Popper rejected one of the most fundamental dualities that Plato and Aristotle passed down to western philosophy – that of ‘knowledge’ versus ‘opinion’. Even in science, this duality is rejected, according to Popper:
… in science there is no ‘knowledge’, in the sense in which Plato and Aristotle understood the word, in the sense which implies finality; in science, we never have sufficient reason for the belief that we have attained the truth. What we usually call ‘scientific knowledge’ is, as a rule, not knowledge in this sense, but rather information regarding the various competing hypotheses and the way in which they have stood up to various tests; it is, using the language of Plato and Aristotle, information concerning the latest, and the best tested, scientific ‘opinion’. This view means, furthermore, that we have no proofs in science (excepting, of course, pure mathematics and logic). (13)
And that is precisely why many religious types attempt to denigrate science: it does not offer knowledge or truth. But according to Popper, and all scientists, this is the redeeming feature of science. If they offered truths, then the progress of science would simply grind to a halt. When you have the truth, you have nowhere else to go. You have reached a dead end. On the other hand, if science deals essentially with hypotheses and conjectures, then the forward march of science will continue indefinitely. The prime motive of science is to refute or reject hypotheses. In religion, on the other hand, the prime motive is to back-up and sustain already accepted truths. More and more work is done to protect the long-established truths of religion. They have no intention, unlike scientists, of refuting or disproving religious truths. That is why religion atrophies in the mire of tradition. However, admirably it is also the case that certain adaptation and re-evaluations are carried out, but only to make the old truths more palatable to modern ears. The changes and reforms are simply means to an end: reinforcing the old truths in the new language. Indeed, according to Poincaré, religious types often talk of the ‘ruins of science’. Religious building, one must conclude, remain steadfast and permanent. But who wants to live in a wooden hut? Bring forth new buildings!
It is strange therefore, in the light of the Popper passage above, that someone like Richard Dawkins should ask for proof of God’s existence when Popper himself, a major defender of the scientific method, should say that ‘we have no proofs in science’. This means that proofs, like truths, would act as roadblocks in the progress of science. If one has a proof of a hypothesis, then there is nowhere else to go. So let’s keep well clear of proofs and truths in science. Leave proofs and truths to the atrophied domains of religion.
And that is why Plato, and many other philosophers, went wrong. They thought that the exactitudes of logic and mathematics could be applied to the empirical world. But numbers and the laws of logic are simply tools for describing the world and not the world itself. Indeed mathematics does not even attempt to describe the world but simply invents its own:
On the other hand, pure mathematics and logic, which permit of proofs, gives us no information about the world, but only develop the means of describing it. Thus we could say… ‘In so far as scientific statements refer to the world of experience, they must be refutable; and, in so far as they are irrefutable, they do not refer to the world of experience.’… (13)
According to Popper, not only are truths and proofs counterproductive in science, it is also the case that the very essence of a scientific statement is that it must be open to refutation. If it is not open to refutation, it is not a genuine scientific statement. Only mathematical and logical statements are beyond refutation, and are therefore subject to proof. However, this is simply the case because mathematical and logical statements are not about the empirical world. Therefore it is not surprising that such statements are irrefutable.
2 + 2 = 4 is irrefutably 4 because it does not apply to the ‘world of experience’. What about two cows plus two cows equals four cows? This refers to the world of experience and it is still irrefutably true. Yes, one aspect of that statement refers to the world (the bit about cows). However, the numbers themselves have no empirical reference. Therefore, according to Kant, this could be deemed an ‘impure’ a priori statement because of its reference to cows. But the reference to cows is irrelevant to that statement. What matters is that 2 + 2 = 4, the cows are only brought in as a means to exemplify and simplify the nature of arithmetical equations.
On Truth and Scientific Theories
The question in science for Popper, and now for many others, is not whether or not a theory is true, but whether or not it is an advance on a previous theory:
… we know that our scientific theories must always remain hypotheses, but that, in many important cases, we can find out whether or not a new hypothesis is superior to an old one. For if they are different, they will lead to different predictions, which can often be tested experimentally; and on the basis of such a crucial experiment, we can sometimes find out that the new theory leads to satisfactory results when the old one breaks down. Thus we can say that in our search for truth, we have replaced scientific certainty by scientific progress. And this view of scientific method is corroborated by the development of science. For science does not develop by a gradual encyclopaedic accumulation of essential information, as Aristotle thought, but by bold ideas, by the advancement of new and very strange theories (such as the theory that the earth is not flat, or that ‘metrical space’ is not flat), and the overthrow of the old ones. (The Open Society and its Enemies, 13)
Popper quite willingly admits that
our scientific theories must always remain hypotheses.
A theory is really a special case of a hypothesis. It is a hypothesis that has been more highly tested and confirmed that its hypothesis brothers. Theories are still hypotheses because it is always possible to amend them, or even reject them. However, it does not follow from any of this that no theory is better than another competing theory. One theory may well be ‘superior to an old one’, or even more superior than a contemporary rival theory. The difference between rival theories can be, as it were, quantified. The rival theories will lead ‘to different predictions’. The better the predictions, the better the theory. Or the better the kinds and power of the predictions, the better the theory. And it is of course the case that rival theories must all be capable of being ‘tested experimentally’. If they are not so, then they are not genuine theories. More precisely, a good theory will lead to certain ‘satisfactory results’, whereas a bad theory may ‘break down’ when tested or experimentally examined.
