The practice of justifying scientific explanations generates argumentative patterns in which several types of arguments may play a role. This paper is aimed at identifying these patterns on the basis of an exploration of the institutional conventions regarding the nature, the shape and the quality of scientific explanations as reflected in the writings of influential philosophers of science. First, a basic pattern for justifying scientific explanations is described. Then, two types of extensions of this pattern are presented. These extensions are (...) derived from philosophical accounts of requirements for the quality of explanations and the choice of the best explanation from a number of candidate explanations respectively. The description of the second extension will make clear how pragmatic argumentation plays a role in argumentative patterns within the scientific domain. (shrink)

Perspicuous representation, Wittgenstein offers, is not another methodology, but it consists in seeing the connections. The Wittgensteinian perspicuous representation is therapeutic. The method he suggests for philosophy is the same method he suggests for social sciences. In both of these cases, he tries to get us to see the confusions we become entangled in when philosophizing and theorizing. In both of these disciplines he warns us not to advance explanatory, metaphysical theories. In this paper, I connect this concern with Wittgenstein’s (...) critique of Frazer. In criticizing Frazer, Wittgenstein adopts the important part of Spengler’s view. Nonetheless, there are differences between Wittgenstein’s views and those of Spengler; this paper aims to show similarities as well as these differences. The first part of the paper briefly summarizes Frazer’s views. The second part focuses on Wittgenstein’s critique of Frazer concerning science and technology. The third part gives an account of his critique regarding method of social sciences and philosophy. The last part concentrates on Wittgenstein’s critique of Frazer pertaining to the tolerance towards alternative forms of life. Key Words: context-free vacuum • evolutionary explanation • incommensurability • methodology of social sciences • perspicuous representation • science • technology • tolerance • totem and taboo. (shrink)

In this article, we redefine classical notions of theory reduction in such a way that model-theoretic preferential semantics becomes part of a realist depiction of this aspect of science. We offer a model-theoretic reconstruction of science in which theory succession or reduction is often better - or at a finer level of analysis - interpreted as the result of model succession or reduction. This analysis leads to 'defeasible reduction', defined as follows: The conjunction of the assumptions of a reducing theory (...) T with the definitions translating the vocabulary of a reduced theory T' to the vocabulary of T, defeasibly entails the assumptions of reduced T'. This relation of defeasible reduction offers, in the context of additional knowledge becoming available, articulation of a more flexible kind of reduction in theory development than in the classical case. Also, defeasible reduction is shown to solve the problems of entailment that classical homogeneous reduction encounters. Reduction in the defeasible sense is a practical device for studying the processes of science, since it is about highlighting different aspects of the same theory at different times of application, rather than about naive dreams concerning a metaphysical unity of science. (shrink)

A common argument against explanatory reductionism is that higher‐level explanations are sometimes or always preferable because they are more general than reductive explanations. Here I challenge two basic assumptions that are needed for that argument to succeed. It cannot be assumed that higher‐level explanations are more general than their lower‐level alternatives or that higher‐level explanations are general in the right way to be explanatory. I suggest a novel form of pluralism regarding levels of explanation, according to which explanations at different (...) levels are preferable in different circumstances because they offer different types of generality, which are appropriate in different circumstances of explanation. (shrink)

Pragmatic theological realism (PTR) urges us to take up the realist aim of theology or the goal of truth although we have good reason to think that the goal can neither be attained nor approximated. Rescher contends that pursuing an unreachable goal can be rational on pragmatic grounds so long as pursuing the unreachable goal yields indirect benefits. I have blocked this attempt at providing a pragmatic justification for the realist aim of PTR on precisely the same pragmatic grounds: since (...) there is a competing alternative to PTR and the alternative can provide whatever indirect benefits PTR can offer while being less risky than it is, prudential reasoning favours the alternative to PTR. This undermines the pragmatic case for the realist aim of theology since the instrumentalist alternative does not aim at the truth. (shrink)

