•  7
    Pragmatism Versus Social Construction: A Reply to Shahryari
    Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 1-5. 2024.
    In a response to my recent article in this journal, Shahram Shahryari argues that I fail to present a third position between absolutism and relativism. He makes two points: first, that fallibilism is insufficient as an alternative, because it is compatible with both relativism and absolutism. The second point is that my argument that experience can lead to objective judgment without being a new absolute fails. I discuss these in turn, showing that both critiques fail and that pragmatism is a gen…Read more
  •  3
    I will present two examples of influential (and incorrect) interpretations of Poincaré, pinpointing their errors and documenting some of their diffusion. The first example, which appears to have been initiated by Moritz Schlick, is the widespread misinterpretation of Poincaré’s argument for geometric conventionalism by basing it on the underdetermination of theories in science. The second example, having to do with Poincaré’s claim that Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries are inter-translatab…Read more
  •  1
    Rationalism in Science
    In Alan Nelson (ed.), A Companion to Rationalism, Blackwell. 2005.
    This chapter contains sections titled: The New Experimental Science as a Challenge to Intuition Geometry and Intuition The Mathematical Tradition and Theoretical Science.
  •  56
    Essay review of Hasok Chang, Realism for Realistic People: A New Pragmatist Philosophy of Science.
  •  20
    Fallibilism versus Relativism in the Philosophy of Science
    Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 53 (2): 187-199. 2022.
    In response to a recent argument by David Bloor, I argue that denying absolutes does not necessarily lead to relativism, that one can be a fallibilist without being a relativist. At issue are the empirical natural sciences and what might be called “framework relativism”, that is, the idea that there is always a conceptual scheme or set of practices in use, and all observations are theory-laden relative to the framework. My strategy is to look at the elements that define a relativist stance and s…Read more
  •  317
    Reconstructing the Unity of Mathematics circa 1900
    Perspectives on Science 5 (3): 383-417. 1997.
    Standard histories of mathematics and of analytic philosophy contend that work on the foundations of mathematics was motivated by a crisis such as the discovery of paradoxes in set theory or the discovery of non-Euclidean geometries. Recent scholarship, however, casts doubt on the standard histories, opening the way for consideration of an alternative motive for the study of the foundations of mathematics—unification. Work on foundations has shown that diverse mathematical practices could be int…Read more
  •  229
    The Kantian Elements in Arthur Pap’s Philosophy
    Journal of Transcendental Philosophy 21 (1): 71-83. 2021.
    Arthur Pap worked in analytic philosophy while maintaining a strong Kantian or neo-Kantian element throughout his career, stemming from his studying with Ernst Cassirer. I present these elements in the different periods of Pap’s works, showing him to be a consistent critic of logical empiricism, which Pap shows to be incapable of superseding the Kantian framework. Nevertheless, Pap’s work is definitely analytic philosophy, both in terms of the content and the style. According to Pap, the central…Read more
  •  157
    The Disunity of science: boundaries, contexts, and power (edited book)
    Stanford University Press. 1996.
    Is science unified or disunified? This collection brings together contributions from prominent scholars in a variety of scientific disciplines to examine this important theoretical question. They examine whether the sciences are, or ever were, unified by a single theoretical view of nature or a methodological foundation and the implications this has for the relationship between scientific disciplines and between science and society.
  •  20
    State‐of‐the‐art surveys such as John H. Zammito has produced are usually read prior to engaging seriously upon some course of study. Yet his book will be even more helpful, perhaps, to those who can look retrospectively upon the field of science studies in order to consider how the field has changed and whether postmodernism remains the threat that Zammito thinks it. By explicitly including the history of the development of the philosophy of language in a history of science studies, he makes an…Read more
  •  49
    Fallibilism versus Relativism in the Philosophy of Science
    Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 52 1-13. 2021.
    In response to a recent argument by David Bloor, I argue that denying absolutes does not necessarily lead to relativism, that one can be a fallibilist without being a relativist. At issue are the empirical natural sciences and what might be called “framework relativism”, that is, the idea that there is always a conceptual scheme or set of practices in use, and all observations are theory-laden relative to the framework. My strategy is to look at the elements that define a relativist stance and s…Read more
  • Book Reiew Michael Resnik, Mathematics as a Science of Patterns (review)
    History and Philosophy of Logic 19 (3): 175-185. 1998.
    Michael Resnik, Mathematics as a science of patterns, Oxford and New York:Oxford University Press, 1997. ix + 285 pp. $45.00/£35.00
  •  33
    Science and Hypothesis: The Complete Text by Henri Poincaré (New translation) (edited book)
    with Mélanie Frappier and Andrea Smith
    Bloomsbury. 2017.
    New Translation of Henri Poincaré's Science and Hypothesis, including new material and editorial commentary. New Introduction by David J. Stump.
