In a response to my recent article in this journal, Shahram Shahryari argues that I fail to present a third position between absolutism and relativism. He makes two points: first, that fallibilism is insufficient as an alternative, because it is compatible with both relativism and absolutism. The second point is that my argument that experience can lead to objective judgment without being a new absolute fails. I discuss these in turn, showing that both critiques fail and that pragmatism is a (...) genuine alternative between absolutism and relativism. (shrink)

According to Peter Galison, the coordination of different “subcultures” within a scientific field happens through local exchanges within “trading zones.” In his view, the workability of such trading zones is not guaranteed, and science is not necessarily driven towards further integration. In this paper, we develop and apply quantitative methods (using semantic, authorship, and citation data from scientific literature), inspired by Galison’s framework, to the case of the disunity of high-energy physics. We give prominence to supersymmetry, a concept that has (...) given rise to several major but distinct research programs in the field, such as the formulation of a consistent theory of quantum gravity or the search for new particles. We show that “theory” and “phenomenology” in high-energy physics should be regarded as distinct theoretical subcultures, between which supersymmetry has helped sustain scientific “trades.” However, as we demonstrate using a topic model, the phenomenological component of supersymmetry research has lost traction and the ability of supersymmetry to tie these subcultures together is now compromised. Our work supports that even fields with an initially strong sentiment of unity may eventually generate diverging research programs and demonstrates the fruitfulness of the notion of trading zones for informing quantitative approaches to scientific pluralism. (shrink)

In the methodology of scientific research programs (MSRP) there are important features on the problem of prediction, especially regarding novel facts. In his approach, Imre Lakatos proposed three different levels on prediction: aim, process, and assessment. Chapter 5 pays attention to the characterization of prediction in the methodology of research programs. Thus, it takes into account several features: (1) its pragmatic characterization, (2) the logical perspective as a proposition, (3) the epistemological component, (4) its role in the appraisal of research (...) programs, and (5) its place as a value for scientific research. -/- The notion of “novel facts” is highly relevant in his conception, where several aspects are involved: the directions of novel facts, the different kinds of novelty, and the transition from six possible options of “novel facts” to four choices. Thereafter, the prediction of novel facts as the criterion of appraisal is considered. On the one hand, this requires analyzing the theoretical, empirical, and heuristic possibilities of appraisal; and, on the other, whether there is an overemphasis on the role of prediction in methodology of scientific research programs. As a consequence, there is an analysis of Lakatos’ criterion of appraisal in MSRP and economics. (shrink)

Recently, some philosophers of science (e.g., Gürol Irzik, Michael Friedman) have challenged the ‘received view’ on the relationship between Rudolf Carnap and Thomas Kuhn, suggesting that there is a close affinity (rather than opposition) between their philosophical views. In support of this argument, these authors cite Carnap and Kuhn’s similar views on incommensurability, theory-choice, and scientific revolutions. Against this revisionist view, I argue that the philosophical relationship between Carnap and Kuhn should be regarded as opposed rather than complementary. In particular, (...) I argue that a consideration of the fundamentally disparate nature of the broader philosophical projects of Carnap (logic of science) and Kuhn (providing a theory of scientific revolutions)renders the alleged similarities between their views superficial in comparison to their fundamental differences. In defense of the received view, I suggest that Carnap and Kuhn are model representatives of two contrasting styles of doing philosophy of science, viz., logical analysis and historical analysis respectively. This analysis clarifies the role played by Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions in the demise of logical empiricism in the second half of the twentieth-century. (shrink)

This volume, The Brazilian Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, is the first attempt to present to a general audience, works from Brazil on this subject. The included papers are original, covering a remarkable number of relevant topics of philosophy of science, logic and on the history of science. The Brazilian community has increased in the last years in quantity and in quality of the works, most of them being published in respectable international journals on the subject. The (...) chapters of this volume are forwarded by a general introduction, which aims to sketch not only the contents of the chapters, but it is conceived as a historical and conceptual guide to the development of the field in Brazil. The introduction intends to be useful to the reader, and not only to the specialist, helping them to evaluate the increase in production of this country within the international context. (shrink)

