Switch to: References

Add citations

You must login to add citations.
  1. What Kind of Explanations Do We Get from Agent-Based Models of Scientific Inquiry?Dunja Šešelja - 2022 - In Tomas Marvan, Hanne Andersen, Hasok Chang, Benedikt Löwe & Ivo Pezlar (eds.), Proceedings of the 16th International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science and Technology. London: College Publications.
    Agent-based modelling has become a well-established method in social epistemology and philosophy of science but the question of what kind of explanations these models provide remains largely open. This paper is dedicated to this issue. It starts by distinguishing between real-world phenomena, real-world possibilities, and logical possibilities as different kinds of targets which agent-based models can represent. I argue that models representing the former two kinds provide how-actually explanations or causal how-possibly explanations. In contrast, models that represent logical possibilities provide (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Algorithmic Fairness and the Situated Dynamics of Justice.Sina Fazelpour, Zachary C. Lipton & David Danks - 2022 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 52 (1):44-60.
    Machine learning algorithms are increasingly used to shape high-stake allocations, sparking research efforts to orient algorithm design towards ideals of justice and fairness. In this research on algorithmic fairness, normative theorizing has primarily focused on identification of “ideally fair” target states. In this paper, we argue that this preoccupation with target states in abstraction from the situated dynamics of deployment is misguided. We propose a framework that takes dynamic trajectories as direct objects of moral appraisal, highlighting three respects in which (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Unexplained cooperation.Eva Jaffro & Cédric Paternotte - 2021 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 11 (3):1-21.
    Social evolution theory provides a wide array of successful evolutionary explanations for cooperative traits. However and surprisingly, a number of cases of unexplained cooperative behaviour remain. Shouldn’t they cast doubt on the relevance of the theory, or even disconfirm it? This depends on whether the theory is akin to a research programme such as adaptationism, or closer to a theory – a set of compatible, confirmable hypotheses. In order to find out, we focus on the two main tenets of social (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Diversity, Trust, and Conformity: A Simulation Study.Sina Fazelpour & Daniel Steel - 2022 - Philosophy of Science 89 (2):209-231.
    Previous simulation models have found positive effects of cognitive diversity on group performance, but have not explored effects of diversity in demographics (e.g., gender, ethnicity). In this paper, we present an agent-based model that captures two empirically supported hypotheses about how demographic diversity can improve group performance. The results of our simulations suggest that, even when social identities are not associated with distinctive task-related cognitive resources, demographic diversity can, in certain circumstances, benefit collective performance by counteracting two types of conformity (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   11 citations  
  • Argumentative landscapes: the function of models in social epistemology.N. Emrah Aydinonat, Samuli Reijula & Petri Ylikoski - 2021 - Synthese 199 (1-2):369-395.
    We argue that the appraisal of models in social epistemology requires conceiving of them as argumentative devices, taking into account the argumentative context and adopting a family-of-models perspective. We draw up such an account and show how it makes it easier to see the value and limits of the use of models in social epistemology. To illustrate our points, we document and explicate the argumentative role of epistemic landscape models in social epistemology and highlight their limitations. We also claim that (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   11 citations  
  • How to Do Things with Theory: The Instrumental Role of Auxiliary Hypotheses in Testing.Corey Dethier - 2019 - Erkenntnis 86 (6):1453-1468.
    Pierre Duhem’s influential argument for holism relies on a view of the role that background theory plays in testing: according to this still common account of “auxiliary hypotheses,” elements of background theory serve as truth-apt premises in arguments for or against a hypothesis. I argue that this view is mistaken. Rather than serving as truth-apt premises in arguments, auxiliary hypotheses are employed as “epistemic tools”: instruments that perform specific tasks in connecting our theoretical questions with the world but that are (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Model Pluralism.Walter Veit - 2019 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 50 (2):91-114.
    This paper introduces and defends an account of model-based science that I dub model pluralism. I argue that despite a growing awareness in the philosophy of science literature of the multiplicity, diversity, and richness of models and modeling practices, more radical conclusions follow from this recognition than have previously been inferred. Going against the tendency within the literature to generalize from single models, I explicate and defend the following two core theses: any successful analysis of models must target sets of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   38 citations  
  • Evidence amalgamation in the sciences: an introduction.Roland Poellinger, Jürgen Landes & Samuel C. Fletcher - 2019 - Synthese 196 (8):3163-3188.
