Publications in contemporary science journals often include figures like graphs, diagrams, photographs, and MRIs, which are presented as support for the hypothesis the author is defending. As a first step to explaining how figures contribute to confirmation, I present an account of visual representation and use examples to show how the visual format is involved in the support those figures provide the authors’ conclusions. I then show that attempts to explain what figures contribute to scientific arguments without analyzing them as (...) visual representations will not succeed. (shrink)

Scientists typically use a variety of representations, including different kinds of figures, to present and defend hypotheses. In order to understand the justification of scientific hypotheses, it is essential to understand how visual representations contribute to scientific arguments. Since the logical understanding of arguments involves the truth or falsity of the representations involved, visual representations must have the capacity to bear truth in order to be genuine components of arguments. By drawing on Goodman's analysis of symbol systems, and on Tarski's (...) work on truth, I show that the figures used in science meet this criterion. (shrink)

Biologists depend on visual representations, and their use of diagrams has drawn the attention of philosophers, historians, and sociologists interested in understanding how these images are involved in biological reasoning. These studies, however, proceed from identification of diagrams on the basis of their spare visual appearance, and do not draw on a foundational theory of the nature of diagrams as representations. This approach has limited the extent to which we under- stand how these diagrams are involved in biological reasoning. In (...) this paper, I characterize three different kinds of figures among those previously identified as diagrams. The features that make these figures distinctive as representational types, furthermore, illuminate the ways in which they are involved in biological reasoning. (shrink)

Molecular biologists and biochemists often use diagrams to present hypotheses. Analysis of diagrams shows that their content can be expressed with linguistic representations. Why do biologists use visual representations instead? One reason is simple comprehensibility: some diagrams present information which is readily understood from the diagram format, but which would not be comprehensible if the same information was expressed linguistically. But often diagrams are used even when concise, comprehensible linguistic alternatives are available. I explain this phenomenon by showing why diagrammatic (...) representation is especially well suited for a particular kind of explanation common in molecular biology and biochemistry: namely, functional analysis, in which a capacity of the system is explained in terms of capacities of its component parts. (shrink)

Analysis of two key ways of characterizing genes—as causes of phenotypic effects and as genomic DNA sequences—has yielded widespread pessimism that they can be united in a coherent gene concept. This raises important questions about the epistemology of genomic research: If analysis of a genome sequence cannot yield information about genes defined both in terms of their products and their DNA sequence, then what could we learn from it? I investigate basic tools of genomic analysis, argue that they do not (...) reflect the application of either gene concept, and clarify how we learn from genomic research. (shrink)

McDowell’s argument to refuse a scientific approach to human rationality is that lawful explanations are unable to account for our rational agency. However, not every scientific explanation is a lawful one. There is another argument to the the same effect: (a) there are distinct inquiries concerning the space of reasons: causal inquiries and constitutive inquiries; (b) they are independent of each other; (c) science addresses only the first sort of questions; (d) therefore, it has no impact on inquiries concerning constitutive (...) features of the space of reasons. I will argue that (b) is false, and therefore (c) is at best unclear. The idea of a second nature suggests more unified view of human knowledge, a sort of Hegelian approach. However, for Hegel, the realm of reason encompasses all of nature, and this is an untenable route towards a full re-enchantment of nature. We should be open to the consequences to our self-understanding of different inquiries of natural sciences about how our second nature emerges and how it unfolds. Once we take account of the different sorts of inquiry in the surroundings of rational agency, we see that we cannot predict in advance how our self-understanding will change as a result of changes in different scientific domains. The concept of second nature gives an appropriate frame to this sort of accommodation. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue against the thesis suggested by Cappelen and Lepore, according to which if contextualism were true, communication would require many items, and therefore would be fragile; communication is not fragile, and therefore, communication does not demand a large number of conditions, and contextualism is false. While we should grant the robustness of communication, it is not guaranteed by some unchanging conditions, but by different flexible mechanisms that enhance the chances of mutual understanding at a relatively low (...) cost –– this is true, in particular, of different feedback mechanisms and of alternative ways to make the same information mutually available. Communication is not a series of successive, individual and independent actions; dialogues are a kind of joint activity in which misunderstandings are jointly repaired by participants as part of the very activity they are engaged in. Moreover, as we consider the roles of hearers in a conversation, we see that no construal makes Cappelen and Lepore’’s argument both plausible and relevant. The hearer can either be overhearer or a certified participant. If the hearer is an overhearer, it may be the case that he easily misunderstands what is said, but it has no consequence to the understanding of what takes place in a dialogue, since, ex hypothesi, he is not a party to it. If the hearer is a participant, many of the conditions of mutual understanding will be assured in the dialogical activity itself, and both he and the speaker will make efforts to assure that mutual understanding do take place, as part of their responsibilities as parties to a dialogue –– and their argument is not plausible. (shrink)

