Legend Naturalism and Scientific

Progress: An Essay on Philip Kitchers

The Advancement of Science1
Miriam Solomon*

Abstract-Philip Kitchers The Advancenenr ofScience sets out, programmatically, a

new naturalistic view of science as a process of building consensus practices. Detailed
historical case studies~entrally, the Darwinian revolution-are intended to support
this view. I argue that Kitchers expositions in fact support a more conservative view,
that I dub Legend Naturalism. Using four historical examples which increasingly
challenge Kitchers discussions, I show that neither Legend Naturalism, nor the less
conservative programmatic view, gives an adequate account of scientific progress. I
argue for a naturalism that is more informed by psychology and a normative account
that is both more social and less realist than the views articulated in The Advancement
of Science.

1. Introduction

In 1992, Kitchers landmark essay, The Naturalists Return, appeared in the

centenary issue of The Philosophical Review. It surveys the range of contemporary
naturalistic epistemologies, from traditional to radical. Kitcher places his own views
towards the traditional end of the scale. The Advancement of Science was published
a year later. This book develops and defends his account of scientific change, which
is intended to replace traditional. non-naturalistic views (of philosophers such as
Hempel, Carnap, Popper and Reichenbach) that Kitcher dubs Legend, while
avoiding the skeptical or relativist conclusions of more radical naturalistic positions.
The core thesis of The Advancement of Science can be stated briefly. Science
progresses when consensus practice changes in a positive direction. Practice consists
of not only scientists beliefs and representations of the world (linguistic and
pictorial), but also their questions, methods, techniques, favored experiments,
observations and exemplars, patterns of explanation and criteria for assigning

*Department of Philosophy, Temple University, Humanities Building 022-32, Philadelphia, PA 19122,

U.S.A.
Received 28 May 1994; in revised form 4 November 1994.
Kitcher, The Naturalists Return, The Philosophical Review 101: 1 (1992). 53-114.

Stud. Hisf. Phil. Sci., Vol. 26, No. 2, pp. 205-218, 1995
Pergamon Copyright 0 1995 Elsevier Science Ltd
Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved
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205
206 Studies in History and Philosophy ofScience

credibility and authority. Progress with respect to any one of these elements of
practice is scientific progress. Truth is an especially important goal of science;
because of this, two kinds of progress are especially important-progress with respect
to beliefs (aggregating significant truths) and progress with explanations given. The
argument for this model of scientific change is that it fits important historical case
studies in scientific change, explicating the reasons for scientific success. Kitcher
claims that, over time, truths aggregate, processes of reasoning improve (become
more reliable) and consensus practice thereby expands. The discussion of historical
case studies also shows the important role of social processes, such as competition
between scientists in bringing about progress. Unlike some more traditional
philosophers of science (e.g. Laudan and Glymour), Kitcher acknowledges the role
of social processes, but maintains, against more radical sociologists of science, that
they do not spell epistemic disaster. The principal historical case study featured is
the Darwinian Revolution. Other case studies include the Copemican Revolution, the
Chemical Revolution, the development of electromagnetism and the Great Devonian
Controversy.
My paper will challenge Kitchers account of scientific change in two ways. Firstly,
I shall show that the view Kitcher states programmatically is not, in fact, the view
he articulates in practice. I shall call the (underlying, unacknowledged) view he
articulates in practice-in the case studies-Legend Naturalism. Although both views
are fairly traditional, Legend Naturalism is much more traditional than the official,
programmatic account. Secondly, I will examine the case studies on which the book
rests, and use my findings to challenge first Legend Naturalism, and then also the
official view. My overall goal is to tempt Kitcher into moving-both officially, and
in practice-to a more radical naturalism.
I share with Kitcher a conviction that case studies of successful scientific change
are important data for an epistemology of scientific change. Indeed, one of the great
strengths of The Advancement of Science is its unwavering commitment to supporting
philosophical claims with historical examples. This is the only way to respond
convincingly to the challenges to philosophical accounts put forward by sociologists
and historians of science who draw relativist or constructivist conclusions. I also share
with Kitcher a conviction that many episodes of scientific change are not socially and
politically negotiated in an epistemically arbitrary manner, but instead come to
resolution because of genuine triumphs of successful theories. However, I find that
the historical cases, when fully explored, do not support his philosophical account.
It is not enough, I shall argue, to transform Legend in the mild ways that Kitcher
suggests.
I define Legend Naturalism as follows: Progressive scient$ic change is
psychologically instantiated Legend. That is, the kind of account of scientific change
that Hempel, Nagel, Reichenbach and other logical empiricists developed is the right
account, as long as it is not taken as a set of disembodied logical rules, but instead
as a set of psychological processes that are the instantiations of these rules. Among
Legend Naturalism and Scientific Progress 207

