Beach Haven

LEVIATHAN AND THE AIR-PUMP
HOBBES, BOYLE, AND THE EXPERIMENTAL LIFE
By Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer
Princeton University Press, 1985, 391 pages
Review by Michael Beach

This history covers an important time in the history of scientific thought. Many scholars consider the 17th century as the ‘scientific revolution’. Many famous discoveries took place around this time. The history under review here speaks to a major debate of the time. Represented by Robert Boyle were those who believed in experimentation as the basis of knowledge production. Thomas Hobbes, on the other hand, questioned experimentation, preferring philosophical debate as the basis for coming to understanding. Boyle argued that we should believe our eyes, yet so much of experimentation is ‘managed’ that even today debate over knowledge construction versus knowledge discovery continues.
 
The reading claims that “many aspects of the programme that he (Boyle) recommended continue to characterize modern scientific activity and philosophies of scientific method” (p. 341).  Yet the pump experiments varied in both makeup and outcome. Theories also varied from pump to pump and outcome to outcome. Did facts created by experiments explain the various theories, or did the various theories serve to explain the facts noted in the experiments? When one interprets facts, are they interpreting whether something is a fact, or are they interpreting the meaning of the fact itself?
 
There also seems to be an interesting power balance issue. Hobbes had a connection with the king. You’d think that would have caused his arguments to carry more weight. Yet Hobbes was not accepted into The Royal Society (a prominent British scientific association). The authors offered a long set of examples of speculation by others as to why that was.  Some of the arguments surrounded Hobbes’ personality, yet Shapin and Schaffer show how some accepted members were perhaps more surly than Hobbes.
 
It may have come down to the fact that Boyle had members of The Royal Society act as witnesses to his air-pump experiments and even sign affidavits to the effect. At the same time Hobbes questioned the need for repeated experiments, or at times any experiments. By questioning the intellectual approach of the use of ingenuity (p. 130), which for Hobbes and his detractors was understood to be a slant, he put himself at odds with what amounted to be much of the collective thought leadership at the time. Reliance on the mechanical ‘tricks’, as he put it, was to denote something less than true philosophy.
 
Hobbes wrote a treatise on knowledge and science published in 1651 which he titled Leviathan. Aside from Hobbes’ negative portrait of experimentalists, most members of the Society looked at Hobbes as too dogmatic, including this publishing.
 
Whatever one believes to be the ultimate issue, the authors clearly state, “The rationalistic production of knowledge threatened that involved in the Royal Society’s experimentalism” (p. 139). Hobbes made an interesting assertion that many would still argue today. He depicted Boyle’s experiments as being based on his own assumptions about the nature of air. Likewise, it’s clear that Hobbes also had preconceived ideas. In fact, both Boyle and Hobbes came to what today would be thought of as false conclusions about what was happening inside the vacuum created by the pump. One could argue Boyle pre-decided the outcome of the experiments, the matters of fact, based on his ideas around the nature of air. Likewise, Hobbes essentially argued to ignore the experiments since the interpretation of the outcome was not proven, only conjectured. Yet Hobbes put more stock in his own ideas without any consideration of any matters of fact. As I see it both were socially constructing their perceptions pre- and post-experimentation.

THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS
4th Edition
By Thomas S. Kuhn
The University of Chicago Press, 2012, 217 pages

In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (original 1962) Thomas Kuhn sheds doubt on the cumulative nature of scientific knowledge, and offers an alternative explanation of how scientists’ views change over time. Kuhn describes the source of his inspiration as coming from historiographic cyclical patterns leading up to and following major shifts, or “extraordinary episodes” (p.6), in scientific thought; noting the pattern as normal science, puzzle-solving, an established paradigm, discovery of anomalies, crisis, and revolution. The author’s “most fundamental objective is to urge a change in the perception and evaluation of familiar data” (p. xliii), here he is referring to historiographical data, in order to advocate a “reorientation” (ibid) of how we understand the nature of scientific change.

Kuhn appeals to both historians of science, and communities of scientists, in an effort to show value in both disciplines, and how the ideas of each influences the other. His argument is strengthened through use of multiple specific examples of scientific revolutions (extraordinary episodes both large and small) to show how events followed the proposed historic pattern.

