Category: The Myth of the Framework

Routledge: 1996.

How to get acquainted with a problem

We start, I say, with a problem – a difficulty. It is perhaps a practical problem, or a theoretical problem. Whatever it may be, when we first encounter the problem we cannot, obviously, know much about it. At best, we have only a vague idea what our problem really consists of. How, then, can we produce an adequate solution? Obviously, we cannot. We must first get better acquainted with the problem. But how?

My answer is very simple: by producing a very inadequate solution, and by criticizing this inadequate solution. Only in this way can we come to understand the problem. For to understand a problem means to understand why it is not easily soluble – why the more obvious solutions do not work. We must therefore produce these obvious solutions and try to find out why they will not do. In this way, we become acquainted with the problem. And in this way we may proceed from bad solutions to slightly better ones – provided always that we have the ability to guess again. [97-8]

Science: learning from our mistakes

The tension between our knowledge and our ignorance is decisive for the growth of knowledge. It inspires the advance of knowledge, and it determines its ever-moving frontiers.

The word ‘problem’ is only another name for this tension or rather, a name denoting various concrete instances of it.

As I suggested above, a problem arises, grows, and becomes significant through our failures to solve it. Or to put it an­other way, the only way of getting to know a problem is to learn from our mistakes.

This applies to pre-scientific knowledge and to scientific knowledge.

My view of the method of science is, very simply, that it systematizes the pre-scientific method of learning from our mis­takes. It does so by the device called critical discussion.

My whole view of scientific method may be summed up by saying that it consists of these three steps:

1. We stumble over some problem.
2. We try to solve it, for example by proposing some theory.
3. We learn from our mistakes, especially from those brought home to us by the critical discussion of our tentative solutions – a discussion which tends to lead to new problems.

Or in three words: problems – theories – criticism.

I believe that in these three words the whole procedure of rational science may be summed up. [100-1]

Two concepts of induction

In the past, the term ‘induction’ has been used mainly in two senses. The first is repetitive induction (or induction by enumeration). This consists of often repeated observations and experiments, which are supposed to serve as premises in an argument establishing some generalization or theory. The invalidity of this kind of argument is obvious: no amount of observation of white swans establishes that all swans are white (or that the probability of finding a non-white swan is small). In the same way, no amount of observed spectra of hydrogen atoms on earth establishes that all hydrogen atoms emit spectra of the same kind. Theoretical considerations, however, may suggest the latter generalization, and further theoretical considerations may suggest that we should modify it by introducing Doppler shifts and Einsteinian gravitational redshifts.

Thus repetitive induction is out: it cannot establish anything.

The second main sense in which the term ‘induction’ has been used in the past is eliminative induction – induction by the method of eliminating or refuting false theories. This may look at first sight very much like the method of critical dis­cussion that I am advocating. But in fact it is very different. For Bacon and Mill and other exponents of this method of eliminative induction believed that by eliminating all false theories we can finally establish the true theory. In other words, they were unaware of the fact that the number of competing theories is always infinite – even though there are as a rule at any particular moment only a finite number of theories before us for consideration. [104-5]

Science: a growing system of problems

It seems to me that most philosophers of science use the term ‘accepted’ or ‘acceptable’ as a substitute for ‘believed in’ or ‘worthy of being believed in’. There may be a lot of theories in science that are true and therefore worthy of being be­lieved in. But according to my view of the matter, this worthiness is no concern of science. For science does not attempt positively to justify or to establish this worthiness. On the contrary, it is mainly concerned with criticizing it. It regards, or should regard, the overthrow of even its most admirable and beautiful theories as a triumph, an advance. For we cannot overthrow a good theory without learning an immense amount from it and from its failure. As always, we learn from our mistakes.

The overthrow of a theory always creates new problems. But even if a new theory is not yet overthrown, it will, as we have seen from the example of Bohr’s theory, create new problems. And the quality, the fertility, and the depth of the new problems which a theory creates are the best measures of its intrinsic scientific interest.

