Reconstructed Empiricism (original) (raw)
Related papers
2012
The present essay examines the relationship between ordinary empirical judgments and our scientific worldviews. It is concerned with how ordinary judgments (and the primitive frameworks in which they are formulated) might be usefully integrated into an account of epistemological progress, both of our personal views and scientific theories, so that the sciences (especially modern theories of space and time) can reasonably be thought as being informed by, and evolving out of, at least some of the various pre-scientific views they have replaced. We examine our normal perceptual judgments of magnitude, position, orientation, and displacement in the hope of uncovering the logical, conceptual, and empirical relations that exist between such judgments (as well as the views of the world they presuppose) and our sophisticated understandings of space, time, and motion in physical theory. This research contends that experience and a rich type of conceptual analysis-one that examines the presuppositions that make possible the application of concepts in empirical contexts-together provide the framework within which a rational account of such relations can be proposed. The project thus defends a form of empiricism, but one distinct from classical forms (be they British empiricism, Russellian empiricism, or logical empiricism)-rather a slightly modified version of Anil Gupta's "Reformed Empiricism". This empiricism is capable of avoiding the logical excesses and errors of earlier forms, whilst providing an account of how a set of basic empiricist principles might be extended from their context in general epistemology to recalcitrant problems in the philosophy of science, such as the problem of our formal knowledge, the problem of the communicability of observation, and the rationality of theoretical progress. Such an extension offers a comprehensive account both of our ordinary and scientific knowledge.
Against Scientific Realism: A Case for Constructive Empiricism
In this paper I evaluate several realist understandings of science and scientific laws. In my evaluation I raise several criticisms against each realist position. In the second half of the paper, I direct my attention toward an analysis of Constructive Empiricism. I ultimately suggest that the constructive empiricist approach to understanding the nature of science as science is actually practiced is a far better approach than the more popular realist approach.
Philosophy of Science, 1996
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
A Defense for Scientific Realism: Skepticisms, Unobservables, & Inference to the Best Explanation
2017
The epistemological status of scientific knowledge claims has been undermined by skepticism, in particular by universal skepticism. This thesis asserts that Bas C. van Fraassen’s empirical stance is akin to universal skepticism. This work also maintains that van Fraassen’s empirical stance does not lead to the conclusion that scientific knowledge claims are empirically adequate—especially those claims that resulted from the scientific method of inference to the best explanation (IBE). To illustrate why van Fraassen’s stance does not devalue scientific knowledge claims will be suggested via Peter Lipton’s understanding of IBE combined with Ernan McMullin’s epistemic values. By bridging McMullin’s values with Lipton’s version of IBE, we get a more robust version of IBE; as a result, scientific claims may display a cluster of epistemic virtues and values. Where scientific knowledge claims display a cluster of epistemic virtues and values, they are simply beyond being empirically adequate.
The Appearance and the Reality of a Scientific Theory
Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, 2020
Scientific realists claim that the best of successful rival theories is (approximately) true. Relative realists object that we cannot make the absolute judgment that a theory is successful, and that we can only make the relative judgment that it is more successful than its competitor. I argue that this objection is undermined by the cases in which empirical equivalents are successful. Relative realists invoke the argument from a bad lot to undermine scientific realism and to support relative realism. In response, I construct the argument from double spaces. It is similar to the argument from a bad lot, but threatens many philosophical inferences, including relative realists' inference from comparative success to comparative truth.
Constructive empiricism revisited
Metascience, 2011
Constructive Empiricism (CE) quickly became famous for its immunity from the most devastating criticisms that brought down the logical empiricist view of science. But at least early on, CE was widely assumed to have inherited essentially the same epistemological grounding: empiricism teaches us that there are limits imposed by experience, and so our conception of science had better respect those limits or undermine the widely held assumption that scientific inquiry is rational. But in the thirty-odd years since he introduced CE, it has become increasingly apparent that Bas van Fraassen's conception of CE's epistemological backdrop represents at least as much departure from the past as does CE itself. In particular, CE is formulated and defended from within a 'voluntarist' epistemology, according to which the only constraints on rational opinion are logical and probabilistic consistency, beyond which remarkably meagre limits anything is permitted. It is very much to his credit that in his book Constructive Empiricism: Epistemology and the Philosophy of Science, Paul Dicken emphasizes the role that voluntarism plays in van Fraassen's views. It is also to his credit that he recognizes that one could endorse CE while rejecting voluntarism and takes steps to characterize an alternative CE view along such alternative lines. The first three chapters of Dicken's book directly address the relationship between voluntarism and CE. In the first chapter, Dicken surveys some of the standard criticisms of CE concerning the epistemological value of the observable/ unobservable distinction. While he is unimpressed by those arguments on their own merits, Dicken is primarily concerned to emphasize that voluntarism undermines their relevance: if anything goes beyond logical and probabilistic consistency, then no argument can be made out from the distinction's being arbitrary to our being obliged to manage opinion in the same way on both sides. The second chapter