If any readers are going to be at the American Philosophical Association meeting this week in NYC, and want to see some obscure and confused ideas incarnate, I'll be presenting Friday morning (the 30th) at 9AM. It's a philosophical logic paper; you can preview it here.
Also, I noticed two brand-new blogs of potential interest: The Hedgehog Review, covering the early modern period, and Boundaries of Language, dealing with (you guessed it) philosophy of language.
12/26/2005
12/02/2005
A "Gourmet Report" for grad school mentoring
Most (if not all) of the readers here are familiar with Brian Leiter's Philosophical Gourmet Report, which ranks graduate programs by the research quality of each department's members. The PGR's primary goal is to help clueless undergraduates (such as myself 6 years ago) figure out which programs are strongest -- both overall and in particular sub-fields of philosophy. Leiter has consistently pointed out that the quality of a faculty's published books and articles is only one determinant or indicator of what kind of graduate school experience to expect at a given program: quality of faculty mentoring of students, for example, makes a huge difference in one's graduate school career -- but that does not show up at all in the Gourmet Report.
Happily, Jonathan Feagle is now trying to fill that lacuna for prospective grad students in philosophy. He is in the planning stages of what he's calling The Athena Project. He is planning to send out surveys to graduate students in philosophy in March 2006. Right now, Jonathan is requesting feedback on his current slate of survey questions, as well as suggestions for other survey questions and/or for the mechanics of administering the survey when the time comes. Hopefully, enough people will be interested in this clearly worthwhile project to generate an excellent questionnaire and, subsequently, some statistically significant data. (Note: the survey is explicitly avoiding more 'personal' issues: there will be no place for anything in the neighborhood of "My dissertation advisor is an inconsiderate jerk.")
The Philosophical Gourmet Report is, as Leiter himself says, not a perfect instrument. But it is much better than the other limited resources available to undergraduates considering grad school. From what I've seen, the Athena Project has similar promise to be an imperfect but nonetheless very useful tool for people picking a program.
Happily, Jonathan Feagle is now trying to fill that lacuna for prospective grad students in philosophy. He is in the planning stages of what he's calling The Athena Project. He is planning to send out surveys to graduate students in philosophy in March 2006. Right now, Jonathan is requesting feedback on his current slate of survey questions, as well as suggestions for other survey questions and/or for the mechanics of administering the survey when the time comes. Hopefully, enough people will be interested in this clearly worthwhile project to generate an excellent questionnaire and, subsequently, some statistically significant data. (Note: the survey is explicitly avoiding more 'personal' issues: there will be no place for anything in the neighborhood of "My dissertation advisor is an inconsiderate jerk.")
The Philosophical Gourmet Report is, as Leiter himself says, not a perfect instrument. But it is much better than the other limited resources available to undergraduates considering grad school. From what I've seen, the Athena Project has similar promise to be an imperfect but nonetheless very useful tool for people picking a program.
11/11/2005
Descartes on colors and shapes
As is well known, Descartes argues that the sensation of white in our minds when we look at snow does not resemble whatever it is in the snow that produces this sensation in us. (He puts this point in different ways in different places; e.g., sometimes he says that our sensory awareness of whiteness leaves us "wholly ignorant" of what the snow is like (Principles of Philosophy, I.68).) The same holds for many other sensory qualities: the pain we feel when we put our finger in the fire does not resemble anything in the fire, the sweet scent we have of honey does not resemble anything in honey, and so on.
But what about my sensory awareness of the shape of a snowball, a fireplace, or a honey jar? In these cases, Descartes takes a different line: "We know size, shape, and so forth in quite a different way from the way in which we know colors, pains and the like" (PP, I.69). What is this difference? Descartes writes: "there are many features, such as size, shape, and number which we clearly perceive to be actually or at least possibly present in the in objects in a way exactly corresponding to our sensory perception or understanding" (PP, I.70).