However, none of these competing rival theories will ever offer us ‘certainty’. Certainty belongs to the domain of logic and mathematics, not science. What we have instead, as a result of all this competition between rival theories, is ‘scientific progress’. The competition and rivalry themselves insure scientific progress. If we claimed certainty for any of our theories, then the rivalry and competition would immediately be the case. Therefore scientific progress would also immediately cease. Thank God for competition when it comes to theory-choice. None of this, however, is normative scientific theory. Competition is where science has been at all along. The philosopher of science doesn’t need to convince the scientist that competition is a good thing. He already knows this. Induction is often used in science. However, induction itself shows us that science itself has been the domain of competition throughout the centuries. This inductive interpretation of scientific progress has been ‘corroborated’ by the history of science itself.
The alternative view of science, held by Aristotle and many laypersons, is that science develops
by a gradual encyclopaedic accumulation of essential information.
This would just be a grandiloquent case of stamp collecting or a grand preparation for a general knowledge quiz at one’s local pub. It is not just about ‘essential information’ being accumulated. If this were the case, then why would scientists reject so many past pieces of once-thought-of ‘essential information’. Science is about more than the mindless accumulation of information and ‘facts’. According to Popper, science advances because of its ‘bold ideas’ and ‘new and very strange theories’. Certain scientists may not only disregard the mindless accumulation of information and facts, they may reject or refute or ignore once ‘essential’ pieces of information and those things that were once christened ‘facts’. Popper gives his own examples of ‘new and strange theories’: the theory that the earth is not flat and the theory that ‘metrical space’ is not flat. These theories were not just accumulated from pre-existing data. In fact at first these theories were rejected precisely because they conflicted or contradicted supposedly ‘essential information’. Nevertheless, despite the fact they were at odds with pre-existing theories and facts, these theories still had remarkable explanatory power, simplicity and symmetry. However, these positive properties were still at odds with what went before.
Most scientists simply don’t work with the concept of ‘absolute truth’ in the first place – there are only approximations and short-term pretexts. If there were absolute truths, or even just simple truths, in science, then perhaps advance or progress would grind to a halt. That is why, essentially, scientists are on the lookout forfalsehoods, rather than truths. Imagine if we had accepted Newton’s theories as true for all time, then we wouldn’t now have Einstein’s relativity theory or quantum mechanics. Indeed we could easily go farther back than Newton and accept, say, a Baconian view of science, or even the science of the pre-Socratics. Instead of truth, Popper talked in terms of ‘truth-content’ and ‘falsity-content’ of scientific theories:
Assuming that the truth-content and the falsity-content of two theories t1 and t2 are comparable, we can say that t2 is more closely similar to the truth, or corresponds better to the facts, than t1, if only either
(a)the truth-content but not the falsity-content of t2 exceeds that of t1
(b)the falsity-content of t1, but not its truth-content, exceeds that of t2. (Conjectures and Refutations, 235)
Similarly, Popper talked about ‘verisimilitude’ rather than ‘truth’. There are levels of verisimilitude rather than absolute or complete falsehoods and truths. Another way we can put this is that scientists deal in partial truth, never absolute truth. This means that there is always further to go. Indeed absolute truth may never be reached, although it can be seen as a kind of ‘ideal limit’ or, in Peirce’s terms, a place of future ‘convergence’. Newton’s theory of determinate space and time had both a falsity-content and a truth-content. However, the replacements or advancements on Newtonian mechanics may themselves also have a degree of ‘falsity-content’ alongside their ‘truth-content’.
There are spaces to occupy between absolute truth and absolute falsehood. Only in logic and mathematics could it be any other way. That is because these disciplines are not about theworld, though their findings can be applied to the world:
… although a theory might be false in that disconfirming instances have been discovered, we can still talk of it as being an approximation to the truth. Newton’s theory of dynamics, for example, although refuted can still be regarded as superior to Galileo’s because of its greater content of explanatory power.
The situation, then, with Newton’s theory of dynamics is that its ‘falsity-content’ outweighed its ‘truth-content’ when compared with future advances, just as Newton theory had more ‘truth-content’ than Galileo’s theories.
Principles or Axioms as Proposals
It is a common assumption that logic requires axioms in order to get started. However, perhaps only logical systems require axioms as their starting point. According to Popper, if logic does indeed have or require axioms, then it will be a logic with “assumptions”. The axioms will be the assumptions. Indeed not only does the logician assume the axioms, but also the actual truth, correctness or nature of axioms in logic is often simply assumed. We do not need axioms, according to Popper; all we need is “the general notion of deducibility”. It is not the premises or axioms of a logical system that matter, but the deducibility of one thing from another. That more than anything needs to be clarified and explained. All we really need, therefore, is deductive inference in a truly logical system. Axioms and even premises are seen as essentially peripheral. Inference, whether deductive, entailment or implication, is what really matters in logic. The same notion of deducibility can be used in systems with wildly different sorts of premises or statements.
