"Scale Relative ontology" and Scientism: Must every thing go?

“S R ”  S: M   ? Noel Boulting1 (Noboss, Kent) Consider a quotation referred to by philosophers of science.2 As I write this piece now–pencil and paper in hand–I am not concerned about the table upon which I am working. But I have another table (2), nearby. But whereas mine [...] has extension; it is comparatively permanent; it is coloured; above all it is substantial [...]. Table No. 2 is my scientifi c table. (It) [...] is mostly emptiness. Sparsely scattered in that emptiness are numerous electric charges rushing about with great speed, but their combined bulk amounts to less than a billionth of the bulk of the table itself. Notwithstanding its strange construction it turns out to be an entirely effi cient table. It supports my writing paper as satisfactorily as table No. 1; for when I lay the paper on it the little electric particles with their headlong speed keep on hitting the underside, so that the paper is maintained in shuttlecock fashion at a nearly steady level. But the writer’s worry is [...] whether the paper before me is poised as it were on a swarm of fl ies [...] or whether it is supported because there is substance below it, it being the intrinsic nature of substance to occupy space to the exclusion of other substance [...]. 1 [email protected] 2 Cf. C.G. Hempel, Philosophy of Science, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1966, p. 78; J. Ladyman & D. Ross (et. al.), Every Thing Must Go, (2007): Oxford UP, 2010, p. 253. Philosophica, 46, Lisboa, 2015, pp. 98-118. 100 Walter Benjamin drew attention to Eddington’s theoretical dilemma in forwarding the thesis that these remarks exhibited an alarming similarity to the time and content of Kafka’s writings. And that word ‘alarming’ can be cast in terms of Benjamin’s lesson in relation to Kafka’s text: reality for twenty fi rst century characters like you and me is to be understood as what is realized “theoretically, in modern physics, and in practice by modern technology”.3 Eddington’s conclusion, of course, was that “I need not tell you that modern physics has by delicate test and remorseless logic assured me that my second scientifi c table is the only one which is really there.” Now was Eddington right? In response to such a question, Ladyman and Ross are to be credited with introducing the idea of “scale relativity ontologyˮ. I will attempt to delineate this proposal, explicating a three dimensional nature for such an ontology, before examining how far it can sustain their claim for “the scientistic stance”. (ETMG 193 & 303)4. Ontic Structural Realism To elucidate this idea of ‘Scale Relative Ontology’ (SRO from now on), their idea of Ontic Structural Realism requires elucidation. But it is SRO which has played an important element for them in leading traditional metaphysicians to reconsider the ontological presuppositions of the sciences. So, despite giving credit to Eddington,5 they oppose his position arguing for a much more sophisticated form of naturalism – Ontic Structural Realism – which makes their claim on behalf of the scientistic attitude more persuasive. In fact, contemporary physics is unable to sustain the notion that what exists ultimately is to be understood in terms of little thinglike entities – whether atoms, electrons, particles, or whatever – whilst in addition rejecting the idea of “‘causal powers’ to fundamental aspects of reality”. As an alternative, the case for ‘real patterns’ is articulated. They argue that ‘to be is to be a real pattern’ since structures encode information, about some given entity or event, expressed through real patterns for an experimenter forwarding a scientifi c theory. For them a pattern can be 3 W. Benjamin, Selected Writings, M.W. Jennings (et. al) (eds.), H. Eiland (et.al.) (trs.): Camb. Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard UP, 2002, p. 325-6. 4 ETMG 193 stands for Every Thing Must Go, J. Ladyman & D. Ross (et. al.): Oxford UP, 2010, p. 193. 