Abstract
The aim of the second part of this book is to develop and defend a particular way of identifying claims that are true independently of the Intentional. In Chapter VI, a particular way of doing this was tentatively advocated. We called this the Inter-Conditional Confirmation’ or ICC approach to identifying that which is real. According to this approach, the claim that a theory is true independently of the Intentional is to play an explanatory role: it is to explain why the theory continues to enjoy novel confirmation no matter how we change the Intentional conditions under which it is tested. More specifically, it is to explain why the theory continues to be confirmed no matter how we change the methods of observation or perception used in testing the theory, no matter how we change the background theoretical assumptions used in testing it and no matter how we change the conceptual apparatus used in the expression of the theory. On the face of it, the claim that the theory is true independently of those Intentional conditions would seem to be one possible explanation of such continued confirmation. But whether or not it is one possible explanation, it is certainly not obvious that it is the only possible explanation. The aim of this chapter is to consider whether there might be other possible explanations of the ability of a theory to continue to be confirmed no matter how we change the Intentional conditions of its testing. It will be argued that prima facie possible anti-Realist explanations of this do not succeed.
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Notes
As we have already noted, the most widely accepted view of empirical explanation says that explanations employ empirical laws. But empirical laws are usually seen as universal generalisations over the empirical. So it would seem to be a consequence of any form of Verificationism which asserted that such generalisations could not be verified, that no explanation of any empirical phenomenon could ever ben given.
This account of Dummett’s views comes from Dummett’s Truth and Other Enigmas pp.xxiixl, pp.222–227, and ‘What is a Theory of Meaning? I’ in Guttenplan (ed.) Mind and Language and ‘What is a Theory of Meaning? II’ in Evans and McDowell (eds) Truth and Meaning.
This suggestion is explored in my Science and the Theory of Rationality,especially pp.50–73.
The novel prediction e entailed by H & B may contain predicates only to be found in B, or which require a knowledge of B for their understanding. If either of those conditions hold, then speakers who originally advanced H may not even be able to recognise the truth-conditions, or the assertibility-conditions, of e. Nevertheless, the truth of ‘H & B’, and hence of H, may be necessary to explain the success of ‘H & B’ in predicting e.
See Wright, op. cit.,p.22–23.
I am extremely grateful to Dr John Collier for suggesting to me that the discovery of the neutrino may exemplify the features that I wanted.
See Bohr, N. in Journal of the Chemical Society v. 135, p. 349 (1932).
W. Pauli, quoted in Christine Sutton Spaceship Neutrino (Cambridge University Press, 1992), p.xi.
The neutron was detected in 1932 by James Chadwick and the position was discovered in the same year by Carl David Anderson. However, the hypothyesis that an anit-neutrino would produce a neutron and a position when interacting with a proton was a prediction derived from the decay of the neutron into a proton, electron and anti-neutrino. But it was not even known that a neutron decayed into a proton and electron until 1950. The hypothesis that a neutron decayed, not merely into a proton and electron, but in to a proton, electron and anti-neutrino was a prediction derived from the law of conservation of lepton number. So the law of the conservation of Lepton number is another item of theoretical knowledge used in the experiment of Cowan and Reines. I have not been able to tell when the law of conservation of lepton number became a firmly established “law”. It seems it was an initially plausible hypothesis that has gradually become more and more firmly accepted with time. Indeed, the experiment of Cowan and Reines itself seems to have been taken as an additional bit of support for it. (This, I believe, indicates an important feature of scientific confirmation, which I hope to further explore in the near future),It appears that the hypothesis that for every particle there exists a corresponding anti-particle, did not become well-confirmed until about 1956, when Emilio Segre and Owen Chamberlain managed to prove the existence of the anti-proton.
It will, of course, do the opponent of Realism no good to say that, although Argument A is not deductively valid, it may yet be inductively strong, and hence that the premises would confer a high probability of being true on the conclusion. It is, for example, obvious that the premises of Argument B do not confer a high probability on its conclusion. Likewise, if the uses of ‘John’ that appear in the premises of the following argument: John walked along the beach on Monday John walked along the beach on Tuesday John walked along the beach on Wednesday John will (probably) walk along the beach tomorrow are not co-referential with that which appears in the conclusion, then there is no reason to suppose that the premises confer any higher probability on the conclusion. If the tokens of ‘anti-neutrino’ that appears in the premise of Argument A is not co-referential with that which appears in the conclusions, then it remains to be explained how the use of Argument A to derive those conclusions resulted in the derivation of truths.
See Lewis, ‘New Work for a Theory of Universals’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 61 (1983), pp.343–377, esp. p.371.