It is not a case of there being axioms; it seems to be the case that there needs to be axioms. Without axioms, thought itself is not possible. Take the belief in empiricism and Popper’s ‘Falsification Theory’. They appear to be axiomatic, or first principles, but what really matters is there utility:
… the empiricist principle was itself empirical… the principle of verifiability, the 20th century version of the empiricist principle. Critics asked what sort of truth it itself was: empirical or, the only alternative its proponents acknowledged, analytic, true in virtue of the meaning of the words expressing it? Neither option was very attractive. To admit it was empirical left it weak and refutable… Popper frankly admitted that his roughly similar criterion of falsifiability, as a means of demarcating not sense from nonsense, but science from metaphysics, was a proposal, or convention, recommended on the grounds of its intellectual advantages.
The empiricist principle of induction is itself an empirical theory. The inductive law is justified by appeal to previous examples of induction and what features these induction had in empirical world. What about the Principle of Verifiability? What sort of truth is it? Indeed, is it a truth at all? Is it empirical? Not really, because it tells us what ought to be the case, not what is the case. Surely acts of verification are empirically observable. We can observe acts of verification in terms of tests and experiments. Is the Principle of Verifiability analytic? Is it ‘true in virtue of the meanings of the words expressing it’? That would depend on the meanings we give the terms in the possible analytic statement of verifiability. On some readings it will not be analytic. On other readings the analyticity of words may only be a stipulative fact. This would mean that the verifiability principle would have been constructed to be analytic. That kind of analyticity is not the kind that people like or accept.
There were problems for both the empirical and the analytic option. If the principle were in fact empirical, it would be ‘left weak and refutable’. It would not, therefore, work in the manner of a principle or an axiom. It would not be strong enough to do the work it was required to do.
Popper’s solution to these problems was to treat the Verifiability Principle as a ‘proposal, or convention’. If viewed this way, it would not need to be true. It need only be correct. And that correctness would itself be chosen, as it were, because the principle has its ‘intellectual advantages’ over other theories or principles. Popper, therefore, applied the same kind of reasoning to his own Falsification Theory. It too was ‘a proposal, or a convention’ that would have its advantages over other theories and principles.
There is a difference between the verifiability principle and the Theory of Falsification.
According to Popper, the verificationists used their principle to ‘demarcate sense from nonsense’. What is nonsense are all the statements that cannot be empirically verified. Popper, on the other hand, said that his Falsification Theory is supposed to demarcate ‘science from metaphysics’. Many, if not all, metaphysical statements cannot be falsified. This is more of an argument against metaphysical statement than the fact that they cannot be verified. Indeed we could say that whereas the verificationists formulated what is essentially a principle of empirical epistemology, Popper’s theory is a normative theory of science, where falsification and refutation are more important means to dismiss statements than by claiming that they are unverifiable.
Symbol Systems
We can see in Popper foreshadows of many of early Derrida’s ideas. The idea that we cannot reach through language or words/concepts to ‘pure presence’; there is only the ‘play of the sign’. Words are defined by other words, which are themselves defined by other words. No word or concept or thing is ever captured in a ‘finite web’ of meaning:
The derivation [of a term] shifts the problem of truth back to the premises, the definition shifts the problem of meaning back to the defining terms (i.e., the terms that make up the defining formula). But these, for many reasons, are likely to be just as vague and confusing as the terms we started with, and in any case, we should have to go on to define them in turn; which leads to new terms which too must be defined. And so on, to infinity. (17)
And that must surely be the problem with definitions: they too will contain terms which themselves will need defining. A similar problem is apparent when it comes to an argument and the premises on which they are based. The premises of any argument may themselves depend on further premises and conclusions that may act as justifications for the validity or truth of the initial premise. Thus we have on our hands a regress of justification. But the game cannot go on forever. This is why we must, at some point, simply accept premises or arguments or definitions if we are to get going on our philosophical or logical enterprise. Perhaps this is also an argument for some form of foundationalism. The premises that we accept, however, need not be ‘self-evident’ or ‘indubitable’ or anything like that. They simply need to be the starting points of reasoning if we are to avoid an infinite regress.
These facts alone may show use that, in certain senses, we will remain trapped within language, unless of course we depend on starting points like ‘sense data’ or the ‘given’: things that are pure in nature and free from conceptual or linguistic baggage. The question is, of course, whether or not there are such things.
In a sense it is precisely because definitions depend on their own un-defined terms that all words, or nearly all words, are inherently vague. As Derrida might have put it: meaning is never ‘fully present’. And that is because the meaning of a single word depends upon all the meanings of all the words in thesymbol systemto which it belongs. We cannot have a precise definition, if the definiendum itself contains terms that are not themselves defined. Even if we do in fact define the terms in the definition, these definitions of the terms in the definition will themselves require elaboration and definition. And so on indefinitely.