5 For drawing attention to the idea of structure (cf. ETMG 145): “What sort of thing is it that I know? The answer is structure.” A.S. Eddington, The Philosophy of Physical Science: Cambridge UP, 1939, p. 147. Noel Boulting 101 regarded as “just any relation among data.” (ETMG 193, 155 & 227-8). Yet in economics, psychology or biology, the special sciences do employ notions such as material individuals, causes, and persons. But their objective is to bring physics into an overall union with the special sciences, so that metaphysics can be put on a proper footing, (ETMG 195 & 194): metaphysics has to be grounded in the attempt at unifying – through seriously regarding the achievements of contemporary science – the verifi ed theories and hypotheses of the sciences according to what they call “the Principle of Naturalistic Closure” (PNC from now on) stated as: Any new metaphysical claim that is to be taken seriously at time t should be motivated by, and only by, the service it would perform, if true, in showing how two or more specifi c scientifi c hypotheses, at least one of which is drawn from fundamental physics, jointly explain more than the sum of what is explained by the two hypotheses taken separately [...] subject to certain “terminological stipulations”. (ETMG 37) So for the special sciences any of their hypotheses that oppose fundamental physics are to be disregarded. Given this conceptual framework, then, a clear aim can be articulated: the attempt “to determine the objective structures in nature”, cast, for physics at least, as ‘real patterns’ regarded as describing “a part of objective reality”. Such patterns encode information “[...] about a structure” so providing a means to advocate Ontic Structural Realism which seeks to synthesize a constructive sense of empiricism with scientifi c realism based upon a broad interpretation of the young Peirce’s verifi cationism thereby rendering a commitment to objective modal structures. (ETMG 36, 227 & 67) Here his treatment of ‘hardness’ is referred to in that if something of “a certain kind” is “exposed to an agency of a certain kind, a certain kind of sensible result” would be forthcoming in the light of experience. What can be established, then, is that a certain character – hardness – may be possessed by that something. So “a real Modality, including real Necessity and real Possibility” can be advocated. (CP 5.457)6 Moreover, regularities found in experience or mediated experience –‘experience’ resulting through instrumentation – provide the grounds for referring to modal structures postulated to locate real patterns found within that experience, or ‘experience’, of the world subject to a condition: “When a real pattern is located relative to some structure that models patterns of the relevant 6 CP 5.457 stands for C.S. Peirce, The Collected Papers of Charles S. Peirce, Vols. 1-8, ed. by C. Hartshorne & P. Weiss (et. al.): Harvard UP, 1931-58, where 5 stands for the vol. no. and 457 for the paragraph. ‘Scale Relative Ontology’ and Scientism 102 kinds, enough parameters must be specifi ed to distinguish it from other real patterns in the same domain.” Scale Relative Ontology We may now be able to appreciate the force of what drives the book Every Thing Must Go: “to take the conventional philosophical model of an individual as being equivalent to the model of an existent mistakes practical convenience for metaphysical generalization.” (italics in ETMG 229)7. Some special sciences will regard certain patterns as being individuals – as in the case say of economics or psychology – while others may not do so. The existence of our cat, cast as a species member, originates, historically, out of a process called Natural Selection, yet her particular actuality now as this particular, individual cat Spooky is not so dependent. It is one thing to track her individual biography, quite another to observe the eff ects of Natural Selection, the latter requiring a diff erent scale of interpretation. Ladyman and Ross remark: “Such scale ascendance was Darwin’s greatest intellectual achievement.” And as far as tables are concerned, Eddington’s writing table “is probably a real pattern. Strictly speaking there is no scientifi c table at all because there is no single candidate aggregate of real microscopic patterns that is best suited to be the reductive base of the everyday table.” So we don’t need to speak of regarding Eddington’s writing table or any table for that matter as supervening or being reduced to genuine or ultimate real patterns that physics might off er. (OTMG 203 & 253) An adopted scale of interpretation depends on the cognitive interest8 we choose to employ, save for the fact that they would wish to speak rather of our scientifi c interest, if such a form of discourse was to be used. For them, then, there is no foundational level. Rather, in Ross’s words, “it’s real patterns all the way down”. As to claims made about what really exists in a mind-independent way, these have to be relativized to mind independent “scales at which nature is measurable.” So at the quantum level, 7 Consider the proposition “John spoke and was silent.” To claim that at one temporal moment a single subject John spoke and at another he was silent commits the spatialization of time fallacy, as elucidated by Bergson and Whitehead. Rather it is the actuality Johnat-time-t¹ who spoke, not John, and another actuality John-at-time-t² who is silent. John regarded as an existent is an abstraction from what is concrete experience. “Whitehead and Ordinary Language,” Whitehead’s Philosophy, C. Hartshorne, Lincoln: Nebraska UP, 1972, pp. 171-82, 180. 