"When we speak of colonial experience everything becomes topsy-turvy. What looks an angel in the 'mother' country looks like a demon here.
- D.R. Nagaraj, Amrita Mattu Garuda (Nectar and Eagle)
This is so from the point of view of both the colonizer and the colonized.
This short write-up purports to add a few footnotes to what Sri.A.V.Balasubramanian has written in connection with the alleged 'simplicity' of the indigenous technology in the last issue of the PPST Bulletin.
In establishing its hegemony over the colonial peoples, imperialism resorts to various types of manipulations - social, political, economic, historical (in the distortion of the past of the colonial people) and less conspicuously but equally cleverly, semantic. The invoking of the concept of 'simplicity' for denigrating the indigenous technology of the colonized people is a clear case of a semantic manipulation. As Balasubramanian has pointed out 'simplicity' has been claimed as a desirable and even necessary quality of scientific theories by many western scientists and philosophers of science. According to them simplicity not only constitutes an aesthetic virtue but also promotes and enhances the explanatory power of scientific theory and: therefore must figure in our evaluation and choice of scientific theories. Not only in science but even in technology 'simplicity' is claimed to be a guiding factor. Thus, Karl Popper while juxtaposing what he calls "Social Engineering" which he recommends, with the idea of a revolutionary and radical reconstruction of society (advocated by Marxists, for instance) which he despises, says "the social engineer or the technologist approaches institutions rationally as means that serve certain ends, and .... as a technologist he judges them wholly according to their appropriateness,1 efficiency, simplicity etc.," (1) thereby implying the simplicity is a decisive consideration in technological choice.
But when it comes to the characterization and evaluation of the technology of the non-western societies, simplicity becomes a. vice by a peculiar twist of logic. However, the recent discussions on the notion of simplicity have convincingly shown that 'simplicity' is too problematic to be claimed as a guiding factor in the decisions concerning scientific choice. By the same logic it" follows that it cannot be invoked for the purposes of 'establishing' the inferiority of the technologies of the non- western societies. The objections against the view that in scientific theorizing 'simplicity' has an unambiguous methodological meaning and scientific practice constitutes a domain of its paradigmatic application can be classified into (1) theoretical and (2) practical. The theoretical objection pertains to the fact that there are many senses in which 'simplicity can be and has been, used; in other words there are different notions of simplicity. Mario Bunge, an eminent philosopher of science, mentions four such, notions - syntactical, semantic, epistemological and pragmatic (2). Syntactical simplicity depends on the number and structure of (a) basic predicates used in a theory, (b) the independent postulates of a theory, and (c) the rules of statement - transformation (i.e. the rules that connect theoretical concepts/statements to observational or experimental outcomes). Semantic simplicity which means economy of presuppositions depends on the number of meaning - specifiers of the basic predicates that figure in a theory. Epistemological simplicity which concerns parsimony of theoretical terms depends upon experimental proximity; that is to say, the more a theory is amenable to experimental evaluation, the more epistemologically simple it is. Pragmatic simplicity depends on factors like computational convenience, feasibility of experimental design etc. As Bunge points out "No dependable measure of any of the four kinds of simplicity is known at present" (3). That is to say, there is no criterion to decide about the relative importance of each of these distinct types of simplicity. Consequently, we will not be able to decide on objective grounds, which of the two competing theories have to be validated if one of them is simpler than the other in one sense but less simple than the other in another sense.
The practical objection concerns the fact that in actual scientific practice (a) it is impossible to decide by consensus what is simple and what is not, and (b) 'simplicity' has been blatantly violated for the sake of other considerations.
That there are no clear-cut and neutral standards to guide us in actual scientific practice as to what is simple and what is not, can be very well brought out by considering the way 'simplicity' figured in the controversy between the followers of Ptolemy and Copernicus. Copernicus and his followers argued that their theory was simpler than that of Ptolemy which, in their opinion, had become highly complex and cumbersome. But their opponents rightly thought that the Copemican theory was much less simple because it needed the radical overthrow of the then prevalent world-view. Is it not, they asked, simpler to add some computational devices and hypothetical entities in accounting for certain observations than to overthrow a whole world-view? Moreover, the Cbpernicans felt their theory to be very obviously simple even though they too resorted to techniques like 'mean sun', circles moving on circles (similar to the epicycles of Ptolemians) and other adhoc strategies such that "A comparison of the two figures representing Ptolemaic and Copemican systems does not show that one was in any obvious way simpler than the other" (4). Even if we accept the Copemican system to be in a sense simpler than the pre-Copernican one, we must also accept that the latter is simpler than the former in an equally important and more obvious sense. It is because of the simplicity of the old theory that even to-day the theory and practice of navigation and surveying start with the assumption of the old view ("Let as assume that the earth is at rest"). As Kuhn points out "Evaluated in terms of economy, the two sphere universe remains what it has always been; an extremely successful theory" (5). Further, it must be noted that what appeared to Copernicus and his followers to be only 'pitching up and stretching engaged in by Ptolemians was for their opponents 'a natural process of adaptation and ‘extension' (6). No line of demarcation between 'natural adaptation' and 'artificial patching up' could be satisfactorily drawn in terms which were neutral to the contending points of view.
