Approach To Science

Leszek Nowak Department of Philosophy, Adam Mickiewicz University THE IDEALIZATIONAL APPROACH TO SCIENCE: A NEW SURVEY(*) (I) Five
paradigms of idealization Various approaches to idealization differ, first and foremost, as to what the paradigmatic case of this procedure is. One may distinguish at least five approaches to idealization. Each of them localizes this procedure in a different element of the theory construction: at the level of the construction of scientific facts, of theoretical notions, of laws, etc. (1) The neo-Duhemian paradigm. Idealization is basically a method of transforming raw data. For instance, systematic errors that are generated by measuring devices are corrected and due to that scientific facts can serve the goals of testing, explaining, etc. It is Suppe's semantic theory of science (e.g. Suppe 1972) that is an explication and a development of this kind of approach thus deserving the name of neo-Duhemian paradigm 1. (2) The neo-Weberian paradigm. Idealization is basically a method of constructing scientific notions. Having a certain typology in mind, one may identify its extreme member. If the member is an empty set, it is termed an ideal type and the notion attached to it is labelled idealization. It is particular notions, or their definitions, that exemplify idealizations in science. The source of this approach lies in Max Weber's methodology. In modern philosophy of science it is Hempel's conception that is an explication of Weberian ideas (Hempel/Oppenheim 1936, Hempel 1961). (3) The neo-Leibnizian paradigm. Idealization is a deliberate falsification which never attempts to be more than truthlike. An idealizational statement is a special type of a counterfactual which has to do with what goes on at possible worlds given by the antecedent of that statement. The smallest is the distance between the intended possible world of the kind and the actual world, the truer the counterfactual is. That conception has been developed by Lewis (1973, 1986).
(*) By Leszek Nowak. A significantly expanded version of the paper published in: J. Brzeziski, L. Nowak, Idealization III: Approximation and Truth, Amsterdam/Atlanta 1992, pp.9-63. 1 Another, and formally elaborated, approach of the neo-Duhemian type is formulated by Wjcicki (1974, 1979), cf. also below Chap. 19.
Leszek Nowak
(4) The neo-Millian paradigm. No mathematical structure fits any piece of reality with full precision, there is always discrepancy between a mathematical formalism and reality we want to describe with the theory. Idealization is a means to fill a gap, i.e. to create a construction that would fall exactly under the mathematical formalism serving thus as a model for the imprecise world we live in. Ideas of the kind may be found in Mill2 and they are developed in the socalled Ludwig-approach (Ludwig 1981, Hartkaemper/Schmidt 1981). An approach to idealization presented below could be termed neo-Hegelian as it refers to Hegel's idea that idealization ("abstraction") consists in focussing on what is essential in a phenomenon and in separating the essence from the appearance of the phenomenon. Yet, not all idealizations may be interpreted realistically in this sense. Since I am interested here more in the methodological contents of the conception in question than in the philosophical presuppositions of it (cf. Part V below), I shall label that conception the idealizational approach to science. In this paper, I would like to summarize the main results of this approach. That seems to be worthwhile because of the fact that the significant majority of writings I shall refer to is in Polish. I shall also answer the main criticisms which have been recently put forward against the idealizational conception of science (cf. also my replies to older criticisms1974c, 1975c, 1976b). In particular, what I keep to be the main deficiencies of the idealizational approach to science revealed in some critical papers (e.g., Kuokkanen and Tuomivaara 1992, Paprzycka and Paprzycki 1992, Balzer and Snoubek 1994, Hoover 1994) will be corrected which results in some significant amendments of this paper in comparison with its previous version (Nowak 1992). (II) The core of the idealizational approach to science 1. Idealization and the notion of significance On the notion of essentiality. A scientific law is basically a deformation of phenomena being rather a caricature of facts than a generalization of them. The deformation of fact is, however, deliberately planned. The thing is to eliminate inessential components of it. It is taken for granted from the methodological tradition that not all the methodological notions need to be defined; some notions may be introduced as conceptual primitives, it is only the rest which is to be defined with the aid of earlier terms, in the final instance with the aid of primitive notions. As has been noted (cf. my 1980a, p. 97), the notion of influence is such a
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Cf. Kotarbiska (1974), Cartwright (1989), Hamminga and De Marchi (1994).
The Idealizational Approach to Sceince
conceptual primitive whose legitimation is that it serves as a means to define other notions of the conception under consideration. That notion was only characterized formally in order to justify a construction of the notion of essential structure, and images of the essential structure, of a magnitude. It has been presupposed that for every magnitude F there exists a set of all the parameters influencing it (the space of essential factors for F). These parameters were assumed to be differentiated as to the level of their significance for the determined magnitude. The relation: ... is more influential for .-.- than --- was supposed to be antisymmetric and transitive. The most influential factors are termed principal factors for F, the remaining ones are secondary factors for F. The (partially) ordered set of parameters of the kind is called the essential structure of F. The notion of significance (of one magnitude for another) is normally adopted as a primitive one. There have been several attempts to define that notion in more elementary terms (Nowakowa et al. 1977, Nowak 1989, Machowski 1990) but these definitions suffer from some more or less severe drawbacks (cf. Pogonowski 1978 for criticism of Nowakowas proposal, and Kuokkanen and Tuomivaara 1992, K. Paprzycka and M. Paprzycki 1992 for criticism of my own definition). Making use of these criticisms, I have corrected my (1989) formulations as follows (cf.1997, 1998). A value b of factor B influences factor F iff given that, for some x, B(x) = b, it is, for some m, neither F(x) = a1, nor F(x) = a2,..., nor F(x) = am. The set {a1,..., am} is termed the exclusion range of F relative to B,b and symbolized eB(F)b. The more essential a factor for F is, the greater is the range of values of F excluded by the fact that this factor adopts a given value. According to this intuition, the notion of the essentiality level of B for F, eB(F), is introduced as a ratio of the sum of all the ranges of exclusion of F relative to values bi of B to the cardinality of the set of all the values of F, Val(F). that is eB(F) = ! #EB(F)bi /# Val(F). If eB(F) = 0, B is inessential for F, otherwise it is essential for F. Now, B is more essential for F than A iff B has greater essentiality level relative to F than A has, i.e. eB(F) > eA(F). B and A are equi-essential for F iff eB(F) = eA(F). Let us make the division of the set of factors into sets of equiessential factors relative to F. The essential structure SF of the parameter F is termed the sequence of sets E1, ..., Ek such that (a) B, A " Ei iff eB(F) = eA(F), (b) for each A " Ei , for each B " Ei+1, eB(F) > eA(F). Factors of the highest significance for F, i.e. those from the set Ek, are termed principal factors for F, whereas all the remaining ones are secondary for F 3.
Kuokkanen and Tuomivaara (1992, note 5) found some real deficiences of my (1989) definition of significance and their criticism inspired apart from that of Paprzycka and Paprzycki (1992) the change in my formulations. I do not agree, however, with their suggestion to eliminate the over-determination case. The point of the criticism is that definition of eB(A)b admits the limiting case when the range of exclusion is identical with the set Val(A) of all values of the parameter A, and hence Val(A) determined by B relative to b may be empty.
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Assume that the sets of equi-essential factors for F are of the form: Ek ={H1,...,Hn}, Ek-1 = { p1k-1, ..., puk-1k-1 }, ...., E1 = { p11, ..., pu11}. The essential structure of F will then be of the form: SF: H1,...,Hn H1,...,Hn; p1k-1, ..., puk-1k-1 ................................. H1,...,Hn; p1k-1, ..., puk-1k-1; .......... ; p11, ..., pu11 Below, we will usually adopt some simplification assuming that for a parameter F given is its essential structure SF whose secondary part is composed of singletons and the principal part counts many elements: Ek ={H1,...,Hn}, Ek-1 = {pk-1},..., E1 = {p1}, or even reducing the set of principal factors Ek to one factor only: Ek ={H}, as well. The requirement of self-effective definitions. Some people ascribe the method of idealization an intention to identify the "hidden essence of phenomena", for example "(According to the idealizational approach to science) in order to discover the essence, the investigator would have to know it beforehand. What is thus the purpose of the method (of idealization L.N.]?" (Jorland 1995, p.277). This is understandable only on the supposition that, according to the quoted author, the notion of influence (and hence of the essential structure of a magnitude, etc) is to be self-effective. A term is self-effective iff its intension provides a procedure to determine whether an arbitrary object belongs to the extension of that term or not. Now, it becomes clear why Jorland demands: Nowak's "main task" should be "to give a criterion of 'influence', in order to tell whether a magnitude belongs to the (mentioned) set (the space of essential magnitudes for a given magnitude L.N.] or not" (ibid., p.276). Yet, the notion of influence, even if defined in the above way, is, obviously, not self-effective. The problem is whether this is a deficiency of the proposed approach or not. I do not have any elaborated meta-methodology at my disposal, I must admit. Let us then try to see what the history of methodology teaches us.
However, that was a deliberate move to admit this limiting case (the so-called total essentiality cf. Nowak 1995). The importance of it perhaps is not too visible in philosophy of science but metaphysically it is even crucial, at least for what I call the negativist unitarian metaphysics (cf. Nowak 1997, 1998, 1998a). Moreover, I do not agree with the claim of Kuokkanen and Tuomivaara (1992, p.93) that the over-determination case is at variance with my thesis that the maximum of the range of exclusion is the set of values of a given parameter minus singleton {w}, w being the value the parameter in fact assumes. For the thesis does not follow from the definition of influence (quite to the contrary, the definition admits that the range of exclusion may be empty). It is, instead, a reconstruction of the thesis of (strict) determinism in the proposed framework and hence a philosophically oriented restriction imposed upon the conceptual possibilities admitted by that framework.
Let us note that there was a methodological orientation which put forward the requirement that all concepts be self-effective. That was Bridgman's operationalism. However, the idea of reducing all concepts to mere bulks of operations failed entirely. It turned out, for instance, that this idea forces us to admit that there is not one notion of length measured in various way but as many as the (historically available) methods of measurement of distance. Moreover, there are epistemological notions of undeniable significance which are overtly not-self-effective. Take, for instance, the semantic notion of truth: "p" is true iff p. This Tarski-condition does not give any imaginable procedure to decide whether a given statement is true or not. Is this bad? Imagine that it is possible to define truth as a self-effective concept. A general procedure enabling us to decide whether an arbitrary statement is true or false would follow from such a definition. What would be the use for human creative thinking then? Creativity would be utterly superfluous in such a world: the question of truth would be in this world simply decided by philosophers applying such a definition to all possible statements. There, philosophy instead of understanding human creativity, would just eliminate it with the aid of its alleged "algorithm". On a similar basis a self-effective definition of influence equipping us not only with the notion of essentiality but also with a general criterion to decide which factors are essential for which ones would make useless the building of empirical theories. For in order to know whether, say, the velocity of a body is essential for its length not the testing of the theory of relativity would be necessary but simply a verdict of a methodologist applying his general criterion. Indeed, such a definition-and-criterion of influence would make a serious task of empirical sciences putting forward what may be termed essentialist hypotheses (cf. my 1980a, pp.111ff) entirely superfluous. To my understanding, it is not a deficiency but actually a merit of the idealizational methodology that it does not mix the notion and the criteria of essentiality. It is the task of methodology to explain the notion and the cognitive role of "essentiality" as it functions in science. But it is the task of empirical sciences to offer possibly many different criteria of influence of which they may make use building their theories. The purpose of the idealizational methodology. If not to offer any workable criteria of essentiality, what is the purpose of the method of idealization? Simply: to reconstruct the way science works. According to the idealizational methodology, there are three main stages of scientific conduct: I. pre-theoretical stage: postulation of essentialist hypotheses putting forward possible images of the essential structures of considered magnitudes; II. theoretical stage: postulation of a body of idealizational hypotheses which subsequently undergo the process of concretization;
Leszek Nowak III. empirical testing of the theory.
Another claim of the conception is that the three stages are mutually tied in the sense that what is decided in one may be questioned on another which forces the theoretician to come back to the "earlier" stage (Brzeziski 1977, 1985, my 1980a, p.33). In other words, the "order of reconstruction" in methodology is not the "order of justification" in science. The latter is not, strictly speaking, order at all but a network of mutual connections. In particular, it is not so that "after" gaining the "knowledge" of what is essential for what (stage I) the theoretician builds an idealizational theory (stage II) and tests it (stage III). It is rather so that it is only the test of a hypothetical theory which confirms the essentialist hypotheses adopted at the very beginning. Knowledge, suppositions, hypotheses. If the above point of view requires a philosophical legitimation, it is this. There have appeared three basic notions of cognition in Western epistemology (Marciszewski 1972). First one was that of Plato: to know something meant to be able to recognize for certain the hidden essence of things. Philosophy kept this notion of knowledge, and the belief that it is available for us, for more than one and a half thousand of years. This notion of knowledge is still present in Descartes. It was only Hume who called it into question and opened a new tradition . There is no knowledge in the Platonic sense, what is available for us is nothing more than a (far from being certain) supposition based on experience. The only thing we are able to realistically demand of ourselves is to increase the probability of our convictions. What is available to us are more or less probable suppositions, and that is all. Popper opened the third epistemological tradition: nothing is certain, that is correct, but we are not interested in increasing probability of our convictions at all. Were we, the most interesting for us would be tautologies which have the highest possible probability. Or stereotypes whose probability is, in our assessment, very high. Instead, claims Popper, we are interested in new, risky hypotheses whose initial subjective probability is always very low. It is novelty, or originality, of our hypotheses that matters to us. The three ideas of human cognition as knowledge, supposition, or hypothesis are based on some metaphysical assumptions. The idea of knowledge presupposes essentialism, the ideas of supposition and hypothetical cognition deny it. Now, the idealizational methodology attempts to combine metaphysical essentialism rather in the style of Hegel than of Plato (cf. my 1977a-b, 1978) with the Popperian idea of hypothetical cognition. For it is not true that we cannot put forward hypotheses concerning the hidden essences of phenomena. We can, and science is the best example of that. This becomes even quite obvious, if we realize that science uses idealization and that the testing of a(n idealizational) theory is at the same time the main practical means to assess the reliability of the essentialist hypotheses underlying it. A final refutation of
such a theory implies that the initial view of what is essential for the explained phenomena was doomed to failure from the very beginning. Therefore, new essentialist hypotheses and a new project of a theory must be tentatively proposed. Etc. The hidden essence is not something which can only be dogmatically believed in. Everything may be grasped hypothetically, for the hypotheticity lies in our attitude towards something, not in the nature of that something; empirical facts or God may be grasped either dogmatically or hypothetically. The hidden essences of phenomena may be treated as subject of hypotheses as everything else. A remark on methodology and philosophy. Let me add that the definition of essentiality plays an important role in a metaphysical conception for which it has been elaborated (cf. my 1991a, 1992a), but for the idealizational methodology, even if correct, it means much less than one could expect. It turned out that the primitive notions for the idealizational approach begin a bit earlier than expected, and that is all. Obviously, technically this means a lot the conceptual structure of the theory becomes more clear and comprehensible but its explanatory power does not profit very much from such an innovation. Such is the dialectics of definitions of the crucial notions of a theory: when they are lacking, everything in the theory appears to be unclear and dependent on the sense which is attached to the primitive notion. When such a definition is already given, it appears that the theory does not explain much more, if anything, than before. In other words, the idealizational approach to science is practically independent of the above definition. And that is what should be expected. One should not mix the explanatory tasks of methodology of science with the problems of philosophical understanding of science. Who accepts the body of concepts and hypotheses termed the idealizational approach to science may be equally well a follower of the instrumentalist (or relativist) vision of science or he may support the realistic (in the aristotellian or platonist sense) vision of science. The present writer is inclined to believe in an interpretation of science of the platonic origin but some people working on the same idealizational approach to science are of other philosophical inclinations. How science is understood depends on our reconstruction of the scientific practice given by methodology of science but also on our metaphysical views on the nature of reality and/or our epistemological understanding of the position of the cognitive subject. That is why, our explanations of the research practice do not prejudge our understanding of science, and vice versa. That is why, any definition of the notion of essentiality does not matter too much for the methodology of science. 2. Basic ideas and notions Idealization is not abstraction. The crucial point which follows from the proper understanding of the notion of idealization is that idealization is not abstraction
Leszek Nowak
(cf. my 1971c, 1975d, 1980a, pp.31ff) 4. Roughly, abstraction consists in a passage from properties AB to A, idealization consists in a passage from AB to AB. For instance, the move from the notion of an open capitalist economy (CEO) to the notion of a capitalist economy (CE) is an act of abstraction, whereas an act of idealization would consist, for instance, in a passage from CEO to the notion of a closed capitalist economy (CE-O). Sometimes it is claimed that the method of idealization "is akin to the classical abstraction and determination operations" known from the textbooks of logic (Jorland 1994, p.277). Not so. An abstract (general) statement: (2.1)students are laborious applies to our world directly, whereas, say, the statement:: (2.2) if (ff(x) & R(x) = 0, then s(x) = 1/2 gt2(x) does not. Instead, (2.2) applies to the ideal world in which freely falling (ff) bodies do not meet any resistance (R) on their path(s) depending in the way shown in formula (2.2) on the gravitational constant (g) and the time (t) of free fall. Moreover, it is actually the "operation of abstraction and determination" which suffices to show why the analyzed claim fails. According to the famous classical formula, as the intension of a series of terms increases (they become more and more abstract), their extension decreases (they become more and more
This distinction (cf., e.g., Harre 1970 or my 1970c, 1971a,c) is perhaps quite obvious but far from being methodologically exploited. Quite the reverse so, the two procedures are often mixed. In part this is due to the prevalence of the empiricist tradition of "abstraction" in the philosophy of science which differs greatly from the Hegelian tradition (cf. Coniglione 1986, 1990). But in part it is also a matter of the terminology. Let us then compare the terminology applied here with those of other authors. For instance, Hempel (1952) and Cohen (1970) apply the term "idealization" in the meaning similar to what is termed here so. Rudner (1966) and Barr (1971) apply the term "idealization" in the meaning close to what is termed here as ideation. Suppe (1972) terms "abstraction" roughly which is labelled here idealization but in reference to the data, not to the general statements; Wojcicki (1974) employs in this context again the term "idealization". Zielinska (1981) labels "abstraction" which is termed below reduction and "idealization" which is termed below ideation. The intuitions of Dilworth (1990) are similar and covered by the same terminology. Cartwright (1989) applies the term "abstraction" in the sense close to that which is termed below idealization, whereas "idealization" is used in the sense similar to what will be termed below "ideation". Etc. I must admit that the terminological confusion may be found in my early writings as well. In (1968, pp.82ff, 1970b) to distinguish the idealizational procedure I had used the term modelling (modelling conditions, modelling statements, etc.), then revealing the affinity of the underlying ideas with Hegelian/Marxian intuitions I passed to the term "abstraction" (1970a), and finally recognizing an enormous confusion resulting from the latter decision (1971c, in English 1975d) I have finally decided to use the term "idealization" (1970c, 1971a, b and further on). But in all these cases there were merely terms being changed, the notion was the same all that time.
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determinate) and, vice versa, as the intension decreases, their extension increases. We have already considered an example of such a series of terms: "open capitalist economy", "capitalist economy", "economy". Such a rule does not work, however, for the series of idealizational terms, that is ones whose meaning characteristics (a set of meaning postulates, a partial definition, a definition, etc.) embraces at least one idealizing condition. The extension of the term "closed capitalist economy" is not narrower than the extension of the term "capitalist economy"; the two have no elements in common, that is the intersection of these extensions is empty. The "law of decreasing extension and increasing intension" from the textbooks of elementary logic does not hold for idealizational terms. Idealization is counter-actual. By introducing idealizing conditions of the form p(x) = 0 the researcher eliminates factors thought to be secondary. What remains is the factor considered principal for the determined magnitude. A hierarchy of factors considered to be the essential structure for F is termed the researcher's image of the essential structure for that magnitude. An idealizational statement is a conditional possessing an idealizing condition in its antecedent. Having established such a statement the researcher must take into account the neglected factor. He removes the condition replacing it by its realistic negation and introduces a correction in the formula (consequent) of the statement. This procedure of concretization leads to a more realistic statement referring to the less abstract conditions than the initial idealizational statement. Thus, the idealizational structure of the F-phenomena is of the form: (T) Tk, Tk-1, ..., T1, T0, where Tk is an idealizational law: Tk: if (G(x) & p1(x) = 0 & p2(x) = 0 & ... & pk-1(x) = 0 & pk(x) = 0), then F(x) = fk(H1(x),..., Hn(x)] and Tk-1, ..., T1, T0 are its concretizations: Tk-1: if (G(x) & p1(x) = 0 & p2(x) = 0 & ... & pk-1(x) = 0 & pk(x) # 0), then F(x) = fk-1(H1(x),..., Hn(x), pk(x)] .............................................................................................................. Ti: if (G(x) & p1(x) = 0 & ...& pi(x) = 0 & pi+1(x) # 0 & ... & pk-1(x) # 0 & pk(x) # 0) then F(x) = fi(H1(x),..., Hn(x), pk(x),...,pi+1(x)]. .............................................................................................................. T1: if (G(x) & p1(x) = 0 & p2(x) # 0 & ... & pk-1(x) # 0 & pk(x) # 0) then F(x) = f1(H1(x),..., Hn(x), pk(x),...,p2(x)] T0: if (G(x) & p1(x) # 0 & p2(x) # 0 & ... & pk-1(x) # 0 & pk(x) # 0) then F(x) = f0(H1(x),..., Hn(x), pk(x),...,p2(x), p1(x)]
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with its subsequent concretizations5, including T0 lacking any idealizing conditions and being a factual statement 6.
Niiniluoto (1989, pp.34ff) proposes that instead of material implication, the formulation of the idealizational statement is to employ the counterfactual reading of if ... then as if it were the case that ..., then it would be the case that... (briefly, $). As a result, the sequence (Tk ), (Tk1 ), ..., (T0) is proposed to be rewritten as: Tk: (G(x) & p1(x) = 0 & p2(x) = 0 & ... & pk-1(x) = 0 & pk(x) = 0) $ F(x) = fk(H(x)] Tk -1: (G(x) & p1(x) = 0 & p2(x) = 0 & ... & pk-1(x) = 0) $ F(x) = fk-1(H(x), pk(x)] .............................................................................................................. T1: (G(x) & p1(x) = 0) $ F(x) = f1(H(x), pk(x),...,p2(x)] T0: G(x) $ F(x) = f0(H(x), pk(x),...,p2(x), p1(x)] where T0 is a factual statement, whereas Tk,...,T1 are counterfactuals claimed to be consequences of T0 (on the basis of the correspondence principle). Although I. Niiniluoto derives from that supposition important conclusions (1992, pp. 34ff, 42ff), the initial assumption seems to fail, both because of the semantic and epistemological reasons. Semantically, (T0) is a factual statement, indeed, as all the empirical objects G0 of the universe G satisfy the conditions pi (x) # 0 (i = 1 ,..., k), but T0 is not. Let us define (Nowak 1971a, pp., 1980a, pp. 99ff), x " G0 iff x " G & p1(x) # 0 & p2(x) # 0 & ... & pk-1(x) # 0 & pk(x) # 0) x " G1 iff x " G & p1(x) = 0 & p2(x) # 0 & ... & pk-1(x) # 0 & pk(x) # 0) .................................................................................................. x " Gk -1 iff x " G & p1(x) = 0 & p2(x) = 0 & ... & pk-1(x) = 0 & pk(x) # 0) x " Gk iff x " G & p1(x) = 0 & p2(x) = 0 & ... & pk-1(x) = 0 & pk(x) = 0). 0 G is a set of empirical (real) objects, G1 is the set of p1-ideal types (of the first degree) of empirical objects, G2 is the set of p1,2-ideal types (of the second degree) of empirical objects, etc. It is now visible that T0 refers both to the empirical domain G0 to which (T0) applies and to the idealized domains G1,...,Gk-1, Gk that the idealizational statements (T1), ... , (Tk-1), (Tk) refer to, correspondingly. T0 is then a kind of both supra-factual and supra-idealizational statement. The semantic status of conditionals of the kind deserves a careful analysis , to be sure, but (T0) cannot be simply replaced by T0, and the same applies to Ti and (Ti), for 0 < i < k. (Notice that also Kuokkanen and Tuomivaara 1992, p.92 express some doubt as for the applicability of I. Niiniluotos reconstruction in this respect). Epistemologically, adopting I. Niiniluotos stand the epistemological sense of the method of idealization becomes dubious. Assume T0 is somehow justified, say inductively. Once we know that, there is no need to visit ideal worlds (constructed nicely by Niiniluoto himself, 1992, pp.43ff) with universes Gi (0 < i % k). All we need for explaining, predicting and programming the empirical world is T0, allegedly factual a statement. Idealizations reduce to the role of counterfactual special cases of it and concretization becomes cognitively superfluous at all. Facing the so-destructive implications of the otherwise largely and precisely elaborated approach, one should, I believe, rather to take a risk and remain with the not so precise concept which at least allows us somehow realize the cognitive importance of the method which for the first glance is something really common in science. 6 Balzer and Zoubek (1994) pose two objections against the form of concretization employed in the text. First, this scheme does not cover all forms of scientific laws; for instance it does not cover purely qualitative laws (p.65). Second, while during the [concretization] transition the. . .connections [dependencies] may change, and will change, the value of property F remains identical (p.64). They add to the second point in the footnote This identity. . .is somewhat puzzling and seems to make sense only for a metaphysical realist (p.64, n. 21).
