Response to the divorce between the two contexts of discovery and justification has been different even within the group that defends a logic of discovery. Hanson argued that creation and inventiveness are not mysterious or irrational and it would be inappropriate
15
if we concentrate solely upon confirmation and falsification of conjectures. He argued that both the contexts have a logic. He has shown that the standards by which a theory is confirmed or refuted are not simply applied after the theory is presented in its completed form. These ideas enter into the form of thinking during the genesis of the theory. He demonstrates his point by applying Peirce’s theory of abductive inference in the case of
Kepler’s discovery of planetary motion.16 Hanson therefore is not against the distinction.
H. Simon also believes in the distinction and holds that there is a special logic of discovery
distinct from the logic of justification.17
These views should be clearly distinguished from those of Bacon and Newton for whom the methods of discovery carry a special epistemic weight. And more importantly the methods of consequential testing, according to them, are inferior to generative justification.
Some of those who favored the discovery program such as Paul Thagard, Marcello Pera, M.D. Grmek, Robert McLaughlin etc., have attacked the divorce thesis. P. Achinstein has argued that any argument used in the initial generation of ideas could in principle be
found in the context of justification and vice versa.18
Thomas Nickles argues that such attacks on the dichotomy are not only unnecessary, some moderate distinction would be supportive
of the discovery program.19
Thus we see that even among those who are in favor of a logic of discovery there is disagreement regarding the distinction. The position that we shall defend is as follows.
In place of the distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification, we suggest an alternative. As already stated the motivation for the original distinction proposed by Reichenbach was to separate the epistemological context from the psychological/biological context. Let us first rephrase the original distinction, to avoid con- fusion. The new names we suggest are the context of natural theories of knowledge, and the context of philosophical theories of knowledge. The former would include more or less all the aspects that are studied under the name of cognitive science, which is fast emerging as a new inter-disciplinary science. This includes cognitive psychology, cognitive biology, some mechanical aspects Artificial Intelligence, etc. The latter would include the context philoso-
phers should be interested in, which may be called the epistemological context. So far we
have not introduced anything new, except to suggest, what we consider to be better and the least confusing terminology.
We suggest now that that the epistemological context be further divided into two
16
Cf. Hanson 1958,Patterns of Discovery.
17
H. Simon 1977,Models of Discovery and Other Topics in the Methods of Science.
18
Cf. Nickles 1985, ‘Beyond Divorce: Current Status of the Discovery Debate’Philosophy of Sciencep. 180.
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96 Chapter 4. Epistemology of Discovery
more contexts, namely, the context of generation and the context of application. Since both
are epistemological, justificatory reasons are to be found necessary in both contexts. Then where lies the difference? As the terms indicate, the former context refers to the mode of philosophical inquiry that addresses the question “How do we arrive at knowledge?”. This context includes the philosophical deliberations on the problems of discovery and invention. Since this essay addresses this very question, but restricted to scientific knowledge, further elaboration would follow. The latter context is regarding the truth claims of scientific knowl- edge. It may not be immediately clear to the reader why we have used the expression ‘application’ to describe this context. What we have in mind relates well with the context where truth and falsity of scientific assertions is determined. We will consider a scientific
assertion as involving the application of what is produced in the former context, the context
of generation. We propose that epistemological discussions can be viewed mainly as related to either of the contexts. We propose that in the context of generation we study the problems pertaining to the production of applicable pieces of knowledge like concepts, models etc., and in the context of application we study the philosophical problems relating to the true or false application of concepts, models etc. More details and philosophical motivations/reasons for introducing the distinction will be found in the next two chapters. It is sufficient here to note that this distinction is not drawn on the same lines as that of Reichenbach’s, or the usual defenders of discovery program.
We do agree with Hanson that the distinction should be maintained, but we do
not agree that there are distinct kinds of logics for discovery/invention on one hand and
justification on the other. The logic of discovery cannot be a ‘machine’ driven process that only yields ‘products’, without having any say anything about the value of the products. It is also a conscious process, in the sense that it involves volition. (Recall the discussion of Part-I, where it is noted that it is essential for a method to be a voluntary process.) It is a process that is constantly under the gaze of conscious reason, such that certain epistemic values get implanted—imposing constraints—in order to ensure that no gibberish would be
generated. Therefore, we cannot have a method that has epistemic value and at the same
time does not have a ‘capacity’ to filter its products. We shall argue that nothing be counted a logic of discovery if it has no in built validating reasons. Therefore, no epistemologically relevant method can be free of justificatory/validatory role. Hence, we disagree with Hanson and others who thought that discovery logics are free of validating reasons.
However, Achinstein’s claim is not easy to understand in relation to our position. Because we see on the one hand that the distinction should be collapsed on the grounds of
justification, but on the other hand we see a need to make a distinction. Since, we agree with him that validating reasons do enter into the context of discovery, we find affinities with him. But, he goes to the extent of suggesting that the same justificatory reasons occur in both
contexts, and therefore the distinction be collapsed.20
On this point we disagree, because the
nature of epistemic values that enter into the context of generation differ markedly from the
kind that enter in the context of application. Since this notion of different epistemic values forms part of the major claim of the thesis, we will attend to it in detail below.
To summarize the points made in this section: The distinction proposed by Reichen- bach need not be challenged, though a terminological change would make it less confusing. We have proposed that the epistemological context be further divided into the context of generation and the context of application.