The Disunity of Science: Boundaries, Contexts, and Power (Writing Science) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0804725624 ISBN 13: 9780804725620

Publisher: Stanford University Press, 1996

Synopsis

Is science unified or disunified? Over the last century, the question has raised the interest (and hackles) of scientists, philosophers, historians, and sociologists of science, for at stake is how science and society fit together. Recent years have seen a turn largely against the rhetoric of unity, ranging from the please of condensed matter physicists for disciplinary autonomy all the way to discussions in the humanities and social sciences that involve local history, feminism, multiculturalism, postmodernism, scientific relativism and realism, and social constructivism. Many of these varied aspects of the debate over the disunity of science are reflected in this volume, which brings together a number of scholars studying science who otherwise have had little to say to each other: feminist theorists, philosophers of science, sociologists of science.

How does the context of discover shape knowledge? What are the philosophical consequences of a disunified science? Does, for example, an antirealism, a realism, or an arealism become defensible within a picture of local scientific knowledge? What politics lies behind and follows from a picture of the world of science more like a quilt than a pyramid? Who gains and loses if representation of science has standards that vary from place to place, field to field, and practitioner to practitioner.

About this title

About the Author

Peter Galison is Mallinckrodt Professor of the History of Science and of Physics at Harvard University. He is the editor, with Bruce Hevly, of Big Science: The Growth of Large-Scale Research.

David J. Stump is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of San Francisco.

From the Back Cover

"This is a very important work, with contributions by many of the most prominent scholars in science studies....It actually delivers on its promise to renew discussion and develop fresh ideas about the allegation that the sciences are no longer (or never were) unified by a single theoretical view of nature or a methodological foundation." --Michael Lynch, Brunel University

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

THE DISUNITY OF SCIENCE

Boundaries, Contexts, and Power

By Peter Galison, David J. Stump

Stanford University Press

Copyright © 1996 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-8047-2562-0

Contents

Contributors, xi, 
Introduction: The Context of Disunity Peter Galison, 1, 
PART I. Boundaries, 
The Disunities of the Sciences Ian Hacking, 37, 
Styles of Reasoning, Conceptual History, and the Emergence of Psychiatry Arnold I. Davidson, 75, 
Metaphysical Disorder and Scientific Disunity John Dupré, 101, 
Computer Simulations and the Trading Zone Peter Galison, 118, 
The Unity of Science: Carnap, Neurath, and Beyond Richard Creath, 158, 
Talking Metaphysical Turkey About Epistemological Chicken, and the Poop on Pidgins Steve Fuller, 170, 
PART II. Contexts, 
From Relativism to Contingentism Mario Biagioli, 189, 
Contextualizing the Canon Simon Schaffer, 207, 
Science Made Up: Constructivist Sociology of Scientific Knowledge Arthur Fine, 231, 
From Epistemology and Metaphysics to Concrete Connections David J. Stump, 255, 
The Care of the Self and Blind Variation: The Disunity of Two Leading Sciences Karin Knorr Cetina, 287, 
The Constitution of Archaeological Evidence: Gender Politics and Science Alison Wylie, 311, 
PART III. Power, 
Otto Neurath: Politics and the Unity of Science Jordi Cat, Nancy Cartwrkht, and Hasok Chang, 347, 
The Naturalized History Museum Timothy Lenoir and Cheryl Lynn Ross, 370, 
Beyond Epistemic Sovereignty Joseph Rouse, 398, 
The Dilemma of Scientific Subjectivity in Postvital Culture Evelyn Fox Keller, 417, 
Modest Witness: Feminist Diffractions in Science Studies Donna J. Haraway, 428, 
Afterword: New Directions in the Philosophy of Science Studies David J. Stump, 443, 
Notes, 453, 
Select Bibliography, 527, 
Index, 537, 

CHAPTER 1

IAN HACKING

The Disunities of the Sciences

* * *

What's in a name? Often, an ideology. Take the present names, inEnglish, of the fields of specialization represented in the presentcollection of essays. We have the philosophy of science, the historyof science, social studies of science, the history and philosophy ofscience—as if there were one thing, science, for there to be aphilosophy or a history of social studies "of." Philosophers used tospeak of the sciences, not science. In this paper I am concerned withdifferent kinds of unity and disunity, not with different kinds ofscience, but it is well to begin by thinking about how an ideology,the unity of science, has affected even the names of what many of ussometimes do.