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As to the first point, the criticism addressed to the above formulations is correct. The above schemes are far from being general enough to cover all forms of scientific laws. However, making a general scheme need be not the starting point but rather an (ideal) outcome of the developing chain of explications. This procedure seems to be admissible on the following two conditions: (a) the initial explication is natural, i.e. it covers the classical representatives of a given kind, and (b) each of the elements of the chain of succesive explication is more general than their predecessors. The classical laws of physics seem to be classsical cases of laws of science [a] And the kind [b] of development of the idealizational approach to science was openly postulated (cf. Nowak 1974a, pp.21, 273ff, 1980a, part III) and actualized in numerous writings (cf. summary below par. III and par. V) in order to cope with the complexity of types of idealization and concretization in science; in particular, also idealization and concretization for the purely qualitative laws can be somehow conceptualized (Nowakowa 1996). Let us add that similar objection is put forward by Sintonen and Kiikeri (1995) complaining that although evolutionary theory is an idealizing theory in some sense, the Pozna type idealization schemata is not the best way to describe it (p.207/208). In fact, as it is visible from the form of Darwins laws (cf. above Chap 2), they do not fall under our standard formulae Tk, Tk1 ,... etc. In the light of the above explanations, Darwinian laws presumable belong not to the classsical centre of the colloquial class idealizations, but rather to its peripherry and some derivative schem of idealization is to be expected here. Indeed, Klawiter (1978, summary in English 1989) has elaborated a scheme of adaptive idealizational statement, a scheme of the adaptive concretization etc. legitimizing thus the intuitive work on the idealization in the theory of natural selection (astowski 1977, 1987, English summary 1994, astowski and Nowak 1982, cf. also above Chap. 2). However, there are difficulties in linking these schemata with the standard formulae Ti and Klawiters construction remains an interesting but separate conceptualization of some kind of idealizations. In this sense to a certain extent, although not straightforwardedly, Sintonen and Kiikeris objections still presents a real problem. Let us come back to the criticism of Balzer and Zoubek (1995). As to their second point, in F(x) = n one should distinguish three things and the postulate of their identity through the concretizational transition seems to have quite different methodological sense. For the sake of simplicity, let us consider the conditionals: (T1) if G(x) & p(x) = 0, then F(x) = f1(H(x)) (T0) if G(x) & p(x) # 0, then F(x) = f0(H(x), p(x)). Now, let us distinguish the three cases. a. One is the identity of object x. That is something which is not postulated at all. It couldnt be, as the object satisfying the conditions: G(x) & p(x) = 0 & p(x) # 0, and on the strength of (T1) and (T0) the conditions: F(x) = f1(H(x)) & F(x) = f0(H(x), p(x)) would be simply selfcontradictory. Actually those satisfying (T1) and (T0) are different. They are, however, tied in a special manner: the former G1 are ideal types of the first degree (cf. an explication in note 3a above) of the latter G0, i.e. empirical objects of the type G. b. The second possibility is the identity of magnitude F in (T1) and (T0). that is in fact presupposed which simply means that the range of property F includes both empirical objects from G0 and their p-ideal types (of the first degree) from G1. But this is, how it should be. Not only the sun but also the mass point possess a mass. If the researcher wants to model the sun, then he/she simply ascribes the suns mass to it making the theoretical sun. All these so commonly employed in science operations are possible on the condition that scientific magnitudes (mass, velocity, etc.) are defined on a universe transcending that of the empirical discourse. That is adopted in our construction and very well. How to understand this metaphysically is a separate matter. My present views on the subject are given in (1995, 1998, cf. also Chap.31 of this book). c. The third possibility of understanding of the objection is to comprehend it as the identity of the value F(x) of the magnitude F. This is admissible but only on the extreme case of what is
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Leszek Nowak
An idealizational law on F is thus identified with that of idealizational statements concerning F which is most abstract, i.e. neglecting all the factors claimed to be secondary for F, and takes into account what is considered to be principal for F. This notion of law allows then to preserve the traditional connections between the concepts of law, regularity, the essence, etc. For simple idealizational theory (T) presupposes a certain view on what ifluences the considered magnitude F. All the factors taken to influence upon F form an image of the space of essential factors for F. The factors thought to be secondary are omitted on the strength of the idealizing conditions whereas those considered to be principal are taken as "independent variables" from the very beginning. In our simplified scheme of the idealizational theory of property F the image of the space of essential factors of F, I(PF), is the set {H1,...,Hn, pk,...,p2, p1}, H1,...,Hn being the principal factors, whereas the remaining ones are secondary. Then one may say that what is presupposed by the idealizational structure (T) is the image of the essential structure: I(SF): H1,..., Hn H1,..., Hn, pk, .................. H1,..., Hn, pk,...,p2, H1,..., Hn, pk,...,p2, p1. The levels of this hierarchy of factors correspond to subsequent elements of the simple idealizational structure. Obviously, that there is a linear order of the strength of influence among the secondary factors upon F in the set I(PF), and that this order corresponds to the sequence of idealizing conditions, holds only in the extremely idealized picture of science. Below, a certain path from such a simplified scheme to more realistic, and thus more complicated, schemes of the scientific theory is outlined 7.
termed the degenerate concretization (Nowak 1974a, p.92, 1980a, p.192), when p proves to be, against the researchers expectation, inessential for F and hence for all elements of G (objects satisfying G(x)), f1(H(x)) = f0(H(x), p(x)). As a result, the idealizing condition p(x) = 0 turns out to be superfluous. Apart from the case of the (mistaken or instrumental) degenerate concretization, for genuine concretization when p is in fact influential for F, f0(H(x), p(x)) # f1(H(x)). It follows from the above that the postulate of the identity that is presupposed in the presented approach is one of identity of the magnitude (cf. b) during concretization which, as far as I see it, gives no reason to a methodological objection. 7 An important simplification silently adopted here is that only properties are considered whereas relations are neglected. This results in the following: (i) predicates in the schemes of idealizational statement, its concretization etc. are monadic, (ii) they are first order-predicates, (iii) interactions between determinants of a given magnitude are neglected. Since all these effects might make, not without justification, an impression of assuming the "purely Aristotelian ontology", I would like to comment on them in short. Re: (i). This is easy to be removed, by introducing relations and relational predicates, on the price of a complication of the conceptual apparatus from the very beginning (cf. 1977).
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Anyway, the crucial idea is that the theory begins with reconstruction, in the form of the initial law, of the dependence holding on the first level, and the further concretizations of the law reconstruct more realistic dependencies holding on subsequent levels of the structure. To put this in Hegelian terms: the (simple idealizational) theory can be thus claimed to be a discovery of (what is considered to be) the hidden essence of F-facts and a reconstruction of its manifestation through (what is considered to be) secondary influences 8.
Re: (ii). Indeed, for some types of statements this limitation ceases to be trivial. Namely, this concerns adaptive statements employed above in Chap. 2 (an initial analysis of these cf. my 1975) which appear in different branches of science (Klawiter 1977, Lastowski 1982, Kosmicki 1985) and which involve, in an irreducible manner, predicates of higher orders (Kmita 1976, p. 4lff). The question of applicability of the operations of idealization and concretization in the realm of these statements is analyzed by Klawiter (1977,1982) and Patryas (1979).
Re: (iii). It is presupposed here that no interactions between the elements of the space of essential factors occur. This is silently assumed already in the adopted definition of the notion of an essential property. Namely, it does not embrace the case in which two properties G and G' are non-essential for F, if taken separately, but are essential for F, if taken together. This might be expressed by saying that although G and G' are insignificant for F, their interaction int(G, G') is essential for F. Therefore, the essential structure for F is, in Brzeziski's (1975) terms, of the second kind (if there is, additionally, a single factor H essential for F) or of the third kind (if the interaction is the only element influencing F). I have not included these problematics because it would complicate our schemes very much. It will be mentioned below, section (V, 4).
A doubt may raise as to the methodological status of the thesis stating that science applies idealization (Batg 1974, Kirschenmann 1985). E.g., P. Kirschenmann claims that "it is not clear what kind of scientific practice Nowak would possibly count as an instance telling against his methodology" (1985, p. 15). For instance, if somebody proven that reconstructing physical laws, or economic ones, etc. as idealizational statements leads to the distortion of their contents and what is considered to testify to their idealizational character (e.g. comments referring them to "inertial systems", "closed economies" and so on) in fact supports, for example, the view of their inductive nature, then the idealizational conception of science would be falsified. This would also be a serious argument against the hypothesis of essentialism as it would then be difficult to maintain both that the world is essentially differentiated and that our best form of knowledge of it does not reveal this ontological property it has. Of course, the way in which methodologists `test' their conceptions is different from the way physicists take account of observation and the difference, to be sure, justifies enclosing the term in quotation marks. Yet, natural sciences are not the only form of science. What about the way the theoreticians of literature test (or `test') their proposals? What I claim is that the level of the development of methodology is akin to that of the traditional humanistic disciplines (Nowak 1974a, p. 277ff).
8
When a methodological conception is unable to conceptualize in its own terms any concrete example of a piece of scientific practice, it would be recognized to be, for example , an interesting logical innovation, but its attachment to the methodology of science would be, I conjecture, denied. On the contrary, the fact that it is possible within Sneed-Moulines-Balzer's paradigm to reconstruct the whole of physical or economic theories is a significant argument supporting the structuralist theory of science. To be sure, the method for testing methodological conceptions is on the level of the science of
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Leszek Nowak
Naturally, the image I(SF) of the essential structure SF may differ from the structure itself, either basically or derivatively. The image is basically different (resp. similar) from the appropriate essential structure iff it wrongly (resp. correctly) identifies the principal factor(s) for the investigated magnitude. I(SF) differs derivatively from the structure SF (resp. is similar to it derivatively) iff it does identify (resp. does not) the principal factor(s) for the magnitude F but is mistaken (resp. is correct) in enlisting the secondary factors for F. The analysis of possible relationships between the essential structure SF and its image I(SF) and their epistemological meaning leads to the problematic of truthfulness (Nowak 1977e, Nowakowa 1977, 1992) and will be discussed in Part VI 9 10.
literature; that is it reduces itself to quoting more or less accidental exaxnples. However, the more methodology comes to understand of science, the more rigorous, I conjecture, ways of testing its theories will be applied.
It is obvious that the role of abstraction in science may be conceptualized in a variety of ways. One may distinguish at least three of them: (a) treating idealizing conditions as antecedents of some (idealizational) statements (cf. my 1970, 1971a, 1972), (b) considering the as axioms of a theory (Barr 1971), (c) identifying "counter-factual elements" as rules of the interpretation of a theory to some purified data (Suppe1972). It is also obvious that nobody knows a priori which of these conceptualizations, if any, is a proper one and at least because of this it is worth developing all of them. For me possibility (a) is the most intriguing because of its philosophical presuppositions that allow, for example for the reconstruction of a large part of the Hegelian-Marxian heritage (Nowak 1980a, an alternative approach 1991, 1995, 1998, cf. also below Part V). But this is not a (methodological) argument since one could be found only in the explanatory power of a given conception as to what is taking place in science; only scientifc practice may give, then, arguments supporting one of them and discriminating against the other. I suspect that the greatest problem the conceptions (b) and (c) meet when facing scientific practice is the lack of the analogue of concretization of conception (a). But it seems that this may be better or worse met also in terms of these approaches. Let us take for example conception (b) and consider the set (Ik) p1(x) = 0, . . . , pk (x) = 0 of idealizing conditions. An idealizational theory will be termed a deductive system Sk = (Ak, Ck) in which set of axioms Ak includes set of idealizing conditions Ik, whereas Ck are derivative consequences of Ak. If Sk was applied to the world, the results would be clearly false. However, we are not obliged to do so. We can say after all that some of the axioms, namely those of set Ik, have been accepted because of the requirements of simplicity and are to be removed. And so, condition pk (x) = 0 is being replaced with its negation and a new deductive system Sk-1 = (Ak-1, Ck-1) is put forward, in which Ak-1 differs from Ak only because of the said replacement of pk(x) = 0 by the realistic condition pk(x) # 0 and set Ck-1 differs from Ck as much as the replacement changes deductive sequences in the new system. The latter can be said to be a concretization of Sk. And so on. The full theory would then be composed of the sequence of systems Sk, Sk-1, . . ,
9
So.
This approach seems to be convenient to explain the use scientists sometimes make of idealizing conditions; sometimes they use them as premisees of reasonings, indeed. Similarly, the (c)-approach allows for explanation of some intriguing aspects of the structure of scientific theories (Kupracz 1991, cf. also below par. IV2). Let us allow people supporting different approaches to develop them, as this is the only available means to state which of them has the largest explanatory power.
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10
Let us comment somewhat upon the famous thesis of N. Cartwright (1983) that the
fundamental laws of physics do not satisfy the facticity requirement (p.60). She argues that One of the chief jobs of the law of gravity is to help explain the forces that objects experience in various complex circumstances. This law can explain in only very simple, or ideal, circumstances. It can account for why the force is as it is when just gravity is at work; but it is of no help for cases in which both gravity and electricity matter. Once the ceteris paribus modifier has been attached, the law of gravity is irrelevant to the more complex and interesting situations (Cartwright 1983, p.58). Then she refers to the rule of addition of vectors stating that it does not help too much as [n]ature does not add forces. For the component forces are not there, in any but a metaphorical sense, to be added; and the laws that say they are there must also be given a metaphorical reading (ibid., p.59). All this, however, does not undermine the validity of fundamental laws. Let us consider the scheme of the image I(SF) with n principal factors and k sets of (equiessential) secondary factors. Assume that k = 0. that is all the sets of secondary factors for F are supposed to be empty, and the only determinants of F are its principal factors H1,...,Hn. In such a situation, introducing the idealizing conditions eliminating particular Hi-s is possible only without any essentialist justification. In the extreme case, only H1 of the determinant is accounted for and all the remaining Hi-s are omitted via idealization, then only H2 is accounted for and all the remaining Hi-s (including H1) are abstracted from, etc. In other words, the following series of idealizing/realistic conditions are postulated (Nowak 1971a, pp.184ff): (i1) H1(x) # 0 & H2(x) = 0 & H3(x) = 0 & .... & Hn(x) = 0 (i2) H1(x) = 0 & H2(x) # 0 & H3(x) = 0 & .... & Hn(x) = 0 ....................................................................................... (in-1) H1(x) = 0 & H2(x) = 0 & ....& Hn-1(x) = 0 & Hn(x) # 0. Under these, the appropriate idealizational statements are put forward: Tk1: if G(x) & H1(x) # 0 & H2(x) = 0 & H3(x) = 0 & .... & Hn(x) = 0, then F(x) = f1k(H1(x)) k T 2: if G(x) & H1(x) = 0 & H2(x) # 0 & H3(x) = 0 & .... & Hn(x) = 0, then F(x) = f2k(H2(x)) ..................................................................................................... Tkn-1: if G(x) & H1(x) = 0 & H2(x) = 0 & ....& Hn-1(x) = 0 & Hn(x) # 0, then F(x) = fnk(Hn(x)). In this case, the concretization is possible only on the assumption of superposition (e.g., adding) of component influences into the global one: fk = &(f1k, f2k ,..., fn-1k). Having assumed such a principle of superposition, the idealizational statements Tk1, Tk2,...., Tkn-1 lead to: Tk: if G(x) & H1(x) # 0 & H2(x) # 0 & ....& Hn-1(x) # 0 & Hn(x) # 0, then F(x) = fk(H1(x), H2(x),...,Hn(x)). If k = 0 in fact, then Tk is a factual statement T0. Thus, superposition is a concretization of a special sort. And it is as legitimate as every concretization is. Similarly, fundamental laws in the sense of Cartwright (of the form Tk1,..., Tkn1) form a special case of idealizational statements and are as legitimate as all the idealizations are. In (1989) Cartwright is closer to such an understanding of the matter Here is a nice formulation of the idea underlying the notion of concretization: in case of an ideal situation all other disturbing factors are missing. . . .When all other disturbances are absent, the factor manifests its power explicitly in its behavior. When nothing else is going on, you can see what tendencies a factor reveals by looking at what it does. This tells you something about what will happen in very different, mixed circumstances but only if you assume that the factor has a fixed capacity that it carries with it from situation to situation. (Cartwright 1989, pp. 190-91).
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Leszek Nowak
The form of a law of science. The adopted form of a scientific law may appear today out-of-dated (indeed, Diederich 1994 calls it "anachronic"). Well, that is really a rather traditional point of view. What matters, however, are arguments. My arguments would run as follows. It is notoriously true that scientists use not the conditionals but the formulae, for example equations, calling them scientific laws. Prima facie then, the followers of the idea law is a predicate (e.g., the structuralists, Wjcicki 1974, 1979 and others) are in a better position as what they claim does accord with the linguistic custom in science. However, the way in which an expression is used often does not matter too much: sometimes it is of significance, sometimes it is confused. Think, for instance, of a biologist who would be inclined to classify plants according to the natural language a crucial category for him would be one of "vegetables" which is an absurd notion from a theoretical standpoint (cf. below Chap. 20). A proper criterion for such a discussion would be, I think, the following: assuming a given linguistic stipulation, try to explain from your standpoint the reasons underlying the contrary one adopted by your protagonist. The problem from my point of view is, then, to understand why the scientists call the formulae the scientific laws. The answer is that they spontaneously look for the factors considered to be principal for the investigated magnitudes. The way such a factor influences a given magnitude is grasped in the formula of the appropriate idealizational law; the antecedent of it abstracts instead from the working of factors treated to be secondary for this magnitude. The list of those factors always changes and is never considered to be complete. In case of finding counterexamples for the formula, the scientist normally assumes that the formula is correct, it is only the list of secondary factors which is incomplete and attempts to find a source of the discrepancy, i.e. an hitherto unknown secondary factor causing the deviations. As a result, the antecedent of the conditional changes with the formula which is kept in force (cf. 1980A, pp.201ff, also below section 6 and Chap5). Therefore, the conditional Ti, quite "symmetric" from the methodologist's point of view is for the scientist evidently "non-symmetric" the consequent of it is for him much more important than its antecedent. It is not surprising that in his linguistic custom he focuses on what is crucial for him. If I am not mistaken, given my assumptions it is possible to explain why science applies the terminology contrary to mine. I cannot, however, imagine how the approach identifying a law with the appropriate predicate could explain the fact that sometimes scientists explicitly formulate idealizational conditionals calling them the laws of nature. For instance: Kittel et al. (1969, p.77) expresses the law of inertia as follows: "a = 0, when F = 0". Marx formulated the law of value in the following manner: "if demand and supply balance each other, then the market prices of commodities correspond to their natural prices, that is, their
17
values defined by the corresponding amounts of labor indispensable for the production of these commodities" (Marx 1845, p.141; italics of the original); etc. Is it really permissible for a methodologist to make the law of inertia "shorter" distorting the original formulation? When a theory is realistic? Obviously, I do not take arguments of this kind as "decisive" in any sense. What can be seriously said is simply this: in the respect analyzed above the conception of law as an idealizational conditional agrees with scientific facts better than one identifying the law with a formula. I am perfectly aware that there are also respects under which the latter prevails the former. If the history of philosophy of science teaches us anything at all, it teaches us that no "decisive arguments" in our domain exist. Everything is instead a matter of balancing arguments and counterarguments in order to keep the basic idea that underlies the whole conception working. The idea in question is that of realistic interpretation of a scientific theory. For the structuralists, I guess, "realistic" in science means "sufficiently close to the empirical facts"; this is an empiricist tradition or, rather, what remained out of it in the so sophisticated approach as structuralism W. Diederich adheres to. For me, "real" means in science "essential", that is "not disturbed by the accidentalities"; this is the Hegelian tradition in which "real" stands in an intimate relation with "essential" (and "true" cf. Part IV of this book). How to decide between the two without engaging in an open metaphysical discussion which I want to avoid here? As philosophers of science we should not develop an overt metaphysics, we are instead obliged to respect the metaphysical assumptions accepted in science. My conjecture is that science respects an ontology which is closer to Hegel rather than to Bacon. The most straightforward reasons are these. a. Consider the current terminology in science. It is Newton's most idealized laws for the mass points, inertial systems etc. that are termed "principles" not their numerous concretizations much closer to the empirical world. The closer is a statement to the empirical facts the lesser chance it has to gain the dignity of a "principle", "basic law", etc. Also proper names ("Ohm's law", "Lorentz's transformations", "Domar-Harrod's model" etc.) are attached most often to idealizational laws (i.e., the most abstract idealizational statements), not to their concretizations closer to the actual facts. b. The quite spontaneous criteria of evaluation in science incline us to name a crucial discovery (an interesting or innovative idea etc.) a new proposal of the idealizational law in the given domain, and not any concretization of the already established law; the terminological custom noted above is only a manifestation of this. Were the attitude of scientists close to the one adopted by my critic, one could rightly expect the reverse to be true. For the new idealizational law as such does not contribute to the diminishing of the discrepancies with facts (sometimes
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Leszek Nowak
the opposite holds true), it is the concretizations of the old idealizational law that do. c. Most important changes in science, sometimes referred to as revolutionary, consist actually in replacing one idealizational law by another (e.g., the Aristotelian principle of inertia by the Galilean-Newtonian one), not in their concretizations although it is actually the former, not the latter, which make the whole machinery closer to empirical facts. And so on, and so forth. All this testifies not to any negligence of the empirical testing in science but, I would risk saying, to a better understanding of its role. First and foremost, nobody knows in advance what is essential for what. That is a matter of theoretical hypotheses which undergo constant tests eliminating less adequate images of the hidden, essential sides of reality. Some errors of idealization. Given the idealizational statement: (2.3) if (G(x)& p (x)= 0 & q(x)= 0 & r(x)= 0, then F(x)= f(H(x)) one thing is forbidden: to relate it directly (i.e., without concretization or approximation) to reality using the following reasoning pattern: (2.4) if (G(x)& p (x)= 0 & q(x)= 0 & r(x)= 0, then F(x)= f(H(x)) G(a) 'F(a)= f(H(a). This is the fallacy of reification of idealization. The reason for considering this reasoning pattern fallacious is obvious. In inference (2.4) the conclusion does not follow from the premisees. On the other hand, if the enthymematic premisees, p(a) = 0, etc. will be added to the scheme (2.4), the body of premisees will prove to be contradictory. For, according to the knowledge on which our idealizational statement t is based, p(a) # 0, q(a) # 0 and r(a) # 0. Let us add for the sake of symmetry that, given the factual statement: (2.5) if (G(x), then F(x) = f(H(x)), which is falsified by finding such a that G(a) & F(a) # f(H(a), it is forbidden to add an idealizing condition ad hoc, that is, without making an effort to remove it and to correspondingly correct the formula of the statement. In other words, passage from (2.5) to (2.2) is forbidden as long as it is merely a means of saving a threatened theorem. 3. Approximation Normally, however, final concretization is not met in science. Normally, after introducing some corrections the procedure of approximation is being applied. that is all the idealizing conditions are removed at once and their joint influence is assessed as responsible for the deviations up to a certain threshold (. Therefore,
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explaining the F-phenomena the researcher will be referring to the simple approximative structure of the type: (AT) Tk, Tk-1, ..., Ti, ATi, where Tk, Tk-1, ..., Ti are of the above form whereas ATi is an approximation of Ti, i.e. a factual statement of the form: ATi: if (G(x) & p1(x) # 0 & ... & pi (x) # 0 & pi+1(x) # 0 & ... & pk-1(x) # 0 & pk(x) # 0), then F(x) )( fi (H(x), pk(x),..., pi+1(x)]. Obviously, given the threshold (, it is both possible that already the approximation of the idealizational law ATk is true and that it is actually false and some concretization steps are necessary to obtain a formula complicated enough to deviate from the empirical F-facts by (. In the second case idealizational statements Tk, Tk-1, ..., Ti+1 are approximatively false (that is, their approximations ATk, ATk-1, ..., ATi+1 are true) and it is only the idealizational statement Ti (i < k) that is approximatively true (i.e., its approximation Ati is true). In science one may find examples of both cases which is to say that pure idealizations, i.e. idealizational laws that do not apply to the empirical facts even approximatively are fully legitimate (Nowak 1973, 1974a, pp. 158-60) 11 Approximation proves then to be a subsidiary means in relation to the concretization procedure. When a researcher is not in a position (or, there is no cognitive need) to apply the latter, he refers to approximating his idealizational statements. 4. Idealizational theory and explanation The sequence (AT) is somewhat better approximation to theories that are built in the actual scientific practice than the simple idealizational structure (T). Still, it is far removed from the scientific practice. When building an idealizational theory in science, more statements are equipped in one and the same list of idealizing conditions. Then they are concretized by gradually admitting the previously neglected secondary properties and modifying the formulas of these statements. The laws become more and more complicated and therefore ever closer to the empirical reality. And also the body of them in subsequent models of the increasing realism becomes larger and larger. This procedure continues until the most realistic model becomes a sufficient approximation of the given system.
