THE SELF CRIITICISM OF SCIENCE - ALEXIS KARPOUZOS

Alexis KarpouzosThe self-criticism of science The contemporary philosophy of science & the problem of the scientific consciousness Think.Lab Athens, Greece

Alexis KarpouzosThe self-criticism of science - the contemporary phi-losophy of science and the problem of the scientific con-sciousnessTranslation & editing: Haris LambrouPublished by Think.Lab, Athens, Greece 2013ergastirio-skepsis.blogspot.com

Alexis Karpouzos Alexis Karpouzos is a writer. In the last 15 years, he has created Think.Lab, an open space-time of thought and action that aspires to create an different expe- rience in education and culture. In the self-organised Think.Lab, a number of workshops are running. Workshops  ofapprenticeship and reflection in which the members are edu-cated in various cognitive objects, such as philosophy, theoreti-cal linguistics, theory of literature, social and political sci-ences,  theoretical physics, logic and mathematics,  formativeand visual arts.Publications- Introduction to philosophy of Understanding, The adventure of human emancipation, Free Press- The Philosophy of Nature, Free Press- The languages of the world, The worlds of language, Think.Lab- Thought and language into the ancient greeks times, Think.LabUpcoming publications- Time and Thought- From the poetic thinking of pre-socratic philosophers to the absolute spirit of Hegel- Technique and TimeLinksanoixtiskepsi.blogspot.comopenthought.blogspot.com

The essays that follow are taken from a series of lecturesgiven by the author, in autumn of 2012 in Athens.

ContentsScientism 1Physiocracy of phenomenocracy 5Empiricism 8Objectivity of value indifference 10Instrumentalist knowledge 12The epistemologically problems of the contemporaryscientific knowledge 14Beyond the metaphysics antithesis of technic and art. 19



The contemporary philosophy of science (epistemology)featuring K.Popper, T.Kuhn, I.Lakatos, P.Feyerabend,Hanson among others, has exercised a decisive critiqueto the dominant views of the positivist and neo-positivistmodel of knowledge and has in fact undermined itscredibility. The most important attacks on positivism arefocusing on its  fundamental tenets presented below: ScientismScientism, or the unity of scientific method. The positiv-ist methodology does not see any difference between thenatural and the social sciences. The  adoption however, ofthe unity of the scientific method is accepted in tandemwith the notion of the predominant role of the naturalsciences, in which the social sciences see their model.The outcome is what we call scientism, that is the viewthat only the natural sciences can produce the semanticinterpretation of knowledge.In the following commentary we will schematically pre-sent the criticisms that have been addressed to the posi-tivist and naturalistic knowledge paradigm. All thethinkers and all the currents of social theory that are op-posed to positivism, converge to the following point: Themethod of natural sciences cannot be transported to thesocial sciences; and this because the object of study ofsocial sciences is a pre-interpreted world of events, that isa social world in which the categories of experience havealready been formulated by and through the context of noematic–semantic behavior of the human subjects andthe communicative exchanges and interactions that are 1

taking place. The social scientist is not a mere observer ofnatural events but participates as an active social subjectin the symbolic-semantic systems that she/he examines.The necessary implication is that she cannot study thesocial events ‘from the outside’, as if the latter were mere‘objects’. The purpose of her study is to interpret and un-derstand the justifications, the expectations and the mul-titude of ways through which human subjects go by intheir social interactions and also how this experienceaffects them.The social scientist can understand human subjects be-cause he is part of the social world and is also the ‘sub-ject’ of his study. In this way, his hermeneutic endeavorcannot attain an ideological or evaluative neutrality.The aim of the social scientist is not to search for lawsthat govern human behavior or the social world, but theunderstanding of its significance and the discovery of thesocial and psychological preconditions that contributedto the character of the former.Historical and social phenomena are unique and unre-peatable, are related to values and aims, while naturalphenomena are connected with relations of causation. As a consequence, the social scientist cannot articulatelaws and proceed to projections. The intention of positiv-ist sociology to discover social ‘laws’ turns sociology intosocial technology.Relevant to the issue at hand, the phenomenologicalhermeneutics of Hans Georg Gadamer and Martin Hei-degger, introduced the notion of understanding as theontological precondition of the human society. Under-2

