Three Paradigms of Scientific Realism: A Truthmaking Account

This paper investigates the nature of scientific realism. I begin by considering the anomalous fact that Bas van Fraassen's account of scientific realism is strikingly similar to Arthur Fine's account of scientific non-realism. To resolve this puzzle, I demonstrate how the two theorists understand the nature of truth and its connection to ontology, and how that informs their conception of the realism debate. I then argue that the debate is much better captured by the theory of truthmaking, and not by any particular theory of truth. To be a scientific realist is to adopt a realism-relevant account of what makes true the scientific theories one accepts. The truthmaking approach restores realism's metaphysical core—distancing itself from linguistic conceptions of the debate—and thereby offers a better characterization of what is at stake in the question of scientific realism.     

A Dialogic Account of Sense-Making in Scientific Argumentation and Reasoning

This article identifies aspects of argumentation in scientific practice that are key for scientific sense-making and articulates how engagement in these aspects happens both inter-mentally (between people) and intra-mentally (an individual's reasoning). Institutionally, peer review exerts critique on new knowledge claims in science and is comprised by a search for errors, which can be expressed as generation and evaluation of alternative possibilities that contrast with the new knowledge claim. Critique influences construction of claims, and this interplay motivates progress in sense-making. A classroom experiment is presented in which a high school physics class simulated the social interactions between authors and reviewers. These students’ subsequent ability to engage in various forms of sense-making is contrasted with a control class that did the same activity but without simulating the relevant social interactions. The results suggest important support for a principled, practice-based way to simulate scientific discourse in classrooms to support sense-making.     

Kuhn as Perspectival Realist

In this essay I argue that T. S. Kuhn, at least in his later works, can be regarded as a perspectival realist. This is a retrospective interpretation based mainly on the essays published posthumously under the title The Road Since Structure (Kuhn 2000). Among the strongest grounds for this interpretation is that Kuhn explicitly states that one must have a “lexicon” in place before raising questions about the truth or falsity of claims made using elements of the lexicon. This, in a linguistic framework, can be understood as an affirmation of perspectival realism. The essay concludes with an examination of Donald Davidson’s famous paper, “On The Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme,” arguing, along lines Kuhn himself suggested, that Davidson’s presentation is no threat to his notion of a conceptual scheme, or, I would add, a theoretical perspective.     

Perspectival representation and fallacies in metaethics

Abstract

The prevailing theoretical framework for theorising about representation construes all representation as involving objective representational contents. This classic framework has tended to drive philosophers either to claim that evaluative judgements are representations and therefore objective, or else to claim that evaluative judgements are not really representations, because they are not objective. However, a more general, already well-explored framework is available, which will allow theorists to treat evaluative judgements as full-fledged representations (thus doing justice to their representational aspects) while leaving open whether they are objective. Such a more general conception of representational content is exemplified, e.g. by Lewis’s ‘centred contents’ and Gibbard’s framework of ‘contents of judgement’, thus it is not new. I shall start in §1 by introducing the more general framework of perspectival contents and then illustrate in §2 how awareness of it can help expose the fallaciousness of certain widely used forms of argumentation in metaethics.     

Perspectival Direct Reference for Proper Names

I defend what I believe to be a new variation on Kripkean themes, for the purpose of providing an improved way to understand the referring functions of proper names. I begin by discussing roles played by perceptual perspectives in the use of proper names, and then broaden the discussion to include what I call “cognitive perspectives.” Although both types of perspectives underwrite the existence of intentional intermediaries between proper names and their referents, the existence of these intentional intermediaries does not entail that a Kripke-inspired view of direct reference must be abandoned. At the same time, the existence of these intermediaries can be seen to play illuminating roles as regards the referring functions of proper names in the following types of cases, among others: (a) where different names pick out the same subject; (b) where names are empty. Along the way, I argue that “perspectival views” are not something “inside the head” of language users as intended by Putnam in his well-known discussion of meaning.     

Perspectival Variance and Worldly Fragmentation

Objects often manifest themselves in incompatible ways across perspectives that are epistemically on a par. The standard response to such cases is to deny that the properties that things appear to have from different perspectives are properties that things really have out there. This type of response seems worrying: too many properties admit of perspectival variance and there are good theoretical reasons to think that such properties are genuinely instantiated. So, we have reason to explore views on which things can have the incompatible properties they appear to have across perspectives. This paper explores the view that things can have incompatible properties if the world is not a metaphysically unified place but is instead fragmented. There is a sensible notion of co-obtainment, on which two facts can each obtain without co-obtaining. Using this notion, we can step back from our embedded perspectives on the world without deeming the contents of those perspectives to be mere appearances. This renders the sheer pervasiveness of perspectival variance a serious pressure on the standard response, as well as a serious reason to think that the world is indeed fragmented.     

