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PUBLISHED PAPBR

Indian Philosophical Quarterly (Formerly 'The Philosophical Quarterly' )

Students' Supplement

Journal of Pratap Centre of Philosophy, Amalner & Department of Philosophy, Poona University, Poona

New Series

Volume VII

No. 1 October 1979

Editors: S. S. Barllngay Rajendra Prasad

University of Poona

I.ndian Philosophical Quarterly Students' Supplement Editors : S. S. Barlingay, Poona University, Poona. Rajendra Prasad, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, I. I. T. Kanpur.

Board of Consulting Editors : T. R. V. Murti, K D. Bhattacharya, T. M. P. Mahadevan, G. N. Mathrani, Shibjeevan Bhattacharya, Rajendra Prasad, K. J. Shah, G. Misra, R. C. Pandeya, R. K. Tripathi, D. P. Chattopadhyaya, Daya Krishna, G. N. Joshi, D. Y. Desh­-pande, J. de Marneffe, Dharmendra Kumar, R. C. Gandhi, R. Sundara Rajan, Y. J. Khwaja, S. A .. Shaida, Roop Rekha Verma, S. K. Saxena, S. V. Bo~dl; R. A. Sinari, Mrina.l Miri, R. K. Gupta, R. Balsubramanian, S. R. Kawle, Ranveer Singh, V. K. Bharadwaja.

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EMPIRICISM AND SCIENTIFIC OBSERVATION

Philosophers have early recognized that empiricism is the only source of knowledge about contingent facts. Natural science deals with contingent facts of the world; therefore empiricism is of pivotal importance to natural scientists. ·

The concept of empiricism prevalent among philosophers, philosophers of science and scientists is not however unique. If we neglect different variations and finer details-two main strands of empiricism may be recognized, for which I shall use the terms 'Philosophical Empiricism' ( P. E.) and 'Scientific Empiricism' (S. E.). Both strands had their origin in the seven­teenth century. Philosophical empiricism was propounded by the English philosopher Locke (1632-1704) and developed by Berkeley, Hume and their followers. These philosophers main­tained that the only source of our knowledge of the external world is its appearance in our perception. They thought it obvious that the thing-in-itself (to use Kantian vocabulary) can never appear in our perception; what appear are a collection of the qualities of the thing and the 'thing of our knowledge' is nothing but all of these qualities associated together intimately. These philo­sosophers also maintained that sense-data are passive and in­corrigible and therefore certain; in other words, sense-data are the 'hardest' of all data that can be reliably used for discerning the nature of the external world. They therefore strongly recom­mended that all empirical studies should start from perception (and not from what the naive realists believe to be the external world) and that the physical objects of the external world are to be logically constructed out of sense-data.

Modern Natural Science made its debut in the seventeenth century with Galileo (1564-1642) and Boyle (1627-1691) who introduced a new methodology based on experimentation on the external world and observation of the results. Among their illus~

trious followers, were pioneers like Cavendish, Lavoisier, Dalton and Faraday. These seventeenth and eighteenth century scientists believed (though they did not record this belief explicitly) that 'things' exist independent of human perception and that they are not mere collections of qualities. A thing, they believed, is a

Atoka Siddhanta

physical material which is the possessor of qualities, and things and qualities belong to different metaphysical categories; in other words, 'thing' cannot be reduced without remainder to an aggre­gate of qualities. These scientists early realized that perceptions may be deceptive and therefore they cannot be taken as surest grounds on which 'things as they really are' can be logically con­structed. They soon found out that accuracy of observation de­pends on the precision of measurement of the qualities of things and wanted to use measurement as an essential tool for scientific studies. The thrust of science was therefore directed towards discovering suitable measurable qualities (properties) of things and finding out ways and means of measuring . t.hem accurately and reproducibly. The empiricism in which it is believed that things exist independent of perception and that perception is deceptive, and in which measurementplays a central role in revealing things as they really are, may be termed as 'Scientific Empiricism'.

The proponents .of P. E. and their followers chtim that P. E . . is much more radical and deep-seated in the theory of knowledge and it guarantees certainty of knowledge as it is based on the firm ground of sense-data-the hardest of all data. The object of the present paper is to show that though S. E. has a lowly origin from naive realism, it has gradually attained a high degree of profoundness and can at present be claimed to be superior toP. E. for the purpose of guaranteeing certainty of knowledge of the extermi.l world.

