Pub Date : 2023-11-07DOI: 10.1080/02698595.2023.2277999
David Villena
ABSTRACTCognitive modules are internal mental structures. Some theorists and empirical researchers hypothesise that the human mind is either partially or massively comprised of structures that are modular in nature. Is the massive modularity of mind hypothesis a cogent view about the ontological nature of human mind or is it, rather, an effective/ineffective adaptationist discovery heuristic for generating predictively successful hypotheses about both heretofore unknown psychological traits and unknown properties of already identified psychological traits? Considering the inadequacies of the case in favour of massive modularity as an ontological hypothesis, I suggest approaching and valuing massive modularity as an adaptationist discovery heuristic. AcknowledgementI am grateful to the editors and three anonymous reviewers who shared with me useful suggestions and constructive criticism. This paper is derived from my doctoral dissertation, which was defended at Lingnan University in 2021, as well as presentations I gave at the Science of Consciousness 2019 conference in Interlaken, Switzerland and at the EENPS 2021 conference in Belgrade, Serbia. Thanks to the University Grants Committee (UGC) of Hong Kong for its support over the past years.Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Recent research argues that visual perception, which is part of the peripheral systems of human mind, is top-down influenced and thus not informationally encapsulated. (For an exhaustive review of the literature, see Collins & Olson, Citation2014.) According to the data this research presents, visual perception is influenced by beliefs, desires, emotions, motivations, and so on (Siegel, Citation2012). If such is the case, then visual perception is cognitively penetrable and not modular. This recent research could be used as empirical evidence against the distinction between perception and cognition (Clark, Citation2013). In opposition to this view, Firestone and Scholl (Citation2016) contend that ‘there is in fact no evidence for such top-down effects of cognition on visual perception’ (p. 3).2 Neil Harbisson is an individual born with achromatopsia (a rare condition also known as ‘color blindness’), who claims to be the first ‘officially recognised’ cyborg of the world since the United Kingdom Passport Office accepted the inclusion of the electronic hardware attached to his head in his passport picture. Harbisson claims that the antenna is an organ, and not a device.3 There is not a univocal definition of modularity in biology (Wagner, Mezey & Calabretta, Citation2005). Yet this lack of analytical precision does not undermine the relevance of the concept of modularity for understanding biological phenomena. The concept of biological modularity is connected to properties such as dissociability (Needham, Citation1933) and quasi-independence (Lewontin, Citation1978). The reading of these properties—and hence the reading of
{"title":"Massive Modularity: An Ontological Hypothesis or an Adaptationist Discovery Heuristic?","authors":"David Villena","doi":"10.1080/02698595.2023.2277999","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02698595.2023.2277999","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTCognitive modules are internal mental structures. Some theorists and empirical researchers hypothesise that the human mind is either partially or massively comprised of structures that are modular in nature. Is the massive modularity of mind hypothesis a cogent view about the ontological nature of human mind or is it, rather, an effective/ineffective adaptationist discovery heuristic for generating predictively successful hypotheses about both heretofore unknown psychological traits and unknown properties of already identified psychological traits? Considering the inadequacies of the case in favour of massive modularity as an ontological hypothesis, I suggest approaching and valuing massive modularity as an adaptationist discovery heuristic. AcknowledgementI am grateful to the editors and three anonymous reviewers who shared with me useful suggestions and constructive criticism. This paper is derived from my doctoral dissertation, which was defended at Lingnan University in 2021, as well as presentations I gave at the Science of Consciousness 2019 conference in Interlaken, Switzerland and at the EENPS 2021 conference in Belgrade, Serbia. Thanks to the University Grants Committee (UGC) of Hong Kong for its support over the past years.Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Recent research argues that visual perception, which is part of the peripheral systems of human mind, is top-down influenced and thus not informationally encapsulated. (For an exhaustive review of the literature, see Collins & Olson, Citation2014.) According to the data this research presents, visual perception is influenced by beliefs, desires, emotions, motivations, and so on (Siegel, Citation2012). If such is the case, then visual perception is cognitively penetrable and not modular. This recent research could be used as empirical evidence against the distinction between perception and cognition (Clark, Citation2013). In opposition to this view, Firestone and Scholl (Citation2016) contend that ‘there is in fact no evidence for such top-down effects of cognition on visual perception’ (p. 3).2 Neil Harbisson is an individual born with achromatopsia (a rare condition also known as ‘color blindness’), who claims to be the first ‘officially recognised’ cyborg of the world since the United Kingdom Passport Office accepted the inclusion of the electronic hardware attached to his head in his passport picture. Harbisson claims that the antenna is an organ, and not a device.3 There is not a univocal definition of modularity in biology (Wagner, Mezey & Calabretta, Citation2005). Yet this lack of analytical precision does not undermine the relevance of the concept of modularity for understanding biological phenomena. The concept of biological modularity is connected to properties such as dissociability (Needham, Citation1933) and quasi-independence (Lewontin, Citation1978). The reading of these properties—and hence the reading of","PeriodicalId":44433,"journal":{"name":"International Studies in the Philosophy of Science","volume":"3 10","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135541925","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-27DOI: 10.1080/02698595.2023.2273606
Torsten Wilholt
ABSTRACTThis paper discusses how to deal with research that threatens to cause harm to society—in particular, whether and in what cases bans and moratoria are appropriate. First, it asks what normative resources philosophy of science may draw on to answer such questions. In an effort to presuppose only resources acknowledgeable across different comprehensive worldviews, it is claimed that the aim of credibility provides a good basis for normative reflection. A close analysis reveals an inner tension inherent in the pursuit of credibility, referred to as the paradox of credibility: Although the aim of credibility involves the goal of being trusted, the immediate pursuit of the goal of being trusted as much as possible can run counter to and undermine the pursuit of credibility. From this inner tension, considerations are derived on what it means to uncompromisingly strive for trustworthiness. When applied to the problem of harmful research, it becomes apparent that it is important to distinguish between different types of cases. Some cases allow science to prevent harm while relinquishing credibility in the associated research area. In contrast, other cases demand preserving subject-specific scientific credibility in order to manage potential harm.KEYWORDS: Harmful researchforbidden researchcredibility of scienceepistemic trusttrustworthinessnormativity in philosophy of science AcknowledgementsI am grateful to guest editor Martin Carrier and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. The research underlying this paper was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) through the SOCRATES Center for Advanced Studies at Leibniz Universität Hannover.Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 This is at least true in a world like ours, where the limitedness of resources means that no research question can be addressed by considering every conceivable hypothesis and collecting every potentially relevant set of data.2 This cause of value-ladenness is a matter of principle – and not simply a matter of practical difficulty – because certain key epistemic assessments, such as whether a given hypothesis is sufficiently confirmed to be considered acceptable or justified, cannot be answered at all (in a non-arbitrary way) without considering questions of value in a broader sense. That, at least, is what the argument from inductive risk implies in what Steel (Citation2016, 711) calls its ‘descriptive’ reading, which he attributes to Winsberg (Citation2012), Steele (Citation2012) and Wilholt (Citation2009).3 This current understanding of political philosophy has perhaps been most influentially advanced and advocated by John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas (for explicit accounts, see, for example, Rawls Citation1985 and Habermas Citation1996), but it underlies countless other important works of contemporary political philosophy as well, such as Dworkin Citation1985; Larmore Ci