: Scientific observation is determined by the human sensory system, which generally relies on instruments that serve as mediators between the world and the senses. Instruments came in the shape of Heron's Dioptra, Levi Ben Gerson's Cross-staff, Egnatio Danti's Torqvetto Astronomico, Tycho's Quadrant, Galileo's Geometric Military Compass, or Kepler's Ecliptic Instrument. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, however, it was unclear how an instrument such as the telescope could be employed to acquire new information and expand knowledge about the (...) world. To exploit the telescope as a device for astronomical observations Galileo had to: 1. establish that telescopic images are not optical defects, imperfections in the eye of the observer, or illusions caused by lenses; 2. develop procedures for systematically handling errors that may occur during observation and measurement and methods of processing data. Galileo made it clear that in order to measure and interpret natural phenomena accurately, a suitable method and instrument would need to be developed. It is intriguing, therefore, to regard the Galilean telescope in this light and to discover the linkage established by Galileo among theory, method, and instrument—the telescope. Although the telescope was not invented through science, it is instructive to see how Galileo used optics to employ a theory-laden instrument for bridging the gulf between picture and scientific language, between drawing and reporting physical facts, and between merely sketching the world and actually describing it. (shrink)

A research community must share assumptions, such as about accepted knowledge, appropriate research practices, and good evidence. However, community members also hold some divergent assumptions, which they—and we, as analysts of science—tend to overlook. Communities with different assumed values, knowledge, and goals must negotiate to achieve compromises that make their conflicting goals complementary. This negotiation guards against the extremes of each group’s desired outcomes, which, if achieved, would make other groups’ goals impossible. I argue that this diversity, as a form (...) of value pluralism, regularly influences scientific practice and can make scientific evidence and knowledge more useful and more reliable. As an example, I examine vertebrate paleontology laboratories, which house a variety of workers with different training and priorities, particularly about the meaning of time. Specifically, scientists want to study fully prepared fossils immediately, conservators want to preserve fossils for future use, and preparators mediate between the other groups’ conflicting goals. After all, one cannot study a fossil encased in rock, and one cannot remove that rock without removing information from that specimen. In response, these coworkers articulate their assumptions in everyday deliberations about how scientific evidence should be made and used. I argue that this exchange of assumptions is crucial for a research community to achieve mutually beneficial compromises that benefit current and future knowledge construction. (shrink)

Philosophers of science are well aware that theories are underdetermined by data. But what about the data? Scientific data are selected and processed representations or pieces of nature. What is useless context and what is valuable specimen, as well as how specimens are processed for study, are not obvious or predetermined givens. Instead, they are decisions made by scientists and other research workers, such as technicians, that produce different outcomes for the data. Vertebrate fossils provide a revealing case of this (...) data-processing, because they are embedded in rock that often matches the fossils’ color and texture, requiring an expert eye to judge where the fossil/context interface is. Fossil preparators then permanently define this interface by chiseling away the material they identify as rock. As a result, fossil specimens can emerge in multiple possible forms depending on the preparator’s judgment, skill, and chosen tools. A prepared fossil then is not yet data but potential data, following Leonelli’s relational framework in which data are defined as evidence that scientists have used to support a proposed theory. This paper draws on ethnographic evidence to assess how scientists overcome this underdetermination of specimens, as potential data, in addition to the underdetermination of theories and of data, to successfully construct specimen-based knowledge. Among other strategies, paleontology maintains a division of labor between data-makers and theory-makers. This distinction serves to justify the omission of preparators’ nonstandard, individualized techniques from scientific publications. This separation has benefits for both scientists and technicians; however, it restricts knowledge production by preventing scientists from understanding how the pieces of nature they study were processed into researchable specimens. (shrink)

Is a policy-friendly philosophy of science possible? In order to respond this question, I consider a particular instance of contemporary philosophy of science, the semantic view of scientific theories, by placing it in the broader methodological landscape of the integration of philosophy of science into STS (Science and Technology Studies) as a component of the overall contribution of the latter to science policy. In that context, I defend a multi-disciplinary methodological integration of the special discipline composing STS against a reductionist (...) interdisciplinary unification, arguing that if STS wants to contribute to policy advising by constructing narratives of science practice feasible for science policy both in terms of descriptive completeness and intelligibility, then it must avoid the explanatory reductionism tendencies of special disciplines in interdisciplinary contexts. This would favour, at the same time, a relaxation of esoteric language. On this basis, it seems that the semantic view is one right candidate among other approaches in the philosophy of science for facilitating the integration of the methodologically different contributions to STS toward policy objectives. In fact, besides offering a more realistic and descriptively complete picture of science practice with respect to its predecessor in the philosophy of science, namely the syntactic view, the semantic view is also able to capture some aspects of science practice that elude even sociological approaches to STS, thus inviting different perspective on the same subject matter. (shrink)