    Amalgamating evidence from heterogeneous sources and across levels of inquiry is becoming increasingly important in many pure and applied sciences. This special issue provides a forum for researchers from diverse scientific and philosophical perspectives to discuss evidence amalgamation, its methodologies, its history, its pitfalls, and its potential. We situate the contributions therein within six themes from the broad literature on this subject: the variety-of-evidence thesis, the philosophy of meta-analysis, the role of robustness/sensitivity analysis for evidence amalgamation, its bearing on questions (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • Explanatory value in context: the curious case of Hotelling’s location model.Emrah Aydinonat & Emin Köksal - 2019 - European Journal of the History of Economic Thought 26 (5):1-32.
    There is a striking contrast between the significance of Harold Hotelling’s contribution to industrial economics and the fact that his location model was invalid, unrealistic and non-robust. It is difficult to make sense of the explanatory value of Hotelling’s model based on philosophical accounts that emphasize logical validity, representational adequacy, and robustness as determinants of explanatory value. However, these accounts are misleading because they overlook the context within which the explanatory value added of a model is apprehensible. We present Hotelling’s (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Robustness and Independent Evidence.Jacob Stegenga & Tarun Menon - 2017 - Philosophy of Science 84 (3):414-435.
    Robustness arguments hold that hypotheses are more likely to be true when they are confirmed by diverse kinds of evidence. Robustness arguments require the confirming evidence to be independent. We identify two kinds of independence appealed to in robustness arguments: ontic independence —when the multiple lines of evidence depend on different materials, assumptions, or theories—and probabilistic independence. Many assume that OI is sufficient for a robustness argument to be warranted. However, we argue that, as typically construed, OI is not a (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   18 citations  
  • Abductively Robust Inference.Finnur Dellsén - 2017 - Analysis 77 (1):20-29.
    Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) is widely criticized for being an unreliable form of ampliative inference – partly because the explanatory hypotheses we have considered at a given time may all be false, and partly because there is an asymmetry between the comparative judgment on which an IBE is based and the absolute verdict that IBE is meant to license. In this paper, I present a further reason to doubt the epistemic merits of IBE and argue that it motivates (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • When Expert Disagreement Supports the Consensus.Finnur Dellsén - 2017 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 96 (1):142-156.
    It is often suggested that disagreement among scientific experts is a reason not to trust those experts, even about matters on which they are in agreement. In direct opposition to this view, I argue here that the very fact that there is disagreement among experts on a given issue provides a positive reason for non-experts to trust that the experts really are justified in their attitudes towards consensus theories. I show how this line of thought can be spelled out in (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   18 citations  
  • (1 other version)Computer models and the evidence of anthropogenic climate change: An epistemology of variety-of-evidence inferences and robustness analysis.Martin Vezer - 2016 - Computer Models and the Evidence of Anthropogenic Climate Change: An Epistemology of Variety-of-Evidence Inferences and Robustness Analysis MA Vezér Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 56:95-102.
    To study climate change, scientists employ computer models, which approximate target systems with various levels of skill. Given the imperfection of climate models, how do scientists use simulations to generate knowledge about the causes of observed climate change? Addressing a similar question in the context of biological modelling, Levins (1966) proposed an account grounded in robustness analysis. Recent philosophical discussions dispute the confirmatory power of robustness, raising the question of how the results of computer modelling studies contribute to the body (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  • (1 other version)The Russo–Williamson Theses in the social sciences: Causal inference drawing on two types of evidence.François Claveau - 2012 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 43 (4):806-813.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   14 citations  
  • The Ontic Account of Scientific Explanation.Carl F. Craver - 2014 - In Marie I. Kaiser, Oliver R. Scholz, Daniel Plenge & Andreas Hüttemann (eds.), Explanation in the special science: The case of biology and history. Dordrecht: Springer. pp. 27-52.
    According to one large family of views, scientific explanations explain a phenomenon (such as an event or a regularity) by subsuming it under a general representation, model, prototype, or schema (see Bechtel, W., & Abrahamsen, A. (2005). Explanation: A mechanist alternative. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 36(2), 421–441; Churchland, P. M. (1989). A neurocomputational perspective: The nature of mind and the structure of science. Cambridge: MIT Press; Darden (2006); Hempel, C. G. (1965). Aspects of scientific (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   80 citations  
  • Robustness Analysis as Explanatory Reasoning.Jonah N. Schupbach - 2018 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 69 (1):275-300.
