Eugene Lashchyk, Contingent Scientific Realism and Instrumentalism, 1992


C. An Examination of the "End of Philosophy" Movement of Rorty and Fine

Some, like Rorty and Fine, in part as a result of a radical reading of SSR, which placed total incommensurability center stage, have gone in the opposite direction. Total incommensurability leads to a kind of reductio ad absurdum of philosophy and hence, say these philosophers, philosophy is dead.{41} They would like to go beyond such positions as relativism-objectivism, irrationalism-rationalism, realism-instrumentalist, to a position where there is no temptation to ask such philosophical questions or where such questions are meaningless. Fine, for example, says:

The attitude that marks NOA is just this: try to take science on its own terms, and try not to read things into science. If one adopts this attitude, then the global interpretations, the 'isms' of scientific philosophies, appear as idle overlays to science: not necessary, not warranted, and in the end, probably not even intelligible.{42}

Another philosopher who holds similar views is Donald Davidson. Even though Davidson's whole philosophy is the very antithesis of Kuhn's it would be an oversimplification to attribute any causal influence between them. Davidson, in effect, proposes to eliminate not only Kuhn's conceptual scheme but he advocates the total elimination of all past and present philosophical vocabulary and face the world pure and simple without interpreting schemes. He says:

In giving up the dualism of scheme and world we do not give up the world, but re-establish unmediated touch with the familiar objects which make our sentences and our opinions true or false.{43}


l. The End of Philosophy -- Rorty Style.

Rorty's position has been quickly evolving over the last ten years from the position of an end of philosophy, epistemology and metaphysics as argued for in Philosophy and The Mirror of Nature in 1979 to more qualified rejections of this or that question or position. The original strategy of the argument was to try to show that foundationalist positions in epistemology and metaphysical realism have serious defects for specific reasons, and therefore epistemology and metaphysics are impossible philosophical enterprises. Clearly there is a non sequitur here. Theories in such branches of science as physics or chemistry are regularly rejected but no one announces the demise of science or of the demise of the scientific specialty itself. I tend to agree with Rorty's critique of foundationalism but I reject his conclusion that philosophy or epistemology has come to an end.

Rorty, in an illuminating article called "Beyond Realism and Anti-Realism,"{44} tries to put Fine, Davidson and his own attempts at overcoming past and current philosophical and epistemological positions into historical perspective. With some qualifications Rorty places Nietzsche, and particularly the later Heidegger in this same tradition of overcoming past theoretical philosophy. He says:

They can urge us to forget the old controversies for a while and come back to them a few generations or centuries later.

This recommendation of benign neglect seems to me the best answer one can give to the metaphilosophical question Heidegger raises: the question of how to criticize a philosophical vocabulary without also using it. Such a recommendation amounts to saying that when you want to avoid discussing a controverted issue you should, in the manner of Wittgenstein, consciously refrain from answering questions formulated in the vocabulary in which that issue was stated. But that means not doing what Heidegger made the mistake of doing in Being and Time: not trying to find a vocabulary which will "place" and "distance" the old controversies. It also means not invoking the rhetoric of "naturalness" suggested by the remarks I have quoted from Fine and Davidson. You should not affect a back-to-nature pose, for such a pose is merely one more expression of the Platonic idea that truth has always been within us. You should admit that the only cure for bad old controversies is temporary forgetfulness.{45}