Starting with a discussion of what I call Koyré’s paradox of conceptual novelty, I introduce the ideas of Damerow et al. on the establishment of classical mechanics in Galileo’s work. I then argue that although the view of Damerow et al. on the nature of Galileo’s conceptual innovation is convincing, it misses an essential element: Galileo’s use of the experiments described in the first day of the Two New Sciences. I describe these experiments and analyze their function. Central to my (...) analysis is the idea that Galileo’s pendulum experiments serve to secure the reference of his theoretical models in actually occurring cases of free fall. In this way Galileo’s experiments constitute an essential part of the meaning of the new concepts of classical mechanics. (shrink)

The historical debate on representation in cognitive science and neuroscience construes representations as theoretical posits and discusses the degree to which we have reason to posit them. We reject the premise of that debate. We argue that experimental neuroscientists routinely observe and manipulate neural representations in their laboratory. Therefore, neural representations are as real as neurons, action potentials, or any other well-established entities in our ontology.

Naturalism implies unity of method--an application of the methods of science to the methodology of science itself and to value theory. Epistemological naturalists have tried to find a privileged discipline to be the methodological model of philosophy of science and epistemology. However, since science itself is not unitary, the use of one science as a model amounts to a reduction and distorts the philosophy of science just as badly as traditional philosophy of science distorted science, despite the fact that the (...) central theme of naturalized philosophy of science is that methodology should be true to science as practiced. I argue that naturalized philosophy of science must apply a plurality of methods to epistemological issues. (shrink)

In response to a recent argument by David Bloor, I argue that denying absolutes does not necessarily lead to relativism, that one can be a fallibilist without being a relativist. At issue are the empirical natural sciences and what might be called “framework relativism”, that is, the idea that there is always a conceptual scheme or set of practices in use, and all observations are theory-laden relative to the framework. My strategy is to look at the elements that define a (...) relativist stance and show where the pragmatic fallibilist disagrees. Defending the pragmatic notion of experience will be central, given that relativists reject the idea that experience can play a role in objectively justifying belief. We can reject all absolutes and start from the premise that everything is historical, contingent, and situated. One of the lessons of pragmatism is that universal and fixed principles are not necessary for objective knowledge. (shrink)

In the article two viewpoints on the mind’s influence on perception are considered. One of them was developed on the assumption that perception is a nonproblematic source of knowledge about the world, which is free from mind’s influence— perception as a mirror-image. Another viewpoint is perception as action, i.e. active search and gathering the relevant information, its processing and evaluation. First viewpoint has dominated in philosophy for a long time, the second one has been developing in psychology from the 80th (...) of the 20th century. The aim of the paper is to examine some philosophically significant corollaries from both positions concerning objectiveness, epistemological status of an observation, truth, meaning of name. Analysis showed that perception as action is non-compatible with many traditional concepts, and it goes both against empiricism and against realism as it involves some critical arguments, e.g. theory ladenness of observations, underdetermination of theory by facts, the historical development of a scientific fact. (shrink)

Introduces a series of articles which deals with the relationship between history of science and philosophy of science.; Introduces a series of articles which deals with the relationship between history of science and philosophy of science.

The aim of this paper is to discuss a key question in the history and philosophy of medicine, namely how scholars should treat the practices and experimental hypotheses of modern life science laboratories. The paper seeks to introduce some prominent historiographical methods and theoretical approaches associated with biomedical research. Although medical scientists need no convincing that experimentation has a significant function in their laboratory work, historians, philosophers, and sociologists long neglected its importance when examining changes in medical theories or progress (...) in scientific knowledge. The reason appears to have been the academic influence of the then dominant tradition in the history of ideas, but was also due to a misconception of what could usefully be termed the view on “historical ontology.” During the last two decades, there have been many books and research articles that have turned towards the subject, so that the study of experimental practice has become a major trend in the contemporary history and philosophy of medicine. A closer look at the issue of laboratory research shows that concepts in medicine and the life sciences cannot be understood as historically constant, free-standing ideas, but have to be regarded as dependent on local research settings. They often carry particular “social memories” with them and thus acquire important ethical implications. (shrink)

