<noinclude>Situational logic is a label coined by Karl Popper to identify a logical theory of reasoning capable of expanding reliable knowledge. Human reasoning is prompted by problems which focus the attention of an individual or group on a situation: “the stimulus of practical problems” arising in given “specific initial conditions.” Some kind of habitual practice or belief, once justified by a theory, breaks down, stops “working,” in unique existing conditions. Situational logic tries to solve such a breakdown by rejoining conceptual theory—hypothetical universal regularities or general continuing factors—to operational practice in unique situational conditions. For Popper, a situation prompting reasoning is a cognitive breakdown. A theory fails to work and must be replaced. His situational logic prescribes conjecturing potential new universal regularities from which to deduce logical solutions capable of restoring unity to theory and practice.%DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% John Dewey preceded Popper in recognizing this situational need to reason, but his logical steps defining and solving problems are radically incompatible. For Dewey, a situation prompting reasoning is an operational breakdown with conceptual implications. It is a pre-cognitive and unspeakable experience. The practical continuity of an established practice must be restored. His situational logic prescribes responding by inductively defining observable conditions operating in the situation, from which to deduce practical solutions restoring unity to theory and practice. Both men accepted the instrumental criterion of judgment to identify breakdown of continuing factors.Instrumental and intrinsic value But Popper added an independent criterion of judgment: logical coherence in theories. Dewey held logical coherence to be integral with operational success. A situation becomes cognitive only through inductive operations.%DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% Assuming independent criteria of practical and logical judgment contaminates reasoning. It reflects the traditional fact-value distinction between knowledge of concrete situations—particular facts known by induction—and theoretical knowledge of universal regularities—deduced from general laws known intuitively to be right. Objective value-free facts that work may not correlate with subjective fact-free preferences, intentions, expectations. These incompatible criteria are present today in popular approaches to rational problem solving, without acknowledgment of their philosophical origins. Popper's logic underlies the value-free tool labelled SWOT analysis widely applied to conjectural situations in business and government. Situational awareness is a technological application of Dewey's instrumental situational logic. In the fact-free mediation tool labeled Mindfulness, the pre-cognitive starting point of Dewey’s logic appears as a valued end point. Dividing theory from practice and fact from value contaminates rationality.%DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% This article presents the background of ‘’this’’ still-indeterminate situation of mutually incompatible logics. It draws largely on the Library of Living Philosophers, edited by Paul Arthur Schilpp, which honored Dewey in its first volume and Popper in its fourteenth volume. Summary of Dewey’s position is followed by a critique by Bertrand Russell, one of 17 scholars offering descriptive and critical essays, and Dewey’s response.Summary of Popper’s position is followed by an essay (one of 33) by Henryk Skolimowski, and Popper’s response. Logic of John Dewey (1859-1952)In Logic: The Theory of Inquiry, published in 1938, Dewey reported results of years spent criticizing traditional academic philosophy. He hoped to have resolved philosophers’ perennial debate over how to extend human understanding by relating facts—particular valuation-free means used in practice—to valuations—general fact-free theoretical ends. He made “ situation ” a universal focus to eliminate the imagined autonomy of theory and practice. A problematic situation arises when some pattern of correlated belief and behavior breaks down. The obstruction generates a need to understand the cause of breakdown and how to overcome it. The need is an objective fact of every unique situation, not a subjective opinion or preference.%DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% A situation becomes an object of discourse when those experiencing breakdown are forced to reason about it. Is it a breakdown of some known kind of regularity? Can some universal regularity be found conjoined to unique observable traits? Answering such questions requires induction: “… laws of uniform relations are ultimately instrumentalities for control of individualized situations … Historically, induction has been a method for arriving at laws of uniform relations by moving from particulars to the general. In common sense, it starts with observation of some regularity and an inference that that regularity is in fact a continuing factor. The inference is strengthened by counting its frequency of observation—numerical induction.%DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% In modern science, the permanence of traits and kinds is determined experimentally by transforming what is existentially given into abstract universal kinds of traits—operational induction. Each situation is made into a “kind” by identifying relevant data. Here is one example of Dewey's situational steps to define kinds of data relevant to solving a problematic situation. A man is found dead in unusual circumstances.%DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% He referred to a famous example of numerical induction that failed for lack of these operations determining continuing factors: “All swans are white.” It confused all swans-as-observable-birds with the abstraction swan-as-an-abstract-species with conjectured determinate universal traits—found not to include color of feathers. Dewey offered inductive plus deductive situational logic as an alternative to traditional analyses that started with conceptual ”facts” and ended with “known truths.”%DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% Critique by Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) Russell did not take kindly to Dewey's effort to reconstruct philosophy. In 1939, he contributed a critical essay to the Library of Living Philosophers volume entitled The Philosophy of John Dewey. He entitled his contribution “Dewey’s New Logic” which he identified with a doctrine labeled instrumentalism. He suggested that Dewey's logic could be partly explained by the cultural situation or “social system” prevailing in the United States—“the age of industrialism and collective enterprise”—and by the academic context of competition between British analytic philosophy and German synthetic philosophy. Russell named Dewey's logic Instrumentalism and grouped it with other synthetic doctrines critical of traditional academic philosophy—positivism, pragmatism, historicism, holism—all denying the legitimacy of metaphysics (untestable because prior to experience) and the reality of natural kinds with defining properties as universal facts. He felt Dewey was turning philosophy into a tool for solving problem rather than a search for truths. We report three questions Russell asked of Dewey's situational logic to explain why he rejected Dewey's definitions and answers.%DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% 1) HOW LARGE IS A SITUATION? Russell was troubled by Dewey treating situations as the starting point of new knowledge. If knowledge grows by inquiry that relates unique problematic situations to environmental continuing factors, how can that activity exclude anything in the universe? It merges particular facts into universal regularities. “It is obvious that, in an inquiry into the tides, the sun and moon must be included in the ‘situation . ’ I do not see how, on Dr. Dewey's principles, a ‘situation’ can embrace less than the whole universe; this is an inevitable consequence of the insistence upon continuity of continuing factors%DIFDELCMD < ]%%% .” Russell could find no starting or stopping point in such situational logic. He wondered, for example, how astronomers could inquire about the sun and moon without prior knowledge of those unchanging objects: 2) HOW CAN DOUBT STIMULATE INQUIRY? While rejecting Dewey’s situation as a unit of analysis, Russell criticized feelings of doubt in particular situations as stimulus to inquiry. He stated what he took to be Dewey’s position:%DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% Contrary to Dewey’s particular feeling of doubt, Russell assumed that cognitive doubt initiates reasoning about what things are “true.” 3) HOW CAN WARRANTED ASSERTION BE DISTINGUISHED FROM IMMEDIATE KNOWLEDGE OF FACT, REALITY, TRUTH? Russell couldn't understand why Dewey replaced the word “knowledge” with “warranted assertion” when doubt is eliminated. The definition appeared arbitrary and unnecessary. He quoted Dewey:%DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% Russell found this just another name for instrumental consequences of logically groundless inductive reasoning: if what you do achieves what you want, then what you want is validated—it is TRUE. Russell continued to insist that logical deduction can provide knowledge of truth. He closed his critique by suggesting that Dewey's redefinition of induction and deduction made discourse between analytic and synthetic philosophers incapable of rational resolution . Dewey felt completely misunderstood by Russell. He responded by explaining that he chose “ situation ” as the unit of inquiry to escape units used by both atomistic-analytic and holistic-synthetic philosophers. “I have called experiences situations as%DIFDELCMD < ] %%% a viable alternative to an atomism which logically involves a denial of connections and to an absolutistic block monism which … leaves no place for the discrete, for plurality, and for individuals.” He observed that situations are observably always particular—breakdown at particular time and place—but each such experience includes multiple determinate universal traits that must be discovered to repair the breakdown.%DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% Dewey argued that logical linguistic discourse can only follow an experience of breakdown, which itself is precognitive and unspeakable. He accused Russell of treating discourse as equivalent to experience. Unsurprisingly, the exchange between these two philosophers did not resolve their differences, which persist today.%DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% Logic of Karl Popper (1902-1994)In The Poverty of Historicism, published in 1957, Popper reported results of years spent criticizing perennial philosophical debate over whether reliable scientific knowledge arises from observation leading to theory, or from theory guiding observation. That essay was a critique of the kinds of synthetic philosophy to which Russell had linked Dewey—instrumentalism, pragmatism, historicism, holism—all of which claim that observation in situations precedes cognition, practice precedes theory.%DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% Throughout this essay and subsequent publications, Popper rejected Dewey's kind of logic, without naming Dewey, claiming it to be inductive sociological or psychological “science,” producing only conditional and subjective knowledge—warranted assertions. He considered his kind of logic to be deductive and objectively true, as much as is humanly possible.%DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% He developed a criterion for distinguishing scientific from unreliable metaphysical reasoning. He called that criterion “demarcation,” measured by the degree to which a conjecture or theory is testable. A situationis an event in which a theory has failed a test, prompting reasoning to replace the failed conjecture. “… there is no such thing as an unprejudiced observation. All observation is an activity with an aim (to find, or to check, some regularity which is ‘’at least’’ vaguely conjectured);… .…. There is no such thing as a perception except in the context of interests and expectations, and hence of regularities or ‘’laws’’.%DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% For Popper, a situation prompting reasoning is a theoretical breakdown, and its solution involves conceiving a rational analytic model of the breakdown in order to conjecture solutions to repair it, restoring unity to theory and practice. His situational logic locates regularities in physical laws and in social institutions—prescribed patterns of correlated behavior.%DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% Popper later (1974) agreed with Dewey's position that problems arise as unspeakable, pre-conscious feelings, but denied that this origin can provide situational data to which possible solutions must adapt. He never viewed a situation as a “qualified existential whole” as Dewey did. He attributed any sense of maladjustment or breakdown to inborn universal expectations and knowledge, not to conditional feelings experienced in each unique situation. Theory is involved in observation, and needs logical coherence independently of operational continuity.%DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% He had multiple reasons for denying the possibility of situations determining relevant data, “ultimate components” defining properties of kinds and causes. He viewed names as arbitrary conventions, incapable of defining abstract universals to function as signs of inductive particulars. He assumed the need for undefined theoretical terms.%DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% From his earliest publications in the 1930 to his autobiography in 1974, Popper maintained that his demarcation conjecture established the fallacy of induction—inferences based on “repetition of instances.” Instances named cannot be defining properties, continuing factors, determinate universal traits.%DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% He supported his rejection of induction with one traditional example of an inductive failure: “All swans are white.” “… no matter how many instances of white swans we may have observed, this does not justify the conclusion%DIFDELCMD < [%%% theory%DIFDELCMD < ] %%% that all swans are white.%DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% He presented a more recent presumed inductive failure in the scientific theory that freezing points can serve as defining properties of kinds.%DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% Popper refined his rejection of induction by locating regularities with determinate universal traits in a third world, separate from the two sources of generalization earlier specified: initial situational conditions and universal laws. He conjectured that situational conditions, universal laws, and problem solutions occur in autonomous worlds. He found this metaphysical conjecture—unobservable and untestable—instrumentally useful for making predictions based on conjectural situations. “Theories or propositions or statements are the most important third world linguistic entities.”. Historicists are mistaken to believe that “social entities such as institutions or associations are concrete natural entities … rather than abstract models constructed to interpret certain selected abstract%DIFDELCMD < [%%% situational%DIFDELCMD < ] %%% relations between individuals.”%DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% Defense by Henryk Skolimowski (1930-2018) Skolimowski opened his contribution to The Philosophy of Karl Popper in 1974 with a quote from Popper's 1963 Conjectures and Refutations to highlight how central to Popper's philosophy was his situational logic.The quote asserts that great philosophers “tried to solve urgent and concrete problems” in their own “contemporary problem-situation.” Philosophers were great because of their “sensitivity to problems.” All reasoners are “students of problems.”.%DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% Skolimowski's contribution reconstructed and analyzed the “knowledge-situation” that produced Popper's situational logic by applying that very logic. He located two distinct knowledge-situations in which Popper reacted against what he found to be breakdowns of philosophy.%DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% In the 1930s, Popper opposed positivists and empiricists in an academic context much like that in which Russell opposed the synthetic philosophy he attributed to Dewey: instrumentalism, positivism, historicism, holism. Popper rejected the instrumentalist effort to found new knowledge on inductive facts: “protocol statements depicting the ultimate components of the structure of the empirical world.” He replaced such continuing factors with conceptual but objective and testable units: conjectures and refutations.%DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% Skolimowski observed that, by the 1960s, Popper's knowledge-situation had changed. His minority position rejecting the ultimate reality of knowable natural kinds had become conventional wisdom—at least in philosophy if not in science. The instrumentalists had been defeated by those who followed Popper in basing knowledge on testability.%DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% In the 1960s Popper opposed philosophers like Thomas Kuhn, who tried to found new knowledge on the subjective popularity of conceptual frameworks, competing paradigms based on incompatible and untestable premises. Popper challenged such logical analysis by identifying three distinct kinds of objective knowledge as universal continuing factors crossing paradigms. They operate in distinct problem situations: 1)empirical facts and observations are known in a psychological world of material entities; 2) problems are analyzed using conjectures and refutations known in a sociological world of mental entities; 3) “ideas in the objective sense, that is the%DIFDELCMD < [%%% third%DIFDELCMD < ] %%% world of possible objects of thought or the world of objective contents of thought. " Skolimowski supported Popper's three worlds conjecture by rejecting the possibility of unchanging universal linguistic categories. “… if there are innate concepts (categories, linguistic universals%DIFDELCMD < [%%% defining properties%DIFDELCMD < ]%%% ), then there is no growth of concepts; if there is growth of concepts, then there are no innate concepts; but in fact there is growth of concepts, therefore there are no innate concepts.” He defended Popper, however, by identifying defining properties of Popper's three worlds—which would appear to be just-denied continuing factors, innate concepts. Skolimowski followed his summary of agreements with Popper by criticizing Popper's effort to relate his world 2 and world 3. He argued that Popper had “failed to provide a theory of objective mind.” Popper's response to Skolimowski started with praising the accuracy of the latter's presentation of his own philosophy:“ Professor Skolimowski’s paper surprised me by the degree of his understanding of what has been so often misunderstood.” “Skolimowski’s summing up of my 'methodological period' again seems to me excellent.”. But his response to Skolimowski's critique finds his critic failing to understand.%DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% The result is that Popper and Skolimowski—both experts in Popper's situational logic—ended up disagreeing over the defining properties of abstract entities for which operational tests appear to be impossible. These colleagues were no more able to reach consensus on situational logic able to produce reliable knowledge for instrumental problem solving than Dewey and Russell arguing from incompatible paradigms.
 %DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% Situational logic (also situational analysis)Boumans, M. and Davis, John B. (2015), Economic Methodology: Understanding Economics as a Science, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 92. is a concept advanced by Popper in his The Poverty of Historicism.Popper, Karl (2013), The Poverty of Historicism, Routledge, p. 141. Situational logic is a %DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% %DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% process by which a social scientist tries to reconstruct the problem situation %DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% %DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% %DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% %DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% %DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% confronting an agent in order to understand that agent's choice . %DIFDELCMD < ]%%% %DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% %DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% Koertge (1975) provides a helpful clarificatory summary.This use of this summary is from Boumans and Davis (2010) . First provide a description of the situation %DIFDELCMD < ] %%% %DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% %DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% %DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% %DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% %DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% : ''Agent A was in a %DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% %DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% %DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% %DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% %DIFDELCMD < [%%% %DIFDELCMD < ] %%% %DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% %DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% %DIFDELCMD < [%%% %DIFDELCMD < ] %%% %DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% %DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% %DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% %DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% %DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% %DIFDELCMD < [%%% %DIFDELCMD < ] %%% situation of type C''. This situation is then analysed ''In a situation of type C, the appropriate thing to do is X.'' The rationality principle may then be called upon: ''agents always act appropriately to their situation'' Finally we have the explanadum: ''(therefore) A did X.''Koertge, N. (1975), " Popper's %DIFDELCMD < [%%% %DIFDELCMD < ]%%% Metaphysical Research Program for the Human Sciences", Inquiry, 18 (1975), 437–62. Notes References %DIFDELCMD < %DIFDELCMD < %%% Category:Philosophy of social science Category:Logic Category:Analysi
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<noinclude>Situational logic is a label coined by Karl Popper to identify a logical theory of reasoning capable of expanding reliable knowledge. Human reasoning is prompted by problems which focus the attention of an individual or group on a situation: “the stimulus of practical problems” arising in given “specific initial conditions.” Some kind of habitual practice or belief, once justified by a theory, breaks down, stops “working,” in unique existing conditions. Situational logic tries to solve such a breakdown by rejoining conceptual theory—hypothetical universal regularities or general continuing factors—to operational practice in unique situational conditions.
