Reseña / Ressenya / Review Herreras, Enrique 2021, Lo que la posverdad esconde. Medios de comunicación y crisis de la democracia, epílogo de Pepe Reig, Barcelona: MRA Ediciones. ISBN 978-84-96504-41-7, 278 páginas.

This article delves into the thought of an author who has not been studied. Besides, it understands that the best way to begin this study is through the Free Assembly of Puerta del Sol in Madrid on May 15th. García Calvo’s position was not influential in this Movement, but it can help us understand it in its origin, in the subsequent development and even in current days. Especially in its inner contradictions: those so called two M15’s _ souls _. The (...) article also analyzes the relationship of the Indignants’ Movement with the 1965’s students’ riot, where García Calvo was also a protagonist. Finally, the article focuses on one of the biggest discrepancies of the thinker from Zamora about the _ Spanish Revolution _, concerning the assessment of Information and Communication Technologies. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility is increasingly viewed as a strategic management tool for companies to draw in candidates. In this arena, international responsible rankings such as ‘The Great Place to Work’, ‘Family Responsible Employer Index ’ or ‘The Best Companies for Working Mothers’ put emphasis on the value of responsible behaviours, not only for surviving in the market, but also to ‘win the war for talent’. Using a sample of Spanish University students, this research aims to analyse the process of selecting (...) responsible organizations to work and whether there is a possible future conflict of interest by students between their own and organizational values. Surprisingly, the university students assessed two opposing situations with the highest values: of looking to change employer and of letting time pass in order to ignore the conflict. The implications of the students’ assessments and the related factors which affect their decision-making criteria are explored in this article. (shrink)

In this paper, an attempt is made to solve various problems posed to current theories of verisimilitude: the problem of linguistic variance; the problem of which are the best scientific methods for getting the most verisimilar theories; and the question of the ontological commitment in scientific theories. As a result of my solution to these problems, and with the help of other considerations of epistemological character, I conclude that the notion of 'Tarskian truth' is dispensable in a rational interpretation of (...) the scientific enterprise. As a logical result, however, falsificationism will be vindicated. (shrink)

Scientific research is reconstructed as a language game along the lines of Robert Brandom's inferentialism. Researchers are assumed to aim at persuading their colleagues of the validity of some claims. The assertions each scientist is allowed or committed to make depend on her previous claims and on the inferential norms of her research community. A classification of the most relevant types of inferential rules governing such a game is offered, and some ways in which this inferentialist approach can be used (...) for assessing scientific knowledge and practices are explored. Some similarities and differences with a game-theoretic analysis are discussed. (shrink)

El artículo aborda la pandemia del covid-19 como elemento contingente y su efecto de develamiento respecto de algunas manifestaciones contemporáneas de la ideología neoliberal en Latinoamérica. De esta forma, en base a conceptos filosóficos y psicoanalíticos de orientación lacaniana planteados fundamentalmente por Slavoj Žižek, se examinan los usos críticos de la noción de ideología en sus diversas manifestaciones: miedo al otro, imposición de la lógica del empresario de sí, destrucción de lazos sociales, extractivismo de recursos naturales y fetichización de los (...) discursos de unidad frente a la pandemia. La hipótesis radica en que la pandemia presenta una oportunidad para repensar la subjetividad contemporánea, mediante la confrontación con el Real que bordea a la simbolización y, en definitiva, a la captura ideológica, a fin de poner en cuestión la afirmación de que no hay alternativa. (shrink)

An epistemic notion of verisimilitude (as the 'degree in which a theory seems closer to the full truth to a scientific community') is defined in several ways. Application to the structuralist description of theories is carried out by introducing a notion of 'empirical regularity' in structuralist terms. It is argued that these definitions of verisimilitude can be used to give formal reconstructions of scientific methodologies such as falsificationism, conventionalism and normal science.