: Peter Galison has recently claimed that twentieth-century microphysics has been pursued by two distinct experimental traditions--the image tradition and the logic tradition--that have only recently merged into a hybrid tradition. According to Galison, the two traditions employ fundamentally different forms of experimental argument, with the logic tradition using statistical arguments, while the image tradition strives for non-statistical demonstrations based on compelling ("golden") single events. I show that discoveries in both traditions have employed the same statistical form of argument, even (...) when basing discovery claims on single, golden events. Where Galison sees an epistemic divide between two communities that can only be bridged by a creole- or pidgin-like "interlanguage," there is in fact a shared commitment to a statistical form of experimental argument. (shrink)

Some twenty years ago, Bogen and Woodward challenged one of the fundamental assumptions of the received view, namely the theory-observation dichotomy and argued for the introduction of the further category of scientific phenomena. The latter, Bogen and Woodward stressed, are usually unobservable and inferred from what is indeed observable, namely scientific data. Crucially, Bogen and Woodward claimed that theories predict and explain phenomena, but not data. But then, of course, the thesis of theory-ladenness, which has it that our observations are (...) influenced by the theories we hold, cannot apply. On the basis of two case studies, I want to show that this consequence of Bogen and Woodward’s account is rather unrealistic. More importantly, I also object against Bogen and Woodward’s view that the reliability of data, which constitutes the precondition for data-to-phenomena inferences, can be secured without the theory one seeks to test. The case studies I revisit have figured heavily in the publications of Bogen and Woodward and others: the discovery of weak neutral currents and the discovery of the zebra pattern of magnetic anomalies. I show that, in the latter case, data can be ignored if they appear to be irrelevant from a particular theoretical perspective (TLI) and that, in the former case, the tested theory can be critical for the assessment of the reliability of the data (TLA). I argue that both TLI and TLA are much stronger senses of theory-ladenness than the classical thesis and that neither TLI nor TLA can be accommodated within Bogen and Woodward’s account. (shrink)

In a widely received paper on theory choice, Kuhn made three central claims. First, as a matter of empirical fact, different theories tend to score differently with regard to what Kuhn considered to be the standard set of theoretical virtues, i.e., empirical accuracy, internal and external consistency, scope, simplicity, and fertility. Whereas some theories will for instance be more empirically accurate than others, other theories will have greater external coherence with our background theories. Second, hardly ever does a theory’s being (...) virtuous in one particular respect legitimize a choice for that theory—not even when that virtue is empirical accuracy. Third, following from the first two .. (shrink)

Jarrett Leplin in A Novel Defense of Scientific Realism (1997) argues that if the thesis of empirical equivalence is cogent, then the thesis of underdetermination cannot even get off the ground. Part of Leplin's argument rests on the claim that auxiliary hypotheses can be independently confirmed, thus enabling us to determine the epistemic worth of a theory. This, in turn, helps in determining about what we should be realists. Leplin's claims are demonstrated to be problematic. Leplin wants, inconsistently, to use (...) only those auxiliary hypotheses which dovetail with confirmed theories. Finally, a detail of Leplin's argument is found wanting. (shrink)

I investigate a new understanding of realism in science, referred to as ‘interactive realism’, and I suggest the ‘evolutionary progressiveness’ of a theory as novel criterion for this kind of realism. My basic claim is that we cannot be realists about anything except the progress affected by myriad science-reality interactions that are constantly moving on a continuum of increased ‘fitness’ determined according to empirical constraints. Moreover to reflect this movement accurately, there is a corresponding continuum of verdicts about the status (...) of the knowledge conveyed by theories – ranging from stark instrumentalism to full-blown realism. This view may sound like a pessimistic inductivist's dream, but actually this is so only if one evaluates it from within a traditional context where the ‘truth’ of a single theory is the exclusive criterion for realism. I, on the other hand, want to redefine the terms of realist debate in such a way that the units of assessment of realism are sequences of theories evaluated according to their ‘evolutionary progressiveness’. I unpack ‘interactive realism’ by defining my notion of ‘evolutionary progressiveness’, the notion of ‘truth-as-historied reference’ underpinning it, and the continuum of interaction between theories and aspects of reality it affects. I conclude that, although interactive realism is a radically non-standard kind of realism, it is at least more realistic about science as a fractured complex multi-faceted enterprise than most other kinds of realism on the block, because it shows coherence amidst fragmentation. (shrink)

