scholarly journals Probing ‘operational coherence’ in Hasok Chang’s pragmatic realism

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Omar El Mawas
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Scientific Practice ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
Probative Value ◽  
Epistemology Of Science ◽  
New Form ◽  
The Many ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient

AbstractHasok 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 (systematic) 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.

scholarly journals La metafísica del realismo científico, un acercamiento pragmatista. The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism, a Pragmatist Approach

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paniel Reyes-Cárdenas
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Scientific Practice ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Structuralist Approach ◽  
Pragmatic Maxim

En este escrito presento una interpretación del realismo científico desde la tradición pragmatista iniciada por Charles S. Peirce. El artículo discute escrúpulos en contra de la metafísica, y propone un pragmatismo realista, que utiliza la máxima pragmática en sus aspectos operacionalistas e inferenciales: el carácter inferencialista de la máxima enfatiza los procesos de inferencia en los que una proposición se encuentra envuelta; mientras que el carácter operacionalista enfatiza el conjunto de consecuencias traducibles como hábitos de la acción que se siguen de la aceptación de dicha proposición. Mi propuesta es que la máxima de hecho supone ambos aspectos, pero destaca el carácter operacionalista dado el carácter e inclinación experimental de la práctica científica. Dicho pragmatismo de raigambre Peirceana resulta prometedor en filosofía de la ciencia, en tanto que puede contribuir a la investigación autocontrolada, que no es agnóstica con respecto a la metafísica. Hacia el final del artículo ofrezco un ejemplo del acercamiento estructuralista a las matemáticas como un ejemplo de la aplicación de la máxima a problemas conceptuales sobre la realidad de entidades en nuestras mejores teorías científicas.In this essay I advance an interpretation of Scientific Realism from the viewpoint of the pragmatist tradition initiated by Charles S. Peirce. This article argues against scruples against metaphysics and proposes a pragmatistic realism that uses the pragmatic maxim in its inferentialist and operationalist aspects: the inferentialist character of the maxim emphasizes the inferential processes in which the proposition is embedded; meanwhile, the operationalist character of the maxim stresses the set of consequences that can be translated has habits of action followed by the acceptation of a proposition. My proposal is that the maxim actually presupposes both aspects. However, I highlight the value of the operationalist aspect due to the nature and experimental leaning of scientific practice. In addition, the article also claims that such promising pragmatistic realism in the Philosophy of science contributes more to self-controlled inquiry and is not metaphysically agnostic. Towards the end I offer the example of the structuralist approach in mathematics as a token of the application of the maxim to conceptual issues about the reality of items of our best scientific theories.

Causal Powers

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Scientific Practice ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Causal Powers ◽  
Important Work ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
Metaphysics Of Mind

This collection brings together new and important work by both emerging scholars and those who helped shape the field on the nature of causal powers, and the connections between causal powers and other phenomena within metaphysics, philosophy of science, and philosophy of mind. Contributors discuss how one who takes causal powers to be in some sense irreducible should think about laws of nature, scientific practice, causation, modality, space and time, persistence, and the metaphysics of mind.

scholarly journals Using History as Evidence in Philosophy of Science: A Methodological Critique

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
James W. McAllister
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Critical Review ◽  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Qualitative Approaches ◽  
History Of

Abstract This article offers a critical review of past attempts and possible methods to test philosophical models of science against evidence from history of science. Drawing on methodological debates in social science, I distinguish between quantitative and qualitative approaches. I show that both have their uses in history and philosophy of science, but that many writers in this domain have misunderstood and misapplied these approaches, and especially the method of case studies. To test scientific realism, for example, quantitative methods are more effective than case studies. I suggest that greater methodological clarity would enable the project of integrated history and philosophy of science to make renewed progress.

scholarly journals Scientific Practice and the Epistemology of Governing Laws

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 174-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
TYLER HILDEBRAND
Keyword(s):  
British Journal ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Scientific Practice ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
General Interest ◽  
Natural Properties ◽  
Fundamental Properties ◽  
Epistemic Access ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThis article is concerned with the relationship between scientific practice and the metaphysics of laws of nature and natural properties. I begin by examining an argument by Michael Townsen Hicks and Jonathan Schaffer (‘Derivative Properties in Fundamental Laws,’ British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 2017) that an important feature of scientific practice—namely, that scientists sometimes invoke non-fundamental properties in fundamental laws—is incompatible with metaphysical theories according to which laws govern. I respond to their argument by developing an epistemology for governing laws that is grounded in scientific practice. This epistemology is of general interest for non-Humean theories of laws, for it helps to explain our epistemic access to non-Humean theoretical entities such as governing laws or fundamental powers.

scholarly journals pop-1/TCF, ref-2/ZIC and T-box factors regulate the development of anterior cells in the C. elegans embryo

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan D Rumley ◽  
Elicia A Preston ◽  
Dylan Cook ◽  
Felicia L Peng ◽  
Amanda L Zacharias ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Wnt Pathway ◽  
Expression Patterns ◽  
Specific Expression ◽  
T Box ◽  
Animal Development ◽  
C Elegans ◽  
The Many ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient ◽  
Cell Division Timing ◽  
Anterior Posterior

