Wednesday, April 5, 2006 PHL105Y

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Wednesday, April 5, 2006PHL105Y

• For next Monday, ensure that youve finished
  reading Margarita Levins Defense of
  Objectivity (549-559 in the Pojman), and look at
  the review questions on the website.
• There are no study questions for this Friday.
  This Friday discussion sections will review
  material for the final exam (including the Rorty
  and Levin). Study questions for the final exam
  are posted to the course website
• http//www.erin.utoronto.ca/jnagel/intro105.htm

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Richard RortyDismantling Truth Solidarity
vs. Objectivity

• From Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979)
• and Science and Solidarity (1987)

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A social conception of rationality

• Rorty thinks that studying human knowledge is
  just fundamentally studying the way human beings
  actually interact when we say that someone knows
  something, what we are really saying is that he
  is seen a certain way by the members of his
  community

4
Rorty on science

• As Rorty sees it, science is in our society often
  seen as having a monopoly on the truth science
  gives us hard, objective facts
• Scientific rationality is seen as a matter of
  following a precise method, of hitting goals (of
  prediction and control) laid down in advance

5
Defending the humanities

• Rorty argues against the notion that there is
  something special about knowing in advance what
  criteria your thoughts are going to satisfy, or
  exactly what rules your thinking is going to
  follow

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Defending the humanities

• Rorty argues against the notion that there is
  something special about knowing in advance what
  criteria your thoughts are going to satisfy, or
  exactly what rules your thinking is going to
  follow
• Rorty thinks the humanities seek to identify or
  create new goals and rules

7
Ethnocentrism

• Rorty endorses the view that
• there is nothing to be said about either truth
  or rationality apart from descriptions of the
  familiar procedures of justification which a
  given society ours uses in one or another
  area of inquiry. (545)
• He claims this doesnt imply a relativism in
  which true means many different things. (How?)

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Self-refuting?

• Rorty argues that he isnt advancing a realist
  theory of truth in his ethnocentrism as a
  partisan of solidarity, he claims to have no
  metaphysical theory of truth but only an
  ethical attitude to the value of human inquiry.
• to be ethnocentric is simply to work by our own
  lights. The defense of ethnocentrism is simply
  that there are no other lights to work by. (545)

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Rationality and truth

• From a pragmatist point of view, to say that
  what is rational for us now to believe may not be
  true, is simply to say that somebody may come up
  with a better idea. (546)
• Rorty also wants to drop the idea that there is
  some ideal point the Truth on which all
  inquiry will inevitably converge.

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Attacking objectivity

• Rorty goes on to argue that even the sciences are
  not objective in the way people commonly think
• Its widely believed that science involves
  nothing more than obedience to fixed criteria
  Rorty shares Kuhns view that scientific
  development often involves the introduction of
  new criteria (new paradigms)

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Attacking objectivity

• Rorty argues, the notion of objectivity is
  overrated there is no special characteristic of
  scientific judgments that puts them above other
  sorts of judgments
• Rorty claims that there is no sharp line between
  the objective and the subjective indeed, he
  wants to replace the idea of objectivity with the
  idea of unforced agreement

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Objectivity and agreement

• Rather than a perfect ultimate truth, Rorty
  argues, the best thing one could hope for in
  science is intersubjective agreement
• Rorty thinks that scientists should not see
  themselves as capturing the ultimate single
  nature of reality, but as advancing theories
  cooperatively, in solidarity with team members
  who share their goals

13
Rorty on solidarity (over objectivity)

• As partisans of solidarity, our account of the
  value of cooperative human enquiry has only an
  ethical base, not an epistemological or
  metaphysical one. (545)
• For Rorty this emphasis on solidarity is the
  central idea of pragmatism.

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What Rorty opposes

• The ideal of attaining a metaphysical description
  of knowledge (why might he oppose that?)
• The ideal of attaining a story about the value of
  truth grounded in objective facts about human
  nature the idea of stepping outside communities
  to a neutral standpoint

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How Rorty sees rationality

• The ideal community, according to Rorty, would
  serve no higher end than its own preservation
  and self-improvement and would identify
  rationality with that effort, rather than with
  the desire for objectivity. So it would feel no
  need for a foundation more solid than reciprocal
  loyalty. (548)

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Margarita Rose LevinA Defense of Objectivity

• (1998)

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Levins general strategy

• 1. No good reasons have been given to abandon the
  notion of objectivity.
• 2. Those who argue against objectivity need to
  help themselves to the idea of objectivity even
  as they are trying to destroy that idea.

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What does Levin mean by objectivity?

• By objectivity I mean inter-subjectively
  accessible knowledge, by definition truly
  independent of anyones biases, traditions,
  wishes, or other influences. (549)

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What does Levin mean by objectivity?