    When scientists seek further confirmation of their results, they often attempt to duplicate the results using diverse means. To the extent that they are successful in doing so, their results are said to be robust. This paper investigates the logic of such "robustness analysis" [RA]. The most important and challenging question an account of RA can answer is what sense of evidential diversity is involved in RAs. I argue that prevailing formal explications of such diversity are unsatisfactory. I propose a (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   48 citations  
  • Robustness, Diversity of Evidence, and Probabilistic Independence.Jonah N. Schupbach - 2015 - In Uskali Mäki, Stéphanie Ruphy, Gerhard Schurz & Ioannis Votsis (eds.), Recent Developments in the Philosophy of Science. Cham: Springer. pp. 305-316.
    In robustness analysis, hypotheses are supported to the extent that a result proves robust, and a result is robust to the extent that we detect it in diverse ways. But what precise sense of diversity is at work here? In this paper, I show that the formal explications of evidential diversity most often appealed to in work on robustness – which all draw in one way or another on probabilistic independence – fail to shed light on the notion of diversity (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   11 citations  
  • Robustness and reality.Markus I. Eronen - 2015 - Synthese 192 (12):3961-3977.
    Robustness is often presented as a guideline for distinguishing the true or real from mere appearances or artifacts. Most of recent discussions of robustness have focused on the kind of derivational robustness analysis introduced by Levins, while the related but distinct idea of robustness as multiple accessibility, defended by Wimsatt, has received less attention. In this paper, I argue that the latter kind of robustness, when properly understood, can provide justification for ontological commitments. The idea is that we are justified (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   28 citations  
  • I modelli in economia.Alessandra Basso & Caterina Marchionni - 2015 - Aphex 11.
    The paper reviews the philosophical literature on the epistemology of modelling in contemporary economics. In particular, it focuses on open questions concerning the epistemic role of models, the validity of inferences from the models to the world, and the legitimacy of their use for purposes of explanation, prediction and intervention.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Using Multiple Means of Determination.Jutta Schickore & Klodian Coko - 2013 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 27 (3):295-313.
    This article examines a metaphilosophical issue, namely existing disagreements in philosophy of science about the significance of using multiple means of determination in scientific practice. We argue that this disagreement can, in part, be resolved by separating different questions that can be asked about the use of multiple means of determination, including the following: what can be concluded from the convergence of data or the convergence of claims about phenomena? Are the conclusions drawn from the convergence of data and of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  • Robustness and sensitivity of biological models.Jani Raerinne - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 166 (2):285-303.
    The aim of this paper is to develop ideas about robustness analyses. I introduce a form of robustness analysis that I call sufficient parameter robustness, which has been neglected in the literature. I claim that sufficient parameter robustness is different from derivational robustness, the focus of previous research. My purpose is not only to suggest a new taxonomy of robustness, but also to argue that previous authors have concentrated on a narrow sense of robustness analysis, which they have inadequately distinguished (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   11 citations  
  • Foundations of Contemporary Revealed Preference Theory.D. Wade Hands - 2013 - Erkenntnis 78 (5):1081-1108.
    This paper examines methodological issues raised by revealed preference theory in economics: particularly contemporary revealed preference theory. The paper has three goals. First, to make the case that revealed preference theory is a broad research program in choice theory—not a single theory—and understanding this diversity is essential to any methodological analysis of the program. Second, to explore some of the existing criticisms of revealed preference theory in a way that emphasizes how the effectiveness of the critique depends on the particular (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   23 citations  
  • Robust! -- Handle with care.Wybo Houkes & Krist Vaesen - 2012 - Philosophy of Science 79 (3):1-20.
    Michael Weisberg has argued that robustness analysis is useful in evaluating both scientific models and their implications and that robustness analysis comes in three types that share their form and aim. We argue for three cautionary claims regarding Weisberg's reconstruction: robustness analysis may be of limited or no value in evaluating models and their implications; the unificatory reconstruction conceals that the three types of robustness differ in form and role; there is no confluence of types of robustness. We illustrate our (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  • The Significance of Re-Doing Experiments: A Contribution to Historically Informed Methodology.Jutta Schickore - 2011 - Erkenntnis 75 (3):325-347.
