I bring out the limitations of four important views of what the target of useful climate model assessment is. Three of these views are drawn from philosophy. They include the views of Elisabeth Lloyd and Wendy Parker, and an application of Bayesian confirmation theory. The fourth view I criticise is based on the actual practice of climate model assessment. In bringing out the limitations of these four views, I argue that an approach to climate model assessment that neither demands too (...) much of such assessment nor threatens to be unreliable will, in typical cases, have to aim at something other than the confirmation of claims about how the climate system actually is. This means, I suggest, that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ’s focus on establishing confidence in climate model explanations and predictions is misguided. So too, it means that standard epistemologies of science with pretensions to generality, e.g., Bayesian epistemologies, fail to illuminate the assessment of climate models. I go on to outline a view that neither demands too much nor threatens to be unreliable, a view according to which useful climate model assessment typically aims to show that certain climatic scenarios are real possibilities and, when the scenarios are determined to be real possibilities, partially to determine how remote they are. (shrink)

The co-shaping of technology and values is a topic of increasing interest among philosophers of technology. Part of this interest pertains to anticipating future value change, or what Danaher (2021) calls the investigation of “axiological futurism”. However, this investigation faces a challenge: “axiological possibility space” is vast, and we currently lack a clear account of how this space should be demarcated. It stands to reason that speculations about how values might change over time should exclude farfetched possibilities and be restricted (...) to possibilities that can be dubbed to be realistic instead. But what does this realism criterion entail? This paper introduces the notion of realistic possibilities as a key conceptual advancement to the study of axiological futurism and offers suggestions as to how realistic possibilities of future value change might be identified. Additionally, I propose two slight modifications to the approach of axiological futurism. First, I argue that axiological futurism can benefit from a thoroughly historicised understanding of moral change. Secondly, I argue that when employed in normative contexts, the axiological futurist should seek to identify realistic possibilities that come along with substantial normative risks. (shrink)

This article critically examines a recent philosophical debate on the role of values in climate change forecasts, such as those found in assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. On one side, several philosophers insist that the argument from inductive risk, as developed by Rudner and Douglas among others, applies to this case. AIR aims to show that ethical value judgments should influence decisions about what is sufficient evidence for accepting scientific hypotheses that have implications for policy issues. (...) Advocates of extending AIR to climate science claim that values are deeply... (shrink)

Climate models don’t give us probabilistic forecasts. To interpret their results, alternatively, as serious possibilities seems problematic inasmuch as climate models rely on contrary-to-fact assumptions: why should we consider their implications as possible if their assumptions are known to be false? The paper explores a way to address this possibilistic challenge. It introduces the concepts of a perfect and of an imperfect credible world, and discusses whether climate models can be interpreted as imperfect credible worlds. That would allow one to (...) use models for possibilistic prediction and salvage widespread scientific practice. (shrink)

Precautionary Principles are often said to be appropriate for decision-making in contexts of uncertainty such as climate policy. Contexts of uncertainty are contrasted to contexts of risk depending on whether we have probabilities or not. Against this view, I argue that the risk-uncertainty distinction is practically irrelevant. I start by noting that the history of the distinction between risk and uncertainty is more varied than is sometimes assumed. In order to examine the distinction, I unpack the idea of having probabilities, (...) in particular by distinguishing three interpretations of probability: objective, epistemic, and subjective probability. I then claim that if we are concerned with whether we have probabilities at all—regardless of how low their epistemic credentials are—then we almost always have probabilities for policy-making. The reason is that subjective and epistemic probability are the relevant interpretations of probability and we almost always have subjective and epistemic probabilities. In contrast, if we are only concerned with probabilities that have sufficiently high epistemic credentials, then we obviously do not always have probabilities. Climate policy, for example, would then be a case of decision-making under uncertainty. But, so I argue, we should not dismiss probabilities with low epistemic credentials. Rather, when they are the best available probabilities our decision principles should make use of them. And, since they are almost always available, the risk-uncertainty distinction remains irrelevant. (shrink)

A challenge faced by defenders of the precautionary principle is to clarify when the evidence that a harmful event might occur suffices to regard this prospect as a real possibility. Plausible versions of the principle must articulate some epistemic threshold, or de minimis requirement, which specifies when precautionary measures are justified. Critics have argued that formulating such a threshold is problematic in the context of the precautionary principle. First, this is because the precautionary principle appears to be ambiguous about the (...) distinction between risk and uncertainty: should the principle merely be invoked when evidential probabilities are absent, or also when probabilities have low epistemic credentials? Secondly, defenders of the precautionary principle face an aggregation puzzle: in judging whether or not the de minimis requirement has been met, how should first-order evidential probabilities and their second-order epistemic standing be aggregated? This article argues that the ambiguity can be resolved, and the epistemological puzzle can be solved. Focusing on decisions in the context of climate uncertainty, I advance a version of the precautionary principle that serves as a plausible decision rule, to be adopted in situations where its main alternative—cost–benefit analysis—does not deliver. (shrink)

A number of authors, including me, have argued that the output of our most complex climate models, that is, of global climate models and Earth system models, should be assessed possibilistically. Worries about the viability of doing so have also been expressed. I examine the assessment of the output of relatively simple climate models in the context of discovery and point out that this assessment is of epistemic possibilities. At the same time, I show that the concept of epistemic possibility (...) used in the relevant studies does not fit available analyses of this concept. Moreover, I provide an alternative analysis that does fit the studies and broad climate modelling practices as well as meshes with my existing view that climate model assessment should typically be of real possibilities. On my analysis, to assert that a proposition is epistemically possible is to assert that it is not known to be false and is consistent with at least approximate knowledge of the basic way things are. I, finally, consider some of the implications of my discussion for available possibilistic views of climate model assessment and for worries about such views. I conclude that my view helps to address worries about such assessment and permits using the full range of climate models in it. (shrink)

An overview of the German philosophy of science community is given for the years 1992–2012, based on a survey in which 159 philosophers of science in Germany participated. To this end, the institutional background of the German philosophy of science community is examined in terms of journals, centers, and associations. Furthermore, a qualitative description and a quantitative analysis of our survey results are presented. Quantitative estimates are given for: (a) academic positions, (b) research foci, (c) philosophers’ of science most important (...) publications, and (d) externally funded projects, where for (c) all survey participants had indicated their five most important publications in philosophy of science. In addition, the survey results for (a)–(c) are also qualitatively described, as they are interesting in their own right. With respect to (a), we estimated the gender distribution among academic positions. Concerning (c), we quantified philosophers’ of science preference for (i) journals and publishers, (ii) publication format, (iii) language, and (iv) coauthorship for their most important publications. With regard to research projects, we determined their (i) prevalence, (ii) length, and (iii) trend (an increase in number?) as well as their most frequent (iv) research foci and (v) funding organizations. We also distinguished between German-based and non-German-based journals, publishers, and funding institutions, making it thereby possible to evaluate the involvement of the German philosophy of science community in the international research landscape. Finally, we discuss some implications of our findings. (shrink)

Epistemic trust figures prominently in our socio-cognitive practices. By assigning different degrees of competence to agents, we distinguish between experts and novices and determine the trustworthiness of testimony. This paper probes the claim that epistemic trust furthers our epistemic enterprise. More specifically, it assesses the veritistic value of competence attribution in an epistemic community, i.e., in a group of agents that collaboratively seek to track down the truth. The results, obtained by simulating opinion dynamics, tend to subvert the very idea (...) that competence ascription is essential for the functioning of epistemic collaboration and hence veritistically valuable. On the contrary, we find that, in specific circumstances at least, epistemic trust may prevent a community from finding the truth effectively. (shrink)