Aristotelian Perspectives For Post-modern Reason (i)

Prudence and Scientific Rationality: ‘Do not block the way of inquiry.’

For some of today’s thinkers, like Peirce and Popper, it is clear that in empirical science we cannot reach certainty, that no method exists[^49] that in any way guarantees the results of research, either in the context of discovery or in that of justification, or in any other. Popper sums up the situation thus:

‘As a rule, I begin my lectures on Scientific Method by telling my students that [the] scientific method does not exist. [p.5] [...] I assert that no scientific method exists in any of these three senses. To put it in a more direct way: (1) There is no method of discovering a scientific theory. (2) There is no method of ascertaining the truth of a scientific hypothesis, i.e., no method of verification. (3) There is no method of ascertaining whether a hypothesis is 'probable', or probably true. [p.6] ’[^50]

If anything characterizes reason in critical rationalism, that something is more of an attitude than the observance of a supposed scientific method, and that attitude is not exclusive to the scientist, but advisable for any person who in any walk of life wishes to act in a reasonable way. It is, of course, the fallibilist attitude.

Charles Sanders Peirce once wrote of himself that he was a thinker about whom critics never found anything good to say. One of his critics went as far as to say that Peirce did not even seem to be absolutely sure of his own conclusions. The sentence, naturally enough, was not conceived as praise, but Peirce used it, ironically, as grounds for pride, for ‘infallibility in scientific matters,’ he said, ‘seems to me irresistibly comical’. He even thought of adopting the term ‘fallibilism’ as a name for his ideas. Fallibilism, together with a great confidence in the reality of knowledge and an intense desire to learn, made up, in  his sight, the core of his thought[^51] . Peirce insists that the fallibilist attitude is the one to be desired in a scientist and that indeed arises from experience: ‘Persons who know science chiefly by its results -that is to say, have not acquaintance with it at all as aliving inquiry - are apt to acquire the notion that the universe is now entirely explained in all its leading features’[^52] . What has been growing since Newton, together with scientific knowledge, is the awareness of its limits. In other words, the fallibilist attitude is the fruit both of the scientist’s personal experience and of several centuries of experience of the scientific community, as is the prudence in general of human experience. The fallibilist attitude arises from our proven inability to predict with certainty what future science will be like[^53] , which is a consequence of the lack of a regular method. The method is formed with research[^54] , and its future alterations are as unforeseeable as the very content of future science.

It is true that sceptical tendencies are not new, but the fallibilism of the twentieth century has some distinctive aspects. In the first place, it is relative to a very specific undertaking of human knowledge, modern science, and as such, closes a circle of confidence in the possibility of human knowledge of reality and the command of it to become complete and certain by the application of the scientific method: it closes, therefore, modern times and depends on the experience acquired during them, it is not just another edition of Pre-modern or Modern scepticism. On the other hand, this fallibilism is not exactly sceptic, rather by distinguishing truth from certainty, it can continue to trust in the truth of most of our knowledge, although it maintains that we shall never be definitely and perfectly sure of knowing what part is indeed true. Present fallibilism has not lost hope in the possibility of true knowledge, but of certain knowledge. Moreover, present-day fallibilism rests on what Popper has called critical common sense, that is, there is no question - far from it - of doubting everything out of frivolity, out of pure play or out of method. Nothing could be farther from the fallibilist spirit than frivolity or methodical doubt. Never should criticism be taken as a destructive intellectual game. In other words, all our knowledge is subjected to a potential revision, for in any part of it errors may exist, but one must only really doubt when there are reasons for doubt. There are very clear statements by Peirce and also by Popper in this regard. Popper says: ‘There is a certain triteness and staleness about it that reminds me a little of a habit which I dislike: that of philosophizing without a real problem.’[^55] Fallibilism is in connection with a serious idea of research and its aims: ‘Rational discussion must not be practised, however, as a mere game to while away our time. It cannot exist without real problems, without the search for objective truth.’[^56]

Peirce’s criticism of methodical doubt is even more relevant in this context, for it is set clearly and consciously in the surpassing of modernity. Peirce accepts the common statement that ‘Descartes is the father of modern philosophy’. He tries to sum up the spirit of Cartesianism in four essential points, the first of which he formulates thus: ‘It teaches that philosophy must begin with universal doubt’. Peirce makes the following commentary on it:

‘It seems to me that modern science and modern logic require us to stand upon a very different platform from this [...] We cannot begin with complete doubt. [...] A person may, it is true, in the course of his studies, find reason to doubt what he began by believing; but in that case he doubts because he has a positive reason for it, and not on account of the Cartesian maxim.Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts ’.[^57]