The solution John Buridan offers for the Paradox of the Liar has not been correctly placed within the framework of his philosophy of language. More precisely, there are two important points of the Buridanian philosophy of language that are crucial to the correct understanding of his solution to the Liar paradox that are either misrepresented or ignored in some important accounts of his theory. The first point is that the Aristotelian formula, ` propositio est vera quia qualitercumque significat in rebus (...) significatis ita est ', once amended, is a correct way to talk about the truth of a sentence. The second one is that he has a double indexing theory of truth: a sentence is true in a time about a time, and such times should be distinguished in the account of the truth-conditions of sentences. These two claims are connected in an important way: the Aristotelian formula indicates the time about which a sentence is true. Some interpreters of the Buridanian solution to the paradox, following the lead of Herzberger, have missed these points and have been led to postulate truth-values gaps, or surrogates of truth-value gaps, when there is nothing of this sort in his theory. I argue against this tradition of interpretation of Buridan and propose an interpretation of his solution to the Liar. (shrink)

One way visual representations might function in scientific reasoning is to convey content that is true or false, analogous to making a claim. An alternative way that visual representations might function is as an object that may make statements true or false, but is not itself true or false, analogous to a scientific model. In this paper I evaluate the most recent and extended defense of this latter position and show that the case study involved does not in fact support (...) the view that the diagrams discussed function as truth-makers rather than truth bearers. (shrink)

There is currently a gap in our understanding of how figures produced by mechanical imaging techniques play evidential roles: several studies based on close examination of scientific practice show that imaging techniques do not yield data whose significance can simply be read off the image. If image-making technology is not a simple matter of nature re-presenting itself to us in a legible way, just how do the images produced provide support for scientific claims? In this article I will first show (...) that there is a distinct question about the semiotics of mechanically produced images that has not yet been answered. I show that my account of visual representations can do so, and I argue that the role of convention involved in my account is compatible with the view that visual representations produced through mechanized imaging techniques can play genuine evidential roles in scientific reasoning. (shrink)

One of the main motivations for having a compositional semantics is the account of the productivity of natural languages. Formal languages are often part of the account of productivity, i.e., of how beings with finite capaci- ties are able to produce and understand a potentially infinite number of sen- tences, by offering a model of this process. This account of productivity con- sists in the generation of proofs in a formal system, that is taken to represent the way speakers grasp (...) the meaning of an indefinite number of sentences. The informational basis is restricted to what is represented in the lexicon. This constraint is considered as a requirement for the account of productivity, or at least of an important feature of productivity, namely, that we can grasp auto- matically the meaning of a huge number of complex expressions, far beyond what can be memorized. However, empirical results in psycholinguistics, and especially particular patterns of ERP, show that the brain integrates informa- tion of different sources very fast, without any felt effort on the part of the speaker. This shows that formal procedures do not explain productivity. How- ever, formal models are still useful in the account of how we get at the seman- tic value of a complex expression, once we have the meanings of its parts, even if there is no formal explanation of how we get at those meanings. A practice-oriented view of modeling gives an adequate interpretation of this re- sult: formal compositional semantics may be a useful model for some ex- planatory purposes concerning natural languages, without being a good model for dealing with other explananda. (shrink)

When and why do we need the indexical ‘I’? Perry (1979) thinks that ‘I’ is an essential ingredient to the explanation and prediction of action. We need ‘I’ to classify the kind of belief that causes an agent to produce a new action. In his view, classifying the agent’s belief in terms of ‘I’ makes sense because, when asked to explain her behavior, the agent will be disposed to say ‘I’. Here, we argue that this dispositional assumption is problematic. The (...) disposition to act according to an essential indexical and the disposition to make a speech act that contains ‘I’ are two very different things that are not always related. The most common circumstances in which we need to say ‘I’ to explain ourselves involve other agents: when we coordinate in joint actions or when we engage in self-talk to save face before the eyes of potential witnesses. Finally, we revisit Perry’s famous messy shopper anecdote to offer a better story about why its main character is disposed to say ‘I’. (shrink)

“Post-truth” is a misleading label: there is no new concept of truth, nor is there a change in what is true. However, there is something new, and bad, happening in our dealings with truth: the lack of trust in institutions dedicated to produce knowledge. In this chapter, I try to explain why this happens. I also address the effects of this lack of trust in the election of a far-right president in Brazil. The changes in our epistemic landscape result from (...) deep-rooted features in human culture, the conflict between epistemic values, as embodied in our cooperative efforts to produce knowledge, and coordination values, that make the identitary function of beliefs very salient. Moreover, in the unstructured information landscape of the Internet, it is very difficult to read cues for reliable sources. There is another structural factor that plays an important role, the increasing inequalities, creating an environment in which status and identitary anxieties also increase, making identitary claims very powerful. These anxieties are exploited by the far-right, against our moral and epistemic common ground. The equilibrium between the coordination game and the epistemic game is fragile. The victim is our epistemic common ground. (shrink)