The holist position on this problem will be that we must take into account the symbol-system to which the words under definition belong. This too is problematic. How can we really take on board an entire symbol system each time we want to define a term? Does this mean going on an infinite regress? And if not an infinite regress, does it mean taking on board all the other words of the symbol system? If not, then perhaps a large sub-system of the larger symbol system? In that respect, the regress will not be infinite, but circular. This essentially means that we will arrive back at some of the terms under definition that we actually started with. There are just as many problems with holism, or coherentism, as there are with atomism. Similar points to these were raised, amongst others by Bradley, in the 19th century. Because of the problem of holism, Bradley concluded that no statement could be absolutely true. Similarly, we may now say that no definition is ever free from vagueness precisely because of its containment within a large symbol system.
Science and the Infinite Variety of Facts
It is because there are an ‘infinite variety of facts’, and each one of this ‘infinite variety’ has itself an ‘infinite variety of aspects’, that we have to approach the world of facts with presuppositions. It may be an ideology, a scientific theory, a prejudice, or whatever. The theory itself makes the choices in science. The ideology makes the choices in historical research and political knowledge.
These theories, or even prejudices, act in a similar manner to the un-argued premises or axioms in arguments or logical/mathematical systems. Because of the infinite amount of facts that are possible candidates for comment and research, something prior is required to get the ball rolling. (Just as the sceptical doubt in the very act of doubting must presuppose certain things that are beyond doubt, at least within specific contexts.) The theory, or prejudice, then, allows the theorist to do some ‘proper ignoring’ of certain facts or possible facts, as David Lewis put it. The theory, in a certain sense, selects what facts should be concentrated upon and which should be ignored. It therefore determines the scope of the investigation and research. Without an a prior theory or prejudice, as it were, the theorist would be faced with a manifold of possible facts. Such a bombardment would serve no purpose in either science or philosophy.
… a science is not merely a ‘body of facts’. It is, at the very least, a collection, and as such it is dependent upon the collector’s interests, upon a point of view. In science, this point of view is usually determined by a scientific theory; that is to say, we select from the infinite variety of facts, and from the infinite variety of aspects of facts, those facts and those aspects which are interesting because they are connected with some more or less preconceived scientific theory. (259)
The scientist must have ‘interests’ and ‘points of view’. More than that, his interests and points of view help determine the direction in which his investigations go. Indeed without such interests and perspectives the scientist would not in effect go in any direction in his investigations. He would be in a continual state of cognising more and more facts, without a hope of connecting them or making sense of them. This is also some kind of selection process. Not all possible facts are open to investigation or analysis. Many must be disregarded and the rest are selected. Without such selection, the scientific project itself would not even begin. The facts that will be selected, therefore, are ones that help legitimise the theory which itself is responsible for determining the selection process. It could be said, therefore, that there is a certain circularity involved here. The theory selects the facts to investigate. And those very facts may help to legitimise the theory that is doing the selection.
The above could easily be rewritten thus:
In politics and history our point of view is often determined by an ideology. That is to say, we select from the infinite variety of political and historical facts, and from the infinite variety of aspects of these political and historical facts, those facts and those aspects which are usefulbecause they backup and are connected with our preconceived ideologies.
Just as in science, so too in politics and even everyday life, we must in a sense select the facts and bits of information that will help us make sense of the world around us. We cannot be open to the manifold or the infinite. And even if we were, such a state would not get us anywhere. It would result in some kind of endless listand description of an indefinite amount of facts and bits of information. What point would that serve? It was just be a glorified listwith no practical or theoretical purpose, just as the ‘accumulation of facts’ theory of science is a complete parody of actual science. Something needs to guide us, whether a theory, an ideology, a prejudice, an interest, a bias, or mixture of these.
In the end we build up a securer and securer ideological edifice. The problem is, of course, that the foundation of this ideological edifice may be insecure because it is based on prejudice or falsehoods.
There is no way out of the problem of escaping the clutches of one’s ideologies or one’s scientific theories. There are two choices:
1) The acceptance of a ‘heap of entirely unconnected statements’. Or
2) To accept, with Popper and Gödel, that no ‘finite system’ can ever capture the infinite.
In order to describe this infinite wealth, we have at our disposal only a finite number of finite series of words. Thus we may describe as long as we like: our description will always be incomplete, a mere selection, a small one at that, of the facts which present themselves for description. This shows that it is not only impossible to avoid a selective point of view, but also wholly undesirable top attempt to do so; for if we could do so, we should get not a more ‘objective’ description, but only a mere heap of entirely unconnected statements… this is true, most emphatically, in the case of historical description, with its ‘infinite subject matter’ , as Schopenhauer calls it. Thus in history no less than in science, we cannot avoid a point of view; and the belief that we can must lead to self-deception… (261)
This position, advanced by Popper, has certain similarities with Bradley’s conception of the Absolute. Just as Bradley argued that no statements or propositions could express the absolute truth, or capture the Absolute, so Popper argued that ‘our description will always be incomplete’. Again, we need to ‘select’ from all the phenomena available to us. Popper adds his own take on these issues. If we were to capture the Absolute, or say it all, all we would be left with would be
a mere heap of entirely unconnected statements.
And if that’s Bradley’s Absolute, then what’s the point of it? However, if the Absolute were simply a kind of list of all the facts or all the true statements we can make about the world, then this grandiloquent list would be impossible because of its ‘infinite subject matter’, as Schopenhauer put it.
