I discuss the relevance of the current predicament in cosmology to the debate over scientific realism. I argue that the existence of two, empirically successful but ontologically inconsistent cosmological theories presents difficulties for the realist position.

A methodology of science must satisfy two requirements: (i) It must be ampliative: the theories which it generates must make statements that go far beyond any data or observations that may have motivated those theories in the first place. (ii) It must be epistemically probative: it must somehow provide a warrant for believing that the theories so produced are correct, or at least partially correct, even if they can never be fully confirmed. These two requirements pull in opposite directions, and (...) attempts to specify the “scientific method” often focus on one to the exclusion of the other. On a few points there now exists something approaching a consensus. (i) Scientific hypotheses — including, particularly, statements about unobserved or unobservable entities or mechanisms — remain conjectural, no matter how frequently predictions based on those hypotheses are found to coincide with data. (ii) A good (best?) indicator of a theory’s verisimilitude is its ability to successfully predict phenomena which it was not specifically designed to predict. I discuss these ideas with particular reference to cosmological theories. (shrink)

A common objection to a pragmatist perspective on scientific expertise is that, while there is a well-known pragmatist theory of inquiry, which was formulated first by Peirce, then refined by Dewey and others, this theory cannot provide a clear-cut account of scientific expertise. In this paper, after addressing this objection in the second section, I claim that, on the contrary, pragmatism offers robust tools to think scientific expertise. In Sections 3 to 7, I present five important insights that one can (...) derive from a pragmatist epistemology when responding to contemporary problems posed by expertise: about science and scientific expertise in a legal context (sections 3 and 4), about collective expertise (sections 5 and 6), and even about expertise on ignorance (section 7). (shrink)

In this paper it is argued that there are relevant similarities of Aristotle's account of definition and Carnap's account of explication. To show this, first, Aristotle's conditions of adequacy for definitions are provided and an outline of the main critique put forward against Aristotle's account of definition is given. Subsequently, Carnap's conditions of adequacy for explications are presented and discussed. It is shown that Aristotle's conditions of extensional correctness can be interpreted against the backdrop of Carnap's condition of similarity once (...) one skips Aristotelian essentialism and takes in a Carnapian and more pragmatic stance. Finally, it is argued that, in general, a complementary rational reconstruction of both approaches allows for resolving problems of interpretational underdetermination. (shrink)

La filosofía de la ciencia se desarrolló durante la primera mitad del siglo xx bajo el supuesto de que la ciencia podía caracterizarse por la estructura lógica tanto del conocimiento articulado en las teorías más exitosas como de sus explicaciones. En la segunda mitad del siglo xx se cuestiona fuertemente esa idea, pero se sigue asumiendo que la filosofía de la ciencia debe hacerse siguiendo los cánones de una epistemología fundamentalista que considera que el avance de la ciencia pasa por (...) una ontología cada vez mas austera guiada por la idea de "mientras menos mejor". Desde esta perspectiva fundamentalista, el que las diferentes ciencias hablen de diferentes tipos de cosas es un obstáculo al entendimiento, producto de la imperfección del conocimiento actual. Este ideal nos invita a pensar que la epistemología debe hacerse reflexionando sobre el conocimiento articulado en nuestras teorías más austeras y nos compromete con propuestas reduccionistas problemáticas que no permiten explicar la diversidad de recursos epistémicos que de hecho utilizan los científicos. En este libro promovemos una epistemología que no sigue el lema de "mientras menos mejor", sino el de "organizar nuestros recursos epistémicos de manera que se genere entendimiento". Así, la misma estructura de las explicaciones y las prácticas (que incluye métodos y normas respecto de lo que se considera plausible y valioso) es lo que nos da la pauta para responder a la pregunta de qué es lo que hay. Esta estrategia epistémica nos obliga a hacer una filosofía de la ciencia muy cercana a la ciencia, reconociendo la pluralidad de sus métodos, objetivos y prácticas, sin reducir la filosofía de la ciencia a la sociología o a cualquier otra ciencia en particular. (shrink)

Heisenberg, in constructing quantum mechanics, explicitly followed certain principles exemplified, as he believed, in Einstein's construction of the special theory of relativity which for him was the paradigm for radical theoretic change in physics. These were the principles of scientific realism, stability of background knowledge, E-observability, contextual re-interpretation, pragmatic continuity, model continuity, simplicity. Fifty years later, in retrospect, Heisenberg added the following two: a principle of non-proliferation of competing theories - scientific revolutions are not a legitimate goal of physics - (...) and a principle of tenacity - existing theories are to be conserved as far as possible. The conservative as well as the revolutionary potential of these principles is then discussed. A more penetrating philosophical criticism of these principles is postponed. (shrink)

