Suppose one believes that the historical record of discarded scientific theories provides good evidence against scientific realism. Should one adopt Kyle Stanford’s specific version of this view, based on the Problem of Unconceived Alternatives? I present reasons for answering this question in the negative. In particular, Stanford’s challenge cannot use many of the prima facie strongest pieces of historical evidence against realism, namely: superseded theories whose successors were explicitly conceived, and superseded theories that were not the result of elimination-of-alternatives inferences. (...) Attempts to accommodate and within Stanford’s framework are incompatible with other commitments Stanford holds, such as anti-realism being piecemeal instead of global. As separate lines of criticism, I argue that there are problems with Stanford’s claim that the PUA is the most important challenge to realism, and with his view of instrumentalist theory endorsement. (shrink)

Scientific anti-realists who appeal to the pessimistic induction (PI) claim that the theoretical terms of past scientific theories often fail to refer to anything. But on standard views in philosophy of language, such reference failures prima facie lead to certain sentences being neither true nor false. Thus, if these standard views are correct, then the conclusion of the PI should be that significant chunks of current theories are truth-valueless. But that is semantic anti-realism about scientific discourse—a position most philosophers of (...) science, anti-realists included, consider anathema today. Therefore, proponents of the PI confront a dilemma: either accept semantic anti-realism or reject common semantic views. I examine strategies (with particular emphasis on supervaluations) for the PI proponent to either lessen the sting of this argument, or learn to live with it. 1 Introduction2 Designation Failure 2.1 Designation failure leads to truth-valueless sentences2.1.1 Direct reference theory2.1.2 Fregeanism2.1.3 Accounts of reference-fixing: why ‘phlogiston’ fails to designate 2.2 Objection: sentences exhibiting designation failure are false not truth-valueless 2.3 Avoiding truth-valuelessness via controversial semantic positions3 What to do? Closing the Gaps4 Conclusion. (shrink)

Carl Hempel introduced what he called "Craig's theorem" into the philosophy of science in a famous discussion of the "problem of theoretical terms." Beginning with Hempel's use of 'Craig's theorem," I shall bring out some of the key differences between Hempel's treatment of the "problem of theoretical terms" and Carnap's in order to illuminate the peculiar function of Wissenschaftslogik in Carnap's mature philosophy. Carnap's treatment, in particular, is fundamentally antimetaphysical—he aims to use the tools of mathematical logic to dissolve rather (...) solve traditional philosophical problems—and it is precisely this point that is missed by his logically-minded contemporaries such as Hempel and Quine. (shrink)

Veritism, the position that truth is necessary for epistemic acceptability, seems to be in tension with the observation that much of our best science is not, strictly speaking, true when interpreted literally. This generates a paradox: truth is necessary for epistemic acceptability; the claims of science have to be taken literally; much of what science produces is not literally true and yet it is acceptable. We frame Elgin’s project in True Enough as being motivated by, and offering a particular resolution (...) to, this paradox. We discuss the paradox with a focus on scientific models and argue that there is another resolution available which is compatible with retaining veritism: rejecting the idea that scientific models should be interpreted literally. (shrink)

Everything you always wanted to know about structural realism but were afraid to ask Content Type Journal Article Pages 227-276 DOI 10.1007/s13194-011-0025-7 Authors Roman Frigg, Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE UK Ioannis Votsis, Philosophisches Institut, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Universitätsstraße 1, Geb. 23.21/04.86, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany Journal European Journal for Philosophy of Science Online ISSN 1879-4920 Print ISSN 1879-4912 Journal Volume Volume 1 Journal Issue Volume 1, Number 2.

Both realists and instrumentalists have found it difficult to understand (much less accept) Carnap's developed view on theoretical terms, which attempts to stake out a neutral position between realism and instrumentalism. I argue that Carnap's mature conception of a scientific theory as the conjunction of its Ramsey sentence and Carnap sentence can indeed achieve this neutral position. To see this, however, we need to see why the Newman problem raised in the context of recent work on structural realism is no (...) problem for Carnap's conception; and we also need to locate Carnap's work on theoretical terms within his wider program of Wissenschaftslogik or the logic of science. (shrink)