Legends commitments are truth (or significant, or approximate, truth) as the only
goal of science, theoretical continuity and progressiveness in pursuit of this goal and
the individual rationality of scientists. Legend is also committed to viewing theories
primarily as linguistic structures, to regarding explanation as a species of deductive
logical inference and to understanding scientific method as a set of explicitly stateable
rules that generate the good arguments put forward in scientific reasoning and decision
making. In Legend Naturalism, the naturalism does no work-no data or theories from
psychology or sociology shape the epistemic account-the naturalism is just
window-dressing for a previously and independently developed account of scientific
rationality.* I must emphasize that this is nor Kitchers official account-his official
account (as stated above) is that scientific change is marked by growth of consensus
practice, especially by the accumulation of significant truths, and that this can take
place as a result of the operation of social factors, individual psychological factors
such as thinking styles (e.g. conservative or risk-taking), change in reasoning
processes and the influence of paradigms of experimentation, observation and
instrumentation. I shall show both that the view Kitcher defends in practice is more
conservative, more like Legend Naturalism, than it is like the official view, and that
the historical data, fully considered, do not support his conclusions-neither Legend
Naturalism nor the official view.
In this essay, I shall go through four representative case study examples, beginning
with one that is the least challenging to Kitchers account and ending with the most
challenging. In the end, I will suggest that the more radical naturalism supported by
case studies does not threaten some important epistemological conclusions that
Kitcher wants to draw. There is a genuine middle ground between Legend and social
constructivism.

2. First Case: Non-Legend Elements of Practice

On p. 169, Kitcher states that explanatory and conceptual progress are the primary
modes of scientific progress; thus he downplays the role of other parts of practice
(e.g. pictures, paradigms of experiment, observation and instrumentation, criteria of
credibility and examples of methodology) he elaborated as his official position in
Chapter 3. This produces a view close to Legend: although explanatory and
conceptual progress is not progress with respect to a whole, explicitly stated theory,
explanation is a systematic, unifying activity and concepts are interconnected, so

Quine, incidentally, can be similarly criticized. The grand statements in Epistemology Naturalized
were followed by discussions of scientific methodology (e.g. in Pursuit of Truth)that are, pretty much,
the hypothetico-deductive method with a gloss that, of course, logic is not a priori. Quine has never become
interested in empirical work in psychology of reasoning.
208 Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

there is much theoretical continuity and growth presupposed (p. 171). Kitchers
examples are intended to show that development of explanation-schemata
and reference-preserving3 conceptual change is the usual mode of scientific
development.
One example of an important non-Legend element of practice, which should be
included in an account of scientific change, is the use of mental models and analogical
inference in scientific thinking. Although Kitchers official view of practice allows
for this (p. 63), he does not give examples in his discussion of case studies. As a matter
of fact, he does not give any account of conceptual development.
Nancy Nersessian4 has documented the use of mental models and analogies in the
case of work on electromagnetism by Maxwell and others. She shows that Maxwell
used an elaborate fluid (continuum) dynamics model, composed of a fluid medium
with elastic vortices under stress, and that he reasoned by both analogy and abstraction
to suggest propagation in an electromagnetic ether. Diagrams were used to represent
and communicate the model. Nersessian shows that this fluid dynamics model was
not a mere rhetorical device for Maxwell, but a necessary stage in the development
of electromagnetic theory. Furthermore, reasoning with models and analogies is
neither isomorphic to, nor reducible to, logical inference. Different cognitive
processes are involved, similar to or the same as those involved in perception and
spatial representation. The use of pictures is as important for discovery as it is for
persuasion. Others have also explored the use of pictures and mental models in
scientific reasoning.5
Representation can thus be non-linguistic, and reasoning can be analogical rather
than traditionally abductive or inferential. Of course, the result of Maxwells
reasoning was a theory that was a conceptual and an explanatory advance on previous
electromagnetic theories, and after Maxwell used the analogy from fluid mechanics
to produce his own theory, he did not need to refer to it again. Once he climbed the
ladder he could throw it away. But this does not diminish its importance as a necessary
stage in scientific development. At the end of the next section, I shall show that the
consequence of ignoring the important role of mental models and analogies is not only
an incomplete description of scientific practice, but is also an inappropriate epistemic
judgment.

