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The Problem of Deep Competitors and the Pursuit of Epistemically Utopian Truths

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Abstract

According to standard scientific realism, science seeks truth and we can justifiably believe that our successful theories achieve, or at least approximate, that goal. In this paper, I discuss the implications of the following competitor thesis: Any theory we may favor has competitors such that we cannot justifiably deny that they are approximately true. After defending that thesis, I articulate three specific threats it poses for standard scientific realism; one is epistemic, the other two are axiological (that is, pertaining to the claim that science seeks truth). I also flag an additional axiological “challenge,” that of how one might justify the pursuit of a primary aim, such as truth. Bracketing epistemic realism, I argue that the axiological threats can be addressed by embracing a refined realist axiological hypothesis, one that specifies a specific subclass of true claims sought in science. And after identifying three potential responses to the axiological “challenge,” I contend that, while standard axiological realism appears to lack the resources required to utilize any of the responses, the refined realist axiology I embrace is well suited to each.

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Notes

  1. Notice that (b) is far more demanding than (a): the competitor thesis would be rendered false by—in other words, (a) obtains upon our—specifying just one theory that is without competitors; however, that one instance will not be sufficient for (b); (b) requires that the realist hypothesis includes no theories that have competitors whose approximate truth we cannot justifiably deny. Yet, as I show in my 2009, epistemic realism requires justification for believing not only (a), but the far more demanding (b).

  2. This characterization is meant only to reveal that there are such competitors (and the example in the appendix is meant only to illustrate how bizarre such competitors can be). However, even if this characterization were employed to generate competitors, the realist cannot exclude those competitors solely for embracing and building upon a restricted range of our favored T’s empirical generalizations, while ultimately contradicting T. Newton, for instance, did precisely this, wholly discarding, as he did, Kepler’s full-bodied theory.

  3. While the explanatory foundations offered by the competitors will be limited, since any theory, including the theories that make up the standard model, leaves the behavior of some entities or conditions unexplained (consider for instance the need for renormalization), we cannot simply reject the competitors for doing so. And, as should be clear here, such explanatory limitations provide no justification for denying that a theory—be it a favored theory or a competitor—is true.

  4. Notice also that, in my fictional illustration in the “Appendix”, specifically, the “packet cosmology” embraces at its core the principle of natural selection; it also includes posits that are analogous to quantum fluctuations, the multi-verse hypothesis, and Democritean natural motion/Newton’s first law.

  5. Regarding large scale theories, see Swinburne (1997).

  6. And, as noted in footnote 4, it is not obvious that even the bizarre examples in the “Appendixwholly fail to cohere with the contemporary background system.

  7. The general prescriptive point here is classically emphasized by Feyerabend (1963). Of course, favorably embracing this particular empirical point does nothing to commit one to embracing Feyerabend’s more radical claims.

  8. While realists may claim that such competitors fail to meet a requirement of simplicity, they are faced with the well-known burden of establishing that simplicity has anything to do with truth. There is widespread if not universal agreement among realists and non-realists alike that requiring simple theories in the quest for truth takes for granted the thesis that the world is simple. (See for instance, Van Fraassen (1980, 90), Lipton (2004, 143), Worrall (2000, 356).) The challenge, of course, is to ground that thesis. (A virtue of the axiological hypothesis I will articulate below is that it justifies a demand for various forms of simplicity without appeal to the metaphysical thesis that the world is simple.) Further, since nothing precludes ad hoc theories from being true, demand for non-adhocness (or criteria involving the motivations of scientists) cannot be employed to eliminate the competitors. I’ve addressed this latter point in detail in Lyons (2009).

  9. The general structure of this argument is drawn from an exploration I’ve engaged in elsewhere (forthcoming). In the course of that inquiry, I analyze an argument, a “new induction,” recently embraced by Stanford (2006), which draws on insights of Lawrence Sklar and Pierre Duhem. Stanford claims that, because past scientists failed to think of alternatives, contemporary scientists fail as well. However, I show that Stanford’s argument poses no threat to contemporary realism: it neglects concern with the type of theories to which scientific realists appeal (e.g. those that make successful novel predictions), thereby failing to provide evidence for step 1; it rests on a problematic thesis regarding the failure of scientists; and it relies, not on one induction but two, and they are two dubious inductions at that. The argument I’ve articulated here faces none of these problems.

  10. According to van Fraassen, science does seek something more, namely empirical adequacy (i.e. empirical perfection). Hence, I do not mean to include his particular non-realist position among those against which I am now contrasting standard realism. In fact, I’ve argued in my (2005) that his constructive empiricism faces problems similar to those I’m flagging for standard realism.

  11. The intuitive appeal of the utility of Rescher’s examples of ideals mentioned earlier (e.g. perfected craftsmanship, moral perfection, perfect health) comes from seeing them as goals, rather than mere contrast conceptions. After mentioning perfected craftsmanship as an ideal Rescher writes, “And the situation of inquiry is exactly parallel with what we encounter in other domains—ethics included” (1987, 29). But we now see that, as he actually employs truth, it is not parallel with the pursuit of these other ideals.

  12. In discussing the axiological thesis of scientific realism, Howard Sankey makes progress in this direction by characterizing the realist as claiming that science seeks, not merely truth, but “revealing,” “interesting” and “explanatory” truths (2000, 106). While I think this is on the right track, I contend that our attempt to provide a robust account of what goes on in science requires a far greater degree of refinement.

