Unknowability\u00a0<\/a>that there are certain things that logically cannot be known, such as \u201can idea that will never occur to any human being.\u201d<\/p>\nProminent among unknowables are the unknowables of science. Given the way scientific research and discovery work, it is impossible for present science to anticipate future science, or even to understand it. The reason is that \u201cevery new discovery opens the way to others, every question that is answered gives rise to yet further questions to be investigated. . . . Our questions \u2013 let alone answers \u2013 cannot outreach the limited horizons of our concepts. Having never contemplated electronic computing machines as such, the ancient Romans could also venture no predictions about their impact on the social and economic life of the twenty-first century. Clever though he unquestionably was, Aristotle could not have pondered the issues of quantum electrodynamics. The scientific questions of the future are \u2013 at least in part \u2013 bound to be conceptually inaccessible to the inquirers of the present\u201d (12).<\/p>\n
Discoveries open up questions that we didn\u2019t consider before the discovery, so that \u201cNew scientific questions arise from answers we give to previous ones, and thus the issues of future science simply lie beyond our present horizons\u201d (13).\u00a0<\/p>\n
The conceptual landscape can be so radically altered that \u201cthe workers of a substantially earlier period (however clever) not only have failed to make but which they could not even have understood, because the requisite concepts were simply not available to them\u201d (14-15).\u00a0<\/p>\n
This is why scientific breakthroughs has such a difficult time getting accepted. As Rescher puts it, \u201c\u201dScience forecasting is beset by a pervasive normality bias, because the really novel often seems so bizarre\u201d (15). He offers the example of Newton\u2019s discovery of gravitational action at a distance: \u201cIf there was one thing of which the science of the first half of the seventeenth century was confident, it was that natural processes are based on contact-interaction and that there can be no such thing as action at a distance. Newtonian gravitation burst upon this scene like a bombshell.\u201d Newton\u2019s apologists had a difficult time making Newton\u2019s theory sound plausible: \u201cRoger Cotes explicitly denied there was a problem, arguing (in his Preface to the second edition of Newton\u2019s Principia<\/em>) that nature was generally unintelligible, so that the unintelligibility of forces acting without contact was nothing specifically worrisome\u201d (16).\u00a0<\/p>\nAnother reason scientific futures cannot be anticipated is that discovery often takes place by accident. Rescher puts it clverly: \u201cNatural science is simply too opportunistic to be fastidious about its mechanisms,\u201d and he cites examples: \u00a0\u201ceighteenth-century psychologists ruled out hypnotism; nineteenth-century biologists excluded geophysical catastrophes. Twentieth-century geologists long rejected continental drift.\u201d Today, parapsychology is considered unscientific, but who knows? (17-18)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nicholas Rescher argues in\u00a0Unknowability\u00a0that there are certain things that logically cannot be known, such as \u201can idea that will never occur to any human being.\u201d Prominent among unknowables are the unknowables of science. Given the way scientific research and discovery work, it is impossible for present science to anticipate future science, or even to understand […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91,797,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-epistemology","category-nicholas-rescher","category-science"],"yoast_head":"\n
What Science Cannot Know<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Nicholas Rescher argues in Unknowability that there are certain things that logically cannot be known, such as “an idea that will never\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2014\/05\/what-science-cant-know\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Science Cannot Know\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Nicholas Rescher argues in Unknowability that there are certain things that logically cannot be known, such as “an idea that will never\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2014\/05\/what-science-cant-know\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Leithart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Leithart\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-05-24T00:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Peter Leithart\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@PLeithart\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Peter Leithart\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2014\/05\/what-science-cant-know\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2014\/05\/what-science-cant-know\/\",\"name\":\"What Science Cannot Know\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-05-24T00:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-05-24T00:00:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#\/schema\/person\/6bb7113e4dd45fe26045622aa56f891d\"},\"description\":\"Nicholas Rescher argues in Unknowability that there are certain things that logically cannot be known, such as “an idea that will never\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2014\/05\/what-science-cant-know\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2014\/05\/what-science-cant-know\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2014\/05\/what-science-cant-know\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"What Science Cannot Know\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/\",\"name\":\"Leithart\",\"description\":\"My blog is a public notebook, featuring essays, notes, and explorations on Scripture, theology, literature, politics, culture.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#\/schema\/person\/6bb7113e4dd45fe26045622aa56f891d\",\"name\":\"Peter Leithart\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f1033df9cd7263d2e0408cf9ee92ee4d?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f1033df9cd7263d2e0408cf9ee92ee4d?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"caption\":\"Peter Leithart\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Leithart\/\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PLeithart\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/author\/pleithart\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"What Science Cannot Know","description":"Nicholas Rescher argues in Unknowability that there are certain things that logically cannot be known, such as “an idea that will never","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2014\/05\/what-science-cant-know\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"What Science Cannot Know","og_description":"Nicholas Rescher argues in Unknowability that there are certain things that logically cannot be known, such as “an idea that will never","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2014\/05\/what-science-cant-know\/","og_site_name":"Leithart","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Leithart\/","article_published_time":"2014-05-24T00:00:00+00:00","author":"Peter Leithart","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@PLeithart","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Peter Leithart","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2014\/05\/what-science-cant-know\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2014\/05\/what-science-cant-know\/","name":"What Science Cannot Know","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-05-24T00:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2014-05-24T00:00:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#\/schema\/person\/6bb7113e4dd45fe26045622aa56f891d"},"description":"Nicholas Rescher argues in Unknowability that there are certain things that logically cannot be known, such as “an idea that will never","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2014\/05\/what-science-cant-know\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2014\/05\/what-science-cant-know\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2014\/05\/what-science-cant-know\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"What Science Cannot Know"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/","name":"Leithart","description":"My blog is a public notebook, featuring essays, notes, and explorations on Scripture, theology, literature, politics, culture.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#\/schema\/person\/6bb7113e4dd45fe26045622aa56f891d","name":"Peter Leithart","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f1033df9cd7263d2e0408cf9ee92ee4d?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f1033df9cd7263d2e0408cf9ee92ee4d?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","caption":"Peter Leithart"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Leithart\/","https:\/\/twitter.com\/PLeithart"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/author\/pleithart\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3021"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16078\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}