I shall first examine the philosophical empiricists' original contention that an external object is reducible ·without remainder to what is 'given' to senses (sense-data). This really means that statements about sense-data can be logically transformed into statements about physical objects, or, in other words, sense­datum statements are logically equivalent to physical object statements. Such an equivalence requires sense-data to be both necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of the physical object concerned. p = q if and only if (p-:J q ). (q :::J p); ( p -:J q) expresses that pis a sufficient condition for q and (q -:J p) expresses that p is a necessary condition for q.

But it is obvious that physical objects can exist even if no sense-data corresponding to them are received. The chair in front

Mm.piricism aM Scientific Observation 1~

of me exists even when I shut my eyes. Otherwise, reidentifica· tion of the chair would not have been possible and its ontological status of thinghood would have been questioned. I cannot see anything in the dark although everything exists. Bacteria never appeared in the perception of human beings before Louis Pasteur discovered them under the microscope; did bacteria not exist before Louis Pasteur observed them? Did bacteria come into being for the first time under the microscope of Louis Pasteur? Sense-extending instruments like the microscope, telescope etc. have definitely proved the .falsity of the claim that sense-data provide a necessary condition for the existence of a physical ob­ject. The claim for logical equivalence of sense-datum statements and physical object statements is therefore untenable.

The above analysis clearly shows that physical objects are not reducible without remainder to sense-data; in other words, sense-data alone cannot furnish a full description of a physical object. Scientific empiricism endeavours to enqiu(e into those aspects of physical objects which are not directly 'given' to the senses. While P. E. does not permit any knowledge beyond that acquired strictly from sense-data, S. E. tries to penetrate ration­ally into the 'nature' of the 'thing in-itself'. Science deals with a large number of non-perceptible entities which are known only after interpretation of what is sensed by the observer or recorded by instruments with the help of theories of appropriate kinds. The scientific empiricists believe that there is an important con­tribution from the knower to the known, without which no know­ledge of the thing existent in the external world independent of the knower's sensation is possible. The natural sciences with the1r techniques of model-building are not dependent upon the assump­tion that the world as manifested in our senses is identical with or even very like the world as it is. Indeed in the sciences we con­struct a picture of the world as it is consciously different in several ways from the world as it is sensed.

Harre1 has remarked, 'Absolute objectivity of observation is not a possible ideal of science'. Pierre Duhem3 (1861-1916), a leading French physicist of his day was one of the earliest philo­sophers of science who clearly recognized that scientific obser­vation is a process loaded with theory. N. R. Hanson3 has also

i4 Aloka. Siddhanta,

stressed on the highly theory-laden nature of scientific observation. In a recent article Harris4 writes, 'The relation between observa­tion and theory is not in my view what traditional Empiricism alleges. No observation is intelligible and no experiment would be made apart from theory which is not only the conclusion drawn from them but is also the means of interpretating and recognizing what is observed, as well as of conceiving and design­ing experiments. Observations may never be merely random and haphazard if it is to be scientific; but without a prior hypothesis, random and haphazard is aU it could be. Experiment is actually the question that the scientist puts to Nature, and no question arises unless some theory has already been entertained'. We may illustrate the above remarks by considering the simple case of

· measurement of temperature. The anthiopomorphic term 'degree of hotness' has been re­

placed in science by the theoretical term 'temperature' in order to make it (temperature) a measurable quantity. It was tagged with the expansion of mercury which appears to run parallel to the increase in the anthropromorphic 'degree of hotness'. A capillary tube of uniform bore was used to make the instrument more sensi­tive and the observation easy. Only the coincidence of the top of the mercury level with a graduation mark on the glass tube con­stitutes 'the given' at the sensation level of observation; but the interpretation of this 'given' (i.e. the observed coincidence) as a record of temperature involves the use of several laws such as the law of thermal equilibrium (Zeroeth law of thermodynamics), the law of thermal expansion of mercury, the geometrical laws necessary for avoiding parallex error etc. The 'given' therefore forms only a fraction of the.totality of observation, theory form­ing the major part of it. The correspondence between the anthro­pomorphic 'degree of hotness' and 'temperature' is very vague. The sensation of hotness cannot be used for the measurement -or the temperature with any degree of accuracy. The assignment of a numerical value to temperature therefore caine in science by tagging temperature with expansion of liquids and gases and as such had nothing to do with anthropomorphic tactual sensa­tion. We read length (of the mercury column) to measure tempe­rature and since length is a measurable quantity, temperature also becomes measurable. Measurement of length involves its

Empiricism and Scientific Obser1Jation 15

comparison with another length-the unit length. At no stage in such measurement the tactual sensation comes in. Scientific ob­servation thus attmepts to establish the relation of one natural quantity with another natural quantity (here, temperature and length) without reference to human sensation. Scientific obser­vations can claim 'objectivity' in this sense. The term tempera­ture as it stands today in physics, is a neutral term detached from its anthropic origin. _But though it is a neutral term, in the above sense, the tagging of temperature with expansions of liquids or gases is based on a hypothesis (theory) about the relation of tem­perature with the nature of the gases and the liquids concerned . .

