The scientific method
• When is research scientific? What is the definition of, or the
criteria for, ”the scientific method”?
• Is there such a thing as the ”scientific method”?
• The problem of demarcation (Karl Popper 1934): how to
demarcate between science and pseudo-science (e.g.,
metaphysics – cf. logical empiricism, the Vienna Circle)?
– N.B. Pseudo-science must not be confused with non-science. Clearly
non-scientific human practices, e.g., art or sport, are not pseudoscientific, whereas practices/”disciplines” like astrology, graphology,
creationism, spiritual healing, anthroposophy, etc., are usually taken to
be.
– Not everything must be made scientific, but practices/disciplines that
do not fulfill the criteria for scientificity should not pretend to be
scientific.
The scientific method (cont’d)
• Is there a single correct scientific method (the
scientific method), or are there several?
– Methodological monism (or methodological optimism):
there is only one correct scientific method, and it can be
discovered (cf. logical empiricism, the unity of science
movement).
– Methodological pluralism: there are several different,
equally correct scientific methods (e.g., reflecting the
differences of various disciplines, such as the natural and
the human sciences).
– Radical pluralism: methodological anarchism (Paul
Feyerabend: ”anything goes!”) – cf. relativism.
The scientific method (cont’d)
• Charles S. Peirce, ”The Fixation of Belief” (1877): four
different ways of fixing beliefs about the world.
• (1) the method of tenacity
• (2) the method of authority
• (3) the method of what is agreeable to reason (the intuitive
method, the a priori method)
• (4) the scientific method
– A criterion for reality: independence of what any number of persons
may think, hope, etc.
– Our beliefs should be fixed by an ”external permanency”.
– Yet, the world may not be independent of ”thought in general”.
– We’ll return to the issue of realism within pragmatist philosophy of
science (which Peirce founded).
The scientific method (cont’d)
• On the basis of Peirce’s (and others’) reflections on the
scientific method, we may emphasize the following ”corner
stones” of scientific rationality (among others):
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Objectivity
Publicity
Critical thinking
Self-correctiveness
Autonomy
Progressiveness
• Problem: who is supposed to set these criteria, from which
perspective, on what grounds? Is this the task of the
philosophy of science, or of the scientific community and/or
research process itself?
– Traditional (autonomous) vs. naturalized philosophy of science!
Naturalism and relativism
• Naturalism: ”there is no first philosophy” – no autonomous
philosophical perspective over and above science itself (W.V.
Quine).
• Rather, science and philosophy (of science) must be seen as
continuous with each other.
– The problem of circularity: if science itself, instead of any prior, more
fundamental philosophical theory of the nature of science, establishes
its own normative criteria, does it have any foundation at all?
– How does this situation differ from, e.g., the religious fundamentalists’
claim that the Bible establishes its own authority as a sacred text?
• Naturalism challenges the traditional normative nature of the
philosophy of science: the norms of scientific research cannot
be established from outside science.
From naturalism to relativism?
• We may sketch the following loose argument:
• (1) Naturalism: there is no first philosophy that could
normatively determine what science is, or what it ought to be,
from a perspective lying outside science itself. (Premise.)
• (2) Therefore, science itself determines its own criteria. In
particular, the problem of demarcation (between science and
pseudo-science of metaphysics) can be settled only scienceinternally; if understood as a general philosophical problem, it
is a mere pseudo-problem. (Follows from (1). The structure of
the argument could be made more explicit by adding the
premise that the criteria of science can only be settled either
science-internally or science-externally.)
From naturalism to relativism (cont’d)
• (3) There is no ahistorical criterion, independent of the historical phase of
the development of science (or a particular scientific discipline), for
determining what is (good, proper, correct) science. (Follows from (1) and
(2), at least by adding the obvious premise that science is a historically
developing phenomenon.)
• (4) There are, in the history of science, radically divergent stages with very
different conceptions of the criteria of (good, proper, correct) science and
of the science vs. pseudo-science demarcation. (Premise, a historical
statement of fact. Cf. Thomas S. Kuhn: paradigms, scientific revolutions.)
