Is science like a crossword puzzle? Foundherentist conceptions of scientific warrant

Canadian Journal of Philosophy 46 (1):82-101 (2016)
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Abstract

This paper argues that the crossword puzzle analogy is great for scientific rationality, but not scientific warrant. It provides a critical analysis of foundherentist conceptions of scientific warrant, especially that of Susan Haack, and closely related positions, such as non-doxastic coherentism. Foundherentism takes the middle ground between foundationalism and coherentism. The main idea is that warrant, including that of scientific theories, is like warrant of crossword entries: the degree to which a theory is warranted depends on one’s observations, the extent to which it coheres with one’s other scientific theories and whether one’s evidence includes a sufficiently large portion of the relevant evidence. I identify three problems for a foundherentist conception of scientific warrant, two of which are also problems for the image of science as a crossword puzzle. First, Haack’s conceptions of personal and social warrant of scientific theories are incompatible. Second, the notion of warrant defe..

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Rik Peels
VU University Amsterdam

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References found in this work

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.Thomas S. Kuhn - 1962 - Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Edited by Ian Hacking.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.David Bohm - 1964 - Philosophical Quarterly 14 (57):377-379.
Who has scientific knowledge?K. Brad Wray - 2007 - Social Epistemology 21 (3):337 – 347.

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