Let us now turn our attention to the philosophical empiri­cists' claim for the certainty of knowledge of external physical objects by basing it on the firm ground of sense-data-passive, in­corrigible, and therefore the hardest of all data. It is a common place of experience that physical objects look different when ob­served from different angles and different places. A round coin appears in perception in various elliptical shapes when looked from different angles; a building presents a manifold of appear­ances when viewed from different places; two parallel telegraphic wires appear to converge at a distance from the observer; the height of a man appears to be shorter and shorter as he walks further and further away. Such optical illusions 'compel us to admit the possibility that physical objects may appear to people otherwise than as they really are. The P. E. is at a loss to decide which of the manifold of appearances is the real appearance of the physical object. An extremist school of P. E. has been driven to the position that the external world appears to us always in disguise and therefore we can never know it as it is. Certainty of knowledge about physical objects as they really are is there­fore out of reach of philosophical empiricists of any shade.

The optical illusions cited above present no difficult problem to the scientific empiricist. He easily solves it by applying his techniques of measurement. Through measurement he establishes that the coin is round, the telegraphic wire maintains the same perpendicular distance everywhere and the height of the man remains the same however far he walks away.

Impressions obtained directly from sensation often fail to

16 Aloka SiddhantC'

identify precisely even the quality of a physical object; instru­ments can be made more sensitive compared to sense-organs in receiving signals from the physical object and therefore they are capable of identifying the quality of a physical object more pre­cisely. Amongst many examples, we may choose the following given by D. J. 0. Connor6• Four objects 1, 2, 3, 4 have slightly different shades of colour C1, C2, C3, C4 respectively, all in the yellow range say. The colours such that the pairs C1 and C2, C2

C3, C3 and C4 are not visually distinguishable, but Ci and Ci are. If we depend on our visual perception only, the following conclusions are reached in this case: Ci = C2 ; C 2 = C3 ; C3 = C4 ,

:. C1 = C4• But again," C1 = C4• A bare contradiction! If how­ever the wave lengths for C1, C2, C3, C4 are determined by reflec­tance spectra, using a sensitive spectrqphotometer the differences in wave lengths i.e. differences in colour (quality) will become obvious.

Scientific empiricism tries to penetrate into the nature of things by its technique of precision measurements of qualities of things and interpretation of the results with the help of appro-

. priate theories as to the nature of the thing-in-itself. Only qualities of things are measurable, but since qualities originate from the nature of the thing-in-itself, the measurement of qualities gives important information about the nature of the thing-in-itself. The more precise is the measurement, the more is the information received about the thing-in-itself. Since measurement is of pivotal importance to scientific empiricism, I wish to discuss here briefly the logical character of measurement.

To make any measurement on a thing, the scientist must discover a measurable quality (property) of the thing. For a property to be measurable, it must be determinable and conti­nuously variable, Properties such as length, warmth, weight etc. are both determinable and continuously variable, therefore mea­surable. For abbreviation, 'measurable determinable property' will be termed as 'magnitude'. According to scientific usage, measurable qualities are termed as quantities.

For the quality Q {o be measurable, the following topological conditions mus~ be fulfilled5•

(1) Q should be asymmetrical with respect to any two objects

Empiricism and Scientific Observation 17

x and y in the field of Q, i.e., if xQy, then x ._, yQx. Length is such a quality; if x and y denote objects which have length, then if x is longer than y, then y is not longer than x.

(2) Q should be transitive, for any objects x, y, z in the field of Q, i.e. if xQy and yQz, then xQz. It is obvious that the quality 'length' satisfies this criterion. •

(3) Q must be C-connected, for any two objects x and y in the field of Q, i.e. either xQy or yQx or xCy, C being a congruenc6 relation, indicating that xis congruent withy. In the case of length, either X is longer than y, or y is longer than X Or the lengths of X

and y are equal (congruent).

These three topological conditions have been derived from two and only two primitive concepts viz. the concept of between­ness and that of congruence (coincidence); the connection between the three topological conditions and the concepts of 'between­ness' ancl 'congruence' can be drawn as follows:

(a) There is an empirically given, asymmetrical, transitive and C-connected relation R, by means of which those objects which haveR to some other object can be ordered (concept of betweenness).

(b) If a given place in this order is occupied by more thc.n one object (e.g. several mutually congruent rods), then these bear to each other a coincidence relation, that is transitive and symme­trical (concept of congruence).

