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14Pragmatism Versus Social Construction: A Reply to ShahryariJournal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 55 (1): 153-157. 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
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9Chasing Poincaré: Reflections on Interdisciplinary Research and HistoriographyPhilosophia Scientiae 27 (2): 177-194. 2023.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
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3Rationalism in ScienceIn Alan Jean Nelson (ed.), A Companion to Rationalism, Wiley-blackwell. 2005.I survey the debate over rationalism and empiricism in science. This chapter contains sections titled: The New Experimental Science as a Challenge to Intuition, Geometry and Intuition, The Mathematical Tradition and Theoretical Science.
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75Get Real! A new pragmatist vision for the philosophy of science (review)Metascience 1-5. 2023.Essay review of Hasok Chang, Realism for Realistic People: A New Pragmatist Philosophy of Science.
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27Fallibilism versus Relativism in the Philosophy of ScienceJournal 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
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366Reconstructing the Unity of Mathematics circa 1900Perspectives 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
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254The Kantian Elements in Arthur Pap’s PhilosophyJournal 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
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162The 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.
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29State‐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
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69Fallibilism versus Relativism in the Philosophy of ScienceJournal 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
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4Book 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
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42Science and Hypothesis: The Complete Text by Henri Poincaré (New translation) (edited book)Bloomsbury. 2017.New Translation of Henri Poincaré's Science and Hypothesis, including new material and editorial commentary. New Introduction by David J. Stump.
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158New perspectives on Pierre Duhem’s The aim and structure of physical theoryMetascience 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
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1Douglas M. Jesseph, Berkeley's Philosophy of Mathematics (review)Philosophy in Review 15 (2): 113-115. 1995.
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1Conventionalism and Truth: Poincare's Mediation Between Relativism and Absolutism in ScienceDissertation, Northwestern University. 1988.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
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33Scientific pluralism and metaphysicsStudies 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.
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15Pragmatism, Activism, and the Icy Slopes of Logic in George Reisch’s Portrait of the Philosophy of Science as a Young FieldScience & Education 18 (2): 169-175. 2009.
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38Michael Heidelberger and Gregor Schiemann, eds. The Significance of the Hypothetical in the Natural Sciences. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009. Pp. viii+376. $109.00 (cloth). (review)Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 1 (1): 129-132. 2011.
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220Defending conventions as functionally a priori knowledgePhilosophy 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
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50Socially constructed technologyInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 43 (2). 2000.The main innovation in Questioning Technology is Feenberg?s use of the results of various social constructivist accounts of science and technology to rethink the philosophy of technology. I agree with Feenberg that the social constructivist studies developed by historians and sociologists refute the essentialist account of technology that has been the mainstream position of philosophers of technology. The autonomy of technology seems to be nothing but a myth from the point of view of social cons…Read more
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132Theory and Practice of Feminist Postcolonial Science Studies (review)Radical Philosophy Review 4 (1-2): 263-265. 2001.
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119Herbert Marcuse, Technology, War and Fascism: Collected Papers of Herbert Marcuse, Volume One Reviewed by (review)Philosophy in Review 19 (3): 210-211. 1999.This is a review of the first volume of Herbert Marcuse's collected works. Highlights include correspondence with Heidegger, who refuses to repudiate the Nazis
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29A Reconsideration of the Status of Newton's LawsIn Michael J. Shaffer & Michael Veber (eds.), What Place for the a Priori?, Open Court. pp. 177. 2011.I look at the debates of the status of Newton's laws, whether they can each, or all together be considered emprical or a priori.
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111Pierre Duhem’s virtue epistemologyStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 38 (1): 149-159. 2007.Duhem’s concept of “good sense” is central to his philosophy of science, given that it is what allows scientist to decide between competing theories. Scientists must use good sense and have intellectual and moral virtues in order to be neutral arbiters of scientific theories, especially when choosing between empirically adequate theories. I discuss the parallels in Duhem’s views to those of virtue epistemologists, who understand justified belief as that arrived at by a cognitive agent with int…Read more
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47Fallibilism, naturalism and the traditional requirements for knowledgeStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 22 (3): 451-469. 1991.In april 1872, with the caisson at a depth of seventy-odd feet and still no bedrock, two men died. The strain for Roebling was nearly unbearable, as his wife later said. On May 18, a third man died, and that same day Roebling made the most difficult and courageous decision of the project. Staking everything — the success of the bridge, his reputation, his career - he ordered a halt. The New York tower, he had concluded, could stand where it was, at a depth of 78 feet 6 inches, not on bedrock, bu…Read more
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48The Independence of the Parallel Postulate and Development of Rigorous Consistency ProofsHistory and Philosophy of Logic 28 (1): 19-30. 2007.I trace the development of arguments for the consistency of non-Euclidean geometries and for the independence of the parallel postulate, showing how the arguments become more rigorous as a formal conception of geometry is introduced. I analyze the kinds of arguments offered by Jules Hoüel in 1860-1870 for the unprovability of the parallel postulate and for the existence of non-Euclidean geometries, especially his reaction to the publication of Beltrami’s seminal papers, showing that Beltrami wa…Read more
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74Henri Poincaré's philosophy of scienceStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 20 (3): 335-363. 1989.Poincare’s arguments for his thesis of the conventionality of metric depend on a relationalist program for dynamics, not on any general philosophical interpretation of science. I will sketch Poincare’s development of the relationalist program and show that his arguments for the conventionality of metric do not depend on any global strategies such as a general empiricism or Duhemian underdetermination arguments. Poincare’s theory of space, while empirically false, is more philosophically sophisti…Read more
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1Bertrand Russell, An Essay on the Foundations of Geometry (review)Philosophy in Review 17 (5): 364-366. 1997.
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