    This essay is a contribution to the history of methodological thought. I focus on key methodological criteria for successful experimentation, replication and multiple determinations of empirical evidence. Drawing on reports of experiments with viper venom from the late seventeenth and late eighteenth centuries, as well as on present-day methodological thought I examine whether past experimenters regarded repetition, replication, and multiple determinations as criteria for validity; what exactly they meant by this; what they hoped to gain by repeating, varying, triangulating, and (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • Confirmation and Robustness of Climate Models.Elisabeth A. Lloyd - 2010 - Philosophy of Science 77 (5):971–984.
    Recent philosophical attention to climate models has highlighted their weaknesses and uncertainties. Here I address the ways that models gain support through observational data. I review examples of model fit, variety of evidence, and independent support for aspects of the models, contrasting my analysis with that of other philosophers. I also investigate model robustness, which often emerges when comparing climate models simulating the same time period or set of conditions. Starting from Michael Weisberg’s analysis of robustness, I conclude that his (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   60 citations  
  • Independent evidence in multi-messenger astrophysics.Jamee Elder - 2024 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 104 (C):119-129.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Convergence strategies for theory assessment.Elena Castellani - 2024 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 104 (C):78-87.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Measurement Scepticism, Construct Validation, and Methodology of Well-Being Theorising.Victor Lange & Thor Grünbaum - 2023 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 10.
    Precise measurements of well-being would be of profound societal importance. Yet, the sceptical worry that we cannot use social science instruments and tests to measure well-being is widely discussed by philosophers and scientists. A recent and interesting philosophical argument has pointed to the psychometric procedures of construct validation to address this sceptical worry. The argument has proposed that these procedures could warrant confidence in our ability to measure well-being. The present paper evaluates whether this type of argument succeeds. The answer (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Epistemic risk in methodological triangulation: the case of implicit attitudes.Morgan Thompson - 2022 - Synthese 201 (1):1-22.
    One important strategy for dealing with error in our methods is triangulation, or the use multiple methods to investigate the same object. Current accounts of triangulation assume that its primary function is to provide a confirmatory boost to hypotheses beyond what confirmation of each method alone could produce. Yet, researchers often use multiple methods to examine new constructs about which they are uncertain. For example, social psychologists use multiple indirect measures to provide convergent evidence about implicit attitudes, but how to (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • What does robustness teach us in climate science: a re-appraisal.Eric Winsberg - 2021 - Synthese 198 (Suppl 21):5099-5122.
    In the philosophy of climate science, debate surrounding the issue of variety of evidence has mostly taken the form of attempting to connect these issues in climate science and climate modeling with philosophical accounts of what has come to be known as “robustness analysis.” I argue that an “explanatory” conception of robustness is the best candidate for understanding variety of evidence in climate science. I apply the analysis to both examples of model agreement, as well at to the convergence of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  • Non-empirical robustness arguments in quantum gravity.Niels S. Linnemann - 2020 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 72:70-86.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Proof of Concept Research.Steve Elliott - 2021 - Philosophy of Science 88 (2):258-280.
    Researchers often pursue proof of concept research, but criteria for evaluating such research remain poorly specified. This article proposes a general framework for proof of concept research that k...
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • (1 other version)Experimental effects and causal representations.Vadim Keyser - 2017 - Synthese:1-32.
    In experimental settings, scientists often “make” new things, in which case the aim is to intervene in order to produce experimental objects and processes—characterized as ‘effects’. In this discussion, I illuminate an important performative function in measurement and experimentation in general: intervention-based experimental production (IEP). I argue that even though the goal of IEP is the production of new effects, it can be informative for causal details in scientific representations. Specifically, IEP can be informative about causal relations in: regularities under (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • (1 other version)Robust Biomarkers: Methodologically Tracking Causal Processes in Alzheimer’s Measurement.Vadim Keyser & Louis Sarry - 2020 - In Barbara Osimani & Adam La Caze (eds.), Uncertainty in Pharmacology. pp. 289-318.
