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University of Cincinnati UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI Date: May 22, 2006 I, A. Leland Morton__________________________________________, hereby submit this work as part of the requirements for the degree of: Doctor of Philosophy in: Philosophy It is entitled: Making It Intelligible: An Historical Approach to Understanding Intelligibility in the Assessment of Scientific Theories. This work and its defense approved by: Chair: Robert C. Richardson, Ph. D. John Bickle, Ph. D. William Jensen, Ph. D. John McEvoy, Ph. D. Thomas Polger, Ph. D. Robert Skipper, Ph. D. Making It Intelligible: An Historical Approach to Understanding Intelligibility in the Assessment of Scientific Theories. A Dissertation submitted to the Division of Research and Advanced Studies Of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph. D.) in the Department of Philosophy of the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences May 19, 2006 by A. Leland Morton, M.A. Committee Chair: Robert C. Richardson, Ph. D. Member: John Bickle, Ph. D. Member: William B. Jensen, Ph. D. Member: John McEvoy, Ph. D. Member: Thomas Polger, Ph. D. Member: Robert Skipper, Ph. D. Abstract The principal goal of this dissertation is to develop and defend a criterion of intelligibility adequate to the task of explaining the variety of historical appeals to this notion in philosophy and, more importantly, science. The thesis I defend holds that any account capable of explaining the historical use of intelligibility in criticizing scientific explanations must begin with the fact that charges generally encapsulated concerns with theoretical terms and their associated representational contents. For individuals like Leibniz and Boyle as well as latter atomists and other nineteenth century scientists like Maxwell the pertinent question was whether the putative referents of the theoretical terms of explanations could be conceived of. “Conceiving of” for early modern thinkers had principally to do with associating terms with ideas that are either rationally grounded or derived from experience. Later theorists like Maxwell, while remaining faithful to the traditional use of intelligibility, implicitly extend the idea by associating theoretical abstractions with models that are accessible to the imagination. After establishing this core thesis I proceed to develop an alternative account of intelligibility that can accommodate the historical worries while at the same time addressing some potential philosophical challenges to the use of this notion in the assessment of scientific theories. The thesis defended in this regard is that terms are intelligible if and only if they can be associated with observationally based representations that figure in a broader network of such representations whose relations are suitably constrained by the theory. Table of Contents Preface: 3 Chapter I: 1.0.0. Introduction 16 1.1.0. Leibniz’s Metaphysical Naturalism 20 1.1.1. A Tale of Two Kingdoms 24 1.2.0. Intelligibility, Miracles, & Occult Qualities 31 1.3.0. Conclusion 43 Chapter II: 2.0.0. Introduction 55 2.1.0. Sine Mente Soni 56 2.2.0. Elaborating the Theory of Ideas 59 2.3.0. ‘Attraction’ vs. Action-at-a-distance 64 2.4.0. Buchdahl and the Role of Intelligibility in Theory Assessment 71 2.4.1. Evaluating Buchdahl 80 2.5.0. Concluding Remarks 85 Chapter III: 3.0.0. Introduction 87 3.1.0. Humean Intelligibility 90 3.1.1. Articulating the Problem 95 3.1.2. Loeb’s Solution 97 3.1.3. Problems with Loeb’s Interpretation 101 3.1.4. Hume’s Solution 105 3.2.0. HC Reconsidered 110 3.2.1. Inferentialism 112 3.2.2. Cognitive Significance 115 Chapter IV: 4.0.0. Introduction 120 4.1.0. Semantic Agnosticism, Observation, & Cognitive Significance 122 4.1.1. Observation 124 4.1.2. Miscellany 126 4.2.0. Constraining Representations 129 4.3.0. Boyle, Models, & Theories 137 4.4.0. Pragmatic Virtues 148 4.4.1. Criticism, Rejoinder, & Resolution 150 Chapter V: 5.0.0. Introduction 157 1 5.1.0. Contra-Positivism: Putnam’s Critique 164 5.2.0. Contra-Positivism: Critique From the Standpoint of MHC 174 Chapter VI: 6.0.0. Introduction 186 6.1.0. Elaborating De regt’s and Dieks’ Model (DND) 192 6.2.0. Understanding: Concerns & Confusions 197 6.3.0. Criticisms of CIT 206 6.3.1. CIT’s Radical Subjectivism 206 6.3.2. CIT’s commitment to SST 212 6.3.3. CIT’s Holistic Character 222 6.3.4. CIT’s Extrinsic Character 223 Chapter VI: 226 Bibliography: 231 2 Preface Introduction The principal goal of my dissertation is to develop a criterion of intelligibility adequate to the task of explaining the variety of historical appeals to this notion in philosophy and, more importantly, science. Questions regarding intelligibility arise as part of a broader concern with the nature of understanding. And often the two notions are treated interchangeably. Thus, we might seek to understand or render intelligible the process of combustion, or we may attempt to understand or find intelligible an explanation of combustion. While ‘understanding x’ and ‘finding x intelligible’ might reasonably be treated as synonymous in each of the questions, the two questions presuppose different objects of understanding. An interest in the nature of what is understandable or intelligible may arise in the context of attempting to answer either of the following more general questions: 1) How do scientific theories (or other explanatory strategies) generate understanding? 