PART I - PHI LOSOPHY OF KNOW LEDGE

* *
18 19

outline Immanuel Kant's influential response to Humean scepticism. Chapter 1

Kant carefully crafted a synthesis of empiricism and rationalism, which
aimed to show that knowledge has its origins in a fine-tuned mix of Out of the Cave:
input from reality and the activities of the human mind.
Rationalism and Empiricism in Antiquity
Well, it is just this that I am in doubt about and cannot fully grasp
by my own efforts - what knowledge really is. Can we tell that?
What do you say? Who of us will speak first?
- Socrates in Plato's Theaetetus

I. I INTRODUCTION

What is knowledge? This was the question .that Socrates (470-399 B.c.)
posed to the young Athenian mathematician Theaetetus and with
which he kicked off the long history of the philosophy of science and
the philosophy of knowledge, or epistemology. Today, more than two
millennia after Socrates, the question still appears beyond our grasp,
and the same is true for several related questions: How can we justify
knowledge? What is the ultimate source of knowledge? What is the method by
which we gain knowledge? We will start our investigations by examin-
ing the historical roots of two rival approaches to these sweeping phil-
osophical questions, which have traditionally dominated the debate.
The first of these views is called rationalism, the second empiricism.
Rationalism maintains that true knowledge about reality derives
from the proper use of our reasoning ca acities (intellect, reason or ra-
tio). Rationalists argue that our capacity to think generates ideas and
conce ts which we cannot arrive at by using our sensory ca acities
alone. This position is based on the work of the ancient Greek philoso-
pher Plato, whose ideas on Socrates' guestion will be discussed first in
this chapter. Empiricism, on the other hand, claims that not reason but
sense experience is the ultimate source of knowledge. The senses are reli-
able indicators of what reality is like. The idea that for knowledge one
must rely on empirical facts goes back to Plato's pupil Aristotle. He is
the second philosopher who will figure in this chapter.
Although both Plato and Aristotle were immensely influential in
the Middle Ages, when scholars spent much effort on reconciling the
 PART I - PHILOSOPHY OF KNOW LEDGE I - RATI ON ALISM AND EM PIR ICISM IN ANTI QUI TY

20 21

views of these pagan authorities with Christian theology, the Scientific Meletus son of Meletus of Pitthos has brought and sworn this
Revolution discredited many of their ideas (see chapter 2). However, charge against Socrates son of Sophroniscus of Alopeke: Socra-
as we shall see, rationalism and empiricism lived on in new guises after tes is a wrongdoer in not recognizing the gods which the city
the Scientific Revolution. In chapter 3, we will turn to modern ration- recognizes, and introducing other new divinities. Further, he is a
alism and empiricism which were fuelled by the need to provide the wrongdoer in corrupting the young. Penalty, death.2
new mechanistic sciences with adequate philosophical foundations.
Indeed, a jury of 500 citizens of democratic Athens sentenced Socrates
to death. He was executed by a self-administered drink containing a
I. 2 PLATO'S RATIONALISM solution of the poisonous hemlock plant. Socrates' student, Plato, never
forgave the city of Athens for what he thought was an unjust act against
The first philosopher who is usually classified as a rationalist is Plato his teacher.
(427-347 B.c.), the famous pupil of Socrates. What we know about So- Whereas no works by Socrates
crates, we know mainly through the writings of Plato, most of whose have survived, Plato is known to
philosophical works, such as the Theaetetus cited above, are written as have written about almost every
dialogues featuring Socrates as one of the participants. 1 conceivable philosophical topic. In
Socrates asked his fellow Athenians questions, mainly about what this chapter, we will briefly exam-
it takes to live well. His method was that of dia- ine Plato's metaphysics and episte-
lectic, or cross-examination. In one of his dia- mology. Metaphysics is the branch
logues, Plato has his character Socrates describe of philosophy that asks and tries to

'
this method of 'Q & A' as intellectual midwifery, as answer the pre-eminent philosoph- Jacques-Louis David:
its main objective is to assist others in their phi- ical questions: Why is there something The Death ef Socrates
losophizing by asking questions in order to give rather than nothing? What is the world
birth to true ideas. Socrates often claimed that his made of? The investigation of such questions is also called ontology, after
not knowing was his only certainty, and he asked the Greek to on, the English translation of which is to be.
people questions about the things they claimed Philosophers in ancient Greece were engaged in fierce debates about
to know for sure, in order to get at their presup- what exists and what does not. A central issue was the difference be-
positions and have them rethink their opinions. Socrates tween being and becoming. Traditionally, the philosophers Parmenides of
In these inquiries Socrates examined instances of Elea (circa 5ro-440 B.c.) and Heraclites ofEphese (circa 600-540 B.c.) are
concepts like beauty, justice, courage, love, truth, and knowledge to associated with two opposing views that set the stage for later develop-
determine their essences, their unique identifying properties, shared by ments in antiquity and far beyond.
all instances. (For instance, to know the essence of beauty one needs to Heraclites, who came from Ephesus and 'was known in his time as
find out what all beautiful things have in common.) 'The Obscure,' was convinced that change - or flux as he called it - is
Although Socrates was popular with the youth of Athens, he made at the heart of existence. We can only truthfully claim that nothing is;
enemies with those in power. A young man called Meletus brought in everything becomes. This view is sometimes captured in the form of the
the following indictment against him: aphorism 'panta rei' - everything flows. Unfortunately, not much of

r. This raises the problem that it is not always clear whether Plato is reporting events from Socrates' 2-
life or using Socrates as a way of conveying his own philosophical views. Cited in Taylor, 1998, p. IO.
 PART I - PHILOSOPHY OF KNOW LEDGE
22
Heraclites' work has survived. One of the most famous of the remain-
ing fragments is the one in which he formulates his view that the es-
sence of reality is change: 'You cannot step twice into the same river;
for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you.'3 The water that filled
the river yesterday is now part of the sea. The same goes for the person
stepping into the river: everyone continuously changes a little bit so
that you are not exactly the same as you were yesterday. Such changes
are magnified if you look at a picture of yourself from your childhood.
You will say that it is a picture of you, but you do not resemble that per-
son now you have grown up. You have changed. Eventually, this is the
case for everything that exists. Hence, Heraclites argues that nothing
is, everything changes. Due to the ever-changing nature of appearances,
most people are not able to attain knowledge. They are like sleepwalk-
ers, Heraclites said. Only those few people who are capable of grasping
the hidden and fundamental law, or Logos, behind appearances can be
said to arrive at knowledge.
Parmenides, who was probably a physician from Elea (South Italy),
had very different ideas. 'Our Father Parmenides,' as Plato referred to
him, argued in his poem On Nature against the view championed by
Heraclites and other contemporaries that change is the essence of real-
ity. For Parmenides, it is their senses that mislead human beings into
thinking that things are changing all the time. For instance, the water
that feels hot to me is lukewarm for you; the wall in front of me now
appears white, but in an hour or so, when the sun sets, it will be glow-
ing violet; the table appears to me as a different shape than it appears
to my companion standing three yards away from me; the tree that
was chopped to pieces yesterday seems to have ceased to exist. Look-
ing at all this ebbing and flowing, we may be inclined to believe that
reality is changing all the time, but appearances are deceptive. Some-
thing cannot come from, or dissolve into, nothing. The matter of the
tree mulched yesterday is still there even though it now appears in an
entirely different configuration. Underlying all the change and move-
ment that we pick up with our senses, there is a permanent and un-
changing reality (e.g. my friend and I are looking at what is really the
same table; my wall will be the same in an hour's time as it is now, al-
3. Cited in Fuller, 193r/r968,p. 124.
I - RATIO NALISM AND EMPIRICISM IN ANTIQUITY
23
though it has changed colours). This reality is indivisible, immutable
and imperishable. Nothing ever really changes: if something changes,
it no longer is. Ultimately, everything is, nothing becomes. Real existence
means to be without change. Hence, knowledge pertains to a hidden or-
der beyond the transient appearances. As the senses are deeply mislead-
ing guides to reality, we must rely on reason to discover the unchang-
ing truths about eternal reality.
The debate between Parrnenides and Heraclites is a metaphysical (or
ontological) discussion about the distinction between appearance and
reality. What is real and what is merely apparent? To simplify the issue
a bit, we may say that for Parrnenides being is real, and change is not,
whereas for Heraclites it is the other way around: change is real, and
being is not. These metaphysical issues are directly related to epistemo-
logical issues - that is, issues having to do with our Socratic question,
what is knowledge?
Both Parmenides and Heraclites were held in high esteem by Plato.
Their thoughts provided the backdrop against which his philosophy
can be understood. Plato is reported to have been acquainted with
Cratylus, one of Heraclites' followers who affirmed his teacher's view
that reality is always in transition. ( Cratylus even outdid his master
by arguing that one cannot even step in the same river once. Because
he considered communication impossible, Cratylus abandoned speech
and restricted himself to pointing.) Plato actually endorsed the claim
defended by Heraclites and Cratylus that the world of the senses is in
perpetual flux: everything flows 'like leaky pots' or like people with
the common cold whose noses are 'flowing and running all the time.'4
Let us now consider what happens when we understand knowledge
to be perception, as empiricists are inclined to do. For instance, someone
may assert that he knows that the table is white because he saw that the ta-
ble is white. Plato argued that if we thus equate knowledge with percep-
tion, the allegedly fluctuating nature of the perceptual world has devas-
tating implications, because it will easily breed scepticism with respect to
knowledge: genuine knowledge will in that case be rendered downright
impossible. With the perceived world in constant flux, our perceptions,
and hence our knowledge, will vary from moment to moment, from
4- Plato, 19776, 440 C, p. 191.
 I - RATIONALISM AND EMPIRICISM IN ANTIQUITY
PART I - PHILOSOPHY OF KNOW LEDGE

24
old. Therefore, knowledge is not per~eption because, argues Plato's
person to person. Knowledge becomes relative to the observer and h'IS
. c this definition sends you straight down a slippery slope to-
own pe~cep_t1ons a,nd beliefs. Things are as they appear to me: 'to me my socrates, b b d
d a relativism in which you and I (and the pig and the a oon an
perception 1s true 5 ( and for you your perceptions will be true). 'Man ·is
,war s ger creatures) all have their own stock of truths. What this
the meas.ure of all thin~s' (homo mensura), in the words of 'the great phi- ven stran h .d f
e then is that for knowledge we cannot appeal to t e evi ence o
losopher Protagoras (circa 490-420 B.c.), one of the Sophists. Protagoras shoWS, ' 1 l'
tion given the perpetual flux of natura rea ity.
had claimed, in Plato's words, that 'individual things are for me such as observa , ·d h ·
In fact, Plato sided to a great extent with _Parmern es on t e ~ue
they ~ppe~r to me, and for you in turn as they appear to you." In support
of this claim ( and through the words of Socrates in the dialogue) Plato of what is real and what not, bec~us~ m ~is \ 1
· w being is perfect, which for him implies \
considers several arguments. Socrates asks, 'Is it not true that sometimes vie b 1· d
when the same wind blows, one of us feels cold, and the other does not; that it has to be unchangeable. Plato e reve
that the real world cannot be the ever-chang- z
Or one feels slightly and the other exceedingly cold?'7 The same wine 0
ing world of appearances, but a supernatural
can taste sweet to one observer and bitter to another. Protagoras' homo
lrn which contains the eternal and perfect
mensura doctrine implied 'that opinion is true to each person which he rea .h
. Forms (also called Ideas, usually written wit a
acqmres t h r_oug h sensation.
. •8 In that case, no one can ever be wrong

about anything. If we follow Heraclites and Protagoras, the bottom line capital I) of almost everything. To u_nderstand
. ask yourself the following question: What
is that truth is in the eye of the beholder. But this is plainly absurd, as it t h~, .
is a triangle? We all know what a triangle is
precludes the possibility of investigation and criticism of opinions: Plato
even though we have never actually seen one.
A triangle drawn on a blackboard, being far .
[W]ould not the investigation of one another's fancies and opin-
from perfect, will not be a real triangle b~t a mere ~eflect10n of the per-
ions, and the attempt to refute them, when each man must be
fect triangle. Even those triangles found m your high sc~ool geometry
right, be tedious and blatant folly, if the Truth of Protagoras is
book are not ideal triangles. The triangles that are the objects of geom-
true and he was not jesting when he uttered his oracles from the
etry also enjoy a timeless existence, unlike the one o~ the bla~kboard
shrine ofhis book??
which will be gone with a wipe of your hand. As triangles i~ chalk
or ink are imperfect representations of the real essence _of a tnangle,
Why should we not proceed to defend the claim, asks Plato's Socrates,
knowledge about triangles refers not to such natural ob~ects a~ found
that 'a pig or a dog-faced baboon or some still stranger creature of
on drawing boards and in textbooks, but to so-called universals 1~ a su-
those that have sensations is the measure of all things.'!" For Plato this
pernatural (and supersensory) realm. Similar to the case of the triangle,
Protagorean relativity of truth and knowledge was an unacceptable
the tables in our homes, schools and restaurants are all sha~ows of the
conclusion: Truth and knowledge (epistèmè) are about how things re-
Form Table. One's knowledge concerning tables is about this Form and
ally are, not about how they are for me or for you. If your definition of
not about its less-than-perfect manifestations. .
knowledge (as perception) forces you to assert that the wind is both hot st
Plato explained his metaphysics using an allegory of ?uman exi ~nce
and cold at the same time then so much the worse for your definition. It
- the famous allegory of the cave. r1 Imagine prisoners m a cave cha1~ed
may feel hot to me and cold to you, but the wind itself is either hot or
with their hands and necks so that their gaze is fixed on a wall. Behmd
5. Plato, 1977d, 160, p. 73.
· f bl · B tween the prisoners and the
6. Ibidem, 151, p. 41.
the prisoners there 1s a great ire azmg. e
7. Ibidem, 151, p. 41.
8. Ibidem,161,p.77.
9. Ibidem, r6r, pp. 78-79.
ro. Ib1dem,r6r,p.77. II. Plato, 1977c, VII, pp. n9- 129.

PART I - PHILOSOPHY OF KNOWLEDGE
26
fire is a low raised walkway along which people are passing by, holdin
up statues and figures
. of animals so that the fire casts flickering s h a dg_
h on t h e wa 11
ows - m front of the prisoners. You may compare the scenes
t ey are watching to a wajang puppet show, where one does not see th
puppet but only its shad- e us into co
ow. The prisoners have
never been out of the cave
and have therefore never
seen anything but these
projections on the cave
wall. Importantly, then,
the prisoners will mistake
the shadows passing be-
fore their eyes for real ob-
jects. When a prisoner is
released from his chains, Plato's Cave
he will first be dazzled by
the fire. It will take quite some time to convince him that the figures he
sees are more real than the shadows to which he was accustomed Wh
he is. brought out of the cave, he will at first be blinded by the sunlight.
It ~ill only be ~fter some time that this man sees the real objects (e.g.,
ammals) of which the statues, and their shadows on the cavern wall h
r
now rea izes, were inferior copies. He will have finally grasped reality
e '
when he l~ys eyes on the sun, whose light reveals all objects.
Ac~ordmg to Plato, human beings contenting themselves with ob-
~erva~io~s of th~ ~orld as it appears to them by sensory experience are
m_ a s1mil~r position to the prisoners: they mistake appearance for re-
ality. Their souls are imprisoned in their bodies and they think that
whatever they perceive with their sense organs must be the real world.
However, we must learn to 'see' behind the appearances into the world
of Forms, of which perception only allows shadowy glimpses. The uni-
versal Forms are the ultimate realities that ground true knowledge.
When [the soul] is firmly fixed on the domain where truth and real-
ity shine resplendent it apprehends and knows them and appears to
possess reason, but when it inclines to that region which is min-
gled with darkness, the world of becoming and passing away, it opines
I - RATIONALISM AND EMPIJUCJSM IN ANTIQUITY
27
onlY and its edge is blunted, and it shifts its opinions hither and
2
thither, and again seems as if it lacked reason. '
- · 1 investigation is inadequate for knowledge as it only brings
Ernp1nca . . . ,
. ntact with a reality that 1s 111 constant Herachtean flux, the
. ' . .
world of becoming and passing away. The fact.s we perceive are w.'1dly
. d continuously changmg, with varymg perspective or light-
diverse an .
. d·t · ons for instance. Hence, the operat10n of the senses results
ng con 1 1 ,
1. . belief (doxa) not knowledge (epistèmè). True knowledge can
1
n rnere . .
only be obtained by going, li,ke the released prisoner, behi nd the wodd
of sensible appearances into the domain where truth and re~hty shine
resplendent.' Again, true knowledge requires the apprehension of the
eternal Forms. '
Obviously, because the Forms belong to a supernatural world we
cannot perceive them by using our bodily senses. But we c~n, accord-
ing to Plato, gain knowledge about this transcendental reaht~ through
our capacity for reasoning. For Plato, human ~eason ~onst~tutes the
source of knowledge, which obviously makes him a rationalist. In ad-
dition, Plato subscribes to na tivism, the doctrine ( closely associated with
rationalism) that human beings posse~s innate (or inborn) ideas (see also
chapter 3). Innate ideas are knowledge states that we already possess at
birth. This means that insofar as we have such ideas, we do not have to
rely on our senses for knowledge.
Plato even went so far as to say that we are all born possessing all
knowledge. Unfortunately, this knowledge was all lost at birth, but we
are able to remember it all, if we only use our reason correctly. At first
blush, this may seem plainly false: we constantly learn new things; we
gain new knowledge every day. Not so, according to Plato. He claimed
that to learn is to remember, so that there is no such thing as new
knowledge. To understand this, Plato's theory about reincarnation be-
comes relevant. The immortal soul belongs t9 the World of Forms,
where it has seen them all, but we forgot about them when our souls
were born into our bodies. Fortunately, the Forms are still accessible
through our reason. If we reason well, we can remember the Forms we
saw before birth and thereby come to know the real world.
12. Plato, 1977c, vr, 508d, p. 102; italics added.
 ----
PART I - PHILOSOPHY OF KNOW LEDGE I _ RATIONALISM AND EMPIRICISM IN ANTIQUITY

28
29

In his dialogue Meno, Plato explains how knowledge possessed · t the slave will use his reason properly, thereby remember-
, . . in help sot h a f
t h e sou 1 s previous existence in the World of Forms can be recollected . he did not remember before. Socrates draws a square o two
· g things
In this particular dialogue, three people are conversing: Socrates, de~ in .c: t ·n the sand (see figure I.I, ABCD). He then asks the slave
by two ree i
fending Plato's theory, Meno and Meno's slave. The slave is poorly edu- the sides of another square need to be - compared to the one
how 1 ong . .
cated, and knows little about geometry. Socrates intends to show Meno in the sand - to have a surface that doubles the size of this one.
t~at the slave could remember mathematical knowledge of which he drawn ·
boy initially gives the wrong answer saymg · t h e s1·d es w1·11
1
The save- .
hitherto ha~ at best a dim ~wareness, ifhe would only reason properly. four feet. This would render a square quadruple in surface.
h~ero b e .
The following fragment mcely summarizes Plato's views about learn- does see this when Socrates draws this square (AEGI). Now
1
The save ' .
ing-by-recollection (anamnèsis): · big square consisting of four squares, each with the same sur-
there 1s a ' .
the initial square. Socrates draws the diagonals of these four
face area as . . .
Seeing then that the soul is immortal and has been born many resulting in a tilted square inside the big one (DBFH). The
squares, . .
times, and has beheld all things both in this world and in the slave then sees that the fqur triangles that make up this tilted square are
nether realms, she has acquired knowledge of all and everything; twice the size of the original square that consists of two triangles.
so that it is no wonder that she should be able to recollect all that Thus, according to Socrates, the slave has figured out - allegedly
she knew before about virtue and other things. For as all nature is b himself and using only his reason - that the sides of the new square
akin, and the soul has learned all things, there is no reason why we
y 1 ..
need to be as long as the diagonal of the origina square. However, 1t 1s
should not, by remembering but one single thing - an act which abundantly clear that Socrates is leading the slave as he elicits assent to
men call learning - discover everything else, if we have courage this geometrical truth. The slave does not figure things out himself. All
and faint not in the search; since, it would seem, research and he does is agree with Socrates by saying things like 'sure,' 'yes Socrates,'
learning are wholly recollection. r3 and 'I don't know.'

