Pannekoek’s theory of science

[ALB]

LBird's straw man has identified himself. It's Richard Dawkins. According to today's Times, he said:

Quote:

He would like his legacy to consist of being known as a "lover of truth", and as "a believer in the possibility of discovering objective truth by scientific research".

[Young Master Smeet]

To take a concrete look at something I've just been flicking through: the history of the Boulton-Watt Steam engine and the introduction of the separate condenser.Although Engineers recognised that the Newcomen Steam Engine was inefficient, Watt got lucky because he was working with a scale model miniature engine, which exacerbated the inefficiencies, and he was able to diagnose the problem. He had to rely for over ten years on substantial backing from industrialists to build his working prototypes, and even then was only really able to advance because of cannon boring improvements at the Wilkinson foundry in Birmingham.  Boulton oversaw the development of the newly bored cylinders, but also hired teams of craftsmen, who would have helped build the first functional full scale engines.Now, this was all about a hundred years before the full development of the science of thermodynamics, but also illustrates how technological advance is interlocked and contingent, also distributed (with the named 'Great men' standing at the head of an army of skilled technical staff who are just as much responsible for the realisation of the technology.Another interesting part of the Boulton-Watt story is how their patent nearly held back its introduction: they wanted to charge the full value of the savings in coal use as their price for the machine, which, of course, would have meant no savings for the purchaser, and thus no incentive to use the damn things.

[ALB]

LBird wrote:

This is the cognitive method of science: scientists (subject) actively interrogate the universe (object) and employ the product (knowledge) to prove itself.Perhaps one could say that ‘knowledge’ is a representation accurate enough for the purposes of the producer. Thus, knowledge is formed by humans from the entity it represents for a reason, and the ability of the knowledge to be used for those reasons proves its accuracy.But… knowledge is not the object; knowledge is not an identical copy of object; knowledge is a selection made by an interested subject.

This looks like at last a description of the criteria you have in mind to judge whether some statement about the world of reality can be regarded as "knowledge". I don't suppose you mean literally "for the purposes of the [individual] producer". You must mean something more like "the purposes of the society in which the scientists are operating".I think this makes you some sort of an "instrumentalist" as described here and here (like you described Bogdanov as being). This is not meant as a criticism as I think Pannekoek could be placed in this broad tradition.To tell the truth, though this discussion is interesting (at least to those taking part), I'm beginning to wonder whether a socialist party needs to take sides in the debates on "the philosophy of science" beyond defending a general  "realism" or "materialism".  In other words, do we really need to take sides in the more detailed debates that go on between various schools of realist/materialist philosophies of science? After all, most scientific research carries on without feeling the need for a philosophy of science and would be the same irrespective of which particular philosophy is adopted.Obviously, in a socialist society "science policy" will be decided democratically and scientific research institutes run democratically.

[Brian]

ALB wrote:

Obviously, in a socialist society "science policy" will be decided democratically and scientific research institutes run democratically.

But that should not be a reason to curtail this discussion.   Especially when it seems to be providing the bare bones for further discussion to take place in the run up to the establishment of a socialist society.  Besides its providing the basis for a rewrite of the education bulletin, which for any scientific minded person is long over due.Stick with it I say if only because its providing some useful insights on what exactly is the "scientific method".

[twc]

God Made the Sun Stand Still for JoshuaMention of Dawkins and Copernicanism in neighbouring posts brings to mind the celebrated Scopes ‘Monkey Trial’ at Dayton Tennessee in 1925.Monkey TrialDarrow put Bryan [the ‘tin-pot pope of the Coca Cola belt’, according to Mencken] on the witness stand and cross-examined him.

Court recorder wrote:

Q — Now Mr Bryan, have you ever pondered what would have happened to the Earth if it [the Sun] stood still?A — No.Q — You have not?A — No; the god I believe in could have taken care of that, Mr Darrow….Q — Or have you ever thought about it?A — I have been too busy on things that I thought were more important than that….[Topic changes to when the Flood occurred]…Q — What do you think?A — I do not think about the things I don’t think about.Q — Do you think about the things you do think about?A — Well sometimes.(Laughter in the courtyard.)

The wonderful play, and movie, Inherit the Wind closely follows the court transcript.Joshua as Anti-Copernican WitnessThe biblical text most cited by the churchmen against the Copernicans was the clincher from the Old Testament in which God makes the Sun stand still for Joshua.Innocuous enough, perhaps.  The churchmen simply preferred the noble old biblical explanation to the brash young scientific explanation.But Richard Dawkins, in The God Delusion, reminds his readers of the far from noble reason God acceded to Joshua’s request.It turns out that a normal day didn’t give Joshua enough time to commit total genocide and senseless destruction of all livestock — something that troubled the churchmen far less than a perceived threat to their privileges.

