The Problem of the Unity of Science, pp. 29-38 (2001) No AccessREASON AND UNIFICATION IN SCIENCEDUDLEY SHAPEREDUDLEY SHAPEREWake Forest University and the Institute for Advanced Study, USAhttps://doi.org/10.1142/9789812799593_0003Cited by:0 PreviousNext AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsRecommend to Library ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail Abstract: The following sections are included: Introduction: Is Science Rational? A Developmental Justification of the Rationality of Science Implications FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Recommended The Problem of the Unity of ScienceMetrics History PDF download

A view is presented according to which scientific change, including radical change in the most fundamental scientific conceptions, takes place for reasons. In addition to changes in meanings and substantive claims, such change also often involves alterations in standards, goals, and methods of science. Some of the strengths of this view, as contrasted with some major alternative interpretations of science, are sketched. In particular, the view that some ideas, in some theories or traditions, are “incommensurable” with ideas in at least some other scientific theories or traditions is analyzed critically and reinterpreted.

Much current research at the frontiers of particle physics and cosmology deals with problems and theories for which observational or experimental test appears impossible. Theories such as Superstrings, for example, hoping to provide a unified understanding of the gravitational force and the Standard Model of elementary particles and forces, deal with energies on a scale of 1019 GeV, far beyond any imaginable technology by which they might be tested, at least in any direct sense. For this reason, some scientists have alleged that science has reached a stage where the cosmology of the very early universe must take the place of laboratory experiment concerning extremely high-energy physics.

Kitcher attempts to stake out a middle ground between two extremes. On one side, logical empiricism and a broader took it for granted that every scientist is a rational agent, having all available information in mind, and making scientific decisions in terms of those reasons alone, so that science always changes for the right reasons. These mistaken claims missed the extent to which changes in the history of science have not been based on logic; they ignored social and psychological factors as wholly irrelevant to the problems of the analysis of the purely scientific. At the other extreme are those who maintain that everything about science is shaped by social factors, omitting such old-fashioned philosophical virtues as objectivity, realism, and progress. For example, in Kitcher's view, they miss the fact that the inability of a new scientific approach to solve all problems may be only temporary and not permanent indications of underdetermination, the problems being solvable only after considerable further work. By merging the best of both approaches while avoiding the excesses of each-by recognizing that psychological and social factors enter into scientific processes, even though objective considerations can ultimately prevail-Kitcher claims that we can enjoy many oldfashioned philosophical virtues without abandoning important recent insights from sociologicallyand psychologically-minded writers. (127). It is not clear precisely what his middle ground is. He could be seen as maintaining a strong thesis, that, being inextricably involved with psychological and social factors, philosophical issues cannot be separated out and dealt with independently; it is necessary to include psychological and social factors. But on the other hand, he might be taken as advocating a weak thesis, that it is merely advisable to include them: though they can be ignored, we do so at the risk of committing the same sorts of errors as Legend and logical empiricism. On either interpretation-whatever his view of the possibility of considering the philosophy-of-science issues separately-Kitcher clearly rejects the idea that it is necessary to analyze some alleged purely scientific aspects independently of the psychological and social aspects of science and scientific change before proceeding to the inclusion of those aspects.

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Relying on an analysis of the case of gravitational lensing, Hacking argues for a “modest antirealism” in astronomy. It is shown here that neither his scientific arguments nor his philosophical doctrines imply an antirealist conclusion. An alternative, realistic interpretation of gravitational lensing, and of the nature and history of astronomy more generally, is suggested.

Summary The topic of this symposium gives rise to questions like these: How do we come to talk about nature in the way we do in science? In particular, what, precisely, are the relations between the “technical” language of science and the language we use in our everyday talk about the world and its contents? How, if at all, does the language of everyday life influence the language of science? In order to confront them, it is necessary first to clarify the conception of what “science” and “language” are. In the first section of this paper, I will be concerned with the question of what science is; in the second section, I will more briefly discuss what I take language to be, and will offer an interpretation of the relations between language and science. In the third section I will briefly discuss some consequences of the view I have presented for philosophy.

Jarrett Leplin has recently criticized a number of aspects of my views of the aims and goals of science, of the rationale of scientific change, and of the consequent relations between science and the philosophy of science, and in particular of the methodology of the latter (Leplin 1984, 1987, 1988a, 1988b). Here I will respond to those criticisms, and also reply to some related criticisms made by other writers.

The alleged problem of “incommensurability” is examined, and attempts to explain scientific change in terms of concepts of meaning and reference are analyzed and rejected. A way of understanding scientific change through a properly developed concept of “reasons” is presented, and the issues of reasons, meaning, and reference are placed in the context of this broader interpretation of scientific change.

This major work by the German philosopher Hans Blumenberg is a monumental rethinking of the significance of the Copernican revolution for our understanding of modernity. It provides an important corrective to the view of science as an autonomous enterprise and presents a new account of the history of interpretations of the significance of the heavens for man.Hans Blumenberg is Professor of Philosophy, emeritus, at the University of Munster in West Germany. This book is included in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy

The chief objections raised by Doppelt (this issue, “The Philosophical Requirements for an Adequate Conception of Scientific Rationality“) against my views fall into three groups: ones having to do with my concept of “success” (that I have provided no analysis of it, and that therefore my concept of “reason“ in science is likewise unexplained; that it requires appeal to some universal criterion); ones having to do with the role of standards or criteria in science (how they are related to substantive beliefs; the possibility of rejecting them); and ones purporting to show that I have not escaped relativism (underdetermination of beliefs; problem of loss in scientific change). I reply to each of these groups of criticisms in turn, concluding with some remarks on the status and validity of the requirements he lays down for any account of scientific rationality.