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  1. Pierre Duhem and the inconsistency between instrumentalism and natural classification.Sonia Maria Dion - 2013 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 44 (1):12-19.
    To consider Pierre Duhem’s conception of natural classification as the aim of physical theory, along with his instrumentalist view on its nature, sets up an inconsistency in his philosophy of science which has not yet been solved. This paper argues that to solve it we have to take Duhem on his own terms and that a solution can only be found by interpreting his philosophy as an articulated system which necessarily involves the following connections: 1. The association of natural classification (...)
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  • Scientific Theories and Philosophical Stances: Themes from van Fraassen.Claus Beisbart & Michael Frauchiger (eds.) - 2024 - De Gruyter.
    Since the publication of his seminal monograph "The scientific image", Bas van Fraassen is a key figure in philosophy of science. In this book, other philosophers with various outlooks critically discuss his work on theories, empiricism and philosophical stances. The book starts with a new article by van Fraassen on his preferred account of theories, the so-called semantic view. This account is now 50 years old, and van Fraassen takes this anniversary as an opportunity to review the account, its history (...)
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  • Bodies of evidence: The ‘Excited Delirium Syndrome’ and the epistemology of cause-of-death inquiry.Enno Fischer & Saana Jukola - 2024 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 104 (C):38-47.
    “Excited Delirium Syndrome” (ExDS) is a controversial diagnosis. The supposed syndrome is sometimes considered to be a potential cause of death. However, it has been argued that its sole purpose is to cover up excessive police violence because it is mainly used to explain deaths of individuals in custody. In this paper, we examine the epistemic conditions giving rise to the controversial diagnosis by discussing the relation between causal hypotheses, evidence, and data in forensic medicine. We argue that the practitioners’ (...)
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  • Scientific experiments beyond surprise and beauty.Anatolii Kozlov - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (3):1-22.
    Some experimental results in science are productively surprising or beautiful. Such results are disruptive in their epistemic nature: by violating epistemic expectations they mark the phenomenon at hand as worthy of further investigation. Could it be that there are emotions beyond these two which are also useful for the epistemic evaluation of scientific experiments? Here, I conduct a structured sociological survey to explore affective experiences in scientific experimental research. I identify that learning the results of an experiment is the high (...)
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  • Popper: Critical Rationalist, Conventionalist, and Virtue Epistemologist.Patrick M. Duerr - 2023 - Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 13 (1):54-90.
    This article revisits Karl Popper’s falsificationist methodology with respect to three tasks. The first is to illuminate and systematize Popper’s methodological views in light of his core epistemological commitments. A second and related objective is to gauge which aspects of falsificationism should be identified as “conventionalist”—a label that Popper himself uses (albeit with qualifications) but that is compromised by and, thus, stands in need of elucidation because of Popper’s idiosyncratic understanding of conventionalism. Third, by elaborating Popper’s virtue-epistemological, dialogical model of (...)
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  • Freedom and chance.Mark Wulff Carstensen - unknown
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  • Virtue theory of mathematical practices: an introduction.Andrew Aberdein, Colin Jakob Rittberg & Fenner Stanley Tanswell - 2021 - Synthese 199 (3-4):10167-10180.
    Until recently, discussion of virtues in the philosophy of mathematics has been fleeting and fragmentary at best. But in the last few years this has begun to change. As virtue theory has grown ever more influential, not just in ethics where virtues may seem most at home, but particularly in epistemology and the philosophy of science, some philosophers have sought to push virtues out into unexpected areas, including mathematics and its philosophy. But there are some mathematicians already there, ready to (...)
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  • Duhem on Good Sense and Theory Pursuit: From Virtue to Social Epistemology.Jamie Shaw - 2020 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 33 (2):67-85.
    ABSTRACT The emerging consensus in the secondary literature on Duhem is that his notion of ‘good sense’ is a virtue of individual scientists that guides them choosie between empirically equal rival theories : 149–159; Ivanova 2010. “Pierre Duhem’s Good Sense as a Guide to Theory Choice.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 41 : 58–64; Fairweather 2011. “The Epistemic Value of Good Sense.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 43 : 139–146; Bhakthavatsalam. “Duhemian Good (...)
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  • Epistemic Objectivity and the Virtues.Howard Sankey - 2020 - Filozofia Nauki 28 (3):5-23.
    The aim of this paper is to bring the resources of virtue epistemology to bear on the issue of the epistemic objectivity of science. A distinction is made between theoretical virtues that may be possessed by scientific theories and epistemic virtues that may be exercised by individual scientists. A distinction is then made between ontological objectivity, objectivity of truth and epistemic objectivity, the latter being the principal focus of the paper. It is then noted that a role must be played (...)
