Ben, Gary, R., Gary F.,
i've got to start from the end of your post. You speak of the society
"rewarding diciplines" and this sheds a light on your idea of sociology
in this discussion. Your sociology consists of conscious actors who
reward, strive for power, wealth or status. This is more a rational
choice approach which is not the thing i was trying to hint at with my
Fleck example. And thats also not the thing sociology of knowlede is
interested in. It's about the knowledge underlying societal habits.
There are so many things we take for granted and we should explore why
we (did) take them for granted. And this not only the case in society it
is also the case in the sciences.
Why did microbiologist search for syphillis in the blood? They searched
there because for centuries it was taken for granted that there is
something like "syphillitic blood". Was it possible to reproduce the
results? No, it was almost impossible to stabilize the results. Nowadays
we would stop researching with results like this. But they kept on
trying and trying until Wassermann found a way to stabilize the
experiment. Why did the retry and retry? Because it was clear that it
had to be there!
The snake example: The snake example is so trivial and easy to
understand that we don't have to discuss it. Yes, it bites you -> you
are dead in tradtion A or B. There is no incompatiblity. But this is not
a real world example of a living science. Sciences are complex, they
consist of assumptions, crafting in the lab/the field, cognitive
training etc.. They are much more than the simple "if A then B" of
logic. Much knowledge and training is needed to come to the point where
one can write down a proposition like "if A then B".
Nobody doubts that when you do exactly the same as another person that
the same will happen. "Experiences whose conditions are the same will
have the same general characters". But since scientific paradigms are
such complex structures it is not an easy task to create the same
conditions. You think its easy, just go to a lab and try to re-cook a
Wassermann-test! You say opinion and truth are not the same thing. Yes,
sure ,but how should we deal with the idea of the syphillitic blood? Is
it opinion or truth? They found it in the blood! And the idea to find it
in the blood is certainly a cultural import into science.
But there are different Problems: a) Can there be different truths about
one object of investigation b) are there cultural imports into science
that influences the content of science and not only the organizational
context of research. What is organizational context? Org. context is for
me all the stuff you named: funding, rewarding, strive for power, money
etc.. An influence on the content instead is everything which is part of
the "how we see the object" of investigation.
Karl Mannheim uses in "Ideology and Utopia" a good metaphor. He says
that we can look at a object from different perspectives and
objectivation is for him to take different positions relative to the
object. Trying to investigate the object beyond this is an absurdity
like seeing without perspective.
You distinct between opinion and truth. Do you have the truth? No you
don't, like i don't. We both have beliefs we are willing to put on test.
But when you write somthing like:
"Conflating opinion with truth seems to produce some light
pseudo-hallucinatory fun, at least that has been my consistent
experience since I was a teenager (as I said I do look at other
perspectives). It's the fun of absurdity. Yet, to build a theory on the
acceptance of that conflation is to build on broken logic, inquiry with
its bones broken, inquiry more susceptible than ever to social
manipulation, inquiry less likely than ever to be fruitful."
it seems to me that you have the truth and you are able to destinct
between pseudo-hallucinations and non-hallucinations. You talk like you
are one of those who has left the cave and reached the light. Ben, i
don't really insinuate this, because it was written by you in the heat
of the moment. We are not far away from each other, but nonetheless this
paragraph shows we are still standing on different sides of a water
devide. There is a hair between us. My impression is you are trying to
pull the long-run-perspective on truth into the /now/ to safe some kind
of non-perspective-truth in science.
Now, truth is for me a perfect sign which incorporates all possible
perspectives on an object. But we will be there only at the end of all
times. As long as we are not there we only have beliefs we are willing
to act upon. And as long we have not reached the all-perspectives-mode
we take in positions on objects and phenomena that are influenced by our
societal position, tradtions and our culture. The point is now that
modern science with its non-prespective-truth tries to erase these
influences in its representation. Part of this strategy is to make
influences, where the cleaning has not been finished, to exceptions or
to reduce the cultural influences to failed knowledge.
* Just take insulin shock therapy. How was it possible that psychic
ill were tortured that way? It was only possible in a certain
culture of medicine. A culture where a real phycicist had to cut or
give drug. But psychatrist didn't have these instruments and so they
were inferior to real phycicist. That's the reason why they were so
eager to use insulin shocks, because when they used it they were
real phycicists.
* Look at nazi science. It is widley branded as pseudo-science to
clean science from this era. But there were nazi scientists whose
experiments would hold our standards today. But people say: Huh, in
the greater part it was pseudo science. Yes, so what? Just think of
Feynmans great "Cargo Cult Science", it shows that a lot of science
today is pseudo. How was nazi science possible? It was a child of
nazi germany.
* Take the scientific revolution. Where did the knowledge of the
scientific revolution come from like Steven Shapin asks? The "new
scientists" laughed about the scholastics who discussed "how many
angels can dance on top of a needle", but the logic of the new
scientists grounded on the work of scholastics. In the field of
chemistry the techniques of the bench work stemmed from alchemy.
Newton himself was an alchemist.
All three examples are examples of the cleaning strategy.
But back to the two problems: a) Can there be different truths about one
object of investigation? b) Are there cultural imports into science that
influence the content of science?
* Ad a): No, this is not possible. If there are two truths about one
object, then it is due to different perspectives. But since the
perspectives are different there are not the same conditions and
hence not the same conclusions. But within one perspective the
results are intersubjective and reproducable.
* Ad b) Yes, there are such imports and there are less dramatic
examples than those mentioned above. From my study time i knew at
last 6 different soil classifications. I googled it now and found
out there are even more and that pedologist have lost every
confidence that there ever will be a universal classification. If
you look at the classification you will reckon they are dependent on
the soil usage and engeneering techniques. But these both vary
greatly with different cultures.
