This is a commissioned book review, published in China Science Daily (2019-03-01, Section 7, Book Review)
The original title was: Before “Cognitive Upgrading,” It Is Even More Important to Understand the Foundations of Cognition
When it was published, the title was changed (for the better), section headings were added, and some omissions were made. For example, the rather severe criticism I originally made of the translation was toned down quite a bit; I was informed in advance by the editor that I agreed to that. In addition, the embedded “advertisement” (for the Department of History of Science at Tsinghua) was removed, and the short final passage on Greek pseudo-history was also cut. Here I am posting the original manuscript.
In recent years, there seems to be an unhealthy trend in the Chinese publishing world: relatively specialized academic works are packaged and sold as popular reading. A book that is plainly an introductory text for a particular field is sold as though it were something everyone must read. Richard DeWitt’s Worldviews, which I have here, is one example.
The subtitle of the English edition is “An Introduction to the History and Philosophy of Science,” whereas the new Chinese edition from China Machine Press changes it to “The Philosophy of Science and the History of Science That Modern People Must Understand.” This title probably learned from the Taiwanese translation; the Taiwanese edition published in 2015 had the subtitle “The Philosophy of Science and the History of Science Modern Young People Must Understand.”
This kind of promotional tactic is, in fact, also a move born of necessity. The key point is that China’s academic world, especially in the humanities, is still relatively weak; many university students know only how to copy from one another and have no mind at all to settle down and read extensively. If a book is positioned solely for the academic world, it will certainly be hard to make money. Fortunately, China does have a huge population base, so selling academic books to the general public is not a bad “devious strategy.”
Of course, as far as Worldviews is concerned, it is still a fairly suitable introductory read for ordinary readers, though it does require readers to have a certain fighting spirit and be willing to think independently and puzzle things through while reading. If you only want it as light entertainment, to listen to a few stories from the history of science, then you will find yourself unable to finish it.
This book covers many specialized issues in the history of science and the philosophy of science. On the history of science side, it moves from ancient Greek figures such as Aristotle and Ptolemy to relativity and quantum mechanics. And it does not stop at superficial introductions; it also discusses many more complex details. For example, in quantum mechanics, it includes not only the double-slit diffraction experiment and Schrödinger’s cat, which are commonly covered in general science popularization, but also deeper concepts such as the Schrödinger equation, the EPR experiment, and Bell’s inequality.
On the philosophy of science side, the book also introduces several basic concepts in the field, such as the correspondence theory and coherence theory of truth, falsificationism, realism, and instrumentalism, as well as more specialized terms like the Quine–Duhem thesis, Hempel’s raven paradox, and Goodman’s grue paradox. In China, many students majoring in philosophy of science may not even have mastered these. For example, two years ago I participated in setting the entrance exam for Tsinghua University’s philosophy of science graduate program, and for the two terminology-definition questions I wrote on the Quine–Duhem thesis and Goodman, nearly the entire field of examinees was wiped out; almost no one could answer them, and even those who were just guessing by elimination were nowhere near the mark.
On the one hand, this confirms that undergraduate education in the history and philosophy of science is still far too weak; on the other hand, it also suggests that Worldviews is indeed quite specialized.
Although the author’s language is fairly accessible, I would not dare guarantee that ordinary readers can understand it smoothly. For although academic introductory books and high-end popular books may place similar demands on the reader’s background knowledge, their aims are ultimately different. An introductory book is intended to guide students who are willing to continue deeper into the discipline; that is to say, in addition to reading this introductory book, students will also read, or need to read, other academic monographs. For example, Worldviews ends by recommending related books for each chapter for further reading. This is standard practice for academic introductions, but if one is an ordinary reader who will not go on to more advanced reading, it is hard to fully grasp the book’s contents.
As an introductory academic book, this Chinese translation is also not especially ideal. The translator does not come from a background in the history or philosophy of science, so being able to produce a fluent and readable translation seems decent enough. But one must note that this book had already been published in both simplified and traditional Chinese translations in 2015; if this third translation cannot significantly surpass the first two, then that is rather hard to justify. In particular, there are some terms that already have fixed translations, such as the “epicycle-deferent” in the Ptolemaic system; the first two translations had no problem with it, but this edition insisted on rendering it as “revolving circle-deferent,” which made my OCD flare up. As for translating the philosophy of science term realism as “realism” in the sense of “realism” (more commonly used in the arts), that is a little easier to tolerate.
