Lars P. Syll — How to understand science

My subsidiary aim is thus to show once-and-for-all why no return to positivism is possible. This of course depends upon my primary aim.For any adequate answer to the critical metaquestion ‘what are the conditions of the plausibility of an account of science ?’ presupposes an account which is capable of thinking of those conditions as special cases. That is to say, to adapt an image of Wittgenstein’s, one can only see the fly in the fly-bottle if one’s perspective is different from that of the fly. And the sting is only removed from a system of thought when the particular conditions under which it makes sense are described. In practice this task is simplified for us by the fact that the conditions under which positivism is plausible as an account of science are largely co-extensive with the conditions under which experience is significant in science. This is of course an important and substantive question which we could say, echoing Kant, no account of science can decline, but positivism cannot ask, because (it will be seen) the idea of insignificant experiences transcends the very bounds of its thought.

Lars P. Syll
How to understand science
quoting Roy Bhaskar

309. "What is your aim in philosophy?-To shew the fly the way out of the fly-bottle." — Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations 

Bhaskar apparently misunderstands Wittgenstein's fly bottle analogy, or uses it for his own purposes. In Wittgenstein's use the analogy serves to reinforce his fundamental "elucidation" in Philosophical Investigations (PI) that uncritical use of language runs up against the boundaries of language, e.g, by attempting to use logic to describe itself. The fly that continues to bang up against the sides of the bottle, unable to see the mouth as the only path to free itself, represents speculative thought attempting to do some that the logic of the language prevents it from doing — and doing this over and over again obsessive-compulsively.

Wittgenstein regarded his logical investigation of the logic of language as therapy rather than theory (PI 133, 254). The correct approach to speculative questions that are inherently undecidable based on the way they are cast is to show the fly the way out of the bottle through logical elucidation rather than explanation, which is impossible owing to the limitations of language. PI is a logical work rather than a metaphysical or epistemological one.

LW's objective in the later works was showing how "philosophical" problems are pseudo-problems resulting from failure to grasp the logic of the language being used to solve them, rather than being theoretical or empirical issues subject to argumentation.

A reason that questions are undecidable is for lack of criteria. Criteria do not exist independently, as many suppose, but within an information system. The norms and boundaries, testing inclusion and exclusion, for instance, provide the fundamental criteria in that information system and other information systems with the same assumptions.

Overarching information systems dealing with the same data are different possible ways of viewing of the data. These delineate different points of view having the scope of worldviews that determine a way of seeing in the sense of organizing information, evaluating it, and acting in terms of it.

The history of philosophy and speculative thought in general, much of which is also expressed in terms of literature and mythology, can be interpreted as the history of the articulation and rationalizing of different worldviews, often in terms of the conflicts among them. Scientism that materialistic and reductionist is also a POV, for example, and extreme positivism can be viewed in this light.

The question then becomes, Is there an overarching information system based on a universal POV to provide final decision criteria? If there is, what would guarantee it's criteria. Are we faced with either circular reasoning or infinite regress in the search for absolute criteria, as skeptics assert. Isn't this the abyss of nihilism and relativism that risks moral relativism as well? Was Protagoras correct  that man is the measure of all things?

As a grad student in a philosophy program that emphasized the historical approach, I soon came to realize that one had to be able to see from the perspective of the various worldviews being elaborated instead of trying to decide how to rank them, which, of course, is necessarily in terms of one's own preferred worldview.

It was not until I studied Wittgenstein that I comprehended what philosophy was about from the logical vantage, and that lacking absolute criteria no position can be justified as certainly true and others certainly false. That would have to take place in an absolute information system, which would require absolute consciousness.

Absolute consciousness is a possible "information system," and some assert it with respect to the universal ground, which is called by different names in the different religions and wisdom traditions. Some claim that this is realized as human perfection.

Those that reputedly have realized this state have claimed that the absolute ground is the only reality and all relative states are "illusory," "imaginative," "contingent," or "dependent" manifestations of this unchanging reality that appear for a time in finite and changing states of awareness. What one takes to be reality is a resultant of the relationship of subject and object in which the nature and state of subjects is contributive and cannot be entirely isolated or eliminated.