According to 'Ontic Structural Realism' (OSR), physical objects—qua metaphysical entities—should be reconceptualised, or, more strongly, eliminated in favour of the relevant structures. In this paper I shall attempt to articulate the relationship between these putative objects and structures in terms of certain accounts of metaphysical dependence currently available. This will allow me to articulate the differences between the different forms of OSR and to argue in favour of the 'eliminativist' version. A useful context is provided by Floridi's account of the (...) relationship between 'ontic' and 'epistemic' structural realisms and I shall conclude with some brief remarks on possible extensions of OSR into other scientific domains. (shrink)

Within the philosophy of science, the realism debate has been revitalised by the development of forms of structural realism. These urge a shift in focus from the object oriented ontologies that come and go through the history of science to the structures that remain through theory change. Such views have typically been elaborated in the context of theories of physics and are motivated by, first of all, the presence within such theories of mathematical equations that allow straightforward representation of the (...) relevant structures; and secondly, the implications of such theories for the individuality and identity of putative objects. My aim in this talk is to explore the possibility of extending such views to biological theories. An obvious concern is that within the context of the latter it is typically insisted that we cannot find the kinds of highly mathematised structures that structural realism can point to in physics. I shall indicate how the model-theoretic approach to theories might help allay such concerns. Furthermore, issues of identity and individuality also arise within biology. Thus Dupre has recently noted that there exists a ‘General Problem of Biological Individuality’ which relates to the issue of how one divides ‘massively integrated and interconnected’ systems into discrete components. In response Dupre advocates a form of ‘Promiscuous Realism’ that holds, for example, that there is no unique way of dividing the phylogenetic tree into kinds. Instead I shall urge serious consideration of those aspects of the work of Dupre and others that lean towards a structuralist interpretation. By doing so I hope to suggest possible ways in which a structuralist stance might be extended to biology. (shrink)

We outline Ladyman's 'metaphysical' or 'ontic' form of structuralrealism and defend it against various objections. Cao, in particular, has questioned theview of ontology presupposed by this approach and we argue that by reconceptualisingobjects in structural terms it offers the best hope for the realist in thecontext of modern physics.

If folk science means individuals having well worked out mechanistic theories of the workings of the world, then it is not feasible. Laypeople’s explanatory understandings are remarkably coarse, full of gaps, and often full of inconsistencies. Even worse, most people overestimate their own understandings. Yet recent views suggest that formal scientists may not be so different. In spite of these limitations, science somehow works and its success offers hope for the feasibility of folk science as well. The success of science (...) arises from the ways in which scientists learn to leverage understandings in other minds and to outsource explanatory work through sophisticated methods of deference and simplification of complex systems. Three studies ask whether analogous processes might be present not only in laypeople but also in young children and thereby form a foundation for supplementing explanatory understandings almost from the start of our first attempts to make sense of the world. (shrink)

Both realist and anti-realist accounts of natural kinds possess prima facie virtues: realists can straightforwardly make sense of the apparent objectivity of the natural kinds, and anti-realists, their knowability. This paper formulates a properly anti-realist account designed to capture both merits. In particular, it recommends understanding natural kinds as ‘categorical bottlenecks,’ those categories that not only best serve us, with our idiosyncratic aims and cognitive capacities, but also those of a wide range of alternative agents. By endorsing an ultimately subjective (...) categorical principle, this view sidesteps epistemological difficulties facing realist views. Yet, it nevertheless identifies natural kinds that are fairly, though not completely, stance-independent or objective. (shrink)

The debate over scientific realism, simply put, is a debate over what we can and should believe about reality once we've critically assessed all the available arguments and empirical evidence. Thinking earnestly about the merits of scientific realism as a philosophical thesis requires navigating contentious historiographical issues, being familiar with the technical details of various scientific theories, and addressing disparate philosophical problems spanning aesthetics, metaphysics, epistemology, and beyond. This issue of Spontaneous Generations: A Journal for the History and Philosophy of (...) Science aims to make participating in the scientific realism debate easier for both newcomers and veterans, collecting over twenty invited and peer-reviewed papers under the title "The Future of the Scientific Realism Debate: Contemporary Issues Concerning Scientific Realism.". (shrink)

