The normativity of artefacts

Part of the distinction between artefacts, objects made by humans for particular purposes, and natural objects is that artefacts are subject to normative judgements. A drill, say, can be a good drill or a poor drill, it can function well or correctly or it can malfunction. In this paper I investigate how such judgements fit into the domain of the normative in general and what the grounds for their normativity are. Taking as a starting point a general characterization of normativity proposed by Dancy, I argue how statements such as ‘this is a good drill’ or ‘this drill is malfunctioning’ can be seen to express normative facts, or the content of normative statements. What they say is that a user who has a desire to achieve a particular relevant outcome has a reason to use, or not to use, the artefact in question. Next this analysis is extended to show that not just statements that say that an artefact performs its function well or poorly, but all statements that ascribe a function to an artefact can be seen as expressing a normative fact. On this approach the normativity of artefacts is analyzed in terms of reasons on grounds of practical, and to a lesser extent theoretical, rationality. I close by investigating briefly to what extent reasons on moral grounds are, in the analysis adopted here, involved in the normativity of artefacts.     

Function and use of technical artefacts: social conditions of function ascription

It is argued that we cannot understand the notion of proper functions of artefacts independently of social notions. Functions of artefacts are related to social facts via the use of artefacts. The arguments in this article can be used to improve existing function theories that look to the causal history of artefacts to determine the function. A view that takes the intentions of designers into account to determine the proper function is both natural and often correct, but it is shown that there are exceptions to this. Taking a social constitutive element into account may amend these backwards looking theories. An improved theory may either have a disjunctive form—either the history or collective intentions determine the proper function—or, as is suggested in the article, be in the form of an encompassing account that views the designers’ intentions as social, in so far as they are accepted by the users. Designers have authority, which is a social fact. The views argued for here are applied to two existing theories of artefact functions, a causal historic approach and an action theoretic approach.     

Dual-Nature and collectivist frameworks for technical artefacts: a constructive comparison

This paper systematically compares two frameworks for analysing technical artefacts: the Dual-Nature approach, exemplified by the contributions to Kroes and Meijers (2006), and the collectivist approach advocated by Schyfter (2009), following Kusch (1999). After describing the main tenets of both approaches, we show that there is significant overlap between them: both frameworks analyse the most typical cases of artefact use, albeit in different terms, but to largely the same extent. Then, we describe several kinds of cases for which the frameworks yield different analyses. For these cases, which include one-of-a-kind artefacts and defect types, the Dual-Nature framework leads to a more attractive analysis. Our comparison also gives us the opportunity to respond to Vaesen’s (2010, this issue) critical paper. We do so by distinguishing two readings of the Dual-Nature framework and pointing out that on the sustainable, weaker reading, Vaesen’s considerations supplement the framework rather than offering an alternative to it.     

The problem of ontology for spontaneous collapse theories

The question of how to interpret spontaneous collapse theories of quantum mechanics is an open one. One issue involves what link one should use to go from wave function talk to talk of ordinary macroscopic objects. Another issue involves whether that link should be taken ontologically seriously. In this paper, I argue that the link should be taken ontologically seriously; I argue against an ontology consisting solely of the wave function. I then consider three possible links: the fuzzy link, the accessible mass density link, and the mass density simpliciter link. I show that the first two links have serious anomalies which render them unacceptable. I show that the mass density simpliciter link, in contrast, is viable.     

A second look at the colors of the dinosaurs

In earlier work, I predicted that we would probably not be able to determine the colors of the dinosaurs. I lost this epistemic bet against science in dramatic fashion when scientists discovered that it is possible to draw inferences about dinosaur coloration based on the microstructure of fossil feathers (Vinther et al., 2008). This paper is an exercise in philosophical error analysis. I examine this episode with two questions in mind. First, does this case lend any support to epistemic optimism about historical science? Second, under what conditions is it rational to make predictions about what questions scientists will or will not be able answer? In reply to the first question, I argue that the recent work on the colors of the dinosaurs matters less to the debate about the epistemology of historical science than it might seem. In reply to the second question, I argue that it is difficult to specify a policy that would rule out the failed bet without also being too conservative.     

Catching the WAVE: The Weight-Adjusting Account of Values and Evidence

It is commonly argued that values “fill the logical gap” of underdetermination of theory by evidence, namely, values affect our choice between two or more theories that fit the same evidence. The underdetermination model, however, does not exhaust the roles values play in evidential reasoning. I introduce WAVE – a novel account of the logical relations between values and evidence. WAVE states that values influence evidential reasoning by adjusting evidential weights. I argue that the weight-adjusting role of values is distinct from their underdetermination gap-filling role. Values adjust weights in three ways. First, values affect our trust in the testimony of others. Second, values influence the evidential thresholds required for justified epistemic judgments. Third, values influence the relative weight of a certain type of evidence within a body of multimodal discordant evidence. WAVE explains, from an epistemic perspective, rather than psychological, how smokers, for example, can find the same evidence about the dangers of smoking less persuasive than non-smokers. WAVE allows for a wider effect of values on our accepted scientific theories and beliefs than the effect for which the underdetermination model allows alone; therefore, science studies scholars must consider WAVE in their research and analysis of evidential case studies.     

Rediscovering Einstein's legacy: How Einstein anticipates Kuhn and Feyerabend on the nature of science

Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend promote incommensurability as a central component of their conflicting accounts of the nature of science. This paper argues that in so doing, they both develop Albert Einstein's views, albeit in different directions. Einstein describes scientific revolutions as conceptual replacements, not mere revisions, endorsing ‘Kant-on-wheels’ metaphysics in light of ‘world change’. Einstein emphasizes underdetermination of theory by evidence, rational disagreement in theory choice, and the non-neutrality of empirical evidence. Einstein even uses the term ‘incommensurable’ specifically to apply to challenges posed to comparatively evaluating scientific theories in 1949, more than a decade before Kuhn and Feyerabend. This analysis shows how Einstein anticipates substantial components of Kuhn and Feyerabend's views, and suggests that there are strong reasons to suspect that Kuhn and Feyerabend were directly inspired by Einstein's use of the term ‘incommensurable’, as well as his more general methodological and philosophical reflections.     

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.     

The functional bias of the dual nature of technical artefacts program

In 2006, in a special issue of this journal, several authors explored what they called the dual nature of artefacts. The core idea is simple, but attractive: to make sense of an artefact, one needs to consider both its physical nature—its being a material object—and its intentional nature—its being an entity designed to further human ends and needs. The authors construe the intentional component quite narrowly, though: it just refers to the artefact’s function, its being a means to realize a certain practical end. Although such strong focus on functions is quite natural (and quite common in the analytic literature on artefacts), I argue in this paper that an artefact’s intentional nature is not exhausted by functional considerations. Many non-functional properties of artefacts—such as their marketability and ease of manufacture—testify to the intentions of their users/designers; and I show that if these sorts of considerations are included, one gets much more satisfactory explanations of artefacts, their design, and normativity.     

The intelligibility of motion and construction: Descartes’ early mathematics and metaphysics, 1619-1637

I argue for an interpretation of the connection between Descartes’ early mathematics and metaphysics that centers on the standard of geometrical intelligibility that characterizes Descartes’ mathematical work during the period 1619 to 1637. This approach remains sensitive to the innovations of Descartes’ system of geometry and, I claim, sheds important light on the relationship between his landmark Geometry (1637) and his first metaphysics of nature, which is presented in Le monde (1633). In particular, I argue that the same standard of clear and distinct motions for construction that allows Descartes to distinguish ‘geometric’ from ‘imaginary’ curves in the domain of mathematics is adopted in Le monde as Descartes details God’s construction of nature. I also show how, on this interpretation, the metaphysics of Le monde can fruitfully be brought to bear on Descartes’ attempted solution to the Pappus problem, which he presents in Book I of the Geometry. My general goal is to show that attention to the standard of intelligibility Descartes invokes in these different areas of inquiry grants us a richer view of the connection between his early mathematics and philosophy than an approach that assumes a common method is what binds his work in these domains together.     

The primitive ontology of quantum physics: Guidelines for an assessment of the proposals

The paper seeks to make progress from stating primitive ontology theories of quantum physics—notably Bohmian mechanics, the GRW matter density theory and the GRW flash theory—to assessing these theories. Four criteria are set out: (a) internal coherence; (b) empirical adequacy; (c) relationship to other theories; and (d) explanatory value. The paper argues that the stock objections against these theories do not withstand scrutiny. Its focus then is on their explanatory value: they pursue different strategies to ground the textbook formalism of quantum mechanics, and they develop different explanations of quantum non-locality. In conclusion, it is argued that Bohmian mechanics offers a better prospect for making quantum non-locality intelligible than the GRW matter density theory and the GRW flash theory.     

Careful with those scissors,Eugene! Against the observational indistinguishability of spacetimes

We discuss Manchak (2009a)'s result that there are locally (but not globally) isometric universes observationally indistinguishable from our own. This theorem makes the epistemic predicament of modern cosmology particularly problematic and the prospects of ever gaining knowledge of the global structure of the universe rather unlikely in the context of general relativity. We argue however that this conclusion is too quick; indeed, Manchak's theorem deploys spacetimes which are not physically reasonable, since they have features which are not the product of any physical process. This ultimately rests on the fact that local isometry between two spacetimes is not sufficient to guarantee that they are both physically reasonable. We propose an additional condition to properly define when a spacetime is physically reasonable, and we show that Manchak's spacetimes do not satisfy this further demand.     

The abundant world: Paul Feyerabend's metaphysics of science

The goal of this paper is to provide an interpretation of Feyerabend's metaphysics of science as found in late works like Conquest of Abundance and Tyranny of Science. Feyerabend's late metaphysics consists of an attempt to criticize and provide a systematic alternative to traditional scientific realism, a package of views he sometimes referred to as “scientific materialism.” Scientific materialism is objectionable not only on metaphysical grounds, nor because it provides a poor ground for understanding science, but because it implies problematic claims about the epistemic and cultural authority of science, claims incompatible with situating science properly in democratic societies. I show how Feyerabend's metaphysical view, which I call “the abundant world” or “abundant realism,” constitute a sophisticated and challenging form of ontological pluralism that makes interesting connections with contemporary philosophy of science and issues of the political and policy role of science in a democratic society.     

Maimon's criticism of Kant's doctrine of mathematical cognition and the possibility of metaphysics as a science

The aim of this paper is to discuss Maimon's criticism of Kant's doctrine of mathematical cognition. In particular, we will focus on the consequences of this criticism for the problem of the possibility of metaphysics as a science. Maimon criticizes Kant's explanation of the synthetic a priori character of mathematics and develops a philosophical interpretation of differential calculus according to which mathematics and metaphysics become deeply interwoven. Maimon establishes a parallelism between two relationships: on the one hand, the mathematical relationship between the integral and the differential and on the other, the metaphysical relationship between the sensible and the supersensible. Such a parallelism will be the clue to the Maimonian solution to the Kantian problem of the possibility of metaphysics as a science.     

Infrared metaphysics: the elusive ontology of radiation. Part 1

Hardly any ontological result of modern science is more firmly established than the fact that infrared radiation differs from light only in wavelength; this is part of the modern conception of the continuous spectrum of electromagnetic radiation reaching from radio waves to gamma radiation. Yet, like many such evident truths, the light-infrared unity was an extremely difficult thing to establish. We examine the competing arguments in favour of the unified and pluralistic theories of radiation, as put forward in the first half of the nineteenth century by three of the most important early pioneers of the study of radiation: Herschel, Melloni and Draper. In this part of the paper, we conclude that there were no compelling reasons of observational adequacy to prefer the unified theory to the pluralistic theory. (Whether there were other conclusive reasons for that preference is the question addressed in Part 2 of the paper.)     

Newtonianism in early Enlightenment Germany, c. 1720 to 1750: metaphysics and the critique of dogmatic philosophy

The acceptance of Newton’s ideas and Newtonianism in the early German Enlightenment is usually described as hesitant and slow. Two reasons help to explain this phenomenon. One is that those who might have adopted Newtonian arguments were critics of Wolffianism. These critics, however, drew on indigenous currents of thought, pre-dating the reception of Newton in Germany and independent of Newtonian science. The other reason is that the controversies between Wolffians and their critics focused on metaphysics. Newton’s reputation, however, was that of a mathematician, and one point, on which Wolffians and their opponents agreed, was that mathematics was of no use in the solution of metaphysical questions. The appeal to Newton as an authority in metaphysics, it was argued, was the fault of Newton’s over-zealous disciples in Britain, who tried to transform him from a mathematician into the author of a general philosophical system. It is often argued that the Berlin Academy after 1743 included a Newtonian group, but even there the reception of Newtonianism was selective. Philosophers such as Leonhard Euler were also reluctant to be labelled ‘Newtonians’, because this implied a dogmatic belief in Newton’s ideas. Only after the mid-eighteenth century is ‘Newtonianism’ increasingly accepted in the sense of a philosophical system.     

How to make a university history of science museum: Lessons from Leeds

The historic scientific collections of well-established University Museums—the Whipple at Cambridge and the Museum of the History of Science at Oxford, for example—have long served in university teaching and as objects of research for historians. But what is involved in starting such a museum from scratch? This paper offers some reflections based on recent experiences at the University of Leeds. In a relatively short period, the Leeds project has grown from a small volunteer initiative, aimed at salvaging disparate scientific collections from all over the campus, to a centrally supported and long-term scheme to provide collections care, exhibitions, and public events, as well as material for teaching and research within history and philosophy of science. Recent work undertaken on a range of Leeds objects and collections, including a camera reportedly used to take the first X-ray diffraction photographs of DNA in the 1930s and the Mark 1 prototype of the MONIAC (Monetary National Income Automatic Computer), built and designed at Leeds in 1949 to model the flow of money through the economy, highlights the national and international significance of the University’s scientific heritage as well as the project’s ambition of providing students with on-going collections care responsibilities and object-research experience. Sketching possible futures for the Leeds project, the paper considers challenges confronting the heritage sector more broadly, and how those involved with historic scientific collections can make use of new opportunities for teaching, research, and public engagement.     

Historicism and the failure of HPS

This paper suggests that the failure to integrate history and philosophy of science properly may be explained by incompatible metaphysics implied by these fields. Historians and sociologists tend to be historicists, who assume that all objects of research are variable in principle, while philosophers look for permanent and essential qualities. I analyse, how the historicists and essentialist approaches differ with regard to the research objects of general history, history of science and science itself. The implied historicism makes some radical pronouncements by Latour on ontological variance understandable. I will also consider, whether there could be something like a historicist philosophy of science. The historicisation of the natural world proves most challenging, but both certain traditional disciplines and some recent advances in physical and life sciences indicate compatibility with historicism. One should note that historicism does not alter how ‘truth’ is understood. Historicism does not question the reality of objects either; only their eternality.