Philosophy, climate change scepticism and the avant-garde intelligentsia

Scepticism is an ancient philosophical doctrine, and much of the theory of knowledge, epistemology, still vainly, or heroically depending upon your point of view, try's to slay this most perennial of demons. Scepticism has come in two broad types; scepticism with respect to the possibility of knowledge in principle and scepticism about the justifications made for knowledge.

In the pre-modern and modern eras scepticism had been revivified for largely political, as opposed to philosophical, reasons. Usually the second type was the most important variety so revived.

During the reformation and counter-reformation era in early modern Europe scepticism was dusted off as an ideological weapon to be used by the protagonists in what were quite evidently deeply political battles. During the early scientific revolution the traditional guardians of order in Europe were concerned that the scientific revolution might undermine political and religious, the two were often quite closely intertwined, authority as modern science tended to promote a largely naturalistic outlook.

So scepticism was resurrected once more as an ideological weapon, only this time it was employed against the view of the natural philosophers, usage of "science" was not widespread until the 19^th century, that nature was a self-contained and autonomous entity operating on the basis of discernible physical laws.

Rene Descartes, in his Meditations on First Philosophy, sought to counter this sceptical trend by ascertaining the foundation upon which all of human knowledge rests. To find this foundation was to banish the demon. He argued that he had found this foundation after first doubting everything, even his own existence. Though most university philosophy courses adopt this as the starting point of modern philosophy in essence Descartes was engaged in an ideological, hence deeply political, project; namely defending science from the chorus of critics who brandished scepticism as a weapon against it. His foundation for all knowledge was to make the world safe for science.

Interestingly enough, a type of foundationalist programme received a great deal of impetus from the work of Gottlob Frege, who attempted to ground mathematical knowledge upon a firm logical foundation, in the late 19^th century. Bertrand Russell had shown that Frege's work was incomplete, and Russell himself, alongside Alfred Whitehead, in a monumental work, attempted to fill the breach. David Hilbert at a now fabled turn of the century lecture in front of the world's most eminent mathematicians challenged the assembled, or anybody so interested, to base arithmetic on a firm axiomatic foundation. Hilbert was to resolutely declare, clearly looking askance at the sceptical temper, wir mussen wissen, wir werden wissen ("we must know, we will know"). Kurt Godel was to formally demonstrate, in the 1930s, that this programme could not succeed. Even in mathematics, as concerned as it is with systematic proof, foundationalism has been torn asunder.

One outgrowth, or spin-off, of this logical programme in the early 20^th century was known as the philosophy of "logical positivism." The work of the Vienna Circle, as the logical positivists are sometimes referred to, can be characterised as one of history's grand attempts to make our world intelligible upon the basis of a single comprehensive world view. Though this programme ultimately failed we should not lightly dismiss the intellectual labour that went into building it.

The machine like mechanical philosophy of the early scientific revolution was another similar attempt that also ultimately failed (not that neoclassical economists have noticed).

The reaction to the failure of logical positivism has taken on many forms. One particularly pertinent one has been the rise of scepticism about science amongst some segments of the academic left, and the avant-garde intelligentsia more broadly, in the western world.

Armed with such terms as "incommensurability" and "paradigms" it was often asserted that science does not have sufficient warrant to back up many of its claims, and that science has no special place in the corpus of human knowledge. That is to say, all knowledge is relative. Scientific claims are no more valid than any other. Moreover, science does not progress to unearth deeper and deeper truth.

Science is largely a social institution and scientific change thereby occurs for social, rather than intellectual, reasons. Consensus amongst scientists is achieved through inherently social processes, and usually follows upon intense political battles amongst factions of scientists.

Furthermore the outlook of the logical positivists was necessarily politically reactionary. This is especially a claim often made in the critical theory, poststructuralist, and postmodernist literature. Yet some of the arch positivists of the 20^th century, such as Bertrand Russell, Rudolf Carnap and Moritz Schlick were quite critical of political authority, social inequality, and great power politics. Recent scholarship has emphasised the cosmopolitan, as opposed to nationalist, nature of the political thinking of the Vienna Circle.

