Old Kevin:
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, ...).
Tim: But all these state-based approaches
inherently limit themselves to a capacity to describe only simple systems,
do they not?
New Kevin: In Rosen's terms,
sure. I was pointing to a similarity in the way that Rosen often
describes the physical content of scientific theories, and the way that
contemporary philosophers of science do. That is, when he's
discussing classical or quantum physics, he tends to discuss it terms of
the mathematical structures that encode entailment relations. That's
a very "semantic approach" way of analyzing the content of physical
theories.
Old Kevin: 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.
Tim: 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.
New Kevin: That's true, I shouldn't have
implied that Rosen is a thorough-going philosophical structuralist.
As a biologist investigating the question "what is life?", however, his
answer is strongly oriented in the structuralist direction, wouldn't you
say?
Old Kevin: 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).
Tim: 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"?
New Kevin: Structuralist
philosophies of mathematics do try to give an account of the foundations of
mathematics, but they also try to give philosophical accounts of the
metaphysics and epistemology of mathematical objects. What are
numbers? vector spaces? functions? How do we come to know them, and
what is the status of this knowledge? Set theory and category theory
have been presented as a unifying language for representing all of
mathematics, but philosophical mathematical structuralism has broader
ambitions.
One of the topics that
philosophies of mathematics want to explain is the relation of mathematics
to the physical world, and the applicability of mathematics in
science. All I can say here is that different philosophies of math
offer different accounts of these relationships, and that even within
structuralist philosophies of mathematics, there is more than one
account. One of the things I'd like to do in the essay I'm planning to
write is investigate how Rosen's answers to these questions
compare with these other accounts.
Tim:
" 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)?"
Old Kevin: 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.
Tim: 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.
New Kevin: That's very much my own attitude to comparing/contrasting
Rosen with other philosophers.
Tim: 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.
New Kevin: In my
experience, Rosen is regarded as something of a god among systems
theory types, even when they're not doing systems theory in the way
he might have wanted. But the natural community to appeal t to
promote interest in Rosen's work, is, I think, philosophers, and
philosophers of science in particular.
Now, Rosen wouldn't be regarded as a
"peer" philosopher (if I can use that term in a non-elitist way), but he
could be regarded as a scientist whose work had strong bearing on
philosophical issues, and who tried to address them in ways he thought
appropriate in his work, and who may have insights that stimulate new
directions of thinking on classical philosophical topics. Einstein is
a good example of someone whose work had deep philosophical import, and who
wrote on philosophical topics, but who was not regarded as a peer
"philosopher" by philosophers (or himself! Abraham Pais, a physicist
and biographer of Einstein, once was asked whether he thought Einstein was a
philosopher. He replied, "At his best, no."). Same for
David Bohm, Kurt Godel, Niels Bohr, etc. Or going back, Newton,
Darwin, etc.
Now, the advantage that these guys
have is that their names are associated with scientific developments or
theories that made an impact on their respective fields, so there is a
natural interest in their views on foundational topics. Rosen doesn't
have that advantage.
Gotta run. Thanks!
Kevin