• (5) Therefore, we must accept relativism: the criteria of science (and
demarcation) are relative to the historical stage of science (or a particular
scientific discipline), a (Kuhnian) paradigm, a perspective or point of view,
a tradition, a local scientific community, a culture, a social context, or
some other ”background” that makes it possible for scientists to pursue
their disciplines. (Follows from (3) and (4).)
From naturalism to relativism (cont’d)
• The argument above is not strictly deductively valid but can
easily be transformed into a more explicit, deductively valid
argument by adding relatively obvious premises.
• It seems that relativism follows from the naturalist denial of
there being any foundational ”first philosophy” which would
determine the normative criteria of the scientific method.
• Challenge: is there a middle ground option available, a
moderate form of naturalism with no radically relativist
consequences? (We’ll examine this issue in relation to
pragmatist philosophy of science.)
Forms of relativism
• Moral relativism
• Cognitive relativism
– Conceptual (ontological) relativism
– Perceptual relativism (cf. the theory- and concept-ladenness of
observation)
– Alethic relativism (relativism about truth)
– Logical relativism (relativism about valid inference or the criteria of
rationality)
– …
• No exhaustive survey of different relativisms is possible here.
Nor am I implying that moral and cognitive relativisms would
always be easily distinguishable.
• ”Relative to…” – culture, paradigm, conceptual scheme…
Examples of relativist philosophy of
science…
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… or of overhasty accusations of relativism?
W.V. Quine: ontological relativity
T.S. Kuhn: paradigms, incommensurability
P. Feyerabend: anarchism, ”anything goes”, ”against method”
R. Rorty: radical neopragmatism, ethnocentrism
A. Fine: natural ontological attitude (NOA)
All these (very different) approaches – in the philosophy of science
and elsewhere – risk losing trans-cultural and trans-paradigmatic
normativity, but none are clearly examples of radical relativism; on
the contrary, these thinkers typically deny that they are relativists!
– Even Feyerabend rejects relativism, because ”potentially every tradition is all
traditions”.
– Accusing someone of relativism is always problematic, contextual.
– The reflexive charge (cf. Plato): is relativism merely relatively true?
Naturalism and relativism (summing
up)
• The problem of relativism is a constant challenge in the
philosophy of science, especially naturalized philosophy of
science rejecting traditional ”first philosophy”. It cannot be
avoided; nor should we simply succumb to relativism.
• Naturalists are right to reject any absolutely autonomous,
science-external ”first philosophy”, but they risk sacrificing
normativity and ending up with (radical) relativism.
• We must continuously seek the middle ground: a normatively
adequate naturalism, a form of naturalism which doesn’t give
up (but merely reinterprets or reconceptualizes) the
traditional normative task of the philosophy of science.
Pragmatist philosophy of science
• Pragmatism is one tradition in the philosophy of
science (and philosophy more generally) that hopes
to offer such a middle ground.
• Classical pragmatist philosophers (of science):
– C.S. Peirce – the scientific method
– William James – perhaps more important in other fields
(e.g., philosophy of religion)
– John Dewey – naturalist, experimentalist theory of inquiry
– G.H. Mead – pragmatism and the social sciences
– Neopragmatists: Rorty, Hilary Putnam, et al.
Pragmatism, truth, and
the goals of science
• Can pragmatists accept (moderate) cognitivism – ”science aims at truth” –
or must they abandon the idea that science is a truth-seeking activity?
– Rorty: truth is not a goal of inquiry. (Truth vs. justification.)
• Again: normative vs. descriptive question: has science been, or should it
be, a truth-seeking activity; have pragmatists believed it to be, and should
they have?
• Rorty’s ethnocentrist neopragmatism (”we have to start from where we
are”) is in the danger of collapsing into radical relativism, with no room for
trans-cultural normativity, and thereby with no resources to distinguish,
even contextually, science from pseudo-science.