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  • Realism and the Epistemic Objectivity of Science.Howard Sankey - 2021 - Kriterion - Journal of Philosophy 35 (1):5-20.
    The paper presents a realist account of the epistemic objectivity of science. Epistemic objectivity is distinguished from ontological objectivity and the objectivity of truth. As background, T.S. Kuhn’s idea that scientific theory-choice is based on shared scientific values with a role for both objective and subjective factors is discussed. Kuhn’s values are epistemologically ungrounded, hence provide a minimal sense of objectivity. A robust account of epistemic objectivity on which methodological norms are reliable means of arriving at the truth is presented. (...)
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  • Aesthetic values in science.Milena Ivanova - 2017 - Philosophy Compass 12 (10):e12433.
    Scientists often use aesthetic values in the evaluation and choice of theories. Aesthetic values are not only regarded as leading to practically more useful theories but are often taken to stand in a special epistemic relation to the truth of a theory such that the aesthetic merit of a theory is evidence of its truth. This paper explores what aesthetic considerations influence scientists' reasoning, how such aesthetic values relate to the utility of a scientific theory, and how one can justify (...)
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  • The History of Science as a Graveyard of Theories: A Philosophers’ Myth?Moti Mizrahi - 2016 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 30 (3):263-278.
    According to the antirealist argument known as the pessimistic induction, the history of science is a graveyard of dead scientific theories and abandoned theoretical posits. Support for this pessimistic picture of the history of science usually comes from a few case histories, such as the demise of the phlogiston theory and the abandonment of caloric as the substance of heat. In this article, I wish to take a new approach to examining the ‘history of science as a graveyard of theories’ (...)
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  • The epistemic value of good sense.Abrol Fairweather - 2012 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 43 (1):139-146.
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  • Quine's ‘needlessly strong’ holism.Sander Verhaegh - 2017 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 61:11-20.
    Quine is routinely perceived as having changed his mind about the scope of the Duhem-Quine thesis, shifting from what has been called an 'extreme holism' to a more moderate view. Where the Quine of 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism' argues that “the unit of empirical significance is the whole of science” (1951, 42), the later Quine seems to back away from this “needlessly strong statement of holism” (1991, 393). In this paper, I show that the received view is incorrect. I distinguish (...)
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  • Poincaré’s aesthetics of science.Milena Ivanova - 2017 - Synthese 194 (7):2581-2594.
    This paper offers a systematic analysis of Poincaré’s understanding of beauty in science. In particular, the paper examines the epistemic significance Poincaré attributes to aesthetic judgement by reconstructing and analysing his arguments on simplicity and unity in science. I offer a consistent reconstruction of Poincaré’s account and show that for Poincaré simplicity and unity are regulative principles, linked to the aim of science—that of achieving understanding of how phenomena relate. I show how Poincaré’s account of beauty in science can be (...)
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  • Virtues and vices in scientific practice.Cedric Paternotte & Milena Ivanova - 2017 - Synthese 194 (5).
    The role intellectual virtues play in scientific inquiry has raised significant discussions in the recent literature. A number of authors have recently explored the link between virtue epistemology and philosophy of science with the aim to show whether epistemic virtues can contribute to the resolution of the problem of theory choice. This paper analyses how intellectual virtues can be beneficial for successful resolution of theory choice. We explore the role of virtues as well as vices in scientific inquiry and their (...)
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  • Conventionalism about what? Where Duhem and Poincaré part ways.Milena Ivanova - 2015 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 54:80-89.
    This paper examines whether, and in what contexts, Duhem’s and Poincaré’s views can be regarded as conventionalist or structural realist. After analysing the three different contexts in which conventionalism is attributed to them – in the context of the aim of science, the underdetermination problem and the epistemological status of certain principles – I show that neither Duhem’s nor Poincaré’s arguments can be regarded as conventionalist. I argue that Duhem and Poincaré offer different solutions to the problem of theory choice, (...)
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  • Conventionalism, structuralism and neo-Kantianism in Poincaré’s philosophy of science.Milena Ivanova - 2015 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 52 (Part B):114-122.
    Poincaré is well known for his conventionalism and structuralism. However, the relationship between these two theses and their place in Poincaré׳s epistemology of science remain puzzling. In this paper I show the scope of Poincaré׳s conventionalism and its position in Poincaré׳s hierarchical approach to scientific theories. I argue that for Poincaré scientific knowledge is relational and made possible by synthetic a priori, empirical and conventional elements, which, however, are not chosen arbitrarily. By examining his geometric conventionalism, his hierarchical account of (...)
