In historiography there is a tendency to see the Great War as marking the end of scientific optimism and the period that followed the war as a time of discord. Connecting to current (inter)national historiographical debate on the question of whether the First World War meant a disruption from the pre-war period or not, this article strives to prove that faith in scientific progress still prevailed in the 1920s. This is shown through the use of Belgium as (...) a case study, which suggests that the generally adopted cultural pessimism in the post-war years did not apply to the public rhetoric of science in this country. Diverse actors—scientists, industrialists, politicians, the public opinion and the military staff—declared a confidence in science, enhanced by wartime results. Furthermore, belief in science in Belgium was not affected by public outcry over the use of mustard gas, unlike in the former belligerent countries where the gas became an unpleasant reminder of how science was used during the war. Even German science with its industrial applications remained the norm after 1918. In fact, the faith in science exhibited during the pre-war years continued to exist, at least until the 1920s, despite anti-German sentiments being voiced by many sections of Belgian society in the immediate aftermath of the war. (shrink)

Naturalist theories of the meaning of life are sometimes criticised for not setting the bar high enough for what counts as a meaningful life. Tolstoy’s version of this criticism is that Naturalist theories do not describe really meaningful lives because they do not require that we connect our finite lives with the infinite. Another criticism of Naturalist theories is that they cannot adequately resolve the Absurd—the vast difference between how meaningful our actions and lives appear from subjective and objective viewpoints. (...) This article proposes a novel view, Optimistic Naturalism, in order to refute these criticisms. Optimistic Naturalism is the view that scientific and technological advancement might allow us to lead Truly Meaningful lives in a purely physical universe by enabling our actions, which we find meaningful partly because they might have particular infinite consequences, to actually have infinite consequences for life. The central tenets of Optimistic Naturalism are Infinite Consequence and Scientific Optimism. By explaining how the correct connection of the subjective and objective meaning of actions can result in True Meaning, Infinite Consequence provides a theoretical blueprint for resolving the Absurd. Scientific Optimism provides reason to think that it is possible to follow that blueprint in a purely physical universe. Therefore, when taken together, these two principles provide relatively plausible reasons to think that at least one kind of Naturalist theory can connect the finite with the infinite in a meaningful way and resolve the Absurd. (shrink)

Scientific realists use the “no miracle argument” to show that the empirical and pragmatic success of science is an indicator of the ability of scientific theories to give true or truthlike representations of unobservable reality. While antirealists define scientific progress in terms of empirical success or practical problem-solving, realists characterize progress by using some truth-related criteria. This paper defends the definition of scientific progress as increasing truthlikeness or verisimilitude. Antirealists have tried to rebut realism with the (...) “pessimistic metainduction”, but critical realists turn this argument into an optimistic view about progressive science. (shrink)

Fresnel's theory of light was (a) impressively predictively successful yet (b) was based on an "entity" (the elastic-solid ether) that we now "know" does not exist. Does this case "confute" scientific realism as Laudan suggested? Previous attempts (by Hardin and Rosenberg and by Kitcher) to defuse the episode's anti-realist impact. The strongest form of realism compatible with this case of theory-rejection is in fact structural realism. This view was developed by Poincare who also provided reasons to think that it (...) is the only realist view of theories that really makes sense. (shrink)

Scientific realism is the optimistic view that modern science is on the right track: that the world really is the way our best scientific theories describe it. In his book, Stathis Psillos gives us a detailed and comprehensive study which restores the intuitive plausibility of scientific realism. We see that throughout the twentieth century, scientific realism has been challenged by philosophical positions from all angles: from reductive empiricism, to instrumentalism and to modern sceptical empiricism. _Scientific Realism_ (...) explains that the history of science does not undermine the arguments for scientific realism, but instead makes it reasonable to accept scientific realism as the best philosophical account of science, its empirical success, its progress and its practice. Anyone wishing to gain a deeper understanding of the state of modern science and why scientific realism is plausible, should read this book. (shrink)

Explanatory Optimism about the Hard Problem of Consciousness argues that despite the worries of explanatory pessimists, consciousness can be fully explained in “easy” scientific terms. The widespread intuition that consciousness poses a hard problem is plausibly based on how consciousness appears to us in first-person access. The book offers a debunking argument to undercut the justificatory link between the first-person appearances and our hard problem intuitions. -/- The key step in the debunking argument involves the development and defense (...) of an empirical model of first-person access: Automated Compression Theory (ACT). ACT holds that first-person access to consciousness is accomplished by automated accessing of compressed sensory information. Because of the distorting nature of this compressed access, it seems to subjects that consciousness possesses “exceptional” properties—properties leading to the hard problem—even though no such properties are present. If there are no exceptional properties to explain, then an explanation in easy terms can fully account for conscious experience. The book presents a range of empirical evidence for ACT and concludes that the burden of proof is now on the pessimists to show why we shouldn’t be optimistic about explaining consciousness. (shrink)

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is optimistically portrayed in contemporary media. This already happened with psychosurgery during the first half of the twentieth century. The tendency of popular media to hype the benefits of DBS therapies, without equally highlighting risks, fosters public expectations also due to the lack of ethical analysis in the scientific literature. Media are not expected (and often not prepared) to raise the ethical issues which remain unaddressed by the scientific community. To obtain a more objective (...) portrayal of DBS in the media, a deeper collaboration between the science community and journalists, and particularly specialized ones, must be promoted. Access to databases and articles, directly or through science media centers, has also been proven effective in increasing the quality of reporting. This article has three main objectives. Firstly, to explore the past media coverage of leukotomy, and to examine its widespread acceptance and the neglect of ethical issues in its depiction. Secondly, to describe how current enthusiastic coverage of DBS causes excessive optimism and neglect of ethical issues in patients. Thirdly, to discuss communication models and strategies to enhance media and science responsibility. (shrink)

Philosophers have recently focused on critical, epistemological challenges that arise from the opacity of deep neural networks. One might conclude from this literature that doing good science with opaque models is exceptionally challenging, if not impossible. Yet, this is hard to square with the recent boom in optimism for AI in science alongside a flood of recent scientific breakthroughs driven by AI methods. In this paper, I argue that the disconnect between philosophical pessimism and scientific optimism (...) is driven by a failure to examine how AI is actually used in science. I show that, in order to understand the epistemic justification for AI-powered breakthroughs, philosophers must examine the role played by deep learning as part of a wider process of discovery. The philosophical distinction between the 'context of discovery' and the 'context of justification' is helpful in this regard. I demonstrate the importance of attending to this distinction with two cases drawn from the scientific literature, and show that epistemic opacity need not diminish AI's capacity to lead scientists to significant and justifiable breakthroughs. (shrink)

How confident does the history of science allow us to be about our current well-tested scientific theories, and why? The scientific realist thinks we are well within our rights to believe our best-tested theories, or some aspects of them, are approximately true.2 Ambitious arguments have been made to this effect, such as that over historical time our scientific theories are converging to the truth, that the retention of concepts and claims is evidence for this, and that there (...) can be no other serious explanation of the success of science than that its theories are approximately true. There is appeal in each of these ideas, but making such strong claims has tended to be hazardous, leaving us open to charges that many typical episodes in the history of science just do not fit the model. (See, e.g., Laudan 1981.) Arguing for a realist attitude via general claims – properties ascribed to sets of theories, trends we see in progressions of theories, and claimed links between general properties like success and truth that apply or fail to apply to any theory regardless of its content – is like arguing for or via a theory of science, which brings with it the obligation to defend that theory. I think a realist attitude toward particular scientific theories for which we have evidence can be maintained rationally without such a theory, even in the face of the pessimistic induction over the history of science. The starting point at which questions arise as to what we have a right to believe about our theories is one where we have theories and evidence for them, and we are involved in the activity of apportioning our belief in each particular theory or hypothesis in accord with the strength of the particular evidence.3 The devil’s advocate sees our innocence and tries his best to sow seeds of doubt. If our starting point is as I say, though, the innocent believer in particular theories does not have to play offense and propose sweeping views about science in general, but only to respond to the skeptic’s challenges; the burden of initial argument is on the skeptic.. (shrink)

Scientific Realism is the optimistic view that modern science is on the right track: that the world really is the way our best scientific theories describe it to be. In his book, Stathis Psillos gives us a detailed and comprehensive study, which restores the intuitive plausibility of scientific realism. We see that throughout the twentieth century, scientific realism has been challenged by philosophical positions from all angles: from reductive empiricism, to instrumentalism and modern skeptical empiricism. (...) class='Hi'>Scientific Realism explains that the history of science does not undermine the notion of scientific realism, and instead makes it reasonable to accept scientific as the best philosophical account of science, its empirical success, its progress and its practice. Anyone wishing to gain a deeper understanding of the state of modern science and why scientific realism is plausible, should read this book. (shrink)

Recently there has arisen a new wave of optimism in the discussions about the environment. According to Gregg Easterbrook, one of the most prominent of the environmental optimists, we are presently witnessing fundamental and far-reaching changes for the better: “the Western world today is on the verge of the greatest ecological renewal that humankind has known; perhaps the greatest that the Earth has known” .The optimism of these new environmental optimists is not simply strategic, a mere psychological stimulant (...) to maintain the struggle against environmental destruction. They believe there are good reasons for being optimistic: they claim that a sober and scientific analysis of the environmental problematic shows that the prospects for the Earth and for our own kind are actually much better than the eco-alarmists would have us think. Nature is not on the brink of collapse. The real existing problems can be controlled and solved, at least if we are prepared to adopt a less dogmatic, more rational, pragmatic and flexible approach. The environmental movement, and environmental protesters are locked into ideas, analyses and attitudes that are no longer in touch, or never were in touch, with reality. So the time is ripe, according to the American environmental optimist Ronald Bailey, for a second wave of environmental activism. It is time for “a modern, smart environmentalism” .In what follows, I shall look at environmental optimism primarily as it is presented in Gregg Easterbrook’s voluminous book. His book contains a comprehensive and well-documented argument in favour of a new approach and a new attitude toward the whole environmental problematic. Of particular interest is his attempt to ground environmental optimism in an image of nature that has clearly been influenced by dynamic or evolutionary ecology — a new paradigm in ecology. Easterbrook considers himself a ‘liberal’, which might be translated as a ‘social democrat’ in the European political spectrum. He is not at all opposed to the environmental movement, environmental protest or environmental politics. Indeed, he regards the environmental movement as one of the most positive social developments of the 20th century. The politics of the environment and environmental protection legislation are, in his opinion, among the greatest success stories of the post-war social-democratic welfare state. “Americans and Europeans today live in a world where effective environmental influence is assured at nearly every level of government and business. This is a wonderful development for society”. (shrink)

