Philosophers of science discuss whether theory selection depends on aesthetic judgments or criteria, and whether these putatively aesthetic features are genuinely extra-epistemic. As examples, judgments involving criteria such as simplicity and symmetry are often cited. However, other theory selection criteria, such as fecundity, coherence, internal consistency, and fertility, more closely match those criteria used in art contexts and by scholars working in aesthetics. Paying closer attention to the way these criteria are used in art contexts allows us to understand some (...) evaluative and developmental practices in scientific theory selection as genuinely aesthetic, enlarging the scope of the goals of science. (shrink)

I submit that epistemic progress in key areas of contemporary academic philosophy has been compromised by politically correct ideology. First, guided by an evolutionary account of ideology, results from social and cognitive psychology and formal philosophical methods, I expose evidence for political bias in contemporary Western academia and sketch a formalization for the contents of beliefs from the PC worldview taken to be of core importance, the theory of social oppression and the thesis of anthropological mental egalitarianism. Then, aided by (...) discussions from contemporary epistemology on epistemic values, I model the problem of epistemic appraisal using the frameworks of multi-objective optimization theory and multi-criteria decision analysis and apply it to politically correct philosophy. I conclude that philosophy guided by politically correct values is bound to produce constructs that are less truth-conducive and that spurious values which are ideologically motivated should be abandoned. Objections to my framework stemming from contextual empiricism, the feminine voice in ethics and political philosophy are considered. I conclude by prescribing the epistemic value of empirical adequacy, the contextual value of political diversity and the moral virtue of moral courage to reverse unwarranted trends in academic philosophy due to PC ideology. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the case of Einstein׳s special relativity vs. Hendrik Lorentz׳s ether theory can be decided in terms of empirical evidence, in spite of the predictive equivalence between the theories. In the historical and philosophical literature this case has been typically addressed focusing on non-empirical features. I claim that non-empirical features are not enough to provide a fully objective and uniquely determined choice in instances of empirical equivalence. However, I argue that if we consider arguments proposed (...) by Richard Boyd, and by Larry Laudan and Jarret Leplin, a choice based on non-entailed empirical evidence favoring Einstein׳s theory can be made. (shrink)

I review and challenge the views on simplicity and its role in linguistics put forward by Ludlow. In particular, I criticize the claim that simplicity—in the sense pertinent to science—is nothing more than ease of use or “user-friendliness”, motivated by economy of labor. I argue that Ludlow’s discussion fails to do justice to the diversity of factors that are relevant to simplicity considerations. This, in turn, leads to the neglect of crucial cases in which the rationale for simplification is unmistakably (...) epistemic, as well as instances where simplicity is part of the content of substantive, empirical hypotheses. I illustrate these points with examples from the history of generative linguistics, such as: the shaping influence exerted by simplicity, via its involvement in the notion of “linguistically significant generalization”, its methodological and substantive contribution to the goal of explanatory adequacy, and its central role in the Minimalist Program’s search “beyond explanatory adequacy”. (shrink)

A rule for the acceptance of scientific hypotheses called ‘the principle of cost-benefit dominance’ is shown to be more effective and efficient than the well-known principle of the maximization of expected (epistemic) utility. Harvey's defense of his theory of the circulation of blood in animals is examined as a historical paradigm case of a successful defense of a scientific hypothesis and as an implicit application of the cost-benefit dominance rule advocated here. Finally, various concepts of ‘dominance’ are considered by means (...) of which the effectiveness of our rule may be increased. (shrink)

In 1991 Larry Laudan and Jarret Leplin proposed a solution for the problem of empirical equivalence and the empirical underdetermination that is often thought to result from it. In this paper we argue that, even though Laudan and Leplin’s reasoning is essentially correct, their solution should be accurately assessed in order to appreciate its nature and scope. Indeed, Laudan and Leplin’s analysis does not succeed in completely removing the problem or, as they put it, in refuting the thesis of underdetermination (...) as a consequence of empirical equivalence. Instead, what they show is merely that science possesses tools that may eventually lead out of an underdetermination impasse. We apply their argument to a real case of two empirically equivalent theories: Lorentz’s ether theory and Einstein’s special relativity. This example illustrates the validity of Laudan and Leplin’s reasoning, but also shows the importance of the reassessment we argue for. (shrink)

A rule for the acceptance of scientific hypotheses called 'the principle of cost-benefit dominance' is shown to be more effective and efficient than the well-known principle of the maximization of expected utility. Harvey 's defense of his theory of the circulation of blood in animals is examined as a historical paradigm case of a successful defense of a scientific hypothesis and as an implicit application of the cost-benefit dominance rule advocated here. Finally, various concepts of 'dominance' are considered by means (...) of which the effectiveness of our rule may be increased. (shrink)

This book argues for the need to put into practice a profound and comprehensive intellectual revolution, affecting to a greater or lesser extent all branches of scientific and technological research, scholarship and education. This intellectual revolution differs, however, from the now familiar kind of scientific revolution described by Kuhn. It does not primarily involve a radical change in what we take to be knowledge about some aspect of the world, a change of paradigm. Rather it involves a radical change in (...) the fundamental, overall intellectual aims and methods of inquiry. At present inquiry is devoted to the enhancement of knowledge. This needs to be transformed into a kind of rational inquiry having as its basic aim to enhance personal and social wisdom. This new kind of inquiry gives intellectual priority to the personal and social problems we encounter in our lives as we strive to realize what is desirable and of value – problems of knowledge and technology being intellectually subordinate and secondary. For this new kind of inquiry, it is what we do and what we are that ultimately matters: our knowledge is but an aspect of our life and being. (shrink)

The problem of the critical assessment of theories across paradigms raised by Kuhn is not resolved, it is argued, either by Scheffler's appeal to initial credibility or by Lakatos' conception of a research program. It is argued further that, in these contexts, the notion of reasonable choice by individuals makes no sense. The conclusion supports Feyerabend's position of "epistemological anarchism.".