Kitchers notion of referencepotenrial allows for much (although not complete) continuity of reference
through large changes (but not too drastic) in theory.
4Ho~ Do Scientists Think? Capturing the Dynamics of Conceptual Change in Science, in R. Giere
(ed.), Cognitive Models of Science (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1992). pp. 344.
5R. Giere, Cognitive Models of Science, in Explaining Science: A Cognitive Approach (Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press, 1988). pp. xv-xxviii; D. Gooding, The Procedural Turn, or Why do Thought
Experiments Work? in R. Giere (ed.), Cognitive Models of Science (Minneapolis, MN: University of
Minnesota Press, 1992), pp. 45-76; M. Gorman, Simtdating Science: Heuristics, Mental Models and
Technoscienric Thinking (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1992); R. Tweney,
Serial and Parallel Processing in Scientific Discovery, in R. Giere (ed.), op cif., pp. 77-88.
Legend Naturalism and Scientific Progress 209

3. Second Case: Legend Naturalism vs Psychology of Scientific Change

Kitchers 1992 paper, The Naturalists Return, discusses two historical routes to
naturalistic epistemology. The first is the realization that knowledge and justification
have psychological, as well as logical, conditions. Subjects of knowledge and
justification should have psychological states that embody the appropriate logical
conditions (p. 60). Goldman developed this in a more radical direction (away from
the focus on traditional logical forms of argument), arguing that psychological
processes must reliably generate true beliefs. The second historical route to naturalism
was a series of challenges (by Quine, Kuhn and others) to the idea that methodology
is a priori. Kuhn used historical case studies to argue that the a priori scientific methods
suggested by traditional philosophers of science (Legend) do not, and cannot,
constitute actual scientific practice.
Kitchers official view is with both Goldman and Kuhn: the goal of epistemology
is to identify those psychological and social processes that reliably give us significant
truths about the world (see, e.g. pp. 185-186). In practice, however, he argues for a
more traditional conclusion: that the goal of epistemology is to identify good
arguments used by scientists (hence Legend Naturalized: arguments are psycholog-
ically realized). He uncovers these arguments by logical analysis, rather than with
psychological or historical investigations. Kitcher does not, in fact, discuss
psychological processes at all in the case studies-these would be perceptual
processes, heuristics, retrieval mechanisms, analogical reasoning and so forth. In the
several case studies in which he claims to describe the improvement of processes of
reasoning over time, improved arguments, rather than improved processes, are given.
For example, in the discussion of the arguments around the Devonian controversy
in Chapter 6, arguments improve simply with the addition of new data from Russia;
inferential strategies (never mind inferential processes) do not change. Arguments
and processes are not coextensive. Many different arguments-good and bad-
can be results of the same psychological proces$j and most arguments involve more
than one psychological process.7 Furthermore, as is evident from the list of
psychological processes given above, many psychological processes are not
arguments at all.
The case of the development of electromagnetic theory discussed in the previous
section is an example which shows that looking at logic, rather than psychology, can
lead to incorrect epistemic conclusions.* Chapter 5 of The Advancement of Science
argues that examination of cases of theory change does not lead, as Laudan claims,
to a pessimistic induction on the history of science. Laudan claims to find many cases
where central claims of successful theories are abandoned in successor theories; he

6For example, use of the representativeness heuristic with different similarity judgments.
For example, a particular argument used by a scientist can include perceptual judgments, deductive
reasoning, appeal to authority, reasoning by analogy, abductive reasoning, etc.
sKitchers discussion of reference potentials in the Priestley-Lavoisiercase could be examined similarly.
210 Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

infers that scientific progress is not to be measured in terms of accumulation of