standing predates the cognitive process of the subject andit is in this sense that the distinction between natural andsocial sciences disappears.  Understanding forms the ar-chetypical existential condition of being and is connectedto the potentiality of being, as a temporality, which is thestructural element of human existence.  From this pointof view, the meaning of the phrase ‘the Being-in-itself istime’ is that the nature of human existence lies in its his-toricity and temporality is literally ‘in the world’. The his-toricity of the life-world is the a priori condition thatmakes knowledge and self-conscience possible. Throughthe hermeneutic process, understanding emerges as thespecific manner in which the historicity of nature takesits form.The ideal of objective knowledge, of impartiality and pre-cision as targets of the modernistic thought and theirconnection to the method of the natural sciences, is re-jected and refuted. Any cognitive operation is par excel-lence a hermeneutic activity.  The interpreter is pre-dispossessed inside the historic life-world that substanti-ated his existence. And even if we try to forge the naturalvs the social sciences distinction as a division of methodsand tools, the hermeneutic experience cannot be sepa-rated from the methodological scrutiny. As a result of allthis, the ideal of an a-historic, objective and universaltruth is being seriously challenged, while the historicalnature of knowledge and interpretation come to the fore. The phenomenological hermeneutics of Heidegger andGadamer lies in parallel to the newer developments inthe philosophy of science. Roy Bashkar, ‘things exist andact independently of our descriptions, but we are capableto know them only through the specific descriptions. De- 3

scriptions exist in the world of human society, objects inthe world of nature. We express our own understandingof nature and thought.’4

Physiocracy of phenomenocracyFor positivism, the object of scientific method is an ex-ternal reality and science is signified from the observablenatural phenomena. This view entails on one handphysiocracy, that is the recognition of the physio-empirical origin of knowledge and on the other handphysiocracy or objectivism, that is, the acceptance of anobjective and self-sustainable existence of phenomena.The answer to the previous arguments is constructed bythe position known as underdetermination of theoryfrom empirical indications and the theoretical weightingof the action of observation. Both these critical chal-lenges to positivism were born out of the context of con-ventionalism, which historically has set the first mainpoint of opposition to positivism (or rather, to reduction-ism). The basic epistemological tenet of conventionalismholds that the laws of science (such as Newtonian me-chanics) and the axioms of mathematics (like Euclidiangeometry) are not experimental generalizations, neither apriori knowledge but conventions or linguistic defini-tions. The French philosopher of science, Henri Poincare,is considered the main proponent of conventionalism.The position of under-determination rejects the possibil-ity of a solely empirical determination of theory, i.e. thepossibility for a theoretical schema that lies in absoluteagreement with experience. The justification of the un-derdetermination thesis is founded on some argumentsdeveloped by Duhem and Quine and due to this it is alsoknown as the Duhem-Quine thesis (despite that the in-dependent views of Duhem and Quine do not alwayscoincide). 5

We now come to the thesis of theory-ladenness of ob-seration, which also initially was put forward by Duhem.Duhem has distinctively stated the central point of thisthesis in the title of a chapter of his book as ‘An Experi-ment in Physics is not simply the observation of a phe-nomenon; it is besides, the theoretical interpretation ofthis phenomenon.’ Later on, the thesis was adopted anddeveloped by Kuhn, Feyerabed, Bohm, Hanson, Tulmin. The theory-ladenness of observation, is usually under-stood as a two-fold concept:a) That observations include an accompanying set of hy- potheses, which appear in the form of theory of meas- urement, psychology of observation, linguistic order- ings etc.b) In the sense that what is regarded as a relative and pre- cise empirical indication is based partly on the theo- retical paradigm to which the empirical indication itself comes to examine.The first concept corresponds to the thesis of underde-termination of theory. A consequence of the theory-ladenness of observation is that scientists can in principlebe suspicious of a certain observation and challenge thevalidity of its constituent hypotheses. The second conceptof they theory-ladenness of observation has some inter-esting consequences on the role of observation in thechoice of theory.  It is an obvious fact, according to thisconcept, that observations cannot function as objectivereferees in the choice of theory, when at the same time,the importance and the character of the former, and theirown estimating and measuring ability is dependent upon6

