Neither Modernist Nor Postmodemist -A Third Way

Mara Beller

Abstract. In this paper I undertake an analysis of the heritage of Kuhn and Feyera­bend as compared with the main tenets of the logical positivism, and identify the components of logical positivism that directly lead to relativism. I argue that the no­tion of consensus creates major problems in historiography and philosophy of sci­ence, preventing a description of scientific change. I further argue that the concept of creative disagreement should be introduced into studies of science not only as a his­torical actuality, but also as a basic epistemological and methodological presupposi­tion. I trace the grip of the notion of consensus in social studies of science to Durk­heim's heritage, focusing on the representatives of the Strong Program in sociology of science. I also argue that Thomas Kuhn inherited the same Durkheimian view of society through Ludwik Fleck. Finally, I briefly outline a dialogical alternative to the current historiography-an alternative in which the notion of disagreement plays a fundamental epistemological role.

Let us begin with a fairy tale. Once upon a time there was a Glorious Reign

of Reason on Earth. The Golden Age lasted until as recendy as thirty to forty

years ago, before the "enemies" of reason invaded academia and dethroned

the Goddess of Truth. "Reason today is not what it used to be"-this nostal­

gic outcry underlies the statements of the defenders of reason and truth.

The collection of essays, The Flight from Science and Reason (Gross et al. 1996) offers many examples:

Susan Haack (1996) opened her contribution by describing the intellectual

integrity and love of truth, which characterized philosophical inquiry until

such thinkers, as the noted philosopher Richard Rorty, joined the bandwagon

of antireason. "Until the 70's"-lamented the sociologist Stephen Cole, "the

good Mertonian Sociology of science shielded the objective context of sci­

ence from sociological analysis, till voodoo Sociologists or in other words,

social constructivists, seized control of the field (1996). According to Mario

Bunge in the same volume, over the past three decades enemies of learning

and rigor inftltrated the hallow walls of academia. Up until the mid 60's such

traitors of reasons were prompdy ostracized. And Alan Sokal disclosed that

the aim of his hoax (1996) was to protest the recent betrayal by academics

and humanists of the worthy enlightened heritage of rationality and truth.

M. Carrier et al. (eds.), Knowledge and the World: Challenges Beyond the Science Wars© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2004

266 Mara Beller

In this paper I offer a different perspective on the heritage of 20th century

physics and philosophy. Contrary to the claim that reason is not what it used to be, I will argue that reason never was what it appears to have been. Thus,

the assumed divide between the defenders of reason who wish to resurrect

the ideas of modernity, and post-modernists who supposedly have dispensed

with these ideas, is much less substantial than is generally perceived.

This paper is divided into three parts.

In the first part I connect the heritage of Kuhn and Feyerabend with logical

positivism, and identify the component of logical positivism that directly

leads to relativism. In the second part I analyze the notion of scientific com­

munity, used in the social studies of science, and will uncover its Enlighten­

ment roots. Both defenders of reason and its enemies are trapped, I will

claim, in the same conceptual predicament. In the third part I outline what I

perceive as an alternative that is neither modernist nor postmodernist-it is a "third way."

Let us begin with the early logical positivism. Logical positivism in its early incarnation was aimed to eliminate the metaphysical (identified with nonsen­

sical) from philosophical discussion. It was used by Philipp Frank, a leading logical positivist, as a weapon against the irrational "metaphysical" trend of the 30s, (50 years before similar postmodernist trend of the 80s), which con­nected acausality of quantum physics with religion, mysticism and politics.

According to Frank, the pre-World War II logical positivism recognized only two sets of legitimate terms-theoretical symbols and observational entities.

The observable facts are deduced from theoretical principles of the theory by a long chain of mathematical deductions and operational definitions. It is the

urge to take an illegitimate shortcut, to connect the general principles with

common-sense terms directly, which introduces the "irrational" and "sponta­

neous" into quantum physics, and connects physics with religion and mysti­

cism (Beller and Fine 1994, pp. 19-20).

After the war, in a different setting, we encounter a new face of logical

positivism. Frank, now a Harvard professor and a founder of the Unity of

Science movement, spelled out the necessary connection between science and

values, between epistemology and ideology. The previous dyadic scheme of

theoretical symbols and observed phenomena was supplemented, following

Peirce, by a third, pragmatic dimension which comprises the relations be­

tween the scientist and the symbols that he (or she) invents. This ultimately

Neither Modernist Nor Postmoderrust-A Third Way 267

led to the consideration of extra-scientific, socio-psychological criteria in evaluation of theory choice (Frank 1957, chapter 15).

Frank argued as follows: "Logical consistency and observational agree­ment are insufficient criteria for unequivocal theory choice". One often has to invoke additional epistemic criteria, such as simplicity and economy. Yet the simplicity criterion is neither obvious nor stable over time. Theoretical physicists raised in a mathematical atmosphere found Einstein's theory of gravitation incredibly beautiful and simple, while experimental physicists found these formulas extremely complicated. Thus, the notion of simplicity, according to Frank, is historically and culturally conditioned (ibid.).

Yet even the criteria of simplicity does not narrow our choices to a unique one. In the case of Copernican theory, as opposed to the Ptolemaic theory,

other reasons then epistemic simplicity-religious, moral, and political­played a crucial role in theory choice. Or, in Frank's own words:

" ... fitness to support desirable conduct on the part of citizens or, briefly, to support moral behavior, has served through the ages as a reason for the acceptance of a theory... . We have learned ... that the general principles of science are not unambi­guously determined by observed facts. If we add reqwrements of simplicity and common sense, determination becomes nar­rower, but it does not become unique. We can still require their fit­ness to support desirable moral and political doctrines. All these re­quirements together enter into the determination of a scientific theory" (Frank 1957, pp. 355-355).

The words of Frank, the logical positivist, are peculiarly reminiscent of­perhaps sometimes indistinguishable from-the arguments of social con­structivists, feminists and left intellectual critics of science today. When the philosopher and feminist Helen Longino argues that we can have both em­pirically adequate and value desirable theories, she faithfully echoes Frank's analysis. Sokal (1996), in his parody, ridiculed the words of Andrew Ross who

stated that scientific theories should be "publicly answerable and of some

service to progressive interests." Sokal could have, as well, preceded these words by a quotation from the oracle of reason himself-the logical positivist

Frank.

To say that social constructivism can be seen as an offspring from a ver­sion of logical positivism is not to assert that Kuhn's and Feyerabend's impact

was dispensable. For it is in their writings that another philosophical thesis-

268 Mara Beller

still more corrosive to the rationality of science than "under-determination of

theory by data"-is developed to its utmost. It is the thesis of theory­

ladenness of observation (there are no bare facts, but only theory-dependent interpretations of phenomena) which leads to an almost irrefutable relativism.

The version of "irrefutable" relativism runs as follows:

Scientists adhering to different paradigms will literally live in different inc­

ommensurable worlds, containing different facts. No rational argument, in­

cluding appeal to observational evidence, can support the choice of one para­

digm over another: the pre-revolutionary paradigm will be supported by pre­

revolutionary facts, while the post-revolutionary paradigm by the revised, post-revolutionary facts. Knowledge thus clearly is relative to the conceptual

framework one is operating within-one can arbitrarily choose the frame­

work according to one's own whim. Science becomes indistinguishable from

non-SClence.

For those who fInd this blanket relativism unpalatable, the problem is at

least well defIned: something is wrong either with the notion of holism of

frameworks or with the notion of theory-Iadenness of observation, or both.

