Veritistic Teleological Epistemology, the Bad Lot, and Epistemic Risk Consistency

IF 1.2 2区哲学 Q2 HISTORY & PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

Journal for General Philosophy of Science Pub Date : 2023-11-09 DOI:10.1007/s10838-023-09650-9

Raimund Pils

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Abstract

Abstract This paper connects veritistic teleological epistemology, VTE , with the epistemological dimension of the scientific realism debate. VTE sees our epistemic activities as a tradeoff between believing truths and avoiding error. I argue that van Fraassen’s epistemology is not suited to give a justification for a crucial presupposition of his Bad Lot objection to inference to the best explanation (IBE), the presupposition that believing that p is linked to p being more likely to be true. This makes him vulnerable to a counterargument, tailored after Musgrave’s defense of IBE , which would result in a stalemate between them about presuppositions of rationality. I will, however, show that switching to VTE can justify van Fraassen’s presupposition. This leads to a dismissal of common IBE arguments for realism as presented by Boyd and Musgrave, but I also argue that a more cautious version of realism can be rescued from the Bad Lot objection. Finally, I raise some worries about epistemic risk-attitude consistency for constructive empiricists and develop an alternative anti-realist position. 1

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真论的目的论认识论，坏运气，和认识论风险的一致性

摘要本文将真实目的论认识论与科学实在论争论的认识论维度联系起来。VTE认为我们的认知活动是相信真理和避免错误之间的权衡。我认为van Fraassen的认识论不适合为他的Bad Lot反对最佳解释推理(IBE)的一个关键前提提供辩护，这个前提是相信p与p更有可能为真有关。这使得他很容易受到马斯格雷夫为IBE辩护后量身定制的反驳，这将导致他们之间关于理性前提的僵局。然而，我将证明，切换到VTE可以证明van Fraassen的假设是正确的。这导致了对博伊德和马斯格雷夫提出的现实主义的常见IBE论点的驳斥，但我也认为，可以将更谨慎的现实主义版本从Bad Lot反对中拯救出来。最后，本文提出了建设性经验主义者对认知风险-态度一致性的担忧，并提出了另一种反实在论立场。1

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来源期刊

Journal for General Philosophy of Science HISTORY & PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE-

CiteScore

2.10

自引率

10.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： The Journal for General Philosophy of Science is a forum for the discussion of a variety of attitudes concerning the philosophy of science. It has as its subject matter the philosophical, especially methodological, ontological, epistemological, anthropological, and ethical foundations of the individual sciences. Particular emphasis is laid on bringing both the natural, the cultural, and the technical sciences into a philosophical context, within which the historical presuppositions and conditions of the current problems of the philosophy of science are also included in the discussion. The Journal for General Philosophy of Science has been successful in its attempt to serve as a forum that bridges the gap between the different sciences, especially the natural, cultural, and social sciences. One of its purposes is to discuss and contrast the common as well as the different specific methodological and philosophical foundations of the individual sciences, taking into account all currently relevant positions of the philosophy of science. In recent years considerable insight has been gained into the problems of current philosophy of science by considering the historical dimension of the sciences. This is why more intensive efforts will be made in the future towards the integration of historical and systematic considerations. The journal contains:articles discussions reports on the state of the philosophy of science in individual countries reviews a bibliography of the major journals in the field of the history and philosophy of science. The journal is of interest to philosophers, especially philosophers of science, as well as to scholars from the field of the natural, cultural, social and technical sciences who are interested in becoming aware of the philosophical implications of their disciplines and in being stimulated by the transfer of methods, leading ideas, concepts and theories from other fields. As of 2015, Journal for General Philosophy of Science will accept submissions online via the Editorial Manager system. Authors are encouraged to use this format in submitting to the journal to ensure that your article is processed in a timely fashion.