competitive theories. It is precisely in this way thattheory-laden observations can lead to opposing conclu-sions (in the sense of Kuhn). In addition to that, even ifthe supporters of different theories agree to the impor-tance of a crucial experiment, the evident assumptionwould be that the different theoretical priorities of scien-tists would differentiate the nature of their own estima-tion and also the mediums used to reach this estimation.We therefore see that the thesis of the theory-ladennessof observations creates the preconditions for the exis-tence of different scientific priorities. And it is within theintentions of social studies of science, the sociologicalanalysis of these differences in the framework of certainscientific practices. 7

EmpiricismOn the basis of positivist epistemology lays the empiricalobservation (verification criteria), which takes shapewith the experimental method. The self-obvious recogni-tion of the positive character of experience as the exclu-sive criterion of truth is the characteristic feature of posi-tivism, throughout all the forms of Greek and Westernphilosophical tradition. Karl Popper, in the 1930’s, wentagainst the positivist ratification and rejected the induc-tive method. To find a way out of the dead-end of induc-tivism, Popper presented an alternative method of infer-ence, which replaces the principle of verification with theprinciple of falsification. The epistemological method ofPopper, based on conjectures and formulations, is alsoknown as falsificationism, or method of trial-and-error.In this method, science does not start from observationsin order to proceed through the way of inductive infer-ences, according to the inductivist position. By contrastto the positivist view, it starts from certain conjecturalhypotheses, which are being put to the test of empiricaltesting and scientists try to reformulate them, keeping acritical stance in the process and experimenting with al-ternative hypotheses. So, in place of the inductivemethod, Popper proposes the deductive reasoning (fromthe general to the specific) through the process of falsifi-cation (refutation) of a hypothesis (or a conjecture).A scientific theory which survives after a substantialamount of critical examinations and empirical tests canbe accepted on a temporary basis and not permanently,until the time comes of some future test that will over-throw it.  In other words, for Popper no theory is verifi-able, it may only have a high degree of empirical8

strength, which implies that all scientific theories are inprinciple falsifiable. Added to that, there are many theo-ries that continue to be accepted despite the fact thattheir validity has already been seriously challenged.Newtonian mechanics was an example of suchtheories.  Newton’s theory had an extraordinary agree-ment with observation and experiment at the time of itsappearance (1687) until 1900. But in the first twentyyears of the 20th century, its validity was challenged fromthe new viewpoint of relativist mechanics, without how-ever been abandoned. A similar situation exists for theEuclidean geometry which is considered to be valid forthe Earth but no so in the Universe. 9

Objectivity of value indifferenceScience as viewed by positivism, should not engage inany value judgments of it object of study. It is an objectiveactivity void of any social or moral value. Its mission is tofocus only on empirical facts, from which as the positiv-ists believe, no values can be produced. Also, the searchfor objective truth works with the sole purpose of em-pirical verification, independently of morality andself-conscience.  The genealogy of the above argumenttraces back to the English empiricism of Hume and to thefacts/values distinction that he introduced to the debateon knowledge.  The absolute division between facts andvalues had close affinity to the realist theorization of theexternal view ‘from the side of God’. The totality of theGreek and Western metaphysical tradition was foundedon the firm belief that the mind mirrors an independentexternal world; as well as that knowledge claims (judg-ments) are grounded in the world and that the objectivityof judgments is understood from the prism of eternity. Inthe contemporary thought however, mind does not rep-resent passively an independent, static and conceptuallydetermined world; the function of mind is that of an ac-tive intervention, transforming this ‘world’ and by thisaction mind transforms also itself in a continuous inter-relation. The world ‘is’ inherently uncertain and unde-fined and allows for an unlimited number of definitions.Knowledge claims are weaved within the context of a‘life-world’ of human subjects in a given historical pe-riod. So, knowledge claims have a historic and temporalcharacter and in this way the conception of the worldviewed under the prism of eternity, is challenged. Theview of the absolute theorization of the world and the10

