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General Philosophy of Science > Theories and Models > Theoretical Virtues > Theoretical Virtues, Misc
Theoretical Virtues, Misc
Edited by Guy Axtell (Radford University)
About this topic
| Summary | Questions about the characteristics that make a scientific theory one that is worth accepting or pursuing come into both scientific practice, and many important debates in philosophy of science. These debates include scientific change, scientific confirmation, scientific methodology, inference to the best explanation, explanatory unification, arguments for and against scientific realism, and many more. The Theoretical Virtues, Misc category may include works that discuss theoretical virtues through such debates, works that directly aim to discuss a particular theory and its role in one or more science, and works that aim to provide a comprehensive taxonomy for theory virtues. |
| Key works | Douglas, H. (2013). The value of cognitive values. Philosophy of Science, 80(5), 796–806. Keas, Michael (2018). Systematizing the theoretical virtues. _Synthese_ 195 (6):2761-2793. Kitcher, P. (1981). Explanatory unification. Philosophy of Science, 48(4), 507–531. Laudan, L. (2004). The epistemic, the cognitive, and the social. In P. K. Machamer&G. Wolters (Eds.), Science, values, and objectivity (pp. 14–23). Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Schindler, Samuel. (2018). Theoretical Virtues in Science: Uncovering Reality through Theory. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Thagard, P. R. (1978). The best explanation: Criteria for theory choice. The Journal of Philosophy, 75(2), 76–92. Van Fraassen, B. C. (1980). The scientific image. Oxford: Oxford University Press. |
| Introductions |
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Related
Siblings
- Aesthetic Virtues in Science (61)
- Epistemological Conservatism (35)
- Falsification (173)
- Nonempirical Virtues (149)
- Robustness in Science (133)
- Simplicity and Parsimony (334)
Contents
332 found
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| 1 — 50 / 332 |
- Inconsistency in Empirical Science.Luis Felipe Bartolo Alegre - manuscriptThis paper deals with a relatively recent trend in the history of analytic philosophy, philosophical logic, and theory of science: the philosophical study of the role of inconsistency in empirical science. This paper is divided in three sections that correspond to the three types of inconsistencies identified: (i) factual, occurring between theory and observations, (ii) external, occurring between two mutually contradictory theories, and (iii) internal, characterising theories that entail mutually contradictory statements.
- Reinterpreting the universe-multiverse debate in light of inter-model inconsistency in set theory.Daniel Kuby - manuscriptIn this paper I apply the concept of _inter-Model Inconsistency in Set Theory_ (MIST), introduced by Carolin Antos (this volume), to select positions in the current universe-multiverse debate in philosophy of set theory: I reinterpret H. Woodin’s _Ultimate L_, J. D. Hamkins’ multiverse, S.-D. Friedman’s hyperuniverse and the algebraic multiverse as normative strategies to deal with the situation of de facto inconsistency toleration in set theory as described by MIST. In particular, my aim is to situate these positions on the (...)
- Gaps, Gluts, and Theoretical Equivalence.Carlo Nicolai - manuscriptWhen are two formal theories of broadly logical concepts, such as truth, equivalent? The paper investigates a case study, involving two well-known variants Kripke-Feferman truth. The first, KF+CONS, features a consistent but partial truth predicate. The second, KF+COMP, an inconsistent but complete truth predicate. It is well-known that the two truth predicates are dual to each other. We show that this duality reveals a much stricter correspondence between the two theories: they are intertraslatable. Intertranslatability under natural assumptions coincides with definitional (...)
- Idealization and the structure of theories in biololgy.Alfonso Arroyo-Santos & Xavier De Donato-Rodríguez - 2008In this paper we present a new framework of idealization in biology. We characterize idealizations as a network of counterfactual conditionals that can exhibit different degrees of contingency. We use the idea of possible worlds to say that, in departing more or less from the actual world, idealizations can serve numerous epistemic, methodological or heuristic purposes within scientific research. We defend that, in part, it is this structure what helps explain why idealizations, despite being deformations of reality, are so successful (...)
