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InvisibleKurt
Thinker, blinker, writer, typer.

Registered: 11/26/14
Posts: 1,688
Epistemelogical Holism
    #23370455 - 06/22/16 04:29 PM (7 years, 7 months ago)

What is a theory?

A contentious issue today is of this necessarily simultaneous interrogation of what is a particular theory, (for instance implicitly standing in a contingent statement, to a scientific "community") and what is fit or reasonable to call theory in general sense. The question should be this open on a modern scientifically-minded person's thoughts.

What we mean by theory is the substantive today. It is substantive to what we call scientific. But in what sense is that? Aside from pedagogical answers, this concern for theory, is something reflexive, and as much philosophical, in due consideration.

Another way to put this, is in considering the generality of this question, in its own way. A shift in theory as "paradigm" is in one way what we practically deal with as the generality of "theory". Do we just skip over some formal line, beyond one particular scientific theory to come to another? No. It should be obvious that the general theoretical background conditioning science, needs to be looked to closely as a mode which is itself part of, and making possible this shift. So we can open this general question of theory up, and bear it to its consideration.

The "theory" in general we look to - is actually mainly in epistemology, or the background conditioning factors of science, that in a certain way form or hold it together. We can apprehend this form of our understanding clearly.

For example, Newtonian physics is not just its mechanisms, and laws of motion, but a largely inclusive notion of "space and time" a theoretical collection of extended dimensions, and the different kinds of entities and things that we study and collect in them accordingly. Just as Newtonian physics was conceived as fundamental, it implied its theoretical background, in a way which we still in fact take for granted as equally and resoundingly basic to our worldview today.

For sake of claritt, one could appropriately say that Newtonianism was also what developed in its philosophical background, between Descartes, who conceived the physical world as formally "extended" in a rationally coordinated dimensions (res extensa) and Kant (mainly in response to Newton) who consolidated these dimensions a priori (ie. more according to our empirically guided conceptions) as space and time.

Although there may be more dimensions to take into consideration, or dimensions which are relative to each other, according to Einstein, or whoever, or non-euclidian geometrical conceptions, we still apprehend the world as basically "extended" in its dimensions, and our implicit way to understand these dimensions is derived from our empirical observations of physics, basically, with whatever nuances, in how things are essentially found causally "thrown" in them.

This is not just apprehended in observation of physical reality, as Kant said, but in how we observe. Things within dimensions, are what we take as "determined", by laws of nature, or rather, they are to be determined by an analytical understanding, like a certain logic, oe ideally, a mathematical calculus. That is how things get determined. It has sometimes been said that mathematics is the language of the physical universe (things are determined and calculable) in a way, that historically considered essentially reflects Newtonian mechanics. People did not talk about the logic of determining nature prior to that.

We can see this theoretical approach is something we still basically use today, but now in more complex ways. Theory and physical science do not seem any longer cleave together, as they did before, as the symphonic language, approaching ideal closure from the beginning, but theory becomes something pragmatically used and adopted, in much the same way.

Physical reality itself, is not something ideally intelligible in logic (determinable) or in mathematics (calculable), as we may actually have once assumed, like in the heyday of the 19th century science that was like the anecdote of the apple that dropped, steadily approaching a completion. Today, we know these terms, are just the joints and sinews of our practical human way of understanding, that does its best to traverse the world.

Of course it is a contentious issue what "theory" essentially is in other sciences, as well, but it can be asked, the same. We have innate skepticism for anthropromorphisms in our understanding.  Evolutionary biology, (defined as a theoretical organization of facts about organic life, notwithstanding the objections of creationists) is yet becoming less reductive to the concepts and mechanisms which were taken to be paradigmatic to it, and which conditioned knowledge, in classical concepts like of "nature vs nurture". In a positive, and non-reductive sense, much like modern physics, evolution is growing up and out on the theoretical terms as well.