Scientists can choose different claims as interpretations of the results of their research. Scientific rhetoric is understood as the attempt to make those claims most beneficial for the scientists' interests. A rational choice, game-theoretic model is developed to analyze how this choice can be made and to assess it from a normative point of view. The main conclusion is that `social' interests (pursuit of recognition) may conflict with `cognitive' ones when no constraints are put on the choices of the authors (...) of scientific papers, as in an `ideal free speech situation'. Scientific institutions may help to solve this conflict. Lastly, some empirical predictions are offered that can inspire future social research of the refereeing process. (shrink)

The decision whether to have a realist or an anti-realist attitude towards scientific hypotheses is interpreted in this paper as a choice that scientists themselves have to face in their work as scientists, rather than as a ‘philosophical’ problem. Scientists’ choices between realism and instrumentalism are interpreted in this paper with the help of two different conceptual tools: a deflationary semantics grounded in the inferentialist approach to linguistic practices developed by some authors, and an epistemic utility function that tries to (...) represent the cognitive preferences of scientists. The first tool is applied to two different questions traditionally related to the problem of scientific realism: the non-miracle argument, and the continuity of reference. The second one is applied to the problem of unconceived alternatives, and to the distinction between realist and instrumentalist attitudes towards scientific hypotheses. (shrink)

Unfounded—conspiracy and health—beliefs about COVID-19 have accompanied the pandemic worldwide. Here, we examined cross-nationally the structure and correlates of these beliefs with an 8-item scale, using a multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. We obtained a two-factor model of unfounded (conspiracy and health) beliefs with good internal structure (average CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.05, SRMR = 0.04), but a high correlation between the two factors (average latent factor correlation = 0.57). This model was replicable across 50 countries (total N = 13,579), (...) as evidenced by metric invariance between countries (CFI = 0.96, RMSEA = 0.06, SRMS = 0.07) as well as scalar invariance across genders (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03) and educational levels (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03). Also, lower levels of education, more fear of COVID-19, and more cynicism were weakly associated with stronger conspiracy and health beliefs. The study contributes to knowledge about the structure of unfounded beliefs, and reveals the potential relevance of affective (i.e., fear of COVID-19) and cognitive (i.e., cynicism) factors along with demographics, in endorsing such beliefs. In summary, we obtained cross-cultural evidence for the distinctiveness of unfounded conspiracy and health beliefs about COVID-19 in terms of their structure and correlates. (shrink)

The constitution of a collective judgment is analyzed from a contractarian point of view. The optimal collective judgment is defined as the one that maximizes the sum of the utility each member gets from the collective adoption of that judgment. It is argued that judgment aggregation is a different process from the aggregation of information and public deliberation. This entails that the adoption of a collective judgment should not make any rational member of the group change her individual opinion, and (...) so the collective judgment can not have any kind of epistemic superiority over the individual ones. ‡The author acknowledges Spanish Government's research projects HUM2005–01686/FISO and HUM2005-25447-E, as well as the grant PR2006-0108 which allowed a three months stay at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, in which a big part of this paper was written. †To contact the author, please write to: Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Dpto. de Lógica, Historia y F. de la ciencia, Humanidades, Paseo de Senda del rey 7, 28040 Madrid, Spain; e-mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

The scientist's decision of accepting a given proposition is assumed to be dependent on two factors: the scientist's 'private' information about the value of that statement and the proportion of colleagues who also accept it. This interdependence is modelled in an economic fashion, and it is shown that it may lead to multiple equilibria. The main conclusions are that the evolution of scientific knowledge can be path, dependent, that scientific revolutions can be due to very small changes in the empirical (...) evidence, and that not all possible equilibria are necessarily efficient, neither in the economic nor in the epistemic sense. These inefficiencies, however, can be eliminated if scientists can form coalitions. (shrink)

The connection between scientific knowledge and our empirical access to realityis not well explained within the structuralist approach to scientific theories. I arguethat this is due to the use of a semantics not rich enough from the philosophical pointof view. My proposal is to employ Sellars–Brandom's inferential semantics to understand how can scientific terms have empirical content, and Hintikka's game-theoretical semantics to analyse how can theories be empirically tested. The main conclusions are that scientific concepts gain their meaning through `basic (...) theories' grounded on `common sense, and that scientific method usually allows the pragmatic verification and falsification of scientific theories. (shrink)

Los científicos tratan de persuadir a sus colegas y, en última instancia, al conjunto de la sociedad, para que acepten sus tesis, descubrimientos y propuestas. Desarrollan para ello una serie de estrategias que pueden ser estudiadas como un “juego de persuasión” en el que intervienen, además de los procesos de argumentación formal e informal típicamente estudiados por la lógica y metodología de la ciencia, aspectos tradicionalmente considerados “sociológicos”. En este artículo se analiza el debate sobre la ciencia del cambio climático (...) como un juego de este tipo, desde un enfoque inferencialista, sobre la base del esquema presentado en Zamora Bonilla (2006a). (shrink)