H. B. D. Kettlewell's (1955, 1956) classic field experiments on industrial melanism in polluted and unpolluted settings using the peppered moth, Biston betularia, are routinely cited as establishing that the melanic (dark) form of the moth rose in frequency downwind of industrial centers because of the cryptic advantage dark coloration provides against visual predators in soot-darkened environments. This paper critiques three common myths surrounding these investigations: (1) that Kettlewell used a model that identified crypsis as the only selective force responsible (...) for the spread of the melanic gene, (2) that Kettlewell's field experiments alone established that selection for crypsis was the most important factor in the spread of melanic forms, and (3) that Kettlewell's investigations in an unpolluted wood near Dorset constituted a control for his earlier Birmingham studies (contra Hagen 1993, 1996). This analysis further identifies two features that distinguish manipulative experiments in evolutionary biology from experiments in other contexts. First, experiments in evolutionary biology rest on a wealth of information provided by strictly observational ecological studies; in the absence of such information experiments in evolutionary biology make no sense. Second, there is a trade-off between how much control investigators have over the conditions being studied and how informative the results of the experiment will be with regard to natural populations. (shrink)

: Most work done in philosophy of experiment has focused on experiments taken from the domain of physics. The present essay tests whether Allan Franklin's (1984, 1986, 1989, 1990) philosophy of experiment developed in the context of high energy physics can be extended to include examples from evolutionary biology, such as H. B. D. Kettlewell's (1955, 1956, 1958) famous studies of industrial melanism in the peppered moth, Biston betularia. The analysis demonstrates that many of the techniques used by evolutionary biologists (...) exemplify the strategies Franklin lists, and identifies an additional strategy that can likewise be justified by appeal to Bayes's Theorem. (shrink)

This survey of major developments in North American philosophy of science begins with the mid-1960s consolidation of the disciplinary synthesis of internalist history and philosophy of science (HPS) as a response to criticisms of logical empiricism. These developments are grouped for discussion under the following headings: historical metamethodologies, scientific realisms, philosophies of the special sciences, revivals of empiricism, cognitivist naturalisms, social epistemologies, feminist theories of science, studies of experiment and the disunity of science, and studies of science as practice and (...) culture. A unifying theme of the survey is the relation between historical metamethodologists and scientific realists, which dominated philosophical work in the late 1970s. I argue that many of the alternative cognitive naturalisms, social epistemologies, and feminist theories that have been proposed can be understood as analogues to the differences between metamethodological theories of scientific rationality and realist accounts of successful reference to real causal processes. Recent work on experiment, scientific practice, and the culture of science may, however, challenge the underlying conception of the field according to which realism and historical rationalism (or their descendants) are the important alternatives available, and thus may take philosophy of science in new directions. (shrink)

Dreyfus presents Todes's (2001) republished Body and World as an anticipatory response to McDowell (1994) which shows how preconceptual perception can ground conceptual thought. I argue that Dreyfus is mistaken on this point: Todes's claim that perceptual experience is preconceptual presupposes an untenable account of conceptual thought. I then show that Todes nevertheless makes two important contributions to McDowell's project. First, he develops an account of perception as bodily second nature, and as a practical-perceptual openness to the world, which constructively (...) develops McDowell's view. Second, and more important, this account highlights the practical and perceptual dimension of linguistic competence. The result is that perception is conceptual "all the way down" only because discursive conceptualization is perceptual and practical "all the way up". This conjunction of McDowell and Todes on the bodily dimensions of discursive practice also vindicates Davidson's and Brandom's criticisms of McDowell's version of empiricism. (shrink)

Attention to scientific practice offers a novel response to philosophical queries about how conceptual understanding is empirically accountable. The locus of the issue is thereby shifted, from perceptual experience to experimental and fieldwork interactions. More important, conceptual articulation is shown to be not merely ?spontaneous? and intralinguistic, but instead involves a establishing a systematic domain of experimental operations. The importance of experimental practice for conceptual understanding is especially clearly illustrated by cases in which entire domains of scientific investigation were first (...) made accessible to articulated conceptual understanding. We thereby see more clearly how experimental systems themselves, and not merely the theories and models they make possible, have an intentional directedness and ?representational? import. (shrink)