Perspectival Realism and Incompatible Models

I discuss the prospects of perspectival realism for resolving the problem of incompatible models or theories in scientific practice. My diagnosis is that the perspectivist can secure the ‘realism’ in her position only by employing suitable relations between the models. It is such relations that do the work, not the general philosophical claim about the perspectival nature of knowledge claims. But appeal to such relations has also been the preferred strategy of scientific realist approaches to the problem. With respect to the problem of incompatible models, then, it is not clear that perspectivism has a clear advantage—even though the issue was among the motivating problems for proposing this view. I suggest, however, that the required inter-model relations (typically limit relations) embody a narrower notion of perspective, a notion that is explicitly part of the models themselves and that is essential in maintaining a realist view.     

Four Kinds of Perspectival Truth

In this paper, I assess recent claims in philosophy of science about scientific perspectivism being compatible with realism. I clarify the rationale for scientific perspectivism and the problems and challenges that perspectivism faces in delivering a form of realism. In particular, I concentrate my attention on truth, and on ways in which truth can be understood in perspectival terms. I offer a cost‐benefit analysis of each of them and defend a version that in my view is most promising in living up to realist expectations.     

Caring: A Pluralist Account

In this paper, I argue that care ethics should be understood as a form of value pluralism. Writers on the ethics of care tend not explicitly to address issues in the theory of value, although much of what has been written about care ethics may be taken to suggest that it endorses some form of value monism. I argue against this conception of care ethics by showing that the practical reality of caregiving is more accurately represented by a pluralist account of value. Practices of care are plausibly guided by a number of distinct and potentially conflicting values. These include quality of life, autonomy, dignity, personal development, and the value of nurturant relationships. Whilst caring takes each of these values to be important in its own right, they are not always jointly realisable, and carers are sometimes forced to promote one such value at the expense of another. The possibility of conflict between values is, of course, precisely what a pluralist conception of value tells us to expect. In this respect, then, value pluralism more faithfully reflects the reality of caregiving than does value monism, and care ethicists ought for this reason to endorse it.     

Assertion: A Function First Account

This paper aims to develop a novel account of the normativity of assertion. Its core thesis is that assertion has an etiological epistemic function, viz. to generate knowledge in hearers. In conjunction with a general account of etiological functions and their normative import, it is argued that an assertion is epistemically good if and only if it has the disposition to generate knowledge in hearers. In addition, reason is provided to believe that it makes sense to regulate the practice of assertion by a speaker rule—and, more specifically, by a knowledge rule—as so regulating assertion contributes to ensuring that assertion fulfils its etiological function reliably.     

Extending Kindness: A Confucian Account

The Confucian philosopher Mengzi believes that ‘extending’ one's kindness facilitates one's moral development and that it is intimately tied to performing morally good actions. Most interpreters have taken Mengzian kindness to be an emotional state, with the extension of kindness to centrally involve feeling kindness towards more people or in a greater number of situations. I argue that kindness cannot do all the theoretical work that Mengzi wants it to do if it is interpreted as an emotion. I submit that Mengzi's notion of extending kindness is best understood as the exercise of a capacity for intelligently performing kind actions.     

The Perspectival Nature of Probability and Inference

It is argued that two observers with the same information may rightlydisagree about the probability of an event that they are both observing. This is a correct way of describing the view of a lottery outcome from the perspective of a winner and from the perspective of an observer not connected with the winner - the outcome is improbable for the winner and not improbable for the unconnected observer. This claim is both argued for and extended by developing a case in which a probabilistic inference is supported for one observer and not for another, though they relevantly differ only in perspective, not in any information that they have. It is pointed out, finally, that all probabilities are in this way dependent on perspective.     

Sexuality and Spirituality: A Humanist Account

Typical accounts of spirituality define it by association with religious faith and especially one's relationship with God. Without impugning the validity of theological considerations, this humanist account treats spirituality apart from them. Whereas the standard model of the human being is bipartite (body and mind), this paper distinguishes two dimensions within the human mind—psyche and spirit—and thus proposes a tripartite model (organism, psyche, and spirit). Attention to human spirit grounds an account of spirituality, and attention to organism and psyche introduces sexuality into the picture. Then, the reconciliation of sexuality and spirituality is nothing other than the integration of the human being: organism, psyche, and spirit. Granted that human spirit entails its own criteria for unbounded unfolding, such integration would generally express the ideals of spirituality proposed by the various religions. Psychotherapist and educator at