Instrumentalism

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Kyle Stanford
Keyword(s):  
Newtonian Mechanics ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Restricted Class ◽  
Scientific Realist ◽  
Scientific Domain ◽  
The World

This chapter seeks to explore and develop the proposal that even our best scientific theories are not (as the scientific realist would have it) accurate descriptions of how things stand in otherwise inaccessible domains of nature but are instead simply powerful conceptual tools or instruments for engaging practically with the world around us. It describes a number of persistent challenges facing any attempt to apply the American Pragmatists’ global conception of all ideas, beliefs, theories, and cognitions quite generally as such tools or instruments to only a restricted class or category of such entities (such as our best scientific theories) instead. It then seeks to overcome these challenges by regarding scientific instrumentalism as simply applying the scientific realist’s own attitude toward a theory like Newtonian mechanics to even the most empirically successful and instrumentally powerful theory we have in any given scientific domain.

scholarly journals What are empirical consequences? On dispensability and composite objects

Synthese ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex LeBrun
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Scientific Realist ◽  
The World ◽  
Composite Objects ◽  
Theoretical Equivalence ◽  
Insight Into

AbstractPhilosophers sometimes give arguments that presuppose the following principle: two theories can fail to be empirically equivalent on the sole basis that they present different “thick” metaphysical pictures of the world. Recently, a version of this principle has been invoked to respond to the argument that composite objects are dispensable to our best scientific theories. This response claims that our empirical evidence distinguishes between ordinary and composite-free theories, and it empirically favors the ordinary ones (Hofweber 2016, 2018). In this paper, I ask whether this response to the dispensability argument is tenable. I claim that it is not. This is because it presupposes an indefensible thesis about when two empirical consequences are distinct or the same. My argument provides some insight into what our empirical consequences are, and I conclude that empirical evidence is radically metaphysically neutral. This gives us some insight into the significant content of our scientific theories—the content that a scientific realist is committed to—and I show how this insight relates to questions about theoretical equivalence more broadly.

scholarly journals Człowiek w teorii — teoria w człowieku. Przykład biografii naukowej Czesława Robotyckiego (przyczynek do problemu upodmiotawiania dyskursów naukowych)

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 197-208
Author(s):  
Marcin Kafar
Keyword(s):  
Close Connection ◽  
Individual Experience ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Contemporary Theory ◽  
Meeting Point ◽  
Cognitive Context ◽  
The World ◽  
Complicated Conditions

This article considers the dichotomy between theory and life, treating it as a reflection of the process of subjectivization of discourse of the anthropological variety. In accord with the accepted premise, scientific theories do not emerge on their own but as result of complicated conditions at the meeting point of subjective-individual experience and the language of theory, leading to a close connection between the maker of given theory and the theory itself. In such a cognitive context, legitimacy is achieved by analytical-interpretative tasks, which consist in seeking meanings and discovering the sense of manifold signs of the presence of the human being in theory (thus someone real, who situates himself openly or covertly in the constructed descriptions of the world) and the theory in the human being, that is, the conceptual or otherwise indicated manifestations of self-understanding. An instructive exemplification of such analytical and interpretative work is the scientific autobiography of an outstanding Polish anthropologist, Czesław Robotycki, a scholar developing the contemporary theory of culture while taking into account cultural paradoxes and the attitude of anthropological distancing which were personally important to him.

1. The methods and fruits of science

2021 ◽  
pp. 7-22
Author(s):  
David Wallace
Keyword(s):  
Dark Matter ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Real Science ◽  
The World ◽  
Key Topics ◽  
Theory Test

This chapter briefly discusses central key topics in the philosophy of science that the remainder of the book draws upon. It begins by considering the scientific method. ‘Induction’—the idea that we construct scientific theories just by generalizing from observations—is a very poor match to real science. ‘Falsification’—Popper’s idea that we create a theory, test against observation, and discard it if it fails the test—is much more realistic, but still too simple: data only falsifies data given auxiliary assumptions that can themselves be doubted. The issues are illustrated through an example from modern astrophysics: dark matter. The chapter then explores how we can resolve issues of underdetermination, where two theories give the same predictions. Finally, it introduces ‘scientific realism’, the view that our best theories tell us things about the world that go beyond what is directly observable.