[p.157]

Present-day fallibilism, rather than a thesis is an attitude. It is thus characterized by Peirce[^58] and Popper[^59] . An attitude, according to the dictionary, may be taken to be a disposition[^60] . Prudence is just that, a disposition (héxis ). Prudence and fallibilism are both attitudes, but are they the same attitude? Let us remember that prudence is intellectual and practical, and that fallibilism undoubtedly is, too. Both are intellectual insofar as they consist in a certain knowledge obtained from past experience. Both are practical inasmuch as they prepare us in some way for future action. Prudence is the virtue that produces practical truth. From my point of view, fallibilism as a guide for scientific action tends to the same end.

However, there is a difference: Aristotle did not clearly conceive prudence as a guide for scientific procedure. Something similar may be inferred if we put together two of his statements on this point: in the first place, he states that prudence seeks after the way of producing wisdom[^61] , while in the second he says that science is part of wisdom[^62] In any event, however, he was not very explicit on this point.

A second difference is concerned with the fact that today’s fallibilism depends on a concept of science that Aristotle could not have. Aristotle thought that science was knowledge of the universal and necessary[^63] . Of prudence he says that it is quite obvious that it is not science, ‘for it is, as has been said, concerned with the ultimate particular fact, since the thing to be done is of this nature’[^64] . It is a fact that nowhere in this text does Aristotle recognize the possibility of a scientific knowledge of the particular, nor does he directly accord prudence the category of guide of science, although he always considers it an intellectual and practical disposition according to reason and truth. Judging from this text, Aristotle does not seem to be a fallibilist as far as scientific knowledge is concerned. He goes as far as to say explicitly that when one is somehow sure of something and one knows its principles, one has scientific knowledge[^65] .

Thirdly, fallibilism today depends on a historical experience that Aristotle could not have had, the experience of the development of modern science, of the hopes deposited in it, of the memory of its successes and of the gradual recognition of its limits.

We could take as another difference the fact that prudence is not at the service of a partial end but of generally living well, that is, happiness, while fallibilism seems only to affect science. But fallibilism soon becomes critical rationalism and, in this form, shows an unstoppable tendency to be applied to more and more areas of human action. Popper’s use of critical rationalism in the terrain of political thought is a good example.

For all that has been said, I consider that fallibilism would be today’s version of prudence, or perhaps prudencebrought into today’s debate, shaped by the experience that we have today. The fallibilist attitude consists, in short, in assuming that, however much one trusts the truth of what one knows, an error may always be present and that this conviction must guide our actions. This disposition may doubtless be called prudence, it is prudence in today’s form, born from our historical experience. It is also the genuinely present form or reason (the reason ofActual Age ). This attitude, which in itself is practical, has in turn may practical implications. The practical consequences of fallibilism may be expressed succinctly in the following maxim formulated by Peirce:

Do not block the way of inquiry [^66] .

According to Peirce, inquiry cannot be blocked, not because it is an end in itself[^67] , which would make it a futile game, but because each and every one of us may be wrong, and to block the way out of the error would be rather irrational. That is, although we honestly believe in the truth of our ideas and have done our utmost to submit them to criticism, we cannot avoid thinking that even so they may be wrong, and we cannot avoid acting accordingly, that is, avoiding the block to search. But this implies that research must go onfor the very reason that its object is the development of true knowledge (may the tautology stand) and well-being.

Consequently, any action that tends to hinder or block the course of research must be considered both irrational and immoral. There are many attitudes of this type: dogmatic pedagogy, deficient information, forgetting or despising different traditions, subtle or brutal censorship of criticism, out-of-control and threatening applications of technology, hypocrisy and academic corruption, secrecy in research, and others.

On the other hand, Aristotelian prudence is a disposition which takes on full sense in conjunction with a given idea of the world and of mankind. Pierre Aubenque has researched into what this ontology and this anthropology of prudence are.  Prudence has no sense amid chaos or in a world of which it can be said that ‘what is rational is real and what is real is rational’. Well, fallibilism takes on full sense together with the same ontology and anthropology as Aristotelian prudence, whence the connection between the two also affording a benefit to fallibilism, which becomes much more lucid and fertile in connection with a metaphysics like Aristotle’s. Fallibilism today, as much as Aristotelian prudence, harmonizes well with an ontology and anthropology built on a basis of the notions of potency and act; they both harmonize with a pluralist ontology that contemplates a reality formed by many substances, like persons, animals, plants and elements, a reality with its own dynamic, not subjected to concept, but open to human intellection.