{"title":"Running Mice and Successful Theories: The Limitations of a Classical Analogy","authors":"Matthias Egg, August Hämmerli","doi":"10.1007/s10838-023-09664-3","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Bas van Fraassen’s Darwinian explanation for the success of science has sparked four decades of discussion, with scientific realists and antirealists alike using biologically inspired reasoning to support their points of view. Based on critical engagement with van Fraassen’s proposal itself and later contributions by Stathis Psillos and K. Brad Wray, we claim that central arguments on both sides of this controversy suffer from an insufficient understanding of Darwinism and its underlying biological concepts. Adding the necessary biological background turns out to subvert the argumentative force of viewing the success of scientific theories as analogous to the behaviour of biotic entities. In conclusion, we sketch more productive ways of viewing the relationship between biology and scientific realism.</p>","PeriodicalId":44953,"journal":{"name":"Journal for General Philosophy of Science","volume":"45 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2000,"publicationDate":"2023-12-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal for General Philosophy of Science","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10838-023-09664-3","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"HISTORY & PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Bas van Fraassen’s Darwinian explanation for the success of science has sparked four decades of discussion, with scientific realists and antirealists alike using biologically inspired reasoning to support their points of view. Based on critical engagement with van Fraassen’s proposal itself and later contributions by Stathis Psillos and K. Brad Wray, we claim that central arguments on both sides of this controversy suffer from an insufficient understanding of Darwinism and its underlying biological concepts. Adding the necessary biological background turns out to subvert the argumentative force of viewing the success of scientific theories as analogous to the behaviour of biotic entities. In conclusion, we sketch more productive ways of viewing the relationship between biology and scientific realism.
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.
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