Compare Cartwrights thesis that there are fundamental laws which are not even approached in reality. They are pure fictions (1983, p.153). Let us note that in the Polish methodological literature the idea of admissibility of idealizational laws whose approximations are empirically false mentioned in the text has been vividly discussed, usually criticically (Wjcicki 1974, Krajewski 1974b, Siemianowski 1976, and others).
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Leszek Nowak
The structure of a scientific theory is thus given by a sequence of models Mk, Mk1 , ..., Mi, AMi, where Mk is the most abstract model equipped with k idealizing conditions, Mk-1 ...Mi being its subsequent concretizations, finally, AMi is an approximation of the least abstract of these models Mi to the empirical reality (cf. Nowak 1971a, 1980a). There are two ideas of explanation. One is that to explain that F(a) means that it is always the case that F(x), where x ranges over the class G whose member is a. This suffers from the famous objection of Feyerabend: it is strange to answer to the question why F(a) by recourse to the facts that F(b), F(c),... (a, b, c... are members of G), that is to the facts which are ununderstandable well as the initial fact to be explained. The other tradition is that to explain means to find the essence of what is to be explained. And this is actually the idea which is adopted in the idealizational approach to science. The idealizational law, given a definite image of the essential structure of the determined magnitude, is an idealizational statement which neglects all the factors claimed, truly or not, to be secondary. Such a statement refers then to (what is considered to be) the way in which the principal factors influence the given magnitude, i.e. to (what is considered to be) the regularity. The concretizations of the law reveal instead how the regularity manifests itself in the conditions closer and closer to reality . All of them reconstruct how the essence is deformed by all the actual disturbances, that is how the phenomenon deviates from its essence. The model of perfect explanation is thus the following: to explain perfectly a certain F-fact means (1) to identify and select in an accepted idealizational theory a sequence of statements Tk, Tk-1, ..., T1, T0 where (i) its first member is the idealizational law of the magnitude F and the remaining ones are the subsequent, and all, concretizations of the law provided by that theory, (ii) to deduce from the last member of the sequence, i.e. the factual statement T0, and appropriate initial conditions C, the statement E (explanandum) describing the given F-fact 12.
N. Cartwright puts in question the deductive-nomological (D-N) model of explanation emphasizing that [i]t is never strict deduction that takes you from the fundamental equations at the beginning to the phenomenological laws at the end (1983, p.104). Identifying the fundamental laws with idealizational ones and phenomenological laws with their (final) concretizations or approximations of their (far enough) concretizations one may state that her criticism is both too strong and too
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In the limiting case, i.e. when n = 0, we obtain the usual D-N model of explanation: T0 C 'E. The model of approximate explanation differs from the above only by reference to a sequence: Tk, Tk-1, ..., Ti, ATi. That is why not the given F-fact but a class of F-facts defined by the threshold of approximation ( can be derived from such a structure 13.
weak. Too weak because the relation of concretization is not a weakened deduction, but a relation sui generis. Too strong because the D-N model is not simply wrong as Cartwright calls it (1983, p.107). In the light of the idealization-concretization (I-C) model of explanation, the D-N model holds good in the extreme, factualist case. The I-C model is but a generalization of the D-N model: it says that the D-N model works for the factual statements but it is wrong for the idealizational laws. Cf. Chap. 16.
Diederich (1994) claims that in the model of explanation (let us take for the sake of simplicity its non-approximativist version) which I defend the whole story with concretization is redundant because what actually explains the fact F under the initial conditions E is the factual law T0. Two arguments are given for this supposition. First, we use in explanation only the final expression T0 & E which is to perfectly agree with Hempel's model - because we cannot apply the idealizational laws to the real conditions. Second, all the idealizational statements are consequences (the limiting case) of the factual presumption T0. I do not agree with the first argument. The legitimation for the use of idealizational statements in explanation is their role in deriving the factual statement T0 via concretization. They legitimate T0, not E directly. It will be useful to employ the well-known distinction between "explaining laws" and "explaining the facts". One could say that the idealizational premisees, including the first of them, i.e. the law Tk, explain the (general) factual statement T0, whereas the latter explains the (singular) statement about the fact F. The second argument is much more subtle for it refers to a controversial problem of the logical relationship between an idealizational statement and its concretizations. That is really a serious problem and it may be solved in various ways. One is them is what Diederich claims: concretization is a special case of the relation of entailment. But that position is not mine. It is visible that Ti-1 is not more general than Ti : their ranges of application do not intersect. That is so obvious that it should be explained how it is possible that the prominent methodologist does not acknowledge this very fact. The reason, I conjecture, is that concretization is (mis)conceived as an operation of deleting an idealizing condition (cf. also Krajewski 1977), not as one of replacing it with an appropriate realistic condition. For instance, if concretization is understood as a passage from: (t) if (G(x)& p(x) = 0 & q(x) = 0, & r(x) then F(x)= f(H(x)) to , (t) if (G(x)& p(x) = 0 & q(x) = 0, then F(x)= f(H(x, r(x)) , further to: (t) if (G(x)& p(x) = 0, then F(x)= f(H(x), r(x), q(x)) , and finally to:
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5. Testing idealizational laws
Leszek Nowak
The rule of delayed falsification. The procedure of testing the idealizational statements is not easy to imagine from the standpoint of the idealizational approach to science. In part, the matter is easy to comprehend. Given the idealizational law Tk , one may identify a special sort of conditions C, call them classical ones, and approximate that law for the classical conditions, that is to form the approximation of that law limited to C: ATk/c: if (C(x) & p1(x) # 0 & ... & pi(x) # 0 & pi+1(x) # 0 & ... & & pi-1(x) # 0 & pk(x) # 0) then F(x) )( fk(H(x)]. This statement can be tested directly. If the outcome is positive, it confirms the idealizational standard from which it is a deviation. If not, the standard Tk is disconfirmed. If the classical conditions cannot be found, the researcher may create them. That is how the role of experiment is explained the sense of it is to secure approximation for the idealizational laws (Nowak, 1971a, p. 215, for a more sophisticated account cf. Patryas 1976, summary in 1982). If, however, no classical cases can either be found or created there, i.e. if the approximation of a given idealizational law is false for all the subsets of its actual range, then the problem is how an idealizational statement could be tested against the empirical data: (5.1) F(a) = k
(t) if (G(x), then F(x)= f(H(x, r(x), q(x), p(x)) then it is obvious to claim that concretization consists in generalization. However, (t) differs from ct, and so do statements (t) and cct, and (t) and cct. The statement (t) is neither factual, as ccct is, nor idealizational as t is. (t) is a more general statement applying both to the ideal worlds deprived of factors p and/or q and/or r and the actual world in which all these factors operate. How to interpret this metaphysically is another matter, and my present views on that subject, I would like to add, differ from those of the seventies, i.e. ones underlying the writings W. Diederich deals with. At present, I am rather inclined to think that D. Lewis's doctrine of modal possibilism requires a significant strengthening and to admit the existence of the ideal worlds including the empty world ("nothingness") in which all the magnitudes are idealized (reduced - cf. 1991, also Chap.31). But the outlining of this metaphysical proposal (cf. 1998) would lead us too far here. For the task of this discussion it suffices to say that what I have not changed are the above schemes of an idealizational statement and its concretization. And those schemes imply that the former is not a special case of the latter. It is only the formula (consequent) of the idealizational statement which is - if taken in itself - a special case of the formula of its concretization. But the unit of science are, I am still inclined to think, not the formulae themselves - let alone the formulae treated formally, without a substantive (e.g. economical) interpretation but the conditionals.
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For the sake of clarity, let us consider simplified schemes. The answer is easy in case of a factual statement: (5.2) if G(x), then F(x) = f(H(x)) Indeed, under the asssumptions (5.3) G(a) & H(a) = l , if it is the case that (5.4) k = f(l), then the factual statement (f) is confirmed, otherwise it is not. Yet, how the statement with idealizing conditions: (5.5) if G(x) & p(x) = 0 & q(x) = 0, then F(x) = f(H(x)) can be tested against data concerning the empirical object a i.e. one which does not meet any of these conditions is not clear at all. One thing seems to be certain: Poppers paradigm of falsification (Popper 1959) according to which science tests its theories following the modus tollendo tollens (MTT), does not work in the case of idealizational statements at all. For if (5.5) is an idealizational statement, then neither (5,1) or its negation cannot be derived from (5.5). In both cases the error of reification (cf. above 2) is committed. What may follow from (i) are merely positive idealizational observational statements: (5.6) if p(a) = 0& q(a) = 0, then F(a) = k or negative ones: (5.6)* if p(a) = 0 & q(a) = 0, then F(a) # k which dismisses Popperian rule of falsification, because statements of the form cannot be found with the aid of observation. A tentative solution to this problem was the following (cf. my 1971a, 1980a). The idealizational statement is concretized step by step by admitting the previously neglected secondary properties and modifying its formula. The last idealizational statement is approximated to reality and ATi is obtained. Whether ATi is true, or not, only experience will decide. If *F(a) fi(H(a), pk(a),..., pi+1(a))* % ( then ATi is confirmed (directly, and indirectly so is also Tk). If not, then Tk is disconfirmed. In case of our simplified example, what is necessary is a concretization of (i) of the form: c(5.5) if G(x) & p(x) # 0 & q(a) = 0, then F(x) = f (H(x), p(x)). Under assumptions:
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(5.7) G(a) & H(a) = l & p(a) = & & q(a) # 0, if it is the case that (5.8) *k f (l, )* % (, then the concretization c(5.5) is confirmed, otherwise it is not. Such a grasp makes it necessary to get rid of the famous claim that a universal for which a counterexample has been found is to be rejected. Not so for the idealizational universals. One should distinguish between real counterexamples and prima facie counterexamples. A fact is a prima facie counterexample of Tk if it negates the approximation ATk of it but there is such a concretization Ti of Tk that the same fact does not negate the approximation ATi any more; that means that the deviation inherited in this fact is smaller than the threshold of deviations from the corrected formula in the consequent of Ti. On the other hand, a real counterexample is one which negates all approximations ATk,... AT1, and also the final concretization T0. Now, in actual scientific practice the prima facie counterexamples are taken as confirmations, and not disconfirmations, of the idealizational law. And when a fact negating such a statement is being found, then the main effort of theoreticians is to prove that it is merely a prima facie counterexample, i.e. that it suffices to concretize that law in order to explain the discrepancy and take what seems to negate the law as a confirming case (Nowak 1971a, 1980a, pp. 163-64) 14 . It has also been argued that the outlined grasp of testing allows for including the well-known idea that a theory provides empirical facts with a definite interpretation (Klawiter 1975a). How to empirically discriminate among idealizations? Sometimes the cognitive usefulness of the rule of delayed falsification is put in doubt. Hoover (1994) asks the following question. Assume that there are two competing
This is the rule applied by Marx in Capital (cf. my 1971a, 1980a). Hence, Hamminga and De Marchi (1994) correctly observe that Marx would manage with counterexamples in that style (p. 38). It is not clear, however, on what basis they distinguish McCulloch's rule of dealing with counterexamples ("Whereas you - erroneously - 'see' a counterexample, I teach you to recognize that it is actually an example" - ibid.) and contrast it with the Marxian one. I would say that the Marxian rule actually consists in revealing to the critic that where s/he sees a counterexample (to a too early approximation of the idealizational law) it proves to appear (after further steps of concretization) actually an example confirming the law. Hoover (1994) claims that the rule of delayed falsification outlined in the text makes of the initial, most idealized model something similar to "a Lakatosian hard core" ( p.49). In a sense yes. But still there is a significant difference. The hard core is immune from the negative outcomes of experience due to adoption of the additional hypotheses making possible a reinterpretation of those outcomes. Not so in case of the rule in question. For it results from what is inherent in a model without any additional statements.
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idealizational theories each developing according to the rule of delayed falsification. There will then take place progress in explaining empirical facts better and better within each theory taken separately. But what about their commensurability? How could we decide which of them is better not internally but externally, that is by reference to empirical facts? The author provides us with a decisional procedure in econometric terms. That is really an important problem for the idealizational methodology and I would like to reconstruct such a procedure in general terms. Let us consider a simple conceptual structure called, in the idealizational approach to science, a linear approximative explanatory chain: T: Tk , ..., Ti, ATi. Let also the competing approximative explanation of the same facts be given: S: Sn , ..., Si , ASj . It invokes another image of the essential structure of the magnitude F, composed of K, qn ,...,q j+1 ,...,q i. Assume also that both T and S develop according to the rule of delayed falsification and that they have reached their maximally concretized statements, Ti and Sj correspondingly. How can we decide which is cognitively better? The answer may be given by reference to the following criterion: (a) Take an arbitrary object a from the range of the investigated magnitude F and measure the intensity F(a). That explanation which gives smaller discrepancy with F(a) is cognitively better for the object a; for example if ( = *F(a) f (H(a), pk(a),..., pi+1(a)]*< *F(a) g (K(a), qn (a),...,qj+1(a)]*, then the explanation T is better than S for a. (b) Take the whole range of the magnitude F and impose ( as the level of admisssible approximation. That explanation which retains the level ( for a larger fraction of objects from the range of F is cognitively better. (c) If the level ( does not discriminate between T and S, impose (1 < ( as the level of approximation and continue the procedure until such (p is found which allows to discriminate in the sense (b) between T and S. An example of further problems. So much on the main structural aspects of the method of idealization. In further parts of the book many of them will be presented largely and made more subtle. The more so, one should state that the structural problematics of idealization is far from being exhausted and that is visible. Take a simple example. Hoover (1994) makes the following remark: Bert Hamminga has suggested to me that one needs to distinguish, as Nowak does not, between technical idealizations made for reasons of tractability (mathematical or statistical) and essentialist idealizations
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Leszek Nowak made to isolate the fundamental from the secondary. Clearly both simplifications occur. The issue is whether there is , enough of a family resemblance between them to class them both as idealizations (1994, p.46).
That is correct. The distinction is necessary, I did not make it and neither did it any of my collaborators. Science uses "technical idealizations" when deforming a given domain of objects as to make possible the adoption of the mathematical apparatus, for example , we adopt the assumption of continuity of a given domain in order to employ the differential calculus. Even superficial glance reveals that there is a serious difference between such assumptions and idealizing assumptions. When we adopt an idealizing condition we are certain that a given factor acts in reality, so it is excluded that the condition is fulfilled in the world. In case of "technical idealization" the matter is not decided. It may be that a given field is continuous, or not. On the strength of the assumption of continuity scientists lead reasonings as if the given domain were continuous, independently of whether this is really the case. If it is, they simply apply the developed theory. If it proves after a time that it is not, they try to conceptualize the explained phenomena in a discreet mathematical apparatus. Anyway, the matter of the nature of the given field of reality is not (subjectively) decided, when the technical idealization is put forward. It is decided (truly or falsely) when the standard idealization is made. Whether such differences between normal idealizing conditions and assumptions underlying the application of mathematics allow to speak of homogeneous idealization in more general sense reducing in the extreme cases to the mentioned both cases, is difficult to say. The problem is open. And it is of considerable importance. 6. The Dynamics of Idealization A conceptualization of the dynamics of science has also been done in the idealizational terms. Nowakowa (1975a, summary in 1975b) criticizes the standard implicational notion of correspondence for its neglect of idealization and she introduces the notion of correspondence appropriate to the idealizational laws. The statement t' is said to dialectically correspond to t iff t' is more abstract a statement than t (i.e., it contains more idealizing conditions) and there occurs in as given science a statement t'' concretized with respect to all the idealizing conditions with which t' differs from t (Nowakowa 1972, in English 1974a). The simplest idealizational sequence would be, for example , of the following form: T: (t) if G(x) & p(x) = 0 & q(x) = 0, then F(x) = f(H(x)) (ct) if G(x) & p(x) # 0 & q(x) = 0, then F(x) = g(H(x), p(x))
The Idealizational Approach to Sceince (cct) if G(x) & p(x) # 0 & q(x) # 0, then F(x) = h(H(x), p(x), q(x))
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being less and less abstract and more and more realistic at the same time. The basic point for finding a natural explication of the principle of correspondence in terms of the law forces science to abstract from the source of deviation by introducing explicite a corresponding idealizing condition and to remove the condition concretizing the formula of the law at the same time. Assume (cct) has been falsified, which indirectly testifies to the falsity of the initial idealizational law (t). Then the source of deviations, say factor r, is identified and abstracted from in order to hold the old formula of (t): T': (t') if G(x) & r(x) = 0 & p(x) = 0 & q(x) = 0, then F(x) = f(H(x)). In science, however, it is possible to abstract from the sources of deviations only on the condition that it will be shown at the same time how this very factor which is responsible for the deviations influences the given magnitude. An act of abstraction must be complemented, in other words, by appropriate acts of concretization, including concretization with regard to the newly discovered source of deviations r: (ct') if G(x) & r(x) = 0 & p(x) # 0 & p(x) = 0, then F(x) = g(H(x), p(x)) (cct') if G(x) & r(x) = 0 & p(x) # & q(x) # 0, then F(x) = h(H(x), p(x), q(x)) (ccct') if G(x) & r(x) # 0 & p(x) # 0 & q(x) # 0, then F(x) = k(H(x), p(x), q(x), r(x)). In this way the old theory T has been replaced by the new one T', i.e. (t') (ccct') which is to be accepted provided that the facts that have falsified its predecessor can now be explained on the ground of the new, more complex, statement (ccct'). The relation which holds between T' and T is termed dialectical correspondence. In Nowakowa (1975, in English 1994) examples are taken from physics to illustrate how the proposed explication works. The secong monograph attempts to expand the simple solution outlined above to the level of scientific theories of the increasing complexity and to adjust it to the more and more realistic approaches to the method of idealization that have been found in the idealizational conception to science until recently. The idea of changes in science that consist in revising the repertory of factors thought to be principal appeared earlier (Nowak 1975, Nowakowa 1982) but its methodological sense was revealed and a more systematic analysis was given
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Leszek Nowak
only by Paprzycka (1990). That idea presupposes that the compared laws assume basically similar images of the essential structure of a given magnitude, i.e. that the repertory of factors claimed to be principal for the determined variable is constant. Paprzycka (1990) introduces the relation between such idealizational laws whose images of the essential structure of the determined magnitude possess different repertories of principal factors (i.e., they basically differ). The relation holds between t' and t, if roughly the images of the essential structure of the magnitude determined in t and t' are basically different but there is a common part in them. Due to that at least some elements of the old law are preserved at subsidiary positions in a chain of concretizations, in the new idealizational structure. That is why the relation, called, somewhat unfortunately, dialectical reduction dialectical refutation seems to be a better term will be employed here connects laws separated by a scientific revolution. Egiert (1998) generalizes definition given by Paprzycka and applies it for more conceptually possible cases. 7. Two stages in the development of empirical sciences It has been argued that each empirical science undergoes two stages in its development: the inductive and the idealizational. In the first, it is the positivist methodology which reconstructs the actual scientific practice; in the second, it is the idealizational methodology which corresponds to what is going on in science (Magala/Nowak 1985). In physics, the methodological breakthrough is connected with the work of Galileo (Nowak 1971a, Such 1978, cf. above Chap.1); in biology, the idealizational breakthrough was accomplished by Darwin (Lastowski, 1987, p. 26ff, cf. above Chap 2); in economy by Marx (Nowak 1971a-b, 1980a, cf. above Chap. 3) 15. There are also some reasons to believe that we are witnesses of the fourth revolution of the type made in linguistics by Chomsky (cf. some data discussed in Chap 20, below). 8. Applications and expansions The body of ideas roughly outlined above has been applied in numerous writings to various domains of science. Apart from that, some of these ideas have proven to be too narrow, or too large, as for the underlying intentions of the scientists making idealizations and, therefore, require either generalization or making these explications narrower in order to appropriately correspond to these intentions. There have also appeared, and still do, writings revealing quite numerous procedures akin to the method of idealization/concretization. Therefore, the original reconstruction of the idealization/concretization method had to be expanded in order to cover also some similar deformational (or counterfactual) procedures applied in science.
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Hamminga and De Marchi (1994) argue that Marx had predecessors: McCulloch and J. St.
Mill.
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I shall outline what I take to be more important applications and more important extensions of the initial approach. (III) Idealization of idealization The conceptual apparatus outlined above served to form a kind of a methodological theory of science, one that put the procedure of idealization in the heart of the scientific activity. The theory has been formed as an idealizational theory itself. that is it is composed of several models of increasing realism, each of the models containing hypotheses concerning the methodological structure of scientific theories, the scheme of explanation, the way of testing, etc. (see Nowak 1977a, in English 1980a). At this point I shall limit myself to one dimension of the conception alone, viz. to the structure of scientific theories. 1. The adopted (methodological) idealizing conditions In the same way as the scientist is inclined to abstract from all the influences s/he decides to be secondary, so should the methodologist try to idealize the scientific research practice. And the methodologician who is inclined to see the central scientific procedure in idealization, is obliged to abstract at the beginning of his/her analyzes from all the procedures except idealization. In order to do that our scientist-theoretician has to be very strongly simplified. And so, we adopt a simplification that the background knowledge of our ideal economist (i.e., one with which s/he begins to construct explanation of F-facts) does not contain any other theory (the simplification A). It is assumed, then, that s/he works on the "theoretical fallow" having at his disposal only his philosophical presumptions and observational knowledge of singular facts. Moreover, it is assumed that our researcher always can determine truely or falsely the way in which factors considered by him/her as secondary for a given magnitude influence it (simplification B). In other words, our researcher might be mistaken as to the assessment of the way a given factor influences the magnitude F but it is postulated that s/he has a definite view about that. According to the next simplification, the researcher can always count factors that seem to him/her to be secondary (assumption C). Obviously, also this condition is an unrealistic one as in the standard theoretical situation there are very many "disturbances" the researcher cannot identify. The next simplification claims that the only goal of the scientist is to explain phenomena (assumption D).