Having said so many faults, is this book still worth reading for ordinary people? It is. The key is that the discipline of the history and philosophy of science is different from other academic fields in that it truly deserves every “modern person” to know at least a little about it. Our Department of History of Science is committed to offering general-education courses for all Tsinghua undergraduates, striving to ensure that every student encounters some courses in the history, philosophy, and science trilogy.
Why study the history and philosophy of science? The title Worldviews gives us a clue. In the final analysis, the history and philosophy of science are about reflecting on our “worldview.”
What is a “worldview”? Many people regard a “worldview” as some kind of knowledge that can be learned and used. For example, the blurb on this book’s dust jacket says: “So-called growth is using a ‘worldview’ to upgrade cognition.” It sounds as though a worldview were some kind of magic treasure: take it, smack it on your head, and you level up. But that is absolutely not what this book teaches.
Rather than saying that a “worldview” is a condition for upgrading cognition, it would be more accurate to say that it is a condition for cognition itself; without a worldview, cognition itself is impossible. We always acquire concrete cognition against the background of some worldview. In the book’s metaphor, a worldview is like a complete jigsaw puzzle, while specific pieces of knowledge are like small individual puzzle pieces. People are always adding to or revising an existing puzzle.
The whole worldview determines the status of each puzzle piece. If a new revision occurs at the edge of the existing puzzle, or fills in a gap in the existing puzzle, then the new understanding is very easy to accept. But if the addition of a new piece requires breaking apart some pieces that have long since been put together, then the more it overturns, the harder it is to accept.
Studying the history, philosophy, and science trilogy first of all allows us to feel that the transformation of a “worldview” is extraordinarily difficult. It is not at all like many arrogant modern people imagine: I buy a few books, attend a few lectures, and then I can upgrade my worldview. We see why, throughout history, those human beings with the most brilliant minds still could not break free from the limitations of their own age, and even turned a blind eye to some “obvious” evidence, stubbornly clinging to many views that modern people consider childish.
This book first organizes the ancient worldview—represented by Aristotle and Ptolemy—as a complete whole, rather than treating it merely as “a shopping list with no connections among the items” (p. 5). For example, geocentrism, the ether theory, the four-element theory, the theory of motion, and so on are not merely several independent viewpoints listed side by side; rather, they are several core pieces that interlock within the whole worldview puzzle. In Aristotle’s “world puzzle,” it is difficult to simply replace one small piece while keeping the whole stable. It is relatively easy to pry up a puzzle piece at the edge or attach a new piece at the edge—for instance, discovering a new planet is something Aristotelians can absolutely accept. But if what the new cognition needs to pry loose is a core piece, then one move affects the entire body; before the whole puzzle is dismantled and rearranged, it is hard to accept.
In this sense, a “worldview” is not a magic weapon for promoting cognitive upgrading; instead, it is a shackle that constrains cognitive renewal.
But one must note that this shackle is necessary. Precisely because people always pursue knowledge within a certain worldview, individual cognition does not become chaotic, and human knowledge can continue to advance. In a certain sense, the more complete the worldview, the better it is at identifying the jumbled flow of information. The empirical world is infinitely rich; if a person cannot effectively “filter” information, appropriately ignore or overlook certain details while emphasizing or focusing on others, then he is destined to be dazzled and dizzy.
Many people think that getting rid of prejudice and “liberating the mind” is easy, as though all it takes is a brainstorming session to think freely without restraint. But a “storm” is more likely to bring confusion than clarity. Many others think that being a bit “rebellious” is enough to break out of prejudice: if the teacher says black, I insist on saying white. But things are not that simple. For example, I forcibly erase one piece of knowledge from the old puzzle, but the resulting gap will still retain its fixed shape. When I take another piece that seems opposed to fill the gap, either it does not fit with the surrounding pieces at all, or if it does fit, then in essence it is still old wine in a new bottle—different packaging, same medicine.
The key is that many modern people, eager for quick success and instant benefit, want to “update” and “upgrade” their knowledge system, but the problem is that they have not even sorted out the ins and outs of their existing knowledge system. If they do not even have a clear grasp of what they already know, how can they confidently claim to understand something entirely new?
Modern people often belittle the ancients, imagining themselves to be so much more brilliant. But this “brilliance” is not truly “smartness”; it is simply because we stand higher than the ancients—because we stand on the shoulders of giants, our knowledge is naturally higher than theirs. But the problem is that, in fully mastering our own worldview and continually making difficult breakthroughs, we may not be any better than the ancients. In particular, figures such as Aristotle and Ptolemy, who stood out from their entire age, have writings that have remained immortal through the ages, whereas what qualifications do we modern little people, visible everywhere, have to laugh at them? The author also notes: “Unfortunately, there is a tendency today to regard the views of our predecessors as somehow childish or naive” (p. 111).