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For Popper, a situation prompting reasoning is a cognitive breakdown. A theory fails to work and must be replaced. His situational logic prescribes conjecturing potential new universal regularities from which to deduce logical solutions capable of restoring unity to theory and practice.
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John Dewey preceded Popper in recognizing this situational need to reason, but his logical steps defining and solving problems are radically incompatible. For Dewey,
Situational logic (also situational analysis)Boumans, M. and Davis, John B. (2015), Economic Methodology: Understanding Economics as a Science, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 92. is a concept advanced by Popper in his The Poverty of Historicism.Popper, Karl (2013), The Poverty of Historicism, Routledge, p. 141. Situational logic is
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situation prompting reasoning is an operational breakdown with conceptual implications. It is a pre-cognitive and unspeakable experience. The practical continuity of an established practice must be restored. His situational logic prescribes responding by inductively defining observable conditions operating in the situation, from which to deduce practical solutions restoring unity to theory and practice.
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Both men accepted the instrumental criterion of judgment to identify breakdown of continuing factors.Instrumental and intrinsic value But Popper added an independent criterion of judgment: logical coherence in theories. Dewey held logical coherence to be integral with operational success. A situation becomes cognitive only through inductive operations.
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Assuming independent criteria of practical and logical judgment contaminates reasoning. It reflects the traditional fact-value distinction between knowledge of concrete situations—particular facts known by induction—and theoretical knowledge of universal regularities—deduced from general laws known intuitively to be right. Objective value-free facts that work may not correlate with subjective fact-free preferences, intentions, expectations.
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These incompatible criteria are present today in popular approaches to rational problem solving, without acknowledgment of their philosophical origins. Popper's logic underlies the value-free tool labelled SWOT analysis widely applied to conjectural situations in business and government. Situational awareness is a technological application of Dewey's instrumental situational logic. In the fact-free mediation tool labeled Mindfulness, the pre-cognitive starting point of Dewey’s logic appears as a valued end point. Dividing theory from practice and fact from value contaminates rationality.
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This article presents the background of ‘’this’’ still-indeterminate situation of mutually incompatible logics. It draws largely on the Library of Living Philosophers, edited by Paul Arthur Schilpp, which honored Dewey in its first volume and Popper in its fourteenth volume. Summary of Dewey’s position is followed by a critique by Bertrand Russell, one of 17 scholars offering descriptive and critical essays, and Dewey’s response.Summary of Popper’s position is followed by an essay (one of 33) by Henryk Skolimowski, and Popper’s response.
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Logic of John Dewey (1859-1952)In Logic: The Theory of Inquiry, published in 1938, Dewey reported results of years spent criticizing traditional academic philosophy. He hoped to have resolved philosophers’ perennial debate over how to extend human understanding by relating facts—particular valuation-free means used in practice—to valuations—general fact-free theoretical ends. He made “
process by which a social scientist tries to reconstruct the problem
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” a universal focus to eliminate the imagined autonomy of theory and practice.
