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“Historical Turn”: Stephen Toulmin and Thomas Kuhn

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“Historical Turn”: Stephen Toulmin and Thomas Kuhn Open Journal of Philosophy 2013. Vol.3, No.2, 351-357 Published Online May 2013 in SciRes (http://www.scirp.org/journal/ojpp) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojpp.2013.32053 Scientific Prediction in the Beginning of the “Historical Turn”: Stephen Toulmin and Thomas Kuhn Wenceslao J. Gonzalez Department of Humanities, University of A Coruña, Spain Email: [email protected] Received January 14th, 2013; revised February 17th, 2013; accepted March 2nd, 2013 Copyright © 2013 Wenceslao J. Gonzalez. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Com- mons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, pro- vided the original work is properly cited. This paper considers the similarities and differences between Toulmin and Kuhn on the problem of pre- diction. The context of the analysis is the beginning of the “historical turn” in philosophy of science (i.e., the period before the 1965 international colloquium held at Bedford College). The comparison between these authors takes into account several levels: semantic, logical, epistemological, methodological, onto- logical, and axiological. The main goal is to analyze whether there are influences of Toulmin in Kuhn re- garding scientific prediction or, at least, if the former reached similar positions to the latter on the issue of the role of prediction in science. Keywords: Toulmin; Kuhn; Scientific Prediction; Historical Turn; Similarities; Differences Historical Context the role of prediction as a guarantee of the validity of scientific knowledge. (v) Ontologically, they see science as a human The “historical turn” in the philosophy and methodology of activity rather than as an abstract amount of impersonal science is commonly attributed to Thomas Kuhn and Imre La- knowledge. (vi) Axiologically, they recognize the importance katos. In addition, there are contemporary authors, such as Paul of the aim of scientific prediction, although they do not con- Feyerabend, and later thinkers, such as Larry Laudan, who sider it from a predictivist approach (like Hans Reichenbach developed a view on philosophy of science based on the con- did in 1938 with Experience and Prediction), (cf. Reichenbach, tributions of history of science. Before the “historical turn” was 1938; see Gonzalez, 1995: pp. 35-56). well established, some specialists made analyses in favor of Within this historic-systematic context, the paper pays atten- this historiographic dimension: on the one hand, is the case of tion to the similarities and differences between Toulmin and Ludwik Fleck, who passed almost unknown in the mid-thir- Kuhn on the problem of prediction. The comparison takes into ties;1 and, on the other hand, is the case of Norwood Russell account the levels pointed out: semantic, logical, epistemologi- Hanson and Stephen Toulmin, who were more influential but cal, methodological, ontological, and axiological. The analysis did not get the “turn” that Kuhn achieved later on. will focus on the beginning of the “historical turn,” i.e., the period before the 1965 international colloquium in philosophy Stephen Toulmin and Thomas Kuhn: of science held at Bedford College. The main goal is to analyze Some Similarities whether there are influences of Toulmin on Kuhn regarding scientific prediction or, at least, if the former reached similar Toulmin has some similarities with the author of The Struc- positions to the latter on the issue of the role of prediction in ture of Scientific Revolutions (Kuhn, [1962b], 1970a). (i) In science. Philosophy of Science (Toulmin, 1953) and in Foresight and Understanding (Toulmin, 1961) he emphasizes the role of lan- A Comparative Analysis on Prediction: guage in science. Toulmin receives the direct influence of Toulmin and Kuhn Ludwig Wittgenstein, a thinker who also has repercussions in Kuhn’s approach (mainly in his pragmatic view of the meaning In 1961 Toulmin emphasized the connection between history of scientific terms). (ii) They agree that the structure of scien- of science and philosophy of science.2 He wrote: “the critical tific theories is no longer a logical structure of the kind ac- questions which a philosopher brings to science need to be cepted by the logical positivists (or even by Karl Popper). (iii) co-ordinated with the factual studies of history.”3 This was For Toulmin and Kuhn, epistemological factors are not a con- written before Kuhn’s historiographic book was published, struction like a building (from foundations on) but rather a 2 “My debts to the working historians of science are so obvious as not to dynamic interaction with the social environment or historical require detailed acknowledgment,” Toulmin (1961), p. 5. context. (iv) Methodologically, both thinkers take into account 3 Toulmin (1961), p. 16. “I have aimed (...) at showing the fascinating prob- lems that arise when one brings logical and philosophical questions to bear 1 An interesting comparison between Fleck’s views and Kuhn’s approach is on the history of our scientific ideas,” Foresight and understanding: An in Mößner (2011), pp. 362-371. inquiry into the aims of science, p. 94. Copyright © 2013 SciRes. 