Constructive Empiricism

Epistemology and the Philosophy of Science

By: Paul Dicken

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Hardcover | 16 July 2010 | Edition Number 1

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Should scientists believe everything they say? Or would a more cautious attitude be preferable? On the one hand, the undisputed success of our contemporary scientific theories gives us good reasons to suppose that they are largely true; yet on the other hand, the undisputed failure of our past scientific theories give us cause for anxiety. Constructive empiricism - a view first formulated by the iconoclastic philosopher Bas van Fraassen - offers an answer to this question: scientists should believe what they say, insofar as they are talking about the observable phenomena. But constructive empiricism is not just a view regarding the aim of science; it is also a view regarding the epistemological framework in which such a debate is to be conducted. It is this meta-philosophical issue that is the focus of this book - not with scientific truth, but with how one should argue about scientific truth.

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Non-Fiction Philosophy Epistemology & The Theory of Knowledge Science Science in General Philosophy of Science

Acknowledgements	p. ix
Arguments Concerning Constructive Empiricism	p. 1
The aim of science	p. 1
The constructive empiricist and his critics	p. 6
A taxonomy of objections	p. 6
Observation and detection	p. 9
Extra terrestrials and extra-terrestrials	p. 14
The new epistemology	p. 20
The English and Prussian models of rationality	p. 20
Relativism, scepticism and voluntarism	p. 23
Summary	p. 27
Epistemic Voluntarism: Rationality, Inference and Empiricism	p. 30
Motivating voluntarism	p. 30
Diachronic coherence and the principle of reflection	p. 34
The diachronic Dutch-book	p. 34
From Dutch-books to cognitive calibration	p. 37
Greek sailors, drunk drivers and other epistemic villains	p. 41
Judgements about commitments	p. 46
Traditional epistemology: False hopes and bad lots	p. 49
The justification of induction	p. 49
Reliabilism and scepticism	p. 53
The 'best of a bad lot'	p. 58
Background theories and the ranking of hypotheses	p. 65
Probabilistic and non-probabilistic inferences	p. 67
Taking a stance	p. 72
The empiricist dilemma	p. 72
Rationality and relativism	p. 78
Summary	p. 84
Against Epistemic Voluntarism: Musgrave, Modality and Mathematics	p. 87
The problem(s) of internal coherence	p. 87
Musgrave's objection revisited	p. 90
The unobservability of unobservables	p. 90
On the syntax and semantics of observability	p. 93
A question of scope	p. 96
Ladyman's dilemma: Counterfactuals, contexts and conventions	p. 98
The problem of modality	p. 98
From modal realism to structural realism	p. 100
Deflationism and voluntarism about modality	p. 105
Constructive empiricism and mathematical nominalism	p. 112
Abstract mathematical objects	p. 112
Constructive empiricism and mathematical fictionalism	p. 117
Primitive consistency and expressive completeness	p. 124
The vices of voluntarism	p. 131
Summary	p. 133
Appendix-An expanded modal language	p. 136
On the Nature and Norms of Acceptance and Belief	p. 144
Another perspective on scientific attitudes	p. 144
Deciding to accept, deciding to believe	p. 148
A lot of fuss about functionalism	p. 148
The individuation of intentional states	p. 157
Contradiction and science	p. 167
Empiricism and agnosticism	p. 179
The acceptance solution	p. 179
Committed modal agnosticism	p. 185
Acceptance and anti-realism in the philosophy of modality	p. 193
A short note on mathematical nominalism	p. 208
Summary	p. 210
Conclusion: What Is This Thing Called 'Constructive Empiricism'?	p. 212
Notes	p. 216
References	p. 225
Index	p. 233
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Constructive Empiricism

Epistemology and the Philosophy of Science

At a Glance

Hardcover

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You Can Find This Book In

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