8 Cf. “Appendix” Knowledge and Human Interests, 2nd. ed., J. Habermas, London: Heinemann 1978, pp. 301-17. Noel Boulting 103 it appears that Spooky simply does not exist anymore than Eddington’s ‘scientifi c’ table or you and I exist. Again, at a scale where Cosmology or Astrophysics is the interpretative discourse, Spooky does not exist anymore than do mountains. (OTMG 178, 228, 200 & 199). For Ladyman and Ross, the forms of discourse and ways we invoke to delineate the means by which we “track the world” are dependent upon the cognitive scale employed to measure it. (OTMG 199) Here we have three possibilities: the contemplative or cosmological; the practical; the theoretical. Moreover, in twenty fi rst, rather than nineteenth century terms, the distinctions off ered by Schelling, Hegel and Peirce between the aesthetic, the practical and the theoretical have been transformed into the cosmological, the ‘middle-sized’ perspective and the scientifi c standpoint. We now need to ascertain how this can be so. The Cosmological or Contemplative Dimension Clearly Schelling defends this contemplative dimension in forwarding a cosmological perspective to ground his metaphysics. For him, as for Plato, the philosopher cannot present “the unconditional (das Unbedingte) by means of something conditional (ein Bedingtes)”.9 That Unconditional, Schelling calls the Absolute. It is any form of inquiry’s fi rst assumption so that it becomes “the supreme presupposition of all knowledge, the fi rst knowledge.” But although primordial knowledge “is originally present only in the absolute itself, it is also present in ourselves in the idea of the essence of all things and in the eternal idea of ourselves; and our total system of knowledge can be only a copy of that eternal knowledge”10 the latter being what should be the central concern of a University education: philosophy. Thereby philosophy is to be regarded as “the science of the absolute.”11 But how can human beings become aware of that Absolute? Only “what is directly given to us, without any mediation by concepts, or 9 F.W.J. von Schelling, “Treatise Explicatory of the Idealism in the ‘Science of Knowledge’” (1797), in Idealism & the Endgame of Theory: Three Essays, T. Pfau (tr. & ed.), New York State UP, 1994, p. 106. 10 F.W.J. von Schelling, On University Studies N. Guterman (ed.) Athens, Ohio: Ohio UP, 1966, p. 10. 11 F.W. J. von Schelling, Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature (1797) 2nd. Ed. (1803), R. Stern (ed.), Cambridge UP 1908, p. 50. That absolute is cast as a creative energy manifested in nature as unconscious with respect to Natura Naturans but manifested as conscious activity with respect to nature in human beings regarded as Natura Naturata in Spinoza’s terms. Cf. H. Read, The True Voice of Feeling, London: Faber & Faber, 1953, pp. 167 & 16. ‘Scale Relative Ontology’ and Scientism 104 any consciousness of our freedom”: “by intuition and intuition is therefore the highest element in our knowledge.”12 And it is through intuition – an unconscious power – which can enable someone who is able to exercise this gift to identify him/herself with Natura Naturans, “the formative energy of the universe.”13 So a totality is posited, manifested in the endless producing of “individual things in time”, made possible by the divine seeds of Ideas fertilizing such a process. As the Absolute realizes its own self-identity, these Ideas are produced within “the eternal cognitive act”.14 But why this sense of ongoingness or in terms Heidegger popularized, ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’ In his On the World Soul of 1798, Schelling claims that some kind of originary ‘Big Bang’ undid the universe’s original unity and as some new unifi ed principle was initiated, fi nite entities became created.15 Now what would Ladyman and Ross make of all this? They might credit Schelling with realizing that at the cosmological or astrophysical scale of interpretation, what we take to exist, fi nite entities such as ourselves, ultimately fail to exist but they would reject any claim to the eff ect that they “aren’t real at all”. (ETMG 182) But, as Hegel claimed, they have little time for intuition, whether aesthetic or intellectual. They recognize the Platonic, even Cartesian, contribution to the rationalist tradition in stressing the importance of intuition, possibly acting as guides to the truth, but in 21st. century terms, what may be regarded as intuitive can’t be innate but must rather be regarded as intricately involved in “development and educational achievement” thereby depending on ontogenetic, cognitive, and particular cultural learning factors. Intuitions may have helped too in overcoming our ancestors’ survival problems but can’t deal with complex inductive reasoning in relation to abstract domains required by scientifi c theorizing. (ETMG 10 & 28) Moreover, they would reject any attempt at metaphysical speculations16: instead they would advance Peirce’s sense of verifi cationism, the idea of existence being restricted “to patterns 12 F.W.J. von Schelling, Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature, p. 173. 