Throughout, the book combines daring speculations with detailed investigations to portray the nature and status of rationality and the essential role that...

Tom Kelly argues that instrumentalist aeeounts of epistemie rationality fail beeause what a person has reason to believe does not depend upon the eontent of his or her goals. However, his argument fails to distinguish questions about what the evidence supports from questions about what a person ought to believe. Once these are distinguished, the instrumentalist ean avoid Kelly’s objeetions. The paperconcludes by sketehing what I take to be the most defensible version of the instrumentalist view.

Tom Kelly argues that instrumentalist accounts of epistemic rationality fail because what a person has reason to believe does not depend upon the content of his or her goals. However, his argument fails to distinguish questions about what the evidence supports from questions about what a person ought to believe. Once these are distinguished, the instrumentalist can avoid Kelly’s objections. The paper concludes by sketching what I take to be the most defensible version of the instrumentalist view.

By targeting and critiquing these assumptions, he lays the groundwork for a post-positivist philosophy of science that does not provide aid and comfort to the enemies of reason. This book consists of thirteen essays.

This article reviews the transition between post-Fregean anti-naturalistic epistemology and contemporary naturalistic epistemologies. It traces the revival of naturalism to Quine’s critique of the "a priori", and Kuhn’s defense of historicism, and use the arguments of Quine and Kuhn to identify a position, "traditional naturalism", that combines naturalistic themes with the claim that epistemology is a normative enterprise. Pleas for more radical versions of naturalism are articulated, and briefly confronted.

This paper analyzes and evaluates quine's influential thesis that epistemology should become a chapter of empirical psychology. quine's main point, it is argued, is that normativity must be banished from epistemology and, more generally, philosophy. i claim that without a normative concept of justification, we lose the very concept of knowledge, and that belief ascription itself becomes impossible without a normative concept of rationality. further, the supervenience of concepts of epistemic appraisal shows that normative epistemology is indeed possible.

In this paper, I explore the relationship between epistemic rationality and instrumental rationality, and I attempt to delineate their respective roles in typical instances of theoretical reasoning. My primary concern is with the instrumentalist conception of epistemic rationality: the view that epistemic rationality is simply a species of instrumental rationality, viz. instrumental rationality in the service of one's cognitive or epistemic goals. After sketching the relevance of the instrumentalist conception to debates over naturalism and 'the ethics of belief', I argue (...) that, despite enjoying considerable popularity among both epistemologists and philosophers of science, it is ultimately indefensible. Having thus argued for the distinctness of epistemic and instrumental rationality, I attempt to clarify the role played by each in typical instances of theoretical reasoning. I suggest that being theoretically rational--that is, being proficient with respect to theoretical reasoning--is best construed as a hybrid virtue, inasmuch as it involves manifesting sensitivity to two very different kinds of reasons. (shrink)

In this influential study of central issues in the philosophy of science, Paul Horwich elaborates on an important conception of probability, diagnosing the failure of previous attempts to resolve these issues as stemming from a too-rigid conception of belief. Adopting a Bayesian strategy, he argues for a probabilistic approach, yielding a more complete understanding of the characteristics of scientific reasoning and methodology. Presented in a fresh twenty-first-century series livery, and including a specially commissioned preface written by Colin Howson, illuminating its (...) enduring importance and relevance to philosophical enquiry, this engaging work has been revived for a new generation of readers. (shrink)

What is required for something to be evidence for a hypothesis? In this fascinating, elegantly written work, distinguished philosopher of science Peter Achinstein explores this question, rejecting typical philosophical and statistical theories of evidence. He claims these theories are much too weak to give scientists what they want--a good reason to believe--and, in some cases, they furnish concepts that mistakenly make all evidential claims a priori. Achinstein introduces four concepts of evidence, defines three of them by reference to "potential" evidence, (...) and characterizes the latter using a novel epistemic interpretation of probability. The resulting theory is then applied to philosophical and historical issues. Solutions are provided to the "grue," "ravens," "lottery," and "old-evidence" paradoxes, and to a series of questions. These include whether explanations or predictions furnish more evidential weight, whether individual hypotheses or entire theoretical systems can receive evidential support, what counts as a scientific discovery, and what sort of evidence is required for it. The historical questions include whether Jean Perrin had non-circular evidence for the existence of molecules, what type of evidence J. J. Thomson offered for the existence of the electron, and whether, as is usually supposed, he really discovered the electron. Achinstein proposes answers in terms of the concepts of evidence introduced. As the premier book in the fabulous new series Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Science, this volume is essential for philosophers of science and historians of science, as well as for statisticians, scientists with philosophical interests, and anyone curious about scientific reasoning. (shrink)

In principle, any token belief can be evaluated practically as well as epistemically . My thesis is an exploration of what I take to be philosophically interesting issues which arise from reflection on this commonplace. ;In the first part of the thesis, I explore the question of whether the fact that beliefs can be evaluated practically can have normative upshot: that is, whether practical evaluations can make a difference to what one should believe, or to how one should act. I (...) argue that, although practical considerations cannot rationalize beliefs, they can rationalize acting in ways that lead to the acquisition of practically advantageous beliefs---including beliefs which it would be irrational to hold. In the course of the inquiry, I pursue questions about the extent to which our beliefs are under our voluntary control as well as questions about the distinctive value of being a rational believer, and I attempt to apply the lessons which emerge from my discussion of belief to other propositional attitudes such as regret, fear, and desire. ;In the second part of the thesis, I develop the hypothesis that the oft-noted 'epistemic unscrupulousness' displayed by great scientists at various key historical junctures is an artifact of the practical advantageousness of holding certain kinds of beliefs in the absence of evidence for those beliefs. I argue that this hypothesis has important implications for contemporary debates concerning the rationality and objectivity of scientific progress. In the course of the discussion, I examine norms of conservatism and inference to the best explanation and suggest that, in order to appreciate the distinctive virtues of these norms, one must take practical considerations into account. ;In the third and final part of thesis, I argue against the reductionist view that epistemic goodness is simply a special case of practical goodness, viz. practical goodness in the service of one's cognitive or epistemic aims. I criticize the assumption, common among epistemologists, that there is some general, global cognitive goal relative to which our cognitive practices and efforts are to be assessed. In the more constructive segment of the third part, I contend that although there is a deep and irreducible distinction between epistemic and practical rationality, theoretical reasoning of any significant degree of complexity requires responsiveness to both epistemic and practical reasons, and that theoretical rationality is thus best thought of as a hybrid virtue. (shrink)