    In biomedical measurement, biomarkers are used to achieve reliable prediction of, and useful causal information about patient outcomes while minimizing complexity of measurement, resources, and invasiveness. A biomarker is an assayable metric that discloses the status of a biological process of interest, be it normative, pathophysiological, or in response to intervention. The greatest utility from biomarkers comes from their ability to help clinicians (and researchers) make and evaluate clinical decisions. In this paper we discuss a specific methodological use of clinical (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • The Epistemic Virtue of Robustness in Climate Modeling (MA Dissertation).Parjanya Joshi - 2019 - Dissertation, Tata Institute of Social Sciences
    The aim of this dissertation is to comprehensively study various robustness arguments proposed in the literature from Levins to Lloyd as well as the opposition offered to them and pose enquiry into the degree of epistemic virtue that they provide to the model prediction results with respect to climate science and modeling. Another critical issue that this dissertation strives to examine is that of the actual epistemic notion that is operational when scientists and philosophers appeal to robustness. In attempting to (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • (1 other version)“Exportando” el conocimiento de los modelos económicos.Leonardo Ivarola - 2017 - Ideas Y Valores 66 (163):203-222.
    Se critican dos tesis de Nancy Cartwright. Por un lado, se examina el enfoque de las “capacidades” en el campo de lo económico para argumentar que estas responden a la lógica de los “árboles de posibilidades” o resultados de final abierto; por el otro, se ofrece una alternativa al problema de “sobre-restricción” de los modelos económicos para mostrar cómo el gran número de supuestos auxiliares acota las posibilidades de extrapolar las conclusiones obtenidas en el modelo a condiciones distintas de las (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • The Diversity of Models as a Means to Better Explanations in Economics.Emrah Aydinonat - 2018 - Journal of Economic Methodology 25 (3):237-251.
    In Economics Rules, Dani Rodrik (2015) argues that what makes economics powerful despite the limitations of each and every model is its diversity of models. Rodrik suggests that the diversity of models in economics improves its explanatory capacities, but he does not fully explain how. I offer a clearer picture of how models relate to explanations of particular economic facts or events, and suggest that the diversity of models is a means to better economic explanations.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • The problem of evaluating automated large-scale evidence aggregators.Nicolas Wüthrich & Katie Steele - 2019 - Synthese (8):3083-3102.
    In the biomedical context, policy makers face a large amount of potentially discordant evidence from different sources. This prompts the question of how this evidence should be aggregated in the interests of best-informed policy recommendations. The starting point of our discussion is Hunter and Williams’ recent work on an automated aggregation method for medical evidence. Our negative claim is that it is far from clear what the relevant criteria for evaluating an evidence aggregator of this sort are. What is the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Even for objectivists, sleeping beauty isn’t so simple.Kai Draper - 2017 - Analysis 77 (1):29-37.
    Writing collectively as the Oscar Seminar in 2008, John Pollock and several colleagues advance an objectivist argument for a 1/3 solution to the Sleeping Beauty problem. In 2011, Joel Pust raises a serious objection to their argument to which Paul D. Thorn, a member of the Oscar Seminar, offers a subtle reply. I argue that the Oscar Seminar s argument for 1/3 is unsound. I do not, however, defend Pust’s objection. Rather I develop a new objection, one that is not (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Causal Order and Kinds of Robustness.Arnon Levy - 2017 - In Snait Gissis, Ehud Lamm & Ayelet Shavit (eds.), Landscapes of Collectivity in the Life Sciences. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. pp. 269-280.
    This paper derives from a broader project dealing with the notion of causal order. I use this term to signify two kinds of parts-whole dependence: Orderly systems have rich, decomposable, internal structure; specifically, parts play differential roles, and interactions are primarily local. Disorderly systems, in contrast, have a homogeneous internal structure, such that differences among parts and organizational features are less important. Orderliness, I suggest, marks one key difference between individuals and collectives. My focus here will be the connection between (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • (2 other versions)I—Elisabeth A. Lloyd: Varieties of Support and Confirmation of Climate Models.Elisabeth A. Lloyd - 2009 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 83 (1):213-232.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   20 citations  
  • Robustness analysis and tractability in modeling.Chiara Lisciandra - 2017 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 7 (1):79-95.
    In the philosophy of science and epistemology literature, robustness analysis has become an umbrella term that refers to a variety of strategies. One of the main purposes of this paper is to argue that different strategies rely on different criteria for justifications. More specifically, I will claim that: i) robustness analysis differs from de-idealization even though the two concepts have often been conflated in the literature; ii) the comparison of different model frameworks requires different justifications than the comparison of models (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  • Model robustness as a confirmatory virtue: The case of climate science.Elisabeth A. Lloyd - 2015 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 49:58-68.