• By objectivity I mean inter-subjectively
  accessible knowledge, by definition truly
  independent of anyones biases, traditions,
  wishes, or other influences. (549)
• Levin sees objectivity as not only possible but
  actually realized (545) she sees it as an idea
  that underpins modern natural and social science.

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What Levin opposes

• Nihilism the thesis that there is no fixed
  reality
• Skepticism the thesis that we cant know what
  that reality is

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Holism and skepticism

• Quine and Duhem pointed out that experience never
  gives an absolute and direct confirmation or
  refutation of any single proposition.
• Whenever an experiment appears to run against
  your pet theory, you could save your pet theory
  by amending some auxiliary assumptions

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Levins example

• Suppose you are testing a new drug that is
  supposed to reduce fever
• Your patients continue to have high digital
  thermometer readers after the drug is
  administered
• You could argue that your drug does reduce
  fevers, but also has a side effect of interfering
  with the performance of digital thermometers
  (this is logically possible)

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Levins example

• It is true that we make auxiliary assumptions in
  the course of ordinary scientific research (about
  microscopes, thermometers, what the chemical
  supply companies have sent us.. etc.)
• But the fact that its logically possible to
  challenge any such assumption at any given time
  does not mean that its rational to do so

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Holism and skepticism

• Quine can be read as saying that the data never
  logically forces us to accept any given
  conclusion
• But that doesnt show that we dont know anything
  (unless knowing requires being logically forced,
  and no one has given a good argument for that
  point)
• Just because you can believe not-A doesnt mean
  you can rationally believe it. (550)

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Is objective observation possible?

• Some argue that observers who have prior
  commitments to different theories will not even
  see the same things
• Hanson argues that the Ptolemaic observer sees
  the sun moving where the Copernican observer sees
  the horizon moving

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Is objective observation possible?

• Some argue that observers who have prior
  commitments to different theories will not even
  see the same things
• Levin argues that both astronomers see the same
  thing, but have different interpretations of it
  (so the Copernican understands the suns apparent
  motion as illusory)

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Observation

• Even the studies that show that peoples
  perceptual judgments are influenced by what their
  peers are saying (to the point of judging lines
  of the same length to differ) do not show that
  objective perception is impossible.
• Such studies do not make sense unless we hold
  them against a background in which it is assumed
  that objects are correctly (objectively) judged
  to have a certain length, etc.

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Levin on Rorty

• Rorty claims to reject the metaphor of knowledge
  as a mirror held up to reality, as something that
  captures a single objective truth waiting to be
  discovered
• Rorty argues that the most we can hope for is
  unforced agreement rather than the old notion
  of objectivity.
• Levin How exactly is that unforced agreement
  going to come about?

29
Levin on Rorty

• Levin what if a group of people came to an
  unforced agreement that the germ theory of
  disease was wrong?
• They stop purifying water, washing hands before
  surgery, refuse immunizations, etc.
• Is there really no objective fact here? Is
  actual agreement really all that counts?

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Levin on Rorty

• Levin Rorty claims not to be advancing a
  positive (metaphysical) view of truth, but its
  not clear that this could be a true claim
• Rorty can say he doesnt have a theory but if
  you declare that talk of X is meaningless, that
  opposing views of X are wrong, that X does not
  exist, then you certainly do have a theory of X
  (552)

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Levin on Rorty

• Rorty rejects the notion that there is any fixed
  point that human inquiry is destined to converge
  upon
• Levin points out that the notion that there is an
  objective truth out there is distinct from the
  notion that actual human inquirers are destined
  to head towards it

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Levin on Rorty

• Rorty claims that pragmatists can make sense of
  the notion that there might be a distance between
  what we now reasonably accept and what is true
  (somebody may come up with a better idea)
• Levin argues that Rorty still hasnt explained
  exactly what makes an idea better, or how to sort
  out unpleasant truth from the delightful
  delusion (553)

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Levin on Objectivity

• Levin argues that many of the critics of
  objectivity and neutral perspectives in the
  natural and social sciences are in effect
  assuming that they occupy a neutral perspective
  from which they can give objective criticism of
  the failings of natural and social science

34
Levin on Objectivity

• Many critics of objectivity point out that the
  data doesnt logically force a given conclusion
  upon us
• Levin is ready to grant that, but to argue that
  the data may still make some conclusions much
  more reasonable than others

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Self-refutation?

• Levin urges us to reject any argument that
  purports to show that all results in social
  science are nothing more than the products of
  bias (anyone advocating such a position would
  herself be in a strange and unacceptable position)

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Self-refutation

• Levin sees critics of objectivity as in effect
  trying to persuade us that
• it is an objective fact that there are no
  objective facts
• it is absolutely true that everything is
  relative to a framework
• Is she being fair to the positions she opposes?
• Is it impossible to make claims without some kind
  of claim to objectivity?