13 H. Read, The True Voice of Feeling, p. 17. 14 F.W.J. von Schelling, On University Studies, p. 116. 15 A. Braeckman, “Whitehead and German Idealism,” Process Studies 14 (1985), pp. 265286, 281. 16 “As currently described, the very idea of naturalized metaphysics is subject to a debilitating vagueness which renders its advocates unable to articulate convincingly what it is that makes metaphysical theorizing acceptable in some domains and problematic in others.” A. Chakkavartty, “On the Prospects of Naturalized Metaphysics”, Scientifi c Metaphysics, D. Ross (et. al.) eds., Oxford UP, 2013, pp. 27-50, 30. Noel Boulting 105 that support informational projection under some physically [...] possible perspective” rather than logically or mathematically possible perspectives as forwarded by a Platonist vision of reality. In addition, in the 21st century it is absurd to think that sitting in some deck-chair, or at whatever table, it is possible for a thinker all on his/her own to discover anything about the nature of existence that would “compete with the fruits of ingenious experimentation conducted under competitive pressure and organized by complex institutional processes.” As for theories about the ‘Big Bang’– Schelling’s or otherwise – its postulation is not a settled matter, but even if it were, within our universe there is no “physically possible perspective” yielding information on the other side of this singularity about what may have caused such an eventuality. (ETMG 234, 57 & 237) The ‘Middle-Sized’ Perspective Hegel is an example of a philosopher more concerned, fi rstly, with entities of a ‘middle sized’ proportion whilst, secondly, dismissing intuition: anything in immediate experience cannot be known through the given. Clearly, then, there is an opposition for him between the experiencing subject and an object since the latter represents subjectivity’s negation. So whilst what Hegel calls sense-certainty informs the experiencer of what is other than the self, it is impossible through sense-certainty to characterize what it is.17 Indeed this distinction represents his diff erentiation between “immediacy and mediation”: “But the object is [...]. It is, regardless of whether it is known or not; and it remains, even if it is not known, whereas there is no knowledge if the object is not there.”(PS 93)18 Thereby Hegel’s idealism can be regarded as realist. But his realism is made subject to a much “more holistic approach”19 in its evocation of some “language game” or “conceptual framework” to make sense of what is experienced within sense-certainty. The object (das Objekt) may provide “empirical constraints on claims to know” but it can never be known as it is save through its mediator (der Gegenständ) expressed in discursive form. And any such form itself is grounded on “standards, norms or values” underpinning a 17 T. Rockmore, “Analytic Philosophy and the Hegelian Turn,” The Review of Metaphysics Dec. 2001, Vol. LV, No. 2, Issue No. 218, 339-70, 350. 18 PS 93 refers to G.W.F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit A.V. Miller (tr.) Oxford UP, 1977, par. 93. 19 R.J. Bernstein, “Why Hegel Now?”, The Review of Metaphysics, Sept. 1977, Vol. 21, no.1, 29-60, 40. ‘Scale Relative Ontology’ and Scientism 106 specifi c conception of reality, forwarded within a particular culture, by “various cognitive and other domains” which prevail in some given historical, place or time.20 A third diff erence is also crucial. Whereas Schelling, in Platonic fashion, bases his philosophy upon an awareness of the infi nite and interprets the fi nite in terms of the latter, so that ontology grounds his epistemology, Hegel reverses that stance: his ontological claims emerge from his epistemology. Yet he is sceptical about the signifi cance of experimentation, just as Schelling21 was, since Hegel believes the latter to be too much dependent upon analogy which “does not permit an inference to be made” and upon the idea of probability which contrasts with