Byung-Chul Han es uno de los intelectuales más populares del momento, habiendo basado su éxito, sobre todo, en una especie de crítica filosófica de la civilización de consumo capitalista e hipertecnificada. En este artículo se repasan algunos de los clichés habituales en su obra, para mostrar que en la mayor parte de los casos no suele haber razones para estar de acuerdo con tales críticas, sino que estas responde principalmente a un afán de esnobismo.

Two aspects of Miranda Fricker's book are criticised: the implicit assumption that ethical theory can solve fundamental problems in epistemology, and the excessive reliance on testimony as a fundamental source of knowledge. Against the former, it is argued that ethical theories are based on cultural prejudices to a higher extent than epistemological theories. Against the latter, argumentation is proposed as a more important epistemic practice than testimony.

The connection between scientific knowledge and our empirical access to realityis not well explained within the structuralist approach to scientific theories. I arguethat this is due to the use of a semantics not rich enough from the philosophical pointof view. My proposal is to employ Sellars–Brandom's inferential semantics to understand how can scientific terms have empirical content, and Hintikka's game-theoretical semantics to analyse how can theories be empirically tested. The main conclusions are that scientific concepts gain their meaning through `basic (...) theories' grounded on `common sense’, and that scientific method usually allows the pragmatic verification and falsification of scientific theories. (shrink)

Two aspects of Miranda Fricker’s book are criticised: the implicit assumption that ethical theory can solve fundamental problems in epistemology, and the excessive reliance on testimony as a fundamental source of knowledge. Against the former, it is argued that ethical theories are based on cultural prejudices to a higher extent than epistemological theories. Against the latter, argumentation is proposed as a more important epistemic practice than testimony.

Two aspects of Miranda Fricker’s book are criticised: the implicit assumption that ethical theory can solve fundamental problems in epistemology, and the excessive reliance on testimony as a fundamental source of knowledge. Against the former, it is argued that ethical theories are based on cultural prejudices to a higher extent than epistemological theories. Against the latter, argumentation is proposed as a more important epistemic practice than testimony.

Verisimilitude theorists (and many scientific realists) assume that science attempts to provide hypotheses with an increasing degree of closeness to the full truth; on the other hand, radical sociologists of science assert that flesh and bone scientists struggle to attain much more mundane goals (such as income, power, fame, and so on). This paper argues that both points of view can be made compatible, for (1) rational individuals only would be interested in engaging in a strong competition (such as that (...) described by radical sociologists) if they knew in advance the rules under which their outcomes are to be assessed, and (2), if these rules have to be chosen "under a veil of ignorance" (i.e., before knowing what specific theory each scientist is going to devise), then rules favoring highly verisimilar theories can be prefered by researchers to other methodological rules. (shrink)

Verisimilitude theorists assume that science attempts to provide hypotheses with an increasing degree of closeness to the full truth; on the other hand, radical sociologists of science assert that flesh and bone scientists struggle to attain much more mundane goals . This paper argues that both points of view can be made compatible, for rational individuals only would be interested in engaging in a strong competition if they knew in advance the rules under which their outcomes are to be assessed, (...) and , if these rules have to be chosen "under a veil of ignorance" , then rules favoring highly verisimilar theories can be prefered by researchers to other methodological rules. (shrink)

The process of scientific investigation is reconstructed as a process of empirical approximation to the truth. This last concept is explicated as a combination of “degree of simmilarity between theory A and the strongest accepted empirical law at moment t” and the “degree of depth of this empirical law”. A number of methodological theorems are proved, and avision of science closer to sophisticated falsificationism is mathematically deduced from our definitions.