You see me, but do you hear me? The science and sensibility of trans-species dialogue

2010 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 407-419 ◽  
Author(s):  
GA Bradshaw
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Science And Society ◽  
The World

Talking with animals comes naturally and happens the world over. Traditional indigenous peoples depend on their abilities to understand the birds, grazers, and hunters who share their land and waters and we converse intimately with the dogs, cats, birds, and other animals with whom we live. Nonetheless, science and society cast a skeptical eye on claims that animals think and communicate on par with humans. Now, this view is changing. We have entered into a remarkable new ethical and psychological consilience as scientific theories and data converge with age-old experience. Communicating with animals — hearing what they are saying and talking with them — is not only possible, it has never stopped.

scholarly journals ALCUNE NOTE SULLA NOZIONE DI SPIEGAZIONE NELLE SCIENZE E IN FILOSOFIA

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giuliano Torrengo
Keyword(s):  
Good Explanation ◽  
Empirical Content ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Background Theory ◽  
The World

When we explain something we use hypotheses, that is representations, which we formulate on the basis of some background theory or other. What makes such representations explanations are facts in the world. If, for instance, I can appeal to the hypothesis that the second referee has been unfair as a way of accounting for why Claudio is upset. and such a hypothesis is a (good) explanation if and only if the second referee has been unfair. It follows that even if scientific theories can always be read in an instrumentalist sense, in using them to formulate explanatory hypotheses we often appeal, implicitly or explicitly, to readings of them that go beyond their empirical content.

scholarly journals Bayesian Models of Conceptual Development: Learning as Building Models of the World

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 533-558
Author(s):  
Tomer D. Ullman ◽  
Joshua B. Tenenbaum
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Development ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Conceptual Development ◽  
Model Building ◽  
Core Knowledge ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Potential Models ◽  
Building Models ◽  
Descriptive Account ◽  
The World

A Bayesian framework helps address, in computational terms, what knowledge children start with and how they construct and adapt models of the world during childhood. Within this framework, inference over hierarchies of probabilistic generative programs in particular offers a normative and descriptive account of children's model building. We consider two classic settings in which cognitive development has been framed as model building: ( a) core knowledge in infancy and ( b) the child as scientist. We interpret learning in both of these settings as resource-constrained, hierarchical Bayesian program induction with different primitives and constraints. We examine what mechanisms children could use to meet the algorithmic challenges of navigating large spaces of potential models, in particular the proposal of the child as hacker and how it might be realized by drawing on recent computational advances. We also discuss prospects for a unifying account of model building across scientific theories and intuitive theories, and in biological and cultural evolution more generally.

The Libraries of Newton, Hooke and Boyle

1966 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-55 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

The demand and search for the scientific literature of the past has grown enormously in the last twenty years. In an age as conscious as ours of the significance of science to mankind, some scientists naturally turned their thoughts to the origins of science as we know it, how scientific theories grew and how discoveries were made. Both institutions and individual scientists partake in these interests and form collections of books necessary for their study. How did their predecessors fare in this respect? They, of course, formed their libraries at a time when books were easy to find—and cheap. But what did they select for their particular reading? For example, what did the libraries of the three greatest scientists of the seventeenth century, Sir Isaac Newton, Robert Hooke and Robert Boyle, look like? Fortunately in the case of Newton, the history of his books is now fairly clear, thanks to the devoted labours of Colonel R . de Villamil (i), but it is a sad reflection on our attitude to our great intellectual leaders that this library o f the greatest English scientist, whose work changed the world for hundreds of years, was not taken care of, was, in fact, forgotten and at times entirely neglected.

scholarly journals Metaphor in Scientific Communication

2002 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 373-379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anuška Štambuk
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Communication ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Linguistic Communication ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
The World ◽  
Conceptual Relations

Abstract When communicating new knowledge we often use metaphors that provide understanding of one kind of experience by relating it to another. Apart from their use in basic linguistic communication, metaphorical models play an important part in communicating new discoveries in scientific theories. They also shape our experience and affect our picture of the world. The imaginative description of conceptual relations stimulates the research process, providing the basis for new discoveries.

Aristotelianism, Newtonianism and the Physics of the Layman

Perception ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benny Shanon
Keyword(s):  
Physical World ◽  
The Other ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Philosophy Of Nature ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World ◽  
The One

Written and visual surveys were administered in order to assess people's models of the physical world. A comparison was made between scientific theories and the layman's philosophy of nature on the one hand, and between people's conceptions and perceptions on the other hand. The findings suggest that there are discrepancies on both levels: people do not conceive the world as physicists do, and their conceptions are different from their perceptions.

scholarly journals Metaphysics of Science as Naturalized Metaphysics

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Esfeld
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Quantum Physics ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Newtonian Mechanics ◽  
Metaphysics Of Science ◽  
The World ◽  
Naturalized Metaphysics ◽  
Metaphysics Of Time

This chapter outlines a metaphysics of science in the sense of a naturalized metaphysics. It considers in the first place the interplay of physics and metaphysics in Newtonian mechanics, then goes into the issues for the metaphysics of time that relativity physics raises, shows that what one considers as the referent of quantum theory depends on metaphysical considerations, and finally explains how the stance that one takes with respect to objective modality and laws of nature shapes the options that are available for an ontology of quantum physics. In that way, this chapter seeks to make a case for a natural philosophy that treats physics and metaphysics as inseparable in the enquiry into the constitution of the world, there being neither a neo-positivist way of deducing metaphysics from the formalisms of physical theories, nor a neo-rationalist realm of investigation for metaphysics that is independent of physics.

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