Sciences

Specialist philosophy or history of the sciences descends from twolandmark bodies of work written in the 1830's. In one case the verytitles make the plurality plain: William Whewell's The History of theInductive Sciences (1838; three volumes) and The Philosophy of theInductive Sciences, Founded upon Their History (1840; two volumes).Diversity is also firmly asserted in the other case, Auguste Comte'sCours de philosophie positive (1830–43; originally six volumes). Hisvast classificatory system of the departments of knowledge was anaffirmation of difference. Comte fought long and in vain to establishthe first professorial chair in the field—of histoire des sciences.The founding fathers of our fields of specialization differ greatly,the one adumbrating the rationalist vein still apparent, and theother prescribing the more common empiricist analysis. The rolemodel for the rationalist Whewell was Francis Bacon, and for theempiricist Comte it was Laplace; so much for philosophical, asopposed to national, -isms. The two men agreed in this: boththought of themselves as philosopher-historians of the sciences,not of science.

Whewell, ever thorough, addressed the issue of science/sciencesin the opening two paragraphs of his Philosophy. He did thinkthat there might be something worthy of the name philosophy ofscience, but it was not something that he or anyone else couldpropound: "The Philosophy of Science, if the phrase were to beunderstood in the comprehensive sense which most naturally offersitself to our thoughts, would imply nothing less than a completeinsight into the essence and conditions of all real knowledge, and anexposition of the best methods for the discovery of new truths."As optimistic, encyclopedic, and influential as he was, he did notreject such a philosophy out of hand, but he did consider it impracticable.We should concern ourselves not with some "real knowledge"of which human beings could dream, but, as he put it, withthe doctrines of solid and acknowledged certainty that do existamong us—the several sciences. He did think, what many nowreject, that the very idea of a philosophy of science (in his ampleunderstanding of the words) makes sense; but any who aspire to it"may best hope to make some progress towards the Philosophy ofScience by employing [them]selves upon THE Philosophy of theScience."

Comte's talk of the sciences, in the plural, was also based not onabstract principles but on what we are able to do. He spoke to thisin the first lesson of the forty that constituted his Cours: "Onecannot reduce all the sciences to a unity." Comte is not to beunderstood maliciously, as somehow self-refuting, saying somethingabout all science. He wanted only to avoid being misunderstood.Since he wished to give a systematic presentation of thedepartments of knowledge, he feared that his course would be seenas one more of those attempts at universal explanation "that aredaily hatched by those to whom scientific methods and results areentirely foreign." At that juncture he wanted to dismiss one modelof unity, namely derivation of all laws from one fundamental lawof nature—an "eminently chimerical" project: "I believe that thepowers of the human mind are too weak, that the universe is far toocomplicated for such a scientific perfection to be within our powers,and I think, moreover, that one usually forms a very exaggeratedidea of the benefits that would necessarily accrue, were it tobe possible." Despite our admirably clear forefathers, we cannotundo the terminology that has since been adopted. "Philosophy ofscience" is agreeably shorter than "philosophy of the sciences."Our journals are called Philosophy of Science and the like. And whynot? The stage was set long before, with, for example, the BritishAssociation for the Advancement of Science—"science" seen as aspecial-interest group in 1833. The American Association publishesScience. But because of my interest in diversity, I shall returnto Whewell, Comte, and our roots, and write about the sciences.

Unities

Otto Neurath said that "the unity of science movement ... includesscientists and persons interested in science who are consciousof the importance of a universal scientific attitude." Themovement was closely associated with logical positivism, but theunity of science had been an important slogan, for diverse reasons,for Helmholtz, Mach, Karl Pearson, and many others. It breaksinto several parts: unity has a fairly clear meaning; unity is a goodthing; the sciences are a very good thing; and the sciences are orshould form a unity. The first is a little-discussed point of logic orlanguage. The second and third are judgments of value. The fourthis hortatory, an injunction about the status or aims of the sciences:the sciences do or should form a unity.