The author points to weaknesses in his argument in a postscript added to the 1969 edition, having ignored other influences on paradigms (which he referred to as a 'disciplinary matrix') such as metaphysics, values, and shared commitment (p. 185-186). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions has become canon in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS), as it raises significant questions in history, sociology, philosophy, and policy; all core concerns in the STS discipline.

​LEFT FOR DEAD
MY JOURNEY HOME FROM EVEREST
By Beck Weathers and Stephen G. Michaud
Bantam Books, 2015, 292 pages
Review by Michael Beach
 
At first one could assume this was another account of the tragedy that has been documented in a number of works including books and movies. Although the authors reference occurrences of the 1996 Everest attempt, this book focuses more about how mountaineering, and other obsessions, took Weathers away from his home and family. As a result, he nearly lost his family. On Everest he nearly lost his life. He did lose physical parts of himself. He documents both the physical rescue and recovery, as well has the changes he made in himself to become a part of his family again. Although there is adventure in the book, this is more a self-assessment and philosophical journey.
 
Beck Weathers was among climbers from several adventure tour organizations who paid for guides to help them summit Everest. Unfortunately, a series of physical problems kept him from reaching the goal. Worse, bad weather swept in on summit day and trapped many of the climbers out in the open, including Weathers. He and several other climbers were eventually left behind as other climbers felt unable to help them, and judged that helping them back to camp would not stop the inevitable. Death did come to the other stranded climbers around Weathers, but for reasons even he does not understand, he wondered alone, blind, and severely frost bitten eventually stumbling into camp.
 
Having read a few of the other accounts, this telling adds perspective. It is also very applicable to many who obsessively take on goal achievement as a method to stave off depression. That is Beck Weathers’ assessment of himself. His family suffered to the point that his marriage was on the brink of divorce. Coming home physically after Everest did not stop the potential of divorce. What saved his family was his willingness to understand the real issues he faced psychologically and get help in approaching something like normalcy in himself. He had to take this step first before he could work with his wife to reconstitute the family unit. Though this reviewer was not as obsessed as the primary author, yet some of those same tendencies are noted, making this work of the author’s introspection one also for this reader.

​THE PHILOSOPHER’S TOOLKIT
By Julian Baggini & Peter S. Fosl
Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, 284 pages
Review by Michael Beach
 
The subtitle for this work is A Compendium of Philosophical Concepts and Methods. The authors have organized philosophical ideas in a dictionary-like format. The ideas are explained, along with how philosophers tend to use each idea in practical argument. Some philosophies also accompany a short history of the given idea. The authors do not approach the discipline comprehensively, rather they narrow philosophical argument to areas associated with science and technology.
 
The reader will find the work both academic for contemplation, and practical if engaging in debate. If one studies science and technology, perspective and clarity of thought behind various approaches of areas of discipline are informed by understanding major movements in scientific thought. 

​REPRESENTING AND INTERVENING
By Ian Hacking
Cambridge University Press, 1983, 287 pages
Review by Michael Beach
 
In this work, Hacking reviews philosophical thought related to science and technology from the perspective of how scientific and technological ideas do or don’t represent reality. He also shows argument around scientific use of ideas and technology to create reality (intervening). Aside from reviewing the main arguments and philosophers involved on the topics he often interjects his own stands on the issues.
 
An example of a key philosophical debate is eluded to in a quote by Lakatos. His reading of Popper on knowledge growth stated simply is, “people propose, nature disposes” (114).
 
Hacking makes a number of comparisons between the philosophical perspectives of Lakatos and others such as Popper, Kuhn, Putnam, and Kant. The key phase is one focus, specifically on how (and if) science progresses. For Lakatos, successive research either progresses a theory, or degenerates it (117). In this way, theories are bolstered or unsupported by empiricist efforts.
 
Some direct comparison between Kuhn and Putnam allows Hacking to clarify. For instance, while Kuhn speaks of scientific revolution, Putnam is focused more on evolution in terms of knowledge growth through rationality (111). Putnam further muddies the knowledge-growth question through the concepts of reference and extension. One of his arguments, for example, is that a given reference may be understood differently by different people, making the extension, including knowledge growth though experiment, essentially impossible (101). If one accepts this premise, then proposals by people (theories) are not universally understood, nor the disposition of nature as neither the proposition nor the disposition are held in common among scientists.
 