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  • Theory Choice, Good Sense and Social Consensus.Milena Ivanova & Cedric Paternotte - 2013 - Erkenntnis 78 (5):1109-1132.
    There has been a significant interest in the recent literature in developing a solution to the problem of theory choice which is both normative and descriptive, but agent-based rather than rule-based, originating from Pierre Duhem’s notion of ‘good sense’. In this paper we present the properties Duhem attributes to good sense in different contexts, before examining its current reconstructions advanced in the literature and their limitations. We propose an alternative account of good sense, seen as promoting social consensus in science, (...)
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  • Science, metaphysics and method.James Ladyman - 2012 - Philosophical Studies 160 (1):31-51.
    While there are many examples of metaphysical theorising being heuristically and intellectually important in the progress of scientific knowledge, many people wonder how metaphysics not closely informed and inspired by empirical science could lead to rival or even supplementary knowledge about the world. This paper assesses the merits of a popular defence of the a priori methodology of metaphysics that goes as follows. The first task of the metaphysician, like the scientist, is to construct a hypothesis that accounts for the (...)
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  • Duhem–Quine virtue epistemology.Abrol Fairweather - 2012 - Synthese 187 (2):673-692.
    The Duhem-Quine Thesis is the claim that it is impossible to test a scientific hypothesis in isolation because any empirical test requires assuming the truth of one or more auxiliary hypotheses. This is taken by many philosophers, and is assumed here, to support the further thesis that theory choice is underdetermined by empirical evidence. This inquiry is focused strictly on the axiological commitments engendered in solutions to underdetermination, specifically those of Pierre Duhem and W. V. Quine. Duhem resolves underdetermination by (...)
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  • Approaching diagnostic messiness through spiderweb strategies: Connecting epistemic practices in the clinic and the laboratory.Helene Scott-Fordsmand & Karin Tybjerg - 2023 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 102 (C):12-21.
    Scientific and medical practice both relate to and differ from each other, as do discussions of how to handle decisions under uncertainty in the laboratory and clinic respectively. While studies of science have pointed out that scientific practice is more complex and messier than dominant conceptions suggest, medical practice has looked to the rigour of scientific and statistical methods to address clinical uncertainty. In this article, we turn to epistemological studies of the laboratory to highlight how clinical practice already has (...)
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  • Is There a Place for Epistemic Virtues in Theory Choice?Milena Ivanova - 2014 - In Abrol Fairweather & Owen Flanagan (eds.), Virtue Epistemology Naturalized: Bridges between Virtue Epistemology and Philosophy of Science. Cham: Synthese Library. pp. 207-226.
    This paper challenges the appeal to theory virtues in theory choice as well as the appeal to the intellectual and moral virtues of an agent as determining unique choices between empirically equivalent theories. After arguing that theoretical virtues do not determine the choice of one theory at the expense of another theory, I argue that nor does the appeal to intellectual and moral virtues single out one agent, who defends a particular theory, and exclude another agent defending an alternative theory. (...)
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  • Aesthetic Virtues and Theory Acceptance.Milena Ivanova - 2024 - In Claus Beisbart & Michael Frauchiger (eds.), Scientific Theories and Philosophical Stances: Themes from van Fraassen. De Gruyter. pp. 147-164.
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  • Duhem’s problem revisited: logical versus epistemic formulations and solutions.Michael Dietrich & Phillip Honenberger - 2020 - Synthese 197 (1):337-354.
    When the results of an experiment appears to disconfirm a hypothesis, how does one know whether it’s the hypothesis, or rather some auxiliary hypothesis or assumption, that is at fault? Philosophers’ answers to this question, now known as “Duhem’s problem,” have differed widely. Despite these differences, we affirm Duhem’s original position that the logical structure of this problem alone does not allow a solution. A survey of philosophical approaches to Duhem’s problem indicates that what allows any philosopher, or scientists for (...)
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  • Duhemian good sense and agent reliabilism.Sindhuja Bhakthavatsalam - 2017 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 64:22-29.
    Stump argued for a virtue epistemological reading of Duhem's good sense: according to him Duhem advanced good sense as a source of justified beliefs about theory choice and as a mark of the cognitive character of the physicist. Ivanova argues that Duhem proposed good sense as a post hoc explanation of theory choice rather than as a justification of it. I contend that Ivanova’s reading of Duhem is inaccurate and that good sense can indeed be accommodated within virtue epistemology. However (...)
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  • ‘Good Sense’ in context: A response to Kidd.Milena Ivanova - 2011 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 42 (4):610-612.