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2. The deep form of a theory (Model-I) Let us begin with the most idealized form of the economic model, namely that revealing exclusively the working of idealization as the only theoretical procedure. Usually, not single factors but some wholes of them are investigated, and not single statements but some wholes composed of them are, hypothetically, proposed in the theory of economics. A criterion for characterizing such wholes as objects of modelling in science seems to be the following. Such factors are looked for which are principal ones for one another, and therefore modelling such a set of factors need not go beyond the modelled set of them; this is the case at least at the most idealized level of analysis . Let us conceptualize these intuitions somewhat. A set S of factors is said to be a system iff, for every F of S, the set of all factors principal for F is a subset of S. Correspondingly, an image of the system is termed a set I(S) of factors such that, for every F of I(S), the set of factors considered to be principal ones for F is included in I(S). A theoretical system over I(S) is a sequence of sets of statements Q1,..., Qn, which meets the following conditions: (a) for every magnitude of a statement of Q1 all the independent magnitudes shown in it belong to the set I(S); the statements of Q1, are idealizational laws (i.e., are equipped with the maximal amount of idealizing conditions of all the statements of the system); (b)the set Qi-1, is composed of statements which are concretizations of those of Qi; (i = 1, . . . ,n). The deep form of theory (model-I) can be identified with a theoretical system in the outlined sense. Its aim is to find an objective system of factors and to reconstruct interdependences between them. Let us add that the sense in which model-I is the deep, or basic, form of the scientific theories cannot be comprehended in terms of its typicality. Quite the contrary, it is rather doubtful whether the simplified forms defined by only one relation, that of concretization, appear in the actual practice of scientific modelbuilding at all. What is meant by saying this is that model-I is the simplest methodological scheme from which more realistic models, that are therefore more often met in the actual research practice are obtainable by removing the adopted simplifications. In other words, it is supposed that if simplifications (AD) were satisfied all theories would be models-I, that is they would possess their deep form. 2. The theoretical role of deduction (Model-II) Let us remove simplification (A). As long as it was in force, our idealized theoretician was applying the simple hypotheticist rule "invent hypotheses and
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test them against empirical data" (Popper 1959). After removal of (A) the situation changes: the research may use accumulated theories of his (enlarged) background knowledge. Obviously, the "accumulated theories" denote those which are admitted on the strength of our previous considerations, that is models I. On the present stage of abstraction our now (less) ideal theoretician applies another rule of theory-building: "deduce a model-I of a given system from the body of accumulated models-I; only if the latter turns out to be too weak for that, invent hypotheses and test them against empirical data". The theoretical role of deduction consists then in enlarging the body of the accumulated models-I. The procedure of the theory-building on the present stage of abstraction is then the following. (1a) Of the accumulated knowledge a set of idealizational statements is selected, all being in force under the same idealizing conditions; at most some of the latter might be irrelevant for some of them, but for every such a condition there exists a statement for which it is relevant. (lb) From the body of statements conclusions concerning the magnitudes the theoretician is interested in are derived. (2a) Those assumptions are removed step by step and appropriate corrections are introduced, that is the idealizational statements are concretized; at most those steps in concretization that involve the removal of irrelevant idealizing conditions turn out to be degenerate concretizations (i.e., possessing the same formula in the consequent as the concretized statement of the higher idealized order). (2b) From concretizations obtained in this way the consequences concerning the same magnitudes are deduced: they are valid at the appropriate lower level of abstraction. (3) This procedure is repeated until the level of factual statements is attained. According to this model-II will be identified with the following structure of statements: (Qk, Ck ) (Qk-1, Ck-1 ) .................. (Q0, C0 ) in which (a) (Qi, Ci) are pairs of sets of idealizational statements (k % i % 1); (Qo, Co) is a pair of sets of factual statements; (b)statements of Qj (assumptions of the jth chain) are independent from one another whereas those of Cj (solutions of the jth chain) are consequences of the former;
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(c) each statement of Qj+1, is a (strict or degenerate) concretization of some statement of Qj (k < j % 0). Models-II are more realistic methodological constructs than models-I because they involve not only the relation of concretization but also that of entailment, which plays such an important role in the structure of scientific theories 16. 3. Approximation (Model-III) In spite of this, the structure of models-II is still highly abstract and very far from the actual complication of scientific theories. Let us then make it more realistic removing simplification (B). At the present stage of abstraction our theoretician has information true or not as to the working of only some factors s/he considers to be secondary for the investigated ones.
Kirschenmann (1985) is right in maintaining that the idealizational conception of science does not do justice to the framework theories "which might be said to capture part of the general structure of the world rather than essentiality of particular phenomena" (p. 17). Yet this seems to be in principle possible At the first glance, such theories seem to be systems of mathematical formulae: (1) X = f(Y1.. . . , Ym) and may be treated as purely formal ones as long as no substantial interpretation of the expressions `X', `f', `Y;' is considered. They become of some interest for the methodology of the empirical sciences if X and Y1, , . . . , Ym are identified as factors F, H1,.., Hn being connected in the f-way, that function f is considered to be a mathematical representation of a physical, economic, etc. f-dependency. However, the direct substantial interpretation of formula (1) in a given domain D would lead to the evidently false statement: F(x) = f(Hl (x),... , Hn(x)) in which x ranges over the universe U of domain D. Formula (1) may hold in domain D only if idealizing conditions eliminating the working of some disturbing factors pl, . . . , pk are being accepted. Therefore, the substantial interpretation of formula (1) together with the idealizational procedure leads to the conditional (2) if U(x) & p1 (x) = 0 &. . . & pk (x) = 0, then F(x) = f(H1(x), . . . , Hn(x)) which is in due course concretely approximated, etc. The same may happen not only for domain D, but also for another domain E with the universe W, factors N, K1, . . . , Km and the disturbing factors q1, . . . , qr. As result the following conditional is put forward (3) if W(x) & q1(x) = 0 &. . .& qr(x) = 0, then N(x) = g(K1(x), . . . , Km(x)j is further concretized and approximated as well. The outlined procedure for obtaining the (simple, of the first kind etc) idealizational theories is an inverse of the procedure of formal analogy as presented in my (1980a) book: what is the point of departure in the latter (idealizational theories of phenomena) is the point of arrival in the former, and vice versa. This would testify to the fact that both a formal analogy of the tested idealizational laws may lead to general formulae which can be then ordered in a `framework theory' and the latter may serve as a basis for proposals of different idealizational theories being then formally analogical. If this tentative grasp proves to be tenable, then one would say that `framework theories' (e.g., cybernetic ones) could be included willy-nilly into the framework of the idealizational conception of science.
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Let it be so that the researcher's background knowledge contains such information as to some most significant factors for F, say pk, pk-1,...,pi+1, and lacks any informations of the kind concerning the remaining magnitudes essential for F, viz. pi, . . . , p2, p1 Then s/he is unable to concretize the hypothesis: Ti : if G(x) and p1(x) = 0 and. . . and pi(x) = 0 and pi+1(x) # 0 and. . . and pk(x) # 0, then F(x) = fi(H(x), pk(x), . . , pi+1(x)). Nonetheless, TI might be approximated, that is referred to those facts in which the effects of working factors pI. . . , p1; are "small enough" so that one might expect the deviations between the left and right side of the formula of the consequent of TI do not exceed the "sufficiently small limits". In other words, the approximation of Ti is of the form: ATi: if G(x) and p1(x) # 0 and. . . and pi(x) # 0 and pi+1(x) # 0 and. . . and pk(x) # 0, then F(x) ) fi(H(x), pk(x), . . , pi+1(x)). The sequence of statements Tk, Tk-1, . . . , Ti, ATi is termed an approximation sequence. A model-III will be termed the sequence: (Qk, Ck ) (Qk-1, Ck-1 ) .................. i (Q , Ci ) (AQi, ACi) which differs from model-II only in that the statements of the set AQi (resp. ACi) are approximations of those of Qi (resp. Ci). that is concretization works till the ith level of abstraction and then is replaced with approximation 17. What is said here is that the structure of theory is composed of the following three relations: (a) concretization "models" (in our terms, chains of them) are put in a "sequence of increasing realism", (b) entailment deducibility within singular "models" (chains) and (c) approximation none of the "models" (chains) grasps the whole complexity of the actual empirical domain which is "always more complicated" and therefore can at most approximate it. And it appears that model-III itself gives a sufficient approximation to the general structure of scientific theories, that is the structure common to all economic theories. In this
Let us add that Kuhn's "paradigmatic examples" (e.g., Kuhn 1976, p. 182), so important for the structuralist concept of theory (e.g., Sneed 1976, p.120, Niiniluoto 1985, p.144) can be interpreted within the proposed conceptual apparatus as those cases that confirm already the approximation of the first chain in a given idealizational theory: (Qk, Ck), (AQk, ACk).
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sense model-III is supposed to represent the basic structure of the scientific modelling. Obviously, model-III is far from reproducing all the methodologically significant structural properties pertaining even to the typical scientific theories. Yet, if I am not mistaken, it appears to be a general pattern from which different types of scientific theories are obtainable through taking into consideration some additional structural dimensions 18. 4. Deterministic and probabilistic theories (Model-IV) Let us remove simplification (C), assuming realistically that in some cases the investigator is unable to identify all the secondary factors influencing a given phenomenon. Our investigator knows thus that there are some factors besides those shown in his image of the essential structure (as principal or secondary) that are essential for a given magnitude. Yet, s/he is unable to enumerate them, not to mention determining their influence upon the investigated magnitude. Factors of this kind will be termed interfering factors for the magnitude in question. The set iF of interfering factors for F can be identified as the difference between the space PF of essential factors for F and its image I(PF) established by our researcher. The expression +-iF(x) = 0, will be read: every factor of the set iF takes on zero value for object x. If the researcher adopts this condition being convinced that the set iF is non-empty, the expression will be called a semi-idealizing condition. The general statement containing in its antecedent a semi-idealizing condition will be called a semiidealization statement. If it contains additionally some idealizing conditions, the statement is termed a semi-idealizational statement of the first kind. If this is not
Haendler (1982) distinguishes between an "empirical theory (which) is characterized by the claim that the entities forming its models are part of the ontological inventory of the actually existing world" and a "pure theory (that) does not intend to speak about reality. A pure theory is just a. . .picture of a possible world which does not actually exist" (pp. 74-75). Yet, even the structure of scientific magnitudes seems to exclude any "empirical theory" in this meaning of the word. For every continuous magnitude contains some classes of abstraction (Ajdukiewicz's 1974 construction of a magnitude, generalized by Wojcicki 1979, as a family of the equivalence classes is presupposed here - cf. below Chap. #) that are likely empty in the actual world, for example , 36,657(7)o, and the only inhabitants of them might be possibilia only. On the other hand, if model-III give a proper view on the basic structure of scientific theories one might say that every one of them "intends to speak about reality". Statements of (Qk, Ck), . . . , (Qi, Ci) in fact do not speak about the actual world for they refer to (less and less) idealized worlds. Yet, the next chain in model-III, i.e. (AQi, ACi), is to speak about the real world (among other possible worlds). If this grasp is tenable, there would be no distinction between the "empirical" and "pure" theories but in every (idealizational) theory there would be a "pure" and an "empirical" part
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the case, the statement in question is a semi-idealizational statement of the second kind. Let us consider the following semi-idealizational statements: (STk) if G(x) and +-iF(x) = 0 and p1(x) = 0 and. . . and pk(x) = 0, then F(x) = fk(H(x)) .............................................................................................................................. (STi) if G(x) and +-iF(x) = 0 and p1(x) = 0 and . . and pI(x) = 0 and pi+1(x) # 0 and. . . and pk(x) # 0, then F(x) = fk(H(x), pk(x), . . . , pi+1(x)) (SATi) if G(x) and +-iF(x) = 0 and p1(x) # 0 and. . .and pk(x) # 0, then F(x) ) fi(H(x), pk(x), . . , pi+1(x)). (STk), . . . , (STi) are semi-idealizational statements of the first kind whereas (SATi) is that of the second kind: it takes into account the influence of the principal factor and the influence of the secondary ones (some in the strict, the rest in the approximate manner) but it does not account for any interferences. The univocal dependence fi which is claimed to hold in (SATi) is subject to an influence of interfering factors of the set iF. When the total influences of the factors iF cancel each other, the dependence fi holds but when some interferences prevail over the remaining ones, the dependence fi might not appear. The less essential factors belong to iF, the higher is the percentage of the cases of the first type where the dependence fi occurs. If more essential factors belong to iF, then the percentage of occurrences of fi is smaller. The ratio of occurrences of f; to the total number of elements of the universe of discourse (i.e., objects satisfying the realistic condition G(x)) is a relative frequency of the realization of fi. Hence, accounting for the influence of interfering factors leads to a probabilistic statement: PATi; the probability of F(x) ) fi(H(x), pk(x), . . . , pi+1(x)) on the condition that G(x) and ,-iF(x) # 0 and p1(x) # 0 and. . . and pI(x) # 0 and pI+1(x) # 0 and. . . and pk(x) # 0 equals 1- r (r is a level of admissible fluctuations). The statement PATI removes the semi-idealizing condition, replacing it with the condition ,-iF(x) # 0 saying that at least some interferences take on values different than zero for an object x. This justifies the terminological stipulation according to which PATI is termed a probabilistic counterpart of ATI and a probabilistic approximation of TI.
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The sequence of statements STk, ...,STI, SATI, PASTI is termed a semiidealizational approximation structure. A probabilistic model-III will be termed the sequence: (SQk, SCk) (SQk-l, SCk-I) ................... (SQi , SCi) (SAQi, SACi) (PAQi, SACi) determined by the relations of concretization (between statements of SQk, . . . , SQi), consequence (between SQj and SCj), approximation (between SQi and SAQi) and probabilistic approximation (between SAQi and PAQi). Instead model-III in the sense employed until now will be identified as deterministic. If the researcher thinks the set iF to be empty, s/he is inclined to build a deterministic model. If not, s/he considers it to be necessary to explain phenomena by a probabilistic model. 5. Reconstructional and optimizational theories (Model-V) Let us now remove condition (D) claiming that the explanation is the only goal of the economist. In fact, there are theories aiming only an explanation of what happens in the actual economic life, but there are also "normative models" whose goal is of a quite different nature. I shall only outline how to include intuitions of this kind into our conceptual apparatus. Let us notice that some magnitudes are at the same time values in a given society (for a more detailed construction cf. 1980a, p. 179ff). For instance, the growth of national income is an economic magnitude but usually a social value as well. One might thus distinguish statements in which the determined magnitude is at the same time a value in a given society and which state what the optimal realization of the magnitude-value depends upon. A magnitude-value is optimally realized if realized is the extreme (minimal or maximal) case of it. Now, an optimizational idealizational statement (of the highest order) will be termed the following claim: OTk: if G(x) and p1(x) = 0 and. . . and pk(x) = 0, then Fextr(x) = fk(H(x)) where F is a magnitude-value and H is an instrumemal variable to be manipulated by management in order to create a value for H(x) such that F(x) = Fextr(x). An optimizational semi-idealizational statement differs from the above one only in that it possesses additionally a semi-idealizing condition. Operations of concretization, approximation, standard and probabilistic, might be defined on optimization statements quite analogically as they have been defined for standard (reconstructional) statements considered until now; the only difference is that
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these operations hold between optimizational statements. Optimizational modelsIII contain optimizational statements at least among solutions of particular systems. The fact that among scientific theories there appear both reconstructional and optimizational ones testifies that today theoretical science is theoretical enough to give foundations for practical applications 19. It is quite obvious that even model V is far from the actual scientific practice. Indeed, a large part of writings in the idealizational approach to science was, and is, attempting to find additional, silent simplifications in order to bring the construction closer to the scientific reality. 6. A note on some comparisons In several writings comparative analyzes of the above outlined approach with some famous theories of science have been undertaken. And so, Nowak (1971a, part 2, 1980a, Part 3) compares the idealizational approach to science with positivism, hypotheticism, Kuhns theory of paradigms and Webers theory of ideal types. It is argued that the former three theories of science ignore the method of idealization, whereas the latter conceptualizes it in quite different way. Klawiter and Nowak (1979) paraphrase Lakatos' theory of science in idealizational terms; this analysis is deepened and further developed by Egiert (1999). Sandri (1977) and Coniglione (1978), (1990a-b) take the idealizational approach to be one of post-positivist conceptions of science and conduct a comprehensive comparative analysis with the remaining members of that orientation. Kuipers's reader (1980) includes various approaches to idealization in one collection of papers; another collection of that sort is Brzeziski et al. (1990a). Niiniluoto (1986), (1990) makes a typology of various conceptions of idealization and reinterprets the approach in question in his own conceptual apparatus. Kuokkanen (1988), Kuokkanen and Tuomivaara (1990), Hamminga (1989), Kuipers (1992), Balzer and Zoubek (1995), Ibarra and Mormann (1995) attempt to paraphrase the basic ideas of this approach in the sophisticated language of the structuralist philosophy of science. Kupracz (1988, 1992, in English 1990) compares the above outlined idealizational conception of science
A far going expansion of the methodological approach to the practical sciences presented in the text is one elaborated by Nowakowa (1991), Chap.II(2). Descriptive analysis of the method of applied science of the sort mentioned above induces also the epistemological problem of what the possible practical effficiency of a theory testifies to. The problem is discussed by Niiniluoto (1994) who argues that [w]hen the idealized model is concretized. . ., the derived predictions and technical norms can be likewisely improved, so that their degree of approximate truth or truthlikeness increases (p. 127). In this connection a question arises of whether these concepts might be applied to the moral discourse. Some partial proposals formal analogy between the idealizational discourse in science and the moral discourse (Nowak 1974b, on some limitations of the analogy cf. ONeill 1988, p.56) or Kojs thesis on the overt applicability of the notion of truth to moral norms (Koj 1998, pp. #) seem to testify that idealization and truth may be tied not only in science (cf. writings reproduced in Part IV below) but also in axiological discours(es). The field is, however, still far from being exploited, to say the least.
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with that of Suppe. Cartwright (1989) examines the notion of idealization and concretization comparing them with the ideas of her own. Nowak and Nowakowa (1990) analyze Bunges theory of truthfulness comparing it with the idealizational methodology (cf. also Chap. 31 below). Nowakowa (1991, Chap. V, cf. also Chap. 13 below) paraphrases the inductivist idea of enumerative induction in the language of the idealizational approach to science finding in the latter some gaps to be filled by means of positivist ideas. Nowak (1990) does the same by analysis of L.J. Cohen's theory of eliminative induction. Paprzycka (1990) compares the idealizational model of laws and explanation with those of Hempel, Salmon, Humphreys, Suppe and Cartwright. Egiert (1998) paraphrases several crucial ideas of the Groningen approach to science Hammingas conception of interesting theorems, Zaandvorts approach to research programs, Kuipers idea of reduction into the language of the idealizational methodology. (IV) Applications 1. Three barriers for any methodological theory of science All the methodological theories of science suffer from the sin of locality: what they claim applies, at best, to a particular domain of science and fails entirely for other scientific disciplines. Take the classic example. It is claimed that induction is the method of science. Assume that this holds for the natural sciences. But what about jurisprudence? The theses of the traditional humanities are normally singular statements, not generalizations, and, moreover, their instances are based not on observation but on the understanding of texts or of other cultural products. Another example: it is claimed that the criticism of hypotheses is the main method of science. Assume that this is correct not only for physics but also for jurisprudence. But what about philosophy? Which are the "basic statements" whose negations would legitimize, for instance, the (hypo)thesis of the existence of three worlds? What about "basic statements" that would legitimize the hypotheticist methodology itself? For instance, is the above claim of the criterion of science scientific in itself? If not, why is science of science not to be a science? Here are three typical barriers for any conceivable methodological theory: (I) the barrier of generality: one should demand from methodology to understand all the object-language sciences at once; (II) the barrier of meta-language: a methodology should understand not only natural and social sciences but it should also understand itself;
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(III) the barrier of formal sciences: the task of methodology is not only to understand sciences of the world including this peculiar part of the world which is science itself, but also to explain in terms of the proposed approach formal sciences (mathematics, for short) and its role in understanding the world. As far as the idealizational approach to science is concerned, numerous attempts have been undertaken to reconstruct particular theories of various disciplines as idealizational. Their goal is not only to illustrate the general methodological grasp of science but also to introduce a kind of conceptual order to a given science itself. I am unable to refer to the latter effect in a concise summary, therefore let me only notice that the standard effects of the writings to which I shall refer are normally the following: (1) clarification of the methodological structure of reconstructed theory by distinguishing typical elements of the theory: (A) idealizing conditions, (B) the first model, (C) a sequence of derivative models, (D) approximation of the theory; (2) clarification of the methodological structure of the crucial theoretical concepts by attaching them to definite levels of abstraction (models) of the theory; (3) usually an explication of the relation of a given theory to the preceding one; (4) sometimes especially in the humanities a possibility to explain difficulties in understanding the theory leading, as it happened more than once, to fruitless discussions 20. Let us present a (very) rough outline of the analyzes of the kind. One should add that the following review will only be concerned with the most important groups of writings. Therefore, some occasional applications for instance in chemistry (Stasiak 1979, 1982 and Sobczynska 1982, 1988) or in linguistics (Nowak 1972e, Kmita 1972, Zgolka 1976, p.31-32) will not be summarized here. 2. Applications in the natural sciences Astronomy. Krajewski (1974) interprets the Copernicus's opposition against Ptolemaic astronomy as a methodological breakthrough leading from the inductivist methodology to the idealizational one. Zielinska (1986) reconstructs the theory of the evolution of stars as a special sort of idealizational theory, viz. the so-called categorial one, in which the repertory of the principal factors
As an example, some criticisms of Marx's theory based on treating it as factual, not as idealizational, could be shown. An analysis of these criticisms may be found in Nowak (1980a, pp. 237-65).
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changes in subsequent stages of the evolutionary process (for a general characteristics of the categorial processes cf. Nowak 1977a-b). A methodological analysis of the astronomical measurements also proves that they are done under some idealizing conditions. Nowak (1973a, pp.311-13) argues that the classical Eratostenes measurement had evidently made recourse to some idealizing conditions which had been next removed in order to correct the final outcome of measurement. The same author analyzes a certain method of removing systematic errors in the astronomical observations proving that this method presupposes revealing the tacit idealizing conditions and correcting the outcomes of observations by way of concretization (1974b, p. 212). Physics. An analysis of the relationship between the law of Clapeyron and van der Waals' law is the paradigm of concretization. The initial reconstruction (Nowak 1971a, pp. 173-76) is made more complete by Zielinska (1976) and far more sophisticated by Kuipers (1985). A detailed historical reconstruction of the law of free fall, both relative to Galileo's mechanics and to the mechanics of Newton, is undertaken by Such (1978). This paper includes four steps of concretization of the law of free fall. Boscarino (1990) argues that contrary to the stereotype, Newton had not believed in the absolute space and time but treated these as useful ideal types. The law of gravitation and its formal Coulomb's counterparts is analyzed in Nowak (1971a, pp. 96-99); an alternative interpretation of that law in terms of isolating assumptions is proposed by Kmita (1976, pp. 42-43). Such (1990) analyzes the specificity of the relationship between the idealizational law of gravitation and the facts focusing on some pragmatic, non-structural aspects of the procedure of concretization. Kocikowski's (1977), (1978) analyzes of the method of constructing ideal types in physics go in a similar, pragmatic direction . Also certain standard ways of concretization of idealizational laws in physics have been reconstructed. Nowak (1971a, pp. 184-89) analyzes the method of superposition. Nadel-Turonski (1978, pp. 259-60) interprets the method of perturbations in terms of idealization and concretization. Zielinska (1981, pp. 2225) illustrates what she calls the threshold generalization of idealizational laws by examples taken from the theory of solid bodies. The role of experiments in testing idealizational laws in science, illustrated mainly by physical experiments, is comprehensively analyzed by Patryas (1976, summary in 1975a). Patryas was also concerned with the role of idealizations in mental experiments playing so important a function in inventing physical theories (1976, summary in 1982). An analysis of the indirect method of testing of the law of perfect fluid (Nowak 1973a, pp. 314-16) appears to testify to the fact that physicists observe the non-Popperian rule of falsification (cf. above, II.5): they reject a statement as late as the attempts to explain the deviation by concretization have failed definitely.
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Numerous writings are concerned with the development of physical theories. Nowakowa is analyzing the relationship between classical mechanics and Galileo's law of free fall (1975a, pp.48-51, 1982), the transformations of Ohm's law (1975b), the relationship between the law of gravitation and III Kepler's law (1975a, pp. 55-57) 21 in the terms of dialectical correspondence (cf. above II.6). Nowakowa (1974b) analyzes in these terms the transformation of the notion of mass in the relativistic mechanics. These and some additional examples are reinterpreted by Krajewski (1974, 1976, 1977, 1982a) in the light of his renewed implicational concept of correspondence. The first two of them is still differently reinterpreted by Such (1974) in terms of his modification of Nowakowa's notion of dialectical correspondence. Moreover, Nowak (1974b, pp.262-63) argues that the transformations of Lorentz dialectically correspond to those of Galileo. Paprzycka (1990) analyzes the relationship between the formulae of special physical relativity force and Newtonian force as a case of dialectical reduction (cf. above II.6). Biology. Nowak (1971c) reconstructs the McCulloch-Pitts model of the neuron as an idealizational concept. The same author interprets the classical model of the growth of a biological population as a kind of idealizational theory (1974b, pp. 129-30). Lastowski (1976, summary 1982b) reconstructs the Hardy-Weinberg law and four steps of its concretization generalizing then his findings on the status of theoretical biology (1978a-b). Lastowski and Nowak (1982) present the Darwinian theory of evolution as an idealizational theory. Lastowski (1982a) employs the distinction between idealization and abstraction in order to delimit different types of cognitive constructs in theoretical biology. The same author undertakes a reconstruction of evolution of the theory of evolution according to the principle of dialectical correspondence, appropriately modified at some point. It is argued that the ecological-populationary theory of evolution dialectically corresponds to the theory of Darwin and the genetic polymorphism theory stands in the same relation to Hardy-Weinberg theory. On the other hand, synthetic evolutionism and the genetic-populationary theory of evolution dialectically correspond to both Darwin and Hardy-Weinberg theories (1987, pp. 24-131, summary in Lastowski 1994). Kosmicki (1986, pp. 6-18) has reconstructed Pavlov's theory as one formed of idealizational-adaptive statements and constructed according to the rule of concretization of a special kind. He finds a similar methodological structure in the ecological theory of behavior (1986, pp. 39-65). In a subsequent book the author reconstructs the relationships between classical ecology, genetic ecology and sociobiology on the one hand, and the Darwinian theory of evolution on the other hand, in terms of a certain type of
The same example is analyzed by Niiniluoto (1990, p.39) in terms of his approach to idealization. The author reconstructs in his terms several non-trivial examples of concretization in physics and mathematical biology (pp.35-42).