In the above article Rorty adopts a much more reasonable position of selectively "forgetting" the old controversies for a while" or "consciously refraining from answering questions formulated in the vocabulary in which the issue was stated". Another strategy of Rorty is to reject a certain approach to philosophy by labeling that kind of philosophy with a capital "P". I have much less problem with such a selective approach to abandoning or forgetting for a while certain philosophical questions because they no longer seem important from the vantage point of the dominant philosophy of the time.{46} That is how I am reading Rorty's proposals about overcoming and forgetting. Rorty is consciously utilizing the Kuhnian account of incommensurability that results after a successful paradigm theory shift. When there is a paradigm shift there is also a problem shift, a value shift, and a meaning shift. Certain problems are dropped and they are replaced by new problems which are deemed important by the new paradigm theory. Under this Kuhnian view of science, scientists would not abandon a paradigm-theory unless they had another one to put in its place. The main reason for such a view is that without paradigms there is no explanation, prediction, manipulation or control.{47} Rorty, who consciously utilizes this Kuhnian framework for understanding changes in philosophy, seems to stop short, (particularly during his early "end of philosophy" period) of following the analogy to its logical conclusion. Using this scientific analogy one could likewise say that one would not want to be for a time without some philosophical theory. Thus, Rorty's pronouncements about the end of philosophy lost sight of this consequence of the analogy. Even in Rorty's later article "Beyond Realism and Anti-Realism" Rorty still contemplates (at least for Davidson and Fine) the possibility of abandoning the whole of philosophy without putting anything in its place. He says:

If we accept this Kuhnian point, (that "we only make progress by simply refusing to discuss old topics" (p. 112) then we can answer the metaphilosophical question I have raised by saying that although some day historians will explain to us what these bad old philosophical questions about the nature of truth and knowledge meant, what bad picture of the world they enshrined, and what false assumptions they presupposed, there is no hurry. It is not irrational to turn these tasks to future historians, and in the meantime to get on with re-describing the world in whatever terms strike one as promising . . .

Applying this line of thought to Fine's and Davidson's attempt to station themselves above the realism-vs.-antirealism battle suggests that they should adopt the following strategy. They should assure us that, in the fullness of time a new picture of the world, a new map of the philosophical terrain, will emerge . . .

But they need not construct such a map in order to justify their claim that the old map was a bad one.{48}

Just as it is hard to imagine giving up a scientific paradigm-theory in the absence of another one that shows more promise, so it is unreasonable to give up philosophy without at least suggesting another one in its place. I am for partial forgetting of problems and issues but not for a total forgetting of a whole field. Such a total denial of philosophy requires a much stronger argument than Rorty has provided thus far. Concerning partial forgetting, I would not be averse to dropping from the philosophical agenda some such approaches as the following. If the history of philosophy teaches us anything it teaches us that it is hard to imagine, for example, how empiricist philosophers can overcome the problems associated with an epistemology based on a neutral observational language or an uncategorised given that is ineffable and certain.{49} It is equally difficult to imagine a rationalist epistemological position that is based on some feature of ideas like Descartes' clearness and distinctness or on some process of abstraction for getting at universal concepts which accurately gets one at the essence of this or that object (the transparancy thesis). It is equally difficult to imagine how a transcendental deduction of the Kantian sort can be revived or a set of synthetic a priori principles be developed for establishing quantum mechanics as the one true theory. But I do not think that these exhaust the strategies for an epistemology which provides an account of the acquisition or production of scientific knowledge, however relativized. Nor has Kant exhausted the various types of transcendental arguments that can be utilized for a justification of the kinds of realism that are demanded at certain periods in the history of science.{50} I will say more about these below. So much about extremely problematic strategies.


2. The End of Philosophy and of Philosophy of Science -- Fine Style

Arthur Fine follows a strategy of argument similar to that of Rorty except Fine restricts, at least for the present, his attack on philosophy to questions of realism and anti-realism. (Actually he rejects epistemology and metaphysics but provides no arguments for their rejection.) He finds fault with certain arguments for realism, in particular those that presuppose a correspondence theory of truth. He attacks the anti-realist position by finding particular problems with the acceptance theories of truth and with Bas van Fraassen's "constructive empiricism". Fine thus concludes his argument by singing the praises of NOA, the Natural Ontological Attitude, or -- loosely paraphrased -- leave science to scientists. Science is not in need of interpretation by philosophers. Interpretations in science of such concepts as truth, observation, reality, justification, and explanation, come ready-made in the very activity of scientific research at a certain time in the history of a specialty. Furthermore, these philosophical notions have only local validity and no general philosophical theory which explains or explicates them is possible.