So the obvious question here is: what makes our sensory perception of shape different from our sensory perception of color, so that the former but not the latter can 'correspond to' or resemble the thing represented? Descartes' argument in the final quotation above strikes me as weak. Descartes says that we clearly perceive that our sensory perceptions of shapes either (i) actually resemble or (ii) possibly resemble something in the objects themselves. Regarding (i), I strongly doubt that we can clearly and distinctly perceive anything about the relationship between the ideas in our minds and the objects outside of us -- we would need to be able to 'step outside of our minds,' as it were, to survey and compare both the contents of our minds and objects as they really are. And if we take (ii), then it at least seems possible to me that my sensory awareness of white resembles some property in the object itself. Of course, that would be a fortunate coincidence, but coincidences are not impossible. (Perhaps Descartes' notion of possibility rules out more than our modern one(s)?)
So, is there a way to save Descartes' position that our sensory perceptions of shapes can/do resemble something in the objects themselves, whereas our sensor perceptions of colors can/ do not? Perhaps the piece of wax section in Meditation 2 could be of some help here?
Update: I had forgotten that this very problem also arises, perhaps more expiciltly, in Locke's Essay: Locke says that our ideas of primary qualities (shape, mobility, solidity, extension, and number) really do "resemble" their causes in the objects that we perceive (II.viii.15). And perhaps because this claim is more front-and-center in Locke than Descartes, commentators on the Essay from Berkeley through today have had difficulty making good sense of this claim. Berkeley brings out the problem clearly: is the idea square in my mind actually square-shaped? Is my idea of motion itself moving?
But what about my sensory awareness of the shape of a snowball, a fireplace, or a honey jar? In these cases, Descartes takes a different line: "We know size, shape, and so forth in quite a different way from the way in which we know colors, pains and the like" (PP, I.69). What is this difference? Descartes writes: "there are many features, such as size, shape, and number which we clearly perceive to be actually or at least possibly present in the in objects in a way exactly corresponding to our sensory perception or understanding" (PP, I.70).
So the obvious question here is: what makes our sensory perception of shape different from our sensory perception of color, so that the former but not the latter can 'correspond to' or resemble the thing represented? Descartes' argument in the final quotation above strikes me as weak. Descartes says that we clearly perceive that our sensory perceptions of shapes either (i) actually resemble or (ii) possibly resemble something in the objects themselves. Regarding (i), I strongly doubt that we can clearly and distinctly perceive anything about the relationship between the ideas in our minds and the objects outside of us -- we would need to be able to 'step outside of our minds,' as it were, to survey and compare both the contents of our minds and objects as they really are. And if we take (ii), then it at least seems possible to me that my sensory awareness of white resembles some property in the object itself. Of course, that would be a fortunate coincidence, but coincidences are not impossible. (Perhaps Descartes' notion of possibility rules out more than our modern one(s)?)
So, is there a way to save Descartes' position that our sensory perceptions of shapes can/do resemble something in the objects themselves, whereas our sensor perceptions of colors can/ do not? Perhaps the piece of wax section in Meditation 2 could be of some help here?
Update: I had forgotten that this very problem also arises, perhaps more expiciltly, in Locke's Essay: Locke says that our ideas of primary qualities (shape, mobility, solidity, extension, and number) really do "resemble" their causes in the objects that we perceive (II.viii.15). And perhaps because this claim is more front-and-center in Locke than Descartes, commentators on the Essay from Berkeley through today have had difficulty making good sense of this claim. Berkeley brings out the problem clearly: is the idea square in my mind actually square-shaped? Is my idea of motion itself moving?
11/01/2005
Fantastic new Darwin resource
Today my faith in the web as an instrument of enlightenment was restored: the complete works of Darwin will soon (December 15th) be freely available online. The site, which currently has a detailed project description posted, is:
http://darwin-online.org.uk
Thanks to the Philosophy of Biology blog for the pointer. (Does anyone else wonder whether we would have this ID controversy in the US if Darwin were an American? The UK (from what I've seen) holds him up as a national hero of sorts, and this project is just the latest instance of their Darwin valorization.)
http://darwin-online.org.uk
Thanks to the Philosophy of Biology blog for the pointer. (Does anyone else wonder whether we would have this ID controversy in the US if Darwin were an American? The UK (from what I've seen) holds him up as a national hero of sorts, and this project is just the latest instance of their Darwin valorization.)
10/25/2005
Osiander and Anti-realism
This is another post from the frontlines of the class I'm teaching on Early modern philosophy and the scientific revolution. For those who haven't ever looked at Copernicus's On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, the book's first preface is written by a man named Andreas Osiander (though this preface was left unsigned in the original work).