- A Current Perspective on Science, Scientists and "Scientific Temper": Busting Myths and Misconceptions.Bimal Prasad Mahapatra - This article is devoted to define and characterize ‘Science’ as a discipline by the fundamental principles of scientific investigation. In particular, we propose and argue that ‘Science’ be defined by a set of principles / criteria which underlies scientific- investigation. We argue that this set must include the following principles: (1) Rationality, (2) Objectivity (3) Universality, (4) Internal Consistency, (5) Uniqueness, (6) Reproducibility, (7) The Principle of Falsification, (8) Simplicity and Elegance and (9) Experimental Observation and Verification. We elaborate, through (...)
- The Ethics of Conceptualization: A Needs-Based Approach.Matthieu Queloz - forthcoming - Oxford: Oxford University Press.Philosophy strives to give us a firmer hold on our concepts. But what about their hold on us? Why place ourselves under the sway of a concept and grant it the authority to shape our thought and conduct? Another conceptualization would carry different implications. What makes one way of thinking better than another? This book develops a framework for concept appraisal. Its guiding idea is that to question the authority of concepts is to ask for reasons of a special kind: (...)
- Scientists are Epistemic Consequentialists about Imagination.Michael T. Stuart - forthcoming - Philosophy of Science:1-22.Scientists imagine for epistemic reasons, and these imaginings can be better or worse. But what does it mean for an imagining to be epistemically better or worse? There are at least three metaepistemological frameworks that present different answers to this question: epistemological consequentialism, deontic epistemology, and virtue epistemology. This paper presents empirical evidence that scientists adopt each of these different epistemic frameworks with respect to imagination, but argues that the way they do this is best explained if scientists are fundamentally (...)
- Dimensions of Value.Brian Hedden & Daniel Muñoz - 2024 - Noûs 58 (2):291-305.Value pluralists believe in multiple dimensions of value. What does betterness along a dimension have to do with being better overall? Any systematic answer begins with the Strong Pareto principle: one thing is overall better than another if it is better along one dimension and at least as good along all others. We defend Strong Pareto from recent counterexamples and use our discussion to develop a novel view of dimensions of value, one which puts Strong Pareto on firmer footing. We (...)
- Against Methodological Continuity and Metaphysical Knowledge.Simon Allzén - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (1):1-20.The main purpose of this paper is to refute the metaphysicians ‘methodological continuation’ argument supporting epistemic realism in metaphysics. This argument aims to show that scientific realists have to accept that metaphysics is as rationally justified as science given that they both employ inference to the best explanation, i.e. that metaphysics and science are methodologically continuous. I argue that the reasons given by scientific realists as to why inference to the best explanation is reliable in science do not constitute a (...)
- Theoretical virtues and the methodological analogy between science and metaphysics.Andrew Brenner - 2023 - Synthese 201 (2):1-19.Metaphysicians often claim that some metaphysical theory should (or shouldn’t) be believed because it exhibits (or fails to exhibit) theoretical virtues such as simplicity. Metaphysicians also sometimes claim that the legitimacy of these sorts of appeals to theoretical virtues are vindicated by the similar appeals to theoretical virtues which scientists make in scientific theory choice. One objection to this methodological move is to claim that the metaphysician misdescribes the role that theoretical virtues play within science. In this paper I defend (...)
- Intellectual courage and inquisitive reasons.Will Fleisher - 2023 - Philosophical Studies 180 (4):1343-1371.Intellectual courage requires acting to promote epistemic goods despite significant risk of harm. Courage is distinguished from recklessness and cowardice because the expected epistemic benefit of a courageous action outweighs (in some sense) the threatened harm. Sometimes, however, inquirers pursue theories that are not best supported by their current evidence. For these inquirers, the expected epistemic benefit of their actions cannot be explained by appeal to their evidence alone. The probability of pursuing the true theory cannot contribute enough to the (...)
- Cognitive Metascience: A New Approach to the Study of Theories.Miłkowski Marcin - 2023 - Przeglad Psychologiczny 66 (1):185-207.In light of the recent credibility crisis in psychology, this paper argues for a greater emphasis on theorizing in scientific research. Although reliable experimental evidence, preregistration, methodological rigor, and new computational frameworks for modeling are important, scientific progress also relies on properly functioning theories. However, the current understanding of the role of theorizing in psychology is lacking, which may lead to future crises. Theories should not be viewed as mere speculations or simple inductive generalizations. To address this issue, the author (...)