the truth. (PS 250) That ascent to truth is provided by a dialectic from the fi nite, ascending through a series of epistemologically necessary inferences initiated by means of a dialectical procedure through three stages, abstractions or moments [...] Consciousness, Self-consciousness and Reason – distinguishable from fi gures of consciousness constituting each one of them. So, through Hegel’s cognitive ascent, the necessity of inference leads to the discovery of Geist: Hegel claims his method “[...] was to begin with fi rst and simplest appearance of mind, immediate consciousness, and to develop its dialectic up to the philosophical point of view, the necessity of that view being proved by the process.”22 But now in our descent to interpret fi nite reality, an ontological sense of necessity is invoked.23 Now Ladyman and Ross consider the possibility that they “are instances of the Hegelian stance”. Indeed, they have to “own up to being materialist Hegelians”. They are so, fi rstly, not simply because they would endorse Hegel’s rejection of intuition but because they render pride of place to inquiry – epistemological claims lead towards ontological possibilities – cashing Peirce’s claim24 that “philosophy fashions its style of inquiry after the example of science.” Since they endorse “‘whatever physicists 20 T. Rockmore, “Analytic Philosophy and the Hegelian Turn”, 351 & 366. 21 “The experimenter discovers the natural order only in rare cases, when he happens to hit on it instinctively or is guided by a construction. And yet experimentation, which may disclose details but can never give a complete view, is still looked upon as the infallible principle of our knowledge of nature.” On University Studies, 129. 22 G.W.F. Hegel, Hegel’s Logic: Being Part One of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1830) W. Wallace (tr.) Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975, section no. 25. 23 C. Taylor, Hegel Cambridge UP 1975, 98-9; cf. R.J. Bernstein, “Why Hegel Now?” The Review of Meta-physics 31, no. 1 (September 1977), 29-60, 52. 24 Peirce’s claim is that it “is above all the normative sciences, esthetics, ethics and logic, that men are in dire need of having severely criticized, in their relation to the new world created by science.” (CP 5.513). Noel Boulting 107 endorse’”, “so much for Hegel after all.” (ETMG 62, 63 & 62) But thereby their defi nition of physicalism does endorse Hegel’s insight which infl uenced Peirce so much.25 Hegel’s insight emerges when they distinguish science from non-science, whilst denying that there is “any such thing as ‘scientifi c method’”. For them, this demarcation can be made only through “institutional norms”.26 So the activity of scientists is not to be grounded through adopting a scientifi c method – such as we fi nd in the work of Karl Popper or Imre Lakatos – but rather through “institutional factors.” These factors are to be justifi ed epistemologically by providing “strong institutional fi lters on errors”, so generating for them their “normative heuristic” (ETMG 28, 33, 28 & 33) for a given community of inquirers. Yet they would reject Hegel’s concern for ‘middle sized’ objects: the latter cannot be regarded as providing a “basic source of information about objective reality” which might reveal nature’s objective structures.27 Such information is yielded by “measurements taken from anywhere in the universe” and these provide no grounds for postulating any “self-individuating objects”. What such information can sustain is “a set of mathematically specifi ed structures”, not an ontology presupposed by a traditional understanding of physicalism cast in terms of objects, atoms, particles, or whatever. So there is little point refl ecting on the concepts we employ in using language regarding such entities, as Hegel and the followers of the later writings of Wittgenstein presuppose; such analysis simply informs us about how a certain group of philosophers think about reality and subsequently come to categorize experience on the basis of such thinking. So, their sort of activity simply fails to tell us “anything about the deep structure of reality” which contemporary physics informs us actually exist. (ETMG 5, 44 & 16) 25 That insight is expressed by Peirce in the way he focuses on the importance of the community of inquirers, a focus which can be found in his “On the Doctrine of Chances” especially CP 2.654-5. 26 Such as “requirements for rigorous peer review before claims may be deposited in ‘serious’ registers of scientifi c belief, requirements governing representational rigour with respect to both theoretical claims and accounts of observations and experiments, and so on.” (ETMG 28). 