Derek L. Phillips

Paradigms and incommensurability

One of the consequences of the new image of science has been an emphasis on the ‘incommensurability’ of paradigms. As we have seen, advocates of the new image challenge the view that statements, including scientific theories, have some atomic, fixed meanings; they argue that statements have meanings only by virtue of their relations to other statements in the system to which they belong. Further, Kuhn and Feyerabend stress the very impossibility of comparing, contrasting and discussing different observational languages, theories and standards when different scientific paradigms are involved. Scientists work within these paradigms, and the paradigms determine the scientists’ views of the world. A scientist working within a given paradigm simply cannot, on Kuhn’s account, transcend his own particular situation. In his words: ‘Though most of the same signs are used before and after a [scientific] revolution e.g. force, mass, element, compound, cell the ways in which some of them attach to nature have changed. Successive theories are thus, we say, incommensurable.’1 Feyerabend is in general agreement with Kuhn, acknowledging that ‘succeeding paradigms can be evaluated only with difficulty and that they may be altogether incomparable’.2 He goes on to speak of incommensurable theories whose ‘content cannot be compared’.

Two Images of Science

Until relatively recently, descriptions of science have been characterised by an ahistorical approach, with a heavy emphasis on logic, on the unified nature of science, on the principle of empiricism and on formal analysis. Science, from this perspective, is an enterprise controlled by logic and empirical facts, whose purpose is to formulate truths about the laws of nature. This dominant view has long been firmly entrenched and taken for granted. It has enjoyed the support not only of philosophers of science but of practising scientists as well. Slowly, however, this image of science is being replaced by a new image, where science is viewed as a social activity. This new image is represented by Thomas Kuhn, Michael Polanyi, Paul Feyerabend, Stephen Toulmin and others. As I will indicate in the following pages, it shares many characteristics with that part of sociology which is referred to as the sociology of knowledge.

Wittgenstein the Man

This is not a book about Ludwig Wittgenstein, although he is a central figure throughout the volume. It is, rather, a book concerned with bringing certain controversies in the philosophy of science to the attention of social scientists and with using some of Wittgenstein’s ideas to shed light upon these controversies. Nevertheless, it is instructive to turn our attention to Wittgenstein’s life before we move on to consider his philosophical views and their relevance for the practice of sociology and science more generally. Not only can we better understand the thought of Ludwig Wittgenstein by examining the social and intellectual milieu in which it developed, but we can also see the intimate link between his life and his work.

The Demarcation Problem in Science

The problem of demarcating science from non- or pseudo-science has serious ethical and political implications for science itself and, indeed, for all societies in which science is practised. The conflicts and controversies surrounding the views of Copernicus, Galileo, Darwin or Lysenko make this abundantly clear. Sometimes these controversies involve what are generally regarded as non-scientific or political considerations. Examples of this are the banning of Copernicus’s theory by the Catholic Church, and the support of Lysenko’s position by the authorities in Russia in opposition to the neo-Darwinists. At other times, however, it is not the church, the state or the party that is involved in disputes about what is to be seen as science, but rather the scientific community itself. Much of the debate today concerning race and intelligence is regarded in some scientific circles as a debate concerning pseudo-scientific claims. The analyses and conclusions of those who claim a link between heredity and intelligence are viewed by some scientists as ‘pseudo-scientific’ and, consequently, these men are often defined as fakes, charlatans or pretenders by organised segments of the scientific community.

Doubt and Certainty

In the previous chapter I suggested that scientists can be seen as formulating alternative world-views or ‘possibilities’. These possibilities constitute new ways of creating and looking at particular worlds: the worlds of social, psychological, biological, chemical or physical phenomena. Further, I have argued that for a world-view or possibility to constitute ‘scientific’ knowledge or truth, it is necessary that it be warranted as knowledge or truth by particular groups of people who form scientific communities. The process by which truth- and knowledge-claims are granted scientific status, I have emphasised, involves persuasion, which itself relies heavily on argumentation and rhetoric.

Relativism and Wittgenstein

I noted in the previous chapter that the new image of science, especially as represented by Kuhn, shares certain characteristics with the sociology of knowledge. Most importantly, they both appear to lead to relativism. In this chapter, I will consider the relativism issue at greater length, and then will introduce some of Wittgenstein’s ideas which, I believe, are helpful in this regard.

Possibilities and Persuasion

I noted in the previous chapter that Feyerabend emphasises the need for new ‘possibilities’, new ways of looking at and talking about the world. An anarchistic epistemology, he states, ‘is not only a better means for improving knowledge, or of understanding history. It is also more appropriate for a free man to use than are its rigorous and “scientific” alternatives.’3 I assume that in the above, ‘knowledge’ refers to scientific knowledge, and here lies the nub of the problem with Feyer-abend’s position. He fails to recognise the extent to which scientific knowledge is the result of certain appraisals and judgements (warranting processes) within scientific communities. He fails to acknowledge that science is a social enterprise, with an organised consensus of men determining what is and is not science, and what is and is not to be warranted as scientific knowledge. As Dolby points out: ‘A scientist does not establish his own results. There can only be scientific knowledge of what a group of people [scientists] can agree upon.’4 Furthermore, Feyerabend’s recommendation that ‘anything goes’, while liberating (and therefore to be recommended) for the individual scientist, ignores the problem of how scientific knowledge is created. In this chapter, I wish to begin by considering the notion of ‘possibility’ more closely, following this with a brief discussion of the survival power of possibilities, and then in the last portion of the chapter turning to persuasion and argumentation.

The Social Nature of Mathematics

As was noted in chapter 3, Mannheim and most other sociologists of knowledge hold that the natural sciences are immune from the influence of social factors. The natural sciences, logic and mathematics are, it is widely assumed, detachable from historical-social influences. Mannheim, for example, could not see how 2×2 = 4 could be thought about sociologically.2 This has continued to be the view among sociologists of knowledge and science to the present day. Even C. Wright Mills, who did recognise that science and logic were subject to social influences, only partially grasped the extent to which they could be approached sociologically.3 Ludwig Wittgenstein, on the other hand, provides us with a framework within which mathematics and logic can be viewed sociologically in a deeper sense than heretofore.

The ‘Early’ and ‘Later’ Wittgenstein

Although, as indicated in the preface, our interest is in the ‘later’ rather than the ‘early’ Wittgenstein, it is important to consider briefly the ideas advanced in the Tractatus before going on to examine, in greater depth, his subsequent views. Despite the enormous differences in his standpoints during the two phases of his work, his principal aim remained the achievement of clear understanding. And he always emphasised that philosophy was not a science, but rather an activity of elucidation and clarification. His concern in both phases was with the same topic: the relation of language to the world.