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26Induction, Rationality, and the Realism/Anti-realism Debate: A Reply to ShechInternational Studies in the Philosophy of Science 34 (4): 243-247. 2022.Shech (2022) offers a critical assessment of my defense of anti-realism, developed in Resisting Scientific Realism. Induction and inductive inferences play a central role in Shech’s critical analysis of my defense of realism. I argue that Shech’s criticisms that relate to induction and inductive inference are problematic, and do not constitute a threat to my defense of anti-realism. Contrary to what Shech claims, the anti-realist does not need to explain why inductive inferences are successful. …Read more
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25Rethinking the Value of Author Contribution Statements in Light of How Research Teams Respond to RetractionsEpisteme 20 (2): 265-280. 2023.The authorship policies of scientific journals often assume that in order to be able to properly place credit and responsibility for the content of a collaborative paper we should be able to distinguish the contributions of the various individuals involved. Hence, many journals have introduced a requirement for author contribution statements aimed at making it easier to place credit and responsibility on individual scientists. We argue that from a purely descriptive point of view the practices o…Read more
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24Introduction: Collective Knowledge and ScienceEpisteme 7 (3): 181-184. 2010.The literature on collective belief and collective intentionality has grown rapidly and is now quite extensive. Philosophers have applied the concepts of “collective belief” and “collective intentionality” in a variety of contexts, including political and legal contexts as well as scientific contexts, specifically to model the behavior of research teams and scientific specialties
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24Rethinking Scientific SpecializationSocial Studies of Science 35 (1): 151-164. 2005.My aim in this paper is to re-examine specialization in science. I argue that we need to acknowledge the role that conceptual changes can play in the creation of new specialties. Whereas earlier sociological accounts focus on social and instrumental changes as the cause of the creation of new specialties, I argue that conceptual changes play an important role in the creation of some scientific specialties. Specifically, I argue that conceptual developments played an important role in the creatio…Read more
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24Knowledge and Inquiry: Readings in Epistemology (edited book)Broadview Press. 2002.This anthology focuses on three areas in the theory of knowledge: epistemic justification; analyses of knowledge and scepticism; and recent development in epistemology. Each of the three sections includes a brief introduction to the readings, a series of study questions, and a list of suggested readings. Section 1 deals with coherentism, foundationalism, reliabilism, and includes articles by Chisholm, BonJour, Audi, Goldman, and Fumerton. Section 2 deals with the analysis of knowledge and Gettie…Read more
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23Philosophy of science viewed through the lense of “Referenced Publication Years Spectroscopy” (RPYS)Scientometrics 102 (3): 1987-1996. 2015.We examine the sub-field of philosophy of science using a new method developed in information science, Referenced Publication Years Spectroscopy (RPYS). RPYS allows us to identify peak years in citations in a field, which promises to help scholars identify the key contributions to a field, and revolutionary discoveries in a field. We discovered that philosophy of science, a sub-field in the humanities, differs significantly from other fields examined with this method. Books play a more important…Read more
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23What to make of Mendeleev’s predictions?Foundations of Chemistry 21 (2): 139-143. 2018.I critically examine Stewart’s suggestion that we should weigh the various predictions Mendeleev made differently. I argue that in his effort to justify discounting the weight of some of Mendeleev’s failures, Stewart invokes a principle that will, in turn, reduce the weight of some of the successful predictions Mendeleev made. So Stewart’s strategy will not necessarily lead to a net gain in Mendeleev’s favor.
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22Specialization in philosophy: a preliminary studyScientometrics. 2013.I examine the degree of specialization in various sub-fields of philosophy, drawing on data from the PhilPapers Survey. The following three sub-fields are highly specialized: Ancient philosophy, seventeenth/eighteenth century philosophy, and philosophy of physics. The following sub-fields have a low level of specialization: metaphilosophy, philosophy of religion, philosophy of probability, philosophy of the social sciences, decision theory, and philosophy of race and gender. Highly specialized s…Read more
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22Theodore Richards and the discovery of isotopesFoundations of Chemistry 25 (1): 57-66. 2022.I challenge Gareth Eaton’s recent claim that Theodore Richards should be counted among the discoverers of isotopes. In evaluating Eaton’s claim, I draw on two influential theories of scientific discovery, one developed by Thomas Kuhn, and one developed by Augustine Brannigan. I argue that though Richards’ experimental work contributed to the discovery, his work does not warrant attributing the discovery to him. Richards’ reluctance to acknowledge isotopes is well documented. Further, the fact th…Read more
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21What Really Divides Gilbert and the Rejectionists?ProtoSociology 18 363-376. 2003.Rejectionists argue that collective belief ascriptions are best understood as instances of collective acceptance rather than belief. Margaret Gilbert objects to rejectionist accounts of collective belief statements. She argues that rejectionists rely on a questionable methodology when they inquire into the nature of collective belief ascriptions, and make an erroneous inference when they are led to believe that collectives do not really have beliefs. Consequently, Gilbert claims that collective …Read more
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21Reinterpreting §56 of Frege's The Foundations of ArithmeticAuslegung 20 (2): 76-82. 1995.I defend an alternative reading of §56 of Frege's Grundlagen, one that rescues Frege from Dummett's charge that this section is the weakest in the whole book. On my reading, Frege is not presenting arguments against the adjectival strategy. Rather, Frege presents the definitions in §55 in order to convince his reader that numbers must be objects. In §56 Frege suggests that these definitions contain two shortcomings that adequate definitions of numbers must overcome. And these short-comings, he…Read more
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21Another great 19th century creation: The scientific journalStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 75 62-64. 2019.This review examines Alex Csiszar's book, The Scientific Journal: Authorship and the Politics of Knowledge in the Nineteenth Century.
