Conceptual Change, Relativism, and Rationality

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1 Conceptual Change, Relativism, and Rationality University of Chicago Department of Philosophy PHIL Fall Quarter, 2011 Syllabus Instructor: Silver Bronzo Class meets: T/TH 4:30-5:50, Cobb 116 Office hours: T/TH 6:00-7:00, Common Knowledge Café (Harper Library); or by appointment. Course Description Sometimes we disagree in our beliefs and judgments: we hold as true what other people regard as false, and approve what other people disapprove. But the study of history and of distant communities appears to show that we may also be separated by a much deeper sort of gulf: we can have different conceptual schemes. If that is the case, then what we regard as true (or false) may be simply unintelligible to the other person; we may see facts and be responsive to values that are completely invisible to the other person; we may reason according to different norms; and in the most radical cases, it may seem that we live in different worlds. This sort of distance has been emphasized by a variety of disciplines across the humanities: from the history of science to the history of mathematics, to sociology, anthropology, art history, and moral and political philosophy. But the alleged phenomenon, if unquestionably interesting, is also highly problematic. Many thinkers have argued that argument and rational discussion can only occur within a given conceptual framework: it is the framework that dictates what counts, within it, as correct, rational, and true ; but the framework as a whole cannot be rationally evaluated. (The appeal to a meta-framework relocates the problem rather than solving it.) Conceptual schemes must be taken as given and can be inculcated through persuasion, which has to be conceived as a causal and a-rational procedure. According to this view, therefore, the recognition of conceptual changes and conceptual distances leads directly into conceptual relativism. However, there appear to be very good reasons to resist this form of relativism. Take natural science, for example. Let s grant that late medieval alchemy operates within a different conceptual scheme than modern chemistry. But are we happy to say that these are simply different conceptual schemes? Don t we want to say that chemistry is truer, more accurate, or anyway better science than alchemy? Isn t the possibility of progress a constitutive feature of our conception of modern science? Analogous difficulties arise in connection with moral and political issues. (Think for instance about

2 societies that systematically practice infibulations on female bodies.) Isn t there a way to do full justice to the phenomenon of conceptual change and conceptual distance, without falling into relativism? To ask the same question from the opposite direction: Isn t there a way to maintain that we can compare and evaluate conceptual schemes on genuinely rational grounds, without falling into a naïve and parochial form of realism that is simply blind to the constitutive role of concepts in our cognitive and practical activities? The class is a sustained attempt to address this question. It is organized in three parts. In the first part, we will discuss a number of examples of conceptual change. We will read both classical and recent texts in the history of the natural sciences (Kuhn), anthropology (Winch), the history of the human sciences (Hacking) and the history of psychiatry (A. Davidson). In the second part, we will discuss a defense of a form of conceptual relativism (Rorty). Finally, in the third part, we will examine the views of a number of contemporary philosophers who want to resist relativism while fully recognizing the importance of conceptual changes (Cavell, Diamond, Putnam). Texts 1) Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (third edition) 2) Ian Hacking, Historical Ontology 3) Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, Solidarity These texts are available at the Seminary Bookstore. The remaining readings will be available on Chalk. Course Requirements 1) A midterm paper (5-7 pages, double-spaced), on a topic assigned by the instructor. 40% of final grade. Assigned in class on Oct 27 th, due in class on Nov 8 th. 2) A final paper (9-11 pages, double spaced), on a topic chosen by the student. The topic must relate to some of the assigned readings. Each student must meet with the instructor in order to discuss the topic and the plan for the paper. 60% of the final grade. Due on Dec 5 th, 4.00 p.m., in the mailbox right in front of the Philosophy Department Office (Stuart 202). 3) Attendance and active participation is mandatory. Course Schedule NB. The texts listed under Further readings are NOT required readings. Students are not expected to read all, or even any, of them. They are indicated as additional bibliographical resources that the student may find useful for writing the final paper or for learning more about particular topics. (Average number of pages of required reading per week: 45) Part I: Conceptual Changes 27 Sept Introduction --- Overview of the course. 29 Sept Paradigms and Normal Science 4 Oct Anomalies and Crises Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, I-V Kuhn, Structure, V I-VIII Kuhn introduces the notion of scientific paradigm and describes the shape of scientific research during periods of normal science. Kuhn describes the phenomena that lead to a crisis in the acceptance of a certain paradigm. 2

3 6 Oct Revolutions and incommensurability 11 Oct Relativism, Rationality, Progress, and Truth Kuhn, Structure, IX-X Ian Hacking, Working in A New World Kuhn, Structure, XI-XIII, Postscript 5-6 Kuhn analyses the structure of scientific revolutions and paradigm shifts. Kuhn discusses the relationship between scientific revolutions and scientific progress. 13 Oct Continued No new required readings - Kuhn, Commensurability, Comparability, Communicability - Kuhn, Irrationality and Theory Choice and Incommensurability and Paradigm, in Ch. 5 of The Road since Structure Winch discusses what is involved in understanding a very different society e.g. a tribe whose social life is organized by the practice of witchcraft. This understanding, according to Winch, requires an extension of our own conceptual framework. 18 Oct Anthropology and conceptual distances Peter Winch, Understanding a Primitive Society - Ludwig Wittgenstein, Remarks on Frazer s The Golden Bough - Clifford Geertz, Anti Anti- Relativism Winch discusses what is involved in understanding a very different society e.g. a tribe whose social life is organized by the practice of witchcraft. This understanding, according to Winch, requires an extension of our own conceptual framework. 20 Oct Conceptual changes in the human sciences Ian Hacking, Historical Ontology, Ch. 6, Making Up People Hacking, Historical Ontology, Ch 2, Five Parables Hacking argues that there is a specific sense in which the history of concepts is important for the human sciences: with the acquisition of new concepts, new kinds of human actions and new kinds of persons become possible. 25 Oct Between relativism and rationalism Hacking, Historical Ontology, Ch. 11, Language, Truth, and Reason Hacking clarifies the senses in which his view which seeks to recognize the full importance of conceptual changes is and is not relativistic. 27 Oct (Midterm Assigned) Styles of reasoning in the history of psychiatry Arnold I. Davidson, Closing Up the Corpses Davidson describes several conceptual changes in 19 th century psychiatry and appeals to the notion of style of reasoning, which overlaps with Kuhn s notion of scientific paradigm. 3

4 - A. I. Davidson, Styles of Reasoning: From the History of Art to the Epistemology of Science - Hacking, Historical Ontology, Ch. 12, Style for Historian and for Philosophers Part II: Relativism 1 Nov Vocabulary changes as beyond the reach of rationality 3 Nov The putative political payoff of accepting the contingency of our conceptual schemes Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, Solidarity, Ch. 1, The Contingency of Language Barry Barnes and David Bloor, Relativism, Rationalism and the Sociology of Knowledge Rorty, Contingency, Ch. 3, The Contingency of a Liberal Community - Rorty, Contingency, Ch. 8, The Last Intellectual in Europe: Orwell on Cruelty - James Conant, Freedom, Cruelty, and Truth: Rorty versus Orwell Rorty maintains that the change of conceptual schemes (of vocabularies, in his terminology) cannot be the object of rational discussion. Rorty argues that giving up the search for a foundation for our conceptual schemes can help to achieve a truly liberal society. Part III: Resisting Relativism 8 Nov (Turn in Midterm) Are conceptual distances really intelligible? Donald Davidson, On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme Davidson argues that the very idea of a conceptual scheme and indeed of conceptual distances is only apparently intelligible. 10 Nov The dichotomy between internal and external questions - Rudolf Carnap, Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology - Stanley Cavell, The Availability of Wittgenstein s Later Philosophy Carnap articulates a dichotomy between internal and external questions. According to Cavell and the other authors that we will study in the rest of the course, this Manichean conception of what lies inside and outside a practice or -game is the crucial assumption that we need to question if we want to do justice to the phenomenon of conceptual change without falling into relativism. 4

5 15 Nov The essentially creative nature of Cavell, Excursus on Wittgenstein s Vision of Language -Martin Gustafsson, Familiar Words in Unfamiliar Surroundings: Davidson s Malapropisms, Cavell s Projections - Martin Gustafsson, Perfect Pitch and Austinian Examples: Cavell, McDowell, Wittgenstein, and the Philosophical Significance of Ordinary Language According to Cavell, the capacity to use words in new, unforeseen and unforeseeable ways (and thus to extend and modify the rules of our games) is a constitutive feature of. 17 Nov Creative uses of 22 Nov The proper role of rules in the use of Cora Diamond, Riddles and Anselm s Riddle Juliet Floyd, On Saying What You Really Want to Say: Wittgenstein, Gödel, and the Trisection of the Angle Putnam, Rules, Attunement, and Applying words to the world - Hilary Putnam, It Ain t Necessarily So - Putnam, Rethinking Mathematical Necessity - Steven Affeldt, The Ground of Mutuality: Criteria, judgment and Intelligibility in S. Mulhall and S. Cavell Diamond discusses a variety of creative uses of spanning from mathematics, the solution of riddles in fairy tales, and theology. She argues that denying any form of normativity to these uses of is a symptom of a philosophical preconception. Drawing on Cavell, Diamond and his own previous work, Putnam elaborates the Wittgensteinian vision of as a creative activity an activity that can be carried on in correct or incorrect ways, even though it is not always governed by specifiable rules. 24 Nov NO CLASS THANKSGIVING 29 Nov Vindicating our ordinary notions of reality and truth. Diamond, Putnam and Wittgensteinian Baby- Throwing: Variations on a Theme - Diamond, Criticizing from Outside - Diamond, Anything but Argument? Diamond shows how the criticism of alien conceptual schemes is part of our ordinary practices; the denial of the possibility of this form of criticism is the expression of unexamined and problematic philosophical assumptions. Moreover, for Diamond, the comparison and evaluation of competing conceptual schemes is part of what goes to shape our ordinary notions of reality and truth. 5

The topic of this Majors Seminar is Relativism how to formulate it, and how to evaluate arguments for and against it.

Majors Seminar Rovane Spring 2010 The topic of this Majors Seminar is Relativism how to formulate it, and how to evaluate arguments for and against it. The central text for the course will be a book manuscript