OK, I loved this chapter. It really resonated with me (even though I have a few problems with it). In particular I thought the section on Scientific Value was spot on. I defines three criteria for assessing the value of a scientific affirmation: certainty, profundity, and intrinsic interest. He aptly points out that the three are to some extent incompatible and while enhancing one aspect of a theory we may degrade another aspect. In particular he claims that modern science has a tendency to follow the "Laplacean ideal" of strict objectivity which enhances certainty at the expense of intrinsic interest. I would agree, at least to some extent. I see this in some of the more extreme proponents of a Theory of Everything. High energy physics has achieved tremendous precision, and its practitioners should be praised for that. The Laplacean ideal, in my opinion, isn't BAD. It's just not the ONLY thing. Let's not pretend that high energy physics can possibly give us a theory of "everything". In part this is just a misnomer, and most physicist mean by this only (only!) a single theory that accounts for all four known fundamental forces. But some actually claim that achieving such a theory would represent the end of physics. That would only be true IF all we really care about is particle physics. I'm all for particle physics. But I'm for lots of other stuff too that does not, as far as we can tell, reduce to particle physics. Perhaps it does, but let's be honest about the fact that we can't tell yet.
So Polanyi emphasizes the personal component involved in discovery and in the evaluation of a discovery as a "true" discovery. He claims that our anticipation that a new theory will be fruitful leads us to believe that it is true. He admits that this anticipation can be misguided (as he says in the previous chapter, we have to risk saying nonsense in order to say anything at all). He also discusses something very like Kuhn's incommensurability when he states that "Formal operations relying on one framework of interpretation cannot demonstrate a proposition to persons who rely on another framework." (p. 151) And he makes it clear that he thinks there are no formal rules whereby we can mediate such disputes, or determine which facts are of scientific interest and which are not. He does say that a new conception can sometimes reconcile two competing frameworks, but this is not generally how he solves the problem. His solution, like that of Kuhn, seems to be a sociological one. Each scientist is accredited by the scientific community as an expert in a certain area. Each accredited scientist then has the job of accrediting the work of others in that area and closely related areas. By this means the society of scientists polices itself.
I find this a little dissatisfying. Polanyi makes such a big deal about the role of personal passions in generating scientific conceptions and the belief that those conceptions are true. But he then claims that we can't sit alone in thinking our new conceptions is true. Our new conceptions must "conquer or die." (p. 150) So therefore we get mired in sociology. But what makes the collective group of scientists better able to judge a NEW conception (rather than work that fits entirely within an accepted framework, which they are specifically trained to judge) than an individual scientist? Presumably it goes back to Polanyi's assertion that we are competent to judge what is "real" and although competence doesn't imply perfection, if you get enough competent people working together you can get it right most of the time. Presumably we can count on each scientist to do a good job policing the whole of science as long as they maintain their "passion for mental excellence" which "believes itself to be fulfilling universal obligations." (p. 174) While I agree with Polanyi that formal rules for judging scientific theories are "doomed to failure" I cannot say that I find his solution to the problem fully acceptable.
I liked his discussion of mathematics, especially his claim that math is not just a set of non-contradictory statements but rather a set of INTERESTING (and also non-contradictory) statements. He also discounts the notion that mathematics consists only of tautologies by pointing out that the axioms are not tautologies. And it is important to note that we don't use just any set of axioms, but only those that are interesting or fruitful.
Finally, I enjoyed his last section on Dwelling In and Breaking Out. The language he used was almost mystical, but the experience he is trying to describe is real. There is a difference between dwelling in scientific theory, of gaining a deep appreciation for a theory's beauty, of internalizing a theory and making it part of your thinking, as opposed to using the theory in a routine manner. His description of discovery also sounds mystical but gets at something real. There is a sense of breaking out or breaking through when a discovery is made (not that I've made any important discoveries, but even the little discoveries carry some of this feeling). I'm with Polanyi that science is ultimately pursued for these moments of personal passion. That's certainly why I do it.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Polanyi's Personal Knowledge: Articulation
This post continues my comments on Polanyi's book.
In this chapter Polanyi analyzes various levels of intelligence, starting from primitive animal intelligence and working up to full-scale human language and interpretive frameworks. I found this chapter a little rough going, presumably because of my limited background in linguistics and cognitive psychology. But I'll try to comment on a few things that stood out to me in this chapter.
The first is Polanyi's distinction between heuristic and routine stages of learning. It seems to me that this dichotomy fits well with two other dichotomies commonly seen in the philosophy of science. One is the distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification. The other is Kuhn's distinction between a crisis and normal science. In all three of these dichotomies the former part is where the really interesting (but hard to define) stuff happens, while the latter part is just a matter of working out the details of the ideas generated by the former part. This reminds me that one thing I greatly appreciate about Polanyi is his willingness to tackle the context of discovery. Traditionally philosophers of science have refused to touch this issue, concentrating only on the context of justification. Discovery was left as a mystery. Kuhn tackled the context of discovery from one direction, namely the sociological one. He claimed that the processes of normal science would give rise to anomalies and eventually the social pressures to deal with the anomalies would become so great that a crisis would be created. This may explain why a given discovery happened approximately when it did, but it doesn't say anything about the personal participation of the scientist in discovery. This, of course, is exactly what Polanyi is on about. I particularly like how he points out the irreversible nature of discovery. One cannot un-discover something one has discovered! He also talks about intellectual discomfort as the driving force that shapes new conceptions. This sounds a lot like Kuhn's crisis, but on a personal level.