{"title":"Harmful Research and the Paradox of Credibility","authors":"Torsten Wilholt","doi":"10.1080/02698595.2023.2273606","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02698595.2023.2273606","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTThis paper discusses how to deal with research that threatens to cause harm to society—in particular, whether and in what cases bans and moratoria are appropriate. First, it asks what normative resources philosophy of science may draw on to answer such questions. In an effort to presuppose only resources acknowledgeable across different comprehensive worldviews, it is claimed that the aim of credibility provides a good basis for normative reflection. A close analysis reveals an inner tension inherent in the pursuit of credibility, referred to as the paradox of credibility: Although the aim of credibility involves the goal of being trusted, the immediate pursuit of the goal of being trusted as much as possible can run counter to and undermine the pursuit of credibility. From this inner tension, considerations are derived on what it means to uncompromisingly strive for trustworthiness. When applied to the problem of harmful research, it becomes apparent that it is important to distinguish between different types of cases. Some cases allow science to prevent harm while relinquishing credibility in the associated research area. In contrast, other cases demand preserving subject-specific scientific credibility in order to manage potential harm.KEYWORDS: Harmful researchforbidden researchcredibility of scienceepistemic trusttrustworthinessnormativity in philosophy of science AcknowledgementsI am grateful to guest editor Martin Carrier and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. The research underlying this paper was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) through the SOCRATES Center for Advanced Studies at Leibniz Universität Hannover.Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 This is at least true in a world like ours, where the limitedness of resources means that no research question can be addressed by considering every conceivable hypothesis and collecting every potentially relevant set of data.2 This cause of value-ladenness is a matter of principle – and not simply a matter of practical difficulty – because certain key epistemic assessments, such as whether a given hypothesis is sufficiently confirmed to be considered acceptable or justified, cannot be answered at all (in a non-arbitrary way) without considering questions of value in a broader sense. That, at least, is what the argument from inductive risk implies in what Steel (Citation2016, 711) calls its ‘descriptive’ reading, which he attributes to Winsberg (Citation2012), Steele (Citation2012) and Wilholt (Citation2009).3 This current understanding of political philosophy has perhaps been most influentially advanced and advocated by John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas (for explicit accounts, see, for example, Rawls Citation1985 and Habermas Citation1996), but it underlies countless other important works of contemporary political philosophy as well, such as Dworkin Citation1985; Larmore Ci","PeriodicalId":44433,"journal":{"name":"International Studies in the Philosophy of Science","volume":"37 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136262823","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-16DOI: 10.1080/02698595.2023.2257111
Mathias Girel
ABSTRACTThe paper seeks to contribute to clarifying agnotology as an ‘epistemic strategy’, conceived as ‘epistemically damaging and hurt[ing] the production of knowledge’. My general claim is that the grammar of intentions ‘embedded’ in agnotological arguments is often not considered accurately. I use considerations from the philosophy of action as a theoretical framework to make more explicit what is implied in agnogenetic manoeuvres. Agnotology, as a ‘theory’ about epistemic states, in particular knowledge and ignorance, would be seriously incomplete without that component. The following can thus be read as a contribution to an analysis of the presuppositions of the strategic variant of Agnotology. My first claim is that the more common objections to the introduction of intentions are in no way definitive. My second, more specific, claim is that we need a room, in our conceptual toolbox, for ‘anti-epistemic intentions’, which play a key role in agnotological arguments.KEYWORDS: Normatively inappropriate dissentagnotologyintentionsaction (philosophy of) AcknowledgementsI am extremely grateful to Martin Carrier for his generous feedback on an earlier version of this paper.Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Proctor and Schiebinger (Citation2008), Introduction. The very first introduction of the term by Proctor referred to the ‘politics of knowledge’: ‘Ignorance […] has a distinct and changing political geography that is often an excellent indicator of the politics of knowledge. We need a political agnotology to complement our political epistemologies’(Proctor Citation1995, 8n.). In order to avoid ambiguities, I shall use agnotology and its variants to refer to theories about and explanations of the production of ignorance, and agnogenesis/agnogenetic to refer to the processes themselves.2 The term ‘Agnotology’, even to refer to intentional productions of ignorance, is not always used by the authors describing these issues.3 One could perfectly resist this claim. That was Popper’s stance on the ‘conspiracy theory of ignorance’, which was for him a consequence