Twentieth-Century Philosophy of Science: A History (Third Edition) - Thomas J. Hickey

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And complete replacement deprives the two alternative theories of any semantical continuity, such that their language cannot even describe the same phenomena or address the same problem. In fact the new theory cannot even be said to be an alternative to the old one, much less a more empirically adequate one. The empirical undecidability due to alleged semantical wholism would logically deny science both production of progress and recognition of its history of advancement. The untenable character of the situation is comparable to the French entomologist August Magnan whose book titled Insect Flight (1934) set forth an aerodynamic analysis proving that bees cannot fly. Bees do fly, and empirical tests do decide.

      The thesis of componential semantics resolves the wholistic semantical muddle in the linguistic theses proffered by philosophers such as Kuhn and Feyerabend. Philosophers of science have overlooked componential semantics, but linguists have long recognized componential analysis in semantics, as may be found for example in George L. Dillon’s Introduction to Contemporary Linguistic Semantics. Some linguists use the phrase “lexical decomposition”. With the componential semantical thesis it is unnecessary to accept any wholistic view of semantics in philosophy much less any incommensurable discontinuity in language.

      The expression of the componential aspect of semantics most familiar to philosophers of language is the analytic statement. But the pragmatists’ rejection of the analytic-synthetic dichotomy with its a priori truth claim need not imply the rejection of analyticity as such. The contextual determination of meaning exploits the analytic-empirical dualism.

      Therefore when there is a semantical change in the descriptive terms in a system of beliefs due to a revision of some of the beliefs, some component parts of the terms’ complex meanings remain unaffected, while other parts are dropped and new ones added. For empirical testing in science the component meaning parts that remain unaffected by the change from one theory to a later alternative one include those parts determined by the statements of test design shared by the two theories, even if the executable test design was formulated after the older theory was initially proposed. Therein is found the semantical continuity that enables empirical testing of alternative theories to be decidable.

      Thus a revolutionary change in scientific theory, such as the replacement of Newton’s theory of gravitation with Einstein’s, has the effect of changing only part of the semantics of the terms common to both the old and new theories. It leaves the semantics supplied by test-design language unaffected, so Arthur Eddington could test both Newton’s and Einstein’s theories of gravitation simultaneously by describing the same celestial photographic observations in his 1919-eclipse test. Thus contrary to Feyerabend there is no semantic incommensurability between these theories. And contrary to Feyerabend there is there no historical evidence that the advocates of Einstein’s relativity theory had failed to recognize that Einstein’s theory is an alternative to Newton’s.

      Readers wishing to know more about the philosophies of Kuhn, Feyerabend, and Eddington’s 1919-eclipse test are referred to BOOK VI below.

      3.23 Componential Artifactual Semantics Illustrated

      The set of affirmations believed to be true and predicating characteristics universally and univocally of the term “raven” such as “Every raven is black” are semantical rules describing component parts of the complex meaning of “raven”. But if a field ornithologist captures a red bird specimen that exhibits all the characteristics of a raven except its black color, he must make a decision. He must decide whether he will continue to believe “Every raven is black” and that he holds in his birdcage some kind of red nonraven bird, or whether he will no longer believe “Every raven is black” and that the red bird in his birdcage is a red raven. Thus a semantical decision must be made. Color could be made a criterion for species identification instead of the ability to breed, although many other beliefs would also then be affected, an inconvenience that is typically avoided as a disturbing violation of the linguistic preference that Quine calls the principle of “minimum mutilation” of the web of belief.

      Use of statements like “Every raven is black” may seem simplistic for science (if not quite bird-brained). But as it happens, a noteworthy revision in the semantics and ontology of birds has occurred due to a five-year genetic study launched by the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, the results of which were reported in the journal Science in June 2008. An extensive computer analysis of 30,000 pieces of nineteen bird genes showed that contrary to previously held belief falcons are genetically more closely related to parrots than to hawks, and furthermore that falcons should no longer be classified in the biological order originally named for them. As a result of the new genetic basis for classification, the American Ornithologists Union has revised its official organization of bird species, and many bird watchers’ field guides have been revised accordingly. Now well informed bird watchers will classify, conceptualize and observe falcons differently, because some parts of the meaning complex for the term “falcon” have been replaced with a genetically based conceptualization. Yet given the complexity of genetics some biologists argue that the concept of species is arbitrary.

      Our semantical decisions alone neither create, nor annihilate, nor change mind-independent reality. But semantical decisions may change our mind-dependent linguistic characterizations of mind-independent reality and thus the ontologies, i.e., the various aspects of reality that the changed semantics reveals.

      3.24 Semantic Values

      Semantic values are the elementary component parts distributed among the meaning complexes associated with the descriptive terms of a language at a point in time.

      For every descriptive term there are several semantical rules with each rule’s predicate describing some component parts of the common subject term’s meaning complex. A linguistic system therefore contains elementary components of meaning complexes that are shared by many descriptive terms, but are almost never uniquely associated with any single term, because all words have dictionary definitions analyzing the lexical entry’s component parts. These elementary components may be called “semantic values”.

      Semantic values describe the most elementary ontological features of the real world that are distinguished by a language at a given point in time, and are the smallest elements in any meaning complex at the given point in time. The indefinitely vast residual reality not captured by any semantic values and that the language user’s semantics is unable to signify at the given point in time constitutes the empirical underdetermination of the whole language at the given point in time.

      Different languages have different semantics and therefore display different ontologies. Where the semantics of one language displays semantic values not contained in the semantics of the other, the languages are said to be semantically incommensurable. Translation is therefore made imprecise.

      A science at different times in its history may also have semantically incommensurable language, when the later version contains semantic values not contained in the earlier. But such incommensurability is rare, because it is routinely possible to resort to what Hanson called “phenomenal seeing”. And incommensurability does not occur in scientific revolutions understood as theory revision, because the revision is a reorganization of pre-existing information. When incommensurability occurs is it at times of discovery occasioning articulation of new semantic values due to new observations.

      3.25 Univocal and Equivocal Terms

      The definitions of descriptive terms such as common nouns and verbs in a unilingual dictionary function as semantical rules. Implicitly they are universally quantified logically, and are always presumed to be true. Usually each lexical entry in a large dictionary such as the Oxford English Dictionary offers several different meanings for a descriptive term, because terms are routinely equivocal. Language economizes on words by giving them several different meanings, which the fluent listener or reader can distinguish in context. Equivocations are the raw materials for puns. There is always at least one semantical rule for the meaning complex for each univocal use of a descriptive term, because to be meaningful, the term must be part of the linguistic system of beliefs. If the use is conventional, it must be capable of a lexical entry in a dictionary, or else

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