•  527
    Scientific Realism and Basic Common Sense
    Kairos. Revista de Filosofia and Ciência 10 11-24. 2014.
    This paper considers the relationship between science and common sense. It takes as its point of departure, Eddington’s distinction between the table of physics and the table of common sense, as well as Eddington’s suggestion that science shows common sense to be false. Against the suggestion that science shows common sense to be false, it is argued that there is a form of common sense, basic common sense, which is not typically overthrown by scientific research. Such basic common sense is st…Read more
  •  455
    Relativism, Particularism and Reflective Equilibrium
    Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 45 (2): 281-292. 2014.
    In previous work, I have sought to show that the basic argument for epistemic relativism derives from the problem of the criterion that stems from ancient Pyrrhonian scepticism. Because epistemic relativism depends upon a sceptical strategy, it is possible to respond to relativism on the basis of an anti-sceptical strategy. I argue that the particularist response to scepticism proposed by Roderick Chisholm may be combined with a naturalistic and reliabilist conception of epistemic warrant as the…Read more
  •  455
    Bojana Mladenovic: Kuhn's Legacy: Epistemology, Metaphilosophy, and Pragmatism (review)
    Philosophical Review 127 (4): 532-535. 2018.
    This is a book review of Bojana Mladenovic, Kuhn's Legacy: Epistemology, Metaphilosophy, and Pragmatism
  •  452
    This is a survey of theories of scientific method which opens the book "After Popper, Kuhn and Feyerabend: Recent Issues in Theories of Scientific Method".
  •  451
    Kuhn, Coherentism and Perception
    In Pablo Melogno, Hernán Miguel & Leandro Giri (eds.), Perspectives on Kuhn: Contemporary Approaches to the Philosophy of Thomas Kuhn, Springer. pp. 1-14. 2023.
    The paper takes off from the suggestion of Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen that Kuhn’s account of science may be understood in coherentist terms. There are coherentist themes in Kuhn’s philosophy of science. But one crucial element is lacking. Kuhn does not deny the existence of basic beliefs which have a non-doxastic source of justification. Nor does he assert that epistemic justification only derives from inferential relationships between non-basic beliefs. Despite this, the coherentist interpretat…Read more
  •  441
    Laudan, Intuition and Normative Naturalism
    Organon F: Medzinárodný Časopis Pre Analytickú Filozofiu 27 (4): 437-445. 2020.
    The aim of this paper is to document Laudan's rejection of the appeal to intuition in the context of his development of normative naturalism. At one point in the development of his methodological thinking, Laudan appealed to pre-analytic intuitions, which might be employed to identify episodes in the history of science against which theories of scientific methodology are to be tested. However, Laudan came to reject this appeal to intuitions, and rejected this entire approach to the evaluation …Read more
  •  439
    This paper addresses the relationship between the history and philosophy of science by way of the issue of epistemic normativity. After brief discussion of the relationship between history and philosophy of science in Kuhn’s own thinking, the paper focuses on the implications of the history of science for epistemic normativity. There may be historical evidence for change of scientific methodology, which may seem to support a position of epistemic relativism. However, the fact that the methods…Read more
  •  437
    Scepticism, Relativism and a Naturalistic Particularism
    Social Epistemology 29 (4): 395-412. 2015.
    This paper presents a particularist and naturalist response to epistemic relativism. The response is based on an analysis of the source of epistemic relativism, according to which epistemic relativism is closely related to Pyrrhonian scepticism. The paper starts with a characterization of epistemic relativism. Such relativism is explicitly distinguished from epistemological contextualism. Next the paper presents an argument for epistemic relativism that is based on the Pyrrhonian problem of the …Read more
  •  436
    Realism, Progress and the Historical Turn
    Foundations of Science 22 (1): 201-214. 2017.
    The contemporary debate between scientific realism and anti-realism is conditioned by a polarity between two opposing arguments: the realist’s success argument and the anti-realist’s pessimistic induction. This polarity has skewed the debate away from the problem that lies at the source of the debate. From a realist point of view, the historical approach to the philosophy of science which came to the fore in the 1960s gave rise to an unsatisfactory conception of scientific progress. One of the m…Read more
  •  434
    El realismo cientifico y el punto de vista del Ojo de Dios
    Revista Disertaciones 2 59-74. 2011.
