Hypotheses - Instrumentalistic Theories Accepted By The Church Doctrine
When I read the assignment instructions I thought that I had never heard about instrumentalism before. But when I started to do research on the definition of an instrumentalistic theory and Andreas Osiander, I realised it wasn’t true. In „Scientific thinking“ (last semester, University of Vienna, held by Herbert Pietschmann) those theories were called “hypotheses”. And this topic is really fascinating. Unfortunately I just had about 150 words to write about the first part so I couldn’t resist opening a new discussion topic.
So why is it so fascinating? I guess it’s because at the time when Copernicus published his work on heliocentrism the church doctrine distinguished between 2 kinds of theories – truth and hypotheses. Theories like the earth being the centre of the universe were defined as true. Theories that weren’t accepted as being true in their nature but were considered important instruments that can predict physical occurrences were hence called hypotheses. That means: as long as you didn’t really believe that such a hypothesis is really true and you just used it as a mathematical model to do calculation for scientific purposes you were fine.
As an example you can also find the Gregorian reform. Nikolaus von Kues insisted to reform the calendar in the 15th century because they were already 10 days behind the actual date. It took about one century that this suggestion was implemented – by pope Gregor XIII. For that purpose it had to be assumed that the sun is placed in the middle of the solar system. So using heliocentrism as an instrument enabled the calculation of the length of one year more accurately. For more info see: - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_of_Cusa - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_year
Another reason why this differentiation between truth and hypotheses
by the church doctrine fascinates me is because it reminds me of
something that George Orwell called Doublethink in his novel “1984”.
This term describes the act of simultaneously accepting 2 (or more)
contradictory beliefs as correct. 1984 gives the example of the sum of
2+2 – for scientific purposes you need to know it equals 4, but if Big
Brother’s party states it equals 5 you would also have to BELIEVE that.
Hence you will believe both and depending on the situation you will
apply the “right” calculation. When I read that book I was totally
stunned and initially I was convinced that something like Doublethink
could never work in real life. - But then I got to know about hypotheses
– and the contradiction between the believed truth and the applied
instrumentalistic theory.
- I analysed what happens if you want to lie in a way that nobody will
recognise – you will have to believe it yourself; even if you
simultaneously know the truth. - I learned about of how many
contradictions the world is made of and that this fact is the source of
irony. “Irony is a condition of inner contrariness” - Raphaël Enthoven
& Vincent Delecroix Hence what I experienced is that Doublethink
DOES exist in our daily lives – even if you are conscious about the
contrariness. For more info see: - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublethink
Coming back to instrumentalistic theories I’d like to bring up one question to the discussion board. It is a question that I thought of while writing my assignment and which I might partly answered while justifying my choice of scientific instrumentalistic theory: What’s the difference between a theory “just” describing reality and being a “real” theory?
PS: When I wrote instrumentalistic theory I always meant a scientific one
Julia Heuritsch
This is a fascinating problem indeed. I guess it is worth pointing out that one can’t simply point at a theory and, using some criteria, decide whether it is instrumental or “real”. The conclusion will depend on one’s epistemological perspective. For example, one of the possible and, in my view, very plausible stances is that we simply cannot understand and know reality “as it is”. We only get some projection of it in our mind, to which an arbitrary set of signals is fed from our perceptional mechanisms (‘arbitrary’ because we can’t assume that our senses is all we need to adequately represent the world). Moreover, we can’t observe even this projection impartially - the process of observation is influenced by what we already know (or think we know) and by social environment in which observation takes place. Thus, what we struggle to understand, is not the “external” world, but a socio-cultural “clearing” of it, which we ourselves create. And by understanding it, we only add more socio-cultural content to it. From this perspective, all scientific theories are inherently instrumental: they simply generalise regularities that we have been able to observe in our “clearing”, and serve to make predictions to serve our practical needs. Thus, the answer to your question would be that there is no difference (or, rather, there are no “real” theories).
P.S: This all of course assumes that there is a world external to the mind.
Max Fedoseev
Well I must say Julia if anyone decides to read your discussion post before attempting their assignment, they would definitely come away with a comprehensive understanding of how to view instrumentalism! Although you have stated that they did not have to believe that these hypotheses were true but just use a mathematical model to do calculation for scientific purposes. Does this provide insight into the attitudes that individuals had towards science and mathematics at this time? As I interpret it to be, mathematics was a means for science to be gradually accepted and influence society without coming up against too much retaliation. This is since, mathematics has a greater emphasis in society than science and therefore is accepted by even those individuals whom are devout religious individuals.
In regards to your discussion question, at first I found it hard to distinguish between the two which demonstrates that mayeb there isn’t a difference. But after some thinking time I came up with one perspective which is that a theory “just” describing reality is the theories that are attempting to evaluate and answer the questions about the universe we live in. I think that maybe the “real” theories are actually the ones that are traded in as laws. Laws were once theories but because there was a significnace agreement to their ability to be entirely real, they subsequently became laws.
Max you have a asserted an interesting point that this differentiation is influenced by the epistemological perspective. I can agree with what you have said because as humans we are constrained in the abilities of our composition. Although do you think that one day this will change?
Bernadette
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Bernadette, I don’t think that the scientific method gives any such possibility (some of the reasons for that I gave above and in the topic about anomalies and experimental errors).
