In this article we defend the inferential view of scientific models and idealisation. Models are seen as "inferential prostheses" construed by means of an idealisation-concretisation process, which we essentially understand as a kind of counterfactual deformation procedure . The value of scientific representation is understood in terms not only of the success of the inferential outcomes arrived at with its help, but also of the heuristic power of representation and their capacity to correct and improve our models. This provides us (...) with an argument against Sugden's account of credible models: the likelihood or realisticness is not always a good measure of their acceptability. As opposed to "credibility" we propose the notion of "enlightening", which is the capacity of giving us understanding in the sense of an inferential ability. (shrink)

In this paper we present a new framework of idealization in biology. We characterize idealizations as a network of counterfactual and hypothetical conditionals that can exhibit different “degrees of contingency”. We use this idea to say that, in departing more or less from the actual world, idealizations can serve numerous epistemic, methodological or heuristic purposes within scientific research. We defend that, in part, this structure explains why idealizations, despite being deformations of reality, are so successful in scientific practice. For illustrative (...) purposes, we provide an example from population genetics, the Wright-Fisher Model. (shrink)

After a brief comparison of Aliseda’s account with different approaches to abductive reasoning, I relate abduction, as studied by Aliseda, to idealization, a notion which also occupies a very important role in scientific change, as well as to different ways of dealing with the growth of scientific knowledge understood as a particular kind of non-monotonic process. A particularly interesting kind of abductive reasoning could be that of finding an appropriate concretization case for a theory, originally revealed as extraordinarily success-ful but (...) later discovered to be strictly false or only approximately or ideally true. I try to show this with the example of the Kepler-Newton relation. At the end of the paper, I give criteria in order to construe abduc-tive explanations in correspondence with a reasonable account of empirical progress. (shrink)

In this article we defend the inferential view of scientific models and idealisation. Models are seen as “inferential prostheses” (instruments for surrogative reasoning) construed by means of an idealisation-concretisation process, which we essentially understand as a kind of counterfactual deformation procedure (also analysed in inferential terms). The value of scientific representation is understood in terms not only of the success of the inferential outcomes arrived at with its help, but also of the heuristic power of representation and their capacity to (...) correct and improve our models. This provides us with an argument against Sugden’s account of credible models: the likelihood or realisticness (their “credibility”) is not always a good measure of their acceptability. As opposed to “credibility” we propose the notion of “enlightening”, which is the capacity of giving us understanding in the sense of an inferential ability. (shrink)

Our purpose in this paper is to contribute to a practice-based characterization of scientific inference. We want to explore whether Brandom’s pragmatist–inferentialist framework can suitably accommodate several types of ampliative inference common in scientific reasoning and explanation. First, we argue that Brandom’s view of induction in terms of merely permissive inferences is inadequate; in order to overcome the shortcoming of Brandom’s proposal, we put forward an alternative conception of inductive, probabilistic reasoning by appeal to the notion of degrees of commitment. (...) Moreover, we examine the sorts of inferential commitments operative in other types of ampliative inferences, such as abduction or reasoning involving idealizations and assumptions. We suggest that agents engaging in these forms of reasoning often undertake restricted inferential commitments, whose scope and reach are more limited that in the case of the commitments associated with full beliefs. (shrink)

In this paper we present a new framework of idealization in biology. We characterize idealizations as a network of counterfactual and hypothetical conditionals that can exhibit different “degrees of contingency”. We use this idea to say that, in departing more or less from the actual world, idealizations can serve numerous epistemic, methodological or heuristic purposes within scientific research. We defend that, in part, this structure explains why idealizations, despite being deformations of reality, are so successful in scientific practice. For illustrative (...) purposes, we provide an example from population genetics, the Wright-Fisher Model. (shrink)

In the present paper, I try to defend a coherent interpretation of Goodman�s relativism by responding to the main objections of the critics. I also discuss the significance of his pluralism by relating it to the notion of construction. This will show the relevance of Goodman�s philosophy for the present days.

My aim in this paper is to discuss Mill’s notions of logic and argument and to highlight the epistemic dimension that for Mill has every argument and that, it is in the light of this epistemic dimension, that an argument should be assessed. By taking into account these considerations, I focus on his criticism against deductive arguments to the effect that they commit the fallacy of begging the question. I try to show that this idea relies on his radical empiricism (...) and argue that he is wrong. He particularly fails to recognize how we can gain knowledge from deductive arguments, though their conclusions are already contained in the premises. Finally, I point out the fact that, by his insisting in the epistemic dimension of arguments, Mill’s ideas are closer to those of argumentative theorists. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been a lot of interest in scientific understanding. There was already a consensus in the philosophy of science about the fact that science provides understanding of the world, but until the 70s there was not a proper and systematic investigation of the matter. This investigation has been notoriously incremental in the last two decades. Nevertheless, there is still no agreed upon way of how to understand “understanding” . Faye’s contribution to the debate proves to be (...) a departure from the previous standard works on explanation and scientific inference. The author’s main purpose is, in his own words, describing “how our human cognitive capacities allow scientists to acquire an understanding of nature by means of representation, interpretation, and explanation” . He starts from a D .. (shrink)