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A problematic situation arises when some pattern of correlated belief and behavior breaks down. The obstruction generates a need to understand the cause of breakdown and how to overcome it. The need is an objective fact of every unique situation, not a subjective opinion or preference.
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A situation becomes an object of discourse when those experiencing breakdown are forced to reason about it. Is it a breakdown of some known kind of regularity? Can some universal regularity be found conjoined to unique observable traits? Answering such questions requires induction: “… laws of uniform relations are ultimately instrumentalities for control of individualized situations …
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Historically, induction has been a method for arriving at laws of uniform relations by moving from particulars to the general. In common sense, it starts with observation of some regularity and an inference that that regularity is in fact a continuing factor. The inference is strengthened by counting its frequency of observation—numerical induction.
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In modern science, the permanence of traits and kinds is determined experimentally by transforming what is existentially given into abstract universal kinds of traits—operational induction. Each situation is made into a “kind” by identifying relevant data.
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Here is one example of Dewey's situational steps to define kinds of data relevant to solving a problematic situation. A man is found dead in unusual circumstances.
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He referred to a famous example of numerical induction that failed for lack of these operations determining continuing factors: “All swans are white.” It confused all swans-as-observable-birds with the abstraction swan-as-an-abstract-species with conjectured determinate universal traits—found not to include color of feathers.
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Dewey offered inductive plus deductive situational logic as an alternative to traditional analyses that started with conceptual ”facts” and ended with “known truths.”
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Critique by Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) Russell did not take kindly to Dewey's effort to reconstruct philosophy. In 1939, he contributed a critical essay to the Library of Living Philosophers volume entitled The Philosophy of John Dewey. He entitled his contribution “Dewey’s New Logic” which he identified with a doctrine labeled instrumentalism. He suggested that Dewey's logic could be partly explained by the cultural situation or “social system” prevailing in the United States—“the age of industrialism and collective enterprise”—and by the academic context of competition between British analytic philosophy and German synthetic philosophy.
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Russell named Dewey's logic Instrumentalism and grouped it with other synthetic doctrines critical of traditional academic philosophy—positivism, pragmatism, historicism, holism—all denying the legitimacy of metaphysics (untestable because prior to experience) and the reality of natural kinds with defining properties as universal facts. He felt Dewey was turning philosophy into a tool for solving problem rather than a search for truths. We report three questions Russell asked of Dewey's situational logic to explain why he rejected Dewey's definitions and answers.
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1) HOW LARGE IS A SITUATION? Russell was troubled by Dewey treating situations as the starting point of new knowledge. If knowledge grows by inquiry that relates unique problematic situations to environmental continuing factors, how can that activity exclude anything in the universe? It merges particular facts into universal regularities. “It is obvious that, in an inquiry into the tides, the sun and moon must be included in the ‘situation
confronting an agent in order to understand that agent's choice
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’ I do not see how, on Dr. Dewey's principles, a ‘situation’ can embrace less than the whole universe; this is an inevitable consequence of the insistence upon continuity
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of continuing factors
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.”
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Russell could find no starting or stopping point in such situational logic. He wondered, for example, how astronomers could inquire about the sun and moon without prior knowledge of those unchanging objects:
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2) HOW CAN DOUBT STIMULATE INQUIRY? While rejecting Dewey’s situation as a unit of analysis, Russell criticized feelings of doubt in particular situations as stimulus to inquiry. He stated what he took to be Dewey’s position:
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Contrary to Dewey’s particular feeling of doubt, Russell assumed that cognitive doubt initiates reasoning about what things are “true.”
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3) HOW CAN WARRANTED ASSERTION BE DISTINGUISHED FROM IMMEDIATE KNOWLEDGE OF FACT, REALITY, TRUTH? Russell couldn't understand why Dewey replaced the word “knowledge” with “warranted assertion” when doubt is eliminated. The definition appeared arbitrary and unnecessary. He quoted Dewey:
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Russell found this just another name for instrumental consequences of logically groundless inductive reasoning: if what you do achieves what you want, then what you want is validated—it is TRUE.