Actually facts never actually ‘present themselves’ to us, we, as it were, present ourselves to them. In a sense we know beforehand what we are going to take to be facts. If every fact in the world presented itself to us we would be quite simply snowed under. In one sense, our prior accepted facts determine, to some extent, the things that we shall accept as facts in the future. Prior facts determine theexistence and nature of future facts. A fact, therefore, is simply something that we select from the manifold. And if we didn’t or couldn’t select, we would be bombarded with an indefinite amount of facts or potential facts. This means that a fact does not acquire factual status precisely because there are an infinite amount of facts for possible investigation, etc. Some facts are simply useless or uninformative. For example, the fact that I have twenty seven books with blue covers. Or the fact that if all my urinations, past and present, were collected together, they would fill an average-size reservoir. It does not stop there. Even certain facts that are useful or informative will still need to be ignored, ‘proper ignored’, depending on the context and what we require from the facts that we do select. Facts can be pretty idle creatures, whereas theories, for example, do all the hard work.
Constructing Reality?
It is strange how we can find similarities not only between different philosophical theories but also between philosophical theories and religious and scientific theories. For instance, note the remarkable similarity between Popper’s description of Bacon’s ‘scientific attitude’ and the Buddhist view that ‘concepts and language’ limit the human mind:
Bacon held that to prepare the mind for the intuition of the true essence or nature of a thing, it has to be meticulously cleansed of all anticipations, prejudices, and idols. For the source of all error is in the impurity of our own minds; Nature itself does not lie… (Popper)
It can be seen here that Bacon’s position was a precursor of Descartes’. He too attempted to cleanse themind of all ‘prejudices and idols’. Descartes went further than Bacon in that he attempted to clear his mind of everything, even those beliefs and tools he had hitherto thought to be true and sound. Bacon, on the other hand, presumably accepted many of the scientific truths of his day. He only rejected common ‘prejudices and idols’. The difference is, of course, that Bacon’s prime concern was science and the methods of science, whereas Descartes’ enterprise was essentially epistemological in nature. And therefore he could not, at that time, rely on the findings or methods of science. Indeed Descartes wanted to find secure foundations for science. Therefore he could hardly rely on the findings and methods of science.
Of course these quasi-solipsistic or individualist approaches have been severely criticised in 20th century philosophy. Can a true mind-cleansing be carried out without affecting our ability to reason, or even think, at all? We need to start with something. Even the sceptic must renounce the doubt of some things if his sceptical enterprise is to get started in the first place.
Against this attitude Popper offers a view that squares remarkably well with the poststructuralist view that language constructs reality; and that there is no true ‘essence’ of ‘Nature’ beyond the subject. The same, for Popper, applies to scientific ‘facts’:
We do not stumble upon our experiences, nor do we let them flow over us like a stream. Rather, we have to be active: we need to make our experiences. It is we who always formulate the questions to be put to nature; it is we who try again to put these questions so as to elicit a clear-cut ‘yes’ or ‘no’ (for nature does not give an answer unless pressed for it). ( )
This is another way of saying that there are no truths or falsehoods in the world as it is in itself. Truth and falsity, on certain readings, are simply properties of statements, not properties of the world itself. Similarly, we ‘need to make our experiences’. The world does not tell us what to think about it. It doesnot tell us anything. If nature does tell us anything, it is only in response to our investigations and questions. And even then there will be many possible answers that can be given to given questions.
One of our leading scientists, Steven Hawking, entirely concurs with Popper’s conclusions:
If what we regards as real depends on our theory, how can we make reality the basis of our philosophy? But we cannot distinguish what is real about the universe without a theory. I therefore take the view, which has been described as simple-minded or naïve, that a theory of physics is just a mathematical model that we use to describe the results of observations… Beyond that it makes no sense to ask if it corresponds to reality, because we do not know what reality is independent of theory.
In a sense this is a way of saying that theories tell us what to think. At least we cannot think orquestion outside of all theories. Without theories we would be bombarded by a possible infinite ‘variety of facts’. Reality, therefore, is seen through the lenses supplied by sometimes-conflicting theories. Therefore theories are a little like Kantian categories or concepts, except, of course, that all scientific theories are contingent and conditional rather than a priori and necessary. However, we could say here that even if no specific theory, or group of theories, is necessary, some theory or other isindeed necessary. Or at least it will be necessary, in Hawking’s case, for a ‘theory of physics’ and therefore a view of reality.
In Hawking’s specific case, his theory takes the form of a ‘mathematical model’. More specifically, mathematical models are used by physicists ‘to describe the results of observations’. If we want to understand these observations, it is the case that mathematical models are absolutely necessary. We could not even observe what the physicists observe if we had no such mathematical models. It’s not the case that models or theories distort observations, etc., it is simply the case that we would not be able to talk about observations, in these complex cases, without the help of our theories.
Bacon’s acquiescence to nature can be found in Taoist thinking. And in Hindu thought we are told to accept nature ‘as it is’ – it is beyond questions and human concepts. More specifically, the ‘Absolute Brahman’, the Ultimate Reality, is ‘not this, not that’.
