scholarly journals In defense of epicycles

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ansgar D Endress
Keyword(s):  
Associative Learning ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Bayesian Models ◽  
Rule Learning ◽  
Learning Problems ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
History Of ◽  
Bayesian Models Of Cognition

As simpler scientific theories are preferable to more convoluted ones, it is plausible to assume (and widely assumed, especially in recent Bayesian models of cognition) that biological learners are also guided by simplicity considerations when acquiring mental representations, and that formal measures of complexity might indicate which learning problems are harder and which ones are easier. However, the history of science suggests that simpler scientific theories are not necessarily more useful if more convoluted ones make calculations easier. Here, I suggest that a similar conclusion applies to mental representations. Using case studies from perception, associative learning and rule learning, I show that formal measures of complexity critically depend on assumptions about the underlying representational and processing primitives and are generally unrelated to what is actually easy to learn and process in humans. An empirically viable notion of complexity thus need to take into consideration the representational and processing primitives that are available to actual learners even if this leads to formally complex explanations.

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 REFORMATION AND THE DISTRUST OF THE PROJECTOR IN THE HARTLIB CIRCLE

2012 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 375-397 ◽  
Author(s):  
KOJI YAMAMOTO
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Shared Experience ◽  
Useful Knowledge ◽  
New Synthesis ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of

ABSTRACTCase-studies of the circle of Samuel Hartlib, one of the most prolific groups of reformers in post-Reformation Europe, are flourishing. The uncovering of rich details has, however, made it difficult to draw a meaningful generalization about the circle's bewilderingly wide range of activities. Focusing on the circle's promotion of ‘useful knowledge’, this article offers an analytical framework for building a new synthesis. The eclectic and seemingly chaotic pursuit of useful knowledge emerged, it will be shown, as differing responses to, and interpretations of, pervasive distrust and the pursuit of reformation. The article thus explores how loosely-shared experience shaped the circle's ambivalent practices of collaboration and exclusion. The study thereby contributes not only to studies of the Hartlib circle, but also to the historiography of post-Reformation culture and burgeoning studies of trust and credibility in the history of science and technology.

From the Evidence of History to the History of Evidence

2021 ◽  
pp. 70-98
Author(s):  
Stathis Psillos
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Research Program ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Pessimistic Induction ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Universal Gravitation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second Shift

This chapter looks into the transition from the Cartesian natural philosophy to the Newtonian one, and then to the Einsteinian science, making the following key point: though the shift from Descartes’s theory to Newton’s amounted to a wholesale rejection of Descartes’s theory, in the second shift, a great deal was retained; Newton’s theory of universal gravitation gave rise to a research program that informed and constrained Einstein’s theory. Newton’s theory was a lot more supported by the evidence than Descartes’s and this made it imperative for the successor theory to accommodate within it as much as possible of Newton’s theory: evidence for Newton’s theory became evidence for Einstein’s. This double case study motivates a rebranding of the “divide et impera” strategy against the pessimistic induction introduced in the book Scientific Realism, which shifts attention from the (crude) evidence of the history of science to the (refined) history of evidence for scientific theories.

„Gentlemen in, Genuine Knowledge out“? Zum Status wissenschaftlicher Normen für die Erkenntnissicherung

2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lara Huber
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Engineering ◽  
Transgenic Mice ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Scientific Practices ◽  
History Of ◽  
Genuine Knowledge

ZusammenfassungCase studies in the history of science and technology have shown that scientific norms, so called standards, contribute significantly to the evolution of scientific practices. They arise predominantly, but not exclusively, on the basis of interactions with instruments of measurement and other technical devices. As regards experimental practices standards are mandatory preparatory procedures in a variety of designs, including the inbreeding and genetic engineering of experimental organisms (e.g. transgenic mice). I claim that scientific norms not only regulate mere technical preconditions of research but also guide experimental practices, for example with regard to the stabilisation and validation of phenomena. Against this background, the paper introduces different kinds of scientific norms and elaborates on the question if they are means to epistemic ends (e.g. stability).