of the misleading view that truth was ‘manifest’ and that all exceptions to its manifestation had to be explained (Popper [Citation1963] Citation2002, 4).4 A temptation would be to say that ‘publicly available knowledge’ can work as a proxy, but it will not be enough. We can have agnogenetic manoeuvres even when the larger public is unaware of what is at stake. See Horel (Citation2015) for the fierce battle around the criteria used to assess endocrine disruptors in Europe.5 I have tried to provide some elements in Girel (Citation2022).6 For a more recent version of the argument, published as the present paper was under review, see De Melo Martin, in this volume.7 The discussion of ‘bad faith dissent’ belongs to a general examination of the possibility of finding necessary and sufficient criteria to identify NIDs, together with ‘Failing to
{"title":"What Exactly is Presupposed by Agnotology? The Challenge of Intentions","authors":"Mathias Girel","doi":"10.1080/02698595.2023.2257111","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02698595.2023.2257111","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTThe paper seeks to contribute to clarifying agnotology as an ‘epistemic strategy’, conceived as ‘epistemically damaging and hurt[ing] the production of knowledge’. My general claim is that the grammar of intentions ‘embedded’ in agnotological arguments is often not considered accurately. I use considerations from the philosophy of action as a theoretical framework to make more explicit what is implied in agnogenetic manoeuvres. Agnotology, as a ‘theory’ about epistemic states, in particular knowledge and ignorance, would be seriously incomplete without that component. The following can thus be read as a contribution to an analysis of the presuppositions of the strategic variant of Agnotology. My first claim is that the more common objections to the introduction of intentions are in no way definitive. My second, more specific, claim is that we need a room, in our conceptual toolbox, for ‘anti-epistemic intentions’, which play a key role in agnotological arguments.KEYWORDS: Normatively inappropriate dissentagnotologyintentionsaction (philosophy of) AcknowledgementsI am extremely grateful to Martin Carrier for his generous feedback on an earlier version of this paper.Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Proctor and Schiebinger (Citation2008), Introduction. The very first introduction of the term by Proctor referred to the ‘politics of knowledge’: ‘Ignorance […] has a distinct and changing political geography that is often an excellent indicator of the politics of knowledge. We need a political agnotology to complement our political epistemologies’(Proctor Citation1995, 8n.). In order to avoid ambiguities, I shall use agnotology and its variants to refer to theories about and explanations of the production of ignorance, and agnogenesis/agnogenetic to refer to the processes themselves.2 The term ‘Agnotology’, even to refer to intentional productions of ignorance, is not always used by the authors describing these issues.3 One could perfectly resist this claim. That was Popper’s stance on the ‘conspiracy theory of ignorance’, which was for him a consequence of the misleading view that truth was ‘manifest’ and that all exceptions to its manifestation had to be explained (Popper [Citation1963] Citation2002, 4).4 A temptation would be to say that ‘publicly available knowledge’ can work as a proxy, but it will not be enough. We can have agnogenetic manoeuvres even when the larger public is unaware of what is at stake. See Horel (Citation2015) for the fierce battle around the criteria used to assess endocrine disruptors in Europe.5 I have tried to provide some elements in Girel (Citation2022).6 For a more recent version of the argument, published as the present paper was under review, see De Melo Martin, in this volume.7 The discussion of ‘bad faith dissent’ belongs to a general examination of the possibility of finding necessary and sufficient criteria to identify NIDs, together with ‘Failing to","PeriodicalId":44433,"journal":{"name":"International Studies in the Philosophy of Science","volume":"35 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136113845","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-28DOI: 10.1080/02698595.2023.2248546
Juan V. Mayoral
ABSTRACT In this paper I examine Thomas Kuhn’s epistolary and in-person exchanges with Richard Rorty, and their significance to the former’s work on the nature of scientific development during the years 1976–1986. Accordingly, it corresponds to a significant evolution of Kuhn’s thought from the position expounded earlier in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. These letters show how Kuhn’s philosophy of science evolved towards a greater emphasis on a key aspect of his former work—the nature of ‘the essential tension’—and that his more linguistically-oriented perspective in these latter years has that emphasis as its goal—at least as a significant part.
