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Style, but Substance: An Epistemology of Visual versus Numerical Representation in Scientific Practice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Zachary C. Irving
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Abstract

In practice, scientists must convey data in a “representational style” (e.g., as a numerical array or visual representation). Various authors seek to explain the epistemic role of scientific visual representation in terms of formal conventions (e.g., Goodman, Perini, and Kulvicki). Goodman also tends to dismiss the epistemic relevance of human cognition. My position is that visual conventions are nonarbitrary, in that they play to scientists’ cognitive abilities and limitations. My account draws on Perini's formal analysis, scientific case studies, and empirical literature on global pattern detection in neurotypicals, autistics, and dyslexics.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 78 , Issue 5 , December 2011 , pp. 774 - 787
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

An earlier version of this article was presented to the Cognitive Science of Visual Representation research group at the University of Toronto. I thank the participants of this research group and the audience at the Philosophy of Science Association's biennial meeting for their comments. In particular, I am grateful for discussions with William F. Brewer, Peter Coppin, Francis Dubach, Adam Golding, Laura Perini, and Eric Winsberg. For comments on earlier drafts, I thank Dominic Alford-Dugid, Anjan Chakravartty, Mitchell Gerskup, Ari Gross, Paul Humphreys, Sheisha Kulkarni, Corey Lewis, Greg Lusk, Margaret Morrison, David Neto, Wendy Parker, John Vervaeke, Denis Walsh, and an anonymous reviewer for Philosophy of Science. Sheisha Kulkarni also helped to create the figures in this work. This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

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