Online research in philosophy

This paper focuses on Thomas S. Kuhn's work on taxonomic concepts and how it relates to empirical work from the cognitive sciences on categorization and conceptual development. I shall first review the basic features of Kuhn's family resemblance account and compare to work from the cognitive sciences. I shall then show how Kuhn's account can be extended to cover the development of new taxonomies in science, and I shall illustrate by a detailed case study that Kuhn himself mentioned only briefly (...) in his own work, namely the discovery of X-rays and radioactivity. (shrink)

Scientific realism asserts that the methods of science, combined with the intellectual powers of human beings can give us reliable knowledge of states of the world beyond the limits of perception. Among the varieties of realism, policy realism is based on the principle that taking plausible theories to be putative descriptions of actual states of affairs is the best way to design experiments and to advance our knowledge. We carve out the umwelt from the welt by the use of our (...) instruments and apparatus. The key procedure in science has been and still is the invention and testing of models---plausibility and empirical adequacy are the marks of a theory based on a model capable of supporting policy realism. (shrink)

In recent years, computational sciences such as computational hydrodynamics or computational field theory have supplemented theoretical and experimental investigations in many scientific fields. Often, there is a seemingly fruitful overlap between theory, experiment, and numerics. The computational sciences are highly dynamic and seem a fairly successful endeavor---at least if success is measured in terms of publications or engineering applications. However, for theories, success in application and correctness are two very different things; and just the same may hold for "methodologies" like (...) computer simulations. A lively debate on the epistemic status of computer simulations has thus emerged within the philosophy of science. This paper discusses possible problems when computer simulation and laboratory experiment are intertwined. In present experiments, stochastic methods in the form of Monte Carlo simulations are often involved in generating experimental data. It is questioned as to how far a realistic stance can be maintained when such stochastic elements are involved. Taking experiments in high energy physics as a study case, this paper contends that using these types of entangled material and numerical experiments as a source of new phenomena or for theory testing must presuppose a certain understanding of causality and thus binds us at least to a weak form of realism. (shrink)

Philosophical hermeneutics claims that human understanding, while being contingent and historical, is likewise universal and bears within itself some pervasive features detectable via hermeneutical analyses of historically imparted tradition and language. Similarly, hermeneutical philosophy of science is confident that hermeneutical methods are the only proper tool to adequately assess, reconstruct, explain or give a meaning to historical but universal scientific knowledge and its various forms. I point out two versions of hermeneutical philosophy of science and argue that whenever philosophical hermeneutics (...) pursues rescuing "scientificity", human rationality, human rights, common values, and so forth under the pretence of its universality and competence, it necessarily transcends and violates the tenets of its own. I conclude in the favour of moderate interpretation of practical hermeneutics, perhaps in the very essence of it rest postmodern concepts of historicality, transparency and tolerance, without which there is no possibility of extricating oneself from hermeneuticism. (shrink)

This paper explores how chemists are transforming their own current background in order to act upon the world without jeopardizing life. In this respect, I will envisage science as both a system of propositions and a set of engaged practices. The scrutiny of chemical innovations will allow me to query the concepts of paradigm and that of scientific community . In doing so, I will connect the philosophy of science with the philosophy of technology so as to think about our (...) relation with the world. (shrink)

This paper explores the issue of epistemic injustice in research evaluation. Through an analysis of the disciplinary cultures of physics and humanities, we attempt to identify some aims and values specific to the disciplinary areas. We suggest that credibility is at stake when the cultural values and goals of a discipline contradict those presupposed by official evaluation standards. Disciplines that are better aligned with the epistemic assumptions of evaluation standards appear to produce more "scientific" findings. To restore epistemic justice in (...) research evaluation, we argue that the specificity of a discipline's epistemic aims, values, and cultural identities must be taken into account. (shrink)

Measurement is said to be the basis of exact sciences as the process of assigning numbers to matter (things or their attributes), thus making it possible to apply the mathematically formulated laws of nature to the empirical world. Mathematics and empiria are best accorded to each other in laboratory experiments which function as what Nancy Cartwright calls nomological machine: an arrangement generating (mathematical) regularities. On the basis of accounts of measurement errors and uncertainties, I will argue for two claims: 1) (...) Both fundamental laws of physics, corresponding to ideal nomological machine, and phenomenological laws, corresponding to material nomological machine, lie, being highly idealised relative to the empirical reality; and also laboratory measurement data do not describe properties inherent to the world independently of human understanding of it. 2) Therefore the naive, representational view of measurement and experimentation should be replaced with a more pragmatic or practice-based view. (shrink)

Practical realism is focused on the problem of how science really works. In the case of physics and chemistry, experiment is the centrepiece of scientific practice. The rapid development of contemporary natural science does not leave the experiment unaffected. The classical experiment is normally applied only to systems that can be considered structurally stable, repeatability being the key feature. After the introduction of the theoretical basis of irreversibility by Ilya Prigogine the essence of the experiment changed. The strict requirement of (...) repeatability has to be dropped. It will be discussed, whether the change is big enough for calling it revolutionary. There are means to update the understanding of the experiment by applying the experimental settings. The material experiment will probably be with us forever but its position on the scientific landscape will be shifted. (shrink)

This paper seeks to show that the turn toward local scientific practices in the philosophy of science is not a turn away from transcendental investigations. On the contrary, a pragmatist approach can very well be (re)connected with Kantian transcendental examination of the necessary conditions for the possibility of scientific representation and cognition, insofar as the a priori conditions that transcendental philosophy of science examines are understood as historically relative and thus potentially changing. The issue of scientific realism will be considered (...) from this perspective, with special emphasis on Thomas Kuhn's conception of paradigms as frameworks making truth-valued scientific statements possible and on Charles S. Peirce's realism about "real generals". (shrink)

In this paper, the elaboration of the concept of practical realist philosophy of science which began in the author's previous papers is continued. It is argued that practical realism is opposed to standard scientific realism, on the one hand, and antirealism, on the other. Standard scientific realism is challengeable due to its abstract character, as being isolated from practice. It is based on a metaphysical-ontological presupposition which raises the problem of the God's Eye point of view (as it was called (...) by Hilary Putnam). Joseph Rouse's conception of science as practice, Sami Pihlström's pragmatic realism, and even Ilkka Niiniluoto's critical scientific realism are interpreted as practical realist conceptions. Pihlström suggests that the contemporary scientific realist should be prepared to accept the pragmatically naturalized Kantian transcendental perspective on realism. It is argued, however, that this realistically naturalized Kantianism can be nothing more than practical realism, as originated by Karl Marx. (shrink)