It has become apparent that the debate between scientific realists and constructive empiricists has come to a stalemate. Neither view can reasonably claim to be the most rational philosophy of science, exclusively capable of making sense of all scientific activities. On one prominent analysis of the situation, whether we accept a realist or an anti-realist account of science actually seems to depend on which values we antecedently accept, rather than our commitment to “rationality” per se. Accordingly, several philosophers have attempted (...) to argue in favour of scientific realism or constructive empiricism by showing that one set of values is exclusively best, for anyone and everyone, and that the downstream choice of the philosophy of science which best serves those values is therefore best, for anyone and everyone. These efforts, however, seem to have failed. In response, I suggest that philosophers of science should suspend the effort to determine which philosophy of science is best for everyone, and instead begin investigating which philosophy of science is best for specific people, with specific values, in specific contexts. I illustrate how this might be done by briefly sketching a single case study from the history of science, which seems to show that different philosophies of science are better at motivating different forms of scientific practice. (shrink)

This is the revised version of an invited keynote lecture delivered at the "1st Australian Computing and Philosophy Conference". The paper is divided into two parts. The first part defends an informational approach to structural realism. It does so in three steps. First, it is shown that, within the debate about structural realism, epistemic and ontic structural realism are reconcilable. It follows that a version of OSR is defensible from a structuralist-friendly position. Second, it is argued that a version of (...) OSR is also plausible, because not all relata are logically prior to relations. Third, it is shown that a version of OSR is also applicable to both sub-observable and observable entities, by developing its ontology of structural objects in terms of informational objects. The outcome is informational structural realism, a version of OSR supporting the ontological commitment to a view of the world as the totality of informational objects dynamically interacting with each other. The paper has been discussed by several colleagues and, in the second half, ten objections that have been moved to the proposal are answered in order to clarify it further. (shrink)

I argue that recognizing a distinct doxastic attitude called endorsement, along with the epistemic norms governing it, solves the self-undermining problem for conciliationism about disagreement. I provide a novel account of how the self-undermining problem works by pointing out the auxiliary assumptions the objection relies on. These assumptions include commitment to certain epistemic principles linking belief in a theory to following prescriptions of that theory. I then argue that we have independent reason to recognize the attitude of endorsement. Endorsement is (...) the attitude of resilient and committed advocacy which is appropriate for researchers to have toward their own theory. Recognizing the importance of endorsement, and of its resiliency, gives us reason to deny the epistemic principles that serve as auxiliary assumptions in the self-undermining objection. This defuses the objection, and provides additional support for the theory of endorsement. (shrink)

We have some justified beliefs about modal matters. A modal epistemology should explain what’s involved in our having that justification. Given that we’re realists about modality, how should we expect that explanation to go? In the first part of this essay, I suggest an answer to this question based on an analogy with games. Then, I outline a modal epistemology that fits with that answer. According to a theory-based epistemology of modality, you justifiably believe that p if you justifiably believe (...) a theory that says that p and you believe p on the basis of that theory. (shrink)

As it is standardly conceived, Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) is a form of ampliative inference in which one infers a hypothesis because it provides a better potential explanation of one’s evidence than any other available, competing explanatory hypothesis. Bas van Fraassen famously objected to IBE thus formulated that we may have no reason to think that any of the available, competing explanatory hypotheses are true. While revisionary responses to the Bad Lot Objection concede that IBE needs to be (...) reformulated in light of this problem, reactionary responses argue that the Bad Lot Objection is fallacious, incoherent, or misguided. This paper shows that the most influential reactionary responses to the Bad Lot Objection do nothing to undermine the original objection. This strongly suggests that proponents of IBE should focus their efforts on revisionary responses, i.e. on finding a more sophisticated characterization of IBE for which the Bad Lot Objection loses its bite. (shrink)

One of the central questions in the metaphysics of pregnancy is this: Is the foetus a part of the mother? In this paper I aim not to answer this question, but rather to raise methodological concerns regarding how to approach answering it. I will outline how various areas attempt to answer whether the foetus is a part of the mother so as to demonstrate the methodological problems that each faces. My positive suggestion will be to adopt a method of reflective (...) equilibrium. The aim of this is to ensure that pregnancy be included in the tribunal of experience that our theories are held up against such that our theories can accommodate what we say about pregnancy, whilst also ensuring that what we say about pregnancy be theoretically informed. That way, we rethink pregnancy in light of our theories as well as rethinking our theories in light of pregnancy. (shrink)

