Neurath's ship metaphor
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5840/eps20246118Keywords:
Neurath's ship, empiricism, naturalized epistemology, scientific tradition, lifeworld, form of lifeAbstract
In our paper, we explore the question of what is wrong with Neurath's “plank-by-plank” method, which Quine later also adopted with enthusiasm. Shipbuilding experts will confirm that plank-by-plank replacement is only possible in the dock and never on the open sea. This is simply empty talk, flatus vocis, often attributed to philosophers. The main problem with Neurath's ship metaphor is that it is completely alien to the seafarers' way of life, or even in stark contradiction to it. If it is the task of philosophy to bring order into the house of concepts, the use of metaphors should also be scrutinized. Any practical test of the plank-by-plank methodology would prove unsuccessful, for as soon as one would remove a plank from the ship, the ship would sink very quickly due to the onslaught of the water. If the philosophers argue for empiricist epistemology, as Neurath and Quine do, they should not use such utopian metaphors in which the practical life world is completely ignored. When philosophers argue for an empiricist epistemology, as Neurath and Quine do, they should be more careful in their use of metaphors that exclude empiricism, practice, and the practical world of life. It is rather a vivid example of abstract armchair philosophy to explain how science works. Finally, it remains a problem to elaborate a concept of epistemology by "philosophizing" abstractly about empiricism and empiricist epistemology without referring to concrete life experiences. Neurath's boat metaphor, praised by Quine, is, unfortunately, an example of epistemology without reference to concrete forms of life, and it is still questionable whether we can achieve anything factually with such non-functional metaphors, let alone make the process of cognition scientifically plausible. The whole thing is reminiscent of the scholastic witty remark about how someone convincingly tries to talk about swimming without jumping into the water. Every sailor knows that a ship could only be serviced and repaired in a dock. Seafaring as a way of life, all the turbulence associated with this form of life, obviously remained unknown to Neurath, who spent most of his life in a continental, mountainous country, so it is fair to say that he used a very unusual metaphor not grounded in the practice of life, which, to make the paradox even greater, is meant to represent a naturalistic-empiricist concept of knowledge.
Keywords: Neurath's ship; empiricism, naturalized epistemology; scientific tradition, lifeworld, form of life.
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