- The Pleasure of Fear; The Scarecrow as an Extremely Immoral, Vicious and Pro-Passion Character According to Stoicism.Francisco Miguel Ortiz-Delgado - 2023 - In Martin Justin & Marco Favaro (eds.), Batman´s Villains and Villainesses: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Arkham´s Souls. Lanham: Lexington. pp. 277-290.Study of Batman´s villain Scarecrow through the lens of ancient Stoicism, particularly according to the Stoic theory of passions.
- Theory, Evidence, Data: Themes from George E. Smith.Marius Stan & Christopher Smeenk - 2023 - Springer.A volume of papers inspired by the work of George E. Smith on confirmation and evidence in advanced science—from Newton's gravitation theory to the physics of molecules.
- The future won’t be pretty: The nature and value of ugly, AI-designed experiments.Michael T. Stuart - 2023 - In Milena Ivanova & Alice Murphy (eds.), The Aesthetics of Scientific Experiments. New York, NY: Routledge.Can an ugly experiment be a good experiment? Philosophers have identified many beautiful experiments and explored ways in which their beauty might be connected to their epistemic value. In contrast, the present chapter seeks out (and celebrates) ugly experiments. Among the ugliest are those being designed by AI algorithms. Interestingly, in the contexts where such experiments tend to be deployed, low aesthetic value correlates with high epistemic value. In other words, ugly experiments can be good. Given this, we should conclude (...)$42.36 new (collection) View on Amazon.comRemove from this list Direct downloadExport citation
Bookmark - Essays on Postdeflationary Substantive Theorizing about Truth.Teemu Tauriainen - 2023 - Dissertation, University of JyväskyläThis dissertation explores the prospects of postdeflationary substantive theorizing about truth. Postdeflationary theories define the concept of truth or the property of being a true truthbearer in a way that respects the deflationary desiderata of clarity, purity, and permissiveness with truth-aptness, without a necessary commitment to the core negative thesis of the deflationary approach. Postdeflationary substantive theories further acknowledge the complexity and explanatory utility of truth in understanding and defining other concepts and phenomena. The motivation for pursuing this study arises (...)
- Ad hocness, accommodation and consilience: a Bayesian account.John Wilcox - 2023 - Synthese 201 (2):1-42.All of us, including scientists, make judgments about what is true or false, probable or improbable. And in the process, we frequently appeal to concepts such as evidential support or explanation. Bayesian philosophers of science have given illuminating formal accounts of these concepts. This paper aims to follow in their footsteps, providing a novel formal account of various additional concepts: the likelihood-prior trade-off, successful accommodation of evidence, ad hocness, and, finally, consilience—sometimes also called “unification”. Using these accounts, I also provide (...)
- When Virtues are Vices: 'Anti-Science' Epistemic Values in Environmental Politics.Daniel J. Hicks - 2022 - Philosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology 14 (12).Since at least the mid-2000s, political commentators, environmental advocates, and scientists have raised concerns about an “anti-science” approach to environmental policymaking in conservative governments in the US and Canada. This paper explores and resolves a paradox surrounding at least some uses of the “anti-science” epithet. I examine two cases of such “anti-science” environmental policy, both of which involve appeals to epistemic values that are widely endorsed by both scientists and philosophers of science. It seems paradoxical to call an appeal to (...)
- Understanding the Problem of “Hype”: Exaggeration, Values, and Trust in Science.Kristen Intemann - 2022 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 52 (3):279-294.Several science studies scholars report instances of scientific “hype,” or sensationalized exaggeration, in journal articles, institutional press releases, and science journalism in a variety of fields (e.g., Caulfield and Condit 2012). Yet, how “hype” is being conceived varies. I will argue that hype is best understood as a particular kind of exaggeration, one that explicitly or implicitly exaggerates various positive aspects of science in ways that undermine the goals of science communication in a particular context. This account also makes clear (...)