This article asks whether an interdisciplinary "critical science studies" (CSS) is possible between a critical theory in the Frankfurt School tradition, with its commitment to universal standards of reason, and relativistic sociologies of scientific knowledge (e.g., David Bloor's strong programme). It is argued that CSS is possible if its practitioners adopt the epistemological equivalent of Rawls's method of avoidance. A discriminating, public policy–relevant critique of science can then proceed on the basis of an argumentation theory that employs an immanent standard (...) of relevance, which is illustrated by drawing on Helen Longino's critique of behavioral theory. (shrink)

In the context of calls for "postpositivist" sociology, realism has emerged as a powerful and compelling epistemology for social science. In transferring and transforming scientific realism --a philosophy of natural science--into a justificatory discourse for social science, realism splits into two parts: a strict, highly naturalistic realism and a reflexive, more mediated, and critical realism. Both forms of realism, however, suffer from conceptual ambiguities, omissions, and elisions that make them an inappropriate epistemology for social science. Examination of these problems in (...) detail reveals how a different perspective--centered on the interpretation of meaning--could provide a better justification for social inquiry, and in particular a better understanding of sociological theory and the construction of sociological explanations. (shrink)

Several philosophers of science have claimed that the correspondence principle can be generalized from quantum physics to all of (particularly physical) science and that in fact it constitutes one of the major heuristical rules for the construction of new theories. In order to evaluate these claims, first the use of the correspondence principle in (the genesis of) quantum mechanics will be examined in detail. It is concluded from this and from other examples in the history of science that the principle (...) should be qualified with respect to its nature and relativized with respect to its scope of application. At the same time this conclusion implies a qualification and a relativization of the heuristic power of the principle. Generally speaking, intertheoretical correspondence is primarily of a formal-mathematical and empirical but not of a conceptual nature. Moreover, it only applies to certain parts of the theories involved. Finally, a number of philosophical justifications of the principle are discussed and some conclusions are drawn concerning the debates on theory reduction and on the discovery-justification distinction. (shrink)

This article explores the development of a rat model of mother-infant relationships from its origins in the psychosomatic investigations of the mid-1960s to its elaboration into a theoretical system in neurobiology. I reconstruct the research trajectory of a group of neurobiologists in the United States, with a focus on the experimental practices they adopted while building this animal model. Providing a microhistory of this decade-long undertaking, I show that what drove the development of the model in practice was a serendipitous (...) finding about infants’ response to maternal separation. Detected inadvertently, the pup’s separation response acquired an epistemic significance of its own and reoriented the experimental system towards unanticipated paths. To explain this intriguing phenomenon, the neurobiologists kept on refining their material manipulations and stabilizing their experimental outcomes. They thus established a series of causal relationships that connected dysregulations of the infant’s physiological systems to disruptions in maternal care. As important as this interactive stabilization of technique and objects in the laboratory was how the researchers theorized the network of relationships derived from this technically constituted objectivity. Highlighting the practice-driven aspects of model-building, I demonstrate that what facilitated this theoretical process was an integrated design of complementary experiments. The outcome of each separate experiment of the research program came to bear upon the outcomes of other experiments, informing the development of future manipulations. It was this strategically driven integration process that allowed the experimenters to build expanding networks of causal relationships and consolidate them into a neurobiological theory. (shrink)

The main problems faced by a conception of perception as passive will be introduced through a critical examination of John McDowell's account of 'empirical thinking'. Overcoming these difficulties will lead to a conception of perception as involving an active cognitive participation of the perceiver, and an account of how observational judgment is warranted that is focused on the conditions of experience. In both cases, analogies to inquiry in scientific experimental practice will be explored.