Methodological norms are seen as rules defining a competitive game, and it is argued that rational recognition-seeking scientists can reach a collective agreement about which specific norms serve better their individual interests, especially if the choice is made `under a veil of ignorance', i.e. , before knowing what theory will be proposed by each scientist. Norms for theory assessment are distinguished from norms for theory choice (or inference rules), and it is argued that pursuit of recognition only affects this second (...) type of rule. An inference rule similar to `eliminative induction' is defended on the basis of such a possible agreement. According to this contractarian approach, both the explanation and the justification of scientific norms only need to refer to the preferences of individual scientists, without assuming the existence of `collective' points of view. (shrink)

Se discute el proyecto de la naturalización de la filosofía de la ciencia, a través de las teorías de Ronald Giere y Philip Kitcher. Ambas tienen en común la atención preferente que prestan a los procesos de decisión de los científicos individuales y la defensa de una concepción realista y racionalista de la ciencia. La comparación se lleva a cabo desde una triple perspectiva: su consideración como teorías darwinianas del desarrollo científico, su referencia a los modelos de la psicología cogni (...) tiva, y su posible coherencia con la tesis de la simetría defendida por los sociólogos de la escuela de Edimburgo. (shrink)

Using the approach known as ‘Economics of Scientific Knowledge’, this paperdefends the view of scientific norms as the result of a ‘social contract’, i.e., as anequilibrium in the game of selecting the norms under which toproceed to play the game of scientific research and publication. Acategorisation of the relevant types of scientific norms is offered, as well as adiscussion about the incentives of the researchers in choosing some or otheralternative rules.

Se discute el proyecto de la "naturalización de la filosofía de la ciencia", a través de las teorías de Ronald Giere y Philip Kitcher. Ambas tienen en común la atención preferente que prestan a los procesos de decisión de los científicos individuales y la defensa de una concepción realista y racionalista de la ciencia. La comparación se lleva a cabo desde una triple perspectiva: su consideración como teorías darwinianas del desarrollo científico, su referencia a los modelos de la psicología cognitiva, (...) y su posible coherencia con la "tesis de la simetría" defendida por los sociólogos de la escuela de Edimburgo. (shrink)

Moulines’ arguments against several types of realism in his book Pluralidad y recursion are considered and a defence of scientific realism consistent with structuralism is offered as a plausible answer to Moulines’ criticisms.

Of the six sections composing «The Methodology of Posive Economics», the first one («The Relation between Positive and Normative Economics») is apparently the less discussed in the F53 literature, probably as a result of being the shortest one and the less relevant for the realism issue, all at once. In view of Milton Friedman’s subsequent career as a political preacher, it seems difficult not to wonder whether this first section ruled it the way the other five directed Friedman’s scientific performance. (...) After all, the role of prediction in defining positive economics was already advanced therein: when an economist predicts, her results are «independent of any particular ethical position or normative judgments». This is also why positive economics is a politically relevant discipline: as long as the differences about economic policy –among disinterested citizens– derive only from different predictions about the economic consequences of taking action, these differences could be eliminated by the progress of positive economics. Our plan in this paper is to present, in the first place, the role of political motivations in the development of Friedman’s methodological stance. As we will discuss in §2, Friedman was involved in the policy-making process right from the beginning of his professional career, and could experience at first hand the relevance of economic predictions in generating a consensus not only among politicians or the public opinion, but among the profession itself. Conversely, Friedman could also appreciate how difficult was to reach a consensus on a particular policy when the economists disagreed on its practical consequences. In this respect, as we will see, «The Methodology» attempted at guaranteeing the political efficiency of economic research. However, the sociological turn in science studies suggests to question on what basis can we deem a prediction neutral. Is it simply that economists produce these positive predictions disinterestedly, even while deeply engaged in political debates? In §3, we analyse how Friedman himself produced predictions immediately before «The Methodology» was drafted, and how this procedure lies at the core of his Marshallian approach, which he contrasted to the Walrasian strategy on the grounds of its higher political relevance.. (shrink)

Being scientific research a process of social interaction, this process can be studied from a game-theoretic perspective. Some conceptual and formal instruments that can help to understand scientific research as a game are introduced, and it is argued that game theoretic epistemology provides a middle ground for 'rationalist' and 'constructivist' theories of scientific knowledge. In the first part , a description of the essential elements of game of science is made, using an inferentialist conception of rationality. In the second part (...) , some ideas for the reconstruction of case studies are introduced, and applied to one example: Latour's analysis of Joliot's attempt to build an atomic bomb. Lastly, in the third part , a formal analysis of the constitution of scientific consensus is offered. (shrink)

