Hi
Kevin,
See interposed
comments below.
Regards,
Tim
Hi Tim,
"Are there any
particular traditions that stand out to you as ones that either resonate with,
or are diametrically opposite to, Rosennean
concepts?"
That's a good question,
and one that might take a lot of space to answer as I'd like
(space I can't really afford, given some pending
deadlines!).
There are
some obvious ones that come to mind, for me, in terms of
resonance. In the philosophy of science there's a tradition of
theorizing about the structure of scientific theories. The logical
positivists in the first half of the 20th century argued that scientific
theories should be regarded as partially interpreted logical
calculi, i.e. as sets of statements written in the language of
first-order predicate logic, with the meanings of scientific terms
defined by their relation to observation
"The world is the totality of
facts......." Who doesn't love the Tractatus!!
:)
statements. This
view came under strong criticism in the late 50s and early 60s, and a
movement emerged that sought to define scientific theories in terms of
the mathematical models that define the classes
of natural systems studied by a given theory. This
model-theoretic tradition, or "semantic" tradition (as contrasted
with the "syntactic" approach of the logical positivists) of
understanding scientific theories, turns attention away from the
particularities of the formal language within which a theory is formulated, to
the mathematical structures that are defined within a given
language.
Thus, for
example, Newtonian mechanics can be understood in terms of one or
another formulation of Newton's laws of motion, but a model-theoretic
approach would focus instead on the class of formal models defined
by these laws, e.g. the mathematical structures embedded in
Newtonian state space . One currently popular version of this
model-theoretic approach to scientific theories is based on state-space
models (van Fraassen, Giere, Suppe, Lloyd, Thomson) - virtually all of the
philosophy of physics done these days involves analysis of the state
space structure of physical theories.. Another model-based approach is based
on structures defined as the extensions of set-theoretic predicates (this is
inspired by the Bourbaki approach to foundations of math; Suppes, Stegmuller,
Sneed, Da Costa and French, ...).
But all these state-based approaches inherently limit
themselves to a capacity to describe only simple systems, do they
not?
Rosen's modelling
relation approach has some affinities with all these approaches. It's
quite explicit when one looks at frameworks for studying the computational
aspects of physical theories. I took a grad course on computability and
physics, and our instructor (Itamar Pitowsky, a philosopher of physics), in
discussing the Church-Turing thesis and its application to physical systems,
drew a diagram on the blackboard that was virtually identical to the
commutation-relation description of the modelling relation.
Another connection is
with various forms of metaphysical and epistemological structuralism
(metaphysical structuralism asserts that all that exists, is
structure; epistemological structuralism asserts that all we can know
of the world is structure). George Kampis noted in his review of Life
Itself that Rosen had strong affinities with structuralist traditions.
This is certainly the way I read Rosen, too.
Maybe I misundertand structuralism, but I read Rosen
somewhat differently. Primarily based upon what is in Anticipatory
Systems, where he says that our most basic knowledge of
the world are sensory impressions or 'percepts'. It is then our minds which
take an active role in organizing these percepts, in establishing relations
between the percepts - relations in the material world are not something we
perceive directly. So that what we know (if we know anything) are the
sensory impressions, and that relations between percepts are of a different
order: they are creations of the mind or "working hypotheses" we impute back to
the material world. [AS 46]
So, it strikes me that although Rosen emphasizes
structural aspects (entailment structures, functional vs structural
organization), it does not seem to me that he considers structure as being the
sole, or even the most fundamental, epistemological
entities.
There's a whole tradition in the
philosophy of mathematics that goes by the name "structuralism" too (one is
known as "category-theoretic structuralism"), and though this is distinct from
metaphysical and epistemological structuralism, there are lots of points of
potential contact. I'm particulary interested in this stuff, and how it
can be used to develop an interpretive framework for complex systems theories
(Rosennean and otherwise).
I very briefly looked up "category-theoretic structuralism"
on the web. It seemed to be largely concerned with trying to use category
theory in a foundational role for mathematics, based on a structuralist view of
mathematics. Can you speak more about this "interpretive
framework"?
There's lots more to say
about all this, but I'll have to leave it at that...
