The love of truth

It is frequently said that belief aims at truth, in an explicitly normative sense—that is, that one ought to believe the proposition that p if, and only if, p is true. This truth norm is frequently invoked to explain why we should seek evidential justification in our beliefs, or why we should try to be rational in our belief formation—it is because we ought to believe the truth that we ought to follow the evidence in belief revision. In this paper, I argue that this view is untenable. The truth norm clashes with plausible evidential norms in a wide range of cases, such as when we have excellent but misleading evidence for a falsehood or no evidence for a truth. I will consider various ways to resolve this conflict and argue that none of them work. However, I will ultimately attempt to vindicate the love of truth, by arguing that knowledge is the proper epistemic goal. The upshot is that we should not aim merely to believe the truth; we should aim to know it.     

Misleading observable analogues in paleontology

Carman argues, in ‘The electrons of the dinosaurs and the center of the Earth’, that we may have more reason to be realists about dinosaurs than about electrons, because there are plenty of observable analogues for dinosaurs but not for electrons. These observable analogues severely restrict the range of plausible ontologies, thus reducing the threat of underdetermination. In response to this argument, I show that the observable analogues for ancient organisms are a mixed epistemic blessing at best, and I discuss some cases from the history of paleontology in which the observable analogues—ducks, shrimp, and lizards—have led scientists into persisting error. I also give reasons for thinking that underdetermination will be just as serious a problem in historical as in experimental science. I conclude that Carman has not succeeded in showing that dinosaurs ‘come off better’ than electrons.     

不完全信息下多属性决策的证据推理方法

针对权系数未知、属性值具有缺失的不完全信息下多属性决策问题,给出了一种基于证据推理的方法。该方法通过对决策矩阵的规范化处理、不同属性下焦元的确定及评价值计算,获得证据的基本概率分配,然后利用证据合成,并通过信任区间的计算与排序,获得整个方案集的排序。最终,实例表明了该方法的有效性和可行性。     

Bias and values in scientific research

When interests and preferences of researchers or their sponsors cause bias in experimental design, data interpretation or dissemination of research results, we normally think of it as an epistemic shortcoming. But as a result of the debate on science and values, the idea that all ‘extra-scientific’ influences on research could be singled out and separated from pure science is now widely believed to be an illusion. I argue that nonetheless, there are cases in which research is rightfully regarded as epistemologically deficient due to the influence of preferences on its outcomes. I present examples from biomedical research and offer an analysis in terms of social epistemology.     

The causal structure of natural kinds

One primary goal for metaphysical theories of natural kinds is to account for their epistemic fruitfulness. According to cluster theories of natural kinds, this epistemic fruitfulness is grounded in the regular and stable co-occurrence of a broad set of properties. In this paper, I defend the view that such a cluster theory is insufficient to adequately account for the epistemic fruitfulness of kinds. I argue that cluster theories can indeed account for the projectibility of natural kinds, but not for several other epistemic operations that natural kinds support. Natural kinds also play a role in scientific explanations and categorizations. A theory of natural kinds can only account for these additional kind-based epistemic practices if it also analyzes their causal structure.     

Computer models and the evidence of anthropogenic climate change: An epistemology of variety-of-evidence inferences and robustness analysis

To study climate change, scientists employ computer models, which approximate target systems with various levels of skill. Given the imperfection of climate models, how do scientists use simulations to generate knowledge about the causes of observed climate change? Addressing a similar question in the context of biological modelling, Levins (1966) proposed an account grounded in robustness analysis. Recent philosophical discussions dispute the confirmatory power of robustness, raising the question of how the results of computer modelling studies contribute to the body of evidence supporting hypotheses about climate change. Expanding on Staley’s (2004) distinction between evidential strength and security, and Lloyd’s (2015) argument connecting variety-of-evidence inferences and robustness analysis, I address this question with respect to recent challenges to the epistemology robustness analysis. Applying this epistemology to case studies of climate change, I argue that, despite imperfections in climate models, and epistemic constraints on variety-of-evidence reasoning and robustness analysis, this framework accounts for the strength and security of evidence supporting climatological inferences, including the finding that global warming is occurring and its primary causes are anthropogenic.     

Model choice and crucial tests. On the empirical epistemology of the Higgs discovery

Our paper discusses the epistemic attitudes of particle physicists on the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). It is based on questionnaires and interviews made shortly before and shortly after the discovery in 2012. We show, to begin with, that the discovery of a Standard Model (SM) Higgs boson was less expected than is sometimes assumed. Once the new particle was shown to have properties consistent with SM expectations – albeit with significant experimental uncertainties –, there was a broad agreement that ‘a’ Higgs boson had been found. Physicists adopted a two-pronged strategy. On the one hand, they treated the particle as a SM Higgs boson and tried to establish its properties with higher precision; on the other hand, they searched for any hints of physics beyond the SM. This motivates our first philosophical thesis: the Higgs discovery, being of fundamental importance and establishing a new kind of particle, represented a crucial experiment if one interprets this notion in an appropriate sense. Duhemian underdetermination is kept at bay by embedding the LHC into the tradition of previous precision experiments and the experimental strategies thus established. Second, our case study suggests that criteria of theory (or model) preference should be understood as epistemic and pragmatic values that have to be weighed in factual research practice. The Higgs discovery led to a shift from pragmatic to epistemic values in physicists’ assessment of the mechanisms of electroweak symmetry breaking. Complex criteria, such as naturalness, combine epistemic and pragmatic values, but are coherently applied by the community.     