Do we have to accept the notion of theory-Iadenness of observation and of

underdetermination of theory by data? I think we do-these notions are sup­

ported by ample historical evidence, from the age of Copernicus to the times

of Heisenberg and Schrodinger. But do we have to accept the notions of ho­lism and subsequently of incommensurability? Both historical evidence and philosophical argument clearly indicate-no, we do not.

The notion of holism underlies Kuhn's notion of incommensurability. All throughout his career, especially in his later writings, Kuhn emphasized the

importance of holism for understanding the nature of revolutionary change. Paradigms are holistic because they require a number of interrelated changes

of theory to be made at once-only at the price of incoherence can such

changes be made piecemeal, one step at the time (Kuhn 1987).

According to Kuhn himself, intrinsic holism implied by the Duhem-Quine

thesis played a formative role in his understanding of science (1993). Social

constructivists such as David Bloor and Batry Barnes often invoke this thesis

in their defense of relativism. According to this thesis, an experiment does

not contradict a single theoretical statement (which consequently can be saved

from refutation), but undermines the whole theoretical framework at once.

My argument is that, contrary to Kuhn and others, this holism does not

imply a necessary logical connection between the different aspects of the the­

ory. The fact that a theory is holistic in the sense that one rather than the

Neither Modernist Nor Postmodernist-A Third Way 269

other aspect can be disproved does not mean that they all stand or fall to­gether. Quite the contrary is the case-the fact that we can choose at will

which one of the elements is suspect without implying others, means that the theoretical frameworks do not have a logical cohesion implied in the notion of holistic paradigms (Beller 1997).

It also means that paradigms are not necessarily incoherent, if modified piecemeal. The following example will suffice: According to Bohr, the acausality and contextuality (experimental set-up dependence) of measure­ment results are intrinsically bound together. Bohr's numerous thought ex­periments reveal a supposedly strict logical connection between the two. In Bohm's version, contextuality of measurement is retained, yet the "inevitabil­ity of acausality" is challenged-Bohm's version can be a deterministic one.

Not surprisingly, a closer study of the history of science undermines the notion of the holism of paradigms. Rather than dogmatic commitment to a rigid set of ideas, creative scientific work-whether in the Copernican, the Chemical or the Quantum Revolution-is characterized by the ingenious mingling and selective appropriation of ideas from distinct paradigms. Not an autistic incommensurability, but fundamental communicability underlies sci­entific effort (Beller 1997, 1999).

In a local interactive setting, theory-Iadenness of observation assumes, I want to suggest, a constructive, rather than subversive role. Rather than serv­ing to initiate the irrational disruptive break with the past, theory-Iadenness of observation allows to extend and to consolidate the acquired knowledge. I have argued elsewhere that such was Heisenberg's reinterpretation of intra­atomic orbits-not as a continuous path, but as a sequence of discrete points subject to uncertainty relations (Beller 1999).

In such ongoing practice of interactive scientific theorizing, some of our deeply entrenched philosophical notions become strikingly inadequate, and it is they who lead to the pseudo-problem of relativism. Thus, the notion of "theory choice" is the key-term of the philosophy of science. Yet theories are not chosen by some epistemic rules of comparison; theory-choice is an after effect of the ongoing communicative practice of scientific theorizing. In the setting of such local, open-ended practice of science, relativism becomes not so much refuted, as simply beside the point.

It would, of course, be misleading to maintain that Kuhn and Feyerabend introduced the concept of holism. As we know today there are close links be­tween the ideas of logical positivists and the neo-Kantian emphasis on ho­lism, and Kuhn's work relies extensively on these ideas, notably on Carnap's

270 Mara Beller

work. In particular, we can find in Carnap's work a verSlOn of theory­ladenness of observation, of semantic holism, and of incommensurability as

untranslatability.(Friedman 1987, Earman 1993).

It was Kuhn who combined the epistemological insights of logical positiv­

ism with the sociological notion of scientific collective. The holism of the

positivistic notion of conceptual structures was canonized in the Kuhnian no­

tion of paradigms. The unholy alliance between these rigid structures and

homogeneous scientific community resulted in a redefinition of scientific truth: "As in political revolutions, so in paradigm choice-there is no stan­

dard higher than the assent of the relevant community." Kuhn's followers,

notably those of the Strong Program of Sociology of Knowledge, were natu­

rally led to the inadequate notion of scientific truth as no more than consen­

sus.

I will now turn to an analysis of the notion of a scientific collective and of

consensus in the Kuhnian and post-Kuhnian studies of science.

The notion of agreement, or consensus, is a basic notion of the studies of

science. While for the positivistic philosophy the notion of consensus was

implicitly presupposed in the very notion of a conceptual scheme, model or framework, Kuhn's achievement is taken to be in the explicit introduction of

the notion of scientific community and of consensus-a paradigmatic agree­ment on the shared methods, goals, metaphysical presuppositions, epistemic virtues, exemplars, etc. With a few rare exceptions, the post-Kuhnian histori­ography and philosophy of science is characterized more by a reduction in scale Oocalization) of the Kuhnian description of science than in its basic re­evaluation. If there seems to be a consensus in studies of science, it is of the indispensability of the notion of consensus.

Philosophers of science as different as Philip Kitcher (1993) and Ernan

McMullin (1991), sociologists of science as divided on basic questions as

David Bloor (1976) and Stephen Cole (1992), all seem to agree that the no­

tion of consensus, or collective agreement, is the basic notion for evaluation

and explanation of scientific results. According to Kitcher, in order to under­

stand the progress of science, "we need to be able to articulate the relations

among successive consensus practices" (1993, p. 87). To describe the range

of scientific activities is to pay "particular attention to the role of tradition, con­vention, agreement, and the social processes wherein such things are sustained or

undermined," claim Barry Barnes, David Bloor, and John Henry (1996, p. 10)

in their recent textbook on the sociology of knowledge. The militant oppo-

Neither Modernist Nor Postmodernist-A Third Way 271

nent of the Strong Program, sociologist Cole, agrees nevertheless with these authors, approvingly citing Ziman's opinion that the goal of science "is a con­sensus [italics in original] of rational opinion over the widest possible field" (Cole 1992, p. 102).

All these authors agree that knowledge is "communally held," that knowl­edge is a "collective good," and that eventually all the disputes are resolved

and disagreements eliminated. The difference between Kitcher and Stephen Shapin (1994), or between Cole and Bloor, concerns the ways by which dis­putes are resolved and consensus is achieved-by rational processes for Kitcher and Cole, by social mechanisms hardly related to the validity of knowledge under discussion, for Shapin and Bloor. To understand science sociologically (or philosophically) in the post-Kuhnian era is to understand

the collective aspect of science. Shapin makes this point forcefully:

"If sociology is the study of the collective aspects of human conduct, then a basic role for the sociological study of scientific

knowledge is showing in what ways that knowledge has to be understood as collective good and its implication as a collective process. If there is a fundamental and irreducibly sociological point to be made about scientific knowledge, it is this one" (Shapin 1995, p. 302).

Closely connected with the notion of consensus is the notion of "solidarity." Richard Rorty sees the scientific solidarity achieved as a result of "unforced" agreement. According to Rorty, solidarity is a substitute for "objectivity" and is a model for the democratic society in general.

