NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/sci/philosop/tech/4098

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-15 | 6.5 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!caen!kuhub.cc.ukans.edu!miner
From: [e-mail]
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Hypotheses (was: Re: Assumptions vs. assertions)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 15 Nov 92 08:35:25 CST
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services
Lines: 110

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Frank Adams) writes:
> In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Frank Adams) writes:
>>> It has since that discussion occurred to me that simultaneous interpretation
>>> on multiple levels is not strictly necessary, and may in fact be false (that
>>> is, very unusual) psychologically.  It suffices that when the truth of
>>> statement is falsified at the accepted level of precision, there is a
>>> fallback to a less precise interpretation; and that this fallback is
>>> understood by both speaker and listener.  This, I hope you will agree, is
>>> fairly common.
>>
>>We are in *partial* agreement here.  It is assumed in pragmatics that a
>>hearer normally takes an utterance to be meaningful and tries
>>various strategies in order to find an interpretation.  However, in
>>contrast to your formulation, I would claim along with other
>>pragmaticists that the *speaker* knows what level of precision he
>>intends to convey at the time of utterance;
>
> We are in complete agreement to this point.
>
>> when you say "this
>>fallback is understood by both speaker and hearer" I feel you are
>>describing something special that happens or is supposed to happen
>>in scientific discourse, specifically, when a scientific hypothesis is
>>stated.
>
> I am talking about a different phenomenon.  What I am saying is that,
> assuming that the speaker and hearer have reached the same interpretation of
> the original statement, when that interpretation is later falsified, they do
> not thereafter always discard the statement entirely.

        OK, but there has to be a way for the hearer to know
        that this is what is supposed to happen.  I assume
        it is due to the institutionalization of the
        procedure;  both participants know the special rules
        that are in effect.  No problem here, then.

> Instead, they change
> the level of precision at which the statement is interpreted.  Neither need
> have considered this alternative interpretation at the time the statement
> was made, but they will fall back to approximately the same interpretation.
>
> I think this occurs with at least two kinds of statements: hyphotheses and
> observations.  Not only scientific hypotheses have this kind of property; the
> hypotheses of a detective investigating a crime will behave the same way.
>
> For observations, the fall back occurs because observations are known to be
> imprecise.  A person can easily think he saw something slightly different
> from what he actually saw.  A small discrepancy is generally assumed to be
> such an error.
>
> My earlier suggestion that people actually make statements with multiple
> intended levels of interpretation comes, I think, from this phenomenon.  A
> sophisticated speaker and listener with respect to these kinds of statements
> will realize that this kind of fallback will (conditionally) occur, and
> actually be aware of both levels at the time of the utterance.  This is
> especially common with scientific hypotheses, since any trained scientist
> has dealt with a large number of hypotheses.

          I now see, I believe, what you are saying, and certainly there
          are at least these two institutionalized settings (science and
          police work) where in the case of some hypotheses, at least,
          fallback-to-less-precise seems to be part of the process; I
          guess it would come under what we sometimes term "negotiated
          meaning" in dealing with, e.g., literary texts.

          The approach seems to presuppose that all hypotheses are
          formulated in such a way as to admit of degrees of precision.
          But are there not hypotheses that do not seem to admit of
          degrees of precision, so that upon finding them falsified,
          there could be no fallback?  For example "Air has weight."
          Suppose this were falsified (i.e., suppose enough evidence
          accumulated for us to declare it false); there would seem to
          be no less precise way of interpreting it to fall back on;
          either air has weight or it doesn't.  (Again I know I'm being
          conservative here.)

          Moreover the greater the explicit precision with which a
          hypothesis is stated, the less susceptible it would seem to be
          to fallback.  For example if I hypothesize the value of
          something to five decimal places, that's even more of a yes-
          or-no proposition than "Air has weight."  *Yes* of course we
          can revise the figure later, but that constitutes rejection,
          not fine-tuning, of the original hypothesis *as stated*.  I
          may be naive about scientific method, but I see a conflict
          here between two principles, both having to do with the
          statement of hypotheses:

          Principle A.  State the strongest, i.e., most precise and
          therefore most easily falsifiable hypothesis possible (so that
          the search for truth is advanced);

          Principle B.  State the weakest, i.e., least precise and
          therefore least easily falsifiable hypothesis possible (so
          that it can be fine-tuned via fallback rather than be rejected
          outright).

          I have a feeling though that what you're really after is
          a sort of linguistically-oriented version of the simple notion
          that we don't abandon a good hypothesis (or, especially, an only
          hypothesis) until we're absolutely up to our ears in counter-
          evidence.  But that ought to be stateable without bringing in
          the notions of precision and fallback to less precision.
      If we agree that all this is institutionalized anyway, then
      we're already allowing for special rules.
--
-Ken <[e-mail]> {Sometimes you have to look reality straight
 OPINIONS ARE MY OWN            {in the eye, and deny it. - G. Keillor