Minding the Gap : Epistemology and Philosophy of Science in the Two Traditions

638 Pages·2000·1.69 MB·English

by  Christopher Norris

Minding the Gap : Epistemology and
title:
Philosophy of Science in the Two Traditions
author: Norris, Christopher.
publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
isbn10 | asin: 1558492550
print isbn13: 9781558492554
ebook isbn13: 9780585339986
language: English
Science--Philosophy, Knowledge, Theory
subject
of.
publication date: 2000
lcc: Q175.N595 2000eb
ddc: 501
Science--Philosophy, Knowledge, Theory
subject:
of.
Page iii
Minding the Gap
Epistemology & Philosophy of Science in the Two
Traditions
Christopher Norris
Copyright © 2000 by
The University of Massachusetts Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
LC 99-086484
ISBN 1-55849-255-0
Designed by Jack Harrison
Set in Adobe Garamond by Graphic Composition, Inc.
Printed and bound by Sheridan Books
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Norris, Christopher.
Minding the gap : epistemology and philosophy of science in the two traditions /
Christopher Norris
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-55849-255-0 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. SciencePhilosophy. 2. Knowledge, Theory of. I. Title.
175 . 595 2000
Q N
501dc21
99-086484
British Library Cataloguing in Publication data are available.
Page v
For Clare and Jenny
Page vii
Contents
Preface ix
Introduction: Epistemology and Philosophy of Science in 1
the Two Traditions
1 32
Theory Change and the Logic of Enquiry: New Bearings
in Philosophy of Science
2 66
Treading Water in Neurath's Ship: Quine, Davidson, Rorty
3 100
Structure and Genesis in Scientific Theory: Husserl,
Bachelard, Derrida
4 125
Supplementarity and Deviant Logics: Derrida contra
Quine
5 148
Excluded Middles: Quantum Theory and the Logic of
Deconstruction
6 172
McDowell on Kant: Redrawing the Bounds of Sense
7 197
The Limits of Naturalism: Further Thoughts on
McDowell's Mind and World
8 231
Not Quite the Last Word: Nagel, Wittgenstein, and the
Limits of Scepticism
Notes 261
Index 293
Page ix
Preface
My main purpose in writing this book has been to provide a critical-
comparative review of recent developments in epistemology and
philosophy of science. It is unusual in devoting equal attention to
work on both sides of the notional rift between 'continental' (i.e., post-
Kantian mainland-European) movements of thought and 'analytic'
approaches in the line of descent from Frege and Russell. I challenge
this conventional view by remarking the numerous points of
convergenceas well as the salient differences of emphasiswhich have
often been ignored by more partisan commentators. Thus the two
central projects of Husserlian phenomenology and Fregean
philosophy of logic and language can be seen as jointly addressing a
range of issues about truth, knowledge, and representation that cut
across the standard disciplinary divide. (See especially my
introduction and chapters 1 and 3.) Their different approaches are
deeply bound up with the distinctive self-image of each tradition yet
offer the prospect of a critical dialogue that would serve to extend and
to deepen their powers of self-reflective conceptual grasp.
This dialogue is pursued more specifically in chapters on Frege and
Husserl; on Bachelard, Canguilhem, and the French legacy of
epistemo-critical thinking or rationalisme appliqué; on 'postanalytic'
developments in the wake of logical empiricism (Quine, Kuhn,
Davidson, and Rorty); on the issue between descriptivist and causal
theories of reference as discussed by philosophers such as Kripke,
Putnam, Donnellan, and Evans; and on Derrida's early readings of
Husserl where he raises questions that should be of interest to
philosophers working in the 'other' (mainly Anglo-American) tradition
of thought. These topics come together in the book's extended
treatment of recent episodes in the history of debate between realist
and antirealist philosophies of science. Here I argue that the
widespread drift toward forms of antirealismalong with cultural-
relativist doctrines like that advanced by the 'strong' programme in
sociology of knowledgemay in part be explained as a response to the
prolonged (post-1900) 'crisis' in theoretical physics, itself brought
about by conceptual problems in the foundations of quantum
mechanics. Hence (chapter 2) the appeal of certain Quinean/Kuhnian
ideas
Page x
ontological relativity, paradigm change, radical meaning-variance, the
under-determination of theories by evidence, and the theory-laden
character of observation-statementsreflecting as they do a more
general sense of the limits imposed on our knowledge of reality by
factors intrinsic to the quantum-physical domain. However, it is a
strange inversion of rational priorities that would claim to derive such
radical consequences from a theory so rife with unresolved puzzles
and paradoxes.
Chapter 5 puts the case for a realist interpretation of quantum
mechanicsbased on the hidden-variables theory developed by David
Bohmand also for a realist approach to other issues in epistemology,
philosophy of science, and philosophical semantics. In particular I
reject those varieties of current antirealist thinking, such as Michael
Dummett's, which deny that we can possibly have adequate grounds
for asserting the existence of objective or 'verification-transcendent'
truths. What these arguments amount to is a more sophisticated update
on old-style logical positivism that is nonetheless vulnerable to all the
same criticisms (including the charge of self-refutation) which
undermined that earlier programme. For there do exist alternatives to
episte-mological foundationalism which don't entail anything like so
drastic and disabling a break with the tenets of scientific realism. In
various fieldssuch as non-Euclidean geometry, relativity theory, and
quantum mechanicsit is no longer possible to seek a grounding for
scientific knowledge in a realm of a priori self-evident truths or
primordial intuitions. Derrida's commentaries on Husserl make a
similar point as regards foundationalist arguments in geometry,
arithmetic, philosophy of mind, the phenomenology of time-
consciousness, and other realms of enquiry. But they also demonstrate
the 'absolute and principled' necessity of thinking these issues through
with the greatest degree of conceptual precision and a rigorous
attentiveness to textual detail in the writings of philosophers such as
Kant and Husserl.
This aspect of Derrida's work has yet to be appreciated by Anglo-
American commentatorsDummett among themwho are themselves
currently in process of revising the standard 'analytic' versus
'continental' account of developments in the history of post-Kantian
thought. Chapters 1 and 3 set out to correct that particular omission
and also to encourage a wider critical reassessment of those
alternative resources for philosophy of science provided by thinkers in
the mainland-European tradition. It is only on a highly
artificialhistorically and geographically distortedview that we can
treat the predominant problems and concerns of analytic philosophy in
the wake of logical empiricism as belonging to a world quite apart
from the interests that have typically animated work in the French and
German contexts of debate. Indeed, it may be argued that analytic
philosophy has run into a number of false dilemmas or dead-end
predicaments as a result of its becoming so far out of touch with
developments elsewhere.