There is no such thing as ‘acquiescing to nature’, as Bacon claimed. If we did so, we would not form conclusions and theories about reality. Indeed perhaps we would not even think at all about reality. We would simply exist like a lower animal or even a tree. And perhaps this is what the Taoist, but not the Baconian, wanted. Even in the Taoist case, this would not be any kind of relation to nature; it would be just a naked existence alongside nature. Indeed in a sense the subject would be part of nature in the sense of lacking, say, any form of intentionality or self-consciousness. If we choose to ‘accept nature as it is’, this too is just another perspective or position – the perspective of ‘accepting nature as it is’. We cannot escape theories and perspectives, unless we cease thought altogether and then, perhaps, die in the process.
I think that quoting Popper and Steven Hawking can make the case against the extreme realism and objectivism of Peirce:
We do not stumble upon our experiences, nor do we let them flow over us like a stream. Rather, we have to be active: we have to make our experiences. It is we who always formulate the questions to be put to nature; it is we who try again to put these questions so as the elicit a clear-cut ‘yes’ or ‘no’ (for nature does not give answers unless pressed for it).
When we are doing science, or philosophy, or any other discipline, we ‘do not stumble upon experiences’. However, when not cognitively engaged, this may well be the case. When it comes to our studies or analyses, we, in a sense, chose our experiences. We decide what to observe and what to study. Nature does not ask us questions. And neither does nature determine the questions that we ask. It is
we who always formulate the questions to be put to nature.
Without our questions, nature would give us no answers. Indeed, literally speaking, nature does not answer any of our questions. We have to find the answers that nature itself does not give us.
Hawking says that theory comes before a scientist apprehends reality:
… we cannot distinguish what is real about the universe without a theory… it makes no sense to ask if it [the theory] corresponds to reality, because we do not know what reality is independent of theory.
It is not the case that we can apply different theories to different observations or bits of data. It is the case that we need a theory in order to ask nature questions, as it were. Without theories we would be like poor-sighted people without their glasses. In order to see the universe, or these recondite aspects of the universe, we need to look through our theories. There would be nothing to look at without the spectacles that are our theories.
The obvious riposte to all this would be:
Does the theory correspond to reality?
Without a theory
we do not know what reality is independent of theory.
If there is such a thing as ‘correspondence with reality’, then this correspondence can only be brought about when we use theories to bring the relation of correspondence about. There is no reality without theories, concepts, etc., but only, in Kantian terms, a ‘manifold’.
Doesn’t Peirce say that theories are derived from the nature of ‘Real Things’, rather than the other way around? What does Peirce’s claim mean? How can nature impose its own theories on us? In order to do so it would need to already be theoretical in nature. When we talk about reality and reality’s theories, we must surely be taking these things to be distinguishable. The world must be made of theories, etc. This is obviously not the case. If there is a distinction between reality and our theories, then it will be up to us, at least partly, what theories and concepts we choose. ‘Real Things’ may be real things, but this will mean that they do not contain, as it were, the theories that we adopt. We choose them. We have causal interaction with reality; but that casual interaction itself does not tell us what theories to construct and adopt.
Application: Quantum Theory and Pictures of Nature
The problem with quantum physics is that the ‘pictures’ we use to understand quantum events are inadequate. Does this mean that quantum reality is beyond our understanding? Popper writes:
A theory is not a picture. It need not be ‘understood’ by way of ‘visual images’: we understand a theory if we understand the problem which it is designed to solve, and the way in which it solves it better, or worse, than its competitors. Some people may combine this kind of understanding with visual images, others may not. But the most vivid visualisation does not amount to an understanding of the theory… (45)
This is where the metaphysical mumbo-jumbo arises – from the simple fact the ‘pictures’ are mot exact ‘mirrors of nature’:
These considerations are important because of the endless talk about the ‘particle picture;’ and the ‘wave picture’ and their alleged ‘duality’ or ‘complementarity’, and about the alleged necessity, asserted by Bohm, of using ‘classical pictures’ because of the… difficulty, or perhaps impossibility, of ‘visualising’ and thus ‘understanding’ atomic objects. But this kind of ‘understanding’ is of little value…
… the fashionable thesis that the attempt to ‘understand’ modern physical theories is futile since they are essentially ‘un-understandable’… amounts to the somewhat absurd assertion that we cannot know what problems they are intended to solve… (Quantum Theory and the Schism in Physics, 45, 1982)
The probabilities we find in quantum physics, according to Popper, have nothing whatsoever to do with our lack of knowledge; they are the essence of quantum reality itself:
… new probabilistic physics was regarded for a long time as connected with our lack of knowledge. Even during the 1930s, and perhaps longer, it was still thought that probabilistic considerations enter physics only because we cannot possibly know the precise positions and momenta of all molecules in a gas. The forces us to attribute probabilities to the various possibilities; a method that is the basis of statistical mechanics. If we could know, if we could be certain, of all the positions and momenta of the particles in question, we should not have to fall back on probabilities.
