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15What makes educational research scientific? And should we be worried whether it is? This chapter approaches these questions from a philosophical perspective, while also introducing some relevant work from twentieth-century philosophy of science. It discusses scientific method, confirmation, the distinction between theory and observation, the aim of science, and the relative merits of qualitative and quantitative approaches
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6Book review : The tyranny of science (review)The article reviews the book "The Tyranny of Science," by P.K. Feyerabend
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51In a recent contribution to Learning for Democracy, Richard Bailey argues that Thomas Kuhn advocated an indoctrinatory model of science education, which is fundamentally authority-based. While agreeing with Bailey’s conclusion, this article suggests that Kuhn was attempting to solve an important problem which Bailey only touches on – how to ensure that science students do not become hypercritical. It continues by offering a critical rationalist solution to this problem, arguing that paradigms qu…Read more
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16This article explores the practical significance of the notion of ‘World 3’ – a domain of abstract entities – for inquiry and education. First, it explains how ‘objectifying’ our thoughts and statements, viz. treating them as if they are objective, can help in inquiry to: promote impartiality towards ideas on the basis of their source and the manner in which they are presented; enable more effective communication; and encourage wider participation in debates. Second, the article examines how ‘ob…Read more
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292Beyond Kuhn: Methodological Contextualism and Partial ParadigmsIn Moti Mizrahi (ed.), The Kuhnian Image of Science: Time for a Decisive Transformation?, Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 191-208. 2018.Kuhn’s view of science is as follows. Science involves two key phases: normal and extraordinary. In normal science, disciplinary matrices (DMs) are large and pervasive. DMs involve “beliefs, values, techniques, and so on shared by the members of a given community” (Kuhn 1996, 175). “And so on” is regrettably vague, but Kuhn (1977, 1996) mentions three other key elements: symbolic generalizations (such as F=dp/dt), models (such as Bohr’s atomic model), and exemplars. These components of DMs overl…Read more
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1176Scientific realism: what it is, the contemporary debate, and new directionsSynthese 196 (2): 451-484. 2019.First, I answer the controversial question ’What is scientific realism?’ with extensive reference to the varied accounts of the position in the literature. Second, I provide an overview of the key developments in the debate concerning scientific realism over the past decade. Third, I provide a summary of the other contributions to this special issue.
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953Why advocate pancritical rationalism?In R. S. Cohen & Z. Parusniková (eds.), Rethinking Popper, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Springer. pp. 81--89. 2009.This paper provides a rationale for advocating pancritical rationalism. First, it argues that the advocate of critical rationalism may accept (but not be internally justified in accepting) that there is ‘justification’ in an externalist sense, specifically that certain procedures can track truth, and suggest that this recognition should inform practice; that one should try to determine which sources and methods are appropriate for various aspects of inquiry, and to what extent they are. Second, …Read more
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134An alternative account of epistemic reasons for action: In response to BoothGrazer Philosophische Studien 76 (1): 191-198. 2008.In a recent contribution to Grazer Philosophische Studien, Booth argues that for S to have an epistemic reason to ψ means that if S ψ's then he will have more true beliefs and less false beliefs than if he does not ψ. After strengthening this external account in response to the objection that one can improve one's epistemic state in other fashions, e.g. by having a gain in true beliefs which outweighs one's gain in false beliefs, I provide a challenge to it. My main objection, which I advance wi…Read more
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346The empirical stance vs. the critical attitudeSouth African Journal of Philosophy 24 (3): 200-223. 2005.Van Fraassen has recently argued that empiricism can be construed as a stance, involving commitments, attitudes, values, and goals, in addition to beliefs and opinions. But this characterisation emerges from his recognition that to be an empiricist can not be to believe, or decide to commit to belief in, a foundational proposition, without removing any basis for a non-dogmatic empiricist critique of other philosophical approaches, such as materialism. However, noticeable by its absence in Van Fr…Read more
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222Information Versus Knowledge in Confirmation TheoryLogique Et Analyse 226 137-149. 2012.I argue that so-called 'background knowledge' in confirmation theory has little, if anything, to do with 'knowledge' in the sense of mainstream epistemology. I argue that it is better construed as 'background information', which need not be believed in, justified, or true.
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121No dilemma for pancritical rationalism: In response to HauptliPhilosophy of the Social Sciences 39 (3): 490-494. 2009.Hauptli (1991) presents a putative dilemma for Bartley’s (1984) pancritical rationalism that has remained unchallenged. This note sets the record straight by exposing two lacunae in Hauptli’s argument
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79In Defence Of Popper On The Logical Possibility Of Universal Laws: A Reply To ContessaPhilosophical Writings 31 (1). 2006.This paper is a critique of Contessa’s . First, I show that Popper in The Logic of Scientific Discovery argues against the view that the logical probability of a hypothesis is identical to its degree of confirmation , rather than against Bayesianism. Second, I explain that his argument to this effect does not depend on the assumption that ‘the universe is infinite’. Third, and finally, I refine Popper’s case by developing an argument which requires only that some universal laws have a logical pr…Read more
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102The Role of Hypotheses in Biomechanical ResearchScience in Context 25 (2): 247-262. 2012.ArgumentThis paper investigates whether there is a discrepancy between stated and actual aims in biomechanical research, particularly with respect to hypothesis testing. We present an analysis of one hundred papers recently published inThe Journal of Experimental BiologyandJournal of Biomechanics, and examine the prevalence of papers which have hypothesis testing as a stated aim, contain hypothesis testing claims that appear to be purely presentational, and have exploration as a stated aim. We f…Read more
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1030Scientific progress without increasing verisimilitude: In response to NiiniluotoStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 51 100-104. 2015.First, I argue that scientific progress is possible in the absence of increasing verisimilitude in science’s theories. Second, I argue that increasing theoretical verisimilitude is not the central, or primary, dimension of scientific progress. Third, I defend my previous argument that unjustified changes in scientific belief may be progressive. Fourth, I illustrate how false beliefs can promote scientific progress in ways that cannot be explicated by appeal to verisimilitude.
