The Vienna Circle, Modern Science

The Berlin Circle

In the late 1920s, a group of intellectuals gathered in Berlin, attempting to articulate a "scientific" vision of the world. While relatively short lived (they broke up with the rise of Nazism) they had a large impact on philosophy of science.

The Berlin Circle was an early modern group of philosophers and scientists who argued for the primacy of scientific knowledge and empiricism. Rudolf Carnap in particular argued that many philosophical questions are meaningless because they cannot be proved or disproved through experience. He argued that many philosophical problems, like those posed by metaphysics, are pseudo-problems based on the way that we use language, and not an authentic problem.

Carnap and the Berlin circle argued for "Logical Positivism", meaning that we should only accept those logical statements that can be empirically verified. In particular, Carnap argued that scientific knowledge relied on "verification", which was a rigorous open testing of a hypothesis which could be conducted to "verify" its truth. This type of knowing, Carnap argued was superior and provided a more realistic vision of the world.

For Carnap, the role of philosophy is to analyze language in order to test what questions are meaningful or meaningless.

The Vienna Circle

A second circle of intellectuals met from 1924 -1936, known as the Vienna Circle. They espoused many of the same ideas as the Berlin Circle, with a few differences.

The Vienna Circle, much like the the Berlin Circle, argued that knowledge only came from experience and secondly, a scientific world view required that application of "logical analysis"... meaning the application of symbolic mathematical formulae to language in order to clarify and test it's meaning and accuracy.

Only two types of statements were accepted as valid and true. "Posteriori" (i.e. scientific statements based on experimental data, and "a priori" statements (strictly logical and mathematical).

The Vienna Circle likewise broke up after the annexation of Austria by Germany in 1936.

Karl Popper: Otherwise known as "Bilbo Baggins Gollum Edition" - "Why shouldn't I keeps it? My Precioussssss"

Karl Popper: Disconfirm (Falsifiability)

Karl Popper, arguing around the nature of scientific knowledge (and arguing for the superiority of the hard sciences) argued that verification in not quite enough, because a confirmation bias will along you to "verify" already preconceived notions. Popper, in particular targeted Freud's theories where both too much or too little of a trait in your past could be used to support a modern diagnosis, and that Oedipal Complex and Penis Envy could be used to explain a vast plethora of behaviors that ran along the entire spectrum.

According to Popper Freud's theories were un-falsifiable. Only by investigating a truth-claim, and seeking to disprove it with counter-evidence (a different kind of justification). This was in contrast to Einstein's theories which had very specific predictions that could be proven false and that the underlying ideas would then need to be discarded.

According to Popper we all approach the world with our own preconceptions and biases through which we view our world, interactions, and evidence - these should be checked. This should use risky predictions which can be tested to falsify our theories and ideas. That if this is not true, we might see x.

One objection raised here that that falsification can also be biased - if you are disproving a particular premise - you should test it all the way. Additionally, some theories or truth statements advance our understanding, while proving wrong in particular circumstances or situations. Obviously, this means that the truth statement is untrue or at least incomplete, but should it be discarded, or disqualified from "knowledge"?

Popper argued that knowledge certainty was never possible, but rather knowledge should be measured by PROBABILITY and CONTINGENCY. We are justified in believing a truth statement if we have evidence which demonstrates its probability and its contingency.

Popper's arguments came under criticism however because a distinct and clear criteria for "falsification" are not clear, and may not necessarily be based on

Furthermore, the ability to apply falsification to a theory or idea does not necessarily have a bearing on its actual result or reflection of reality - if something is sometimes false, it does not mean it is always false. Defenders of Freud or others would argue that his theories have clear utility and demonstrate results.