The notion of a collective, in which there is a paradigmatic agreement, or where such an agreement is posited as a goal is, of course, a thoroughly monological notion. The positivistic legacy of European rationalism, with its presupposition of self-sufficiency of a single consciousness and universality of Reason, allowed a consolidation of monological ideology in all spheres of cultural activity-philosophy, science, psychology, literature and even sociol­

ogy (Bakhtin 1984, pp. 82-83; Sampson 1993, pp. 31-65). The notion of con­sensus, of knowledge as collectively shared goods, as communally held be­liefs, entered into historiography and sociology of scientific knowledge from

the French tradition in the sociology of knowledge with a heavy reliance on

the writings of Emile Durkheim. This Durkheimian concept of knowledge and of society is shared by Merton, by Kuhn and by Bloor in spite of other

basic differences between them.

272 Mara Beller

In the Durkheim's tradition the terms of "collective representation," "col­lective consciousness" and of "collective mind" are basic. The problem with this conceptual heritage is not merely that such a notion of homogeneous monological society, where "all hearts beat in unison," in which all minds are indistinguishable is valorized. The problem is that such Durkheimian solidar­ity is achieved at a price. Such a society is that of order, and order is achieved by discipline, by dominance. "Discipline," writes Durkheim, "has its justifica­tion in itself. It is good that man should be disciplined" (quoted by Catlin 1968). The notion of authority is central in sociological studies of science. Collectivization of an individual mind is achieved by control, by execution of authority. Sociologists of science, such as Shapin and Bloor, talk in terms of "cognitive order."

It is not clear what the term of "cognitive order" means, when we con­sider societies other than the tribal and primitive religious communities, or "closed societies" analyzed by Durkheim, especially scientific communities, characterized by fruitful uncertainty, freedom to doubt, open-endedness, lack of stability, constant change. Cognitive order is achieved, in contrast, by coer­cion and indoctrination. In Mary Douglas' characterization, our "colonization of each other's mind is the price we pay for thought" (Douglas 1975, p. XX).

The notion of the "cognitive order" in Durkheim's static terms was adopted, in a self-conscious way, by the founders of the Strong Program in the Sociology of Knowledge. Durkheimian notions developed for closed, primitive tribal societies, were adopted by Bloor and others wholesale, with­out critical reexamination, programmatically.

As Bloor clearly stated, Durkheim's study of religion provides "models and sources of inspiration" for the sociologist of science (Bloor 1976, p. 4). It is this uncritical acceptance of the analogy of science and religion that pro­vided the inspiration for the most far-reaching symmetry thesis of the Strong Program: true and false beliefs should be treated (explained) in the same way. It is the notion of "belief' that made the transition from the Durkheim's ap­

proach to the study of science possible. This widespread use of the notion of belief in the studies science is highly

inadequate-it implicitly blurs the difference between science and non­science. The notion of a best informed (temporary) presupposition is much more suited to describe the changing, open-ended dynamic nature of science than the static notion of belief. Of course, the symmetry thesis of the Strong Program, when we replace the notion of belief with that of best informed

Neither Modernist Nor Postmodernist-A Third Way 273

presupposition, falls apart-why should the well informed and badly in­formed statements be accounted for in the same way?

While I cannot develop this issue in the confines of this paper, it is worth­while to mention that another principle of the Strong Program-that of

causality-also was directly appropriated from Durkheim (compare with

Durkheim 1968, pp. 89-140). So was the program of reduction of all philoso­

phical questions to sociological, as well as the Durkheim's positivistic defini­

tion of social fact with subsequent almost pathetic tension between the naive

realism in the description of the social and unrestrained relativism in the de­

scription of the natural. The central notion of truth as shared belief, or truth as consensus, also was adopted from Durkheim. Bloor criticized the philoso­

pher's notion of truth as teleological. Yet the notion of "consensus" as a fu­

ture normative state of affairs (despite initial disagreements) is no less teleo­

logical then the notion of a predetermined truth of a theory, towards which

the scientific efforts inevitably lead. The sociological and the positivistic no­

tions of truth are merely simplistic mirror images of one another.

Durkheim's solidarity is totalitarian in its essence, as is the Kuhnian notion

of scientific collectivity, characterized by a monological discourse during the

paradigmatic regime. In this tradition, there is no place for human individual­

ity, scientific or otherwise. The individual is disruptive to society. The only in­

teresting question in such accounts is that of the techniques of "coloniza­

tion," or, in more politically correct terminology, strategies of persuasion. As

Shapin put it, "the gap between individual, or public, must be filled by per­

suasion" (Shapin 1995, pp. 305). This approach gave rise to an enormous amount of studies of rhetoric in science. In the confines of Durkheim's framework, most such studies focus more on strategies of persuasion rather than on the communicative underpinnings of good reasoning. The Durk­heimian terms, developed for tribal societies, do not supply tools that can dis­tinguish between evidence-based knowledge and superstition, between sci­

ence and fiction-the major problem of the current sociology of science.

While Latour's dynamic account of science in action considerably tran­

scended the static timeless structures of the Strong Program, it still retained

this notion of creation and transmission of knowledge as the process of colo­

nization and dominance. In Latour's account, the cognitive order is achieved

by relentless politics of intellectual conquest, by imperialism of networks of

alliances.

Pledging for a society of liberal democracy, Rorty envisaged a culture

which is "secular through and through. It would be one in which no trace of

274 Mara Beller

divinity remained ... no room for the notion that there are non-human forces to which human beings should be responsible". Rorty identifies the notion of "devotion to truth" as a notion that retains religious remnants (Rorty 1991, pp. 38-39). I would rather argue that it is the notions of "consensus", of a "collective spirit", "collective mind" and the like that retain the mythical, non-human forces of the primitive tribal societies. Durkheim himself called these terms "hyperspiritual" (Durkheim 1968, p. 34). The notion of a "group­mind" (or of a "paradigm" for that matter) has clear non-secular roots and God-like attributes. "Consensus" is nothing else but the opinion of the "hy­perspiritual", omnipotent group-mind. The notion of consensus as normative notion has no place in a free inquiry.

Let us pause and realize the similarity between the position of the logical positivists and the post-Kuhnian sociologists of science. Both employ holistic and static terms for understanding of scientific theorizing (what I mean is that both can pay lip-service to the dynamic nature of science, but lack the con­ceptual tools to describe it). Both share the monological vision of Enlighten­ment: a single consciousness is sufficient for scientific knowledge-be it an individual mind in the case of positivism, or the super-mind of a collective for social constructivists. There is a fundamental unanimity between minds­between rational minds because of the adherence to a valid scientific method (positivism),or unanimity between members of a scientific collective because of authority, tradition, persuasion or even coercion ( social constructivism).

Despite Kuhn's substantial reservations from the Strong Program (Kuhn 2000, chapter five), the roots of his conception of scientific collectivity are similar, if not identical, to that of Bloor.

In order to see the sources of Kuhn's notion of scientific community, it is instructive to compare his approach with Ludwik Fleck's pioneering Genesis and Development if a Scientific Fact (Fleck 1979). Kuhn's debt to Fleck seems to be more extensive than is acknowledged by Kuhn. Many of Kuhn's notions are remarkably similar to and easily traceable to Fleck. More than a superficial similarity can be found between Fleck's proto-ideas (Fleck 1979, pp.23-27) and Kuhn's paradigmatic ideas, between Fleck's thought styles ("autonomous, style permeated structures'') and Kuhn's paradigms, between Fleck's "tenacity of systems of opinion" and Kuhn's notion of resistance of paradigm to change. Even the notion of incommensurability is clearly stated by Fleck: " ... direct communication between the adherents of different thought styles is impossible" (Fleck 1979, p. 36).

