{"title":"Relational Quantum Mechanics, quantum relativism, and the iteration of relativity","authors":"Timotheus Riedel","doi":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.02.007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.02.007","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The idea that the dynamical properties of quantum systems are invariably relative to other systems has recently regained currency. Using Relational Quantum Mechanics (RQM) for a case study, this paper calls attention to a question that has been underappreciated in the debate about quantum relativism: the question of whether relativity iterates. Are there absolute facts about the properties one system possesses relative to a specified reference, or is this again a relative matter, and so on? It is argued that RQM (in its best-known form) is committed to what I call the Unrestricted Iteration Principle (UIP), and thus to an infinite regress of relativisations. This principle plays a crucial role in ensuring the communicability and coherence of interaction outcomes across observers. It is, however, shown to be incompatible with the widespread, conservative reading of RQM in terms of relations, instead necessitating the adoption of the more unorthodox notion of perspectival facts. I conclude with some reflections on the current state of play in perspectivist versions of RQM and quantum relativism more generally, underscoring both the need for further conceptual development and the importance of the iteration principle for an accurate cost-benefit analysis of such interpretations.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":49467,"journal":{"name":"Studies in History and Philosophy of Science","volume":"104 ","pages":"Pages 109-118"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0039368124000232/pdfft?md5=dc9b3d6d3f78aaa0d85a4d587ec3b12f&pid=1-s2.0-S0039368124000232-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140160683","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What counts as relevant criticism? Longino's critical contextual empiricism and the feminist criticism of mainstream economics","authors":"Teemu Lari","doi":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.02.005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.02.005","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>I identify and resolve an internal tension in Critical Contextual Empiricism (CCE) – the normative account of science developed by Helen Longino. CCE includes two seemingly conflicting principles: on one hand, the cognitive goals of epistemic communities should be open to critical discussion (the o<em>penness of goals to criticism</em> principle, OGC); on the other hand, criticism must be aligned with the cognitive goals of that community to count as “relevant” and thus require a response (the <em>goal-relativity of response-requiring criticism</em> principle, GRC). The co-existence of OGC and GRC enables one to draw both approving and condemning judgments about a situation in which an epistemic community ignores criticism against its goals. This tension results from conflating two contexts of argumentation that require different regulative standards. In the <em>first-level scientific discussion</em>, GRC is a reasonable principle but OGC is not; in the <em>meta-level discussion about science</em>, the reverse holds. In meta-level discussion, the relevance of criticism can be established by appealing to goals of science that are more general than the goals of a specific epistemic community. To illustrate my revision of CCE, I discuss why feminist economists’ criticism of the narrowness of the goals pursued in mainstream economics is relevant criticism.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":49467,"journal":{"name":"Studies in History and Philosophy of Science","volume":"104 ","pages":"Pages 88-97"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0039368124000141/pdfft?md5=bf917ec3d2de0f772c6e14ed217cb569&pid=1-s2.0-S0039368124000141-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140138816","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Convergence strategies for theory assessment","authors":"Elena Castellani","doi":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2023.12.010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2023.12.010","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper addresses the issue of the import of convergence arguments in theory assessment. A first part is devoted to making the point of the different types of strategies based on convergence, providing new distinctions with respect to the existing literature. Specific attention is devoted to robustness vs consilience arguments and one representative example for each category is then discussed in some detail. These are: (a) Perrin's famous robustness argument on behalf of the atomic hypothesis on the grounds of the concordance of thirteen different procedures to the same result for the Avogadro number; (b) the consilience argument motivating the trust in the viability of the extra-dimension conjecture in the context of early string theory. These two cases are expressly chosen in order to highlight possible differences, also including whether the convergence obtains in terms of empirical or theoretical procedures. Notwithstanding these various differences, in both cases the evaluation of the assessment strategy similarly depends, in a significant way, on how the convergence argument is interpreted, as shown in the final part of the paper.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":49467,"journal":{"name":"Studies in History and Philosophy of Science","volume":"104 ","pages":"Pages 78-87"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0039368124000190/pdfft?md5=4a25f9b5119002cdc66dc9f114f17a93&pid=1-s2.0-S0039368124000190-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140122456","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Predictivism and avoidance of ad hoc-ness: An empirical study","authors":"Samuel Schindler","doi":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2023.11.008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2023.11.008","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Predictivism is the thesis that evidence successfully predicted by a scientific theory counts more (or ought to count more) in the confirmation of that theory than already known evidence would. One rationale that has been proposed for predictivism is that predictive success guards against ad hoc hypotheses. Despite the intuitive attraction of predictivism, there is historical evidence that speaks against it. As valuable as the historical evidence may be, however, it is largely <em>indirect</em> evidence for the epistemic attitudes of <em>individual</em> – albeit prominent – scientists. This paper presents the results of an empirical study of scientists’ attitudes toward predictivism and ad hoc-ness (n = 492), which will put the debate on a more robust empirical footing. The paper also draws attention to a tension between the ad hoc-ness avoidance rationale of predictivism and the ways philosophers have spelled out the notion of ad hoc-ness.