[U.S.]Alex Rosenberg: *Philosophy of Science—A Contemporary Advanced Text*, trans. Liu Huajie, Shanghai Scientific & Technical Education Press, November 2004
Chapter 1
1 This chapter begins with a potentially controversial philosophical definition. Please propose another definition of philosophy, one that can reveal the unity of the different parts of this field, such as metaphysics, epistemology, logic, ethics and political philosophy, aesthetics, and so on.
The “definition” at the beginning of this chapter is: “… philosophy of science is necessarily a central issue of concern to both philosophers and scientists. According to this definition, philosophy mainly considers questions that science cannot currently answer or perhaps can never answer, and further considers why science cannot answer these questions.” (p. 1)
This “definition” is not merely controversial—in fact, any definition of “philosophy” will be “controversial”—the key point is that it is incomplete. This is shown not only in the fact that it merely gives some explanation of the “philosophy” in the concept of “philosophy of science,” without covering the other different parts of philosophy such as metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics; more importantly, this “definition” is formulated after presupposing the concept of “science.” In the statement “mainly considers questions that science cannot currently answer…,” what exactly does “science” refer to? There is no further explanation in this definition. In fact, one of the most basic questions that “philosophy of science” (especially the broader “philosophy of science” after the Vienna Circle) is concerned with is precisely the attempt to understand the question “what is science?” It is clear, then, that the greatest defect of this “definition” is that it uses the concept of “science” without questioning it. Perhaps the question “what can science not answer” is precisely a major part of “what is science,” but these two ways of asking are not equivalent. Moreover, the question “what can science answer” is one on which scientists seem to have more of a say, whereas the careful probing of concepts and the discussion of “meaning” are the philosopher’s specialty.
The question “what is philosophy” is harder to answer than “what is science.” Kant said that “philosophy cannot be taught,” yet Kant himself was the first person to make philosophy professor his lifelong profession—so what was he teaching? “Kant believed that philosophy is only the idea of a possible science; it does not exist concretely anywhere, but we can strive to approach it through different paths. What we learn is not philosophy itself, but how to philosophize, that is, to exercise our powers of reasoning in certain existing philosophical attempts. Since human reason is always active, it is impossible to give a final and dogmatic answer to the questions ‘what is philosophy’ and ‘who possesses philosophy’; that would only mean the end of philosophical thinking, … Therefore, for Kant, philosophy is an activity of reason, not a static system of knowledge.”[①] Philosophy (and perhaps science as well) is first and foremost an activity, not some fixed thing. The history of philosophy is woven together by “problems”; to “study philosophy” is to learn about the “existing attempts” to address those “problems,” while to “do philosophy” is to continue those attempts in different ways.
The most appropriate definition of “philosophy” is still its original meaning—“love of wisdom,” that is, yearning for and pursuing “wisdom.” Of course, the concept of “wisdom” is also indeterminate. “Wisdom” can include knowledge, experience, judgment of right and wrong and good and evil, insight, and so on; one can then go on to ask what knowledge is, and so forth. Yet, unlike the previous case, the concept of “love of wisdom” does not require presupposing a definition of “wisdom.” In fact, it is precisely because “wisdom” is elusive that countless philosophers have devoted themselves to it. Reflection on what “wisdom” actually is is also an indispensable part of the activity of “pursuing wisdom.”
In short, philosophy is a kind of “pursuit”; its distinguishing features are “questioning” and “reflection.” In particular, for some ideas that have become habitual and taken for granted, philosophy will also ask “what exactly is it,” “what does it really mean” (in fact, these two questions are still inseparable), and so on. Metaphysics, epistemology, and logic are respectively different “perspectives” from which philosophy pursues “problems,” while fields such as “aesthetics” and “philosophy of history” are about asking “what is beauty,” “what does beauty mean,” “what is history,” “what does history mean,” and so on.
“Philosophy of science” is reflection on “science”; more specifically, it includes two kinds of questions: first, “what exactly is science”—that is, reflection on scientific activity itself, which in a broader sense can also include philosophical reflection from different perspectives such as history of science, sociology of science, psychology of science, studies of science communication, and so on; second, “what does science mean”—for example, philosophy of physics, philosophy of biology, and so on, and also critical theories of technology, etc.