To sum up, the question of the acceptance of theories should, I propose, be demoted to the status of a minor problem. For science may be regarded as a growing system of problems, rather than as a system of beliefs. And for a system of problems, the tentative acceptance of a theory or a conjecture means hardly more than that it is considered worthy of further criticism. [103]

Understanding a theory’s underlying problems

Or take as an example Bohr’s theory (1913) of the hydrogen atom. This theory was describing a model, and was there­fore intuitive and visualizable. Yet it was also very perplexing. Not because of any intuitive difficulty, but because it assumed, contrary to Maxwell’s and Lorentz’s theory and to well-known experimental effects, that a periodically moving electron, a moving electric charge, need not always create a disturbance of the eletromagnetic field, and so need not always send out electromagnetic waves. This difficulty is a logical one – a clash with other theories. And no one can be said to understand Bohr’s theory who does not understand this difficulty and the reasons why Bohr boldly accepted it, thus departing in a revolutionary way from earlier and well-established theories.

But the only way to understand Bohr’s reasons is to understand his problem – the problem of combining Rutherford’s atom model with a theory of emission and absorption of light, and thus with Einstein’s photon theory, and with the dis­creteness of atomic spectra. The understanding of Bohr’s theory does not lie in visualizing it intuitively but in gaining familiarity with the problems it tries to solve, and in the appreciation of both the explanatory power of the solution and the fact, that the new difficulty that it creates constitutes an entirely new problem of great fertility.

The question whether or not a theory or a conjecture is more or less satisfactory or, if you like prima facie acceptable as a solution of the problem which it sets out to solve is largely a question of purely deductive logic. It is a matter of getting acquainted with the logical conclusions which may be drawn from the theory, and of judging whether or not these con­clusions (a) yield the desired solution and (b) yield undesirable by-products – for example some insoluble paradox, some absurdity. [102]

Why we need to disagree more

Although I am an admirer of tradition, and conscious of its importance, I am, at the same time, an almost orthodox adherent of unorthodoxy. I hold that orthodoxy is the death of knowledge, since the growth of knowledge depends entirely on the existence of disagreement. Admittedly, disagreement may lead to strife, and even to violence. And this, I think, is very bad indeed, for I abhor violence. Yet disagreement may also lead to discussion, to argument, and to mutual criticism. And these, I think, are of paramount importance. I suggest that the greatest step towards a better and more peaceful world was taken when the war of swords was first supported, and later sometimes even replaced, by a war of words. [34]

Getting nearer to the truth

The myth of the framework can be stated in one sentence, as follows.

A rational and fruitful discussion is impossible unless the participants share a common framework of basic assumptions or, at least, unless they have agreed on such a framework for the purpose of the discussion.

This is the myth I am going to criticize.

As I have formulated it here, the myth sounds like a sober statement, or like a sensible warning to which we ought to pay attention in order to further rational discussion. Some people even think that what I describe as a myth is a logical principle, or based on a logical principle. I think, on the contrary, that it is not only a false statement, but also a vicious statement which, if widely believed, must undermine the unity of mankind, and so must greatly increase the likelihood of violence and of war. This is the main reason why I want to combat it and refute it.

As indicated, I mean by ‘framework’ here a set of basic assumptions, or fundamental principles – that is to say, an intel­lectual framework. It is important to distinguish such a framework from some attitudes which may indeed be precon­ditions for a discussion, such as a wish to get to, or nearer to, the truth, and a willingness to share problems or to under­stand the aims and the problems of somebody else. [34-5]

We’re not in it for the ‘win’

Serious critical discussions are always difficult. Non-rational human elements such as personal problems always enter. Many participants in a rational, that is, a critical, discussion find it particularly difficult that they have to unlearn what their instincts seem to teach them (and what they are taught, incidentally, by every debating society): that is, to win. For what they have to learn is that victory in a debate is nothing, while even the slightest clarification of one’s problem – even the smallest contribution made towards a clearer understanding of one’s own position or that of one’s opponent – is a great success. A discussion which you win but which fails to help you to change or to clarify your mind at least a little should be regarded as a sheer loss. For this very reason no change in one’s position should be made surreptitiously, but it should always be stressed and its consequences explored.

Rational discussion in this sense is a rare thing. But it is an important ideal, and we may learn to enjoy it. It does not aim at conversion, and it is modest in its expectations: it is enough, more than enough, if we feel that we can see things in a new light or that we have got even a little nearer to the truth. [44]

Fruitful Discussion

I think that we may say of a discussion that it was the more fruitful the more its participants were able to learn from it. And this means: the more interesting questions and difficult questions they were asked, the more new answers they were induced to think of, the more they were shaken in their opinions, and the more they could see things differently after the discussion – in short, the more their intellectual horizons were extended. [35-6]