Before continuing with an analysis of Fine's argument's let me be perfectly clear where I am in full agreement with him. I applaud his pleas for the importance of philosophers of science to have a firsthand acquaintance with some branch of science. Fine puts this point very eloquently and I will quote him here at some length:

I am afraid that only immersion in the details of quite lengthy case studies ~can give one a feel for the texture of decision making over existence claims in a highly structured science like quantum physics. For that procedure involves a truly exquisite balance between experiment and theoretical work. On the experimental side, one has the varied and skillful generation of effects in the laboratory, effects whose very recognition requires intricate data analysis and reduction on a sometimes massive scale, and whose significance is often, at best, only marginal even at the statistical level. On the theoretical side, there is the calculation of the likelihood of such effects by means of a network of approximations that are only loosely derived from complex and varied theoretical considerations. The most important feature of the whole process, and the one it is most difficult to get a feeling for in the abstract, is that every stage of the experimental design and analysis, as well as every stage of the theoretical reconciliation, involves significant matters of judgement. These judgements express norms, and often transient ones, for pursuing the scientific craft. Thus the decision to accept as true a particular existence claim is the decision to accept the complex network of judgements that ground it.{51}

I have no problems with such an attitude. Just as I do not approve of armchair ornithology so I do not approve of armchair philosophy by philosophers who pontificate on the nature of knowledge or reality without taking into consideration the process of knowledge acquisition from the methods of the various sciences. After all it is science that provides us with the paradigm of knowledge and not the ordinary man in the street. Furthermore, I am skeptical of the usefulness of theorizing about second order questions, such as questions of realism and instrumentalist by philosophers who do not have a rich body of examples from the various sciences and who have not studied the history of science. But granting that, I do not see why Fine is so adamant about blocking a priori the possibility of developing theories of science including developing an account in philosophy of science of such concepts as prediction, explanation, or the values or criteria implicit in some scientific tradition, and yes even questions of realism and instrumentalist relativised to particular scientific theories, to name only a few problems. Fine's argument here is analogous to those people who would insist on the view that the world does not need scientific theorizing, does not need interpretation, that it can speak for itself without scientific hearing aids. Some such position was held by G. E. Moore or at times by Lenin, but I am baffled why it is held by Fine or Rorty-cum-Davidson. Why not allow the possibility of theorizing about science just as we allow scientists the freedom to theorize about nature. Neither has any foolproof method for producing imaginative theories and yet this is no ground for abandoning the enterprise. But more about this line of argument later. I now return to an analysis of Fine's defense of NOA.

Even if Fine's critique of particular versions of realism and anti-realism were cogent, NOA would not follow necessarily from the premises. In the first place it is more than likely that there will be developed or are already in existence new versions of realism or anti-realism which follow a different strategy than the positions that Fine criticizes. And in the second place Fine needs an independent argument in support of NOA for NOA to be a reasonable posture in philosophy of science or simply in the science of science. I turn first to a few observations about Fine's critique of instrumentalist


2(a). Reflections on Fine's Critique of Instrumentalist

I believe that even with respect to Fine's critiques of realism and instrumentalist there are problems with his arguments. For example, he classifies Kuhn's position as a version of the acceptance theory of truth. Fine describes Kuhn's position thus:
Finally if our subjects are immersed in the matrix of some paradigm and the circumstances are those encompassed by the values and rules of the paradigm, then we get the specifically paradigm-relative concept of truth (and of reference) that is characteristic of Thomas Kuhn's anti-realism.{52}

Just because Kuhn relativism questions of ontology to a paradigm-theory I don't think that it is accurate to call Kuhn an anti-realist. It would be more accurate to call Kuhn, using Putnam's notion, an internal realist. His position is also compatible with even a stronger version of realism as I suggested in my 1969 work. There does not seem to be any good theoretical reason why a particular paradigm might not succeed in solving puzzles as they arise and removing in the long run any anomalies as well. Such a situation need not be construed negatively as lack of progress as in Feyerabend's philosophy of theoretical pluralism. But an argument might be made that such a paradigm makes a pretty good fit with the furniture and structures of the world.