Neither Modernist Nor Postmodernist-A Third Way 275

But while Kuhn's philosophical debt can be traced to other sources (Beller 1997, 1999), it is Kuhn's incorporation of the notion of a scientific commu­nity into philosophical discussion which made Kuhn's contribution unique and significant. In this respect, as Kuhn himself acknowledges, his debt to Fleck is direct: " ... Fleck's work made me realize that those ideas [those of concern to Kuhn-M. B.] might require to be set in the sociology of scien­tific community" (Kuhn 1962, pp. vi-vii).

What is the source of Fleck's notion of collectivity and of scientific com­munity? Fleck himself stated that he directly relies on "Durkheim's school in France," which stressed " ... the importance of sociological methods in the investigation of intellectual activities" (Fleck 1979, p. 46). Fleck approvingly cites Durkheim's ideas about "force exerted on the individual by social struc­ture," "superindividual and objective character of ideas belonging to the col­lective," the notion of "collective intellect" that determines the religious and cosmological ideas of a tribe. He also cites Levi-Bruhl, "a student of Durk­heim," who, like Durkheim, held that the sociological study of primitive relig­ions is useful for understanding "our categories and logical principles" (Fleck 1979, p. 97). In is not an individual who thinks, but rather "his social com­munity" (Fleck 1979, p. 47, citing Gumplowicz).

In their recent book Bloor, Barnes and Henry confidently declared that their image of scientific knowledge was firmly established in the studies of science. They called their model the "normal model.": "Knowledge in this normal version was the possession of the members of a culture or subculture,

transmitted from generation to generation as a part of their tradition, and de­pendent for its credibility on their collective authority" (Barnes et al. 1996, p. 111). They admitted, in fact proudly announced, that this mode originated from a "small literature on the sociology of knowledge which was in fact mainly concerned with religious doctrines and political ideology ... and, per­haps most valuable of all, anthropological studies of knowledge in tribal so­cieties". And while initially this model seemed inapplicable to scientific knowledge, "it did nonetheless prove possible to assimilate scientific knowl­

edge ... into normal view" (Barnes et al. 1996, p. 111). The biggest inspiration and support came, of course, from Kuhn, who "identified scientific knowl­

edge as the possession of a collective, incarnate in their tradition of research."

Kuhn's work "served to vindicate the sociological conjecture that the normal model would apply everywhere, to any body of knowledge ... " (Barnes et al. 1996, p. 112).

276 Mara Beller

It is not by chance that this model is called "normaL" The Kuhnian and the Strong Program notion of collective (as well as that of Merton) inherited the distinction, so central for Durkheim, between the "normal" and the "pathological" (Durkheim 1968, p.47-76). There are "norms" of Merton, and, of course, the "normal" science of Kuhn. Genuine expression of indi­viduality is pathological. Durkheim identified the "normal" with the "aver­age" (remember the Kuhnian army of obedient puzzle solving). The demon­stration of individuality during the paradigmatic regime of Kuhn is not merely deviance, it is a waste of effort, and, as any abnormality, must be illogical and

irrationaL Any genuine novelty (revolutionary advance) can only occur by in­explicable irrational jumps during the time of disorientation and chaos. The revolutionaries, endowed with the divine irrationality (a pale version of a Ro­

mantic mad genius), are exempted from the paradigmatic discipline. The current historiography of science must labor hard to undermine these

false Durkheimian dichotomies between individual and collective, between order and chaos, between normal and pathological. Lack of stability, genuine change is not to be identified with chaos, and creative novelty is not to be

perceived as pathological. In order to do so, we have to break the opposition between autistic individuality and homogenous collectivity. Such an alterna­tive, I will briefly argue, is provided by a dialogical approach (developed in Beller 1999). In the dialogical approach, in which it is impossible to conceive of any individual as being outside the relations that link her to others, such false dichotomies do not arise.

In the dialogical approach disagreement, rather than consensus or agree­ment, provides the basis for scientific interaction and for ensuing change. There is a widespread mythology, shared by Kuhn, Rorty and many post­modernist, that a high degree of consensus characterizes natural sciences as

opposed to social sciences and humanities. In Rorty's words: "If we say that sociology or literary criticism 'is not a

science,' we shall mean merely that the amount of agreement among sociolo­

gists or literary critics on what counts as significant work, work which needs

following up, is less than among, say, microbiologists" (1991, p. 40). Such sensibilities seem to be natural, almost obvious, and they fit equally

well the positivistic and the Kuhnian historiography. And it is exactly this overarching complacent acceptance of the notion of consensus, despite the

basic differences between positivists and social constructivists, that makes

this notion suspect.

Neither Modernist Nor Postmodernist-A Third Way 277

When Cole (1992) undertook an empirical comparative study of degrees of consensus in natural and social sciences, he merely expected to confirm

the prevalent opinion of a high degree of consensus in the natural, as op­

posed to the social sciences. Yet he repeatedly failed to confirm this hypothe­

sis. He found, for example, that there was a very similar degree of consensus

(around 60+%) in a group of biochemists and in the group of sociologists

about what counts as a significant contribution and which work needs follow­

ing up. Still more revealing is Cole's study of the degree of disagreement

among qualified reviewers about grant proposals in the natural sciences sub­

mitted to National Science Foundation. The level of disagreement in evalua­

tion of these proposals was so high that Cole could find no better criterion

than "luck" for accounting whether the proposal was funded or not (Cole

1992, pp. 82-101).

In a sense, this conclusion can hardly be considered sensational. Previous

studies of "science in action," such as Latour (1987), Pickering (1984) or

Collins (1992), reveal the prevalence of the scientific controversy at the fron­

tier. Yet the state of disagreement, they concede, is a temporary state of af­

fairs. The valid, or rather the accepted, part of science is the one that remains

after all disputes are resolved. The conclusion is the same whether one as­

sumes, with the positivists, that results are accepted because they are valid, or

with constructivists that results are considered valid because they became ac­

cepted.

I want to argue, in contrast, that disagreement is neither a necessary evil,

nor a temporary aberration. My central claim is that disagreement is the crea­tive principle of scientific practice. In this respect, a study by Henry Small

(1974, referred to in Cole 1992) is revealing. He found that for articles sub­

mitted for publication to chemistry journals, the articles that received the

most criticism from referees, later became most cited. The most stimulating

and fruitful statements are those with which we disagree.

I do not claim that the question about how a reasonable agreement can be

or is achieved, is devoid of value. Yet the study of reasonable agreement can­

not be based on the notion of consensus. The sociological studies of the de­

gree of disagreement at the frontier of science suggest the naturalness, the

reasonableness of disagreement. Yet consensus excludes such reasonable dis­

agreement. Consensus means just that-unreasonableness of disagreement,

irrationality of disagreement. By excluding legitimate disagreement, the state

of consensus cannot result in a rational scientific change. No wonder

Kuhnian accounts have no epistemological tools to account for scientific de-

278 Mara Beller

velopment except by an ad hoc postulation of irrational jumps from one framework to another, incommensurable framework. "Incommensurability" is a direct consequence of illegitimacy, "irrationality" of local disagreement.

If both positivists and social constructivists failed in their account of sci­entific change, they failed for the same reason-their resignation of exploring the constructive (rather than merely temporal and inconsequential) role of dis­agreement in the advance of knowledge.

