addition") a road to clerical obscurantism through
one of the shades of the infinitely complex knowledge (dialectical) of
man.
Human knowledge is not (or does not follow) a straight line, but a
curve, which endlessly approximates a series of circles, a spiral. Any
fragment, segment, section of this curve can be transformed
(transformed one-sidedly) into an independent, complete, straight line,
which then (if one does not see the wood for the trees) leads into the
quagmire, into clerical obscurantism (where it is anchored by the class
interests of the ruling classes). Rectilinearity and one-sidedness,
woodenness and petrification, subjectivism and subjective blindness—
voila the epistemological roots of idealism. And clerical obscurantism
(philosophical idealism), of course, has epistemological roots, it is
not groundless; it is a sterile flower undoubtedly, but a sterile
flower that grows on the living tree of living, fertile, genuine,
powerful, omnipotent, objective, absolute human knowledge.' (Vol 38,
p363)
Stephen R. Diamond
> "Stephen R. Diamond" wrote:
>
> IIRC, Aristotle wrote at a time of declining Greek civilisation and I
> don't know one person who disputes Aristotle's importance to philosophy.
Greek culture was not decadent in Aristotle's day. Aristotle's
philosophy AS A WHOLE was not decadent, but progressive by virtue of its
naturalism.
>
.
>
> Lenin attacked Bogdanov for INCORPORATING bourgeois philosophy into
> Marxism and creating a new version of revisionism. I'm not suggesting
> we should do that.
Lenin's attack on Bogdanov for incorporating bourgeois philosophy
*rested* on his argument that bourgeois philosophy was reactionary and
had nothing to contribute. It was a downhill road from Marx to Kant to
Hume.
> >
These remarks on idealism pertained to the older idealist schools, which
developed philosophical insights.
Lenin is of course correct, but it is the empiricists (modern bourgeois
philosophers) who deny the contribution of the rationalists. This mostly
takes the form today of neglecting the role of insight in philosophy and
science, substituting the hypothetico-deductive method or induction.
srd
Stephen R. Diamond
> The thought of Popper like that of of many other bourgeois
> philosophers had both progressive and reactionary aspects. On the
> one hand there is I think much to be said for his
> hypothetico-deductive model of scientific
>
> inquiry. It is interesting to note that the Italian Marxist Galvano
> Della Volpe developed a rather similar model in his *Logic as a
> Positive Science*.
Did the Italian Marxist, in your opinion, solve the "problem of
induction?" Did he claim to? Where do you think this problem now stands?
srd
Stephen R. Diamond
> On the contrary he took the more dialectical
> position that induction and deduction are dialectical opposites
> that form a circular unity.
Does this formula mean anything other than what everyone knows
(induction requires deduction and vice versa)--in other words is it mere
handwaving, OR is it a serious attempt to solve the problem of
induction? If the latter, how does it solve the basic problem, than any
justificaation for knowledge must itself be justified, with a resulting
infinite regress?
srd
" de...@gis.net
"Stephen R. Diamond" wrote:
> In article <39C6C208...@gis.net>, " debfar"@gis.net wrote:
>
> > The thought of Popper like that of of many other bourgeois
> > philosophers had both progressive and reactionary aspects. On the
> > one hand there is I think much to be said for his
> > hypothetico-deductive model of scientific
> >
> > inquiry. It is interesting to note that the Italian Marxist Galvano
> > Della Volpe developed a rather similar model in his *Logic as a
> > Positive Science*.
>
> Did the Italian Marxist, in your opinion, solve the "problem of
> induction?" Did he claim to? Where do you think this problem now stands?
I am nost sure that Della Volpe addressed the "problem of induction" in the
sense that problem or problematic has been formulated by most empiricist
and rationalist philosophers since Hume. Della Volpe attempted to formulate
a materialist theory of judgement. This theory begins with a critique of
Hegel's
analysis of the senses in *Phenomenology of Spirit*. There Hegel argued
that
what is perceived by the senses was not particular objects but rather
"universals
as such." Della Volpe contended against Hegel, that the particularity of
objects is also perceived as well. Cognitive judgements involve a synthesis
of distinct elements which encompass both the ineradicable positive
character
of the multiple (which constitutes the instance of matter in Aristotle's
sense),
and the equally indispensible instance of reason (unity). If we omit the
former
then we are left with indeterminate abstractions as are characteristic of
Hegel's
philosophy where for instance we find an analysis of the state that exists
within
a particular historical epoch being generalized into the Essence of the
State.