Underdetermination and decomposition in Kepler's Astronomia Nova

This paper examines the underdetermination between the Ptolemaic, Copernican, and the Tychonic theories of planetary motions and its attempted resolution by Kepler. I argue that past philosophical analyses of the problem of the planetary motions have not adequately grasped a method through which the underdetermination might have been resolved. This method involves a procedure of what I characterize as decomposition and identification. I show that this procedure is used by Kepler in the first half of the Astronomia Nova, where he ultimately claims to have refuted the Ptolemaic theory, thus partially overcoming the underdetermination. Finally, I compare this method with other views of scientific inference such as bootstrapping.     

From sunspots to the Southern Oscillation: confirming models of large-scale phenomena in meteorology

The epistemic problem of assessing the support that some evidence confers on a hypothesis is considered using an extended example from the history of meteorology. In this case, and presumably in others, the problem is to develop techniques of data analysis that will link the sort of evidence that can be collected to hypotheses of interest. This problem is solved by applying mathematical tools to structure the data and connect them to the competing hypotheses. I conclude that mathematical innovations provide crucial epistemic links between evidence and theories precisely because the evidence and theories are mathematically described.     

Newton–Cartan theory and teleparallel gravity: The force of a formulation

It is well-known that Newtonian gravity, commonly held to describe a gravitational force, can be recast in a form that incorporates gravity into the geometry of the theory: Newton–Cartan theory. It is less well-known that general relativity, a geometrical theory of gravity, can be reformulated in such a way that it resembles a force theory of gravity; teleparallel gravity does just this. This raises questions. One of these concerns theoretical underdetermination. I argue that these theories do not, in fact, represent cases of worrying underdetermination. On close examination, the alternative formulations are best interpreted as postulating the same spacetime ontology. In accepting this, we see that the ontological commitments of these theories cannot be directly deduced from their mathematical form. The spacetime geometry involved in a gravitational theory is not a straightforward consequence of anything internal to that theory as a theory of gravity. Rather, it essentially relies on the rest of nature (the non-gravitational interactions) conspiring to choose the appropriate set of inertial frames.     

Simplicius on Tekmeriodic Proofs

In this study I examine the sole detailed evidence we have for Simplicius’ view of sign-based, i.e. tekmeriodic proofs, thereby questing the widespread assumption that he espouses Philoponus’ account of these proofs. Specifically, I argue that (1) it is more plausible to understand the signs on which Simplicius bases his tekmeriodic proofs as refutable, (2) he grounds the epistemic worth of these proofs in the evidential strength of their premises rather than in their validity, (3) unlike Philoponus, he conceives of the argument that leads to the principles of natural philosophy, which tekmeriodic proofs are aimed to prove, as inductive, and (4) he evaluates these proofs against Plato’s un-hypothetical science, hence denying natural philosophy the autonomy from metaphysics that Philoponus’ account of tekmeriodic proofs grants.     

How uncertainty can save measurement from circularity and holism

Measurement results depend upon assumptions, and some of those assumptions are theoretical in character. This paper examines particle physics measurements in which a measurement result depends upon a type of assumption for which that very same result may be evidentially relevant, thus raising a worry about potential circularity in argumentation. We demonstrate how the practice of evaluating measurement uncertainty serves to render any such evidential circularity epistemically benign. Our analysis shows how the evaluation and deployment of uncertainty evaluation constitutes an in practice solution to a particular form of Duhemian underdetermination that improves upon Duhem's vague notion of “good sense,” avoids holism, and reconciles theory dependence of measurement with piecemeal hypothesis testing.     

Pierre Duhem’s good sense as a guide to theory choice

This paper examines Duhem’s concept of good sense as an attempt to support a non rule-governed account of rationality in theory choice. Faced with the underdetermination of theory by evidence thesis and the continuity thesis, Duhem tried to account for the ability of scientists to choose theories that continuously grow to a natural classification. I will examine the concept of good sense and the problems that stem from it. I will also present a recent attempt by David Stump to link good sense to virtue epistemology. I will argue that even though this approach can be useful for the better comprehension of the concept of good sense, there are some substantial differences between virtue epistemologists and Duhem. In the light of this reconstruction of good sense, I will propose a possible way to interpret the concept of good sense, which overcomes the noted problems and fits better with Duhem’s views on scientific method and motivation in developing the concept of good sense.     

