Charles H. Jones does not like the idea that philosophy and science are separate magisteria, analogous to the sharp separation between religion and science once proposed by evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould. Well, I agree with Jones: science and philosophy aren’t separate magisteria, and I actually wrote critically of Gould’s idea in the pages of Skeptical Inquirer (Pigliucci 1999).
Like many philosophers, I endorse instead a continuity model of the relationship between science and philosophy. In this model, there are both areas of overlap and reciprocal aid as well as areas about which one field is largely or completely silent about the other.
I find it interesting that Jones accuses me of both not understanding the scientific method and of indirectly aiding and abetting pseudoscience. I had been a practicing scientist for decades before shifting my academic interests and have written critically for many years about pseudoscience, including in the pages of this magazine. I think I can be afforded the courtesy of not impugning either my intelligence or my intentions.
That being said, Jones makes several points, some of which I find myself in complete agreement with and others of which I think he goes awry or simply misunderstands my take. For instance, we agree that both science and philosophy use a combination of logical reasoning and evidence. But so do all sorts of other activities, from plumbing (mentioned by Jones) to my daily navigating of the New York City subway (before COVID-19). If we take “reasoning,” “evidence,” “hypothesis,” and “testing” in the most broad and informal understanding possible, then pretty much all we do is “science.”
Not only that, but a lot of other animals apparently also do science, because their behavior can be reasonably described as testing hypotheses about reality on the basis of observations and (informal) experiments. But that won’t do. If we define a concept—be it science, philosophy, reasoning, or whatever—in such broad terms that it encompasses by definition all possible instances, then that concept is meaningless.
As Helen Longino (2019) has cogently argued, science is a particular, historically and sociologically situated practice. It is a practice that is sufficiently distinct not only from philosophy and plumbing but even from logic and mathematics. It’s to be recognizable and analyzable on its own terms. Try this out as an experiment: pick any paper in a technical philosophy journal, another from a journal in the natural sciences—say biology or physics—and a third from mathematics or logic. I challenge you to find much similarity in the way these papers are written, in their internal structure, in the subject matters they treat, and in the way they are evaluated by the respective sets of peers. That ought to convince you that there are meaningful differences among these fields.
Jones makes much use of the alleged universality of the scientific method, which several philosophers over decades have suggested does not actually exist. Science isn’t an algorithm that can be implemented in a computer, and it doesn’t follow rigid rules. Paul Feyerabend (1975) argued that scientists are eminently pragmatic, that they’ll simply use whatever works. He may have pushed his point too far when he talked about methodological anarchism, but the fact remains that science is rather characterized by something akin to what Thomas Kuhn (1962) called “disciplinary matrices.” These are complex networks of observational and experimental practices, logical and mathematical tools, instrumental apparatuses, general theories and specific hypotheses, textbooks to train the new generation of students, systems of peer review, conferences, publications, granting agencies, and academic structures. All much more complex and fuzzy than the skeletal elements put forth by Jones.
Jones also makes bold metaphysical pronouncements that make me wonder how he thinks they can be defended on scientific grounds. For instance, I would agree with him that we live in a physical universe governed by cause and effect. That position, in philosophy, is called physicalism (Stoljar 2015). It’s a reasonable assumption, but it cannot be proven or disproven by observation or experiment. And, contra Jones, solipsism is not the only possible alternative on the table. Moreover, of which physicalism is Jones talking about? Supervenience-based? Realization physicalism? Token physicalism? Reductive physicalism? Emergent physicalism? How would he discriminate empirically among these options?
I most certainly agree with Jones that science is in the business of producing models of reality and that Einstein’s model is better than Newton’s. But I wonder which theory of truth is Jones deploying here: the correspondence theory, the coherence theory, a pragmatic theory, or something else (Glanzberg 2018)? And, again, what experiments would he suggest to discriminate among these possibilities?
When Jones informs us that beauty can be measured, for instance by conducting a poll among Netflix viewers asking them which movies they prefer to watch, what conception of beauty is he referring to? Classical, idealist, hedonist, or what (Sartwell 2016)? And, at the cost of repeating myself, how would he discriminate among these by using the scientific method?
Jones tells us that the scientific method depends on precise definitions. Good luck with that, then. Setting aside that he hasn’t provided us with a precise definition of science, philosophy, or anything else he is discussing, Wittgenstein (1953) pointed out long ago that most interesting and sufficiently complex concepts do not admit of precise definitions. Not because we don’t understand such concepts well enough but because they are characterized by inherently fuzzy boundaries. As a fun game, the next time you are together with some friends ask them to arrive at a precise definition of the concept of a “game.” It’s impossible. For any finite set of necessary and sufficient conditions, you will find both games that are at least partial exceptions to the set or activities that are clearly not games and yet fit the conditions. The best we can do to teach people what counts as a game (or not) is to point and say “that is a game,” “that is not a game,” and, occasionally, “I’m not quite sure.”
Jones claims that “meaningful” abstract concepts are abstracted from instances of physical reality. This is what the eighteenth-century philosopher David Hume proposed, which has been successfully challenged ever since. It is telling that Jones does not provide us with a single example of what he is talking about. Some meaningful concepts certainly are derived from observations of reality. “Unicorns” are an obvious extrapolation from horses and narwals. “Gold mountains” don’t exist, but they can be conjured by associating the otherwise empirical concepts of “gold” and “mountain.” But when we come to more and more abstract concepts—including much of what mathematicians and logicians deal with—the connection with the empirical becomes increasingly evanescent. That is why math and logic are not sciences, despite the obvious fact that they are eminently useful to the sciences.