This produces not genuine hypotheses leading to knowledge but rather what
Della Volpe characterizes as hypostasis. On the other hand if we ignore
or omit the the element of unity within perception & cognition then we are
left
with the unintelligible multiplicity that is typical of empiricist
philosophies.
And this in Della Volpe's view acted as an impediment to the formation
of hypotheses. For Della Volpe, Aristotle's insight that what exists
is determinate & non-contradictory is crucial. From these considerations
Della Volpe derived the conclusion that in every judgement, subject &
predicate stand in synthesis. The predicate is not inducted from the
subject as in empiricism, and the subject is not deduced from the predicate
as in rationalism. The judgement is both analytic ( as a function of the
subject) & synthetic (as a function of the predicate). Therefore, in Della
Volpe's view, matter & reason, subject & predicate, analysis & synthesis,
particular & universal, are reciporically functional and equally
indispensible
in the formation of judgements which is therefore a determinate (rather than
indeterminate) abstraction and a hypothesis as opposed to a hypostasis.
This principle of the formation of judgements, he called
"tauto-heterological
identity."
Jim F.
>
>
> srd
" de...@gis.net
> For Della Volpe, science was conceived as beginiing with concrete problems
that arise historically, in what he called the "historical-material
instance." The
subsequent formation determinate abstractions must therfore be understood in
the light of the historical antecedents of the problem for which they were
created to solve. These abstractions are characterized by Della Volpe as
being hypotheses and nothing more. They are not a priori in character,
not absoute, not hypostases, but rather they must be tested against
empirical
reality. Thus the centrality of experiment in the natural sciences and of
what
Marxists call practice in the social sciences. Within science both natural
and social we find that the reciproca functionality of matter & reason, of
induction & deduction, subject & predicate, is paralleled by a reciprocal
functionality of theory & practice, and all thisis said to be embodied in
the methodological circle of concrete-abstract-concrete.
" de...@gis.net
"Stephen R. Diamond" wrote:
> In article <8q7kj6$8ut$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, deb...@gis.net wrote:
>
> > On the contrary he took the more dialectical
> > position that induction and deduction are dialectical opposites
> > that form a circular unity.
>
> Does this formula mean anything other than what everyone knows
> (induction requires deduction and vice versa)--in other words is it mere
> handwaving, OR is it a serious attempt to solve the problem of
> induction? If the latter, how does it solve the basic problem, than any
> justificaation for knowledge must itself be justified, with a resulting
> infinite regress?
I am not so sure that Della Volpe was a foundationalist in the sense
that seems presupposed here. He saw knowledge as progressing
through the movement of a methodological circle of concret-abstract-
concrete. I suspect that like John Dewey whom he admired, Della Volpe
would have abjured the "quest for certainy."
>
>
> srd
Stephen R. Diamond
> I am not so sure that Della Volpe was a foundationalist in the sense
> that seems presupposed here. He saw knowledge as progressing
> through the movement of a methodological circle of concret-abstract-
> concrete. I suspect that like John Dewey whom he admired, Della Volpe
> would have abjured the "quest for certainy."
Although foundationalism is usually associated with the quest for
certainty, the logical requirement of foundations inheres in the way the
empiricist or pragmatism conceives of the problem of knowledge as
justified, even if only partly justified, true belief.
If A is thought to be probably true, instead of certain, there is still
the question of what justified the belief in A's *probable* truth. To
say B, which also is probably true, does not answer the question unless
we can say how we know that B is probably true, or probably know B is
true, if there is a difference between the two formulations.
So, the infinite regress remains. That is, if we are satisfied with a
foundation that is only probably true, it can be asked how we know it is.
srd