Historians and sociologists of psychiatry often claim that psychiatric diagnoses are discontinuous. That is, a particular diagnoses will be described in one way in one era and described quite differently in a different era. Historians and sociologists often draw epistemic consequences from such discontinuities, claiming that truth is pluralistic, provisional and historicised. These arguments do not readily fit in with how analytical philosophers of science approach scientific realism. I show how the pessimistic meta induction does not capture the point which (...) historians and sociologists are making but scientific perspectivism seems to capture their point much better. I then highlight conceptual innovations which scientific perspectivists add. They demarcate between truth and objective reality, they specify which type of truth they endorse and they put down constraints on possible truths. This blocks an anything goes relativism which historians and sociologists can be in danger of falling into. I highlight my argument by discussing a discontinuous episode in the history of autism. I discuss three aspects of this discontinuity and show how scientific perspectivism can portray each aspect as non-trivially true. My argument shows that we can be scientific realists about autism even if we can formulate notions of autism in quite different ways. (shrink)

Critics who are concerned over the epistemological status of psychiatric diagnoses often describe them as being constructed. In contrast, those critics usually see symptoms as relatively epistemologically unproblematic. In this paper I show that symptoms are also constructed. To do this I draw upon the demarcation between data and phenomena. I relate this distinction to psychiatry by portraying behaviour of individuals as data and symptoms as phenomena. I then draw upon philosophers who consider phenomena to be constructed to argue that (...) symptoms are also constructed. Rather than being ready made in the world I show how symptoms are constructs we apply to the world. I highlight this with a historical example and describe methodological constraints on symptom construction. I show the epistemic problems with psychiatric diagnoses are also applicable to symptoms. Following this, I suggest that critics of psychiatric diagnoses should extend their criticism to symptoms or, if they still believe symptoms are relatively epistemologically unproblematic, should rethink their concerns over psychiatric diagnoses. (shrink)

In this paper, the scientific realism/anti-realism debate, which is one of the most popular topics in the metaphysics of science, will be examined in supporting the realistic wing. In this respect, the discussion will be conducted by keeping the subjects of ‘existence of an external mind-independent world’ and ‘unobservable entities’ at the center of this paper. In the context of understanding the world, ‘Science’ activity is not the sum of the research carried out only by considering empirical data; on the (...) contrary, it will be claimed that it is an endeavor that pursues unknown but interesting things (such as protons, photons, or viruses) and tries to give meaning to the world. Thus, against the empirical rigid attitude of anti-realism –bearing in mind the views of logical positivists; it will be illustrated that scientific realism is an understanding based on metaphysics and has a philosophical basis. (shrink)

Astroparticle physics is a recent sub-discipline of physics that emerged from early cosmic ray studies, astrophysics, and particle physics. Its theoretical foundations range from quantum field theory to general relativity, but the underlying “standard models” of cosmology and particle physics are far from being unified. The paper explores the pragmatic strategies employed in astroparticle physics in order to unify a disunified research field, the concept of observation involved in these strategies, and their relations to scientific realism.

We begin by highlighting some points related to Kuhn’s later thoughts on the incommensurability thesis and then show to what extent the standard version of the thesis given by the structuralist metatheory allows us to capture Kuhn’s ideas. Our main aim is to establish what constitutes the basis of comparability between incommensurable theories, even in cases of incommensurability with respect to theoretical and non-theoretical terms. We propose that comparability between incommensurable theories requires some connection between their respective ontologies that can (...) be captured by means of an ontological non-reductive relation. At this point, the structuralist notion of “echeloned partial substructure” may be of help. When the incommensurability is very drastic, the existence of ontological connections between the theories involved may only be evident by common terms of their non-characteristic vocabularies. So, this notion of non-characteristic vocabulary becomes relevant in our proposal. (shrink)