The fourth item is usually the point of contention. I shall beconcerned with its presuppositions rather than its content. Thevery title of this volume expresses the vogue for doubting unity ofscience doctrines, but the essays in it tend to emphasize the "science"side of the unity of science; to balance this I shall be concernedwith the "unity" side. There are a lot of different possibletypes of unity. I shall seldom argue that the sciences are or fail to beunified in this or that respect. I shall mention some pros and somecons, not so much to take sides as to emphasize that there aredisputes about different types of unity or disunity. Hence I do tosome extent side with the disunifiers, because the hidden strengthsof the unity of science movement lie in the implicit assumption thatthere is either a single unified way in which the sciences are orshould be unified, or else that there is a simple hierarchy of increasinglystrong theses about the unity of science.

Unity Is Not a Predicate

I shall not attempt a logical analysis of the concept of unity ora linguistic analysis of uses of the word "one"—although bothwould be in order. I shall not try to describe the complex relationshipsbetween those different words, "one," "unity," and theircognates. I do take for granted a familiar lesson from the philosophyof Kant and of Frege. Kant taught that existence is not apredicate. Frege added that being one or more in number is verymuch like existence—not a predicate, or at any rate not a predicateof things. Existence and number are, in their primary usage, conceptsthat apply to concepts. In Frege's jargon, to say that Godexists is to say that something falls under the concept "God"; to saythat God is one is to say that exactly one entity falls under theconcept "God" (or, to eliminate the "one" in favor of the nonrelationof identity, if x and y fall under the concept, x = y). Existenceand unity, both said by some medieval schoolmen to be perfections,are not (first-order) perfections at all, because neither is apredicate. Unity is thus like existence; as Kant said, I do not addsomething to the golden dollars of the merchant in saying, "andthen they exist." I do not add to the properties of an apple, aftersaying that it is crisp and tasty, by saying that it is "one." Hence,insofar as unity connotes singleness, it cannot be a virtue or perfection.It could be a good thing that there be only one editor of thisvolume, but that would not be a property of the editor.

Singleness and Harmony

Logic-chopping makes us forget the emotive power of the ideas ofunity and existence that make people think of them as perfectionsalongside omniscience and omnipotence. The unity of science wasa rallying call in part because unity, in a certain framework, was agood thing. Unity has, in our tradition, been a virtue associatedwith many powerful ideas: the God of monotheists, the nation, thestate, a people, the self. Men and women have been dying for (andagainst) Unions pretty much since the invention of nationalisms.Kant's transcendental unity of apperception was a necessary conditionfor human knowledge. The integration of a personality may bethe highest aim of many psychiatrists. Hence the unity of science isone among a passionate crowd. A larger discourse on unity wouldmake us better understand its appeal.

It is easy nowadays to be flippant about unity. It is also possibleto be angry. Some of the current rage against reason is directed at anideology of science that says there is one ultimate reality, one ultimatetruth, one road to the truth (the scientific method), one soundmode of reasoning, one rational way of speaking. Because unitynow rings in our ears as hegemonic, patriarchal, imperial, it isimportant not to dismiss the old virtues and values of unity. Oppressedpeople in the past, today, and in all the foreseeable futurerequire those very onenesses about which we find it so easy to belazy. People resisting despotism and its lies need ideals of one truth,one reason, one reality, and on occasion, one science. To be able tobe critical of the unities is a luxury, and let us never forget it.

Unity has been an immensely powerful political tool, sometimesfor what I find good, sometimes for what I find evil. Tocounter my logical observation that unity is not a predicate, Ishould notice a linguistic point about the concept of unity. With thelogical point in mind, but forgetting the linguistic point, it wouldbe hard to guess why unity could be deemed a virtue. It can be avirtue because two distinguishable although interconnected ideasare at work: not even unity is at one with itself.

The root word is unum, one, and for sure unity connotes singleness,oneness. Now being a singleton, that is, being the onlyinstance of a concept, is never in itself a virtue. But there is a virtuein the offing. We can speak in context of unity's being desirable: theunity of certain concerts that we have heard, novels that we haveread. A speech, a political platform, may or may not have unity.So may a character, a soul. This unity has something to do withthe integration or harmony of the parts, a harmony that exists ordoes not exist after the item has already been individuated as onething, one concert (starting at 8:00 and ending at 1o:30, with anintermission).