In this preface, Osiander advocates for (what today would be called) an anti-realist conception of astronomy: the aim of astronomy is not to arrive at "true or even probable hypotheses," but rather to construct a mathematical model that will generate accurate predictions of the observed apparent locations of the celestial bodies.*
Osiander has come in for a lot of criticism, both from his contemporaries (like Rheticus, who entrusted the publication of Copernicus's book to him) as well as current commentators. However, I think the justifications Osiander offers for his view that we should not take astronomical models as literally true are not crazy. First, he notes that, if Ptolemy's model is correct, Venus's apparent size in the sky should change a great deal more than it actually does. That is obviously an empirical argument that Ptolemaic models do not reveal the true structure of the cosmos -- even though these models do make accurate predications about the location of Venus in the nighttime sky. Second, Osiander claims that there are genuine incompatible theories that both account equally well for the phenomena: he asserts that the Sun's observed motion can be modelled using an eccentric circle as basis or using an epicycle. (Unfortunately, I don't know anything about the details of this example.) If this is a genuine example of inconsistent but observationally equivalent theories, then Osiander has as good an argument against interpreting astronomical theories as literally (approximately) true as any argument given by an anti-realist motivated by underdetermination arguments.
Finally, note that these reasons for anti-realism are specific to astronomy. Thus we should not take Osiander to be advocating a general anti-realism towards all of science. To borrow the terminology of Magnus and Callander's recent "Realist Ennui" paper in Philosophy of Science, Osiander is not offering a "wholesale" argument for anti-realism, but a "retail" one, i.e., one specific to our pretensions to knowledge of the true physical structure of the universe.
________
* Tagging Osiander with various forms of anti-realism has been contested; see Barker and Goldstein's 1998 "Realism and Instrumentalism in Sixteenth Century Astronomy: A Reappraisal," in Perspectives on Science. They do agree, however, that Osiander considers knowledge of the true physical characteristics of the cosmos to be forever beyond human reach -- which strikes me as something a modern anti-realist might say. They also make the last point in the above post -- Osiander's skepticism is restricted to astronomy.
In this preface, Osiander advocates for (what today would be called) an anti-realist conception of astronomy: the aim of astronomy is not to arrive at "true or even probable hypotheses," but rather to construct a mathematical model that will generate accurate predictions of the observed apparent locations of the celestial bodies.*
Osiander has come in for a lot of criticism, both from his contemporaries (like Rheticus, who entrusted the publication of Copernicus's book to him) as well as current commentators. However, I think the justifications Osiander offers for his view that we should not take astronomical models as literally true are not crazy. First, he notes that, if Ptolemy's model is correct, Venus's apparent size in the sky should change a great deal more than it actually does. That is obviously an empirical argument that Ptolemaic models do not reveal the true structure of the cosmos -- even though these models do make accurate predications about the location of Venus in the nighttime sky. Second, Osiander claims that there are genuine incompatible theories that both account equally well for the phenomena: he asserts that the Sun's observed motion can be modelled using an eccentric circle as basis or using an epicycle. (Unfortunately, I don't know anything about the details of this example.) If this is a genuine example of inconsistent but observationally equivalent theories, then Osiander has as good an argument against interpreting astronomical theories as literally (approximately) true as any argument given by an anti-realist motivated by underdetermination arguments.
Finally, note that these reasons for anti-realism are specific to astronomy. Thus we should not take Osiander to be advocating a general anti-realism towards all of science. To borrow the terminology of Magnus and Callander's recent "Realist Ennui" paper in Philosophy of Science, Osiander is not offering a "wholesale" argument for anti-realism, but a "retail" one, i.e., one specific to our pretensions to knowledge of the true physical structure of the universe.
________
* Tagging Osiander with various forms of anti-realism has been contested; see Barker and Goldstein's 1998 "Realism and Instrumentalism in Sixteenth Century Astronomy: A Reappraisal," in Perspectives on Science. They do agree, however, that Osiander considers knowledge of the true physical characteristics of the cosmos to be forever beyond human reach -- which strikes me as something a modern anti-realist might say. They also make the last point in the above post -- Osiander's skepticism is restricted to astronomy.
