A Realist Theory of Science ROY BHASKAR Department of Philosophy, University of Edinburgh THE HARVESTER PRESS · SUSSEX HUMANITIES PRESS · NEW JERSEY This edition first published in 1978 by THE HARVESTER PRESS LIMITED Publisher: John Spiers 2 Stanford Terrace, Hassocks, Sussex and in the USA by HUMANITIES PRESS INC., Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey 07716 © Roy Bhaskar, 1975, 1978 First published in 1975 by Leeds Books Ltd., Leeds British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Bhaskar, Roy A realist theory of science 1. Science philosophy I. Title 501 Ql75 ISBN 0--85527-701-7 ISBN 0--75527-672-X pbk Humanities Press Ine.. ISBN 0--391-00576-6 ISBN 0--391-00577-4 pbk Printed in Great Britain by Redwood Burn Limited, Trowbridge & Esher All rights reserved Contents Preface 7 Preface to the Second Edition 11 Introduction 12 Chapter 1. Philosophy and Scientific Realism 21 1. Two Sides of 'Knowledge' 21 2. Three Traditions in the Philosophy of Science 24 3. The Transcendental Analysis of Experience 30 A. The Analysis of Perception 31 B. The Analysis of Experimental Activity 33 4. The Status of Ontology and Its Dissolution in Classical Philosophy 36 5. Ontology Vindicated and The Real Basis of Causal Laws 45 6. A Sketch of a Critique of Empirical Realism 56 Chapter 2. Actualism and the Concept of a Closure 63 1. Introduction: On the Actuality of the Causal Connection 63 2. Regularity Determinism and the Quest for a Closure 69 3. The Classical Paradigm of Action 79 4. Actualism and Transcendental Realism: The Interpretation of Normie Statements 91 5. Autonomy and Reduction 105 6. Explanation in Open Systems 118 Appendix. Orthodox Philosophy of Science and the Implications of Open Systems 127 Chapter 3. The Logic of Scientific Discovery 143 1. Introduction: On the Contingency of the Causal Connection 143 4 A Realist Theory of Science 2. The Surplus-Element in the Analysis of Law-like Statements: A Critique of the Theory of Models 148 3. Natural Necessity and Natural Kinds: The Stratification of Nature and The Stratification of Science 163 4. The Social Production of Knowledge by Means of Knowledge 185 5. Objections to the Account of Natural Necessity Proposed 199 6. The Problem oflnduction 215 Appendix. Natural Tendencies and Causal Powers 229 Chapter 4. Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Science 239 Postscript to the Second Edition 251 Bibliography 263 Index of names 273 Index of subjects 275 To my mother Preface It has often been claimed, and perhaps more often felt, that the problems of philosophy have been solved. And yet, like the proverbial frog at the bottom of the beer mug, they have always reappeared. There was a phase in recent philosophy when it was widely held that the problem was the problems and not their solution. In practice, however, this interesting idea was usually coupled with the belief that termination of philosopical reflection of the traditional kind would be in itself sufficient to resolve the problems to which, it was held, philosophical reflec tion had given rise. Whatever the merits of such a view in general, it is quite untenable for any philosopher who is concerned with science. For in one science after another recent developments, or in some cases the lack of them, have forced old philosophical problems to the fore. Thus the dispute between Parmenides and Heraclitus as to whether being or becoming is ultimate lies not far from the centre of methodological controversy in physics; while the dispute between rationalists and empiricists over the respective roles of the a priori and the empirical continues to dominate methodological discussion in economics. Sociologists are making increasing use of the allegedly discredited Aristo telian typology of causes. And the problem of universals has re-emerged in an almost Platonic form in structural linguistics, anthropology and developmental biology. The spectre of determinism continues to haunt many of the sciences; and the problem of 'free-will' is still a problem for psychology. In this context one might have expected a ferment of creative activity within the philosophy of science, and to a degree this has occurred. But the latter's capacity for autonomous growth is limited. For the critical or analytical philosopher of science can only say as much as the philosophical tools at his disposal enable him to say. And if philosophy lags behind the needs of the moment then he is left in the position of a Priestley forced, Preface 7 by the inadequacy of his conceptual equipment, to think of oxygen as 'dephlogisticated air'; 1 or, of a Winch baffied by an alien sociology. 