Theory as the schematics and conceptual "language" that is often implied by science, is in spite of the way it may seem, not just some skeletal structure to teach or put down to textbooks, and disseminate though. It is not implied just in an isolated proposition, as the way things are, as opposed to the way they are not. And where novelty is to be found in the natural world - the empirical, this is not just a way of gathering things from the pre-established "fields" laid out. Even as we do continue to effectively proceed in these ways, the scientific approach is conditional; or rather, (again to emphasize the positive statement) it is pragmatic. However we have to get over the critique, which is still sometimes considered negative. 

Acknowledging that science is theoretical, does not fail to present its particular host of problematics! Can modern people adopt the philosophical way they continuously lend themselves to? That is the question that does somewhat remain in the air. But of course, positively speaking, this is how we work, in problematics, not in the idea that the rationalized or "logical" world is falling apart. Holism or pragmatism, should present a new kind of problematic. Unfortunately, due to the alarm of many intellectual moralists, today, political and institutional agendas, it is commonly impressed that there is something wrong about the non-closure of sciences. Just as the moralist of values levels all things to right and wrong, so does the intellectual moralist, in formalizing understanding about the world.

What is theory? With some examination, anyone can see that empirical approaches to understanding the natural world have always and will always be complex, reflective, and basically open. Theory is a door, on a hinge, and whatever that seems to be, in general it seems to be there to open our closed systems of rational understanding to the novel empirical induction about the world. The essential openness of empiricality, to "experience", and experiment, can be seen in all the philosophical empiricists, from David Hume, to W.O Quine.

The point in inquiring this way - theoretically - to ask what a theory is in general, in an open way, or in radically empirical way, not bound by dogma of any certainty; is not the philosopher's (or the common or layman's) attempt to bring down the effective technical language or institution of science. We just clearly inquire in an open way. Pragmatism is a great response (a simple maxim might do, like what is seen here) to a culture as a whole, that is insecure about post-modern existence.

Our sciences are already organized in pragmatic wholes, in the complex interrelation of aggregates of propositions, by their theories. When we holists say that what makes a theory substantive is not in its abstract isolation, or reduction, but always in appeal to a complex (or the "community") of propositions about the world, indeed this would most likely correspond with the training and technical specialization, it takes to understand a scientific subject. That correlation is obviously maintained. The only thing else to say, is this appeal to "community", is not in any way absolute. A contentious issue today about education, and the generally appropriate place of pedagogy speaks to nothing. Our way of understanding things does not cleave to the universe, like in a hardened conceptual/technical language, that binds it. The theory, and circle or community of science is there for anyone to consider pragmatically.

There are some basic questions that can be asked to loosen up overformal propositions of science, to a more philosophical pragmatism. Do methodological approaches of understanding nature fundamentally reflect cosmology, in some sense as they seemed to, in "positivist", 19th century conceptions of the natural world? Are they on a sure steady path? The negative answer, which people may recognize on our present horizon, suggests what we philosophers mean by what is essentially theoretical.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_holism


Edited by Kurt (06/28/16 12:36 AM)


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InvisibleKurt
Thinker, blinker, writer, typer.

Registered: 11/26/14
Posts: 1,688
Re: Epistemelogical Holism [Re: Kurt]
    #23374950 - 06/23/16 07:30 PM (7 years, 7 months ago)

Bump for edit, and quotes.

Quote:

This proposition, that causes and effects are discoverable, not by reason but by experience, will readily be admitted with regard to such objects, as we remember to have once been altogether unknown to us, since we must be conscious of the utter inability, which we then lay under, of foretelling what would arise from them. Present two smooth pieces of marble to a man who has no tincture of natural philosophy: he will never discover that they will adhere together in such a manner as to require great force to separate them in a direct line, while they make so small a resistance to a lateral pressure. Such events, as bear little analogy to the common course of nature, are also readily confessed to be known only by experience, nor does any man imagine that the explosion of gunpowder, or the attraction of a lodestone, could ever be discovered by arguments a priori. In like manner, when an effect is supposed to depend upon an intricate machinery or secret structure of parts, we make no difficulty in attributing all our knowledge of it to experience. Who will assert that he can give the ultimate reason, why milk or bread is proper nourishment for a man, not for a lion or a tiger?