Proponents of the no-miracles argument contend that scientific realism is “the only philosophy that doesn’t make the success of science a miracle.” Bas van Fraassen argued, however, that the success of our best theories can be explained in Darwinian terms—by the fact they are survivors of a winnowing process in which unsuccessful theories are rejected. Critics of this selectionist explanation complain that while it may account for the fact we have chosen successful theories, it does not explain why any particular (...) one of those theories succeeds. Against this I defend the claim that if selectionists manage to account for the former, they have no burden to account for the latter; the success of any particular one of our best theories might as well be an extraordinary coincidence. I refer to this enhanced selectionist reply as “coincidentalism” and argue that it is a serious but underappreciated response to the no-miracles argument. More generally, I argue the considerations raised in favor of this response show that versions of the no-miracles argument focusing on the success of particular theories are misguided. (shrink)

This paper (in Finnish) concerns the ontological status of categories of entities. I argue that categories are not be considered as further entities. Rather, it is suffcient for entities belonging to the same category that they are in exactly the same formal ontological relations and have the same general category features.

Robert H. Holden, in ‘The Public University's Unbearable Defiance of Being’ (2009, Educational Philosophy and Theory, 41:5, pp. 575–591) argues that the public university ought to welcome the infusion of relevant beliefs, including religious ones, in carrying out its research and teaching responsibilities. In this paper, I examine whether he has shown that some opinions are suppressed, whether he has shown that other views are hegemonic, the central argument that lies behind his thinking, and then consider the educational consequences of (...) his position. (shrink)

A common criticism of Hume’s famous anti-induction argument is that it is vitiated because it fails to foreclose the possibility of an authentically probabilistic justification of induction. I argue that this claim is false, and that on the contrary, the probability calculus itself, in the form of an elementary consequence that I call Hume’s Theorem, fully endorses Hume’s argument. Various objections, including the often-made claim that Hume is defeated by de Finetti’s exchangeability results, are considered and rejected.

My title, “Belief in Naturalism,” signals, not that I adopt naturalism as an article of faith, but that my purpose in this paper is to shed some light on what belief is, on why the concept of belief is needed in epistemology, and how all this relates to debates about epistemological naturalism. After clarifying the many varieties of naturalism, philosophical and other (section 1), and then the various forms of epistemological naturalism specifically (section 2), I offer a theory of belief (...) in which three elements – the behavioral, the neurophysiological, and the socio-historical – interlock (section 3), and apply this theory to resolve some contested questions: about whether animals and pre-linguistic infants have beliefs, about the fallibility of introspection, and about self-deception (section 4). (shrink)

Zwart and Franssen’s impossibility theorem reveals a conflict between the possible-world-based content-definition and the possible-world-based likeness-definition of verisimilitude. In Sect. 2 we show that the possible-world-based content-definition violates four basic intuitions of Popper’s consequence-based content-account to verisimilitude, and therefore cannot be said to be in the spirit of Popper’s account, although this is the opinion of some prominent authors. In Sect. 3 we argue that in consequence-accounts, content-aspects and likeness-aspects of verisimilitude are not in conflict with each other, but in (...) agreement. We explain this fact by pointing towards the deep difference between possible-world- and the consequence-accounts, which does not lie in the difference between syntactic versus semantic formulations, but in the difference between ‘disjunction-of-possible-worlds’ versus ‘conjunction-of-parts’ representations of theories. Drawing on earlier work, we explain in Sect. 4 how the shortcomings of Popper’s original definition can be repaired by what we call the relevant element approach. We propose a quantitative likeness-definition of verisimilitude based on relevant elements which provably agrees with the qualitative relevant content-definition of verisimilitude on all pairs of comparable theories. We conclude the paper with a plea for consequence-accounts and a brief analysis of the problem of language-dependence. (shrink)