Thomas Kuhn

Thomas Kuhn (1922 - 1996), in response to the controversy around scientific thought, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

Thomas Kuhn, writing after Popper's claims that scientific knowledges "superiority" due to its falsifiability, argued that "Science, in Kuhn's view, alternates between periods of 'normal science and periods of 'crisis'. Normal science is the routine process by which scientists working within a theoretical framework - or 'paradigm' - accumulate results that do not call the theoretical underpinnings of their framework into question." (The Philosophy Book)

However scientists do encounter unfamiliar results, which are generally considered errors. This is proof for Kuhn that science does not aim for 'novelties' or 'new ideas' but rather seeks to confirm established ones. Nonetheless, over time unexpected, or unfamiliar results accumulate until a crisis point occurs regarding the state of established knowledge, and the need for a new theoretical model.

With the formation of a new theory, a new paradigm is established which replaces the old and a new cycle of "normal science" begins.

Kuhn's theory had a offshoot which argued that scientific knowledge was inherently a social activity which occurred only in community. Scientific exploration occurred within a social context with informing ideas and parallel conceptualizations which occurred and informed the articulation - and scientific knowledge could only be "verified and confirmed" by the community with its own sets of standards and proofs.

But Kuhn's theories were also heavily criticized in several key areas:

a) what is a "paradigm"? Kuhn's theory relied on a heavy and ambiguous concept of a shared conception of reality that had no clear definition or articulation

b) "revolutions"? Kuhn's theory relies on an oversimplification of history where there are clearly defined "revolutions" however often scientific knowledge is far more gradual and incremental, and even within a particular revolution different spaces experience particular problems differently.

c) Kuhn's line of logic seems to imply that science is merely an ideological perspective without a necessary "hard reality" to measure it, and "the establishment" as being used to measure its acceptability or not. This poses the problem of turning science into relativism. (i.e. "Oh, look your frogs died when you lit them on fire, but that's just 'your' science. My science show's they've in fact been purified in the ever burning light of Baal.")

There are other critiques of Kuhn's theories, but they nonetheless articulated an important sociological dimension of scientific thought and discovery.

Naturalism Axiomatic Assumptions:

All scientific study inescapably builds on at least some essential assumptions that are untested by scientific processes. Kuhn concurs that all science is based on an approved agenda of unprovable assumptions about the character of the universe, rather than merely on empirical facts. These assumptions—a paradigm—comprise a collection of beliefs, values and techniques that are held by a given scientific community, which legitimize their systems and set the limitations to their investigation. For naturalists, nature is the only reality, the only paradigm. There is no such thing as 'supernatural'. The scientific method is to be used to investigate all reality, and Naturalism is the implicit philosophy of working scientists.

The following basic assumptions are needed to justify the scientific method.

that there is an objective reality shared by all rational observers. "The basis for rationality is acceptance of an external objective reality.". "As an individual we cannot know that the sensory information we perceive is generated artificially or originates from a real world. Any belief that it arises from a real world outside us is actually an assumption. It seems more beneficial to assume that an objective reality exists than to live with solipsism, and so people are quite happy to make this assumption. In fact we made this assumption unconsciously when we began to learn about the world as infants. The world outside ourselves appears to respond in ways which are consistent with it being real. ... The assumption of objectivism is essential if we are to attach the contemporary meanings to our sensations and feelings and make more sense of them." "Without this assumption, there would be only the thoughts and images in our own mind (which would be the only existing mind) and there would be no need of science, or anything else."
that this objective reality is governed by natural laws. "Science, at least today, assumes that the universe obeys to knoweable principles that don't depend on time or place, nor on subjective parameters such as what we think, know or how we behave." Hugh Gauch argues that science presupposes that "the physical world is orderly and comprehensible."
that reality can be discovered by means of systematic observation and experimentation. Stanley Sobottka said, "The assumption of external reality is necessary for science to function and to flourish. For the most part, science is the discovering and explaining of the external world." "Science attempts to produce knowledge that is as universal and objective as possible within the realm of human understanding."
that Nature has uniformity of laws and most if not all things in nature must have at least a natural cause. Biologist Stephen Jay Gould referred to these two closely related propositions as the constancy of nature's laws and the operation of known processes. Simpson agrees that the axiom of uniformity of law, an unprovable postulate, is necessary in order for scientists to extrapolate inductive inference into the unobservable past in order to meaningfully study it.
that experimental procedures will be done satisfactorily without any deliberate or unintentional mistakes that will influence the results.
that experimenters won't be significantly biased by their presumptions.
that random sampling is representative of the entire population. A simple random sample (SRS) is the most basic probabilistic option used for creating a sample from a population. The benefit of SRS is that the investigator is guaranteed to choose a sample that represents the population that ensures statistically valid conclusions.