Meno calls the slave to assist Socrates in his demonstration of the the- soc. The professors call it the diagonal: so if the diagonal is its
ory that to learn is actually to remember. Socrates will provide a little name, then according to you, Meno 's boy, the double space is the
square of the diagonal.
H G BOY.Yes, certainly it is, Socrates.
soc.What do you think, Meno?Was there any opinion that he did
not give as an answer of his own thought?
MEN. No, they were all his own.[ ... ]
soc.Without anyone having taught him, and only through ques-
F tions put to him, he will understand, recovering the knowledge
out of himself?
MEN.Yes.
soc. And is not this recovery of knowledge, in himself and by
himself, recollection?
B E MEN. Certainly. r4
Fig. 1.1

13. Plato, 1977a, p. 303, 81 c/ d. 14- Plato, 1977a, p. 319, 85 b/d.

 PART I - PHILOSOPHY OF KNOWLEDGE
I _ RATIONALISM AND EMPIRICISM IN ANTIQUITY

30 31
Meno, then, is convinced that the slave-boy remembered all this just by . . ommunion with the phenomena of nature are better
e inurnate c .
using his intellect. He agrees with Plato's theory that to learn is actually a rnor d such principles as can be connected together and cov-
to be reminded of what one knew in prenatal existence. We already bl to lay own
a e .d f Id: those on the other hand, who
unconsciously possess this knowledge, because our souls have seen the a w1 e ie ' , . . .
er . g discussions without takmg the
essences of things when they dwelled in the World of Forms. If we use . dulge in 1 on
in . ount are more easily detected as
our reasoning capacities properly, we can recover from our condition c.1,acts into ace . 'IS
narrow views.
of oblivion and remember and hence know the eternal Forms. Thus, men°. f · · 1 re-
onducted his own emp1nca
Anstot 1 e c . .
through its capacity to uncover prenatal knowledge, pure thought al- . longest work is the History of Am-
lows privileged access to the truth. In the next section, we will see that searc h . H is . . .
. t ·a means inquiry m Greek), which
Aristotle, being an empiricist, does not agree with Plato's rationalistic mals (his on . .
.
is a cornpi1 a
- tion of observati9ns. on ammals.
diagnosis of the unreliability of sensory experience and the exclusive · he argued had to be m accordance
The ones, '
emphasis on intellectual activity as a means of attaining knowledge. . h h -n-omena ' appearances, (which include
wit tap a 1 .
Just as rationalism can be traced to Plato, the origins of the competing Aristotle
not on 1yo bservations but also common beliefs,
view - empiricism - can be discovered in the work of Aristotle. 'the many and the wise'). The em-
s h are d by . .
· · 1
pinca a a he gathered were also used to correct widely shared preJU-
d t
dices, as the following extract suggests:
I. 3 ARISTOTLE'S EMPIRICISM

The semen of hairy animals is sticky, but that of others is not. In

Empiricists provide a different answer than do rationalists to questions
like: What is the ultimate source of knowledge? Or: How do we gain knowledge?
The empiricists argue that the source of knowledge is not reason but
sensory experience. The term empiricism derives from the Greek empeiria,
which is translated into Latin as experientia, from which our word experi-
ence derives. Empiüe:ists~cJatm that our senses bring as into immediate
..... - . . .. .·k - ..... ~
contact with th world. The experiences we have when we explore the
world must therefore constitute the foundation of knowledge.
Aristotle committed his thoughts on a wide variety of topics to pa-
per - or, rather, to papyrus. Subjects he addressed included physics,
metaphysics, astronomy, biology, zoology, logic, politics, ethics, anat-
omy, economics, and meteorology. This explains why the Italian poet
Dante called him il maestro di color che sanno, 'the master of those who
know.' Whereas Plato never refrained from warning his readers from
having excessive confidence in the senses, his student Aristotle seemed
to disagree completely. He was (by and large) an earth-bound empiri-
cist, as his achievements in the various empirical sciences suggest. For
scientific progress to be made possible, we must leave abstract theoriz-
ing and turn to the empirical facts of nature: 'those who have lived in
all animals it is white. Herodotus is mistaken when he writes that
the Ethiopians emit black semen. 16
Aristotle's metaphysics is this-worldly rather than other-worldly. He
dismissed Plato's view that there are two worlds, viz. the supersensory
world of the Forms and the natural world in which we live. For Aris-
totle, there is only one world and that is the natural world we inhab-
it. Universals do not transcend this world of sense experience, as was
the case in Plato's thought. Instead, they are incorporated into natural
objects like ramshackle chairs and misshapen triangles. Essences are
part of the natural world and hence accessible, not by pure intellectual
thought, but by empirical inquiry. All knowledge comes ultimately
from observing nature. The medieval catholic philosopher Thomas
Aquinas (1225-1274) who called Aristotle the Philosopher, derived from
the works of Aristotle what became known as the Peripatetic Axiom:
'Nothing is in the intellect which was not first found in the senses' (Ni-
hil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu).
15. Aristotle, 1978a, r, ii, pp. 175-177.
r6. Ar1~totle, 1965, m, xxi i; 52p, pp. 234-235.
 PART I - PHILOSOPHY OF KNOW LEDGE
NALISM AND EMPIRICISM IN ANTIQUITY
I - RATl O
32
33

· derive from the reception of sensible forms in per-

1· mpress1ons . . . .
These
. ~~eyunn for Aristotle was in a quite literal sense
.
...in-formation,
cepnon. . i·on of forms by the sensory capacrties m the wax
. lly the impress
bas1ca .
tablet of the mmd:

t all perception, we can say that a sense is what

Genera ll y, a b ou . . . .
of receiving mto itself the sensible forms of things
has the power . . .
.
without t h e m atter' in the way m which a piece of wax takes on
·
the impress ofa signet-ring without the iron or the gold. 19

. · t iangle results in the form of the triangle, but not the

Perce1vmg a r . .
chalk, entering the mind of the observer. Thus, the observer is m-
·
formed by the triangle. _
·
Anstot 1 es' empiricist doctrine that all knowledge. denves
. from sen-
· r ation has important implications for scientific methodology.
sory intorrn . . . . . .
Raphael, School of Athens
His views on the methods of science are set out m detail m his six logical
. ·
·
treatises w hich are assembled as the Organon ( or 'Instrument').
. , Science
Aristotle challenged the rationalist (and Platonic) thesis of innate
consisted for Aristotle in the discovery of the causes of objects: we only
ideas that can be recollected by anamnèsis. Hence there can be no such
have knowledge of a thing when we know its cause.?" We have knowl-
a thing as inborn knowledge; all knowledge stems from sense experi-
edge (epistèmè) when we are able to provide a causa_l explanatio~.
ence. Contrary to the rationalists' nativism, empiricists claim that we
Furnishing a causal explanation involves reasoning from basic theo-
are born with no knowledge at all. They have referred to this state of
retical principles to particular cases. To give an example: How can we
newborn babies with several analogies: the 17th century empiricist John
explain Socrates' mortality? To do so, Aristotle argued, we ~ust con-
Locke compared a newly born mind with a white sheet of paper with
strue a so-called syllogism, a deductive argument. Our syllogism reads
nothing written on it (see chapter 3). An older version of this analogy
as follows:
is the tabula rasa. In ancient times, people wrote on tablets of wax. At
birth, our minds are like clean tablets ready to receive inscriptions from
(a) All human beings are mortal
natural objects. This analogy of the-mind-as-a-wax-tablet can be traced
(b) Socrates is a human being
back to the work of Aristotle. 17 According to Aristotle, the mind is like (c) Hence, Socrates is mortal
a tabula rasa, a blank slate, before it receives impressions from reality:
Here we have the basic structure of the syllogism in which (a) and (b) are
What it [thought, nous] thinks must be in it just as characters may the premises and (c) the conclusion. In a scientific deduction, we move
be said to be on a writing-table on which as yet nothing actually from an unrestrictedly true law (e.g. about the mortality of all human
stands written: this is exactly what happens with thought. 18
beings) to a particular case (in our example the mortality of Socrates).
17. This analogy can also be found i_n Plato's Theaetetus (194c-r95a), in which he discusses how false Given the universal validity of the premises in the argument, the con-
Judgements are possible. Plato evidently does not use the analogy to argue that when we are born
we are like blank slates.
18. Aristotle, 1984, m, iv, 429b31-43oa2, p. 683. 19. Aristotle, 1984, n, xii, 424a 17-20, p. 674.
20. Aristotle, 1~60, 71 b, p. 3 r.
 PART I - PHILOSOPHY OF KNOWLEDGE NALISM AND EMPIRICISM IN ANTIQUITY
I - RATl O
35
34

clusion can be drawn with absolute certainty. When this condi·t-ion is . sory observation such as, in our example, the fact
_ . ed from sen
not fulfilled, that is, when the basic premise is not certain it rem · facts der!V rnber of people have passed away (you may check
. ' ains norrnous nu . .
possible to construe a syllogism, but it will only produce personal ·
that an e ) These people were evidently all m possession
. O pin- local cemetery .
ion (_doxa) not tr~e knowle_dge (epistèmè). In that case, we are operating at your f ortality. Are we now allowed to proceed to the
roperty o m .
outside the territory of science, because scientific arguments require oft h e P h all human beings are mortal? As Aristotle clearly
· rsal law t at f· d ·
the truth and certainty of the first principles. unive (H e we anticipate the famous problem o in uction
e are not. er
The principles on which scientific (demonstrative) knowledge rests aw, w ing up throughout this book.) As one commenta-
t will keep poppi k · b 1 1
must, according to Aristotle, be causative, immediate, and true.21 The uni- th a . , ll h meteries in the world cannot ma e 1t a so ute y
ts 1t: A t e ce .
versal principles on which scientific explanations rest cannot them- tor pu h ay not be hidden in some unexplored African or
certain · that t ere m d · •25
selves be proved by making them the conclusion of another syllogistic . · ungle men who do not 1e.
Amazonian J large our collection o f o b servatrons
. , 1t. w1· 11 a 1 ways
argument (they are 'immediate' in the sense of indemonstrable). How No matter h ow . . .
in that case, can their truth be guaranteed? ' eeing the truth and certamty of the first principles.
fall hort o f guara nt
Aristotle dismissed Plato's argument that these principles are known .d .c · stance that most probably, all the people you have ever
Cons1 er ior in ' , . . . . .
to be true because we can recollect them through anamnèsis. Upon d two ears. Still, you will not be willing to say that 1t is nee-
met have h a , - · h
entering the world, our minds are like blank slates and hence we rely . th t people have two ears. A moments reflection will s ow
essan 1 y true a
on sensory perception for knowledge. Science should likewise turn to that the following syllogism does not hold:
the empirical phenomena for guidance: 'to convey to us the principles
connected with each particular science is the task of experience.'22 To (a) All human beings have two ears
establish the basic explanatory principles, then, we must reverse direc- (b) Socrates is a human being
tion, not moving from the general to the particular (as in demonstra- (c) Hence, Socrates has two ears
tion) but from the particular to the general:
For all we know, Socrates may have had or, in any case, could have had
Now the things most obvious and immediately cognizable by only one ear, whereas he could not have been immortal. Hence, merely
us are concrete and particular, rather than abstract and general; gathering empirical data will not be sufficient to establish the truth of
whereas elements and principles are only accessible to us after- a principle: the number of people who you have observed to be mortal
wards, as derived from the concrete data when we have analysed is actually much smaller than the number of people that you have ob-
them.23 served to possess two ears, and yet you will assent to 'All human beings
are mortal' but not to 'All human beings have two ears.'
Aristotle called the empirical procedure by which we move from the The universal validity of the first scientific principles does not fol-
concrete to the abstract induction ( or epagogè in Greek): 'Clearly [ ... ] it low from the observations we collect, no matter how large our collec-
must be by induction that we acquire knowledge of the primary prem- tion. As the generalizations obtained by induction do not reveal neces-
issea?" sary truths (and the causes operative in reality)', the inductive method
Induction involves an advance from the observation of particular of data collection can only be understood as a first - albeit important
- step. Aristotle therefore goes on to argue that 'it must be intuition
phenomena to universal laws. Universal principles are obtained from
that apprehends the first principles.'26 The truth of the universal causal
2r. Aristotle, 1960, 71b16-20, p. 31.
22. Aristotle, 1978b, 1, xxx , p. 357. 25. Fuller, 1931/1968, I'· 182.
23. Aristotle, 1970, I, i, p. r r , 26. Aristotle, 1960, roób, p. 261.
24. Aristotle, 1960, roob, p. 261.
 ND EMPIRICISM IN ANTIQUITY
PART I - PHI LOSOPHY OF KNOW LEDGE ATIONALISM A
1-B --------------- 37

. hence to have knowledge of some-

principles is apprehended by a special and infallible intellectual capacity . fsomethmg, . .
n e::x:planauon o d f these four causes. After the Sc1ent16ic
called nous. Such intuitive induction ( or insight) by the mind (nous) guar- have a knowle ge o 1 d ei
. ng is to have . 1 's efficient cause is accepted as a rea an s -
antees the truth of the empirically acquired correlations. Although the th1 1 Anstot e h A . t
olution, on y These considerations suggest t at ns o-
observations by themselves can only establish that all humans observed Re V mg cause. f h
.tl fically interest! ... t relying exclusively on the output o t e
who have thus far died are mortal, it is our intellect that produces the en d. 1 mp1ne1s' d b .
is not a ra ica e iff t types of causes cannot be one y usmg
insight that humans are necessarily mortal (not only those who have al- t1 e . he d1 teren · h
Grasping t . ld one be able to perceive t e
ready passed away, but all generations yet to come). senses. . h w for instance, wou . . 1
h e senses alone. o , . . 1·s also important in science. As Anstot e
In the light of his rejection of the World of Forms, his merits as an t · al activity ,z Th h
c.1nal cause? Ration . if knowledge involves reason. 7 us, t ere
empirical scientist, and his defence of the peripatetic axiom and induc- 1i . , 11 se1ent1 1c . · 1 , ·d
tive methodology, it is not surprising that Aristotle is usually portrayed h.unself puts it, ae common groun d with rationalism m Ans tot es 1 eas
to be mor
as one of the first empiricists. However, classifying Aristotle as an em- seems . . . tially think. b
than one might_ "" that although Aristotle argues that we mu~t ase
piricist is also somewhat controversial, for a number of reasons. A related point is . . lso true to say that his theories are
As we have just seen, induction as Aristotle understands it is not . bserved facts, it is a M
our theories on o 1· .t d and superficial data sets. oreo-
exclusively observational. The definitive establishment of theoretical ly very 1m1 e 1
mostly based on on . t pokesman of the Scientific Revo u-
principles depends ultimately on a direct and intuitive grasp of the in- . B on an emrnen s 1 db
ver, as Francis ac '. A . rotle seems to have often been e y
tellect. It is nous, and not the sensory powers, which is able to detect . k to pomt out, ns . .d
tion, was quic . d prej udices (his phainomena, as we sai
with absolute certainty the essential causal properties of objects. This is . d assumptions an .
unquesuone . . f levant authorities). For instance,
closely related to Aristotle's doctrine of four causes. As we said above, . 1 d d the opinions o re ' .
above, also me t1 e . b. 1 of the female ( described as as it
Aristotle argued that we only have scientific knowledge of an object 1 imed that his io ogy lh
some have c a ' d .b d a softer temperament, less hea t ,
if we have grasped its cause. Scientific demonstrations must be causa- 1 d male an ascn e b
were a mutl ate . . 1 erhaps fewer teeth) was infected y
tive. This makes the notion of causality crucial to Aristotle's theory of less spirit, and most surpnsmg y p ,
. . 1 b. f male dominance.
knowledge. However, we should not confuse Aristotle's conception an 1deolog1ca ras o . 1 t k empeiria to be the primary source
of causation with the conception of causation that arose with the Sci- 1 d that Anstot e oo
Let us cone u ~ that he can therefore justifiably be seen as the found-
entific Revolution (see chapter 2). Aristotle argued that there are four ~fknowledge, an_ . . Still man epistemological issues needed to_ be
types of cause. The four causes Aristotle distinguished are mg father of empmc1sm.. , . yl £: lt after the Scientific Revolut10n
(r) the formal cause, 1 d Th· need was increasing Y 1e .
reso ve . is . h . d rable extent developed m
6th and rih century, whic to a consi e .
(2) the material cause, o f th e 1 . h1 h of Aristotle.
(3) the efficient cause, and opposition to both the science and the p -i osop y
(4) the final cause.
These different types of cause can be explained by looking at an exam-
ple, the making of a marble statue of Apollo. The statue has a certain
shape; it is not just a piece of marble. The Apollo-shape is the formal
cause. The marble offers the material cause. The efficient cause is the
primary source of change or its absence (stasis): the sculptor, in the
case of a statue. The last cause is the final cause, the goal for the sake
of which something is done. In this case, the end or goal of the statue
27. Aristotle, 1960, mob, p. 261.
might be aesthetic or it might be devotional. According to Aristotle, to
 PART I - PHILOSOPHY OF KNOW LEDGE
SUMMARY
Since ancient times, there have been two conflicting approaches to
Socrates' question, what is knowledge? The first position is rational-
ism, which claims that to gain true knowledge we have to rely on our
reasoning capacities. Rationalism typically subscribes to nativism, the
claim that there are inborn ideas. This view can b~ traced to Plato. Pla-
to held that knowledge is about unobservable essences ( or Forms) in a
supernatural reality. This knowledge is innate and can be recollected.
These rationalist views were dismissed by the empiricist Aristotle, who
argued that essences can be empirically accessed. Scientific knowledge
depends ultimately on induction. Both Aristotle's analysis of induction
and his doctrine of the four causes reveal rationalistic influences.
NEXT CHAPTER
During the 16th and 1ih centuries Aristotelian science and philosophy
were questioned on a global scale. The earth-centred view of the uni-
verse, as first discussed by Aristotle and later elaborated by Ptolemy,
had been dominant in the Middle Ages. However, the Copernican
Revolution in astronomy showed that geocentrism had to be replaced
by heliocentrism. Galileo's many empirical discoveries were largely at
odds with the antique/medieval worldview. The Scientific Revolution
culminates in the work of Isaac Newton. Universal mechanics and
mathematics were seen as essential characteristics of the new sciences.
Aristotle's doctrine of the four causes (in particular the idea of final
causes and teleological explanation) was thus rendered obsolete. An-
other characteristic is the emphasis in the new sciences on an empirical
methodology. In the philosophy of science, Francis Bacon's inductiv-
ism replaced Aristotle's methodology.
41
Chapter 2
Beyond the Pillars of Hercules:
A N ew (Philosophy of) Science
2. I INTRODUCTION
In the early 17th century a philosophical essay was published by Francis
Bacon, aptly titled The Novum Organum (New Method). It was intended
to replace Aristotle's Organon (Greek for 'tool' or 'instrument'), an im-
mensely influential medieval compilation of
Aristotle's writings on logic and science.
The Novum Organum is the second part of a
larger work called Instauratio Magna (The Great
Instauration, 1620). The lnstauratio contains an
illuminating engraved frontispiece which de-
picts a ship sailing through the columns of
Hercules, which tradition located at the Straits
of Gibraltar. According to mythology, Hercu-
les had inscribed on the pillars 'Ne plus ultra'
('nothing beyond'). The pillars metaphorical-
ly marked the end of the known world and the
limits of what can be known. Bacon, how- Frontispiece
ver, ca e up with a .iotto of his own: 'Plus Instauratio Magna
ultra.' Not only were new horizons discov-
ered in this Age of Exploration, but also science would now go far
beyond th itations of ancient and medieval scholarship. (Beneath
the ship there is a Latin motto, based on Daniel 12:4 in the Vulgate,
reading: 'Many shall pass through and learning shall be increased.')
In the Novum Organum, Ba on intended to pro · de a new compass
that would guide th ship of s · n to ne nd unsuspected discover-
 PART I - PHILOSOPHY OF KNOWLEDGE _ANEW (PHI LOSOPHY OF) SCIENCE
2