Thus a link was forged between lack of knowledge on the one side and probabilistic or statistical physics on the other. (Quantum Theory…, 4)
Popper, however, believes that ‘indeterminacy’ is ‘objective’:
… when their [Heisenberg, etc.] objective side came to the fore, they were still interpreted as statements about the impossibility of certain measurements due to the non-existence of the entitiesmeasured – instead as statements about the impossibility of producing scatter-free (dispersion-free) quantum states. (5)
Einstein supported this view [subjectivist] for a long time by the argument (in my opinion mistaken) that quantum mechanics is a probabilistic theory and that probability comes into physics only because our lack of knowledge.
I always regarded this subjectivist view of probability as mistaken, and I think that Einstein gave it up – perhaps finally – during our discussion in 1950. (6)
Furthermore, Popper dismissed the mysticism of quantum theory and believed that quantum reality was concrete:
Quantum mechanics was, after all, not an abstract physical formalism but a theory of something very concrete: a theory of atoms, a theory of their structure as possessing a positively charged nucleus and a shell structure of negative electrons that explained, in principle, very concrete properties of the chemical elements. (11)
The problem is, therefore, the complexity of quantum states, not their unknowability or the dangerous role of the observer.
It is the role of the observer that is supposed to make the true reality of quantum states forever beyond our grasp. Is this the case? Popper writes:
… the preparation or setting up of an experiment always had, and continues to have, a great deal to do with our changing knowledge: it depends on theory.
This can be taken to mean that our knowledge and out theories will themselves determine the nature of our experiments and tests. They may even determine the type of equipment we use to experiment on a given phenomenon. Once we have made that theory-relative choice, then that choice of experiment will of course partly determine the results of these experiments.
Our theories which guide us in setting up our experiments and in the interpretation of their results have of course always been our inventions: they are inventions or products of our ‘consciousness’. But that has nothing to do with the scientific status of our theories which depends on factors such as their simplicity, symmetry, and explanatory power, and on the way they have stood up to critical discussion and to crucial experimental tests; and on their truth (correspondence to reality), or nearness to truth. (41)
Not only does our theory or our theories determine the choice of experimental procedures and the scientific equipment we use, but these theories, or other theories, will also guide us in ‘the interpretation of their results’. The results of the experiments and tests will be filtered through our pre-existing theories, they will not, in and of themselves, determine what theories we adopt and use. Popper goes so far as to say that our theoretical and scientific ‘interpretations’ are our ‘inventions’.
However, there are givens of scientific theory. Things that, according to Popper, all scientists abide by when it comes to theory choice. They will want there theories to be
simple, symmetrical and have explanatory power.
Such is theory A is simpler than theory B, it may well be the case that theory A is chosen. However, there are three properties that characterise good scientific theories. Theory B may be more complex than theory A, but be more symmetrical or have greater explanatory power. Alternatively, a theory may well be simple, but be explanatorily weak. And so on. We will need to take in account the various configuration of the three prime theoretical properties: simplicity, symmetry and explanatory power. A particular theory may have one property, but not the other two. Alternatively, it may have two, but have very little explanatory power. It may have all three of these properties, but only to a limited respect. Alternatively, a theory may have a very high degree of simplicity or explanatory power, and absolutely no sense of symmetry. One could no say that if it is simple, then surely it must be symmetrical. Also, if it is very simple, won’t it also have a degree of explanatory power? Also, if the theory is symmetrical, then won’t it also be simple? And, finally, if it has a high degree of explanatory power, won’t it also be simple and, indeed, symmetrical? Indeed it may prove to be difficult to separate the properties of simplicity, symmetry and explanatory power.
Popper also mentions slightly different properties of good theories in the above. Each theory must be able to ‘stand up to critical discussion’. Not only that, but a good theory must also ‘stand up to crucial experimental tests’. In a theory is un-falsifiable, then clearly it wouldn’t be able to stand up to critical discussion or crucial experimental tests. It could not, therefore, be criticised or properly tested because it has been built not to sustain criticism or testability. And if that’s the case, then it is not a genuine theory or hypothesis.
My thesis… is that the observer, or better, the experimentalist, plays in quantum theory exactly the same role as in classical physics. His task is to test the theory. (35)
Popper says something that is very interesting about the nature of the ‘observer in quantum theory’. Many people have made much of the way the observer, or experimentalist, alters that which is under observation or that which is being experimented upon. It will depend on the observer, or the observer and his experimental tools, whether a particle is seen as a waveform or a particle-form. According to popper, observers and experimentalists have always affected the nature of the phenomenon under observation. Their theories will determine the results to a large extent. Also, the experiments tools used, etc., will also have an affect on what is under experiment. In these senses, then, quantum theory is no different from traditional types of scientific theory and experimentation. Reality does not speak to us. It is we who ask nature questions.
To put this simply. In both classical physics and quantum physics the theory is of vital importance. And in both instances, it is the experimentalist’s task to ‘test the theory’. And, as ever, it is the theory that comes first. The theory is not the end result of observation and experimental tests.
Why has indeterminacy been associated with states that cannot be known? Let us not forget, after all, that indeterminacy exists in the non-quantum world too. For instance, could we ever know how many insects there are in the world at any one moment? Of course not. The insects still exist. And there must also be an exact number of all insects too.