- Taken from Wikipedia (check the original article for references [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science])

While deeply influential, Kuhn's skeletal structure for the underlying concepts of science are still challenged

Coherentism

"In contrast to the view that science rests on foundational assumptions, coherentism asserts that statements are justified by being a part of a coherent system. Or, rather, individual statements cannot be validated on their own: only coherent systems can be justified. A prediction of a transit of Venus is justified by its being coherent with broader beliefs about celestial mechanics and earlier observations. As explained above, observation is a cognitive act. That is, it relies on a pre-existing understanding, a systematic set of beliefs. An observation of a transit of Venus requires a huge range of auxiliary beliefs, such as those that describe the optics of telescopes, the mechanics of the telescope mount, and an understanding of celestial mechanics. If the prediction fails and a transit is not observed, that is likely to occasion an adjustment in the system, a change in some auxiliary assumption, rather than a rejection of the theoretical system."

In fact, according to the Duhem–Quine thesis, (named after Pierre Duhem and W.V. Quine), it is impossible to test a theory in isolation. One must always add auxiliary hypotheses in order to make testable predictions. For example, to test Newton's Law of Gravitation in the solar system, one needs information about the masses and positions of the Sun and all the planets. Famously, the failure to predict the orbit of Uranus in the 19th century led not to the rejection of Newton's Law but rather to the rejection of the hypothesis that the solar system comprises only seven planets. The investigations that followed led to the discovery of an eighth planet, Neptune. If a test fails, something is wrong. But there is a problem in figuring out what that something is: a missing planet, badly calibrated test equipment, an unsuspected curvature of space, or something else.

One consequence of the Duhem–Quine thesis is that one can make any theory compatible with any empirical observation by the addition of a sufficient number of suitable ad hoc hypotheses. Karl Popper accepted this thesis, leading him to reject naïve falsification. Instead, he favored a "survival of the fittest" view in which the most falsifiable scientific theories are to be preferred.

Kuhn himself raised a parallel point arguing that "science is an inherently communal activity which can only be done as part of a community" Kuhn still argued that "scientific communities" are distinct in the way that they interact, but some philosophers such as Freyerabend argued that even this distinction is fabricated without any real substance to its distinction.

Quine writes "Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer ... For my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer's gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing, the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conceptions only as cultural posits.^[63]" - Adapted from Wikipedia

Owing to the controversy around these ideas, a new field of epistemology and logic has emerged entitled "Science and Technology Studies" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_studies)

Anything Goes (or I'm just giving up)

Paul Feyerabend (1924–1994) argued that no description of scientific method could possibly be broad enough to include all the approaches and methods used by scientists, and that there are no useful and exception-free methodological rules governing the progress of science. He argued that "the only principle that does not inhibit progress is: anything goes".

Feyerabend said that science started as a liberating movement, but that over time it had become increasingly dogmatic and rigid and had some oppressive features, and thus had become increasingly an ideology. Because of this, he said it was impossible to come up with an unambiguous way to distinguish science from religion, magic, or mythology. He saw the exclusive dominance of science as a means of directing society as authoritarian and ungrounded. Promulgation of this epistemological anarchism earned Feyerabend the title of "the worst enemy of science" from his detractors.

- From Wikipedia

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