27 As Paul Humphries puts it: “Humans are all inescapably middle-sized objects with limited cognitive capacities that developed in the course of dealing with properties associated with similarly sized objects.” “Scientifi c Ontology and Speculative Ontology”, Scientifi c Metaphysics, 51-78, 68. ‘Scale Relative Ontology’ and Scientism 114 concerns how scientifi c activity ought to proceed rather than how it does so. If this Fallacy is committed, an anti-empirical stance is being adopted, since this particular stance obfuscates the examination of the facts about the practice of science itself! Finally what are we to make of Ladyman and Ross’s claims in regard to the use and role of science in relation to other cognitive disciplines (v above)? For them, the methods given price of place are those that belong to physics which enjoys “a special status.” As a result, any hypothesis considered to be in “confl ict with fundamental physics, or such consensus as there is in fundamental physics, should be rejected for that reason alone. Fundamental physical hypotheses are not symmetrically hostage to the conclusions of the special sciences.” This principle is the “Primacy of Physics Constraint”, so that we have physics on the one hand, and special sciences on the other. Whereas the latter use the ideas of causality and self-subsistent individuals, physics does not. Putting mathematics on one side, cited as special sciences are biology, chemistry, economics, psychology, and cognitive science as behavioural forms of inquiry along with some aspect of anthropology and ethology. Added to these sciences are those parts of physics that are not what can be regarded as fundamental, such as, say, acoustics. (ETMG 44, 239 & 95) So a special science can be defi ned as one if it “aims at generalisations such that measurements taken only from restricted areas of the universe, and/or at restricted scales are potential sources of confi rmation and/or falsifi cation of those generalizations.” Note that emphasis upon measurement which will lead to the acquisition of information. Hence the transformation, later, from the idea of Ontic Structural Realism to Information-Theoretic Structural Realism. (ETMG 195 & 238) All these sciences can be regarded as those that Habermas lists as being concerned with a knowledge-constitutive interest in possible technical control requiring “the objectifi cation of reality necessary” to render what he calls “the transcendental framework of processes of inquiry possible”53 securing and expanding through information and feedback-monitored action, the eventual control of nature, so that what can be demonstrated in the laboratory can be extended and be applied into our everyday world. Those forms of knowledge that are focussed upon interpretative awareness between persons to ensure some kind of mutual understandings in relation to the conduct of life are ignored – or referred to if they make use of scientifi c techniques – unless they can be cast into behavioural terms.54 As 53 J. Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests, p. 135. 54 So B.F. Skinner’s contribution to the scientism debate is quoted with approval. (ETMG 12). Noel Boulting 115 for that emancipatory cognitive interest which might make self-refl ective knowledge possible, where inquiry is pursued for the sake of enlightenment, making an interest in autonomy and responsibility possible and where philosophical activity enjoys its home,55 the only function for philosophy would appear to be a concern for practical metaphysics. Such a metaphysical enterprise would be inspired by the motivation to satisfy the requirement of unifying “the special sciences with physics”. (ETMG 194) Everything else is dismissed along with Heideggerian philosophy as “philosophical anthropology”. (ETMG 5) We have discovered herein, then, that not just the methods of the sciences might be used in other modes of inquiry, say in history about the life of Napoleon, but rather something about the status of what counts as a genuine form of epistemology for Ladyman and Ross. Conclusion In Every Thing Must Go, Ladyman and Ross seek to establish a metaphysics grounded solely on contemporary science, to provide the basis for objective knowledge. Their conception of OSR, in constructing such a metaphysics thereby, is compatible with what they regard as current fundamental physics and can be related to metaphysical claims emerging from the empirical sciences. This stance constitutes their ‘Rainforest Realism’ since it off ers a more generous ontology than that generated by a reductionist epistemology by combining the roles of information theory and sophisticated systems theory to meet the demand for