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dialectical correspondence (1988, p. 11-84, summary 1985). Lastowski (1985a) analyzes the significance of the Darwinian adaptive-idealizational theory for psychology. Piontek (1985) and Lastowski (1985b) attempt to reconstruct the methods of biological anthropology, notably the typological approach to race, in terms of idealization and approximation. 3. Applications in the social sciences. Psychology. Applications of the idealizational approach in the natural sciences concern mainly the theoretical level of scientific activity. Not so in psychology. There are some examples of the reconstruction of particular laws and their concretizations (Maruszewski 1983, pp. 33-41, Zielinska 1981, pp.25-27, Nowak 1987a, Gaul 1990, p. 130ff] and even of the whole theories (for instance the signal detection theory, cf. Gaul 1990, pp. 143-52), but the main effort concentrates on the reconstruction of the empirical research as undertaken in psychology. And so, Brzeziski (1976, pp. 47-58, 1979) examines the essentialist procedures (experimental, semi-experimental, statistical) that serve to assess the significance of particular factors and thus enable the researcher to hypothetically form an image of the essential structure of a given magnitude. The same author reconstructed in terms of the idealizational approach otherwise expanded by himself (cf. below) three main models of testing applied in the behavioral sciences: experimental, ex post facto and correlational-regressive (1978, pp. 58120, 1982). Nowak (1984, pp. 1032-33) interpreted the notion of norm commonly applied in psychology as presupposing the notion of idealization. Hornowska (1989, in English 1997) reconstructs in terms of idealizational method the process of forming several important psychological notions from the theoretical level to the level of operationalization (pp. 61-96). Economics. That domain, apart from physics, the classical discipline for the idealizational conception of science. One should mention here reconstructions of Marx's theory of value (Nowak 1971a, 1980a, pp. 3-22, for alternative reconstructions in terms of idealization cf. Balicki 1978, Notarrigo 1985 and Hamminga 1990) and Marx's theory of reproduction (Nowak 1980a, pp. 25-27). Nowakowa and Nowak (1973) examine the methodological rules of the transformation of Ricardo's law of value into Marx's law of value. The same authors (1978) also explicate how Marx's theory of reproduction have further been transformed in the later development of Marxist economics: it turns out that Nonomura's, Lange's and Nagels's models of reproduction dialectically correspond to the model of Karl Marx (cf. also Chap 3 above). Nowak (1983, pp. 64-71) argues that the relationship between Rosa Luxemburg's theory of reproduction and Marx's theory is not one of dialectical correspondence; in Paprzycka's (1990) terms, the relationship should be labelled dialectical reduction. Garcia de la Sienra (1990) interprets recent theories based on Marxian economics (Morishima, Roemer, Krause, he himself) as following the rule of
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removing subsequent idealizing conditions due to which the subsequent models are "increasingly less idealized and more general" (p.123); this may be understood in terms of dialectical correspondence. What applies to Marx's economics applies outside it as well. Nowak (1972, pp. 92-132) presents a certain classification of economic models and shows that all of them fall under the general notion of idealizational theory. Among examples of models of particular types there have been reconstructed, for instance, Kalecki's theory of the business cycle (pp. 92-106), Kozniewska's theory of the renewal of production means (pp. 106-116), the standard econometric model (pp. 117-128, for an alternative interpretation in the idealizational terms cf. Kupracz 1978, 1992), Keynes's multiplier model (pp. 129-32). In (1974b, pp. 132-35) of the same author, Kaldor's theory of growth is presented with the aid of the conceptual means of the idealizational method. J. Birner argues that the strategy of correspondence (which he defines somewhat differently (1990b, p. 71-72)) works in today's capital theory where new models corresponding to the older ones result from reflection upon the theoretical or formal role of idealizing assumptions rather than from an analysis of their empirical applicability (1990a, p.146). Idealization in micro-economics appears quite often in the form of the rationality assumption. Its role in the economists' reasonings is explored in Balicki (1972, 1973) and Nowak (1972b). Sociology. In this domain, two main traditions have been analyzed in terms of the idealizational approach, viz. Marxism and Liberalism. With respect to the first, two theories have been idealizationally reconstructed in details, viz. Marxian historical materialism (for civilized societies) and Engelsian historical materialism (for primitive societies). Marxian historical materialism is interpreted as an adaptive-idealizational theory. The first model of the theory is being composed of the explication of famous formulae: (A) productive forces determine relations of production; (B) the economic base determines the political superstructure; (C) the social being determines social consciousness. Determination is understood as accomplishment to certain conditions and thus all of these formulae are adaptive. For instance, the first of them is explicated as follows: (A') among the historically given systems of the relations of production, that one becomes widespread in a given society which, for a given level
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Leszek Nowak of productive forces yields the greatest surplus product to be appropriated by the class of disposers of the means of production of that society.
Similarly are reinterpreted the others. The adaptive formulae (A')-(C') are equipped with numerous idealizing conditions and constitute model Ist of Marxian historical materialism (Nowak 1975a). Numerous authors have reconstructed further models. And so, Lastowski (1977, summary 1982) employs analogy of Marxian historical materialism with the theory of evolution in order to obtain some dynamic models of social development in the latter theory. An alternative interpretation of models of social dynamics in adaptive-idealizational terms is elaborated by Buczkowski (1981, pp. 12-128, 1982a). The same author presents a model of inter-societal relations in terms of the theory in question (1981, pp. 128-210, summary 1982b). Buczkowski, Klawiter and Nowak (1982) propose a model accounting for more subtle interconnections between the economic base, political superstructure and social consciousness based on the observation that for all these domains some analogues of the claims (A') (C') may be formulated. In sum, under the adaptive-idealizational interpretation, Marxian historical materialism proves to constitute a network of eight models with the most idealized one, composed of the formulae (A') (C') equipped with appropriate idealizing assumptions, at its centre. Nowak (1972d, cf. also 1977d, pp. 220-63) reconstructs the sequence of eight definitions of the Marxian concept of class of increasing concreteness, i.e. containing more and more complete divisions of capitalist society, which are attached to various levels of abstraction of the Marxian theory of social classes. This result implies that the theory is to include at least eight models. By a later reconstruction that supposition has been half-proved: Jasinska and Nowak (1976) present the Marxian theory of class as a body of hypotheses ordered in four models of the increasing concreteness. One should perhaps add that some historical studies have been undertaken in order to find earlier interpretations of historical materialism in the idealizational terms. And, indeed, they can be found in the history of Polish (Krzywicki, Rosa Luxemburg) (Klawiter 1975a, Nowak 1983a, p. 64ff] and Italian (Labriola, young Gramsci) Marxism (Coniglione 1986). Unfortunately, later on these ideas were somehow forgotten and the Marxist tradition went in the direction of either positivistic naturalism ("Eastern Marxism") or idealistic anti-naturalism ("Western Marxism"). The second theory which is explored by means of the idealizational method is Engelsian historical materialism, that is a theory which is to apply to the so-called primitive societies. Burbelka (1975) explicates a piece of that theory as an idealizational structure and then went on to reconstruct the whole Engelsian approach in a systematic manner as an adaptive-idealizational theory historically prior to Marxian historical materialism (Burbelka 1980, and summary in 1982).
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Another tradition which is analyzed in idealizational terms is Liberalism. Nowak (1971a) presents Max Webers theory of bureaucracy as a qualitative idealizational theory, that is in terms transgressing Webers own ideal-typical approach (Nowak 1980a, Chap. V). Banaszak (1999) reconstructs the classic Hobbes theory of state as a sequence of four models of increasing realism. It is also shown that the author of Leviathan was to some extent aware of the method applied in building at least some of these models. Przybysz (1996a, 1999) reconstructs Rawls theory of justice as an idealizational theory composed of three models of a special, both descriptive and normative status. He similarly interprets also the theories of Buchanan and Nozick (Przybysz 1999). The main focus of his interpretation is put, however, on deciphering what the mixed descriptive and normative idealization consists in. Przybysz distinguishes the two styles of idealizing social matters radical and moderate. A given domain of social life is radically idealized if the intuitions people partaking in it have are to be rejected by the theoretician as misleading; for instance for Marx consciousness of capitalists is grounded in the structure of appearance and thus suggests a false theory of the economy. A domain of social life is moderately idealized, if the agents intuitions are to be kept by the theoretician and his/her theory is to follow them as a source of its significance hypotheses. That is what Przybysz (1999) claims to be a real peculiarity of liberal methodology: the theoretical idealization is to follow the spontaneous, practical idealization submerged in everyday activity of an appropriate sort. Apart from these reconstructionist efforts, some methodological analysis of research in sociology have been undertaken. Tuchanska (1980, pp. 33-68) distinguishes typical stages of sociological research attempting to conceptualize them in terms otherwise expanded by herself (cf. section V below) of the idealizational conception of scientific conduct. Suchoccy and Walkowiak (1984, pp. 11-193) attempt to systematize the methodological problems of the sociological empirical research in terms of the method of idealization as expanded by Brzeziski and Tuchanska (cf. section V below). 3. Applications in the humanities General. The methodological analyzes of the humanities in the Poznan milieu were guided by Kmita's (1971) idea that it is the humanistic interpretation whose major premise is the assumption of rationality which plays the crucial role in these disciplines. Kmita and Nowak (1970) put forward a conjecture of the idealizational nature of the assumption of rationality. Nowak (1971d, pp. 6065, 1974b, pp. 161-63) and Kmita (1972) formulated the assumption of rationality as an idealizational law, but it was only Patryas' monograph (1979) which reconstructed, in ten steps, the procedure of the concretization of that statement (pp. 5-46, short summary in 1982). The same author applies his findings in a detailed analysis of the concretizations of the assumption of
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rationality as presupposed in penal law (1988, pp. 75-130). These results combined with numerous writings of Kmita and his collaborators testifying to the commonness of the humanistic interpretation in the humanities (cf. for instance, Kmita 1971, Zamiara 1974, Zgka 1976, Lawniczak 1976 and their analysis in Swiderski 1984, 1985) made it possible to justify anew the idea that there is no crucial difference in methods between the natural sciences and the sciences of man. For the underlying method in them is that of idealization and concretization. That is why, the anti-naturalist programme in the philosophy of the humanities is based on the lack of understanding of what is going on in the natural sciences (Nowak 1979a). History. Topolski (1973a) employing the conceptual apparatus of the idealizational approach to science distinguishes certain types of historical models. He also reconstructs some models built by historians, including his own model of the development of capitalism (Topolski 1965). The same author analyzes variations of concretization procedure that, according to him, may be found in the historical research (Topolski 1974, 1977, pp. 140ff]. Nowak (1974b, p. 213) examines peculiarities of modelling in history on the example of Kula's famous model of feudal economy. Several authors (Chmara and Nowak 1972, Topolski 1977, p. 37ff, 276ff, Nowak 1979b, Pomorski 1981) propose various interpretations of the directive of historicism in idealizational terms. Topolski devoted much attention to reconstruction of the application of the peculiar type of idealization, viz. the assumption of rationality, in historical research. He explores not only applications of the standard form of that assumption (Topolski 1978, pp. 161ff, 1990a) but also its limiting cases such as the problem of rationality of group behavior, on the one hand (Topolski 1973c), and the problem of rationality of the subconsciouss motives, on the other (Topolski 1977, pp. 315ff]. Pomorski (1981) proposes an exposition of ontological (essentialist) and methodological (idealizational) presuppositions that are to be assumed by historians in their daily work. An important ontological peculiarity of the social processes that historians deal with was analyzed by Brzechczyn (1995, 1998) who was developing an idea put forward by K. and. M. Paprzycki (1992). The idea is that there are two different types of essential structures, those that are dominated by the principal factor(s) and those that are not. In the former case an apppropriate idealizational law is close enough to the empirical facts (that is, its approximation holds true), whereas in the latter case that law is far too simplified (that is, its approximation is false) and demands to be concretized. The abovementioned peculiarity of the historical processes consists in the fact that one and the same phenomenon passes during its life-time through the areas of influences (i.e., the ranges of appropriate essential structures) of both kinds; this is what the so-called cascade-processes are marked by. This approach to the nature of the
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historical process has numerous methodological implications that Brzechczyn (1996, 1997) makes focus on. For instance, he finds a rationale in Windelbands idiographic understanding of historical sciences reconstructing its ontological presuppositions in terms of cascade-processes, and also in the claim of the chaotic nature of social processes. An alternative way of dealing with the notion of chaotic causality and a delimitation of the range of its occurrence was presented by Nowak (1994). Pomorski (1981) also considered elementary statements and historical generalizations of the idealizational nature that play so important a role in the historical narration. A systematic reconstruction of the historical narration as a special case of the idealizational structure is presented by Nowakowa (1990, cf. Chap. 21 below). Brzechczyn (1995) developed that conception significantly. Jurisprudence. Malinowski and Nowak (1972) discuss a possibility of employing the method of idealization in the theory of law. Nowak (1974d) finds numerous idealizing conditions underlying the notion of guilt in the penal law and attempts to find out the implicit way of developing that notion in juridical writings. The idea of the paper has been significantly transformed in a fully elaborated and well justified conception in a monograph by Patryas (1991). Nowak (1973a, a short summary in 1987b) reconstructs a ramified system of assumptions concerning the legislator that are hidden in the rules of the so-called "juridical logic" (for instance, argumenta a fortiori, lex specialis derogat generalis, etc.). The assumptions formulated as idealizational statements form eight models of decreasing abstractness. This still abstract construction is complemented by Ziembiski's (1982, 1985, 1990, p. 162ff, cf. also Ziembiski and Zieliski 1988, pp. 191ff] analyzes of the notion of the legislator as employed in the theory of law, and is made more subtle by Wronkowska's (1982, 1987, cf. also Patryas and Wronkowska 1985) and Kustras (1980) efforts to bring it closer to the actual problems of legislation. Kmita (1990) and ZirkSadowski (1990) have considered, the former with the negative and the latter with the positive outcome, a possibility to include the construction of perfect legislator into the framework of the communicative rationality in the Habermasian style. 4. Applications in the practical sciences The peculiarity of the practical sciences is interpreted so that it is programming, and not explaining, which is their goal. Programming is realized by building optimization statements and theories. Roughly, a statement is called optimization if the determined magnitude is at the same time a value (of cases of the type Nowak 1974f] and the formula of the statement provides the method of obtaining the extreme case of this magnitude-value. The practical theory is an idealizational theory that has optimization consequences in all of its models (Chwalisz et al. 1976, Nowak 1980a, pp. 179ff]. Some pieces of physical engineering (Chwalisz
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et al. 1976, Nowak 1974b, pp. 237-39), models of the policy of economic growth (ibidem and Nowak 1972b, p. 191ff, 1974b, p. 240), the theory of games (Nowak 1974b, pp. 242-44), pedagogy (Kozowna 1976) and criminology (Konieczny 1984) have been examined in terms of the above conception. A further step in deepening of the optimization conception of the practical research was done by Nowakowa (1991, pp.47ff). An alternative approach to the practical tasks of science, also referring in part to the peculiarity of the method of idealization in this domain, is elaborated by Siemianowski (1976). 5. Applications in philosophy The above remarks seem to confirm the conjecture that the idealizational approach to science passes the barrier (I), i.e. it seems to be able to explain some important traits of the object-sciences. Let us discuss in idealizational terms a possibility of understanding what the status of philosophy is. Here evidence is really limited and far from systematic. Nonetheless, there is some which testifies to the fact that the idealizational methodology appears to meet the criterion of adequacy (II). The status of philosophical logic. Nowak (1974b, pp.166-69) examines von Wright's system of the logic of preference finding that its axioms of it postulating asymmetry and transitivity of preferences of the arbitrary person X are based on some idealizing conditions (X accepts all the tautologies of the classical propositional calculus; whatever X accepts, is asserted with certainty; etc.). That theory might be thus reconstructed as an idealizational one. The same concerns the logics of beliefs. Various systems of beliefs may even be ordered (cf. Marciszewski, 1971) from the strongest system of absolute knowledge based on axiom X believes that p iff p up to the weaker systems of hypothetical acceptance. The weaker the axioms, the less restrictive idealizing conditions are assumed. Patryas (1987, pp. 59-205) systematically builds eleven definitions of believing, from the most to the least idealized, in order to prove that the underlying relation of concretization allows to localize the majority of the material discussed in the analytical theory of acceptance and to throw a new light upon some important points of the incessant debates in the analytical philosophy. Similarly all the other domains of the so-called philosophical logic are based on idealizations of a certain kind and one of the strategies of development of that domain would be that of weakening the hitherto adopted axioms which might be interpreted as building systems which dialectically correspond to the old ones. This supposition is developed in details by Egiert (1998) who reconstructs in idealizational terms the method of criteria of adequacy put forward by Rescher (1968) and Castaneda (1980). Categorial ontology as an idealizational theory. Nowak (1976d, 1978b] presents a reconstruction of ontology presupposed by the method of idealization. The ontology is built as an idealizational theory in itself. It is composed of five
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models. The first model deals with the rules of transformation of an arbitrary category, i.e. a phenomenon with its essential structure. The main claim of the model is that phenomena undergo not only events but also essential changes, i.e. the transformations in the composition of their essential structure, which makes it necessary for one and the same phenomenon, if categorially changeable, to be idealized in different times in quite a different manner. Basic theses of the model impose some limitations on possible essential changes. Further models take into account the previously neglected dimensions of the essential change: the mutual influence of phenomena, the structurality of phenomena, i.e. the fact that they hold on various level of complexity of objects, etc. Nowak (1976-78, vol. II] proposes an epistemological theory composed of five models adopted to categorial ontology. The relationship between categorial epistemology and idealizational methodology is analyzed by Nowakowa and Nowak (1985) and Gaul (1990a, summary in 1990b). Self-referential application. Idealizational methodology is an idealizational theory in itself. As presented in Nowak (1980a) it is a sequence of five models of increasing realism: in the initial model the main type of theoretical construct is a simple sequence <idealizational law and the series of its concretizations> whereas in model IV the main theoretical construct is rather a complicated structure in which the relations of concretization, entailment, approximation and statistical concretization are involved. And in model V the things become even more complicated, as they take into account the peculiar relations characteristic of practical sciences. The list of models is much longer as may be found in the expositions of the idealizational approach to science in Kupracz (1988) and Nowakowa (1991). Note, that a characteristic feature of the main methodological orientations is the incompatibility between the image of science which it presents and the image of itself which it offers. According to positivism, science is to observe and generalize observations, whereas it is obvious that this is not what the inductivist methodology does; for it applies logical reconstruction which is neither of the two methods prescribed for science. According to instrumentalism, empirical science builds a pure calculus which does not say anything about the world, whereas it is obvious that the thesis of instrumentalism is to be realistically interpreted in the domain of science. According to hypotheticism, science applies the method of criticism of hypotheses with the aid of empirical tests, whereas methodology is to produce "conventions" concerning scientific conduct. In a nutshell, inductivism is not a product of induction, instrumentalism is not a mere instrument, hypotheticism is not a result of criticism of hypotheses. The idealizational methodology, however, may be roughly understood as a kind of idealizational theory. The image of the method in science agrees with the method of making the very image (Nowak 1980a, pp. 195-96). Indeed, the idealizational
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methodology appears to follow its own image of scientific method, i.e. to meet the criterion of adequacy (II). 6. Idealization and mathematics Much worse with the criterion of adequacy (III). Here, only some separated facts can be quoted that, at best, promise that fulfilling this criterion is not excluded. First, Zielinska (1976b) examines the method applied in geometry arguing that it is formally analogical to the method of idealization and concretization from empirical sciences. Second, Nowak (1974b, pp. 118-21) proposes to understand the nature of mathematical entities as set-theoretical abstracts built over ideal types, for instance the geometrical point is a class of mass points. that is mathematical constructs are to be, roughly, classes (or classes of classes, etc.) of idealizational constructs. Third, Nowak (1974b, p. 117) distinguishes between two types of idealizational statements. Each scientific law presupposes, overtly or tacitly, a formal scheme of which it is built by substantive interpretation, i.e. by assigning to variables from the scheme certain (physical, economic, etc.) magnitudes (Nowak 1980a, p.147). Now, an idealizational statement with the analytic basis is one whose formal scheme is a theorem of a given mathematical (including logical) science. The remaining statements are ones with the synthetic basis. Pure mathematics contains formal schemes. Applied mathematics is composed of idealizational statements with the analytic basis, for instance applied logic, geometry or game theory (cf. above III.5.1). Empirical sciences are composed of idealizational statements with the synthetic basis. These several points are very far from any systematic theory of formal sciences. Nonetheless, they seem to testify that there is a chance to fill a gap between the idealizational image of empirical sciences, including methodology of science, and formal sciences, and hence to meet the criterion of adequacy (III). (V) Generalizations and expansions 1. Generalization and expansion The conceptualization of the method of idealization outlined above originates basically from the core conception outlined above in (II); the conception has been elaborated in the late 1960s and the early 1970s. From that time on it has been often argued that the conception is too narrow to capture the research practice and consequently that it requires a generalization. As a result, more general definitions of an idealizational law or of concretization would be offered, ones
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that would be capable of including those cases of laws or procedures which did not fall under the original characterization. This is what the procedure of generalizing consists in. It ought to be distinguished from the procedure of extending the conception by new, not as yet conceptualized, research procedures. As a result of a generalization, it turns out that the method of idealization is applicable to a wider field of research practice than it was thought before. As a result of extension, on the other hand, it turns out that a new, not yet conceptualized, procedure is derivative from idealization. Almost all of the proposed generalizations and extensions pertained to the statics of science. One of the goals of the present chapters is to systematize these generalizations and extensions of the idealizational conception of science as well as to study their consequences for the dynamics of science to study the modifications they require of the original model of correspondence relations. In this chapter, we shall discuss some of the generalizations of the idealizational conception of science and consider their implications for the problem of correspondence. We shall begin with some examples of generalizations. The concept of magnitude was modified so as to accomodate the criticisms posed to the original account. Brzeziski (1977), Stefanski (1977), Szaban (1979) and Witkowski (1985) argue that the construction of magnitude accepted in the standard exposition of the idealizational conception of science does not fully correspond to the language of science and they propose various ways of generalizing this construction. L. Nowak (1979b) remarks that realistic assumptions G(x) in statements of the form (Tk) are chosen arbitrarily and he attempts to discover an objective criterion of choosing such assumptions; another such criterion is proposed by Paprzycka (1992). Tuchanska (1980) analyzes the procedure of constructing concepts introduced in idealizational statements. Zielinska (1981) draws a distinction between idealizing and abstract assumptions and between respective procedures of waving them. And so on, and so forth. From among numerous elaborations of this kind, we shall present only two and discuss their implications for the problem of diachronic relations between the basic units of scientific knowledge, scientific laws. 2. Forms of idealization Stabilization. Chwalisz (1979) argues that the scheme of idealizational statements does not reveal the role which is played in scientific laws by constants. As a result, that scheme does not embrace the laws of science which abstract not from a magnitude but from its variability, for instance the law of Gay-Lussac postulating that pressure is constant. The author claims that an adequate scheme of the idealizational law is to contain two corrections in comparison to the standard one. First, the notion of idealizing condition should be generalized in order to include conditions of the form p = const. Second,
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constants are to appear also in the formulae of idealizational statements, i.e. they sometimes play the role of parameters which are not abstracted from at all. The author defines an idealizing condition as a propositional function of the form p(x) = c, where c is a constant and it follows from the background knowledge that for no object in the considered universe of discourse this function is satisfied. In the limiting case when c is zero, the generalized notion of idealizing condition passes into the initial one. An idealizational statement in the generalized sense is a conditional which possesses in its antecedent idealizing conditions in the above, i.e. generalized, meaning. Such a statement may for one factor abstract from its influence upon the magnitude in question and, at the same time, it may abstract from another factor's variability admitting thus its existence and influence upon the determined magnitude. Note, that Gay-Lussac law falls under the generalized notion of idealizational statement. When the magnitude from the above considered condition takes on a value different from zero, then the idealizing condition is termed stabilizing assumption (Zielinska 1979, p. 96). A statement which apart from the realistic condition possesses in its antecedent only stabilizing conditions is termed stabilizational. Destabilization, by analogy to concretization, consists in removing the stabilizing condition and introducing a correction h(p) into the consequent. Obviously, apart from stabilizational statements there are idealizational-stabilizational ones, possessing both stabilizing and idealizing (in the narrow, initial sense) conditions, and purely idealizational ones that are based exclusively upon idealizing conditions (in the narrow sense). Nowakowa (1991) analyzes certain peculiarities of the testing of the stabilizational statements. Quasi-idealization. Also a weakened form of idealization termed quasiidealization has been introduced (Nowak 1977a, 1980a). The explication of the procedure has been correctly criticized by Kuokkanen and Tuomivaara (1992, cf. also Sintonen and Kiikeri 1995). Below, I shall present a new version of my previous explication. The standard scheme of the idealizational statement (Tk) is based on a silent simplification that all the factors influence the determined parameter F universally, that is on the whole universe of discourse G = {x*G(x)}. However, it need not be the case. For instance, the list of determinants of temperature varies from the highest temperatures to the middle ones and then to the lowest. Simplifying the complex matter one may say that a factor which is essential for F on all the objects from the subset G* of the universe G is not essential for F on all the objects from the rest of the universe. This may be schematized in the first approximation as a quasi-idealizational statement: (QTk) if G(x) & G*(x) & p1(x) = 0 & ... & pk-1(x) = 0 & pk(x) = 0, then F(x) = fk(H(x)).