As an illustration, I will briefly summarize some aspects of a dialogical analysis of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle (Beller 1999). In 1925 the young Werner Heisenberg laid the foundations of the new quantum theory by eliminating the electronic orbits of Bohr's model and replacing the classical parameters of motion by algebraic constructs, which turned out to be matri­ces. Through this step, Heisenberg effectively abandoned Anschaulichkeit (visualizability) of the quantum domain and dispensed with regular space-time concepts.

A few months later, after the appearance of Schrodinger's theory a, and especially his competing interpretation, Heisenberg often contemplated inter­pretive issues of the new quantum theory. How is one to interpret the new formalism, when the space-time imagery no longer seems to fit? What can the notion of "interpretation" in such circumstances mean? Are the discontinu­ous and acausal features of the new theory derivative, or fundamental? Does the apparent incompatibility between the new formalism and experiment im­ply that quantum theory is in need of further elaboration and modification? Or should one accept the formalism as complete and final, and to undertake a suitable reinterpretation of some of experiments and experimental terms?

Heisenberg's elaboration of these issues took place in a context of intense dialogue. I describe in detail how Heisenberg's opinion on these central issues emerged gradually in his dialogues with Schrodinger, Bohr, Pauli, Dirac, Jor­dan, Born, Campbell and Senftleben.

The dialogical analysis demonstrates the indispensability of lesser scientists

in the process of the emergence of novelty. Two crucial components of Heis­enberg's uncertainty paper were provided by "marginal" physicists­Senftleben and Campbell. Senftleben provided the formulation for Heisen­berg's "definitive" resolution of causality issue: causality does not hold not because quantum laws are inherently statistical, but because the present can­not be known precisely, and therefore the future cannot be predicted exactly. Campbell, before Heisenberg, suggested that an intra-atomic electronic path should be considered as a sequence of discrete irregular points.

Neither Modernist Nor Postmodernist-A Third Way 279

All these physicists supplied a vast resource of ideas and techniques that Heisenberg borrowed. But no less, and perhaps more significant, were Heisenberg's disagreements with his actual and potential interlocutors­

disagreements that triggered, enriched and constantly rearranged the complex pattern of Heisenberg's quest.

Yet all these disagreements, to which I have alluded, could not have per­

formed their creative, formative function, unless Heisenberg have not been

prepared to qualify, to modify and sometimes even to reverse his earlier

stand. Disagreement can lead to novelty, rather then to merely futile contro­

versy, only if there is a basic open-mindedness, lack of dogmatism, element

of ignorance, uncertainty, and genuine doubt at the frontier of science. The

existence of doubt (disagreement with oneself), as well as disagreement with

others, is a necessary condition for the occurrence of scientific change. Again, in Feynman's words: "I believe that to solve any problem that has never been

solved before, you have to leave the door to the unknown ajar. You have to

permit the possibility that you do not have it exactly right"(1998, pp. 26-27).

If the living scientific research is characterized by doubt and uncertainty, we should be able to uncover the traces of doubt in a published scientific pa­

per. A careful analysis might reveal vacillations, conflicting inner voices and

lack of confidence, despite the image of published paper as monological and

unequivocal structure. I have argued (Beller 1999) that Heisenberg's uncer­

tainty paper is permeated with remnants of past struggles and conflicting in­ner VOlees.

I have also analyzed along these lines Bohr's Como lecture, where he first announced his principle of complementarity, and which is considered as one of the most obscure scientific texts. This lecture becomes however lucidly clear when we realize that the text is not a monologicallinear argument, but a juxtaposition of several arguments, addressed simultaneously to different ad­

ressees (Beller 1999, pp. 117-145). Based on an extensive analysis of the process of discovery and the struc­

ture of scientific papers in quantum physics, I came to the conclusion of the

need to articulate a dialogical approach to the study of science. My proposal is

to treat an addressive response as the primary epistemological and social unit

for the analysis of science. Thus, scientific thought presupposes the existence

of an interlocutor to whom the thought is addressed and/or by whose state­

ments the thought is triggered. Such addressivity is complex and rnulti­

channeled; scientists simultaneously respond to many interlocutors and at the

same time address potential or actual addressees. This open-ended multidirec-

280 Mara Beller

tional and constantly changing web introduces conceptual tensions and ambi­

guity that underlies the creative scientific effort. The notion of addressivity is

not a static concept, it is a temporal notion. It introduces locality, contextual­

ity and historicity of scientific practice in a fundamental way.

Dialogical analysis incorporates conversation and communicability both as

a social reality and as an epistemological presupposition. From the dialogical perspective, a creative scientist is linked fundamentally to the efforts and con­

cerns of others. Science is simultaneously social and rational-the rationality

of science is dialogical and communicative.

A successful scientific result is one that is strongly embedded in the prac­tice of the day. This embedding is achieved by simultaneously responding to

as many other scientific statements (from other papers, conversations, etc.) as

possible-drawing on many possible support links (confirmations), taking

into account many possible objections (refutations). Both the Carnapian idea of confirmation and the Popperian idea of refutation are, again, one­

dimensional idealizations, and both can be concurrently present in a dialogical

response.

Not all aspects of scientific theorizing are equally well grounded-some

are more arbitrary than others. While Heisenberg's uncertainty formula, or Schrodingers's equation (or modification thereof in GRW theory [Ghirardi et

al. 1986]) are indispensable for the working quantum physicist, he or she can create without the Copenhagen Interpretation. Thus, the Copenhagen Inter­pretation is dispensable-many physicists, who are engaged in successful sci­entific theorizing, are opposed to it, while many others, subscribing to it, nev­ertheless do not employ it in their research. It is reasonable to consider such

dispensable parts of science as being more "subjective" and arbitrary than the indispensable ones. It is illuminating to analyze these aspects of science in

terms of rhetorical strategies of persuasion, as is done in social studies of sci­

ence.

Dialogism, let me emphasize, is not an explanatory theory of the growth

of knowledge. It does not suffer from major weakness of explanatory theo­

ries-how do we get from cause to effect (from Nature to theory-in posi­

tivism, or from social variables to scientific statements-social constructiv­

ism). Dialogism is a phenomenological approach for studying scientific

change (and also a methodology to for studying scientific texts): the flux of

dialogues is not an explanation of scientific change, it is the change itself]

Neither Modernist Nor Postmodernist-A Third Way 281

The dialogical approach that I developed for the description of the history of quantum physics bears some similarity (as it turned out) to the ideas of Mikhail Bakhtin, the Russian literary theorist and philosopher. The Bakhtin­ian approach is based on the concept of dialogue and indispensability of the notion of the "other" in human existence and thinking. We are alive to the extent that we are responsive (and responsible), as well as addressive to the other.

Bakhtin singled out Dostoyevsky as the discoverer of the new literary genre-the polyphonic novel. Dostoyevsky's heroes are not clearly defmed characters-their truth, never a completed one, emerges in confrontation with, and anticipation of, the other's point of view. Every idea, that of the characters and that of the author, is a rejoinder in unfinished and unfinaliz­able dialogues carried out simultaneously.

Bakhtin contrasts such polyphonic thinking with monologism of natural science. According to Bakhtin, in science there is no genuine place for the other: the other in science is the one who errs. Contra Bakhtin, I argue that the "other" is fundamental in science not less, and arguably even more, than in other human endeavors. Dialogism is a social epistemology of science-it presupposes the existence of the others mind as a necessary condition of sci­entific productivity.

Dialogism as social epistemology differs fundamentally from social con­structivism. Dialogism does not hold that social determinants (in the sense of the usual sociological variables) are the primary determinants of scientific ideas. As opposed to social constructivism, dialogism does not conflate be­liefs and facts-dialogism shies away from the notion of belief altogether. Dialogism rejects the social constructivists' notion of the consensus theory of truth: dialogism rejects the notion of consensus as mandatory and the notion of truth as explanatory.

