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UC San Diego UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations UC San Diego UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Baconian Foundationalism and the Problem of Certainty / Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7r33h8t7 Author Schwartz, Daniel Publication Date 2014 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Baconian Foundationalism and the Problem of Certainty A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy by Daniel Schwartz Committee in charge: Professor Donald Rutherford, Chair Professor Craig Callender Professor Tal Golan Professor Samuel Rickless Professor Robert Westman 2014 Copyright Daniel Schwartz, 2014 All rights reserved. The dissertation of Daniel Schwartz is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on mi- crofilm and electronically: Chair University of California, San Diego 2014 iii EPIGRAPH [Bacon] is usually considered, not only as having asserted some general principles, but laid down the special rules of scientific investigation; as not only one of the Founders, but the supreme Legislator of the modern Republic of Science; not only the Hercules who slew the monsters that obstructed the earlier traveler, but the Solon who established a Constitution fitted for all future time. -William Whewell iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page . iii Epigraph . iv Table of Contents . v List of Figures . vi List of Tables . vii Acknowledgements . viii Vita . ix Abstract of the Dissertation . x Chapter 1 Introduction . 1 1.1 The Instauratio ....................... 6 1.2 Outline of the Dissertation . 10 Chapter 2 The What and the Where of Certainty in the Instauratio . 15 2.1 Kinds of Certainty . 16 2.2 Bacon and the Skeptics . 21 2.3 The Certainty of Part Six . 27 2.3.1 Arguments for Restricting Certainty to Part Six . 27 2.3.2 Goals and Terminology of Baconian Science . 30 2.3.3 The Certainty of Rules as Non-Epistemic . 41 Chapter 3 The Certainty of Sense-Perception . 47 3.1 What are the Immediate Objects of Sense-perception? . 50 3.1.1 Ancient Views . 51 3.1.2 Bacon’s View . 57 3.2 What is the Relationship Between Reason and Sense- perception? . 60 3.2.1 Ancient Views . 60 3.2.2 Bacon’s View . 61 3.3 What is the Epistemological Status of the Reports of Sense-perception? . 65 3.3.1 Ancient Views . 65 3.3.2 Bacon’s View . 68 3.4 What are the Consequences of Withholding Assent to the Reports of Sense-perception? . 75 v 3.4.1 Ancient Views . 76 3.4.2 Bacon’s View . 78 3.5 Conclusion . 80 Chapter 4 Baconian Natural History and Scientific Progress . 82 4.1 What is a Baconian Natural History? . 86 4.2 The Unity of Discovery and Justification . 93 4.2.1 The Scholastics’ Discovery-Justification Distinction 93 4.2.2 Evidence that Bacon Rejects the Distinction . 97 4.3 First-Level Notions . 103 4.3.1 Which Notions are First-Level? . 106 4.3.2 Gradualism and First-level Notions . 109 4.3.3 The Nature and Justificatory Force of the Ab- straction of First-level Notions . 113 4.4 The Initial Justification of Natural History . .117 4.5 Scaffolding and Revision Mechanisms . .122 4.5.1 Degrees of Certainty . 123 4.5.2 Enhancement . 126 4.5.3 Self-Correction . 132 4.6 Objections and Replies . 134 4.6.1 Problem Cases for Discovery-Justification Unity . 135 4.6.2 Two More Problems for Revision Mechanisms . 140 4.7 Conclusion . 142 4.8 Acknowledgements . 143 Chapter 5 Induction . 144 5.1 Rival Interpretations and Assessments . 149 5.1.1 Gaukroger . 149 5.1.2 Jardine . 159 5.1.3 Urbach . 165 5.1.4 McCaskey . 170 5.2 A New Interpretation of Bacon’s Method . 177 5.2.1 Destruction and a New Beginning . 179 5.2.2 Elimination and the First Vintage . 182 5.2.3 Prerogative Instances . 189 5.3 Crucial Instances . 197 5.3.1 General Observations about Crucial Instances . 198 5.3.2 Examples of Certain, Affirmative Crucial Instances 201 5.3.3 The Reliance on Background Knowledge and Aux- iliary Assumptions . 204 5.3.4 The Exhaustiveness of the Alternatives . 207 5.3.5 Reasoning Affirmatively vs. Reasoning Negatively 209 5.4 Overview and Conclusion . 214 vi Chapter 6 Conclusion . 216 6.1 A Proposed Revision to Bacon’s Method . 218 6.2 Case Studies . 224 6.2.1 Newton’s Optics . 224 6.2.2 Robert Hooke’s Crucial Experiments . 235 6.3 Summary of the Dissertation . 243 Appendix A Guide to the Prerogative Instances . 249 A.1 Informative Instances . 250 A.1.1 Instances of the Lamp . 250 A.1.2 Instances Informative to the Intellect . 252 A.2 Instances Primarily Directed Towards Operation and Prac- tice: Practical Instances . 258 A.2.1 Instances with a Preparative Function (in the cre- ation of a natural history) and Inductive Func- tion: Propitious Instances or Benevolent Instances 258 A.2.2 Practical Instances With a Primarily Inductive Function: Mathematical Instances or Instances of Measure . 259 Bibliography . 261 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 4.1: The Order of Discovery and the Structure of Justification . 