چکیده:
درباره چیستی مشاهدهناپذیرها مناقشهای پردامنه بین واقعگرایان و ناواقعگرایان علمی در گرفته است. این مقاله گفتوگویی را میان فلسفه علم و فلسفه اسلامی میگشاید و بر اساس دیدگاههایی فلسفی از علامه طباطبایی (1281-1360) درباره مشاهدهناپذیرها نظریهپردازی میکند. این دیدگاهها شامل «اصالت وجود»، «علم حصولی و خطاپذیری آن» و «اعتباریات»اند. مقاله حاضر مفاهیم توصیفگر مشاهدهناپذیرها را تحلیل و چنین استدلال میکند که آنها نه مفاهیم ماهویاند، نه مفاهیم منطقی/ فلسفی و نه از اعتباریات عملیاند؛ با این حال مشاهدهناپذیرها از جنبهای به ماهیت و از جنبهای دیگر به اعتباریات عملی شباهت دارند؛ همچنین استدلال میشود هویت مشاهدهناپذیر وجودی دارد و توصیفهای نظری درباره آن میتوانند واقعنما باشند. در عین حال اعتبارهایی در ساختن مدلهای نظری درباره مشاهدهناپذیرها استخدام میشوند و به این دلیل معرفت علمی خطاپذیرست. درمجموع نظریهای که در این مقاله توسعه مییابد از وجهی واقعگرایانه است و از وجهی بر عناصر اعتباری در ساخت علم تأکید دارد.
Introduction: A wide-ranging debate about the nature of
unobservables, such as electrons and genes, has been occurred
between scientific realists and antirealists. The main questions, at the
ontological, epistemological, and semantic levels of discussion, are
respectively as follows: Do unobservables exist? Is our knowledge of
unobservables truthful? How are unobservables referred to?
This paper theorizes about unobservables on the basis of the
philosophical views of Muhammad Husayn Tabatabai (1903–1981
AD), known with the honorific title Allama Tabatabai, an Iranian
philosopher and Islamic thinker. These views include the ontological
primacy of existence over quiddity, the fallibility of knowledge by
concepts, and the theory of i'tibariat.
Methods of Study: Conceptual analysis constitutes the main
method of this study. The paper develops a theory about
unobservables through an analysis of Allama Tabatabai’s
philosophical views. Although the theory that is developed has not
been expressed by Tabatabai, it can be built based on his views. The
approach of the paper is comparable to those of contemporary neo-
Aristotelian philosophers of science. The paper’s argument, however,
is based on the views of Tabatabai rather than on Aristotle’s.
Findings: According to the theory of the ontological primacy of
existence over quiddity, existence is external, whereas quiddity is
mental. Quiddity is a presentation of external existence in our mind, or
in other words, minds abstract the quiddity of things from their
external existence. Relying on this view, the paper argues that an
unobservable exists if it has real effects, and that the quiddity of things
is constructed in our minds. Although this construction is mainly
inevitable in the case of ordinary objects such as tables, the
construction of scientific models describing unobservables is (partly)
contingent.
Furthermore, the theory of i'tibariat explains how mental processes
ascribe the definition of, or a judgment made about, a thing to another
thing. On the basis of this theory, the paper explains how assumptive
and metaphorical elements contribute to building scientific models.
The paper also analyzes the theoretical concepts that describe
unobservables, and argues that they can be categorized neither as
ordinary quiddity concepts (such as the concept of a table), nor as
logical concepts (such as contraposition), nor as philosophical
concepts (such as existence), nor as practical i'tibariat (such as good
and bad). Nevertheless, they share similarities to quiddity concepts
and to those of practical i’tibariat. Although theoretical concepts are
assumptive and metaphorical, they can represent aspects of reality.
After all, our knowledge of unobservables is gained by concepts, but
this knowledge is different from the knowledge of ordinary objects in
that theoretical assumptions and metaphors, which are the
characteristics of i'tibariat, play a central role in the advancement of
our (fallible) knowledge of unobservables.
Conclusion: Unobservable entities exist, and their theoretical
descriptions are truthful. At the same time, several contingent factors
are employed in the construction of the theoretical models of
unobservables, and therefore scientific knowledge of them is fallible.
The realist view of this paper takes into account the constructive and
contingent features of scientific modeling. Scientific knowledge
represents reality to the extent that it relies on external existence. But
be that as it may, scientific knowledge is contingent because of the
role historically contingent elements play in its construction.