significant truths about the world. Against Laudan, Kitcher argues that the parts of
successful theories that are abandoned tend to be peripheral rather than central to their
success. In particular, Kitcher claims that the concept of an electromagnetic ether was
not central to the successful operation of Maxwells theory. It was not a working
posit involved in problem solving, explanation and prediction, but instead a
presuppositional posit: Maxwell incorrectly thought that his theory presupposed an
ether as a medium for electromagnetic waves (p. 149), and this false claim is easily
detached from the substance of the theory.
Kitchers assessment of this case may be logically, but it is not historically
or psychologically, compelling. Predictions can proceed without positing an
electromagnetic ether; perhaps explanations can too, at least in hindsight. However,
unless he had posited an electromagnetic ether by analogy with continuum
fluid dynamics, Maxwell would not have developed his theory at all. He did not
abandon the idea that there was a medium for electromagnetic phenomena even
after the theory was developed-indeed, as Kitcher reports (p. 149), Maxwell
regarded the ether as better confirmed than any other entity in natural philosophy.
For Maxwell, and other physicists of the time, the ether was a posit that was
both historically and psychologically indispensable. His theory can be described
so that the ether is logically dispensable-an idle additional presupposition-but
that would be to rewrite history into a Legend that did not happen and probably
could not have happened. What route could Maxwell have taken to develop
electromagnetic theory without the elaborate analogy from fluid dynamics?
How could physicists have known then that the ether was logically dispensable? That
which is psychologically and historically indispensable is also scientifically
indispensable.
Some logically dispensable presuppositions may be dispensable historically and
psychologically also. For example, one could tag on to Darwins account of evolution
the claim And God created the laws of nature. Darwin himself did this (at least in
earlier years, when he had faith). Here, the presupposition is fully (i.e. scientifically)
dispensable, because it plays neither a historical nor a psychological role in the
development of the theory; it would have been added to any theory of the origin of
species and, without it, evolutionary biology would have continued in just the same
way.
Thus, Laudans observation-that central claims in a successful theory can be
abandoned in successor work-still stands, once the central claims are identified on
the basis of their historical and psychological indispensability, rather than
reconstructed logical indispensability. It makes sense to identify central claims in the
former way because Laudans conclusion is that the concepts and claims we now
regard as central-in current historical and psychological contexts-may be
abandoned in later, more successful theories. Scientists do not know at the time
L.egend Naturalism and Scientific Progress 211

what they will be able to view as logically dispensable at some later date.
Thus, I conclude, Legend Naturalism leads to over-sanguine conclusions about
realism and scientific progress. There are epistemological reasons for moving to a
naturalism more engaged with history and psychology of scientific change.

4. Third Case: Scientific Rationality without Individual Rationality

Legend Naturalized, as Legend, finds scientific rationality in the decisions of

individual scientists. Kitchers ofJiciu2 position is one which is much more open to
the findings of sociologists and historians that show the influence of social, political
and motivational factors on scientific change. Indeed, Kitcher, like several other
contemporary epistemologists and philosophers of science, develops a social
epistemology that will acknowledge the role of these factors but resist implausible
relativist and social constructivist conclusions. The Advancement of Science
documents the role of factors such as authority, competition and rhetoric in the sharing
of expertise, training of younger scientists, division of cognitive labor and persuasion
of peers. Chapter 8 of the book quantifies the effects of social factors on scientific
change in idealized situations, putting together assessments of degrees of
confirmation of theories with models of social interactions.
Here is a place where Kitcher moves beyond Legend Naturalized, claiming that
science is, and needs to be, a community rather than an individual project. His
idealized models of several kinds of social dynamics are interesting and deserve
application to case studies, such as those earlier in the book. Yet the move from
Legend is not far: Kitchers social epistemology is one that still presupposes
individual rationality of scientists. There are very few cases in which Kitcher will
judge the decision of an individual scientist as irrational (see Chapter 6). Moreover,
individual rationality is construed in traditional, intemalist, Legend fashion as good
argumentation (rather than-more typical for a naturalist-extemalist, instrumental
fashion, assessing conduciveness to scientific success). This leads Kitcher to overlook
some epistemically significant social phenomena in science, and I will give an
example here, after some further explication of his views.
Kitcher describes the progress of science, in several case studies (the Darwinian
revolution, the Copemican revolution, the Chemical Revolution and the Great
Devonian Controversy are central). as follows. During a scientific dispute, different
theories are elaborated. Although some may be better confirmed than others, several
may be worth pursuing. Scientists distribute effort among theories, in part because
Some may regard it as a limited victory for Kitcher that he has shown logical dispensability of the ether.
I do not think this, because I do not equate logical dispensability with scientific dispensability. In any case,
the limited victory for Kitcher is only with respect to this particular example, and is not a general answer
to those (like Laudan) who claim that some logically indispensable concepts turn out not to refer. Indeed,
at the Pacific Division Meetings in 1994, Larry Laudan gave an example ofthe indispensability, in medieval
and Renaissance astronomical calculations, of positing the existence of the heavenly spheres.
%or example, Steve Fuller, Alvin Goldman, Hilary Komblith, Helen Longino, Fred Schmitt, Paul
Thagard and the author.
212 Studies in History and Phiiosophy of Science