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Russell continued to insist that logical deduction can provide knowledge of truth. He closed his critique by suggesting that Dewey's redefinition of induction and deduction made discourse between analytic and synthetic philosophers incapable of rational resolution
Koertge (1975) provides a helpful clarificatory summary.This use of this summary is from Boumans and Davis (2010)
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Dewey felt completely misunderstood by Russell. He responded by explaining that he chose “
First provide a description of the
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” as the unit of inquiry to escape units used by both atomistic-analytic and holistic-synthetic philosophers. “I have called experiences situations
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as
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a viable alternative to an atomism which logically involves a denial of connections and to an absolutistic block monism which … leaves no place for the discrete, for plurality, and for individuals.”
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He observed that situations are observably always particular—breakdown at particular time and place—but each such experience includes multiple determinate universal traits that must be discovered to repair the breakdown.
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Dewey argued that logical linguistic discourse can only follow an experience of breakdown, which itself is precognitive and unspeakable. He accused Russell of treating discourse as equivalent to experience.
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Unsurprisingly, the exchange between these two philosophers did not resolve their differences, which persist today.
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Logic of Karl Popper (1902-1994)In The Poverty of Historicism, published in 1957, Popper reported results of years spent criticizing perennial philosophical debate over whether reliable scientific knowledge arises from observation leading to theory, or from theory guiding observation. That essay was a critique of the kinds of synthetic philosophy to which Russell had linked Dewey—instrumentalism, pragmatism, historicism, holism—all of which claim that observation in situations precedes cognition, practice precedes theory.
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Throughout this essay and subsequent publications, Popper rejected Dewey's kind of logic, without naming Dewey, claiming it to be inductive sociological or psychological “science,” producing only conditional and subjective knowledge—warranted assertions. He considered his kind of logic to be deductive and objectively true, as much as is humanly possible.
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He developed a criterion for distinguishing scientific from unreliable metaphysical reasoning. He called that criterion “demarcation,” measured by the degree to which a conjecture or theory is testable. A situationis an event in which a theory has failed a test, prompting reasoning to replace the failed conjecture. “… there is no such thing as an unprejudiced observation. All observation is an activity with an aim (to find, or to check, some regularity which is ‘’at least’’ vaguely conjectured);… .…. There is no such thing as a perception except in the context of interests and expectations, and hence of regularities or ‘’laws’’.
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For Popper, a situation prompting reasoning is
: ''Agent A was in
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theoretical breakdown, and its solution involves conceiving a rational analytic model of the breakdown in order to conjecture solutions to repair it, restoring unity to theory and practice. His situational logic locates regularities in physical laws and in social institutions—prescribed patterns of correlated behavior.
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Popper later (1974) agreed with Dewey's position that problems arise as unspeakable, pre-conscious feelings, but denied that this origin can provide situational data to which possible solutions must adapt. He never viewed a situation as a “qualified existential whole” as Dewey did. He attributed any sense of maladjustment or breakdown to inborn universal expectations and knowledge, not to conditional feelings experienced in each unique situation. Theory is involved in observation, and needs logical coherence independently of operational continuity.
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He had multiple reasons for denying the possibility of situations determining relevant data, “ultimate components” defining properties of kinds and causes. He viewed names as arbitrary conventions, incapable of defining abstract universals to function as signs of inductive particulars. He assumed the need for undefined theoretical terms.
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From his earliest publications in the 1930 to his autobiography in 1974, Popper maintained that his demarcation conjecture established the fallacy of induction—inferences based on “repetition of instances.” Instances named cannot be defining properties, continuing factors, determinate universal traits.
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He supported his rejection of induction with one traditional example of an inductive failure: “All swans are white.” “… no matter how many instances of white swans we may have observed, this does not justify the conclusion
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theory
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that all swans are white.
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He presented a more recent presumed inductive failure in the scientific theory that freezing points can serve as defining properties of kinds.