Since the mid-1970s, scholars have recognized that the skeptical interpretation of Hume's central argument about induction is problematic. The science of human nature presupposes that inductive inference is justified and there are endorsements of induction throughout "Treatise" Book I. The recent suggestion that I.iii.6 is confined to the psychology of inductive inference cannot account for the epistemic flavor of its claims that neither a genuine demonstration nor a non-question-begging inductive argument can establish the uniformity principle. For Hume, that inductive inference (...) is justified is part of the data to be explained. Bad argument is therefore excluded as the cause of inductive inference; and there is no good argument to cause it. Does this reinstate the problem of induction, undermining Hume's own assumption that induction is justified? It does so only if justification must derive from "reason", from the availability of a cogent argument. Hume rejects this internalist thesis; induction's favorable epistemic status derives from features of custom, the mechanism that generates inductive beliefs. Hume is attracted to this externalist posture because it provides a direct explanation of the epistemic achievements of children and non-human animals — creatures that must rely on custom unsupplemented by argument. (shrink)

This paper begins with an analysis of global problems shaping education, particularly as they impact upon learning and life chances. In addressing these problems a range of philosophical positions and controversies are considered, including: traditional romantic and institutional views of schooling; and more recent maximalist, neo-liberal, emancipatory and post-modern-perspectives of lifelong learning. In this paper we argue that these do not represent 'the last word' on the provision of learning and the enhancement of life chances and instead we put forward (...) an alternative view based upon the notion of adopting an inclusive problem-solving approach, which we believe may be better suited to offering solutions to the various global problems that have been identified or that are still emerging. We believe that such an approach addresses and expands the individual, social, economic and political features of education and conduces to the improvement and expansion of learning and life chances. (shrink)

Radical constructivism has had a major influence on present-day education, especially in the teaching of science and mathematics. The article provides an epistemological profile of constructivism and considers its strengths and weaknesses from the standpoint of its educational implications. It is argued that there are two central problems with constructivism: anti-realism and individualism which, in turn, lead to difficulties associated with idealism and relativism which, together, prove fatal for the theory.

Scientists routinely solve the problem of supplementing one’s store of variables with new theoretical posits that can explain the previously inexplicable. The banality of success at this task obscures a remarkable fact. Generating hypotheses that contain novel variables and accurately project over a limited amount of additional data is so difficult—the space of possibilities so vast—that succeeding through guesswork is overwhelmingly unlikely despite a very large number of attempts. And yet scientists do generate hypotheses of this sort in very few (...) tries. I argue that this poses a dilemma: either the long history of scientific success is a miracle, or there exists at least one method or algorithm for generating novel hypotheses with at least limited projectibility on the basis of what’s available to the scientist at a time, namely a set of observations, the history of past conjectures, and some prior theoretical commitments. In other words, either ordinary scientific success is miraculous or there exists a logic of discovery at the heart of actual scientific method. (shrink)

The view that the subject matter of epistemology is the concept of knowledge is faced with the problem that all attempts so far to define that concept are subject to counterexamples. As an alternative, this article argues that the subject matter of epistemology is knowledge itself rather than the concept of knowledge. Moreover, knowledge is not merely a state of mind but rather a certain kind of response to the environment that is essential for survival. In this perspective, the article (...) outlines an answer to four basic questions about knowledge: What is the role of knowledge in human life? What is the relation between knowledge and reality? How is knowledge acquired? Is there any a priori knowledge? (shrink)

a This is an outline of a coherence theory of law. Its basic ideas are: reasonable support and weighing of reasons. All the rest is commentary.a (TM) These words at the beginning of the preface of this book perfectly indicate what On Law and Reason is about. It is a theory about the nature of the law which emphasises the role of reason in the law and which refuses to limit the role of reason to the application of deductive logic. (...) In 1989, when the first edition of On Law and Reason appeared, this book was ground breaking for several reasons. It provided a rationalistic theory of the law in the language of analytic philosophy and based on a thorough understanding of the results, including technical ones, of analytic philosophy. That was not an obvious combination at the time of the booka (TM)s first appearance and still is not. The result is an analytical rigor that is usually associated with positivist theories of the law, combined with a philosophical position that is not natural law in a strict sense, but which shares with it the emphasis on the role of reason in determining what the law is. If only for this rare combination, On Law and Reason still deserves careful study. On Law and Reason also foreshadowed and influenced a development in the field of Legal Logic that would take place in the nineties of the 20th century, namely the development of non-monotonic (a defeasiblea (TM)) logics for the analysis of legal reasoning. In the new Introduction to this second edition, this aspect is explored in some more detail. (shrink)