they do not evaluate theories in exactly the same way, but also so as to maximize
their chance of receiving credit. I2They discuss and criticize each others theories, and
in response to these criticisms, scientists strengthen the arguments for their positions.
Eventually, one theory triumphs-has the best arguments in its favor-and scientists
all come to recognize this. Sometimes they need the inducements of rhetoric, peer
pressure, or pressure of those in authority, to consider and understand the arguments,
but it is the arguments that in the end win the day. The triumphant theory (or, at least,
some central parts of it providing explanation schemata or new concepts) becomes
part of a new consensus. Then, work begins again in some new area of dispute, and
the process of division of labor, debate and then consensus iterates. Gradually,
significant truths and explanatory schemata accumulate.
I shall use Kitchers central case study-the Darwinian revolution-to show that
this narrative of individual rational choice does not Iit the historical details or reveal
much that is epistemically significant. Kitcher claims that The Origin of Species,
within a few years of its publication, produced consensus on Minimal Darwinism
(the view that natural selection is a possible mechanism for transmutation of species),
that individual scientists had excellent reasons for doing so, and that biologists only
varied in the degree to which they thought Darwinian explanations were applicable
(pp. 27, 30 and 35). This variation continued until the synthesis of Darwinism with
Mendelism in 1940, when it was seen that sophisticated Darwinian-Mendelian
explanations could explain all cases of evolution of species and Darwins views finally
triumphed over his opponents. The variation was productive not only because it
increased the search space for finding a successful theory but also because it generated
criticism and interchange that improved arguments. Kitcher claims that all biologists
reasoned rationally at the time (it is only recent creationists that he thinks deserve
to be judged irrational), both when they disagreed (while agreeing on Minimal
Darwinism) and when they eventually agreed on the neo-Darwinian synthesis. Further
progress has occurred since, with the move from Mendelism to molecular genetics.
In this narrative, Kitcher under-reports both the amount of disagreement and the
amount of (traditionally construed) irrationality. There was not, in fact, consensus on
Minimal Darwinism. Many biologists in the 1860s were persuaded by the Origin, as
well as by other works, that species had evolved, but most did not accept that natural
selection was even a possible mechanism for the evolution of species (they allowed
that it might be a mechanism for selection within species-ven Lye11 had proposed
this earlier in the century). They did not (as Kitcher claims) modify their practices
and start producing Darwinian histories and explanation schemata. Darwinism in
the late nineteenth century often meant, simply (and misleadingly to us),
evolutionism. (For this reason, one historian of the period, calls it pseudo-
Darwinism.13) Darwins theory of evolution by natural selection had serious
Individual variations here must be small, or else Kitcher could not explain how consensus forms.
This comes from the suggestion in Chapter 8.
jP. Bowler, The Non-Darwinian Revolution: Reinterpreting a Historical Myth (Baltimore, MD: The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988).
Legend Naturalism and Scienttjic Progress 213

difficulties: he did not show the selective advantage of the minor variations needed
on the way to a new species; he did not show how beneficial variations are preserved
rather than washed out in genetic mixing; there was almost no fossil record of the
intermediate forms deemed to have existed; Lord Kelvins calculations of the age of
the Earth left less time than was thought necessary for the gradual evolution of species
by random variations that Darwin proposed; Darwin did not explain how new variants
lose the ability to reproduce with earlier forms; Darwin did not give an actual
mechanism of variation; and Darwins theory of heredity-pangenesis-was not
supported by experimental test (Galtons experiment transfusing blood into albino
rabbits had a negative result). Darwin himself modified his theory because of the
difficulties, to include Lamarckian mechanisms. Kitchers claim (in Chapter 2) that
Darwins arguments were the best of all and that he saw issues more clearly than any
of his opponents (p. 42) is unjustified. Darwin himself was strongly influenced by
direct acquaintance with the details of biogeographical diversity (more salient to him
than to others who merely read about it), by his familiarity with artificial selection
in the work of animal breeders (again familiarity gives especially salient data), and
by his own radicalization in response to years of debate with the reactionary Beagle
captain Fitzroy. None of these influences is an argument.
Darwins supporters and opponents had all sorts of routes to their different
positions. Robert Young14 has argued that Origin persuaded biologists that species
evolved not because of the proposed mechanism of natural selection but, on the
contrary, because of the developmental, teleological aspects of the metaphor of
natural selection (on analogy with artificial selection). Biologists were open to, and
influenced by, Origins assumption of the unity of nature under a law and a plan.
However, they often resisted the move to accept the actual mechanism of natural
selection because of prior commitments to a teleological, progressive world view.
Those close to Darwin-Wallace, Hooker and Huxley, for instance-were much
more likely to go further and take natural selection seriously than those who did not
know him personally. Birth order played a large role in response to Darwins work;
later-born siblings were much more sympathetic because of their more radical
personalities. l6 Darwins authority, already established before Origin, certainly
played a role. Also, beyond the circle of English biologists, Darwins work was not
warmly received. Agassiz in the U.S.A.-an authority there-led an opposition to
Darwinism (and even pseudo-Darwin&m). While all these biologists presented
arguments for and against Origin-arguments summarized by Kitcher and by
me-they were selective in the arguments they individually took seriously; clearly,
they were influenced by the other factors-biased cognitive, motivational, social,
political and ideological-as well.