There may be others, such as some form of isomorphism between the theory in which the referring term is embedded and the part of the world it is about. It might also be wondered why causal links between our words and the world are not included in the list. This apparent omission is not intended as a deliberate slight against the causal theory of reference: there is no separate clause for causal links because the relevant types of causal link are already included in (i) and (ii).
Of course, it is extremely likely that it is in principle possible to give a causal and non-semantic description of the processes taking place from Pauli’s 1931 postulation of the neutrino, to the 1956 confirmation of them. This description may mention neurones firing, sound waves passing through the air, chalk marks being drawn on blackboards, etc. But even if (as is very likely) it is possible to give a non-semantic description of this process, it certainly does not follow that it is false to say that scientists were able to find out what would confirm their hypothesis because their beliefs were approximately true. The explanation mentioning chalk marks, neurones, sound waves, etc. would, very plausibly, be just another way of describing the same state of affairs we describe when we say the scientists were operating with approximately true theories.
See, for example, his paper ‘Realism’ in Truth and Other Enigmas,esp. p.152
It is, of course, possible for an ideal theory to have novel predictions. A theory is deal only if it in fact correctly predicts all possible observations, whether or not it was formulated after actually obtaining all those observations. A theory can be ideal, then, even if it was formulated on the basis of a limited sentence of observations. Such a theory can make novel predictions that are subsequently confirmed.
Of course, if it is true then the prediction it makes in a novel situation will be true (provided any auxiliary hypotheses also used to derive the prediction are true too). But it does not follow from that that it will enjoy novel predictive success, in the sense of making a novel prediction that is subsequently confirmed.
See Response-Dependent Concepts edited by P. Menzies, especially pp.122–184. (Published by the Philosophy Program, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1981). The account given here of Johnston’s argument against Internal Realism is a considerably simplified version of Johnston’s own exposition of his argument. However, as far as I can see, this simplification is harmless. (See footnote 8, below.)
It should be noted that, in Johnston’s more round-about exposition of the argument, it is not ‘X is true’ that plays an explanatory role; it is the object-language ‘X’ itself. More specifically, in Johnston’s exposition, it is not “a is red” is true’ that is required to play an explanatory role, but ‘a is red’ (p.175). But it is hard to see how this would block the objection made here. As Johnston himself notes, the biconditional a is red iff ‘a is red’ is trueis both a priori and necessary. Hence, by Johnston’s own principle, ‘a is red’ cannot explain anything more than “x is red” is true’. So, if it is doubtful that the truth of ’x is red’ explains the ideality of ’x is red’, then by Johnston’s own principle, it must be equally doubtful that ’x is red’ explains the ideality of ’x is red’.
It must be emphasised that, apart from his attack on Putnam’s ‘Internal Realism’, Johnston does not use his argument either against anti-Realism, or in support of Realism. He primarily uses it to attack what he calls ‘subjectivist’ accounts of the meanings of various terms.
It might be protested that I have unfairly made the explanation seem weaker than it needs to by including in the question, or in the description of that which is to be explained, not only the fact that the glass shattered, but that it was dropped on concrete. If the fact that the glass was dropped on concrete is included in the explanation,then it does look like a better explanation: Q’: Why did these glasses shatter? A’: Because it was dropped on concrete, and glass has a disposition to shatter when dropped on a hard surface. This explanation certainly looks better than the first one. But, of course, the question we are ultimately interested in is whether we can adequately explain the confirmation of a theory by saying that it has a disposition to be confirmed. The following explanation may or may not be adequate: Q:Why was this theory confirmed when tested under diverse conditions? A:Because it has a disposition to be confirmed when tested under diverse conditions. But if it fails to be an adequate explanation, it is hard to see how we could turn it into a good one by rephrasing it as: Q’:Why was this theory confirmed? A’:Because it was tested under diverse conditions and it has a disposition to be confirmed when tested under diverse conditions. If the first explanation fails to be adequate, so will the second. The relevant issue is whether we adequately explain the confirmation of a theory merely by saying that it has a disposition to be confirmed.
In ordinary English, to say ‘If this glass were dropped, it would shatter’ implies that the glass is not dropped. yet even a dropped glass may still have a disposition to shatter. So I have suggested that ‘This glass has a disposition to shatter’ might be interpreted as ‘If this glass is dropped (or were dropped) it would shatter.’
I would like to thank John Atkins for some extremely valuable assistance in helping me to come to grips with the notion of superassertability.
See Wright’s Truth and Objectivity (Harvard University Press, 1992), especially pp.48–61.
See Wright, op. cit., p.48.
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Wright, J. (1997). Epistemic Truth and the Explanation of Novel Confirmation. In: Realism and Explanatory Priority. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 71. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2844-7_8
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