{"title":"The Normal and the Revolutionary: Kuhn’s Conversations with Rorty","authors":"Juan V. Mayoral","doi":"10.1080/02698595.2023.2248546","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02698595.2023.2248546","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT\u0000 In this paper I examine Thomas Kuhn’s epistolary and in-person exchanges with Richard Rorty, and their significance to the former’s work on the nature of scientific development during the years 1976–1986. Accordingly, it corresponds to a significant evolution of Kuhn’s thought from the position expounded earlier in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. These letters show how Kuhn’s philosophy of science evolved towards a greater emphasis on a key aspect of his former work—the nature of ‘the essential tension’—and that his more linguistically-oriented perspective in these latter years has that emphasis as its goal—at least as a significant part.","PeriodicalId":44433,"journal":{"name":"International Studies in the Philosophy of Science","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-08-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43897697","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-08DOI: 10.1080/02698595.2023.2243435
Karen Yan, Meng-Li Tsai, Tsung-Ren Huang
ABSTRACT Is Kuhn’s notion of exemplar applicable to ongoing biomedical sciences? Many philosophers may be skeptical because Kuhn’s cases are mostly from physics and chemistry. However, how do philosophers test the above (non-)applicability directly? We will use examples to illustrate a scientometric approach to the integrated history and philosophy of science (SciHPS) and argue that SciHPS can provide an empirical basis to empirically test and revise a philosophical concept questioned for its applicability to biomedical sciences. This paper will build on Yan, K., M. L. Tsai, and T. R. Huang. [2021. “Improving the Quality of Case-Based Research in the Philosophy of Contemporary Sciences.” Synthese 198 (10): 9591–9610. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02657-5] heart-rate variability (HRV) case study to examine the biomedical changes within the HRV community from 1970 to 2022. We will investigate how a task force standardises and entrenches methodological standardisations, and argue that some of the task force’s methodological standardisations are tool-afforded by an algorithm. These tool-afforded aspects further explain why an HRV method is robustly dominant in the HRV community despite other HRV scholars having developed alternatives to compete with the dominant one. We will then show how to use SciHPS to empirically test and revise the Kuhnian concept of exemplar into a concept of citation-exemplar that better captures the above tool-afforded aspects of standardisations.
{"title":"A Scientometric Approach to the Integrated History and Philosophy of Science: Entrenched Biomedical Standardisation and Citation-Exemplar","authors":"Karen Yan, Meng-Li Tsai, Tsung-Ren Huang","doi":"10.1080/02698595.2023.2243435","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02698595.2023.2243435","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT\u0000 Is Kuhn’s notion of exemplar applicable to ongoing biomedical sciences? Many philosophers may be skeptical because Kuhn’s cases are mostly from physics and chemistry. However, how do philosophers test the above (non-)applicability directly? We will use examples to illustrate a scientometric approach to the integrated history and philosophy of science (SciHPS) and argue that SciHPS can provide an empirical basis to empirically test and revise a philosophical concept questioned for its applicability to biomedical sciences. This paper will build on Yan, K., M. L. Tsai, and T. R. Huang. [2021. “Improving the Quality of Case-Based Research in the Philosophy of Contemporary Sciences.” Synthese 198 (10): 9591–9610. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02657-5] heart-rate variability (HRV) case study to examine the biomedical changes within the HRV community from 1970 to 2022. We will investigate how a task force standardises and entrenches methodological standardisations, and argue that some of the task force’s methodological standardisations are tool-afforded by an algorithm. These tool-afforded aspects further explain why an HRV method is robustly dominant in the HRV community despite other HRV scholars having developed alternatives to compete with the dominant one. We will then show how to use SciHPS to empirically test and revise the Kuhnian concept of exemplar into a concept of citation-exemplar that better captures the above tool-afforded aspects of standardisations.","PeriodicalId":44433,"journal":{"name":"International Studies in the Philosophy of Science","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44437900","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-08-01DOI: 10.1080/02698595.2023.2235854
Published in International Studies in the Philosophy of Science (Vol. 35, No. 3-4, 2022)
发表于《科学哲学国际研究》(第35卷第3-4期，2022年)
{"title":"Reviewers Acknowledgement","authors":"","doi":"10.1080/02698595.2023.2235854","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02698595.2023.2235854","url":null,"abstract":"Published in International Studies in the Philosophy of Science (Vol. 35, No. 3-4, 2022)","PeriodicalId":44433,"journal":{"name":"International Studies in the Philosophy of Science","volume":"2 6‐7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138503540","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-10DOI: 10.1080/02698595.2023.2233822
Matteo De Benedetto, Michele Luchetti
ABSTRACT According to Kuhn's speciation analogy, scientific specialisation is fundamentally analogous to biological speciation. In this paper, we extend Kuhn's original language-centred formulation of the speciation analogy, to account for episodes of scientific specialisation centred around methodological differences. Building upon recent views in evolutionary biology about the process of speciation by genetic divergence, we will show how these methodology-centred episodes of scientific specialisation can be understood as cases of specialisation driven by value divergence. We will apply our model of specialisation by value divergence to an episode of methodology-centred scientific specialisation: the emergence of molecular biology.