Dawkins wrote:

Good old Joshua didn’t rest until “they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.”    (Joshua 6: 21).

[twc]

ALB wrote:

I'm beginning to wonder whether a socialist party needs to take sides in the debates on "the philosophy of science" beyond defending a general "realism" or "materialism". In other words, do we really need to take sides in the more detailed debates that go on between various schools of realist/materialist philosophies of science?

The Socialist Party gains its political practice from scientific practice.  That’s why it must comprehend scientific practice [Thesis VIII].Object.  Is our political Object coherent [as in a Kuhnian scientific paradigm]? Or is our political Object flexibly incoherent [as in a Lakatosian research program]?Principles.  Do we stick to our political principles and take a hostile stand towards violations of them [as in a Kuhnian scientific paradigm]? Or do we openly encourage fringe violations of our political principles [as in a Lakatosian research program]?Hostility.  Do we reject Leninism and Social Democracy as illegitimate violations of our political principles [chucking them out]? Or do we embrace Leninism and Social Democracy as legitimate alternatives to our principles [fraternizing with them]?Sure ALB, we can, and should, drop reference to Kuhnian scientific paradigms, etc. — they are merely significant in the current context in opposition to formally legitimized political casuistry.But we can never forget that Marx bequeathed us the only science we have.  We comprehend that science to gain our Object — a direct consequential outcome of that science.Our opponents thrive on an incoherent political Object and on flexible political Principles.  Their behaviour, though clearly politically opportunistic, is also clearly anti-scientific — pseudo science.Coherent science for Socialism!

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

I think this makes you some sort of an "instrumentalist" as described hereand here(like you described Bogdanov as being). This is not meant as a criticism as I think Pannekoek could be placed in this broad tradition.

ALB, I know nothing about instrumentalism, but I offer the following comments on the links that you provided.

Britannica wrote:

instrumentalism,also called experimentalism, a philosophy advanced by the American philosopher John Dewey holding that what is most important in a thing or idea is its value as an instrument of action and that the truth of an idea lies in its usefulness.

Isn’t Dewey a liberal individualist? I’m not sure that he would agree that ‘importance’, ‘value’ and ‘truth’ are socially-determined concepts, and thus open to democratic control. Scientists and philosophers who believe in private property in the means of production are suspect.

Wikipedia wrote:

Instrumentalism denies that theories are truth-evaluable; instead, they should be treated like a black box into which you feed observed data, and through which you produce observable predictions. This requires a distinction between theory and observation,…

In a Communist society, the notion that theories would not be ‘truth evaluable’ would be nonsense, because ‘truth’ and ‘theories’ are human creations, and thus would be under the control of our society. ‘Instrumentalism’ assumes a humanity that accepts ‘black boxes’, perhaps like ‘the market’. Communists wouldn’t accept such a concept; we assume humans can understand our society and its products. ‘Black boxes’ are for ruling classes, and their class-based purposes.I suspect that instrumentalism is a form of naïve realism, as far as I can tell.Given what I’ve tentatively expressed above, I don’t agree with you that “Pannekoek could be placed in this broad tradition” of instrumentalism.

ALB wrote:

To tell the truth, though this discussion is interesting (at least to those taking part), I'm beginning to wonder whether a socialist party needs to take sides in the debates on "the philosophy of science" beyond defending a general "realism" or "materialism". In other words, do we really need to take sides in the more detailed debates that go on between various schools of realist/materialist philosophies of science?

In my opinion, it is of fundamental importance that a ‘side needs to be taken’ by Communists, ‘beyond defending a general "realism" or "materialism"’. The issue is one of ‘authority’. That is, ‘Is there an authority (like ‘science’ or ‘the market’) which is (or should be) outside of our democratic control?’.If ‘truth’ lies in the object, then by definition there is a neutral scientific method, not influenced by humans and their ideologies, which can give us that ‘truth’. This ‘neutral method’ is thus available to individuals, especially ‘experts’. On the contrary, following Marx and Pannekoek, if ‘truth’ lies in the human-created ‘knowledge’, then science is always a socially-biased method, and we must democratically control that activity.The test of one’s position on these issues, it seems to me, is the question of the respective paths of the sun/earth, that we’ve discussed on this thread. Those who believe that the ‘paths’ we now ‘know’ are an ‘eternal truth’ of the object, are taking a different position to Pannekoek. That is, they are taking the position of ‘discovery science’.