  13. Attempting to articulate the intuition that drives science, as I am, the notion of an XT statement is not meant to be particularly complicated, surprising, or unfamiliar.

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Acknowledgments

For comments and/or conversations pertaining to this text and/or ideas discussed here, I am indebted to Howard Sankey, Dimitri Ginev, John Worrall, Peter Lipton, Gerald Doppelt, Stathis Psillos, Neil Thomason, Andrew Kimmel, Stephen Ames, and Kristian Camilleri.

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Correspondence to Timothy D. Lyons.

Appendix

Appendix

In this appendix, I endeavor to merely hint at how bizarre such competitors can be. Although such competitors are designed to strike us—psychologically and by present theory—as not even approximately true, as patently false, and so, absurd (by present lights), it is noteworthy that any principles invoked to exclude such competitors in the quest for truth must accord with their own relevant data at least as well as the competitors themselves accord with theirs. Moreover, we can ask just how much more intuitively radical such possibilities are than the sort we find expressed in quantum mechanics and cosmology—with particle/wave duality of “entities,” wormholes, Kaluza-Klein theories, branes, holographic universes, and the like. In light of that disclaimer (and taking license for a bit of shameless fun), consider the following set of cosmological competitors to whose development a large and fictional group of theorists is strongly dedicated. According to this family of theories subsumed under the general rubric of “cosmological packet theories,” the universe is eternal and, while bounded, exponentially greater in size than standard science takes it to be. It consists of an ontologically primary multi-dimensional continuum and innumerably many large-scale (from our vantage point) cosmological packets that travel through it. Packet theorists divide the whole of the continuum into conventionally defined domains. Packets are continuously generated in a random process (the generation of which is deemed by packet theorists as analogous to quantum fluctuations); each packet possesses its own set of properties, entities, and/or causal relations, likewise randomly generated (analogous to the multi-verse hypothesis); and each will travel through a variety of domains until it is annihilated (the “traveling” is deemed analogous to Democritean natural motion, Newton’s first law, etc.). In general, a packet will enter a given domain, bringing its properties/entities into realization; and, in general, a variety of different packets will occupy various levels of a domain during any given period.

When a packet first enters a domain and intersects with the set of packets already present in the domain, varying degrees of change in the domain can result. This change is a function of the compatibility between the new packet (and its properties/entities) and the “resident” packet-set (deemed analogous to the response of a biological adaptation to an environment). Upon intersection, many new packets will pass with no effect at all; many others will disintegrate; some will bring utter destruction; and others will introduce dynamic development to the domain. Those packets that are not initially destroyed and which are able to survive as later packets intersect the relevant packet-set will eventually pass beyond the given domain, taking at least their fundamental properties/entities to another domain. Just where one packet is bounded and another begins is indiscernible, as packets have a projection effect that renders whatever lies beyond a packet-set’s domain such that it appears to consist of entities that behave in general accord with those produced by the packet-effects as observed from a given domain. While these postulates make up the dominant theoretical framework for packet theories, in which our fictional group of theorists work, a set of particular and otherwise competing packet theories are put forward within that framework.

Although most of the competing packet theories agree that phenomena have been observed to behave (roughly or within the range of experimental error) as standard science describes, they deny that phenomena have behaved as they have for the reasons posited by standard science. Packet theories diverge from one another in their descriptions of the source(s) of the packets, of just how these packets are brought about, and of the kinds of properties that are most conducive to sustainability. They also differ in their descriptions of how the packet-layers are divided, the quantity of packets, how packets relate to and interact with one another, which effects can be attributed to specific packets and which are mere byproducts of, and/or emergent properties attributable to, the intersection of the packets in a set, etc. They disagree further on just when (from our vantage point) various packets entered our own domain, when they will pass, when the next packet will intersect, the level at which that packet will dominate, the kinds of properties, entities, and/or causal relations it will possess, and how new packets will affect the resident packet-set in general. In short, there are multitudes of theory sub-complexes set within the dominant general framework of packet-cosmology.

But for each sub-complex, in the end, it is the presence of the particular packet-set that explains what we observe, and more generally, explains the set of observable properties/entities/relations of our domain; it is the passing of packets in that set that explains why and when we will no longer observe what we have observed. It is the compatibility of a given packet with the packet-set of our domain that addresses the question of why a given packet exists in our domain; and it is the sustainability of the packet-set as a whole that addresses why the particular packet-set in our domain exists. In short, given the random generation of packets and the fiercely competitive nature of packet intersection, the properties/entities that constitute the packet-set in a given domain during a given period are what they are because they allow for the packet-set’s general sustainability. (While I suggest that standard realism fails to ground the rejection of such competitors, the refined realist axiology I propose in Sect. 5 does (thankfully) ground such a rejection.)

Now these packet theories are introduced only to illustrate by a single set of examples the kinds of competitors that would be included in the general kind I’ve articulated in Sect. 2, those in light of which our favored theory T’s empirical claims stand as descriptions of no deep truths of nature but of mere effects, brought about by a particular condition.

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Lyons, T.D. The Problem of Deep Competitors and the Pursuit of Epistemically Utopian Truths. J Gen Philos Sci 42, 317–338 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10838-011-9168-7

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