Ethnographic analogy,the comparative method,and archaeological special pleading

Ethnographic analogy, the use of comparative data from anthropology to inform reconstructions of past human societies, has a troubled history. Archaeologists often express concern about, or outright reject, the practice—and sometimes do so in problematically general terms. This is odd, as (or so I argue) the use of comparative data in archaeology is the same pattern of reasoning as the ‘comparative method’ in biology, which is a well-developed and robust set of inferences which play a central role in discovering the biological past. In pointing out this continuity, I argue that there is no ‘special pleading’ on the part of archaeologists in this regard: biologists must overcome analogous epistemic difficulties in their use of comparative data. I then go on to emphasize the local, empirically tractable ways in which particular ethnographic analogies may be licensed.     

The co-discovery of conservation laws and particle families

This paper presents an epistemological analysis of the search for new conservation laws in particle physics that was especially prominent in the 1950s and 1960s. Discovering conservation laws has posed various challenges concerning the underdetermination of theory by evidence, to which physicists have found various responses. These responses include an appeal to a plenitude principle, a maxim for inductive inference, looking for a parsimonious system of generalizations, and unifying particle ontology and particle dynamics. The connection between conservation laws and ontological categories is a major theme in my analysis: While there are infinitely many conservation law theories that are empirically equivalent to the laws physicists adopted for the fundamental standard model of particle physics, I show that the standard family laws are the only ones that determine and are determined by the simplest division of particles into families.     

Closing the door to cloud-cuckoo land: a reply to Šešelja and Straßer

Šešelja and Straßer’s critique fails to hit its target for two main reasons. First, the argument is not that Kuhn is a rationalist because he is a coherentist. Although Kuhn can be taken as a rationalist because of his commitment to epistemic values, coherence analysis provides a more comprehensive characterisation of cognitive process in scientific change than any of these values alone can offer. Further, we should understand Kuhn as characterising science as the best form of rationality we have outside logic, which rules out algorithmic rationality and allows non-cognitive factors to play a role in theory change. Second, Šešelja and Straßer overemphasise the importance of a priori reasoning in Kuhn, which was only an alternative to his earlier historical-empirical approach. My suggestion is that Kuhn’s neo-Kantian historical cognitivism integrates the earlier empirical and the later a-prioristic orientations. According to it, that any understanding of the world is preconditioned by some kind of mental module that is liable to change, detected as a discontinuity in the historical record of science.     

Confirmational holism and its mathematical (w)holes

I critically examine confirmational holism as it pertains to the indispensability arguments for mathematical Platonism. I employ a distinction between pure and applied mathematics that grows out of the often overlooked symbiotic relationship between mathematics and science. I argue that this distinction undercuts the notion that (pure) mathematical theories fall under the holistic scope of the confirmation of our scientific theories.     

The irreducibility of value-freedom to theory assessment

The current ideal of value-freedom holds non-cognitive values to be illegitimate in theory appraisal but legitimate in earlier stages of the research process, for example, when affecting the selection of topics or the generation of hypotheses. Respective decisions are often considered as part of a context of discovery and as irrelevant for the justification and assessment of theories. I will argue that this premise of an epistemic independence of theory appraisal, though often taken for granted, is false. Due to the possibility of value-laden blind spots, decisions in discovery can have an indirect impact on theory assessment that the value-free ideal cannot deal with. This argument is illustrated by a case study from women's health research, namely the assessment of hormone replacement therapy as a prevention of coronary heart diseases. In consequence, the epistemic trustworthiness of science is promoted more by a pluralism of non-cognitive values than by their exclusion; and a normative philosophy of science needs to enlarge its focus to include the context of discovery as well as the social conditions of science.     

Naturalized epistemology, or what the Strong Programme can’t explain

In this paper I argue that the Strong Programme’s aim to provide robust explanations of belief acquisition is limited by its commitment to the symmetry principle. For Bloor and Barnes, the symmetry principle is intended to drive home the fact that epistemic norms are socially constituted. My argument here is that even if our epistemic standards are fully naturalized—even relativized—they nevertheless can play a pivotal role in why individuals adopt the beliefs that they do. Indeed, sometimes the fact that a belief is locally endorsed as rational is the only reason why an individual holds it. In this way, norms of rationality have a powerful and unique role in belief formation. But if this is true then the symmetry principle’s emphasis on ‘sameness of type’ is misguided. It has the undesirable effect of not just naturalizing our cognitive commitments, but trivializing them. Indeed, if the notion of ‘similarity’ is to have any content, then we are not going to classify as ‘the same’ beliefs that are formed in accordance with deeply entrenched epistemic norms as ones formed without reflection on these norms, or ones formed in spite of these norms. My suggestion here is that we give up the symmetry principle in favor of a more sophisticated principle, one that allows for a taxonomy of causes rich enough to allow us to delineate the unique impact epistemic norms have on those individuals who subscribe to them.