epistemological claim of universal truth is being furtherdeconstructed by the developments in modern physics,which admits that any theory is perspective.We see from this analysis that the traditional foundation-alism and the reduction to concrete convictions havebeen seriously undermined.  What is acknowledged isthat the intentional activity of consciousness is uniformand socially and historically determined and so the ‘factsvs values’ distinction becomes a logical distinction ratherthan a generic or causal one. To put it another way, it isthe analytic rather than the ontological character of thisdistinction that has any importance for us today. Essen-tially, it is the end of the metaphysical and idealist divi-sion between ‘Being’ and ethics in the sphere of ontology(in which, ‘Being’ was autonomous to the subject); thedivision is maintained however, as a methodologicalprinciple of philosophical and scientific thought. 11

Instrumentalist knowledgeThe empirical weighting of theory according to positiv-ism, leads automatically to an instrumental conception ofscience. Science, in this way is understood as a usefultoolbox that can be applied equally well to a variety ofcases. The emphasis on the instrumental and hence neu-tral role of science conceals a politically conservative andanachronistic position, which stands for the superiorityof science in regards to other forms of knowledge andlegitimizes the recycling to a dominant position of pro-fessional and institutional organs of specialists of science,propelling in the process the ideology of the ruling classand its own interests. The instrumentalist view of scienceis founded on the ideological investment of mature ra-tionalism, which aims at the achievement of targets andat an increase of power, within the framework of a bour-geois culture and its mechanism of capitalist manage-ment, and not at the creation of values that would seekthe enlargement of human solidarity, of inter-subjectiveconscience and mutual understanding.But even, which is the objective criteria with which weshall evaluate the supremacy of scientific knowledgeagainst the other forms of knowledge? Whatever crite-rion we might use, it will itself be critically dependent onthe knowledge claims that give meaning to it; as of this,there are no objective and value-neutral criteria forevaluating any form of knowledge. Any attempt at de-fending the supremacy of a certain form of knowledge ismasking the will to power and authority. The diversifica-tion of forms of knowledge and the language forms thatdesignate them, is not of an ontological nature, but of ananalytic one; and this is said upon, because all forms of12

knowledge and the specific types of language that typifythem are symbolic constructions-classifications and notobjective facts of the natural world. Any form of knowl-edge and language amounts to a distinct way of examin-ing the world and has its own self-referential structure,its own internal logic. The criteria of diversification arethe purpose that these forms are aiming to achieve andthe means they go by in doing that. Additionally, a pointworth stressing is that the predominance of the scientificmodel results in the downgrade to the level of non-truthof all other possible ways of knowledge, except the onesthat are in agreement with the method of science.Method is the intellectual and experimental conventionthat a subject applies to a certain object, thus producingan outcome that is valued as being true. Aesthetic con-science and art for instance, have the freedom of not be-ing classified under a status of true-or-false, and so theirensuing judgments cannot be refuted or repudiated.These judgments however, are binding for the personsthat participate in their life-world, and more importantly,these judgments do not carry any intentionality. In art,the subject is shaping the object and retrospectively isbeing shaped by the object. In this way, the sense of rela-tion is a constructive element of the ontology of art andaesthetics, but also, of the modern ontology of science. 13

The epistemologically problems of the contempo-rary scientific knowledgeThe Copernican revolution introduced in philosophy byKant proposes the accumulative development of knowl-edge, the view that human knowledge develops and pro-gresses in a linear fashion. The critique that has been ad-dressed to this position on the other hand, sees anyphilosophical and scientific revolution as merely anotherform of knowledge, not necessarily of a higher nature.The philosophical arguments that have been put forwardto defend the above claim, have formulated the relativis-tic theorisation of knowledge and can be summarised asfollows:i) Experience and the observational data, as well as theexperimental outcome is theory laden.ii) The asymmetry of scientific theories. The objectivecomparison between two theories presupposes the exis-tence of the linguistic medium in which their proposi-tions are being set forth. The development of languagehowever, incurs corresponding changes to the languageused to enunciate the scientific theories, resulting to theasymmetry between the languages used by scientists indifferent historic periods. So, some propositions of anantecedent language are impossible to formulate in ac-cordance to the terms and conditions of a posterior lan-guage and in this sense it is impossible to characterisethem a posteriori as true or false.iii) The position of under-determination of theory, i.e.the position that observational data and the empiricalobservation in general, do not unilaterally determine one14