42 43

.k lestial entities; between earth and moon, things

·rcles h e ce .
erfect Cl . . in the direction of their natural place and then
P . straight 1mes
rnove in
to a halt. c: 1 · ·
come . . h blunar world is made up of tour e ements m van-
thing mt e su
Every . . th air fire, and water. All of these elements have
binauons. ear ' '
ous com Heav obiects, composed of earth and water, fall down.
tural place. y J d .
a na ce is in the centre of the worl .
heir natura 1 p1a .
T hand is light and therefore its
. on th e ot her '
Fire, · t the outer edge of the sublunar
natural p1 ace is a . f
he.heavenly bodies are composed o
sphere. T . · )
. erfect element (qumta essentta : a
a fifth, again P .
. . ible glass-like substance.
pure, mv1s1 , , .
. , geocentric earth-centred view
Anstot 1 es '
. se was confirmed and elaborat-
of the umver
2.2 THE ARISTOTELIAN-MEDIEVAL WORLDVIEW db Ptolemy (aka Claudius Ptolemaeus, ca.
e y . . d
a mathematician an astronomer
100-I70 AD) ' .
. ·n Alexandria (Egypt). His Almagest Ptolemy
workmg 1
summed up the findings of antique astronomy
it as an elegant mathematical model of the solar system.
an d pac k age d . . .
In his system, as in Aristotle's, the Earth sits motionless m the ~entre
of the universe with all the planets circling around 1t. To explam t~e
According to Aristotle, the cosmos was thought to be composed of motions of the planets, Ptolemy argued that they travel in smaller cu-
concentric, crystalline spheres to which the planets and stars were at- des (epicycles) in their larger orbit around the Earth. During the Middle
tached. The earth was heavy and immobile, and was located at the cen- Ages, Aristotelian cosmology
tre of the universe. This Aristotelian cosmos comprised two essentially and Ptolemaic astronomy were
distinct realms: the domain from the moon outward, i.e. the superlu- woven tightly into Christian
nary, or celestial region, and the domain between earth and moon, i.e. theology by St. Thomas Aqui-
the .sublunary, terrestrial realm. The things found in these two realms, nas (1225-1274) in particular, to
and the ways in which they behave, are correspondingly different. form a comprehensive view of
In the realm of the heavens, everything is eternal and perfect. For the universe. This view would
instance, superlunary objects are imperishable and they move in per- dominate thought until the
fect, uniform circles. This is in marked contrast to the worldly domain 16th century.
of corruptible, perishable objects. These objects are subject to change Copernicus (1473-1543) was
and decomposition; they are elements that come into being, exist for a the first to radically undermine
while and then die or decay. Such earthly objects also do not move in theearth-centred and human-
centred view of the cosmos,
I. Bacon, 1620/r962a, p. 8. Geocentrism
2. Voltaire, 1733, cited m Kramnick, 1995, p. 53. with The Revolution of the Heav-
 - A NEW (PHILOSOPHY OF) SCIENCE
PART I - PHILOSOPHY OF KNOW LEDGE 2 45

44
ver the standard view is that Copernicus did not see
enly Spheres (De Revolutionibus Orbium Ca l t· this pre £a ce ' ho-we re mathematical
' . that as early as 1539,
tool. The fact IS
that he received his printed copy on his de:t~~;;,:54~)- Legend has it
his t eo ry as a rnernmented that 'the fool will turn the whole scrence
. of
h
l£rcation for over thirty years for .c1ear o f an un- , avmg delayed pub - . Luther .d
tv1-art1n co down :But as Holy Writ declares, it was the sun and
4
avourable response. In this book he attacked astronorny upsl e
h which ·
Joshua commanded to stand still.' The Genevan
the old geocentric cosmology of Ptolem . no the eart . h.IS C ommentary on G enesis:
· cited Psalm 93: 1 1n . 'Th e
t
The earth and all of the other planets revol;~ 1vinhed it shall never be moved.' Calvin added, 'Who will
re £orn:i er Cabl.
around the sun rather than the sun and planets eart his esta isce the
' authority of Copernicus above that of the Holy
ar.ound the earth (heliocentrism instead ofgeocen- venture to p 1 a
trism)
. . . Coper mcus· a 1 so explamed
. that the d · 1 .. ?'5.
Spint. ti. ·ons indicate that the Scientific Revolution involved a
ns1ng
. and . settmg o the sun result from ai
· f the Y These reac . pute about the methodology that would lead to the truth
daily rotation of the earth on its axis. p rofou.n d dis
h ·ui-verse. . and observa-
It involved a clash between authority
The publication of De Revolutionibus i about
. t e u . .
Whereas Luther, Calvin and other clerical authont1es .. stuck to the
sparked1 the Scientific Revolution in whi1Cnh15~3
SCI- N' . l u~n- h t truth could only be found in the Bible, science increasingly
ence aunc_hed a radical assault on traditional ico aus Copernicus
view t aised the need for theories that are supported by observational
ways_ of thirik ing.ê In the period that followed . ernph as1ot rinted words or church dogmas. Francis Bacon's assertion
that mcorporated the s bl ' the classical theories acts, n P- . ,6
. . u u nary-s u - c:.~-:---'l"':----:----- £that .
'Books rnust follow sciences, and not scrences books clearly p01nts
p erl unary distinction , the d octnne· to the need for a· new rnethodology for the sciences. As we have men-
o~ four elements, the earth-centred tioned (section 2.1), Bacon himself provided the details of this new
view of th~ cosmos, the cosmology scientific method. This gained him the status of the most important
of concentnc
. circles , and so on , were prophet of the Scientific Revolution. It is to Bacon's ideas on method
questioned
. on all fronts · Th.is resu 1 t-
ed m_ running battles between the old that we will now turn.
classical theological worldview and
the new scientific one. 2. 3 BACON'S NEW METHODOLOGY
~e Revolutionibus was prefaced by
an mtroduction from the Lutheran Bacon's role in the Scientific Revolution has been hotly debated among
clergyman Andreas Osiander, who scholars. It is a fact that he was critical ofrnany of the great men of this
asserted that Copernicus' intentions era, e.g. Copernicus and Galileo. However great his influence may
had not at all been to question the lit- have been in the philosophy of science, he had nothing to contribute
eral truth of the Scriptures. Rather directly to the sciences.7 Bacon described hi~self as a trumpeter (buc-
than announcing a truth, the book cinator) or herald of the new science. His role has also been compared to
had to be read simply as a conveni- the military role played by the lame poet Tyrtaeus. He was not able to
"" m~them.atical device developed to
s~mphfy the calculations of the posi- Heliocentrism
4. Hergenhahn, 2001, p. 90.
tions of th 1 from On the Revolutions oif the
5- Ibidem.
- . e P anets. Notwithstanding Heavenly Spheres 6.
7- Bacon,
In fact, 1616/r838,
it must bep.noted
669. that the science that surfaces in his works looks a lot more like
_ the
- Aristotelian and scholastic views that he was fighting, and neglects the role of mathematics in
3. This. year
Fabrica ( Onis the
important
Structurefor another
of the Humanreaso
B o dny.)In
. 1543 Andreas Vesalius published De H umani. Corpons. science (Cohen, 1985, p. 149).

PART I - PHILOSOPHY OF KNOW LEDGE
fight, but his marching-songs inspired the soldiers who were.8 Many of
the great men of science, e.g. Boyle, Hooke, and Newton, drew inspi-
ration from Bacon's work.
Bacon saw intellectual history as a history of endless and point-
less debates among philosophical and religious schools. Progress would
only be possible if the classical-medieval monopoly on science were
finally broken. Consider the following anecdote ( usually ascribed to
Bacon) that illustrates the lack of progress in ancient wisdom, chained
as it was to a priori reasoning:
In the year of our Lord 1432, there arose a grievous quarrel among
the brethren over the number of teeth in the mouth of a horse.
For thirteen days the disputation raged without ceasing. All the
ancient books and chronicles were fetched out, and wonderful
and ponderous erudition such as was never before heard of in this
region was made manifest.At the beginning of the fourteenth day,
a youthful friar of goodly bearing asked his learned superiors for
permission to add a word, and straightway, to the wonderment of
the disputants, whose deep wisdom he sore vexed, he beseeched
them to unbend in a manner coarse and unheard-of and to look
in the open mouth of a horse and find answer to their question-
ings. At this, their dignity being grievously hurt, they waxed ex-
ceeding wroth; and,joining in a mighty uproar, they flew upon
him and smote him, hip and thigh, and cast him out forthwith.
For, said they, surely Satan hath tempted this bold neophyte to
declare unholy and unheard-of ways of finding truth, contrary to
all the teachings of the fathers.
Ancient learning relied on argumentation and authority ('all the teach-
ings of the fathers'), which made theorizing rigid and unproductive.
Bacon argued that we can only settle au intellectual dispute by adopt-
ing the young friar's empirical method." Truth does not come from
contemplation and authority, but relies on the testimony of the senses.
Experimental methods, such 'unholy and unheard-of ways of finding
truth,' offered a royal road to knowledge.
8. Dijksterhuis, 1961/r986, p. 183; Losee, 2001, p. 55.
2 - A NEW (PHILOSOPHY OF) SCIENCE
47
However, one must not mistake Bacon for a naive empiricist, as he
famously warned against the 'idols' that warp p_erception. The view
of the mind of man as a tabula rasa (see chapter 1), a blank slate, is far
too simplistic, according to Bacon. The mind is not an ideal plane on
which perfect 3D images of the world are projected. The projections of
reality that we form in our minds are often very distorted:
The mind of man [ ... ] is so far from being like a smooth, equal,
and clear glass, which might sincerely take and reflect the beams
of things, according to their true incidence; that it is rather like an
enchanted glass, full of superstitions, apparitions, and impostures.9
In order to establish a science based on accurate knowledge of reality,
one must first purge the mind of its 'idols' - characteristic errors, de-
ceptions, or sources of misunderstanding- that
stand in the way of res12ectable science. These
distortions come in four main categories. It is
only with these illusions of the mind out of the
way that we can get scientific inquiry started.
Idols öf the Tiib - the first of Bacon's catego-
ries - are endemic to the human tribe: tliey are
innate an there£o e shared by all human be-
ings. Our senses are prone to make mistakes
(cf. illusions such as figure 3.r). Also, being hu-
man, we tend to postulate more regularity in Francis Bacon
nature than there actuallyîs, which often eaus-
And therefore it was a good answer that was made by one who
when they showed him hanging in a temple a picture of those
9, Bacon, 1605: xrv, 9.
 2 - A NEW (PHI LOSOFHY OF) SCIE NCE
PART I - PHILOSOPHY OF KNOW LEDGE
49

. mind beforehand and only used limited experimental

who had paid their vows as having escaped shipwreck, and would c. rnade up his .
iact t nd advance what he already believed. Thus, his sen-
have him say whether he did not now acknowledge the power of data to suppor a . d .d 'H
. . .
· ·s chained to preconceive i eas: is practice was not
the gods, - 'Aye,' asked he again, 'but where are they painted that r e:xpenence 1 . .
so Y . r: tion from unfettered experiment but to exhibit expe-
were drowned after their vows.' And such is the way of all super- seek iniorrna
to · . d bound' as he used 'carefully schooled and selected
stition, whether in astrology, dreams, omens, divine judgments, or . ence captive an
rt . to J·ustify his pronouncements.'12 Thus, Aristotle 'leads her
the like; wherein men, having a delight in such vanities, mark the e:xpenence . . . . ,1 . f h.
· ] about like a captive 1n a procession. 3 In spite o 1s
events where they are fulfilled, but where they fail, though this [i.e., experience . . .
. · · then it might be more fitting to class Aristotle as a rat1on-
happens much oftener, neglect and pass them by. 10 ernpine1sm, ' . .
. · on closer inspection he depreciates sensory knowledge.
ahst, since , .
Thus far, we have only considered Bacons negat~ve appr~ach to the
Anticipating Karl Popper's work on falsification by over three centu-
ction of knowledge: we cannot have science 1f we will not have
ries (see chapter 7), Bacon argues that theories should not be rendered pro du 14 h · ·
· derstanding 'thoroughly freed and cleansed.' On t e positive
immune from criticism, Instead, Bacon's advice is to open our minds our un _ ,
· d Bacon argued that 'only a new method can offer the proper rem-
to unfavourable findings. 15
sid \ be applied for the keeping off and clearing away of idols.' ·
In the second category are the äols o the Cave These are not collec- 0
e 0ntil the end of the 16th century, the old Aristotelian, deductive (syl-
tive distortions that can be traced to human nature; rather, they ref
logistic) logic was firmly in place. The truth of the co~clusion in a de-
t-0 th@ f}eculiarities of inaiviauals which are du to their upbringmg
ductive argument derives from the truth of the premises; the content
and training ('education, habit and accident'). Bacon here thinks of an
fthe concl~sion never goes beyond the content of the premises. The
individual's 'extreme admiration of antiquity' or an 'extreme love and o . ?W
question for Bacon was: what guarantees the t~uth of the pr_emises. e
--v-- - ----------
appetite for novelty.' of extremes re to b@ avoided'
Idols of__the Marketplace are tnose istorted beliefs that stem from com-
have seen that it was Bacon's opinion that Anstotle and his adherents
based their premises on very selective and biased sets of observations. In
mon language. P ople are often inclined to think that words used in
reality, they had thought them up. In contrast to the P~ripatet'.cs, Baco_n
language refer to things that really exist, where this need not neces-
argued that universal statements can never be the startmg pomt of sci-
sarily be the case. Words like 'fortune' and 'element of fire' are often
entific inquiry. Deductive arguments are useful only to the extent that
used, argued Bacon, and yet they are entirely disconnected from re-
ality. Other examples are words which are 'confused and ill-defined.' they are adequately supported by empirical facts. _
Progress in our understanding of reality can only be achieved by
Failures like these lead to empty disputes and wordplay.
disciplined, method_ical recourse to sensory experience. The ne"". tool
The final category, that oft e Idols of the Theatre, includes th a e pe-
(novum organum) for investigating nature, as envisioned by Bacon, 1s the
ed dogmas and methods of old chook 0£ thought: 'in my judgment all 16
method of induction ('true and perfect Induction' ). According to Ba-
the received systems are but so many stage-plays, representing worlds
con's inductive scientific method, scientists must gather as much empiri-
of their own creation after an unreal and scenic fashion.'n According
cal data as possible as the basis for proceeding to formulate of theories.
to Bacon, Aristotle's philosophy and its medieval interpretations all
Let us be careful not to make the mistake Charles Darwin made
belong firmly in this category. We have seen that Aristotle was an em- -
when he said in his autobiography: 'I worked on true Baconian prin-
. piricist of sorts (see chapter 1). However, says Bacon, although Aristotle
frequently alludes to observational data, we sh~uld not take the claim
that Aristotle was an empiricist too seriously, because Aristotle had in 12. Bacon, 1608/ 1964, p. 130.
13. Bacon, 1620/r962b, LXIII, p. 65.
14. Ibidem, l,_XVIII, p. 69.
IO. Bacon, 1620/ 1962b, p. 56. 15. Ibidem, XL, p. 54.
11. Ibidem,p. 55. 16. Ibidem,Book n.xxi.p. 155.
 2 - A :NEW (PHJLOSOPHY OF) SCIENCE
PART I - PHILOSOPHY OF KNOWLEDGE
51
50

ciples, and without any theory collected facts on a wholesale seal e. ,17
THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION_
Bacon was certainly not a naive inductivist who was only interested · 2.4
pi_·1·mg u? empirical facts without theoretical commitments. BaconianIn
mer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), assistant and lat-
science mvolves more than the accumulation of masses of factual data. r-rhe GerJil
an astrono h . p
ned astronomer Tycho Bra e m rague, em-
To make his point, Bacon offered the following useful analogy: .1. of the renow 1· d
er successor . , beliocentrism. However, Copernicus had be ieve
d Copernicus -
brace . d Ptolemy - that movements
Those who have handled sciences have been either men of ex- .k Anstot1 e an .
-h e e based on perfect e1rcles.
periment or men of dogmas. The men of experiment are like heavens wer
in the . b ._ the most perfect of geocen-
the ant, they only collect and use; the reasoners r~semble spiders, The circle e1ng .
( ·. ) Years and years of analysis of Bra- z
who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But the bee takes . figures. 1 0
tric f ked-eye observations led Kep er
a middle course: it gathers its material from the flowers of the h 's care u 1 _na
e . tionary view that the planets or-
garden and of the field, but transforms and digests it by a power . the revo 1 u . , . h
to · elliptical traj eet ones rather t an
of its own. Not unlike this is the true business of philosophy; for bit the sun in
.c. . cles This was the first of the two
it neither relies solely or chiefly on the powers of the mind, nor in enect cir . .
p f lanetary motion that can be found m
does it take the matter which it gathers from natural history and laws
' PAstronomia Nova (New Astronomy, I 6 o9) .
O
mechanical experiments and lay it up in the memory whole, as it Kepers 1 . · . . Johannes Kepler
. d law of Kepler's celestial physics was
finds it, but lays it up in the understanding altered and digested. The t ir h ·
bl" hed 10 years later. .
Therefore from a closer and purer league between these two fac- pu is . t nt than Kepler for the new science was Gali1 eo
ulties, the experimental and the rational (such as has never yet Even more impor a . . . h f
. . ( 6 642) who had rejected the Aristotelian phüosop yo na-
been made), much may be hoped.18 Gahle1 15 4- 1 , .
. ce the start of his career. In 1609, Gali-
ture sin .
leo found out that a telescope had been rnvent-
The brethren discussing the number of teeth in the mouth of a horse
ed by Hans Lippershey, a Dutch lens ~aker,
in the anecdote above are 'men of dogmas'; they are like spiders spin-
immediately set about improvrng its de- z
ning their webs, not by taking material from the world, but by releas- an d 1·1 0

ing threads from themselves. Aristotle and his followers belong in the
same category. However, scientists are not like ants either, simply gath-
ering materials from the world. Science is not only about the careful,
inductive collection of data, but needs interpretation through theo-
ries as well. It is not just observation ('the experimental'), and not just
reason ('the rational'), but the combination of the two that makes for
good science. Just as the bee picks up nectar from flowers and processes
it to become honey, so the scientist must collect raw data and interpret
it to create meaningful descriptions of nature. Now let us return to our
discussion of the scientific achievements that carried Bacon's methodo-
logicalrecommendations into effect.
si:gn. The spyglass he made all_owed ~a 1 eo to
e a series of astounding d1scovenes, many
ma k .
of which were contrary to faith and anqent
science. In 1610, for instance, Galileo reported
his first major astronomical discovery, which
was that the surface of the moon was not nearly
Galileo Galilei
as perfect as the ancients had thought. Galileo
writes: 'the moon is not robed in a smooth and ere
polished surface but is in fact rough and uneven, covered everywh d
just like the earth's surface, with huge prominences, deep valleys, an
chasms."?

17. Darwin, 1876/2000, p. 42.

19. Galileo, The Starry Messenger, roro.
18. Bacon, 1620/I962b, Book 1, xcv, pp. 92-93.
 pJU LOSOPHY O_F) SCIENCE
(
2 -A NEW
PART I - PHILOSOPH Y OF KNOWLEDGE
53
52
. .c. ll -wers had to a large extent speculated
eas Aristot 1 e a
°
nd his 10 ·
. k Galileo and other champions of the.
her h osrnos was 11 e,
hat t e c
bout W £ r themselves. . . .
lution saw O . d of the greatest scientists of all time
evo lileo die ' one
In the year Ga_ f Woolsthorpe. His name was Isaac Newton
born in . the village o hil her Voltaire wrote m. h.1s note b oo k s:
a he French p i osop .
(164-2-1727). T 11 n were blind, Kepler had
epler, a rne , Th e
J3efore TT .I."'- had two eyes. 21
and Newton .
one eye, 1 . culminates Ill Newton,
Craters on the Moon.from Calileo (1610) Sunspots) from Galileo (1612) . fi Revo uuon
cientl ic rical system of the universe z
. h the matherna . . . . 0
it · Ph'l phiae Naturalis Principia
Galileo's next major finding was that Jupiter had four moons · · din the i oso
'bl h ' inv1s- pre ente . (Th Mathetrlatical Principles of Nat-
1 e . to .t e naked eye. This implied that there were more tha n seven Mathematica . h ) ea its crowning ac h.ievement.
~od1es m the solar system, as the church authorities had held (seven be-
ural P_htlosop N y wton presented his three laws
mg of cou~se a sacred number). A few years later, in 1613, the followers In this text, e . . h. h
of the ancients had to take yet another blow when Galileo's tel escop1c ·
. d h law of gravitation w ic ex-
. of motion an t e .
. . e mathematical terms the be-
observations showed that the sun, one of the superlunary bodies, was lained in pr_ec1s . Isaac Newton
not at all flawless but was covered with dark spots.
p . f ll obiects both terrestrial and ce-
hav1our o a J ' . . .