But strangely enough, the most top-tier ancient thinkers, like Aristotle, really do seem very childish when discussing physics—if it is so easy to see people jumping around on a moving ship without being thrown backward, why could they not see “inertia”?
A great deal of the book is actually devoted to explaining this question for us: “Why did it take so long to arrive at this law [the law of inertia]?” (p. 140) Because the reason we can so easily find obvious evidence for the law of inertia in the infinitely varied empirical world is that we are already situated within a new worldview assembled around the law of inertia. From a worldview closer to Aristotle’s, what we can see in the real world are actually more often counterexamples to the law of inertia; we have never seen any eternal motion.
Kuhn also gives a simple example in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: put a swinging gemstone pendant before your eyes—what do you see? Galileo saw a “pendulum” that keeps oscillating back and forth at a uniform rhythm, while Aristotle was more likely to see a stone trying to recover its natural position from external disturbance—what he noticed was that the externally imposed shaking always grew smaller and smaller until it eventually disappeared, and that stone always tended to return to a lower position. For the very same simple empirical phenomenon, the two men noticed entirely different things, and both were right. Aside from these two scientists, the same phenomenon can display different details in the eyes of wizards, hypnotists, jewel merchants, and so on. No one can pay equal attention to every detail in empirical phenomena at the same time; differences in starting point and focus mean that the “world” presents completely different faces to different people.
The concept of underdetermination in the philosophy of science (translated in this book as non-sufficiency of determination, and also as underdetermination) tells us that the same empirical phenomenon may support two different knowledge systems, and we can scarcely find any evidence or experiment that can once and for all adjudicate the truth or falsehood of some knowledge system. The reason we think history contains so many decisive discoveries is nothing more than the retrospective confirmation of hindsight. But in actual historical circumstances, the progress of human understanding of the world is not achieved through clear, step-by-step accumulation.
The history and philosophy of science cannot help us upgrade our own worldview, but they can help us understand how our worldview has “upgraded” into what it is today. The specific scientific theories of ancient thinkers are all outdated, but how they conserved, how they overturned, and how they maintained the “necessary tension” between conservation and overturning—these qualities of courage and skill may still offer inspiration to modern people.
Beyond learning from the ancients, reading the history of science can at least break the arrogance and conceit of modern people—the more we understand how rigorous and solid ancient worldviews were, the more we can understand how difficult intellectual revolutions are. We can also adopt a more open attitude toward those things that seem self-evident under the modern worldview. In particular, in today’s China, where anti-intellectualism is on the rise, this cultural literacy of the history of science becomes all the more important. Only when we learn to respect outdated wisdom can we truly respect ongoing research and exploration.
By the way, let me say a couple of words about a peculiar current in China’s anti-intellectualism: the so-called “Greek pseudo-history theory,” in which some people insist that the entire civilization of ancient Greece was completely forged by modern Westerners. Of course, such a view is not worth refuting; any cultured person with even a little discernment could not possibly take it seriously. But what I want to say here is that those Greek pseudo-history theorists did not realize that even if their wild tale were true, it would not diminish Westerners’ greatness in the slightest. Because if so many ancient Greek ideas were in fact forged by Westerners, then those forgers are simply too great! For to forge the intellectual world of an entire other era within a certain age is an even more difficult task; it requires completely stepping outside one’s own worldview and shaping another complete “new world.” To fabricate out of thin air a past age and its intellectual world of a hundred schools contending is even more difficult than founding a new golden age.
The transformation of worldviews is not a one-time affair. The final part of this book sorts out newer knowledge systems such as relativity, quantum mechanics, and evolution. The overthrow of the Newtonian world by new knowledge is just like Newton’s overthrow of Aristotle. Moreover, these overthrows have never happened overnight; from Aristotle to Newton, the world puzzle was not improved through linear accumulation, but it was also only possible through the constant filling in and loosening done by generation after generation of thinkers. From Newton to the new sciences, the situation is similar: the Newtonian worldview still survives stubbornly in modern people’s everyday thinking. Many folk scientists’ intellectual worlds remain under Newton’s dominion without their realizing it, and then they think about how to overturn Einstein; naturally, that will only make a joke of them. More people spend all day thinking about “upgrading cognition,” yet they do not even know how many bugs remain in their existing worldview; naturally, they will also lose their way.
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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