{"title":"Specialisation by Value Divergence: The Role of Epistemic Values in the Branching of Scientific Disciplines","authors":"Matteo De Benedetto, Michele Luchetti","doi":"10.1080/02698595.2023.2233822","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02698595.2023.2233822","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT According to Kuhn's speciation analogy, scientific specialisation is fundamentally analogous to biological speciation. In this paper, we extend Kuhn's original language-centred formulation of the speciation analogy, to account for episodes of scientific specialisation centred around methodological differences. Building upon recent views in evolutionary biology about the process of speciation by genetic divergence, we will show how these methodology-centred episodes of scientific specialisation can be understood as cases of specialisation driven by value divergence. We will apply our model of specialisation by value divergence to an episode of methodology-centred scientific specialisation: the emergence of molecular biology.","PeriodicalId":44433,"journal":{"name":"International Studies in the Philosophy of Science","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42619333","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-25DOI: 10.1080/02698595.2023.2198861
Pablo Melogno
ABSTRACT This paper examines ‘The Natures of Conceptual Change’, the Notre Dame lectures given by Kuhn in 1980. In particular, I aim to examine the content of these lectures which was not published before. This exegetical task will shed light on the sources of the notion of taxonomy used in these lectures for the first time with the explicit philosophical purposes. It also will shed new light on Kuhn's position regarding the causal theory of reference. Reviewing these archival materials paves the way for intertextual comparisons, as Kuhn included part of these lectures in the texts published later and in the book Plurality of Worlds: an Evolutionary Theory of Scientific Development. In recent years, the publication of Kuhn's archival material and the research on these texts increased in quantity and quality. Faced with this encouraging landscape, a comparative examination of the different unpublished texts is crucial to refining both our research tools on Kuhn's intellectual biography and the philosophical work inspired by his proposal.
{"title":"Kuhn's ‘The Natures of Conceptual Change’: the search for a theory of meaning and the birth of taxonomies (1980–1994)","authors":"Pablo Melogno","doi":"10.1080/02698595.2023.2198861","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02698595.2023.2198861","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper examines ‘The Natures of Conceptual Change’, the Notre Dame lectures given by Kuhn in 1980. In particular, I aim to examine the content of these lectures which was not published before. This exegetical task will shed light on the sources of the notion of taxonomy used in these lectures for the first time with the explicit philosophical purposes. It also will shed new light on Kuhn's position regarding the causal theory of reference. Reviewing these archival materials paves the way for intertextual comparisons, as Kuhn included part of these lectures in the texts published later and in the book Plurality of Worlds: an Evolutionary Theory of Scientific Development. In recent years, the publication of Kuhn's archival material and the research on these texts increased in quantity and quality. Faced with this encouraging landscape, a comparative examination of the different unpublished texts is crucial to refining both our research tools on Kuhn's intellectual biography and the philosophical work inspired by his proposal.","PeriodicalId":44433,"journal":{"name":"International Studies in the Philosophy of Science","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-05-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49287149","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-15DOI: 10.1080/02698595.2023.2207404
Marij van Strien
{"title":"The Challenge of Quantum Mechanics to the Rationality of Science: Philosophers of Science on Bohr","authors":"Marij van Strien","doi":"10.1080/02698595.2023.2207404","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02698595.2023.2207404","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44433,"journal":{"name":"International Studies in the Philosophy of Science","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42994975","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1080/02698595.2023.2264158
Vincenzo Politi, Yafeng Shan
ABSTRACT Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996) is widely considered as one of the most important philosophers of science of the 20th century, while his The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (SSR) is regarded as one of the most influential works in the philosophy ofscience. At the same time, however, his place within philosophy of science remains ambiguous. On the one hand, despite the popularity of SSR, there is no proper ‘Kuhnian school of thought’ in HPS. On the other hand, the interest towards Kuhn does not seem to fade away and the number of publications about his work does not seem to decrease. We suggest that there are at least three different ways to go ‘beyond SSR’: (i) by scrutinising the development of Kuhn’s thought, from his pre- to his post-SSR writings; (ii) by contextualising Kuhn in the philosophical milieu of his time, thus interpreting his view as emerging from the intellectual exchanges he had with contemporary philosophers; (iii) by reinterpreting and developing some of his most known ideas, in ways that perhaps Kuhn himself was not able to contemplate.
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