All of these discoveries were great challenges to the Aristotelian sub- l . 1 In contrast to ancient science, with its . .
na · .t between two regions of the universe, Newtoman
lunary-superlunary distinction. Galileo was also the first to observe the fundamenta 1 sp1 i
. · d d universal account: the same force that ma kes-an_
planetary phases of Venus. This showed that Venus sometimes comes mechanics prov1 e a .
und also holds a planet in its orbit around the sun.
between the earth and the sun, a finding which could not be reconciled apple £a 11 to t e gr h O l

with the Ptolemaic system. ·

Many considered it a heresy to peer into the heavens through a tel-
2.5 TAKING STOCK: THE MAIN CHARACTERISTICS
escope. In a letter to his friend Kepler ( 1610), Galileo writes:
OF THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION

Oh, my dear Kepler, how I wish that we could have one hearty
With the advent of the Scientific Revolution came a new spirit of in-
laugh together! Here at Padua is the principal professor of philoso- 0
quiry which emphasised empirical observation rather than re~iance ~
phy [Professor Cremonini] whom I have repeatedly and urgently
the scriptures or revelation. Thus, the new 'mechanical philos_ophy
requested to look at the moon and planets through my glass, which
wa empiricist. In a respectable science, it was no longer permissible to
he pertinaciously refuses to do.Why are you not here?What shouts
peculate about the hidden nature of phenomena. Theories had to be
of laughter we should have at this glorious folly! And to hear the
ba ed on observational and experimental facts.
professor of philosophy at Pisa [Professor Giulio Libri] labouring
Bacon's lessons on methodology were taken to heart and the heavens
before the Grand Duke with logical arguments, as if with magical were examined with telescopes. Robert Hooke (1635-1703), another
incantations, to charm the new planets out of the sky. 20
leading natural philosopher of the 17th century, used a microscope to

21. Cited in Gay, r969/r996, p. 131.

20. Hergenhahn, 2001, p. 9 r.
 W (PHILOSOPHY OF) SCIENCE
PART I - PHILOSOPHY OFKNOWLEDGE 2 - A NE
55
54
:c. . tand physical, not final causes.
study and describe cells and other tiny objects. This was also an epoch
1 . nvolve e fi1e1en
. ns should on y id l k' ,a never forward-looking (except perhaps
during which many ingenious- experiments were devised. Both Ne planat10 1ways backwar - oo inbd' . 1 ) To explain a phenomenon
w. . are a b . s an amma s .
ton and Boyle spoke of the importance of the 'experimentum crucis, '{heY se of human emg hanism that preceded it. The newly
a term adapted from Bacon's 'instantia crucis' ( or 'instance of the fin~ . the ca h use or mee d ' h
111 .c: back to t e ca lt d in what has been calle t e
. to re1.er . itude thus resu e . . 1 .
gerpost'): an experiment carried out in order to force a decision be . . 1 d scientific art . ,24 The cosmos was mcreasmg y

tween two (or more) alternative hypotheses. The experiment is akin adopte f the world picture. b
hanization o k hanism. Here are some statements· y
to a crossroads ( cruces means cross) where a 'fingerpost' tells you which rnec iant clockwor rnec . .
een as one g on universal mechanics.
way to go. Examples of such crucial experiments abound: Galileo rolled of the key players
ome . .
brass balls down an inclined plane to demonstrate acceleration; Robert . . t similar to a divine ammated
. of the universe is no
Boyle experimented with an air-pump to study the nature of air; New- The machme l )25
. ·rnilar to a clock. (Kep er
ton experimentally investigated the refraction oflight by a glass prism being, but s1
and so on. In sum, the first characteristic of the Scientific Revolutio~ . d, .b d this earth and indeed the whole vis-
is its commitment to the observational method. The· second character- ·n ow I have escn e 6
Up tl n . f. were a machine. (Descartes)2
istic is universal mechanics. ible universe as 1 it .
The Aristotelian worldview had been distinctly anthropomorphic: hu-
1 orld] is as it were, a great piece of clock-work.
man purposive behaviour was taken as the model for everything else. [The natura w '
27
In cases involving humans, we continuously furnish teleological ex- (Robert Boyle)
planations (telos means end), e.g. when I say 'Matthew pours himself . . t the third and last characteristic:
a Westmalle Dubbel, because he wants to quench his thirst.' For Aris- . 1 chamcs brings us o . h
Universa me . d. to the new scientific cosmology, t e
th mattes Accor mg ld
totle, however, it was not just people who were goal-directed; rocks, universa l ma e . · h · al principles and these cou , as
£ 11 . cl regular mee anic
rain showers, chairs, and so on, wete also purposive and seek goals. universe o owec d .b d . n precise mathematical terms. Thus,
For instance, a rock falls because it aspires to return to its natural place, e ton showed, be escn e 1 . . 28
. . h d in glove with mathemat1zat1on.
which is on the ground; beer has the aim of quenching thirst; a chair mechamzat10n goes an . . ily about the mechanization,
is for people to sit on. Aristotle called the purpose for which a thing
The Scientific Revolution was pnmar . f
. . nd hence demystificat10n of both remote parts o
exists, and that is the cause of its behaviour, its 'final cause.' Objects are mathemat1zat1on a 1
the universe and mundane non-living objects. Soon, however, peop e
thus treated as if they have a soul. 22
started removing teleology from the body, the ammal, society, and
Aristotelian science's final causes were discredited by the 'mechani-
even the human mind (see also chapter 5). . .
cal philosophers.' Francis Bacon likened the final causes to the vestal
William Harvey (in 1628) had shown on the basis of experimental
virgins, aesthetic but barren. To furnish teleological explanations was . h £ d the blood to circulate
study that the heart was JUSt a pump t at or~e
to invoke occult or magical powers. Voltaire ridiculed the Aristotelian
reasoning of a certain Mr. Prieur to the effect that 'the tides are given 24. Dijksterhuis, 1961 / 1986.
25. Kepler,cited in Shapin, 1996,p. 33.
to the ocean so that vessels may enter port more easily.' If we accepted 26. De cartes, 1664/1996, Section CLXXXVIII, p. 279.
27. Boyle, cited in Shapin, 1996, P~ 34. , . . . - n this vast book, which continuously
this, then we could also say that 'legs are made to be booted, and the 2 . f\n oft-cited passage from Galileo reads: P!1ilosopw is_wntten ~ be understood unless you .h ave first
he open before our eyes (I mean the universe). ut it canno sin which it is written. It 1s wntten
nose to wear spectacles.'23 These are not explanations. Genuine ex- learned to understand the language and recogmse the character - des and other geometrical
in the language of mathematics, and the characters are tnang1 esdcir tand a word of 1t and to be
figures.Wiihout such means, it is impossible for ushhudaks {b ui:i
without them is to wander around in vain throug a bar \ ynn I
ili~ (Galileo The Ass~yer, 1623).
N ewt~n who would later
22. Hobbes notes in this respect that it is 'as if stones and metals had a desire, or could discern the place Note that Galileo refers to geometrical figures, not to_ num ers. twas saac
they would be at, as man does' (Leviathan, Chapter XLVI). formulate the mathematical principles of natural philosophy.
23. Voltaire, 1764/r924,'Final Causes'.
 PART I - PHILOSOPHY OF KNOWLEDGE 2 - A NEW (PHILOSOPHY OF) SCIENCE

57

through the body. Thomas Hobbes tells us: 'For what is the h
. eart b
spnng; and the nerves, but so many strings· and the joinr, b ' Ut a BIOGRAPHIES
. . . ' ' Ut so 111a
wheels, giving motion to the whole body.'2 9 Descartes agreed . ny
. . . 1h With th.
mee h arustic picture, a t ough he was quick to add that the · Is Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
. . unrnater. I
h uman soul (res cogitans) obviously escapes mechanical expla . Ia
nation (s
chapter 3). Descartes' doctrine of the bête machine suggested tha ~e statesman and a philosopher. He studied law
. mac h.mes, sirru
. ·1 ar to the hydraulic t ani- n was b ot h a
ma 1 s are comp 1 ex organic Francis :Baco Cambridge, and at Gray's Inn. There he also read
. . autorna- . college, . d h . h il h
tons h e had seen m the royal gardens at Samt-Germain-en-La at Trinity [Plato an d Aristotle ' but he soon rejecte t err p 1 osop Y.
. . . .
century later, the French doctor Julien Offray de LaMettrie (l ye. A the works O . bil ophy he also had a career m politics. He inter-
. 709-1751) areer rn p 1 os .
thought that Descartes' mechanicism was half-hearted· as th · Besides a c . b come the assistant of the ambassador m France.
'. . e tit 1 e of . studies to e . .
his pamphlet (L;Homme Machine, 1748) suggests, human beings to rupted his d fi · hed his studies and became a lecturer m Law at
0 turne ' mis
fully mechanical, just like animals. are Later he re · ber of parliament. Eventually he became Lord
, and a mem , . . .
The Entzauberung, or demystification, of the world thus seem d Grays Inn . He lost this high posrtron m 1621 when he was ar-
. e un- Hor in l 6 l 8 .
stoppable. The growmg consensus was that there could be not onl · Chance . b ibes He pleaded guilty and was fined and sent
. . Y nat- d for accepting r .
ural sciences, but social sciences as well, with comparable universal la reste h the fine was waived and he spent only four days
· n Thoug .' ..
The conviction that all phenomena, natural and human, are amena:i: to pnso · . h Tower of London, his political career was over. He
· · oned in t e ·
to mechanization and quantification will be the focus of chapte ,vr imprts . f his life to the reform of scientific methodology. His
. r 5. vve d voted the rest o . . .
will also discuss an influential opposing view according to which hu- e . · fi collaboration led to the foundmg of the Royal So-
. deas on sc1ent1 ic
1
. . . .
man beings are more than mere mechanisms. , and teleology is an e ssen, . . lts founders honoured him as then mspiration. Legacy
ciery m 1662. . d hil .
tial part of their nature. In other words, to understand the things people . B died aged 65 ofpneumoma contracte w 1 e gomg
ha it that aeon , ' - . .
do, you have to refer to their purposes, intentions, and goals. (The event . h r-. eezing cold to stuff a chicken with snow m order to test
out into t e ir . .
ofJohn kissing Jane is explained, for instance, by saying that John wants . · t. properties. In the first published biography of Bacon, we
1t antisep ic . . .
to be Jane's boyfriend, not by saying that some ofJohn's neural circuits read: 'Nature failed him while he was chantmg her praise: this she
~ere firing.) The implication of the latter view, we will see in chapter , .d h ps because being miserly and hiding from us her best, she
5 d 1 , per a ,
1s that the social sciences must have a methodology profoundly different · feared that at last he would discover all her treasures, and made all men
from the methods used in the natural sciences. Scientists studying hu- learned at her expense' (Amboise, 1631).
man life should not simply follow the model set by the natural sciences.
The debate over the methodology of the social sciences is an important Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)
issue that will recur throughout these pages. Before entering these de-
bates, however, we will first turn to rationalist and empiricist attempts Copernicus was born as Mikolaj Kopernik or Nicolaus Koppernigk
at formulating a new epistemology for the sciences. in Torun, in East Prussia (now Poland), as the son of a successful mer-
chant. He was educated at the University of Krakow and later at several
universities in Italy. He studied medicine, Latin, astronomy, philoso-
phy and mathematics. He was appointed canon at Frombork Cathedral
in 1501. Apart from his administrative duties as a canon, he also had the
time to do astronomy from his own observatory in one of the towers
29. Hobbes, r65r/r966, p. ix. ofFrombor~'s fortifications. Circa 1514, Copernicus published a hand-
 PART II - PH ILO SO PH Y OF SCI EN CE

236

237
SUMMARY Chapter 8
. . . , failed attempts at prov iding a en-
In response to the logical pos1t1v1:t; ro osed falsifiability as the norm
Language Games and Paradigms:
. of demarcation, Karl Popp p . p d to be called scientific. A
tenon should meet m or er . onflict Thinking from Within
that a statement or theory . . d onl if it can come mto c .
statemen t or theory is scientific
h. d ifmarcation
an . y en.t er ion may work slightly
. al
. th certain observations. T is e. . . b t at the end of the day it so
w1 h Lo ical Positivists, u hich we
better than that oft e g_ .f h disciplines as astrology, w .
compels us to classify as scienti J_C sue Popper's rejection of the inductive
would prefer to exclude fro~ '°::~e~ctive testing seems to pccsuppo~,
th
od is also controversia ' a_s . hether we should always e
me ton remams w ibl 8. I INTRODUCTION
induction. Moreover, the ques I falsified by the first incompati e
. . 1 a nd should consider a theory
critica
observation we make. In previous chapters we rejected several candidates for criteria of de-
marcation. All of them violated our initial and intuitive understanding
of what science is. To start with, the positivist criterion of verifiability
NEXT CHAPTER turned out to be too strong. Were we to accept this criterion, physics
would no longer be regarded as science. But if physics is qualified as
iding a norm that satisfactorily separates
h a non-science, we surely want to conclude that the criterion is faulty,
Thus far, all attempts at prov1 I . tific statements have failed. T onlias rather than to modify the strong intuitions we have about the scien-
scientific statemen t s from norr-scren .
h norm. Instead of trymg t o formu. ate tific character of physics? According to any criterion of science, physics
Kuhn abandons the quest for sulc . a terested in describing how sc1enches ought to be classified as a science.
·
criteria for sCience, he 1s mere Y m time. Philosophers o f sc1e· nee , Ku
. . n We then looked at Popper's attempt to find a criterion of demarca-
actually and historically develop ov,:a,ching for criteria, but prnv,d,~:
:f
says, should not spend thmt:~:t science and trying to dcscn!: :,_
tion (falsifiability), and when that failed the test too (again, his critical
rationalism has counter-intuitive consequences for the nature of sci-
historically accurate descnpl d t 1s ln Kuhn's historically inform hof ence), Thomas Kuhn was next in line with an alternative approach. He
patterns behind the historica e_ a1 through a number of stages, eac c
d P«sonted th, idc, that it is impomnt to desoibe th, pmem >ccocding
count science ev elops by movmg . . One important aspect o f science..acal- to Which a science develops. Such a description must then be essential
1
' .
which has part1cu ar c haracteristics. ) . that scientists are o fite n uncnti input wh,n w, think about , no,m,tiv, ccite,ion which sopmtes sci-
d. to Kuhn (and contra Popper IS ence from everything else.
cor mg . . d atic.
to the pomt ofbemg ogm
In essence, Kuhn's idea of science is that we can detect (and hence
desccib,J, specific P"<em in the dynamics of science once we tum to
tbe 'ctu,1 histo,y of science. This pattern shows that scientists usually
unccitic,Jly work within , fomewo,k th,i shows them which phenom-
en,, Problems, and technologies "' rel,nnt to them. This framewo,k
off,~ them, penpective on cc,lity and tells them which questions ate
°'"ningful at ,JJ, and which questions m answmble at all. Kuhn
 8 - LANGUAGE GAMES AND PARADIGMS
PART Il - PH ILO SO PH Y OF SClE N CE

linguistic
· framework ' ideas , w or d s, concepts d
In the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein identifies the social mgless, or they might h , an statements are mean-
ave a complete! d. ffi .
linguistic practice in which words or concepts receive their meaning as are used within a different g s· y i erent meanmg
ame. mee we know th h
when they
the most important feature of a language. Of course, some words might many different natural lang d at t ere actually are
· - uages an culture th -
still have a representational function, but they get their full meaning in just as many different w . s at cope with the world
ays, one might ea ·1 b d .
only when they are used in this social linguistic context - a language the company of Wittgenstein db 1· . si y e se uced into seeking
. an e ieving that th .
game. According to Wittgenstein there are many different language resu t m the doctrine of I . . ese considerations
. I re atrvisrn · any £ t I I .
games. This implies that a word does not have one single meaning, but IS only true ( or false) relative t h .I ac ua c aim about the world
- 1·k o t e anguage ga . h.
that it might have different meanings in different language games. Fur- is i e a move played b I me, m w ich the claim
ypayersofthegame L.k . .
thermore, a language game is more than just a language. Wittgenstein Kuhn suggests that even . . . I ew1se, as we will see
. m science there are d. ffi ,
paradigms, and that the truth f . . . i erent frameworks or
says that . . o scientific clai · h .
paradigm m which thes I . ms is t us relative to the
e c aims are uttered.
[here] the term 'language game' is meant to bring into promi-
nence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity,
or of a form oflife. 3 8.2.2 Wittgenstein's private language argument

So, only when a language is part of a certain encompassing practice There . is , to be sure, a restriction. . on the siz f I
will the language come alive and do words get their meanings. This is cordmg to Wittgenstein which . I d e o any anguage game, ac-
, is re ate to the .d f
indeed a radical departure from the Tractatus. A statement like 'God is ru 1 e. Using a language pre h very I ea o a language
supposes t at the .
good' would be meaningless according to the early Wittgenstein (and conventions. That is why I re are certam rules, certain
. a anguage can easily be c d
logical positivists alike), for there is no way to check the reference of a game m the first place Let ·11 . ompare to playing
· · us 1 ustrate this by fi ·
the words 'God' or 'good.' Now he puts things differently. He sug- mg scene of the movie Th L B re ernng to the open-
gests, for instance, that the sentence 'God is good' has meaning in one football player receiving e hast oy Scout+ In the first shot one sees a
c. a p one message th t I I
language game ( the language of religion), but not in another language maua: he has to . h a c ear y comes from th
wm t e game or el . ·11 e
game (the language of science). The words 'God' and 'good' are used scenes later we see h. . , se It w1 cost him his life. A few
rm trymg to score b f
in a religious language in such a manner that they do have meaning. Payers
I from the other tea bl k. , . ut un ortunately too many
m are oc mg h Th
In the scientific empiricist language game, where it is a rule that words ~ gun from under his shirt shoot h. is way. en the player grabs
need to refer to observable objects and events, these terms do not mean It is dramatically obvious t, Il s is opponents and scores. However
play· 0 a concerned that th. '
anything at all. Wittgenstein's idea is that words have meaning relative mg American football the h is man was no longer
to the language game in which they are used, and it becomes plausible shirt h
- t at's an illegitimate
moment e took h ·
Th
f
IS gun rom under his
gam e, and we are all full move.f e rules of a game constitute the
to accept a form of relativism. Given the notion of a language garne,
there can obviously be many language games or different 'forrns of rules is no longer playingy ;i:ar: o the fact that anyone who breaks the
life.' When people from different forms oflife (playing different lan- The 1 g me.
rreit. andanaexogy1 · with
. ) a language
. g ame is. t h at language rules (both .
guage games) think differently about the world, it is only possible to Ptrui p reit constitute a language rm-
understand what they think when we ourselves are members of that y solitary games E h game. Rules, however, rule out
- . ven t e card ga me S o 1 Ilaire, · . although played b
very form oflife, playing the same language game. Outside this social
4- Sc y
Ott, 1991.

