There Are a Number of Assumptions That Underlie the “Boat” Image.* One Assumption Is That Science Is an Ongoing Enterprise

the justification of evaluative standards There are a number of assumptions that underlie the “Boat” image.* One assumption is that science is an ongoing enterprise. At no point does the ship attain the status of “seaworthy for all time”. A second assumption is that continual rebuilding is necessary. There are pressures both within science and from the larger community that require responses from the scientific community. If the responses are inadequate the ship may sink. And a third assumption is that there is no transhistorical standpoint (drydock) from which successful responses may be orchestrated. That which contributes to increased seaworthiness is itself learned during the voyage. There is no inviolable axiological dimension within science. Even the most general of evaluative principles are subject to modification in the course of the rebuilding process. Neurath emphasized that one requirement of anti-foundationalist naturalism is that sentences that record basic empirical data have the status of pro- visional hypotheses. An observation report may be accepted. But it also may be challenged in various ways, and if the challenges are not met, the report may be rejected. Neurath held that “protocol sentences” that record what is observed include reference to the experience of the observer.12 An example is “Fred noted at : p.m. that Fred was aware at : p.m. that the mercury meniscus in the tube before him was on the line .”. This report may be excluded from the body of accepted scientific discourse for various reasons: () other investi- gators locate the meniscus at .; () Fred was observed to read the meniscus position from a sharp angle; () Fred’s prior reports of his observations have proved unreliable bases for action; () Fred is believed to be deeply committed to a theory that would receive support from the value ‘.’; and () Fred is believed to be anxious to please the members of his research group who anticipate the value ‘.’. Neurath insisted that the status of an observation- report within the language of science depends on decisions about accepting or rejecting various other hypotheses. Observation reports thus cannot serve as a foundational base for the language of science. Neurath’s anti-foundationalist naturalism did not prevail within the Vienna Circle discussions of the s. Subsequently, during the era of Logical Reconstructionism (–). foundationalism reigned supreme. * Cartwright, Cat, Fleck, and Uebel, in Otto Neurath: Philosophy Between Science and Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ), identify three separate “Boat Images” within Neurath’s writings. The version quoted above is from Neurath’s essay “Protocol Statements” (), included in Otto Neurath: Philosophical Papers, ed. by R. S. Cohen and M. Neurath (Dordrecht: Reidel, ), . the justification of evaluative standards Quine’s “Field of Force” Image The Anti-Foundationalist position has received important support from the work of W. V. Quine. Quine cited with approval Neurath’s “Boat” image, and undertook to survey procedures by which the ship may be made seaworthy. The survey is based on the superposition of a second image upon science. According to this image, a scientific theory is a “field of force” that is subject to constraints provided by experience. Echoing a thesis of Pierre Duhem, Quine declared that a recalcitrant experience can . be accommodated by any of various alternative reëvalu- ations in various alternative quarters of the total system.13 Given a conflict between theory and experience, we may, and usually do, choose to adjust those parts of the force field adjacent to the periphery. By so doing, we re-establish agreement with observations by making changes that have minimal repercussions within the theory. But we are not forced to respond in such a conservative manner. Instead we may make changes deep within the force field, changes that greatly affect all regions of the field. No subset of propositions within science is foundational. Nor does science contain inviolable evaluative standards or procedures. Quine emphasized that any given proposition within science can be retained as true provided that sufficiently drastic adjustments are made elsewhere in the system. Much of Quine’s analysis is an elaboration of the diverse ways in which mariner-scientists may repair the boat. However, Quine’s philosophy of science also includes a normative component. Surprisingly, its locus is the context of discovery rather than the context of justification. Quine recommended Ockham’s Razor and a principle of conservatism as heuristic standards whose applications contribute to the creation of good science. Justification and Inviolable Principles Lakatos and Laudan appraised competing methodologies on the assumption that there is a hierarchy of levels in the justification process. The Hierarchical Justification Ladder the justification of evaluative standards Laws and theories are justified by appeal to standards of confirmation and explanation, and these standards are justified in turn, by appeal to transhistorical inviolable principles. Level is the “top rung” of the ladder. At level Lakatos formulated an incorporation criterion, and Laudan developed a procedure which begins with a selection of standard-case episodes. Dudley Shapere criticized this approach to justification. He denied that there exists a top rung on the ladder, a rung containing unalterable principles not themselves subject to justification. Rather, evaluative principles at all levels have been, and should be, subject to criticism and change. This applies to standards of evidential support, criteria of theory-replacement, interpret- ations of progress, and assumptions about the cognitive aims of science. Shapere recommended a “non-presuppositionist” philosophy of science according to which that enterprise involves no unalterable assumptions whatever, whether in the form of substantive beliefs, methods, rules, or concepts.14 Shapere maintained that transitions from one evaluative standard to another are often rational.15 It is the task of a non-presuppositionist philosophy of science to exhibit this rationality. However, Shapere insisted that standards of rationality themselves change over time. Hence evaluative judgements are context-dependent. The philosopher may show that a transition from standard S1 at time t1 to S2 at t2 is rational, given the standards of rationality accepted at t2. But this judgement may be incorrect, given the standards of rationality of some subsequent time. Since no suprahistorical standpoint is available for the appraisal of standards of rationality, non-presuppositionist philosophy of science is a version of historical relativism. In Science and Values (), Laudan repudiated the hierarchial model of justification. He now agreed with Shapere that every evaluative level is subject to change. There is no unalterable “top rung”. Indeed the “ladder model” is misleading. Laudan recommended instead a “reticulational model” within which theories, methodological principles, and cognitive aims are reciprocally interrelated.16 Laudan emphasized that justification is a two-way street. He noted that disputes about scientific theories often involve appeal to methodological principles. However, methodological principles themselves are sometimes changed in response to the success of substantive theories. There is a similar reciprocal relation between theories and “axiological” claims about the basic cognitive aims of science. Shapere was correct to insist that even the cognitive aims of science are subject to change. Laudan noted, for example, that there was a tension within late eighteenth-century science between an acknowledged goal of Newtonian “Experimental Philosophy”— include within science only theories that correlate “manifest qualities”—and a the justification of evaluative standards Laudan’s Reticulational Model of Justification proliferation of theories about unobserved entities.* According to Laudan, this tension was resolved in the nineteenth century by a revision of the axiological level to legitimate the invention of theories about entities not subject to observation.17 Laudan claimed that the reticulational model is superior to both the hierarchial model and “Kuhnian holism”. “Kuhnian holism” is the position that theories, methodological rules, and cognitive aims are often replaced as a package. Before a revolutionary episode, scientists accept theories T, methodological rules M, and cognitive aims A. After the revolution, scientists accept T′, M′, and A′. The disciplinary matrix (‘paradigm’ in the broad sense) now is quite different. The holistic model promotes evaluative relativism. Before the revolution, theories are appraised by reference to M and A; after the revolution theories are appraised by reference to M′ and A′. The transition (T, M, A) → (T′, M′, A′) is not itself subject to justification. Any attempt to justify the revolution by appeal to M′ or A′ would be circular. The reticulational model, by contrast, permits gradual, piecemeal adjustments among theories, methodological rules, and cognitive aims. Laudan sought to show that such adjustments are rational despite the fact that no component theory, rule, or aim is unalterable. He suggested that methodological rules and standards be restated as hypothetical imperatives of the form if y is the goal to be achieved, then one ought do x.18 Laudan’s hypothetical imperatives state means–end correlations. An imperative is acceptable only if doing x is more likely than its alternatives

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