10/11/2005
Astrology, Astronomy, and the Scientific Revolution
One of the large-scale questions in academic discussions of the Scientfic Revolution concerns the relationship of the developments we today consider scientific to traditions we today consider pseudo-scientific or mystical, e.g. alchemy, astrology, and magic. People who make pronouncements like "There was no such thing as the Scientific Revolution" often justify such a claim by identifying and stressing continuities between mystical/ magical traditions and various new ideas that we now deem 'scientific.'
It is undeniable that significant continuities and similarities exist between pre-revolutionary views of nature and later ones. But I have often had the gut feeling that people sometimes overstate the case. Here is one example, from a brilliant historian of science, Allen Debus:
But, as I have been working on my Magic, Medicine, and Science class (discussed last post), I've started thinking that there is something very right about Debus's idea, even if I would not couch the matter exactly as he does. What struck me is that, in the Ptolemy-Cardano scheme, astrology is classified as part of physics (in the Aristotelian sense, i.e. the study of nature), for it studies the physical influences of the sun, moon, planets and stars upon the Earth and its inhabitants. (Some astrologers thought the celestial bodies also had non-physical influences on us and our environs.) Astronomy, as mentioned in my last post, was classified as part of mathematics. Ptolemy, for one, states very clearly in Tetrabiblos that astrology studies physical, material causes associated with celestial bodies, whereas astronomy does not. And Cardano writes that astrology, unlike astronomy, studies "how lower things are linked to the higher ones."
So what is right about the Debus quotation? From the point of view of the Ptolemy-to-Cardano distinction between astronomy and astrology, the people working in the 17th C on a new physics of the celestial realm were apparently doing astrology, not astronomy. When Kepler is attempting to discover the physical cause of the planetary orbits, under the older taxonomy, that can't be astronomy, since astronomy does not deal with physical, material affairs. Thus what Kepler is doing (since it's still about the celestial realm) would naturally be classified as astrology. (And perhaps, though this is wild and irresponsible speculation, that partially explains why Kepler's theory, which appeals to entities like the Sun's 'motive soul,' has elements strongly reminiscient of earlier astrology.)
One possible problem with this idea: is there perhaps, in the Ptolemy-to-Cardano classification scheme, a separate heading for works like Aristotle's De Caelo, which does not appear to be straightforwardly astrological? That is, just because the old taxonomy won't count Kepler as astronomy, that doesn't imply that a celestial physics must be astrology: there could be some third category under which De Caelo and Kepler fall. Gentle reader, do you have any information to guide me here?
It is undeniable that significant continuities and similarities exist between pre-revolutionary views of nature and later ones. But I have often had the gut feeling that people sometimes overstate the case. Here is one example, from a brilliant historian of science, Allen Debus:
Some of the scholars, whose work contributed to our modern scientific age, found magic, alchemy, and astrology no less stimulating than the new interests in mathematical abstraction, observation, and experiment. Today we find it easy -- and necessary -- to separate "science" from occult interests, but many could not. (Man and Nature in the Renaissance)This seemed overblown to me, because from Ptolemy up through Renaissance astrologer-astronomers such as Girolamo Cardano, the distinction between astrology and astronomy is explicitly drawn, and the historical figure often argues for the location of the boundary. So Debus's claim that students of nature during the Scientific Revolution 'could not separate science from occult interests' struck me as demonstrably false -- they could, and they did (at least in the case where the science is astronomy and the occult field is astrology).
But, as I have been working on my Magic, Medicine, and Science class (discussed last post), I've started thinking that there is something very right about Debus's idea, even if I would not couch the matter exactly as he does. What struck me is that, in the Ptolemy-Cardano scheme, astrology is classified as part of physics (in the Aristotelian sense, i.e. the study of nature), for it studies the physical influences of the sun, moon, planets and stars upon the Earth and its inhabitants. (Some astrologers thought the celestial bodies also had non-physical influences on us and our environs.) Astronomy, as mentioned in my last post, was classified as part of mathematics. Ptolemy, for one, states very clearly in Tetrabiblos that astrology studies physical, material causes associated with celestial bodies, whereas astronomy does not. And Cardano writes that astrology, unlike astronomy, studies "how lower things are linked to the higher ones."
