Neurath's boat (orNeurath's ship) is asimile used inanti-foundational accounts ofknowledge, especially in thephilosophy of science. It was first formulated byOtto Neurath. It is based in part on theShip of Theseus which, however, is standardly used to illustrate other philosophical questions, to do with problems ofidentity.[1] It was popularised byWillard Van Orman Quine inWord and Object (1960).
Neurath used the simile in several occasions,[1][2] first in "Problems in War Economics" (1913). In "Anti-Spengler" (1921), he wrote:
We are like sailors who on the open sea must reconstruct their ship but are never able to start afresh from the bottom. Where a beam is taken away a new one must at once be put there, and for this the rest of the ship is used as support. In this way, by using the old beams and driftwood the ship can be shaped entirely anew, but only by gradual reconstruction.[2]
Neurath's non-foundational analogy of reconstructing piecemeal a ship at sea contrasts withDescartes' much earlierfoundationalist analogy—inDiscourse on the Method (1637) andMeditations 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 araft in discussions by some philosophers, such asPaul Lorenzen in 1968,[5]Susan Haack in 1974,[6] andErnest 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 abog: one only takes another step when the ground beneath one's feet begins to give way.[9]
Keith Stanovich, in his bookThe Robot's Rebellion, refers to it as aNeurathian bootstrap, usingbootstrapping as an analogy to therecursive nature of revising one's beliefs.[10] A "rotten plank" on the ship, for instance, might represent ameme 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:
We can conduct certain tests assuming that certainmemeplexes (e.g., science, logic, rationality) are foundational, but at a later time we might want to bring these latter memeplexes into question too. The more comprehensively we have tested our interlocking memeplexes, the more confident we can be that we have not let a meme virus enter into our mindware….[10]: 181
In this way, people might proceed to examine and revise their beliefs so as to become morerational.[10]: 92
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.
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.
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.
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)