| Eugene Lashchyk, Scientific Revolutions, 1969 |
(E) Dual nature of Science
Concerning my position on the question of the nature of science, particularly from the point of view of the developmental stages of a science, much has already been said. Partly for the purposes of summary, I will try to state where I stand concerning those ingredients listed as essential in the characterization of each of the positions which I have discussed in the body of this work. In reference to the first ingredient of Kuhn's position which deals with the pre-scientific stage of science, I would like to say that I disagree with his position as presented in SSR. In describing this stage of pre-science Kuhn states that it is something less than science. He says:
These transformations of the paradigms of physical optics are scientific revolutions, and the successive transition from one paradigm to another via revolution is the usual developmental pattern of mature science. It is not, however, the pattern characteristic of the period before Newton's work, and that is the contrast that concerns us here. No period between remote antiquity and the end of the seventeenth century exhibited a single generally accepted view about the nature of light. Instead there are a number of competing schools and sub-schools, most of them espousing one variant or another of Epicurean, Aristotelian, or Platonic theory. . . . Any definition of the scientist that excludes at least the more creative members of these various schools will exclude their modern successors as well. Those men were scientists. Yet anyone examining a survey of physical optics before Newton may well conclude that, though the field's practitioners were scientists, the net result of their activity was something less than science.{48}Thus, the theories in Kl -- T1, T2, T3, . . ., are not scientific theories. Why? Because they don't depend on a paradigm. Furthermore, almost by definition, Kuhn describes science as research firmly based upon a universally accepted paradigm. Because each theory during the early stages of a field didn't presuppose a paradigm, therefore such theories as were presented at this stage are not scientific. I do not accept such a conclusion. In the first place, I no longer subscribe to the usage of the term "paradigm" as it is described in SSR.{49} Secondly, even on Kuhnian grounds, I think that it is more appropriate to hold the view that theories in the so-called pre-science stage presuppose paradigms. Particularly if by "paradigms" we mean such things as examples of solved problems or a solution to an outstanding problem which for a time guides research, then why can't these early theories presuppose a paradigm in this sense? There appears to be no good reason. But if it can plausibly be said that theories T1, T2, . . ., Tn presuppose paradigms, then it no longer follows, on the above argument, that they were not scientific. If, however, we take paradigms to be universally accepted theories, then it appears specious to rule a theory as unscientific for the sole reason that it isn't universally accepted. Should such a view be taken seriously, then theories proposed during the crisis stage of science will also have to be unscientific. But this line of reasoning leads to more paradoxical results with every step. I conclude, therefore, that theories in the so-called prescientific stage could have been scientific. For example, at the time of Plato there was no one dominant theory about nature, be it in physics or chemistry. The period was dominated by a plurality of theories to which I would tend to ascribe the term "scientific" but would grade them on an individual basis as to their adequacy as such. Part of my conception of science will thus be ingredient K1 given above. Concerning the second ingredient of Kuhn's view, K2, which describes the activities of scientists during the so-called period of normal science, I am in full agreement. As a matter of fact, it seems that every one of the views which I discussed above, with the possible exception of Feyerabend's, admits of some such period of normal science. The inductivists enlarge the period of normal science to include all of science. Kuhn had equated bona fide scientific activity with the activity under way during periods of normal or paradigm-based science, which for him includes the crisis stage. Feyerabend has said little about this stage because he is interested in stressing the philosophy of theoretical pluralism. But if by "normal science" we mean that activity which scientists ought to be engaged in at all or most of the times, then it seems that Feyerabend does believe in normal science. This is not what I mean by "normal science." A more appropriate title for Feyerabend's sense above would be not "normal science" but "science in continual crisis stage or undergoing perpetual revolutions." The question of whether there is or is not a period of normal science is not a semantical problem. By normal science I mean scientific research by a community of scientists under the guidance of a cognitive matrix which defines the relevant problems, acceptable solutions, admissible evidence and the like. Part of the objective of normal science is the further development of the parameters of the cognitive matrix as described earlier.{50} Feyerabend comes closer to my conception of normal science when he talks of doing research under a theory that is declared victorious for a time. Feyerabend departs from my position and that of Kuhn when he proposes that even though a theory is declared to be a winner --to be the best -- of the competing incompatible theories, scientists must nevertheless continue creating alternative theories, ad infinitum. This I find unacceptable primarily because Feyerabend's view does not allow for a period of normal science as Kuhn and I have envisioned it. Without agreement on fundamentals and without taking the problems as given, scientific research cannot proceed smoothly. The overwhelming majority of research in science, as I see it, consists in the kinds of activities that fall under the term "normal science." When such activities are either eliminated or minimized, science and scientific progress as we know it today will cease to exist. Concerning the period of science which is dominated by crisis, I would like to say that in my view it is not part of what I take to be normal science. In SSR Kuhn takes