Bernardi Perini, G. Aceto italico e poesia luciliana: Hor. Sat. I 7.--Bernardinello, S. Bessarione riassume la Fisica di Aristotele.--Bottecchia, M. E. I Mechanicha di Aristotele nel Parisinus graecus 2507.--Bottin, L. La tradizione araba della Retorica di Aristotele e il problema dell'exemplar decurtatum.--Chiereghin, F. Analogie di struttura tra la metodologia della storiografia filosofica di Platone e di Kant.--Ciani, M. G. Poesia come enigma.--Degani, E. Hippon. fr. 40 Med.--Donaldi, F. Note preparatorie all'edizione dell'Encomio di Elena gorgiano nella traduzione latina inedita di (...) Pietro Bembo.--Fumarola, V. Euripide e la tetralogia della femminilità.--Gentilini, A. Una consolatoria inedita del Bessarione.--Ghinatti, F. I culti greci di Paestum.--Longo, O. Note all'Elena e alle Nuvole.--Lunelli, A. Solis rota.--Meschini, A. Su alcuni luoghi del Reso.--Mignucci, M. In margine al concetto aristotelico di esistenza.--Mioni, E. L'Antologia greca da Massimo Planude a Marco Musuro.--Pianezzola, E. Haurio=ferio, perfodio. Un calco omerico mediato dagli scolii.--Pontani, F. M. La distruzione di Melos di Ghiannis Ritsos.--Rinaldi Mioni, G. Aspetto verbale nel greco classico e strutturalismo.--Riondato, E. Problematicità semantica ed etica nell'Etica a Nicomaco.--Serra, G. Alcune osservazioni sulle traduzioni dall'arabo in ebraico e in latino del De generatione et corruptione di Aristotele e dello pseudo-aristotelico Liber de causis.--Traina, A. Convexo nutantem pondere mundum (Verg. Ecl. 4,50).--Valentini, R. La reintroduzione dell'onciale e la datazione dei manoscritti greci in minuscola. (shrink)

In this paper I aim to defend a twofold thesis. On one hand, I will sup-port, against Perini [7], the indispensability of diagrams when structurally complex biomolecules are concerned, since it is not possible to satisfactorily use linguistic-sentential representations at that domain. On the other hand, even when diagrams are dispensable I will defend than they will generally be more effective than other representations in encoding biomolecular knowledge, relying on Kulvicki-Shimojima’s diagrammatic effectiveness thesis. Finally, I will ground many epistemic (...) virtues of biomolecular diagrams (understandability, explanatory power, prediction and hypothesis evaluation) on their cognitive-computational indispensability and their semantic-epistemic effectiveness. (shrink)

In this paper I tackle the question of what basic form an analytical method for articulating and ultimately assessing visual representations should take. I start from the assumption that scientific images, being less prone to interpretive complication than artworks, are ideal objects from which to engage this question. I then assess a recent application of Nelson Goodman's aesthetics to the project of parsing scientific images, Laura Perini's ‘The truth in pictures’. I argue that, although her project is an important (...) one, her Goodmanian conventionalism produces a method of analysis that is incapable of adequately parsing a certain class of pictures and her focus on truth is unnecessary. This speaks against the promise of Goodman's analytical strategy for elucidating visual content and reasoning in the sciences and elsewhere. As an alternative, I develop John Willats’ analytical method and compare it to Perini's through engaging three of her examples—a chemical diagram, a graph and an electron micrograph. Ultimately, a space remains open for a mixed system where Willats’ account provides pictorial analysis and the Goodman–Perini approach parses visual languages. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend the view that there are many scientific images that have a serious epistemic role in science but this role is not adequately accounted for by the going view of representation and its attendant theoretical commitments. The relevant view of representation is Laura Perini’s account of representation for scientific images. I draw on Adina Roskies’ work on scientific images as well as work on models in science to support my conclusion.

À primeira vista, pode-se pensar que toda restrição à dúvida é contrária à progressão do conhecimento e antidemocrática. Este argumento é utilizado por diferentes sabores de negacionismo. No entanto, um exame do modo como funcionam dúvidas nos mostra que existem exigências epistêmicas para a legitimidade da dúvida que não são satisfeitas pelos negacionismos. Uma consequência deste argumento é que a normatividade epistêmica não é absorvida pela normatividade política. A especificidade da normatividade epistêmica, que explica porque a dúvida de negacionistas não (...) é legítima, desaparece em teorias construtivistas. Teses construtivistas resultam de uma confusão entre o fato de teorias serem construtos sociais e a tese que elas constroem os fatos sobre os quais portam a teoria ela mesma. A legitimidade da dúvida depende de processos sociais de filtragem epistêmica. Os filtros epistêmicos socialmente construídos refletem um fato profundo da evolução da cultura humana: a produção cumulativa, social e assimétrica do conhecimento. (shrink)