In addition, we can bypass the abstract definition of the term philosophy and understand what philosophy is by asking what it contains. A traditional classification divides philosophy into metaphysics, epistemology, and axiology; there is also another discipline that can be called “meta-philosophy,” namely, the study of philosophy as its object, such as the sociology of philosophy, and so on. Correspondingly, “philosophy of science” also includes “scientific epistemology,” that is, philosophy of science in the narrow sense; it itself also involves the other parts listed below. But just as philosophical epistemology inevitably involves questions of metaphysics and axiology, yet philosophy should not be simply equated with “epistemology,” philosophy of science also cannot be simply equated with scientific epistemology. And “scientific metaphysics”—including Kant, Fichte, Brentano, and even Husserl’s thinking about the “metaphysical foundations” of science—their questions have not become obsolete. We may abandon classical metaphysics’ attempt to seek and express so-called eternal truth, but metaphysical questions, as a kind of reflection on the inherent connection between human beings and the world, will not thereby be dissolved[②]; there is also scientific axiology, which includes discussions of the ethics and morality of scientists, as well as discussions of the meaning and value of science and technology themselves. In addition, there is also the so-called “meta-science,” or “science studies” or “science metaresearch,” that is, research with science as its object. In fact, “science metaresearch” already includes all of the above parts—that is, scientific metaphysics, scientific epistemology, scientific axiology, and so on—as well as disciplines that examine science from other perspectives, such as history of science, sociology of science, psychology of science, studies of science communication, and so on. In short, “philosophy of science” in the narrow sense refers specifically to scientific epistemology; in the broad sense it also includes scientific metaphysics, scientific axiology, and so on; in a still broader sense, it can refer generally to the entire field of “science studies” (because philosophy itself does not reject any kind of perspective).
2 Defend or criticize: “Science is the West’s unique contribution to the world; this claim is ethnocentric, narrow-minded, and irrelevant to understanding the characteristics of science.”
I conditionally support the claim that “science is the West’s unique contribution to the world.”
What I actually agree with is that “the rise of modern science occurred, and could only have occurred, in the West.” As for whether this contribution is a good thing, whether the science contributed by the West should be accepted by the world, whether science ought to exclude theoretical systems from other cultures, and so on, I will not discuss these questions here for the time being (though, of course, they are also related). In addition, as I will explain further: saying that science was gestated in the West does not mean that the Eastern world had nothing to do with the rise of science. It is like saying that “a child must be gestated by its mother” does not prove that a child can be gestated all by one mother alone, with the father excluded; still less does it mean that a mother, without eating or drinking and without depending on any external factors, can give birth to a child.
Could modern science have arisen in the non-West? Or, more concretely, did ancient China contain “the germ of modern science” (just as people ask whether ancient China contained “the germ of capitalism”? In my view, neither did.)?
“Science” is not “technology,” nor is it merely the accumulation of knowledge. All historians of science know that in ancient Babylon, ancient Egypt, and ancient China there were rich records of celestial phenomena and mastery of their patterns, as well as highly developed skills and knowledge; but this does not mean that these civilizations possessed science. The rise of science is closely tied to cultural traditions. Liu Huajie points out: “The emergence of modern science was not yet a simple process of accumulating specific knowledge; it is more likely a cultural issue…. (Modern science) is related to ancient Greek philosophy, medieval logic, and religious theology. Shamefully, the science and technology of ancient China were fragmented; although they were numerous in quantity, they were never organized into a logically relatively self-consistent theoretical system. In this sense, it can be said that modern science could not have arisen in China.”[③]
Modern science can in a certain sense be said to be a continuation of ancient Greek natural philosophy. In *Nature and the Greeks*, Schrödinger points out two important characteristics of ancient Greek natural philosophy: first, the belief that the world is ultimately knowable; second, the adoption of an objectifying perspective that strips the subject down to a detached observer. These two points are crucial to the emergence of science. Of course, this is not to say that ancient China lacked the pursuit of truth or lacked efforts to theorize knowledge. But objectification, analysis, reduction, and the passion for seeking truth were far less prominent in China than in ancient Greece. The Chinese were more concerned with practicality—though this is not to say that Westerners did not value practicality; the difference in emphasis is critical. At the very least, by the standard of the “scientific spirit” inherited from ancient Greece, the forms taken by theory and technology in ancient China were entirely different. If we were to call those things science, conceptual confusion would result. In fact, many scholars who emphasize that ancient China had science often mean this: ancient China had science, only it was not as developed as in the West—it was the initial stage of science. For instance, Li Shen, in the article “Did Ancient China Also Have Science?”, says: “Ancient China had science, because the ancient Chinese were also understanding nature and also made many judgments. These judgments were not so systematic, the theories were not so rigorous, but they were also the results of human understanding of nature, a stage in the development of science.”