By Olivier Paschke
I wish I could, like G.E. Moore did almost a hundred years ago, raise my two hands in sequence and claim the existence of the external world. However the problem here, if I can call it a problem, is not whether the world exists or not, but how we get to know about the world. What is claimed by a 0-D ontology or constructivist ontology is that the world is understood through the construction of models. These models are the working ontology, the tools we use to organize our perceptions about the world we live in. What I consider to be problematic is that it seems it no longer matter if our models fit the world, because it has been claimed to be merely about our perception of it and not about the world itself. What I will try to demonstrate here is that constructivist ontology automatically falls into the trappings of either relativism or idealism.
A lot has been said in Dr. Müller's paper, but I will focus my attention on two things, namely the mind body problem and its implication in the 'MIR against O-D ontology' or realism vs. antirealism debate and the problem of underdetermination, which in my opinion goes along with the problems we are discussing here.
Mind and Reality
The mind-body problem is attributed to Descartes who postulated a twofold ontology of res extensa, the material and mechanical world of extended substances and res cogita, the world of the thinking substances. However most of the modern sciences studying the mind have rejected this ontology to adopt some form of materialism that posits that the mind is a product of the brain. The brain is now the object of study in the fields of neuroscience, psychology, psychiatry and so on. With a materialist ontology, there is no mind-body problem per se. The new problem is to understand how the brain can cause consciousness. However the way the problem has been posed here is that
[...] the aim of finding the mind in a supposedly mind-independent reality is self-contradictory. Subjective experience (the center of mind) has to come first because it is the only place we can start from. Awareness that the brain, like all objects, is a structure formation inside the mind dissolves the mind-brain problem. (Müller, 2003)
Pitfalls into idealism and relativism
If the mind is caused by the structure of the brain and the brain is an object of the world, then in the case where objects are dependent on the mind, there can be no minds in a so called mind-dependent reality. It is like Escher's piece Drawing Hands.
If the world is dependent on our minds, then the world was created when the first conscious being thought about it. On top of being extremely counter-intuitive, this view seems to confine us, if not in idealism, in some form of presentism. If the mind creates the world for every individual, then the past cannot exist. Only those who are conscious live in the world they create at that very moment.
If on the other hand our mind causes the structure of our experience, we are left to wonder what causes our experiences. The obvious answer is that our experiences are about the external world. There can be no denying of that. We all have to agree that we perceive the world through our experiencing of it, but what the realist is claiming is that our experiences relating to the world tell us something about the way the world is. The only place where something could go wrong is between the world and our mind.
What is often postulated is that all we can really know and speak of are our subjective experiences. If this were the only objection to realism, there wouldn't be much to be afraid of. The constructivist's argument has to go a little further to threaten realism. So the second part of the argument is that these very experiences are forged by the culture and society we live in, modeling a perceptual schema that enables us to interpret them. What is claimed is that in fact our experiences are not about an objective world but really a subjective interpretation forged by our own slants and biases. What this implies is that we possibly don't all perceive the world in the same way.
If our thoughts are incorrigible and have no correspondence to the world, if they assert nothing about the state of affairs of the world, our thoughts then become infallible. What incorrigible usually means is that one cannot be wrong about having a certain thought. However, when man and his thoughts are the only measure of the world, the world cannot falsify his claims.
The dangerous idea behind this is that if there is no fact of the matter about the world and that we don't all perceive it in the same way, we are trapped in relativism.
An example of relativism
In case not everyone is acquainted with relativism, let me give you one example of its possible use. In the United States, in the early 1980's, there was a movement of psychoanalytic movement where the practitioners believed that half of the women had been sexually abused in their childhood. This was believed to be the cause of their psychological ills in adulthood. These psychoanalysts were literally planting these sorts of memories in their patients mind through a slow process of suggestion. After months of treatment, the patients would go to their parents and tell their tales about their childhood abuse. This kind of practice ripped families apart, until these cases went to court. These practitioners justified themselves by saying that it didn't matter if the story was true or not, what mattered was what their patients believed in order to help their recovery. We can all see how dangerous it is to make all sorts of claims that seem to fit the fact at a given moment without any consideration of what might have really happened.
Underdetermination
If indeed there is truth independent of our minds, then can we really have access to it? We all know of a multitude of older models that have been superceded by newer ones and maybe those superceded again by others. In light of all this, can we really be as arrogant as to believe that we have finally come up with the one true model to explain a given phenomena? This kind of healthy doubt and skepticism is quite important for any honest inquiry. If a given phenomena can be explained by many different models, which one is the right one? It is often postulated that science is merely a model that is just as good as any other model that can explain the same phenomena. But can this kind underdetermination really be used as an argument to support the constructivist claims? I must agree in all humility that if this situation were to happen, we would probably have to look for further evidence to cast our votes on the winning model. But this situation, in my opinion, is quite artificial. If those systems were really equally valid in explaining some phenomena, they would be the same model. No two systems are exactly the same. There is always a model that seems to fit the facts better than the other, or at least is more coherent with other analogous scientific model.
Nevertheless if it were to happen, there is always the possibility of coming up with more data or to create a test to discriminate which one is more appropriate. It is not like scientists are conspiring together to get their stories straight. Science being extremely competitive, other scientists would be more than happy to falsify their opponents' claim. Sooner or later some model or another takes the lead.
Conclusion
The epistemological point I would like to make in this paper is that if we have two competing systems, and if we were charitable enough to believe that one is right while the other is wrong, can the false system be used as an argument against the valid one. This thought came to me while trying to dismiss skepticism about the external world. I have discussed this thoroughly with various people who all claimed that there is no way to dismiss skepticism. This has led me to wonder, if the claim proposed by skeptics are wrong, can they be used as arguments against realism about the external world?
In the case that there isn't a truth out there, then it doesn't really matter what system is being used as long is can explain our subjective experiences. But as I said earlier, the threat of idealism and relativism lurks by. So my question is, regardless of the alleged conceptual problems, what is the more fruitful way of looking at the world: so called naïve realism or constructivism?