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The Given, the Pragmatic A Priori, and Scientific Change

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Pragmatism in Transition

Abstract

In this chapter, the historical and conceptual connections between Lewis and Kuhn are explored carefully and systematically. There is textual evidence that Kuhn was both directly and indirectly influenced by Lewis. Further parallels show that Lewis is committed to relativism about knowledge, but not about truth, as Kuhn was. Finally, it is argued that Lewis’s talk of “the given element in experience” would not be a problem for Kuhn, since the given only has an epistemic role insofar as it is conceptually interpreted, and interpretations are conceptually relative. Thus Lewis helps explicate the epistemological framework for Kuhn, whereas Kuhn shows the concrete implications of a Lewisian epistemology.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Fuller (2000, pp. 266–280); Baghramian (2004, p. 221); Rosenthal (2007, p. 53); Abbott (2016, pp. 171, 181, fn. 2). I have also suggested a historical connection (more on this later) in Mayoral (2009).

  2. 2.

    See Russell (1912–1913). On Russell, see Frisch (2014, pp. 5–6, 18–21).

  3. 3.

    For instance, Cohen and Nagel (1934, pp. 31–33); see Kuhn (1945a, p. 2, fn. 2).

  4. 4.

    See Lewis (1918), for example, p. 8; Lewis and Langford (1932, pp. 27 ff.); see Kuhn (1945a, p. 8, fn. 9).

  5. 5.

    See Kuhn (1945a, esp. pp. 16–17).

  6. 6.

    See Kuhn’s card on the book in TSKP 7.

  7. 7.

    See Kuhn (2000), esp. Chs. 4, 11, for an introduction to his new perspective, and p. 93 for his idea of a “lexicon.”

  8. 8.

    Lewis (1926, p. 240). See also Lewis (1929, p. 38).

  9. 9.

    Lewis (1926, pp. 248–250, 1929, p. 60).

  10. 10.

    See Lewis (1929, pp. 53, 121–124). The phrase “pointing to the given” slightly modifies Lewis’s in his (1926, p. 249). I shall not remark on the concept of qualia further. It is worth mentioning the idea that they are the qualities that allow us to analyze the given experience in some recurrent aspects of our experience. For Lewis, though a quale would be misrepresented by the idea of property of the object given to experience, it is, in his words, “a sort of universal” (1929, p. 121). It is, therefore, different from the given, which is a particular. Other than that, both the given and its qualia are themselves ineffable (1929, pp. 123–124). On the given and qualia in Lewis, and the recent epistemological tradition, see Crane (2000, pp. 71–75); Faerna (1996, pp. 235–249); and Hookway (2008).

  11. 11.

    See Lewis (1929, pp. 310–312).

  12. 12.

    This position bears some resemblance to Wittgenstein’s in On Certainty (Wittgenstein 1969).

  13. 13.

    Lewis says that: “Old truth will pass away when old concepts are abandoned” (1926, p. 255). I shall talk about conceptual change in Lewis later.

  14. 14.

    Murphey (2005, p. 263). Rosenthal (2007, p. 36) draws this conclusion, too: “At no time does Lewis take the ‘linguistic turn’ in his philosophy.”

  15. 15.

    On the idea of common concepts, see Lewis (1929, Chapter IV).

  16. 16.

    Remember the connection with Kuhn in this regard (see sections “A likely connection” and “Kuhn and Lewis: constructing linguistic relativism”).

  17. 17.

    For Lewis’s idea of the a priori, see Lewis (1929, Chapter VIII). See also Rosenthal (2007, Chapter II), for a good introduction to the concepts involved in my description in this paragraph.

  18. 18.

    See Lewis (1926, pp. 247–248, and 1929, Chapter III) for a presentation of his position. As Lewis explains in Chapter VI of Analysis, there is a difference between sense meaning and linguistic meaning that corresponds to – and further specifies – the difference above reconstructed, that is, respectively, between the mental, or experiential, basis for the application of a term and the common concept involved. See Lewis (1946, Chapter VI) and useful introductions to this distinction in Murphey (2005, pp. 263–265) and Rosenthal (2007, pp. 31–39).

  19. 19.

    See Lewis (1926, p. 250, 1929, pp. 238–239).

  20. 20.

    See Lewis (1926, pp. 251–253, 1929, Chapter VIII).

  21. 21.

    For a parallel argument about Wittgenstein, see Grayling (2001, pp. 306–308).

  22. 22.

    Kuhn’s defense against Davidson’s criticism (Davidson 1984) can be seen in Kuhn (1999).

  23. 23.

    Grayling (2001, p. 308). See also Baghramian (2004, p. 180).