- Science by Nobel committee: decision making and norms of scientific practice in the early physics and chemistry prizes.Gustav Källstrand - 2022 - British Journal for the History of Science 55 (2):187-205.This paper examines the early years of decision making in the award of the Nobel Prize in physics and chemistry, and shows how the prize became a tool in the boundary work which upheld the social demarcations between scientists and inventors, as well as promoting a particular normative view of individual scientific achievement. The Nobel committees were charged with rewarding scientific achievements that benefited humankind: their interpretation of that criterion, however, turned in the first instance on their assessment of the (...)
- How Simple is the Humean Theory of Motivation?Olof Leffler - 2022 - Philosophical Explorations 25 (2):125-140.In recent discussions of the Humean Theory of Motivation (HTM), several authors – not to mention other philosophers around the proverbial water cooler – have appealed to the simplicity of the theory to defend it. But the argument from simplicity has rarely been explicated or received much critical attention – until now. I begin by reconstructing the argument and then argue that it suffers from a number of problems. Most importantly, first, I argue that HTM is unlikely to be simpler (...)
- Theoretical Virtues in Scientific Practice: An Empirical Study.Moti Mizrahi - 2022 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 73 (4):879-902.It is a common view among philosophers of science that theoretical virtues (also known as epistemic or cognitive values), such as simplicity and consistency, play an important role in scientific practice. In this article, I set out to study the role that theoretical virtues play in scientific practice empirically. I apply the methods of data science, such as text mining and corpus analysis, to study large corpora of scientific texts in order to uncover patterns of usage. These patterns of usage, (...)
- Cognitive Artifacts and Their Virtues in Scientific Practice.Marcin Miłkowski - 2022 - Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric 67 (1):219-246.One of the critical issues in the philosophy of science is to understand scientific knowledge. This paper proposes a novel approach to the study of reflection on science, called “cognitive metascience”. In particular, it offers a new understanding of scientific knowledge as constituted by various kinds of scientific representations, framed as cognitive artifacts. It introduces a novel functional taxonomy of cognitive artifacts prevalent in scientific practice, covering a huge diversity of their formats, vehicles, and functions. As a consequence, toolboxes, conceptual (...)
- Virtues of ‘values’ and ‘virtues’: on theoretical virtues and the aim of science.Mousa Mohammadian - 2022 - Metascience 31 (3):297-302.
- The Material Theory of Induction at the Frontiers of Science.William Peden - 2022 - Episteme 19 (2):247-263.According to John D. Norton's Material Theory of Induction, all reasonable inductive inferences are justified in virtue of background knowledge about local uniformities in nature. These local uniformities indicate that our samples are likely to be representative of our target population in our inductions. However, a variety of critics have noted that there are many circumstances in which induction seems to be reasonable, yet such background knowledge is apparently absent. I call such absences ‘the frontiers of science', where background scientific (...)
- Schema-Centred Unity and Process-Centred Pluralism of the Predictive Mind.Nina Poth - 2022 - Minds and Machines 32 (3):433-459.Proponents of the predictive processing (PP) framework often claim that one of the framework’s significant virtues is its unificatory power. What is supposedly unified are predictive processes in the mind, and these are explained in virtue of a common prediction error-minimisation (PEM) schema. In this paper, I argue against the claim that PP currently converges towards a unified explanation of cognitive processes. Although the notion of PEM systematically relates a set of posits such as ‘efficiency’ and ‘hierarchical coding’ into a (...)
- When Do Non-Epistemic Values Play an Epistemically Illegitimate Role in Science? How to Solve One Half of the New Demarcation Problem.Alexander Reutlinger - 2022 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 92:152-161.Solving the “new demarcation problem” requires a distinction between epistemically legitimate and illegitimate roles for non-epistemic values in science. This paper addresses one ‘half’ (i.e. a sub-problem) of the new demarcation problem articulated by the Gretchenfrage: What makes the role of a non-epistemic value in science epistemically illegitimate? I will argue for the Explaining Epistemic Errors (EEE) account, according to which the epistemically illegitimate role of a non-epistemic value is defined via an explanatory claim: the fact that an epistemic agent (...)
