Experience and Theory

An Essay in the Philosophy of Science

Stephan Korner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781135028374
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Originally published in 1966. This volume analyzes the general structure of scientific theories, their relation to experience and to non-scientific thought. Part One is concerned with the logic underlying empirical discourse before its subjection to the various constraints, imposed by the logico-mathematical framework of scientific theories upon their content. Part Two is devoted to an examination of this framework and, in particular, to showing that the deductive organization of a field of experience is by that very act a modification of empirical discourse and an idealization of its subject matter. Part Three analyzes the concordance between theories and experience and the relevance of science to moral and religious beliefs.

Part One

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THE DIFFERENTIATION OF EXPERIENCE

I
SCHEMATA OF EMPIRICAL DIFFERENTIATION

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THE first part of this inquiry will be almost entirely devoted to the notions of an empirical individual, an empirical class or relation, and an empirical continuum. The claim upon our attention which these three notions have is twofold. On the one hand, they play a fundamental part in empirical discourse in that they are applicable to the world around us and that to apply them to the world is to differentiate what we find there. On the other hand, because of their general applicability, they are particularly suited to what is one of the aims of the present inquiry, namely to show that, and how, the deductive unification of experience compels the replacement of empirical notions by non-empirical ones, briefly that, and how, the deductive unification of empirical discourse involves its modification or idealization.

There are, prima facie at least, more ways than one of differentiating the world into empirical individuals, classes-cum-relations, and continua. Consider, for example, the category of individual (physical) things and the category of individual (physical) processes. If we wish to find out whether a person uses either of these categories in differentiating the world, we must first of all establish that the category in question is applicable. Nobody can be said to apply an inapplicable category, just as nobody can be said to cut a cake into spherical cubes. Secondly, we must establish that the person does in fact apply the category habitually or at least occasionally. For the mere applicability of a category does not imply its actual application by anybody, just as the mere possibility of cutting a cake into wedge-like pieces does not imply that anybody ever uses this method. Thus one person may use both the category of individual things, and the category of individual processes in differentiating the world, whereas another may use only one of the two. By admitting that schemata of empirical differentiation may differ in the notions they involve of empirical individuals one ipso facto also admits that they may differ in the notions they involve of empirical classes and relations. That the use of differing notions of empirical individuals, classes and relations, involves that of different notions of continua will become clear in the sequel.

Although I only propose to investigate some very general features of empirical individuals, classes and relations, and continua, it will be well to have more than one schema of empirical differentiation in mind. I shall therefore sketch in this chapter a number of such schemata, suggested by ordinary language, physics and metaphysics; discuss some questions which arise from the multiplicity of actual and possible schemata; draw some conclusions about the limits of the present investigation and indicate its scope.

1. THE SCHEMA OF THINGS

With its many variations the schema of things rests on a distinction between two kinds of individuals, namely movable things and immovable spatial regions. Although very general, the schema is not necessarily all embracing, and one's adoption of it as a means of empirical differentiation is quite compatible with the recognition of individuals which are neither things nor regions, e.g. noises and possibly memories or thoughts. Again it may very well be doubtful whether something, e.g. a rainbow, is a thing. For brevity and simplicity I shall confine discussion to a fairly exclusive and radical version of this schema, which admits only things or regions as individuals.

As regards the further classification of the two kinds of individuals, regions and things show a marked contrast. Regions are classified solely—or in some less radical variants of the schema mainly—as occupied or unoccupied by things. The two complementary classes are, however, not sharply divided and have common border-line cases. Indeed, when a thing moves from one region to another it passes through phases when it can with equal propriety be regarded as still occupying the region, or as occupying it no longer, or as having already left it or not yet left it.

On the other hand, things possess, acquire and lose not only the occupancy of regions; they may further possess, acquire or lose the membership in a great variety of classes without any occupancy requirement and a great many non-spatial relationships to other things. Unlike a region, a thing can be as hard as or harder than another thing; as dark as or darker than another thing; it can be beautiful, alive, etc. Things differ in an enormous, perhaps inexhaustible number of ways, whereas regions differ, if at all, only indirectly, in virtue of the things by which they are occupied.

In adopting the schema of things one acknowledges or creates a difference between two kinds of change, namely qualitative (non-spatial) change and motion, and between two kinds of permanence, namely qualitative stability and rest. Yet this distinction becomes rather blurred when one considers the separation of the parts of a thing from each other, a change which always involves motion and which, at least sometimes, is qualitative. Moreover, the division of anything into separate parts may, under certain conditions, be the end of the thing's individuality, that is, simply, the end of the thing.

The schema of moving things, by its manner of differentiating the world around us into empty regions and regions occupied by things which change their positions and other qualities and relations, involves more or less obviously the notion of an empirical continuum. First, the regions through which a thing moves or could move are continuous. There are, in this schema, no gaps in space, even if we wish to regard empty spatial regions as gaps between things. Being a gap does not imply having gaps. Secondly, the movement of a thing must, apart from isolated discontinuities, be continuous. A discontinuity in the movement of a body is its stopping and, after a pause, re-starting. But between two successive stops the movement is, or (what in the present context amounts to the same) appears to be, continuous. Thirdly, in so far as a thing consists of parts, each part is continuous with some other part. Fourthly, the schema of moving things requires, or at least permits, the distinction between continuous and discontinuous qualitative changes, e.g. the change from one degree of hardness to another without or with a perceptible gap, or from one colour to another with or without omitting intermediate stages, etc.

The schema of moving things, which I am here trying to sketch in its barest outlines, seems a most suitable example of a method of empirical differentiation. It is familiar since it corresponds in one form or another to habits of apprehending the world and of talking about it which are acquired in early childhood. It derives further authority from the fact that it constitutes a crude, but recognizable, anticipation of classical mechanics, and from philosophical arguments to the effect not only that it is actually employed, and thus is a fortiori a possible schema of empirical differentiation, but that it is the only one possible.

The preceding brief account is in many ways incomplete. Thus nothing has been said explicitly about the rôle which time plays in the schema, although both qualitative change and motion involve the notions of passage of time and of temporal intervals. The reason for this omission is simply that the notion of time enters all the schemata, which will be mentioned here, in very much the same way.

It might be objected that the account of the schema is not precise enough. This may well be so. On the other hand the demand for greater precision can be due to a failure to distinguish between precision in the schema's description and precision in the schema itself. As a method of empirical differentiation the schema of moving things, unlike classical mechanics or some systems of realist ontology, is not a precision-instrument. To make it more precise through idealizations and stipulative definitions would be to misdescribe it. Moreover, the function of drawing sharp boundaries would be misunderstood if their prior absence were never acknowledged.

Again the schema of moving things involves, or suggests, further differentiation of experience, in particular differentiation between things, the movement of which is or is not effected by the observer, or other people's actions or other forces. The notions of effecting a movement, etc., are, of course, not precise. Yet the distinction is understood, at least in so far as it...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• Dedication
• Preface
• PART ONE: THE DIFFERENTIATION OF EXPERIENCE
• PART TWO: THE DEDUCTIVE UNIFICATION OF EXPERIENCE
• PART THREE: SCIENCE AND EXPERIENCE
• Index