Philosophy of Science

Volume 1, From Problem to Theory

Mario Bunge

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781351499774
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy & Ethics in Science

Originally published as Scientific Research, this pair of volumes constitutes a fundamental treatise on the strategy of science. Mario Bunge, one of the major figures of the century in the development of a scientific epistemology, describes and analyzes scientific philosophy, as well as discloses its philosophical presuppositions. This work may be used as a map to identify the various stages in the road to scientific knowledge.

Philosophy of Science is divided into two volumes, each with two parts. Part 1 offers a preview of the scheme of science and the logical and semantical took that will be used throughout the work. The account of scientific research begins with part 2, where Bunge discusses formulating the problem to be solved, hypothesis, scientific law, and theory.

The second volume opens with part 3, which deals with the application of theories to explanation, prediction, and action. This section is graced by an outstanding discussion of the philosophy of technology. Part 4 begins with measurement and experiment. It then examines risks in jumping to conclusions from data to hypotheses as well as the converse procedure.

Bunge begins this mammoth work with a section entitled "How to Use This Book." He writes that it is intended for both independent reading and reference as well as for use in courses on scientific method and the philosophy of science. It suits a variety of purposes from introductory to advanced levels. Philosophy of Science is a versatile, informative, and useful text that will benefit professors, researchers, and students in a variety of disciplines, ranging from the behavioral and biological sciences to the physical sciences.

Part I


Approach and Tools

1. The Scientific Approach
2. Concept
3. Elucidation

It will be convenient to start by taking a panoramic view of the means and ends peculiar to the scientific approach. Such a preview is given in Chapter 1. Like any other brief account of a rich subject this one will have to be presented in a somewhat dogmatic fashion, but it is hoped that the remainder of the book will provide a justification for it. Then we shall need a bridge between science and philosophy: this will be provided by Chapters 2 and 3, which discuss the semantics of scientific concepts and the logic of certain familiar yet tricky conceptual operations, such as classing and defining.

1


The Scientific Approach

Science is a style of thinking and acting—indeed, the most recent, universal, and rewarding of styles. As with all human creations, we should distinguish in science the work—research—from its end product—knowledge. In this Chapter we shall take a look both at the overall pattern of scientific research—the scientific method—and at its aim.

1.1 Knowledge: Ordinary and Scientific

Scientific research starts with the realization that the available fund of knowledge is insufficient to handle certain problems. It does not begin from scratch because investigation deals with problems and no question can be asked, let alone answered, outside some body of knowledge: only those who see something can see that something else is missing.

Part of the background knowledge from which every research starts is ordinary, i.e. nonspecialized knowledge, and part of it is scientific, i.e. it has been obtained by the method of science and can be rechecked, enriched, and eventually superseded by the same method. As research proceeds it corrects or even rejects portions of the fund of ordinary knowledge. Thereby the latter is enriched with the results of science: part of today’s commonsense are yesterday’s results of scientific research. Science, in short, grows from common knowledge and outgrows it: in fact, scientific research begins at the point where ordinary experience and ordinary thought fail to solve problems or even to pose them.

Science is not just a prolongation or even a mere refinement of ordinary knowledge in the way that the microscope extends the reach of unaided vision. Science constitutes a knowledge of a special kind: it deals primarily, though not exclusively, with unobservable events unsuspected by the uneducated layman, such as the evolution of stars and the duplication of chromosomes; it invents and tries conjectures beyond common knowledge, such as the laws of quantum mechanics or those of conditioned reflexes; and it tests such assumptions with the help of special techniques, such as spectroscopy and the control of gastric juice, which in turn require special theories.

Consequently common sense cannot be an authoritative judge of science, and the attempt to evaluate scientific ideas and procedures in the light of ordinary knowledge alone is preposterous: science elaborates its own canons of validity and, in most subjects, is far ahead of common knowledge, which is more and more becoming fossil science. Imagine a physicist’s wife rejecting her husband’s theory of elementary particles because it is unintuitive, or a biologist sticking to the hypothesis of the inheritance of all acquired characters because it fits common experience concerning cultural evolution. The moral for philosophers should be clear: Do not try to bring science down to ordinary knowledge but rather learn some science before philosophizing about it.

The radical discontinuity between science and common knowledge in most respects, and particularly as regards method, should not blind us to their continuity in other respects, at least if common knowledge is limited to the opinions held by the so-called sound common sense. In fact, both sound common sense and science attempt to be rational and objective: they are critical and seek coherence (rationality), and they try to fit the facts (objectivity) rather than indulging in uncontrolled speculation.

But the ideal of rationality, namely the coherent systematization of grounded and testable statements, is achieved by theories—which are the core of science rather than of common knowledge, which is an accumulation of loosely related bits of information. And the ideal of objectivity, namely the building of true impersonal images of reality, can be realized only by transcending the narrow limits of daily life and private experience: by abandoning the anthropocentric viewpoint, by hypothesizing the existence of physical objects beyond our poor chaotic impressions, and by testing such assumptions via intersubjective (transpersonal) experiences planned and interpreted with the help of theories. Common sense can achieve only a limited objectivity because it is much too closely tied to perception and action, and when it does transcend them it is often in the form of myth: science alone invents theories that, while not limited to summarizing our experiences, are tested by the latter.