- On the very idea of pursuitworthiness.Jamie Shaw - 2022 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 91 (C):103-112.Recent philosophical literature has turned its attention towards assessments of how to judge scientific proposals as worthy of further inquiry. Previous work, as well as papers contained within this special issue, propose criteria for pursuitworthiness (Achinstein, 1993; Whitt, 1992; DiMarco & Khalifa, 2019; Laudan, 1977; Shan, 2020; Šešelja et al., 2012). The purpose of this paper is to assess the grounds on which pursuitworthiness demands can be legitimately made. To do this, I propose a challenge to the possibility of even (...)
- Methodology Maximized: Quine on Empiricism, Naturalism, and Empirical Content.James Andrew Smith - 2022 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 60 (4):661-686.W. V. Quine calls some general methods of science maxims: general defeasible principles that call on us to approximate, maximize, or minimize a state and that are interpreted and weighed in context-sensitive ways. On my reading, his empiricism asks us to maximize accepting overall theories empirically equivalent to ours but to minimize accepting sentences that both do not affect the empirical content of our overall theory and do not simplify our overall theory. His naturalism asks us to maximize accepting sentences (...)
- Virtue theory of mathematical practices: an introduction.Andrew Aberdein, Colin Jakob Rittberg & Fenner Stanley Tanswell - 2021 - Synthese 199 (3-4):10167-10180.Until recently, discussion of virtues in the philosophy of mathematics has been fleeting and fragmentary at best. But in the last few years this has begun to change. As virtue theory has grown ever more influential, not just in ethics where virtues may seem most at home, but particularly in epistemology and the philosophy of science, some philosophers have sought to push virtues out into unexpected areas, including mathematics and its philosophy. But there are some mathematicians already there, ready to (...)
- Judgments of Beauty in Theory Evaluation.Devon Brickhouse-Bryson - 2021 - Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books.The role of judgments of beauty in scientific theory evaluation is the subject of significant debate in contemporary philosophy of science. This book advances that debate by broadening its scope. In Judgments of Beauty in Theory Evaluation, the author argues that judgments of beauty are a justified part of theory evaluation of all sorts: not only scientific theory evaluation, but also philosophical theory evaluation. The author argues for this thesis by providing an account of beauty—inherited from Kant and Mothersill—on which (...)
- Defining a crisis: the roles of principles in the search for a theory of quantum gravity.Karen Crowther - 2021 - Synthese 198 (Suppl 14):3489-3516.In times of crisis, when current theories are revealed as inadequate to task, and new physics is thought to be required—physics turns to re-evaluate its principles, and to seek new ones. This paper explores the various types, and roles of principles that feature in the problem of quantum gravity as a current crisis in physics. I illustrate the diversity of the principles being appealed to, and show that principles serve in a variety of roles in all stages of the crisis, (...)
- Wishful Intelligibility, Black Boxes, and Epidemiological Explanation.Marina DiMarco - 2021 - Philosophy of Science 88 (5):824-834.Epidemiological explanation often has a “black box” character, meaning the intermediate steps between cause and effect are unknown. Filling in black boxes is thought to improve causal inferences by making them intelligible. I argue that adding information about intermediate causes to a black box explanation is an unreliable guide to pragmatic intelligibility because it may mislead us about the stability of a cause. I diagnose a problem that I call wishful intelligibility, which occurs when scientists misjudge the limitations of certain (...)
- Objectivity in Science.Stephen John - 2021 - Cambridge University Press.Objectivity is a key concept both in how we talk about science in everyday life and in the philosophy of science. This Element explores various ways in which recent philosophers of science have thought about the nature, value and achievability of objectivity. The first section explains the general trend in recent philosophy of science away from a notion of objectivity as a 'view from nowhere' to a focus on the relationship between objectivity and trust. Section 2 discusses the relationship between (...)