Putnam’s struggle is with meaning. Hacking denotes that a reference is the meaning, or thing, represented by the word. Sense is more like the connotative understanding of the thing, the reference in question (75). If Putnam questions one’s ability to concur with others on either reference or sense, then his questioning of knowledge growth is understandable. The scientific world seems to get around the difference through the practice of dubbing. Where Lakatos would argue that knowledge growth can only be understood in retrospect (118), Hacking argues in favor of dubbing “new natural kinds” which are “often the result of initial speculations which are gradually articulated into theory and experiment” (82).
 
Ian Hacking’s work shows a mixed message claiming varying schools of scientific philosophy share common ground, yet differ in fundamental ways, stating how such point-by-point opposition between philosophers only means there is ‘underlying agreement’.
 
By introduction, Hacking makes a case for ‘common ground’.  He shares seven areas where he believes Carnap and Popper, and by extension philosophers of science in general, tend to agree (5). Natural science is the best rational thought. Distinction exists between observation and theory. Knowledge is cumulative. Science has a deductive structure. Science depends on precise language. Unity of science methodology exists in each discipline. Finally, the context of justification differs from the context of discovery.
 
Despite these unifying assertions, pretty much all the rest of the reading shows an evolution, along with examples of fundamental change of thought. For example, Hacking’s first positivist instinct refers to falsifiability as a ‘variant’ of verification (41), yet early in his work (3) he refers to the divided image of Carnap and Popper as betraying a ‘deeper’ difference. It seems difficult to justify such ‘deeper difference’ with simply being ‘variant’. Difference is variable, on a subjective scale. Qualifying words expose subjective opinion. At times Hacking depicts difference as minor, other times as significant.
 
Hacking describes schools of thought within his own form of structure; realism vs anti-realism, causal vs anti-causal, theoretical entities vs anti-theoretical entities, and the list continues. A specific example referred to earlier was the divided image of Carnap and Popper. Carnap was in favor of science as verifiable. By this he claimed metaphysics is not science, inductive reasoning should be employed, and there are important meanings in language. Popper, on the other hand, stood for science as falsifiable. By this he argued metaphysics leads to science, deductive reasoning should be employed, and calling meanings and language only ‘scholastic’ (4).
 
Difference can be understood subjectively by degrees. Hacking seems simultaneously to both emphasize and downplay difference. Readers could easily see downplayed example differences as significant.
 
Among the topics around speculation and experimentation I found the bridging concept of calculation particularly important. A calculation is a form of modeling. Hacking referenced many ideas of his own and others about meanings of speculation (theory) and experimentation (observation). However, until he addressed the bridging aspect of calculation in the speculation-calculation-experimentation framework, the two seemed somewhat independent. In fact, many of Hacking’s reference philosophers argued specifically a lack of connection between theory and empirical data.
 
This framework also answered a longstanding question for me. So often in science classes teachers would introduce the idea of constants. These constants were usually attached to the name of a scientist who ‘discovered’ or ‘introduced’ the constant. They never were explained. We were just taught how to incorporate a specific constant into a formula to obtain the answer to a specific scientific process. Hacking explains how a calculation comes about from a need to explain a given observation or experimental data set (artifact, phenomenon). Adding a constant to make a calculation consistently approximate the expected outcome allows science to adopt a theory that adheres to accepted scientific principles. The beauty of such a bridging approach is it also allows for change in both theory and experiment without shifting the calculation. The same calculation can be used to support different theories or outcomes.
 
The resulting approximation becomes yet another central argument Hacking spends considerable time discussing. If a formula and data from empirical observation consistently approximate theoretical prediction, is that bringing us any closer to truth, or just substantiating a theory that purports to stand for truth? Perhaps the substantiation is merely for a given system generally accepted by the larger scientific community at the time of the speculation-calculation-experimentation linkage.

PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
A VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION
By Samir Okasha
Oxford University Press, 2016, 140 pages
Review by Michael Beach
 
The title is very descriptive of the content. The book is one in a long series of ‘very short introductions’ published by Oxford. In an earlier similar review I looked at Simon Critchley’s version of a related topic. One of the major themes of his work was the split between the analytical and continental schools of scientific philosophy. Okasha takes up many themes. I’ll focus here one theme, the continuum between scientism and obscurantism, as an example of unresolved issues within the larger philosophical community. These continuum extremes seem at least partially aligned with analytic and continental philosophies respectively. The issues are central and remain unresolved.
 
Scientism is a belief that only science and the scientific method can expose truth. This approach leads to ignoring information not always testable, yet pertinent, such as the moral application of knowledge. Philosophical outcomes such as the discouragement of humanity through a belief in meaninglessness can follow. Supporters of scientism consider such a concern a non-issue. This outcome might be a logical extension of the arguments of Rudolf Carnap.

Obscurantism emphasizes thought over experiment which can lead to questioning the importance of science. Such questioning encourages speculation with less emphasis on searching out supportive facts. Supporting logic of this approach are a possible extension of the views expressed by Martin Heidegger.

Critchley attempted to seek some balance along the continuum “by defending a notion of phenomenology that aims to undermine scientism without falling into obscurantism” (Critchley 113). He goes on to explain how pre-theoretical experience, or pre-science, is a “reflection upon what precedes reflection.” Perhaps Okasha’s review of the arbitrariness of species classification seeks a similar balance. He also asks the question if science is value-free (Okasha 123). He notes how specialization can make it difficult to move from the micro to the macro.

Philosophical camps still line up along differing points in this continuum, including the absolutes. Though these readings share perspectives, the path to resolution, if there is one, seems foggy at best.
​

MICHAEL POLANYI AND HIS GENERATION
By Mary Jo Nye
University of Chicago Press, 2011, 405 pages
​Review by Michael Beach
 
Through the personal history of Michael Polanyi, Mary Jo Nye helps readers through the growth of ideas around how science is influenced by society. The subtitle helps to understand this; ‘Origins of the Social Construction of Science.’

The idea of community relates to groups of people, and how people within the group influence each other. Nye, through Polanyi, makes the case for ‘social construction’. Social implies community. Construction implies group influence. Before reviewing Polanyi’s theoretical loss to Langmuir on the Nernst heat problem, Nye paraphrases Polanyi’s views on the outcomes. She depicts his views as a “controversial description of science as a community of dogmatic traditions and social practices rather than a march of revolutionary ideas and individual genius” (Nye 85).

The word community shares the word root of communication, which implies interaction. In the scientific world, individuals or groups of scientists communicate ideas through formal and informal methods. The community reflects back acceptance or non-acceptance (sometimes both) equally through formal and informal methods.

Chapter 3 in particular shows some of the downs in the up-and-down scientific career of Polanyi. It is probably fair to say he was surrounded by, and was part of, a community of some of the leading minds in chemistry and physics of his day, and of all time. The comment and reflection of that community not only influenced success or failure of his career personally, but also determined future directions of the pursuit of scientific knowledge.

A key example Nye gives is acceptance of Langmuir’s ideas of covalent and electrovalent polar and non-polar bonds over Polanyi’s adsorption theory. Several times she quotes Polanyi as he points to comments by Einstein, Nernst and others indicating that adsorption did not fit with new electron theories (Nye 109). This difficulty held true even given later “consistency of evidence with his new theory” (ibid). The community put more stock in ideas that supported the more recently accepted electron theories almost exclusively. Such was the power of scientific community.

Michael Polanyi’s work with Henry Eyring regarding a temporary transition state of chemical reactions might be seen as a foreshadow of his own transition state as he changed focus from chemistry, to economics and politics, finally settling on the philosophy of science.

The position taken by Polanyi and Erying defines the semi-empirical method in which experience is considered along with mathematical formulaic calculation. An element of probability is included in defining chemical interaction. Based on empirical experimentation, they posited when joining one chemical to a compound of two, the result is a different compound and chemical. They also asserted that during the transition process there is a temporary state in which a single compound composed of all three chemicals exists.

During his time in Budapest and Berlin, Polanyi was focused primarily on chemistry, but there was always some smaller amount of his time in which he considered, and wrote about, economics and politics. After moving to Manchester, the balance of his attention shifted the other way. Others in the chemistry department complained about this attention shift. He put less and less time into the daily lab effort. He even used a concocted chemical apparatus of a vacuum-containing glass to make a graphic explanation of his ideas on Keynesian economics (Nye 159).