An aspect of the objectivity shared by sound common sense and science is naturalism, i.e. the refusal to countenance nonnatural entities (e.g., disembodied thinking) and nonnatural sources or modes of cognition (e.g., metaphysical intuition). But common sense, suspicious as it is of the unobservable, has on occasion had a crippling effect on scientific imagination. Science, on the other hand, is not afraid of the unobservables it hypothesizes as long as it can keep them under control: indeed science has uncommon (yet neither esoteric nor infallible) means for testing such assumptions.

A consequence of critical alertness and of the naturalistic rejection of esoteric modes of cognition is fallibilism, i.e. the recognition that our knowledge of the world is provisional and uncertain—which does not exclude scientific progress but rather demands it. Scientific statements, no less than those of common experience, are opinions—only, enlightened (grounded and testable) opinions rather than arbitrary dicta or unchecked gossip. What can be proved beyond reasonable doubt are either theorems of logic and mathematics or trivial (particular and observational) statements of fact, such as “This tome is heavy”.

Statements covering immediate experience are not inherently incorrigible but are seldom worth doubting: although they are conjectural, in practice we handle them as if they were certain. Precisely for this reason they are scientifically uninteresting: if common sense can handle them why resort to science? This is the reason why there is no science of typewriting or of car driving. On the other hand, statements covering more than is immediately experienced are doubtful and therefore often worth being checked, rechecked and given a ground. Only, in science doubt is creative rather than paralyzing: it stimulates the search for ideas accounting for the facts in a more and more adequate way. In this way an array of scientific opinions with unequal weight is generated: some are better grounded and tested than others. Accordingly, the skeptic is right when he doubts anything in particular, wrong when he doubts everything alike.

In short, scientific opinions are rational and objective like those of sound common sense—only, much more so. What else, if anything, gives science its superiority over common knowledge? Surely not the substance or subject matter, since one and the same object may be approached either nonscientifically, or even antiscientifically, or in the spirit of science. Thus, e.g., hypnosis may be dealt with ascientifically, as when case histories are described without the help of either theory or experiment. It may alternatively be regarded as a supernormal or even supernatural fact in which neither the sense organs nor the nervous system are involved: i.e., as a result of a direct intermind action. Finally, hypnosis may be approached scientifically, i.e. by framing conjectures about the physiological mechanism underlying hypnotic behavior, and by controlling such assumptions in the laboratory. In principle, then, the object or subject matter does not mark science off from nonscience, even though certain problems, e.g. those of the structure of matter, can hardly be stated outside a scientific context.

If the “substance” (object) cannot be distinctive of all science, then it must be the “form” (procedure) that is: the peculiarity of science must reside in the way it operates to attain a certain end—i.e., in the scientific method and in the aim to which this method is directed. (Caution: ‘scientific method’ should not be construed as a set of mechanical and infallible instructions enabling the scientist to dispense with imagination: it is not to be interpreted either as a special technique for handling problems of a certain kind. The method of science is just the overall pattern of scientific research.) The scientific approach, then, is made up of the scientific method and of the goal of science.

Let us take a glimpse at the scientific approach—not, however, without first trying our forces on some of the following problems.

Problems

1.1.1. Writers and humanists often complain that science is dehumanized because it eliminates the so-called human elements. Examine this view.

1.1.2. Is science objective to the point of excluding points of view, or does it rather limit the consideration of viewpoints to those which are somehow grounded and testable? For a recent criticism of the “myth” that science is objective, see R. Rorty, Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). For a counterattack, see N. Rescher, Objectivity (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997). Hint: Make sure to distinguish the psychology of research—concerned with the motives, biases, etc. of the individual investigator—from the methodology of research. See K. R. Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies, 4th ed. (London: Routledge & KeganPaul, 1962), Ch. 23.

1.1.3. Examine the widespread opinion, shared by philosophers like K. Jaspers, that the conclusions of scientific research are conclusions proper, i.e. final and certain. Alternate Problem: Trace the history of the view that genuine science is infallible.

1.1.4. Elucidate the concepts of opinion, belief, conviction, and knowledge. Alternate Problem: Is there any logical relation between naturalism (an ontological doctrine) and testability (a methodological property of certain statements)? In particular is naturalism necessary, sufficient, necessary and sufficient, or neither for testability? Hints: Distinguish between testability in principle (conceivable testability) and effective testability (the property of a statement of being subjectible to test with the means at hand); and search for counterexamples to the first three ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• A Foretale of Five Philosophers of Science
• How to Use This Book
• Special Symbols
• Contents
• Part I Approach and Tools
• Part II Scientific Ideas
• Author Index
• Subject Index