Darwins Metaphor (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1985).

Up. cit., note 13.
6F. Sulloway, Born to Rebel: Radical Thinking in Science and Social Thought (forthcoming).
214 Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

During the latter part of the nineteenth century, there was an eclipse of Darwinism
(this phrase was coined by Julian Huxley much later); most biologists claimed that
the problems with the theory of natural selection were so serious that other
mechanisms of heredity and evolution needed to be developed. Lamarckism was
popular (even Darwin partially accepted it) and Darwins cousin, Galton, put forward
a theory of particulate inheritance with occasional saltative leaps to a new species.
Galton also put forward the law of ancestral inheritance, which eventually, in
association with the eugenics movement, led to the biometrics school and then
population genetics. The field of theories of heredity was fragmented and Darwins
theory of natural selection looked to be in decline.
The development of Mendelism, in the early twentieth century, looked at first to
be in opposition to Darwinism: it developed in part out of Galtons work; it is a
particulate theory of inheritance, rather than a theory of continuous variation; and it
did not at first provide an account either of mutation or of an aggregation of mutations
sufficient to produce a new species. Eventually, however, Mendelians became the
staunchest supporters of natural selection. Consensus on the synthesis of Mendelism
with Darwinism in the 1940s left out those who worked on cytoplasmic inheritance
and the inheritance of acquired characteristics. There were experimental results, such
as Sonneborns work on cytoplasmic inheritance in Paramecium and Ephrussis work
on the inheritance of environmentally induced characteristics in yeastI that could not
be reconciled with the synthesis. Those working outside the Mendelian framework
wanted to address the question of development and differentiation, which Mendelians
could not address and had pushed aside. Their work was largely ignored or
downplayed at the time, but proved important for the later development of
microbiology (bacteriophages from the Pasteur Institute), nuclear genetics (Ephrussi,
Jacob and Monod did important work on cytoplasmic events and feedback regulation
that Beadle used) and, eventually, other kinds of inheritance (Sagers work and the
eventual discovery of cytoplasmic DNA).
This historical account, which I shall also draw on in the next section, is spelled
out here to show that none of the biologists considering theories of evolution in the
late nineteenth century were, as Kitcher might put it, epistemically unsullied: they
were not rational according to Legend. The social, biased cognitive and motivational
factors influencing their choices were much more pervasive, and much stronger, than
Kitcher acknowledges. If Kitcher wants to call them rational, on what grounds does
he do so? What content does rationality have, that is of relevance to issues of
effective scientific change? Who is irrational?
In my view, there is a way to regard these scientists as often rational, but it is not
by considering their decisions individually and judging, e.g. that their arguments
were good, given the data they had and the techniques, knowledge and methods at
their disposal. This internalist and individualistic standard of rationality does not tell
5. Sapp, Beyondthe Gene (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1987).
*R. Burian etal., The Singular Fate of Genetics in the History of French Biology, Journal ofrhe Hisrory
of Biology21:3 (1988), 357-402.
Legend Naturalism and Scientific Progress 215

us what we really want to know-what conduces to scientific success-and, in any

case, it is a standard that successful scientists frequently fail to meet. (Even Darwin
might not have met it-his reaction to Fitzroy, his salient acquaintance with the data,
as well as his personal investment in his own ideas, may have blinded him to the
problems with the Origin.) I claim that rationality is a property of some lucky social
groups, and that they have this property even when the participating individual
scientists are not rational.
One case in which scientific communities can be rational is when individual
scientists dissent and distribute their cognitive effort so as to examine all worthwhile
theories. Although Kitcher considers such a case of the social distribution of cognitive
effort (see, e.g. Chapters 3 and 8), he envisages this to occur together with individual
rationality-according to him, individuals distribute cognitive effort while making
similar rational assessments of theories (they simply choose to work on a less
plausible theory, sometimes, because it offers more chance of receiving credit), or
sometimes they distribute effort because they have some (epistemically neutral or
unjustified) difference in their readiness to embrace novel ideas. I have argued that
biologists theorizing about evolution in the late nineteenth century were much less
rational than this.*
Another occasion when scientific communities can be rational, and individuals not
(except derivatively), is when they come to consensus on a theory. Scientists tend to
be persuaded about a theory not when they have made a balanced consideration of
all its merits and demerits, and judged it superior to all alternatives, but for more
sullied reasons such as the theorys superior performance in their own area of
research, their own collection of the supportive data, peer pressure, bandwagon
effects, graduate school training, etc. This happens at consensus as well as during
times of dissent.* Philosophers who deny this are often trying to preserve some
Legend distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification,
now transformed into a distinction between what happens during dissent and what
happens at consensus. Consensus is scientifically rational, in my view, when it occurs

