{"title":"Scientific Evidence and the Internalism–Externalism Distinction","authors":"Jonathan Egeland","doi":"10.1007/s12136-021-00491-z","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Considerations of scientific evidence are often thought to provide externalism with the dialectical upper hand in the internalism–externalism debate. How so? A couple of reasons are forthcoming in the literature. (1) Williamson (2000) argues that the E = K thesis (in contrast to internalism) provides the best explanation for the fact that scientists appear to argue from premises about true propositions (or facts) that are common knowledge among the members of the scientific community. (2) Kelly (<i>Philosophy Compass</i>, 3 (5), 933–955, 2008; 2016) argues that only externalism is suited to account for the public character of scientific evidence. In this article, I respond to Williamson and Kelly’s arguments. First, I show that the E = K thesis isn’t supported by the way in which we talk about scientific evidence, and that it is unable to account for facts about what has been regarded as scientific evidence and as justified scientific belief in the history of science. Second, I argue that there are internalist views that can account for the publicity of scientific evidence, and that those views indeed do better in that regard than the (externalist) view proposed by Kelly. The upshot is that considerations of scientific evidence do not favor externalism over internalism.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":44390,"journal":{"name":"Acta Analytica-International Periodical for Philosophy in the Analytical Tradition","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2021-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s12136-021-00491-z","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Acta Analytica-International Periodical for Philosophy in the Analytical Tradition","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12136-021-00491-z","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"PHILOSOPHY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Considerations of scientific evidence are often thought to provide externalism with the dialectical upper hand in the internalism–externalism debate. How so? A couple of reasons are forthcoming in the literature. (1) Williamson (2000) argues that the E = K thesis (in contrast to internalism) provides the best explanation for the fact that scientists appear to argue from premises about true propositions (or facts) that are common knowledge among the members of the scientific community. (2) Kelly (Philosophy Compass, 3 (5), 933–955, 2008; 2016) argues that only externalism is suited to account for the public character of scientific evidence. In this article, I respond to Williamson and Kelly’s arguments. First, I show that the E = K thesis isn’t supported by the way in which we talk about scientific evidence, and that it is unable to account for facts about what has been regarded as scientific evidence and as justified scientific belief in the history of science. Second, I argue that there are internalist views that can account for the publicity of scientific evidence, and that those views indeed do better in that regard than the (externalist) view proposed by Kelly. The upshot is that considerations of scientific evidence do not favor externalism over internalism.
期刊介绍:
Acta Analytica is an international journal for philosophy in the analytical tradition covering a variety of philosophical topics including philosophical logic, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of science and philosophy of mind. Special attention is devoted to cognitive science. The journal aims to promote a rigorous, argument-based approach in philosophy. Acta Analytica is a peer reviewed journal, published quarterly, with authors from all over the world.