No wonder, 'simplicity' does not figure substantially in the process of settling the controversies at rest. In fact, in the history of science, the norm of simplicity has been even grossly violated with the result that in more than one way the new theories would be less simple than the old ones. Such violations are due to the" fact that simplicity is not necessarily in conformity, in* fact might even conflict, with other overwhelming considerations such as concilience or extendibility; that is, the ability of a theory to encompass more domains than one in which it was originally applied. Hamilton's formulation of dynamics was preferred to Newton's because it could deal with a wider class of dynamical problems and also because it can be extended beyond dynamics (into Field Theory). Yet epistemologically and syntactically it is' more complex in terms of equations and character of concepts. Going back to the geo- centric and helio- centric controversy, t he fact that the former theory was in a sense more simple than the latter or at least no more complex than the latter could not save it from being displaced by the latter.
All this shows that science is far from being a paragon of the virtue of simplicity and 'simplicity' is highly problematic as a methodological norm in scientific evaluation. It needs no argument to say that when it comes to technological matters, it would be even more problematic. Hence, simplicity cannot be invoked to 'establish' the superiority of modern western technology by declaring it to be simple as opposed to non-modern technology which is 'cumbersome'. By the same logic, it cannot be invoked for the opposite claim (but for the same purpose of denigrating non-modern technology) that non-modern technology is simple and therefore inferior as against modern technology which is "refined" and "sophisticated". Both the contradictory characterizations of non-modern technology aimed at the same purpose of 'establishing' the inferiority of indigenous technology and superiority of western technology presuppose that the notion of simplicity is non-problematic since its role is very transparent in scientific practice. The above discussion has sought to establish the dubious character of such an assumption on both theoretical and practical grounds.
But let us, for the sake of argument,' grant that 'simplicity' is not at all a problematic and contestable notion? Let us also, overlook the perverse logic behind the claim that indigenous technology is inferior because it is simple and that it is simple because it is crude, however miserable the arguments behind such juvenile equations. But there is another more obvious and definitely more familiar sense in which modern western technology is 'simple' (of course, this is not the sense in which it is used by those who 'establish' the superiority of modern technology on the daim that it is simple). Modern western technology simplifies economic production by reducing all dimensions of economic production and activity to one and only one dimension - Profit. Undoubtedly a very clear and straightforward type of simplicity accrues from such" a reduction and the consequent simplification of the role of technology. Modem western technology is an organic part of a civilization according to whose ethos, to use Schumacher's words from a different but related context, "The totality of life can be reduced to one aspect - Profits... That is the essential idea in all its stark simplicity. The power of its appeal stems also from its simplicity. Everything is crystal clear after you have 'reduced' reality to one - one only - of its thousand aspects. You know what to do: whatever produces profit; you know what to avoid: whatever makes a loss. Not only is there an absolute clarity about aims, there is also a perfect measuring rod for success or failure - profit. Let no one befog the issue by asking whether a particular action is conductive to the wealth and well-being of society, whether it leads to moral, aesthetic or cultural enrichment - simply find out whether it pays; simply investigate whether there is any alternative that pays better. If there is, choose the alternative" (7).
But let us, for the sake of argument,' grant that 'simplicity' is not at all a problematic and contestable notion? Let us also, overlook the perverse logic behind the claim that indigenous technology is inferior because it is simple and that it is simple because it is crude, however miserable the arguments behind such juvenile equations. But there is another more obvious and definitely more familiar sense in which modern western technology is 'simple' (of course, this is not the sense in which it is used by those who 'establish' the superiority of modern technology on the daim that it is simple). Modern western technology simplifies economic production by reducing all dimensions of economic production and activity to one and only one dimension - Profit. Undoubtedly a very clear and straightforward type of simplicity accrues from such" a reduction and the consequent simplification of the role of technology. Modem western technology is an organic part of a civilization according to whose ethos, to use Schumacher's words from a different but related context, "The totality of life can be reduced to one aspect - Profits... That is the essential idea in all its stark simplicity. The power of its appeal stems also from its simplicity. Everything is crystal clear after you have 'reduced' reality to one - one only - of its thousand aspects. You know what to do: whatever produces profit; you know what to avoid: whatever makes a loss. Not only is there an absolute clarity about aims, there is also a perfect measuring rod for success or failure - profit. Let no one befog the issue by asking whether a particular action is conductive to the wealth and well-being of society, whether it leads to moral, aesthetic or cultural enrichment - simply find out whether it pays; simply investigate whether there is any alternative that pays better. If there is, choose the alternative" (7).
References
1. The Open Society and Its Enemies by Karl Popper, Vol. I. Routledge and Kegan Paul. Fifth edition (1966) p.24 (emphasis added).
2.The weight of simplicity in the Construction and Assaying of Scientific Theories by Mario Bunge, Philosophy of Science, Vol. 38 (1961).
3.1bid
4. The Birth of a New Physics by I.B. Cohen Vakils, Feffer and Simons, (1965) p.57.
5. The Copemican Revolution by Thomas Kuhn, Harvard University Press (1957) p. 37.
6.Ibid p.75
7. Schumacher on Energy (Ed) Geoffrey Kirk, Jonathan Cape Ltd. (1982) p. 37.
Author:S.G. KULKARNI
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