Whether a quality Q fulfils the topological conditions of measurement, should be found out empirically and this is the first step in any measurement. But the mere application of the topological conditions will only yield an ordered pattern of the objects e. g. a> b> c = d = e> f and so on. But such an ordered pattern is not enough for quantitative work in science, though it costitutes. the very essence of measurement. Therefore it is necessary to impose some other conditions (metrie' conditions) on measurements of science by the application of which a numerical value can be assigned to the magnitude concerned.

The metric conditions of measurement involve the arbitrary choice of a physiCal object having the property Q which fulfils the topological conditions; the magnitude of this property Q in

18 Aloka Siddhanta

this object is arbitrarily chosen by the common consent of scien­tists, as the unit for the measurement of the property Q in all other objects in the field of Q. The process of measurement is essentially an instrumental operation in which the magnitude of Q in the physical object under study is compared as precisely as possible with that of the unit chosen. The final reading of the numerical value of the magnitude under study is obtained by ,observing the coincidence of a pointer on a scale which are indis­pensable components of the instrument. When we measure magni­tudes of property like electrical resistance or mass or determine a quality like colour (wave-length) of a body the actual sense­datum report that we get is a mere coincidence of a pointer with a mark on a scale, which is not certainly the direct sensation of the property concerned.* The connection between the coinci­dence of the pointer with the mark and the magnitude of the property or the property itself is established through theories in scientific practice. The theory-laden character of measurements is inherent in scientific methodology.

With the advent of modern computerised instruments even the visual observation of the coincidence of a pointer with a mark has become unnecessary. The instrument yields the final value of the magnitude of the property in form of a number like 7.534. All instruments, specially the modern computarised instruments, are built with a large number of theories ingrained in them and only the final reading of data involves a nominal use of the visual sense organ. The theoretical component of scientific observation has gradually outweighed and displaced the anthropomorphic component of it,, namely, receiving signals through sense-organs.

In early days of science, a primitive type of empiricism which depended almost wholly on sense organs dominated the field of science. But laws and theories propounded on the basis of such primitive empiricism gradually made possible the growth of in­strumentation science; ultimately at the present time, instrument

The direct sensatio 1 of electrical resistance is in fact impossible to obtain; that of mass is the sensation of strain produced on the mus­cles to lift the body; and that of colour is the visual colour sensa­tion produced in the brain by light coming from the object.

EmpiriciJsm ancZ Scientific Observation 19

technology has become so sophisticated, that sense-organ em­piricism has given place to instrumental empricism. Consequently the philosophical empiricists' claim that we can be certain only of things which are 'given' to our senses has lost ground.

Epoch-making discoveries of this century e. g. the particles such as the positron, the neutrino, the antiproton, the rrieson and

relations such as e = mc2, J.. = )~- first appeared as prediction mv

from theories and then verified by ,experiment; and even in their experimental verification, the role of human sense-organs was minimal. Predictions of undiscovered entities and relations have been possible through the .play of logic and mathematics on observational data and theoretical constructs. The logical formulations of theoretical constructs were also done on the basis of precise measurements.

Measurement is essentially a comparison of a property Q of a physical object with the same property Q of another physical object and is based on only two primitive concepts -that of 'betweenness' and that of 'congruence;. In so far as it involves such a comparison it is objective in the absolute sense. But use is made of theories in the process of measurement and theories cannot be said to be objective in the absolute sense. Theories used in measurement have however to be accepted intersubjec­tively by the whole scientific community before they are so used. A large component of scientific activity is therefore intersubjec­tive. Whether this intersubjectivity is, in fact, equivalent to or at least a reflection of objectivity, is an open question which I do not propose to discuss here.

Philosophy Department Burdwan University Burdwan

NOTES

Aloka Siddhanta

R. Harre, The Philosophies of Science, Oxford University Press, 1974 (reprint), p. 23.

20 AZQka Siddhanta

2. Pierre Duhem, The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory, P. P. Wiener (Princeton, Univ. Press, 1954 ) trans. La Theorie Physique (Paris, 1914).

3. N. R. Hanson, Observation and Explanation, George Allen and Unwin, 1971, p. 5. See also Patterns of Discovery by the same author, Cambridge University Press, 1968.

4. Errol E. Harris, 'Empiricism in Science and Philosophy' in Impressions of Empiricism, ed. by Godfrey Vesey, The Macmillan Press Ltd. London, 1976, p. 159.

5. Arthur Pap, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, Eyre and Spottiswoode (Publishers) Ltd. Great Britain, 1963, p. 127.

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