  24. 24.

    See Kuhn (1996, pp. 125–127, 195–196).

  25. 25.

    Kuhn (1996, p. 121). For Kuhn, this example is almost fictitious, as there are no reports concerning swinging stones among Aristotelians; see Kuhn (1996, p. 124).

  26. 26.

    The expression “look at” and “looking at” are also common in Kuhn’s passages (cf., e.g., Kuhn 1996, p. 121). For a discussion of these expressions and their significance in Kuhn’s work, see Hoyningen-Huene (1993, pp. 33–34, as well as the rest of the chapter).

  27. 27.

    Kuhn follows the same Wittgensteinian approach to learning and rules he refers to in Structure; see Kuhn (1996, p. 45); also his (1977, p. 121). For this second example, see Kuhn (1977, pp. 308–318).

  28. 28.

    Lewis (1929, p. 54; see also p. 30). This is a well-known passage in Lewis (1929); see, for example, Hookway (2008, pp. 154 ff.).

  29. 29.

    See Kuhn (1996, pp. 195–196):

    To say that the members of different groups may have different perceptions when confronted with the same stimuli is not to imply that they may have just any perceptions at all. In many environments a group that could not tell wolves from dogs could not endure. Nor would a group of nuclear physicists today survive as scientists if unable to recognize the tracks of alpha particles and electrons.

    The passage goes on assuming the same adaptive functions for paradigm-conditioned ways of seeing the world as a value that grants them stability within a group.

  30. 30.

    See Kuhn (1996, pp. 111, 120, 128); Kuhn uses the expressions “looks at” and “looking at” in that sense in this latter place.

  31. 31.

    In my view, Paul Hoyningen-Huene’s “object-sided moments” in perception, which are not created by the subject, but are present in every perception of the world (and inseparable from the “genetically subject-sided”, which the active mind creates), are good candidates for a Lewisian given. See Hoyningen-Huene (1993, Chapter II).

  32. 32.

    For the “quasi-analytic,” see Kuhn (1977, p. 304, fn. 14, 2000, p. 187, fn. 17). Kuhn says in this latter reference that “…constitutive elements are…quasi-analytic, i.e., partially determined by the language in which nature is discussed rather than by nature tout court” (2000, p. 187, fn. 17). For the “synthetic a priori,” see Kuhn (1990a, pp. 306 y 317, fn. 17, 2000, p. 71). A good account is available in Hoyningen-Huene (1993, p. 211). For Lewis’s rejection of the “synthetic a priori,” see Rosenthal (2007, pp. 30, 37–39).

  33. 33.

    Kuhn (2000, p. 71). The example is developed in pp. 67–71. See also Kuhn (1990a, pp. 303–307).

  34. 34.

    See Hoyningen-Huene (1993, Chapter II (esp. pp. 33 ff.)), where the concept of phenomenal world was first used and explored.

  35. 35.

    Baghramian (2004, Chapter VII (esp. pp. 218 ff.)) includes Lewis among the conceptual relativists, for instance.

  36. 36.

    For these ascriptions, see Kuhn (1987, pp. 71–72, 1990b, p. 6). Again, Baghramian (2004, Chapters VI, VII (esp. pp. 181, 213)) classifies Kuhn as an epistemic relativist, which also has connections to conceptual relativism.

  37. 37.

    See Kuhn (1987, pp. 79 ff., 1996, sec. X, 2000, pp. 228 ff.). See also Hoyningen-Huene (1993, Chapter II), Hacking (1993, pp. 276 ff.) (the denomination of “new-world problem” must be credited to him), and Sankey (1994, pp. 152 ff., 179 ff.), among many other references.

  38. 38.

    Kuhn (1987, p. 76). For Peirce’s quotation (which is not Kuhn’s but mine), see Peirce ([1878] 1992, p. 139). For Dewey’s expression, see Dewey (1941).

  39. 39.

    Kuhn (1987, pp. 38, 72–76).

  40. 40.

    An agreement between their positions is not out of the question; nevertheless, though I shall not pursue that point here. I thank the editors’s commentary on this particular point.

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Acknowledgement

I am indebted to Peter Olen, Carl Sachs, and Ángel Faerna for their careful reading and commentary on this chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Filosofía, Universidad de Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain

    Juan V. Mayoral

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  1. Philosophy, Lake Sumter State College , Clermont, Florida, USA

    Peter Olen

  2. Marymount University , Arlington, Virginia, USA

    Carl Sachs

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Mayoral, J.V. (2017). The Given, the Pragmatic A Priori, and Scientific Change. In: Olen, P., Sachs, C. (eds) Pragmatism in Transition . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52863-2_5

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