Let us call these two aspects of unity singleness and harmoniousintegration. The unity of the God of Israel or of Islam is singleness.This unity is not a property of the God and hence in itself not aperfection. Many generous souls have urged that the gods of allfaiths are identical, but this is to say that we have different namesand rites for the same thing, not that the same thing has theproperty of being identical to itself. The unity of the self, in contrast,is largely a matter of harmonious integration. That can be areal property of a person, a property that the person works hard toacquire. All traditional Western psychology regards such harmonyas desirable. This may be connected with our notion of the soul.Many other peoples actively cultivate alternative personalities; individualswho do so successfully have special status, for example asshaman. Integration, I think, is something to be valued (or not)within a culture. But at least it makes sense to value it.

There are deep conceptual questions about the relation betweenthe idea of singleness and the idea of harmony. In the unities thatAristotle introduced into the criticism of drama, the events aresupposed to take place in one compressed period of time, and tobe integrated. Everything happens (perhaps) in a single day. Isthe integrated-harmony side of unity part of an archaic theoryabout what makes for singularity? For example, does it representthe idea that if there is a single entity, it will have, in some sense of"cause" (perhaps one of Aristotle's causes), a single cause, and thusbetray a set of harmonious effects? Or, in contrast, is the idea ofoneness to be thought of as derived from an experience of harmony?Is what makes us count something an entity, a singleton,something like the harmonious relationship of its parts? (In Leibniz'smonadology, were it not for the preestablished harmony therewould be infinitely many actual worlds—the monads—rather thanone actual world.) If harmony is what makes for identity, then thelogicians with their second-order-concept notion of unity havemissed something of fundamental metaphysical and conceptualimportance.

I shall not further discuss these hard questions. But the distinctionbetween singleness and harmony matters to the very idea ofthe unity of science. Some of the unities of science that I shallmention have to do with singleness, and some with harmony. Noteven unity is united.

Three Unities of Science

The unity of science denotes at least three distinct families of theses,each of which can be subdivided or organized in numerous ways.The first family is metaphysical, a collection of ideas about whatthere is. I see it as starting with a certain metaphysical sentiment,which is then followed by a number of what are, by comparison,relatively plain theses. The theses do not follow from the sentiment,and none entails the others.

The second family is a collection of practical precepts about thesciences. They correspond, in a rough and ready way, to the metaphysicaltheses. They have to do with method and the aims of thesciences. Each draws on a different insight about what scientists areup to. One and only one of these has deeply moved workingscientists, chiefly physicists, namely the precept that one should tryto find connections between important phenomena that have hithertoseemed independent. Integration and harmony are what seemto attract the scientist.

The third family forms a set of theses about scientific reasoning,and includes both logic and methodology. It seems to be almostcompletely independent of the preceding two. Thus the logical ormethodological theses could be correct, and even the core metaphysicalsentiment and all that flows from it, theoretical and practical,could be wrong. This is the strongest instance of the disunityamong unity ideas, but at every possible juncture we find disunity.The lowest denominator of disunity is found at the level of methodology,where a wide spectrum of analytical philosophers ofscience have asserted that there is one scientific method applyingacross the board in the natural and human sciences (they are all onthe same side in the Positivismusstveit)—and then produce seeminglyincompatible methods, the well-known methodology disputes ofCarnap, Popper, Lakatos, and the rest. But this is the least instructivekind of disunity, because it is at the level of philosbphicaldoctrine rather than at the level of scientific activity.

Many readers will want to reorganize my kinds of unity. Mypurpose is not to structure the distinctions but rather to displaysome of them in a handy way. I am cautious about every one of theunities that I shall mention. My interest is less in skepticism than inthe fact that the grounds for skepticism differ from unity to unity.There are a lot of different types of unity, each of which may becalled in question for its own specific set of reasons.

A Metaphysical Sentiment

The unity of science is rooted in an overarching metaphysicalthought that expresses not a thesis but a sentiment. Since it is notexactly a doctrine, it lacks straightforward expression. On the onehand I could try, "There is one world, one reality, one truth." Onthe other: "There is one world susceptible of scientific investigation,one reality amenable to scientific description, one totality oftruths equally open to all scientific inquirers who may share theirtechniques and experiences." I shorten the latter to, "There is onescientific world, reality, truth." Inserting the word "scientific"seems to beg some questions—Wasn't science supposed to be whatgot at the world, at reality, at truth? So should we not eliminate themodifier "scientific," thus going back to the first unequivocal statement?

(Continues...)

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Edition details

• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0804725624
• ISBN 13: 9780804725620
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 584
• Editor: Galison Peter, Stump David J.