Dialogism is in agreement with the defenders of reason that a thorough understanding of science is a precondition for its sociological and philosophi­cal analysis. In fact, in the dialogical approach, one cannot even begin to ana­lyze the mutual responses without going into minute details of scientific rea­

sonmg. Yet dialogism shares an important insight of social constructivism-the

blurring of a clear distinction between the context of discovery and context of justification. Discovery and justification are in fact the same kind of dia­logical process-permeated with responsiveness, adressivity and communica­tive rationality.

282 Mara Beller

Dialogism rejects the basic modernist idea of a self sufficiency of individ­

ual rationality, as defenders of reason still have it. Yet it centers on scientific

individuality-individuality that is completely eliminated from postmodern

studies of science which are based on the notions of homogeneous commu­

nity, consensus and solidarity.

Thus, dialogism is neither modernist nor postmodernist. It is a third way.

References

BAKHTIN, MIKHAIL (1984), Problems of Dostqyevsky's Poetics. Edited and trans­lated by Caryl Emerson. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

BARNES, S. BARRY (1974), T. S. Knhn and Sodal Sdence. London: Macmillan. BARNES, S. BARRY, DAVID BLOOR, and JOHN HENRY (1996), Sdentiftc Knowl­

edge---A SodologicalAnafysis. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. BELLER, MARA (1997), "Criticism and Revolutions," S dence in Context, vol. 10,

no.l, pp. 13-37 and vol. 10, no.6, pp. 241-255. BELLER, MARA (1999), Quantum Dialogue---The Making of a Revolution. Chicago:

The University of Chicago Press. BELLER, MARA and ARTHUR FINE (1994), "Bohr's Response to EPR." In:

FAYE/FoLSE (eds.; 1994), pp. 1-31. BLOOR, DAVID (1976), Knowledge and Sodal Imagery. Chicago: The University

of Chicago Press. BUNGE, MARIO (1996), "In Praise of Intolerance to Charlatanism in Acade­

mia." In: GROSS et. al. (eds.; 1996), pp. 96-115. CATLIN, GEORGE E. G. (1968), "Introduction to the Translation". In: DURK­

HElM 1968. COLE, STEPHEN (1992), Making Sdence: Between Nature and Sodery. Cambridge,

MA: Harvard University Press. COLE, STEPHEN (1996), '<y" oodoo Sociology: Recent Developments in the

Sociology of Science". In: GROSS et. al. (eds.; 1996), pp. 274-287. COLLINS, HARRY M. (1992), Changing Order: Replication and Induction in S dentific

Practice. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. DOUGLAS, MARY (1975), Implidt Meanings: Essqys in Anthropology. London:

Routledge & Kegan Paul. DURKHEIM, EMILE (1968), The Elementary Forms of Religious Lift. London:

George and Unwin Ltd. [First published in 1915]. EARMAN, JOHN (1993), "Carnap, Kuhn and the Philosophy of Scientific

Methodology." In: HORWICH (ed.; 1993), pp. 9-36. FEYNMAN; RICHARD P. (1998), The Meaning of It A/~Thoughts of a Citizen Sd­

entist. Reading: Addison-Wesley.

Neither Modernist Nor Postmodernist-A Third Way 283

FAYE, JAN and HENRY J. FOLSE (eds.; 1994), Niels Bohr and Contemporary Phi­losopf!y. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

FLECK, LUDWIK (1979), Genesis and Development of a Scientijic Fact. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press [First published in 1935].

FRANK, PHILIPP (1957), Philosopf!y of Science. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall. FRIEDMAN, MICHAEL (1987), "Carnap's Aufbau Reconsidered," Nous,

vol. 21, pp. 521-545. FRIEDMAN, MICHAEL (1999), Reconsidering Logical Positivism. Cambridge: Cam­

bridge University Press. GALISON, PETER L. and DAVID J. STUMP (eds.; 1996), The Disunity of Science:

Boundaries, Contexts, and Power. Stanford: Stanford University Press. GHIRARDI, GIANCARLO, ANTONIO RIMINI, and TULLIO WEBER (1986),

"Unified Dynamics for Microscopic and Macroscopic Systems," Pf!ysical Review D34, 470-491.

GROSS, PAUL R., NORMAN LEVITT, and MARTIN W. LEWIS, (eds.; 1996), The Flight from Science and Reason. New York: New York Academy of Sciences.

HAACK, SUSAN (1996), "Concern for Truth: What it Means, Why it Matters." In: GROSS et. al. (eds.; 1996), pp. 57-63.

HORWICH, PAUL (ed.; 1993), World Changes: Thomas Kuhn and the Nature of Sci­ence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

KITCHER, PHILIP (1993), The Advancement of Science: Science without Legend, Oijec­tivity without Illusions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

KRUGER, LORENZ, GERD GINGERENZER, and MARY S. MORGAN (eds.; 1987), The Probabilistic Revolution, vol. 1 and 2. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

KUHN, THOMAS S. (1962), The Structure of Scientijic Revolutions. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

KUHN, THOMAS S. (1987), ''What Are Scientific Revolutions?" In: KRUGER et al. (eds.; 1987), pp. 7-22.

KUHN, THOMAS S. (1993), "Afterwords." In: HORWICH (ed.; 1993), pp. 311-341.

KUHN, THOMAS S. (2000), The &ad Since Structure. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

LATOUR, BRUNO (1987), Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

MCMULLIN, ERNAN (1991), "Rhetoric and Theory of Choice in Science." In: PERA/SHEA (eds.; 1991), pp. 55-76.

PICKERING, ANDREW (1984), Constructing Quarks: A Sociological History ofParti­de Pf!ysics. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

PERA, MARCELLO and WILLIAM SHEA (eds.; 1991) Persuading Science: The An of Scientific Rhetoric. Canton, MA: Science History Publications.

RITZER, GEORGE (21996), Classical Sociological Theory. New York: McGraw­Hill.

284 Mara Beller

RORTY, RICHARD (1991), Oijectivity, Relativism and Truth, Philosophical Papers, Volume 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

SAMPSON, EDWARD E. (1993), Celebrating the Other, A Dialogic Account of Hu­man Nature. Boulder: Westview Press.

SHAPIN, SlEVEN (1994), A Social History of Truth. Chicago: The Chicago Uni­versity Press.

SHAPIN, STEVEN (1995), "Here and Everywhere: Sociology of Scientific Knowledge," Annual Review of Sociology, vol. 21, pp. 289-321.

SMAIL, HENRY (1974), Characteristics ofFrequentfy Cited Papers in Chemistry. Final Report on Contract no. NSF-C795. Philadelphia: Institute for Scientific Information.

SaKAL, ALAN D. (1996), "Transgressing the Boundaries-Toward a Trans­formative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity," Social Text, vol. 46/47, pp.217-252.

Jean Bricmont on Mara Beller

I will limit myself to two general remarks, one socio-historical, about Mara Beller's fairy tale, the other philosophical, about the nature of my disagree­ment with a good part of the post-Kuhnian work in history and sociology of science and the possibility of a "Third Way".

