Neurath's boat explained

Neurath's boat (or Neurath's ship) is a simile used in anti-foundational accounts of knowledge, especially in the philosophy of science. It was first formulated by Otto Neurath. It is based in part on the Ship of Theseus which, however, is standardly used to illustrate other philosophical questions, to do with problems of identity.^[1] It was popularised by Willard Van Orman Quine in Word and Object (1960).

Neurath used the simile in several occasions,^{[1] [2]} the first being in Neurath's text "Problems in War Economics" (1913). In "Anti-Spengler" (1921) Neurath wrote:

Neurath's non-foundational analogy of reconstructing piecemeal a ship at sea contrasts with Descartes' much earlier foundationalist analogy—in Discourse on the Method (1637) and Meditations on First Philosophy (1641)—of demolishing a building all at once and rebuilding from the ground up.^[3] Neurath himself pointed out this contrast.^{[2] [4]}

The boat was replaced by a raft in discussions by some philosophers, such as Paul Lorenzen in 1968,^[5] Susan Haack in 1974,^[6] and Ernest Sosa in 1980.^[7] Lorenzen's use of the simile of the raft was a kind of foundationalist modification of Neurath's original, disagreeing with Neurath by asserting that it is possible to jump into the water and to build a new raft while swimming, i.e., to "start from scratch" to build a new system of knowledge.^{[5] [8]}

Prior to Neurath's simile, Charles Sanders Peirce had used with similar purpose the metaphor of walking on a bog: one only takes another step when the ground beneath one's feet begins to give way.^[9]

Neurathian bootstrap

Keith Stanovich, in his book The Robot's Rebellion, refers to it as a Neurathian bootstrap, using bootstrapping as an analogy to the recursive nature of revising one's beliefs.^[10] A "rotten plank" on the ship, for instance, might represent a meme virus or a junk meme (i.e., a meme that is either maladaptive to the individual, or serves no beneficial purpose for the realization of an individual's life goals). It may be impossible to bring the ship to shore for repairs, therefore one may stand on planks that are not rotten in order to repair or replace the ones that are. At a later time, the planks previously used for support may be tested by standing on other planks that are not rotten:

In this way, people might proceed to examine and revise their beliefs so as to become more rational.^[10]

See also

• Belief revision
• Cognitive development
• Falsificationism
• Foundherentism
• Double-loop learning
• Learning cycle
• Lie-to-children
• Rational reconstruction
• Reason maintenance
• Reflective practice
• Wide reflective equilibrium
• Wittgenstein's ladder

Notes and References

1. Book: Otto Neurath: Philosophy Between Science and Politics. 38. Ideas in Context. Nancy. Cartwright. Nancy Cartwright (philosopher) . Jordi. Cat. Lola. Fleck. Thomas E.. Uebel. Thomas Uebel. Cambridge, UK; New York. Cambridge University Press. 2008. 9780521041119. 231660530. 10.1017/CBO9780511598241.004. On Neurath's Boat. 89–94.
2. Book: Neurath, Otto . Anti-Spengler . 1921 . 10.1007/978-94-010-2525-6_6 . 780516135 . 978-90-277-0259-3 . Vienna Circle Collection . 1 . Empiricism and Sociology . Dordrecht . D. Reidel . 1973 . 158–213 (199) . https://archive.org/details/empiricismsociol0000neur/page/158 . registration.
3. Book: Kelly, Thomas . 2014 . Quine and Epistemology . Harman . Gilbert . Gilbert Harman . LePore . Ernest . Ernest LePore . A Companion to W.V.O. Quine . Blackwell Companions to Philosophy . 55 . Hoboken, NJ . Wiley-Blackwell . 17–37 (28, 34) . 9780470672105 . 869526283 . 10.1002/9781118607992.ch1 . On such epistemological analogies in general, from Descartes and Neurath and others, see: Thagard . Paul . Paul Thagard . Beam . Craig . July 2004 . Epistemological Metaphors and the Nature of Philosophy . . 35 . 4 . 504–516 . 10.1111/j.1467-9973.2004.00333.x . 24439714 .
4. Web site: Stöltzner . Michael . 2001 . An Auxiliary Motive for Buridan's Ass: Otto Neurath on Choice Without Preference in Science and Society . philsci-archive.pitt.edu . 2020-04-28 .
5. Book: Lorenzen, Paul . Paul Lorenzen . 1987 . Methodical Thinking . Chapter first published in German in 1968 . Constructive Philosophy . Amherst, MA . University of Massachusetts Press . 3–29 . 0870235648 . 14376554 . If we envision natural language as a ship at sea, then our situation can be described as follows: If we are unable to make landfall, then our ship must have been constructed on the high seas—not by us but by our ancestors. Our ancestors must have been able to swim and have somehow carpentered together a raft out of, say, driftwood. They then continually improved on this raft until today the raft has become a comfortable ship. So comfortable that we no longer have the courage to jump into the water and once more start from scratch. To solve the problem of the method for thought, we must put ourselves in such a shipless condition, that is, bereft of language, and then attempt to retrace the activities whereby we could, while swimming free in the middle of the sea of life, build for ourselves a raft or even a ship..
6. Book: Haack, Susan . Susan Haack . 1974 . Deviant Logic: Some Philosophical Issues . London; New York . Cambridge University Press . 37 . 052120500X . 1200917 . Certainly some logic is taken for granted in the presentation of the pragmatist picture. But to suppose that this shows that picture to be incoherent is to forget, what is crucial, that we are, to use Neurath's figure, rebuilding our raft while afloat on it..
7. Book: Sosa, Ernest . Ernest Sosa . 1991 . Chapter first published in 1980 . The Raft and the Pyramid: Coherence Versus Foundations in the Theory of Knowledge . Knowledge in Perspective: Selected Essays in Epistemology . Cambridge, UK; New York . Cambridge University Press . 165–191 . 0521356288 . 22206442 . 10.1017/CBO9780511625299.011 . The coherentists reject the metaphor of the pyramid in favor of one that they owe to the positivist Neurath, according to whom our body of knowledge is a raft that floats free of any anchor or tie. Repairs must be made afloat, and though no part is untouchable, we must stand on some in order to replace or repair others. Not every part can go at once..
8. Mercer . Mark . November 1990 . Book Review: Constructive Philosophy, by Paul Lorenzen . . 22 . 3 . 130–131 . 10.5840/intstudphil199022349 .
9. Book: Misak, Cheryl . Cheryl Misak . 1995 . Verificationism: Its History and Prospects . Philosophical Issues in Science . London; New York . . 113 . 0415125979 . 32239039 . 10.4324/9780203980248 . Peirce's view is similar to Neurath's. Inquiry is the process of acquiring beliefs by making adjustments to our body of background belief. We revise our beliefs (and add or subtract beliefs) so as to better account for and deal with experience. ... Peirce uses a metaphor similar in spirit to Neurath's boat. Inquiry 'is not standing upon the bedrock of fact. It is walking upon a bog, and can only say, this ground seems to hold for the present. Here I will stay till it begins to give way.' (CP 5.589).
10. Book: Stanovich, Keith E. . 2004 . The Robot's Rebellion: Finding Meaning in the Age of Darwin . Chicago . University of Chicago Press . 0226770893 . 52942713 . 10.7208/chicago/9780226771199.001.0001 .