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
María del Pilar Blanco ◽  
Joanna Page
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
North America ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Museum Collections ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
European Science ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ways Of Life

The transnational transfers of ideas, technologies, materials, and people that have shaped the history of science in Latin America are marked, as in any region, by asymmetries of power. These are often replicated or even magnified in the narratives we have forged about that history. The journeys to Latin America of some of Europe’s most famous naturalists (Humboldt and Darwin, for example) are often depicted as the heroic overcoming by European science of savage local terrains and ways of life. Those epic explorers are recast, in other narratives, as the forerunners of (neo)colonial exploitation in the history of the ransacking of Latin America’s mineral riches to pay for European imperial ventures, repeated in the often-illegal plundering of the region’s dinosaur fossils to swell museum collections in Europe and North America. In such accounts, Latin America becomes the arena for European adventures, the testing ground for new scientific theories, or the passive victim of colonial profiteering, but rarely a place of innovation. It is certainly the case that over the centuries the flow of natural resources, data, and expertise from Latin America to more developed regions has generally been to the benefit of those regions and has not reduced an imbalance of power that dates back to the colonial period.

The Problem of Rule-Choice Redux

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 284-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luca Tambolo
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Pivotal Role ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Past Performance ◽  
Methodological Choices ◽  
Scientific Naturalism ◽  
Empirical Information ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

Abstract In this paper, we tackle the contribution that history of science can make to the problem of rule-choice, i.e., the choice from among competing methodological rules. Taking our cue from Larry Laudan’s writings, we extensively discuss what we call historicist naturalism, i.e., the view that history of science plays a pivotal role in the justification of rules, since it is one source of the evidence required to settle methodological controversies. As we illustrate, there are cases of rule-choice that depend on conceptual considerations alone, and in which history of science does not factor. Moreover, there are cases in which methodological change is prompted – and explained – by empirical information that is not historical in nature: as suggested by what we call scientific naturalism, the justification of methodological choices comes from our knowledge of the structure of the world, as expressed by our currently accepted scientific theories. As we argue, due to its backward-looking character, historicist naturalism does not satisfactorily deal with the case of newly introduced rules, for which no evidence concerning their past performance is available. In sum, we conclude, the contribution that history of science can make to rule-choice is more modest than Laudan suggests.

Explication Work for Science and Philosophy

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jutta Schickore
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Historical Accuracy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Professional History

Abstract This article disentangles the various assumptions and expectations tied to case studies, to testing philosophy through cases, and to historical adequacy. Several notions of historical adequacy are distinguished: 1) adequacy to the standards of professional history of science, 2) historical accuracy, i.e. capturing the historical record, 3) relevance of historical episodes to the epistemic interests of philosophers of science, and 4) withstanding tests by historical cases. I argue that philosophers’ preoccupation with historical adequacy is misplaced if we understand “historical adequacy” as adequacy to professional history of science, capturing the historical record, a path to philosophical discovery, or as a test. In the last part of the article, I identify two important roles for philosophically informed studies of science: case studies of current issues can do explication work for the sciences. Tracing the history of philosophical reflections in past science can do explication work in the service of philosophy. Both kinds of endeavors are worthwhile but have very different goals and should not be conflated.

scholarly journals Tolstoy’s argument: realism and the history of science

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stathis Psillos
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Leo Tolstoy ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Current Science

In his intervention to the ‘bankruptcy of science debate’, which raged in Paris in the turn of the twentieth century, Leo Tolstoy was one of the first to use the past record of science as a weapon against current science. It is not inductive. It does not conclude that all current scientific theories will be abandoned; nor that most of them will be abandoned; not even that it is more likely than not that all or most of them will be abandoned. Its conclusion is modest: some of presently accepted theories will have the fate of those past theories that once dominated the scene but subsequently were abandoned.

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