Attempts by Avicenna and Ibn alNafīs to Expand the Field of the Transference of Demonstration in the Context of the Relationship Between Geometry and Medicine

This paper aims to deal with the disputes on transferring demonstration between the various sciences in the context of the medicine-geometry relationship. According to Aristotle’s metabasis-prohibition, these two sciences should be located in separate compartments due to the characteristics of their subject-matter. However, a thorough analysis of the critical passage in Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics on circular wounds forces a revision of the boundaries of the interactions between sciences, since subsequently Avicenna, on the grounds of this passage, would widen the area of the transference of demonstration. Furthermore, the fact that Avicenna and Ibn al-Nafīs continued to use geometrical demonstrations in their anatomical investigations shows the need to understand kind-crossing prohibition as a reminder to take into account the present scientific infrastructure and logical rules before proceeding onto a scientific investigation instead of accepting it as a mere nominal doctrine. Therefore, whether kind-crossing was possible or not depended on the extent to which the conclusion derived at the end of the scientific investigation, using a different method after taking into account all these reminders, had contributed to the solution of a particular proposition or the achievement of an approximate truth.

Can Knowledge Really be Non-factive?

This paper contains a critical examination of the prospects for analyses of knowledge that weaken the factivity condition so that knowledge implies only approximate truth.

Knowledge, Adequacy, and Approximate Truth

Approximation involves representing things in ways that might be close to the truth but are nevertheless false. Given the widespread reliance on approximations in science and everyday life, here we ask whether it is conceptually possible for false approximations to qualify as knowledge. According to the factivity account, it is impossible to know false approximations, because knowledge requires truth. According to the representational adequacy account, it is possible to know false approximations, if they are close enough to the truth for present purposes. In this paper, we adopt an experimental methodology to begin testing these two theories. When an agent provides a false and practically inadequate answer, both theories predict that people will deny knowledge. But the theories disagree about an agent who provides a false but practically adequate answer: the factivity hypothesis again predicts knowledge denial, whereas the representational adequacy hypothesis predicts knowledge attribution. Across two experiments, our principal finding was that people tended to attribute knowledge for false but practically adequate answers, which supports the representational adequacy account. We propose an interpretation of existing findings that preserves a conceptual link between knowledge and truth. According to this proposal, truth is not necessary for knowledge, but it is a feature of prototypical knowledge.

Utilitarianism

While Hutcheson and Hume present a utilitarian outlook, Mill and Sidgwick offer a systematic defence of it. They argue: (1) Utilitarianism makes sense of ordinary moral beliefs, so that anyone who takes these beliefs seriously has good reason to be a utilitarian. The utilitarian principle is the primary principle that explains the approximate truth of the secondary principles—ordinary moral rules. Apparent exceptions to utilitarianism—e.g., principles about justice and rights—can be reconciled with it. The hedonist theory of value—suitably interpreted—can explain the widespread view that pleasure is not the only good. (2) Utilitarianism follows from basic principles of practical reason, so that anyone who questions ordinary moral beliefs still has good reason to be a utilitarian. Once we understand that rational concern for our own interest requires us to aim at our own greatest good, without caring more or less about different times, we see that rational concern for everyone’s interest requires us to maximize the total good, without caring about whether this or that person gets more of it.

Scientific Realism without the Quantum

Scientific realists often say that there should be belief in the approximate truth of ‘our best scientific theories.’ It is hard to hear the phrase ‘our best scientific theories’ without thinking of quantum mechanics and quantum field theories. But as numerous chapters in this collection make clear, it is unclear that some experts even know how to make sense of being a realist about quantum theories. They provide recipes for calculating incredibly precise predictions for observations, but beyond the recipes, they do not seem to offer a clear-cut or unambiguous picture of what physical reality is like at the fundamental level. After giving an overview of the problems that beset any attempt to believe in the truth or approximate truth of quantum theories, Chapter 2 turns to the question of how to protect scientific realism from the ills of the quantum. The aim is to show that it is possible to quarantine the worst of those ills, freeing us to adopt a robustly realistic attitude toward many other extremely successful areas of contemporary science, such as (parts of) geology, microbiology, and chemistry. The quarantine barrier may be imperfect and permeable in places, but is strong enough (the chapter argues) to help the cause of scientific realism.

The Non-Miraculous Success of Formal Analogies in Quantum Theories

The Higgs model was developed using purely formal analogies to models of superconductivity. This is in contrast to historical case studies such as the development of electromagnetism, which employed physical analogies. As a result, quantum case studies such as the development of the Higgs model carry new lessons for the scientific (anti-)realism debate. Chapter 13 argues that, by breaking the connection between success and approximate truth, the use of purely formal analogies is a counterexample to two prominent versions of the ‘No Miracles’ Argument (NMA) for scientific realism: Stathis Psillos’ Refined Explanationist Defense of Realism and the Argument from History of Science for structural realism. The NMA is undermined, but the success of the Higgs model is not miraculous because there is a naturalistically acceptable explanation for its success that does not invoke approximate truth. The chapter also suggests some possible strategies for adapting to the counterexample for scientific realists who wish to hold on to the NMA in some form.

A Fond Farewell to "Approximate Truth"?

Most commonly, the scientific realism debate is seen as dividing those who do and do not think that the striking empirical and practical successes of at least our best scientific theories indicate with high probability that those theories are ‘approximately true’. But I want to suggest that this characterization of the debate has far outlived its usefulness. Not only does it obscure the central differences between two profoundly different types of contemporary scientific realist, but even more importantly it serves to disguise the most substantial points of actual disagreement between these two kinds of realists and those who instead think the historical record of scientific inquiry itself reveals that such realism is untenable in either form.

How Deployment Realism withstands Doppelt's Criticisms

Gerald Doppelt claims that Deployment Realism cannot withstand the antirealist objections based on the “pessimistic meta-induction” and Laudan’s historical counterexamples. Moreover it is incomplete, as it purports to explain the predictive success of theories, but overlooks the necessity to explain also their explanatory success. Accordingly, he proposes a new version of realism, presented as the best explanation of both predictive and explanatory success, and committed only to the truth of best current theories, not of the discarded ones (Doppelt (2007, 2011, 2013, 2014). Elsewhere I criticized his new brand of realism. Here instead I argue that (a) Doppelt has not shown that Deployment Realism cannot solve the problems raised by the history of science, (b) explaining explanatory success does not add much to explaining novel predictive success, and (c) Doppelt is right that truth is not a sufficient explanans, but for different reasons, and this does not refute Deployment Realism, but helps to detail it better. In a more explicit formulation, the realist IBE concludes not only to the truth of theories, but also to the reliability of scientists and scientific method, the order and simplicity of nature, and the approximate truth of background theories.