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234On the impartiality of early British clinical trialsStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 44 (3): 412-418. 2013.Did the impartiality of clinical trials play any role in their acceptance as regulatory standards for the safety and efficacy of drugs? According to the standard account of early British trials in the 1930s and 1940s, their impartiality was just rhetorical: the public demanded fair tests and statistical devices such as randomization created an appearance of neutrality. In fact, the design of the experiment was difficult to understand and the British authorities took advantage of it to promote th…Read more
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262Debiasing Methods and the Acceptability of Experimental OutcomesPerspectives on Science 24 (6): 722-743. 2016.Why scientists reach an agreement on new experimental methods when there are conflicts of interest about the evidence they yield? I argue that debiasing methods play a crucial role in this consensus, providing a warrant about the impartiality of the outcome regarding the preferences of different parties involved in the experiment. From a contractarian perspective, I contend that an epistemic pre-requisite for scientists to agree on an experimental method is that this latter is neutral regar…Read more
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330Facts, norms and expected utility functionsHistory of the Human Sciences 21 (2): 45-62. 2008.In this article we explore an argumentative pattern that provides a normative justification for expected utility functions grounded on empirical evidence, showing how it worked in three different episodes of their development. The argument claims that we should prudentially maximize our expected utility since this is the criterion effectively applied by those who are considered wisest in making risky choices (be it gamblers or businessmen). Yet, to justify the adoption of this rule, it should be…Read more
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54Review of An Engine, not a Camera (review)Journal of Economic Methodology 15 (4): 429-433. 2008.
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16Measurement and value judgments in economics (review)Economics and Philosophy 25 (2): 199-202. 2009.
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276A Positivist Tradition in Early Demand TheoryJournal of Economic Methodology 13 (1): 25-47. 2006.In this paper I explore a positivist methodological tradition in early demand theory, as exemplified by several common traits that I draw from the works of V. Pareto, H. L. Moore and H. Schultz. Assuming a current approach to explanation in the social sciences, I will discuss the building of their various explanans, showing that the three authors agreed on two distinctive methodological features: the exclusion of any causal commitment to psychology when explaining individual choice and the manda…Read more
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26Speaking of Economics: How to Get into the Conversation, Arjo Klamer. Routledge, 2007, xxii + 199 pages (review)Economics and Philosophy 25 (1): 122-125. 2009.
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485Why Friedman's methodology did not generate consensus among economists?Journal of the History of Economic Thought 31 (2): 201-214. 2009.In this paper I study how the theoretical categories of consumption theory were used by Milton Friedman in order to classify empirical data and obtain predictions. Friedman advocated a case by case definition of these categories that traded theoretical coherence for empirical content. I contend that this methodological strategy puts a clear incentive to contest any prediction contrary to our interest: it can always be argued that these predictions rest on a wrong classification of data. My conje…Read more
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Medicine |
Philosophy of Social Science |
Philosophy of Economics |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Probability |