Heuristics and Tests of Quantum Gravity

Philosophy

For the attempt to create a gravitational quantum theory, there are several research programs, some of which became obsolete over time due to the higher heuristic power of other programs. The primordial test of any quantum theory of gravity is the reproduction of the successes of general relativity. This involves reconstructing the local geometry from the non-local observables. In addition, quantum gravity should probabilistically predict the large-scale topology of the Universe, which may soon be measurable, and phenomena at the Planck scale.
          DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.30302.18243

Nicolae Sfetcu: Heuristics and Tests of Quantum Gravity Heuristics and Tests of Quantum Gravity Nicolae Sfetcu 19.10.2019 Sfetcu, Nicolae, "Heuristics and Tests of Quantum Gravity", SetThings (October 18, 2019), URL = https://www.setthings.com/en/heuristics-and-tests-of-quantum-gravity/ Email: email@example.com This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/. A partial translation of Sfetcu, Nicolae, "Epistemologia gravitației experimentale – Raționalitatea științifică", SetThings (1 august 2019), MultiMedia Publishing (ed.), ISBN: 978-606-033-234-3, DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.15421.61925, URL = https://www.setthings.com/ro/e-books/epistemologiagravitatiei-experimentale-rationalitatea-stiintifica/ HEURISTICS OF QUANTUM GRAVITY ................................................................................... 2 THE TESTS OF QUANTUM GRAVITY ..................................................................................... 5 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................ 10 Nicolae Sfetcu: Heuristics and Tests of Quantum Gravity 2 Heuristics of quantum gravity For the attempt to create a gravitational quantum theory, there are several research programs, some of which became obsolete over time due to the higher heuristic power of other programs. J. Butterfield thus distinguishes three major research programs: 1 The program of particles establishes as the basic entity the graviton, the quanta of the gravitational field. The graviton spreads in a Minkowski spacetime and is associated with the specific representation of the zero-mass Poincare group and the spin 0 or 2. But this program presents many conceptual dysfunctionalities. The program of superstructures, an approach motivated by the success of the transition from the old non-renormalizable theory of weak interactions to the new renormalizable unification of the weak and electromagnetic forces found by Salam, Glashow and Weinberg. The idea was to add fields of matter from general relativity to eliminate the UV problem. Thus appeared the theory of supergravity which, after some minor successes, came to the conclusion that it does not solve the divergences, but its line of thinking is currently continued by the superstring theory, which is the dominant research program in quantum gravity. The program has not yet matured. From the point of view of the response offered to the conceptual aspects, the program of superstrings is similar in many respects with the program of particles. The program of canonical quantum gravity began with the Wheeler-DeWitt theory. Later came the program of Ashtekar that uses the Wheeler-DeWitt equation, 2 with the help of a set of canonical variables that produce a simplification of the structure of the central constraint functions, and is still a very active program, with impressive developments in recent years. All three programs are similar in that the main way they go beyond the common treatment of spacetime is by quantifying an amount that is a standard type of variable in classical physics. There are three major problems in the conception of a theory of quantum gravity: both quantum theory and general relativity present significant conceptual problems in themselves, the disparate fundamental bases of the two theories generate major new problems when trying to combine them, and the contrast between the lack of a satisfactory theory of quantum gravity and successful ingredient theories raise questions about the nature and function of the philosophical discussion of quantum gravity. 1 Jeremy Butterfield and Chris Isham, "Spacetime and the Philosophical Challenge of Quantum Gravity," in Physics Meets Philosophy at the Panck Scale (Cambridge University Press, 2001). 2 Bryce S. DeWitt, "Quantum Theory of Gravity. I. The Canonical Theory," Physical Review 160, no. 5 (August 25, 1967): 160 (5): 1113–1148, https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRev.160.1113. Nicolae Sfetcu: Heuristics and Tests of Quantum Gravity 3 According to Laudan, the preferred theory is the one that maximizes the empirical successes, while reducing the conceptual problems, and the research preferred tradition is the one that supports the most successful theories. According to Péter Szegedi, the history of quantum mechanics interpretations fit very well with Lakatos' methodology of rival scientific research programmes, compared to Kuhn's methodology which does not allow the simultaneous existence of different rival paradigms. 3 4 It turns out that the development of quantum mechanics itself is a development, an evolution of progressive problems, if it is progressive both theoretically and empirically. Interpretations of quantum mechanics can be arranged as a series of theories, resulting in theoretical progressivity, but empirical progressivity is difficult to evaluate. Thus, according to the criteria, the interpretive programs can be scientific, but they are degenerative, respectively they are characterized by stagnation. The evaluation may change in the future, being a long-term program: "Moreover, it occasionally happens that when a research pro gramme gets into a degenerating phase, a little revolution or a creative shift in its positive heuristic may push it forward again." 5 There is a possibility that a degenerate program may be revived, or even considered successful if it provides useful results for other programs. 6 Péter Szegedi distinguishes, in the case of various quantum interpretations, a hard core and a heuristic adapting to the problems that have arisen. 7 Thus, in Louis de Broglie's program, the synthesis of wave-particle images is the hard core, while the real forms of realization in order of appearance (positive heuristic) are the following: the principle of double solution, the theory of pilot waves, the hypothesis of non-linearity and the hidden thermodynamics. In the case of David Bohm, the hard core is the theory of hidden variables and the quantum potential, to which at one point he added the hypothesis of stochasticity. Vigier used the same hard core, but with an additional assumption of the hidden degrees of freedom hypothesis. There are other programs in the interpretations of quantum mechanics. In the Fényes-Nelson-de Peňa research program, stochasticity is not an additional hypothesis, but a hard core, where the positive heuristic forced the initial use of diffusion processes, then the Brownian motion and, finally, 3 Péter Szegedi, "Lakatos On Crucial Experiments And The History Of Interpretations Of Quantum Mechanics," in Appraising Lakatos: Mathematics, Methodology and the Man, ed. G. Kampis, L. : Kvasz, and M. Stöltzner (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002), 1–101. 4 Imre Lakatos, The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes: Volume 1: Philosophical Papers (Cambridge University Press, 1980), 33–34. 5 Lakatos, 51. 6 H. Zandvoort, Paul Weingartner, and Methology and Philosophy of Science International Congress of Logic, Intrinsic Success and Extrinsic Success of Research Programs, in 7th International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science: Salzburg, July 11th-16th, 1983 Vol. 4, Vol. 4, (Salzburg: Huttegger, 1983), 289–92. 7 Szegedi, "Lakatos On Crucial Experiments And The History Of Interpretations Of Quantum Mechanics." Nicolae Sfetcu: Heuristics and Tests of Quantum Gravity 4 stochastic electrodynamics. The positive heuristics of these programs are different, but generally they use the relativistic approach, the principle of determinism or causality and the principle of the unity of nature. In orthodox interpretation, according to Cushing, the hard core consists of the canonical commutation relations and Hamiltonian equations of motion, and the positive heuristic applies to the classical forms of Hamiltonians for specific systems, the principle of correspondence and the principle of observables; as an auxiliary hypothesis, the operator-observer report was used. Lakatos says about this program: "In the new, post-1925 quantum theory the 'anarchist' position became dominant and modern quantum physics, in its 'Copenhagen interpretation', became one of the main standard bearers of philosophical obscurantism. In the new theory Bohr's notorious 'complementarity principle' enthroned [weak] inconsistency as a basic ultimate feature of nature, and merged subjectivist positivism and antilogical dialectic and even ordinary language philosophy into one unholy alliance. After 1925 Bohr and his associates introduced a new and unprecedented lowering of critical standards for scientific theories. This led to a defeat of reason within modern physics and to an anarchist cult of incomprehensible chaos." 8 Lakatos' crucial experiments in quantum mechanics begin with a Gedanken experiment, the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen experiment. 9 Commentators distinguish (at least) five hypotheses here: the principle of realism, the validity of quantum mechanical formalism, the hypothesis of completeness, the principle of separability, and the validity of classical logic. According to the EPR argument, one of the five assumptions is false. The next step was taken by Bohm, who reformulated the Gedanken experiment with spins, 10 but without seeming yet another crucial experiment as it was not stated that different theories offer different measurement results. The work of John Bell has given hope that experimental testing of interpretations is possible, 11 emphasizing that there must be differences between quantum mechanical and hidden predictions. He assumed that in a real experiment we could measure probabilities. Bell's inequality was even closer to the real conditions of an easy-to-manage experiment. 8 Lakatos, The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes, 59–60. 9 A. Einstein, B. Podolsky, and N. Rosen, "Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete?," Physical Review 47, no. 10 (May 15, 1935): 770–80, https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRev.47.777. 10 David Bohm, Quantum Theory, Revised ed. edition (New York: Dover Publications, 1989). 11 J. S. Bell, "On the Einstein Podolsky Rosen Paradox," Physics Physique Fizika 1, no. 3 (November 1, 1964): 447, https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysicsPhysiqueFizika.1.195. Nicolae Sfetcu: Heuristics and Tests of Quantum Gravity 5 The tests of quantum gravity The primordial test of any quantum theory of gravity is the reproduction of the successes of general relativity. This involves reconstructing the local geometry from the non-local observables. In addition, quantum gravity should probabilistically predict the large-scale topology of the Universe, which may soon be measurable, 12 and phenomena at the Planck scale. 13 There is already a prediction that relates to quantum gravity: the existence and spectrum of Hawking radiation of the black hole, a "semi-classical" prediction resulting from quantum field theory on a fixed curved background, and subsequently confirmed theoretically. 14 It is assumed that a theory of gravity that will not reproduce this prediction is wrong. For the Planck energy scale several tests have been proposed based on two ideas: that we can detect very small deviations of the exact symmetries, and that we can integrate over long distances or times to observe very small collective effects. These proposals remain extremely speculative, but they are plausible. 15 Some of these ideas can be found in Giovanni AmelinoCamelia, Are we at the dawn of quantum-gravity phenomenology: 16 • Violations of the principle of equivalence. 17 Accuracy tests of the equivalence principle could be developed by atomic and neutron interferometry. • Violations of CPT (charge, parity, and time) invariance, 18 for example by forming virtual black holes. The current experimental limits approach the observation level of these 12 Neil Cornish, David Spergel, and Glenn Starkman, "Circles in the Sky: Finding Topology with the Microwave Background Radiation," Classical and Quantum Gravity 15, no. 9 (September 1, 1998): 15, 2657, https://doi.org/10.1088/0264-9381/15/9/013. 13 Richard Easther et al., "Inflation as a Probe of Short Distance Physics," Physical Review D 64, no. 10 (October 16, 2001): 103502, https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.64.103502. 14 Fay Dowker et al., "Pair Creation of Dilaton Black Holes," Physical Review D 49, no. 6 (March 15, 1994): 2909, https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.49.2909. 15 S. Carlip, "Quantum Gravity: A Progress Report," Reports on Progress in Physics 64, no. 8 (August 1, 2001): 885–942, https://doi.org/10.1088/0034-4885/64/8/301. 16 Giovanni Amelino-Camelia, "Are We at the Dawn of Quantum-Gravity Phenomenology?," ArXiv:GrQc/9910089, October 25, 1999, http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9910089. 17 G. Z. Adunas, E. Rodriguez-Milla, and D. V. Ahluwalia, "Probing Quantum Aspects of Gravity," Physics Letters B 485, no. 1–3 (July 2000): 215, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0370-2693(00)00697-3. 18 Alan Kostelecky and Rob Potting, "Expectation Values, Lorentz Invariance, and CPT in the Open Bosonic String," Physics Letters B 381, no. 1–3 (July 1996): 89, https://doi.org/10.1016/0370-2693(96)00589-8. Nicolae Sfetcu: Heuristics and Tests of Quantum Gravity 6 effects. 19 Violations of other global symmetries, such as CP, can also occur, with consequences that can be observed on the Planck scale. 20 • Distortions of dispersion relationships for light and neutrinos over long distances, resulting in a frequency-dependent light speed. 21 It can be observed by observing the gamma rays, the current experimental limits are close to the observation level. If the effect depends on polarization, gravity-induced birefringence tests may be within observation limits. 22 • Interferometers for detecting gravitational waves could observe quantum fluctuations testable in space geometry, 23 an idea still controversial. • Quantum gravity near Planck mass affects renormalization group fluxes and low energy coupling constants in large unified theories, 24 but this effect is rather a disadvantage making other possible tests more difficult. • Use of powerful lasers for (indirect) observation of Unruh radiation, the counterpart of Hawking radiation for an acceleration particle. 25 This may be at least a test of theoretical quantum field predictions from quantum gravity. • An indirect test from analogues of condensed matter with black holes, which should emit phonons through "Hawking radiation" from sonic horizons. 26 Tests may be possible in 19 R. Adler et al., "Test of CPT Symmetry and Quantum Mechanics with Experimental Data from CPLEAR," Physics Letters B 364, no. 4 (December 1995): 239, https://doi.org/10.1016/0370-2693(95)01416-0. 20 Renata Kallosh et al., "Gravity and Global Symmetries," Physical Review D 52, no. 2 (July 15, 1995): 912, https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.52.912. 21 Jorge Alfaro, Hugo A. Morales-Tecotl, and Luis F. Urrutia, "Quantum Gravity Corrections to Neutrino Propagation," Physical Review Letters 84, no. 11 (March 13, 2000): 2318, https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.84.2318. 22 Reinaldo J. Gleiser and Carlos N. Kozameh, "Astrophysical Limits on Quantum Gravity Motivated Birefringence," Physical Review D 64, no. 8 (September 2001): 083007, https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.64.083007. 23 Y. Jack Ng and H. van Dam, "Measuring the Foaminess of Space-Time with Gravity-Wave Interferometers," Foundations of Physics 30, no. 5 (2000): 795, https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1003745212871. 24 L. J. Hall and U. Sarid, "Gravitational Smearing of Minimal Supersymmetric Unification Predictions," Physical Review Letters 70, no. 18 (May 3, 1993): 2673, https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.70.2673. 25 Pisin Chen and Toshi Tajima, "Testing Unruh Radiation with Ultraintense Lasers," Physical Review Letters 83, no. 2 (July 12, 1999): 256, https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.83.256. 26 Matt Visser, "Acoustic Black Holes," ArXiv:Gr-Qc/9901047, January 15, 1999, http://arxiv.org/abs/grqc/9901047. Nicolae Sfetcu: Heuristics and Tests of Quantum Gravity 7 the future in Bose-Einstein condensates, 27 superfluid helium 328 and "slow light" in dielectrics. 29 These experiments will not differentiate between specific models of quantum gravity, as current models cannot yet make sufficiently clear predictions, but phenomena can be tested on the Planck scale affected by quantum gravity. Lately, physicists have focused on the idea of experimental tests for a certain class of quantum gravity models, "gravity on the TeV scale" or "world of branes",30 which postulate additional "large" dimensions, of one millimeter. The problem of how the measurement affects the ontological state of the observed system is called the measurement problem. Measurement in quantum mechanics is viewed in different ways in various interpretations. In classical mechanics, a simple point system is fully described by the particle's position and momentum. In quantum mechanics, a system is described by its quantum state, by the probabilities of possible positions and momentums. The predicted values of the measurements are described by a probability distribution or an "average" (or "expectation") of the measurement operator based on the quantum state of the prepared system. The measurement process is often considered random and indeterministic in some interpretations, while in other interpretations indeterminism is fundamental and irreducible. There are several possible ways to mathematically describe the measurement process (both the probability distribution and the collapsed wave function). The most convenient description depends on the spectrum (ie the set of eigenvalues) of the observable. The most obvious feature in quantum gravity is the lack of data (there are no phenomena that can be identified unequivocally as a result of an interaction between general relativity and quantum theory). This is because the quantum gravity scale (Planck length) is extremely small, as is Planck energy and Planck time. It turns out that the only physical regime in which the effects of quantum gravity could be studied directly is in the immediate post-Big Bang era, in addition to the problems related to the interaction of spin-2 gravitons with a conserved energymomentum tensor. It follows that different quantum gravity theories could be empirically verified only at very high energies. 27 L. J. Garay et al., "Sonic Analog of Gravitational Black Holes in Bose-Einstein Condensates," Physical Review Letters 85, no. 22 (November 27, 2000): 4643, https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.85.4643. 28 G. E. Volovik, "Field Theory in Superfluid 3He: What Are the Lessons for Particle Physics, Gravity and High-Temperature Superconductivity?," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 96, no. 11 (May 25, 1999): 6042, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.96.11.6042. 29 U. Leonhardt and P. Piwnicki, "Relativistic Effects of Light in Moving Media with Extremely Low Group Velocity," Physical Review Letters 84, no. 5 (January 31, 2000): 822, https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.84.822. 30 Lisa Randall and Raman Sundrum, "A Large Mass Hierarchy from a Small Extra Dimension," Physical Review Letters 83, no. 17 (October 25, 1999): 3370, https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.83.3370. Nicolae Sfetcu: Heuristics and Tests of Quantum Gravity 8 For physics, this means that it is very difficult to build a fully satisfactory theory. From a philosophical point of view, the difficulty is due to the conceptual problems of space, time and matter, but also due to the theoretical construction, since there is no agreement on the types of data that a quantum theory of gravity would obtain. In this situation, J. Butterfield states that the theoretical construction becomes much more strongly influenced by theoretical considerations, based on the different first-hand opinions on how the theory should look, based in part on the philosophical bias of the researcher and on the mathematical techniques considered. successful. Thus, a research program tends to construct abstract theoretical schemes compatible with a preconceived conceptual framework and internally coherent in a mathematical sense, resulting in a "sub-determination of data theory". Moreover, the program tends to produce schemes based on a wide range of philosophical motivations, which could be presumed to be unconscious projections of the individual researcher's psychic, and could be rejected as such. It is important to determine if quantum gravity effects are measurable below the Planck limits, possibly resulting from a non-perturbative effect. But the very existence of such effects, and the phenomena they predict, are themselves probably strongly dependent on theory. It follows that the subject of quantum gravity presents to the philosopher a wide and varied range of approaches, provided that in quantum gravity there are not sufficiently well defined theories, not even well established. From the dimensional analyzes it would appear that quantum gravity requires experimentally high energies, of the Planck energy level. This would require a particle accelerator larger than our galaxy, so direct quantum gravity tests seem impossible according to these calculations. It turns out that high precision laboratory tests in the weak field will be the only possibility to make quantum gravity a testable / falsifiable physical theory. This would be possible in macroscopic systems that still adhere to the laws of quantum theory those described by macroscopic wave functions. These would allow, for example, the measurement of quantum gravitational excitation energies. 31 Johan Hansson and Stephane Francois suggest the possibility of testing quantum gravity theories using macroscopic quantum systems; superfluid helium, Bose-Einstein gas condensates and "macroscopic" molecules still subject to quantum mechanics, and neutron stars. The effects of quantum gravity, defined here as observable gravitational interactions between quantum objects, should be observed using existing technology, allowing for low energy falsifiability in the weak field regime. 32 31 Johan Hansson, "Aspects of Nonrelativistic Quantum Gravity," ArXiv:0910.4289 [Astro-Ph, Physics:Gr-Qc, Physics:Hep-Ph, Physics:Quant-Ph], October 22, 2009, 707 (2009), http://arxiv.org/abs/0910.4289. 32 Johan Hansson and Stephane Francois, "Testing Quantum Gravity," International Journal of Modern Physics D 26, no. 12 (October 2017): 1743003, https://doi.org/10.1142/S0218271817430039. Nicolae Sfetcu: Heuristics and Tests of Quantum Gravity 9 Roberto Balbinot and Alessandro Fabbri, in Amplifying the Hawking Signal in BECs, 33 propose simple models of Bose-Einstein condensates to study the analogue effects of pair creation, namely, the Hawking effect of acoustic black holes and the Casimir dynamic effect. The idea is to reproduce in a context of condensed matter some quantum effects predicted by quantum field theory in curved space, including the thermal emission of black holes predicted by Hawking in 1974. 34 The authors of this experiment conclude that they have obtained some results that could be useful in future experimental research. THe formalism is based on the Lagrangian form which regulates the dynamics of the point particles with mass and charge and the electromagnetic field in a static, spherically symmetrical gravitational field described by the phenomenological gravitational potentials T, H, e. This theory was used to interpret the results of the experimental tests of the strong equivalence principle. 35 The xg formalism introduced by W.-T. Ni36 initially offered us a framework for the analysis of electrodynamic physics in a gravitational background field, then expanded to cover other sectors of the standard model. The Kostelecky formalism, developed by Colladay and Kostelecky, is used to deal with the possibility of spontaneous breakdown of Lorentz symmetry in the context of string theory. 37 A formalism based on the forms of the equations of motion has the advantage of directly addressing some natural requirements. 33 Roberto Balbinot and Alessandro Fabbri, "Amplifying the Hawking Signal in BECs," Advances in High Energy Physics 2014 (2014): 1–8, https://doi.org/10.1155/2014/713574. 34 S. W. Hawking, "Particle Creation by Black Holes," Communications in Mathematical Physics 43, no. 3 (August 1, 1975): 199–220, https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02345020. 35 J. E. 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"Relativistic Effects of Light in Moving Media with Extremely Low Group Velocity." Physical Review Letters 84, no. 5 (January 31, 2000): 822–25. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.84.822. Ng, Y. Jack, and H. van Dam. "Measuring the Foaminess of Space-Time with Gravity-Wave Interferometers." Foundations of Physics 30, no. 5 (2000): 795–805. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1003745212871. Ni, W.-T. "Equivalence Principles and Electromagnetism." Physical Review Letters 38 (February 1, 1977): 301–4. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.38.301. Randall, Lisa, and Raman Sundrum. "A Large Mass Hierarchy from a Small Extra Dimension." Physical Review Letters 83, no. 17 (October 25, 1999): 3370–73. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.83.3370. Szegedi, Péter. "Lakatos On Crucial Experiments And The History Of Interpretations Of Quantum Mechanics." In Appraising Lakatos: Mathematics, Methodology and the Man, edited by G. Kampis, L. : Kvasz, and M. Stöltzner, 1–101. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002. Visser, Matt. "Acoustic Black Holes." ArXiv:Gr-Qc/9901047, January 15, 1999. http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9901047. Volovik, G. E. "Field Theory in Superfluid 3He: What Are the Lessons for Particle Physics, Gravity and High-Temperature Superconductivity?" Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 96, no. 11 (May 25, 1999): 6042–47. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.96.11.6042. Zandvoort, H., Paul Weingartner, and Methology and Philosophy of Science International Congress of Logic. Intrinsic Success and Extrinsic Success of Research Programs, in 7th International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science: Salzburg, July 11th-16th, 1983 Vol. 4, Vol. 4,. Salzburg: Huttegger, 1983.


Philosophy

William Lewis 21 April 2021 0 comments Dialectical Method: Henri Lefebvre's Philosophy of Science William S. Lewis examines the contribution to philosophy of science made by Lefebvre, in the context of his membership of the French Communist Party. The Marxist philosopher and social scientist Henri Lefebvre (1901-1991) authored over 60 books. It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that some of these are less well-known than his Critique of Everyday Life (1947), Introduction to Modernity, (1962), or Dialectical Materialism (1940), each of which continues to inform the work of architects, geographers, sociologists, and philosophers. Active as an author for over seventy years, Lefebvre's oeuvre begins with contributions to the surrealist movement, proceeds with an important translation of Hegel and Marx, and then ranges across metaphysics, rural and urban sociology, critiques of fascism, memoirs, poetry, and literary criticism. Given the breadth of his interests and the relative obscurity of some of his writings, it is little wonder that few readers have examined Lefebvre's contribution to philosophy of science. This is especially understandable given that his major work in this area, des Sciences remained unpublished for more than fifty years and only saw the light of day in 2002.[1] It remains untranslated into English. des Science, was written by Lefebvre under the auspices of the French Communist Party and–at that organization's behest–it attempted to integrate the "insights" of Stalin's Short Course into Marxian philosophy. Given this mission, one aspect of the work that remains of particular interest to those interested in how ideology affects understanding is the way in which Lefebvre maintains fidelity to Stalin's seconding of Marx and Engels' insight that a subject's social and economic position determines her worldview while simultaneously defending the objectivity of scientific knowledge Fidelity to these seemingly contradictory epistemological positions sets up an interesting tension. For, insofar as scientists are methodologically rigorous, Lefebvre argues that they tend to produce true or correct knowledge about the world. However, Lefebvre also argued that ideology allows, motivates, directs, and controls scientific research and, further, that ideology informs the public reception of its results. In negotiating this contradiction, Lefebvre's work does not resemble the thendominant position in philosophy of science: logical positivism or logical empiricism, which had it that the problem of subjectivity could be overcome by sufficient methodological rigor and logical analysis. Instead, he prefigures contemporary ideas about scientific practice and knowledge that have been voiced by feminist philosophers of science and social epistemologists over the last three decades. In so doing, his work anticipates standpoint theory, contextual empiricism, as well as methodological pluralism.[2] Lefebvre finished Méthodologie des Sciences in 1947, at the exact time when the French Communist Party was moving from its endorsement of the "Thesis of the Unity of International Sciences" to that of the "Two Sciences."[3] As part of a larger theoretical and political distinction which divided the world into two antagonistic camps, this dichotomy was deployed at the beginning of the Cold War in order to differentiate Soviet from Western Science and to prove the superiority of the former. With dogmatic assertion and propaganda directing research and research supporting propaganda and dogmatic assertion, communist scientists and party ideologues contended that 'bourgeois science' was unable to provide knowledge of the world as it really is because its method is based on the mistaken, positivist assumption that natural laws are discovered through empirical inquiry into objective facts. By way of contrast, it was posited that proletarian science is able to discern dialectical processes at work in nature and to know the world truly. Why? Because it recognizes– at its heart–the dialectical relationship between theory and practice. From the late 1940s until the mid-1950s, this theoretical distinction between the two types of scientific practice resulted in the denial of the veracity of conclusions reached by European and North American scientists and to the falsification or gross misinterpretation of empirical data obtained by Soviet scientists in their own research.[4] The distinction sometimes led to the Soviet Union's rejection of practical technological advancements which were based upon the conclusions of Western science as well as to the forced and often disastrous application of proletarian science's 'discoveries' to Soviet industry and agriculture.[5] When the "Thesis of the Unity of International Sciences" was still in place, the PCF was quite happy to have sympathetic philosophers like Lefebvre developing their own variants of Marxist philosophy. Besides echoing the spirit of unity and liberalization that the Communist Party wished to foster while participating in the post-war government, this type of intellectual work added to the Party's prestige. During this ephemeral moment, Lefebvre was even explicitly recognized by the Party as representing, "le marxisme vivant."[6] Given this policy and this approbation, it is understandable how a Party that immediately before the war had banned and destroyed his work for being too Hegelian would, in 1946, offer to publish a proposed eight-volume tome À la lumière du matérialisme dialectique.[7] According to Lefebvre's outline for the opus, this massive undertaking was to develop Marxist thought from its logical principles through to its applications in science, politics, history, psychology, ethics, and esthetics.[8] The first volume in the series, Logique Formelle, Logique Dialectique, was published near the end of 1947. According to Lefebvre's biographer, it was initially well received.[9] However, after the declaration by the Soviet dominated Cominform of the Two Sciences position, the book was attacked in Party organs for its claim that "the dialectic does not abolish [formal] logic."[10] Despite Lefebvre's explanation that formal logic represents only one stage in thought's coming to know itself and his avowal that dialectical logic supersedes it, the fact that he gave formal logic any credence showed him to be "lacking party spirit" and to be petty bourgeois as well.[11] As the Party pointed out to him, what with its principles of identity and of non-contradiction, formal logic was obviously a bourgeois fantasy and was bivouacked in the wrong camp. So then, to give any credence to formal logic's ability to help us know the world or to establish truth claims was anathema.[12] By the time Lefebvre received this criticism, the second volume of À la lumière du matérialisme dialectique on the methodology of the sciences had already gone to press.[13] However, after a meeting with a high ranking member of the PCF's Politburo, during which Lefebvre recounts that he was upbraided for not recognizing that-with the triumph of the proletariat-a new logic existed, Lefebvre withdrew the text from publication. Predicated as it was upon the assumption that the methodologies of the natural and human sciences relied upon formal logic to make inductive and deductive hypotheses about the natural world, he did not feel that its claims were reconcilable with the Party's insistence that only dialectical logic could make sense of the world.[14] Because Lefebvre withdrew Méthodologie des Sciences from the Party presses and because his autobiography recounts that he did so when he could see no way to reconcile his understanding of scientific method and of scientific knowledge with that of the Party, it is tempting to read this work as generally consistent with Lefebvre's unique brand of Hegelian Marxism and as not in any way influenced by Soviet Marxism . However, given the probable period of its gestation (1939-1947) and given that, during much of this time, the Party was consistent in its endorsement of the Short Course, there is reason to suspect that this is indeed his response to Stalin's theses in "Dialectical and Historical Materialism."[15] That Lefebvre was exquisitely cognizant of the Short Course and of the Party's endorsement of its ideas and that the themes and issues explored in Lefebvre's text seem to echo those of the chapter on "Dialectical and Historical Materialism" would also lend credence to the assertion that the criticism of Stalin's conclusions and the development of an alternative to them was at least partially Lefebvre's intent in writing the text.[16] Of course, given that he was a Party member and firmly committed to communism, the criticisms that Lefebvre delivers of the Short Course in Méthodologie des Sciences are neither explicit nor direct. In fact, he never references Stalin's text at all.[17] Instead of attacking it frontally (as he would in a preface to the 1969 reedition of Logique formelle, logique dialectique), Lefebvre describes his objective in the book to be a correction and critique of the two then dominant philosophies of science promulgated by academic philosophers.[18] Consequently, he proposes the dialectical materialist philosophy detailed in Méthodologie des Sciences in contradistinction to and as a compromise between "neo-dialectical" and "logical empiricist" theories of scientific knowledge.[19] As he argues, insofar as "neodialecticians" like Gaston Bachelard and Ferdinand Gonseth maintain that scientific concepts produce scientific objects and that these concepts (and objects) change over time purely by force of thought, they are guilty of being excessively conventionalist and insufficiently materialist.[20] At the other end of the spectrum, Lefebvre criticizes logical empiricists like A.J. Ayer and Rudolf Carnap, not for being too materialistic, but for being naively materialist.[21] To him, a philosophy of science predicated on the assumption that logic is historically and culturally neutral and that there is a simple correspondence between linguistic signs and natural facts "neglects the historical connection between the real, knowledge, and the living individual."[22] Lefebvre positions his own dialectical materialist theory of the production of scientific knowledge somewhere between that of the neo-dialectician and that of the neopositivist. With the positivists, he argues that material things exist, that scientists work to describe them in their objectivity, and that logic helps them to do so.[23] However, Lefebvre is also aware that a scientist's social and historical position influences the questions she asks about the natural and social world, the way that she approaches her research, and the way in which the results of this research are interpreted. This barebones description of Lefebvre's theory of the conditions of the production of scientific knowledge neither explains how he thinks objective knowledge of the real world is produced nor does it distinguish Lefebvre's theory from that of Stalin. However, as it is developed over the course of Méthodologie des Sciences, its innovative take on the relationship between dialectical and historical materialism becomes clear. Both Stalin and Lefebvre argue that the world (natural and social) develops dialectically and that it is known fully only through dialectical thought. However, it is not apparent to Lefebvre that only proletarians or the Communist Party can possess or advance this knowledge. Rather, inasmuch as scientists are engaged in an investigation of the material real, he argues that they are in the process of discovering objective truths about it. Morally, logically, and observationally rigorous, scientists describe the world as best they can and they tend to describe it correctly.[24] Despite this recognition of the scientist's prerogative and achievement, the level of social, economic, and technological development of the culture in which a scientist finds herself practicing determines the level of objectivity and truth that she is able to reach.[25] Especially in the social sciences, but also in the natural sciences and mathematics, Lefebvre argues that scientists "present theses that constitute defenses (more or less well disguised) of their interests or of the interests of the limited social group of which they are a part."[26] How then could such theses be considered objective knowledge? Well, looked at individually and synchronically, they are not. However, as scientists critique one another and as the culture and the economy in which they do their work develops, untrue and subjective theses are progressively overturned and replaced by truer and more objective theories.[27] Following Stalin, Lefebvre does suggest that some social groups (and therefore the scientists that come from these groups) achieve a higher degree of objectivity due to the social formation that produces them. The lesson that Lefebvre draws from this is not, however, that one social group, the working class or its representatives, finds and possesses objective knowledge while other groups merely reproduce prejudice. Rather, he contends, the recognition that social prejudices influence and distort scientific theses demands that every thesis be examined for its ideological biases and that every scientific discipline self-consciously reflect back on the conditions of its own production. So that this self-critique might be performed simultaneous to scientific research, Lefebvre argues that philosophers specializing in materialist dialectics be assigned to units of scientists; that way, the prejudicial assumptions undergirding the scientists' hypothesis and leading to a lack of objectivity might be pointed out and avoided.[28] Despite Lefebvre's call for dialectical materialist philosophers to police scientists, he does have a fairly robust and sophisticated sense of scientific practice as well as a respect for the work that scientists perform. This sense and this respect stand in stark contrast to the way in which the PCF treated actual scientists like Marcel Prenant and Jacques Monod at the time.[29] Given his Hegelian orientation, it is no surprise that Lefebvre sees the activity of scientists as basically a dialectical one. In the course of their activity, scientists propose theories about the way in which the world works. With their research, they then "demand" or force the world to try to prove that this theory is an illusion by encouraging it to produce facts that challenge the theory's veracity. If such concrete facts emerge, the first tendency of the scientist is to incorporate these facts into the existing theory by inventing a corollary or sub-theory that explains them. However, if the facts cannot be so incorporated, then this forces a complete theoretical re-working; the original theory is abandoned and a new one that can account for the facts is introduced.[30] According to Lefebvre the history of science is the history of this dialectical movement from the abstract to the concrete repeated ad infinitum and its result is the progressive amelioration of knowledge.[31] This improvement is not, however, just an evolution in thought as the "neodialecticians" would claim. Rather, in the process of interacting with the material real, scientists come to know the real objectively, that is, in its actual dialectical development as a series of contradictions.[32] In this claim and in his description of scientific practice, Lefebvre seconds the Party's metaphysical stance that nature itself is dialectical. However, he does so in such a way that it is impossible to maintain that only the proletariat can have knowledge of this truth. In his account, knowledge of this truth is obtained retrospectively by the methods of Historical Materialism and is accessible to any and all who would inquire into the history of political economy.[33] With these universalist conclusions, it is no wonder that Party officials balked at publishing Méthodologie des Sciences at a time when they were calling for orthodoxy among Party members and when this orthodoxy included an endorsement of the two sciences position. After withdrawing Méthodologies des Sciences from publication, Lefebvre never again attempted such a critique. In fact, soon after abandoning the text and the eightvolume project, he published a self-critical essay to atone for the sins he had committed against Marxism-Leninism in his work on logic and the dialectic.[34] However, this imposed exercise did not alter his consistent positions. Though for a time he curtailed his more heterodox statements on Marxist philosophy and retreated to literary analysis, Lefebvre never gave up the argument that Marxism was a philosophy of human liberation and that this liberation could be accomplished by scientific, cultural, and artistic means. William S. Lewis is a Professor of Philosophy at Skidmore College. [1] Henri Lefebvre, Méthodologie Des Sciences (Paris: Anthropos, 2002). [2] Wenda K. Crasnow Sharon, Wylie, Alison, Bauchspies and Elizabeth Potter, "Feminist Perspectives on Science," in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta, Spring 2018 (Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2018), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2018/entries/feminist-science/. [3] Slava Gerovitch, "'Russian Scandals': Soviet Readings of American Cybernetics in the Early Years of the Cold War," The Russian Review 60, no. 4 (2001): 550. [4] Vadim J Birstein, The Perversion of Knowledge: The True Story of Soviet Science (Boulder, Colo.; Oxford: Westview, 2004), 239–67. [5] David Joravsky, The Lysenko Affair (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), 140–42. [6] Rémi Hess, Henri Lefebvre et l'aventure du siècle (Paris: A.M. Métailié, 1988), 117. [7] Henri Lefebvre, À la lumière du matérialisme dialectique I, I, (Paris: Éditions Sociales, 1947); Henri Lefebvre, Logique formelle, logique dialectique, 3rd ed. (Paris: Éditions Sociales, 1982), 11–12. [8] Hess, Henri Lefebvre et l'aventure du siècle, xix–xx. [9] Rémi Hess, "Introduction to Henri Lefebvre's 'Méthodologie Des Sciences,'" in Méthodologie Des Sciences (Paris: Anthropo, 2002), xx. Anglophone reviews were mixed: Vivian Jerauld McGill, who would be fired by Hunter College in 1954 after refusing to "name names'' before the House Un-American Activities Committee praised it. Lewis S. Feuer condemned it on logical grounds but argued that it is suggestive sociologically. Lewis S. Feuer, review of A La Lumière du Matérialisme Dialectique. I. Logique Formelle, Logique Dialectique, by Henri Lefebvre, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 10, no. 4 (1950): 591–93, https://doi.org/10.2307/2103431; Richard T. Hull, "Biography: Vivian Jerauld McGill," The American Philosophical Association Centennial Series, January 1, 2013, https://doi.org/10.5840/apapa2013378; V. J. McGill, "A La Lumière Du Matérialisme Dialectique. Vol. I. Logique Formelle, Logique Dialectique," The Journal of Philosophy, January 1, 1949, https://doi.org/10.2307/2020124. [10] Hess, "Introduction to Henri Lefebvre's 'Méthodologie Des Sciences,'" xx. [11] Hess, xx. [12] Lefebvre, Logique formelle, logique dialectique, v–vi. [13] This is according to his account in La Somme et Le Reste recounted in Hess MS, Rob Shields maintains in his bibliographie that the sciences book was done first, in 1940 and was censored. [14] Hess, "Introduction to Henri Lefebvre's 'Méthodologie Des Sciences,'" xxii– xxiii. [15] Though many letters were exchanged between the two friends and collaborators during World War II, there is no evidence in the correspondence between Norbert Guterman and Lefebvre held at Butler Library, Columbia University showing that he made progress during the war on the grand project described in À la lumière de la marxisme. [16] Philippe Buton, "Le Parti Communiste Français et le Stalinisme au lendemain de la Seconde Guerre mondiale," Journal of Modern European History 2, no. 1 (March 1, 2004): 67, https://doi.org/10.17104/1611-8944_2004_1_58. [17] An omission that would make one suspect his endorsement of the document given that at the time it was de riguer for Party members to cite the text in every philosophical analysis. [18] Lefebvre, Logique formelle, logique dialectique, v–liii. [19] Lefebvre, Méthodologie des sciences, 2, 198. [20] Lefebvre, 2–4, 80-81,192. [21] Lefebvre, 85, 188. [22] Lefebvre, 198. [23] Lefebvre, 19–44. [24] Lefebvre, 20–21.Méthodologies des Sciences, 20-21 [25] Lefebvre, 22.Méthodologies des Sciences, 22 [26] Lefebvre, 22.Méthodologies des Sciences, 22 [27] Lefebvre, 15–16. [28] Lefebvre, 7. [29] Yann Kindo, "L'affaire Lyssenko, ou la pseudo-science au pouvoir.," Contretermps, avril 2009, https://www.contretemps.eu/affaire-lyssenkopseudo-science-pouvoir/; Deniz Uztopal, "La réception en France du lyssenkisme, les scientifiques communistes français et la conceptualisation de la « science prolétarienne » (1948-1956)," Cahiers d'histoire. Revue d'histoire critique, no. 122 (January 1, 2014): 121–41. [30] Lefebvre, Méthodologie des sciences, 38–39. [31] Lefebvre, 41.Méthodologies des sciences, 41 [32] Lefebvre, 41.Méthodologies des sciences, 41 [33] Henri Lefebvre, "Auto-Critique," La Nouvelle Critique 4 (March 1949): 43–44. [34] Lefebvre, "Auto-Critique." Related Books Critique of Everyday Life by Henri Lefebvre Introduction to Modernity by Henri Lefebvre Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche by Henri Lefebvre AboutBooksAuthorsBlogEvents Terms and ConditionsFrequently Asked Questions Sign up for our email newsletter


Epistemic Norms and Self Defeat: A Reply to Littlejohn

Philosophy

Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, 2015 Vol. 4, No. 2, 26-32. http://wp.me/p1Bfg0-1Uo 26 Epistemic Norms and Self-Defeat: A Reply to Littlejohn Jonathan Matheson, University of North Florida In "Are Conciliatory Views of Disagreement Self-Defeating?" I argued that we should revise how we understand conciliatory views of disagreement. Conciliatory views of disagreement claim that discovering that an epistemic peer disagrees with you is epistemically significant. In particular, they have been understood as claiming that becoming aware that an epistemic peer disagrees with you about a proposition makes you less justified in adopting the doxastic attitude that you had toward that proposition. So, if you believed p and became aware that your epistemic peer disbelieves p, then you would become less justified in believing p, at least so long as you have no undefeated reason to discount your peer's conclusion about p. More formally, conciliationism has been understood as claiming the following: (CV): If (i) at t S1 is justified in adopting doxastic attitude D1 toward proposition p and (ii) at a later time t' S1 becomes justified in believing that an epistemic peer S2 has adopted a competitor doxastic attitude D2 toward p, and (iii) at t' S1 has no undefeated reason to discount S2's conclusion; then at t' S1 becomes less justified in adopting D1 toward p. I argued that conciliatory views of disagreement should be understood as making the following more modest claim: (CV*): If (i) at t S1 is justified in adopting doxastic attitude D1 toward proposition p and (ii) at a later time t' S1 becomes justified in believing that an epistemic peer S2 has adopted a competitor doxastic attitude D2 toward p; then at t' S1 gains a defeater for adopting D1 toward p. CV*, like CV, claims that peer disagreement is epistemically significant-both claim that in becoming aware that a peer disagrees you gain a reason to become less justified in your doxastic attitude toward the disputed proposition. However CV* differs from CV in one important way. CV*, unlike CV, makes no claim about what the subject is on balance justified in believing (or to what degree) at t'; it makes no claim about what the net effect of this reason gained via the disagreement is. While gaining a defeater for adopting a doxastic attitude toward a proposition may result in the subject becoming less on balance justified in adopting that attitude toward that proposition it needn't. Defeaters can themselves be defeated-there are defeater-defeaters-and CV does not adequately account for this. Condition (iii) in CV does rule out some potential defeater-defeaters-it rules out S1 having reasons to discount S2's conclusion on the matter-however, there are other possible defeater-defeaters (one's that are not reasons to believe that the peer's conclusion is mistaken). I. Motivation for the Change I argued that such a modification was an improvement for several reasons, but focused on how such a modification would help conciliatory views avoid problems with being selfSocial Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, 2015 Vol. 4, No. 2, 26-32. http://wp.me/p1Bfg0-1Uo 27 defeating in offering inconsistent advice.1 In general, the modification is important since CV is simply too strong. CV claims that gaining one piece of evidence (in a particular circumstance) is sufficient to alter what one is on balance justified in believing (and to what degree). Such a claim is implausible on any epistemic framework, but my focus was on evidentialism. According to evidentialism: For any subject S, proposition P, time T, and doxastic attitude D, S is justified in adopting D toward P at T if and only if having D toward P fits the evidence S has at T. Evidentialists should reject CV in favor of CV*. Evidentialism tells you that what doxastic attitude you are justified in adopting toward a proposition (and to what degree) is a matter of your total evidence. CV claims that adding one piece of evidence (in a particular circumstance) will always have a certain on balance justificatory effect. Evidentialists should reject CV, since CV makes no mention of what other pieces of evidence the subject may possess before becoming aware of the disagreement. In certain situations, the subject may antecedently possess pieces of evidence that would mitigate, or even entirely neutralize, the justificatory effect of the evidence about the peer disagreement. Some examples will help. Suppose that at t, S1 is justified in believing that disagreement is without any epistemic significance-that finding out that a peer disagrees about p should make no difference to what you believe. If so, then it seems that learning that her peer disbelieves compatibilism about free will (while S1 believes it) will have no net justificatory effect on what S1 is justified in believing about compatibilism at t', even if we suppose that a conciliatory views of disagreement is correct. Learning of the disagreement may give S1 a reason to not believe compatibilism at t', but this reason is fully defeated by other evidence that S1 has (namely, her justified belief that disagreement is without epistemic significance). In this case, S1's defeater-defeater is misleading, since disagreement is epistemically significant, but its being misleading does not prevent it from being a defeater. Alternatively, suppose that at t, S1 is justified in believing that rationality is quite permissive-that bodies of evidence can justify (and equally well) a number of different (and even incompatible) views. In particular, suppose that S1 is justified in believing that her body of evidence justifies both belief and suspension of judgment toward the proposition that compatibilism is true. If so, then it seems that learning that her peer disagrees with her about compatibilism (by suspending judgment about it) will have no net justificatory effect on what S1 is justified in believing about compatibilism at t'. Learning of the disagreement gives her a reason to not believe compatibilism at t', but here again this reason is fully defeated by her other evidence (namely, her justified belief that on this matter the shared evidence justifies both believing and suspending about compatibilism, and that it justifies each of these doxastic attitudes equally well). 1 For Littlejohn's response to this charge see Littlejohn (2013) and (2014). Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, 2015 Vol. 4, No. 2, 26-32. http://wp.me/p1Bfg0-1Uo 28 The general idea is that defeaters can themselves be defeated. So, even if peer disagreement is epistemically significant in that it provides you with a defeater for the doxastic attitude you have toward the disputed proposition, this is not sufficient for the defeater to have the net justificatory effect of reducing your on balance justification for adopting the doxastic attitude in question. It will matter what other evidence you have; it will matter whether you have a defeater-defeater. The defeater-defeaters mentioned here are importantly not reasons to discount your peer's conclusion (they are not reasons to think your peer is mistaken or that your peer should not be trusted on this matter or this occasion), so clause (iii) of CV does not rule out these scenarios. As such, we have reason to abandon CV and adopt CV* in its place. Such a move also prevents conciliatory views from giving conflicting prescriptions. If the defeater gained from the discovery of the disagreement could not itself be defeated, then a conciliatory view could tell you directly to believe p, while telling you indirectly to not believe p (by telling you to believe a competitor view of disagreement which tells you to not to believe p). For instance, in our case above where the subject is justified in believing that disagreement is epistemically insignificant, we can suppose that our subject is justified in believing this because of what CV claims (in virtue of meeting the right kind of epistemic peers). In such a scenario, CV (directly) claims that S1 is less justified in believing compatibilism and CV (indirectly) claims that S1 is not less justified in believing compatibilism (by claiming that S1 should not believe CV but should believe that disagreement is epistemically insignificant). CV* avoids this problem by not making any proclamations about what S1's total evidence supports at t'. It claims that S1 gains a particular sort of reason, but does not make any claims about how that reason fits in with the other reasons S1 has. Thus, the move to CV* from CV also avoids the self-defeat charge that has been leveled against conciliatory views. II. Evidentialism and Conciliatory Views While this discussion takes place against the backdrop of evidentialism, I think the same lessons apply with or without that assumption. For instance, we can suppose that reliabilism is correct (that a belief is justified just in case it is produced by a reliable belief-forming process). A reliabilist could still adopt a conciliatory view of disagreement and claim that in learning that a peer disagrees, one gets a defeater for one's justification for adopting the relevant doxastic attitude toward the disputed proposition. However, like the evidentialist, the reliabilist should want to resist the claim that such a defeater always has a certain net justificatory effect. After all, the reliabilist too must account for the existence of defeater-defeaters, and must allow for the possibility that our subject possess one that mitigates, or even entirely neutralizes, the defeater gained from learning of the peer disagreement. So, regardless of which particular epistemic backdrop we assume, the move from CV to CV* is well motivated. III. Littlejohn's Complaint Littlejohn claims that the problems I'm trying to solve aren't problems with CV, but with the evidentialist framework I am working with. Thus, he claims that my proposed solution fails to get at the root of the issue. In fact, Littlejohn (2014) maintains that there Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, 2015 Vol. 4, No. 2, 26-32. http://wp.me/p1Bfg0-1Uo 29 is no real problem here for CV since the objection requires incompatible assumptions (110). Here's how Littlejohn (2014) frames the objection to CV: P1. Under a certain set of circumstances a set of principles that includes CV tells us to believe CV is false and believe that an epistemic norm (EN)2 that issues advice inconsistent with CV is true. P2. If you rationally believe EN, then you must conform to EN. P3. You rationally believe EN. P4. You must conform to EN. P5. If CV is correct, it is not true that you must conform to EN. C. CV is incorrect (109). P1 is plausible since we can suppose that evidentialism is true and that your evidence supports believing CV is false and that EN (a competitor epistemic norm) is true. That's one way that one's evidence could be. P2 is a statement of what Littlejohn calls 'the enkratic requirement'-a requirement to bring our first-order beliefs in line with our higher-order beliefs. Littlejohn claims that if the enkratic requirement is a requirement of rationality, then anyone who rationally believed EN would need to conform to EN as well 3 (109-10). P3 just stipulates that someone is in the set of circumstances laid out in P1. Since this set of circumstances is possible, it is possible that someone be in them. P4 follows from P2 and P3. P5 is motivated by the idea that rationality does not require you to follow inconsistent advice. So if CV is correct, you should conform to it, not to its competitor EN. C follows from P4 and P5. Littlejohn claims that we should not be worried by this argument since evidentialism is inconsistent with the enkratic requirement. Since Littlejohn's construction of the objection to CV was motivated by way of both evidentialism and the enkratic requirement, the objection utilized inconsistent motivation and we are thus left without reason to endorse the conclusion-all the reasons for endorsing the premises cannot be jointly true. The first thing to note here is that even if evidentialism and the enkratic requirement are inconsistent (we will examine that claim below) this would not give us a good reason to reject the above argument. While we can use evidentialism to motivate P1 and P3 we needn't do so. P1 and P3 are plausible premises regardless of what one takes as the fundamental epistemic framework (evidentialism or some competitor). For instance, 2 I have altered Littlejohn's argument here to simply refer to a general competitor epistemic norm rather than the particular competitor Littlejohn references. 3 Littlejohn also uses the enkratic requirement as a premise in a larger argument in Littlejohn (2012). Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, 2015 Vol. 4, No. 2, 26-32. http://wp.me/p1Bfg0-1Uo 30 reliabilists will agree that under certain circumstances a set of principles that include CV will tell us to believe CV is false and believe that EN is true. The relevant set of circumstances that a reliabilist will cite as relevant will differ from the set of circumstances given by the evidentialist (or at least the salient features of those circumstances will differ), but there are many ways of endorsing P1 and P3 without endorsing evidentialism. The argument needn't utilize evidentialism in motivating its premises. So, even if evidentialism is inconsistent with P2 we have not yet seen a problem for the argument. P1 and P3 are plausible prior to, and independent of, any commitments regarding what the fundamental epistemic norms are. Second, it is not clear that there is an inconsistency between evidentialism and the enkratic requirement. Why think that evidentialism is inconsistent with the enkratic requirement? Littlejohn notes that evidentialism could have it that one is required to disbelieve evidentialism and even to believe a competitor epistemic norm. In such circumstances, Littlejohn claims that the enkratic requirement has it that the subject must now conform to this competitor norm. However, if there are any cases where evidentialism does not hold (cases where you should conform to a competitor norm), then evidentialism is false. Thus, Littlejohn argues, evidentialism and the enkratic requirement are inconsistent principles. Is there a tension here? It depends upon how we understand the enkratic requirement. On some ways of unpacking the requirement it is inconsistent with evidentialism, but on other ways of unpacking the requirement it is not. In addition, the ways of unpacking the requirement that are inconsistent with evidentialism have it that the enkratic requirement is not a true requirement of rationality. So, the enkratic requirement is either true and consistent with evidentialism, or false and inconsistent with it. Let's look at why. Let's suppose that evidentialism is true. Let's suppose further that Sue's evidence is such that it supports disbelieving evidentialism and believing that reliabilism is true. Given the truth of evidentialism, Sue is rational or justified in believing reliabilism. What follows? Should she conform to reliabilism? Well, that depends upon what it means to conform to a norm. Should she follow the prescriptions of reliabilism? It doesn't seem so. Consider two scenarios. First, suppose that Sue knows, or is justified in believing, that her belief that p is produced by a reliable belief-forming process. If so, then her total evidence supports that her belief that p is justified, even if she lacks direct evidence for p. After all, her total evidence supports reliabilism and that the reliabilist conditions for a justified belief are met in her belief that p. Sue has a simple valid argument for p and she is justified in believing both of the premises. P1. I am justified in believing all beliefs with feature F. P2. My belief B has feature F. C. I am justified in having B. Having B puts Sue's first-order beliefs in line with her higher-order beliefs. Since those higher-order beliefs are justified (by stipulation) and she is justified in making the connection between them and her first order belief B, Sue is also justified in having B. Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, 2015 Vol. 4, No. 2, 26-32. http://wp.me/p1Bfg0-1Uo 31 Second, suppose that Sue forms a belief that q that is in fact formed by a reliable beliefforming process, though she has no evidence of this fact nor does she have evidence that supports q directly. Should Sue believe q? No. Sue should believe reliabilism is true, but only because evidentialism is true and her evidence supports believing reliabilism. Being justified in believing reliabilism does not make reliabilism true, and it does not make any belief of Sue's justified merely in virtue of being formed by a reliable belief forming process. It is only the true epistemic norms that matter, and by assumption evidentialism is true.4 Sue should follow her evidence-always (at least on the supposition that evidentialism is true). That evidence may lead her away from believing evidentialism, but it will never make her such that she should not believe in accordance with her evidence. At times, Littlejohn unpacks the enkratic requirement as the requirement to bring one's first-order beliefs in line with one's higher-order beliefs. This interpretation of the requirement seems correct. This interpretation provides one way of explaining why Sue is justified in believing p in the first scenario. However, this interpretation is by no means in conflict with evidentialism. In fact, certain views about higher-order evidence and its justificatory effects when coupled with evidentialism seem to entail it.5 At other times (and in the argument itself) Littlejohn unpacks the enkratic requirement as the requirement to conform to/follow norms that you are justified in believing. On this interpretation, the enkratic requirement is in conflict with evidentialism. This is apparent in the second scenario envisioned above. However, on this interpretation, the enkratic requirement appears quite implausible. In fact, the motivation that Littlejohn gives for accepting the enkratic requirement only applies to the first interpretation, since it is concerned with aligning one's first-order beliefs with one's higher-order beliefs, so there appears to be little cost in denying the second interpretation. So, a good way out of the self-defeat objection as formulated by Littlejohn is to deny P2. P2 requires the second interpretation of the enkratic requirement and we have seen reason to believe that it is false. Moving from CV to CV* is consistent with this move, and respects the first interpretation of the enkratic requirement at the same time. Thus, the move from CV to CV* is an improvement for conciliatory views of disagreement. Contact details: email@example.com References Feldman, Richard "Respecting the Evidence." Philosophical Perspectives 19, no. 1 (2005): 95-119. Littlejohn, Clayton. Justification and the Truth Connection. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Littlejohn, Clayton. "Disagreement and Defeat." In Disagreement and Skepticism, edited by Diego Machuca, 169-192. New York: Routledge, 2013. 4 For a defense of this claim, and that it is consistent with epistemic internalism, see Matheson (2012). 5 For a defense of this claim, see Feldman (2005) and Matheson (2009). Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, 2015 Vol. 4, No. 2, 26-32. http://wp.me/p1Bfg0-1Uo 32 Littlejohn, Clayton. "A Note Concerning Conciliationism and Self-Defeat: A Reply to Matheson." Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 3, no. 12 (2014): 104-112. Matheson, Jonathan. "Conciliatory Views of Disagreement and Higher-Order Evidence." Episteme 6, no. 3 (2009): 269-279. Matheson, Jonathan. "Epistemic Relativism." In Continuum Companion to Epistemology, edited by Andrew Cullison, 161-179. New York: Continuum, 2012. Matheson, Jonathan. "Are Conciliatory Views of Disagreement Self-Defeating?" Social Epistemology, 2014. DOI: 10.1080/02691728.2014.907833.


Philosophy

Marion Godman makes the argument that Pathological Withdrawal Syndrome (PWS) makes the case for psychiatric disorders as a natural kind. Godman argues that we can classify kinds according to their shared âgroundingâ, but we need not know what the grounding is to know that the natural is a natural kind. However, I argue that Godman erroneously classifies PWS as its own natural kind when it is in fact a variant of depression, which is its own natural kind. Cooper highlights culture-bound syndromes, which can explain the discrepancy between the different diagnosis rates for psychiatric disorders among different cultures. Taking culture-bound syndromes into account, I conclude that PWS is a type of depression that is culture-specific.

Pathological Withdrawal Syndrome: A New Kind of Depression? Keywords Pathological Withdrawal Syndrome, Culture-bound Syndromes, Natural Kinds, Psychiatric Kinds, Depression Abstract Marion Godman makes the argument that Pathological Withdrawal Syndrome (PWS) makes the case for psychiatric disorders as a natural kind. Godman argues that we can classify kinds according to their shared 'grounding', but we need not know what the grounding is to know that the natural is a natural kind. However, I argue that Godman erroneously classifies PWS as its own natural kind when it is in fact a variant of depression, which is its own natural kind. Cooper highlights culture-bound syndromes, which can explain the discrepancy between the different diagnosis rates for psychiatric disorders among different cultures. Taking culture-bound syndromes into account, I conclude that PWS is a type of depression that is culturespecific, rather than its own natural kind. Introduction Marion Godman (2013) argues that natural kinds are necessary for gathering empirical knowledge and making generalizations about kinds. According to Godman (2013), there is a grounding that unites members of a kind, but we need not know what the grounding is in order to classify something as a natural psychiatric kind. Godman (2013) uses the case of the Apathetic Children, or Pathological Withdrawal Syndrome (PWS), to illustrate her point. The aim of this paper is not to dispute Godman's conclusion; in fact, I agree with her general inference that PWS is a psychiatric kind. However, this paper will argue that Godman (2013) erroneously classifies PWS as its own psychiatric kind, when it should be classified as a variant of depression, which is a psychiatric kind in itself. I believe that Godman (2013) neglects some important points that are made by Rachel Cooper (2010) regarding culture-bound syndromes. Cooper (2010) explicates the discrepancy in symptoms for psychiatric disorders across different cultures, specifically the difference in diagnosis rates in war-torn countries, which is relevant to Godman's (2013) argument. I arrive at my conclusion by showing that the general symptoms for PWS and depression are similar enough to be lumped under the same umbrella term 'depression', while still leaving room for the symptoms and treatment that are unique to PWS. Prior to my analysis of Godman's (2013) PWS as a natural kind, an understanding of the term 'natural kind' must be established. As Khalidi (2013) explains, humans naturally categorize things and one way to do so is according to natural kinds. A natural kind is a kind which "corresponds to a grouping that reflects the structure of the natural world rather than the interests and actions of human beings" (Bird and Tobin, 2018). These natural kinds can refer to many different scientific and social scientific disciplines. For the purposes of this paper, I will analyze how natural kinds can apply to the domain of psychiatry. The aim of this paper is to argue that although psychiatry contains many types of naturally occurring kinds, Godman (2013) has erroneously classified PWS as its own kind, when an analysis of depression revealed that PWS would be better classified under depression as a natural kind. By using the concept of natural kinds, psychiatric patients can be conveniently grouped together in order to continue to research these disorders to better understand the nature of their existence and how best to treat them. Godman and Pathological Withdrawal Syndrome With the aim of showing how psychiatric disorders can be natural kinds, Godman (2013) suggests that members of a psychiatric kind share a grounding that allows them to be classified as a kind. There are two types of grounding, as explained by Godman (2013): intrinsic/extrinsic grounding and historical grounding. The intrinsic model calls for members of a kind to share an intrinsic property that unites them as a kind and allows us to make generalizations about the kind. However, extrinsic grounding is also necessary in some cases where members of a kind are all affected by an external property, such as gravity in the case of meteorological natural kinds. Historical grounding, on the other hand, allows us to make generalizations about the kind based on their family tree. Godman (2013) concludes that these two types of grounding allow for a permissive account of natural kinds that is applicable to many types of scientific research, such as psychiatry. Together, these two types of grounding explain the cluster of properties (and the inductive generalizations) shared by a member of a kind. Godman's (2013) aim is not only to show that grounding unites members of a kind, but also that we need not understand the grounding exactly to classify members of a kind as that kind. Godman (2013) uses the case of the Apathetic Children to explicate her point. The Apathetic Children are a group of children who suffered from pathological Withdrawal Syndrome (PWS) between 2002-2006. The children were all refugees seeking asylum in Sweden and had come form war-torn countries, such as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the former Yugoslavia. The children who suffered from PWS withdrew from society, lost their appetites, experienced violent, emotional outbursts and panic attacks, attempted suicide, neglected their hygiene and occasionally, entered a comatose state "resembling hibernation" (Godman, 2013, p. 147). Further, medical professionals found that the only useful treatment for PWS was supervised rest and allowing the children a safe place of refuge. Essentially, the children all followed the same pattern of deterioration and therefore, each case had the "same set of determinable properties that are specified by the [...] psychiatric disorder" (Godman, 2013, p. 151). Godman (2013) uses Alzheimer's disease, which also follows a pattern of deterioration, to show that all psychiatric disorders are grounded in these determinable properties that are shared by all members of the kind. This means that all members of a psychiatric kind must have the same predictable properties. Lastly, PWS and Alzheimer's disease are 'basic kinds' that belong to the 'higher kind' that is all psychiatric disorders (Godman, 2013). Culture-bound Syndromes Rachel Cooper (2010) discusses culture-bound syndromes, which include PWS. Culture-bound syndromes are specific to certain cultures in certain geographic locations. Cooper (2010) explains that culture-bound syndromes are often doubted as real disorders. Culture-bound disorders are obviously not universal and are therefore more difficult to observe, given that they only occur in certain geographic locations. Therefore, due to the lack of an abundance of these disorders, gathering empirical knowledge is difficult. However, Cooper (2010) argues that this does not mean that culture-bound syndromes are not real disorders. This is because many cultures have different behavioural norms, so diagnosis rates differ in various cultures as a result. This explains why children with PWS were only diagnosed with PWS once they were in Sweden: they were moved into a different culture with different views on psychiatric disorders. The discrepancy in diagnostic criteria creates the illusion of culture-bound syndromes (Cooper, 2010) because Swedish psychiatrists were unfamiliar with the cultural and social state that the children had previously been living in. Analysis Despite Cooper's (2010) ability to explain the existence of PWS as a disorder, culture-bound syndromes are nonetheless problematic for Godman's (2013) argument. My goal is not to say that PWS is not a real disorder simply because it is culture-bound; rather, I believe that Cooper's (2010) account of culture-bound syndromes provides a basis for me to make the argument that Godman (2013) erroneously claims that PWS is its own psychiatric disorder when it is in fact a variant of depression. I have come to this conclusion based on Cooper's (2010) discussion of categorizing disorders by plotting them on a graph based on their respective qualities or, in other words, their symptoms. This can show how various disorders are similar to other disorders. Therefore, this method is useful in grouping psychiatric disorders into natural kinds because the grouping is based on their natural qualities that are observable in all cases, as Godman (2013) insists must be the case for natural kinds. As I have previously touched on, Cooper (2010) explicates that varying cultural standards of behaviour often account for the difference in diagnosis rates in different countries and cultures. In the case of the Apathetic Children, these were children coming from war-torn countries and then living in an area of Western medicine. This is significant because Western psychologists often fail to address the varying social and cultural factors that have a role in psychiatric disorders (Cooper, 2010). More specifically, Swedish psychologists diagnosed children with the new disorder, PWS, as opposed to considering whether the children were suffering from another known disorder. However, there is a clear link between major depression and unstable, war-torn countries, meaning that the children with PWS likely had all the same symptoms before and were only diagnosed with a disorder once they were subject to different cultural standards (Sayar and Kose, 2012). Since the Swedish psychologists were unfamiliar with the way that depression manifests in citizens of unstable countries, they mistakenly diagnosed the children with PWS when the symptoms that the children were displaying were unmistakeably similar to those of depression. I believe that at this point it is important to distinguish between culture-bound syndromes and Hacking's (1999) classificatory looping effect. I believe this to be important because a popular criticism of the case of the Apathetic Children is that the children were consciously adopting the disorder as a way of being granted asylum, rather than actually suffering from this disorder. Hacking's (1999) looping effect is the idea that some members of a kind K become aware of their classification as K and experience a causal shift in their behaviour to conform to their classification as K. Although there could be cases of culture-bound syndromes that are cases of classificatory looping, I do not believe that the refugee children with PWS were cases of classificatory looping. I have come to this conclusion because of the high prevalence of depression in war-torn countries (Sayar and Kose, 2012) and the children likely had their symptoms before their diagnosis. Further, Godman (2013) states that psychiatrists have argued that some symptoms of PWS would be difficult to consciously initiate. For example, it would be rather difficult to force one's body into a comatose state. Moreover, Hacking's (1999) argument of classificatory looping for depression relies on psychiatric treatment which changes the behaviour of the patient and thus, changes our view of depression alongside it. However, patients with PWS recovered under medically supervised rest and any other psychiatric treatment was unsuccessful. Therefore, although typical psychiatric treatments in which the patient is aware of their diagnosis might reinforce the believe that certain psychiatric disorder are prone to classificatory looping, PWS does not fit the requirements due to the specific treatment required for the patients as well as the high probability of depression in citizens of war-torn countries. Therefore, this culture-bound syndrome is not the same thing as Hacking's (1999) classificatory looping, as is essentially suggested by some critics. I will now further my point by examining the symptoms of PWS and depression. As previously stated, the children in the case study exhibited social withdrawal, loss of appetite, emotional outbursts, panic attacks, suicide attempts, hygiene neglect, and sometimes comatose states (Godman, 2013). The National Institute of Mental Health (n.d.) describes general depressive symptoms as persistent sadness, anxiety, 'empty moods', irritability, loss of appetite, loss of interest in life and withdrawal, and suicide attempts. These symptoms align with all but one of the symptoms of PWS. The only symptom of PWS that is not similar to general depression is the comatose state that some children fell into, but this can be explained as well. There are many kinds of depression such as seasonal depression (seasonal affective disorder), bipolar depression, post-partum depression, psychotic depression, etc. Each of these types of depression is characterized by aligning with the general symptoms of depression but also including defining symptoms. For example, patients with bipolar depression experience all the normal symptoms of depression and experience both extreme highs and extreme lows (National Institute of Mental Health, n.d.). Another example is people with seasonal depression experience the symptoms of depression almost exclusively or most intensively during months with less natural sunlight. PWS fits this equation as well. The children of PWS experienced all the symptoms of general depression but also had the potential to fall into a comatose state. Through this analysis, I can conclude that PWS is a variant of depression because of its ability to fit the same criteria as many other types of depression, in that PWS aligns with all the general symptoms of depression and displays slight varying properties just like other forms of depression, such as seasonal depression or bipolar depression. Further, PWS as a variant of depression fits Godman's (2013) model because it still has a specific set of determinable properties but is classified under the umbrella of kinds of depression because it makes sense given the similarities. Given my argument, I suggest a correction to Godman's (2013) classificatory model. As previously stated, Godman (2013) considers PWS to be a 'basic kind' which belongs to the 'higher kind' psychiatric disorders. Godman (2013) also argues that Alzheimer's disease fits the description of a basic kind and I would also wager that depression would qualify as a basic kind, given all types of depression conform to the "same set of determinable properties that are specified by the [...] psychiatric disorder" (p. 151), which are the general depressive symptoms that I previously explained. However, given my analysis of the similarities between PWS and depression, with special consideration to the symptoms that are exclusive to PWS, I would suggest that Godman (2013) modify her model to include PWS as a variant of depression rather than its own disorder. Therefore, PWS is a sort of sub-class of depression (as a basic kind), along bipolar depression, seasonal depression, etc. For the reasons that I have previously stated, I simply believe that this is more accurate. My suggestion for Godman's (2013) model does not, however, entail that children with PWS should be treated any differently or should be lumped into the group of people with depression. As Cooper (2010) suggests, being a variant of another disorder still allows the variant disorder to be their own distinct category. I believe it would be problematic to simply consider these children as being depressed, because it may neglect the trauma component of their illness that sets them apart from other cases of depression. This is important because during the PWS case study, researchers found that there was a very specific way to treat this disease and any other kind of treatment was useless in helping these children (Godman, 2013). Therefore, it is crucial to treat PWS cases as a variant of depression rather than simply depression so that the patients are treated properly. This is similar to the difference in treatment plans for other types of depression. For example, sufferers of bipolar depression can benefit from typical treatments for depression but often also take medication that is specific to their condition that other depressed patients would not benefit from. It would not be effective to treat those with bipolar depression the same as someone who suffers from another type of depression, which is why it is specified as a type of depression. Therefore, while I believe that PWS is a variant of depression, the necessary and specific treatment for those with the disorder requires that it not be lumped into depression. Conclusion In this paper, I have argued that Godman's (2013) classificatory model neglects to consider the cultural implications that reveals Pathological Withdrawal Syndrome (PWS) as being undoubtedly similar to depression. In fact, Godman's (2013) own criteria that a psychiatric kind is a kind due to its ability to conform to a set of determinable properties would imply that PWS generally follows the same set of determinable properties as depression, with one symptom as an exception. However, the various types of depression explain the existence of this unique symptom and therefore, Godman's (2013) own model for psychiatric kinds places PWS as a variant of depression. Regardless, being treated as a depression variant does not negate psychiatrists' ability to treat the variant according to its specifications, which is necessary for the children with PWS given their past trauma. Therefore, Godman's (2013) model can be corrected by thinking of PWS as a variant of depression, rather than its own psychiatric kind. References Bird, A. & Tobin, E. (2018). Natural kinds. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-kinds/#NatKinBio. Cooper, R. (2010). Are culture-bound syndromes as real as universally-occurring disorders? Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Studies, 41, 325-332. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsc.2010.10.003. Godman, M. (2013). Psychiatric disorders qua natural kinds: The case of the "Apathetic Children". Biological Theory, 7, 144-152. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13752-012-0057-z. Hacking, I. (1999). The social construction of what? Harvard University Press. Khalidi, M. A. (2013). Natural categories and human kinds: Classification in the natural and social sciences. Cambridge University Press. National Institute of Mental Health. (n.d.). Depression. Retrieved from https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/depression Sayar, K. & Kose, S. (2012). Psychopathology and depression in the Middle East. Journal of Mood Disorders, 2(1), 21-27. DOI: 10.5455/jmood.20111217094801.