Patterning of the anterior-posterior axis is fundamental to animal development. The Wnt pathway plays a major role in this process by activating the expression of posterior genes in animals from worms to humans. This observation raises the question of whether the Wnt pathway or other regulators control the expression of the many anterior-expressed genes. We found that the expression of five anterior-specific genes in Caenorhabditis elegans embryos depends on the Wnt pathway effectors pop-1/TCF and sys-1/β-catenin. We focused further on one of these anterior genes, ref-2/ZIC, a conserved transcription factor expressed in multiple anterior lineages. Live imaging of ref-2 mutant embryos identified defects in cell division timing and position in anterior lineages. Cis-regulatory dissection identified three ref-2 transcriptional enhancers, one of which is necessary and sufficient for anterior-specific expression. This enhancer is activated by the T-box transcription factors TBX-37 and TBX-38, and surprisingly, concatemerized TBX-37/38 binding sites are sufficient to drive anterior-biased expression alone, despite the broad expression of TBX-37 and TBX-38. Taken together, our results highlight the diverse mechanisms used to regulate anterior expression patterns in the embryo.

scholarly journals Scientific Realism in the Wild: An Empirical Study of Seven Sciences and History and Philosophy of Science

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
James R. Beebe
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
In The Wild

We report the results of a study that investigated the views of researchers working in sevenscientific disciplines and in history and philosophy of science in regard to four hypothesizeddimensions of scientific realism. Among other things, we found (i) that natural scientiststended to express more strongly realist views than social scientists, (ii) that historyand philosophy of science scholars tended to express more antirealist views than naturalscientists, (iii) that van Fraassen’s characterization of scientific realism failed to clusterwith more standard characterizations, and (iv) that those who endorsed the pessimistic inductionwere no more or less likely to endorse antirealism.

scholarly journals Editor's Introduction

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Curtis Forbes
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
The Future ◽  
Technical Details ◽  
Realism Debate

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."

scholarly journals Realism, empiricism and causal inquiry in International Relations: What is at stake?

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 562-587 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam R C Humphreys
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Scientific Practice ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Constructive Empiricism ◽  
Van Fraassen ◽  
Scientific Realist ◽  
Bas Van Fraassen ◽  
Causal Mechanisms ◽  
Everyday World

Discussions of causal inquiry in International Relations are increasingly framed in terms of a contrast between rival philosophical positions, each with a putative methodological corollary — empiricism is associated with a search for patterns of covariation, while scientific realism is associated with a search for causal mechanisms. Scientific realism is, on this basis, claimed to open up avenues of causal inquiry that are unavailable to empiricists. This is misleading. Empiricism appears inferior only if its reformulation by contemporary philosophers of science, such as Bas van Fraassen, is ignored. I therefore develop a fuller account than has previously been provided in International Relations of Van Fraassen’s ‘constructive empiricism’ and how it differs from scientific realism. In light of that, I consider what is at stake in calls for the reconstitution of causal inquiry along scientific realist, rather than empiricist, lines. I argue that scientific realists have failed to make a compelling case that what matters is whether researchers are realists. Constructive empiricism and scientific realism differ only on narrow epistemological and metaphysical grounds that carry no clear implications for the conduct of causal inquiry. Yet, insofar as Van Fraassen has reformed empiricism to meet the scientific realist challenge, this has created a striking disjunction between mainstream practices of causal inquiry in International Relations and the vision of scientific practice that scientific realists and contemporary empiricists share, especially regarding the significance of regularities observed in everyday world politics. Although scientific realist calls for a philosophical revolution in International Relations are overstated, this disjunction demands further consideration.

Critical Realism

2021 ◽  
pp. 69-72
Author(s):  
Dominik Giese ◽  
Jonathan Joseph
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Critical Realism ◽  
Alternative View ◽  
Science And Society ◽  
The Real ◽  
Critical Realist ◽  
Ontological Question ◽  
The World

This chapter evaluates critical realism, a term which refers to a philosophy of science connected to the broader approach of scientific realism. In contrast to other philosophies of science, such as positivism and post-positivism, critical realism presents an alternative view on the questions of what is ‘real’ and how one can generate scientific knowledge of the ‘real’. How one answers these questions has implications for how one studies science and society. The critical realist answer starts by prioritizing the ontological question over the epistemological one, by asking: What must the world be like for science to be possible? Critical realism holds the key ontological belief of scientific realism that there is a reality which exists independent of our knowledge and experience of it. Critical realists posit that reality is more complex, and made up of more than the directly observable. More specifically, critical realism understands reality as ‘stratified’ and composed of three ontological domains: the empirical, the actual, and the real. Here lies the basis for causation.

Conclusion: The Theme Revisited

2019 ◽  
pp. 327-338
Author(s):  
Jan Sprenger ◽  
Stephan Hartmann
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Statistical Inference ◽  
Social Epistemology ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Empirical Methods ◽  
Epistemology Of Science ◽  
Scientific Philosophy ◽  
Look Back

In this final chapter, we look back on the results of the book and the methods we used. In particular, we enter a discussion whether Bayesian philosophy of science can and should be labeled a proper scientific philosophy due to its combination of formal, conceptual, and empirical methods. Finally, we explore the limitations of the book and we sketch projects for future research (e.g., integrating our results with social epistemology of science and the philosophy of statistical inference).

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