such compatibility. But the idea of the scale through which natural occurrences are measurable relativizes claims as to what actually, in a mind-independent way, exists. After considering their stance with respect to macro and their ‘middle-sized’ objects, their endorsement of scientism was explored. A relativistic sense of scientism was dismissed as being too vague before fi ve postulates characterizing a methodological version were considered. None of these were fully accepted by them because they adopt a more dogmatic form of scientism. That dogmatism emerges in the way science is perceived through the eye-glasses that the results of science provide. Consider their attitude in regarding other forms of inquiry as irrelevant outside the measurable, and the dogmatic assumption that “no hypothesis that the approximately consensual current scientifi c picture declares to be beyond our capacity to investigate should be taken seriously.” Now what is the status of that claim? It isn’t analytic or empirical. So it must be metaphysical in 55 J. Habermas, Theory and Practice, J. Viertel (tr.), (1974), London: Heinemann 1977, p. 15. ‘Scale Relative Ontology’ and Scientism 116 principle, rather than in practice, since for them it is part and parcel of their naturalistic constraint upon claims issuing in their Principle of Naturalistic Closure (PNC). (ETMG 29 & 37) Such obfuscation is well illustrated by their assumption, namely, “that there is no fundamental level; that the real pattern of reality is the last word in ontology.” They then claim that it “is open to empirical falsifi cation”. (ETMG 178) But if that were so, it couldn’t be metaphysical in character. It might be a claim which could be undermined over some time period, making it thereby metaphysical in practice.56 Again what is the status of the ‘no miracles argument’? Consider, for example, the general theory of relativity. It would be a gigantic coincidence or indeed a miracle if its claims about the universe’s fundamental structure were not correct, given that it generates so much in the way of accurate empirical predictions. Indeed, if the success of science is not to be regarded as a miracle, then we have the valid claim that through using scientifi c knowledge, data patterns can be projected in furthering that knowledge.57 Now, in recognizing that ‘the no-miracles argument’ might be undermined (ETMG p. 84) rather than falsifi ed, Ladyman and Ross recognize implicitly that it has a diff erent status from making empirical claims, that it to say, that it is metaphysical in character since without it the case for claiming realism for scientifi c theorizing would be undone. In other words, one could be a Structural Realist without being an Ontic Structural Realist – as John Worrall and Elie Zahar might claim – but, nonetheless, sustain the no-miracles argument: the no-miracles argument has, thereby, a diff erent status for Ladyman and Ross’s Ontic Structural Realism, because they require the former to sustain the latter. Earlier the idea of experiencing through instrumentation – ‘experiencing’ – was distinguished from experiencing fi rst hand in a veridical way. Peirce could see that with the development of instrumentation, the former would come to supplant the latter. Whereas the latter sustains the distinction between nature and culture,58 ‘experiencing’ collapses that distinction. So Realism would be sustained by the idea that scientifi c methods which invoke instrumental techniques, to get nature to answer our questions, are in fact reliable. Without adopting that claim as true, scientifi c activity would be im56 The idea of Black Holes served as a metaphysical claim practically in the 1960s but despite Sir Fred Hoyle’s rejection of their possible existence, eventually they were recognized as existing as empirically confi rmed. 57 J. Worrall, “Structural Realism: The Best of Both Worlds”, 140-1. 58 “A fact is at once what is fabricated and what is not fabricated by anyone.” B. Latour, “One More Turn after the Social Turn,” The Social Dimension of Science, E. McMullin (ed.) Indiana: Notre Dame UP, 1992, 272-94, p. 276. Noel Boulting 117 possible. Such a claim cannot be a general fact, (ETMG 70) even if treated as such, since it cannot be falsifi ed by science because that claim makes scientifi c activity itself possible. Again it can only be regarded as metaphysical in principle in order to underpin scientifi c activity itself. These considerations are made in regard to the failure of Ladyman and Ross to distinguish adequately between factual statements, statements that are metaphysical in practice, those that are metaphysical in principle – such non-restrictive, necessarily