End Piece: Is the Falsification Theory Self-Referential?
Perhaps Popper formulated something that already existed in some form or other (if not in his own specific version). I have heard Popper’s theory used against, for example, many of Freud’s claims as well as against the claim that there may be - or are - infinite universes. Indeed it is now almost a common sense theory when especially used by those who are scientifically minded but not (necessarily) actual scientists. However, until Charles S. Peirce formulated his related theory of “fallibilism” (in late 19th century), such ideas were very rarely discussed. Nevertheless, the history or aetiology of this theory, and the way Popper himself may have elaborated upon it elsewhere, is of no concern here. The theory is taken as it stands or as a single statement or sentence that is, possibly, self-referential or homological.
Popper’s Falsification Theory states that all theories must be open to possible falsification. The obvious question now is:
Can Popper’s theory of possible falsification itself be falsified or is it falsifiable in principle?
If it can actually be falsified, then the theory is invalid or simply false. And if it is falsifiable in principle, then it may simply be self-defeating rather than false. If it can’t be either falsified or falsifiable in principle, then it is self-contradictory.
If Popper’s theory can be falsified, this would imply that there are indeed other theories that cannot be falsified or that aren’t even falsifiable in principle. More clearly, if Popper’s theory were actually falsified (though, again, it is falsifiabilityin principle rather than an actual falsification, that he demanded for all “true theories”), there could be, by implication, theories that are irrefutable or unfalsifiable in principle. On the other hand, if Popper’s theory were not falsifiable (though not actually falsified), then it would be exempting itself from its own universally quantified claim. In order for Popper’s theory to be falsifiable in principle it may need to accept, or even entail, the existence of a theory – or theories – that is not falsifiable in principle. How else would the falsification theory itself be either falsifiable in principle or actually falsified? If these non-falsifiable and non-falsified theories actually exist, then Popper’s theory would perhaps be either useless and/or self-defeating. If Popper’s theory can be falsified, rather than it being simply falsifiable in principle, then it would mean, evidently, that it is false. And if it is false, then what it claims is false. And it claims that all true or genuine theories must be - or are - falsifiable in principle. Therefore if what the theory claims is actually false, then it is false that all true or genuine theories must be – or are - falsifiable in principle. Popper loses on both counts. If his theory is not falsifiable in principle, then it can be seen as self-contradictory. On the other hand, if it can be actuallyfalsified, then what it claims is not true.
Nevertheless, is it correct to argue that if Popper’s Falsification Theory can itself be falsified then it is invalid or self-contradictory or self-defeating? According to Popper himself (but not, however, according to the theory itself), no theory is ever completely certain or valid. Therefore he might have quite happily accepted the limited applicability of his own theory (despite its universal quantification). Of course Popper’s theory can be given a kind of absolutist, axiomatic or normative status. If he had done so, he would have allowed his theory an escape that is denied to all other scientific theories, etc. He might have therefore allied himself with, say, theologians or non-naturalistic metaphysicians.
The case against the Falsification Theory is similar in certain ways to the case against the relativist truth-claim and the testability/verifiability statement. For example, the claim that
All truth-claims are relative or contextual.
may itself be relative or contextual. Similarly, if all “true theories” must be falsifiable in principle, then the Falsification Theory must itself be being falsifiable in principle (again, if it is a theory of the same type as the theories within its domain!). If it can be, or is, actually falsified, then it may have limited – or no – validity or use-value. Similarly, if the relativist truth-claim does not see itself as relative or contextually mediated (if truth-claims can see themselves), then it too is self-contradictory. If it is relative or contextually mediated (or if it claims for itself such a status), then it may either be of no use and/or be of a self-defeating nature. On the other hand, if the relativist truth-claim is itself a truth-claim that is relative or contextually mediated, then it is no more - or less - valid or useful than any other theory of truth.
To recapitulate. Popper argued that theories and hypotheses must allow the possibility of their own falsification or refutation but not an actual falsification or refutation. Can Popper’s theory of falsifiability or refutability itself be falsifiable or refutable in principle? If it can’t, then it would be self-contradictory. If it can actually be falsified, then it would be self-defeating. For instance, if Popper’s theory of falsifiability can be falsified or even if it is only falsifiable in principle, this would entail the possibility - or even the actuality - that there are other theories that cannot be falsified or that are not even falsifiable in principle. In other words, in order for Popper’s theory to be open to being proved false (i.e., to be falsifiable in principle), which is what he demanded of all other theories, other theories may - or must - be unfalsifiable in principle. On the other hand, if Popper’s theory is not falsifiable in principle, then he would be exempting it from his own universally quantified statement about all the other theories within his specific domain. (Of course, the Falsification Theory may not be in - or a member of - its own domain. It may not belong to itself.) In order for Popper’s theory of falsification to be falsifiable in principle itself, it may need to accept - or even entail - the existence of at least one theory, perhaps to be also existentially quantified, that could not be either actually falsified or falsifiable in principle.
The possibility of falsification (i.e., falsifiability in principle) or an actual falsification would be equally problematic for Popper’s theory.