3. Wittgenstein, 1953, § 23.

 PA RT Il - PH ILO SO PH Y O F SC IEN C E
8 - LANGUAGE GAMES AND PARADIGMS
242

b 1 ed since we a 11 k now the rules of Solitaire. 243

one person, can only e p ay nl one person understands, for on my 'I don't know what you mean by "glory",' Alice said.
There is no game with rules ow:ether I am following the rules cor- Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. 'Of course you don't
own I will simply not know le I must be able to explain the rule to - till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for
rectly.' To be able to obey a ru h t counts as breaking the rule. you".'
h can assess w a t
someone else, so t at we es I am not playing a game a 'But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument",' Alice
If I cannot determine illegitimat~ molv . '.fsomeone only followed his objected.
all. The rules of any game are public
. ru ible
es. ito anyone else, he wou Id not
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful
h · h ere inaccessi · th
own private rules w ic w here are no private games, or in . e tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor
be playing a game at all. Hence, t private languages. Wittgenstein less.'
case oflanguage games.. there are no
says so mewhat enigmatically: 'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean
so many different things.'7

. ] I ' . s a practice.
. And to think one is obeyingI a , rule
·
'[Obeying a rue i . . "bie to obey a rue pn- Words and sentences do not get their meaning by ostensive definition
1 H ce it is not possi
is not to obey a. ru h.e. en beying a rule would be the and reference to things and events that are observable. They get their
vately': otherwise t_ in_k.i~g one was o
same thing as obeying It. meaning through the practices in which they figure, viz. in language
games. It is the social and linguistic context which determines what a
. The rules of a game mus t be public- word, concept, term, statement or utterance means. In this context,
Rules have to be public rules. .f .t is possible for the players to publicly accessible rules are of great importance for they are constitu-
ly testable: a game is . on ly a game i arei not following the ru I es. L an - tive for the language game.
show each other in which cases t~;:his possibility of publicly evaluat- Now we see how Wittgenstein's Investigations can engender relativism
guage games also exist. by virtue the rules or not. If you try to make with regard to knowledge about the world. There can be many different
ing wh~ther everyone IS following ticipating in a language gam_e. language games and the truth of our claims about the world depends on,
lf h you are not par · tem
the rules . yourse ' ·11
t en bl
not be a e to un derstand yourself Wittgens indeed is relative to, the framework in which the statement is a legiti-
Worse still, you wt h h: gas a private language. mate move. However, given the argument against a private language,
argued that there can be no sue t in nt against the view that there · language users within a language game are not unboundedly free in
Wittgenstein thus presents a_n argumefi ingly known as 'Wittgen-
1 claiming knowledge about the world. For their knowledge claims to
can be a private anguage, which is, con us
(A better label would h ave been have any meaning at all, and for the assessment of the truth or falsity of
stein's private languag_e argument. ar ument.') A very nice literary these claims, they are restricted to the rules of the language game they
'Wittgenstein's anti-pnvate language[ g Lewis Carroll's Through the
f play. This can easily be interpreted as fuelling the argument that our al-
illustration o t h e argu ment1· comes
h rom conversation wit· h Hump-
strange leged knowledge of the world is only valid relative to a framework. If
Looking Glass ( I 872 ) when
. .A ice as a 11).
ty Dumpty (famously sitting on a wa . the« a<e sovecal ddfe.ent language games in existence, the philosophi-
calJy interesting point is how these games are related. Do we interpret
the same world differently or do we even live in different worlds?
Thomas Kuhn offered reasons to believe that this problem of relativ-

See Wittgenstein, 1953, § 258·

~: Ibidern.f 2o2.
---
ism can be traced in science as well. In science, Kuhn argues, we find an
7· Carou
1
• 8?2/1994,p. roo.
 PART II - PH I LO SO PH Y OF SCIE N CE
8 - LANGUAGE GAMES AND PARADIGMS

244
245
. d the truth of scientific state-
abundance of consecutive paradigms, ahn f eworks. The problem of this culture. Hence, even the facts about the world come out as being
· k · be relative to sue ram . h construed. Take for instance the belief in witches held by the Azande
ments might h ewise 1 d. en more problematic t an
. . · e are re ate 1s ev .
how such paradigms in scienc . th the world in differ- people in Africa. Do witches really exist? A relativist might argue that
. 1 e games to cope wi .
facts about witches are constructions of the Azande culture. 8 In the
People using different anguag . h t people from different
might accept t a world of the Azande, witches definitely exist; in our scientific world
ent ways. In the latter case, we . . h the world. In the former
·fr t ways of coping Wit .
cultures have d1 teren . . h 1 . that truth is relative: they definitely do not. Are there really witches in 'the world'? This
uld certainly reject t e c aim h time the more extreme and radical relativist answer is to point out that
case, however, we wo f . ' tell us that its rules are sue
. . b , he game O science
our intuitions a out t f h ld (whether the natura 1 this question has no answer. This route to relativism is paradoxically
. 1 . k wledge o t e wor
that objective cumu atrve no h to steer us towards a coun- backed up by results from psychology. Humans see what they see in the
. d) . ible Ku n seems . light of what they expect to see. What they expect to see is determined
or the social worl is poss . . mmon sense ideas about
. . . . h e throwing our co .
ter-intmtive relativism er , . K h , route to the idea of para- by the framework they share with others. Anything that does not fit
science overboard. Before mapping u nts other ideas which make these expectations is left out of the field of observation. This issue takes
. . fi want to mention wo
digms in science, we irst 1 . 11 plausible theory-ladenness on a crucial importance when we think observation is the firm basis
. . 1 sible: the psycho og1ca y . . . of science.
relativism seem p au . h fh othesis in linguistics.
of observation, and the Sapir-W or yp Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn, different though their philosophies
of science will turn out to be, argued in unison against the logical
positivist idea of science as starting with neutral observations. Both
8.3 FURTHER SUPPORT FOR RELATIVISM accepted that (human) perception is (heavily) theory-laden.9 They
pointed out that empiricists are wrong in their assumption that there
8.3.1 A result from psyc h o l ogy.. theory-ladenness are unproblematic raw empirical data: observations are theory-laden,
· d ep ends that is, we see what we see in the light of already acquired expectations
. · · eral 1s . t h e view
. that the truth of a c 1 aim 1 ce and preconceptions.
Relativism, in gen ' . h. h the claim has its proper pa
· d ff mework in w ic ) For However (and contra Popper), the idea that all perception is theory-
on some kin o ra . ing in the first place .
h 1 · 11 gets its mean d laden is not just an argument against empiricism, it is also another ar-
(after all, this is where t e c au that what is morally correct depen s
instance, some relativists argue. . the world (think about gument for relativism, further undermining the objectivity of science.
. hin which one views he Norwood Russell Hanson (1924-1967) in his book Patterns of Discovery
on the culture from wit 1 ) In a different culture, t
~i
the controversial issue of the death pe~; ~ne subsequently poses the (1958) gives the following example:
morals are likely to be different als whe . . ht ones many relativists ar-
. f h. h orals are real Y t eng ' . poses Let us consider Johannes Kepler: imagine him on a hill watching
question o w ic m 1 d £ settling this question sup
gue that this issue cannot be sett e ' r°r h laim independently [rorn the dawn. With him is Tycho Brahe. Kepler regarded the sun as
that one can ponder the correctnes_s o sucl a c_ s1· mply meaningless fixed: it was the earth that moved. But Tycho followed Ptolemy
h. h· en re atrvism, · n and Aristotle in this much at least: the earth was fixed and all
any cultural outlook, w IC is, giv b. tive answer to the questi\,

-!:
d hence impossible. There is no o ~ec . t better than t e other celestial bodies moved around it. Do Kepler and Tycho see the
an . . 1 ·m that the one is no ifa same thing in the east at dau/ni'?
and the relativist solution is to c a1 The next step is to argue that ),
h they are merely different. . -iod in history
ot er - . 1 C a given pen . to
world view is relative to a certain cu ture _in . the world is relauve ~~~t~ans-Pritchard
1 2 study on the Azande (1937), and Winch's (1964) Wittgensteinian reaction.
to. 1-!anso~ , 97
195 8, ,p.
pp. 5.341-362, Kuhn, r962, p. 11 r, see also Feyerabend, 1975, p. 155.
one must radically conclude that what exists in
- 8 - LANGUAGE GAMES AND PARADIGMS
PART Il - PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
247

d he argues that there is no easy Popper and Kuhn (and Feyerabend, as we will see in chapter 9) agree
Hanson claims that they do not, an ld be to claim that we with Hanson that there are no neutral observations. Phenomena are
. . . The easy way out wou d only meaningful given some theory, some background knowledge,
way out for empincists. . d w data in experience, an
are first presented with the uninterprete ra I some preconceptions. Observations themselves are 'contaminated' by
the interpretation of these raw ~~~~ \..~ our thinking. Hanson draws a strong conclusion:
data (a hypothesis) only follows ~'~ 'N
a._. ,.
in a second stage of processing. In short we usually 'see' through spectacles made of our past ex-
Surely, this interpretation might perience, our knowledge, and tinted and mottled by the logical
differ from person to person, but forms of our special languages and notations. Seeing is what I
- in the example - Kepler and shall call a 'theory-laden' operation. '3
Brahe at least have the same ex-
penen . ces (they observe the same. Fig. 8.i: Birds or Antelopes? Thinking along these lines, reality becomes our own construction.
d ta) Hanson however, is When our theories change, what we consider to be the facts that make
raw a · ' d
eager to point out that we o d y step but rather that we up reality changes with them. We might call this view constructivism
· ences as a secon ar ' . . (Nelson Goodman's influential Ways of Worldmaking (1978) might be
not interpret our expen h e The interpretation is
immediately see the sun rise, or the eart mov . - --
already present in the observation.
Hanson provides us with many other exam-
\ .,
7
I taken as propagating this view as well).
If one accepts constructivism, 'reality' and 'truth' are no longer to
be taken at face value. What we mean by reality is determined a priori
les. For instance, the drawing of figure 8.1 can \ by the theories we already accepted and the anticipations we already
~e interpreted as either a picture of buis : ~ I acquired. What is true about the world changes with different groups
picture of antelopes. 'Could peopk w o a or individuals in different periods. Although, as we have seen, Popper
telope but only buds, see an thought it possible to nevertheless get closer to a true theory about the
never seen an a n '
antelope in figure [ 8.11 .
? 'll
. . d L--- world (using the negative, falsificationist way), Kuhn will argue that
. it is Wi.ttgenstein who anticipate k be there is no such thing as 'the truth.' What scientists take to be the truth
A gain, ( d Han Fig. 8.z: Nee ercu
this discussion on theory-ladennes5, an . ~ and what they think reality looks like is always relative to a group of sci-
. d d Wittgenstein s Investiga entists in a certain period in time within a certain paradigm. This view
son refers in ee to b t the Necker cube (figure 8.2):
tions) when he wrote a ou is known as scientific relativism, and theory-ladenness is an important ar-
gument in defending this form of relativism.
. . the illustration [of a Necker cube) appear-
You could imagine b k for instance. In the
· a book a text- oo
ing in several p 1 aces m , . . . every time: here a
h. different is m question
relevant text so met mg h wire frame of that 8.3.2 The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis from linguistics
. t d open box t ere a
glass cube, there an mver e . l'. dan le Each time the text
shape, there three boards forming a so i . g . Another point of reference for discussing relativism is the work of Franz
. · f the illustration.
supplies the interpretation o . ne thing, now as Boas (1858-1942). Boas was one of the founding fathers of relativism,
But we can also see the illustration now as o
another.- So
. ,2
we interpret it, and see it as we interpret it.
-
Which started as a view within western anthropology. The main idea

IJ. Hanson, 1969, p. 149.

;-:-Hanson, 1958, p. 13. e
1 2 ·
12 _ Wittgenstein, 1953, P· 9
 8 - LANGUAGE GAMES AND PARADIGMS
249

PA R T 11 - PHI L O SO P H Y O F SC IE N C E

There. are of course many diff i terent uses of th -

ependmg on the context f d b . e not10n of relativism,
· 0 e ate. Our mtere th · ·
dwith respect to knowled d . s ere is m relativism
was that othet cultu«s should not be studied th,ough the lens of west- .f ge an science. If what
- i what we regard to be th £ d we regard to be real
een assumptions about univemlitY or supetiotity. One of the claims e acts - epends h
anson argues, then we 1 on t eory as strongly as
Boas defended was that language is, way of classifying expWences cannot tru y say h - ,
H
can do is to compare diffi h . w at is really real.' All we
We can also mee this view back to Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-tSJS), erent t e orettcal fram k .
we cannot compare the . h . ewor s with each other·
who a,gued that our language deteunines out thought (c903/tgt8) The m wit uninterp t d d '
will never be able to claim truth ( £ l _re e ata or facts. Hence, we
idea that language wo,ks as a system of classification was latet developed
Relativism in science w ld or a sity) for any theory.
by Edwatd Sapi< ( t884- t9J9), who was Boas' student, and Benjamin Lee ou amount to th 1 ·
cepted as facts or data is rel t. . . e c aim that what is ac-
Whocf (,897-t94c), who was Sapit's student. They acgued for ling,istit a rve to a scientific co -
g omerate of accepted the . . mmumty and the con-
,eJ,ti,ity• what one can think about and wh>t one can pecceive is rela- ones, assumptions meth 0 d
1 hen there are two diffi . . . ' s, and techniques.
tive to the language one speaks. This linguistic ,elativity thesis is also erent scientific vie ( h l . .
w
are facts that the oth . d . ws eac c aimmg that there
known as the Humboldt-Sapic-Whocf, the Sapi,-Who<f or simply the er view en ies) we c d. .
the correct and the in - . ' annot istmguish between
Whotf-hypothesis. The basic tenet oflinguistic ,elativity is that a lan- . correct view. The concl .
different views are merel Y diff i terent, In the ey usion f must . be that
. the
guage has consequences fot the way we think about ,ealitY, would make science a trivi 1 h es o many scientists, this
ia uman enterpri fi h .
as a fact today might ce b ise, or w at is accepted
The categories and types we isolate from the world of phenom- , ase to e a fact t
part Ill of this book w · 11 omorrow. So why bother? In
ena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the ' e wi try to show that i . .
good reasons not to be a 1 . . . t is possible to provide
face. On the contrary the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic . re ativist with res .
will illustrate the source of K h , h. l peet to science. But first we
flux of impressions which have to be organized in our 4minds.This u n s P i osoph f ·
t e components of hi . h . yo science, and explain
means, largely, by the linguistic system in our rninds. ' h . is view, s owing ho -
scientific relativism what . w it gets dangerously close to
' arguments mi ht bl k .
uhn finally modified d . . . g OC this route, and how
The classic example is that of the \nuit having many diffetent wo,ds K
an mitigated his relativistic view.
fot diffetent types of snow, whe« we only have the wotd 'snow.' The
idea is that whete we can only see snow, \nuit can see vacious types of
snow. Anothet example is that the English wotd 'civet' has two diffet- 8.4 THOMAS KUHN'S VIEW OF SCIENCE
ent mnslations in f,ench, flewe and """"· A fl'""' is a civet that floWS
into the sea, while a ,i,ii,e does not. So the f,ench will see eithet • S amue 1inKuhn
the (1922
h · 1 - l 9h9 6) is
. generally seen as one of the fore-
fl'""' (like the civet Rhóne, that ends in the Mediteccanean) o< a ,i,il" Thomas
most relativists
ho P i osop Y of science K h h ·
(like the Saóne, that ends in the Rhóne), whete the English only see
two tiv«s. Linguistic ,elativism thus lends suppott to the idea that if
w a variety of theories and. . h fi
of• Il, he remembers • teal .;:"! '.'.
. u n imself points out
ostered hts views of science. Fitst
science also uses linguistic systems to classify the kaleidoscopic flux of
imp«ssions, even science might fall pteY to a kind of ,elativism· co,n-
science to under raduat
Aristotle would t re _a_. moment m 1947. He had to teach
e ~huma_m ues students at Harvard and thought
much e compre ensible to them K h
bined with Wittgenstein's notion of language games, this vieW ofl•W by h mechanics was already known b A : u n wanted to see how
wh ow wrong Aristotle's Pl . . Ky nstotle, and was astonished
gu,ge n,.kes it «edible that even science inhetits the p,oblem of ,el•- o was b iysics is. uhn wonder d h
tivism geneoted by the fact that out obsecvations and categotiz>nons Off in phy'.7csnght and btil\iant in other a,e,s coul; hav~::;:::o;,:
are theory-laden and language-driven.

14. Whorf, 1940/1956, 212.

 8 - LANGUAGE GAMES AND PARADIGMS
251
PART 11 - PH ILO SOPH Y OF SCIE N CE

because I go round explaining my own position saying I am a

20
nl . orant of mechanics, but a dread- Kantian with moveable categories.
Aristotle appeared not o y ign t motion, in particular, his
fully bad physical se1ent1st as well.Abou fl . d f Just as Kant argued that we need the categories to be able to perceive
. . n1. to me full of egregious errors, both o ogre an o
wntings see anything at all (chapter 4), Kuhn argues that we need paradigms. The
observation.
15 main difference is that paradigms can change, while the Kantian cat-
egories can not. Let us turn to several elements in Kuhn's view of sci-
After struggling with this problem, K~hn says ence that were informed by these influences.
that Aristotle suddenly made sense. Under-
. s own terms Aristotle's physics
stoo tl on hl ' . . z
'wasn't just bad Newton,' Kuhn says; it was Just 0 8.4.1 Patterns in scientific development
. f-c
da ivery
1eren .
t ,16 Kuhn concluded that Aristotle was
I'd .
>-
:,:
<
good physicist, but 'of a sort never 0: After dismissing falsificationism, we have reached the point that the
"bl '17 "0 project of finding a criterion of demarcation must chiefly be regarded
had dreamed possi e. "'
Beside this 'Aristotle experience,' as Kuhn as having failed. In other words: philosophers of science were unable to
himself calls it, i8 there were also other influ- find a satisfying norm to use as a criterion for separating science from
that may not be entirely unexpected, Thomas Kuhn other human endeavours because there is no such criterion. None of the
ences ..
given our previous exposé of relativism: suggested criteria met our prior understanding of what science is. Either

t~:
h e led me to the experiments by the criterion disqualified disciplines we are sure belong to science (like
A footnote encountered by c anc . ld f the physics) or it qualified practices as science which we certainly would
which Jean Piaget has illuminated both the vanous w:; next. not identify as science (like hand-reading and astrology). Because we do
. nild and the process of transition from one have this rough intuitive idea of which disciplines belong to science, we
growing c 1 . rs in the psychol-
f colleagues set me to reading pape might take advantage of this and historically investigate how these dis-
One o my . . l ly the Gestalt psychologists; another
ciplines, as typical examples of what we tend to call science, developed
of(;'/ of perception, B parucu ar
L Whorf's speculations about the effect o f
introduced me to · · 19 over time. And that is exactly what Thomas Kuhn did.
language on world viewl-1 It cannot be stressed enough: Kuhn did not initially provide us with
. ant though he did not entirely agree yet another simple criterion of demarcation. He used a different strate-
Kuhn was also influenced by K . , . ublished in 2000, he re- gy to get a clearer picture of the nature of science. He turned to the his-
. h h. In an autobiographical interview p torical study of science. With his background in physics and history of
wit 1n1.. held as a student at Harvard: science, Kuhn's description focuses on the development of disciplines
counts a talk he
. d the notion of preconditions for we categorize as 'hard sciences,' mainly physics and astronomy, but his
l gave a presentation on Kant an ldn't be view of science applies to the social sciences as well. Kuhn's historical
k led e. Things had to be the case because you wou studies do not simply conclude with a mere description of science. He
now g . . r 1 fThis1 is an important story
able to know things otherwise. L · . . L ~u_ts great emphasis on the notion of paradigm (later to be changed to
disciplinary matrix'21) and plays with the idea that the presence of a
~ngle paradigm might be taken as a criterion of science. Discussing the
. Kuhn, 2000, 16.
15
1
6. Horgan, 1991, 14·
_ Kuhn, 2000, 16.
1story of the science of electricity he says:
17
18. Ibidem, 275 ..
19. Kuhn, 1962, Vt.
20
Kuhn, 2000, 264. .
21·. Kuhn, 1970, postscript, p. 182.
 LO SO PH Y OF SCIEN CE
8 - LANGUAGE GAMES AND PARADIGMS
PART Il - PH I

253

d 1780 electricians were for the first 8.4.2 Normal science

Sometime between 1740 an .' f their field for granted.
k the foundations o .
time enabled to ta e oncrete and recondite Every existing scientific discipline has had its pre-scientific period.
. h shed on to more c .
From that pomt t ey pu d their results in arn- In this stage there are as many opinions as there are people, there is
. 1 hey then reporte
problems, and increasing y t . . h than in books addressed no consensus about the way one ought to proceed to gather informa-
her electricians rat er d
des addresse d to ot they achieved what ha tion about a specific domain of phenomena, and there is no generally
ld 1 rge As a group
to the learned wor at a ·. . . nd by students of mo- accepted background of (metaphysical and methodological) assump-
mers m antiquity a h
been gained by astrono . 1 . ·n the late seventeent tions. Still, explorative human beings can develop a culture of con-
. of hysica optics i
tion in the Middle Ages, p . the early nineteenth. They sensus, and as a part of this they achieve science with regard to that
. · cal geology m .
century, and o f h istcn d to be able to gmde specific domain of phenomena. When such a scientific community
. d aradigm that prove
had, that is, achieve a p ith the advantage of hind- originates and when there is consensus on what the main (domain-
, hfu~~~ .
the whole groups researc . . . that so clearly proclaims specific) assumptions and theories are, the transition from the pre-sci-
. ht , it is hard to find another cntenon
sig entific period to a first period of normal science (for that discipline) is
a field a science_22 completed. Kuhn says:
. . of a typical pattern in the dyna_m-
Strongly convinced of his discovery b . f the data of his historical In this essay 'normal science' means research firmly based upon
. d. . 1 on the asis o .
ics of any scientific iscip me, . nt scheme to be found m one or more past scientific achievements, achievements that some
. K h . dentified a recurre
studies of soence, u n i . h cial emphasis on the moment particular scientific community acknowledges for a time as sup-
· nee wit spe f
the development o f any scie ' . if discipline. The presence o plying the foundation for its further practice. 23
· such a scienti ic h ,
a single paradigm occurs mb ted as a criterion of science. Ku n s
· roe~~
a single paradigm seems ·1 b dismissed as merely d escnp- ·
The sum of accepted metaphysical assumptions, theories, methodolo-
h £ e not easi Y e · ·
view of science can t ere or . . h. St ucture or Scientific Revolutions is gies, manuals, and techniques is called a paradigm, and during a pe-
gestion in is r '.I f 'f t
tive, since the strong sug . if d. . line is the presence o a irs riod of normal science the scientific community works, acts and thinks
of a mature sc1enti ic iscip
that t h e mar k . from within such a paradigm. For instance, if a community of psychol-
paradigm. ' . K h the scheme of the dynamics o . fa sci- ogists works from within the Freudian paradigm, then no one doubts
In brief, according to u n . . . 1 (once-in-a-lifetime) pre- that every neurosis in adult life can be traced back to unresolved sexual
. . £ 11 s. after an imna f
entific discipline is as o ow .f . tific discipline takes the form of experiences during childhood, as Freud's views on the Oedipus com-
. d h dynamtC o a scien iod o
plex are part of the Freudian paradigm .
scientific peno ' t e . .f riod there is usually a per f
· a pre-soenti ic pe ' riod o
a spiral. Fo 11 owmg fa paradigm. Next, ape Paradigms are presented in textbooks that explain the theories and
. 1 d. the presence o l d to
normal science - me u mg . . rsi· sts it will inevitably ea . highlight their successes. They can do this because they possess two
If ch a crrsis
crisis typically fo 11 ows. su .
pe ' h. h sci-
aradi m shift, after w ic important features:
b . f and sudden scientific revolution or p . g d then the process
a rre eriod of normal soence - an . char-
entists return to a_ new p k t these different stages and their Their achievement was sufficiently unprecedented to attract an
starts all over agam. Let us loo a
enduring group of adherents away from competing modes of sci-
acteristics in more detail. entific activity. Simultaneously, it was sufficiently open-ended to