    In his response to my, Ian Kidd claims that my argument against Stump’s interpretation of Duhem’s concept of ‘good sense’ is unsound because it ignores an important distinction within virtue epistemology. In light of the distinction between reliabilist and responsibilist virtue epistemology, Kidd argues that Duhem can be seen as supporting the latter, which he further illustrates with a discussion of Duhem’s argument against ‘perfect theory’. I argue that no substantive argument is offered to show that the distinction is relevant (...)
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  • New perspectives on Pierre Duhem’s The aim and structure of physical theory.Anastasios Brenner, Paul Needham, David J. Stump & Robert Deltete - 2011 - Metascience 20 (1):1-25.
    New perspectives on Pierre Duhem’s The aim and structure of physical theory Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11016-010-9467-3 Authors Anastasios Brenner, Department of Philosophy, Paul Valéry University-Montpellier III, Route De Mende, 34199 Montpellier cedex 5, France Paul Needham, Department of Philosophy, University of Stockholm, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden David J. Stump, Department of Philosophy, University of San Francisco, 2130 Fulton Street, San Francisco, CA 94117, USA Robert Deltete, Department of Philosophy, Seattle University, 901 12th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98122-1090, USA Journal Metascience (...)
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  • Rational Powers in Action: Instrumental Rationality and Extended Agency, Sergio Tenenbaum. Oxford University Press, 2020, xii + 245 pages. [REVIEW]Seamus Bradley - 2022 - Economics and Philosophy 38 (1):164-169.
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  • The Duhem-Quine Thesis Reconsidered.Piotr K. Szałek - 2020 - Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric 62 (1):73-93.
    The high point of the falsification of physical theories in a standard view of the philosophy of science is the so-called crucial experiment. This experiment is a kind of manipulated empirical test, which provides the criterion for distinguishing between two rival hypotheses, where one is an acceptable theory due to passing the test, and the other turns out to be an unacceptable theory as it does not pass the test. The crucial experiment was supposed to play a significant role because, (...)
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  • Pierre Duhem’s epistemic aims and the intellectual virtue of humility: a reply to Ivanova.Ian James Kidd - 2011 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 42 (1):185-189.
    David Stump has recently argued that Pierre Duhem can be interpreted as a virtue epistemologist. Stump’s claims have been challenged by Milena Ivanova on the grounds that Duhem’s ‘epistemic aims’ are more modest than those of virtue epistemologists. I challenge Ivanova’s criticism of Stump by arguing that she not distinguish between ‘reliabilist’ and ‘responsibilist’ virtue epistemologies. Once this distinction is drawn, Duhem clearly emerges as a ‘virtue-responsibilist’ in a way that complements Ivanova’s positive proposal that Duhem’s ‘good sense’ reflects a (...)
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  • Pierre Duhem’s use of the return to the sources as a justification tool.Benjamin Le Roux & Marcin Krasnodębski - 2017 - Transversal: International Journal for the Historiography of Science 3:37-50.
    Les origines de la statique, published in 1905 by physicist and historian of physical theories Pierre Duhem, offers not only a radically new interpretation of the history of statics but also represents a milestone in the methodology of history of science thanks to a particular form of historical reasoning as deployed by the author to justify his hypotheses. This article uses a quantitative analysis of the references contained in the book’s footnotes in order to study the way Duhem validated his (...)
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  • Phenomenotechnique: Bachelard's critical inheritance of conventionalism.Lucie Fabry - 2019 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 75:34-42.
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  • Pierre Duhem and scientific truth: contextual, partial and real.Francisco Javier López Ruiz & Geoffrey Woollard - 2016 - Scientia et Fides 4 (2):319-341.
    Mariano Artigas understood scientific truth as real, but at the same time contextual and partial. Artigas shared some research interests and a general outlook with Pierre Duhem. We summarize the evaluation of Duhem’s thought by relevant authors and demonstrate how the way Artigas understood scientific truth in actual scientific research offers a suitable framework for capturing the realism towards which Duhem tended. This reading of Duhem runs counter to tendencies of the philosophy of science in Duhem’s time which employed expressions (...)
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  • Kuhnian theory-choice and virtue convergence: Facing the base rate fallacy.Samuel Schindler - 2017 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 64:30-37.
    Perhaps the strongest argument for scientific realism, the no-miracles-argument, has been said to commit the so-called base rate fallacy. The apparent elusiveness of the base rate of true theories has even been said to undermine the rationality of the entire realism debate. In this paper, I confront this challenge by arguing, on the basis of the Kuhnian picture of theory choice, that a theory is likely to be true if it possesses multiple theoretical virtues and is embraced by numerous scientists, (...)
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