First of all, there was never (unfortunately) a Glorious Reign of Reason on Earth. I will not attempt to discuss how much progress or regression "rea­son" has made in the society at large since, say, the 1950's. That would in­volve far too many factors. Let me focus only on the academic world, and particularly on the social and human sciences, the humanities, etc. To use a science fiction cliche, I think that someone who had been "frozen" in the 50's and "woke up" today, would find that part of the academic world quite changed. Not necessarily negatively, by any means: the present academic world is far more open-minded, on all kinds of issues, than during the Cold War. But if we narrow down our interest further and focus on the perception that faculty and students have of science and technology, then I think the changes are quite radical and not entirely positive. Again, there used to be a fair amount of science worship and that had to be corrected. But the present climate, what one might call the postmodernist Zeitgeist, seems to me to be a strange combination of extreme ignorance about what science actually says­leading to exaggerated fears about what technology, especially biotechnology, will do-and bizarre confusions about the epistemology of science. The pub­lication of Sokal's hoax, as well as part of the ensuing debate, illustrated those problems. Now, why does it matter? Well, in my university, and probably in others too, more students hear about science in "philosophical" or "socio­logical" courses where they will learn about Popper, Kuhn, Feyerabend or La­tour than in "scientific" courses where they will learn about the work of Newton, Einstein or Darwin!, And that is particularly true of those students who become high school teachers, politicians or journalists. In this way, the postmodernist Zeitgeist spreads beyond the walls of academia to society as a whole. Although it is difficult to measure the effects of all this, let me remark that recent polls show that at the same time that the influence of organized

That is one reason why it might be useful to create more courses of the "science for poets" type that exist in American universities.

286 Comments

religion is collapsing in Western Europe2, beliefs in various superstitions such as astrology, telepathy or alternative therapies are thriving. Concerning these "therapies", it seems that a large fraction of the population, including many doctors, do not understand what makes them "alternative" (the lack of sys­tematic testing) and why one should object to them. It is of course difficult to assess how much that situation owes to the various confusions about the

natural sciences encouraged by postmodernism. But it is to be expected that, at the very least, those confusions do not help. Furthermore, in the discourses about education, the emphasis is constantly put on the relativity of our

knowledge, on the importance of uncertainty, and on how emphatically all this has to be communicated to students (who are probably already skeptical enough about notions such as truth and objectivity).

This brings me to my second point, the notion of consensus in science. It is true that, as Mara Beller points out, both positivist and post-positivist phi­losophers of science have emphasized the importance of consensus. I will not discuss Mara Beller's criticism of that notion, which would take me too far afield. Rather, I want to emphasize what seems to me a crucial difference be­tween the positivists and the post-positivists, namely their respective attitudes toward the basic question: where does consensus come from? Roughly speak­ing, before postmodernism achieved prominence, the dominant view was that consensus arises because we are (sometimes) able to find out (some aspects of) how things really are, and a community of rational scientists comes to agree among themselves because they share, not common beliefs, but a com­mon knowledge. Since this idea is nowadays often dismissed as naive, let me il­lustrate it with one example, which was actually mentioned during the confer­ence: how do humans make babies? What are the respective roles of the mother and the father? This is something that no mildly educated person in the modern world could fail to know. But this is not the case in "other cul­

tures" (or in the not-too-distant past in Europe), where the role of the sperm, for example, may be misunderstood. Now, is our "theory" about how one

makes babies "underdetermined by data"? As a point in philosophy of sci­ence, the answer is obviously "yes"3. It is, in principle, possible that all our

2 For example, in my country (Belgium), which is not atypical in that respect, about 10% of the population still goes to church weekly, and the figures are much lower among the youth.

3 I want to emphasize that this is a purely philosophical remark, basically saying that radical skepticism cannot be refuted, and not a historical one. Mara Beller seems to understand it in a different sense, since she says that underdetermination of theories by data is supported

Neither Modernist Nor Postmodernist-A Third Way 287

theories about the world be false. But there are many theories-like the one about how to make babies-where this theoretical possibility is just that: a purely theoretical possibility. There are theories, of course, that are more speculative, particularly those involving "unobservable quantities" where un­derdetermination is genuine-we discuss that briefly in our paper. Mara Bel­ler gives the example of the "Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechan­ics" versus alternative theories such as Bohm's. Assuming that the Copenhagen vulgate can be considered as a theory, she is certainly right that there is a genuine underdetermination here. But this has nothing to do with

the general philosophical thesis about theories being underdetermined by data. It is a specific problem, in a specific context. So, whenever people want to show that our scientific theories and the consensus about them are "so­

cially constructed" in a nontrivial sense (e.g. in the sense that the beliefs about making babies in other cultures are socially constructed), they have to deal di­rectly with the issue at hand, confront the evidence offered by scientists, ex­plain why they think it is insufficient, why alternative theories are preferable or at least equally plausible, etc. But they can obtain no support from general skeptical theses, such as the underdetermination thesis.

To conclude, I would say that one of the main cultural problems that we face today, and the main one posed by postmodernism, is the destruction of empiricism. I do not mean empiricism as a theory about how the mind works (the idea that it is a tabula rasa at birth, etc.), which is almost certainly false, but as an attitude toward what constitutes genuine knowledge. That only the patient confrontation between clearly stated theories and carefully gathered empirical evidence can qualify for that status; and the observation that, by fol­lowing empirical methods, one has obtained a surprisingly deep understand­ing of the world, unmatched by what is reached by any other "method", such as introspection, intuition, revelations, etc.

Bertrand Russell once observed that the Humean "self-destruction of ra­tionality" was followed by a "great outburst of irrational faith"4. The destruc­

tion of positivism in the 20th century may well have a similar effect. And be­

tween the friends and the enemies of evidence, reason and logics, I am afraid that there is no "Third Way".

by "ample historical evidence". But I am not sure what that can mean-why is not the theory that theories are underdetermined by data also underdetermined by data (i.e., by his­torical evidence), no matter how ample the latter are?

4 BERTRAND RUSSELL, p. 646. 5 Needless to say, I do not count Mara Beller among those enemies.

288 Comments

Jay Rosenberg on Mara Beller

Prof. Beller's paper is very rich, and there is consequently a great deal to say about it. One thing that I want to say at the beginning is that I find Beller's "dialogical" approach to the study of scientific change quite congenial. Dis­agreements can indeed be constructive and creative, and it is hard to quarrel with the claim that "science is simultaneously social and rational". But one point that I do want to stress is that all those dialogues and disagreements are about something-the proper scientific understanding of the world, to put an admittedly-contentious label on it-and one thing that troubles me about Beller's approach is how infrequently that even gets mentioned. Sometimes, to put it metaphorically, it is nature who disagrees with one of our theories­that is, sometimes our theoretically-shaped observational expectations are strikingly disappointed-and we would not be engaged in scientific inquiry if such "disagreements" weren't then centrally relevant to evaluating the contin­ued acceptability of the implicated theories.

Permit me an extended analogy. The point of soccer is scoring goals. In­sofar as you are playing soccer, your aims have to do with scoring goals: You are trying to help your team to score goals, and you are trying to help prevent the opposing team from scoring goals. Scoring goals is what I shall call the in­ternal aim of soccer.