The logical positivism that was used in the 1950s and 1960s for nefarious ends, in the context of the cold war, was quite a distorted logical positivism and based upon a false interpretation. Interesting scholarship, from both philosophical (Michael Freidman) and political angles (George Reisch), has emerged that quite rightly emphasises this.

Critical dispositions toward science exploded onto the intellectual scene from the late 1960s to early 1970s, and thereupon became quite influential across the social sciences and humanities. The left-liberal intelligentsia developed a particular fondness for such views and upon this basis became totally concerned with obscurantist discourse and the politics of identity.

It is no accident that just as the era of neoliberalism kicked off the critical faculties of our universities put aside the economics and politics of class. The main function of the obscurantist rhetoric was to disarm a hotbed of radicalism in western society, namely the university, precisely when the top 0.1% of the population began to accumulate great wealth and power.

Critical theory, and all the rest, has been described, by Leszek Kolakowski, as being "Marxism without the proletariat." Though I quite like this refrain, I can see now that the appellation is fallacious. Critical theory, rather than merely forgetting about the proletariat, actively serves the interests of the masters of the universe. That is why it has been tolerated everywhere, even in authoritarian states such as China and Mubarak's Egypt.

This little excursion into intellectual history is important because it goes to the heart of a rarely discussed feature of the climate change debate. The conservative sceptics of climate change science adopt the same underlying argument about climatology that left wing academics have been making for decades about science in toto.

Only the left wing academics are shamefully silent about this as they poo-poo their supposedly simpleton conservative cousins.

Climate change scepticism has rested on a number of claims about the science of climate change. These range from the claim that the atmosphere has not been warming, that the amount of warming, to the extent that it has occurred, has been insignificant, or that warming is due to natural variation rather than induced by the activities of man.

Given all this it is only right and proper to adopt a typically sceptical stance about the knowledge claims made by established Earth science; there is not sufficient evidence to assert that we know that global temperatures have been rising due to human action.

It is important that we realise that this scepticism is empirically based. It does not adopt a sceptical stance toward science as such, although unsophisticated sceptics tend to unwittingly flirt with it when engaged in disputation.

Despite this we observe, nonetheless, that there is a broad consensus amongst Earth scientists that in fact quite the opposite is true; global temperatures have been rising and that rise has been caused by that "annoying lump of grey matter," as Betrand Russell, perhaps accurately, labelled us.

What exercises the mind is the explanation that conservative sceptics have used to explain all this.

When a claim, or set of claims, to knowledge is widely adopted, but such claims cannot really be justified, we must turn to sociological explanations to account for consensus. With climate change science widespread consensus cannot obtain because the claims of the science are objectively and empirically valid. That cannot be so for climate change science is unable to overcome scepticism about the proper status of the justifications used to buttress the case for global warming.

It is argued that climate change promoters, sometimes derisibly referred to as "warmists," have a social interest in propounding unjustified "scientific" claims. Science is inevitably a social enterprise and scientists rely on their publicly funded university positions and research grants in order to pursue their work. There exists a vast political machine that has not only captured the intellectual imagination but also the state, which seeks to foist left wing cultural and economic policies upon an unwitting public. By dispensing research grants to needy scientists this machine is able to control the science of climate change, which is being used in an attempt to trim the power of corporations.

This is a particular and narrow example of the elite theory in reverse that underpins much of late modern conservatism. Typically, conservatism has taken a positive disposition toward hierarchy and authority. Now conservatives, for the most, argue that they are defending the public from illegitimate elites.

One should note that there is nothing here that is not inconsistent with the picture of science that has been developed by our modish left wing intellectuals. They have been telling us for decades that science is not really objective. They have been telling us for decades that science does not really discover the truth. They have been telling us for decades that science is a social pursuit pursued for largely social interests. They have been telling us for decades that science is inherently political and that scientific consensus occurs after the successful waging of political battles by one faction within the scientific community.

Yet it is these same intellectuals that demand action to counter climate change. Presumably this is because climate change science has some claim to reasoned objectivity and empirical validity. But clearly climate change scepticism is consistent with their intellectual outlook, whereas the position that climate change reflects a genuine scientific consensus is not.

Though the scepticism of the avant-garde intelligentsia is deeper than that of the climate change sceptic, nonetheless in the debate on climate, one of humanity's more important, they should be firmly encamped, in comradely solidarity, behind the same barricades.