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where the condition G*(x) is termed the quasi-idealizing clause. Obviously, if G* = G, then (QTk) reduces to (Tk). For instance, in the list of assumptions (cf. Kuokkanen and Tuomivaara 1992, p.73): x is a planet & x # sun & x # Uranus & mass(x) = 0 the first is a realistic condition, the next two constitute a quasi-idealizing clause and the fourth is an idealizing condition. The statement of the form: (Q1Tk-1) if G(x) & G1*(x) & p1(x) = 0 & ... & pk-1(x) = 0 & pk(x) # 0, then F(x) = fk-1(H(x), pk(x)] where G1* is a subset of G* is termed a limited concretization of (Q Tk). For the rest of the set G1* nothing changes in the consequent of (Q Tk) which justifies the label degenerated concretization attached to the following statement: (Q0Tk-1) if G(x) & G0*(x) & p1(x) = 0 & ... & pk-1(x) = 0 & pk(x) # 0, then F(x) = fk(H(x)]. Again, when G1* = G*, G0* is empty, and (Q1 Tk-1) reduces to the standard concretization (Tk-1). As a result, instead of the linear, idealizational structure generated by the standard concretization Tk,Tk-1,...,T1, T0, we obtain a quasi-idealizational treestructure of the form: (Q Tk) (Q1 Tk -1) (Q0 Tk -1) (Q11 Tk -2) (Q10 Tk -2) (Q01 Tk -2) (Q00 Tk -2) ...................................................... The dychotomic form of the tree is due to the assumption that each time the range of the quasi-idealizing clause from the (quasi-)concretized statement is divided into two parts only which obviously need not be the case. Let us add that statements which possess in their antecedents only idealizing conditions are termed idealizational statements of the first kind. Those who possess both idealizing and quasi-idealizing assumptions are called idealizational statements of the second type. Finally, those possessing only quasi-idealizing clause are of the third type. Semi-idealization and the ceteris paribus clause. Often scientists are perfectly aware that they do not list all the factors essential for the determined magnitude and that, therefore, their images of the essential structure of that magnitude are open, that is there are some additional factors which are not identified and which
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influence the given magnitude (the disturbances). Thus, in order to formulate any explicit statement, the theoretician must adopt the semi-idealizing condition that neglects all the other factors there are no disturbances is called a semi-idealizing condition (Nowak 1974b, p.195). A statement based on the semi-idealizing condition is termed a semiidealizing statement. A statement possessing both idealizing and semi-idealizing conditions belongs to semi-idealizing conditions of the first class and that possessing only the semi-idealizing assumption belongs to semi-idealizing statements of the second class (ibid., p. 200ff]. There have appeared two alternative ways of dealing with the removal of the semi-idealizing condition. According to one proposal (Nowak 1974b, also 1980a, p. 168ff, cf. also above section III4], removing it the semi-idealizing condition transforms a semi-idealizational statement which, by definition, is of the univocal nature into a factual statement of the probabilistic nature. that is the fact of the appearance of disturbances is to be a source of the probabilistic approach in science. According to the other proposal, the removal of the clause in question (termed ceteris paribus clause) transforms a semi-idealizational statement of the univocal nature into a factual statement with a certain range of the admitted deviations but still univocal (Patryas 1976, English summary in 1975a and 1982). 22 Aggregation. Lastowski (1987, summary in 1990) distinguishes two types of magnitudes: those which are defined on the objects of one and the same level of complexity (intralevel magnitudes) and those which are defined on objects of various, at least two, levels of complexity (interlevel magnitudes). For instance, in the theory of evolution three levels of complexity are studied: genotypes, organisms and populations, and, appropriately, various interlevel parameters belong to that theory. An aggregating condition assumes counterfactually that the determined magnitude which is, in fact, interlevel is to be an intralevel parameter. Thus, all
That seems to be a proper to add that all the material referred to in this exposition is, so to speak, reinterpreted from the standpoint of the present author. Sometimes this interpretation is simply a repetition of what the summarized authors working in the idealizational approach overtly have declared. But not always. Some of them have put forward stronger theses. W. Patryas in the writings quoted above has not simply found a new type of deformative (counterfactual) statements, those with the ceteris paribus clause, which is to add to idealizational laws in the initial approach. His original thesis was that there are no idealizational laws in that sense in science at all, i.e. that all scientific laws are tacitly at least equipped in the ceteris paribus clause. Similarly, Kupracz (1992) claims that all scientific laws are semi-idealizational (and not idealizational in the initial sense). Both derive from their theses some important consequences concerning, first and foremost, the reconstruction of the way of testing actually applied in science. However interesting these proposals are, I omit these elements of their conceptions in the present survey, because its goal is not so much to make a voyage on the territory called the idealizational approach to science but also to present a certain map of that territory which presupposes a definite interpretation of the writings constituting it.
22
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the influences that come to the given magnitude from other levels of complexity studied in a given science are, in the "first approximation", neglected. An aggregational statement is one equipped in the aggregating condition. And disaggregation, by analogy to concretization, consists in that the dependence between parameters treated as if they were intralevel is transformed into an interlevel dependence. The latter is a superposition of the initial intralevel dependence (stated in the aggregating law) and of interlevel dependencies expressing influences holding between various levels of complexity. In the process of disaggregation the actual complexity of a given phenomenon occurring at various levels of organization of matter is reconstructed. Lastowski (1987, 1990) proposes a ramified classification of aggregating statements and reconstruction of various types of the disaggregating procedure. Types of deformational statements. The following forms of deformational procedures have hitherto been distinguished: idealization (I), stabilization (S), semi-idealization (s), quasi-idealization (Q), aggregation (A). Kupracz (1988) distinguishes deformational statements of the following 31 types: (i) I-, S-, s-, Q-, A-; (ii) IS-, Is-, IQ-, IA-, Ss-, SQ-, SA-, sQ-, sA-, QA-; (iii) ISs-, ISQ-, ISA-, IsQ-, IsA-, IQA-, SsQ-, SsA-, SQA-; (iv) ISsQ-, IsQA-, ISQA-, ISsA-, SsQA-; (v) ISsQA-. Statements of the I-, s-, Q-, Is- and IQ-types have been considered by Nowak (1974b). Statements of the S-, IS-, SQ-types have been analyzed by Chwalisz (1979) and Zielinska (1981). Statements of the A-, IA-, SA- and QA-types have been considered by Lastowski (1987). To my knowledge, the remaining types of deformational statements have not been methodologically examined. Some other deformational procedures. We have confined ourselves to several simplest, deformational procedures which are also easiest to summarize,. In the idealizational approach to science, however, more procedures of the kind have been analyzed. Let us just name some of them. (i) Proto-idealization. Brzeziski (1978, summary in 1985b) depicts in the research practice of the behavioural sciences a deformational procedure hereafter
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called proto-idealization. The author divides the class of essential factors for a given magnitude into those which are controlled by the researcher (the principal, and part of secondary) and those which are not (the rest of secondary factors and the disturbing factors). Variance created by the non-controlled factors is termed residual variance. A proto-idealizing condition counterfactually includes a controlled factor into the set of non-controlled magnitudes. A proto-idealizational statement is based on proto-idealizing conditions and represents not a single dependence but a certain class of them. Protoconcretization includes, realistically, the given magnitude in the set of controlled magnitudes, thereby modifying the form of the dependence and the explained variance. This conception serves as a methodological tool to analyze research practice in behavioural sciences (cf. writings of Brzeziski 1978, Maruszewski 1983, Hornowska 1989, Machowski 1990, Gaul 1990). (ii) Reduction. Zielinska (1981) makes a distinction between two types of deformating clauses, "abstractive" and "idealizing" ones. I prefer to use the terms "reductive" and "ideating" conditions (Nowak 1990). The former is to neglect the very existence of a given magnitude, whereas the latter is to neglect its influence upon other magnitudes. Zielinska's distinction has some philosophical presuppositions made clear in the so-called negativist unitarian metaphysics (Nowak 1990, 1998, vol.1), but the methodological significance of the whole procedure elaborated in an abstract way has not hitherto been recognized yet. (iii) Normalization. Nowak (1991c) analyzes the procedure of normalization. Let us call a standard magnitude one which in its range an area of normality, i.e. a set of objects on which that magnitude is determined by the principal factor(s) alone. An abnormal area is composed of objects which undergo an influence on the part of the principal factor(s) and, additionally, on the part of secondary factors. A normalizing condition counterfactually reduces the whole range of a given magnitude to its area of normality. A normalization statement is based on normalizing assumptions and its specifications take into account abnormal areas of the appropriate magnitudes. Specification consists in attempting to apply what is proven correct for the normal area of a given magnitude to its abnormal area. This procedure reveals similarity to the theory of inductive tests of L.J. Cohen (1977) and can even be claimed to be a paraphrase of that conception in the idealizational approach to science. (iv) Isolation. Criticising Maekis (1992) claim of the central role of isolation in the realm of scientific procedures, Nowak (1997) argues that the procedure of isolation is a special case of idealization of a sort. What is more, the conditions of the applicability of this procedure can be formulated only in the idealizational terms. The hidden sense of that procedure is to neglect a factor common to at least two essential structures of the investigated magnitudes and thus to isolate them.
The Idealizational Approach to Sceince 2. Testing the idealizational statements
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The criticism of the initial approach. The initial approach to the problem of empirical testing of idealizational statements has been criticized for leaving the concept of observational fact, or empirical data, unanalyzed in idealizational terms (Kupracz 1988). Kupracz (1988), inspired by some ideas of Suppe (1972), observes that in the case of at least some idealizing assumptions the procedure of concretization does not work at all. These are, for instance, assumptions that the measuring design is perfect in a certain respect, i.e. that it does not commit errors of a given type. Formally, claims Kupracz, such an assumption is an idealizing one. Yet, removing it via concretization would lead to absurd results. Imagine that in fact the instrument I gives on a measured object a the error E due to certain disturbances d. Let the idealizing condition d(I, a) = 0 be introduced allowing thus to omit the fact that I brings about error E. Now, attempting to remove it by concretization, we state realistically that d(I, a) # 0 and thus that I commits error E. Meanwhile, the goal of the researcher is quite different. He wants not to restate the error E in his/her data but, on the contrary, to improve his/her actual data transforming them from their actual erroneous form into one deprived of the error E. Not the reconstruction of empirical facts (the acts of measurement in their actual form), but making them more correct is the goal of the procedure which is engaged in testing of idealizational laws with regard to certain idealizing condition. The main goal of Kupracz (1988) is to analyze this procedure of data correction and to compare it with concretization. Another point of criticism has been that the connections between theoretical terms occurring in the idealizational laws and empirical terms have not been reconstructed in the terms of the idealizational approach (Brzeziski 1977, Tuchanska 1980, Hornowska 1989). Hornowska (1989) claims that the above outlined image of testing presupposes that all terms appearing in the tested law Tk are observational terms, i.e. ones that might be applied to the empirical objects directly. As is well-known, that is not normally the case. Normally, the terms such as "F" and/or "H" in Tk are theoretical terms and that is why the procedure of their operationalization is necessary. The main task undertaken in Hornowska (1989) is to introduce operationalization into the image of testing of the idealizational law. The procedure of data-correction. Kupracz (1988, 1990) finds the idea of datacorrection in Suppe's semantic theory of science (cf. Suppe 1972, 1974). For Suppe, one may apply the idealizational law to the empirical fact F, on the condition that this fact is made more idealized. The disturbances d1, d2, ..., dn must be abstracted from and the idealized form of F ("model"), Fn, is compared with the law. Model Fn reveals the shape of the phenomenon F, provided that all the disturbances do not appear at all. The description of the model is therefore at the same level of abstraction as the idealizational law in question. That is why
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this description, or its negation, can be deduced from the law. Such a procedure suffices, according to Suppe, to test idealizational statements. Accepting this view, the procedure of concretization would be superfluous. Kupracz (1988, 1992) criticizes this claim by referring to numerous examples of the concretization procedure in physics, economics, etc. analyzed in the idealizational approach to science taking them to testify to the fact that not only the singular descriptions of the empirical facts are idealized but also the abstract laws are made more realistic (cf. above, II). The claim of the semantic theory of science to neglect concretization is thus as unsound as the claim of the idealizational approach to science to neglect data correction. The point is that both the procedures occur in science and therefore they must be accounted for in every adequate theory of science. The field of application of the data correction, the author claims, is limited to the realm of testing. that is the data are corrected because they commit certain systematic errors that are effects of disturbances. Let us explain his idea on the example of the simplest act of measurement of the length of a given body a with an instrument I. Modifying a little and simplifying very much the author's formulations, let us express the result of this act in the following statement: (2.2-1) L(a, I) = w. Let this act be influenced by disturbance d to the effect that the outcome of the measurement commits a systematic error. On the strength of the idealizing condition: d(a, I) = 0 one could abstract from the disturbance. The following then holds: (2.2-2) if d(a, I) = 0, then L(a, I) = w. Yet, as a matter of fact d(a, I) > 0, therefore a correction is necessary. Assume that the following belongs to the theory of the instrument I: (2.2-3) if d(x, I) = v, then L(x, I) = z +- t(v); where z is the standard outcome of measurement with I (for instance, a certain multiplication of the length of the measuring rod) and t(v) is a modification of that outcome under the influence of disturbance d. Kupracz terms statements of the kind principles of modification of a given instrument. According to (2.2-3), the disturbance d occurring in the degree v changes the outcome of the measurement with +-t(v). As a result, the act of measurement must be mistaken. Knowing that the researcher knows, however, how to correct the report (2.2-1). The data correction in our simplified case runs as follows: (1) if d(x, I) = v, then L(x, I) = z +- t(v) (2) d(a, I) = D (3) L(a, I) = w
The Idealizational Approach to Sceince ' (4) L(a, I) = w - t(D)
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Instead of (2.2-1) the corrected report (4) is thus put forward. Not as a reconstruction of what is going in the experience but as an improvement of that. Due to the procedure of correction, it is possible to convert the readings of malfunctioning measurement devices into results corresponding to the readings of perfect devices. A generalization of the procedure of data-correction. This innovative conception is not, in a way, completed; i.e. Kupracz failed to draw all general conclusions that follow implicitly from his analyzes. This concerns, among other things, a comparison between the semantic and idealizational theories of science. The book shows us that none of these offers a self-sufficient means to reconstruct the actual practice of testing. Testing neither consists entirely in concretization and approximation (cf. above 2.1) nor can it be fully characterized in terms of data correction. Simply, both are necessary. Therefore, taking the two procedures into consideration together, we obtain the following image of testing of the idealizational statement that is implicitly suggested by the reviewed works 23: I. According to the researcher's view, the phenomenon F undergoes the working of factors H, pn,..., p1, whereas the act of measuring bringing the raw data D0 is under the influence of factors d1, d2, ..., dn. II. Introducing appropriate idealizing conditions, the factors pn,..., p1 are abstracted from and the idealizational law (Tk) is put forward. Then, these conditions are removed step by step and appropriate concretizations of the law (Tk) are formed. The final concretization cannot be applied via approximation, i.e. be set with the raw data D0, since the latter commits systematic errors resulting from the disturbances d1, d2, ..., dn deviating the act of measurement. III. The researcher omits then the disturbances d1 , d2, ..., dn obtaining the corrected data D1, D2, ..., Dn being idealizations of the raw data D0. The last one, Dn, is deprived of all side disturbances being thus the closest to the real state of the phenomenon F. IV. It is only Dn which is attempted to be derived from the final concretization of the idealizational law (Tk). If the data Dn is sufficiently close to the final concretization of (Tk), i.e. if it falls under the approximation of that statement, then it directly confirms this approximation and indirectly confirms the idealizational statement (Tk). Otherwise, the act of measurement disconfirms the appropriate statements or testifies against the applied way of correcting the raw data D0.
I refer here to formulations of Nowakowa (1991) who makes Kupraczs ideas more definite and precise.
23
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This image seems to be the most complete model of testing of the idealizational law elaborated in the idealizational approach to science. Certainly, it does not state yet how to relate theoretical concepts to the empirical notions, that is it still presumes that all the notions employed in the idealizational law are equipped with the criteria of empirical applicability. That is the subject of Hornowska (1989) study. Concept-formation and operationalization. In the idealizational approach to science the problem of how theoretical notions are equipped with the criteria of empirical applicability becomes especially troublesome. Let us briefly outline the subsequent attempts to cope with this problem. As has been argued (Nowak 1971a), the structure of concept formation is an analogue of theory formation. Call an idealizing notion one whose meaning postulates contain idealizing conditions. In contradistinction to that, a factual notion is characterized merely by realistic assumptions. Assume that a given notion N is introduced under k idealizing conditions. Now, a notion N' which is introduced under k-1 idealizing assumptions and a negation of the kth one, and whose connotation is enlarged with the feature to which the kth assumption refers, will be termed a transformation of N. Let us call the sequence of transformations of a notion, from the most abstract one to the factual one, a transformative chain. The latter element of it is supposed to correspond approximately with the colloquial notions referring to reality , not to its models. The structure of the transformative chain corresponds thus to the structure of an idealizational theory. It was postulated that a theoretical notion is being introduced in science only as a member of a transformative chain. This approach is criticized from the standpoint of the methodology of behavioral sciences. It is argued (Brzeziski, 1976, 1978) that it neglects the peculiarities of measurement in science, especially in psychology. Namely, it tacitly presupposes that every scientific notion is equipped with an ideal measuring instrument. Such a notion refers to a factor, i.e. a family of classes of abstraction generated by a certain equivalence relation (Ajdukiewicz, 1965). Now, a device attached to a notion being unable to distinguish between certain objects also generates a relation of equivalence. A device d is termed ideally discriminating relative to the factor F if it distinguishes between all the objects of the range of F which do belong to different classes of abstraction of F, and if it does not distinguish between ones which belong to the same class of abstraction of F. The initial approach presupposes that every scientific notion is equipped with an ideally discriminating instrument which is obviously not true. For no real instrument allows the researcher to discriminate between all the classes of abstraction constituting a given magnitude. Therefore, the real instrument generates a "less subtle" relation which does not overlap with the relation of equivalence generating the (theoretical) magnitude. And the scale does not assign
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to the cases of the operationalized magnitude definite numerical values but merely numerical intervals (Brzeziski 1976). Let us call a notion equipped with a device allowing for a merely non-ideally discriminating device a partially operationalized notion. The main idea of Brzeziski's (1976), (1978) proposal was to replace the initial claim with a more realistic one: that the notions occurring in the transformative chains are in science partially operationalized notions. In other words, his idea was that instead of single transformative chains: (c) Nk, Nk-1, ..., Ni, N0 being fully numerically operationalized there occur in science transformative chains whose elements are partially (which will be marked by *) operationalized magnitudes: (c') *Nk, *Nk-1, ..., *Ni, *N0 Tuchanska (1980) proposes to distinguish between three concepts: factor, theoretical magnitude and operationalized magnitude. A factor is an objectively existing family of classes of abstraction whose recognition is the researcher's aim. In order to reconstruct it, the researcher constructs a theoretical concept, a magnitude. It is composed of a family of classes of abstraction which s/he considers to be identical with those constituting the factor in question. On the numerical level, a magnitude is supposed to be equipped with an ideally discriminating device reflecting, according to the researcher's supposition, the quantitative structure of the factor. But all that concerns the world of s/her theory. In practice, the researcher is able to use merely partially discriminating devices. Thus, s/he transforms his theoretical construct, a magnitude, into a partially operationalized magnitude. Thus Tuchanska replaces the idea of single transformative chain (c') with the idea of double chain of the kind:
Nk, Nk-1,
..., Ni, N0
(c'') Nopk, Nopk-1, ..., Nopi, Nop0 , where the first component includes theoretical magnitudes, whereas the second one corresponding partially operationalized magnitudes. A necessary condition for a notion to be introduced into science is, then, to be a member of the appropriate transformative chain provided that a corresponding partially operationalized magnitude has been constructed. And all this is to reconstruct an appropriate factor. The main subject of Hornowska's criticism is the idea of what has been called above partial operationalization. She claims that finding a device to measure a factor is only a part of the story, and even a derivative part of it. The point is that
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usually no device is able to assign numbers of its scale to the objects of the particular classes of abstraction of the (theoretical) magnitude. A typical situation in science, particularly in the behavioural sciences, is that a theoretical magnitude is linked to a series of less theoretical magnitudes ending with the observational one (an index of the initial magnitude), and a partially discriminating device is assigned merely to the latter. And it is the constructing of indices for the theoretical magnitudes which has been neglected in both Brzeziski's and Tuchanska's proposals, not to mention the initial one. that is they did not conceptualize this well-known procedure (for instance, S. Nowak 1965) in terms of the presupposed theory of science, i.e. in terms of the idealizational approach to science 24. This is actually the main task of the book. Let us present the construction of Hornowska (1989) in a simplified manner. Given is the factor F influenced by a certain amount of other factors (the space of essential factors for F, as it is usually termed in the idealizational approach to science). The author proposes to consider all the factors influenced by F, mark a set of them as W1 and call the area of F's influence of 1st degree. The set of factors influenced by a factor of the set W1 will be termed the area of F's influence of the 2nd degree and marked as W 2. Etc. Thus, what is obtained is a sequence of the areas of F's influence: (IF) W 1, W2, ..., Wm, ... There is no reason why among the sets of factors being significant consequences of F there must appear any observable factor, i.e. one whose constituting equivalence relation is a relation noticeable for creatures equipped with our sensory apparatus. The principle of empiricism as reconstructed by the author claims this, however. There is a general, ontological thesis stating that for every factor F there exists such j that Wj contains at least one observable factor; let us call it an identifier of F. It is a standard assumption of every science that for each theoretical factor which can be defined in it, certain observable consequences of it always follow. And it is that science's job to find these consequences, that is to recognize not only the factor under consideration but also its identifiers. Apart from the notion of identifier, Hornowska (1989) introduces the notion of the strong identifier of a given factor. Assume that in the sequence (IF) only the relation of being a principal factor for is taken into account. that is in W1 there occur merely factors for which F is a principal factor, in W2 there occur only factors for which those of W1 are principal, etc. Now, the first observable factor in that sequence is termed a strong identifier of F. The methodological sense of looking for strong identifiers of the considered factors is that finding them one can avoid developing the appropriate (i.e., ones denoting these factors) notions. This is the case which the author analyzes as follows (p.88-9).
24
This criticism does not work in case of Tuchaska's proposals (cf. 1980).
The Idealizational Approach to Sceince Let (2.4-1) O(a) = r
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mean that for the specific experimental conditions, the value of the observable magnitude H for the measured object a is shown by a given measurement tool as r. Since H is the identifier of F, it presupposes that the researcher has found (2.4-2) O(x) = f(F(x)), for every x. If f is a perfect (one-one) function, then, obviously, (2.4-3) if O(x) = n, then F(x) = f^(n), for every x, (where f^ is the convert function of f). Hence, the researcher may find an unobservable value of the theoretical magnitude F. (2.4-4) F(a) = f^(r) = s. In sum, Hornowska (1989) develops the triadic distinction of Tuchanska (1980) assigning it a better terminology: factor/magnitude/variable. However, the novelty of Hornowska's approach is far from being a merely terminological innovation. She reconstructs the connections between the magnitude and the variable much more adequately. A variable is not the theoretical magnitude equipped additionally with (real, not ideal) device, but a separate magnitude assigned to the theoretical magnitude and equipped with the non-ideally discriminating measurement tool. In other words, the author's contribution consists mainly in conceptualizing the procedure of equipping the theoretical magnitudes with the empirical sense, if we agree that the latter may be identified with the notion of variable. The author's book is one of the most subtle grasps of the relation: idealizational theory/experience 25. What is, however, not quite clear are the consequences of the author's approach for the reconstruction of the testing procedure of idealizational theories. A certain unclarity appears even in the quoted passage from (2.4-1) to (2.4-4). The author, formulating the statement (2.4-2), makes a stipulation: "to formulate the thesis, I neglect the idealizing assumptions" (p.89). What does it, however, mean if we are aware of the fact that (2.4-2) is valid, if at all, only under certain idealizing conditions? It might only mean that both (2.4-2) and further claims are valid under the relevant assumptions of the kind. Let us limit ourselves to one condition only, disregarding the influence of p. Thus, we obtain the following: Since (2.4-1) and
25
One should also mention interesting writings of Patryas (1975a-b, 1976), Krajewski (1977), Nowakowa (1991), Kupracz (1992) which analyze various other aspects of the relation idealization/experience.
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(2.4-2a) if p(x) = 0, then O(x) = f(F(x)), for every x, therefore: (2.4-4a) if p(a) = 0, then F(a) = f^(r) = s. But what about the cases in which p takes on values different from zero, that is the real cases? Here (2.4-2a) must be concretized: (2.4-2b) if p(x) # 0, then O(x) = f'(F(x),p(x)), for every x, and the conclusion of the reasoning will be: (2.4-4b) if p(a) = m, then F(z) = f'^(r, m) = t being thus different from in case (2.4-4a). In terms of notions this will mean that the procedure under consideration involves developing the appropriate concept. That is seen even in the extremely simple scheme considered above. Let N be defined as f(F) on the condition that p is neglected; the converse-notion N^ will thus be identified with f^(O) on the same condition. The passage from (2.4-1) to (2.4-4a) involves merely these two notions. But the passage, in more realistic conditions, from `(2.4-1) to (2.4-4b) involves the following pair of notions: N'= f'(F, p), N^' = f^'(O, p) being respectively developments of the notions N, N^. Even this simplified scheme 26 reveals that the procedure of developing the notions is involved in the structure of the author's discourse. My objection would then be that this is too little exploited in the book, and less visible than it could be. And that is what, at the same time, should be done. For only this would allow to do justice to the author's contribution by relating it to the conceptions discussed above. For, to my understanding, the real novelty of E. Hornowska's proposal, as compared with the earlier mentioned conceptions consists in the fact that she replaces the idea of double transformative chain (c'') with the idea of multiplied chain of the kind: Nk, Nk-1, ..., Ni, N0 Nk, Nk-1, ..., Ni, N0 (c''') .......................................... Nopk, Nopk-1, ..., Nopi, Nop0 , where every member of the first line (the transformative chain of theoretical magnitudes) initiates a sequence of its significance-consequences up to its
Among other things it is assumed that the secondary factor p is significant for both F and O which, obviously, need not be the case.
26
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identifier the final chain is actually composed of the identifiers of the initial theoretical magnitudes; the identifiers stand to one another in the relation of transformation reflecting thus the structure of the preceding chains. One may guess that according to the author, a necessary condition for a notion that it is introduced into science is then to be a member of the appropriate transformative chain, provided that a corresponding identifier has been constructed and that this identifier has been transformed up to the factual shape. 3. Theories The material to be presented in this section is in a large part available in English; therefore, I shall be even more concise than above. Basic forms of theories (cf. my 1974b, 1980a, pp. 95-196). The basic form of a theory is simple linear idealizational theory composed of a sequence from the idealizational law to the factual one, determined only by the relation of concretization. A simple linear approximate theory contains a factual approximation of the last idealizational concretization of the initial law. Here, apart from the relation of concretization also the relation of approximation defines the methodological structure of a theoretical construction. A complex linear idealizational theories are sequences of deductive systems, called models, such that the axioms of a given model are concretizations of axioms of the preceding system up to the initial, basic model; the last chain of the sequence of models is the final concretization, i.e. the factual model based on no idealizing conditions. Complex linear approximate theory ends with a factual model composed of statements that are approximations of the least idealized model of the sequence. Typology of theories. There have appeared two ways of making things more complex and, therefore, closer to reality of science. One was to take into account derivative forms of deformational statements and to analyze how they are joined into groups. This leads to the typology of theories analogical to that of statements (Kupracz 1988): (i) I-, S-, s-, Q-, A-; (ii) IS-, Is-, IQ-, IA-, Ss-, SQ-, SA-, sQ-, sA-, QA-; (iii) ISs-, ISQ-, ISA-, IsQ-, IsA-, IQA-, SsQ-, SsA-, SQA-; (iv) ISsQ-, IsQA-, ISQA-, ISsA-, SsQA-; (v) ISsQA-. Theories of the I-, s-, Q-, Is- and IQ-types have been considered by Nowak (1971a, 1972a, 1974b). Theories of the S- and IS-types have been analyzed by Zielinska (1981). Theories of the A-, IA- and SA-types have been considered by
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Lastowski (1987). To my knowledge, the remaining types of deformational theories have not been methodologically analyzed. Network theories. The other way to enlarge the notion of theory is to replace the linear structure of models by a ramified one. It often science happens that a given idealizational law is not concretized by removing one condition after another but in a star way. that is one assumption is removed and an appropriate correction is introduced, then the same assumption is made valid anew and another idealizing condition is removed, etc. A star-system contains thus the idealizational statement in its centre and a set of single concretization of that law. Also numerous intermediate forms between the star-system and the linear system appear, for instance, in economics (Nowak 1972a, pp. 92-132). Therefore, the general notion of a network-theotry is the following: it is composed of the first order model, models (equally abstract) of the second order whose axioms are concretizations of axioms of the initial model, models (equally abstract) of the third order, etc., up to models of the ith order all of which are then approximated to reality (ibid., 133-35). General notion of an idealizational theory. Leaving aside variations of deformational procedures (cf. above III) and the inner formal-substantive structure of an idealizational statement (cf. Nowak 1974b, p. 114ff, 1990b), one can define the general notion of an idealizational theory as follows. It is a system <F, Rs, Tid, OAMi, cD> where a. F is a formal language, b. Rs is a set of rules of substantiation: for every conditional p " Tid there exists a formal formula f"F such that the consequent of the conditional p is a substantive interpretation of f, c. Tid is an idealizational network-theory, i.e. Tid = <Mk; 1Mk-1,...,aMk-1; ...; 1Mj,..., bMj ; 1AMi,..., bAMi>, d. O(AMi) is the sequence of operationalizations of the approximations of the least idealized models, i.e. O(AMi) = <1O(AMi),..., bO(AMi)> e. cD is a set of observational statements each p' " cD being a correction of a raw observational statement p " D. Pathology of theories. The idealizational theory in the above sense is something which may be considered a normal, or "healthy", theory. Obviously, this assessment refers to the presented approach to science, otherwise it may make no sense. Such a qualification is confirmed, however, by reconstructions of
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numerous examples. It is the theory of free-fall (Such 1978), of ideal gases (Zielinska 1976, Kuipers 1985), the genetic-populationary theory of evolution (Lastowski 1987, pp. 119-29), Kalecki's theory of business cycles (Nowak 1972a, pp.93-104), the multiplier theory of economic growth (Nowak 1980a, pp. 14142), etc. that fall under the above scheme. It is not a mere incident that all of them are formulated in the language of mathematics. Mathematics is a symptom of health in science. If that is a healthy theory, then all the remaining types of theoretical constructs in science should be considered as more or less "sick" cases. Indeed, numerous examples of the theoretical constructs referred to in part II above are not normal theories. Then, a large problem of the pathology of theories appears. Its first task is to classify all the non-normal cases into certain groups and to order them as far as the "distance" from the normal theory is concerned. Let us distinguish several types of them (for a systematic account cf. below Chap. 15). Below there are some types of partial theories: half-theories (i-iii), one-fourth-theories (iv-vi) and one-eighth theories (vii-viii). (i) An intuitive-developed-operationalized-purified-theory: <Tid, O(AMi], cD>. In this case there is no separation between the formalism assumed by the theoretical conception and the conception itself. As a result all reasonings are purely intuitive, without any possibility of checking their validity. Example: the synthetic theory of evolution (cf. reconstruction in Lastowski 1987, pp.70-90). (ii) A formal-undeveloped-operationalized-purified-theory: <F, Rs, Mk, O(AMk], cD>. The theory is formalized but not concretized. Only the most idealized model is approximated to reality . Example: Rashevsky's model of group behaviour (for a reconstruction cf. Nowak 1974b, p.276). (iii) A formal-developed-operationalized-naive-theory: <F, Rs, Tid, O(AMi], D>. The empirical material is left uncorrected and lacking therefore any control. Example: Marxian theory of reproduction (for a reconstruction cf. Nowak 1980a, pp. 25-28). (iv) An intuitive-undeveloped-operationalized-purified-theory: <Mk, AMk, O(AMk], cD>. Example: the theory of cognitive dissonance (for a reconstruction cf. Nowak 1971a, pp.212-15). (v) An intuitive-developed-operationalized-naive-theory: <Tid, O(AMI], D>. Example: the Darwinian variation of the theory of evolution (for a reconstruction cf. Lastowski and Nowak 1982). (vi) A formal-developed-speculative-naive-theory: <F, Rs, Tid, D> Example: Marxian theory of value (for a reconstruction cf. Nowak 1971a; more sophisticated accounts cf. Balicki 1978 and Hamminga 1990).
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(vii) An intuitive-developed-speculative-naive-theory: <Tid, D>.Example: the theory of human rationality (for a reconstruction cf. Patryas 1979, pp.8-46) or Marxian theory of classes (for a reconstruction cf. Jasinska and Nowak 1976; an alternative interpretation Tuchanska 1980, pp.18-21). (viii) An intuitive-undeveloped-speculative-naive-theory: <Mk, AMk, D>. Example: Weberian theory of bureaucracy (for a reconstruction cf Nowak 1971a, pp. 99-100) or Engels' theory of primitive societies (for a reconstruction cf. Burbelka 1980, pp. 29-40). 4. Some other expansions Let us briefly refer to some other expansions of the idealizational approach to science. Interactions. Brzeziski (1976, summary in 1975) notes that the basic model of the idealizational approach to science works only under the tacitly adopted assumption that all the factors essential for a given magnitude are inessential for one another. The assumption is, however, evidently false. The author introduced the notion of interaction, distinguished three types of essential structures (isolated with no interactions, purely interactive, mixed), generalized the form of idealizational statement, its concretization etc. An alternative approach to interactions is proposed by Gaul (1985). Paprzycki and Paprzycka (1992) notice that the initial approach to idealization is based on the intuition that the more a law is concretized, the better its accuracy, i.e. the level of aggreement of the theoretical data (calculated by the law) with the empirical values of the given magnitude. Explicating both the notion they prove that it is in fact the case i.e. the level of accuracy of an idealizational statement and of essentiality of a given factor for the corresponding dependent magnitude from that statement order the set of determinants paralelly only on the assumption that the considered determinants are strictly independent, and hence there are no interactions among them. This outcome testifies to the significance of the problematics of interaction and poses the problem of what, if anything, remains from the initial intuition in case of the pure (or mixed) interactive idealization. Heterogeneity of factors. Brzeziski, Burbelka et al. (1976) find another simplification on which the core ideas of the idealizational methodology are based, viz. that all the factors essential for a given magnitude exert upon the latter a homogeneous influence, i.e. an influence that could be expressed in one and the same dependency. If the principal factor is heterogeneous in relation to the determined magnitude, then instead of one idealizational law the set of k0 idealizational laws is to be reconstructed. If, additionally, the first of the secondary factors is heterogeneous as well, then instead of one concretization of each of these laws the set of k1 concretizations of each of k0 laws is to be
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established, etc. As a result, instead of simple idealizational theory a treeidealizational theory is to be built. Mutual significance. Another simplification tacitly adopted in the initial approach is, according to Brzeziski, Burbelka et al. (1976), one postulating that factors are one-sidedly essential one for another. It is, however, well-known that factors sometimes mutually influence one another. Taking this into account the authors transform simple linear theories into structures of more or less complicated form depending on whether the principal and/or secondary factors are mutually essential or not. The general schemes proposed by the authors allow us to explain why empirical theories contain many axioms in their initial models. The answer is: because the set of axioms reveal mutual influences of a given set of factors. Enlargement of a factor. Zielinska (1976) observes that the standard form of concretization consisting in a passage from the formula f(H) = H0 to the formula g(f(H), h(p)] = H1 presupposes that the secondary factor p is an enlargement of H0. This, in general, need not be the case. For instance, it is not so in the passage from Clapeyron's law to that of van der Waals (Batog 1976, Kuipers 1985, p.198). The author generalizes the notion of concretization in order to cover all the possible cases of the kind, including the one created by van der Waals's concretization. 5. Idealizational approach is self-applicable As has been observed (Nowak 1976d), all the extensions of the initial idealizational approach fall under the following model: a. the inadequacy of the initial approach in the light of facts from a science, or the history of it, is stated; b. a simplifying assumption which must be adopted, if the initial approach is to hold, is put forward; c. the initial approach is modified; it is argued that the new version of the idealizational approach meets two conditions: first, it passes into the initial one if the simplifying assumption (ad b) is adopted anew, and, second, it allows to explain what rejects the initial approach (ad a). It is not difficult to see that the procedure consists in application of the rule of dialectical correspondence in methodology. The initial approach is formulated at a certain level of methodological abstraction (Nowak 1980a, p.189). If it turns out to be inadequate, then the additional simplification is revealed, under which the initial approach is still acceptable. But this simplification must be removed and this conception modified. Thus, the new conception dialectically corresponds to the earlier version of the idealizational theory of science. The idealizational
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theory of science thus develops in the same manner as according to it science does. It is self-referential also in its dynamics 27. (VI) Truth and the Cognitive Progress 1. The Essentialist Concept of Truth Usually it is shown that the classical definition of truth creates a dichotomous notion of truth whereas the theory of science, particularly the theory of scientific progress, requires a comparative one. But this seems to be misleading since it forces us to construct notions of truth starting from the idea of the classical conception and differing from the latter only in being comparative notions. However, it appears that the classical definition of truth is an entirely poor point of departure for the theory of cognitive progress and should be rejected from the very beginning. It has been proven that the classical definition of truth is an entirely wrong means of evaluating scientific theories because of their idealizational nature. In the light of the definition, all idealizational statements are true. For instance, both the law of free fall: if ff(x) & R(x) = 0, then s(x) = 1/2gt2(x)) and the counter-law if ff(x) & R(x) = 0, then s(x) # 1/2gt2(x)) containing idealizing condition p(x) = 0 are classically true. And, generally, all the idealizational statements are classically true (Nowak 1977e) 28. Intuitively,
Strict self-referential application of the idealizational model of development of science would imply appearance of conceptions that dialectically negate (or reduce to, in terminology of Paprzycka 1990) the initial approach. One could perhaps refer in this connection to the proposal of Klawiter (1991). 28 Thus, the point is not that fundamental laws are false, as Cartwright (1983, pp.45ff) has it. This idea echoes an earlier dilemma formulated by Hanson (1963) who notices that the principle of inertia is difficult to comprehend for the law of gravitation denies it (p.112). This is to lead to the dilemma: either classical mechanics is false as a whole or it would be senseless to admit that the law of inertia is something else than a principally counterfactual statement (ibid., p. 113). This dilemma is, however, apparent. First, almost each scientific law gives an opportunity to pose the same dilemma as being an idealizational statement. A methodological conception which leads to such a supposition of the common paradoxicality of scientific conduct is rather paradoxical itself. Second, the law of gravitation is not at variance with the law of inertia the former negates merely an idealizing condition postulating the isolation of a given physical system considered in the latter. The law of inertia is by necessity counterfactual as idealizational. It does not imply that it is empirically false. Quite the contrary all idealizations being emptily satisfied in the empirical world are (classically) true there. And just because of that the classical notion of
27
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however, various idealization differ a great deal in its relation to what they present.. Anyway, the classical definition of truth, being legitimized for the evaluation of factual statements, is unsuitable for the evaluation of idealizational ones. The classical definition of truth is based on the idea that truthfulness consists in a proper presentation of something. It is not the only idea of truth that may be found in the philosophical tradition. Another idea is that truthfulness consists in a proper deformation of something; the truth of a phenomenon is to be contained in its essence; that is why, in order to describe the phenomenon truly, one has to leave out its àppearance'. In this sense one can talk about the truthfulness of a caricature which is based on the omission of some Iess significant features of a given person or situation, and on the exaggeration of its more significant features. In such a sense one can also talk about the truthfulness of idealizational statements which aim to omit secondary factors and take primary ones into account (Nowak 1977a). Let us add that the essentialist concept of truth is an ordering one: it can be said that one idealizational statement is more essentially true than another , if it assumes a more adequate image of the essential and of the nomological structures of the given magnitudes than the other one. This intuition has been explicated by Nowakowa (1977, cf. also below Chaps. 23-25). Here, I would like only to present some more important cases of this explication. 2. Essential Falseness, Partial Truth, Relative Truth, Absolute Truth I shall distinguish four types of truth qualifications. All the concepts involved refer to the tradition of Marxist epistemology; hence I shall use the terms common to this tradition referring to the explications given by Nowakowa (1977, for more details cf. Chap. 23). Let us consider the statement Tk of the form: Tk: if G(x) & p1(x) = 0 & .... & pk(x) = 0, then F(x) = fk(H(x)). It is a factual statement if k = 0, and i an idealizational one if k > 0. The essential structure of magnitude F is the hierarchy of factors SF influencing (being essential) F. Its image O(SF) is a hierarchy of factors recognized by the researcher as influencing F (Nowak 1976a). Such a statement is essentially false if, roughly, the image of the essential structure O(SF) assumed by Tk does not have any
truthfulness looses its discriminative power, and hence any usefulness, at all. It appears that there are two ways to overcome the difficulty. One is to refer to another, but still classical idea, that truth of the phenomenon is its essence suggested by the Hegelian heritage (Nowak 1977e, 1980a, Chap. V). That is the idea underlying the approach referred to in the main text, developed mainly in the writings of Nowakowa (1977, 1982, cf. also Chap. 25). An alternative approach requires a revision of the standard metaphysics and outlined in Nowak (1991d), (1998a), cf. also Chaps. 28, 31 below.
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elements in common with the essential structure SF , respectively. Statement Tk is partially true if, rougly, there is some factor in O(SF) which is treated as secondary for F and it is in fact secondary for it. In turn, the statement of the form under consideration is relatively true if O(SF) contains the same repertory of primary factors for F as structure SF has, but they differ with respect to the repertory of secondary factors.. At last, statement Tk is absolutely true if, roughly, image O(SF) is identical with structure SF. Let us add that according to the approach suggested here, an idealizational statement and its concretizations have the same `degree' of essential truthfulness (Nowakowa 1977). That is why one can talk not only about the essential truthfulness of particular statements but also about such an evaluation of sequences composed of the idealizational law and its concretizations, that is simple idealizational structures. Hence, simple idealizational structures of a given phenomenon may also be evaluated as essentially false, partially true, etc. 3. The Idealized Scheme of the Progressive Development of Science The previous considerations enable Nowakowa (1977, briefly 1982) to put forward the hypothesis that the fundamental form of the development of the theory of phenomenon F is the following sequence of simple idealizational structures (briefly, simple theories) of that phenomenon: (#) T1, T2,...., Ti, Ti+1,....,Tn, Tn+1,...., Tz where Ti is a partially true idealizational structure of F as are theories Ti+1...Tn-1, while Tn... Tz-1 are relatively true theories and Tz is an absolutely true theory of the phenomenon F. The sequence of idealizational structures contains two thresholds: that of scientificity, when a science about phenomenon F (i.e., the free fall theory) reaches the level of partial truthfulness and that of maturity, when the theory reaches the level of relative truthfulness. The ideal history of knowledge about phenomenon F is divided, therefore, into three periods: the period of pre-scientific knowledge, the period of pre-mature science and the period of mature science. In the first one, even partial truths are not achieved, in the second, partial truths are formulated, and in the third, theories are at the level of relative truthfulness. Let us take the contemporary state of knowledge about the free fall phenomenon as the evaluative standard. It might be said, under this condition, that explanations of the phenomenon referring to the gods' interventions may be treated as absolutely false, Aristotle's law of fall as partially true, Galileo's law of free fall as relatively true, and Newton's law as relative truth being more essentially true than Galileos. The latter statement refers to the ordering notion of essential truthfulness which has been explicated elsewhere (Nowakowa l977, cf. below Chap. 23). Despite the highly idealized nature of the scheme in question, it may be said that the scheme represents cognitive progress in the sense of the essentialist
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conception of truth. Initially, none of the essential factors for the given phenomenon are discovered (and corresponding theories are absolutely false), then secondary factors are established (and corresponding theories are partially true), then principal factors are discovered and the secondaries are completed in a more and more exact manner (and corresponding theories are relatively true and at the same time more and more essentially true). In the period of pre-scientific cognition it is difficult to establish some epistemological rule describing the optimal line of succession of theories according to the requirement of the ùnity of negation and continuation'. In the pre-mature period of the development of science, the next theory has to be a dialectical refutation of the previous one (otherwise the partial discovery of a secondary factor would be lost). And, in the period of mature science, the next theory has to dialectically correspond to the previous one (otherwise the basic discovery of principal factors would be lost). That is why principles defining the epistemology of the succession of scientific theories difer in different periods of the development of science. 4. The internal and external history of science The basic conclusion to be drawn from the above considerations is that the rules of dialectical correspondence and refutation establish a pattern of the progress of science in the sense of attaining a higher and higher level of essential truthfulness. The principle of dialectical continuation (first refutation, then correspondence) defines the line of the optimum development of science (in the sense of the essentialist concept of truth); progress of science means, then, its optimum development. Nowakowa (1977) carefully distinguishes between two different problems: (I) why is the pattern of optimum scientific development defined by scheme (#)?, and (II) why does the actua! scientific development (within a particular `theory' of a phenomenon, and with all restrictions concerning the idealizational nature of our conception) fall approximately under scheme (#)? The answer to the first question refers to the dialectical assumptions of epistemology (Nowak 1978) and cannot be given in sociological terms at all. The answer to the second question refers to actual human cognition which undergoes a process carried forth by social determinants; basically, those factors are responsible for the fact that the actual line of the development of science approximates its optimum line (in the sense of the essentialist concept of truth). The two questions are as different as, for example , questions: (I') why 2 + 2 = 4?, and (II') why people usually think that 2 + 2 = 4? It is nonsense to answer the question (I') in sociological terms, whereas it is possible to give such an answer to (II'). The general type of answer to question (II) is the following: science develops according to the principle of dialectical continuation, since observation of this rule makes it possible to attain knowledge which is practically useful. And it can
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be argued that the more essentially true the statement is, the more practically effective are practical statements based on it (Nowak 1976a). But no sociological considerations are able to explain why the optimum line of the development of science is such and such; they are not even able to define notions to relate a theory and reality. Only when the line is known can the question be asked why cognition, applying the rule of dialectical correspondence, won in competition with magical, religious, common sense, etc. types of reflection about the world. And only here does a sociological theory allow for the answer: it happened so because cognition observing the rule of dialectical continuation was better at fulfilling the non-cognitive needs of society. Science is mainly the reflection of reality, and secondarily it is the servant of social practice. And it can be the servant of social practice at all only because it is the reflection of (essentially differentiated) reality. In this sense the ìnternal history' of science is poor in comparison with its èxternal history'. (VII) Heuristics Apart from the reconstructive (cf. part II) and extensionary (cf. part III) strategies, the idealizational approach to science offers a heuristic strategy to build new theories. And, indeed, this has been applied in some domains. First of all, one should state that the difference between a particularly creative reconstruction and a new theory is quite often rather fuzzy. For instance, Kuipers (1985) inventing a sophisticated derivation of van der Waals law contributed not only to methodology correcting the naive reconstruction of the derivation (Nowak 1971a) but also to physics improving standard derivation from the advanced handbooks of that domain (Kuipers 1985, p. 191). The same applies to the reconstruction of the Marxian theory of value by Hamminga (1990), and perhaps to some other reconstructions that have been mentioned in this paper. Leaving these cases, interesting in themselves, aside, one may conjecture that there have appeared four theories which had been overtly inspired by the heuristics based on the idealizational approach to science. A theory of common-sense knowledge. Maruszewski (1983) uses the basic notions of the idealizational conception of science otherwise at some points complemented by himself to conceptualize the whole domain of psychological interest, viz. the common-sense knowledge. The author finds in the lay cognition the constructs of paraidealization and paraconcretization which are to characterize the specificity of cognitions made by a scientist-in-the-street. He also systematically analyzes the testing procedure applied in the common-sense knowledge and their peculiarities in comparison to science. They are to be analogous the correlation procedure, ex post facto procedure and experimental
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method as used in science. On the whole and from the psychological point of view, the theory is a modification of Norman Anderson's information integration theory (Maruszewski 1983, p. 234). The non-Christian model of man. The theory (Nowak 1985b, 1987c, summary in 1987d, a systematic acccount 1999) based on criticism of the Christian model of man hidden beneath the norm ordering a Christian to love his/her enemies. It proposes a new model which reduces in the special case to the Christian model. The model is developed and applied to the problem of personal development (Nowak 1987e), human rationality (Nowak 1989), theory of education (Nowak 1993), theory of revolution and theory of power (Nowak 1988a, 1991b), etc. The generalized historical materialism. The problem resulted from reconstructions of Marxian historical materialism for class societies by Lastowski and Buczkowski on the one hand, and Engelsian historical materialism for primitive societies by Burbelka (cf. part II.2). Klawiter (1978, a short summary in 1982) attempted to find the common theoretical structure underlying the two. The Author constructs a systematic conceptual apparatus introducing notions more general than economical concepts of Marx and demographical concepts of Engels and puts forward quite general hypotheses being generalizations of both Marxian and Engelsian historical materialisms. He also succeeds in some systematization of them which is done according to the rules derived from the methodology applied by both the authors of local historical materialisms. Non-Marxian historical materialism. A ramified construction that contains among others two idealizational theories: that of property (Nowak 1983) and that of political power (Nowak 1987f, 1991d). The former theory is built of five models and reduces in the special case to a modification of Marxian theory (for slavery). The latter theory is composed of eight models. The negativist unitarian metaphysics. A conception that is supposed among other things to play a role of metaphysics of idealization (Nowak 1995,1996, also Chap. 3129). It is a system of the attibutivist (with the notion of object constructed from properties), negativistic (with a notion of the negative property as stronger than one of negation of the positive property), with the strong plurality-of-worlds thesis admitting apart from possible worlds also worlds simpler (pre-worlds) and richer (post-worlds) than possible alternatives of our world, identifying subjective contents with the states of various worlds or the enigma over them, etc. This conception is built with the aid of idealization itself (the intuitive
The most penetrating analysis of the place of idealization procedure in the universe of the negativist, unitarian metaphysics is given by Paprzycka (1999). Let us add that in that universe of worlds (it is characterized, roughly, in my 1995, cf. also Chap. 31, and in details in 1998, pp.142ff) there is no world distinguished as the real one, hence concretization may be relativized to any world (except for the purely negative worlds). This satisfies, although in different terms, the requirement of Balzer and Zoubek (1995, p.58).
29
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exposition Nowak 1991, a systematic one by the same author 1998, and in print). It is composed of five models of reality of the increasing realism attempting to solve some more or less traditional philosophical puzzles and to paraphrase numerous alternative philosophical stands. *** This paper by necessity is written in a rather non modest manner. It would be then perhaps worthwhile to conclude that the theories ii and iv which the present author attempted to build are in his own methodological categories of the intuitive-developed-speculative-naive type being thus merely one-eight-theories. Such is then the practical effectiveness of the idealizational methodology: it suffices to make one-eighth of science.
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I. WRITINGS ON IDEALIZATION
Balicki, W. (1972). Prawa ekonomii, ich formulowanie i wykorzystanie (Laws of Economics, Their Formulation and Application). Ph.D. thesis, Poznan: Economic Academy. ----------- (1973). Funkcjonalno-humanistyczna charakterystyka modelu tzw. rachunku bezposredniego (The Functional-humanistic Characteristic of the Model of the so-called Direct Calculus). In: Kmita [1973], pp. 385401. ----------- (1978). Marksowska teoria ceny jako teoria idealizacyjna: Proba reinterpretacji (Marxian Theory of Prices as an Idealizational Theory: Towards a Reinterpretation). In: Buczkowski and Nowak (1978), pp. 105-22. Balzer, W. and B. Hamminga (1989), Economics. Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer. Eds. Philosophy of
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Birner, J. (1990b). Strategies and Programmes in Capital Theory. A Contribution to the Methodology of Theory Development. Ph.D. thesis. Amsterdam: Universiteit van Amsterdam. Boscarino, G. (1990). Absolute space and idealization in Newton. In: Brzeziski, Coniglione et al. (1990), pp. 131-49. Brzechczyn, K. (1995). Metodologiczne osobliwoci historii w wietle idealizacyjnej teorii nauki (Methodological Peculiarities of Historiography in the Light of the Idealizational Methodology).Ph.D. thesis. Pozna: Uniwersytet Adama Mickiewicza. ----------- (1996). Metodologiczne osobliwoci historii w wietle idealizacyjnej teorii nauki (Methodological Peculiarities of Historiography in the Light of the Idealizational Methodology). Principia, t. XV, 123-36. ----------- (1997). Efekt kaskady w procesie historycznym. Prba wyjanienia osobliwoci rozwojowej Europy Wschodniej. In: Nowak and Przybysz (1997), pp. 321-80. Brzeziski, J. (1975). Interaction, Essential Structure, Experiment. Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, 1, 1. Amsterdam: Gruener, 43-58. ----------- (1976). Struktura procesu badawczego w naukach behawioralnych (The structure of research process in the behavioural sciences). Warszawa-Poznan: PWN. ----------- (1978). Metodologiczne i psychologiczne wyznaczniki procesu badawczego w psychologii (Methodological and psychological determinants of the research process in psychology). Poznan: Poznan University Press. ----------- (1982). Protoidealizacyjny model procesu badawczego (proba konkretyzacji) (The Protoidealizational Model of the Investigative Process: towards a concretization). Studia Pedagogiczne, 44, 59-80.
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----------- (1985a). The protoidealizational model of the investigative process in psychology. In: Brzeziski (1985b), pp. 36-57. ----------- (1985b) Ed., Consciousness: Methodological and Psychological Approaches (Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, 8). Amsterdam: Rodopi ----------- (1987) Ed., Theoretical and Practical Probklems Psychological Testing. Polish Psychological Bulletin, 18, 4. of
----------- (1994). Probability in Theory-Building. Experimental and nonExperimental Approaches to Scientific Research in Psychology (Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, 39). Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi. Brzeziski, J., I. Burbelka, A. Klawiter, K. astowski, S. Magala, L. Nowak and W. Patryas (1976). Prawo, teoria, sprawdzanie (Law, Theory, Testing). In: Nowak (1976c), pp. 107-33. Brzeziski, J., Fr. Coniglione, T.A.F. Kuipers and L. Nowak (1990a), Eds. Idealization-I: General Problems (Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, 16). Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi. Brzeziski, J., Fr. Coniglione, T.A.F. Kuipers and L. Nowak (1990b), Eds. Idealization-II: Forms and Applications (Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, 17). Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi Brzeziski, J. and K. astowski (1988),Eds. Filozoficzne i metodologiczne podstawy teorii naukowych (Philosophical and Methodological Foundations of Scientific Theories) (Poznaskie Studia z Filozofii Nauki, 11), Warszawa-Poznan: PWN. Brzeziski, J. and K. astowski (1994), Eds. Kategorir filozoficzne a poznawczy status nauki (Philosophical Categories and the Cognitive Status of Science). Poznaskie Studia z Filozofii Nauki, 14. Brzeziski, J. and T. Marek (1990), Eds. Action and Performance: Models and Tests. Contributions to the Quantitative Psychology and its
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----------- (1979c). Historical Momentums and Historical Epochs. An Attempt at a non-Marxian Historical Materialism. Analyse und Kritik (Frankfurt/M), 1, 60-76. ----------- (1980a). The Structure of Idealization. Towards a Systematic Interpretation of the Marxian Idea of Science (Synthese Library, vol. 131). Dordrecht/Boston/London: Reidel[*]. ----------- (1984). Review of W. Sanocki, Koncepcja normy w psychologii klinicznej (The Concept of Norm in the Clinical Psychology). Przeglad Psychiologiczny, XXVII, 4, 1029-34. ----------- (1985a). On Idealization: A Reply to Professor Kirschenmann. Studies in Soviet Thought, 30, 237-45. ----------- (1985b). Czowiek i ludzie, czyli ile utopii spolecznej daje sie wyprowadzic na obecnym etapie konkretyzacji nie-Marksowskiego materializmu historycznego (Man and People, that is, how much of social utopia one may derve at the present level of concretization of non-Marxian historical materialism). Obecnosc, 9, 45-54. ----------- (1987a). On Homogeneity of the Notion of Model. In: Brzeziski (1987), pp.243-50. ----------- (1987b). A Concept of Rational Legislator. In: Ziembiski (1987b), pp. 137-45. ----------- (1988a). Wladza. Proba teorii idealizacyjnej (Power: Towards Idealizational Theory). Warszawa: In Plus. ----------- (1988b). On (Idealizational) Structure of Economic Theories. Erkenntnis, 30, 1-2, 225-46. ----------- (1989a). Byt i mysl. Przyczynek do metafizyki unitarnej (Being and thought. A contribution to the unitarian metaphysics). Studia Filozoficzne, 1, 3-21. ----------- (1989b). Mysl o czyms jest tym wlasnie (Thought is what it is about). Pismo literacko-artystyczne, 7-8, 78-112.
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----------- (1990). Abstracts are not Our Constructs. The Mental Constructs are Abstracts. In: J. Brzeziski, Fr. Coniglione et al. (1990), pp. 193-206. ----------- (1991a). The Method of Relevant Variables and Idealization. In: Eells and Maruszewski (1991), pp.41-63. ----------- (1991b). Thoughts Are Facts of Possible Worlds. Truths Are Facts of a Given World. Dialectica 45, 273-87. ----------- (1992). The Idealizational Approach to Science: A Survey. In: Brzeziski and Nowak (1992), pp.9-63. ----------- (1994a). The Idealizational Methodology and Economics. Replies to Diederich, Hoover, Janssen, Jorland and Maki. In: Hammingga and De Marchi (1994), pp.277-301. ----------- (1997). Uwagi o tak zwanej metodzie izolacji (On the so-called Method of Isolation). In: Mrozek (1997), pp. 29-38. ----------- (1998). Byt i myl. U podstaw negatywistycznej metafizyki unitarnej (Being and Mind. Foundations of the Negativist Unitarian Metaphysics). vol.I: Nico i istnienie (Existence and Nothingness). Pozna: Zysk. Nowak, S. (1965). Studia z metodologii nauk spolecznych (Studies in the Methodology of the Social Sciences), Warszawa: PWN. Nowak, L. and I. Nowakowa (1973). Dyrektywa dialektycznej korespondencji praw idealizacyjnych (The Directive of the Dialectical Correspondence of Idealizational Laws). In: Kmita (1973), pp.168-80. ----------- (1973). W sprawie zasady korespondencji w fizyce (Concerning the Principle of Correspondence in Physics). Kwartalnik Historii Nauki i Techniki, 1, 33 - 43.
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----------- (1978). Pewne metodologiczne osobliwosci rozwoju teorii ekonomicznych (Some Methodological Peculiarities of the Development of Economic Theories). In: Buczkowski and Nowak (1978), pp. 63-73. ----------- (1990). Approximation and the Two Ideas of Truth. In: Weingartner and Dorn (1990), pp. 79-93. ----------- (1994). On Some Peculiarities of the Development of Economic Theories. In: Hamminga and De Marchi (1994), pp.135 - 46. Nowak, L. and P. Przybysz (1997), Eds. Marksizm, liberalizm, prby wyjcia (Marxism, Liberalism, Attempts to Go Out). Poznaskie Studia z Filozofii Humanistyki, 17. Pozna: T. Zysk. Nowakowa, I. (1972). Idealizacja i problem korespondencji praw fizyki (Idealization and the Problem of Correspondence of Laws of Physics). Ph.D. thesis, Dept. of Philosophy, Poznan University. ----------- (1974a). The Concept of Dialectics and Humanism, 1, 3, 51-55. Dialectical Correspondence.
----------- (1974b). Problem korespondencji pojec naukowych (The Problem of Correspondence of Scientific Notions), Studia Metodologiczne, 11, 23-28. ----------- (1975a). Dialektyczna korespondencja a rozwoj nauki (The Dialectical Correspondence and the Development of Science), WarszawaPoznan: PWN. ----------- (1975b), Idealization and the Problem of Correspondence, Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, 1, 1, 65-70. ----------- (1975c). On the Notion of Correspondence. Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, 1, 2, 75-80. ----------- (1976). absolutna. Prba Prawda czqstkowa, prawda wzglgdna, prawda
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wprowadzenia porrqdkujgcego pojgcia prawdziwosci essencjalnej. (Partial Truth, Relative Truth, and Absolute Truth. An Attempt at Introducing the Ordering Notion of Esscntial Truth). In: Nowak (1976), pp. 225-256. ----------- (1977a). Z problematyki teorii prawdy w filozofii marksistowskiej (Problems of the Theory of Truth in Marxist Philosophy). Poznan: Wyd. UAM. ----------- (1977b). Zasada wszechzwiqzku w kategorialnej interpretacji dialektyki (The Principle of Omnirelatedness within the Categorial Approach to Dialectics). In: Nowak, (1977b). pp. 139-145. ----------- (1982). Dialectical Correspondence and Essential Truth. In: Krajewski (1982b), pp. 135-46. ----------- (1988). Idea 'prawdy jako procesu'. Pewna proba eksplikacji (The idea of 'truth as a process'. An attempt at an explication). In: Brzeziski & astowski (1988), pp.109 - 118. ----------- (1990). Historical Narration and Idealization. In: Topolski (1990b), pp. 31-40. ----------- (1991). Zmiana i stalosc w rozwoju nauki (Stability and Change in the Development of Science). Poznan: NAKOM. ----------- (1994). Correspondence and Truth. The Dynamics of Science in the Idealizational Methodology. Amsterdam-Atlanta: Rodopi. Nowakowa, I., W. Patryas and W. Szaban (1977). O pewnym pojciu istotnosci (On a Notion of Significance). In: Nowak (1977c), pp. 221-25. ONeill, O. (1988). Abstraction, Idealization and Ideology in Ethics. In: Evans (1988), pp.55-69. Paprzycka, K. (1990). Reduction and Correspondence in the Idealizational Approach to Science. In: Brzeziski, Coniglione et al. (1990), pp. 277-86.
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----------- (1991). Some Models are More Explanatory than Others. On Some Models of Explanation (typescript). Paprzycki, M. and K. Paprzycka (1992). A Note on the Unitarian Explication of Idealization. In: Brzeziski and Nowak (1992), pp.279-82. ----------- (1994). Kilka uwag istotnosci i dziurach ontycznych (Some Remarks on the Notion of Essentiality and Ontic Gaps). In: Brzeziski and astowski (1994), pp.203-212. Patryas, W. (1975a). An Analysis of the Ceteris Paribus Clause. Pozna Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, 1 (1), Amsterdam: Gruener, 59-64. ----------- (1975b). Approximation and Idealization. Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, 1 (2), Amsterdam: Gruener, 83-85. ----------- (1976). Eksperyment a idealizacja Idealization). Warszawa-Poznan: PWN. (Experiment and
----------- (1979). Interpretacja humanistyczna a idealizacja (The Humanistic Interpretation and Idealization), Poznan: Poznan Univ. Press. ----------- (1982). The Pluralistic Approach to Empirical Testing and the Special Forms of Experiment. In: W. Krajewski (1982b), pp. 127-34. ----------- (1987). Uznawanie Warszawa/Poznan: PWN. zdan (Acceptance of statements).
----------- (1988). Interpretacja karnistyczna. Studium metodologiczne (Interpretation of Penal Law. A Methodological Study). Poznan: Poznan University Press. ----------- (1991). Zaniechanie (Forbearance). Pozna: Pozna University Press.
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Patryas, W. and S. Wronkowska (1985). Remarks on Conceptions of Rationality of a Law-maker. Studies in the Theory and Philosophy of Law, 1, 39-46. Pawlowski, T. (1966) (Ed.). Logiczna teoria nauki (The Logical Theory of Science). Warszawa:PWN. ----------- (1969). Metodologiczne zagadnienia humanistyki. Warszawa: PWN. Piontek, J. (1985). Koncepcja antropologii Jana Czekanowskiego (The Conception of Anthropology of Jan Czekanowski). In: Piontek and Malinowski (1985), pp. 135-44. Piontek, J. and A. Malinowski (1985) (Eds.). Teoria i empiria w polskiej szkole antropologicznej (Theory and Experience in the Polish Anthropological School). Seria Antropologia, 11. Poznan: Poznan University Press. Pogonowski, J. (1978). O definicji istotnosci (On Definition of Significance). In: Nowak (1978a), pp. 275-78. Poincare, H. (1904). Wissenschaft und Hypothese (German translation from French) Leipzig. ----------- (1908). Warto nauki (Polish translation from French). Warszawa. Pomorski, J. (1981). Proba idealizacyjnej teorii nauk historycznych (An Attempt at an Idealizational Theory of Historical Sciences). Studia Metodologiczne, 20, 51-92. Przecki, M. and R. Wjcicki (1977), Eds. Twenty Five Years of the Logical Methodology in Poland. Dordrecht/Boston: Reidel. Przybysz, P. (1996a). Idea liberalny. Uwagi o zastosowaniach metody idealizacji w teoriach liberalizmu (The Liberal Ideal. On Application of the Method of Idealization in Liberalism). Principia, XV, 107-122.
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----------- (1996b). Idealizacja i konkretyzacja w Teorii sprawiedliwoci Rawlsa (Idealization and Concretization in Rawlss A Theory of Justice). In: Egiert et al. (1996), ss.221-42. ----------- (1999). Idealizacja w filozofii politycznej liberalizmu (Idealization in the Political Philosophy of Liberalism), Ph.D. thesis. Adam Mickiewicz University, Pozna. Rott, H. (1990). Approximation versus Idealization: The Kepler-Newton Case. In: J. Brzeziski et al. (1990b)pp. 101-24. Rudner, R. (1966). Philosophy of Social Sciences. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. Scheibe, E. (1973). The Approximate Explanation and the Development of Physics. In: P. Suppes et al. (1973), pp.931-42. Sandri, G. (1977). Marx e un filosofo post-positivista della scienza? Introduction to Nowak (1977d), pp. VII-LXXI. Siemianowski, A. (1976). Poznawcze i praktyczne funkcje nauk empirycznych (Cognitive and Practical Functions of the Empirical Sciences). Warszawa: PWN. Sobczyska, D. (1982). Problemy metodologiczne chemii a idealizacyjna koncepcja nauki (Methodological Problems of Chemistry and the Idealizational Conception of Science). In: astowski and Strzalko (1982), pp. 215-31. ----------- (1988). Theory and Experiment in Chemical Research Practice. In: Buksiski (1988), pp. 43-62. Stasiak, M.K. (1979). Metoda idealizacji w nauce a realizacja ukladow technicznych (The Method of Idealization in Science and the Realization of Technical Systems). Ph.D. thesis, Dept. of Philosophy, Warsaw University. ----------- (1982). Practical Idealization. In: Krajewski (1982b), pp. 15365.
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Such, J. (1972). Idealization and Concretization in the Natural Sciences (Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, 4). Amsterdam: Gruener, 1978, 49-73. ----------- (1974). Relacja korespondencji a wynikanie (The Relation of Correspondence and Entailment). In: Krajewski (1974c), pp. 65-114. ----------- (1990). The Idealizational Conception of Science and the Law of Universal Gravitation. In: J. Brzeziski, Fr. Coniglione et al. (1990b), pp. 125-30. Suchocka, A., W. Suchocki and J. Walkowiak, (1984). Techniki badan socjologicznych (The Procedures of the Sociological Research). Poznan: Poznan University Press. Suppe, Fr. (1972). Whats Wrong with the Received View on the Structure of Scientific Theories? Philosophy of Science, 39, 1-19. ----------- (1974). Theories and Phenomena. In: Leinfellner and Koehler (1974), pp. 45-91. Thom, R. (1992). The True, the False and the Insignificant or Landscaping the Logos. In: Dilworth (1992), pp.399-406. Topolski, J. (1973a). Metoda modelowa w historii gospodarczej (The Method of Modelling in Economic History). In: Kmita (1973), pp. 414-30. ----------- (1973b). Dyrektywa racjonalizowania dzialan ludzkich (The Directive of Rationalizing Human Acts). In: Kmita (1973), pp. 222-36. ----------- (1974). Quantitative Concretization in the Model Method in Economic History. Studia Historiae Oeconomicae, 9, 21-26. ----------- (1977). Marksizm i historia (Marxism and History). Warszawa: PIW. ----------- (1978). Warszawa: PIW. Rozumienie historii (Understanding History).
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----------- (1990a). Historical Explanation in Historical Materialism. In: Topolski (1990b), pp.61-84. ----------- (1990b) (Ed.). Narration and Explanation. Contributions to the Methodology of the Historical Research (Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, 18). Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi. Tuchaska, B. (1976). Factor vs. Magnitude. In: Nowak (1976a), pp. 2939. ----------- (1977). An idealizational view on measurement and indicatorbased reasoning. Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, 3. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 213-34. ----------- (1980). Czynnik - wielkosc, zwiazek - zaleznosc. Przyczynek do idealizacyjnej koncepcji nauki (Factor - Magnitude, Regularity Correlation. A Contribution to the Idealizational Conception of Science), Poznan-Warszawa: PWN. Wallace, W.A. (1974). Galileo and Reasoning ex suppositione. The Methodology of the Two New Sciences. In: Cohen/Wartofsky (1974), pp.79-104. Weingartner, P. and G.J.W. Dorn (1990), Eds. Studies on Mario Bunge's Treatise (Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, 18). Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi. Wjcicki, R. (1974a). Metody formalne w problematyce teoriopoznawczej (The formal methods in the epistemological problematics). In: Kmita (1974), pp. 15 - 44. ----------- (1974b). Metodologia formalna: metody, pojecia i zagadnienia (The formal methodology: methods, concepts and problems), Wroclaw: Ossolineum ----------- (1979). Topics in the Formal Methodology of Empirical Sciences. Dordrecht: Reidel.
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Wronkowska, S. (1982). Problemy racjonalnego tworzenia prawa (Problems of the Rational Legislating). Poznan: Poznan University Press. ----------- (1987). The Rational Legislator as a Model for the Real Lawmaker. In: Ziembiski (1987), pp. 147-64. Wronkowska, S. and M. Zieliski (Eds.) (1990). Szkice z teorii prawa i szczegolowych nauk prawnych (Contributions to the Theory of Law and Special Sciences of Law). Poznan: Poznan University Press. Zgolka, T. (1976). O strukturalnym wyjasnianiu faktow jezykowych (On Structuralist Explanation of Linguistic Facts). Warszawa/Poznan:PWN. Zieliska, R. (1976a). On Inter-functional Concretization. In: Nowak (1976a), pp. 108-114. ----------- (1976b). Analogony teorii idealizacyjnej w naukach matematycznych (Analogues of the Idealizational Theory in Mathematical Sciences). In: Nowak (1976b), pp.163-87. ----------- (1981). Abstrakcja, Idealizacja, Uogolnienie (Abstraction, Idealization, and Generalization). Poznan: Poznan University Press. ----------- (1986). Problem sprzezen zwrotnych w kategorialnej interpretacji dialektyki (The Problem of Feed-back in the Categorial Interpretation of Dialectics). In: Maruszewski (1986), pp. 241-55. ----------- (1989). A contribution to the problem of abstraction. In: (eds.) J. Brzeziski, F. Coniglione, T.A.F. Kuipers, L. Nowak, Idealization-II (Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, 17). Amsterdam: Rodopi, 9 - 22. Ziembiski, Z. (1982). La notion de la rationalite du legislateur. Archives de la Philosophie du Droit, 23, 179-85. ----------- (1985). Rechtstheorie, 8. Two Concepts of Rationality in Legislation.
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----------- (1987), Ed. Polish Contributions to the Theory and Philosophy of Law (Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, 12). Amsterdam: Rodopi. Zirk-Sadowski, M. (1990). Konstrukcja racjonalnego prawodawcy a kompetencja komunikacyjna (The Construction of Rational Legislator and the Communicative Competence). In: Wronkowska and Zieliski (1990), pp.431-46.
Copyright Leszek Nowak epistemo@main.amu.edu.pl http://main.amu.edu.pl/~epistemo/Nowak/ __________________ (*) The item (1980b) appears in part II of References; similarly in other cases of the kind.

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Leszek Nowak Department of Philosophy, Adam Mickiewicz University THE IDEALIZATIONAL APPROACH TO SCIENCE: A NEW SURVEY(*) (I) Five

Cf. Kotarbiska (1974), Cartwright (1989), Hamminga and De Marchi (1994).

The Idealizational Approach to Sceince

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Leszek Nowak III. empirical testing of the theory.

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