So what is right about the Debus quotation? From the point of view of the Ptolemy-to-Cardano distinction between astronomy and astrology, the people working in the 17th C on a new physics of the celestial realm were apparently doing astrology, not astronomy. When Kepler is attempting to discover the physical cause of the planetary orbits, under the older taxonomy, that can't be astronomy, since astronomy does not deal with physical, material affairs. Thus what Kepler is doing (since it's still about the celestial realm) would naturally be classified as astrology. (And perhaps, though this is wild and irresponsible speculation, that partially explains why Kepler's theory, which appeals to entities like the Sun's 'motive soul,' has elements strongly reminiscient of earlier astrology.)
One possible problem with this idea: is there perhaps, in the Ptolemy-to-Cardano classification scheme, a separate heading for works like Aristotle's De Caelo, which does not appear to be straightforwardly astrological? That is, just because the old taxonomy won't count Kepler as astronomy, that doesn't imply that a celestial physics must be astrology: there could be some third category under which De Caelo and Kepler fall. Gentle reader, do you have any information to guide me here?
9/30/2005
The reasonable effectiveness of mathematics... for Ptolemy
The class I am teaching this term covers the emergence of Early Modern philosophy and science. The first five weeks are devoted to a whirlwind tour of Ancient Greek natural philosophy (plus a bit of Renaissance thought), and the last 10 weeks cover 17th century philosophy and the scientific revolution.
We spent half of the past week discussing Ptolemy, and I was struck by something that I had noticed before, but never really appreciated. It is very natural for Ptolemy to use fully 'mathematized' explanations for astronomical phenomena, but not for (most) other physical processes. Why? On Ptolemy's view, astronomical objects share more properties with mathematical objects than they do with terrestrial objects. He thought that astronomical objects are eternal and their properties are unchanging -- like the number 5, but unlike terrestial ones. We give a mathematical treatment of astronomical phenomena because they exhibit properties of mathematical objects.
The application of mathematical methods in Ptolemaic astronomy helps bring into focus the so-called problem of the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics, which some days appears to me to be an unequivocal pseudo-problem. Ptolemy's application of mathematics to physical phenomena, I think, appears extremely well-justified compared to our own: astronomical phenomena can be mathematized because they share peculiar features with mathematical objects, features that the mundane, material objects in our immediate surroundings lack. During and after the scientific revolution, we preserved and expanded Ptolemy's mathematizing proclivities, but we apparently relinquished his justification for treating the natural world mathematically.
Update (10/02/05): Kenny over at Antimeta just put up an interesting post on the (un)reasonable effectiveness of mathematics too, and it is in (small) part a comment on my post.
We spent half of the past week discussing Ptolemy, and I was struck by something that I had noticed before, but never really appreciated. It is very natural for Ptolemy to use fully 'mathematized' explanations for astronomical phenomena, but not for (most) other physical processes. Why? On Ptolemy's view, astronomical objects share more properties with mathematical objects than they do with terrestrial objects. He thought that astronomical objects are eternal and their properties are unchanging -- like the number 5, but unlike terrestial ones. We give a mathematical treatment of astronomical phenomena because they exhibit properties of mathematical objects.
The application of mathematical methods in Ptolemaic astronomy helps bring into focus the so-called problem of the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics, which some days appears to me to be an unequivocal pseudo-problem. Ptolemy's application of mathematics to physical phenomena, I think, appears extremely well-justified compared to our own: astronomical phenomena can be mathematized because they share peculiar features with mathematical objects, features that the mundane, material objects in our immediate surroundings lack. During and after the scientific revolution, we preserved and expanded Ptolemy's mathematizing proclivities, but we apparently relinquished his justification for treating the natural world mathematically.
Update (10/02/05): Kenny over at Antimeta just put up an interesting post on the (un)reasonable effectiveness of mathematics too, and it is in (small) part a comment on my post.
9/23/2005
Einstein and the Units of Selection
No, the title of this post is not a typo. I just finished reading through the first three articles in the most recent issue of Philosophy of Science. They are an argument-response-rebuttal between Elisabeth Lloyd ("Why the Gene Will not Return"; "Pluralism without Genic Causes?") and Ken Waters ("Why Genic and Multilevel Selection Theories Are Here to Stay"), who is one of her targets in the original essay. As the biologically-inclined among you will have inferred, this is the latest installment in the long-standing units of selection debate; very roughly, the question in these debates is: Upon what does natural selection operate? Organisms? Genes? Groups of organisms?