Pannekoek wrote:

Man is in the first place an active being. In the Labour process he utilises his organs and aptitudes in order to constantly build and remake his environment. In this procedure he not only invented the artificial organs we call tools, but also trained his physical and mental aptitudes so that they might react effectively to his natural environment as instruments in the preservation of life. His main organ is the brain whose function, thinking, is as good a physical activity as any other. The most important product of brain activity, of the efficient action of the mind upon the world is science, which stands as a mental tool next to the material tools and, itself a productive power, constitutes the basis of technology and so an essential part of the productive apparatus.Hence Historical Materialism looks upon the works of science, the concepts, substances, natural Laws, and forces, although formed out of the stuff of nature, primarily as the creations of the mental Labour of man. Middle-class materialism, on the other hand, from the point of view of the scientific investigator, sees all this as an element of nature itself which has been discovered and brought to light by science. Natural scientists consider the immutable substances, matter, energy, electricity, gravity, the Law of entropy, etc., as the basic elements of the world, as the reality that has to be discovered. From the viewpoint of Historical Materialism they are products which creative mental activity forms out of the substance of natural phenomena.

[my bold]If an activity or its products are human, then they have to be under our democratic control.No ‘experts’ who have a special access to ‘the Truth’. That is bourgeois science.

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

In a Communist society, the notion that theories would not be ‘truth evaluable’ would be nonsense, because ‘truth’ and ‘theories’ are human creations, and thus would be under the control of our society.

Perhaps then we can meet on the top floor of a multi-storey car park and discuss the best way to test the 'truth' of the law of gravity.You are stating a cognitive relativist position here. This is quite a popular position in the Bourgeois university and runs counter to Deitzgen, Marx and Pannekoek, if you read them carefully enough.See the Deitzgen quote I posted earlier.

LBird wrote:

‘Instrumentalism’ assumes a humanity that accepts ‘black boxes’, perhaps like ‘the market’. Communists wouldn’t accept such a concept; we assume humans can understand our society and its products. ‘Black boxes’ are for ruling classes, and their class-based purposes.I suspect that instrumentalism is a form of naïve realism, as far as I can tell.

Instrumentalism is the exact opposite of realism. Realism takes the contents of theories as real things existing in the world, instrumentalism takes them as useful fictions for making predictions about the future.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

Perhaps then we can meet on the top floor of a multi-storey car park and discuss the best way to test the 'truth' of the law of gravity.

Well, if you think that that's a good enough method for Communists to understand reality, according to you DJP, that's OK by me. Has the entire thread gone over your head?Would you like, finally, to describe your theory of cognition, or is 'common sense' profound enough for you?

DJP wrote:

You are stating a cognitive relativist position here. This is quite a popular position in the Bourgeois university and runs counter to Deitzgen, Marx and Pannekoek, if you read them carefully enough.

How 'careful' is 'carefully enough'? I've just quoted Pannekoek.'Careful', as in the sense Lenin 'read' Dietzgen?Why not just expose your position on 'science', DJP, rather than merely criticise mine from an unstated position?

DJP wrote:

Instrumentalism is the exact opposite of realism. Realism takes the contents of theories as real things existing in the world…

As I never tire of explaining, I’m a realist, and as I’ve explained a thousand times (it feels like), Schaff’s theory of cognition is based upon ‘real things’.Would you care to explain how we have access to ‘real things’ with a neutral human activity? Just use ‘our senses’?

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

Would you like, finally, to describe your theory of cognition, or is 'common sense' profound enough for you?

See post #117 for a position that I would broadly agree with.

LBird wrote:

DJP wrote:

You are stating a cognitive relativist position here. This is quite a popular position in the Bourgeois university and runs counter to Deitzgen, Marx and Pannekoek, if you read them carefully enough.

How 'careful' is 'carefully enough'? I've just quoted Pannekoek.

Yes you have quoted him, but it seems to me you have misunderstood.He is not saying that truth is a social construct but that what is "true for" a certain group of people in a certain time is. But when we talk about "true for" we are not talking about truth but beliefs..In the quote you used I guess there could be some ambiguity as to if he is talking about theories or entities, but this can be settled by looking at the whole of his work…

LBird wrote:

Would you care to explain how we have access to ‘real things’ with a neutral human activity? Just use ‘our senses’?