It is pretty obvious that Kuhn developed an epistemology where the concept of truth plays no significant role. There are only two or three places that Kuhn mentions the word "true" or "false" in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.{53} But, even in those places, he mentions "truth" only to reject it. More importantly, Kuhn claimed that at least some of the values or criteria for acceptance of a theory as a paradigm are trans-paradigmatic and thus have more than local validity. Such values as predictive accuracy, prediction of novel phenomena or simplicity have been part of modern science from the beginning and are values that are possessed by acceptable theories in science.{54} It is difficult to see how commitment to such values can be characterized by Fine as "metaphysical and idle".{55} What if it turns out that the history of modern science beginning, let us say, from Galileo such values have indeed been utilized in theory evaluations? One could then at least develop arguments in defense of such values which are based on scientific practiced.{56} Such appeals would not be "metaphysical" or "idle".


2(b). Some Problems With Fine's Critique of Realism

Fine discusses and ultimately rejects a series of arguments for scientific realism. He rejects those versions of scientific realism which presuppose the correspondence theory of truth. He says:

For realism this must connect with the world by way of approximate truth. But no such connections are observable and hence, suitable as the basis for an inductive inference . . . . They amount to the well known idea that realism commits one to an unverifiable correspondence with the world.{57}

I am sympathetic to his criticism of the correspondence theory as well as to his criticisms of such other arguments for realism like the one from abductive reasoning or the one based on the "small handful". But, I do not think that these arguments exhaust the possible strategies of argument for some version of scientific realism.


Margolis' Transcendental Argument For Scientific Realism.

It does not apply, for example, to Margolis' transcendental argument for scientific realism. For Margolis' transcendental arguments for scientific realism

. . . do not 'legitimize' knowledge claims but legitimize only the conceptual plausibility of viewing our internalist (e) claims as having externalist (o) import. How? . . . .
We simply propose conceptual schemes linking our intuitions about the best work of science . . . . . . with coherent, imaginable conditions deemed necessary to the support of scientific realism; and we assess the power of such alternative schemes -- we "legitimate" them -- by reference to our developing tradition of what is to count as the kind of (logically informed) rigor that such arguments best exhibit.{58}

I take Margolis to be saying here that, put simply, a necessary condition of scientific activity presupposes a common world. He rejects Goodman's, Putnam's and Kuhn's talk of many worlds. Even though our access to this world is always mediated by theories and hence every description of it will utilize the language of one or another theory, still, Margolis would want to insist, using this transcendental argument, that we cannot make sense of science without the assumption of one world. Helping Margolis along here, it is worth mentioning that it is hard to imagine how one could make sense of discoveries in science if one does not presuppose features of the world that are being discovered or uncovered.{59} I do not think, however, that talk of discoveries forces us to abandon the thesis that observations are theory laden or that all seeing is interpreting. More needs to be said, however, about how discoveries of novel aspects of the world not predicted by some theory are possible. I have in mind here the discoveries of such phenomena as oxygen or x-rays or more recently of the discovery of radioactivity by Antoine Becquerel or superconductivity by Heike Kamerlingh-Omnes. Making sense of such discoveries often leads to the development of new theories as in the case of Lavoisier's oxygen theory.


2(c). Fine's "Arguments" For NOA.

Probably the core of Fine's defense of NOA is the claim that science is not in need of an interpretation, that science comes together with the correct interpretation. Fine states: " NOA tries to let science speak for itself, and it trusts in our ability to get the message without having to rely on metaphysical or epistemological hearing aids."{60} Philosophy is full of attempts which tried to let the world speak for itself, to let the facts speak for themselves, to let the text speak for itself. All such positions have been soundly refuted by multiple readings of a text, by multiple interpretations of data, by multiple accounts of the world. Just as there can be no deep knowledge of the world without theories in science, so there can be no deep knowledge of science without theories in the philosophy of science.

There are indications in Fine's own writings that one of his defenses for NOA is to deny the essentialist nature of science. Fine states:

Indeed, the antiessentialist aspect of NOA is intended to be very comprehensive, applying to all the concepts used in science, even the concept of truth.