Ken Waters' basic response to this question -- which he first articulated in "Tempered Realism about the Force of Selection" (Philosophy of Science 1991) -- is that there is no determinate fact of the matter about whether selection is really acting at the level of the gene or the organism/ genotype. Mathematical models can be constructed in terms of genes and in terms of genotypes, and both kinds of model suffice to represent the facts of dynamic changes in populations. (See "The Dimensions of Selection," P. Godfrey-Smith and R. Lewontin, Philosophy of Science 2002, for an excellent treatment of the niceties of of the situation.) Since these different models do not represent different facts, Waters concludes that we will choose between them on pragmatic grounds. In the language of his current paper, Waters says that different models "parse" the causal structure differently.
For the purposes of this post, I will assume Waters is correct to maintain that there is no fact of the matter about whether the true cause of any particular evolutionary change lies at the level of the gene or the genotype. What I want to do is to compare this situation with Einstein's reaction in (what I consider) an analogous situation.
At the beginning of Einstein's 1905 paper that introduces special relativity, he asks us to imagine a conductor and a magnet in relative motion with respect to each other. If the take the conductor to be at rest and the magnet moving, then Maxwell's theory says that an electromotive force is generated in the conductor, which gives rise to an observable electric current C. If, on the other hand, we assume the conductor is moving and the magnet is at rest, then Maxwell's theory says that no electromotive force is generated in the conductor, but an electric field is generated around the magnet -- and this field induces exactly the same electric current C as before. Einstein's conclusion is that we are not actually dealing with two physically different situations here; rather, our theoretically distinct models are representing one and the same set of facts. This is exactly Einstein's argumentative maneuver in his famous elevator thought-experiment as well: though the pre-Einsteinian theory would distinguish between the cases in which I am being uniformly accelerated through a gravitation-free region and in which I am at rest in a homogenous gravitational field, Einstein maintains that there is in fact no difference between these two cases. This is (one version of) the Principle of Equivalence.
Note that Einstein does not say is that 'we choose between the competing descriptions of the magnet-and-conductor case on pragmatic grounds,' or that 'we parse the causes differently: either as an electromotive force or as a electric field.' Rather, he re-arranges the permitted causal structures of the theory to eliminate these pseudo-differences, so that the theory no longer "leads to asymmetries which do not appear to be inherent in the phenomena." He replaces the separate categories of 'inertial effects' and 'gravitational effects' with a single category (which we could call gravitational-inertial effects) via his principle of equivalence.
What I am curious about is whether Einstein's maneuver can be carried over into the biological case. I am hoping someone better-informed than I am can tell me why this has no prayer of working, or why Einstein's cases are not analgous to the situation in evolutionary biology. Of course, I wouldn't mind hearing suggestions for how this might work, either.
Editorial note. Posting here will probably be sporadic for the next few months: I am going on the job market this year, and that process has been (and, I imagine, will continue to be) time-consuming.
Ken Waters' basic response to this question -- which he first articulated in "Tempered Realism about the Force of Selection" (Philosophy of Science 1991) -- is that there is no determinate fact of the matter about whether selection is really acting at the level of the gene or the organism/ genotype. Mathematical models can be constructed in terms of genes and in terms of genotypes, and both kinds of model suffice to represent the facts of dynamic changes in populations. (See "The Dimensions of Selection," P. Godfrey-Smith and R. Lewontin, Philosophy of Science 2002, for an excellent treatment of the niceties of of the situation.) Since these different models do not represent different facts, Waters concludes that we will choose between them on pragmatic grounds. In the language of his current paper, Waters says that different models "parse" the causal structure differently.
For the purposes of this post, I will assume Waters is correct to maintain that there is no fact of the matter about whether the true cause of any particular evolutionary change lies at the level of the gene or the genotype. What I want to do is to compare this situation with Einstein's reaction in (what I consider) an analogous situation.
