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Constitutive elements through perspectival lenses

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Abstract

Recent debates in philosophy of science have witnessed the rise of two major proposals. On the one hand, regarding the conceptual structure of scientific theories, some believe that they exhibit constitutive elements. The constitutive elements of a theory are the components that play the role of laying the foundations of empirical meaningfulness, and whose acceptance is prior to empirical research. On the other hand, as for the nature of scientific knowledge and its relation to nature, perspectival realism has pursued a middle ground in classic debates between realism and antirealism, by assuming that although knowledge is always situated both historically and culturally, scientific statements have truth values and constitute genuine claims about a mind-independent world. In this paper, I argue that these two lines of research are not only compatible but complement each other, and provide a common view of science. I contend that a theoretical perspective is a set of constitutive elements where models and representations may develop, and stress that both constitutivism and perspectivism have numerous shared characteristics, such as their vindication of the historicity of scientific knowledge, their recognition of human epistemic limits, and a very similar conception of truth.

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Notes

  1. Particularly, but not only physics. See Sober (2011), Díez and Lorenzano (2015) and Luchetti (2018) for examples extracted from biology. See Friedman (2011) for its application to the history of astronomy.

  2. The idea that the dispute cannot be solved because both realism and antirealism are flawed is usually attributed to Fine (1986, ch. 7 & 8). Whether the debate is resolvable or not, and what perspectival realism has to say to that effect, will be addressed in section 3.

  3. “And not merely claims about beliefs about the world”, Giere (2013, 53) says.

  4. There are some exceptions to this general trend. As pointed out by an anonymous referee, van Fraassen (2008) constitutes one blatant case.

  5. See Coffa (1991, 201–204).

  6. Although they did not agree in their approach to simplicity. For Poincaré, Euclidean geometry was simpler because it fits better with the psychological way we inhabit the world. In contrast, Reichenbach thought that simplicity was related not to intuition but to calculus and measurement.

  7. Padovani (2011) has given another argument against a naive reading of Reichenbach’s turn towards conventionalism. She raises serious doubts about whether this shift was in any sense fully completed, for even in his later stages, Reichenbach displayed commitment to the constitutive status of some very fundamental principles.

  8. Apart from criticism (see note 15), see Ryckman (2005), DiSalle (2006), Domski and Dickson (2010) and Suárez (2012).

  9. The idea that only the emergence of new constitutive principles might challenge those that are already accepted is anticipated in Putnam’s conception of the contextual a priori. See Tsou (2010) for a revision.

  10. This latter point is conspicuously articulated in Friedman (2002).

  11. There are many other problematic aspects of his dynamical conception of scientific theories. Some critics have argued that Friedman’s dynamic of reason does not solve incommensurability but instead constitutes a pretty solid argument for it (Korkut 2011). This need not be regarded as a negative outcome as such, but it is for Friedman’s purposes. Massimi (2005, 20) has stressed that Friedman’s account makes science an individual endeavour, dependent on some crucial decisions that are conventionally taken. Others have attacked the transcendentalist description he ought to undertake. Van Dyck (2009) defends the view that Friedman’s convergentism is not inferable from the need for philosophical frameworks. And Dimitrakos (2018) has critically pointed out Friedman’s “minimal idealist thesis” as well. Finally, others such as Everett (2015) have criticized the putative applicability of Friedman’s model to the history of science.

  12. I would like to thank an anonymous referee for pressing me on this point.

  13. See (Lipton 2003) on this expression. However, one might claim, there is another important locus of Kantianism in Friedman’s proposal: the idea that scientific development is driven by the presence of the regulative power exercised by constitutive principles towards a “final ideal community of inquiry” (Friedman 2001, 64). However, in that case, Friedman should be considered a Kantian because of his views on scientific development, and not because of his account of constitution. Convergentism is what could keep Friedman on Kant’s path. Richardson (2002, 2010) has thoroughly attacked this view, holding that Friedman’s dynamics engage with Hegel’s views on the development of reason rather than Kant’s.

  14. Mormann (2012) has underscored this claim.

  15. For brevity, I assume here some familiarity with the issue at stake, although I will briefly address it. See Psillos (1999) and Wray (2018) for an overview of the main arguments for and against each position.

  16. And, as Teller (2019) has argued, perspectival realism is also an attitude itself.

  17. See also van Fraassen’s “definitive argument” (1980, §7).

  18. This idea has been put forward by Oberheim and Hoyningen-Huene (1997).

  19. See Blackburn (2002).

  20. Of course, this analogy has its limits, for a disciplinary matrix comprises methodological and non-propositional elements and, as we saw in section 2.2, that is not Friedman’s account of constitutive principles. The point is that Kuhn recognized the complexity of scientific theories, identifying not only the different conceptual levels that compose them but also their relation in terms of integration. This last point is the one I am trying to highlight.

  21. The terminology “standards of performance adequacy” is borrowed from Rosenberg (2002).

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Acknowledgments

I thank Paula Olmos, the editor of this Topical Collection and two anonymous referees for their accurate and insightful commentaries. Previous versions of this paper were presented at the IV Postgraduate Congress of the Spanish Society of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science at the University of the Basque Country and the IX Congress of the Spanish Society of Analytic Philosophy at the University of Valencia. I thank the audiences and particularly Ekai Txapartegi for their constructive remarks. This research is part of the project “Argumentative Practices and Pragmatic of Reasons” (PGC 2018-095941B-100), funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities.

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  1. Faculty of Philosophy, Department of Linguistics, Modern Languages, Logic and Philosophy of Science, Theory of Literature and Comparative Literature, Autonomous University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Mariano Sanjuán

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This article belongs to the Topical Collection: Perspectivism in science: metaphysical and epistemological reflectionsGuest Editor: Michela Massimi

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Sanjuán, M. Constitutive elements through perspectival lenses. Euro Jnl Phil Sci 11, 22 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-020-00333-6

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