Exceptionally preserved fossils are the product of complex interplays of biological and geological processes including burial, autolysis and microbial decay, authigenic mineralization, diagenesis, metamorphism, and finally weathering and exhumation. Determining which tissues are preserved and how biases affect their preservation pathways is important for interpreting fossils in phylogenetic, ecological, and evolutionary frameworks. Although laboratory decay experiments reveal important aspects of fossilization, applying the results directly to the interpretation of exceptionally preserved fossils may overlook the impact of other key processes that (...) remove or preserve morphological information. Investigations of fossils preserving non-biomineralized tissues suggest that certain structures that are decay resistant are rarely preserved, and decay-prone structures can fossilize, albeit rarely. As we review here, decay resistance is an imperfect indicator of fossilization potential, and a suite of biological and geological processes account for the features preserved in exceptional fossils. Organisms decayed experimentally in seawater have been used as direct analogs for soft-bodied fossil taxa, with fossils representing a snapshot of a particular stage of decay. We argue that numerous geological and biological processes account for fossilization and that all of these should be considered when reconstructing extinct organisms. (shrink)

Exceptionally preserved fossils are the product of complex interplays of biological and geological processes including burial, autolysis and microbial decay, authigenic mineralization, diagenesis, metamorphism, and finally weathering and exhumation. Determining which tissues are preserved and how biases affect their preservation pathways is important for interpreting fossils in phylogenetic, ecological, and evolutionary frameworks. Although laboratory decay experiments reveal important aspects of fossilization, applying the results directly to the interpretation of exceptionally preserved fossils may overlook the impact of other key processes that (...) remove or preserve morphological information. Investigations of fossils preserving non-biomineralized tissues suggest that certain structures that are decay resistant are rarely preserved, and decay-prone structures can fossilize, albeit rarely. As we review here, decay resistance is an imperfect indicator of fossilization potential, and a suite of biological and geological processes account for the features preserved in exceptional fossils. Organisms decayed experimentally in seawater have been used as direct analogs for soft-bodied fossil taxa, with fossils representing a snapshot of a particular stage of decay. We argue that numerous geological and biological processes account for fossilization and that all of these should be considered when reconstructing extinct organisms. (shrink)

Unfounded—conspiracy and health—beliefs about COVID-19 have accompanied the pandemic worldwide. Here, we examined cross-nationally the structure and correlates of these beliefs with an 8-item scale, using a multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. We obtained a two-factor model of unfounded (conspiracy and health) beliefs with good internal structure (average CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.05, SRMR = 0.04), but a high correlation between the two factors (average latent factor correlation = 0.57). This model was replicable across 50 countries (total N = 13,579), (...) as evidenced by metric invariance between countries (CFI = 0.96, RMSEA = 0.06, SRMS = 0.07) as well as scalar invariance across genders (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03) and educational levels (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03). Also, lower levels of education, more fear of COVID-19, and more cynicism were weakly associated with stronger conspiracy and health beliefs. The study contributes to knowledge about the structure of unfounded beliefs, and reveals the potential relevance of affective (i.e., fear of COVID-19) and cognitive (i.e., cynicism) factors along with demographics, in endorsing such beliefs. In summary, we obtained cross-cultural evidence for the distinctiveness of unfounded conspiracy and health beliefs about COVID-19 in terms of their structure and correlates. (shrink)

Co-authorship of papers is very common in most areas of science, and it has increased as the complexity of research has strengthened the need for scientific collaboration. But the fact that papers have more than an author tends to complicate the attribution of merit to individual scientists. I argue that collaboration does not necessarily entail co-authorship, but that in many cases the latter is an option that individual authors might not choose, at least in principle: each author might publish in (...) a separate way her own contribution to the collaborative project in which she has taken part, or papers could explicitly state what the contribution of each individual author has been. I ask, hence, why it is that scientists prefer to ‘pool’ their contributions instead of keeping them separate, if what they pursue in their professional careers is individual recognition. My answer is based on the view of the scientific paper as a piece of argumentation, following an inferentialist approach to scientific knowledge. A few empirical predictions from the model presented here are suggested in the conclusions. (shrink)

Se presenta una experiencia didáctica basada en la gamificación para la enseñanza de Historia del Arte en 2º de Bachillerato. Sobre la base del juego Party & Co., se diseñó un juego específico, ad hoc, para enseñar el Arte de las Primeras Vanguardias. Su implementación en el Colegio Hispano-Alemán de Madrid se desarrolló durante el curso 2020-2021. Los resultados obtenidos fueron muy satisfactorios, hasta el punto de haberse vuelto a poner en práctica -con algunas mejoras- durante el pasado curso académico.