2 Hegel may have exaggerated when he said that philosophy always arrives on the scene too late. 3 Yet there can be little doubt that our theory of knowledge has scarcely come lo terms with, let alone resolved the crises induced by, the changes that have taken place across the whole spectrum of scientific (and one might add social and political) thought. In this respect our present age contrasts unfavourably with both Ancient Greece and Post-Renaissance Europe, where there was a close and mutually beneficial relationship between science and philosophy. It is true that in the second of these periods there was a pro gressive 'problem-shift' within philosophy from the question of the content of knowledge to the meta-question of its status as such. 4 This shift was in part a response to the consolidation of the Newtonian world-view, until by Kant's time its fundamental axioms could be regarded as a priori conditions of the possibility of any empirical knowledge. However, those philosophers of the present who insist upon their total autonomy from the natural and human sciences not only impoverish, but delude themselves. For they thereby condemn themselves to living in the shadow cast by the great scientific thought of the past. Anyone who doubts that scientific theories constitute a significant ingredient in philosophical thought should consider what the course of intellectual history might have been if gestalt psychology had been established in place of Hartley's principle of the association of ideas; or if the phenomena of electricity and magnetism had come to be regarded as more basic than those of impact and gravity; or if sounds and smells had been taken as constitutive of the basic stuff of reality and the rich tapestry of the visual-tactile world had been regarded, like a Beethoven symphony or the perfume of a rose, as a mere effect of those primary powers. Suppose further that philoso- 1 See e.g. S. E. Toulmin, 'Crucial Experiments: Priestley and Lavoisier', The Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. XVIII (1951), pp. 205-20; and J. B. Conant, The Overthrow of the Phlogiston Theory. 2 P. Winch, The Idea of a Social Science, p. 114. 3 G. W. F. Hegel, Philosophy of Right, Preface. 4 Cf. G. Buchdahl, Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Science, p. 2 8 A Realist Theory of Science phers had taken biology or economics as their paradigm of a science rather than physics; or 16th not 17th century physics as their paradigm of scientific activity. Would not our philo sophical inheritance have been vastly different? As this is primarily a problem for the philosophy of philosophy rather than the philosophy of science, I shall not dwell on this point further here. Its significance for our story will emerge in due course. The primary aim of this study is the development o( a syste matic realist account of science. In this way I hope to provide a comprehensive alternative to the positivism that has usurped the title of science. I think that only the position developed here can do full justice to the rationality of scientific practice or sustain the intelligibility of such scientific activities as theory construction and experimentation. And that while recent developments in the philosophy of science mark a great advance on positivism they must eventually prove vulnerable to positi vist counter-attack, unless carried to the limit worked out here. My subsidiary aim is thus to show once-and-for-all why no return to positivism is possible. This of course depends upon my primary aim. For any adequate answer to the critical meta question 'what are the conditions of the plausibility of an account of science?' presupposes an account which is capable of thinking of those conditions as special cases. That is to say, to adapt an image of Wittgenstein's, one can only see the fly in the fly-bottle if one's perspective is different from that of the fly. 6 And the sting is only removed from a system of thought when the particular conditions under which it makes sense are described. In practice this task is simplified for us by the fact that the conditions under which positivism is plausible as an account of science are largely co-extensive with the conditions under which experience is significant in science. This is of course an important and substantive question which we could say, echoing Kant, no account of science can decline, but positivism cannot ask, because (it will be seen) the idea of insignificant experiences transcends the very bounds of its thought. 6 This book is written in the context of vigorous critical activity in the philosophy of science. In the course of this the twin 5 L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 309. 6 I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, Preface to the 1st Edition.