There are, of course, lots of reasons for joining a soccer team and for play­ing soccer. You might be interested in improving your physical fitness and stamina; you might be seeking companionship or a pleasant recreational di­version or trying to measure up to your parents' expectations or hoping to impress your friends with your sports prowess; if you're sufficiently skilled, you might even be aiming at a career as a professional soccer player and then perhaps also at wealth and fame. Analogously, there are lots of reasons for forming or sponsoring soccer teams or leagues and for supporting or promoting soc­cer playing activities. Businesses might be seeking higher profits through ef­fective advertising and improved public goodwill. Cities or states or nations might be interested in increasing tourism and stimulating the economy, or they might be aiming at enhanced civic, regional, or national pride or patriot­ism, or trying to distract a potentially rebellious public from political scandals and corruption. All of these, and indefinitely many more, can be external aims of soccer. But if what we're interested in is how well or poorlY someone plays soccer, then it is his performance vis-a-vis the internal aim of soccer that

Neither Modernist Nor Postmodernist-A Third Way 289

counts. And none of these external aims could be external aims of soccer if there wasn't independentlY such a thing as the game of soccer per se.

I am reactionary enough to think that science is like soccer, that is, that scientific inquiry also has an internal aim. Of course a long story needs to be told at this point, but for present purposes a convenient short label for this internal aim will suffice, so I shall just call it "understanding nature". The point of scientific inquiry is understanding nature. Insofar as we are engaged in scientific inquiry when we formulate, evaluate, and adopt or reject particu­lar theories, our aims have to do with understanding nature.

Beller asserts that religious, moral, and political considerations have his­torically played crucial roles in theory choice, and she quotes Philip Frank as claiming correlatively that "fitness to support desirable conduct on the part of citizens or, briefly, to support moral behavior, has served through the ages as a reason for the acceptance of a theory". But such claims are at least ambigu­ous and, I think, as they most naturally understood, in fact mistaken. It is cer­tainly undeniable that religious, moral, and political considerations have been adduced in debates over, for instance, the promulgation of scientific theories­e.g., Copernican cosmology or Darwinian evolutionary theory-and even more frequently in debates over the applications of such theories-witness the current disputes in Germany regarding pre-implantation genetic assessment of in vitro human embryos. Religious, moral, and political considerations have certainly shaped decisions regarding which projects of scientific inquiry to ad­vocate, to promote, to sponsor, or to fund, e.g., the human genome project, but not the superconducting supercollider. But all this shows only that religious, moral, political, and other (e.g., social or economic) interests have served as external aims of science.

What is not at all clear, however, is that such considerations have ever been regarded by the practitioners of scientific inquiry, i.e., by scientific theo­rizers themselves, as "reasons for the acceptance of a theory" or grounds for theory choice. If what we're interested in is the scientific merits of a particular theory, then it is the theory's performance vis-a-vis the internal aim of science that counts, that is, its contribution to our understanding of nature. That's what we need to keep in mind when we assess such claims as Feyerabend's notorious conclusion, which Frank presumably would have endorsed, that "in the conflict between Galileo and the Church it was the Cardinal Bellarmine's judgement, and not Galileo's, which was the better one". Perhaps it was in­

deed arguably good social policy to promote geocentrism and suppress heliocen­tric theories. Perhaps permitting the open advocacy and unrestrained dis-

290 Comments

semination of Copernican cosmology would indeed have "disrupt[ed] the whole fabric of moral and religious life". But none of this implies that helio­centrism wasn't the scientijical!J better theory, i.e., the one that Galileo had the better scientijic reasons to accept and adopt-and that, of course, was Galileo's own unremitting conclusion. "And yet it moves."

Beller takes Frank as her prototypical logical positivist, but it is worth re­membering that the positivists were a diverse group. Not every thesis en­dorsed by Frank would be equally congenial to, say, Schlick or Neurath or Carnap, not to mention such late-come epigones as Ayer. In particular, I would hope that they would all roundly criticize the normative non sequitur that Frank apparently drew from the failure of observational data, even when supplemented by considerations of such "epistemic virtues" as simplicity and economy, to uniquely determine a choice of theories, namely, that "We can still require their fitness to support desirable moral and political doctrines". (parentheti­cally, I'm quite skeptical about the claim that simplicity and economy are epis­temic virtues, but that's another story for another time.) Of course, we can re­quire that candidate theories fulfill af!Y requirement that we might think up­even such silly ones as that they be formulated in rhyming couplets-but that has nothing to do with their merits as scientijic theories. Analogously, since im­pressionable children often treat professional sports figures as role models, we can require that members of major league soccer teams be well-groomed, polite, soft-spoken, unfailingly friendly, morally upright, and religiously de­vout-but none of that has anything to do with how well they play soccer. If that is what we are interested in, then what counts is only their offensive and defensive performance vis-a.-vis scoring goals. Cardinal Bellarmine and per­haps Frank were concerned with scientists and their intellectual achievements as moral, social, or cultural role models. That's a perfectly legitimate thing to be concerned about-but it shouldn't be confused with the question of how those scientists and their theories measure up as such, that is, in terms of the internal aim of scientific inquiry.

Beller, of course, is neither Frank nor Rorty, and she does not align herself with the kind of strong social constructivism that most naturally resonates with normative claims of the sort that I have just been critically exploring. As

Beller herself insists, "Dialogism as social epistemology differs fundamentally from social constructivism. Dialogism does not hold that social determinants (in the sense of the usual sociological variables) are the primary determinants of scientific ideas." Rather her "central claim", she tells us, "is that disagree­ment is the creative principle of scientific practice", and although I have

Neither Modernist Nor Postmodernist-A Third Way 291

qualms about the definite article, I have quite happily already conceded that "legitimate", "reasonable" disagreement is a creative principle of scientific practice, by no means precluded by the norms of scientific inquiry per se.

That said, however, I find that I remain quite unclear about what, if any­thing, Beller takes to be the norms of scientific inquiry per se, and, indeed, about whether she is even prepared to acknowledge anything falling under that rubric. "Dialogism," she writes, "is not an explanatory theory of the growth of knowledge", but rather "a phenomenological approach for study­ing scientific change (and also a methodology for studying scientific texts)". But descriptive phenomenology is one thing; methodological heuristics, an­

other; and normative epistemology-even normative social epistemology­still quite another.

The crucial question is how we are to understand, e.g., Beller's assertion that "a successful scientific result is one that is strongly embedded in the

practice of the day", where such "embedding" is achieved dialogicallY, "by si­multaneously responding to as many other scientific statements (from other papers, conversations, etc.) as possible--drawing on many possible support links (confirmations), taking into account many possible objections (refuta­

tions)". Is strong dialogical embedding in the scientific community supposed to be constitutive of or criterial for scientific success as such, or is it rather that such embedding has in fact proved methodologicallY fruitful (perhaps even methodologically indispensable) in helping to cull acceptable from unaccept­able theories? Do the relevant "support links" and "objections" have the form of scientific statements, e.g., expressions of agreement and disagreement regarding the result in question, or are they, as the parenthetical remarks would have it, "confirmations" and "refutations", that is, the obseroations and experimental outcomes, standing in normative evidential relationships to that os­tensible result, that may be reporled in publications or at congresses and collo­quia?

The ambiguities are striking. How Beller would resolve them remains un­

clear. What I suspect, however, is she would be inclined to regard her thesis

that "the rationality of science is dialogical and communicative" as both nor­

mative and constitutive rather than as merely phenomenologically descrip­tive-or even as trivially correct, for, after all, in light of Wittgenstein's com­pelling conclusions regarding "private languages", how could any form of

rationality fail to be "dialogical and communicative"? And if this is so, then I

would argue that the affinities of her "dialogism" with social constructivism, whether in the positivist guise endorsed by Frank or the postmodernist ver-

292 Comments

sion advocated by Rorty, are much closer than Beller would evidently like to

admit.

References

RUSSELL, BERTRAND (1991), History of Western Philosopf?y. London: Routledge

& Kegan Paul [First published in 1946].