[④] I disagree with this view—even if we broaden the concept of science somewhat, some distinctive theoretical systems in the East may perhaps also be called “alternative science,” but they are alien species with completely different systemic structures. China’s “heavenly learning,” traditional Chinese medicine theory, and so on, compared with Western science, are perhaps more like the relation between a frog and a toad, rather than between a tadpole and a frog. Even if there are many similarities between a frog and a toad, a toad will not grow into a frog, because they are essentially two different kinds. Correspondingly, some scholars who emphasize that ancient China “had science” or had “the germ” that could develop into modern science hope to prove that China’s “science and technology” and Western science are related like a small frog and a big frog, or, conceding a bit, like a tadpole and a frog. Even if we point out as many differences as possible between ancient Chinese “science and technology” and the Western tradition, they can still argue: although a tadpole and a frog are so dissimilar, a tadpole will always grow into a frog if it keeps growing! In other words, the crux of the dispute is not how great the similarity between East and West is, but whether those differences are decisive.
I think that holding the view that “the rise of modern science occurred, and could only have occurred, in the West” is not “narrow-minded ethnocentrism.” On the contrary, insisting that China too had the germ that could develop modern science, or overemphasizing the various contributions of the East to modern science, often tends, consciously or unconsciously, to carry a “Eurocentric” perspective, because people who hold this position often use Western cultural traditions as the standard by which to measure Eastern systems of thought. For example, in Li Shen’s discussion mentioned above, he believes: “Science is a historically developing understanding of nature, and its judgments are only correct within certain limits. Here the proposition of Hegel is once again confirmed: truth is concrete. There is no absolute truth that applies everywhere and at all times, placed before ancient and modern times without question. If there is absolute truth, it also exists within these concrete, relative truths.”[⑤] Li Shen tries to show that China’s theoretical systems, though admittedly insufficiently perfect and systematic, are relative truths, the initial stage of scientific development. But one issue ignored here is: when talking about “understanding of nature,” “absolute truth and relative truth,” the first question that should be raised is—do concepts such as “nature” and “truth” themselves even exist in traditional Chinese culture? Just like pre-Socratic philosophy, the word “nature” in traditional Chinese culture only means “spontaneously so,” “so of itself,” and never has the meanings “nature,” “natural things,” or “objective objects”; and the concept of “truth,” as well as the love and pursuit of truth, differs even more obviously between Eastern and Western cultures. To use these discourses and concepts from a Western cultural background to talk about ancient Chinese culture—is this not a kind of “narrow Western centrism”?
Reflecting on the significance of the Western cultural tradition for the emergence of modern science, examining the similarities and differences between Eastern and Western cultures, and asking why science emerged only in the West—all of these are highly relevant to understanding the characteristics of science. In fact, the “characteristics” of Western culture are, to some extent, embodied precisely in the “characteristics” of science. For example, we often say that Western philosophy emphasizes reduction, analysis, and objective experience, whereas Eastern philosophy emphasizes synthesis, wholeness, and subjective insight; in fact, these features can be felt in the differences between Western medicine and traditional Chinese medicine. It is clear that examining the characteristics of Western culture and examining the characteristics of science are complementary. Understanding the characteristics of Western culture helps us understand the characteristics of science, and vice versa.
3 “As an open-minded, objective exploration of the nature of the world, science should welcome certain unorthodox research, such as research conducted by departments like the Office of Alternative Medicine.” Do you think this claim is well-founded?
First of all, saying that science is “an open-minded, objective exploration of the nature of the world” is a questionable statement (this is not to say that I disagree with it). Before going into it deeply, it would be more appropriate to remove the questionable adjectives and say that science is “an exploration of the nature of the world.” In addition, using alternative medicine as the case is not quite appropriate, because “medicine” itself is not purely science. Medicine, more precisely, is a craft. Modern medicine certainly relies on the support of an entire system of scientific theories and methods, but the purpose of medicine is not “the exploration of the nature of the world”; its ultimate purpose has always been “to cure disease.”