existential truths such as ‘Necessarily, something exists’ or ‘Necessarily, experience occurs’59 – and the relationship of all these to “metametaphysics”. Such distinctions are crucial if one wants to distinguish ‘strong’ from ‘weak’ metaphysical claims. This failure implies that the adamant claims made in their book – and referred to in this paper – generate a dogmatic form of scientism. And their advocacy of adopting a ‘stance’ in regard to “a sound philosophical position” (ETMG 65) seems undone by the way they hold to such claims. In addition, they seem committed to “living out” a life based on such a scientistic stance. (ETMG 65) Two options face them. One is a Janusfaced Dogmatic Scientism. A private existentialism might work hand in glove with a public tolerance of a behaviouristic account of other peoples’ responses regarded as spatio-temporal events, a behaviouristic view of other people, whilst one’s own fi rst person evaluations would be granted validity. In this way Ladyman and Ross would live lives cast as existential behaviourists.60 On the other hand, an Essentialistic Dogmatic Scientism might be defended: “the fundamentalist belief that science can do no wrong and will ultimately answer any question worth answering while in the process saving humankind as a bonus.”61 But can such “promissory notes for discoveries, not yet made”62 be delivered? In addition can such 59 Cf. C. Hartshorne “Non-restrictive Existential Statements”, p 47. 60 Karl-Otto Apel, Towards a Transformation of Philosophy, G. Adey & D. Frisby (trs.) London: Routledge & K. Paul 1980, p. 235. 61 M. Pigliucci, Denying Evolution: Creationism, Scientism & the Nature of Science, Sunderland, Mass.: Sinauer Assoc. Pub., 2002, p. 114; cf. “the thought that the scientifi c is much more valuable than the non-scientifi c, or the thought that the non-scientifi c is of negligible value.” (T. Sorrell, Scientism London: Routledge,1994, 9; “The ideology of science,” F.A. Olafson, Naturalism and the Human Condition, London: Routledge, 2001, x. 62 R. Sheldrake, The Science Delusion: Freeing the Spirit of Inquiry, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2012, p. 9; Popper refers to ‘promissory materialism’ as the doctrine that the ontological claims made by the advocates of materialism will be confi rmed sometime in the future. (K. Popper & J.C. Eccles, The Self and its Brain (1977), London: Routledge, 1984). ‘Scale Relative Ontology’ and Scientism 118 a life – dismissing the role and signifi cance of private experience – be enjoyed according to such a stance? Answering that question would require, of course, a further paper.63 ABSTRACT Ladyman and Ross’s Every Thing Must Go is a challenging text. In order to ascertain its signifi cance, attention will be focused on their idea of Scale Relative Ontology. To do this their conception of Ontic Structural Realism will require elucidation. Its implications for Scale Relative Ontology will be explored before considering the way Scale Relative Ontology can be cast through three possible dimensions: the cosmological, the ordinary middle-sized, and scientifi c perspectives. In exploring the latter perspective, and applying insights derived from Peirce’s philosophy, their defence of Scientism will then be considered. In this way three diff erent senses can be distinguished through which this doctrine can be presented, before examining what kind of Scientism they advocate and thereby its adequacy. Ke y-Words: Scale – Relative – Ontology – Scientism – Structural ZUSAMMENFASSUNG ‚Everything Must Go‘ (Alles muss erlaubt sein) von Ladyman und Ross ist ein anspruchsvoller Text. Um seine Bedeutsamkeit festzustellen, soll sich auf ihre Idee der maßstabsrelativen Ontologie (Scale Relative Ontology) konzentriert werden. Dafür ist es nötig, ihr Konzept des ontischen Strukturrealismus (Ontic Structural Realism) zu erläutern. Dessen Implikationen für die maßstabsrelative Ontologie werden untersucht, bevor überlegt wird, wie maßstabsrelative Ontologie in drei möglichen Dimensionen ausgedrückt werden kann: die kosmologische, die gewöhnlich mittelgroße, und die wissenschaftliche Perspektive. Indem die letztere Perspektive erläutert wird und Erkenntnissen Peirces Philosophie darauf angewendet werden, kann dann ihre Verteidigung des Szientismus geprüft werden. So wird zwischen drei unterschiedlichen Weisen in denen ihre Doktrin präsentiert werden kann unterschieden, bevor die Art des Szientismus, die sie vertreten, und dessen Angemessenheit, untersucht wird. Schlagworte: Maßstab – Relativ – Ontologie – Szientismus – Strukturell 63 Cf. J. Margolis, The Unravelling of Scientism, Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2003. Noel Boulting