Points of view are a central phenomenon in human cognition. Although the concept of point of view is ambiguous, there exist common elements in different notions. A point of view is a certain way to look at things around us. In conceptual points of view, things are looked at or interpreted through conceptual lenses. Conceptual points of view are important for epistemology, cognitive science, and philosophy of science. In this article, a new method to formalize conceptual points of view is (...) introduced. It is based on the conceptual space approach, where concepts are regions of multi-dimensional quality spaces. Points of view, as defined in this article, consist of a selection of relevant dimensions, referred to here as determinables, and of a certain supposition, referred to here as a theory, about the subject content. After considering some early efforts to formalize points of view, the notion of conceptual space is defined and explored. One concept of point of view is defined and developed in the framework of conceptual space, and a new logic for points of view is also outlined. The problem of mind–body correlation is discussed as an example of the application of the notion of points of view. To conclude, the meaning and applications of the new concepts and tools developed in the article are discussed. (shrink)

This paper presents the content of the unpublished notes that the Dutch mathematician Arend Heyting wrote in different periods of his life on solipsism and that are preserved in Heyting's archive at the University of Amsterdam. Most of the notes are quoted here and translated into English. Their study shows the originality of Heyting's reflections on a subject that was typical of his master, L. E. J. Brouwer, the father of intuitionism.

Engineering deals with different problem situations than science, and theories in engineering are different to theories in science. So, the growth of knowledge in engineering is also different to that in science. Nonetheless, methodological issues in engineering epistemology can be explored by adapting frameworks already established in the philosophy of science. In this paper I use critical rationalism and Popper’s three worlds framework to investigate error elimination and the growth of knowledge in engineering. I discuss engineering failure arising from the (...) falsification of engineering theories, and present taxonomies of the sources of falsification and responses to falsification in engineering. From this I discuss contexts of research and design in engineering, ad hoc rescue of engineering theories, and engineering assurance. (shrink)

This paper utilizes the framework of Karl Popper’s 3-world ontology to make the case that forensic science is a specialized coding system that establishes meaningful connections between the world of biology and the world of human society . Forensic science is a cross-disciplinary endeavor that uses scientific methods to determine what transpired in a crime so the legal system can determine how to prosecute the offender. On a Popperian analysis of forensic science, world 1 consists of evidence gathered at the (...) crime scene, which enables investigators to develop a detailed reconstruction of the incident for consideration under the legal and ethical codes of society, which are products of world 3. Understanding forensic science in this way serves two purposes: first, it extends Marcello Barbieri’s code biology into the realm of philosophical considerations in science, law and ethics; and second, it situates forensic science within the larger context of debates in contemporary philosophy of science. (shrink)

Take the following version of scientific realism: we have good reason to believe that (some of the) current scientific theories tell us something specific about the underlying, i.e. unobservable, structures of the world, for instance that there are electrons with a certain electric charge, or that there are viruses that cause certain diseases. Popper, the rationalist, would not have adhered to the proposed formulation of scientific realism in terms of the rationality of existential beliefs concerning unobservables. Popper did not believe (...) in belief. According to Van Fraassen, the empiricist, one may yet have a rational existential belief concerning unobservables, given a liberal notion of rationality of belief. In this paper I will investigate to what extent a reassessment of both Popper’s rejection of the rationality of belief and Van Fraassen’s reformulation of the rationality of belief, points towards a new and pragmatist dissolution of the ‘problem of scientific realism’. (shrink)

Edward Shils presented his book Tradition (1981) as the first extensive study of the subject. This article casts light on Shils' multifaceted understanding of tradition, comprising pragmatic, Burkean, veridical, and evolutionist perspectives. His typology of traditions is noted, and his view of institutional bearers of tradition described. In assessing Shils' theory, however, we find that it overreaches, collapsing differences that exist between traditions, transmissions, and the traditional.

This paper takes part in the methodological debate concerning the nature and the justification of hypotheses about computational systems in software engineering by providing an epistemological analysis of Software Testing, the practice of observing the programs’ executions to examine whether they fulfil software requirements. Property specifications articulating such requirements are shown to involve falsifiable hypotheses about software systems that are evaluated by means of tests which are likely to falsify those hypotheses. Software Reliability metrics, used to measure the growth of (...) probability that given failures will occur at specified times as new executions are observed, is shown to involve a Bayesian confirmation of falsifiable hypotheses on programs. Coverage criteria, used to select those input values with which the system under test is to be launched, are understood as theory-laden principles guiding software tests, here compared to scientific experiments. Redundant computations, fault seeding models and formal methods used in software engineering to evaluate test results are taken to be instantiations of some epistemological strategies used in scientific experiments to distinguish between valid and non-valid experimental outcomes. The final part of the paper explores the problem, advanced in the context of the philosophy of technology, of defining the epistemological status of software engineering by conceiving it as a scientifically attested technology. (shrink)