Of course, there is no need to nitpick too much. The intention of this question is simply to ask whether science should welcome unorthodox research. So what exactly counts as “unorthodox,” and what counts as “alternative”? Notice that the author’s description of “alternative medicine” is: “They all believe that there is important therapeutically useful alternative knowledge regarding disease, its causes, and its treatment, and that this knowledge is concretely embodied in one or another kind of non-experimental method.” (p. 8)—the key phrase here is “non-experimental methods,” which is also the main difference between most so-called “alternative” sciences and orthodox science. If we take the standard of modern science, then “non-experimental methods” are not scientific methods. However, not all unorthodox research takes the form of non-experimental methods. In fact, many more “alternative sciences,” such as psychical research and research into human paranormal abilities, also adopt experimental methods. These two situations of “unorthodoxy” need to be discussed separately. Here I shall only discuss the kind exemplified by “alternative medicine”—that is, unorthodox research that arises from impatience with or dissatisfaction toward orthodox science, adopts non-experimental methods, and actively seeks to break away from mainstream science; the other kind consists of unorthodox research that, by every possible means, tries to squeeze into orthodoxy, actively imitates the methods of orthodox science, and strongly hopes to be accepted by orthodoxy. Clearly, these two kinds of unorthodox research are very different.
From the perspective of the former kind of unorthodox research, they do not require acceptance by mainstream science; their original intention is precisely to step outside the knowledge system and experimental methods of mainstream science and open up a new world of their own. In that sense, mainstream science has no need to self-importantly “welcome” them. In fact, the problem itself is problematic—we speak of whether science ought to welcome and encourage them, but the question is, does “science” have the authority to “welcome or encourage” them, and does it have the standing to “reject and negate” them? The greatest extent of the power of the mainstream scientific community is no more than to denounce certain studies as alien, but if those studies are content to be alien in the first place, where does “science” get the authority to discipline them? Whether to allocate so much money to scientific research and so much money to alternative research are matters for government departments; we may question whether the government really needs to “encourage” those alternative studies, but when we ask whether “science” should encourage them, what exactly do we mean? Scientists, as citizens, of course have the right to offer ideas and suggestions and make proposals for government decisions, but “science” itself should not imagine itself to be “supreme,” much less have the right to stand above the government and use political power to exclude dissenters. What is often the real problem now is that the scientific community has failed to place itself properly and has abused political power; this problem is especially prominent in China, as Teacher Liu Huajie said: “Over the past twenty years, both sides in the debate over pseudoscience have done everything they can to politicize the dispute and mobilize non-academic forces. On the surface, this quickly ends the battle and decides who wins and who loses, but in the long run it is fundamentally of no help in solving the problem. The two sides remain unconvinced by each other, and the outcome of the quick fight has only deepened the underlying contradictions.”[⑥] I think the mainstream scientific community should first set its attitude straight. Alternative medicine has not asked science for recognition; it is asking the government for recognition. Science should not make judgments from a position of superiority, but rather allow for more calm and reasoned discussion. Which non-mainstream studies need to be restricted, which are worth government support, and in what manner and to what extent they should be supported—these questions all need to be analyzed according to the specific circumstances. But the premise is that “science” should not imagine that it can exercise power in the government’s place, and the government should not make arbitrary decisions in the name of science. Everyone should first keep to their proper roles and settle down, and only then is it good to “analyze specific problems specifically.”
4 Considering that scientific worldviews have been changing continuously over the past several hundred years, has philosophy paid too much attention to the importance of scientific discoveries and theories in dealing with philosophical problems?
On this topic, the author’s relevant passage in the “conclusion” of this chapter is: “Indeed, certain philosophical problems track the changes in the natural sciences. How philosophers think about mind and its place in nature, free will and determinism, the meaning of life, and so on—all of this is deeply influenced by scientific progress. Because the scientific description of reality has continually changed over the past few centuries, the nature of philosophical problems has changed along with it.” (p. 20)
I do not entirely agree with the author’s formulation. The development of science has indeed changed the way philosophers pose and think about problems, and also the emphasis they place on them; but has it really changed the “nature” of philosophical problems? What is meant by the “nature” of philosophical problems? This is quite a vague expression. In fact, as the author says, philosophers think about “mind and its place in nature, free will and determinism, the meaning of life, and so on”; these problems themselves have not changed. What has changed is the way we think about and answer these problems. The development of science does not change philosophical problems; more often, it provides new examples, new contexts, new lines of thought, new predicaments, and so on for traditional philosophical problems.