Realization should not, however, be confused with Western philosophical idealism, which is speculative rather than the realization that is reported. Realization is sometimes set forth in terms of a model for understanding, but it is made clear that a model is not the reality, just as the map is not the territory.

This is somewhat analogous to the difference between understanding theoretically that the earth orbits the sun or hearing reports of astronauts and actually going into space oneself. That experience is rare at this stage of scaling up technology, just as are reports of realization are rare historically.

Absolute knowledge is not available to most people, even if they assume it is possible. So for all practical purposes, there is no absolute context to provide publicly available criteria. Humans are part of nature and cannot stand outside it to observe it, any more than they can stand outside themselves to view themselves. As Wittgenstein sought to show, humans cannot stand outside of their language either, language being the tool of thought. We use mirrors in which to see ourselves. So too, elucidation enables us to clarify the logical dynamics of language.

In LW's terms, seeing is seeing as, which he elucidates using a Gestalt figure that can be seen as a duck or rabbit. Speculative argument can be thought of as arguing over whether the figure is a duck or a rabbit. The way out is through realizing that the figure can be seen as both depending on the perspective taken.

We can be aware of multiple perspectives, and even use multiples perspectives within wider perspective, but just as we cannot see without perspective, so too we cannot communicate with ourselves (think) or with others outside the perspective of an information system. In this sense, what we call "reality" is ambiguous, in that different information systems exist that are applicable to the same data.

The difference between the duck-rabbit analogy and POVs is that it is much more difficult to shift between worldviews than perspectives on Gestalt figures, if it is even possible in many cases. For example, Western people often say they find Asians to be inscrutable. Studies have shown that a reason for this is likely that Westerners emphasize the foreground more than the background and elements over relationship, where Asians see in terms of the background, which calls attention to relationship and connectedness. Westerners tend to be more attentive to structure and Asians to function. Consequently, the Western POV is more analytic and the Asian perspective is more synthetic. An interesting contrast is presented by those raised bi-culturally and speak a Western and Asians language natively.

Another distinction in ways of seeing is reflected in William Blake's "The Everlasting Gospel."

"Both read the Bible day and night, But thou read'st black where I read white" (13-14) 

"This life’s five windows of the soul Distorts the Heavens from pole to pole, 

And leads you to believe a lie, 

When you see with, not thro’, the eye 

That [which] was born in a night, to perish in a night, 

When the soul slept in the beams of light" (172-175).

What Blake is asserting is that not only are there different perspectives on the same thing but some are more comprehensive than others. This is the assertion of a criterion that those holding the other point of view reject. It has been the bone of contention between mystics and normative religions, for instance, which Blake is addressing.

Blake is attacking the POV of normative religions that holds the bible is a literal narrative (black letters) albeit "inspired." Blake is contending that mystics see things differently.

Mystics see the white background against which the black letters show up, that is, unity underlying diversity, eternity underlying time, and infinity underlying space. The white background is what Blake calls elsewhere "infinity" as in, "If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite." (Marriage of Heaven and Hell), and, "To see a World in a grain of sand/And a Heaven in a wild flower/Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand/And Eternity in an hour.… (Auguries of Innocence). So the "other POV" here is that of the priests and pulpit, which views mysticism as heresy. Blake was a "dangerous" poet in his day.

This insight about POV is especially important in light of the pragmatic use of language, e.g., in persuasion. Different views may have different normative and performative consequences following from assumptions such as norms and criteria that are particular to the structure of the information system, for example. Philosophers often begin with ontology and epistemology, and then an ethical system follows from that, and from the ethical system a social and political system, as well. Most rationales can be quite convincing if one accepts the assumptions, norms and criteria that build the framework.

Everyone operates from an individual perspective, usually culturally and institutionally organized but also influenced by the person's disposition and habit structure. These are naive worldviews that those who hold them take "intuitively" as reality. Philosophers attempt to construct sophisticated worldviews that avoid the issues that riddle naive perspectives. Propagandists attempt to shape worldviews, or to convert people from one to another.

There are obvious comparisons between economic approaches and philosophical approaches, too, based on different POVs. I'll leave that for another time.