Thus NOA is inclined to reject all interpretations, theories, construals, pictures, etc., of truth, just as it rejects the special correspondence theory of realism and the acceptance pictures of the truthmongering antirealists. For the concept of truth is the fundamental semantic concept. Its uses, history, logic and grammar are sufficiently definite to be partially catalogued, at least for a time. But it cannot be "explained" or given an "account of" without circularity."{61}

The question of whether the nature of some phenomenon can be explicated depends in part whether it has an essence or nature to be explicated. But how can this be decided without begging the question? Sartre argued that objects do not have an essence because since there is no God there was no one to give them an essence. Actually, I think, Sartre was wrong, for even if there is no God things in nature can have common chemical or biological structures or natures at least that is what scientific practice seems to identify. The problem is not so much picking out structures or properties of objects or classifying the objects into kinds but choosing from among a multiplicity of possible alternative structures which are the best for purposes of explanation and prediction. In an important sense any object can exhibit a plurality of structures. All can be part of the object in the world in the sense that these structures provide us with some amount of control and manipulation. In the case of science the problem of explicating its nature or natures is both easier and harder. Explicating the nature of science seems to be easier, because science, unlike rocks or aids, is an artifact of man. Since humans created it, humans should be able to deal with it in a cognitive manner. After all, scientists are not born, they are reared by other scientists in a kind of apprentice program in scientific laboratories and university science departments. Theories, laws, the methods of testing, and the making of inductive generalizations etc., all are subjects which can be taught and hence learned. What has resisted explication and reduction to a method is by which scientists come up with imaginative new theories in science. Some progress has been made in this direction but it is doubtful that this complex activity will ever be fully explicated or reduced to a mechanical procedure.{62}

Recently there appeared in the literature not one but many candidates which attempt to pick out a nature or structure of science. I have in mind here such theories of science as have been proposed by Thomas Kuhn, Imre Lakatos, Larry Lauden, or Karl Popper. For example, Lakatos can be said to have developed a theory of scientific development which has the following structure. The history of the natural sciences is a history of scientific research programs. Each research program has a negative heuristic which is the "hard core" of the program which is impervious to refutations. This hard core is protected by a protective belt which enables the research program to be developed further in spite of a possible ocean of anomalies.

Kuhn has proposed a theory of science which is dominated by periods of normal or paradigm based science, followed by the appearance of anomalies leading in due time to crises. During crises periods there is the proliferation of alternative paradigm-theories and finally this process leads to the revolutionary overthrow of the dominant paradigm and the acceptance of a new one.

Fine ends his paper with the following song in praise of NOA

The refrain I had in mind is an adaptation of a sentiment that Einstein once expressed concerning Mozart. Einstein said that the music of Mozart (read "NOA") seems so natural that by contrast the music of other composers (read "realism" or "anti-realism") sounds artificial and contrived."{63}

Fine's utilization of Einstein's name here is particularly blasphemous, for Einstein sang in praise of epistemology and not against it. Einstein's rebuttal of Fine's type of thinking is clear and unequivocal. He states:

The reciprocal relationship of epistemology and science is of a noteworthy kind . . . Epistemology without contact with science becomes an empty scheme. Science without epistemology is -- insofar as it is thinkable at all -- primitive and muddled.{64}

In another place Einstein again underlined the importance of philosophy for science. He states: "In our time physicists are forced to concern themselves with philosophical questions to a greater degree than physicists of previous generations."{65}

NOA would be more plausible if scientists did not hold epistemological or metaphysical positions. But, as a matter of fact, scientists hold philosophical beliefs which, whether we like it or not, guide their scientific investigations. Would it not be better to be exposed to the best phtlosophical debates rather than take the attitude that ignorance is bliss, that the unexamined positions on realism or anti-realism are better than the examined ones? There are cases when an epistemological or metaphysical position raises serious doubts about well entrenched concepts or theories in science. Einstein was especially grateful to Hume and Mach for having raised doubts about such Newtonian concepts as absolute space and time. Mach functioned for Einstein as Hume for Kant -- freeing him from the imprisonment of the dominant theory. In a letter to Besso in 1917 Einstein wrote, "I do not inveigh against Mach's little horse, but you know what I think of it. It cannot give birth to anything living, it can only exterminate harmful vermin."