    Según el realismo científico, el propósito de la ciencia es descubrir la verdad acerca de los aspectos observables e inobservables de la realidad objetiva e independiente de la mente, en la cual habitamos. Putnam y otros han objetado que tal posición realista metafísica presupone un punto de vista del Ojo de Dios, del cual no puede establecerse ningún sentido coherente. En este artículo defenderé dos posiciones: primera, que el realismo científico no requiere la adopción de un punto de vista del…Read more
  •  429
    Est-il rationnel de chercher la vérité?
    Revue Philosophique De Louvain 98 (3): 589-602. 2000.
    This paper addresses the question of whether it is rational for scientists to pursue the realist aim of truth. The point of departure is a pair of objections to the aim of truth due to the anti-realist author, Larry Laudan: first, it is not rational to pursue an aim such as truth which we cannot know we have reached; second, truth is not a legitimate aim for science because it cannot be shown to be attained. Against Laudan, it is argued not only that it is possible to achieve theoretical knowled…Read more
  •  418
    The Objective Status of Subjective Facts
    Metaphysica: International Journal for Ontology and Metaphysics 24 (2): 175-179. 2023.
    Some facts are objective. Some facts are subjective. Subjective facts are personal facts about individuals. It is the purpose of this short note to suggest that subjective facts are in fact objective facts about us. This applies not just to facts involving relations to entities that are independent of us, but to our tastes. It is an objective fact about us that we have the tastes that we do though there may be no objective matter of fact that our tastes reflect or fail to reflect.
  •  380
    Epistemic relativism and the problem of the criterion
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 42 (4): 562-570. 2011.
    This paper explores the relationship between scepticism and epistemic relativism in the context of recent history and philosophy of science. More specifically, it seeks to show that significant treatments of epistemic relativism by influential figures in the history and philosophy of science draw upon the Pyrrhonian problem of the criterion. The paper begins with a presentation of the problem of the criterion as it occurs in the work of Sextus Empiricus. It is then shown that significant treatme…Read more
  •  376
    Realism, method and truth
    In Michele Marsonet (ed.), The Problem of Realism, Ashgate. pp. 64-81. 2002.
    What is the relation between method and truth? Are we justified in accepting a theory that satisfies the rules of scientific method as true? Such questions divide realism from anti-realism in the philosophy of science. Scientific realists take the methods of science to promote the realist aim of correspondence truth. Anti-realists either claim that the methods of science promote lesser epistemic goals than realist truth, or else they reject the realist conception of truth altogether. In this pap…Read more
  •  372
    What is Scientific Realism?
    Divinatio 12 103-120. 2000.
    This is an introduction to the position of scientific realism, which outlines a number of core doctrines of scientific realism, and indicates a number of optional and non-core doctrine. It also sketches the basic argument for scientific realism, known as the success argument.
  •  369
    On Mr Truetemp's Lack of Virtue
    Principia: An International Journal of Epistemology 26 (2): 313-318. 2022.
    Keith Lehrer described the case of Mr Truetemp, who has reliably formed true beliefs about the temperature. The beliefs are produced by the action of a device (a "tempucomp" ) which has been surgically implanted in Truetemp's skull without his knowledge. The case is designed as a counterexample to process reliabilism. This short paper explores the question whether virtue epistemology is able to deal with the Truetemp case. It is argued that virtue-theoretic considerations lead to the rejecti…Read more
  •  356
    Factivity or Grounds? Comment on Mizrahi
    Logos and Episteme 10 (3): 333-4. 2019.
    This is a comment on Moti Mizrahi's paper ' You Can't Handle the Truth: Knowledge = Epistemic Certainty'. Mizrahi claims that the factivity of knowledge entails that knowledge requires epistemic certainty. But the argument that Mizrahi presents does not proceed from factivity to certainty. Instead, it proceeds from a premise about the relationship between grounds and knowledge to the conclusion about certainty.
  •  355
    Neither a Truism nor a Triviality: Reply to Grzankowski
    Principia: An International Journal of Epistemology 23 (2): 361-365. 2019.
    This is a reply to Alex Grzankowski’s comment on my paper, ‘To Believe is to Believe True’. I argue that one may believe a proposition to be true without possessing the concept of truth. I note that to believe the proposition P to be true is not the same as to believe the proposition ‘P is true’. This avoids the regress highlighted by Grzankowski in which the concept of truth is employed an infinite number of times in a single belief.