351 W. J. GONZALEZ where he defends a key role for history of science, which leads can be changed any time. This is one of the roots of Kuhn’s to the philosophic-methodological categories of “normal sci- relativism of his initial philosophic-methodological period.7 ence” and “scientific revolution.”4 Another semantic distinction in Kuhn, that has epistemo- logical and methodological consequences, is the difference Semantics of Prediction between “quantitative predictions” and “qualitative predic- tions.” This distinction is reinforced in Postscript-1969, where According to Toulmin, “words like ‘prediction’ (...) conceal he gives more relevance to the former than to the latter: “quan- hidden ambiguities” (Toulmin, 1961: p. 16). Moreover, he titative predictions are preferable to qualitative ones” (Kuhn, makes explicit that, in his judgment, “the word ‘prediction’ is 1970b: p. 185). Previously, he has pointed out that quantitative in fact a very slippery one. It slides between two extreme uses: predictions have had a key role in history of science, such as in one naive, the other sophisticated. In its most obvious and ap- Newton’s success in predicting astronomical observations (cf. pealing sense, explaining and predicting are emphatically not Kuhn, [1962b], 1970a: p. 154) or in the acceptance of Ein- all-of-a-piece; but, by hedging the term around with sufficient stein’s general theory of relativity.8 qualifications, we can at least use it to provide a definition of explanation” (Toulmin, 1961: p. 23). The Structure of Scientific Theories and Prediction Initially, following the Wittgensteinian influence — a prag- matic account on language —, Toulmin considers that the From a structural point of view, Toulmin considers that sci- terms such as “prediction” or “predictive” can be understood in entific theories can have different orientations: “science is cer- the familiar, non-philosophical sense. This means that there are tainly not a matter of forecasting alone, since we also have to “pre-dictions, fore-tellings, sayings-in-advance” (Toulmin, 1961: discover explanatory connections between the happening we p. 24). In addition, he does not distinguish between “foresight,” predict” (Toulmin, 1961: p. 16). Thus, he criticizes vehemently “prediction,” and “forecasting,” which — in my judgment — the predictivist thesis9 (i.e., an instrumentalism on prediction), should be done in order to analyze the foretellings in terms of maybe because he held it before Foresight and Understanding. the different degree of control of the variables. This possibility In this book, he rejects that the purpose of an explanatory sci- is more relevant in economics than in other sciences (cf. Gon- ence is to lead to predictions and that the merits of a scientific zalez, 1996b: pp. 201-228; especially, pp. 215-216). theory are in proportion to the correct predictions that it implies But Toulmin embraces de facto another position: prediction (cf. Toulmin, 1961: pp. 22-23). as testable implication. This involves “the ability to infer the To begin with, Toulmin considers that explanatory power occurrence of any event in question — whether it has already cannot be defined in terms of forecasts. He highlights that happened, is happening now, or is going to happen in the fu- “plenty of powerful theories have led to no categorical, verifi- ture” (Toulmin, 1961: p. 27). Thus, the distinction between able forecasts whatever. One obvious example is Darwin’s “pre-diction” (saying beforehand that something is going to theory, explaining the origin of species by reference to varia- happen) and “retro-diction” (inferring after the event it has tion and natural selection. No scientist has ever used this theory happened) is diluted. This seems to me a mistake, insofar as the to foretell the coming-into-existence of creatures of a novel future is epistemologically and ontologically related to some- species, still less verified his forecasts. Yet many scientists thing with a wide range of possibilities, which is far wider — have accepted Darwin’s theory as having great explanatory and, eventually, more complex — than the past. power” (Toulmin, 1961: pp. 24-25). On analyzing Toulmin’s texts it seems that his semantics of It seems that, for Toulmin, there is a structural distinction in science includes three different uses of predictions: a) future science between the realm of “explanation”
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