In this paper we focus on two claims, put forward by Feyerabend in his later writings , which constitute the metaphysical core of his view of scientific inquiry. The first, that we call the pliability thesis, is the claim that the world can be described by indefinitely many conceptual systems, none of them enjoying a privileged status. The second, that we call the resistance thesis, is the claim that the pliability of the world is limited, i.e., not all the different (...) conceptual systems that can be used to describe the world will be equally successful: the world offers resistance to some attempts to describe it. We show that, in spite of the later Feyerabend’s notorious antirealist leanings, the pliability thesis is fully compatible with a robustly realist view of science, and we suggest that, surprisingly, Feyerabend’s insights concerning the limited pliability of the world turn out to be those of a potential ally of sophisticated versions of scientific realism. (shrink)

Meinongian 'objects' are evoked in an effort to critique and expand upon traditional theories of reference. The argument stems from an account of Peirce's categories of meaning in light of vague, contradictory, inconsistent, general, incomplete, and incompleteable signs. In addition to signs as either 'true', 'false', or meaningless, the function of imaginary numbers reveals the possibility of a sign's being both 'true' and 'false' or neither 'true' nor 'false', over time, and dialogically speaking. This demands a tolerance for vagueness, ambiguity, (...) contradiction, and incessantly changing meaning. (shrink)

We can witness the recent surge of interest in the interaction between cognitive science, philosophy of science, and aesthetics on the problem of representation. This naturally leads us to rethinking the achievements of Goodman’s monumental book Languages of Art. For, there is no doubt that no one else contributed more than Goodman to throw a light on the cognitive function of art. Ironically, it could be also Goodman who has been the stumbling block for a unified theory of representation. In (...) this paper, I shall contrast the ways how differently misrepresentation has been treated in cognitive science, aesthetics, and philosophy of science. And I shall show that it is Goodman’s unnecessary separation of resemblance and representation in art that made such a difference. As a conclusion, I will indicate some of the most promising projects toward the unified theory of representation the revolt against Goodman’s rejection of resemblance theories might promise to us. (shrink)

'Realism' is multiply ambiguous. The central concern of Part 1 of this paper is to distinguish several of its many senses -- four in which it refers to theses about the status of scientific theories, and five in which it refers to theses about the nature of truth or truth-bearers. Because 'Realism' has these several, largely independent, senses, the conventional wisdom that Tarski's theory of truth supports realism, and that the Meaning-Variance thesis undermines it, needs re-evaluation. The concern of the (...) rest of the paper is to sort out in which senses the conventional wisdom, with respect to Tarski's theory and the Meaning-Variance thesis , is correct. (shrink)

The long-term persistence of neurotic symptoms, such as anxiety, poses difficult problems for any psychological theory. An attempt is made to revive the Watson-Mowrer conditioning theory and to avoid the many criticisms directed against it in the past. It is suggested that recent research has produced changes in learning theory that can be used to render this possible. In the first place, the doctrine of equipotentiality has been shown to be wrong, and some such concept as Seligman's “preparedness” is required, (...) that is the notion that certain CS are biologically prepared to be more readily connected with anxiety responses than others. In the second place, the law of extinction has to be amended, and the law of incubation or enhancement added, according to which the exposure of the CS-only may, under certain specified conditions, have the effect of increasing the strength of the CR, rather than reducing it. The major conditions favouring incubation are Pavlovian B conditioning, that is a type of conditioning in which the CR is a drive; a strong UCS, and short exposure of the CS-only. (shrink)

Many of the commentaries cohere around two major points of criticism. The first is that we have omitted discussion of the mechanisms that are assumed to operate at levels 2, 3, and 4.Campbell, Cloak, Dewsbury, Eckberg, Mundinger, Pulliam, Richerson & Boyd, Slobodkin, Simon, Williams, andWahlstenall make comments that bear on this point. The second point is that we have omitted discussion of the fact that "organisms change the environment by their activities" and thereby modify the selection pressures that act on (...) them. Apart from Lewontin, this point has been raised in different forms byBarkow, Chase, Hull, Perzigian, Ruyle, and less directly bySlobodkin. Stemming from these two basic omissions there is a third general criticism. Numerous commentators have pointed out that we have failed to discuss sufficiently either the extent or nature of the constraints that may or may not be operating on supraordinate evolutionary processes as a function of their nested relationships to subordinate evolutionary processes within our scheme. We start by acknowledging these three basic omissions. We agree that they exist and that they are serious. (shrink)