Nye argues that Polanyi’s economic preoccupation was a “bridge to his sociologically inflected philosophy of science” (Nye 176). If this ‘bridge’ idea is true, then the original state might be thought of as science, since chemistry is a branch of science. It could be argued that both economics and politics have sociological and philosophical foundations. The mix of all of these areas of contemplation led to the final state of his new ‘intellectual compound’ within the discipline of the philosophy of science. During his 'transitory state', Polanyi was not fully based in science nor the social sciences, but some shifting level of each. The resultant ‘compound’ of the philosophy of science was not the same as the beginning ‘substance’ of science nor the transitory ‘compound’ of science, economics and politics.
​

CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY
A VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION
By Simon Critchley
Oxford University Press, 2001, 149 pages
 
In the discipline of the philosophy of science and technology, two major schisms have evolved, Continental Philosophy and Analytic Philosophy. In this introductory work, Critchley leads the reader through the historical evolution of the ideas of the Continental school, and those who are its leading proponents. The book is laid out as if a series of lectures, one per chapter. Perhaps that was the author’s use or intent.

An example of one focus of the work would be an examination of to whether Continental and Analytic fundamentals represent an unbridgeable divide or are somewhat complimentary. If truth and wisdom (or meaning) are not the same thing, and according to John Stuart Mill (as depicted by Critchley) a difference in the search of each led to such a strong division among generations of philosophers, then why would some philosophers such as Critchley argue the necessity of both rather one over the other?

This ‘why’ question asked includes several premises spoken of throughout the work; the existence of the two schools, the difference of focus for each, the division of rhetoric between them, and attempts by some to enhance or lessen the division. The question asks for opinion, yet would require a respondent to share some data to give credence to their conclusion. To answer the question with evidence would presume some examples of philosophical debate that either seeks to depict difference, or show complementarity between the Analytical and Continental approaches.
The question itself is a short ‘why’, but the prelude lays out a more complicated compound list of premises to show motivation to the question. A respondent may consider whether each or any of the premises are true, or even if any philosophers (including Critchley) actually made the argument asserted.

One such as Critchley considering a response, could approach the answer as a cynic. They may think nobody really argues in favor of complementarity, and seek to disprove that assertion. They might alternatively be a believer. In which case their answer may seek not only to show examples of publicized papers in favor of complementarity, but also argue the position themselves. In an attempt to lay out an introductory approach, Critchley does both.

The goal of the question may be provoking, as it depicts an assumption of philosophers either seeking separation or coexistence. The answer would lead the answerer to take sides around the idea of whether separation or complementarity exist, and why the respondent tends to agree with one, or at least why they feel Critchley agreed with one. The question skews toward complementarity over division since proponents of complementarity, like Critchley, are the focus. Perhaps the question then is leading toward a future seeking more cohesion in the academic discipline of philosophy.

RELOCATING MODERN SCIENCE
By Kapil Raj
Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, 285 pages


​
The subscript to the title reads: Circulation and the Construction of Knowledge in South Asia and Europe, 1650-1900. The author offers historical examples to support essentially two hypotheses. The first is that when two cultures interact, the science of both hybridize with each other, they co-construct. Each then evolves differently before and after the interaction. Traditionally western businesses look to expand into additional markets, or to gain new trading partners. In the historical period in question, each European country had some version of an East India Company that sought to exploit India and surrounding states. The belief was that the 'contact zone' such as the Indian Ocean region was a source for information. The science was happening back at the European society, then diffused or disseminated back out to the contact zone. These western countries inevitably expanded trade into some form of colonization.

This idea of science diffusing from west to east also spurred the other major argument Raj has. Western countries had an inherent mistrust of data gathered by 'locals' rather than data gathered by European scientists. He shows that even when western, essentially white, scientists are present, the real information still comes from local scholars, often in writings that already existed before the 'explorers' even arrived.