It can be stated that self-regulated learning (SRL) brings broad benefits to the process of students' learning and studying. However, research has yet to be undertaken in relation to one of its components, namely self-regulation of motivation and affectivity. The main objectives of this study are to examine the use of self-motivation strategies that involve classmates and to obtain models on the influence of academic goals and self-efficacy on such self-motivation strategies. To this end, was conducted a study using two (...) different samples of students in the compulsory secondary education or baccalaureate stages in Spain (N = 613 and N = 910). The results obtained indicate that, with regard to gender, differences only exist in the use of the strategy of deception (t = 5.450, p <.001, d =.364). That the two pairs of strategies positively and significantly correlated with one another (r =.239, p <.01 and r =.355, p <.01). That only the strategy of annulation of others correlates with a more adaptive type of motivation. Thus, the group of students that reported the greatest level in its use also did so in relation to task and ego self-enhancing goals, to self-efficacy, and being negatively associated with the goal of work avoidance. Finally, were offered models on relationships between academic goals, self-efficacy and enhancement and annulation strategies (χ² (8) = 5.204, p =.736) and deception and annulation strategies (χ² (4) = 3.228, p =.520). (shrink)

In this article we defend the inferential view of scientific models and idealisation. Models are seen as “inferential prostheses” (instruments for surrogative reasoning) construed by means of an idealisation-concretisation process, which we essentially understand as a kind of counterfactual deformation procedure (also analysed in inferential terms). The value of scientific representation is understood in terms not only of the success of the inferential outcomes arrived at with its help, but also of the heuristic power of representation and their capacity to (...) correct and improve our models. This provides us with an argument against Sugden’s account of credible models: the likelihood or realisticness (their “credibility”) is not always a good measure of their acceptability. As opposed to “credibility” we propose the notion of “enlightening”, which is the capacity of giving us understanding in the sense of an inferential ability. (shrink)

Co-authorship of papers is very common in most areas of science, and it has increased as the complexity of research has strengthened the need for scientific collaboration. But the fact that papers have more than an author tends to complicate the attribution of merit to individual scientists. I argue that collaboration does not necessarily entail co-authorship, but that in many cases the latter is an option that individual authors might not choose, at least in principle: each author might publish in (...) a separate way her own contribution to the collaborative project in which she has taken part, or papers could explicitly state what the contribution of each individual author has been. I ask, hence, why it is that scientists prefer to ‘pool’ their contributions instead of keeping them separate, if what they pursue in their professional careers (besides epistemic goals) is individual recognition. My answer is based on the view of the scientific paper as a piece of argumentation, following an inferentialist approach to scientific knowledge. A few empirical predictions from the model presented here are suggested in the conclusions. (shrink)

The decision whether to have a realist or an anti-realist attitude towards scientific hypotheses is interpreted in this paper as a choice that scientists themselves have to face in their work as scientists, rather than as a ‘philosophical’ problem. Scientists’ choices between realism and instrumentalism (or other types of anti-realism) are interpreted in this paper with the help of two different conceptual tools: a deflationary semantics grounded in the inferentialist approach to linguistic practices developed by some authors (e.g., Sellars, Brandom), (...) and an epistemic utility function that tries to represent the cognitive preferences of scientists. The first tool is applied to two different questions traditionally related to the problem of scientific realism: the non-miracle argument, and the continuity of reference. The second one is applied to the problem of unconceived alternatives, and to the distinction between realist and instrumentalist attitudes towards scientific hypotheses. (shrink)

Franz Huber’s (2008a) attempt to unify inductivist and hypothetico-deductivist intuitions on confirmation by means of a single measure are examined and compared with previous work on the theory of verisimilitude or truthlikeness. The idea of connecting ‘the logic of confirmation’ with ‘the logic of acceptability’ is also critically discussed, and it is argued that ‘acceptability’ takes necessarily into account some pragmatic criteria, and that at least two normative senses of ‘acceptability’ must be distinguished: ‘acceptable’ in the sense of ‘being allowed (...) to accept’, and ‘acceptable’ in the sense of ‘being obliged to accept’. Lastly, some connections of confirmation theory with naturalism, intertheoretic reduction, and explanation vs. understanding are explored. (shrink)

