I finished my last blog saying that with his
definition of “person” Locke gave a lead of departure for future discussions on
the concept. We call such a lead also a “handle”. Famous critics of Locke were
Joseph Butler (1736) and Thomas Reid (1785), but the discussion still goes on
today. It shows how important a good handle is for starting a discussion and
making progress, for what should we talk about if we have nothing to talk
about? We should first have to invent a theme and next we should have to give
it contents, too. For instance, we can decide to talk about “man” as the
ancient Greek philosophers did. But then? We have only something to discuss if
we fill in the idea of man, so if we define it. That’s what Plato did when he
described man as a featherless biped. Now Diogenes of Sinope had a handle to
criticize Plato’s definition, which he did by bringing Plato a plucked chicken:
Plato’s “man”. As a result Plato changed his definition to “Man is an upright, featherless biped with
broad, flat nails”. And so the discussion on man begun.
Although this is a funny
anecdote, it shows in a nutshell what science is: making theories, testing
theories in an experimental way, improving theories. Although many people think
that science starts with the second, so with experimental research or at least with
observing, this is not true. The idea is the first of these three steps in
science, for without ideas there is nothing to start with and there is nothing
to investigate. People who think that they just look and then start to develop
ideas conceive themselves. Their ideas are simply implicit and not explicitly
worded.
In a scheme it goes this
way:
P1 > T1 > E > T2 > P2
P(1) is a question or theme we want to discuss, or
something like that, also called the problem. For example: “What is man?”. Then
we form an idea how things might be arranged, a kind of theory, like “Man is a
featherless biped” (T1). Is it true? We can try to find it out by discussing
about it and doing tests and experiments (E). If we are successful, we can
formulate a better theory (T2). But often we are not fully satisfied with our
solution or improved theory. Then we get new questions, new themes to talk
about, etc. (P2). And so our knowledge evolves.
A scheme for the evolution of knowledge has also been
developed by Karl R. Popper:
P1 > TT > EE
> P2
Again, P1 is the problem we start with. TT means
“tentative theory”, so the way we guess that the things we are interested in might
be arranged. EE refers to the tests and investigations of our tentative ideas.
Actually Popper calls this phase “error elimination”. When we have finished the
EE phase, however, we are never completely contented with our result, so we get
a new problem situation, which Popper calls P2.
Is Poppers scheme for the evolution of knowledge right?
In a certain sense it is, if we suppose that my T2 is the conclusion of Poppers
EE and that it is included in it: From a philosophical or scientific point of
view a solution of a problem is never completely satisfactory, for we can always
ask new questions. Therefore no solution is free of problems. Nevertheless I
think that it is better to formulate T2 explicitly like in my scheme, for in
practice it is often so that we stop once we have formulated T2, even in case
we are not completely satisfied. There is nothing against doing so, for how
should it be different in many cases? In practice we need to act! We cannot
continuously go on evaluating, discussing, thinking about the best solution, as
if we live in an ivory tower. We simply have to do something.
This makes me think of something I learned already
as a child. I liked playing chess and in order to improve my level I studied
chess books. Then I learned from the great chess player and chess theoretician
Aron Nimzowitsch that a bad plan is better than no plan. I never forgot it and
I still apply it. For if we have no plan, we don’t know where to start and we keep
erring, but also a bad plan gives us a point of departure. Even if our first
steps lead to nothing, we have a frame for evaluating our mistakes and improving
our design. How this works tells us a scheme for the evolution of knowledge, like
mine or like Popper’s.
Source: Karl R. Popper, Objective Knowledge. Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1979; p. 164.
op
website 13 juli 2015
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