The science of mind wandering has rapidly expanded over the past 20 years. During this boom, mind wandering researchers have relied on self-report methods, where participants rate whether their minds were wandering. This is not an historical quirk. Rather, we argue that self-report is indispensable for researchers who study passive phenomena like mind wandering. We consider purportedly “objective” methods that measure mind wandering with eye tracking and machine learning. These measures are validated in terms of how well they predict self-reports, (...) which means that purportedly objective measures of mind wandering retain a subjective core. Mind wandering science cannot break from the cycle of self-report. Skeptics about self-report might conclude that mind wandering science has methodological foundations of sand. We take a rather more optimistic view. We present empirical and philosophical reasons to be confident in self-reports about mind wandering. Empirically, these self-reports are remarkably consistent in their contents and behavioral and neural correlates. Philosophically, self-reports are consistent with our best theories about the function of mind wandering. We argue that this triangulation gives us reason to trust both theory and method. (shrink)

A prominent type of scientific realism holds that some important parts of our best current scientific theories are at least approximately true. According to such realists, radically distinct alternatives to these theories or theory-parts are unlikely to be approximately true. Thus one might be tempted to argue, as the prominent anti-realist Kyle Stanford recently did, that realists of this kind have little or no reason to encourage scientists to attempt to identify and develop theoretical alternatives that are radically (...) distinct from currently accepted theories in the relevant respects. In other words, it may seem that realists should recommend that scientists be relatively conservative in their theoretical endeavors. This paper aims to show that this argument is mistaken. While realists should indeed be less optimistic of finding radically distinct alternatives to replace current theories, realists also have greater reasons to value the outcomes of such searches. Interestingly, this holds both for successful and failed attempts to identify and develop such alternatives. (shrink)

The introduction of new medical treatments based on invasive technologies has often been surrounded by both hopes and fears. Hope, since a new intervention can create new opportunities either in terms of providing a cure for the disease or impairment at hand; or as alleviation of symptoms. Fear, since an invasive treatment involving implanting a medical device can result in unknown complications such as hardware failure and undesirable medical consequences. However, hopes and fears may also arise due to the cultural (...) embeddedness of technology, where a therapy due to ethical, social, political and religious concerns could be perceived as either a blessing or a threat. While Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) for treatment resistant depression (TRD) is still in its cradle, it is important to be proactive and try to scrutinize both surfacing hopes and fears. Patients will not benefit if a promising treatment is banned or avoided due to unfounded fears, nor will they benefit if DBS is used without scrutinizing the arguments which call for caution. Hence blind optimism is equally troublesome. We suggest that specificity, both in terms of a detailed account of relevant scientific concerns as well as ethical considerations, could be a way to analyse expressed concerns regarding DBS for TRD. This approach is particularly fruitful when applied to hopes and fears evoked by DBS for TRD, since it can reveal if our comprehension of DBS for TRD suffer from various biases which may remain unnoticed at first glance. We suggest that such biases exist, albeit a further analysis is needed to explore this issue in full. (shrink)

In the debate on climate change commentators often express pessimistic or optimistic views. We see this mainly in the media and popular literature, but also in various academic fields. The aim of this paper is to investigate different kinds of pessimistic and optimistic views put forward in this debate and suggest explanations of the diversity of views. The paper concludes that pessimism and optimism may concern, for example, climate change as an unmitigated or poorly mitigated process, mitigation of climate (...) change or specific measures of mitigation. These aspects are important to distinguish, because a person can be pessimist concerning climate change as an unmitigated or poorly mitigated process and optimist concerning mitigation of climate change, and be pessimist concerning one specific mitigation measure and optimist concerning another. It is suggested that the diversity of pessimistic and optimistic views is due to the uncertainty of scientific climate models and the influence of evaluative and ideological assumptions. (shrink)

The main objective of performance sport is to obtain achievements at the highest level through the adequate development of the athlete. The scientific literature demonstrates the fundamental role played by the inclusion of certain psychological variables in the training plan. This study examined the psychological profile of kayak polo players through the variables of burnout, optimism, and mood in the hours prior to the competition, relating these to each other and to some sociodemographic data. A sample of 86 (...) canoeists, 60 men and 26 women, with an age measurement of 24.4 ± 9.1 years belonging to the first male and female kayak polo division, completed the POMS-29, the LOT-R, and the IBD-R. Athletes' levels of optimism were found to be significantly correlated with mood. Optimism also influenced emotional exhaustion. In addition, seniority and internationality were decisive factors in the level of optimism and mood achieved. (shrink)

Scientific Realism and Antirealism Debates about scientific realism concern the extent to which we are entitled to hope or believe that science will tell us what the world is really like. Realists tend to be optimistic; antirealists do not. To a first approximation, scientific realism is the view that well-confirmed scientific theories are approximately true; … Continue reading Scientific Realism and Antirealism →.

Changes over time in many large scale human practices such as science and technology seem best understood in terms of progress. Further, regarding such practices as slavery, we seem to have moved on and for the better, that is, to have progressed morally. But moral progress seems something different from other forms of progress. If possible at all, in what can it consist? Progress is understood as falling into three distinguishable categories; namely, progress as mere change, as change culminating in (...) some end‐state, and as change involving improvement or betterment. While scientific or economic progress seem of the last sort, moral progress is best understood as a hybrid of culminative change and improvement, a variety of progress labelled millenarian. Though there is an end towards which moral progress must tend, we do not know what it is. Further, moral progress must occupy a special superordinate and regulatory role regarding other progressive practices; that is, for moral progress to be possible, other progressive practices must come under the aegis of increasingly stringent moral regulation. This paper elaborates a model of moral progress, speculates upon signs of its presence, considers various relativist objections, and makes an exhortative plea for the need to have such a notion as a condition of the very possibility of moral progress. (shrink)

Many people believe that philosophy makes no progress. Members of the general public often find it amazing that philosophers exist in universities at all, at least in research positions. Academics who are not philosophers often think of philosophy either as a scholarly or interpretative enterprise, or else as a sort of pre-scientific speculation. And many well-known philosophers argue that there is little genuine progress in philosophy. Daniel Stoljar argues that this is all a big mistake. When you think through (...) exactly what philosophical problems are, and what it takes to solve them, the pattern of success and failure in philosophy is similar to that in other fields. In philosophy, as elsewhere, there is a series of overlapping topics that determine what the subject is about. In philosophy, as elsewhere, different people in different historical epochs and different cultures ask different big questions about these topics. And in philosophy, as elsewhere, big questions asked in the past have often been solved: Stoljar provides examples. Philosophical Progress presents a strikingly optimistic picture of philosophy - not a radical optimism that says that there is some key that unlocks all philosophical problems, and not the kind of pessimism that dominates both professional and non-professional thinking about philosophy, but a reasonable optimism that views philosophy as akin to other fields. (shrink)

An argument that we should be optimistic about the capacity of “methodologically omnivorous” geologists, paleontologists, and archaeologists to uncover truths about the deep past. -/- The “historical sciences”—geology, paleontology, and archaeology—have made extraordinary progress in advancing our understanding of the deep past. How has this been possible, given that the evidence they have to work with offers mere traces of the past? In Rock, Bone, and Ruin, Adrian Currie explains that these scientists are “methodological omnivores,” with a variety of strategies (...) and techniques at their disposal, and that this gives us every reason to be optimistic about their capacity to uncover truths about prehistory. Creative and opportunistic paleontologists, for example, discovered and described a new species of prehistoric duck-billed platypus from a single fossilized tooth. Examining the complex reasoning processes of historical science, Currie also considers philosophical and scientific reflection on the relationship between past and present, the nature of evidence, contingency, and scientific progress. -/- Currie draws on varied examples from across the historical sciences, from Mayan ritual sacrifice to giant Mesozoic fleas to Mars's mysterious watery past, to develop an account of the nature of, and resources available to, historical science. He presents two major case studies: the emerging explanation of sauropod size, and the “snowball earth” hypothesis that accounts for signs of glaciation in Neoproterozoic tropics. He develops the Ripple Model of Evidence to analyze “unlucky circumstances” in scientific investigation; examines and refutes arguments for pessimism about the capacity of the historical sciences, defending the role of analogy and arguing that simulations have an experiment-like function. Currie argues for a creative, open-ended approach, “empirically grounded” speculation. (shrink)

This book investigates the interplay between two new and influential subdisciplines in the philosophy of science and philosophy: contemporary scientific metaphysics and the philosophy of information. Scientific metaphysics embodies various scientific realisms and has a partial intellectual heritage in some forms of neo-positivism, but is far more attuned than the latter to statistical science, theory defeasibility, scale variability, and pluralist ontological and explanatory commitments, and is averse to a-priori conceptual analysis. The philosophy of information is the combination (...) of what has been called the informational turn in philosophy and ontology, with the informational turn in logic. The book explores the intersecting theoretical commitments and metaphysical basis of both. It applies scientific metaphysics to the philosophy of information, and also correspondingly proposes a new informational interpretation of scientific metaphysics. These are applied to numerous outstanding ontological, philosophical, and theoretical problems in the philosophy of information, scientific realism, cognitive science, theories of semantic information, and informational logic. The book investigates known and new problems, and advances debates and insights in the philosophy of information. It will be of interest to philosophers of information and science, metaphysicians, and cognitive scientists. (shrink)

One of the core charges against explanationist scientific realism is that is too epistemically optimistic. Taking the charge seriously, some realists offer alternative forms of scientific realism – semi-realism and theoretical irrealism – designed to be more modestin their epistemic claims. In this paper, I consider two cases in cosmology and astrophysics that raise novel issues for both views: semi-realism is argued to end up making astrophysics metaphysically inflated when confronted with cases regarding the existence and evolution of (...) galaxies and other astrophysical objects that cross the cosmic event horizon; theoretical irrealism is argued to be in serious tension with standard evidential reasoning in the context of the dark matter problem. (shrink)

In his 1951 Gibbs Memorial Lecture, Kurt Gödel put forth his famous disjunction that either the power of the mind outstrips that of any machine or there are absolutely unsolvable problems. The view that there are no absolutely unsolvable problems is optimism, the view that there are such problems is pessimism. In his 1995—and, revised in 2013—Verificationism Then and Now, Per Martin-Löf presents an illustrative argument for a constructivist form of optimism. In response to that argument, Solomon Feferman (...) points out that Martin-Löf’s reasoning relies upon constructive understandings of key philosophical notions. In the vein of Feferman’s analysis, one might be object to Martin-Löf’s argument for either its reliance upon constructivist considerations, or for its appeal to non-unproblematically mathematical premises. We argue that both of these responses fall short. On one hand, to be critical of Martin-Löf’s reasoning for its constructiveness is to reject what would otherwise be a scientific advance on the basis of the assumption of constructivism’s falsehood or implausibility, which is of course uncharitable at best. On the other hand, to object to the argument for its use of non-unproblematically mathematical premises is to assume that there is some philosophically neutral mathematics, which is implausible. Martin-Löf’s argument relies upon his third law, the claim that from the impossibility of a proof of a proposition we can construct a proof of its negation. We close with a discussion of some ways in which this claim can be criticized from the constructive point of view. Specifically, we contend that Martin-Löf’s third law is incompatible with what has been called “Poincaré’s Principle of Epistemic Conservation”, the thesis that genuine increase in mathematical knowledge requires subject-specific insight. (shrink)

Realism and Russia? Realism is a notion with multiple meanings, so options abound as to how the two might connect with one another. An old Russian proverb conveys a realist message about social properties: "An individual in Rssia was composed of three parts: a body, a soul, and a passport." (Ruben 1985, 83) Having a passport signals the possession of a complex set of social properties, and if these are taken to be real in some appropriate sense, one is inplying (...) a realist view in social ontology. In another sense of the word, realism is a live issues in the study of international relations. Political realism considers the behaviour of states by emphasizing the importance of national interests and the drive for power on the one hand, and the suppression of moral concerns on the other (e.g. Donnelly 2000). Russian realists hold diverse views about the newly emerged unipolar global power structure and Russia's proper strategy for adjusting to this structure (e.g. Shakleyina and Bogaturov 2004). Realism is a family of viewpoints also in the arts (including painting, music and literature) and their study. Socialist realism is a version that used to be an official doctrine in Russia, gently requesting artists to optimistically represent society's march towards communism, glorifying the heroic role of the proletariat in driving the process. Socialist realism was also well known elsewhere. So much so that in the 1970s, a philosophy professor at the University of Helsinki announced to give a lecture course on "scientific realism" but on its way to the university catalogue through the university administration, the title of the course was transformed into "socialist realism". In the spirit of rectifying that old administrative mistake, the remards to follow deal with scientifit realism as a philosophy of science. The general issue to be addressed is how the social sciences relate to the social world, in both directions. (shrink)

The article is devoted to Miguel Servet (Michael Servetus, Spain – Miguel Serveto, also known as Miguel Servet, Miguel Serveto, Revés, or Michel de Villeneuve) – the XVI century Spanish thinker who was recognized as a heretic and burnt at the stake in Geneva in 1553.The author discusses the specifics of Servet’s philosophical system, the scientific background of his system, and his key ideas that have become a matter for auto-da-fė. The author argues that Servet’s concept was aimed to (...) reconstruct the “pure” Christian dogma, although he was not a professional theologist. The author claims that Servet used the deep knowledge in geography, astronomy, medicine, linguistics to create his complex system which was aimed to rescue the mankind from total destruction (Apocalypse). The author claims that Servet’s system could be considered as an example of interdisciplinary approach in the pre-disciplinary epoch. Moreover, Servet’s approach to the problem of personal salvation and the transformation of the humane nature is based on empirical scientific data. Hence, it is appropriate to consider his philosophical system as a mixture of theology, natural science and humanities. (shrink)

Scientific Realism and Antirealism Debates about scientific realism concern the extent to which we are entitled to hope or believe that science will tell us what the world is really like. Realists tend to be optimistic; antirealists do not. To a first approximation, scientific realism is the view that well-confirmed scientific theories are approximately true; … Continue reading Scientific Realism and Antirealism →.

Introduction -- The philosophy of science -- Scientific research -- Math gives science power -- The history of science -- Science and society -- Scientific rewards -- Scientific integrity vs. pseudosciences -- An age of optimism -- Roadblocks to science -- Teaching critical thinking -- A modern synthesis -- Science education: the need for good people in science -- Science at risk.

Responding to the climate crisis requires social and economic innovation—because climate change is a symptom of patriarchal capitalist systems that are concentrating—rather than distributing—wealth and power. Despite the need for social and economic innovation, technological innovation continues to be prioritized in climate policy and climate investments. This paper reviews the dangers of technological optimism in climate policy by exploring its links to patriarchal systems and masculinity. The disproportionate focus on science and technology emerges from and reinforces “climate isolationism,” a (...) term that I use to refer to the common framing of climate change as an isolated discrete, scientific problem in need of technological solutions. This framing stems from assumptions of patriarchal white-male conceptions of privilege and power that evolve from a colonizing and controlling mindset. Masculine technological optimism is dangerous because it is exclusive, it minimizes the need for social change and social innovation, and it is ineffective in catalyzing inclusive societal transformation. This paper argues that embracing feminist, antiracist values is necessary for transformative climate policies, economic justice, and climate justice. (shrink)

The paper looks at challenges related to the ideas of integration and knowledge systems in extra-academic transdisciplinarity. Philosophers of science are only starting to pay attention to the increasingly common practice of introducing extra-academic perspectives or engaging extra-academic parties in academic knowledge production. So far the rather scant philosophical discussion on the subject has mainly concentrated on the question whether such engagement is beneficial in science or not. Meanwhile, there is quite a large and growing literature on extra-academic TD, mostly (...) authored by non-philosophers, seeking to develop TD research practices. We examine this literature in the light of recent discussions in pluralist philosophies of science. Some philosophical pluralists see the increase of extra-academic collaboration and participation in science as a potentially positive development. However, certain views promoted in the non-philosophical literature on extra-academic TD appear problematic in the light of the pluralistic discussions. For instance, the literature on TD appears to be overly optimistic with regard to integration, and the notion of knowledge systems used in it is problematic. We believe it would be worthwhile for scientific pluralists sympathetic to the aims of TD to look more closely into the complex settings in which extra-academic collaboration and participation happens in actual TD projects, and to offer constructive criticisms, exploiting insights developed within pluralist philosophy of science. (shrink)

This essay defends the role of law-like explanation in the social sciences by showing that the "argument from complexity" fails to demonstrate a difference in kind between the subject matter of natural and social science. There are problems internal to the argument itself - stemming from reliance on an overly idealized view of natural scientific practice - and reason to think that, based upon an analogy with a more sophisticated understanding of natural science, which makes use of "redescriptions" in (...) the face of obstacles like complexity, we have reason to be optimistic about the prospects for a nomological social science. (shrink)

The essay is an English version of the German article "Wissenschaftliche Rationalität, menschliches Bewusstsein und pro-religiöse Ideen". It discusses immanent versus transcendent concepts in the context of the art of living, as well as the understanding of human consciousness in the context of religion. Science provides us with a far reaching understanding of natural processes, including biological evolution, but also with deep insights into its own intrinsic limitations. This is consistent with more than one interpretation on the “metatheoretical“, that is (...) on the philosophical and cultural level, including liberal, enlightened forms of religion as well as agnostic views. Choices and preferences are mainly a matter of wisdom and art of living, and not just of knowledge, and this, in my view, supports metaphysical and anthropological optimism as expressed in liberal pro-religious ideas. Within Christian theology, metaphysical optimism and openness are most characteristic for the ideas of “apokatastasis” – “salvation for all” - repeatedly condemned as heretical, but also widely supported from early Christianity to modern times. (shrink)

When laypersons are presented with scientific information which seeks to modify their way of life, they are expected to believe, suspend belief, or reject it. Second-order assessment of scientific experts helps laypersons to make an informed decision in such situations. This is an assessment of the trustworthiness of the person making the scientific claim. In this paper I challenge the optimistic view of Anderson, regarding the ease with which laypersons can perform second-order assessment of experts, by pointing (...) out some of the obstacles that may prevent laypersons from arriving at an informed decision through this means. By showing that laypersons cannot easily perform second-order assessment of experts, I make a case for sharing epistemic burdens in science communication by using Lackey's concept of dualism in the epistemology of testimony and Irzik and Kurtulmus’ work on public epistemic trust in science, as a guide. I invite experts to bear a greater share of the epistemic burden when communicating with laypersons because of their privileged epistemic condition vis-à-vis laypersons. (shrink)

Neopragmatist epistemology rejects any significant distinction between ethics and the sciences. The idea is that in ethics, we acquire knowledge in similar ways as in the natural sciences. Quine/duhem holism applies to both fields, which explains why the aim of reaching reflective equilibrium is prominent in many meta-ethical accounts: As in the sciences, our ethical system of belief is constrained by logic, observation, coherence, simplicity and parsimony. Whereas considerations of beauty (an important ingredient of scientific methodology) are irrelevant in (...) ethical epistemology, emotions play an essential role; these, in turn, do not matter in the sciences. (shrink)

Attention only "recently"--i.e. in the eighteenth century--achieved chapter status in psychology textbooks in which psychology is conceived as a natural science. This report first sets this entrance, by sketching the historical contexts in which psychology has been considered to be a natural science. It then traces the construction of phenomenological descriptions of attention from antiquity to the seventeenth century, noting various aspects of attention that were marked for discussion by Aristotle, Lucretius, Augustine, and Descartes. The chapter goes on to compare (...) selected theoretical and empirical developments in the study of attention over three time slices: mid eighteenth century (C. Wolff, C. Bonnet, J. F. Abel), turn of the twentieth century (E. B. Titchener), and late twentieth century. Significant descriptive, theoretical, and empirical continuity emerges when these developments are considered in the large. This continuity is open to several interpretations, including the view that attention research shows long-term convergence because it is conditioned by the basic structure of attention as a natural phenomenon, and the less optimistic view that theory making in at least this area of psychology has been remarkably conservative when considered under large grain resolution, consisting in the reshuffling of a few core ideas. (shrink)

How should emotions figure in scientific practice? I begin by distinguishing three broad answers to this question, ranging from pessimistic to optimistic. Confirmation bias and motivated numeracy lead us to cast a jaundiced eye on the role of emotions in scientific inquiry. However, reflection on the essential motivating role of emotions in geniuses makes it less clear that science should be evacuated of emotion. I then draw on Friedrich Nietzsche’s perspectivism to articulate a twenty-first century epistemology of science (...) that recognizes the necessity of emotion to inquiry but aims to manage the biases that emotions can introduce. Twenty-first century perspectivism is both social and (temporally) distal, helping it to overcome a paradox of self-critical inquiry. (shrink)

The French astronomer La Condamine, sent to Perú to measure an arc of the meridian in 1736, decided to return to France by way of the River Amazon, mapping the river and collecting observations of all sorts. This intention was over-optimistic and the circumstances of the journey prevented La Condamine from gathering much new information or undertaking the necessary observations to improve existing maps. He published three popular versions of the journey but witheld most of the observations that he did (...) make for a later report which was never written. His journals are now lost, but his aims and achievements can be assessed from contemporary documents and the collation of his three accounts. (shrink)

In this survey article I try to appraise the present state of the scientific realism debate with an eye to important but hitherto unexplored suggestions and open issues that need further work. In section 2, I shall mostly focus on the relation between scientific realism and truth. In section 3, I shall discuss the grounds for the realists’ epistemic optimism.

Recently I was asked by a somewhat disillusioned but well informed official of one of the important Foundations how long I thought it would be before we attained Utopia. My reply was that I thought we would make substantial progress toward a better world within the next one hundred years.The reply to this, as the reader may surmise, was that my estimate was much too optimistic, the intimation being that anyone who hopes for such rapid progress in this world must (...) be rather naive in practical matters. Such a judgment represents a widely prevailing view, but one which is supposed to be “realistic.” According to this view, social advancement is a slow business. It will be said that there is no evidence that we are much better off than the ancients. Rather than that we have progressed beyond antiquity, we find that we, as of old, have our evidences of social degradation and maladjustment. Crimes, wars, unemployment, divorce, racial and religious conflicts, even W. P. A. projects—all these are as old as recorded history. Man cannot hope to go far in the next one hundred years because in the last one thousand years he has not improved his lot in terms of fundamental human values. All he has done is multiply his gadgets and invent some new ones. Perhaps—my critic opined—we can make some headway in the next thousand years, but it will be a slow and painful process. (shrink)

Can ordinary citizens in a democracy evaluate the claims of scientific experts? While a definitive answer must be case by case, some scholars have offered sharply opposed general answers: a skeptical versus an optimistic. The article addresses this basic conflict, arguing that a satisfactory answer requires a first-order engagement in judging the claims of experts which both skeptics and optimists rule out in taking the issue to be one of second-order assessments only. Having argued that such first-order judgments are (...) necessary, it then considers how they are possible, outlining a range of practices and virtues that can inform their success and likelihood, and drawing throughout on ancient Greek insights as well as contemporary social psychology and sociology of knowledge. In conclusion the ethics of democratic judgment so developed is applied to the dramatic conviction of the members of an Italian scientific risk commission in L'Aquila. (shrink)

Recent discussions of rational deliberation in science present us with two extremes: unbounded optimism and sober pessimism. Helen Longino (1990) sees rational deliberation as the foundation of scientific objectivity. Miriam Solomon (1991) thinks it is overrated. Indeed, she has recently argued (2006) that group deliberation is detrimental to empirical success because it often involves groupthink and the suppression of dissent. But we need not embrace either extreme. To determine the value of rational deliberation we need to look more (...) closely at the practice and practitioners of science. I offer a closer look here by exploring the joint agency of small research teams. Although there are factors that contribute to the suppression of dissent in group contexts, a closer look at the literature on group dynamics suggests that there are ways to mitigate the effects of groupthink. Thus, there is reason to be cautiously optimistic about the value of rational deliberation within certain scientific contexts. (shrink)

The purpose of the article is to study the importance of Pushkin's work in the age of scientific and technological progress, to identify and analyze the moral values that accompany the work and personality of Alexander Pushkin and are particularly relevant to our time. The article discusses the moral values of honor and dignity, the ratio between good and evil, concepts of duty, justice, love and friendship, happiness, freedom, creativity, patriotism, national idea, peoples’ friendship and the problem of preserving (...) Russian language in modern Russia. The article is written through the prism of interpretation of Pushkin’s creativity by Russian philosophers abroad and modern philosophers. The article deals with the problem of using neural networks that make it possible to reproduce the style of A. S. Pushkin. The author concludes about the relevance of the work of A. S. Pushkin in our days. The issues of preserving spirituality, moral values, national identity, and optimistic Renaissance perception of the world, of understanding the beauty of life, remain relevant and in demand in modern age of rapid scientific and technical progress, both in Russia and in the world. (shrink)

The sciences are too important to be left exclusively to scientists, and indeed they have not been. The structure of scientific knowledge, the role of the sciences in society, the appropriate social contexts for the pursuit of scientific inquiry, have long been matters for reflection and debate about the sciences carried on both within academe and outside it. Even within the universities this reflection has not been the property of any single discipline. Philosophy might have been first in (...) the field, but history and the social sciences have also entered the fray. For the latter, new problems came to the fore, since reflection on the sciences is, in the case of the social sciences, necessarily also reflection on themselves as sciences. Reflection on the natural sciences and self-reflection by the social sciences came to be dominated in the 1960s by the term 'positivism'. At the time when this word had been invented, the sciences were flourishing; their social and material environment had become increasingly favourable to scientific progress, and the sciences were pointing the way to an optimistic future. In the later twentieth century, however, 'positivism' came to be a word used more frequently by those less sure of nineteenth century certainties. In both sociology and philosophy, 'positivism' was now something to be rejected, and, symbolizing the collapse of an earlier consensus, it became itself the shibboleth of a new dissensus, as different groups of reflective thinkers, in rejecting 'positivism', rejected something different, and often rejected each other. (shrink)

During the so-called 'historical turn' in the philosophy of science, philosophers and historians boldly argued for general patterns throughout the history of science. From Kuhn's landmark "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" until the "Scrutinizing Science" project led by Larry Laudan, there was optimism that there could be a general theoretical approach to understanding the process of scientific change. This optimism gradually faded as historians and philosophers began to focus on the details of specific case studies located within (...) idiosyncratic historical, cultural, and political contexts, and abandoned attempts to uncover general patterns of how scientific theories and methods change through time. Recent research has suggested that while we have learned a great deal about the diversity and complexity of scientific practices across history, the push to abandon hope for a broader understanding of scientific change was premature. Because of this, philosophers, historians, and social scientists have become interested in reviving the project of understanding the mechanism of scientific change while respecting the diversity and complexity that has been unveiled by careful historical research over the past few decades."--publisher. (shrink)

The COVID-19 vaccine has been a miraculous, life-saving advance, offering staggering efficacy in adults, and was developed with astonishing speed. The time from sequencing the virus to authorizing the first COVID-19 vaccine was so brisk even the optimists appear close-minded. Yet, simultaneously, United States’ COVID-19 vaccination roll-out and related policies have contained missed opportunities, errors, run counter to evidence-based medicine, and revealed limitations in the judgment of public policymakers. Misplaced utilization, contradictory messaging, and poor deployment in those who would benefit (...) most—the elderly and high-risk—alongside unrealistic messaging, exaggeration, and coercion in those who benefit least—young, healthy Americans—is at the heart. It is important to consider the history of COVID-19 vaccines to identify where we succeeded and where we failed, and the effects that these errors may have more broadly on vaccination hesitancy and routine childhood immunization programs in the decades to come. (shrink)

SummaryThe clash between rationalism and humanism presupposes a radical and optimistic view of reason, with science taken as the archetype. Popper's theory of reason as critical of tradition seems to offer a new direction. But Kuhn's discovery that scientists normally are uncritical of some basic ideas makes it vacuous. An improvement upon Duhem's analysis of tests gives us a new epistemology, however where viable alternative views which are not believed nevertheless influence the organization of research. The tacit debate can be (...) regarded as an organized escape rather than as progress towards the Truth.We can thus admit tradition in science, and maintain that it is rational, even if scientists might be agreed on some basic issues during some periods. (shrink)

SummaryThe clash between rationalism and humanism presupposes a radical and optimistic view of reason, with science taken as the archetype. Popper's theory of reason as critical of tradition seems to offer a new direction. But Kuhn's discovery that scientists normally are uncritical of some basic ideas makes it vacuous. An improvement upon Duhem's analysis of tests gives us a new epistemology, however where viable alternative views which are not believed nevertheless influence the organization of research. The tacit debate can be (...) regarded as an organized escape rather than as progress towards the Truth.We can thus admit tradition in science, and maintain that it is rational, even if scientists might be agreed on some basic issues during some periods. (shrink)