The scientist’s decision of accepting a given proposition is assumed to be dependent on two factors: the scientist’s ‘private’ information about the value of that statement and the proportion of colleagues who also accept it. This interdependence is modelled in an economic fashion, and it is shown that it may lead to multiple equilibria. The main conclusions are that the evolution of scientific knowledge can be path-dependent, that scientific revolutions can be due to very small changes in the empirical evidence, (...) and that not all possible equilibria are necessarily efficient, neither in the economic nor in the epistemic sense. These inefficiencies, however, can be eliminated if scientists can form coalitions. (shrink)

In this paper we articulate a characterization of the concept of disease as a social problem. We argue that, from a social ontology point of view, diseases are problems that are identified and addressed within the framework of concrete social institutions and practices (those that shape medicine). This approach allows us to overcome the classical distinction between naturalist and normativist approaches in the philosophy of medicine, taking into account both the material and the symbolic factors that shape the categories and (...) determine the practices of medicine. (shrink)

The process of scientific investigation is reconstructed as a process of empirical approximation to the truth. This last concept is explicated as a combination of “degree of simmilarity between theory A and the strongest accepted empirical law at moment t” and the “degree of depth of this empirical law”. A number of methodological theorems are proved, and avision of science closer to sophisticated falsificationism is mathematically deduced from our definitions.

In this exciting Handbook, Ian Jarvie and Jesús Zamora-Bonilla have put together a wide-ranging and authoritative overview of the main philosophical currents and traditions at work in the social sciences today. Starting with the history of social scientific thought, this Handbook sets out to explore that core fundamentals of social science practice, from issues of ontology and epistemology to issues of practical method. Along the way it investigates such notions as paradigm, empiricism, postmodernism, naturalism, language, agency, power, culture, (...) and causality. (shrink)

A necessary condition for a group being taken as a rational agent is that its choices and judgements are ‘logically contestable’, but this can lead to problems of aggregation, as Arrow impossibility theorem or the discursive dilemma. This paper proposes a contractarian or constitutional approach: the relevant thing is what aggregation mechanisms would be preferred by the members of the group. Two distinctions need to be made: first, judgement aggregation is not aggregation of decisions, and judgement aggregation needs be distinguished (...) from the aggregation of information: we assume that every member of the group has already taken into account the opinions of the other members, by means of a process of public deliberation, but they may end having different opinions; we also assume that the members are rational, so that they have no reasons to accept further changes in their individual opinions. So, from the epistemic point of view, the collective judgment is not a 'better' opinion than those of the individual members. The collective judgement is better seen as a kind of compromise, the outcome of a ‘bargain’, so to say. Basically, we assume that individuals will have an interest in choosing a specific aggregation function by taking into account how are they affected by the collective actions carried out by the group, and grounded on the chosen collective judgement. (shrink)

Our purpose in this paper is to contribute to a practice-based characterization of scientific inference. We want to explore whether Brandom’s pragmatist–inferentialist framework can suitably accommodate several types of ampliative inference common in scientific reasoning and explanation (probabilistic reasoning, abduction and idealisation). First, we argue that Brandom’s view of induction in terms of merely permissive inferences is inadequate; in order to overcome the shortcoming of Brandom’s proposal, we put forward an alternative conception of inductive, probabilistic reasoning by appeal to the (...) notion of degrees of commitment. Moreover, we examine the sorts of inferential commitments operative in other types of ampliative inferences, such as abduction or reasoning involving idealizations and assumptions. We suggest that agents engaging in these forms of reasoning often undertake restricted inferential commitments, whose scope and reach are more limited that in the case of the commitments associated with full beliefs. (shrink)

Using the approach known as ‘Economics of Scientific Knowledge’, this paper defends the view of scientific norms as the result of a ‘social contract’, i.e., as an equilibrium in the game of selecting the norms under which to proceed to play the game of scientific research and publication. A categorisation of the relevant types of scientific norms is offered, as well as a discussion about the incentives of the researchers in choosing some or other alternative rules.