I was interested in his Laws of Poverty and Consistency for language - the idea that you can't have a word for everything (so that words will be repeated) and you must use words consistently for them to have any meaning. Presumably the same laws apply to scientific theories. You don't want a theory for everything: you want to be able to apply a single theory to a wide variety of situations. But you must also use the theory consistently, so it will not generally be freely adaptable to EVERY situation. I particularly like his use of the map analogy (which I have seen elsewhere, in the work of Thomas Brody). A good map must achieve a balance between accuracy and usability. A 1:1 scale map is useless - you may as well just walk the streets. But a map with insufficient detail may be easy to use, but still useless if it doesn't provide the information you need. Languages and theories are like that. We want them to be accurate and precise, but they must remain tractable and therefore they must contains SOME imprecision and ambiguity. Frankly, I think that it is in the deft handling of these ambiguities that the beauty of both language and science is seen.
I think this ties in well with his point about mathematical formalisms. He claims that mathematics and symbolic logic are tools that simply assist our inarticulate intelligence in working out answers. The formalism does not, and cannot, truly give us anything new. But there is a point here that Polanyi could make that I didn't get from the reading (although maybe it is there). He talks about the fact that much of our inarticulate knowledge can never be made articulate. But it seems as though a good formalism helps you to articulate more than you otherwise could. After all, without some sort of formalism (like a primitive language) you couldn't articulate anything. Are math and logic the BEST formalisms in this sense? Or are they the best at helping us articulate only certain types of knowledge?
Polanyi's big point in this chapter seems to be that all of our articulate knowledge involves a self-assessment, or self-accreditation, or our own act of knowing. We develop and use an interpretive framework, but constantly assess the framework. We even have the expectation that the framework will break down at some point, when we encounter something truly novel, and we are prepared to adapt the framework to this new experience. This adaptation too is subject to our self-appraisal. Polanyi admits that we might very well question our own ability to evaluate our frameworks. He seems to say that the answer to this question involves a leap of faith in which we express confidence in our ability to recognize an objective reality. All adaptations of our interpretive framework are undertaken with the goal of getting closer to closer to reality. He takes it for granted that getting closer to reality is universally satisfying, and therefore also personally satisfying (which is why we can rely on our self-satisfaction, or lack thereof, when judging our theories or utterances or whatever). I agree with him on this, but I'm not sure how well his argument holds up so far.
One quote from this chapter bothered me a bit:
"Man's whole intellectual life would be thrown away should this interpretive framework be wholly false; he is rational only to the extent to which the conceptions to which he is committed are true. The use of the word 'true' in the preceding sentence is part of a process of re-defining the meaning of truth, so as to make it truer in its own modified sense." (p. 112)
I'm not sure I understand what he is saying in the second sentence and I have not yet figured out how he is re-definng truth.
There were a few tidbits in this chapter that were interesting for me as a teacher. He talks about the fact that a problem must be hard, but not too hard, for its solution to be enjoyable for the solver. A problem can only produce intellectual strain in someone who understand the problem, but it will also only produce that strain (the alleviation of which leads to joy) if it is challenging. I agree, and I also agree with his point about needing to work through concrete problems to master a subject like math or physics. But maybe these things are obvious.
Finally I was intrigued by his statement to "look at the known data, but not in themselves, rather as clues to the unknown; as pointers to it and parts of it." (p. 127-128) Just a month ago I was telling my students that Galileo's genius was that he saw the truth as hidden WITHIN experience rather than as hidden BY experience (as Plato and the neo-Platonists saw it) or as equivalent to experience (as the followers of the Aristotelian tradition tended to see it). The Platonists didn't want to look at data at all, they just wanted to think. The Aristotelians wanted to look at the data in themselves, as the actual subject of study, the phenomena to be "saved". But Galileo sought to gain access to a hidden reality not through thought alone, but by thinking ABOUT THE DATA. I think that this is what Polanyi is getting at, and I think this viewpoint does presuppose that there is an objective reality and that it has some meaningful connection with our sense experience.
In this chapter Polanyi analyzes various levels of intelligence, starting from primitive animal intelligence and working up to full-scale human language and interpretive frameworks. I found this chapter a little rough going, presumably because of my limited background in linguistics and cognitive psychology. But I'll try to comment on a few things that stood out to me in this chapter.