We discuss and analyze two reductive arguments due to Jaegwon Kim and Theodore Sider respectively. According to the first one, strong supervenience would imply necessary coextension of properties. According to the second, this would be also the case of global supervenience. Kim and Sider make essential use of their respective notions of maximal properties, which we analyze here in the light of a natural and interesting interpretation of the underlying theory of properties. Under this interpretation, in terms of model theory, (...) we obtain different possibilities of formal relations between the superveniencie theses and reduction, depending on the logic we use. Under at least one interesting interpretation, the arguments of Kim and Sider are not correct and we become the conclusion that these arguments are not valid in general. (shrink)

En el presente artículo, se examinan y discuten dos argumentos con consecuencias reduccionistas debidos a Jaegwon Kim y a Theodore Sider respectivamente. De acuerdo con el argumento de Kim, la superveniencia fuerte implicaría la coexistencia necesaria de propiedades (es decir, tal y como normalmente se interpreta, la reducción). De acuerdo con el de Sider, ocurriría lo mismo con la superveniencia global. Uno y otro hacen un uso esencial de sendas nociones de propiedad maximal, las cuales son discutidas aquí a la (...) luz de una interpretación natural e interesante de la teoría de las propiedades implícita en sus argumentos. Bajo esta nueva interpretación, en términos modelo-teóricos (véase apartado 4), obtenemos diversas posibilidades de relaciones formales entre las tesis de supervivencia y la reducción, según la lógica utilizada. Al menos bajo una interpretación interesante, los argumentos de Kim y Sider no son correctos, quedando demostrado así que dichos argumentos no son válidos en general. (shrink)

In this paper we present a new framework of idealization in biology. We characterize idealizations as a network of counterfactual and hypothetical conditionals that can exhibit different “degrees of contingency”. We use this idea to say that, in departing more or less from the actual world, idealizations can serve numerous epistemic, methodological or heuristic purposes within scientific research. We defend that, in part, this structure explains why idealizations, despite being deformations of reality, are so successful in scientific practice. For illustrative (...) purposes, we provide an example from population genetics, the Wright-Fisher Model. (shrink)

In this paper we present a new framework of idealization in biology. We characterize idealizations as a network of counterfactual and hypothetical conditionals that can exhibit different "degrees of contingency". We use this idea to say that, in departing more or less from the actual world, idealizations can serve numerous epistemic, methodological or heuristic purposes within scientific research. We defend that, in part, this structure explains why idealizations, despite being deformations of reality, are so successful in scientific practice. For illustrative (...) purposes, we provide an example from population genetics, the Wright-Fisher Model. (shrink)

Our main aim is to discuss the topic of scientific controversies in the context of a recent issue that has been the centre of attention of many epistemologists though not of argumentation theorists or philosophers of science, namely the ethics of belief in face of rational disagreement. We think that the consideration of scientific examples may be of help in the epistemological debate on rational disagreement, making clear some of the deficiencies of the discussion as it has been produced until (...) now. Another central claim of our paper is that the common view according to which beliefs (and changes of beliefs) may exhibit and commonly exhibit a deontic status can be clarified in the light of Brandom’s approach to normative pragmatics and the pragmatic theories of argumentation that also have a normative character (here our example is van Eemeren’s pragma-dialectics). Our article highlights the similarities between both projects, similarities that to our knowledge were not noticed before. Finally, an important point of the article is that we need to take contextual elements into account in order to develop an adequate theory of disagreement. (shrink)

In this paper we present a new framework of idealization in biology. We characterize idealizations as a network of counterfactual conditionals that can exhibit different degrees of contingency. We use the idea of possible worlds to say that, in departing more or less from the actual world, idealizations can serve numerous epistemic, methodological or heuristic purposes within scientific research. We defend that, in part, it is this structure what helps explain why idealizations, despite being deformations of reality, are so successful (...) in scientific practice. (shrink)

After a brief comparison of Aliseda’s account with different approaches to abductive reasoning, I relate abduction, as studied by Aliseda, to idealization, a notion which also occupies a very important role in scientific change, as well as to different ways of dealing with the growth of scientific knowledge understood as a particular kind of non-monotonic process. A particularly interesting kind of abductive reasoning could be that of finding an appropriate concretization case for a theory, originally revealed as extraordinarily success-ful but (...) later discovered to be strictly false or only approximately or ideally true. I try to show this with the example of the Kepler-Newton relation. At the end of the paper, I give criteria in order to construe abduc-tive explanations in correspondence with a reasonable account of empirical progress. (shrink)

