Jac Christis

Theory and Philosophy: dissolving the realism-constructivism debate  

Abstract

The topic of this paper is the constructivism-realism debate, construed as an example of the intrusion of philosophy into science. Against this intrusion I maintain that philosophical problems are not only different from scientific and practical ones. They are also problematic in themselves. That is why their import into our scientific and practical work only creates confusions that hinder us in our work. The aim of the paper is to show that the philosophical problems that create those confusions need a Wittgensteinian therapeutic treatment. The method of the paper consists in comparing what philosophers (or philosophising scientists) say we do with what we actually do. After giving an example of what happens when a rightly respected scientist starts philosophizing, the method is applied, first, to the relation between language and the world and, second, to the relation between theories and the world. In the first application a story about three umpires is used to distinguish language and discourse, between questions of meaning (of the words we use) and questions of truth (of the things we say). In the second application a comparison between maps and theories is used to show the difference between assessing the truth of descriptive statements and explanatory theories. The examples of the umpires and maps are introduced by Weick and in both cases I show that neither constructivist nor metaphysical realist conclusions follow.

Key words: constructivism, realism, philosophy of science, Wittgenstein, therapy.

1. Introduction

The topic of this paper is the constructivism-realism debate, construed as an example of the intrusion of philosophy into science. By intrusion I mean such things as philosophers telling scientific researchers to get their ‘ontology’ and ‘epistemology’ right before starting their conceptual, theoretical or empirical research. It is similar to what Barber (1988) calls ‘the conquest of politics’ (by philosophy). Against this intrusion or conquest, I maintain, first, that philosophical problems should not be confused with and should be kept apart from scientific and practical problems. For example, both Quine’s problem of translation and Goodman’s problem of the identity of musical works are not problems of field linguists, musicologists and musicians. Quine and Goodman know. They explicitly stress that they are not doing linguistics or musicology: they are making a philosophical point (Quine 1969: 34) or solving a philosophical problem (Goodman 1976: 120). They both recommend the field linguist and musician to go on as before and not to be bothered by their philosophical work. That, I think, is as it should be. The relationship is one of mutual irrelevance. Against this intrusion I maintain, second, that philosophical problems are not only different from scientific and practical ones. They are also problematic in themselves. That is why their import into our scientific and practical work only creates confusions that hinder us in our work.

The aim of the paper is to show that the philosophical problems that create those confusions need a therapeutic treatment. Philosophical problems arise when we forget things (when we are philosophising) we all know (when we are not philosophising). What we then need are reminders of the things we tend to forget. The primary example of such a therapeutic conception of philosophy is of course Wittgenstein. It is a form of scepticism about philosophy. But the history of philosophy is full of examples of such a therapeutic conception. According to Fogelin (1994), the Pyrrhonian sceptics would be an early example and Wittgenstein a later one. And Nussbaum (1988) stresses the therapeutic similarities between Aristotle and Wittgenstein. Moreover, in the course of this paper I will make the claim that Bhaskar’s transcendental arguments are best interpreted as Wittgensteinian therapeutic arguments: they both try to remind us of what we already (but implicitly) know, for example by making “explicit what is presupposed by the activities in which we engage” (Bhaskar 1975/1997: 257).

The method of the paper consists in comparing what philosophers (or philosophising scientists) say we do with what we actually do. A short and straightforward example is the way Wittgenstein handles the realism-idealism debate by comparing what ordinary (that is, non-philosophical) parents do with what realist and idealist parents do. Ordinary parents don’t teach their children that physical objects like books and chairs exist and neither that they do not exist. They teach them to fetch books and sit in chairs, the existence of which is presupposed in their teaching. Explicit questions of existence come later: fairies and unicorns as against books and chairs do not exist. They are creations of our imagination or fantasy (Wittgenstein On Certainty, par 476). Now enter the idealist and realist parents. Will they tell their children ‘fetch that book, but don’t think it really exists’ and ‘fetch that book and notice that it really exists’? They may think so as philosophers, but as parents they will probably (and hopefully) behave as ordinary parents: they will tell their children to fetch that book period. But then, what is the use of their views outside philosophy? In the words of Wittgenstein:

‘One man is a convinced realist, another a convinced idealist and teaches his children accordingly. In such an important matter as the existence or non-existence of the external world they don’t want to teach their children anything wrong.
What will the children be taught? To include in what they say: ‘There are physical objects’ or the opposite? (Wittgenstein Zettel, par. 413)
But the idealist will teach his children the word ‘chair’ after all, for of course he wants to teach them to do this and that, e.g. to fetch a chair. Then where will be the difference between the idealist-educated children and the realist ones? Won’t the difference only be one of battle cry?’ (Wittgenstein Zettel, par. 414)

Whether the result of the paper amounts to much, depends on how you look at it. If dissolving confusions is considered as a great accomplishment, much is achieved. But, therapeutic philosophy still is a form of philosophy. It helps us in our battle against the intrusion of philosophy into science. It clears the ground (Wittgenstein) in order to get the real work started. But the real work is science not philosophy.

The paper has the following structure. The realism-constructivism debate is a debate about the relation between language, discourse and the world: do or don’t we speak (and think) about language (and mind) independent things in the world? We need a language in order to be able to say things about the world. This means, first, that we have to distinguish between language and discourse, between the meaning of the words we use and the truth of the statements we make. Questions of meaning (what determines the meaning of the words we use?) antecede questions of truth and refer to relations between language and the world. Questions of truth (what determines the truth of the things we say?) refer to the relation between discourse and the world. The statements we make can be descriptive or explanatory. When explanatory, they presuppose a theory. This means, second, that we have to distinguish between the way we assess the truth of descriptive statements and the truth of explanatory theories.

Given this structure, I proceed as follows. To set the stage I start in the second section with an example of what happens when a rightly respected scientist starts philosophizing. Mintzberg will be my example. In the third section, I move on to the problem of the relation between language and the world. I start this section with the famous story of the three umpires that use the language of baseball to call balls and strikes. The story is introduced by Weick (1979) and used to elucidate his notion of sensemaking and enacted environments. With the help of a pair wise comparison I first show that, against Weick, the second umpire is the cleverest one: no constructivist conclusions follow from the story. Second, I make explicit some of the presuppositions of the practice of umpires. Third, I compare these presuppositions with Weick’s notion of sensemaking and enacted environments and show that those notions don’t make sense. In the fourth section, I turn to the relation between theory and the world. First, I introduce a fourth umpire who uses a theory to interpret the puzzling things she saw. Second, I show that the way we assess the truth of descriptive statements cannot be applied to theories. Third, I confront the way Weick (1993) compares sensemaking with cartography and theories with maps, with what map makers actually do and show that no constructivist conclusions follow. At last, I draw some general conclusions on the different ways we assess the truth of theories. No theory of truth is needed here. In the concluding section I point to similarities between a therapeutic conception of philosophy and Bhaskar’s use of transcendental arguments. I end by formulating an answer to those readers who are thinking ‘with all your talk about intrusion and therapy, in the constructivism-realism debate you clearly come out as a realist.’
I want to stress that the paper is not an assessment of the substantive work of Mintzberg and Weick, but of what happens when they start philosophizing. As such its method resembles Bennett and Hacker (2003) on neuroscience. Moreover, my interest is in the philosophical moves made, not in the players: these are pretty standard moves, used by many players.

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