2
3, Kuhn, 1962, p. 10 _

22. Kuhn, 1962, p. 22.

 PART Il - PH ILO SO PH Y OF SCIEN CE 8 - LANGUAGE GAMES AND PARADIGMS

254
255
leave all sorts o f problems for the redefine d grou P of practitioners tion that the paradigm is basically correct. The presence of such a com-
mitment is an indicator of a period of normal science. The belief that
to resolve. h tw characteristics I shall hence-
Achievements that share t ese oh lates closely to 'normal they are basically right is what keeps scientists going, even when they
forth refer to as 'para d.igms,, a term t at re encounter severe theoretical problems or discrepancies between theory
science.'24 and reality. Such problems allow the theory to prove itself, when scien-
tists are able to solve them.
. d without minor errors a nd problems.
. With the acceptance of a paradigm, scientists accept a certain con-
No paradigm is ever fimshe . or scientists expand the paradigm and
During a period of normal science, blems so called anomalies. ceptual framework. This makes the education of scientists very impor-
. k
try to get rid of rmsta es an . d mmor pro
I and this ' is the mam . work of tant, according to Kuhn. During their education, scientists are taught a
Normal science consists m solving puzz es, dogmaticframework - a framework not explicitly formulated, but trans-
. d of normal science. d. . ferred implicitly, mostly via examples of successes of the paradigm in
scientists during a peno . K hn describes how the pre ictions
As an example, the histonan ud f: m Newtonian astronomy did the past. Textbooks used to educate future scientists are filled with
about the orbits of the planets deduc;cie~~ists spent much of their lives these examples. Such books are thus used for two purposes. Firstly,
ot match the observations. Many d . d to come up with a better they explain and teach the paradigm. The successful examples show
n . h y an tne how the techniques of the paradigm are used to solve relevant prob-
improving the Newtonian t alit Nobody assumed that the Newto-
match between theory and rea ity. fi ndamentally wrong. The idea lems. Secondly, and implicitly, they gently indoctrinate the students,
h digm-e was u .. inculcating them with the characteristics of the paradigm and thus con-
nian framework - t e _para e needed to get the predictions en-
was that only small adjustments Lael and Gauss all did some of their vincing them that the paradigm is a true representation of the world.
tirely correct: 'Euler, Lagrange, ap acde,to improve the match between Indeed, we could say that the scientists' training is (in a way) a kind of
k problems airne brainwash in which they are 'taught' to adopt the standard (yet specific)
most brilliant wor on . of the heavens/"
perspective on reality. Evidently, they are trained to take an uncritical
Newton's paradigm and observaltwn e scientists solve puzzles wit_hin
· d of norma soenc ' attitude toward the paradigm. This then, is an entirely different view
So during a peno . one can extend an d 1m-
' k Once a paradigm ru 1 es, blem of the education of scientists than the one Popper sketched (see chap-
a certain framewor . d. A scientist tries to solve a pro
ter 7). While Popper argues that scientists are scientists to the extent
prove the elements of the para ig:~hout having to start from scratch,
that others have not solved ye_t, that they are always critical towards reigning theories and try to falsify
stan d.m g on the shoulders of giants: them, Kuhn says that scientists are dogmatic about and conservative
towards the set of theories, assumptions, and techniques that make up
. community
[ ] a scientific . is an immensely. the paradigm they work and think in.
In its normal state . . . . bl ms or puzzles that its
. f. r solvmg the pro e b We can even illustrate this by reference to the same historical event
effective mstrument o the result of solving those pro -
d .
para igms define. Furthermore, 26 that brought Popper to the conclusion that Einstein, one of the great-
lerns must inevitably be progress. est scientists that ever lived, acted along falsificationist lines. We saw
in the previous chapter that in the history of the theory of relativity, it
· 1 be
bl a paradigm faces can, in princip e,vie- is often recounted that Eddington and his fellow scientists falsified the
The belief that the pro ems . d - r even unconscious - con
.
solved requires a strong u nquesnone 0 Newtonian prediction of the degree to which light bends, while cor-
roborating Einstein's theory. Even Einstein himself refers to Edding-
ton's experiment in support of his theory:
24. Kuhn, 1962, P· IO.
25. Ibidem, p. 32·
26. Ibidem, p. 166.
 PART II - PHI LOSO PH Y OF SCIEN CE 8 - LANGUAGE GAMES AND PARADIGMS

257
. erformed during the solar eclipse though the objective conclusion ought to have been that the data were
[T]he famous experiments_ P . 1 h . nfluence of a gravita-
show conclusively though indirect y, t e 1 inconclusive for deciding between Newton's and Einstein's hypothesis.
tional field on the path of a righ t ray. 27 This case, like many other historical cases, then, supports Kuhn's and
not Popper's view that scientists take an uncritical stance in periods of
. d how that the true mark of sci- normal science.
. this 1 event mor er tos d .f
Popper ment10ns . . . f; · fy his hypothesis, an i
. . b·1· A ood scientist tnes to a 1 s1 .
ence 1s falsifia i ity. g d a picture of science as
. borated Popper rew
he fails, the theory is corro . . h the other hand, argues that
8.4.3 Crisis
a collection of critical scientists. Ku _n, on ot critical but dogmatic:
. f 1 cience scientrsts are n . h
in a penod o norma s . H. . ally this is precisely w at
th ir theones istoric ' One important element of the Aristotelian paradigm was the idea that
they try to ho ld on to e . . I Kuhn's terms, Eddington
. h Edd. ton's experiments. n E. solid objects (like everything else in the cosmos) strive towards their
happened wit mg . . d. d wanted to show that m- natural place - in this case, towards the earth. That is why, thinking
. h E. steiruan para igm an f h
was already m t e m . h. . fl need his interpretation o t e from within this paradigm, a piece of chalk falls to the ground. As long
. . were nght T ism ue . .
stein's pre d ictions . . d fhis own team in Principe:
by the team m Sobral an o as my hand blocks the natural movement of the piece of chalk, I can
data gat h ere d
feel the striving as the weight of the chalk. As soon as I take my hand
1 ady an eminent Cambridge physicist and away I witness the piece taking its natural course. Later, this paradigm
Eddington [ ... ] was a re ' d ta sets that would serve
. . ( of both teams a - was rejected, and people came to believe that objects do not have inner
it was his interpreta 10n . . . oteworthy that even
. . . . For this reason it is n . strivings, but that they fall towards the ground because of the earth's
to vindicate Einstein. ilk own for his Einstein-
r- p
before departing tor rinci · ipe he was we n gravity (see chapter 2). Thinking from within a Newtonian paradigm,
. 28 the earth pulls the piece of chalk down. According to Kuhn, Aristotle's
ian sympat hres.
paradigm should not be considered unscientific: out-of-date paradigms
. he data was far from objective. First of are not unscientific, but are simply superseded. (In a similar vein, Pop-
Eddington's interpretation oft h d h ed for. There were no
ood as they a op r- per did not disqualify falsified scientific hypotheses as unscientific.)
all the data were not as g ' they had to settle ror
, 11 . d the suns corona, so h Kuhn argues that if we label Aristotle's superseded paradigm as sci-
stars visible that fe outsi . e h ker gravitational effect. T e
. 1 mg a muc wea . d entific, then, obviously, science contains sets of beliefs - like Aristotle's
those further away, imp y 1 t Newtonian pred1cte
b 1 pedition were c ose o ' - quite incompatible with what we hold today. As a historian of sci-
results of the S o ra ex h lts for he suspected a sys-
. t out t ese resu 1' ence, one would like to have an account of how these different sets of
values. Eddington simp 1 y cas ble argument, the problem
. , Alth 0 ugh this was a reasona h me beliefs are related to each other. For instance, how did we get from one
tematic error. . . bility to show that t e sa set of beliefs to another set of beliefs? Was this a very slow and smooth
d 'Eddington's abject ma I I h ic-
that remaine was d t ,29 Furthermore, t e P gradual transition, or was there a rupture, a certain cataclysmic event
had not occurred in the other ata-se s. . . e not as clear
error h. 1 took at Princrpe wer d that swept scientists towards an entirely new paradigm? Popper would
tures that Eddington and is tearr ent hard. In sum, E -

:r;
. B 1 which made measurem . re- opt for the more traditional view that sets of beliefs change gradually
as those taken m razi , f the Einsteinian p
over time ( there is piecemeal change of belief). Kuhn offers plausible
dington deliberately selected the dahta to c~n had to be right, even
diction, holding dogmatically that t is pre ic reasons not to believe this traditional view of science: paradigm shifts
occur abruptly.

- . . & 1 nte
c Id ired in Collins & Pinch, 1998, P· 43· Although Kuhn thinks that scientists are dogmatic and conservative
27. Einstein ei
2 3_ Waller, 2002, p. 53 · when they work from within a paradigm, he does not claim that scien-
29. Ibidem, p. 57·
 PART Il - PH ILO SO PH Y OF SCIE N CE 8 - LANGUAGE GAMES AND PARADIGMS

259

tists are not critical at all. Under certain conditions, the attitude of sci- This new pa ra d rgm
· replaces the old ara . . .
Kuhn calls this way of sol . h p . digrn m a relatively short tim
entists might change. If a paradigm is confronted with more and more vmg t e cns1s · ;!; e.
one from the old paradigm ·11 a saenuju revolution. Not every-
problems and anomalies, the trustworthiness of the paradigm is eroded. . WI accept th .
times, dramatically those se· . e new paradigm, and some
Problems (puzzles) accumulate. There are no new successes that reduce . ' ientists who d . -
outside of the new scientific . o not accept rt will then fall
the problems. There might be only ad hoc solutions, and puzzles be-
able to accommodate their wco~ kmudmty. They are 'unwilling or un-
come important anomalies. The unconditional trust that the paradigm or an the ,
or attach themselves to some other y _must proceed in isolation
is correct withers, resulting in a crisis: 'When ( ... ] an anomaly comes
simply stayed in the departments olr~~P- Historically, they have often
to seem more than just another puzzle of normal science, the transition
30 the special sciences have bee p osophy from which so many of
to a crisis and to extraordinary science has begun.' This crisis is the start . . n spawned.v"
of a period of abnormal science. In this period the assumptions, method- · As
h a historian of science ' Ku h n uses ast
wit an example of a scientific re 1 . ronomy again to provide us
ologies, and accepted truths are being critically discussed. However,
digm, the earth was believed to v:e u:;on. In the old Ptolemaic para-
if there is no alternative paradigm yet, scientists have no choice: the
paradigm is still accepted, but one is looking for an alternative. It is this th: centre of the universe with the stars
crisis that makes a scientific revolution possible. an planets orbiting it in perfect . 1
How .f cue es.
ever, I one uses this paradigm t 0
make accu rate predicrions
. . about the
8.4.4 Scientific revolutions movements of the stars and planets it
rs not very useful for m . '
will be w ' . any predictions
A period of abnormal science can end in either of two ways. The first . rong. To improve the predic-
way is to solve all the accumulated problems (eliminate the anomalies). tiens
. 1 of the parad igm,
· .
circles within
If there are no - or very few - problems left, the crisis is managed and cire es (epicycles) were added b h
r d. · , ut t e
trust in the paradigm is restored. P e icnons
. remained i ncorrect and the
The more interesting way a crisis can be answered is when a totally P ara d1gm got·into a crrsrs,
.. Epicycles
new paradigm presents itself. All of a sudden, someone comes up with a As long as the Ptolemaic paradi m .
tronomers were forced to use it Thi r_emamed the only paradigm, as-
fresh look at things - someone from outside the original paradigm per-
ward aspect of Kuhn's analysis: ~fth s rs_ an important and straightfor-
haps, or a proficient student who profiles himself as a divergent thinker
sc1ent1st cannot but use and k ere i_s no alternative paradigm the
within the paradigm. A new perspective suddenly originates: on wor within th d· · '
. ce an alternative becomes availabl h e para rgm m crisis. But
t1lvely brief period in which the . efi, t ere will be a hectic and rela-
Sometimes the shape of the new paradigm is foreshadowed in the od d. scienti 1c co .
f p_ara igrn to the new paradi W mmumty switches from the
structure that extraordinary research has given to the anomaly.
; this brisk transition between;:· e_w11l highlight several aspects
[ ... }More often no such structure is consciously seen in advance.
Instead, the new paradigm, or a sufficient hint to permit later di~; we already hear a clear echo o; ~:;rods of normal science below.
. ussmg Wittgenstein's notio fl question we identified when
articulation, emerges all at once, sometimes in the middle of the
3 tion bet ween different consecutive
qu n o p anguage
d. games: what is the rela-
night, in the mind of a man deeply immersed in crisis. '
_ences for our idea of the growth ;ra . ig~s, and what are the conse-
o scientific knowledge?
32. I<uh
30. Kuhn, 1962, p. 82, italics added. n, 1962, p. 19.
31. Ibidem, p. 90.
 PART II - PH ILOSO PH Y OF SCIE N CE 8 - LANGUAGE GAMES AND PARADIGMS

260 261

8-4-5 Growth of knowledge The transition

. . from a paradigm m . cns1s_ . to a ne fi .
a tradition of normal . w one rom which
. science can emer e . [; fi
nve process, one achieved b . g_ is ar rom a cumula-
We have seen that, according to Popper, growth of knowledge is pos- old paradigm Rath . . y an articulation or extension of the
sible. Science might proceed in a negative way, but it still heads towards fi d . er It is a reconstruction of the field fr
more knowledge and towards the improvement of scientific theories. un amentals, a reconstruction that cha om new
most elementary theo t. l . nges some of the field's
Nicolaus Copernicus (1474-1543) had a different theory about the place re ica generalizario 11
paradigm methods and ap Ji . ns as we as many of its
of the earth in the universe than Ptolemy. He thought that the sun was p cations.>
the centre of the universe and that the other heavenly bodies orbited
the sun. For Popper, the rejection of the theory of Ptolemy and the Hence,
· · we should even abandon th e 1-d ea that a h ti f .
sC1ent1sts closer to the truth - h . s I t o paradigm brings
acceptance of the theory of Copernicus is an improvement in science. t ere 1s change · ·
ent tendency to change r h m science, but no inher-
We have eliminated a false theory, and we have at our disposal a new ror t e more pr b bl
b e sure, this is not to say th t . . o . a e set of hypotheses. To
theory to further test our ideas about the planetary system. We have - a science 1s with t
c 1 aims that growth of se. ou growth, since Kuhn
improved on our knowledge about the way the world is not: whatever . ience can occur within d. ,
ary change is defined in part b . diff a para igm. Revolution-
the true character of the world, it is not Ptolemaic. Y its 1 rerence [
an cl normal change is [ ] th rom normal change
Kuhn, however, concludes that a paradigm shift is not an improve- . ··· e sort that result · '
cumulative addition to wh t k s m growth, accretion
ment. There is no improvement when one paradigm is replaced by an- a was nown bef; '35 I d '
ready seen how scientists in a l . ore. n eed, we have al-
other one - there is only a shift in perspective on reality. Once the Ptole- norma science sp d h . .
puzz l es. Once a puzzle i l d en t eir time solving
maic paradigm was in crisis and the Copernican paradigm offered an B s so ve we speak f
ut this is not to daim th . , . o growth of knowledge
alternative framework, the old paradigm was abandoned and the new one is l at science is on the road ...
so ved by a revolution th h to truth. If a crisis
accepted in a scientific revolution. But although we like to believe the . , ere as merely b h
tive, and no real growth in scie t.fi k een a c ange of perspec-
new paradigm is closer to the truth, Copernicus' paradigm was not really 0 n I ic nowledg h
nee again in our expositi f l . . e as occurred after all.
a big improvement over Ptolemaic astronomy, according to Kuhn, and . on o re ativisrn h. h
genstem's language ga dr - , w ic started with Witt-
certainly not in the strong sense ofbeing more probable. Kuhn insists: ti mes an rorrns ofl1fe a d ·
rom the concept of the th 1 d , n gamed further support
Whorfhypothesis on 1ing:::rc- r:1:::i:ss of observation and the Sapir-
When a new candidate for paradigm is first proposed, it has sel-
an awkward form of relativi I . y, we are now confronted with
dom solved more than a few of the problems that confront it, and sm. t 1s awkw d b
g rowth of scientific know led . h ar ecause the lack of real
most of those solutions are still far from perfect. Until Kepler, the
the truth, dashes with our int guet,_ in t be sense. of getting ever closer to
Copernican theory scarcely improved upon the predictions of need d. I ions a out SC!e A .
to iscuss, therefore is h . . nee. crucial point we
planetary position made by Ptolemy.
3
3 , t e notion of mcommens ura b I·1ity. ·

The predictions deduced within the heliocentric paradigm were not

really better than those deduced within the Ptolemaic paradigm, j.e. 8.4.6 Incommensurability
there was, in that sense, no growth of knowledge with the change_ ~f
Accordin K
paradigm. The traditional idea of cumulative growth in science is criti- g g to uhn, different p d·
or this notion from g ara igms are incommensurable. Kuhn
- eometry, where th d.
cized by Kuhn: 34. I<uhn e iagonal of a square and the
35. I<uh ' 1962, pp. 84-85
n, zooo, p. ,4. .
33. Kuhn, 1962, p. 156.
 PA RT II - PH ILO SO PH Y O F SC IEN C E