The first is Polanyi's distinction between heuristic and routine stages of learning. It seems to me that this dichotomy fits well with two other dichotomies commonly seen in the philosophy of science. One is the distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification. The other is Kuhn's distinction between a crisis and normal science. In all three of these dichotomies the former part is where the really interesting (but hard to define) stuff happens, while the latter part is just a matter of working out the details of the ideas generated by the former part. This reminds me that one thing I greatly appreciate about Polanyi is his willingness to tackle the context of discovery. Traditionally philosophers of science have refused to touch this issue, concentrating only on the context of justification. Discovery was left as a mystery. Kuhn tackled the context of discovery from one direction, namely the sociological one. He claimed that the processes of normal science would give rise to anomalies and eventually the social pressures to deal with the anomalies would become so great that a crisis would be created. This may explain why a given discovery happened approximately when it did, but it doesn't say anything about the personal participation of the scientist in discovery. This, of course, is exactly what Polanyi is on about. I particularly like how he points out the irreversible nature of discovery. One cannot un-discover something one has discovered! He also talks about intellectual discomfort as the driving force that shapes new conceptions. This sounds a lot like Kuhn's crisis, but on a personal level.
I was interested in his Laws of Poverty and Consistency for language - the idea that you can't have a word for everything (so that words will be repeated) and you must use words consistently for them to have any meaning. Presumably the same laws apply to scientific theories. You don't want a theory for everything: you want to be able to apply a single theory to a wide variety of situations. But you must also use the theory consistently, so it will not generally be freely adaptable to EVERY situation. I particularly like his use of the map analogy (which I have seen elsewhere, in the work of Thomas Brody). A good map must achieve a balance between accuracy and usability. A 1:1 scale map is useless - you may as well just walk the streets. But a map with insufficient detail may be easy to use, but still useless if it doesn't provide the information you need. Languages and theories are like that. We want them to be accurate and precise, but they must remain tractable and therefore they must contains SOME imprecision and ambiguity. Frankly, I think that it is in the deft handling of these ambiguities that the beauty of both language and science is seen.
I think this ties in well with his point about mathematical formalisms. He claims that mathematics and symbolic logic are tools that simply assist our inarticulate intelligence in working out answers. The formalism does not, and cannot, truly give us anything new. But there is a point here that Polanyi could make that I didn't get from the reading (although maybe it is there). He talks about the fact that much of our inarticulate knowledge can never be made articulate. But it seems as though a good formalism helps you to articulate more than you otherwise could. After all, without some sort of formalism (like a primitive language) you couldn't articulate anything. Are math and logic the BEST formalisms in this sense? Or are they the best at helping us articulate only certain types of knowledge?
Polanyi's big point in this chapter seems to be that all of our articulate knowledge involves a self-assessment, or self-accreditation, or our own act of knowing. We develop and use an interpretive framework, but constantly assess the framework. We even have the expectation that the framework will break down at some point, when we encounter something truly novel, and we are prepared to adapt the framework to this new experience. This adaptation too is subject to our self-appraisal. Polanyi admits that we might very well question our own ability to evaluate our frameworks. He seems to say that the answer to this question involves a leap of faith in which we express confidence in our ability to recognize an objective reality. All adaptations of our interpretive framework are undertaken with the goal of getting closer to closer to reality. He takes it for granted that getting closer to reality is universally satisfying, and therefore also personally satisfying (which is why we can rely on our self-satisfaction, or lack thereof, when judging our theories or utterances or whatever). I agree with him on this, but I'm not sure how well his argument holds up so far.
One quote from this chapter bothered me a bit:
"Man's whole intellectual life would be thrown away should this interpretive framework be wholly false; he is rational only to the extent to which the conceptions to which he is committed are true. The use of the word 'true' in the preceding sentence is part of a process of re-defining the meaning of truth, so as to make it truer in its own modified sense." (p. 112)
I'm not sure I understand what he is saying in the second sentence and I have not yet figured out how he is re-definng truth.
There were a few tidbits in this chapter that were interesting for me as a teacher. He talks about the fact that a problem must be hard, but not too hard, for its solution to be enjoyable for the solver. A problem can only produce intellectual strain in someone who understand the problem, but it will also only produce that strain (the alleviation of which leads to joy) if it is challenging. I agree, and I also agree with his point about needing to work through concrete problems to master a subject like math or physics. But maybe these things are obvious.
Finally I was intrigued by his statement to "look at the known data, but not in themselves, rather as clues to the unknown; as pointers to it and parts of it." (p. 127-128) Just a month ago I was telling my students that Galileo's genius was that he saw the truth as hidden WITHIN experience rather than as hidden BY experience (as Plato and the neo-Platonists saw it) or as equivalent to experience (as the followers of the Aristotelian tradition tended to see it). The Platonists didn't want to look at data at all, they just wanted to think. The Aristotelians wanted to look at the data in themselves, as the actual subject of study, the phenomena to be "saved". But Galileo sought to gain access to a hidden reality not through thought alone, but by thinking ABOUT THE DATA. I think that this is what Polanyi is getting at, and I think this viewpoint does presuppose that there is an objective reality and that it has some meaningful connection with our sense experience.
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