and only scientific theory. There are many theories (po-tentially infinite) that are compatible with finite amountof data. This is a phenomenon that we may often comeacross in scientific practice.iv) The Duhem-Quine position, according to which,observation and experiment control a set of hypothesesand theories but never an isolated hypothesis. When theexperimental outcomes are in contradiction to the set oforiginal hypotheses that frame this outcome, we knowthat one or more of them is false. We cannot know how-ever which one exactly. In this case we may alter some ofthese hypotheses with a view to re-establish the accor-dance between observation and theory. This gives us thepossibility to keep a hypothesis that at first sight seems tobe falsified by observation and experiment.The relativist theorisation of philosophy of science prob-lematized and called into question the belief that thecomparative evaluation of scientific theories is governedby objective criteria, and also highlighted the importanceof the non-rational forces in play at the “construction” ofa scientific theory. Allowing for the subjective, casual andaccidental element at the formulation of a scientific the-ory does not lead to a rejection of the notion of scientificrationality; it nevertheless mitigates the extreme rationalbelief for a linear progress of science that leads to the oneand only Truth, the establishing of a unique theory thatwould represent the ‘view from nowhere’ (ThomasNagel). But also the extreme relativist conviction in fa-vour of the lack of progress can be empirically refuted bythe fact that the scientific theories and the rational proc-esses that create them, lead to verifiable projections. Theeffectiveness of scientific theories is widely noticeable 15

through their technological applications, which lead tothe transformation of nature. If the efficacy of scientifictheories would not be reached also by the use of rationalmethods we would surely be talking about an inexplica-ble miracle. As we see in the previous discussion, the his-tory and the philosophy of science are characterised byrefutation at the same length as by affirmation: oppositelyto the position that there exist inter-subjective and eter-nal criteria/values which govern the scientific activity, liesthe thesis which supports the contemporaneous, localand subjective expression of all those criteria.The rationality of the scientific thought that justifies theincessant development of scientific progress, is con-fronted with the non-rational and contingent element,subscribing to the discontinuity and the anti-evolution ofscientific progress. The above mentioned antitheses be-come meaningful within the framework of the formaland dogmatic core of Reason (of a metaphysical origin),which confronts the rational with the non-rational ele-ment of human cognition, necessity against randomness,the unexpected and intercalary element. The ontology-metaphysics established by the current philosophy of na-ture is relational (uniform and differential) and in thissense the previously mentioned antitheses are renounced:Necessity and continuity, randomness and discontinuity,causality and normality, indeterminacy and contingency,topicality and universality, synchronicity and diachrone-ity, are all complementary to each other and are broughttogether in an open unity, spirally unfolding from thepan-chronicity of the World. Moreover, the critique thathas emerged within the context of the relational convic-tion on knowledge, has re-established and ratified the16

non-rational dimension of cognition, as a formativeagent for the scientific discovery. Imagination, intuition,instinct, the empathic understanding of experience, orthe psychological element together with the rational, ex-ceed the Platonic and Cartesian metaphysics of body andmind, and highlight the uniform and differential opera-tion of thought: corporeality, emotions and sensations,intuitions and insights, the imaginative abilities, the ra-tional and reflective power, the personal undergoing ofexperience and the trials of practice, all constitute the It,what is the radical imaginative, what constitutes the con-dition of existence and the precondition for human activ-ity.Τhe above critical presentation entails the revocation ofhumanistic belief that characterises the thought of Hegeland Kant, i.e. the conviction that the epistemic and epis-temological progress would also bring social and historicprogress. In modern thinkers, the conviction to the evo-lutional and progressive nature of knowledge, as well asthe reliance on the incessant moral improvement of hu-manity, are being strongly opposed and rejected. Surelythe convictions of the humanistic tradition, related to theevolutionary and linear nature of knowledge, are foundedon the Newtonian deterministic physics, which pro-claimed the linear and unambiguous concept of time.The conviction to the evolutionary and progressive na-ture of scientific knowledge was nurturing the hope forthe socio-historic progress and the emancipation of manfrom psychological and social bondage, as they had beenshaped within the framework of the mythical-religiousimage of the world, but also the release from the con-straints of nature. The myth-deconstructing and de- 17