But pedology, physics or chemistry are not the main battle field. We
find examples there, they are insteresting and shed a light on the
cleaning practices, but they are not of vital importance. Like
Foucault identified it, the main battle field is anthropology. There
are everywhere cultural and ideological components in the content of
the sciences arround anthropology. And that is the reason why people
in the 60ies and 70ies read his historical investigations, which
ended in the 19th century, as critiques of the then contemporary
psychatry, medicine and criminology. He showed what was implicitly
taken for granted and people didn't like to see that.
All of this hasn't something to do with fallibilism. Fallibilism works
only in one perspective, the tertium non datur works only in one
perspective. It has to do with pluralism and the possibility of other
world views. And therefore it is a legitimate endeavour to search for
traces of culture, tradition, ideology within the content of sciences.
They are not free of them. Its like Fleck writes in
"Wissenschaftstheoretische Probleme": "It is an extraordinary
interesting thing, how far scholars who dedicate their whole life to
destinct hallucinations from reality, are unable to destinct their own
dreams about science from the true form of science".
Best
Stefan
Stefan, Gary F., list,
I was indeed addressing the snakebite example, just not mentioning it
by name. If two traditions, two people, two of anything, arrive at
incompatible conclusions about snakebites, then at most one of their
conclusions is true. That's what "incompatible conclusions" means. It
doesn't take Peircean semiotics or pragmatism to see it, it's
elementary definitions and logic.
I haven't ever argued or believed that judgments, that two given
traditions' conclusions are incompatible, are infallible. I haven't
ever argued or believed that society does not influence, help, or
hinder inquiry, or contribute to focusing it in some directions rather
than others. This sort of thing will result in society's influencing
the opinions that result from actual inquiry.
But opinion and truth are not the same thing.
Conflating opinion with truth seems to produce some light
pseudo-hallucinatory fun, at least that has been my consistent
experience since I was a teenager (as I said I do look at other
perspectives). It's the fun of absurdity. Yet, to build a theory on
the acceptance of that conflation is to build on broken logic, inquiry
with its bones broken, inquiry more susceptible than ever to social
manipulation, inquiry less likely than ever to be fruitful.
A challenge for inquiry and society is to overcome capricious or
mischievous skews produced by society's influence on inquiry, without
keeping society from helping inquiry thrive and vice versa. It's one
thing for society to reward some disciplines more than others. In
various cases there can be good reasons for that, bad reasons for
that, and so on. The economy of inquiry itself may sometimes
impoverish inquiries that would not have been all that costly and
whose findings would have corrected and improved the inquiries that do
proceed, but people can't know everything in advance, and people need
to make choices. So inquiry will tend, even when going comparatively
well, to have defects. But it can also correct and improve itself.
It's another thing for society to reward disciplines with power,
wealth, glamour, status, only for producing conclusions that suit
society's preconceptions. And so on.
Best, Ben
On 9/23/2014 5:20 AM, sb wrote:
Gary F., Ben, List,
yes, it is an extremist position. Ludwik Fleck in some of his texts
about the /Denkkollektive/ (thought collectives) comes close to this
point. But his microbiological bench research maybe prevented him to
fall prey to such solipcism. Also Latours (maybe polemic) can be read
this way, but even he says now, facing the threat of climate change
deniers, that he has gone to far. Apart from these two (and alleged
epigones of social constructivism of different strives) i would say
this is a crude misrepresentation of social constructivism.
Yes, you may be right that you and Ben are just responding, but i have
the imression that Stans polarization fell on just too fertile ground.
Maybe it activated an already existent resentiment?! Now when Gary and
Cathy applaud Bens post, i would follow them if it was not under the
label of social constructivism. If we call it
solipcism/relativism/culturalism i'd be fine. Nevertheless i feel
uncomfortable with Bens post since it doesn't try to understand Stans
position.
Stan braught up the example "one must not tease certain snakes". If
you tease the snake, it bites you, injects enough poison and there are
no lucky circumstances that safe you, then you will die! These are the
plain facts. But there can be different mythologies/theories arround
this snake type. At this point i always remember the end of Ecos "Name
of the Rose" when Adson and William discuss retrospective what has
happend. Adson says to William: "Over the whole investigation we had
the false premisses and the false hypothesis' but we came up with the
right conclusion". Important in this example is now that they start
with predjudice which turns out to be false. In the same manner
scientists start with personaly, socially or tradionally conditioned
predjudices.
All scientific theories have a social import which is not forced upon
us by reality. E.g. Fleck shows in his book that until the 20th
century and the discovery of the Wassermann-reaction the syphillis
research was influenced by the religious idea of the syphillitic blood
as a punishment of god. In an enlightment perspective it is important
to understand and explore such imports. Ben argues in his response
only from an epistemological standpoint and ignores the importance of
the sociologcal view Stan brings in. Sociologically the "claim of
truth" as "truth" and the will to act upon this truth is a interesting
phenomenon. At the same time Stan mixes up the epistemological and the
sociological perspective and thinks we can conclude from the sociology
of knowledge to epistemology. Once again, i do follow Bens critique,
but it should also pick up the sociological perspective.
Science is not only brought forward by empirical research and new
theories, it is also brought forward by the critique of its own social
boundedness. Sure, the sociological is from a different sphere but
since it is from a different sphere it could and should inform
science. From my point of view social constructivism/ sociology of
knowledge and pragmatism are complementary, means pragmatism delivers
the right epistemology for the sociology of knowledge.
Best
Stefan
Am 22.09.14 14:22, schrieb Gary Fuhrman:
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