Ésta es una contribución al debate originado por Guillermo Hurtado y proseguido por Manuel García-Carpintero y Horacio Luján Martínez, con relación al sentido y a los objetivos de la filosofía analítica, especialmente en Iberoamérica. En ella se defiende que las tesis de Hurtado también se pueden aplicar al cultivo de filosofías no analíticas, pues en realidad conciernen a la filosofía profesional que se practica dentro y fuera de Iberoamérica. Se sostiene, además, que si bien la profesionalización y la masificación de (...) la filosofía son fenómenos en sí mismos positivos, tienen consecuencias colaterales negativas respecto de la calidad de la filosofía que se produce. También se aduce que el que una propuesta filosófica no tenga una inmediata relevancia existencial o política no la hace menos importante, siempre que en algún sentido amplíe las fronteras del conocimiento. This is a commentary on a debate originated by Guillermo Hurtado and followed up by Manuel García-Carpintero and Horacio Luján Martínez, in regards to the meaning and objectives of analytic philosophy, especially in Latin America. This paper holds that Hurtado's theses are also true about non analytic philosophy, since they are about professional philosophy, as practiced both inside and outside Latin America. Professionalization and popularization of philosophy, while positive phenomena in themselves, have negative collateral consequences on the quality of philosophy produced in the present moment. it is also held that the fact that a given philosophical proposal has no immediate existential or political relevance doesn't make it less important, as long as in some sense it widens the frontiers of knowledge. (shrink)

In the light of partial understanding, we examine the thesis that concepts are individuated in terms of possession conditions and show that adherents face a fatal dilemma: Either concept-individuating possession conditions include cases of partially understood concepts or not. If yes, possession conditions do not individuate concepts. If no, the thesis is too restricted and lacks a minimally satisfactory level of generalization.

We begin by highlighting some points related to Kuhn’s later thoughts on the incommensurability thesis and then show to what extent the standard version of the thesis given by the structuralist metatheory allows us to capture Kuhn’s ideas. Our main aim is to establish what constitutes the basis of comparability between incommensurable theories, even in cases of incommensurability with respect to theoretical and non-theoretical terms. We propose that comparability between incommensurable theories requires some connection between their respective ontologies that can (...) be captured by means of an ontological non-reductive relation. At this point, the structuralist notion of “echeloned partial substructure” may be of help. When the incommensurability is very drastic, the existence of ontological connections between the theories involved may only be evident by common terms of their non-characteristic vocabularies. So, this notion of non-characteristic vocabulary becomes relevant in our proposal. (shrink)

Our purpose in this paper is to contribute to a practice-based characterization of scientific inference. We want to explore whether Brandom’s pragmatist–inferentialist framework can suitably accommodate several types of ampliative inference common in scientific reasoning and explanation. First, we argue that Brandom’s view of induction in terms of merely permissive inferences is inadequate; in order to overcome the shortcoming of Brandom’s proposal, we put forward an alternative conception of inductive, probabilistic reasoning by appeal to the notion of degrees of commitment. (...) Moreover, we examine the sorts of inferential commitments operative in other types of ampliative inferences, such as abduction or reasoning involving idealizations and assumptions. We suggest that agents engaging in these forms of reasoning often undertake restricted inferential commitments, whose scope and reach are more limited that in the case of the commitments associated with full beliefs. (shrink)

The book "Idealization XIV: Models in Science" offers a detailed ontological, epistemological and historical account of the role of models in scientific practice. The volume contains contributions of different international scholars who developed many aspects of the use of idealizations and models both in the natural and the social sciences. This volume is particularly relevant because it offers original contributions concerning one of the main topic in philosophy of science: the role of models in such branches of the sciences and (...) the humanities like comparative historical sociology, economics, history, linguistics and political philosophy. -/- Contributors are: Giacomo Borbone, Krzysztof Brzechczyn, Mieszko Ciesielski, Adam Czerniak, Xavier de Donato Rodríguez, José L. Falguera, Adolfo García de la Sienra, Lidia Godek, Igor Hanzel, Łukasz Hardt, Krzysztof Kiedrowski, Barbara Konat, Zenonas Norkus, Piotr Przybysz, Piotr Szwochert. (shrink)

In Racial Prescriptions, Jonathan Xavier Inda offers a critical and timely analysis of the making of BiDil, the first drug that was marketed exclusively to African Americans. Sibille Merz speaks to him about the re-articulation of racial politics under neoliberalism, the legacies of scientific racism and the molecularization of biopolitics in the genomic age.