Magic, science and religion
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MAGIC, SCIENCE AND RELIGIONGeoffrey Thomas1.INTRODUCTION This is the first of five lectures forming the ‘philosophy’ component of the course and covering the following topics:
The philosophy component of MSR locks into PPH in two ways: In the first place, within MSR it sketches in outline ‘what is this thing called “science” ?’ It looks at the logical structure of science, while the historical component traces the emergence and hegemony of science in its distinctive modern forms; and the political component considers the cultural dimension, the ways in which science has been seen (e.g.) as a distinguishing feature of Western civilisation. Secondly, it provides a bridge to ‘Problems of Explanation and Interpretation’ (‘PEI’). The science we fix on in MSR is natural science, the study of natural phenomena : the kind of things done in physics, chemistry, biology and their hybrids of bio-chemistry and the rest. A central question in PEI is how far human agency and society can or should be studied by the same aims and methods as the natural sciences. Just to draw out a thread. There is an ambiguity in our use of the term, ‘science’. If by ‘science’ we have in mind the German idea of Wissenschaft – the systematic and precise investigation of a subject-matter, where the nature of the subject-matter determines the degree of precision attainable – then e.g. history is a science and political science is a science. Not all subject-matters allow of the same degree of precision. Aristotle saw this long ago (Nicomachean Ethics, I.3) : Our discussion will be adequate if its degree of clarity fits the subject-matter; for we should not seek the same degree of exactness in all sorts of argument alike, any more than in the products of different crafts. … [T]he educated person seeks exactness in each area to the extent that the nature of the subject allows (Aristotle, 1985 Irwin tr., Hackett : 3-4). In the English-speaking world ‘science’ generally has a narrower connotation. Science is the ordered knowledge of natural phenomena and of the relations between them. The operative model, as suggested just above, is the natural sciences which are distinguished by two main features. The first centres on the collection of facts and observations in quantitative terms. To spell that out just a bit in a standard model, science involves : abstraction (looking at phenomena in groups or classes under specific characteristics and interrelations rather than at particular items in their full circumstantiality) precise measurement and quantification of phenomena hypotheses (claims) that have empirical (observable) consequences which can be checked/ confirmed through the experimental control of phenomena and the manipulation of variables answerability to one main criterion of success – what Mary Hesse has termed the ‘pragmatic criterion of predictive success’ (Mary Hesse, ‘Theory and Value in the Social Sciences’, Action and Interpretation, ed. C. Hookway & P. Pettit, Cambridge, 1978: 4.) – with a view, of course, to manipulation and control of the subject-matter. The list could be added to or and refined but this combination of elements constitutes the predominant – or an influential - scientific model or image. Not all natural sciences embody the elements to an equal degree ; experimental control of phenomena and the manipulation of variables are less in biology than in physics or chemistry and are virtually non-existent in some areas of evolutionary biology. As well, the model does not add up to a logic of scientific discovery. You cannot do good science just by assembling and activating these elements. The model cannot tell you how to grab a fruitful, illuminating hypothesis. Moreover, creative science may in its initial stages ignore one or more of the elements. The second feature of the natural sciences is the assumption – a continuity between the ancient Greeks and modern science – that ‘the universe is a systematic and ordered place and that every observation, no matter how unexpected, is capable of being fitted into a rational hypothesis which it is within our intellectual capacity to discover, if not immediately, then in due course when we have acquired the necessary data’ (Magnus Pyke, The boundaries of science, 1961 : 9). If we are assuming system and order then (it’s natural to suppose) we are assuming a law-governed or lawlike realm of phenomena within which the ordered knowledge of natural phenomena and of the relations between them is to be gained. 