But the same truth may not appear, at first sight, to have the same evidence with regard to events, which have become familiar to us from our first appearance in the world, which bear a close analogy to the whole course of nature, and which are supposed to depend on the simple qualities of objects, without any secret structure of parts. We are apt to imagine that we could discover these effects by the mere operation of our reason, without experience.

We fancy, that were we brought on a sudden into this world, we could at first have inferred that one billiard ball would communicate motion to another upon impulse, and that we needed not to have waited for the event, in order to pronounce with certainty concerning it. Such is the influence of custom, that, where it is strongest, it not only covers our natural ignorance but even conceals itself, and seems not to take place, merely because it is found in the highest degree.

David Hume; Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.




Western philosophers and even scientists became entrenched in exactly what Hume warned them against, in the hidden custom. Due to the failure of an a priori "intuition" (ie. some projected human rationale) openly guiding the way of science, and theorization of the universe, modern enpiricists have gradually leaned more and more on "analytical" or conceptual languages, or the background, structural consituency of existing sciences for a similar purpose.

The conceptual language of science was thought to be what moves science forward. This tendency to favor analyticity, as opposed to the "intuitions" has been impressed largely by movements in philosophy. For instance to put it one way, if "intuition" is rightly questioned, as the  way that we scientifically broach the world, what do we fall back on, as default? That is a common way to put it.

The explicit question of what guides theory, seems to be relative, more practically speaking. It is easy to raise the question. Prioritizing either an implicit "intuition, or the pre-existing "analytics" as science, (and perhaps, in turn clarifying what exactly these terms really mean) can seem sensible. Seperate realms of thought have been pretty much categorized in opposition to one another in the tacit philosophical assumptions, and sciences in turn seem to go about the opposition, if not categorically, in practical judgements.

For Kant, the a priori intuitions, (ideas strictly preceding, or found "prior" to evaluation of experience of the world) were necessary to acknowledge first, and they had to be conscienciously distinguished not only from experience, but from "analyses" of existing concepts. The notion Kant sought has been considered in testament too psychological, in this sense, to be a general principle, and yet perhaps no one else in history of philosophy raises the general question of the epistemelogical "priority", with more general clarity, than Kant, and in this sense he can't be failed to be mentioned.

Kant, in his goal to categorize the difference precisely, ended up in some ambiguious territory himself, of course, but when does that not happen to philosophers? It as much stands. Science in general is neither just "intuitive" insofar as it broaches a world, and it is not just analytical, insofar as it deals with pre-existing conceptual permutations of the world. It is evidently not fundamentally clear, but the more pragmatic blend of these mentalities. Kant was the closest to categorization, and these these categories do tend to condition modern scientific thought, however accurate they may be.

Quote:

Now these sciences, if they can be termed rational at all, must contain elements of a priori cognition, and this cognition may stand in a twofold relation to its object. Either it may have to determine the conception of the object—which must be supplied extraneously, or it may have to establish its reality. The former is theoretical, the latter practical, rational cognition. In both, the pure or a priori element must be treated first, and must be carefully distinguished from that which is supplied from other sources. Any other method can only lead to irremediable confusion.

Mathematics and physics are the two theoretical sciences which have to determine their objects a priori. The former is purely a priori, the latter is partially so, but is also dependent on other sources of cognition.

