International Studies in the Philosophy of Science最新文献

{"title":"Explanations by Constraint: Not Just in Physics","authors":"Marc Lange","doi":"10.1080/02698595.2023.2298085","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02698595.2023.2298085","url":null,"abstract":"Several philosophers have argued that ‘constraints’ constrain (and thereby explain) by virtue of being modally stronger than ordinary laws of nature. In this way, a constraint applies to all possib...","PeriodicalId":44433,"journal":{"name":"International Studies in the Philosophy of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2024-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139373420","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Are There Experimental Arguments Independent of Theories? In Defense of a Hackingian Approach to the Scientific Realism Debate","authors":"Ruey-Lin Chen","doi":"10.1080/02698595.2023.2294465","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02698595.2023.2294465","url":null,"abstract":"This paper defends a Hackingian approach to the scientific realism debate by arguing against mainstream realists’ and antirealists’ common claim that no experimental arguments for the reality of po...","PeriodicalId":44433,"journal":{"name":"International Studies in the Philosophy of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-12-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139055032","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Some Explanatory Issues with Woodward’s Notion of Intervention","authors":"Dalibor Makovník","doi":"10.1080/02698595.2023.2294455","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02698595.2023.2294455","url":null,"abstract":"James Woodward’s manipulationist counterfactual theory of explanation offers strong tools for an adequate approach to explanation endeavours. One of these tools is the notion of intervention, which...","PeriodicalId":44433,"journal":{"name":"International Studies in the Philosophy of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138683298","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Fake Research and Harmful Findings: Introduction to the Special Issue","authors":"Martin Carrier","doi":"10.1080/02698595.2023.2284624","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02698595.2023.2284624","url":null,"abstract":"The traditional mutual support of scientific progress and social advancement has given way to public reservation. Research is no longer considered worthwhile in general. Parts of the public have co...","PeriodicalId":44433,"journal":{"name":"International Studies in the Philosophy of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-12-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138547854","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Race and Gender: Toward a Proper Pattern of Knowledge and Ignorance in Research","authors":"Janet A. Kourany","doi":"10.1080/02698595.2023.2280809","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02698595.2023.2280809","url":null,"abstract":"This paper concerns a project to right a wrong, an epistemic as well as social wrong. The wrong? Science was to serve all humankind; that is what Francis Bacon and the other founders of modern scie...","PeriodicalId":44433,"journal":{"name":"International Studies in the Philosophy of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138503541","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Massive Modularity: An Ontological Hypothesis or an Adaptationist Discovery Heuristic?","authors":"David Villena","doi":"10.1080/02698595.2023.2277999","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02698595.2023.2277999","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTCognitive modules are internal mental structures. Some theorists and empirical researchers hypothesise that the human mind is either partially or massively comprised of structures that are modular in nature. Is the massive modularity of mind hypothesis a cogent view about the ontological nature of human mind or is it, rather, an effective/ineffective adaptationist discovery heuristic for generating predictively successful hypotheses about both heretofore unknown psychological traits and unknown properties of already identified psychological traits? Considering the inadequacies of the case in favour of massive modularity as an ontological hypothesis, I suggest approaching and valuing massive modularity as an adaptationist discovery heuristic. AcknowledgementI am grateful to the editors and three anonymous reviewers who shared with me useful suggestions and constructive criticism. This paper is derived from my doctoral dissertation, which was defended at Lingnan University in 2021, as well as presentations I gave at the Science of Consciousness 2019 conference in Interlaken, Switzerland and at the EENPS 2021 conference in Belgrade, Serbia. Thanks to the University Grants Committee (UGC) of Hong Kong for its support over the past years.Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Recent research argues that visual perception, which is part of the peripheral systems of human mind, is top-down influenced and thus not informationally encapsulated. (For an exhaustive review of the literature, see Collins & Olson, Citation2014.) According to the data this research presents, visual perception is influenced by beliefs, desires, emotions, motivations, and so on (Siegel, Citation2012). If such is the case, then visual perception is cognitively penetrable and not modular. This recent research could be used as empirical evidence against the distinction between perception and cognition (Clark, Citation2013). In opposition to this view, Firestone and Scholl (Citation2016) contend that ‘there is in fact no evidence for such top-down effects of cognition on visual perception’ (p. 3).2 Neil Harbisson is an individual born with achromatopsia (a rare condition also known as ‘color blindness’), who claims to be the first ‘officially recognised’ cyborg of the world since the United Kingdom Passport Office accepted the inclusion of the electronic hardware attached to his head in his passport picture. Harbisson claims that the antenna is an organ, and not a device.3 There is not a univocal definition of modularity in biology (Wagner, Mezey & Calabretta, Citation2005). Yet this lack of analytical precision does not undermine the relevance of the concept of modularity for understanding biological phenomena. The concept of biological modularity is connected to properties such as dissociability (Needham, Citation1933) and quasi-independence (Lewontin, Citation1978). The reading of these properties—and hence the reading of","PeriodicalId":44433,"journal":{"name":"International Studies in the Philosophy of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135541925","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Harmful Research and the Paradox of Credibility","authors":"Torsten Wilholt","doi":"10.1080/02698595.2023.2273606","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02698595.2023.2273606","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTThis paper discusses how to deal with research that threatens to cause harm to society—in particular, whether and in what cases bans and moratoria are appropriate. First, it asks what normative resources philosophy of science may draw on to answer such questions. In an effort to presuppose only resources acknowledgeable across different comprehensive worldviews, it is claimed that the aim of credibility provides a good basis for normative reflection. A close analysis reveals an inner tension inherent in the pursuit of credibility, referred to as the paradox of credibility: Although the aim of credibility involves the goal of being trusted, the immediate pursuit of the goal of being trusted as much as possible can run counter to and undermine the pursuit of credibility. From this inner tension, considerations are derived on what it means to uncompromisingly strive for trustworthiness. When applied to the problem of harmful research, it becomes apparent that it is important to distinguish between different types of cases. Some cases allow science to prevent harm while relinquishing credibility in the associated research area. In contrast, other cases demand preserving subject-specific scientific credibility in order to manage potential harm.KEYWORDS: Harmful researchforbidden researchcredibility of scienceepistemic trusttrustworthinessnormativity in philosophy of science AcknowledgementsI am grateful to guest editor Martin Carrier and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. The research underlying this paper was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) through the SOCRATES Center for Advanced Studies at Leibniz Universität Hannover.Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 This is at least true in a world like ours, where the limitedness of resources means that no research question can be addressed by considering every conceivable hypothesis and collecting every potentially relevant set of data.2 This cause of value-ladenness is a matter of principle – and not simply a matter of practical difficulty – because certain key epistemic assessments, such as whether a given hypothesis is sufficiently confirmed to be considered acceptable or justified, cannot be answered at all (in a non-arbitrary way) without considering questions of value in a broader sense. That, at least, is what the argument from inductive risk implies in what Steel (Citation2016, 711) calls its ‘descriptive’ reading, which he attributes to Winsberg (Citation2012), Steele (Citation2012) and Wilholt (Citation2009).3 This current understanding of political philosophy has perhaps been most influentially advanced and advocated by John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas (for explicit accounts, see, for example, Rawls Citation1985 and Habermas Citation1996), but it underlies countless other important works of contemporary political philosophy as well, such as Dworkin Citation1985; Larmore Ci","PeriodicalId":44433,"journal":{"name":"International Studies in the Philosophy of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136262823","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"What Exactly is Presupposed by Agnotology? The Challenge of Intentions","authors":"Mathias Girel","doi":"10.1080/02698595.2023.2257111","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02698595.2023.2257111","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTThe paper seeks to contribute to clarifying agnotology as an ‘epistemic strategy’, conceived as ‘epistemically damaging and hurt[ing] the production of knowledge’. My general claim is that the grammar of intentions ‘embedded’ in agnotological arguments is often not considered accurately. I use considerations from the philosophy of action as a theoretical framework to make more explicit what is implied in agnogenetic manoeuvres. Agnotology, as a ‘theory’ about epistemic states, in particular knowledge and ignorance, would be seriously incomplete without that component. The following can thus be read as a contribution to an analysis of the presuppositions of the strategic variant of Agnotology. My first claim is that the more common objections to the introduction of intentions are in no way definitive. My second, more specific, claim is that we need a room, in our conceptual toolbox, for ‘anti-epistemic intentions’, which play a key role in agnotological arguments.KEYWORDS: Normatively inappropriate dissentagnotologyintentionsaction (philosophy of) AcknowledgementsI am extremely grateful to Martin Carrier for his generous feedback on an earlier version of this paper.Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Proctor and Schiebinger (Citation2008), Introduction. The very first introduction of the term by Proctor referred to the ‘politics of knowledge’: ‘Ignorance […] has a distinct and changing political geography that is often an excellent indicator of the politics of knowledge. We need a political agnotology to complement our political epistemologies’(Proctor Citation1995, 8n.). In order to avoid ambiguities, I shall use agnotology and its variants to refer to theories about and explanations of the production of ignorance, and agnogenesis/agnogenetic to refer to the processes themselves.2 The term ‘Agnotology’, even to refer to intentional productions of ignorance, is not always used by the authors describing these issues.3 One could perfectly resist this claim. That was Popper’s stance on the ‘conspiracy theory of ignorance’, which was for him a consequence of the misleading view that truth was ‘manifest’ and that all exceptions to its manifestation had to be explained (Popper [Citation1963] Citation2002, 4).4 A temptation would be to say that ‘publicly available knowledge’ can work as a proxy, but it will not be enough. We can have agnogenetic manoeuvres even when the larger public is unaware of what is at stake. See Horel (Citation2015) for the fierce battle around the criteria used to assess endocrine disruptors in Europe.5 I have tried to provide some elements in Girel (Citation2022).6 For a more recent version of the argument, published as the present paper was under review, see De Melo Martin, in this volume.7 The discussion of ‘bad faith dissent’ belongs to a general examination of the possibility of finding necessary and sufficient criteria to identify NIDs, together with ‘Failing to","PeriodicalId":44433,"journal":{"name":"International Studies in the Philosophy of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136113845","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Normal and the Revolutionary: Kuhn’s Conversations with Rorty","authors":"Juan V. Mayoral","doi":"10.1080/02698595.2023.2248546","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02698595.2023.2248546","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT\u0000 In this paper I examine Thomas Kuhn’s epistolary and in-person exchanges with Richard Rorty, and their significance to the former’s work on the nature of scientific development during the years 1976–1986. Accordingly, it corresponds to a significant evolution of Kuhn’s thought from the position expounded earlier in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. These letters show how Kuhn’s philosophy of science evolved towards a greater emphasis on a key aspect of his former work—the nature of ‘the essential tension’—and that his more linguistically-oriented perspective in these latter years has that emphasis as its goal—at least as a significant part.","PeriodicalId":44433,"journal":{"name":"International Studies in the Philosophy of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-08-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43897697","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Scientometric Approach to the Integrated History and Philosophy of Science: Entrenched Biomedical Standardisation and Citation-Exemplar","authors":"Karen Yan, Meng-Li Tsai, Tsung-Ren Huang","doi":"10.1080/02698595.2023.2243435","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02698595.2023.2243435","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT\u0000 Is Kuhn’s notion of exemplar applicable to ongoing biomedical sciences? Many philosophers may be skeptical because Kuhn’s cases are mostly from physics and chemistry. However, how do philosophers test the above (non-)applicability directly? We will use examples to illustrate a scientometric approach to the integrated history and philosophy of science (SciHPS) and argue that SciHPS can provide an empirical basis to empirically test and revise a philosophical concept questioned for its applicability to biomedical sciences. This paper will build on Yan, K., M. L. Tsai, and T. R. Huang. [2021. “Improving the Quality of Case-Based Research in the Philosophy of Contemporary Sciences.” Synthese 198 (10): 9591–9610. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02657-5] heart-rate variability (HRV) case study to examine the biomedical changes within the HRV community from 1970 to 2022. We will investigate how a task force standardises and entrenches methodological standardisations, and argue that some of the task force’s methodological standardisations are tool-afforded by an algorithm. These tool-afforded aspects further explain why an HRV method is robustly dominant in the HRV community despite other HRV scholars having developed alternatives to compete with the dominant one. We will then show how to use SciHPS to empirically test and revise the Kuhnian concept of exemplar into a concept of citation-exemplar that better captures the above tool-afforded aspects of standardisations.","PeriodicalId":44433,"journal":{"name":"International Studies in the Philosophy of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44437900","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}