2. CONNECTION OF TOPICS The way we have talked about science so far suggests that it is a specialised and in fact rather special activity. If so, the least we can try to do is to mark off genuine from pseudo-science, or genuine science from other legitimate activities such as philosophy. Mainstream philosophy in the form of metaphysics, after all, also aims to deliver a picture of the world as a systematic and organised place. But nobody supposes it’s science. What I am talking about here is the so-called demarcation problem. If we assume in science a law-governed or lawlike realm of phenomena, then we need to probe the nature of scientific laws and their role in scientific explanation. This is, then, the next topic : laws and explanation. But all is not plain sailing. There is a rock-bottom problem about the rationality of assuming that there is a law-governed or lawlike realm of phenomena. This problem is Hume’s problem of induction. It can be seen as a sceptical challenge to science. Next up, we need to consider, when we speak of the collection of facts and observations in quantitative terms, whether successive scientific theories draw closer and closer to the truth, that science fulfils something deeper to reality than (merely) the ‘pragmatic criterion of predictive success’. The idea is science yields truth, that it maps onto and faithfully depicts (‘corresponds with’) an objectively existing real world, is labelled scientific realism. It’s a popular view and we must consider its credentials. It readily goes along with another view, namely that science is incremental or cumulative - and progressive. Newton knew more and better than Aristotle or Descartes; Einstein knew more and better than Newton. Newton himself said that he had seen further by standing on the shoulders of giants. Here we can turn to a second sceptical challenge. Thomas Kuhn, an influential philosopher of science, does not accept that science is cumulative. He believes that certain ruptures occur in the history of science – ‘scientific revolutions’ – which involve what he calls ‘paradigm shifts’. What paradigm shifts mean, among other things, is that Aristotelian, Newtonian, and Einsteinian physics work within such radically different frameworks of assumptions that their results are ‘incommensurable’. Facts do not accumulate; paradigms get replaced. 3. THE DEMARCATION PROBLEM Recall a couple of items from our characterisation of science above : hypotheses (claims) that have empirical (observable) consequences which can be checked/ confirmed through the experimental control of phenomena and the manipulation of variables Karl Popper suggested that what distinguishes science from metaphysics [for which we can read ‘philosophy’] and pseudo-science is not confirmation but refutation – the possibility of falsifying a claim. Here is a useful statement by Theodore Schick. (http://www.csicop.org/si/9703/end.html) : By construing science as the attempt to falsify rather than verify hypotheses, Popper thought that he could avoid the problem of induction and distinguish real science from pseudoscience. The success of a test does not entail the truth of the hypothesis under investigation. But, he believed, the failure of a test does entail its falsity. So if science is viewed as a search for refutations rather than confirmations, the problem of induction drops out and the mark of a scientific theory becomes its ability to be refuted. Thus we have Popper's famous demarcation criterion: a theory is scientific if it is falsifiable. If there is no possible observation that would count against it, it is not scientific. More details next week. In the meantime check out : AF Chalmers, What is This Thing Called Science ?, 2nd ed., 1982, 38-49, 60-67. C Hempel, Philosophy of Natural Science, ch. 2 –3, 1966, 3-32. KR Popper, ‘Science : Conjectures and Refutations’, Conjectures and Refutations, 5th ed., 1974, 33-65. S Psillos, ‘Underdetermination Undermined’, Scientific Realism, 1999, 162-182. H Sankey, ‘The Theory-Dependence of Observation’, Cogito, 13, 1999, 201-6. GLT : 01 March 2006 MAGIC, SCIENCE AND RELIGIONGeoffrey Thomas4. THE DEMARCATION PROBLEM (cont’d) Sir Karl Popper (1902-94) is notable for a famous answer to this problem – the problem of distinguishing genuine science from pseudo-science and philosophy. Briefly, he argues that the hallmark of a scientific theory is that it is (not confirmable but) falsifiable by observation and experiment. Confirmationists and falsifications alike assume that a theory can be tested against data. Two problems arise : (1) data, in the form of observations, may themselves be theory-laden; (2) with regard to falsficationism, if the Quine-Duhem thesis is right then any theory can accommodate any recalcitrant evidence. (If this sounds too flip, check out §5.3.1 below.) Primary reading: AF Chalmers, What is This Thing Called Science ?, 2nd ed., 1982, 38-49, 60-67. C Hempel, Philosophy of Natural Science, ch. 2 –3, 1966, 3-32. KR Popper, ‘Science : Conjectures and Refutations’, Conjectures and Refutations, 5th ed., 1974, 33-65. S Psillos, ‘Underdetermination Undermined’, Scientific Realism, 1999, 162-182. H Sankey, ‘The Theory-Dependence of Observation’, Cogito, 13, 1999, 201-6.
LogicTo begin, confirmationism seems to involve the fallacy of ‘affirming the consequent’. A scientific theory might be confirmed in the following way : If Einstein’s theory is true then light rays passing close to the sun are deflected. Careful measurement reveals that they are deflected. Therefore Einstein’s theory is true (Patrick Shaw, Logic and its Limits, 1981 : 162). As Shaw points out, this argument is fallacious. It is an example of the fallacy of affirming the consequent. My hypothesis is (say) that it is raining : Directory: pph -> MSR MSR -> Totem and Taboo: Freud, religion, Civilization MSR -> Social Evolutionism Comte, Spencer, Marx, Engels MSR -> Magic, Science and Religion MSR -> Wk1 Lecture Notes The Enlightenment and the Science of Man MSR -> Renaissance, the rise of curiosity and the rise of magic Download 222.25 Kb. Share with your friends:
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