8 - LANGUAGE GAMES AND PARADIGMS

. . th which to express or mea sure them.
ides do not have a single unit w1
Th . - r The square root expresses
SI th side I IS V2. h
e diagonal of a square w1 h be used to explicate t e com-
.
the idea that there " no eg m
· t er t at can _r
of the sides of the square: »-q,4 :
speak diffecent fangu,ges (they pfay diffetent fangu,ge g>mesJ. The
ide, is th,t the,e is no neutc,J or objective fangu,ge (no common unit
arison of the diagonal with one 'to have no measure in common.2
fncommensurability literally means this means that if two pmd,gms
App
of measucement in which both can be expcessed and compa,ed), since
the hngu,ge used is ,Jw,ys and ,!eeady pm of the pac,digm. Foe in-
lied to the notion of parad1gm_s, unit common to both para-
I h there 1s no , p heliocentric paradigm:of the teem 'emh' diffecs in , geocenteic >nd,
stance, the meaning
are incommensurab e t en arisen between the two. ar-
.
digrns, .
mw hich we can express the comp . ble we will never
· ompara bl e. If they are incompara h
adigms become me . s us closer to the trut .
P,ct of whar they [Ptolem,ic ""onome"J meant by 'eaeth' w,,
know whether ' paradigm s~~ t~:;uäu,e efRevolutions, Kuhn restated fixed position. Their e,cth, ,c lease could not be moved. Cone-
Some
. three
f. decades after .. ' wit. h reference to the undmt,ndmg
ommensurab1hty spondingly, Copernicus' innovation was not simply to move the
hisolder
of notion o me para d.igrn s ' like Aristotle's:
scientific earth. Rather, it was a whole new way of regarding the problems
of physics and astronomy, one that necessarily changed the mean-
ing of both 'earth' and 'motion.'38
6·1· . a nonen . that for me emerg ed from at-d
Incommensura I iry is . a1 passages encountere
d arently nonsensre
tempts to understan app . . h h d been taken as evidence
The hngu,ge of, Pmdigm, then, cannot ipso facto be neutc,I between
in old scienti.fiic tex t s. Ordinarily. t ey b aIi fs My experiences
. led
d mistaken e e Pmdigms, since it >fready belongs to one Pmdigm. This implies that
of the author's confuse or ere being misread: t h e
·
. d that those passages w . Id membecs of diffeeent pmdigms would not be ,bie to communirne
me to suggest, mstea ' ed by recovering o er
uld be remov sensibly with each othet, foe they would spe,k diffàent 1'nguagcr. If sci-
appearance of nonsense co . l d meanings different from
meanings for some o f the terms 36 mvo ve , entists try to m,ke sense of ,n o!dec supecseded pmdigm from within
those subsequently current. theie own youngec P>radigm, they wil] expetience linguistic pwb!em,,
foe diffecent consecutive g,oups of noem,! scientists can on]y mean
diffetent things by thei, woeds. This is usu,J]y solved by assessing the
There are (at least) three related aspe_c ttshat
to Kuhn's claim
since new that parausually
paradigms digrns
I
P<evious fr,mewo,k
incomprehensibly (from within one's own pmdigmJ ,s uttedy and
wrong.
bl The first one 1s However,
are incommensura e. . ology used is often the same. . ship
stem from olddones, the term dm have a completely new relation ber The <hied - and >ccoeding to Kuhn most fund,menr,J - >speet of the
old terms use m · ne w para ' igrns Id under invesrigation
. . , (remem
d hence to the wor . . inconunensuubi!ity of Pmdigm, is th,t the pwponents of the diffec -
to each other _a n
the meaning-is-use vie . w of the later Wittgenstem). en, pa,,digm, woek in diffecent woddsc 'In so far ,s the ie only cecou,se
to <h,r Wodd is theough whar they see and do, we may w,n, to say that
. old terms, >fret , <evolution scientists '" eesponding to , diffetent woe!d.'" Be.
Within the new paradigm, . h theconcepts,
other. 37 an d exp eriments
l · hips one wit '>use the new pa,,digm offees , new Pecspective on ee,Jity, diffetent
fall into new relatioris . of dif-
P<oble,ns
0 ,ee >ddeessed and solved within it. With , diffeeent peespec-
<ive n ee,Ji,y, diffeeent phenomen, are deemed to be ee!ev,n,. Sci-
The second
.
orcblmunicat1on betwee n scientists
. simp 1 Y
ferent . aspect
paradigms is isigthat
· h. hly pro e matic because these scientists entists Who >dopt the new pa,,digm see, different wo,Jd, >ccoeding to
Kuhn, th,n do those who woeked in the old pa,,digm. Kuhn's cJ,im
~Kuhn, 199ohooo, p.·\)J · that se· · c. · · fi 1 · ) d ·
~?- Kuhn, 1962, p. 149- -----Kuh '<n<,sts Uv, in o new wo,/d (>,tee, sc,enr, ,c eevo ut,on stan s •n
38-
1962
39. Ibiden,
n1,p.
, Pp. '49- 150.
_
111
 8 - LANGUAGE GAMES AND PARADIGMS
265

PA R T 11 - p}l. ILO SO PI-f Y O f sc IE N C E

d The. shift from one paradiigm to another bl
escribed in Gestalt psych I resem es a Cestau switth ,s
sees either a duck or a bobogyb, says Kuhn. Consider figure 8.3. One
sh,<p conmst to the view of the \ogid positivists who believed that . . , ra it, ut never both h
rawmg is used by Kuh 1 - at t e same time. The
facts ate neuttal and teality is objective. Hete, Kuhn's consttuctivism dI n fact, ' it is as elementary
n to e ucidate the d
prot c
f .
i ea o a paradigm switch
becomes vetY dea<· He seems to suggest th>t wodd and tealitY ate de- · · otypes for th ·
scientists' world that th c · 1· ese transformations of the
e tarnt iar demonst . f .
tennined by the theotY about teality. He adhetes to the idea that gestalt prove so suggestive Wh rations o a switch in visual
· h . · at were d k
(a) themcy detennines wh>t you see (the theory-hdenness of ob· m t e soentific world before th 1 . uc s
rabbits afterwards.'40 e revo ution are
,e,v,cion); (b) theo,Y detennines what the« is (the theory de-
. Yet . Kuhn warns us that th.is ana1ogy bet
pendence of facts). scientific revolutions and Gestalt . h ween
not be h d switc es can-
The fast daim might not be sutptising at a\\. 1f yon \ook ,t a b,ain scan . pus e too far. In the case of the duck
in neum-psychology without any knowledge of the b,ain, you might rabbit we can switch back and forth whi h .-
not poss,ble in the ease of pa d ' " ,s Ag. s, D,ck-R<bb;,
be able to see that it is a scan of a human head. You can make out the one has ado t d ra igm shifts. If
contouts of the nose, mouth and chin, but you ,<e prnbably not able d Pe a new pa ra d.igm, one canno hif b '
oes not preserve the gestalt subject's freedo ts , t . ack ( the scientist
to detetmine whethet you ate looking at a notmal b,ain or one with between ways of seeing'4') F h m to switch back and forth
lesions. To be able to see that, you wi\1 need a theotY about what you . . urt ermore th d k .
t e damfication of the d . . ' e uc . rabbit dtawing and
ate looking ,t, in this case a theory about the sttuttute of the b,ain. So, h . rawmg as either a d k . .
th ere is at least an obiecti·ve d . . uc or a rabbit, implies that
it is daim (b) that is (again) the mote sutptising one. How can a theotY . . J rawmg wh h · ·
within a ',abbit-patadigm' and 'd k " ,s ,nteepeeted differently
not only determine what l see, but also what there is? there is one world that ca b a uc -p,<ad,gm,' thus suggesting that
Without tepeating om depiction of telativism, we can make the n e seen differently. But Kuh n warns us:
daim somewhat mote plausible by looking at the beliefs - the cultutal
paodigm - of the Ainu, an ethnic gtoup living in J ,pan. Among the That parallel can be misleadin S . .
as something else· instead th g .. oelnusts _do not see something
Ainu, shamanism is vetY impottant Shamans petfotm tettain tit<', ' , ey simp y see it_42
duting which they ingest nuhéa, a n,<cotic plant Aftet a while a spitit
possesses the shaman, and the shaman is used by the deities to infotm Yet he also concludes that
the Ainu on the mattetS fot which the rire is peefotmed. Most of us
wi\1 not believe that the Ainu ate tight, but if Kuhn is cottetl, we can· Nevertheless,
so familiar, is the switch
a usefi 1 1 of g estalt , particularly
- because it is today
not say that out view is mote ptobable (mote likely to be ttue) than f u e ementary prototy f
ull-scale paeadigm shift." pe or what occurs in
theits, since we can no \onget say that one set of beliefs is ,ight while
the othet is not Hence, the telativistic view is that thete ate possessed
shamans in the Ainu wodd, while in out wodd thete ,<en't \n thO tre' we
So cannot. accept both C opermcus
of the . ' claim that the sun . h
of h universe on even dates a d p 1 . is at t e cen-
way, we can say that the Ainu live in a diffeeent wodd than we do t eu · . , n to erny's vie h h
nrverse is the earth on dd d ates Nor w
· t . at t in
e centre
C\e,<ly, this view conttaditts out common sense view that it m>Y be -" ""'" 0 . aee we justified saying
possible that we see the same wodd in a diffe,ent way. We wi11 ,etutn
0 110_
to this impoetant issue below, but fitst let us see how Kuhn's notion of 41. !bide, i962,
42. Ibid m, P· 85.
p.

incommensutability seems indeed to imply something sttonget th> 43- lbid:m, P· 85.
m,p.85.
the statemenfthat diffetent p,<adigtus intetptet the same wodd in a

different way.
 PART Il - PHI LOSOPHY OF SCIE NCE
8 - LANGUAGE GAMES AND PARADIGMS

266 267

that both astronomical paradigms deal with the same world of heav- 8.4.7 Why a paradigm shift is a revolution
enly bodies, although they interpret that realm differently. The paral-
lel with a Gestalt switch is only useful for getting an initial idea of what Why does Kuhn call paradigm shifts revoluti ? . . .
important one, considering the titl f hi ons. This quesnon is an
a paradigm switch is. . ;f; e o is mam work Th S
S c1ent1:1 ,c Revolutions . Ku h n o frrers a plausible
.
answ H
, e tructure of
Can we accept Kuhn's claim that scientists work in incommensu-
c h ange of paradigms to revol t. h . er. e compares the
rable paradigms and may even be living worlds apart after a scientific u 10nary c anges 1· ·
concludes that a scientific 1 . h m po itics and simply
revolution? What about the alternative: the claim that they work and revo ution as all th h 11 k
revolution. Let us explain. e a mar s of a political
live in the same world, but interpret the data in a different manner?
The latter, realistic, idea would be that the world is simply the way it The first feature shared by political and . . .
small group of people b scientific revolutions is that a
is, and that we might entertain different hypotheses about it at differ- ecome aware of the sh t .
lishment the current g or commgs of the estab-
ent times, while the facts about the world do not change. Many peo- , overnment or the c . .
'In both political and scientific d 1 urrent scientific paradigm.
ple would probably go for this second, less controversial view. Kuhn's eve opment the sen O f lfi
t at can lead to a crisis is p . . se ma unction
answer is that this realist view on how science relates to the world can lh . rerequisite to revolution '46 A 1 · · l
44 unon starts with a crisis and d . . · po inca revo-
itself be considered a paradigm - and as a paradigm in crisis at that. Th d . . so oes a scientific revolution
e secon pomt is that a chan e fro . . . . .
(Remember the influential view of Hanson that we do not interpret wants to change a tyranny . t de m within is impossible. If one
data with the help of a theory, but that we actually need the theory to . m a emocracy thi
O b
within, for the goal is to h , s cannot e done from
overt row the reg·
be able to see anything at all.) same holds for a paradig hift: . ime, not to modify it. The
So, Kuhn's idea - influenced by Hanson - is that facts are deter- . m s i t. to explam certain ph
paradigm is needed, not just a mod. f . . enomena, a new
mined by paradigms. But this implies that if one has to choose between A third similarity is that one i icatiohn of an existing paradigm.
the old paradigm in crisis and the newly proposed paradigm, the choice . cannot ac ieve con · ..
discourse if one's goal is a t 0 t 11 diff . sensus m a political
cannot be made by a critical evaluation and rational discussion of the . a Y 1 tererit regime a d h - .
t he rulmg discourse By d f . . n t e rejecnon of
facts - for the facts are dependent on the paradigm. Thus, the incom- . e rmtion one cannot d
cept democracy by using co 11· , persua ea tyrant to ac-
mensurability of paradigms implies that no rational comparison be- mpe mg arguments A t
someone else's argument ith . . yrant cannot accept
tween two paradigms can be made: there are no facts that can be used wr out ceasmg to be a t Th d
and the tyrant are caught 1· th . . yrant. e emocrat
to decide which paradigm is the better paradigm. Hence, if one is to . n err mcommensu bl d.
tists that work in diff . ra e iscourses. Scien-
assess a certain theory, it can only be done from the perspective of an i erent paradigms cannot
either, for they thi k k . converse with each other
n , spea , and act m diffc ·
accepted paradigm. paradigms complete with d. ffc erent, incommensurable
Choosing a paradigm, then, is not motivated by rational delibera- entists are confronted with i erentfistandards of evaluation. When sci~
tion and argumentation. The choice is determined by social factors or lik a scienn 1c revol t" h . .
I e a political revolution K h 1 1 u 10n, t e situation is exactly
made on the basis of the personal interests of the scientist. Thus, within . u n c ear y states m Wittgensteinian vein:
a paradigm there is ample room for rationality, but a paradigm shift
Like the choice between
betw . c ompetmg
. political
. . institutions that
is itself an irrational process (a matter for mob psychology, as Lakatos
would say45; see next chapter). This latter feature is one of the reasons . een competmg paradigms proves t b h . ,
incompatible d f o e a c oice between
Kuhn claims the term 'revolution' in 'scientific revolution' is more than mo
acter the ch . . es o comm ity !"£ B
um I e. ecause it has that char-
just a metaphor to describe this change. - , oice is not and cannot be determined merely by the
46. l<uh
n, 1962, p. 92.
44. Kuhn, 1962, p. 121.
45. Lakatos, 1970, p. 178.
 PART II - PH ILO SO PH Y OF SCIE N CE 8 - LANGUAGE GAMES AND PARADIGMS

268 269
. d . o f norma 1 sci· ence , for these.
characteristic The question is why we should accept Kuhn's philosophy of science if it
evaluative proce ures . _ d. and that paradigm 1s
. a particular para igm, goes against so many of our intuitions about science. Kuhn's contribu-
depend m part upon h ust into a debate about
dgrns enter as t ey m , tion shines out most clearly when he points out to the community of
at issue.W h en para i . , il . lar Each group uses
paradigm choice, their role is necessar Y_ cir~u d £47 philosophers the importance of the history and practice of science:
its own paradigm to argue in that paradigms e ence.
Since this view is also compatible with close observation of scien-
olitical and a scientific revolution is that tific life, there are strong arguments for employing it in attempts
So, a last feature shared by a p . hift) d not come from within
. . . he paradigm s 1 t oes to solve a host of problems that still remain. 49
the solution (m science. t .d - the question is what is po-
. . · · ) but from outs1 e .
(the paradigm m crisis , h 1 . lly credible for scientists
. 11 reet and psyc o ogica Kuhn's account of science offers a particular advantage for the social
litically and socia y cor h d ot use the term 'revolu-
. 1 de that Ku n oes n . sciences. According to earlier proposed criteria of demarcation, science
to believe. We can cone u th t a paradigm shift is really a
h b t that he argues a is science when it generates predictions that can be verified, confirmed
tion' as. a metap_ or, u . has all the properties of a revolution. or falsified. Scientific disciplines such as sociology, psychology and
revolution in science, for it
economics are often criticized for not being able to make predictions
that are as precise as those made in physics. These disciplines had a hard
.
8.4.8 Final remark s on Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions time satisfying any of these criteria, and as a consequence they were
not accepted as members of the family of sciences. Indeed, using any
. on the dynamics of science results in a of these criteria the social sciences are barely scientific at all. Now, it is
Kuhn's historically argued view . S as a series of consecutive
. . h 1 sophy of science. een h only at first sight that Kuhn's account of science is merely descriptive.
counter-intmtive p i o b d the obiective method t at
. d es not seem to em o y J b On closer scrutiny, his view does carry with it a criterion for science:
paradigms, science o h k ever closer to the truth a out
. O fh potheses t at ta e us k. if there is ( or was) a paradigm present in the study of a specific domain
generates senes Y . . h dof his ground-brea mg
d 1
the one an on y wor JS .
but controversial Structure OJ cien i c
;ifi
ld we live m At t e en
Revolutions Kuhn even opts or a
.
f; of phenomena, that discipline can be classified as scientific. This offers
an opportunity for practitioners of the social sciences to see their disci-
. .
Darwinian charactenzat10n o f hisi view of science: plines as a science as well: the social sciences are true sciences, for they
contain periods of normal science and paradigms that fit Kuhn's gen-
of such revolutionary selections, eral description of science. In sociology, for instance, there are grand
The net result of a sequence . h derfully adapt- 50
. d f rmal research, is t e won paradigms : the oversocialized view (social structures determine what
separated by peno so no . if knowledge. Sue-
all modern scienti 1c people do), followed by the neoclassical view (individualism cum lib-
ed set of instruments we c ked by an
. develo mental process are mar eralism: people decide on the basis of self-interest only), and the great
cessive stages m that p iali . A d the entire process
. l · d spec1 zation, n synthesis of an 'I & We' view (in which both the community choices
increase in articu anon an b. 1 gical evolution did,
d now suppose io o and the individual considerations determine one's acts). In psychology
may have occurre , as we fi d sc1· entific truth,
f 1 permanent ixe there are also great paradigms: introspective psychology, behaviour-
without benefit o a set goa, a f . if knowledge
of which each stage m . t h e d eve 1 op ment o scienti ic isrn, and cognitive psychology. The same holds for macroeconomics, as
is a better exemp 1 ar. 48
-
exernplified by classical economics and Keynesian economics.

47 . Kuhn, 1962, p. 94-

4s. Ibidem, pp. 172-173.
 PART Il - PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 8 - LANGUAGE GAMES AND PARADIGMS

271

Yet Kuhn himself was rather undecided about the application of his
idea of normal science and paradigms to the social sciences. In his 'The 8. 5 THE STRONG PROGRAMME
Natural and the Human Sciences' Kuhn remarks that he is not aware of
any principle 'that bars the possibility that one or another part of some A thoroughly relativistic approach t . .
David Bloor and Barry B h o scientific knowledge came from
human science might find a paradigm capable of supporting normal, . . arnes, w o claimed th 11 k
social dimension. In the 19 Bl at a nowledge has a
puzzle-solving research.'51 He believes that parts of economics and psy- h ·1 70s, oor and Barne
p i osopher and sociologist b h. d h s were respectively the
chology can be transformed into normal science. But Kuhn also argues , . e m w at they call d ' h
that the hermeneutic character of the social sciences seem to prevent
gramme. Smee at that time th b h
·
at t b e Umversity ofEdi b h h
ey ot worked at th s·
e t e strong pro-
e aence Study Unit
them from going through periods of normal science. The social scienc- . n urg , t e strong prog . 1
t h e Edmburgh School Bl d ramme is a so known as
es often seem to switch from perspective to perspective, reinterpreting . oor an Barnes wanted . .
account of the nature ofk 1 d to give a sociological
the social phenomena. In other words, while switching perspectives in now e ge:
the natural sciences is rare, it seems to be the very business of the social
sciences. The constant flux of the social realm demands continual re- If we want an account of the nature of sci en ti
ly, we can do no better tha t d fie knowledge, sure-
interpretation. Hence, Kuhn thinks the social sciences cannot be char- n o a opt th · ti
Science is a social ph e screnti ic method itself.
acterized as sciences in the same way as the natural sciences, using the enomenon so we sh Id
gist ofknowledge.52 ou turn to the sociolo-
idea of normal science.
Finally, in his emphasis on the history and practice of actual science,
Kuhn has many followers. One school of thinkers inspired by Kuhn's We will start by presenting and ex lainin .
strong programme (ca 1· . p . . g the four basic tenets of the
historically oriented approach to science went even further in extrapo- . usa ity, impartialirv s
an discussing the diffe f: ' ymmetry and reflexivity)
lating from Kuhn's views. They argued that what is essential in Kuhn's k d i1 ren ces rom the t d. . .
nowledge that Bloor and B . ra itional view on scientific
approach is not that he used the history of science instead of philosoph- · . arnes explicitly · d .
sion we will also see wh h . rejecte . In this discus-
ical analysis to get a grip on the social phenomenon of science, but that 'str y t ey coined the term
he used science to study science. Besides, since Kuhn showed that in . ong programme,' and we will add
criticisms of th. ress some
scientific revolutions, sociological, political, and psychological factors is programme.
determine paradigm choice, it is important, so these sociologists clairn, Ba One might expect t h at, being sociologists
to see which factors do so and how. In the next section we will give an th:ns es. ani d Bloor would defend the view tha;
account of the Strong Programme: an attempt to use not so much the
ocio ogy of scienn
. .fiic knowledge O h
b e about und . ug t to
history of science as the sociology of science to offer a scientific picture 5), but the d:rstandmg ( Verstehen: see chapter
of science. However, the outcome of this scientific approach to science concerneJ . not. They argue that it should be
(the sociology of scientific knowledge) is once again a paradoxically those st t with social causes that bring about
relativistic position. We would do better to look for a more fundamen- a es we call k 1 d .
scientists th . now e ge. Like natural
tal criticism of Kuhn. In section 8.6 we will discuss Donald Davidson's sociolo . ' , e_y aim for a causal account: '[The
gist s] ideas therefore will b . h David Bloor
critique of the central notion of paradigm. causal id· e m t e same
. h
Will 10
. as th ose o f any other scientist
m . '53 D. ff
ave different beliefs d d. . . i erent communities
~I , epen mg on different social causes. Already