At the beginning of Einstein's 1905 paper that introduces special relativity, he asks us to imagine a conductor and a magnet in relative motion with respect to each other. If the take the conductor to be at rest and the magnet moving, then Maxwell's theory says that an electromotive force is generated in the conductor, which gives rise to an observable electric current C. If, on the other hand, we assume the conductor is moving and the magnet is at rest, then Maxwell's theory says that no electromotive force is generated in the conductor, but an electric field is generated around the magnet -- and this field induces exactly the same electric current C as before. Einstein's conclusion is that we are not actually dealing with two physically different situations here; rather, our theoretically distinct models are representing one and the same set of facts. This is exactly Einstein's argumentative maneuver in his famous elevator thought-experiment as well: though the pre-Einsteinian theory would distinguish between the cases in which I am being uniformly accelerated through a gravitation-free region and in which I am at rest in a homogenous gravitational field, Einstein maintains that there is in fact no difference between these two cases. This is (one version of) the Principle of Equivalence.
Note that Einstein does not say is that 'we choose between the competing descriptions of the magnet-and-conductor case on pragmatic grounds,' or that 'we parse the causes differently: either as an electromotive force or as a electric field.' Rather, he re-arranges the permitted causal structures of the theory to eliminate these pseudo-differences, so that the theory no longer "leads to asymmetries which do not appear to be inherent in the phenomena." He replaces the separate categories of 'inertial effects' and 'gravitational effects' with a single category (which we could call gravitational-inertial effects) via his principle of equivalence.
What I am curious about is whether Einstein's maneuver can be carried over into the biological case. I am hoping someone better-informed than I am can tell me why this has no prayer of working, or why Einstein's cases are not analgous to the situation in evolutionary biology. Of course, I wouldn't mind hearing suggestions for how this might work, either.
Editorial note. Posting here will probably be sporadic for the next few months: I am going on the job market this year, and that process has been (and, I imagine, will continue to be) time-consuming.
9/14/2005
Specialization and collaboration, again
Yesterday Paul Hoyningen-Huene presented a talk entitled "What is Science?" at the Center for Philosophy of Science here. He intends the question in his title to be taken in a very general way, so his target is one of those Big Questions that, in my last post, I bemoaned as a dying breed in our climate of increasing specialization.
Prof. Hoyningen-Huene pointed out a discouraging fact for anyone who wants to attempt an answer to the Big Questions in the philosophy of science and simultaneously remain reasonably close to actual scientific practice: according to Thomson ISI (the citation management company), there are 170 categories of natural science, 54 in the social sciences, and 15 in the formal sciences -- not including subdisciplines, which can vary widely. So if someone makes a general claim about science or scientific practice, and wants to check that claim thoroughly, then 239 different categories of scientific activity -- most of them complex and varigated -- must be checked.
I feel pulled in two directions by the existence of these 239 categories. On the one hand, it seems that collaboration is the only means to make headway on the Big Questions. On the (not-quite-mutually-exclusive) other, it seems likely that the Big Questions just won't admit of anything approximating a (reasonably) general answer. (Hoyningen-Huene's strategy is to describe several examples drawn from across several scientific disciplines that support his thesis, and assert that these examples are paradigmatic.)
Finally, Kieran Setiya has also recently posted about specialization in philosophy over on his blog, Ideas of Imperfection. Since he's much smarter than I am, I recommend you read his post.
Prof. Hoyningen-Huene pointed out a discouraging fact for anyone who wants to attempt an answer to the Big Questions in the philosophy of science and simultaneously remain reasonably close to actual scientific practice: according to Thomson ISI (the citation management company), there are 170 categories of natural science, 54 in the social sciences, and 15 in the formal sciences -- not including subdisciplines, which can vary widely. So if someone makes a general claim about science or scientific practice, and wants to check that claim thoroughly, then 239 different categories of scientific activity -- most of them complex and varigated -- must be checked.
I feel pulled in two directions by the existence of these 239 categories. On the one hand, it seems that collaboration is the only means to make headway on the Big Questions. On the (not-quite-mutually-exclusive) other, it seems likely that the Big Questions just won't admit of anything approximating a (reasonably) general answer. (Hoyningen-Huene's strategy is to describe several examples drawn from across several scientific disciplines that support his thesis, and assert that these examples are paradigmatic.)
Finally, Kieran Setiya has also recently posted about specialization in philosophy over on his blog, Ideas of Imperfection. Since he's much smarter than I am, I recommend you read his post.