Mach provides us with another illustration of a conscious utilization in science of a philosophical-epistemological position. He espoused a very narrow form of empiricism. His principle of realism was "color, space, tones etc., these are the only realities. Others do not exist." At one time few scientists or philosophers would think it reasonable to subscribe to such a narrow and harsh epistemological principle. Today some such view seems to be much more receptive among physicists. Bernard d'Espagnat, one of the leading French physicists, in his ground breaking book In Search of Reality rejects physical realism and argues for "the philosophy of veiled reality" or nonphysical realism. He defines physical realism as follows:

The idea that nature possesses some objective realit independent of our perceptions and our means of investigation but nevertheless describable in principle, by physics. Whoever accepts such a thesis is thereby more or less unavoidably prompted to take two steps. One of them is to define physical reality to be composed of a set of all objects that are, in principle, within reach of man's experimental knowledge (directly or through the medium of theories). The other step is to assume that reality is prior to mind, since the notion of nature includes all that exists, including the mind.{66}

Espagnat rejects such a popular view and argues for nonphysical realism. He defines it in the following way:

A conception according to which it is intrinsically impossible to describe independent reality as it really is even by making use of nonfamiliar concepts such as concepts derived from mathematical algorithms.{67}

There is an interesting coming together of Margolis' transcendental argument for a one world that can never be known and Espagnat position of "veiled reality" an independent reality "that would remain to a great extent unknowable in any sure way.quot;{68} Espagnat is aware that he is straying into a territory normally occupied by philosophers, but he still wants to pose the question "why" the perceived regularities appear. Thus he says:

Those who ask why there are regularities in the phenomena perceived by our subjective consciousness and who regard this question as meanihgfuli despite the fact that it begins with a "why" require a concept of an independent reality. Since physics practically forbids them -- as we have seen -- to consider such a reality to be a "near" reality and even to be one that would be "describable by physics" is it not true that a realism that is "far" and "nonphysical", is far from being "arbitrary", is for these persons the only possible solution."{69}

By "near realism" Espagnat means any vision of the world in which all the elements of reality are supposed to be adequately descibed by notions such as Democritus' atoms or the objects around us. "Far realism" then is any realism that is not near such as "the vision of the world of Buddha, Tao, the world of the gnostics or that of general relativity or naturally the world of quantum physics.{70}

My last example comes from scientists and philosophers in the Soviet Union who subscribed, and possibly still do, to the philosophy of dialectical materialism.{71} These physicists and mathematicians were consciously searching for a new theory in physics that would replace the statistical laws of quantum mechanics with causal laws. What is interesting for our discussion is that here is another example of scientists utilizing epistemological and metaphysical theories as guides for the development of alternative scientific theories.


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Notes

{41} Rorty comes closest in his writings to the above reading of Kuhn. [Back]

{42} Arthur Fine, The Shaky Game: Einstein's Realism and the Quantum Theory (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1986): p. 149. [Back]

{43} Donald Davidson, Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984) p. 198. [Back]

{44} Richard Rorty "Beyond Realism and Anti-Realism" pp. 103-115. [Back]

{45} Ibid., pp. 113-114 . [Back]

{46} Margolis provides an a propos summary of an earlier version of Rorty's position:

". . . Rorty divides philosophy into (at least) three camps: one that uses philosophy (transcendentally) to legitimate epistemological realism (notoriously represented by Descartes; one that rejects the (representational or mirror) ideal -- in effect, espousing pragmatism -- sometimes, most notably in the work of Donald Davidson (on Rorty's view), by employing "a transcendental arguments to end all transcendental arguments -- one which tears down the scaffolding upon which the standard paradigms of 'realistic' transcendental arguments were mounted" and one that building on (such) pragmatist arguments, pursues philosophy in a way that is not concerned with the legitimation of knowledge claims (here, Rorty mentions Heidegger, Dewey, and the later Wittgenstein, whom he professes to follow).