The paper presents a detailed interpretation of Edgar Wind’s Experiment and Metaphysics, a unique work on the philosophy of physics which broke with the Neo-Kantian tradition under the influence of American pragmatism. Taking up Cassirer’s interpretation of physics, Wind develops a holistic theory of the experiment and a constructivist account of empirical facts. Based on the concept of embodiment which plays a key role in Wind’s later writings on art history, he argues, however, that the outcomes of measurements are contingent. (...) He then proposes an anti-Kantian conception of a metaphysics of nature. For him, nature is an unknown totality which manifests itself in discrepancies between theories and experiment, and hence the theory formation of physics can increasingly approximate the structure of nature. It is shown that this view is ambiguous between a transcendental, metaphysical realism in Kant’s sense and an internal realism in Putnam’s sense. Wind’s central claim is that twentieth century physics offers new options for resolving Kant’s cosmological antinomies. In particular, he connected quantum indeterminism with the possibility of human freedom, a connection that Cassirer sharply opposed. (shrink)

Scientific realism, the position that successful theories are likely to be approximately true, is threatened by the pessimistic induction according to which the history of science is full of suc- cessful, but false theories. I aim to defend scientific realism against the pessimistic induction. My main thesis is that our current best theories each enjoy a very high degree of predictive success, far higher than was enjoyed by any of the refuted theories. I support this thesis by showing that both (...) the amount, and quality, of scientific evidence has increased enormously in the recent past, resulting in a big boost of success for the best theories. (shrink)

Scientific realism is the position that success of a scientific theory licenses an inference to its approximate truth. The argument from pessimistic meta-induction maintains that this inference is undermined due to the existence of theories from the history of science that were successful, but false. I aim to counter pessimistic meta-induction and defend scientific realism. To do this, I adopt a notion of success that admits of degrees, and show that our current best theories enjoy far higher degrees of success (...) than any of the successful, but refuted theories of the past. (shrink)

Philosophical debates about collective scientific knowledge concern two distinct theses: groups are necessary to produce scientific knowledge, and groups have scientific knowledge in their own right. Thesis has strong support. Groups are required, in many cases of scientific inquiry, to satisfy methodological norms, to develop theoretical concepts, or to validate the results of inquiry as scientific knowledge. So scientific knowledge‐production is collective in at least three respects. However, support for is more equivocal. Though some examples suggest that groups have scientific (...) knowledge independently of their individual members, these cases are also explained in terms of relational complexes of members’ beliefs. (shrink)

This paper argues that ontic structural realism (OSR) faces a dilemma: either it remains on the general level of realism with respect to the structure of a given theory, but then it is, like epistemic structural realism, only a partial realism; or it is a complete realism, but then it has to answer the question how the structure of a given theory is implemented, instantiated or realized and thus has to argue for a particular interpretation of the theory in question. (...) This claim is illustrated by examining how OSR fares with respect to the three main candidates for an ontology of quantum mechanics, namely many worlds-type interpretations, collapse-type interpretations and hidden variable-type interpretations. The result is that OSR as such is not sufficient to answer the question of what the world is like if quantum mechanics is correct. (shrink)

Recently Kenneth Kendler and Peter Zachar have raised doubts about the correspondence theory of truth and scientific realism in psychopathology. They argue that coherentist or pragmatist approaches to truth are better suited for understanding the reality of psychiatric disorders. In this article, I show that rejecting realism based on the correspondence theory is deeply problematic: It makes psychopathology categorically different from other sciences, and results in an implausible view of scientific discovery and progress. As an alternative, I suggest a robustness-based (...) approach that can accommodate the significance of coherence and pragmatic factors without rejecting scientific realism and the correspondence theory of truth. (shrink)

In the paper "On the role of the research agenda in epistemic change", Olsson and Westlund have suggested that the notion of epistemic state employed in the standard framework of belief revision (Alchourrón et al. 1985; Gärdenfors 1988) should be extended to include a representation of the agent's research agenda (Olsson and Westlund 2006). The resulting framework will here be referred to as interrogative belief revision. In this paper, I attempt to deal with the problem of how research agendas should (...) change in contraction, a problem largely left open by Olsson and Westlund. Two desiderata of an appropriate solution are suggested: one is a principle of continuity, stating that changes in the research agenda should somehow reflect that certain long term research interests are kept fixed. The other desideratum, which is based on part of Olsson and Westlund's motivation for adding research agendas to the epistemic states, is that we should be able to account for how contraction may serve to open up new, fruitful hypotheses for investigation. In order to achieve these desiderata, I base my solution on a revised version of Olsson and Westlund's notion of epistemic state. (shrink)

