Between Scylla and Charybdis

This chapter outlines the development of the reductionism vs. antireductionism debate, which has set the stage for philosophical analyses of science since the early decades of the twentieth century. The point of departure is the rise and fall of the classical model of reduction, epitomized by the work of Ernest Nagel. Next is the subsequent forging of the “antireductionist consensus” and the “reductionist anti-consensus.” The chapter concludes by arguing how modest reductionism and sophisticated antireductionism substantially overlap, making the dispute more terminological than it is often appreciated. Even more problematically, friends and foes of reductionism share an overly restrictive characterization of the interface between levels of explanation. Thus, it is time for philosophy to move away from these intertwining strands, which fail to capture the productive interplay between knowledge and ignorance in science, and to develop new categories for charting the nature and advancement of science.

The Fuel of Scientific Progress

This chapter addresses a classic topic: the advancement of science. In the wake of Kuhn’s groundbreaking work, positivist philosophy of science was replaced by a more realistic and historically informed depiction of science. However, over half a century has now passed since the publication of Structure. Despite valiant attempts, we still lack a fully developed, viable replacement for the cumulative model presupposed by positivism. At the dawn of the new millennium, mainstream philosophy eventually abandoned the project of developing a grand, overarching account of science. The quest for generality was traded in for a more detailed analysis of particular disciplines and practices. The goal of this chapter is to show how the black-boxing strategy can offer a revamped formulation of scientific progress, an important topic that lies at the core of any general characterization of science, and bring it back on the philosophical main stage, where it legitimately belongs.

Lessons from the History of Science

This chapter provides four historical illustrations of black boxes. The first two originate from two intellectual giants in the field of biology. Darwin acknowledged the existence and significance of the mechanisms of inheritance. But he had no adequate proposal to offer. How could his explanations work so well, given that a crucial piece of the puzzle was missing? A similar shadow is cast on the work of Mendel and his early-twentieth-century followers, the so-called classical geneticists, who posited genes having little to no evidence of the nature, structure, or even the physical reality of these theoretical constructs. Another illustration is found in the elimination of mental states from the stimulus-response models advanced by psychological behaviorism. A final example comes from neoclassical economics, whose “as if” approach presupposes that the brain can be treated as a black box, essentially setting neuropsychological realism aside. The history of science, the chapter concludes, is essentially a history of black boxes.

Bricks and Boxes

This chapter provides an introduction and synopsis of the entire book. It begins by presenting the traditional “brick-by-brick” conception of scientific knowledge, discussing its shortcomings. Next, a puzzle is raised: why hasn’t this old-fashioned characterization been replaced? There are currently two competing models of science: reductionism and antireductionism. Neither provides an accurate depiction of the productive interaction between knowledge and ignorance, supplanting the old image of the wall. The chapter then presents the conceptual heart of the constructive proposal developed here: the black box. The final sections of the chapter sketch a synopsis of the book, and address its aim and scope.

Sailing through the Strait

This chapter takes the reader back to where the book started: philosophy of science as metaphorically navigating between Scylla and Charybdis, between reductionism and antireductionism. At the outset, two related questions were raised. First, is it possible to steer clear of both hazards? Is there an alternative model of the nature and advancement of science that avoids the pitfalls of both stances and, in doing so, provides a fresh way of presenting science to an educated readership in a more realistic fashion? Second, how does science bring together the productive role of ignorance and the progressive growth of knowledge? The final chapter cashes out these two promissory notes. These problems have a common answer: black boxes. Specifically, the first four sections argue that the black-boxing strategy outlined throughout the book captures the advantages of both reductionism and antireductionism, while eschewing more troublesome implications. The final section addresses the interplay of ignorance and knowledge.

Black-Boxing 101

This chapter breaks down the black-boxing process into three constitutive steps. First, in the framing stage, the explanandum is sharpened by placing the object of explanation in the appropriate context. This is typically accomplished by constructing a frame, a placeholder that stands in for patterns of behavior in need of explanation. Second, the difference-making stage provides a causal explanation of the framed explanandum. This involves identifying the relevant difference-makers, placeholders that stand in for the mechanisms producing these patterns. The final representation stage determines which mechanistic components and activities should be explicitly represented, and which can be idealized or abstracted away. The outcome of this process is a model of the explanandum, a depiction of the relevant portion of the world. This analysis provides the general definition the reader has been looking for. A black box is a placeholder—frame or difference-maker—in a causal explanation represented in a model.

Diet Mechanistic Philosophy

This chapter compares and contrasts the black-boxing approach with the “new wave of mechanistic philosophy.” Is the present treatment of black boxes novel and original? Or is it a rehashing of ideas that have been on the table since the turn of the new millennium? The black-boxing recipe fits in quite well with the depiction of science being in the business of discovering and modeling mechanisms. All three steps underlying the construction of a black box have been stressed, in some form or degree, in the extant literature. Nevertheless, the construction of black boxes, as presented here, dampens many of the ontological implications that characterize the contemporary landscape. This allows one to respond to some objections raised against the traditional mechanism. For this reason, the author provocatively refers to black-boxing as a “diet” mechanistic philosophy, with all the epistemic flavor of the old-fashioned mechanistic view, but hardly any metaphysical calories.

History of Science, Black-Boxing Style

This chapter revisits the earlier case studies from the perspective of the present analysis of black boxes. By breaking down these episodes into the three main steps outlined in Chapter 5, one is able to see how it was possible for Darwin to provide a simple and elegant explanation of such a complex, overarching explanandum: distributions of organisms and traits across the globe. It also explains why Mendel is rightfully considered the founding father of genetics, despite having virtually no understanding of what genes are, how they work, and even if they existed from a physiological perspective. Furthermore, if Darwin and Mendel are praised for skillfully setting the mechanisms of inheritance and variation aside, and keeping them out of their explanations, why is Skinner criticized for providing essentially the same treatment of mental states? Finally, the analysis sheds light on the contemporary dispute over the goals and methodology of economics.

Emergence Reframed

This chapter presents, motivates, and defends a strategy for characterizing emergence and its role in scientific research, grounded in the analysis of black boxes. Emergents can be characterized as black boxes: placeholders in causal explanations represented in models. The present proposal has the welcome implications of bringing together various usages of emergence across domains, and to reconcile emergence with reduction. Yet, this does come at a cost. It requires abandoning a rigid perspective according to which emergence is an intrinsic or absolute feature of systems, in favor or a more contextual approach that relativizes the emergent status of a property or behavior to a specific explanatory frame of reference.

Placeholders

Black boxes are placeholders. What is a placeholder? What role do they play in science? These questions are addressed via a discussion of biological fitness. Fitness is the propensity of an organism or a trait to survive and reproduce. In addition, fitness is a placeholder for a deeper account that dispenses with the concept of fitness altogether. These two theses are in tension. Qua placeholder, fitness is explanatory. Qua disposition, it explicates but cannot explain the associated behavior. The solution involves drawing a distinction between two kinds of placeholders. First, a placeholder may stand in for the range of events to be accounted for. In this case, the placeholder functions as a frame. It spells out a range of behaviors in need of explanation. Second, a placeholder may stand in for mechanisms which bring about the behavior specified by the frame. When this occurs, the placeholder becomes an explanans and one can refer to it as a difference-maker.