We are told by Jones that the social sciences are fundamentally physical sciences, because, you know, they deal with physical things such as human beings. But they also deal with abstract concepts, such as “society,” “democracy,” “law,” “justice,” and so forth. In fact, the social sciences are a perfect example of a field that is partly scientific and partly humanistic. Measurable, quantitative facts about, say, the economy and demographics of societies are inextricably connected with qualitative and subjective representations of those same societies by the individuals who live in them (through their personal diaries, newspaper articles, biographies, and even works of fiction). Is there a sharp separation to be made here? No. Are there interesting and meaningful distinctions at play? Of course.
Similarly, I agree with Jones that the so-called “soft” sciences are distinct from the “hard” ones primarily by the fact that the job of psychologists, sociologists, and economists is much more difficult than that of physicists and chemists. This is because they deal with the most complex objects in the known universe: human brains and human societies, not merely quarks and electrons. But this does not help Jones’s thesis at all, because it rather points toward yet another idea that has been developed in philosophy of science over the past several decades: far from being a recognizable whole that includes everything, science itself is highly heterogeneous (Dupré 1995), with different disciplines (natural sciences, social sciences, experimental sciences, historical sciences) being marked by interesting distinctions that we need to keep in mind if we wish to understand how science actually works.
In response to one of my original examples, Jones says that the answer to the question of the validity of modus ponens in classical logic is “it depends.” Indeed it does. But on what? On the system of logic one is adopting, which depends in turn on the sort of questions one is interested in. But only a fraction of such questions have to do with the empirical world; most of them are generated within the very field of logic itself. More important, the answers to questions in formal logic do not depend at all on observation or experiment. This means that there is an infinite number of truths that are entirely outside of science, as long as we understand the latter as having at least something to do with how the world is (as distinct from hypothetical or abstract inquiries).
To my question about the ontological status of numbers, Jones replies:
It is silly to imagine holding a one in your hand the way you do an apple. Being a concept, a one is a model. Being a thing, an apple is part of physical reality. To conflate models with reality is a category error.
Indeed, but where did I commit such an error? When did I ever say that a possible answer to the issue of the ontology of mathematical constructs is “here, hold the number one in your hand”? Nevertheless, the ontological question is vexing, and it has divided not just the community of philosophers of mathematics but that of mathematicians, with various answers having been advanced: realism, structuralism, nominalism, and so forth (Horsten 2017).
Regarding morality, Jones reminds us that cooperation is likely an evolved, adapted human trait. Yes, and it certainly provides us with one of the basic building blocks of what we call ethics (De Waal 2009). But many ethical issues we deal with today do not admit of straightforward answers based on a naive version of evolutionary psychology, as the one advanced by Michael Shermer or Sam Harris. In this instance, my original question regarded the morality of abortion. I have proposed that of course there are empirical issues informing our views on abortion. For instance, if we arrived at the (philosophical, by way of argumentation) conclusion that abortion is permissible, say, up until the point at which the fetus begins to feel pain, then it is a scientific question (specifically, one pertinent to developmental neurobiology) of when that moment comes, approximately. But the argument that led us to the conclusion that abortion is (or is not) permissible according to criterion X or Y is not one grounded in the sort of empirical facts that biology, let alone physics, trades in.
Contra Jones, I have never suggested that philosophical arguments should not be informed by science. As I said at the onset, I see science and philosophy as sufficiently distinct but continuous enterprises, just like science and math or logic. Indeed, philosophy represents an interesting—and I would suggest vital—nexus connecting the natural sciences, the social sciences, the humanities, and logic. So of course philosophizing ought to be informed by the best science available, and those colleagues in philosophy who reject such a notion are relegating themselves to oblivion out of a misguided sense of pride in their discipline.
But scientists sometimes make the opposite mistake, that of colonizing other fields in the name of an elusive scientific method that allegedly can deal with everything of interest to human beings. Don’t take my word for it; take the word of one of the most eminent scientists of all time instead:
I fully agree with you about the significance and educational value of methodology as well as history and philosophy of science. So many people today—and even professional scientists—seem to me like somebody who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest. A knowledge of the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insight is—in my opinion—the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth. (Einstein to Thornton, December 7, 1944)
References
De Waal, F. 2009. Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Dupré, J. 1995. The Disorder of Things: Metaphysical Foundations of the Disunity of Science. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Feyerabend, P. 1975. Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge. London, UK: New Left Books.
Glanzberg, M. 2018.Truth. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available online at https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/.
Horsten, L. 2017. Philosophy of mathematics. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available online at https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philosophy-mathematics/.
Kuhn, T. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Longino, H. 2019. The social dimensions of scientific knowledge. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available online at https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-knowledge-social/.
Pigliucci, M. 1999. Gould’s separate magisteria: Two views. Skeptical Inquirer 23(6): 53.
Sartwell, C. 2016. Beauty. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available online at https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/beauty/.
Stoljar, D. 2015. Physicalism. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available online at https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/.
Wittgenstein, L. 1953. Philosophical Investigations, Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.