the view that, during crisis periods, scientific research is still dominated by the old paradigm and therefore this period is still part of nonfat science. I find this paradoxical. And, because I do not equate normal science with the dominant paradigm, I am not compelled to hold that crises are part of normal science. Thus, to call the period of science under crisis normal science is at least mildly inconsistent with the view that the period should be called a crisis stage and is to be dominated by the philosophy of theoretical pluralism. Any position which contains ingredient K3 can be said to admit of scientific revolutions and has sometimes been called the "revolutionary view of science." The admission that there are examples of the replacements of one theory by another rather than incorporation of older theories into newer ones is the essential feature of the new trend in philosophy of science which was initiated by such men as Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend.{51} I have not tried to document in this work examples of such revolutions from the history of science primarily because I am not a historian of science. That historians of science in recent years have documented cases of such replacements of theories is becoming acknowledged primarily by the scientific community and to some extent the philosophical community. Let me cite what I take to be some clear cases of such revolutionary replacements: 1. Copernican heliocentric theory which replaced Ptolemaic geocentric theory. 2. Lavoisier's oxygen theory in chemistry which replaced the phlogiston theory of such men as Priestley. 3. Newtonian theory of motion which replaced the Aristotelian theory. It is one of the theses of this work that this ingredient, K3, concerning scientific revolutions must be part of any adequate conception of science. It remains to be discussed whether I subscribe to the revolutions forever-view or the revolutions-in-the-past-but-not-necessarily-in-the future view. Any unambiguous theory must hold an opinion with respect to this question. I hold the view that science has a dual nature or can be characterized by two developmental episodes, normal science and crisis stage, which leads to revolutions. Using "N" for normal science and "C" for crisis stage, we can schematically represent the development of science as follows:
N1 C1 N2 C2 N3 The following questions need to be answered about this process: (l) must this process continue for all time, or (2) can this process come to an end? Feyerabend answers the first question affirmatively but I don't think that he has established that T.P, or crisis must dominate science for all time. I have argued this point in the first part of Chapter 3. Kuhn does not give a clear answer to the above two questions. He gives an answer only about the past history of science but leaves the question of further future development unresolved. I would like to answer the second question affirmatively. The process described earlier can in principle come to an end. By saying that the process can in principle end, I mean to say that I have not seen any convincing a priori arguments to the contrary. I have yet to see an argument which contains a priori true premises with the conclusion that the occurrence of scientific revolutions must continue for all time, or with the conclusion that man is incapable of ever creating a theory that will capture all the rich variety of nature. Furthermore, by saying that this process (normal science -- crisis and revolution) can come to an end, I do not mean that at some future time we will have epistemic grounds(relative to our evidence) for bringing this process to and end, for, since our scientific theories contain universal laws which pertain to an infinite number of phenomena, no finite set of evidence statements can conclusively confirm a scientific theory. Thus we can never have conclusive epistemic evidence for bringing this process to an end. By saying that this process can in principle come to an end I mean that a theory could conceivably be developed which will not encounter any anomalies that cannot be removed by research under the theory. Since it is possible that anomalies or falsifying instances of a theory will not arise, it is possible that at sometime a period of normal science can continue indefinitely. The prospects of such a process coming to an end, in the near future, are not very good. Present theory of atomic physics seems to be very far from the time when a theory will be proposed which explains and predicts the great number of subatomic particles recently discovered. My dual nature of science view, however, incorporates the yearning of theoretical scientists to create a unified scientific theory which will incorporate all the aspects of nature. Each succeeding theory, which served as a foundation for normal science, was an attempt to create a theory which would capture the known as well as the unknown aspects of nature. The period of normal science thus institutionalizes this yearning to create a theory that will solve all problems and puzzles at hand; The inclusion of crisis stage and revolutions takes notice of the failures that scientists have encountered in the attempt at creating an adequate theory. The revolutionary aspect takes stock of the many times that scientists were forced by experimental evidence and/or theoretical difficulties to abandon a theory. I do not, however, believe that this process must continue indefinitely. In principle, the process of normal science, crisis-revolution and normal science, etc., can stop at some stage of normal science because man can conceivably create a theory covering all the aspects of nature observed and as yet unobserved.
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Notes {48} SSR, pp. 12-13. [Back]
{49} See Chapter II of this work for a redefinition of the term "paradigm." [Back]
{50} See Chapter II of this work, particularly pp. 85-94. [Back]
{51} For further discussion of some of the precursors of the revolutionary view of science see Stephen Toulmin's article "Conceptual Revolutions in Science," Synthese, XVII, l (March, l967), 75-91. Also for a critique of the "revolutions forever" claim, see William Kneal "Scientific Revolutions Forever?" British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, IXX, 1 (May, 1968), 27-41. [Back]
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