Those matters that are judged to be spiritual are seen as especially valuable and important. For this reason it is claimed that nurses need to be able to offer spiritual care when appropriate and, to aid them in this, nurse theorists have discussed the nature of spirituality. In a recent debate John Paley has argued that nurses should adopt a naturalistic stance which would enable them to employ the insights of modern science. Barbara Pesut has criticized this thesis, especially as (...) it is applied to palliative care. This paper re-examines this debate with particular attention to the meaning of 'spirituality' and the justification for accepting spiritual and religious theories. It is argued that when we take into consideration the great diversity among religious and spiritual ideas, the lack of rational means of deciding between them when they conflict, and the practicalities of nursing, we find that a spiritual viewpoint is less useful than a naturalistic one, when offering palliative care. (shrink)

There are three theories of luck in the literature, each of which tends to appeal to philosophers pursuing different concerns. These are the probability, modal, and control views. I will argue that all three theories are irreparably defective; not only are there counterexamples to each of the three theories of luck, but there are three previously undiscussed classes of counterexamples against them. These are the problems of lucky necessities, skillful luck, and diachronic luck. I conclude that a serious reevaluation of (...) the role of luck in philosophy is called for. (shrink)

Мета дослідження статті полягає у вивченні концептуальних підходів щодо філософії науки в її темпоральному розвитку і відповідний вплив на модель структури наукового знання. Стаття розглядає ключові етапи цього розвитку, визначаючи важливість аналізу змін у філософському підґрунті для розуміння наукового прогресу. Метод дослідження базується на системному аналізі філософських концепцій, які формували погляди на науку в різні історичні періоди. Застосування історико-філософського підходу дозволяє відстежити еволюцію наукового мислення від античності до сучасності.Результати дослідження надають узагальнений огляд ключових концепцій філософії науки на кожному історичному етапі, (...) визначаючи суть та роль науки в різні епохи. Теоретичне значення дослідження полягає в систематизації та аналізі різноманітних підходів до філософії науки, що дозволяє розкрити глибинні зв’язки між концептуальними змінами та розвитком наукового пізнання. Практичне значення полягає у можливості використання отриманих висновків для вдосконалення освітніх програм, розвитку наукових досліджень та формування стратегій для науково-педагогічної діяльності.Оригінальність дослідження виявляється в комплексному підході до вивчення еволюції філософських концепцій науки та їх значення у формуванні структури наукового знання в конкретний історичний період. Перспективи подальших досліджень передбачають детальний аналіз взаємодії науки та суспільства в контексті сучасних тенденцій, а також дослідження впливу технологічних інновацій на філософію науки. (shrink)

One of the most important characteristics of modern science is its replicability and objectivity. This means that a scientific result is taken as such only when it has been reproduced by other scientists. Indeed, the replicability of a scientific result in an objective and independent way by members of a scientific community is the cornerstone of science. Experimental laser physics is an example of “normal” science, where it is no doubt that the phenomenon could be replicated; however, the replication process (...) may not be straightforward since it requires a good understanding of the physics behind it, as well as good technical skills. In this article, two laboratory cases of experiments on laser physics are presented: the first one deals with a Nitrogen N2 laser with a Polloni excitation circuit, and the second one deals with a transversally excited TEA carbon dioxide laser. For the nitrogen laser, it will be shown that reproducibility failed, and therefore, the reported experiment cannot be taken as a valid contribution to the advancement and understanding of nitrogen laser physics and technology. On the other hand, for the case of the TEA carbon dioxide laser, several comments are presented on the development of this finally successful experiment. Both cases show the importance of being technically up-dated in order to reproduce or improve the results reported by other researchers. Finally, a discussion about: What can we learn about the research practice from these two cases? It is presented, as well as the conclusions about the case studies; we hope they may be useful to philosophers of science and young scientists alike. (shrink)

