Scientific Paradigms and Objective Metaphysics

[Paul Mawdsley]

I was reading a little on Thomas Kuhn's structure of scientific revolutions. What is a paradigm shift? Is it a shift in the metaphysical context from which we do science? And could we call a scientific paradigm an objective metaphysics?

Early reading, early questions.

Paul

[tjohnson]

From that link ;

A defense Kuhn gives against the objection that his account of science from The Structure of Scientific Revolutions results in relativism can be found in an essay by Kuhn called "Objectivity, Value Judgment, and Theory Choice."[4] In this essay, he reiteriates five criteria from the penultimate chapter of SSR that determine (or help determine, more properly) theory choice:

1 - Accurate - empirically adequate with experimentation and observation

2 - Consistent - internally consistent, but also externally consistent with other theories

3 - Broad Scope - a theory's consequencies should extend beyond that which it was initially designed to explain

4 - Simple - the simplest explanation, principally similar to Occam's Razor

5 - Fruitful - a theory should disclose new phenomena or new relationships among phenomena

Interesting that nowhere on this list does the criteria of "truth" appear. I submit that this is because it is not possible to establish absolute "truth" of a statement, despite many people's desire to do so. I have heard it said on this list that Rand had a passion for finding the truth well, if so, then it was doomed to failure. The closest we can get to the "truth" is outlined above and is employed by science generally speaking, not in philosophy.

[BaalChatzaf]

I was reading a little on Thomas Kuhn's structure of scientific revolutions. What is a paradigm shift? Is it a shift in the metaphysical context from which we do science? And could we call a scientific paradigm an objective metaphysics?

Early reading, early questions.

Paul

A paradigm is a way of construing the facts. Multi-paradigms are a result of the basic truth that a finite set of facts do not uniquely determine a theory to explain them. Einstein pointed this out many times. Theories are synthetic creations of the human intellect, and are not mechanically ground out from lists of facts. Kuhn built a view of how science changes based on this basic truth. Think of a paradigm as a metatheory or an intellectual envelope than covers and contains the current theories. Sometimes new facts cause the envelope to burst and a new one must be constructed.

I have considered revisiting Kuhn with yet another twist: the role of memes in the progress of science. If only the day were 48 long and I were thirty years younger!

Ba'al Chatzaf

[BaalChatzaf]

I was reading a little on Thomas Kuhn's structure of scientific revolutions. What is a paradigm shift? Is it a shift in the metaphysical context from which we do science? And could we call a scientific paradigm an objective metaphysics?

Early reading, early questions.

Paul

May I recommend that you read -Science and Hypothesis-* by Henri Poincare', one of the great mathematicians of the lat 19-th and early 20-th centuries. He put forth the proposition that science is largely based on conventions and the conventions (when consistent with observation) should be chosen for how conveniently they lead to the solution of problems. This is very congruent with Kuhn's idea of paradigms.

Ba'al Chatzaf

* This as translated from the French. Dover Books has a nice inexpensive edition of this work.

[tjohnson]

Poincare was well respected by Korzybski (who you do not seem to care for) but nonetheless here is is quoted 3 times on the very first page of Science & Sanity;

Allow me to express now, once and for all, my deep respect for the work of the experimenter and

for his fight to wring significant facts from an inflexible Nature, who says so distinctly “No” and so

indistinctly “Yes” to our theories. (550) HERMANN WEYL

The firm determination to submit to experiment is not enough; there are still dangerous

hypotheses, first, and above all, those which are tacit and unconscious. Since we make them without

knowing it, we are powerless to abandon them. (417) H. POINCARÉ

The empiricist . . . thinks he believes only what he sees, but he is much better at believing than at

seeing. (461) G. SANTAYANA

For a Latin, truth can be expressed only by equations, it must obey laws simple, logical, symmetric

and fitted to satisfy minds in love with mathematical elegance.

The Anglo-Saxon to depict a phenomenon will first be engrossed in making a model, and he will

make it with common materials, such as our crude, unaided senses show us them.... He concludes

from the body to the atom.

Both therefore make hypotheses, and this indeed is necessary, since no scientist has ever been able

to get on without them. The essential thing is never to make them unconsciously. (417) H. POINCARÉ

If a distinction is to be made between men and monkeys, it is largely measurable by the quantity of

the subconscious which a higher order of being makes conscious. That man really lives who brings

the greatest fraction of his daily experience into the realm of the conscious.* MARTIN H. FISCHER

The thought of the painter, the musician, the geometrician, the tradesman, and the philosopher may

take very different forms, still more so the thought of the uncultivated man, which remains

rudimentary and revolves for ever in the same circles. (411) HENRI PIÉRON

One need only open the eyes to see that the conquests of industry which have enriched so many

practical men would never have seen the light, if these practical men alone had existed and if they

had not been preceded by unselfish devotees who died poor, who never thought of utility, and yet

had a guide far other than caprice. (417) H. POINCARÉ

[Brant Gaede]

From that link ;

A defense Kuhn gives against the objection that his account of science from The Structure of Scientific Revolutions results in relativism can be found in an essay by Kuhn called "Objectivity, Value Judgment, and Theory Choice."[4] In this essay, he reiteriates five criteria from the penultimate chapter of SSR that determine (or help determine, more properly) theory choice:

1 - Accurate - empirically adequate with experimentation and observation

2 - Consistent - internally consistent, but also externally consistent with other theories

3 - Broad Scope - a theory's consequencies should extend beyond that which it was initially designed to explain

4 - Simple - the simplest explanation, principally similar to Occam's Razor

5 - Fruitful - a theory should disclose new phenomena or new relationships among phenomena

Interesting that nowhere on this list does the criteria of "truth" appear. I submit that this is because it is not possible to establish absolute "truth" of a statement, despite many people's desire to do so. I have heard it said on this list that Rand had a passion for finding the truth well, if so, then it was doomed to failure. The closest we can get to the "truth" is outlined above and is employed by science generally speaking, not in philosophy.