– Rorty seems to reduce epistemic (scientific) justification to mere local
justification for a particular scientific community (we have to start
from where we are…).
– Even Rorty will have to use normative concepts!
Pragmatist philosophy of science
(cont’d)
• Some advantages of pragmatism (to be discussed in
more detail later):
– Moderate naturalism: science is part of the natural world,
along with everything else.
• No sharp nature vs. culture dichotomy.
• Normativity can be maintained (”second nature” for us, as the kind
of natural beings we are – cf. John McDowell).
• Emergence?
– Antireductionism, pluralism: no ”unity of science” but the
plurality of perspectives, standpoints, and worldviews (cf.
W. James’s pluralistic pragmatism: science, ethics,
religion, … all relevant to human concerns).
Pragmatist philosophy of science
(cont’d)
• Advantages of pragmatism (cont’d):
– Transcending the realism vs. antirealism opposition: a
pragmatic realism as a synthesis of scientific realism and its
(constructivist, relativist) alternatives (cf. Putnam)?
• The realism issue will, in the following, be adopted as the main
philosophical context for the defense of a pragmatist approach in
the philosophy of science.
– Taking seriously the socio-historical (including
technological) contexts of science and inquiry (cf. Dewey,
Hickman, et al.).
• Perhaps even Kuhn can be interpreted as a pragmatist?
Pragmatist philosophy of science
(cont’d)
• Pragmatism, however, also has its problems:
– Is the pragmatists’ way of going beyond the realism vs.
antirealism controversy successful, or does it collapse back
to idealism, constructivism, relativism, or something else?
(Cf. Kant’s transcendental idealism.)
– How can we adequately articulate the practice-internal
normativity (of science) pragmatists insist on?
– There is no short cut to avoiding the problems of relativism
and naturalism. Even pragmatist philosophy of science
must continuously re-examine its own starting points and
conditions of possibility, in critical dialogue with other
approaches in the philosophy of science.
Suggested reading
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Dewey, J. (1929), The Quest for Certainty, Finnish translation by P. Määttänen:
Pyrkimys varmuuteen, Gaudeamus, Helsinki, 1999.
Feyerabend, P. (1975), Against Method, Verso, London.
Fine, A. (1996), The Shaky Game, rev. ed. (1st ed. 1986), The University of Chicago
Press, Chicago.
James, W. (1907), Pragmatism, Harvard UP, Cambridge, MA, 1975. (The Works of
William James, 19 vols, Harvard UP, 1975-88.)
Kuhn, T.S. (1970), The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed. (1st ed. 1962),
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Niiniluoto, I. (1999), Critical Scientific Realism, Oxford UP, Oxford.
Peirce, C.S. (1931-58), Collected Papers, 8 vols, Harvard UP, Cambridge, MA.
Peirce, C.S. (1992-98), The Essential Peirce, 2 vols, Indiana UP, Bloomington.
Pihlström, S. (1996), Structuring the World, Acta Philosophica Fennica 59, Helsinki.
Pihlström, S. (2003), Naturalizing the Trascendental, Humanity/Prometheus Books,
Amherst, NY.
Suggested reading (cont’d)
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Popper, K.R. (1959), The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934), Routledge, London.
Popper, K.R. (1963), Conjectures and Refutations, Routledge, London.
Putnam, H. (1990), Realism with a Human Face, Harvard UP, Cambridge, MA.
Putnam, H. (1995), Pragmatism: An Open Question, Blackwell, Oxford.
Putnam, H. (2002), The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy, Harvard UP,
Cambridge, MA.
Quine, W.V. (1969), Ontological Relativity and Other Essays, Columbia UP, New York.
Quine, W.V. (1995), From Stimulus to Science, Harvard UP, Cambridge, MA.
Rorty, R. (1979), Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton UP, Princeton, NJ.
Rorty, R. (1982), Consequences of Pragmatism, Harvester Press, Brighton.
Rorty, R. (1998), Truth and Progress, Cambridge UP, Cambridge.