It is obviously significant that philosophical discussion is affected by scientific development, but this is not surprising, because science was originally part of philosophy as well, and it is one way—though not the only way—of loving and pursuing “wisdom.” Despite having been subjected to many criticisms, what “science” provides is relatively speaking still fairly “reliable,” and the conclusions it reaches are difficult to simply ignore or deny. If there is no sufficient reason, then stubbornly rejecting science is not rational. However, reflection and criticism are philosophy’s strengths. While it is impossible simply to reject science, philosophy should also not lightly accept science. Philosophy needs to think about questions such as science’s metaphysical presuppositions, the logical structure of scientific explanation, the substance of scientific activity, and so on; this is precisely the significance of “philosophy of science.”
5 Is there a competitive relationship between philosophy of science’s conception of the nature of science and the conception of science held by the sociology of science?
Earlier I mentioned that philosophy of science, sociology of science, and the like are all components of “studies of science”; they are all disciplines that take “science” as their object, and their common question is: “What, in the end, is science?”
From what sort of perspective should one examine “science” in order to understand more fully what “science” really is?
As the saying goes, “You cannot see the true face of Mount Lu because you are within the mountain” (不识庐山真面目，只缘身在此山中): once you are “inside” something, no matter how deeply you go or how much you turn around, it is difficult to form a relatively complete impression of the object. As for “science,” even those scientists, no matter how deeply they work in their respective fields, can hardly be said to have a fully comprehensive understanding of what “science” really is. As for philosophy of science in the narrow sense, it starts from the “epistemology” of science, that is, it is a perspective from within science itself. Because it penetrates to the foundations and structures of science, its understanding should be more profound than the “experience” of those who, like technology experts, are merely “feeling an elephant in the dark.” However, being inside the mountain all the time means that one’s field of vision is always limited. Once we move away from “Mount Lu” and observe from various angles at the foot of the surrounding mountains, or even from an aerial view, what we see will be a different picture altogether. Thinking this way, not only can sociology of science, science communication studies, and so on complement philosophy of science in understanding the nature of science, but even those “anti-scientific” and even “anti-rational” currents of thought may also provide some useful help in understanding science. This is because the ways of thinking “taken for granted” by modern people have already been profoundly influenced by modern science; observing and reflecting on science from a new perspective that completely rejects this habitual mode of thought (even if that rejection is mistaken) may perhaps inspire some new ideas and reveal things that have been overlooked because of our thinking habits, and so on.
That said, it is also worth emphasizing the following: if one wants to grasp “what Mount Lu is,” then constantly circling around outside the mountain will not yield a more comprehensive understanding either! Having never personally gone into the mountain, yet holding up two aerial photographs and making pointed remarks about “the true face of Mount Lu,” it is no wonder one would be looked down upon.
In short, philosophy of science and sociology of science are different “perspectives” for understanding “science,” and different standpoints and methods do not necessarily conflict; they can and should complement each other.
March 9, 2006
[①]Nicholas Bunnin and Yijuan Yu, eds., A Dictionary of Western Philosophy in English and Chinese, trans. Wang Keping, Jiang Yi, Yu Jiyuan, Chen Bo, Zhang Xianglong, Zhou Xiaoliang, Duan Zhongqiao, Hu Xinhe, Xu Kailai, Xu Youyu, Tao Xiu, Ao Tang, and Gong Qun, People’s Publishing House, 2001, pp. 750–751
[②]See [German] Hans Poser, Science: What Is Science?, trans. Li Wenchao, Shanghai SDX Joint Publishing Company, 2002, p. 6
[③]Liu Huajie, Not Everything Enshrined in the Hall Is Buddha, Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, January 2004, p. 159
[④]Wang Hongbo and Ma Jianbo, eds., Crossing the Chasm—Science in a Cultural Perspective, Fujian Education Press, 2002, p. 110
[⑤]Wang Hongbo and Ma Jianbo, eds., Crossing the Chasm—Science in a Cultural Perspective, Fujian Education Press, 2002, p. 109
[⑥]Liu Huajie, Chinese Parascience—Seen from the Perspectives of Philosophy and Sociology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press, 2004, p. 140
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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