Realism, Ontology, and Objectivity

2020 ◽  
pp. 13-34
Author(s):  
Justin Clarke-Doane
Keyword(s):  
Mathematical Realism ◽  
Epistemological Challenge

This chapter explicates the concept of realism, and distinguishes it from related concepts with which it is often conflated. It shows that, properly conceived, realism has no ontological implications, and that influential epistemological objections to moral and mathematical realism fallaciously assume otherwise. One upshot of the discussion is that it is no response to Paul Benacerraf’s epistemological challenge to claim that there are no special mathematical entities with which to “get in touch.” The chapter concludes with a distinction between realism and objectivity, a distinction which is central to Chapter 6. It uses the Parallel Postulate, understood as a claim of pure geometry, as a paradigm of a claim that fails to be objective, even if mathematical realism is true. Conversely, it explains how realism about claims of a kind may be false even though they are objective in a sense in which the Parallel Postulate is not.

Inference to the best explanation and mathematical realism

Synthese ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 160 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sorin Ioan Bangu
Keyword(s):  
Mathematical Realism

The Epistemology of Ethical Intuitions

Philosophy ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 86 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hallvard Lillehammer
Keyword(s):  
Functional Role ◽  
Ethical Inquiry ◽  
Epistemological Challenge

AbstractIntuitions are widely assumed to play an important evidential role in ethical inquiry. In this paper I critically discuss a recently influential claim that the epistemological credentials of ethical intuitions are undermined by their causal pedigree and functional role. I argue that this claim is exaggerated. In the course of doing so I argue that the challenge to ethical intuitions embodied in this claim should be understood not only as a narrowly epistemological challenge, but also as a substantially ethical one. I argue that this fact illuminates the epistemology of ethical intuitions.

scholarly journals Η βοηθική και το επιστημολογικό παράδειγμα της πολυπλοκότητας

Bioethica ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
Ελένη Ρεθυμνιωτάκη (Eleni Rethimiotaki)
Keyword(s):  
Social Development ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Biomedical Research ◽  
Technological Progress ◽  
Law School ◽  
Theory Of Science ◽  
Dynamic View ◽  
Epistemological Challenge ◽  
Theoretical Assumptions ◽  
Practical Challenge

Nearly half a century now, the regulation of biomedical research and its technological applications, particularly in medical practice, takes place through a novel combination of positive sciences with humanities, philosophy and social theory of science. However, their combination is still a challenge both practically and theoretically. The practical challenge is how scientific and technological progress combined to the economic and social development it brings is harmonized with the protection of natural and social goods as well as the respect for individual freedoms. Besides, the regulation of biomedicine consists an epistemological challenge for philosophy and theory of science. The work of the deceased Thanassis Papachristou, Professor of Law School of the National and Kapodistrian University in Athens and a former member of the National Bioethics Committee, has been a pioneer precisely because he perceived the dual challenge being simultaneously a civilist and a sociologist of law.The article explains first the reasons why his work opens up to a dynamic view of the regulation of biomedicine. Second, it proceeds further and after quoting the basic theoretical assumptions of the epistemological example of complexity, it develops arguments in favor of its adoption for the interpretation and description of bioethics with bio-law and their combination in the modern model of regulation of biomedicine. Thirdly, the article exposes some thoughts about the implementation of the complexity paradigm in the case pf the Greek model of regulation of biomedicine and the dynamics of bioethics development within it.

scholarly journals Debunking, supervenience, and Hume’s Principle

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (8) ◽  
pp. 1083-1103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Leng
Keyword(s):  
Mathematical Realism ◽  
Mathematical Beliefs ◽  
Conceptual Truth ◽  
Hume’S Principle ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Debunking Arguments ◽  
Moral Facts

AbstractDebunking arguments against both moral and mathematical realism have been pressed, based on the claim that our moral and mathematical beliefs are insensitive to the moral/mathematical facts. In the mathematical case, I argue that the role of Hume’s Principle as a conceptual truth speaks against the debunkers’ claim that it is intelligible to imagine the facts about numbers being otherwise while our evolved responses remain the same. Analogously, I argue, the conceptual supervenience of the moral on the natural speaks presents a difficulty for the debunker’s claim that, had the moral facts been otherwise, our evolved moral beliefs would have remained the same.

scholarly journals Mathematical and Moral Disagreement

2019 ◽  
Vol 70 (279) ◽  
pp. 302-327
Author(s):  
Silvia Jonas
Keyword(s):  
Moral Realism ◽  
Moral Disagreement ◽  
Central Problem ◽  
Mathematical Realism

Abstract The existence of fundamental moral disagreements is a central problem for moral realism and has often been contrasted with an alleged absence of disagreement in mathematics. However, mathematicians do in fact disagree on fundamental questions, for example on which set-theoretic axioms are true, and some philosophers have argued that this increases the plausibility of moral vis-à-vis mathematical realism. I argue that the analogy between mathematical and moral disagreement is not as straightforward as those arguments present it. In particular, I argue that pluralist accounts of mathematics render fundamental mathematical disagreements compatible with mathematical realism in a way in which moral disagreements and moral realism are not.1

scholarly journals Conceptual frameworks for social and cultural Big Data analytics: Answering the epistemological challenge

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 205395171882381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucy Resnyansky
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Data Analytics ◽  
Big Data Analytics ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
Digital Data ◽  
Conceptual Frameworks ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social ◽  
Epistemological Challenge ◽  
Social Scientific

This paper aims to contribute to the development of tools to support an analysis of Big Data as manifestations of social processes and human behaviour. Such a task demands both an understanding of the epistemological challenge posed by the Big Data phenomenon and a critical assessment of the offers and promises coming from the area of Big Data analytics. This paper draws upon the critical social and data scientists’ view on Big Data as an epistemological challenge that stems not only from the sheer volume of digital data but, predominantly, from the proliferation of the narrow-technological and the positivist views on data. Adoption of the social-scientific epistemological stance presupposes that digital data was conceptualised as manifestations of the social. In order to answer the epistemological challenge, social scientists need to extend the repertoire of social scientific theories and conceptual frameworks that may inform the analysis of the social in the age of Big Data. However, an ‘epistemological revolution’ discourse on Big Data may hinder the integration of the social scientific knowledge into the Big Data analytics.

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