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":49467,"journal":{"name":"Studies in History and Philosophy of Science","volume":"104 ","pages":"Pages 68-77"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0039368124000177/pdfft?md5=39de385df7e411a32913d50bb74843a8&pid=1-s2.0-S0039368124000177-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140103312","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ontological pluralism and social values","authors":"Muhammad Ali Khalidi","doi":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.01.004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.01.004","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>There seems to be an emerging consensus among many philosophers of science that non-epistemic values ought to play a role in the process of scientific reasoning itself. Recently, a number of philosophers have focused on the role of values in scientific classification or taxonomy. Their claim is that a choice of ontology or taxonomic scheme can only be made, or should only be made, by appealing to non-epistemic or social values. In this paper, I take on this “argument from ontological choice,” claiming that it equivocates on the notion of choice. An ontological choice can be understood either in terms of determining which taxonomic scheme is valid, or in terms of deciding which taxonomic scheme to deploy in a given context. I try to show that while the latter can be determined in part by social values, the former ought not to be so determined.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":49467,"journal":{"name":"Studies in History and Philosophy of Science","volume":"104 ","pages":"Pages 61-67"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140096203","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 notorious man-in-the-street: Hermann Weyl and the problem of knowledge","authors":"Noah Stemeroff","doi":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2023.12.008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2023.12.008","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Hermann Weyl's philosophical reflections remain a topic of considerable interest in the history and philosophy of science. In particular, Weyl's commitment to a form of idealism, as it pertains to his reading of Husserl and Fichte, has garnered much discussion. However, much less attention has been given to Weyl's later, and at that only partial, turn towards a form of empiricism (i.e. from the late 1920s onward). This lack of focus on Weyl's later philosophy has tended to obscure some of the most significant lessons that Weyl sought to draw from his decades of research in the foundations of mathematics and physics. In this paper, I develop some aspects of what I will term as Weyl's ‘modest’ empiricism. I will argue that Weyl's turn toward empiricism can be read in the context of a development of Helmholtz's epistemological program and his unique form of ‘Kantianism’. The hope is that this reading will not only provide a better understanding of Weyl's later thought, especially his (1954) criticism of Cassirer, but that it may also provide the basis for a novel ‘Weylian’ account of the mathematization of nature underwriting the group-theoretic methodology of parts of modern physics.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":49467,"journal":{"name":"Studies in History and Philosophy of Science","volume":"104 ","pages":"Pages 48-60"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0039368124000153/pdfft?md5=85ab8369e84e2ff1654e1fcd80873427&pid=1-s2.0-S0039368124000153-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140061898","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bodies of evidence: The ‘Excited Delirium Syndrome’ and the epistemology of cause-of-death inquiry","authors":"Enno Fischer , Saana Jukola","doi":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2023.12.009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2023.12.009","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>“Excited Delirium Syndrome” (ExDS) is a controversial diagnosis. The supposed syndrome is sometimes considered to be a potential cause of death. However, it has been argued that its sole purpose is to cover up excessive police violence because it is mainly used to explain deaths of individuals in custody. In this paper, we examine the epistemic conditions giving rise to the controversial diagnosis by discussing the relation between causal hypotheses, evidence, and data in forensic medicine. We argue that the practitioners’ social context affects causal inquiry through background assumptions that enter inquiry at multiple stages. This analysis serves to better understand the wide usage of the controversial diagnosis of ExDS.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":49467,"journal":{"name":"Studies in History and Philosophy of Science","volume":"104 ","pages":"Pages 38-47"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0039368124000189/pdfft?md5=fa0de55a2d4d6e00bb49a0635035b192&pid=1-s2.0-S0039368124000189-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140051648","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Minimal logical teleology in artifacts and biology connects the two domains and frames mechanisms via epistemic circularity","authors":"José Antonio Pérez-Escobar","doi":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.02.001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.02.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The understanding of artifacts and biological phenomena has often influenced each other. This work argues that at the core of these epistemic bridges there are shared teleological notions and explanations manifested in analogies between artifacts and biological phenomena. To this end, I first propose a focus on the logical structure of minimal teleological explanations, which renders said epistemic bridges more evident than an ontological or metaphysical approach to teleology, and which can be used to describe scientific practices in different areas by virtue of formal generality and minimalism (section 2). Second, I show how this approach highlights some epistemic features shared by the understanding of artifacts and biological phenomena, like a specific kind of epistemic circularity, and how functional analogies between artifacts and biological phenomena translate such epistemic circularity from one domain to the other (section 3). Third, I conduct a case study on the scientific practice around the brain's “compass”, showing how the understanding of artifacts influences purpose ascription and measurement, and frames mechanisms in biology, especially in areas where purpose ascription is most difficult, like cognitive neuroscience (sections 4 and 5).</p></div>","PeriodicalId":49467,"journal":{"name":"Studies in History and Philosophy of Science","volume":"104 ","pages":"Pages 23-37"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0039368124000104/pdfft?md5=5035dad5dac78f5606fd1f33c33295ad&pid=1-s2.0-S0039368124000104-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140014659","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Histology agnosticism: Infra-molecularizing disease?","authors":"Jonah Campbell , Alberto Cambrosio , Mark Basik","doi":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.02.002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.02.002","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":49467,"journal":{"name":"Studies in History and Philosophy of Science","volume":"104 ","pages":"Pages 14-22"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0039368124000116/pdfft?md5=f29021fe590a6d1c77e8c20fd6482361&pid=1-s2.0-S0039368124000116-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139901398","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"","authors":"Jane Maienschein, Kate MacCord","doi":"10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.01.002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.01.002","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":49467,"journal":{"name":"Studies in History and Philosophy of Science","volume":"104 ","pages":"Pages 12-13"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139749574","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}