It's "The passionate search for passionless truth." However, I don't know whom I'm quoting. Likely someone extremely close to Rand, not Rand herself. If she said it I doubt she wrote it. It's much more the style of Barbara Branden than Ayn Rand.

This is what a scientist does, after all. If he thought he would be doomed to failure he wouldn't be a scientist, he'd be a semanticist and applied generally we'd still be hunter-gatherers.

--Brant

[Dragonfly]

From that link ;

Interesting that nowhere on this list does the criteria of "truth" appear. I submit that this is because it is not possible to establish absolute "truth" of a statement, despite many people's desire to do so. I have heard it said on this list that Rand had a passion for finding the truth well, if so, then it was doomed to failure. The closest we can get to the "truth" is outlined above and is employed by science generally speaking, not in philosophy.

It's "The passionate search for passionless truth." However, I don't know whom I'm quoting. Likely someone extremely close to Rand, not Rand herself. If she said it I doubt she wrote it. It's much more the style of Barbara Branden than Ayn Rand.

This is what a scientist does, after all. If he thought he would be doomed to failure he wouldn't be a scientist, he'd be a semanticist and applied generally we'd still be hunter-gatherers.

Not being able to find the "absolute truth" is not the same as being doomed to failure, that's a false dichotomy. Even without absolute truth we can go beyond being hunter-gatherers (which reminds me of Hsieh, who now has become a diet-nut [not to be confused with a nut-diet], finding salvation in the food that our ancestors the hunter-gatherers would have eaten).

[Brant Gaede]

From that link ;

Interesting that nowhere on this list does the criteria of "truth" appear. I submit that this is because it is not possible to establish absolute "truth" of a statement, despite many people's desire to do so. I have heard it said on this list that Rand had a passion for finding the truth well, if so, then it was doomed to failure. The closest we can get to the "truth" is outlined above and is employed by science generally speaking, not in philosophy.

It's "The passionate search for passionless truth." However, I don't know whom I'm quoting. Likely someone extremely close to Rand, not Rand herself. If she said it I doubt she wrote it. It's much more the style of Barbara Branden than Ayn Rand.

This is what a scientist does, after all. If he thought he would be doomed to failure he wouldn't be a scientist, he'd be a semanticist and applied generally we'd still be hunter-gatherers.

Not being able to find the "absolute truth" is not the same as being doomed to failure, that's a false dichotomy. Even without absolute truth we can go beyond being hunter-gatherers (which reminds me of Hsieh, who now has become a diet-nut [not to be confused with a nut-diet], finding salvation in the food that our ancestors the hunter-gatherers would have eaten).

"Passionless truth" and "absolute truth" are not one and the same. The latter is only dogmatism. Of course GS is talking about both and in her heart of hearts I think Rand was too. In the 60s and 70s Objectivist culture "Absolutely!" was a favorite bonding verbal ejaculation.

Her diet is interesting. It's akin to the increasingly popular "paleo" diet. I think getting carbs out of one's diet may be a good idea but I'd hardly warm to the idea of not worrying about saturated fats in meat. Our distant ancestors, of course, commonly enjoyed living to 113.

--Brant

[Guyau]

Paul, sooner or later, treat yourself to the real treasures, the first one first:

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Thomas S. Kuhn

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0226458083..._pt#reader-link

The Essential Tension

Thomas S. Kuhn

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0226458067..._pt#reader-link

The Road since Structure

Thomas S. Kuhn, edited by James Conant and John Haugeland

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0226457990..._pt#reader-link

The Copernican Revolution

Thomas S. Kuhn

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0674171039..._pt#reader-link

Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity, 1894–1912

Thomas S. Kuhn

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0226458008..._pt#reader-link

Alternative Views of Scientific Revolutions

Scientific Revolutions

Edited by Ian Hacking

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/019875051X..._pt#reader-link

Hacking provides a good brief summary of Kuhn’s Structure in the Introduction.

The important chapters are these:

II. “Meaning and Scientific Change” by Dudley Shapere

III. “The ‘Corroboration’ of Theories” by Hilary Putnam

IV. “The Rationality of Scientific Revolutions” by Karl Popper

V. “History of Science and Its Rational Reconstructions” by Imre Lakatos

VI. “Lakatos’ Philosophy of Science” by Ian Hacking

VII. “A Problem-Solving Approach to Scientific Progress” by Larry Laudan

Edited September 25, 2008 by Stephen Boydstun

[Paul Mawdsley]

Thanks Stephen. Your guidance is always welcome. I tend to read to help push the envelope of my own evolving philosophy. I'm sensing a hunger that is going to have me reading in a lot of new directions over the next few years. Popper and Kuhn are high on the list. The insights I have gained on OL are helping to guide what I will be reading.

Paul