Two-Way Flow of Scientific Knowledge Between Europe and South Asia

In the reading, Kapil Raj gives examples of how Indian knowledge and expertise contributed to scientific accomplishments. These accomplishments were then brought back to Europe as a form of hybrid science. This assertion is in contrast to the tradition argument of the diffusion model where contact zones are areas where data is extracted to inform science that happens in the west, then diffused back to contact zones. Raj shows how knowledge from the west mixed with Indian knowledge to form a new sort of knowledge that was further adopted differently in both Britain and India. Each knowledge base was different from each other, and from what existed before the cultural interaction. This is because people are mutable, and they make process and knowledge likewise mutable. Science, then, is a function of situated values, norms, sociabilities, divisions of labor, regimes of proof, etc. (228) Contact zones implement co-constructive processes of negotiation.

One example, the interaction between French and Dutch botanists with locals in Orissa and Malabar which brought about two studies, the Jardin de Lorixa and the Hortus Malabaricus. French and Dutch actors learned local botanical and medical knowledge from Fakirs through pre-existing indigenous books. Both resulting works were largely ignored for various political reasons such as Antoine de Jussieu’s personal issues with Nicolas L’Empereur. Eventually additional actors looked at the information in more market-oriented terms and the value of the two works were revisited.

Mapping efforts in India by James Rennell in the 1780s, and Thomas Montgomerie throughout the 1860s to 1880s are further examples. Both used western approaches to train locals in surveying efforts, but worked with the locals (Pundits) to adopt approaches based on local needs. In the case of the Pundits working for Montgomerie, use of traditional western instruments caused negative repercussions by mountain peoples who saw the work as spying. To adjust, Montgomerie adopted Pundit bodies as instruments using pace counting in place of survey chains. In one case when Nain Singh was pushed to ride on an animal, he adjusted the stride count from his own body to that of the animal. When western cartographers questioned the process it was later shown this approach to be more accurate than some other western attempts using scientific instruments alone (215-216). This approach also often kept the human 'instrument' from being killed.

Mapping efforts started with economic goals in mind (defining farm lands or trade routes). Eventually these goals gave way to political goals, such as when the British government took advantage of French and Russian wars, coupled with fear of a potential Russia-China pact, to militarily secure Himalayan trade routes. Despite the success of the mapping effort, the exploitation attempt went poorly in 1904 when British forces killed 5000 Tibetans, then left without any real gain. In this sort of example Raj calls cartography ‘politics by other means.’ (185)

Credible Witnesses

Given skepticism by British scholars who never left the comfort of the Royal Geographic Society, Raj points to efforts by East India Company (EIC) officials to inspire trust in efforts at knowledge generation by a blend of British and Indian scholars. One way they did this was to create colleges in India where EIC officials were sent to learn local information such as language and geography. Locals were simultaneously taught western science, sometimes separate from their British counterparts, sometimes in the same classes. The more the EIC western students learned from and interacted with locals, the more they came to trust them and convey back to England the trustworthiness of generated information. In fact it worked so well there came a time when Indian scholars were brought to England to teach similar topics in British schools.

Indian scholars were able to share their own theoretical/mathematical ideas which seem to work better than the experimental learning encouraged by instruments shared from the west. (179) Western math books were quickly consumed by Indian scholars, and then updated with additional new Indian mathematical discoveries.

​THE HANDBOOK OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY STUDIES            
Edited by Edward J. Hackett, Olga Amsterdamska, 
​​Michael Lynch, and Judy Wajcman
The MIT Press, 2008, 1065 pages
 
​
Every so many years (somewhat random as best as I can tell) leading practitioners of the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS), also known as Science, Technology and Society, put together a compendium of academic papers that represent major trends in the discipline at the time of publication. The version covered by this review is the third edition.
 
The major sections include thoughts about the academic discipline as a field of study, social and science practice, politics, institutions, economics, and emergent technosciences. I started reading the volume before starting my post-graduate work at Virginia Tech. Because of the size (page count) and variation of thought it takes time to wade through the papers contained. The last third or so I had to balance with my school reading that took way more of my time.
 
The topics are varied enough that those not specifically seeking STS insight will still likely find something so long as the reader has some interest in non-fiction. Some of the writings are more academic and jargon-filled. Others use more plane language. Like most academic papers, none are too difficult to follow, but having some context in the field helps some.