This thesis offers a naturalist revision of Alain Badiou’s philosophy. This goal is pursued through an encounter of Badiou’s mathematical ontology and theory of truth with contemporary trends in philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of science. I take issue with Badiou’s inability to elucidate the link between the empirical and the ontological, and his residual reliance on a Heideggerian project of fundamental ontology, which undermines his own immanentist principles. I will argue for both a bottom-up naturalisation of Badiou’s philosophical approach (...) to mathematics and a top-down naturalisation. Articulating my particular understanding of what realism and naturalism should commit us to, I propose a creative fusion of Badiou’s attention to metamathematical results with a structural-informational metaphysics, proposing a ‘matherialism’ uniting the more daring speculative insights of the former with the naturalist and empiricist commitments motivating the latter. (shrink)

I examine here Theory and Scholarship (taken to be formalized social scientific frameworks that seek to map out the real world and social actions in an objective fashion) via an autoethnographic lens. Chiefly, I ask how autoethnography as a research method reconfigures them: how may we extend knowledge using autoethnography? While much critique has centered on the "doing" (dispassionately?) versus "being" (going native?) of autoethnography, I argue that such a dichotomy is inherently false. Instead, doing is located within the ethnographer's (...) very being, so that a closer look at the autoethnographic research process is required, from conception to implementation to introspection. I attempt such a processual analysis here: drawing on an earlier social scientific project, I relate the intellectual and social process whereby it was translated into an autoethnography. Using a performative lens to illustrate the dialectical mode of doing and being in the research process, I intersperse portions of personal narrative with academic writing, to enable a disjunctural appreciation of the various layers of interpretation. While the epistemic framework I hold to here is indeed a poststructural one, privileging fragmentation and social situatedness, it also emphasizes continuity and interconnections in the research process. (shrink)

Though some influentially critical objections have been raised during the ‘classical’ pre-computational simulation philosophy of science tradition, suggesting a more nuanced methodological category for experiments, it safe to say such critical objections have greatly proliferated in philosophical studies dedicated to the role played by computational simulations in science. For instance, Eric Winsberg suggests that computer simulations are methodologically unique in the development of a theory’s models suggesting new epistemic notions of application. This is also echoed in Jeffrey Ramsey’s notions of (...) “transformation reduction,”—i.e., a notion of reduction of a more highly constructive variety. Computer simulations create a broadly continuous arena spanned by normative and descriptive aspects of theory-articulation, as entailed by the notion of transformation reductions occupying a continuous region demarcated by Ernest Nagel’s logical-explanatory “domain-combining reduction” on the one hand, and Thomas Nickels’ heuristic “domain-preserving reduction,” on the other. I extend Winsberg’s and Ramsey’s points here, by arguing that in the field of computational fluid dynamics as well as in other branches of applied physics, the computer plays a constitutively experimental role—supplanting in many cases the more traditional experimental methods such as flow-visualization, etc. In this case, however CFD algorithms act as substitutes, not supplements when it comes to experimental practices. I bring up the constructive example involving the Clifford-Algebraic algorithms for modeling singular phenomena in CFD by Gerik Scheuermann and Steven Mann & Alyn Rockwood who demonstrate that their algorithms offer greater descriptive and explanatory scope than the standard Navier-Stokes approaches. The mathematical distinction between Navier-Stokes-based and Clifford-Algebraic based CFD has essentially to do with the regularization features exhibited to a far greater extent by the latter, than the former. Hence, CACFD indicate that the utilization of computational techniques can be based on principled reasons, as opposed to merely practical. CACFD hence exhibit a new generative role in the field of fluid mechanics, by offering categories of experimental evidence that are optimally descriptive and explanatory—i.e., pace Batterman can be both ontologically and epistemically fundamental. (shrink)

This chapter traces the development of structural realism within the scientific realism debate and the wider current of structuralism that has swept the philosophy of the natural sciences in the twentieth century.1 The primary aim is to make perspicuous the many manifestations of structural realism and their underlying claims. Among other things, I will compare structural realism’s various manifestations in order to throw more light onto the relations between them. At the end of the chapter, I will identify the main (...) objections raised against the epistemic form of structural realism. This last task will pave the way for the evaluation of the structural realist answer to the main epistemological question, an evaluation that will be central to the rest of this dissertation. (shrink)