190f course, individual rationality can be reconstrued detivutively in cases where there is aggregate,
social rationality.
% Chapter 6, Kitcher saves the category of irrational for contemporary Creationists who, he claims,
are irrational because they are blind and deaf to criticism. He also claims that this is a psychological
demarcation between the rational and the irrational. Certainly, there is no psychological demarcation
herexreationists do change their utterances in response to criticism. They also change their arguments.
Judgment that they arc blind and deaf to criticism is a more sophisticated epistemic claim than Kitcher
makes out. He owes us a better demarcation. Until we have that, and in the face of his rational
reconstructions of the arguments of nineteenth century biologists, I must conclude that their actual
ar uments are less than (individually) rational.
Q, See M. Solomon, Social Empiricism, Nous 28:3 (1994) 325-343, for a more extended discussion
of the similarities between processes leading to dissent and processes leading to consensus. H. Sarkar, A
Theory ofMethod (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1983), also claims that individual routes
to a theory on which there is consensus differ. In his view, the reason for this is that different individuals
(or subgroups of individuals) have different me&o&. I disagree with this: the causes of differences of
individual choice (birth order, peer pressure, salience, etc.) do not generally have an inner logic that could
be characterized as a method.
216 Studies in History and Phiiosoplry of Science

on a theory that has all the available empirical successes, and when the consensus
would not have occurred without those successes. Thus, in normatively appropriate
consensus, the empirical successes are necessary, although not sufficient, for
consensus. This is a strong set of conditions for normatively appropriate consensus,
which I defend elsewhere and only illustrate here.
In the Darwinian revolution, those close to Darwin and to some data on
biogeographical diversity were persuaded early of the truth of natural selection.
Population geneticists and Mendelians were persuaded by 1940, when new work on
mutation and its effects in large populations that they produced supported the theory
of natural selection. Paleontologists, embryologists and those working on cytoplasmic
inheritance, were persuaded much later, after their own results were integrated with,
and modi$ed 23 the general synthesis of Mendelism with Darwinism and molecular
biology. There was bias in all the decisions, yet the aggregate decision, by the middle
of the twentieth century, took into account all the merits of neo-Darwinism.
Thus, both at times of consensus and at times of dissent, I see good reason to give
up talk of rationality at an individual level, and to consider, instead, the aggregate
response of a community to the various scientific successes produced by its members.
If Kitcher agrees with this, it means moving on from Legend Naturalism, which
constrains him to include only those social factors that conduce to individual,
internally rational choice. Social epistemology can be, and needs to be, more social
than that.

5. Fourth Case: Progress Without Consensus

Kitchers model of progressive scientific change-the expansion of consensus

practice, at the end of each successive period of dissent-is, in practice, close to
Legends account of progress. Kitchers examples are intended to show that the
important elements of progress are accumulations of significant truths (Chapter 4),
embodied in explanatory schemata and theoretical concepts. Furthermore, Kitcher
sees progress in terms of winners and losers: periods of dissent and division of labor
are seen in terms of an analogy with military battles and campaigns (pp. 203-204)
and the winning theory is the victor in the overall war. This analogy fits well with
a Legend view of the goal of science as selection of the one true theory. (It also fits
well with much work in sociology of science, which likewise views scientific dispute
as war-although with political rather than intellectual weaponry.24)
**M. Solomon, A More Social Epistemology, in Fred Schmitt (ed.) SocializingEpistemology (Lanham,
MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1994), pp. 217-233.
21My papers Is There an Invisible Hand of Reason? (manuscript) as well as A More Social
Epistemology suggest that consensus in genetics and evolutionary biology was not as rational as it could
have been-even when considered socially.
*? have developed this theme in Happily Ever After with Consensus? (manuscript), in which I criticize
both philosophers and sociologists for imposing a narrative of winners and losers on the history of science.
In so far as scientists adopt it themselves, they may not be serving the best interests of science. (Feminist
critics could have a field-day investigating the improper uses of this analogy, and of the narrative ofwinners
and losers in general.)
Legend Naturalism and Scientific Progress 217