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20How Nature changed: Melinda Baldwin: Making Nature: The history of a scientific journal. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015, 309pp, $45 HB (review)Metascience 26 (1): 169-170. 2016.This is a review of Melinda Baldwin's book Making Nature.
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20Is Science Really a Young Man’s Game?Social Studies of Science 33 (1): 137-49. 2003.It has often been remarked that science is a young man's game. Thomas Kuhn, for example, claims that revolutionary changes in science are almost always initiated by either young scientists or those new to a field. I subject Kuhn's hypothesis to testing. I examine 24 revolutionary scientific figures mentioned in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions to determine if young scientists are more likely to make revolutionary discoveries than older scientists. My analysis suggests that middle-aged sci…Read more
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19What to make of Mendeleev’s predictions?Foundations of Chemistry 21 (2): 139-143. 2018.I critically examine Stewart’s suggestion that we should weigh the various predictions Mendeleev made differently. I argue that in his effort to justify discounting the weight of some of Mendeleev’s failures, Stewart invokes a principle that will, in turn, reduce the weight of some of the successful predictions Mendeleev made. So Stewart’s strategy will not necessarily lead to a net gain in Mendeleev’s favor.
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19Reassessing Kuhn’s Theoretical MonismIn Interpreting Kuhn: Critical Essays, Cambridge University Press. pp. 222-237. 2021.Scientific specialties are the key unit of analysis in Kuhn’s theory of scientific change. Kuhn believed that scientific specialties, in their normal phases, are characterized by theoretical monism. This is what makes scientists so efficient in realizing their epistemic goals. Recent work in the philosophy of scientific practice raises questions about the extent to which there is or needs to be consensus in science, thus challenging a key dimension of Kuhn’s view. Hasok Chang has been a leader i…Read more
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17How is a revolutionary scientific paper cited?: the case of Hess’ “History of Ocean Basins”Scientometrics 124. 2020.I examine the citation patterns to a revolutionary scientific paper, Hess’ “History of Ocean Basins”, which played a significant role in the plate tectonics revolution in the geosciences. I test two predictions made by the geoscientist Menard (in Science: growth and change. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1971): (1) that the peak year of citations for Hess’ article will be 1968; and (2) that the rate of citations to the article will then reach some lower level, continuing on accumulating ci…Read more
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16A Defense of Structure in Structure of Scientific RevolutionsIn Pablo Melogno, Hernán Miguel & Leandro Giri (eds.), Perspectives on Kuhn: Contemporary Approaches to the Philosophy of Thomas Kuhn, Springer. pp. 25-40. 2023.Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions has been attacked for many reasons. Key analytic terms, most importantly “paradigm,” were widely regarded as poorly defined. To many readers Structure seemed to suggest that the process of theory change is irrational, or at least non-rational. And even his characterization of normal science seemed to some readers to paint a very unflattering picture of scientists as excessively dogmatic and uncritical. More recently, Lorraine Daston has argued that the …Read more
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16What happens when an anti-realist and a realist read each other’s book?Metascience 28 (1): 1-2. 2019.This is an editorial.
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16Metascience and Neurath’s boatMetascience 24 (2): 171-172. 2015.Otto Neurath compared science to a ship at sea on which the sailors have to repair their vessel as they keep it afloat. Metascience is a ship of a similar sort. Do not worry. There are no repairs to report. But changes are being made at Metascience on an ongoing basis, even as we work to meet our production deadlines. With this, our second issue, we would like to announce some further changes with the journal.Ties Nijseen and Christi Lue who have long been responsible for many of the matters rel…Read more
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16Two symposia worth reading: science, religion, and the history of mechanicsMetascience 28 (2): 179-180. 2019.
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15Metascience: reflections on the symposiumMetascience 25 (2): 161-162. 2016.This is an editorial.
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14Identifying a classic in history, philosophy, and social studies of scienceMetascience 27 (2): 181-182. 2018.This is an editorial.
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14Small Bohr: John L. Heilbron: Niels Bohr: a very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020, xxii+132 pp, £8.99 PB (review)Metascience 31 (1): 27-28. 2021.This is a book review of John Heilbron's book _Niels Bohr: a very short introduction_.
K. Brad Wray
Aarhus University
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Aarhus UniversityCentre For Science StudiesRegular Faculty
Aarhus, Denmark
Areas of Specialization
General Philosophy of Science |
Epistemology |
Science, Logic, and Mathematics |
Areas of Interest
General Philosophy of Science |
Epistemology |