- Theoretical virtues and theorizing in physics: against the instrumentalist view of simplicity.Mousa Mohammadian - 2021 - Synthese 199 (1-2):4819-4828.I argue that if simplicity is a theoretical virtue and some theoretical virtues are the constituents of the aims of theorizing in physics—i.e., theory choice and theory development in physics—and scientific rationality is instrumental rationality, then simplicity cannot be a mere means to achieve the aims. I do this by showing that considering simplicity as a mere means brings about counterintuitive ramifications concerning scientific rationality. These counterintuitive ramifications can be avoided if we consider simplicity a constituent of the aims of (...)
- Fix, Express, Quantify: Disquotation After Its Logic.Carlo Nicolai - 2021 - Mind 130 (519):727-757.Truth-theoretic deflationism holds that truth is simple, and yet that it can fulfil many useful logico-linguistic roles. Deflationism focuses on axioms for truth: there is no reduction of the notion of truth to more fundamental ones such as sets or higher-order quantifiers. In this paper I argue that the fundamental properties of reasonable, primitive truth predicates are at odds with the core tenets of classical truth-theoretic deflationism that I call fix, express, and quantify. Truth may be regarded as a broadly (...)
- Science, Technology, and Virtues: Contemporary Perspectives.Emanuele Ratti & Tom Stapleford (eds.) - 2021 - Oxford University Press.
- Kuhn, Values and Academic Freedom.Howard Sankey - 2021 - Logos and Episteme 12 (4):463-467.For Kuhn, there are a number of values which provide scientists with a shared basis for theory-choice. These values include accuracy, breadth, consistency, simplicity and fruitfulness. Each of these values may be interpreted in different ways. Moreover, there may be conflict between the values in application to specific theories. In this short paper, Kuhn's idea of scientific values is extended to the value of academic freedom. The value of academic freedom may be interpreted in a number of different ways. Moreover, (...)
- Virtues in Scientific Practice.Dana Tulodziecki - 2021 - In Emanuele Ratti & Tom Stapleford (eds.), Science, Technology, and Virtues: Contemporary Perspectives. Oxford University Press.This chapter relocates the debate about the theoretical virtues to the empirical level and argues that the question of whether the virtues (and what virtues, if any) have epistemic import is best answered empirically, through an examination of actual scientific theories and hypotheses in the history of science. As a concrete example of this approach, the chapter discusses a case study from the mid-nineteenth-century debate about the transmissibility of puerperal fever. It argues that this case shows that the virtues are (...)
- Kuram Seçimi, Eksik Belirlenim ve Thomas Kuhn.Alper Bilgehan Yardımcı - 2021 - Londra, Birleşik Krallık: Ijopec Publication.One of the main purposes of science is to explain natural phenomena by increasing our understanding of the physical world and to make predictions about the future based on these explanations. In this context, scientific theories can be defined as large-scale explanations of phenomena. In the historical process, scientists have made various choices among the theories they encounter at the point of solving the problems related to their fields of study. This process, which can be called ‘theory choice’, is one (...)
- Should Explanations Omit the Details?Darren Bradley - 2020 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 71 (3):827-853.There is a widely shared belief that the higher-level sciences can provide better explanations than lower-level sciences. But there is little agreement about exactly why this is so. It is often suggested that higher-level explanations are better because they omit details. I will argue instead that the preference for higher-level explanations is just a special case of our general preference for informative, logically strong, beliefs. I argue that our preference for informative beliefs entirely accounts for why higher-level explanations are sometimes (...)
- Troubles with Theoretical Virtues: Resisting Theoretical Utility Arguments in Metaphysics.OtÁvio Bueno & Scott A. Shalkowski - 2020 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 101 (2):456-469.In this paper we examine theoretical utility arguments in metaphysics. While philosophers claim a procedural continuity with science when using such arguments, we argue that examining famous instances from the history of science expose their fundamental flaws. We find that arguments from theoretical utility invoke considerations that are not truth conducive and that justifications for claims that a theory possesses theoretical virtues often assume the truth of the theory such virtues are supposed to support. We conclude that theoretical utility arguments (...)
- Review of Cultivating Virtue: Perspectives from Philosophy, Theology, and Psychology. [REVIEW]Subhasis Chattopadhyay - 2020 - Prabuddha Bharata or Awakened India 125 (6):522-24.This is a review of a book which in today's COVID 19 world takes up issues which could have been neglected as meant only for scholars when this book was published. Now with homeschooling and social distancing and race relations going for a toss all over the world; we need to relook virtue and how to cultivate that in our lives and in our children. This review looks at the philosophical, theological and psychological qualia of virtue. For instance, this reviewer (...)