What Rorty opposes, therefore, are transcendental arguments that are "realist" -- that is, that have as their 'aim to guarantee correspondence of logic, or language, or the practice of rational inquiry to the world.'" Margolis, Pragmatism Without Foundations: Reconciling Realism and Relativism (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1986): p. 302. [Back]

{47} Even though I welcome Ian Hacking's new emphasis on the study of experiments and experimental apparatus as argued in his Representinq and Intervening (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), I do not think that such an approach escapes the need of interpretations. Thus, when he says of a stream of positrons "If you can spray them, they're real" (p. 23) does not get Hacking off the theoretical hook. The referent of "them" is meaningful only within a certain theoretical framework. [Back]

{48} Rorty, "Beyond Realism and Anti-Realism," pp. 112-113. [Back]

{49} For a devastating critique of C. I. Lewis' position on the given that is described as ineffable and certain, see Israel Scheffler's Science and Subjectivity (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1967): Ch. 2. [Back]

{50} For another kind of transcendental argument which argues for a reality of a world as a presupposition of science see Margolis Praqmatism Without Foundations, particularly ch. 11 "Scientific Realism as a Transcendental Issue." [Back]

{51}Arthur Fine, The Shaky Game: Einstein Realism and the Quantum Theory. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1986): pp. 152-153. [Back]

{52} Ibid., p. 138. [Back]

{53} Kuhn, SSR, p. 169. [Back]

{54} Ibid., pp 151-157. For a discussion of these values and of an interpretation of Kuhn as not an irrationalist see the author's 1969 Dissertation, particularly pp. 152-153. [Back]

{55} Fine, The Shaky Game, p. 140. [Back]

{56} For examples of such arguments see Hugh Lacey "The Rationality of Science" in Rationality, Relativism and the Human Sciences, ed. J. Margolis, M. Krausz, and R.A. Burian (Dordrecht: Nijhoff, ). Also Ernan McMullin "Values in Science" in PSA 1982, Vol. 2, ed. P.D. Asquith and T. Nickels (East Lansinq: Philosophy of Science Association); Eugene Lashchyk, "A Framework for the Solution to the Rationality Problem" Proceedings of the 6th International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science. (submitted papers) (Hanover: 1979): sec. 6. pp. 127-131. [Back]

{57} Arthur Fine, The Shaky Game (Chicago: University of Chicago P58ress. 1986): p. 116. [Back]

{58} Margolis, Pragmatism without Foundations, pp. 302-303. [Back]

{59} For a more detailed analysis of discoveries see the authors "Heuristics for Scientific and Literary Creativity: The Role of Models, Analogies and Metaphors," in Rationality Relativism, and the Human Sciences, ed. J. Margolis (Dordrecht, 1986). [Back]

{60} Arthur Fine, "And Not Anti-Realism Either," in The Shaky Game, p. 150. [Back]

{61} Ibid., p. 149. [Back]

{62} For a further discussion of the heuristics of the creative process see the authorls 1986 paper. [Back]

{63} Ibid., p. 150. [Back]

{64} P. A. Schilpp (ed.), Albert Einstein: Philosopher Scientist (La Salle, 1949): p. 684. [Back]

{65} A. Einstein, Sobranie nauchnykh trudov, IV (Moscow, 1967): p. 248 [Back]

{66} B. d'Espagnant, In Search of Reality, p. 130. [Back]

{67} Ibid., p. 177. [Back]

{68} Ibid., p. 104. [Back]

{69} Ibid., p. 104. [Back]

{70} For further discussion see Ibid., p. 94. For a further description of this strange new world very distant from common sense realism as revealed to us by quantum mechanics see Abner Shimony's beautifully lucid paper "The Reality of the Quantum World" Scientific American, Jan. 1988. [Back]

{71} For a discussion of the role of dialectical materialism in the scientific investigations of Soviet scientists see L. Graham, Science and Philosophy in the Soviet Union (New York, 1972): pp. 24-68. For a more updated version see Graham's new book Science, Philosophy, ans Human Behaviour (New York: Columbia U.P., 1987). For a review of this new book see E. Lashchyk Physics Review April 1989, pp. 63-65. [Back]


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