Black Boxes: How Science Turns Ignorance Into Knowledge

Length: 312 pages
Edition: 1
Language: English
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Publication Date: 2021-08-02
ISBN-10: 0190095482
ISBN-13: 9780190095482
Sales Rank: #0 (See Top 100 Books)

Textbooks and other popular venues commonly present science as a progressive “brick-by-brick” accumulation of knowledge and facts. Despite its hallowed history and familiar ring, this depiction is nowadays rejected by most specialists. There currently are two competing models of the scientific enterprise: reductionism and antireductionism. Neither provides an accurate depiction of the productive interaction between knowledge and ignorance, supplanting the old metaphor of the “wall” of knowledge.

This book explores an original conception of the nature and advancement of science. Marco J. Nathan’s proposed shift brings attention to a prominent, albeit often neglected, construct–the black box–which underlies a well-oiled technique for incorporating a productive role of ignorance and failure into the acquisition of empirical knowledge. The black box is a metaphorical term used by scientists for the isolation of a complex phenomenon that they have deliberately set aside or may not yet fully understand. What is a black box? How does it work? How do we construct one? How do we determine what to include and what to leave out? What role do boxes play in contemporary scientific practice? Nathan’s monograph develops an overarching framework for thinking about black boxes and discusses prominent historical cases that used it, including Darwin’s view of inheritance in his theory of evolution and the “stimulus-response model” in psychology, among others. By detailing some fascinating episodes in the history of biology, psychology, and economics, Nathan revisits foundational questions about causation, explanation, emergence, and progress, showing how the insights of both reductionism and antireductionism can be reconciled into a fresh and exciting approach to science.

cover
Black Boxes
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Preface
1. Bricks and Boxes
	1.1. The Wall
	1.2. A Theory of Everything?
	1.3. Pandora’s Gift to Science: The Black Box
	1.4. Structure and Synopsis
	1.5. Aim and Scope
2. Between Scylla and Charybdis
	2.1. Introduction
	2.2. The Rock Shoal and the Whirlpool
	2.3. The Rise and Fall of Classical Reductionism
	2.4. Antireductionism Strikes Back
	2.5. The Reductionists Return
	2.6. Scylla or Charybdis?
	2.7. Why Not Have the Cake and Eat It Too?
3. Lessons from the History of Science
	3.1. Introduction
	3.2. Darwin’s Quest for Inheritance and Variation
	3.3. Mendel’s Missing Mechanisms: A Tale of Two Syntheses
	3.4. Absent-Minded: Psychological Behaviorism
	3.5. The Nature and Significance of Economics
	3.6. The Many Faces of Black Boxes
4. Placeholders
	4.1. Introduction
	4.2. Two Theses about Fitness
	4.3. Are Dispositions Explanatory?
	4.4. Placeholders in Scientific Theory and Practice
	4.5. Two Types of Placeholders
5. Black-Boxing 101
	5.1. Introduction
	5.2. Step One: The Framing Stage
	5.3. Step Two: The Difference-Making Stage
	5.4. Step Three: The Representation Stage
	5.5. What Is a Black Box? A Three-Part Recipe
6. History of Science, Black-Boxing Style
	6.1. Introduction
	6.2. Darwin’s Black Boxes
	6.3. Mendel’s Black Boxes
	6.4. Skinner’s Black Boxes
	6.5. Friedman’s Black Boxes
	6.6. Black Boxes in Science
7. Diet Mechanistic Philosophy
	7.1. Introduction
	7.2. The New Mechanistic Philosophy
	7.3. Three Steps: A Neo-Mechanistic Perspective
	7.4. Mechanisms, Models, and Metaphysics
	7.5. Mechanisms and Black Boxes
	7.6. What’s in a Mechanism?
	7.7. The Diet Recipe
8. Emergence Reframed
	8.1. Introduction
	8.2. Emergence: Metaphysical or Epistemic?
	8.3. Emergence in Action: Systems Neuroscience
	8.4. Emergents and Black Boxes
	8.5. Refinements and Implications
	8.6. Adequacy Conditions and Advantages
	8.7. Concluding Remarks
9. The Fuel of Scientific Progress
	9.1. Introduction
	9.2. The Roots of Incommensurability
	9.3. Referential Models and Incommensurability
	9.4. Black Boxes and Reference Potential, Part I
	9.5. Black Boxes and Reference Potential, Part II
	9.6. Incommensurability, Progress, and Black Boxes
10. Sailing through the Strait
	10.1. Back to Bricks and Boxes
	10.2. The Quagmire
	10.3. Rocking the Rock, Weathering the Whirlpool
	10.4. A History of Black Boxes
	10.5. The Devil in the Details?
References
Index