Hasok Chang is developing a new form of pragmatic scientific realism that aims to reorient the debate away from truth and towards practice. Central to his project is replacing truth as correspondence with his new notion of ‘operational coherence’, which is introduced as: 1) A success term with probative value to judge and guide epistemic activities. 2) A more useful alternative than truth as correspondence in guiding scientific practice. I argue that, given its current construal as neither necessary nor sufficient (...) for success, operational coherence is too weak and fails to satisfy both 1) and 2). I offer a stronger construal of operational coherence which aims to improve on Chang’s account by tying it to systematic success. This makes operational coherence necessary and sufficient for success. This new account, if successful, rescues 1) but not 2). I then take a step back and try to locate Chang’s pragmatic realism within the broader pragmatist tradition by comparing his views to the founding fathers Peirce, James and Dewey. I also assess to what extent we should consider Chang’s position ‘realist’, arguing that despite the many relativists threads running through it, Chang’s pragmatic realism is deserving of the realist label because its aims to maximize our learning from reality, even if it falls short of what many traditional realist are happy to accept as realism. I finish with comments on the epistemology of science pointing out that there is nothing intrinsic about a practice-based philosophy of science that precludes having both operational coherence and correspondence and highlighting that given a proper understanding these two notions could, in fact, be understood as complementary. I suggest one way this could be done. (shrink)

Physical realism is the thesis that the world is more or less as present‐day physical theory says it is, i.e. a mind‐independent reality, that consists fundamentally of physical objects that have causal powers, are located in space and time, belong to natural kinds, and interact causally with each other in various natural kinds of ways. It is thus a modern form of physicalism that takes due account of the natural kinds structure of the world. It is a thesis that many (...) present‐day scientific realists would surely accept. Indeed, some might say that physical realism just is scientific realism, but under another name. However, the argument that is presented for physical realism is not the standard one for scientific realism. It is not a two‐stage argument from the success of science to the truth of scientific theories to the reality of the entities postulated in these theories. It is more powerful than this, because it is more direct, and its premisses are more secure. It is more direct, because it develops what is basically a physicalist ontology as the only plausible metaphysical explanation of the new scientific image of the world. It is more secure, in that it does not depend, as the standard argument does, on any doubtful generalisations about the nature or role of scientific theory. (shrink)

Structural Realism (SSR), as embodied in the Ramsey-sentence H of a theory H, is defended against the view that H reduces to a trivial statement about the cardinally of the domain of H, a view which arises from ignoring the central role of observation within science. Putnam's theses are examined and shown to support rather than undermine SSR. Finally: in view of its synthetic character, applied mathematics must enter into the formulation of H and hence to be shown axiomatisable; this (...) is done in the Appendix, which is the most important part of the paper. (shrink)

While scientific realism generally assumes that successful scientific explanations yield information about reality, realists also have to admit that not all information acquired in this way is equally well warranted. Some versions of scientific realism do this by saying that explanatory posits with which we have established some kind of causal contact are better warranted than those that merely appear in theoretical hypotheses. I first explicate this distinction by considering some general criteria that permit us to distinguish causal warrant from (...) theoretical warrant. I then apply these criteria to a specific case from particle physics, claiming that scientific realism has to incorporate the distinction between causal and theoretical warrant if it is to be an adequate stance in the philosophy of particle physics. (shrink)

Inference to the Best Explanation is usually employed in the Scientific Realism debates. As far as particular scientific theories are concerned, its most ready usage seems to be that of a theory of confirmation. There are however more uses of IBE, namely as an epistemological theory of testimony and as a means of categorising and justifying the sources of evidence. In this paper, I will present, develop and exemplify IBE as a theory of the quality of evidence - taking examples (...) from medicine and showing that IBE can thereby provide the epistemological underpinning and justify the criteria of grading quality of mechanistic evidence that have been recently provided in the Clarke et al. paper on how evidence of medical mechanisms is to be construed alongside population studies. (shrink)

The Principle of the Benefit of Doubt dictates that, whenever reasonably possible, we interpret earlier-day scientists as referring to entities posited by current science. Putnam has presented the principle as supplementary to his Causal Theory of Reference in order to make this theory generally applicable to theoretical terms. The present paper argues that the principle is of doubtful standing. In particular, it will be argued that the principle lacks a justification and, indeed, is unjustifiable as it stands.