    I propose a distinct type of robustness, which I suggest can support a confirmatory role in scientific reasoning, contrary to the usual philosophical claims. In model robustness, repeated production of the empirically successful model prediction or retrodiction against a background of independentlysupported and varying model constructions, within a group of models containing a shared causal factor, may suggest how confident we can be in the causal factor and predictions/retrodictions, especially once supported by a variety of evidence framework. I present climate (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   43 citations  
  • The Belief Illusion.J. Christopher Jenson - 2016 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 67 (4):965-995.
    I offer a new argument for the elimination of ‘beliefs’ from cognitive science based on Wimsatt’s concept of robustness and a related concept of fragility. Theoretical entities are robust if multiple independent means of measurement produce invariant results in detecting them. Theoretical entities are fragile when multiple independent means of detecting them produce highly variant results. I argue that sufficiently fragile theoretical entities do not exist. Recent studies in psychology show radical variance between what self-report and non-verbal behaviour indicate about (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Models, robustness, and non-causal explanation: a foray into cognitive science and biology.Elizabeth Irvine - 2015 - Synthese 192 (12):3943-3959.
    This paper is aimed at identifying how a model’s explanatory power is constructed and identified, particularly in the practice of template-based modeling (Humphreys, Philos Sci 69:1–11, 2002; Extending ourselves: computational science, empiricism, and scientific method, 2004), and what kinds of explanations models constructed in this way can provide. In particular, this paper offers an account of non-causal structural explanation that forms an alternative to causal–mechanical accounts of model explanation that are currently popular in philosophy of biology and cognitive science. Clearly, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  • How Accurate Is the Standard Second?Eran Tal - 2011 - Philosophy of Science 78 (5):1082-1096.
    Contrary to the claim that measurement standards are absolutely accurate by definition, I argue that unit definitions do not completely fix the referents of unit terms. Instead, idealized models play a crucial semantic role in coordinating the theoretical definition of a unit with its multiple concrete realizations. The accuracy of realizations is evaluated by comparing them to each other in light of their respective models. The epistemic credentials of this method are examined and illustrated through an analysis of the contemporary (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   52 citations  
  • Buyer beware: robustness analyses in economics and biology.Jay Odenbaugh & Anna Alexandrova - 2011 - Biology and Philosophy 26 (5):757-771.
    Theoretical biology and economics are remarkably similar in their reliance on mathematical models, which attempt to represent real world systems using many idealized assumptions. They are also similar in placing a great emphasis on derivational robustness of modeling results. Recently philosophers of biology and economics have argued that robustness analysis can be a method for confirmation of claims about causal mechanisms, despite the significant reliance of these models on patently false assumptions. We argue that the power of robustness analysis has (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   55 citations  
  • (2 other versions)Varieties of support and confirmation of climate models.Elisabeth A. Lloyd - 2009 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 83 (1):213-232.
    Today's climate models are supported in a couple of ways that receive little attention from philosophers or climate scientists. In addition to standard 'model fit', wherein a model's simulation is compared to observational data, there is an additional type of confirmation available through the variety of instances of model fit. When a model performs well at fitting first one variable and then another, the probability of the model under some standard confirmation function, say, likelihood, goes up more than under each (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   35 citations  
  • Lucas’ expectational equilibrium, price rigidity, and descriptive realism.Mauro Boianovsky - 2022 - Journal of Economic Methodology 29 (1):66-85.
    Robert Lucas' article on the neutrality of money represented the first effective challenge to Samuelson’s neoclassical synthesis methodological separation between static microeconom...
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Modeling intentional agency: a neo-Gricean framework.Matti Sarkia - 2021 - Synthese 199 (3-4):7003-7030.
    This paper analyzes three contrasting strategies for modeling intentional agency in contemporary analytic philosophy of mind and action, and draws parallels between them and similar strategies of scientific model-construction. Gricean modeling involves identifying primitive building blocks of intentional agency, and building up from such building blocks to prototypically agential behaviors. Analogical modeling is based on picking out an exemplary type of intentional agency, which is used as a model for other agential types. Theoretical modeling involves reasoning about intentional agency in (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation