Against the Politics of Postmodern Philosophy of Science

Abstract

This paper discusses the tenets of the politics of postmodern philosophy of science. At issue are Rouse’s version of naturalism and his reading of Quine’s distinction between the indeterminacy of translation and the underdetermination of theories by empirical evidence. I argue that the postmodern approach to science’s research practices as patterns of interaction within the world is not in line with the naturalistic account Rouse aims at. I focus also on Rouse’s readings of Heidegger’s existential conception of science and Kuhn’s concept of normal science. Finally, a strategy of defending science’s cognitive distinctiveness in terms of hermeneutic philosophy is suggested as an alternative to the postmodern philosophy of science.

Acknowledgements

I am indebted to two anonymous referees for insightful criticism and suggestions.

Notes

[1] We spelled out this view with a particular emphasis on the deficiencies of postpositivist criticism of logical empiricism in Polikarov and Ginev (1992).

[2] In this regard, Rouse’s deflationism bears resemblance to Feyerabend’s Kierkegaardian approach to scientific rationality. Cf. Feyerabend (1977).

[3] In the form of sociology of scientific knowledge, social constructivism was originally an attempt to extend science to the study of itself. Steven Shapin argues convincingly that even within cognitive sociology, this kind of second‐order naturalism has been seen by many critics of science as hegemonic, masculinist, dehumanizing, and mystifying. It also provokes discontent by those ‘who reckon that a proper task for scholars is to open up alternative visions of what science might be and how its social relations ought to be constituted’ (Shapin 1995, 293). Rouse shares the discontent with sociology of scientific knowledge. According to him, the main shortcoming of social constructivism is that its proponents are trying to make sense of science’s cognitive content, instead of getting rid of the concept of ‘content’ itself. By attributing to the theoretical objects of science—so Rouse’s argument goes—the ontological status of a product of social determination, social constructivists elaborate on a global image of science that is in a complete harmony with the ‘legitimation project’.

[4] In getting rid of the tenets of methodological historicism, non‐logical linguistic universalism, and semantic holism (and of ‘synthetic‐a priori epistemology’), many cultural and gender theorists of science try to restore the positivist spirit of methodological instrumentalism. On their accounts, science has to be understood in terms of its operationally specified methods. They insist on a sort of ‘antiempiricist positivism’ (typified by Cartwright) since logical empiricism is still committing the mistake of reifying an ‘ultimate layer’ of observational meaning. Such reificationism can only be pushed aside when one is concentrated upon practices of laboratory manipulation, instrumentation, and measurement instead of inflating empiricist conceptions of perception. Leaning on antiempiricist positivism, one rejects notions like scientific rationality, scientific method, objectivity, etc., which presuppose reified networks of beliefs, procedures, and values. In so doing, one pays attention predominantly to heterogeneous solidarities in scientific research informed by various cultural, political, and economic factors.

[5] Generally speaking, cultural studies are directed towards semiotic artefacts in the making. They predominantly pay attention to the practices that constitute the artefacts and to the dissemination of meaning within the interrelatedness of these practices. It is the picture of culture promulgated by cultural studies that is congruent with Davidson’s nonrepresentational (pragmatic) semantics. In this picture, the dissemination of meaning is often related to communicative breakdown. Dissent is more important than consensus for the circulation of meaning. Having in mind this claim, Rouse makes the case that Davidsonians might contribute to cultural studies by providing the semantic resources for a richer account of dissent, communicative breakdown and ‘dynamic incommensurability’.