At the still point of the turning world ⌠(T. S. Eliot âBurnt Nortonâ, Four Quartets [1945])
It seemed rather absurd to me that the object of life should be to earn a living. So I decided to study philosophy. (Ove Arup, quoted Jones, 2006, p. 11)
1 Introduction: The âdazzling idealâ of Science
Wittgenstein characterized clearly two concerns central to this text. First, as he came to think:
Then, second, the temptation Wittgenstein sketched there amounted to being âdazzled by the idealâ (PI §100), thereby precluding our seeing clearly the practices and events before us. For, as Thomas Nagel (2012, p. 4) recognized, at its heart this ideal stressed:[p]hilosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes, and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer questions in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics, and leads the philosopher into complete darkness. (BB , p. 18)
Its emphasis on completeness and comprehensiveness explains the persistent attraction of such a conception, or image, both of science and of its importance (what, above, Nagel rightly calls an âextrapolationâ from the achievements of science) as well as that conceptionâs âapplicationâ (as its adherents took it) to philosophy. In the attraction of these images (both of science and of its importance), then, we can encounter that âpeculiar fateâ Kant ([1787] 1998, A viii: p. 99) recognized for âhuman reason ⌠[that] it is burdened with questions which it cannot dismiss, ⌠but which it also cannot answerâ. For that conception can make genuine knowledge appear problematic, however much we acknowledge the need for it; and philosophical reflection seem impossible. Yet the actual achievements of science cannot plausibly be denied. Still, all too often, thinkers look only to these âdazzling idealsâ, perhaps realized in âa perfect language still to be constructed by usâ (PI §98). With that conception as an ideal, we cannot move beyond our inability to describe, in exceptionless terms, all our concernsâsay, all we know. For example, suppose we dispute or withhold the term âgameâ from sets of practices that others call a game just because these practices do not amount to âa perfect gameâ (PI §100), one without vagueness in the rules. In that case:⌠a comprehensive, speculative world picture that is reached by extrapolation from some of the discoveries of biology, chemistry, and physicsâ⌠that postulates [both] a hierarchical relation among those sciences and the completeness in principle of an explanation of everything in the universe through their unification.
At one time Wittgenstein too thought that characterizing the project of philosophy required just such an ideal of exceptionless description and explanation; yet he later came to see that conception as the entry âinto philosophy of a false exactitude that is the worst enemy of real exactitudeâ (BT, p. 203). Instead, one should recognize both âthe unsurveyable seething totality of our languageâ (VoW, p. 67) and our local grasp of it, rooted in our particular practices since, for us as for Wittgenstein, that image threatens not only [a] the progress of philosophy but also [b] its possibility.⌠we misunderstand the role played by the ideal in our language. That is to say: we ⌠would call it a game, only we are dazzled by the ideal, and therefore fail to see the actual application of the word âgameâ clearly. (PI §100)
With that image set asideâor, at least, its âdazzleâ defusedâno reasons remain to incorporate the view of causal inexorability, or exceptionlessness that (as we shall see) it typically deploys. For the kinds of philosophy often labelled âlinguistic analysisââat least, if this includes Wittgensteinâs later writingâwere never âantiscientificâ, despite claims by Patricia Churchland (1986, p. ix). That would require both that oneâs view of science was accurate (the sort Wittgenstein thought lacked the âdazzleâ) and that philosophy and science âworked the same streetâ. Rather, what was opposed was scientism, understood as a kind of âworshipâ of science, amounting to its misvaluing as a model of knowledge or investigation, as well as a misunderstanding of its character, both captured in its âdazzleâ. Such scientism often assumes the hierarchical view of sciences such that âcontemporary research in molecular biology ⌠[is] dependent only on the laws of chemistry and physicsâ (Nagel, 2012, p. 7). This picture (or view) tends to prioritize scientific explanation in reductionist (or âeliminativistâ) fashions, perhaps drawing on the reductive modelling of sound as waves in the air, where an increase in comprehensiveness is achieved by applying to sound waves knowledge previously developed for water waves; and where â[t]his reductionist dream is nourished by the extraordinary success of the physical sciences, not least in their recent application to the understanding of life through molecular biologyâ (Nagel, 2010, p. 25). Applied to persons, such a view often generates misplaced âpsychophysical reductionism ⌠largely motivated by the hope of showing how the physical sciences could in principle provide a theory of everythingâ (Nagel, 2012, p. 4). Now, Bernard Williams identifies two key assumptions typical of the scientism rejected here: first, âthat science, and only science, describes the world as it is in itself, independent of perspectiveâ (Williams, 2006, p. 182). Second, given that âone set of concepts, those of physical science, are potentially universal in their uptake and usefulness [that is, given the first assumption], then it follows ⌠that they are somehow intrinsically superior to more local conceptions that are humanly and perhaps historically groundedâ (Williams, 2006, p. 187). But then, as Williams asks, why should even granting that first assumption licence moving from it to the second? In particular, should it cast doubt on the possibility of a respectable, independent philosophical enquiry? No more specific reason is typically offered. Yet, the importance of science seems justified in just this scientistic fashion; namely, science is lauded just because its concepts are âpotentially universal in their uptake and usefulnessâ (Williams, 2006, p. 187). For, perhaps because of the successes of natural science (and of the associated technology), âalmost everyone in our secular culture has been browbeaten into regarding the reductive research program as sacrosanct, on the ground that anything else would not be scienceâ (Nagel, 2012, p. 7). Then, while claiming to be science remains one way of claiming to be truth-generating or knowledge-generating, it can seem the only wayâa further statement of the scientistic misconception.
Importantly, the view one rejects, in rejecting scientism here, is not a philosophy of science as such; and hence cannot be contested (nor defended) by investigating modern conceptions of science (or its philosophy): we need not be, say, âin favour of theoretical entities and against theoretical lawsâ (Cartwright, 1983, p. 20). Rather, it concerns a tendency implicit in a picture of science. Further, setting aside such reductionist thinking as the only model for science rightly assumes that the contrasts our discussion requires âmay be provided in a simple and straightforward way without having to come to grips with certain large questions in the philosophy of scienceâ, as Joseph Margolis (1966, p. ix) urged in a related context.1
Then, our project may resemble one ascribed to Kantâs Critique of Pure Reason, investigating âthe necessary conditions of a possible experienceâ (Wilkerson, 1998, p. 45) or any âessential element[s] of any coherent conception of experience that we could formâ (Strawson, 1966, p. 65); a project with its emphasis both on making sense of the world, and on permitting legitimate philosophical investigation.2 Here, we explicitly take a leaf from Fregeâs book:
For that does not describe where we currently find ourselves: language typically does not fail in either of its âtwo principal functions...If everything were in continual flux, and nothing maintained itself fixed for all time, there would no longer be any possibility of getting to know anything about the world and everything would be plunged into confusion ⌠(Frege [1884] 1953, p. xix)