I've never claimed such a thing. Again see post #117

[twc]

LBird wrote:

In a Communist society, … we assume humans can understand our society and its products.‘Is there an authority (like ‘science’ or ‘the market’) which is (or should be) outside of our democratic control?’.Scientists … who believe in private property in the means of production are suspect.

Please explain why you assert that “in a Communist society … we assume humans can understand our society and its products.”Please explain how you propose that we put the authority of the market under our democratic control.All scientists have worked under some form of private-property social system: ancient chattel slavery, medieval feudalism or modern capitalism.Most scientists of the past were inspired by social and religious precepts that we would now despise.Given the above, please show us just one instance of any piece of substantial scientific work performed by any natural or mathematical scientist which should, in your opinion, have been rejected but instead survived scrutiny merely because the scientist and the profession “believed in private property in the means of production”.[Here I expressly exclude those scientists who are the hired prize fighters of capitalism’s economics profession or its social scientists.]One instance please, so that we gain a clear understanding of what you are driving at.

[LBird]

Sorry about the tone of my last post, DJP. My frustration is getting the better of me.

DJP wrote:

Perhaps then we can meet on the top floor of a multi-storey car park and discuss the best way to test the 'truth' of the law of gravity.

The 'law of gravity' is a human construct.

Pannekoek wrote:

Hence Historical Materialism looks upon the works of science, the concepts, substances, natural Laws, and forces, although formed out of the stuff of nature, primarily as the creations of the mental Labour of [hu]man[ity]

It seems that you're more concerned with 'what' happens, rather than 'why' it happens.On the contrary, science is trying to explain 'why' things happen, so we have some chance of changing it.

DJP wrote:

Yes you have quoted him, but it seems to me you have misunderstood.He is not saying that truth is a social construct but that what is "true for" a certain group of people in a certain time is. But when we talk about "true for" we are not talking about truth but beliefs..In the quote you used I guess there could be some ambiguity as to if he is talking about theories or entities, but this can be settled by looking at the whole of his work…

So, you separate 'truth' from 'belief'. No problems. Could you explain the method for producing 'truth'? I think we can all come up with the method for 'belief': 'The priest/teacher/policeman told me so'.If I've 'misunderstood' Pannekoek, and his 'whole works' can settle this, can you provide some pointers to the contrary position, written by Pannekoek? By the way, he says 'substances, laws and forces': I'm not sure how 'ambiguous' this is

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

The 'law of gravity' is a human construct.

I thought you said you where a realist? In that case the concept that is "the law of gravity" also has to refer to something that is real in the universe. Therefore the "law of gravity" is not just a human construct but also something real in the world. I don't see how you can claim to be a realist and disagree with this statement. Unless I've misunderstood what is meant by "realism"…

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

I thought you said you where a realist? In that case the concept that is "the law of gravity" also has to refer to something that is real in the universe. Therefore the "law of gravity" is not just a human construct but also something real in the world.

Yes, as I have been saying for the whole thread, a 'law' is a human construct based something in the real world.Law = knowledge; human = subject; real world = object; construct = interaction between subject and object.If you don't accept the necessity of an active subject, just say so.If you do accept the necessity of an active subject, say how this active subject interacts with the object to produce 'knowledge' of the object that isn't tainted by human thought. This is what positivists believed they were doing: gaining untainted access to the 'object', to produce 'objective knowledge'.

DJP wrote:

I don't see how you can claim to be a realist and disagreee with this statement. Unless I've misunderstood what is meant by "realism"…

I'm a realist, I agree with the statement, and I think you've misunderstood what is meant by "realism". Critical realism doesn't produce 'objective knowledge'. Naive realism claims to, though

DJP, post #15, wrote:

An 'object' does not have a truth value in and of itself, only propositions about an object can have a truth value.

Here, you seem to accept that 'truth' is about humans, not simply the object.I don't know how I can say this any clearer: science is an interaction between object and subject, and produces knowledge.You can't keep accusing me of ignoring the object (reality), when in fact you ignore the subject (society).Cognition requires both object and subject. Their interaction produces knowledge. Knowledge is not simply a product of object, so can't be 'objective'. Knowledge always has a social component.Hope this helps.

[LBird]

Perhaps comrades might benefit from reading:Boris Hessen's The Social and Economic Roots of Newton’s Principiahttp://www.russelldale.com/phil-material/V1_Hessen.pdf

Hessen, p. 3, wrote:

Only the proletariat, which aims to create a classless society, is free from a limited understanding of the historical process and produces a true, genuine history of nature and society.

Hessen was executed by the NKVD in 1936.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Hessen

[Author]

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