In his 1939 Lectures, the prominent Soviet physicist L. I. Mandelstam proposed an interpretation of quantum mechanics that was understood in different ways. To assess Mandelstam's interpretation, we classify contemporary interpretations of quantum mechanics and compare his interpretation with others developed in the 1930s. We conclude that Mandelstam's interpretation belongs to the family of minimal statistical interpretations and has much in common with interpretations developed by American physicists. Mandelstam's characteristic message was his theory of indirect measurement, which influenced his discussion (...) of the "reduction of the wave packet" and the Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen argument. This article also reconstructs what lay behind Mandelstam's interpretation of quantum mechanics. This was his operationalism, by virtue of which his interpretation resembled Kemble's, in which the statistical and Copenhagen views had been combined. Like Popper and Margenau, Mandelstam followed R. von Mises's empirical conception of probability. Mandelstam, like the other proponents of the statistical approach to quantum mechanics, was affected by the culture of macroscopic experimentation with its emphasis on statistical measurement. (shrink)

I examine the role of inference from experiment in theory building. What are the options open to the scientific community when faced with an experimental result that appears to be in conflict with accepted theory? I distinguish, in Laudan's (1977), Nickels's (1981), and Franklin's (1993) sense, between the context of pursuit and the context of justification of a scientific theory. Making this distinction allows for a productive middle position between epistemic realism and constructivism. The decision to pursue a new or (...) a revised theory in response to the new evidence may not be fully rationally determined. Nonetheless, it is possible to distinguish the question of whether there is reason to pursue a theory from the question of whether that theory, once it has been pursued over time, solves a problem of interest to science. I argue that, in this context, there is a solid way to distinguish between the contexts of pursuit and of justification, on the basis of a theory's evidential support and problem-solving ability. (shrink)

Allan Franklin has identified a number of strategies that scientists use to build confidence in experimental results. This paper shows that Franklin's strategies have direct analogues in the context of computer simulation and then suggests that one of his strategies—the so-called 'Sherlock Holmes' strategy—deserves a privileged place within the epistemologies of experiment and simulation. In particular, it is argued that while the successful application of even several of Franklin's other strategies (or their analogues in simulation) may not be sufficient for (...) justified belief in results, the successful application of a slightly elaborated version of the Sherlock Holmes strategy is sufficient. (shrink)

In Social Empiricism, Miriam Solomon proposes a via media between traditional philosophical realism and social construction of scientific knowledge, but ignores a large body of historical literature that has attempted to plough just that path. She also proposes a standard for normatively appropriate consensus that, arguably, no theory in the history of science has ever achieved, including her own ideal type—plate tectonics. And while valorizing dissent, she fails to consider how dissent has been used in recent decades as a political (...) tool to challenge scientific evidence on diverse issues, including the link between tobacco and cancer and the reality of anthropogenic global warming. (shrink)

The topic of the presence, legitimacy and epistemic worth of narrative explanations in different kinds of scientific discourse has already enjoyed several revivals within related discussions in contemporary philosophy of science. In fact, we have recently witnessed a more extensive, more unprejudiced and ambitious attention to narrative modes of making science. I think we need a systematic theoretical framework in order to categorize these different functions of narratives and understand their role in scientific explanatory and justificatory practice. My claim is (...) that some distinctions and analytic tools developed within the field of contemporary Argumentation Theory might be of help. (shrink)

It is customary to distinguish experimental from purely observational sciences. The former include physics and molecular biology, the latter astronomy and palaeontology. Experiments involve actively intervening in the course of nature, as opposed to observing events that would have happened anyway. When a molecular biologist inserts viral DNA into a bacterium in his laboratory, this is an experiment; but when an astronomer points his telescope at the heavens, this is an observation. Without the biologist’s handiwork the bacterium would never have (...) contained foreign DNA; but the planets would have continued orbiting the sun whether or not the astronomer had directed his telescope skyward. The observational/experimental distinction would probably be difficult to make precise 1, as the notion of an ‘intervention’ is not easily defined, but it is intuitively fairly clear, and is frequently invoked by scientists and historians of science. Experimentation, or ‘putting questions to nature’, is often cited as a hallmark of the modern scientific method, something that permitted the enormous advances of the last 350 years. And it is sometimes said that the social sciences lag behind the natural because controlled experiments cannot be done so readily in the former. Moreover in certain sciences, e.g. epidemiology, students are explicitly taught that experimental data is preferable to observational data, particularly for doing causal inference. So the distinction between observational and experimental science has quite wide currency, and is often regarded as methodologically significant. Surprisingly, mainstream philosophy of science has had rather little to say about the observational/experimental distinction. 2 For example, discussions of confirmation usually invoke a notion of ‘evidence’, to be contrasted with ‘theory’ or ‘hypothesis’; the aim is to understand how the evidence bears on the hypothesis. But whether this ‘evidence’ comes from observation or experiment generally plays no role in the discussion; this is true …. (shrink)