In the earliest times of which history affords us any record, mathematics had already entered on the sure course of science, among that wonderful nation, the Greeks. Still it is not to be supposed that it was as easy for this science to strike into, or rather to construct for itself, that royal road, as it was for logic, in which reason has only to deal with itself. On the contrary, I believe that it must have remained long—chiefly among the Egyptians—in the stage of blind groping after its true aims and destination, and that it was revolutionized by the happy idea of one man, who struck out and determined for all time the path which this science must follow, and which admits of an indefinite advancement. The history of this intellectual revolution—much more important in its results than the discovery of the passage round the celebrated Cape of Good Hope—and of its author, has not been preserved. But Diogenes Laertius, in naming the supposed discoverer of some of the simplest elements of geometrical demonstration—elements which, according to the ordinary opinion, do not even require to be proved—makes it apparent that the change introduced by the first indication of this new path, must have seemed of the utmost importance to the mathematicians of that age, and it has thus been secured against the chance of oblivion. A new light must have flashed on the mind of the first man (Thales, or whatever may have been his name) who demonstrated the properties of the isosceles triangle. For he found that it was not sufficient to meditate on the figure, as it lay before his eyes, or the conception of it, as it existed in his mind, and thus endeavour to get at the knowledge of its properties, but that it was necessary to produce these properties, as it were, by a positive a priori construction; and that, in order to arrive with certainty at a priori cognition, he must not attribute to the object any other properties than those which necessarily followed from that which he had himself, in accordance with his conception, placed in the object.

A much longer period elapsed before physics entered on the highway of science. For it is only about a century and a half since the wise Bacon gave a new direction to physical studies, or rather—as others were already on the right track—imparted fresh vigour to the pursuit of this new direction. Here, too, as in the case of mathematics, we find evidence of a rapid intellectual revolution. In the remarks which follow I shall confine myself to the empirical side of natural science.

When Galilei experimented with balls of a definite weight on the inclined plane, when Torricelli caused the air to sustain a weight which he had calculated beforehand to be equal to that of a definite column of water, or when Stahl, at a later period, converted metals into lime, and reconverted lime into metal, by the addition and subtraction of certain elements; [Footnote: I do not here follow with exactness the history of the experimental method, of which, indeed, the first steps are involved in some obscurity.] a light broke upon all natural philosophers. They learned that reason only perceives that which it produces after its own design; that it must not be content to follow, as it were, in the leading-strings of nature, but must proceed in advance with principles of judgement according to unvarying laws, and compel nature to reply its questions. For accidental observations, made according to no preconceived plan, cannot be united under a necessary law. But it is this that reason seeks for and requires. It is only the principles of reason which can give to concordant phenomena the validity of laws, and it is only when experiment is directed by these rational principles that it can have any real utility. Reason must approach nature with the view, indeed, of receiving information from it, not, however, in the character of a pupil, who listens to all that his master chooses to tell him, but in that of a judge, who compels the witnesses to reply to those questions which he himself thinks fit to propose. To this single idea must the revolution be ascribed, by which, after groping in the dark for so many centuries, natural science was at length conducted into the path of certain progress.

Immanuel Kant; Critique of Pure Reason.






As Hume originally argues, the particular connection of theory to the world, is not projected in rationale. For Hume if it is not, fundamentally in rationale, these categories can't be strictly distinguished. Things may be considered generally simpler. We could adopt Hume's conciseness, in recognizing that it is not (by default) an a priori intuition that guides us, but the simple openness to experience.

It seems since the philosophical critique of Kant, (which was intended as a response to Hume) was abandoned, notwithstanding its essential psychological suggestiveness, which we might recognize. But it seems to make sense for many people to defer to Hume's more robust empirical position.

Yet this is where things get more interesting. Just as Hume says, we proceed in experience, at exhaustion of alternatives, no longer idealizing what experience could be predicted in. Experience is open possibility. Moreover, if we proceed intelligently this way, we have to watch out not just for the idealization of a theory, but for the covert, habitual or customary prescription as well. That is what an empiricist today, would likely consider as the basis of further critique. It is as if we must look as deeply as Kant's transcendental subject, (or for instance as any phenomenologist would) but without the safe basis of certain categories of reasoning, if we want a consistent, robust empiricism.

According to Hume, the connection of physical objects, like billiard balls, is not found in a prescriptive, rationalized concept of cause and effect. The question of that "connect" is something we may also find, albeit in a formal way, in different sorts of propositions of scientific discourse as well though. Empiricism has another turn, today, towards questioning the covert prescriptions of analysis as something guiding science, aside from experience.

As opposed to critiquing and questioning explicit psychological tendencies guiding science, we can see that one sort of proposition in our sciences, is the "analytic" proposition, or proposition of conceptual language. This may be useful to formally calculate and determine physical nature. The other sort of proposition is of physical nature itself, or formally, the "synthetic" propositions (once deemed "necessary" as Kant put it) in empirical observations. As opposed to a priori mediation, now we also ask - do we empiricists believe there is fundamental cleavage between analytic language, ie. theory, and the formal syntheses of physical nature? It is the same question again.

These propositional bases, are much like what Hume originally questioned in our understanding, as the provisions of predictability of physical objects, like in two billiard balls coming together. Empiricists rigorously question the covert prescription that precedes experience, so a modern empiricist, should come to question the covert prescriptions of analytic/conceptual language of science, that is sometimes supposed to have guided theorization. This can be done, without losing the whole empirical approach.

As a contemporary empiricist like Quine point out, this cleavage of two kinds of propositions - which empiricism itself no doubt led in its way to - is in a certain way just as questionable as the a priori - especially if "analyticity" is just fitting in a place for what we would call prior intuition. While we may significantly argue about what is better to guide scientific theory, in either the intuition, or the background logic or analyses of sciences, in practical capacity, really scientific speculation seems to lean one way or another, (clearly towards analyticity today) and seems to be more in "both" provisions. Yet in a general sense, it would also be correct to say that science is in neither capacity, so exclusively. In the end, the question of science might appropriately just give way to the problem of induction, as something a whole lot more arbitrary and insoluble than anything else. We should be ready for this. We should be ready to admit that scientific methods just aren't purely deductive, one way or another. They are in trials of experiment, or experience.

Induction has been called a "problem" in this way. It is said that here is where we estimate. But I believe this is where we can do much better. What do we estimate through induction? We say an inductive "proposition" is logically reasoned in part, but judged according to a "probability" of it being correct. That is the easiest way to put the idea of an inductive approach. But clearly, this also suggests what we estimate in the value of theory, in general in our essential philosophical/scientific considerations. Namely it is somewhere in between an analytic and intuition. It is a gross misrepresentation to say scientific induction is just probability, an estimated guess, as if to represent boths sides of the practical dialogue, but that may be most appropriate to consider in terms reduced to an isolated inductive proposition.

A philosophical pragmatism, rather than the symbolic "educated guess", is what epistemologists would be concerned about. The vague position, between analysis and intuition, is dogmatically taken to fit as the "meaning" of inductivity, (in a reductive proposition) as some generally calculative attitude guiding science, much as the idea of nature preconceived as fundamentally without variable, or determinable, has long been gathered just as precipitously from the ideal of a deductive logic. The question of science is much aside a discussion of whether we are "rationalists or empiricists", in these specific ways. We can see this theoretical background (mathematic, logic) is pragmatically assumed - not something strictly cleaving to the universe. We should reject these assumptions, based on ideal solutions to induction. Our sciences are pragmatic.

In addition to a gradually accepted philosophical notion, that no sort of intuition out front, can overtly guide theorization, the actual apprehension of nature in scientific speculation in the twentieth century, is indeed for practical reasons, less guided by physical apprehension of its fields, and more by projected analytical permutations and conceptions. This is another reason scientists justifiably rely on the analytic/conceptual language of science, "over" intuition for good enough reason. The scientific intuition can't even be seen without being implicit to its analyses. Yet the hardening up of theoretical rigor, into strict analyticity of the world, for that, and the old notion of "cleavage" of theory and fact - the covert idea of theory as something essentially analytical - is less justifiable.