  •  337
    Errol Morris: The Ashtray (Or The Man who Denied Reality) (review)
    Metascience 28 (1): 65-67. 2018.
    This is a book review of Errol Morris's book on Kuhn, The Ashtray (Or the Man Who Denied Reality)
  •  337
    Taxonomic incommensurability
    International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 12 (1). 1998.
    In a shift of position that has gone largely unnoticed by the great majority of commentators, Thomas Kuhn's version of the incommensurability thesis underwent a major transformation over the last decade and a half of his life. In his later work, Kuhn argued that incommensurability is a relation of translation failure between local subsets of interdefined theoretical terms, which encapsulate the taxonomic structure of a theory. Incommensurability arises because it is impossible to transfer the na…Read more
  •  335
    Judgement and Rational Theory-Choice
    Methodology and Science 27 (3): 167-182. 1994.
    It is argued that in the absence of an algorithm of theory-choice, a role must be played by deliberative judgement in the process of choosing rationally between theories.
  •  334
    This is an Italian translation of a lecture on incommensurability given at the University of Genoa.
  •  332
    Descartes's Language Test and Ape Language Research
    Teorema: International Journal of Philosophy 29 (2): 111-123. 2010.
    Some philosophers (e.g. Descartes) argue that there is an evidential relationship between language and thought, such that presence of language is indicative of mind. Recent language acquisition research with apes such as chimpanzees and bonobos attempts to demonstrate the capacity of these primates to acquire at least rudimentary linguistic capacity. This paper presents a case study of the ape language research and explores the consequences of the research with respect to the argument that ani…Read more
  •  322
    Chisholm, scepticisme et relativisme
    Bulletin d'Analyse Phénoménologique 10 (6): 32-39. 2014.
    Cet article esquisse une réponse particulariste et naturaliste au relativisme épistémique. La réponse est basée sur une analyse spécifique de la source de relativisme épistémique. Selon cette analyse, le relativisme épistémique doit être considérée en lien proche avec le scepticisme pyrrhonien, car le relativisme est basée sur le problème du critère qui a été propose par les ces anciens sceptiques. L’article commence avec une caractérisation du relativisme épistémique. Puis il présente un arg…Read more
  •  320
    To believe is to believe true
    Principia: An International Journal of Epistemology 23 (1): 131-136. 2019.
    It is argued that to believe is to believe true. That is, when one believes a proposition one thereby believes the proposition to be true. This is a point about what it is to believe rather than about the aim of belief or the standard of correctness for belief. The point that to believe is to believe true appears to be an analytic truth about the concept of belief. It also appears to be essential to the state of belief that to believe is to believe true. This is not just a contingent fact about …Read more
  •  314
    Alexander Bird: Thomas Kuhn (review)
    Philosophical Quarterly 52 (209): 654-657. 2002.
    This is a review of Alexander Bird's book on Thomas Kuhn.
  •  311
    This paper presents a naturalistic response to the challenge of epistemic relativism. The case of the Azande poison oracle is employed as an example of an alternative epistemic norm which may be used to justify beliefs about everyday occurrences. While a distinction is made between scepticism and relativism, an argument in support of epistemic relativism is presented that is based on the sceptical problem of the criterion. A response to the resulting relativistic position is then provided on the…Read more
  •  308
    The paper briefly reviews the main formulations of the incommensurability thesis by Feyerabend and Kuhn, as well as the main criticisms leveled against it. The question is then raised of whether there is a "phenomenon" of incommensurability that has been "discovered". It is argued that there is no such phenomenon.
  •  305
    This paper revisits one of the key ideas developed in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. In particular, it explores the methodological form of incommensurability which may be found in the original edition of Structure. It is argued that such methodological incommensurability leads to a form of epistemic relativism. In later work, Kuhn moved away from the original idea of methodological incommensurability with his idea of a set of epistemic values that provides a basis for rational theory c…Read more
  •  297
    A Dilemma for the Scientific Realist
    Spontaneous Generations 9 (1): 65-67. 2018.
    This note poses a dilemma for scientific realism which stems from the apparent conflict between science and common sense. On the one hand, we may accept scientific realism and agree that there is a conflict between science and common sense. If we do this, we remove the evidential basis for science and have no reason to accept science in the first place. On the other hand, we may accept scientific realism and endorse common sense. If we do this, we must reject the conflict between science and com…Read more