  •  153
    New perspectives on Pierre Duhem’s The aim and structure of physical theory
    with Anastasios Brenner, Paul Needham, and Robert Deltete
    Metascience 20 (1): 1-25. 2011.
    New perspectives on Pierre Duhem’s The aim and structure of physical theory Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11016-010-9467-3 Authors Anastasios Brenner, Department of Philosophy, Paul Valéry University-Montpellier III, Route De Mende, 34199 Montpellier cedex 5, France Paul Needham, Department of Philosophy, University of Stockholm, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden David J. Stump, Department of Philosophy, University of San Francisco, 2130 Fulton Street, San Francisco, CA 94117, USA Robert Delte…Read more
  •  1
    Douglas M. Jesseph, Berkeley's Philosophy of Mathematics (review)
    Philosophy in Review 15 (2): 113-115. 1995.
  •  1
    Much like contemporary philosophers of science, Poincare attempts to develop a philosophy of science that is able to account for genuine historical change in science but also allows science to be seen as progressive. Poincare is famous for his thesis that there is no true metric of space. He claims that we may choose either Euclidean or non-Euclidean geometry in mechanics and the choice is not objectively right or wrong. However, his conventionalism is not total, as some have charged. He holds t…Read more
  •  28
    Scientific pluralism and metaphysics
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 64 64-66. 2017.
    Essay review of Stephanie Ruphy, Scientific Pluralism Reconsidered: A New Approach to the (Dis)Unity of Science.
  •  1
    Bertrand Russell, An Essay on the Foundations of Geometry (review)
    Philosophy in Review 17 (5): 364-366. 1997.
  •  154
    Poincaré's claim that Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries are translatable has generally been thought to be based on his introduction of a model to prove the consistency of Lobachevskian geometry and to be equivalent to a claim that Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries are logically isomorphic axiomatic systems. In contrast to the standard view, I argue that Poincaré's translation thesis has a mathematical, rather than a meta-mathematical basis. The mathematical basis of Poincaré's transl…Read more
  •  21
    From the Values of Scientific Philosophy to the Value Neutrality of the Philosophy of Science
    In Michael Heidelberger & Friedrich Stadler (eds.), History of Philosophy of Science: New Trends and Perspectives, . pp. 147-158. 2002.
    Members of the Vienna Circle played a pivotal role in defining the work that came to be known as the philosophy of science, yet the Vienna Circle itself is now known to have had much broader concerns and to have been more rooted in philosophical tradition than was once thought. Like current and past philosophers of science, members of the Vienna Circle took science as the object of philosophical reflection but they also endeavored to render philosophy in general compatible with contemporary scie…Read more
  •  20
    Introduction - Forum: Pragmatism in the Philosophy of Science
    Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 5 (1): 70-71. 2015.
    Introduction to conference papers published in HOPOS
  •  49
    In this book, David Stump traces alternative conceptions of the a priori in the philosophy of science and defends a unique position in the current debates over conceptual change and the constitutive elements in science. Stump emphasizes the unique epistemological status of the constitutive elements of scientific theories, constitutive elements being the necessary preconditions that must be assumed in order to conduct a particular scientific inquiry. These constitutive elements, such as logic, ma…Read more
  •  13
    Robert M. Makus, 1951-2002
    Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 76 (5). 2003.
    Obituary of Robert M. Makus, 1951-2002
  •  69
    Arthur Pap’s Functional Theory of the A Priori
    Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 1 (2): 273-290. 2011.
    Arthur Pap was not quite a Logical Empiricist. He wrote his dissertation in philosophy of science under Ernest Nagel, and he published a textbook in the philosophy of science at the end of his tragically short career, but most of his work would be classified as analytic philosophy. More important, he took some stands that went against Logical Empiricist orthodoxy and was a persistent if friendly critic of the movement. Pap diverged most strongly from Logical Empiricism in his theory of a “functi…Read more
  •  255
    Naturalized philosophy of science with a plurality of methods
    Philosophy of Science 59 (3): 456-460. 1992.
    Naturalism implies unity of method--an application of the methods of science to the methodology of science itself and to value theory. Epistemological naturalists have tried to find a privileged discipline to be the methodological model of philosophy of science and epistemology. However, since science itself is not unitary, the use of one science as a model amounts to a reduction and distorts the philosophy of science just as badly as traditional philosophy of science distorted science, despite …Read more
  •  206
    Defending conventions as functionally a priori knowledge
    Philosophy of Science 70 (5): 1149-1160. 2003.
    Recent defenses of a priori knowledge can be applied to the idea of conventions in science in order to indicate one important sense in which conventionalism is correctsome elements of physical theory have a unique epistemological status as a functionally a priori part of our physical theory. I will argue that the former a priori should be treated as empirical in a very abstract sense, but still conventional. Though actually coming closer to the Quinean position than recent defenses of a priori k…Read more