Transcript Monday, April 26, 2010

Monday, April 26, 2010
• A traditional look at the development of IR
theory – paradigmatic revolution,
paradigmatic coexistence, or just a
succession of debates ?
• Set text: article on Thomas Kuhn in:
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thomaskuhn/
What is a Theory ? More Explanations… from
last week
• Theory is "the net which we throw out in order to
catch the world – to rationalize, explain, and
dominate it."
Karl Popper. Logik der Forschung, 1935: p.26
(The Logic of Scientific Discovery, London: Routledge Classics
2002, 2003, 2004)
• A good theory should fulfil the following functions:
 describe, explain and predict (Burchill) observable events – positive
idea of theorizing
 verify and/or more strictly falsify (Popper) statements about the
relationships between observable events - by confronting
accumulated knowledge with reality
• “No matter how many instances of white swans we may have
observed, this does not justify the conclusion that all swans are
white”. Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, op. cit.
 be internally consistent and coherent
 be parsimonious and elegant
Why an explicit theory or framework ?
• Within contemporary philosophy of science,
there is a widely accepted consensus that
facts are always theory-dependent.
• Thomas Kuhn, inter alia, has pointed out the
difficulties that are present without any kind
of a conceptual framework, paradigm or
theory: "In the absence of a paradigm or
some candidate for paradigm, all of the facts
that could possibly pertain to the
development of a given science are likely to
seem equally relevant."
Why an explicit theory or framework ?
II
• As Paul Feyerabend puts it: "The attempt to create
knowledge needs guidance, it cannot start from
nothing. More specifically, it needs a theory, a point
of view that allows the researcher to separate the
relevant from the irrelevant, and that tells him in
what areas research will be most profitable."
• Theories seem therefore to be inevitable already in
the first stage of inquiry, where we have not even
started to interpret the "facts", but are only thinking
about which kind of fact-gathering is relevant, and
which fact and data, or what units and levels of
analysis, are worth of studying.
How does science develop & grow ?
• The idea that science is a collective enterprise of researchers in
successive generations is characteristic of the Modern Age).
• Classical empiricists (Francis Bacon) and rationalists (René
Descartes) of the seventeenth century urged that the use of
proper methods of inquiry guarantees the discovery and
justification of new truths. This cumulative view of scientific
progress was an important ingredient in the optimism of the
eighteenth century Enlightenment, and it was incorporated in
the 1830s in Auguste Comte's program of positivism: by
accumulating empirically certified truths science also promotes
progress in society.
• Other influential trends in the nineteenth century:
- the Romantic vision of organic growth in culture,
- Hegel's dynamic account of historical change,
- the theory of evolution.
• They all inspired epistemological views which regarded human
knowledge in terms of a continuous learning process. Science
does grow simply by accumulating new established truths
upon old ones. Or: we stand on the shoulders of giants…
Popular, heroic view of scientific progress
• According to such view, science develops by the
addition of new truths to the stock of old truths, or
the increasing approximation of theories to the truth,
and in the odd case, the correction of past errors.
Such progress might accelerate in the hands of a
particularly great scientist, but progress itself is
guaranteed by the scientific method.
• This standard, traditional view dovetails with the
dominant, positivist-influenced philosophy of
science.
Positivist theory creation and testing
logical
deduction
hypotheses
empirical
observation
either
theory appears
inconsistent with
the facts
predictions
or
theory amended
or
either
theory
correct
theory appears
consistent with
the facts
theory
disgarded,
new theory
needed
Sir Karl Popper (1902-1994)
and the logic of scientific discovery
In his Logic of Scientific Discovery (1935) Karl Popper developed
a model of scientific growth & development which is based on
the assumption of a continuous improvement of our knowledge
by empirical research.
We start with hypotheses logically derived or deduced from
theories; the corroboration of these hypotheses by empirical
observation leads
-- either to the further improvement of the initial theories
-- or (negatively) to a limitation of their scope and applicability
-- or even to their being discarded.
Thus, scientific, i.e.empirical, research leads to a continuous
optimization of our knowledge.
Cumulative concept of science
However, there is one major caveat…
•
1)
4)
5)
6)
Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations (1963)
It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every
theory — if we look for confirmations.
…
A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is nonscientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often
think) but a vice.
Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute
it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testability:
some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation, than
others; they take, as it were, greater risks.
Confirming evidence should not count except when it is the result
of a genuine test of the theory; and this means that it can be
presented as a serious but unsuccessful attempt to falsify the
theory. (I now speak in such cases of "corroborating evidence.")
…
One can sum up all this by saying that the criterion of the
scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability,
or testability.
Or, a theory enjoys only a conditional validity – until the first case
of evidence which falsifies it.
Popper’s falsificationist method
theory 1
process of
error-eliminination,
falsification and
theory comparison
theory 2
not yet falsified,
that is, accepted
for the time being
theory 3
steps towards the unreachable theoretical truth
Thomas Kuhn‘s model of the development of
science(s)
• In his Structure of Scientific Revolutions Thomas Kuhn
published, in 1962, a model of the development of (the)
science(s) which is based on the following assumptions:
1. There is, in normal development periods of each and every
science, a consensus on exemplary instances of scientific
research – a concept of good science, so to speak, or a code
of best practices – Kuhn calls these a paradigm. Normal
science proceeds on the basis of perceived similarity to such
exemplars.
