On 27/05/2017 11:46 am, David Nyman wrote:
On 27 May 2017 at 01:44, Bruce Kellett <bhkell...@optusnet.com.au
<mailto:bhkell...@optusnet.com.au>> wrote:
I think it is the interpretation of the data that is theory-dependent.
Not at all. Data don't just sit there staring you in the face. What
is data in terms of one theory is mere background noise in terms of
another.
That is what it means for the *interpretation* to be theory-dependent.
This insight led Popper to reject the notion of induction. As he (I
believe correctly) pointed out, the very notion of the data on which
induction putatively relies is theory-dependent and hence primarily
deductive. Conjecture and refutation is a better account of how
science (or any consistent reasoning) actually proceeds.
I don't think that is an accurate account of Popper. It was the
asymmetry between falsification and confirmation that lay at the heart
of his rejection of induction. His account of scientific practice as
"conjecture and refutation" was rather naive, and philosophy of science
has long moved beyond this.
But then you have a hierarchy of theories -- what is a new
cutting-edge theory today is tomorrow's instrument for data
taking.....
And the reductive aspect of theory is itself an implicitly
ontological commitment.
Not for the pragmatic instrumentalist. Even committed scientific
realists would only claim that it is only for our best,
well-established, theories that there is any suggestion that the
suggested entities actually exist.
But we're not interested in "reifying" the ontology. It merely
represents the unexplained part of an explanatory hierarchy.
That is an unconventional definition of ontology. Perhaps one can say
that ontology is theory-dependent in that any mature theory carries an
implied ontology -- statistical mechanics implies an ontology in which
atoms/molecules exist, the standard model of particle physics implies an
ontology in which quarks and gluons exist -- but the theory itself does
not rely on such an ontology. The elements of the theory may be nothing
more than convenient fictions, as was for many years the status of
quarks in the Gell-Mann quark model -- the predictive power of the
theory would be in no way impaired.
That's the sense in which it exists. It's the part that's "independent
of us" simply because, although the basis of any explanation that
follows, it doesn't itself rely on our explaining it.
Quite. Atoms, quarks, and gluons, require no explanation in terms of the
theory. They are just terms in the equations that the theory uses --
their existence or otherwise is not an issue for the success of the theory.
So if a hierarchy of laws were to imply mutually inconsistent
ontological commitments it would be to that extent incomplete and
unsatisfactory. Indeed the holy grail of (Aristotelian?) science is a
hierarchical "Theory of Everything" that is, in precisely this sense,
ontologically consistent "bottom up all the way down", if you'll
permit me a slogan of my own.
The search for such a TOE has a chequered record in the history of
science. Some still hope that such a theory is possible, but the
negative induction from the past record would not lead one to be
optimistic that any such theory exists or is possible.
For these reasons I can't accept that your distinction between
Platonic and Aristotelian modes of explanation has much real force.
In practice, *any* effective mode of explanation must inexorably be
constrained by its fundamental ontological commitments,
That is the case only on your account of "explanation". If explanation
does not rely on an underlying ontology, then it is not constrained by
any such assumed ontology. Not all explanations need be reducible to
your model of explanation.
That's true of course Bruce, but I would think then that any such
heterogeneous account of explanation is in serious danger of falling
into inconsistency.
Why?
And so I can't agree that "my account" of a mutually-consistent
reductive hierarchy of explanation is substantially different from
what would generally be accepted, if only implicitly, as the ultimate
aim of mechanistic explanation tout court. Whatever you say, it must
be the case, in the final analysis, that the entire hierarchy of
explanation must ultimately be reducible to a common set of
ontological commitments or else risk frank inconsistency between its
constituent elements.
Not at all. There is no inconsistency between explaining a reduction in
infection in terms of an antibiotic injection, and an explanation in
terms of the fundamental biochemistry of bacteria.
I should re-emphasise here that by ontology I mean merely those
explanatory entities and relations that are in themselves not further
explicated within the theory, but rather serve as the explanatory
point of departure. Of course, you are perfectly correct that,
pragmatically, no such fully-reducible hierarchy has yet been
achieved. Indeed it is more than possible that it never will be.
But I think it would nonetheless be an evasion to claim that
ontological consistency isn't in a rather strong sense an underlying
assumption of the scientific method itself.
Only for the scientific realist, and then the ontology, while assumed to
be consistent, is not necessarily accessible.
All modern science is implicitly based, as Bruno correctly points out,
on a common assumption of mechanism, variously realised depending on
whatever level of rigour and detail is achievable at any present state
of the art (if you'll forgive the term). And that mechanistic
assumption is in turn based implicitly on its reducibility to a
"fundamental" or irreducible level (explanatorily speaking). This is
true even in the case that any currently assumed such level is
provisional, as indeed must always be the case, because we are
speaking of explanatory consistency, not ultimate truth. Remember that
the assumption of an arithmetical ontology in computationalism is
likewise not presented as an ultimate truth but rather as the
provisional basis for explanatory consistency in what follows.
However, all that said, if your views are indeed as set out above,
it's hardly surprising that you don't feel very compelled by the
explanatory approach of computationalism, in which mutual consistency
between ontological and epistemological components at all levels of
explanation is indispensable. Too bad.
Too bad for whom? And yes, I am not compelled by the idea that
explanation must be rooted in an underlying ontology.
Bruce
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