However, I’m not sure that ‘the truth’ is unreachable in principle. Perhaps, some other forms of cognition might end up being more successful in this respect. (This is not because I have philosophical reasons to think so, but, rather, because I can’t deny the possibility).
Max
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Yeah, Max I totally agree with what you wrote! That’s a really interesting topic as I guess you would never find a finite answer to that. Many philosophers have argued about that topic … Have you heard about “Kant’s glasses”? According to Kant you experience reality as if you were “glasses” that are biased by space and time and we can never get rid of them. - I read that in the book „Denken wie Diogenes“ by Nicholas Fearn
Julia Heuritsch
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I haven’t studied Kant in detail yet, but from what I know, his view was roughly that space and time do not exist objectively. They are abstracts that help us make sense of our perceptual experiences. In other words, they arise in the mind only as a form of sensibility that allows us to coordinate all external sensations.
This is indeed relevant to the discussion of instrumentalism of science, for the notions of space and time are fundamental to making observations and predictions. Thus, if space and time are not objective, then neither are scientific claims.
Max
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Fantastic posts everyone! I’m blown away by the discussion board this year.
Max, I don’t think you want to say “From this perspective, all scientific theories are inherently instrumental”. Have another look at the definition of “instrumentalist”. What you CAN say (if you like) is that maybe all scientific theories SHOULD be inherently instrumental”. The only way you’re going to get from that to the theories actually BEING instrumental is to kill all the realists! Which I cannot condone. Unless maybe you do it very very humanely.
As for Kant, he’s very relevant for this course because he influenced all the scientists who invented relativity and quantum mechanics. We’ll have a lecture on that later. As you say, Max, his view of space and time was that they are not objectively real … but that’s a bit misleading because he thought that NOTHING was objectively real (except for “noumena”, which you can’t say anything about). In fact, he thought that space and time were a bit more real than most other things. But basically you’re right. Kantians (and many other philosophers) are suspicious of claims about the reality of anything. I’ll be saying more about this after we’ve done relativity and quantum mechanics.
Jason
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Jason, I see what you’re getting at by inserting ‘SHOULD’ there. However, I don’t quite see the connection with the definition (you’re talking about the definition in the assignment task, right?).
The definition says that instrumentalism is ‘the view that a scientific theory is to be regarded as an instrument for producing new predictions or new techniques for controlling events, but not as itself capable of literal truth or falsity’.
With instumentalism defined in this way, I can’t see why I can’t argue that all theories ARE instrumental - regardless of there being realists out there. I mean, this would be my view, and they would have a different view. What’s the terminological problem here?
Would you please clarify this? It looks like I’m missing something important in understanding the essay question.
Max
OK, good point. Still, a lot of theories are not instrumentalist, because they claim to say what’s really there. For example, if you’ll excuse me using an example that we haven’t covered in lectures yet, the Many Worlds theory of quantum mechanics is a realist theory; otherwise, what the proponents of the theory say about it is not only wrong, it doesn’t even make sense. (See the reading by Sudbery.) Maybe what we’re both trying to say is that from your perspective the CORRECT VIEW of all scientific theories is an instrumental one. That’s the correct view as opposed (in some cases) to the actual view held by the people who define the theory. (In that case, a theory which doesn’t make sense on an instrumentalist reading is a bad theory. That’s OK.)
Jason
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Ok, I see. Does this imply that what you expect from a theory in our assignment is that someone should have genuinely argued that the theory was instrumental, and, AT THE SAME TIME, there might or might not have been people viewing the same theory as realistic?
Max
For the assignment, no, I don’t care about whether anyone had a realist view of anything. We might need the idea of realism to understand the idea of instrumentalism, but I don’t think you have to talk about any specific examples of realism to answer the assignment question. And you’ve only got 600 words!
Jason
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I question with instrumentalist theories, has any scientist ever constructed a theory with the intention that the theory is to be an instrumentalist theory? Also having said this, does an instrumentalist theory only really come from a present reflection and interpretation of the way the theory is being used in the present?
Bernadette
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Bernadette, yes to your first question, and I think yes to the second one too if I understand it. A really good example of a theory which was intended to be instrumentalist all along is Bohr’s version of quantum mechanics, which we’ll be doing in lectures soon.
Jason
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This is a fantastic thread! Julia your post on Doublethink got me thinking (doubly!), particularly where you said:
“– I analysed what happens if you want to lie in a way that nobody will recognise – you will have to believe it yourself; even if you simultaneously know the truth.”
I would like to expand on this and comment on our ability to hold multiple conflicting opinions at once, and I think it’s important that the doublethinker doesn’t make a decision on truth/falseness between the two ideas. One can have an undecided sort of doublethink without lying about something, and without even realizing. For example, I like the big bang and I also like cyclic universe models (for some unknown reason). Because I haven’t had to give an answer for what I believe, I’m quite happy to go on believing both contradictory hypotheses at once. But if I was ever forced to state my opinion on the matter, I would have to either lie or make a decision and stick with it.
I often fantasise that these sorts of decisions break wavefunctions… but, you know, that’s crazy.
Benzilla
Yes, fantastic point. We all hold lots of conflicting beliefs.
I can’t find a Benzilla in my student roll, so I’m not sure who to give the participation marks to.
Jason
Oh, I just got off the phone to him actually. His student number is u4407274.
-Ben
I’m sure it’s against the university’s rules to solicit marks on behalf of another student. Hang on: I’ll go and look it up.
Jason