84 Figure 5.1: The Stages of Baconian Induction . 178 Figure 6.1: Inverted Prisms . 227 Figure 6.2: Newton’s Crucial Experiment . 229 Figure 6.3: The Detection of Stellar Parallax . 240 viii LIST OF TABLES Table 4.1: Literate Experience . 128 Table 5.1: The Degree of Certainty of Axioms as a Function of the Com- pleteness and Degree of Certainty of a Natural History . 146 ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge the support of Donald Rutherford as the chair of my committee. This dissertation is the end result of a very Baconian process of revision and self-correction, and much of that transformation is the result of his gentle poking and prodding over the course of many drafts. I would also like to acknowledge Samuel Rickless for his attention to detail and his help with my eliminating some inconsistences that were present in earlier drafts, as well as the whole UCSD History of Philosophy Roundtable for tolerating early drafts of my work and providing helpful feedback. Chapter 4, in part, significantly reproduces material that has been pub- lished in The Journal of Early Modern Studies (Volume 3, Issue 1) in the form of an article titled “Is Baconian Natural History Theory-Laden?” The dissertation author is the sole author of that article. I would, however, like to acknowledge the helpful comments of Donald Rutherford as well as two anonymous reviewers. Their feedback on that article resulted in many improvements that made their way into Chapter 4 of this dissertation. x VITA 2006 B.A. in Liberal Arts, St. John’s College, Annapolis 2006-2014 Graduate Student, University of California, San Diego 2014 Ph.D. in Philosophy, University of California, San Diego PUBLICATIONS Daniel Schwartz, “Is Baconian Natural History Theory-Laden?”, Journal of Early Modern Studies, Volume 3, Issue 1, Spring 2014. xi ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Baconian Foundationalism and the Problem of Certainty by Daniel Schwartz Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy University of California, San Diego, 2014 Professor Donald Rutherford, Chair Francis Bacon is one of the architects of the modern conception of scientific method. Yet Bacon’s corpus remains little studied and poorly understood. My dissertation is an account of his method with a focus on his reasons for believing that the it enables us to acquire knowledge of the nature of things (i.e., of forms) and thereby to establish causal claims with epistemic certainty. It thus has both an interpretive and an evaluative dimension. By way of a new interpretation of Bacon’s method, I defend him against those who have too casually dismissed his aspirations to certainty as a result of their reading him through deductivist or falsificationist lenses. I reconstruct Bacon’s method beginning with its foundation in sense- perception. I argue that Bacon (despite his remarks on the faults of the senses, xii which other interpreters have overemphasized) takes the side of the Epicureans against ancient skeptics. He holds that all sense-perceptions are true, by which he means that they always causally register mind-independent objects. I then argue that Bacon’s aspirations for certainty in natural history hinge on his mod- erate empiricist foundationalism. Part of his account is an original analysis of the self-correcting character of science, according to which erroneous instances in a natural history are eliminated over time as a result of their conflicting with con- clusions overwhelmingly supported by the rest of the instances. The guarantee that sporadic errors can be corrected in time is an important element in being able to secure certainty about forms. The culmination of my interpretation is a discussion of Baconian induction, which is usually understood in deductivist terms as a form of eliminative induction. I argue for an alternative interpretation which emphasizes the non-eliminative role of Bacon’s prerogative instances. Although the method that I describe should be subjected to further scrutiny, not even Bacon believed that he had the last word to say on scientific methodology; he viewed his method as an inductive discovery which would have to be revised. Accordingly, I offer Bacon’s method as a promising approach which contains within itself the resources to further expand its heuristic and justificatory power. xiii Chapter 1 Introduction Francis Bacon nourished grand hopes for the future of science. He devoted his intellectual life to the design and the partial completion of a six-part Instauratio magna or Great Renewal of the sciences. It carved the sciences up, identified deficiencies, and set down a new method in order to “throw open the doorsto [nature’s] inner sanctum” and lead us to “certain and ostensive knowledge” in the sciences and a corresponding explosion of technological progress.
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