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:
