Falsifiability
A reader writes:
“I take issue with the claim that falsification is essential to a scientific theory. Some theories explain after the fact. There is “inference to the best explanation.”
This is an extraordinary claim for you to make. I look forward to your making a solid argument in favor of the position.
I do not see any logical relation between the denial of falsification and the assertion that some theories explain “after the fact.” I do not know what you mean to convey by the sentence.
As a term of art, ‘after the fact’ or ‘a posteriori’ refers to empirical observation, that is, contingent as opposed to necessary logical relation. The term for necessary relation, that which can be known before the fact, is ‘a priori.’
If you are using the term as a term of art, your statement is saying that some scientific theories are a posteriori. Not only to do I agree, but I would say the statement is inaccurate because it is insufficient: All scientific theories by definition are a posteriori.
I do not know what you mean by ‘inference to the best explanation.’ I am not familiar with the phrase. Are you speaking of circumstantial evidence? Circumstantial evidence still gives a theory, which, if it is science and not metaphysics, is open to being tested by observation and experiment.
Allow me briefly to state the opposing argument you will have to overcome:
Science is empirical. No statement in science is said to be true or false unless there is some empirical confirmation.
Empirical confirmation means confirmed by the senses.
We can only have sense impressions of contingent facts, that is, we can only see things that, had things been another way, could have been another way. The only way to see the color blue is to see that it is blue and not red.
Contingent facts are always dependent on prior conditions. They are never categorically determined. Only things that must be true by definition are categorically determined. The only way to see is by the faculty of eyesight.
Hence, saying “I see a blue flower” is an empirical statement, because the statement “I see a red flower” is not a contradiction in terms. It is logically possible. However, “I see by seeing” is a metaphysical statement, because the statement “I see without seeing” is a paradox, and, assuming the words are being used unambiguously, it is not logically possible. Whoever sees MUST, by definition, see by the faculty called sight.
One need not look to see that one sees by seeing. Even a blind man can see that this is true. No experiment and no observation is needed. No experiment and no observation can disprove it. It is a categorical truth, a metaphysical fact, not an empirical fact.
But whoever sees a bluebell might have seen a rose. He does not know until he looks.
Empirical facts are contingent on prior facts. The egg leads to the bird. No egg, no bird. The cue ball strikes the eight ball and imparts motion to it so that it falls into the side pocket. No cue ball motion, no eight ball motion. But it is not a matter of logical necessity that birds come from eggs, for the Phoenix is born from ashes of a pyre. It is not a matter of logical necessity that the eight ball be struck by the cue ball, for some other ball might have struck it, or the player may have illegally tapped it with his cue stick.
Metaphysical relations, on the other hand, are matters of necessity. I think, therefore I am. If there were no thinker to think, I could not think the thought “I think”. Luck cannot cause the eight ball to fall into the side pocket (even though in common speech we often talk this way) because a ball can only physically move if a physical mover physically moves it. That the motion cannot arise spontaneously is not a matter for empirical confirmation, but of categorical necessity.
If an alleged cause is presented for an event, but there is no imaginable condition under which that cause can be proved not to act, and if there is no other possible cause that can be proved so, even theoretically, then the cause is simply not being presented as a candidate cause. It is a candidate for being a categorical necessity.
By definition, then, no possible empirical test could prove or disprove it. Whatever else science is, even soft sciences like biology, it is not including in non-empirical reasoning.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