There has been a probabilistic turn in contemporary cognitive science. Far and away, most of the work in this vein is Bayesian, at least in name. Coinciding with this development, philosophers have increasingly promoted Bayesianism as the best normative account of how humans ought to reason. In this paper, we make a push for exploring the probabilistic terrain outside of Bayesianism. Non-Bayesian, but still probabilistic, theories provide plausible competitors both to descriptive and normative Bayesian accounts. We argue for this general (...) idea via recent work on explanationist models of updating, which are fundamentally probabilistic but assign a substantial, non-Bayesian role to explanatory considerations. (shrink)

Fitch’s paradox shows, from fairly innocent-looking assumptions, that if there are any unknown truths, then there are unknowable truths. This is generally thought to deliver a blow to antirealist positions that imply that all truths are knowable. The present paper argues that a probabilistic version of antirealism escapes Fitch’s result while still offering all that antirealists should care for.

There is good reason to believe that, if it can be decided at all, the realism debate must be decided on a posteriori grounds. But at least prima facie the prospects for an a posteriori resolution of the debate seem bleak, given that realists and antirealists disagree over two of the most fundamental questions pertaining to any kind of empirical research, to wit, what the range of accessible evidence is and what the methodological status of explanatory considerations is. The present (...) paper aims to show that, while the difficulties that face an empirical approach to the realism debate are not to be discounted, they are not insurmountable either. Specifically, it presents a broadly Bayesian strategy for resolving the debate that is capable of solving those difficulties. The strategy crucially involves answers to the aforementioned questions that diverge from both the standard realist and the standard antirealist answers, but that should appear more natural and plausible than those to realists and antirealists alike. (shrink)

Glymour’s theory of bootstrap confirmation is a purely qualitative account of confirmation; it allows us to say that the evidence confirms a given theory, but not that it confirms the theory to a certain degree. The present paper extends Glymour’s theory to a quantitative account and investigates the resulting theory in some detail. It also considers the question how bootstrap confirmation relates to justification.

It is widely believed that the so-called knowledge account of assertion best explains why sentences such as “It’s raining in Paris but I don’t believe it” and “It’s raining in Paris but I don’t know it” appear odd to us. I argue that the rival rational credibility account of assertion explains that fact just as well. I do so by providing a broadly Bayesian analysis of the said type of sentences which shows that such sentences cannot express rationally held beliefs. (...) As an interesting aside, it will be seen that these sentences also harbor a lesson for Bayesian epistemology itself. (shrink)

The writings of Kuhn and Feyerabend on incommensurability challenged the idea that science progresses towards the truth. Davidson famously criticized the notion of incommensurability, arguing that it is incoherent. Davidson's argument was in turn criticized by Kuhn and others. This article argues that, although at least some of the objections raised against Davidson's argument are formally correct, they do it very little harm. What remains of the argument once the objections have been taken account of is still quite damaging to (...) the thesis that formerly endorsed scientific theories are incommensurable with those of today's science. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to argue for a new version of ‘inference-to-the-best-explanation’ scientific realism, which I characterize as Best Theory Realism or ‘BTR’. On BTR, the realist needs only to embrace a commitment to the truth or approximate truth of the best theories in a field, those which are unique in satisfying the highest standards of empirical success in a mature field with many successful but falsified predecessors. I argue that taking our best theories to be true is (...) justified because it provides the best explanation of the predictive success of their predecessors and their own special success. Against standard and especially structural realism, I argue against the claim that the best explanations of the success of theories is provided by identifying their true components, such as structural relations between unobservable, which are preserved across theory change. In particular, I criticize Ladyman's and Carrier’s structural account of the success of phlogiston theory, and Worrall's well-known structural account of the success of Fresnel’s theory of light. I argue that these accounts tacitly assume the truth of our best theories, which in any case provides a better explanation of these theories’ success than the structural account. Structural realism is now defended as the only version of realism that is able to surmount the pessimistic meta-induction and the general problem that successful theories involve ontological claims concerning unobservable entities that are abandoned and falsified in theory-change. I argue that Best Theory Realism can overcome the pessimistic meta-induction and this general problem posed by theory-change. Our best theories possess a characteristic which sharply distinguishes them from their successful but false predecessors. Furthermore ‘inference-to-the-best-explanation’ confirmation can establish the truth of our best theories and thus trumps the pessimistic inductive reasoning which is supposed to show that even our best theories are most likely false in their claims concerning unobservable entities and processes. (shrink)

