Re: [OPE] epistemological and scientific questions

Hi Dogan,

I don't think -- responding here to your exchange with Jerry -- that
the problem is with the translation; it's with the metaphor.

The metaphor of a mirror is trying to capture the idea that we want
to understand the world as it is so we can transform it; therefore
our theory ought to hold a mirror up to reality. But we have to
assume the theory we work with is more like a filter than a
mirror. Does a bat find reality reflected as in a mirror? The point
I'm insisting on is that all observation is theory laden. We start
with a perspective and through practice try to make it so the
perspective we use gives us a better and better report of the world
we engage. Kuhn, as he's been interpreted, and the hermeneutic
tradition, claimed that reality is determined by theory or that 'the
limits of my language are the limits of my world', and these views
seem inconsistent with the project of science. But the upshot of
their challenge was to force recognition of the way our access to the
world is theory laden. As a practical matter, I think Marx
understood this very well. He may well have spoken of a mirror. If
you have passages ready to hand, I'd be interested in your identifying them.

I agree with you that 'becoming' is a feature of 'what is' --
hydrogen in a test tube has the power to explode even though it is
not just now exploding, and homo sapiens, like other living things,
are engaged in actualizing their potential. But 'ought' in its
ordinary normative sense is importantly derivative of what is, not
constitutive of it. That is, we can claim something 'ought to be'
only if we are prepared to explain its material ground; otherwise we
are off in chase of bourgeois metaphysics. On the other hand, a
world in the process of becoming includes real possibility; in the
words of Ralph Ellison's narrator in The Invisible Man, 'freedom is
the recognition of possibility.'

howard

At 08:15 AM 12/14/2008, you wrote:
>Howard
>======
>First, the idea of science as a mirror of reality recalls positivist
>approaches of the early part of the last century and ignores
>important advance provoked by Kuhn and aspects of the hermeneutic
>tradition. This is expressed by the proposition that all observation
>is theory laden -- not theory determined, but theory laden. It's
>enough to say that our ideas correspond to reality because the
>theory we bring to practice does a better and better job of getting
>it right about the way the world is. We don't need to suppose,
>implausibly, that we get a mirror reflection either by means of a
>theory that is flawlessly transparent or instead without any
>mediation by theory at all.
>
>Dogan
>======
>You say: "the idea of science as a mirror of reality recalls
>positivist approaches of the early part of the last century and
>ignores important advance provoked by Kuhn and aspects of the
>hermeneutic tradition." May I ask you to give some reason and be
>more explicit on this please.
>
>Howard
>=======
>It's enough to say that our ideas correspond to reality because the
>theory we bring to practice does a better and better job of getting
>it right about the way the world is.
>
>Dogan
>======
>You seem to use here a correspondence theory of truth. But I think a
>theory is not just about to do "a better and better job of getting
>it right about the way the world is". Your suggestion seems to me to
>be positivist as it attempts merely to account for the question what
>is. However scietific theories are also about the developments and
>tendencies of the world and society, i.e. with the question how the
>world and society is becoming (ought). This is what makes a
>scientific theory critical - in particular in social sciences.
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Howard Engelskirchen <howarde@iastate.edu>
>To: Outline on Political Economy mailing list <ope@lists.csuchico.edu>
>Sent: Sat, 13 Dec 2008 15:11
>Subject: Re: [OPE] epistemological and scientific questions
>
>I suspect neither of the formulations here, or in the post of
>dogan's referred to, fully achieve what we're after.
>
>First, the idea of science as a mirror of reality recalls positivist
>approaches of the early part of the last century and ignores
>important advance provoked by Kuhn and aspects of the hermeneutic
>tradition. This is expressed by the proposition that all observation
>is theory laden -- not theory determined, but theory laden. It's
>enough to say that our ideas correspond to reality because the
>theory we bring to practice does a better and better job of getting
>it right about the way the world is. We don't need to suppose,
>implausibly, that we get a mirror reflection either by means of a
>theory that is flawlessly transparent or instead without any
>mediation by theory at all.
>
>But I agree the idea of 'models' is tricky. We can think of the
>double helix as providing a model for our understanding of dna, and
>there is nothing wrong with that, but too easily, and especially in
>political economy, models get expressed, as here, not as
>corresponding to the way the world is, but as heuristic instruments
>that guide prediction. On this approach, the model may be coherent,
>but it isn't true, and we can leave out or introduce features
>according to model driven (conceptual) imperatives. Better to anchor
>method in the world, natural or social, that we're trying to
>understand. What we're looking for are the causal structures of
>nature or social life that explain phenomena. We use language or
>other systems of representation to refer. So the task of reference
>is to pick out those structures and the task of explanation is to
>offer an understanding of how these generate the phenomena to be
>explained. We go from 'population' to the simplest determinations we
>can find and back to population again.
>
>howard
>
>
>At 05:22 AM 12/13/2008, you wrote:
> >on 2008-12-11 18:48
> <mailto:dogangoecmen@aol.com>dogangoecmen@aol.com wrote:
> >>To put it into a question whom do you rely on in your theory
> of >>scince I have still to clarify many questions in detail
> concerning >>the theory of models. But I am not very fond of
> models. I prefer >>rather to use the concept of mirror. Mirror
> theory reflects social >>structures,relations and their tendencies
> by generalising and >>putting them into categories.
> >
> >Other than being a 'realist', I can't really say that I rely on
> a >particular theory of science. My views are mainly derived from
> a >general interest in the evolution of science and of physics
> in >particular. However, I suppose they are close to those of
> Lakatos and Bhaskar.
> >
> >I am not suggesting a "theory of models", rather I'm using the
> word >'model' (as in a toy-model) as an analogy for what a
> scientific >theory is. Models are never 'true' or 'false' but
> 'more' or 'less >accurate'; they can improve and we can rank some
> models as better >than others according to some criteria. (A very
> good summary by >Jennings, who is a physicist I believe, is
> attached.) The analogy of >a 'mirror' is very misleading,
> especially if one considers the >evolution of science.
> >
> >>I would be interested in what you say: "historical
> materialism >>provides a general framework for developing such
> models". Can you >>say a bit more on this?
> >
> >I was being quite simple really: historical materialism can
> be >thought of as a framework (or at its finest moments, a
> 'research >program' in the style of Lakatos) to generate testable
> theories, >i.e. models that predict observations. E.g. in the
> context of the >previous post; theories about the evolution of the
> working-class >under deindustrialisation; capital investment under
> stagnant >profits; conditions for structural crises and the
> likelihood of >their outcomes etc. As time progresses there is a
> growing historical >record on which these theories can be tested.
> >
> >//Dave Z
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Received on Sun Dec 14 20:43:52 2008