mystifying effect of scientific speech, the rational inter-pretation, organisation and rearrangement of naturalworld, a world that allows for an infinite and inexhausti-ble determination, brought about the break with the pri-meval relation of man with nature and relinquished theimmediateness and naturalism of life.18

Beyond the metaphysics antithesis of technic & artThe neoteric human being is now being cut off from theorder of nature and establishes itself as the rationally re-flecting and acting subject which is now posited againstthe object of its cognitive and practical activity. Civiliza-tion is constituted as the product of human activity, as anartifact and technical construct. With this development,human civilization is transformed to a ‘quasi nature’, aim-ing to correct and replace nature, and man assumes thenature of a technical existence. By ‘technical existence’ wemean the prevalence of a one-dimensional image of thehuman person as the producer of rational hypothesesand interpretations and the downgrading and degrada-tion of the non-rational element of human existence, i.e.the radical imagination as a creative capacity, whichforms the a priori condition and prerequisite for socialactivity. This constitutive element of the modern world(man, as the producer of rational hypotheses) and its ar-ticulation with the ideology of techno-scientific progressand the evolution of the machine that transforms themethods and theories of natural sciences, arming thesewith new tools and constantly renovating their researchand experimental capabilities, finally led to the replace-ment of religious and metaphysical dogmas by the blindfaith to the dogma of technical and scientific progress.The prevalence of a mechanistic, materialist and deter-ministic view of the world, the introduction of calcula-tion, measurement and precision as the methodologicalprinciples of science, armed with the postulation ofquantitatively defined entities, has formed an equallycharacteristic social ethics. The abstract schemata, theformalist methods, the universal ideas and concepts have 19

subjected everything under the identional logic of theautonomous subjective Reason and to its now fundamen-tal predicate, the intellectualist will for power.The result of this process was to underestimate or to ig-nore the relation and the difference between the conceptand the object, between Reason and Nature, samenessand otherness, subject and object, universal and the par-ticular. With this manner however, the variety of qualitiesof any species is eliminated, the distinctive singularity ofthe otherness is rejected, the immediate and the everlast-ing, non-identifiable element, is thrown in disregard. Insummary, anything that could not be represented andsignified within intellect’s dimension of formal logic, andthis latter’s characteristic repetitiveness, was deemed asnon-existent, that which is the ‘strictly psycho-spiritual’,the extraordinary, the unique, unrepeatable element thatdifferentiates human beings, civilizations and entities andgives purpose and meaning to their existence. Certainly,the metaphysical and idealist distinction between the‘formal-logical’ and the ‘strictly psycho-spiritual’ falls inthe wider Western metaphysical-idealist tradition thatdiscerns the material from the spiritual, the rationalisticfrom the temperamental, technique from art, Theoryfrom Praxis, the collective from the individual. This dis-tinction results from the greek-western thought and itspositive element, which presupposed that Being is onto-logically defined, is governed by an immanent rationality;that it is full in meaning and allows for a thorough verifi-cation and determination from the human mind, itselfhaving the analogous characteristics.From this it is suggested that the world, as it is explainedwithin the context of natural philosophy, is not deter-20

mined as it was viewed throughout the greek-westernmetaphysical tradition and the technique as a totally ra-tional activity is not able to acquire a profound knowl-edge of its ‘subject’. In contrary, the world ‘is’ chaos orabyss, radically undetermined and inexhaustible, creatingways to bestow meaning to life from zero. 21