In this essay, I critically evaluate the approaches to explaining the success of science in Kuhn and the works of inference-to-the-best-explanation scientific realists. Kuhn ’s challenge to realists, who invoke the truth of theories to explain their success, is two-fold. His paradigm-account of success confronts realists with the problem of theory change, and the historical fact of successful theories later rejected as false. Secondly, Kuhn ’s account of the success of science has no need to bring truth into the explanation. (...) In turn, I argue that weakness in Kuhn and the prevailing forms of scientific realism motivate a better account of realism which I characterize as ‘best current theory realism’ and defend against the pessimistic meta-induction and the problem of theory-change. This realism argues that the best explanation of the success of current and past scientific theories only requires the simple claim that our best current theories are true. Kuhn ’s account can explain how normal science succeeds but cannot account for why its problem solutions work where they do and why they fail for other puzzles. (shrink)

I defend a realist commitment to the truth of our most empirically successful current scientific theories—on the ground that it provides the best explanation of their success and the success of their falsified predecessors. I argue that this Best Current Theory Realism (BCTR) is superior to preservative realism (PR) and the structural realism (SR). I show that PR and SR rest on the implausible assumption that the success of outdated theories requires the realist to hold that these theories possessed truthful (...) components. PR is undone by the fact that past theories succeeded even though their ontological claims about unobservables are false. SR backpeddles to argue that the realist is only committed to the truth about the structure of relations implied by the outdated theory, in order to explain its success. I argue that the structural component of theories is too bare-bones thin to explain the predictive/explanatory success of outdated theories. I conclude that BCTR can meet these objections to PR and SR, and also overcome the pessimistic meta-induction. (shrink)

Kuhn’s account of scientific change is characterized by an internal tension between a naturalist vein, which is compatible with the revolutionary perspective on the historical development of science, and an aprioristic or Kantian vein which wants to secure that science is not an irrational enterprise. Kuhn himself never achieved to resolve the tension or even to deal with the terms of the problem. Michael Friedman, quite recently, provided an account which aspires to reconcile the revolutionary and the aprioristic elements of (...) the Kuhnian historiography by placing the latter in the neo-Kantian philosophical framework. In this paper, I suggest that Friedman manages to provide a convincing description of the structuration of scientific knowledge and, further, to present science as a rational enterprise. I argue that despite these virtues Friedman’s account faces a major problem with regard to the context of transcendental idealism which he is not willing to abandon. I also argue that discarding transcendental idealism in the way the philosophical perspective of John McDowell does, we can dispose of the flaws of Friedman’s account while retaining its virtues. (shrink)

It is quite unequivocal that Kuhn was committed to (some version of) naturalism; that he defended, especially in his later work, the autonomy of scientific rationality; and that he rejected the correspondence theory of truth, i.e., the traditional realistic conception of the world’s mind-independence. In this paper, I argue that these three philosophical perspectives form an uneasy triangle, for while it is possible to coherently defend each of them separately or two of them combined, holding all three leads to incoherence. (...) Hence, the only option is to reject one of them in a way that is both compatible with Kuhnian historiography and philosophically fruitful. My purpose in this paper is not exegetical. My ambition is to sketch a coherent philosophical framework which does justice to Kuhn’s historiographical model for scientific change and avoids the philosophical costs of relativism and anti-naturalism. In particular, I argue in favor of the following interconnected positions: (1) Given the role of anomalies in Kuhn’s historiographical model, the latter satisfies the two fundamental conditions for acknowledging the mind-independence of the world: the ‘irreducibility condition’ and the ‘objectivity condition’, (2) Kuhn’s rejection of the notion of an ‘Archimedean platform’ does not entail that the truth-value of beliefs doesn’t play a role in the explanation of their change, (3) Adopting scientific realism is the only way to defend the autonomy of scientific rationality within a naturalistic philosophical framework. However, adopting realism leads to a liberal rather than an eliminative version of naturalism. (shrink)