The case study of the Darwinian revolution that I outlined above shows that this
view of progress sells science short. If we judge that progress only occurs when
consensus practice accumulates significant truths, or if the military metaphor is taken
seriously, we leave out crucial episodes of scientific development and change that are
naturally judged progressive.
As I have already said, there was no consensus on natural selection-not even, as
Kitcher claims, on Minimal Darwinism-in the years after the Origin and before the
synthesis of Mendelian genetics with natural selection. The Origin did play an
important role in the general shift to acceptance (among biologists, at least in the U.K.)
of transmutation of species, but, as Young has argued, this was due more to Origins
commitment to the uniformity of nature under law and plan-its teleological,
developmental parts-than to the mechanism of natural selection it put forward. So,
although consensus on transmutation of species (later called evolution, then
sometimes called Darwinism) was consensus on a significant truth, it was not due to
the power of Darwins arguments for natural selection. It looks like consensus for
all the wrong reasons, if we judge with hindsight and with an eye only for theoretical
truths. Yet, the consensus on evolution (which did not include a consensus on natural
selection) was progressive-it was, in part, a response to the new data on
biogeographical diversity and paleontological findings. While these empirical
successes were not, historically, sufficient for consensus, they were necessary.
Kitcher describes some of the variation in opinion after Origin-he describes it
as variations in opinion about the applicability of Darwinian explanatory schema-
and then jumps to the synthesis of natural selection and Mendelism in 1940, when
he declares the most Darwinian variation as the winner (see Chapter 2). This is a
narrative that leaves out necessary parts of the history that come from non-Darwinian
research traditions. Two of these research traditions were especially important.
Mendelism was, in large part, the development of ideas of heredity begun by Galton
in opposition to Darwins views about inheritance and evolutionary change-these
were ideas of particulate inheritance, including saltative leaps responsible for the
evolution of species,25 and the law of ancestral inheritance. Bateson and Morgan-the
founders of Mendelism in Britain and the U.S.A., respectively-both believed in
saltative evolutionary change. (Ironically, Mendel himself had concluded from his
experiments that the variation within species was not enough to produce, naturally,
transmutation of species.) The biometrics school begun by Pearson, a student of
Galtons, built on the law of ancestral inheritance and fed into later work in population
genetics. Galtons ideas were developed and progressed, and contributed importantly
to Mendelism, even though they were largely false.
Another progressive part of history that contributed to the later synthesis of
neo-Darwinism with molecular genetics came from the developmental, teleological,
non-mechanistic tradition which often used Lamarckian explanations for the
%altons experiment on blood transfusions in albino rabbits from colored rabbits convinced him that
Darwins theory of heredity-pangenesis-was false. He provided an alternative theory.
218 Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

evolution of species. This tradition grew in the later part of the nineteenth century,
and even Darwin increasingly used Lamarckian explanations for species change. Out
of this tradition, and especially in the hands of embryologists who were interested
in explaining development and differentiation (e.g. Sonnebom and Ephrussi), came
the work in cytoplasmic inheritance and the inheritance of acquired characteristics
that I mentioned in the previous section. This work made important contributions to
molecular genetics, and continues to challenge master molecule accounts of
inheritance (such as those exploited by some spokespersons for the human genome
project).
These are two episodes of scientifically progressive research which did not result
in either consensus or truth. The cost of calling these episodes non-progressive is to
leave out necessary, positive, developments in scientific thinking. The cost of looking
at science in terms of winning and losing theories is to overlook the vital contributions
of the so-called losers. These contributions are more than-as Kitcher suggests-
criticism of the winners, motivating them to improve their arguments. The winners
took substantive results from the losers. Winner and loser terminology is thus
misleading.

6. Conclusions

At the end of Chapter 6, Kitcher writes Society, nature and sound individual
reasoning combined to drive the social learning machine to a new success (p. 218,
my emphasis). He also takes care to insist that the input from asocial nature is
sufficiently strong to keep consensus practice on track (p. 165). He also tells us that
success is to be measured in terms of significant truths (p. 94). Although he claims
to be taking the middle ground between Legend and social constructivism (p. 164),
I find that his views are even further towards Legend than he himself claims; thus
I call them Legend Naturalism. I have argued using the same approach as he
does-taking historical case studies seriously-and found that Legend Naturalism is
not supported by the history of science, nor does it do justice to its progressiveness.
Kitchers official, programmatic views do better, but not by much. I have advocated
moving to a more radical-more social and less realist-naturalistic epistemology
of science.

Acknowledgements-I am grateful to Jim Maffie, Ted Morris and Bob Richardson for allowing
me to participate, by e-mail, in their discussion group on The Advancement of Science during
early 1994. This paper is a revised version of a paper given at an Author Meets Critics session
of the 1994 Pacific Division Meetings of the American Philosophical Association. I am also
grateful to two anonymous referees for Studies in History and Philosophy of Science for their
helpful comments, which have been used in revising this paper.