2) What is involved in our understanding of scientific theories? Nicholas Rescher expresses the former as a question concerning how “the majestic lawful order of nature is intelligible to us”.1 Hempel provides a potential answer, holding that scientific theories generate understanding when they subsume phenomena under general regularities.2 On the other hand, sensitive to the concern expressed in the second question, James Clerk Maxwell adopted the method of physical analogy, which he saw as 1 Rescher, Nicholas (??). Nature and Understanding. 2 Hempel, C. G., (1948). “Studies in the Logic of Explanation” reprinted in Hempel, C. G. (1965). Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Science. (New York: The Free Press), pp. 245-296. (256-257). 3 a necessary aid in our understanding of formal mathematical explanations.3 In doing so he sought a compromise between the positivist and structuralist philosophies that characterized 19th century science. Unlike Hempel, Maxwell’s concern was not simply with how theories enable us to explain and hence understand the “majestic lawful order” of nature but with how we are able to understand the theories and laws themselves. For Maxwell, the use of physical analogy allowed one to understand the mathematical explanation, “to present the mathematical ideas to the mind in an embodied form, as a systems of lines and surfaces, and not as mere symbols.”4 Whereas 1) takes nature to be the pertinent object of understanding, the object of understanding at issue in 2) is language, the theoretical language of science in particular. One potential general answer to the first question—though not one I aim to defend here— is that theories or explanations generate understanding of their target phenomena by tying the phenomena to a set of processes or an underlying theoretical structure which, if sufficient, would account for the occurrence of the phenomena. Roughly speaking then, theories may be thought of as sets of sentences or even more loosely as stories concerning the organization and structure of nature in which propositions describing the phenomena may be intelligibly situated. Again, I don’t propose this as a complete or even as an accurate first step toward an account of what a theory or explanation is. Nor do I wish to defend it as the right sort of response to 1). The principle reasons for mentioning it here are two-fold. First, something approximating this account plays a prominent role in the development of the views discussed in the final two chapters of the dissertation. Henk De regt and Denis 3 Harman, P.M. (1998). The Natural Philosophy of James Clerk Maxwell. (Campridge: Cambridge University Press). pp. 81-90. 4 Ibid, p. 87. 4 Dieks (discussed in chapter VI), for instance, maintain that we understand a phenomenon only when we have some such story of the underlying processes and we are able to see how the phenomenon arises from them as a consequence (though not necessarily deductively.) Twentieth century logical positivists, on the other hand, see understanding of phenomena to come about by exhibiting the statements describing them as logical consequences of the statements comprising the theoretical framework. The second—and for present purposes more important—reason for mentioning the above response to 1) is that it makes for a fairly straightforward connection between the two questions. If the task of a theory is to generate understanding of its target phenomena and it achieves this by providing us with a story of the underlying structure or organization of nature within which propositions describing the phenomena may be inferentially situated, it seems reasonable that these stories should themselves be comprehensible. The language employed in revealing “the majestic lawful order of nature” should not itself be mysterious or opaque. The theory should be couched in terms that can be understood. Though understanding a given theory may require effort, it ought to at least be possible. The question taken up here thus concerns what is required in order for us to be able to comprehend the theoretical language of science. While 1) and 2) are related, there are good reasons to treat them as distinct questions. In the first place, understanding a theory certainly does not entail understanding of the phenomena which the theory purports to explain—this for the simple reason that we can understand theories which are false, even radically so.
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