2. Under certain circumstances the dominant paradigm can be
superseded by a new one, which after some time unites the
practitioners of a particular science again under a new code of
best scientific practices.
3. Contrary to Karl Popper, scientific growth pace Kuhn is not
cumulative, but rather resembles a series of quantum leaps:
scientists experience a sort of Gestalt switch when they change
from one paradigm to another.
Revolutionary concept of science
Gestalt switch: example
Scientific Revolution
• A scientific revolution occurs, when
scientists encounter anomalies which cannot
be explained by the universally accepted
paradigm within which scientific progress
has so far been made. The paradigm is not
simply the current theory, but the entire
worldview in which it exists, and all of the
implications which come with it.
Scientific Revolution II
• When enough significant anomalies have
accrued against a current paradigm, the
scientific discipline is thrown into a state of
crisis, according to Kuhn. During this crisis,
new ideas, perhaps ones previously
discarded, are tried. Eventually a new
paradigm is formed, which gains its own new
followers, and an intellectual "battle" takes
place between the followers of the new
paradigm and the hold-outs of the old
paradigm.
Scientific Revolution III
• After a given discipline has changed from one
paradigm to another, this is called, in Kuhn's
terminology, a scientific revolution or a paradigm
shift. It is often this final conclusion, the result of the
long process, that is meant when the term paradigm
shift is used colloquially: simply the (often radical)
change of worldview, without reference to the
specificities of Kuhn's historical argument.
Kuhn – Scientific Revolutions
SCIENTIFIC
REVOLUTION
CRISIS OF NORMAL SCIENCE
MULTIPLICATION OF ANOMALIES
„NORMAL SCENCE“
BIRTH OF A NEW PARADIGM – ALWAYS BETTER
THAN THE OLD ONE
PREPARADIGMATIC PHASE
Quelle: Lauth/Sareiter: Wissenschaftliche Erkenntnis, Paderborn 2002, S. 123
Paradigm shift
• Kuhn said, using a quote from Max
Planck: "a new scientific truth does not
triumph by convincing its opponents
and making them see the light, but
rather because its opponents
eventually die, and a new generation
grows up that is familiar with it."
THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
CREATION OF A NEW WORLDVIEW
 Questioning of old
knowledge & assumptions
 Gradual replacement of religious
& superstition presumptions
 Gradual rise of science &
reason
THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
NEW DIRECTIONS IN ASTRONOMY & PHYSICS
 PTOLEMY: Geocentricism
 NICOLAUS COPERNICUS
(1473-1543): Heliocentrisim
 TYCHO BRAHE (1546-1601):
More accurate position of planets
 JOHANNES KEPLER, (15711630): Elliptical planetary
movement
THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
NEW DIRECTIONS IN ASTRONOMY & PHYSICS
 GALILEO GALILEI
(1564-1642)
 Constructed first
telescope
 Described motion of
bodies on earth
THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
NEW DIRECTIONS IN ASTRONOMY & PHYSICS
 ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)
 Universal Gravitation: combined
laws of planetary & earth motion
 Numerous practical
applications
THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
DISCOVERIES IN OTHER SCIENCES
 Botany: new medical
applications
 Anatomy: better
understand of how human
body worked
 Microscope invented
THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT
 FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626)
 Inductive reasoning: working
from particular to general
conclusions
 Empiricism & scientific
method
THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT
 RENÉ DESCARTES (1596-1650)
 Geometry: any algebraic formula
could be plotted as curve in space
 Deductive Reasoning: starting
with general assumptions &
working downward
 Cartesian Dualism: division of
reality into “thinking substance” &
“extended substance”
THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
POLITICAL THOUGHT
 THOMAS HOBBES (1588-1679)
 Negative, mechanistic view of
human nature
 Strong sovereign necessary
to control conflicting desires
Hobbe’s Leviathan
THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
POLITICAL THOUGHT
 JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704)
 TABULA RASA: humans
born with blank slate
 Government & public
enter contract
However, again there is a caveat…
• …paradigms, according to Kuhn, are incommensurable…
• Assumption I: when a scientific paradigm is
replaced by a new one, albeit through a complex
social process, the new one is always better, not
just different.
• Assumption II: the language and theories of
different paradigms cannot be translated into one
another or rationally evaluated against one another
—they are incommensurable
Kuhn’s incommensurable paradigms
pre-paradigm
period
accepted paradigm = normal science
anomalies
incommensurable =
different standards,
problems etc.
extraordinary
investigations
and science
new normal science
Coexistence of Theories, no Revolution
Ever since Thomas S.Kuhn, in his The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions, formulated the assumption that scientific theories
and/or paradigms which no longer properly do the job they were
designed for will be replaced by an Ersatz theory, Social
Scientists tried to apply Kuhn‘s topos of the scientific revolution
also to I.R. theory development – particularly so to explain
theory development and theory change in I.R. as an innerscientific process.
Against this, it is my contention that I.R. is not characterised by
theroretical revolutions, but rather by theoretical coexistence:
theories once formulated in order to explain and help resolve
extrascientific crises in society or politics may be relegated to
science‘s theoretical toolbox once they are no longer helpful in
a particular situation – but: they are not discarded, they are not
replaced by an Ersatz theory, but they remain part and parcel of
the armoury science keeps ready for problem-solving – and this
in the end explains why there are so many I.R. theories about.