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Popper refined his rejection of induction by locating regularities with determinate universal traits in a third world, separate from the two sources of generalization earlier specified: initial situational conditions and universal laws. He conjectured that situational conditions, universal laws, and problem solutions occur in autonomous worlds. He found this metaphysical conjecture—unobservable and untestable—instrumentally useful for making predictions based on conjectural situations. “Theories or propositions or statements are the most important third world linguistic entities.”. Historicists are mistaken to believe that “social entities such as institutions or associations are concrete natural entities … rather than abstract models constructed to interpret certain selected abstract
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situational
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relations between individuals.”
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Defense by Henryk Skolimowski (1930-2018) Skolimowski opened his contribution to The Philosophy of Karl Popper in 1974 with a quote from Popper's 1963 Conjectures and Refutations to highlight how central to Popper's philosophy was his situational logic.The quote asserts that great philosophers “tried to solve urgent and concrete problems” in their own “contemporary problem-situation.” Philosophers were great because of their “sensitivity to problems.” All reasoners are “students of problems.”.
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Skolimowski's contribution reconstructed and analyzed the “knowledge-situation” that produced Popper's situational logic by applying that very logic. He located two distinct knowledge-situations in which Popper reacted against what he found to be breakdowns of philosophy.
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In the 1930s, Popper opposed positivists and empiricists in an academic context much like that in which Russell opposed the synthetic philosophy he attributed to Dewey: instrumentalism, positivism, historicism, holism. Popper rejected the instrumentalist effort to found new knowledge on inductive facts: “protocol statements depicting the ultimate components of the structure of the empirical world.” He replaced such continuing factors with conceptual but objective and testable units: conjectures and refutations.
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Skolimowski observed that, by the 1960s, Popper's knowledge-situation had changed. His minority position rejecting the ultimate reality of knowable natural kinds had become conventional wisdom—at least in philosophy if not in science. The instrumentalists had been defeated by those who followed Popper in basing knowledge on testability.
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In the 1960s Popper opposed philosophers like Thomas Kuhn, who tried to found new knowledge on the subjective popularity of conceptual frameworks, competing paradigms based on incompatible and untestable premises. Popper challenged such logical analysis by identifying three distinct kinds of objective knowledge as universal continuing factors crossing paradigms. They operate in distinct problem situations: 1)empirical facts and observations are known in a psychological world of material entities; 2) problems are analyzed using conjectures and refutations known in a sociological world of mental entities; 3) “ideas in the objective sense, that is the
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third
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world of possible objects of thought or the world of objective contents of thought.
situation of type C''. This situation is then analysed ''In a situation of type C, the appropriate thing to do is X.'' The rationality principle may then be called upon: ''agents always act appropriately to their situation'' Finally we have the explanadum: ''(therefore) A did X.''Koertge, N. (1975),
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Skolimowski supported
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three worlds conjecture by rejecting the possibility of unchanging universal linguistic categories. “… if there are innate concepts (categories, linguistic universals
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defining properties
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), then there is no growth of concepts; if there is growth of concepts, then there are no innate concepts; but in fact there is growth of concepts, therefore there are no innate concepts.”
Metaphysical Research Program for the Human Sciences", Inquiry, 18 (1975), 437–62.
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He defended Popper, however, by identifying defining properties of Popper's three worlds—which would appear to be just-denied continuing factors, innate concepts.
Notes
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Skolimowski followed his summary of agreements with Popper by criticizing Popper's effort to relate his world 2 and world 3. He argued that Popper had “failed to provide a theory of objective mind.”
References
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Popper's response to Skolimowski started with praising the accuracy of the latter's presentation of his own philosophy:“ Professor Skolimowski’s paper surprised me by the degree of his understanding of what has been so often misunderstood.” “Skolimowski’s summing up of my 'methodological period' again seems to me excellent.”. But his response to Skolimowski's critique finds his critic failing to understand.
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The result is that Popper and Skolimowski—both experts in Popper's situational logic—ended up disagreeing over the defining properties of abstract entities for which operational tests appear to be impossible. These colleagues were no more able to reach consensus on situational logic able to produce reliable knowledge for instrumental problem solving than Dewey and Russell arguing from incompatible paradigms.
Category:Philosophy of social science Category:Logic Category:Analysi