The turn for empiricists is in recognizing the default importance of analytics, while not confusing them as something that is in any way essential to nature. We can see the world is not essentially following any theory, or analysis, for instance, in either something deterministic, or probablistic, because out front, these are clearly human imputations. Determining things, is logical activity of human beings, not nature. Calculating probabilities is mathematical, and another human activity that is not nature. Analyticity is not part of nature, and surely we should not think this is the consequence of empirical philosophy, philosophy based radically on experience!

Quine is interesting, because he is not looking to establish an a priori, or phenomenological/intuitional basis for empiricism, but is still steadfastly critical of defaulting to reductive positions of analyticity. In his "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" Quine stands in a place of questioning the "cleavage" between the so called analytic and synthetic propositions. This question is like Hume's question of Billiards. Quine suggests that questioning this assumption, should loosen up a hardened concept of theoretical analysis. To put it in certain terms, this questioning is not merely suggesting the place of a probabilistic basis of induction, a conditional blend of analytics and intuition in reduced form, but instead, a broad correlative relationship of theoretical models as generally (philosophically) conditional. I believe Quine is on point, that induction should be found in the relations of theories as broader wholes, in this sense.

From the abstract of Two Dogmas of Empiricism:

Quote:

Modern empiricism has been conditioned in large part by two dogmas. One is a belief in some fundamental cleavage between truths which are analytic, or grounded in meanings independently of matters of fact and truths which are synthetic, or grounded in fact. The other dogma is reductionism: the belief that each meaningful statement is equivalent to some logical construct upon terms which refer to immediate experience. Both dogmas, I shall argue, are ill founded. One effect of abandoning them is, as we shall see, a blurring of the supposed boundary between speculative metaphysics and natural science. Another effect is a shift toward pragmatism.

W.O. Quine; Two Dogmas of Empiricism.





http://www.ditext.com/quine/quine.html


Edited by Kurt (06/27/16 08:03 PM)


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Invisiblequinn
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Re: Epistemelogical Holism [Re: Kurt]
    #23376850 - 06/24/16 09:59 AM (7 years, 7 months ago)

it is so funny to me to think that the pre-Newtonian greek philosophers had such wacky conceptions of physics

Aristotle thought there werent any atoms and everything was continuous from the ground to space.. the only reason life existed was because things hadnt 'settled' in their place yet (fire goes up, earth goes down etc)

Plato thought there were atoms... in the shape of tiny triangles and cubes... he thought they joined together to make forms (e.g. 'dog' form) collecting into the shape of the perfect idea of what it meant to be a dog..

LOL

or Leibiniz tried to save the free will of people and animals and plants and inanimate objects from Newtonian determinism by claiming that every single thing only did what it did because that is what it was innately meant to do

:facepalm:

it is fun though to imagine what alternatives to Newtonian space time or other ways of thinking there could be.. like the Aymara people describe in their language the future as being behind and the past as in front...

...or Australian Aborigine languages which dont have any left or right but only absolute direction (like north and south) and as a result always know exactly where they are facing no matter what

i am not sure if i quite got from your OP what a theory really was or what makes one closed and what makes one open.. a thought that strikes me is that if one does take a pragmatic approach, then it shouldnt matter?..

i also dont think i would describe David Hume as 'open' for although his empiricism in the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding was directed at sidestepping didacticism and the traditional hang ups of academia i feel his empiricism is too skewed to the perspective of an individual observer and mind (like Descartes)

i think a Marxist perspective of the individual as a product of a society, its ideology and material grounding, completely blows a Humean's painstaking empiricism out of the water with it's own explanatory power

ultimately tho, as holist think both have a lot to offer even tho they may well be irreconcilable :tongue2:


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