Thanks. I knew that was a pretty broad question. :)
" I have
also been intending to write something relating Rosennean ideas to some of
those of Nancy Cartwright. Are these the kinds of relations to existing
thinkers that you are speaking of (with the proviso that the level and depth
of my writings are most likely substandard for academic
philosophers)?"
I'm
not quite sure what you have in mind. Cartwright holds lots of views on
lots of subjects. For example, she analyses scientific theories in terms
of their mathematical models too, and she likes to talk about the complex
tangle of causal relations in the world, and how physical theories abstract
away from this complexity. That's not unlike Rosen. But she
differs from Rosen in several respects, I think; she believes, for
example, that science reveals the real, true causal powers of substances
in the world (she's a realist about what she calls causal "capacities"),
the reality that lies behind the structural relations described by
models. I've never read Rosen as being this kind of metaphysical realist
about properties or substances. Rosen is an Aristotelian in terms
of his account of theoretical explanation, but not, as far I can tell, in
terms of his metaphysics. Cartwright is an Aristotelian in terms of the
metaphysics of real substances and their
properties.
I'd have to go back and look at Cartwright's
The Dappled World and her older books again, to recall
exactly what struck me about her. It was many months ago that I was considering
this. I recall her use of nomological machines, which struck me as akin to a
model in a modeling relation. Her "capacities" were interesting in that I felt
there was some relationship with Rosen's concern with what he called the
"gravitational" aspects of a system, rather than the "inertial" aspects. I
also thought the ceteris paribus stipulation she emphasized were
interesting. I forget if there were other notions of hers that interested
me.
I agree that their metaphysics differ, and that
the above similarities are not of the kind that necessarily support each other.
But I am not really interested in authors that say the exact same or
similar thing, as if truth were proportional to the quantity of one's supporting
citations. I am more interested in whether the differences in
Cartwright's ideas can enrich/enlarge the Rosennean
view.
"But...but....this is something of a catch-22: one of
Rosen's important ideas, or results, is that the current universe of
discourse is too limited to include Rosennean complex systems. To attempt to
cast his ideas in this limited framework is difficult insofar as
from within that framework complex systems do not appear.
This is something I find a difficulty: in
order to describe Rosennean complexity to someone it is often necessary
to first describe the larger universe that contains these complex
systems, and the latter is no less difficult to present than the
former. Any insights on this would be greatly
appreciated."
Well, I don't know about "insights", but...
I think the fact that this list exists is evidence that
the "universe of discourse" is broad enough to allow for meaningful discussion
of Rosennean complex systems. However, if you mean that traditional
modelling frameworks are too narrow to capture such systems, that may be true,
but I don't see how this fact is a barrier to talking about them, to arguing
for their reality and significance. The problems facing attempts to
communicate Rosennean concepts to other groups are problems that, in my
experience, arise from the level of abstractness at which his key,
original points are presented. It takes a certain kind of thinker to
follow a chain of reasoning that starts to loop back on itself, that is
ultimately self-referential. But this is exactly the same kind of
problem I face when I'm trying to explain, say, the argument for Godel's
incompleteness theorem to a student. People schooled in abstract,
mathematical thinking will get it easier than others.
We can follow the analogy with Godel's theorem a little
further, actually. It's takes a while to understand the argument
for it, but once you've got it, you've got it. It's not so hard, though,
to understand the content of the theorem, or to be able to discuss
the implications of the theorem. As long as you're confident that
the argument for it is sound, then you can basically ignore the details.
Godel had the advantage that his arguments were communicated to a group of
peers who could follow the reasoning, testify to its soundness, and appreciate
the implications of it. Rosen's arguments were never successfully
communicated to a group of peers in a position to see their significance, and
so there's no tradition of authority one can appeal to in talking about
Rosen's conclusions.
As you
say, Godel's peers were all well-acquainted with his "language" - they'd already
suffered through Principia Mathematica, after all.
I'm not
sure who that peer group for Rosen would be - even today. Biologists? Not
likely. Category theorists? No. Physicists? Should be, but not. Systems
theorists? Doubtful. To me, philosophers of science seem a likely
group. But I wonder if Rosen would be considered enough of a
philosopher of science to taken seriously as a peer.