- On the Individuation of Choice Options.Roberto Fumagalli - 2020 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 50 (4):338-365.Decision theorists have attempted to accommodate several violations of decision theory’s axiomatic requirements by modifying how agents’ choice options are individuated and formally represented. In recent years, prominent authors have worried that these modifications threaten to trivialize decision theory, make the theory unfalsifiable, impose overdemanding requirements on decision theorists, and hamper decision theory’s internal coherence. In this paper, I draw on leading descriptive and normative works in contemporary decision theory to address these prominent concerns. In doing so, I articulate and (...)
- Value-Free yet Policy-Relevant? The Normative Views of Climate Scientists and Their Bearing on Philosophy.Torbjørn Gundersen - 2020 - Perspectives on Science 28 (1):89-118.The proper role of non-epistemic values such as moral, political, and social values in practices of justification of policy-relevant hypotheses has recently become one of the central questions in philosophy of science. This strand of research has yielded conceptual clarifications and significant insight into the complex and notoriously contentious issue of the proper relationship between science, non-epistemic values, and policymaking. A central part of this discussion revolves around whether scientists should aspire for the value-free ideal, according to which non-epistemic values (...)
- Objectivity in contexts: withholding epistemic judgement as a strategy for mitigating collective bias.Inkeri Koskinen - 2020 - Synthese 199 (1-2):211-225.In this paper I discuss and develop the risk account of scientific objectivity, which I have recently introduced, contrasting it to some alternatives. I then use the account in order to analyse a practice that is relatively common in anthropology, in the history of science, and in the sociology of scientific knowledge: withholding epistemic judgement. I argue that withholding epistemic judgement on the beliefs one is studying can be a relatively efficient strategy against collective bias in these fields. However, taking (...)
- What Inference to the Best Explanation Is Not: A Response to Roche and Sober's Screening-Off Challenge to IBE.Marc Lange - 2020 - Teorema: International Journal of Philosophy 39:27-42.Remove from this listExport citation Bookmark
- Theories as recipes: third-order virtue and vice.Michaela Markham McSweeney - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (2):391-411.A basic way of evaluating metaphysical theories is to ask whether they give satisfying answers to the questions they set out to resolve. I propose an account of “third-order” virtue that tells us what it takes for certain kinds of metaphysical theories to do so. We should think of these theories as recipes. I identify three good-making features of recipes and show that they translate to third-order theoretical virtues. I apply the view to two theories—mereological universalism and plenitudinous platonism—and draw (...)
- Cómo afilar tu navaja nueva: un principio de parsimonia ideológica para argumentar en metafísica.Óscar Antonio Monroy Pérez - 2020 - Dissertation, National Autonomous University of MexicoEn metafísica contemporánea, es común trabajar bajo una metodología basada en virtudes teóricas. En caso de disputa, esta metodología nos aconseja elegir la teoría que mejor satisfaga las virtudes teóricas estándar: precisión empírica, fecundidad, poder unificador, consistencia y simplicidad. Sin embargo, no hay consenso sobre cómo deben frasearse tales virtudes, ni sobre cómo ponderarlas. Aquí me concentraré en ofrecer razones a favor de una manera de frasear el principio de parsimonia ideológica, una especie de simplicidad. Defiendo que dicho principio debería (...)
- Theoretical virtues in eighteenth-century debates on animal cognition.Hein van den Berg - 2020 - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 42 (3):1-35.Within eighteenth-century debates on animal cognition we can distinguish at least three main theoretical positions: (i) Buffon’s mechanism, (ii) Reimarus’ theory of instincts, and (iii) the sensationalism of Condillac and Leroy. In this paper, I adopt a philosophical perspective on this debate and argue that in order to fully understand the justification Buffon, Reimarus, Condillac, and Leroy gave for their respective theories, we must pay special attention to the theoretical virtues these naturalists alluded to while justifying their position. These theoretical (...)
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