Therefore, PPWT
is stunning not for applying across disciplines but within one. Consider the case of physics. Kuhn holds that,
“Einstein’s theory can be accepted only with the recognition
that Newton’s was wrong”[2],
thereby rejecting the common view that Newtonian mechanics is a special case of
a more general relativity theory. By this logic, the passage from one stage of
a discipline to the next is not via conjunction or accumulation but rather via
disjunction. New questions arise about why and how a community transitions from
one specialist worldview to another, and how to reconcile disjunctive logic
with progress. Isn’t scientific progress an established phenomenon at the basis
of our modern way of life?
Paul
Feyerabend tried
to soften the blow by suggesting that there are many ways in which, “the
Newtonian and the relativist can and do converse”, so that, “the relativist can
say that the classical formulae, properly interpreted (i.e. interpreted in the relativistic manner), are
successful, but not as successful as the full relativistic apparatus”[3]. This is the case, for instance, with
low velocities compared to the speed of light (here, the Galilean transformation equations disappear). Kuhn would
have none of it and retorts that this does not diminish the
revolutionary character of Einstein’s achievement but simply shows why, “Newton’s laws never seemed to work”[4]. His point is that although relativity
statements Ei can be reduced to Newtonian statements Ni by restricting v to low
velocities relative to c, Ni can certainly not be derived from Ei due
to the fact that while, “Newtonian mass is conserved; Einsteinian mass is
convertible with energy”[5].
The relativist engages with classical science as one does with a foreign
language … never really getting the nuances and always translating into one’s
native language.
The
worry is then that full communication across the chasm between worlds is not
possible. Kuhn called this
impossibility the ‘incommensurability’ of the worldviews. But I think that this
kind of talk is a symptom of a metaphor overstretched. In another context,
Jonathan Hope offers a meditation on “a particular form of human vulnerability”[6],
the vulnerability that comes from the fact that human beings inhabit a way of
life. It is the vulnerability of cultural devastation or “things ceasing to
happen”[7]. Hope uses the transition of the nomadic
Crow First Nation to reservation life to exemplify this phenomenon. On the reserve, even basic goals lose
their appeal: “A crucial blow to their happiness was a loss of the concepts
with which their happiness had been understood”[8]. Does this kind of analysis even make
sense when applied to physicists? Did Newtonians inhabit a way of life that was
devastated by the advent of the relativists? I think this is ridiculous. Unlike
the Crow, Newtonians may still thrive, and even their use of
technologies like GPS premised on a different world theory doesn’t amount to
cultural devastation.
Perhaps transitions between phenomenal specialist worlds can be better
understood against the background of their relation to the social world shared
by all.
No comments:
Post a Comment