Science, Strategy and War The Strategic Theory of ... - Boekje Pienter

angry manifestos and denunciations were published by people and organizations abhorred bythe unorthodox, and morally dangerous notion that genes have such a determining role inhuman behavior 18 .Not surprisingly, in the field of the philosophy of science ideas changed too. Indeed,they were in integral part and stimulant of the tumultuous period for they led to a reevaluationof the nature of knowledge itself. As Derek Gjertsen describes, with thepublication in 1962 of Thomas Kuhn’s remarkable work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, ata stroke the issue of scientific change had been placed at the centre of debate for historiansand philosophers of science alike, soon to be joined by radical sociologists who quickly sawin within the Kuhnian legacy the seeds of a new and more cogent relativism, from which noteven science could remain exempt 19 . One of those radicals, Paul Lyotard - one of thepremier post-modernists - concurs, asserting that, ‘the status of knowledge is altered associeties enter what is known as the postindustrial age and cultures enter what is known asthe postmodern age. This transition has been under way since at least the end of the 1950s’ 20 .Boyd was aware of these changes in the scientific Zeitgeist, through the literature heread, but also because the intellectual environment of the sixties, seventies and eighties wasmarked by highly publicized scientific debates, one of which was the debate on the nature ofscience between Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, Imre Lakatos and Paul Feyerabend. In fact,Boyd’s entire opus starts with an investigation into the way man develops mental patterns orconcepts of meaning, an investigation that is thoroughly and explicitly inspired andinfluenced by this debate on the nature of knowledge. Boyd’s list of personal papers featuresthe following works on this topic that have influenced his thinking while he developedDestruction and Creation:W.I.B. Beveridge, The Art of Scientific Investigation (1957)Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy (1958)Micheal Polanyi, Knowing and Being, (1969)Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1970)James Bryant Conant, Two Modes of Thought (1964)Jean Piaget, Structuralism (first English edition 1971)Fred Hoyle, The New Face of Science (1971)Besides works on mathematics, logic and physics, such as Gödel’s Proof (1958) by ErnestNagel and James Newman, and by Gödel themselves, the list also includes well-knownworks on creative thinking by Edward DeBono. Later this list would grow to include KarlPopper’s seminal works The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1968) and Conjecture and Refutations: TheGrowth of Scientific Knowledge ((1965) and Michael Polanyi’s work The Tacit Dimension (1967).Boyd’s OODA concept reflects insights of this debate. In a sense, the OODA loopseems a graphic rendering of the ‘normal model’ of scientific research developed by KarlPopper. However, it was Polanyi’s work and in particular Kuhn’s reaction to Popper on theway science advances, how scientists learn and how knowledge grows that perhaps moredeeply informed Boyd’s ideas. A discussion of Popper, Polanyi and Kuhn is essential for aproper understanding of Boyd’s ideas concerning strategic behavior and the function ofstrategic theories and military doctrines.18 Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works (Norton & Company, New York, 1997), pp.43-47.19 Derek Gjertsen, Science and Philosophy, Past and Present, (Penguin Books, London, 1989), p.6.20 Paul Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 11 th printing,1997), p.3.83