Theoretical simplicity is difficult to characterize, and evidently can depend upon a number of distinct factors. One such desirable characteristic is that the laws of a theory have relatively few "counterinstances" whose accommodation requires the invocation of a ceteris paribus condition and ancillary explanation. It is argued that, when one theory is reduced to another, such that the laws of the second govern the behavior of the parts of the entities in the domain of the first, there is a characteristic (...) gain in simplicity of the sort mentioned: while I see no way of quantitatively measuring the "amount" of defeasibility of the laws of a theory, microreduction can be shown to decrease that "amount.". (shrink)

One of the criteria to a strong principle in natural sciences is simplicity. The conventional view holds that the world is provided with natural laws that must be simple. This common-sense approach is a modern rewording of the medieval philosophical/theological concept of the Multiple arising from (and generated by) the One. Humans need to pursue unifying frameworks, classificatory criteria and theories of everything. Still, the fact that our cognitive abilities tend towards simplification and groupings does not necessarily entail that this (...) is the way the world works. Here we ask: what if singularity does not pave the way to multiplicity? How will we be sure if the Ockham’s razor holds in real life? We will show in the sequel that the propensity to reduce to simplicity the relationships among the events leads to misleading interpretations of scientific issues. We are not going to take a full sceptic turn: we will engage in active outreach, suggesting examples from biology and physics to demonstrate how a novel methodological antiunitary approach might help to improve our scientific attitude towards world affairs. We will provide examples from aggregation of SARS-Cov-2 particles, unclassified extinct creatures, pathological brain stiffness. Further, we will describe how antiunitary strategies, plagiarising medieval concepts from William od Ockham and Gregory of Rimini, help to explain novel relational approaches to quantum mechanics and the epistemological role of our mind in building the real world. (shrink)

A longstanding philosophical premise perceives simplicity as a desirable attribute of scientific theories. One of several raised justifications for this notion is that simple theories are more likely to indicate the true makeup of natural systems. Qualitatively parsimonious hypotheses and theories keep to a minimum the number of different postulated entities within a system. Formulation of such ontologically simple working hypotheses proved to be useful in the experimental probing of narrowly defined bio systems. It is less certain, however, whether qualitatively (...) parsimonious theories are effective indicators of the true nature of complex biological systems. This paper assesses the success of ontologically simple theories in envisaging the makeup of three complex systems in bacteriology, immunology, and molecular biology. Evidence shows that parsimonious theories completely misconstrued the actual ontologically complex constitutions of the three examined systems. Since evolution and selective pressures typically produce ontologically intricate rather than simple bio systems, qualitatively parsimonious theories are mostly inapt indicators of the true nature of complex biological systems. (shrink)

It's not uncommon for scientists to give different explanations of the same phenomenon, but we currently lack clear guidelines for deciding whether to treat such accounts as competitors. This article discusses how science studies can help create tools and guidelines for thinking about whether explanations compete. It also specifies how one family of discourse rules enables there to be differing accounts that appear to compete but don't. One hopes that being more aware of the linguistic mechanisms making compatible accounts appear (...) to compete will prevent people from wasting resources trying to show which account is right. (shrink)

Three characteristic problems in the measurement of corporate social performance (CSP) center around the need to measure three “metrics”: the metric of performance evaluation (M1), the metric of performance measurement (M2), and the metric of performance perception and belief (M3). The central issues in each metric are commitment, revelation, and belief, respectively. This article discusses each metric and provides sets of theoretical propositions under M2 and M3 describing behavior in those contexts. Some of the propositions inM2form an explicit partial theory (...) of factors affecting the likelihood of CSP measurement. Those under M3 are developed from more general ones in the theory of testaments. (shrink)

Wilkinson (1991a) developed arguments that the distributions of primitive character states may delimit clades, and proposed a method that exploited the evidence of primitive character state distributions for inferring clades. Whiting and Kelly (1995) presented a critique of these ideas, arguing that they are logically incoherent and that the method does not succeed in its aims. This critique severely misrepresents the original arguments and the method, and amounts to no more than an attack on a straw man.

In this paper, I argue that recent sociological theory has become increasingly bifurcated into two mutually incompatible styles of theorizing that I label formalist and behavioral-realist. Formalism favors mathematization and proposes an instrumentalist ontology of abstract processes while behavioral-realist theory takes at its basis the "real" physical individual endowed with concrete biological, cognitive and neurophysiological capacities and constraints and attempts to derive the proper conceptualization of social behavior from that basis. Formalism tends to lead toward a conceptually independent sociology that (...) in principle requires only minimal reference to the empirical and ontological storehouse of other disciplines, while behavioral-realist theory leads to an interdisciplinary sociology that can be located within a hierarchy of behavioral sciences, leading to questions regarding the relationship between sociology and other disciplines as well as issues of transdisciplinary unification and possible interdisciplinary reduction. I explore the consequences of this split for the project of explanatory sociological theory within the context of how it has manifested itself in sociological network theory and social psychology. I close with a critique and assessment of formalist tendencies in sociological theorizing. (shrink)