SJ. lb~~r, 1976, p. ix.

m,p.3.
51. Kuhn, 1991, p. 222.
 8 - LANGUAGE GAMES AND PARADIGMS

PART Il - PH ILO SO PH Y OF SCIEN CE 273

is that knowledge is (justified) true belief, the second that social and
tendency to relativism. psychological explanations only come into play when people have false,
h g programme h as a
we can see that t e stron . . e to this relativism? irrational beliefs, not when their beliefs are true and rational. Bloor
How do Barnes and Bloor avoid falltg p:f:cientific knowledge should and Barnes reject these traditional views on knowledge, and introduce
The second tenet is that the socio ogy their own characterization of what knowledge is. They say:
. t the truth, sue-
be impartial with respect o f
cess, or rationality of knowledge. All types of Instead of defining it as true belief knowledge for the sociologist
knowledge need to be explained m terms o is whatever men take to be knowledge. It consists of those beliefs
z
how they are brought about. . . . 0 which men confidently hold to and live by. In particular the soci-
third closely related tenet is that, if soci- ,.
Th e , · h h uses
:,:
0.
ologist will be concerned with beliefs which are taken for granted
<
olo ists of science are concerned wit t e ca "' l.) or institutionalized, or invested with authority by groups of men.
tha~ bring about knowledge, and if they are sup- 0
Of course knowledge must be distinguished from mere belief.
osed to be impartial towards the truth, success "'
This can be done by reserving the word 'knowledge' for what is
p rationality of the beliefs, then they should collectively endorsed, leaving the individual and idiosyncratic to
or f b 1· c: Whether the so- Barry Barnes
. l k for causes o e iets count as mere belief. 56
jUSt 00 b l° f true
ciologist of science regards these e ie s fas
'Th types o cause
or false is irrelevant. e same . '4 The traditional view is that if someone has a rational and true belief,
. nd false beliefs. 5 f
would explain, say, true a . . Rationalism Sociology o the psychologist or the sociologist has no business explaining why this
11 d 'Relativism, ' .
ln a 1982 paper ca e d t mean that all beliefs are is so, for their beliefs are based on reason or logic. But Barnes and Bloor
Knowledge,' they explain that thehy o noi·nto problems like bow to claim that in every instance of knowledge one can identify the social
f l for t is runs
equally true or equa 11y a se, . h h r They explain what they conditions that cause the beliefs. In the traditional view, sociologists
handle two beliefs that contradict eac ot e_ . and psychologists need two different kinds of explanation: one for true,
. d . g the equivalence postulate.
mean by intro ucm rational, successful beliefs, and one for false, irrational and unsuccessful
. 1 te is that all beliefs are on a par with one ones. Bloor and Barnes, however, install at one blow a complete sociol-
Our equivalence postu a f h . dibility It is not that ogy of knowledge - called the strong programme:
- to the causes o t etr ere 1 ·
another with respect 11 f 1 but that regardless of
11 t e or equa y a se,
all beliefs are equa y ru . d·b·1· . to be seen as equally The traditional stance towards the sociology of knowledge can
. h f t of their ere I I Ity is
truth and falsity t e ac ll d c: d is that the incidence of be called the 'weak' programme.This involves the idea that socio-
. Th osrtiou we sha eten . d
roblematic. e P c: . · 1 · nvestigauon an psychological causes need only be sought for error, irrationality
P · alls tor emp1nca 1
all beliefs without exception c .fi 1 cal causes of this and deviation from the proper norms and methodological pre-
f b f d. g the spec1 1c, o
must be accounted or y in m dl f hether the sociologist cepts of science.'?
. . . Th. that regar ess o w
credibility. is means . 1 false and irrational, he
tes a belief as true or rat1ona , or as
eva lua d"bili ss The strong programme also offers a critique of Kuhn's views. Even
for the causes of its ere i ty.
n1ust searc h v ~hough Kuhn agrees that a paradigm shift is not based on rational de-
. rnrne op-

.
poses two imp
ortant views m the traditiona p
1
h t the strong progra ·
With this third tenet, it becomes c ear t a l hilosophy. The first view
-iberation and discussion between scientists, he sticks to the idea that
56. Bloo 1
57. Bloo'· 976, pp. 2-3.
r, 1999, p.81.

;-moor, 1976, p. 5.
: Barnes & Bloor, 1982, P· 23·
55
 8 - LANGUAGE GAMES AND PARADIGMS
PA R T II - PH IL O SO PH Y O F SC IE N C E

275
274 his influential paper 'On the 'r
very Id ea of a C 1
there is rationality within a paradigm and that rational beliefs are part h e argues against Kuhn a nd ot h ers with . - onceptua Scheme' (1984)
si î -
and parcel of any paradigm. Kuhn thus accepts a divide which Barnes speaks of 'paradigm' D .d m1 ar views. Where Kuhn
. , av1 son prefers the t ,
and Bloor would dismiss. He explicates Kuhn's view a s r:lÜ 11 ows: erm conceptual scheme . '
The last of the four tenets is reflexivity. If a sociologist of science
argues that all knowledge is caused by social factors, this will also ap-
Conceptual schemes [ · - - ] are ways of or · ·
ply to knowledge of the sociology of science: 'what goes for all science are systems of catego . h . gamzmg experience; they
nes t at give form to th d .
must also go for us.' We will see why reflexivity leads to a serious prob- they are points of view
· fi
rom which. d .. d e ata of sensat10n ,-
.
lem for the strong programme ( especially when it is combined with riods survey the pas . m IV! uals, cultures, or pe-
smg scene. There ma b .
the second assumption, that sociologists of science should be impartial one scheme to anoth . h. y e no translating from
er, m w ich case the b r f .
towards the truth or rationality of knowledge claims). and bits of knowledg h h . e ie s, desires, hopes,
e t at c aractenze one h
As one might expect, the most important threat to the strong pro- counterparts for the s b .b person ave no true
. u sen er to anoth h .
gramme is that of self-refutation. Sociologists argue that reasons are is relative to a schem . h er se eme. Reality itself
. e. w at counts as reality
1 ·
only valid within a certain community. Why then would their readers not m another. 58 m some system may
accept their views as true?
The view of science which Barnes and Bloor oppose is that justi-
Davidson's main point is that we cannot mak f.
fied true belief constitutes knowledge. But if all knowledge is brought ra bl e paradigms hence of e sense o incornmensu-
' conceptual 1 · ·
about by social conditions, as Barnes and Bloor have it, then this should derstanding of what we . re atrvism, As we seek an un-
also apply to the knowledge of the sociologists of science itself. But 'd ff may possibly mean by
to I . erent conceptual sch emes, ' we are forced rmr
why should anyone believe them, for the opposing view will say that
this is just not true. In order to convince their opponents, the defenders
give up conceptual relativism I!! .
Davidson . suggests th at I.f two . concept 1
of the strong programme either have to repeat that knowledge is caused se hernes diff h. . ua
. er, t is implies that two 1
by social conditions, or claim that what their opponent says is not true. es diffe ( . anguag-
f r_ a view compatible with Kuhn's . d
The first move will not convince them, the second implies a self-refu- o paradigms and lan ua I ea
tation of the strong programme, for it invokes an appeal to truth, a no- can be t 1· . . g ges). If two languages
rans ated mto each other h .
tion, which they should be impartial about. For many then- including can say that b h 1 , owever, we
Kuhn - this radicalized version of relativism is untenable. In section ceptual h ot anguages fit the same con-
se eme Th. k
8-7.1 we will discuss Kuhn's criticism of the strong programme. criteria of 1 . is ma es the study of 'the
focusi anguage translation [ ... ] a wa of
ng on cntena of identity f y Donald Davidson
O
se hemes '59 If conceptual
in . we can establish that tw 1
8.6 DONALD DAVIDSON'S CRITICISM OF KUHN'S f to each other, we can conclude th o hanguages cannot be translated
NOTION OF PARADIGMS ~rent. This would support K h ' _at t e conceptual schemes are dif-
st av1dson is about to - u n s mcornmensurahiljj thesis which
ç

D . reJect. ,
As we just saw, Kuhn's critics include other relativists/constructivi s av1dson tak .
like Barnes and Bloor who argue that Kuhn is not radical enough in his of co es two options into consider .
mplete failure of tr 1 . anon. The first one is that
views. But criticism has also come from the opposite direction, fro!ll -
ss. Davids ans anon (two tot a 11 y diffI erent conceptual

those who claim that there can be no such thing as two incornrn_ens~~ 59 · Ibidemon, t984, p. t8J
.p. t84. ·
rable paradigms. Donald Davidson (1917-2003) is one of these cnucs-

PART Il - PH ILO SO PH Y Of SCIE N CE
schemes), the second one of partial failure (two partially overlapping
conceptual schemes). We will discuss each optwn in turn. __
Davidson understands Kuhn's view of the incommensurabüity of
paradigms to be a metaphor (scientists do not really live in different
worlds). 'Kuhn[ ... } wants us to think of different observers of the san:~
world who come to it with incommensurable systems of concepts.
This metaphor presupposes a dualism between, on the one hand, a
conceptual scheme (and language) and, on the other, the somehow
supplied uninterpreted content. Our language and conceptual schemes
make sense of this unorganized content:
(Conceptual] schemes (languages) either organize_ something,_ or
they fit it.( ... ] As for the entities that get organized, or which
the scheme must fit, I think again we may detect two mam ideas:
either it is reality (the universe, the world, nature), or it is experi-
ence (the passing show, surface irritations, sensory promptings,
61
sense-data, the given) -
Let us first look at the idea that conceptual schemes organize either re-
ality or experience. In both cases, Davidson argues_that these are sin-
gle wholes and that you cannot organize single objects ( even thoug~
a whole consists of many single objects, it is itself a single object)· H
compares organizing reality to organizing a closet. You can arrange
the shoes and the shirts in the closet, but not the closet itself. And to
organize the shirts and shoes you already need to know what shoes
and shirts are - and conceptualization is presupposed here. The sarne
argument can be made against the second option, viz. that language£ 1 translation would be total incommensurability, and this is not a sensi-
organizes experience. Again, organization can only be of pluralities.
nd
we organize pluralities, conceptualization is already in place. A so
Davidson concludes that
· · · ts like
whatever plurality we take expenence . to consist m· - even
f rnth
losing a button or stubbing a toe, having a sensation o war
or hearing an oboe - we will have to individuate according to
60. Davidson, 1984, p. 187.
6r. Ibidem, pp. 191-192,-
8 - LANGUAGE GAMES AND PARADIGMS
277
familiar principles. A language that organizes such entities must be
62
a language very like our own.
As for the second idea that conceptual schemes do not organize but fit
something, we have again the options that it is either reality that the
language or scheme fits to, or experience. Davidson argues that saying
that a sentence ( or theory) fits something is to claim that it is true, in
the possibly trivial way that is described by the Polish logician Alfred
Tarski (1902-1983). Tarski says that every truth theory must contain
what is known as convention T For every sentence in a language, the
truth theory should contain a theorem of the following structure: s is
true if and only if p. Here 's' is a description of a sentence in a certain
language and 'p' is either that sentence itself or a translation into Eng-
lish of that sentence. To clarify this, consider the following example.
The Dutch sentence 'Het regent' is true if and only if it is raining. This
formulation is neutral with respect to whether one adheres to a corre-
spondence theory, a coherence theory, or any other theory of truth.
Since Convention T embodies our best intuition as to how the
concept of truth is used, there does not seem to be much hope
for a test that a conceptual scheme is radically different from ours
if that test depends on the assumption that we can divorce the
6
notion of truth from that of translation. J
So the view that sentences fit either reality or experience runs into
the problem that we cannot establish this fit for unknown languages
without translating them into a familiar language. Complete failure of
ble idea: we would not be able to recognize something as a paradigm,
language or conceptual scheme at all, if it were that radically different
from ours. So, totally different paradigms, as proposed in Kuhn's phi-
losophy of science, are not an option.
_N ow that complete untranslatability is out of the window Davidson
b n~yd iscusses a very weak 111terpretat10n
. . .
of failure ,
of translatability:
62· David
63. lb"d son, 1984, p. 192.
l em, p. 195.
 PA RT II - PH ILO SO PH Y O F SC IEN C E
8 - LANGUAGE GAMES AND PARADIGMS

. . ere the assumption is that there is much 279

viz. partial untranslatability. H h d thus much of the two
eptual se emes, an .
overlap between two cone d . ch other. This makes rt 8.7 'THE ROAD SINCE STRUCTURE':
n be translate mto ea
associated languages ca b the two languages. How- KUHN'S LATER VIEWS ON INCOMMENSURABILITY
bl. h d. fferences et ween b
quite easy to esta rs r 1 ges cannot unequivocally e
iff b tween the two angua .
ever, a di terence e . l h e for it might be a mere In 1996, Kuhn died of cancer. A book with the title The Road since
interpreted as a difference m conceptua se em '
difference of opinion:
Structure (2000), edited by James Conant and John Haugeland and with
a foreword of Kuhn's second wife Jehane R. Kuhn, was posthumously
1 te some alien sentence rejected by its speak- published. In Kuhn's book we find replies to his critics and papers in
If we choose to trans a 1 attached on a commu- which he describes changes in his philosophical views that occurred
e to which we are strong Y
ers by a sentenc all h. a difference in schemes; after the publication of The Structure of Scientifi.c Revolutions. Conant and
. b tempted to c t is
nity basis, we may e h . dence in other ways, it may Haugeland begin the introduction thus:
if we decide to accommodate t e ev1 . . 64

be more na t ur al to speak of a difference of opm10n.

In The Structure of Scientifi.c Revolutions, as nearly everyone knows,
. tablish that two conceptual schemes (two Thomas Kuhn argued that the history of science is not gradual
In sum, there rs no way to es bl Incommensurability implies un- and cumulative, but rather punctuated by a series of more or less
. ) · ommensura e.
paradigms are me 1 t. n into our own language to radical 'paradigm shifts.'What is less known is that Kuhn's own
·1· b t e need a trans a 10 1
translatabi ity, u w ( h. h corresponds to a conceptua understanding of how best to characterize these episodes itself
identify something as a language w ic 11 untranslatable, we would underwent a number of significant shifts. 65
d. cc. t language were tot a Y .
scheme). If a meren
. .f . 11· . f d. fferent language rs
language at a , r a r
not be able to identi y rt as a b hether the parts that al- The most important 'shift' concerns his view of the notion of incorn-
Partially untrans l ata bl e, we cannot. d.e sure .
w
f untranslatable parts o
f
1 ally m icative o mensurability. Whether Kuhn's later views on incommensurability ex-
legedly do not trans ate are re . bie parts of conceptua press a radical change or merely try to clarify the notion, is open for
h f. f mcommensura .1
the language and t ere ore o 1 d. fferences in belief. Therefore it debate. In The Road since Structure, Kuhn very explicitly argues that
h h they are mere Y 1
schemes, or w et er . bie conceptual schemes. incommensurability pertains to languages, addressing both the strong
k of mcommensura . t
makes no sense to spea Kuhn's idea that science conSIS_s programme's criticism that there is no rationality in science and Dav-
Davidson's critique is a hard blow b: . 11 incommensurable. In his idson's criticism that incommensurability cannot exist.
. d. s which are asica y g
of consecutive para rgm d Bloor's call for a stron Ruhn was aware that his use of the notion of 'incommensurability'
later work, Kuhn amwere~ both B:r~::t ai:commensurability (if we Was widely discussed after the publication of The Structure of Scientifi.c
programme an_d Davidson s remar ~emes and languages) is unintelh- Revolutions. He felt the need to elaborate many of his views, since he
relate it to the idea of conceptual se h K hn's answer is presented thought the way people interpreted his position was just too radical.
gi"bl e. In the closing section of this c apter u Borgan offers this anecdote:
and discussed.

Ruhn has been[ ... ] distressed by those who admiringly misinter-

-
pret him. 'I've often said I'm much fonder of my critics than my
fans,' he comments. In the 1960s his work was seized on by radi-
65
64. Davidson, 1984, p. 197- · In l<uhn 2001, p. _
1
 PART II - PH ILO SO PH Y OF SCIEN CE
8 - LANGUAGE GAMES AND PARADIGMS

239
calls such a framework a paradigm. Examples of different paradigms suffice to state th at a flter initially
.
. thi k.
from various scientific disciplines are the Ptolemaic and Copernican with the last sentence of his T, n mg that philosophy had finish d
paradigms in astronomy, Newtonian mechanics and Einstein's ideas on th t h h d ractatus the late w· e
a e a wrongly assessed cert . ' . r Ittgenstein concluded
relativity in physics, creationism and Darwin's theory of evolution in language. He started writin a a _am issues concerning the practice of
biology, Freudian psychoanalysis and behaviourism in psychology, and fluential book, Philosophical !v:Sti~: and this _resulted in an equally in-
(perhaps) Keynesian economics and behavioural economics in eco- two years after his death w· ~ hom, which was published in 19
nomics. Paradigms, Kuhn observed, are rejected and accepted in brief tions is not as well-structu~ed :~ra:~te1:s bul_ky Philosophical Invest};~
and fierce moments of revolution. He tried to describe this dynamic concise Tractatus and h uci as his f,,:---._1:,,-,,,.._.,...__:_ .
' ence there · h
nature of science in his very influential The Structure of Scientific Revolu- troversy about ho . is muc con-
. w to interpret it St 1·11
tions (1962, 1970). important extent th . . · , to an
ese mvest1gatio .
Yet, before we go into the details of Kuhn's philosophy of science, ed much of what beca ns mot1vat-
we will look at the doctrine of relativism and some important later The reason for th. "" khnown as relativism.
. IS IS t at the Jat w·
views of Ludwig Wittgenstein. The reason for this is that Kuhn's phi- gensrein developed the idea er Itt-
losophy, and the general reactions to his idea of science, can be much which (to a certain d ) of a language game,
egree can be d
better understood once we grasp the core of Wittgenstein's later work. a predecessor of both Kuhn's regar ed as
One of the controversial aspects of Kuhn's idea of paradigms in science explicated below) d F paradigms (to be
is that the objectivity of scientific knowledge seems to be undermined. (chapter 9). Alth anh . eyerabend's traditions
oug It seems
Indeed, as we will see, one consequence of Kuhn's approach is that it classify w·t . unwarranted to .
fe d d , I tgenstem as a philosopher wh d Ludwig Wittgenstein
becomes very difficult to see science as an enterprise in which we are n e a doctrine' at 11 o e-
moving ever closer to the truth about the world. Again, this truth ap- loso h . a ' as he was stron 1
p y and its plethora of' . . _g y opposed to systematic phi
wh . pos1t10ns ' it 1-
proximation is a very strong intuition most people have about science. w· o unequivocally call themselves j . ~annot be denied that those
If Kuhn's philosophy of science deviates importantly from this intui- ittgenstein's notions of languaa re at1v1sts are deeply influenced by
tion and is doing more than just flirting with certain relativistic ten- o e games and life forms ' L t .
· e us explain.
dencies - 'what we scientifically think about the world is relative to the
paradigm from within we are thinking about the world' - we must at 82 1
· · The main dif.J
(fi
t erence between the early dl
least assess this relativism accurately. To do so, we will first illustrate F an ater Wittgenstein
how one could be tempted to accept relativism at all. We will start with prom our perspective . th . .
hilosophi l ' e mam difference betw h
Wittgenstein's later work. that I ca Investigations is that Witt . een t e Tractatus and the
anguag d . genstem no Jon d r-.
get th . e ep1cts reality. He no ger cfends the view
err me · w argues that · .
Peop] anmg from the way in whi h h meaning is use: words
8.2 LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN - 'Words a
e - not b ic t ey are
y neat ostensive definitions f h use
d b
y a group of
PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS . re used . . o t e thmg th
/ife or a/angu m a social context in h . s ey refer to. 2
, w at Witt ·
of wo d age game. According to th I . genst em calls a form o•
We have seen how the younger Wittgenstein inspired the lo_gical posi~ r s and e ater Wittge . '.I
and Ian statements are determ. d . nstein, the meanings
tivists (see chapter 6). Remarkably, the later Wittgenstein influence5 guag · me m a so · 11 · ·
· · · t ' cla1rn • ~ , e is no longer a representatio . cia mgmstic context,
relativists, who hold ideas in stark contrast to the pos1t1VlS S . will 2. 2.G,z.dy, 2004. n or image of reality.
nd
This is not the place for an exegesis of Wittgenstein's texts, a it Ittgenstein 19 §
' 53, JO.