9/06/2005
Specialization and collaboration
Over the past few decades, philosophy -- and philosophy of science in particular -- has become increasingly specialized: we have philosophy of quantum field theory, philosophy of developmental biology, etc. It seems that even the so-called "generalists" in philosophy of science are becoming a more and more self-contained group. (For example, I went to a session entitled "Confirmation" at the last Philosophy of Science Association meeting, and I had a very difficult time understanding what was being discussed, at least in part because there was a lot of specialized jargon and assumptions shared by the experts used without explanation -- though my limited brainpower certainly played its part in my incomprehension.)
In general, I think this trend of specialization is a Good Thing, primarily because it has led to specific results that we might not have found otherwise. (Thus I disagree with Karl Popper's claim: "For the scientist, specialization is a great temptation, but for the philosopher, it is a mortal sin.") But I think specialization also has its costs -- in particular, we tend to bypass answers to bigger questions. The question "What is a scientific explanation?" is replaced by "What is explanation in quantum information theory?" or "What is an evolutionary explanation?" and so on. (I think both of those questions are very interesting and philosophically important ones!) The philosopher of biology is uncomfortable talking about explanation in the physical sciences, and the philosopher of physics feels likewise about explanations of biological phenomena -- and the generalist is busy worrying about 'grue'some predicates, the barometer and the thunderstorm, or the irrelevant conjunction problem to deal with explanations in particular sciences. (I think this may in part explain why philosophy of science survey classes often begin with writings of logical empiricists: they tried to give genuinely general accounts of notions central to science.)
In keeping with the generally naturalist spirit of philosophy of science and this blog, we can ask ourselves: What Would Scientists Do? Scientists these days are hyperspecialized, and publish their hyperspecialized research in increasingly specialized journals. However, they also answer bigger, broader questions as well, via collaboration with scientists outside their specialty. So I wonder whether the time is ripe now for philosophers of science, armed with the insights about their particular sub-disciplines amassed over the last few decades, to begin collaborating to answer some of the bigger questions again. And the collaborations need not end there -- philosophers of science could also collaborate more with folks working within epistemology and metaphysics proper, or other fields.
I imagine many will say that we have overthrown the logical empiricist myth that there is a single thing, explanation, or confirmation, or even science. I am open to the idea that these might be myths. But I think we should check whether this is the case -- and if they are mythical, we can at least gain clarity and specificity about what the differences are between e.g. the explanatory patterns of physics and biology.
In general, I think this trend of specialization is a Good Thing, primarily because it has led to specific results that we might not have found otherwise. (Thus I disagree with Karl Popper's claim: "For the scientist, specialization is a great temptation, but for the philosopher, it is a mortal sin.") But I think specialization also has its costs -- in particular, we tend to bypass answers to bigger questions. The question "What is a scientific explanation?" is replaced by "What is explanation in quantum information theory?" or "What is an evolutionary explanation?" and so on. (I think both of those questions are very interesting and philosophically important ones!) The philosopher of biology is uncomfortable talking about explanation in the physical sciences, and the philosopher of physics feels likewise about explanations of biological phenomena -- and the generalist is busy worrying about 'grue'some predicates, the barometer and the thunderstorm, or the irrelevant conjunction problem to deal with explanations in particular sciences. (I think this may in part explain why philosophy of science survey classes often begin with writings of logical empiricists: they tried to give genuinely general accounts of notions central to science.)
In keeping with the generally naturalist spirit of philosophy of science and this blog, we can ask ourselves: What Would Scientists Do? Scientists these days are hyperspecialized, and publish their hyperspecialized research in increasingly specialized journals. However, they also answer bigger, broader questions as well, via collaboration with scientists outside their specialty. So I wonder whether the time is ripe now for philosophers of science, armed with the insights about their particular sub-disciplines amassed over the last few decades, to begin collaborating to answer some of the bigger questions again. And the collaborations need not end there -- philosophers of science could also collaborate more with folks working within epistemology and metaphysics proper, or other fields.
I imagine many will say that we have overthrown the logical empiricist myth that there is a single thing, explanation, or confirmation, or even science. I am open to the idea that these might be myths. But I think we should check whether this is the case -- and if they are mythical, we can at least gain clarity and specificity about what the differences are between e.g. the explanatory patterns of physics and biology.
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