Contemporary science and technology research are now expected to become more responsible through collaboration with social scientists and scholars from the humanities. This paper suggests a frame explaining why such current calls for ‘integration’ are seen as appropriate across sectors even though there are no shared understanding of how proper integration is to take place. The call for integration is understood as a response to shifting roles of ethics within research structures following shifts in modes of knowledge production. Integration is (...) difficult, this paper suggests, because it challenges the modern normative division of labor affecting professional identities across sectors. Working out modes of integration is one important venue for working out alternative professional identities on the one hand and viable alternative understandings of research on the other hand. This paper discusses the matter with reference to three successive idioms for thinking about science, technology and society discussed in the literature; the representational, performative and co-production idiom. (shrink)

Key words: rationality, communication, maxwellian revolution, Ampere-Weber research programme, synthesis, Kantian epistemology.. Why did Maxwell’s programme supersede the Ampere-Weber one? – To answer the question one has to consider the intertheoretic context of maxwellian electrodynamics genesis and development. It is demonstrated that maxwellian electrodynamics was created as a result of the old pre-maxwellian programmes reconciliation: the electrodynamics of Ampere-Weber, the wave theory of Young-Fresnel and Faraday’s programme. The programmes’ meeting led to construction of the hybrid theory at first with an (...) irregular set of theoretical schemes. However, step by step, on revealing and gradual eliminating the contradictions between the programmes involved, the hybrid set is “put into order”.A hierarchy of theoretical schemes starting from the crossbreeds and up to usual hybrids is set up. And after the displacement current construction the interpenetration of the pre-maxwellian programmes begins that markes the commencement of theoretical schemes of optics and electromagnetism real unification. Maxwell’s programme did supersede the Ampere-Weber one because it did assimilate the ideas of the Ampere-Weber programme, as well as the presuppositions of the programmes of Young-Fresnel and Faraday properly co-ordinating them with each other. But the opposite proposition is not true. Ampere-Weber programme did not assimilate the propositions of the Maxwellian programme. Maxwell’s victory became possible because the core of Maxwell’s unification strategy was formed by Kantian epistemology looked through the prism of William Whewell and such representatives of Scottish Enlightenment as Thomas Reid and William Hamilton. Maxwell did put forward as a basic synthetic principle the idea that radically differed from that of Ampere-Weber approach by its open, flexible and contra-ontological, strictly epistemological, Kantian character. For Maxwell, ether was not the last building block of physical reality, from which all the charges and fields should be constructed. “Action at a distance”, “incompressible fluid”, “molecular vortices” were contrived analogies for Maxwell, capable only to direct the researcher at the “right” mathematical relations. Namely the application of Kantian epistemology enabled Hermann von Helmholtz and his pupil Heinrich Hertz to arrive at such a version of Maxwell’s theory that served a heuristical basis for the radio waves discovery. (shrink)

The article retraces the social and institutional circumstances that in 1986 led two researchers at the IBM laboratory near Zurich, Müller and Bednorz, to discover high-temperature superconductivity. After confirmation of the unexpected breakthrough an unprecedented mobilization of research groups all over the world took place while simul taneously high-temperature superconductivity turned into a subject of intense media interest. The authors discuss these events under three perspectives: the closer interlinkage capacity of researchers and the relationship between the social organization of research (...) and unforeseen cases of scientific creativity. (shrink)

The last forty years have produced a dramatic reversal in leading accounts of science. Once thought necessary to (explain) scientific progress, a rigid method of science is now widely considered impossible. Study of products yields to study of processes and practices, .unity gives way to diversity, generality to particularity, logic to luck, and final justification to heuristic scaffolding. I sketch the story, from Bacon and Descartes to the present, of the decline and fall of traditional scientific method, conceived as The (...) Central Planning Bureau for Science or as Rationality Czar. I defend a deflationary account of method and of rational judgment,. with emphasis on heuristic appraisal and cognitive economy. (shrink)