Review - The Metaphysics of Science
An Account of Modern Science in Terms of Principles, Laws and Theories
by Craig Dilworth
Springer, 2007
Review by Robert L. Muhlnickel, Ph. D.
http://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=book&id=4256
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Comment on Robert Muhlnickel’s review of The Metaphysics of Science
I would first like to thank Dr Muhlnickel for taking the time to review my book in Metapsychology.
Unfortunately, however, though Dr Muhlnickel is on target every now and then, much of his criticism (like that of other reviewers) is based on misunderstanding. I shall try to rectify this.
Part of the problem in understanding the book may be that it is novel in a number of ways in comparison with other works in the area. For example, it is completely neutral as regards the epistemological viability of the metaphysics set forth in it. As I say on pp. 267–268, “On the philosophy of science being presented in this book it is not being assumed, as it is on the empiricist and Popperian views, that there is but one right way of going about acquiring knowledge (or understanding) of reality, that being the scientific, such that all forms of epistemological endeavour should conform to it.” Rather, the task the book takes on is simply to say what the metaphysics of modern science actually is (and how it works), assuming science to have a metaphysics. In this regard it differs from other work in the same tradition, such as that of Whewell (not Whately) and Kant, both of whom are arguing for the metaphysics they describe. And it differs in the same way (amongst many others) from the works of Lowe and Ellis §(whose work came out after the publication of the first edition), whom Muhlnickel mentions.
In keeping with this, as Muhlnickel says: “The goal of modern science, per Dilworth, is to identify actually operating causes of change underlying phenomenal appearances of measurement and observation.” But I do not condone the having of this goal. Similarly, Muhlnickel is also right in saying: “Theories of particular sciences posit entities that satisfy requirements or manifest the action of the core principles in the refined principles of the particular science.” But I make no judgement as to the epistemological value of this process.
A second point: It is important to distinguish metaphysics from principles, and principles from the entities referred to in the principles. The metaphysics of science consists of a set of principles, which, as Muhlnickel himself says, “are the ontological presuppositions of the epistemic practice of modern science.” Thus energy is not a principle, but is rather the referent of the category ‘energy’ in the (scientific) principle of the conservation of energy.
In a similar vein, it is important to distinguish the purely metaphysical principles of the uniformity of nature, substance and causality from the (“necessarily” physicalistic) form they take in modern science. Thus the metaphysical principle of causality has no physicalistic implications, while the modern-scientific principle of causality does. I should also mention that my saying that the principles of a science constitute a core rather than a foundation doesn’t avoid questions about foundations but answers them. From one point of view you could say that on my account the foundation of a science consists of a non-apodeictic core.
As regards economics and other human sciences, their involving spiritual entities (minds) makes it difficult to include them in modern science. I chose economics as an example in Chapter 6 as, in its use of quantitative (‘stylised’) data and quantitative models, my metaphysics of modern science applies best to it of the human sciences. But as I say in my reply to criticism, “the only extent to which modern science is capable of dealing with non-physical substances [e.g. the mind] is in terms of their physical aspects or manifestations. Thus, for example, self-willed action can only be the subject of modern-scientific research in the form of physical behaviour. [Further, t]he difference between modern and non-modern science is not in all cases an either/or issue, but can involve the question of gravitation to a paradigm. [Thus] we can expect the (modern-)scientificity of the human sciences [including psychology] always to be questioned no matter what methodology they adopt.” (pp. 267–268).
Craig Dilworth
Reader in Theoretical Philosophy
Department of Philosophy
Uppsala University
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