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962'In Between Believing' and Degrees of BeliefTeorema: International Journal of Philosophy 26 (1): 131-137. 2007.Schwitzgebel (2001) — henceforth 'S' — offers three examples in order to convince us that there are situations in which individuals are neither accurately describable as believing that p or failing to so believe, but are rather in 'in-between states of belief'. He then argues that there are no 'Bayesian' or representational strategies for explicating these, and proposes a dispositional account. I do not have any fundamental objection to the idea that there might be 'in-between states of belief'…Read more
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918Stanford’s argument against scientific realism focuses on theories, just as many earlier arguments from inconceivability have. However, there are possible arguments against scientific realism involving unconceived (or inconceivable) entities of different types: observations, models, predictions, explanations, methods, instruments, experiments, and values. This paper charts such arguments. In combination, they present the strongest challenge yet to scientific realism.
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69Mélanie Frappier, Letitia Meynell, and James R. Brown, eds. Thought Experiments in Science, Philosophy, and the Arts. London: Routledge, 2013. Pp. xiv+268. $140.00 (review)Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 5 (2): 348-352. 2015.
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192Group Level Interpretations of Probability: New DirectionsPacific Philosophical Quarterly 94 (2): 188-203. 2013.In this article, I present some new group level interpretations of probability, and champion one in particular: a consensus-based variant where group degrees of belief are construed as agreed upon betting quotients rather than shared personal degrees of belief. One notable feature of the account is that it allows us to treat consensus between experts on some matter as being on the union of their relevant background information. In the course of the discussion, I also introduce a novel distinctio…Read more
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272What’s at the bottom of scientific realism?Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 42 (4): 625-628. 2011.This article reviews the book "Scientific Realism and the Rationality of Science" by Howard Sankey
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74Approximations, idealizations and ‘experiments’ at the physics–biology interfaceStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 42 (2): 145-154. 2008.This paper, which is based on recent empirical research at the University of Leeds, the University of Edinburgh, and the University of Bristol, presents two difficulties which arise when condensed matter physicists interact with molecular biologists: the former use models which appear to be too coarse-grained, approximate and/or idealized to serve a useful scientific purpose to the latter; and the latter have a rather narrower view of what counts as an experiment, particularly when it comes to c…Read more
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306The instrumentalist’s new clothesPhilosophy of Science 78 (5): 1200-1211. 2011.This paper develops a new version of instrumentalism, in light of progress in the realism debate in recent decades, and thereby defends the view that instrumentalism remains a viable philosophical position on science. The key idea is that talk of unobservable objects should be taken literally only when those objects are assigned properties (or described in terms of analogies involving things) with which we are experientially (or otherwise) acquainted. This is derivative from the instrumentalist …Read more
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244Kuhn vs. Popper on criticism and dogmatism in science, part II: How to strike the balanceStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 44 (2): 161-168. 2013.This paper is a supplement to, and provides a proof of principle of, Kuhn vs. Popper on Criticism and Dogmatism in Science: A Resolution at the Group Level. It illustrates how calculations may be performed in order to determine how the balance between different functions in science—such as imaginative, critical, and dogmatic—should be struck, with respect to confirmation (or corroboration) functions and rules of scientific method
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83On the Proximity of the Logical and ‘Objective Bayesian’ Interpretations of ProbabilityErkenntnis 69 (3): 335-349. 2008.In his Bayesian Nets and Causality, Jon Williamson presents an ‘Objective Bayesian’ interpretation of probability, which he endeavours to distance from the logical interpretation yet associate with the subjective interpretation. In doing so, he suggests that the logical interpretation suffers from severe epistemological problems that do not affect his alternative. In this paper, I present a challenge to his analysis. First, I closely examine the relationship between the logical and ‘Objective Ba…Read more
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415Aimless scienceSynthese 191 (6): 1211-1221. 2014.This paper argues that talk of ‘the aim of science’ should be avoided in the philosophy of science, with special reference to the way that van Fraassen sets up the difference between scientific realism and constructive empiricism. It also argues that talking instead of ‘what counts as success in science as such’ is unsatisfactory. The paper concludes by showing what this talk may be profitably replaced with, namely specific claims concerning science that fall into the following categories: descr…Read more
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293Intuitions in Science: Thought Experiments as Argument PumpsIn Anthony Robert Booth & Darrell P. Rowbottom (eds.), Intuitions, Oxford University Press Uk. pp. 119-134. 2014.In this piece, I advocate and motivate a new understanding of thought experiments, which avoids problems with the rival accounts of Brown and Norton.
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297Corroboration and auxiliary hypotheses: Duhem’s thesis revisitedSynthese 177 (1): 139-149. 2010.This paper argues that Duhem’s thesis does not decisively refute a corroboration-based account of scientific methodology (or ‘falsificationism’), but instead that auxiliary hypotheses are themselves subject to measurements of corroboration which can be used to inform practice. It argues that a corroboration-based account is equal to the popular Bayesian alternative, which has received much more recent attention, in this respect.
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