Ioannis G. Ntagkas

A philosophical theory of explanation should provide solutions to a series of problems, both descriptive and normative. The aim of this essay is to establish the claim that this can be best done if one theorizes in terms of explanatory games rather than focusing on the explication of the concept of explanation. The position that is adopted is that of an explanatory pluralism and it is elaborated in terms of the rules that incorporate the normative standards that guide the processes of discovery and justification of explanations as well as the modes of their communication, dissemination, and adoption. They constitute the rules of the explanatory game that the participants are playing. The philosophical project consists in describing and normatively appraising the rules that constitute these games.

A philosophical theory of explanation should provide solutions to a series of problems, both descriptive and normative. The aim of this essay is to establish the claim that this can be best done if one theorizes in terms of explanatory games rather than focusing on the explication of the concept of explanation. The development of the precise meaning of the concept of scientific explanation occupies centre-stage in all contemporary approaches. The alternative position that seems obvious and which is adopted is that of an explanatory pluralism. At every moment of time there is a stock of explanations available in a society proposed by ordinary people “in the wild” or by specialists organized formally or semi-formally within specific organizational structures such as churches, universities, etc. The terms of provision, control, and dissemination of explanations in this collective explanatory enterprise are regulated by the different rules that the participants have come to adopt over time. These rules incorporate the normative standards that guide the processes of discovery and justification of explanations as well as the modes of their communication, dissemination, and adoption. They constitute the rules of the explanatory game that the participants are playing. The philosophical project consists in describing and normatively appraising the rules that constitute these games. This project is fundamentally liberal, in the sense that participants and non-participants to the game alike engage in the critical discussion and revision of the rules or to put it in other terms, the project is fundamentally naturalistic - philosophers and scientists equally take part in it.

One way to show that text interpretation can be treated as a scientific problem is to show that the standards that are currently used in the natural sciences when dealing with problems not involving meaningful material can also be successfully employed in the case of text interpretation. These standards involve intersubjective intelligibility, testability with the use of evidence, rational argumentation, and making methodological decisions aiming at the attainment of truth, accuracy, simplicity and other epistemic values. In the case of text interpretation—despite the fact that we deal with meaningful material—hypotheses can be formulated, consequences can be drawn by deduction, and these can be tested against empirical data. This claim is substantiated by the provision of an example of a scientific text

Le pragmatisme est souvent associé au nominalisme. Pourtant, dans l’esprit de son fondateur, C. S. Peirce, le pragmatisme va de pair avec le réalisme. Après avoir examiné les ressorts de ce paradoxe et noté plusieurs points communs aux divers pragmatistes, on présente les grands traits de ce que pourrait être un réalisme pragmatiste bien compris. On suggère qu’un tel réalisme dispositionnel, qui s’inscrit dans une démarche métaphysique et éthique résolue, constitue une voie prometteuse pour qui veut pouvoir donner sens au projet d’une « connaissance » métaphysique et apporter de possibles réponses au cynisme relativiste ambiant.

While Peirce presented himself as a "scholastic realist of a somewhat extreme stripe", merely adapting the virtues involved in Scotism to the requirements of modern science to erect a plain scientific realistic metaphysics, he was also eager to emphasize that "everybody ought to be a nominalist at first" because such an hypothesis is "simpler than realism" and because "the economy of research prescribes to try the simpler one first, and to continue in that opinion", until one "is driven out of it by the force majeure of irreconciliable facts". Even if, at first, he had been "blinded by nominalistic preconceptions", he also confessed that he had "never been able to think differently on that question of realism" and...

After recalling the progress made in the diagnosis of the post-truth phenomenon, thanks to recent experimental findings (from cognitive and social psychology) and theoretical work (post-truth versus half-lies and propaganda, degrees in epistemic vice and scale of responsibility), we indicate four other ways to improve our awareness of the scope and mechanisms of post-truth: we introduce some qualifications so as to distinguish between a post-truth world and an Orwellian universe, the negative and positive sides of emotions, an utter contempt for facts, and the sharp dichotomy between facts and values, and between science denialism and blind scientism. Finally, objective truth being taken for granted, we make some suggestions for a “way out”: we should be aware of our cognitive biases and of possible sources of manipulation, cultivate our epistemic virtues, and keep evidence as a prior demand. We should also work in a “scientific spirit,” i.e., refuse any compromise with society, morality, or practice so as to ensure freedom of conscience within an academic and democratic “space of reasons.” But even more urgently, we should avoid some still too frequent misunderstandings about truth itself and about knowledge (which we identify), and remember that post-truth is serious because it is a threat to reality itself: hence we should also take care of our metaphysical prejudices and work to find better ways of ensuring metaphysical knowledge.

Charles Sanders Peirce shares with many pragmatists, both classical and contemporary, a certain distrust of metaphysics, the nature and importance of which have been constantly questioned at the turn of the 20th century. It is however him who, after having decried it, claimed the possibility and the necessity of metaphysics. It is shown that this pragmaticist metaphysical project, which emphasizes logic, semiotics, inquiry and science (but without scientism), against the background of a very specific realist approach, is a source of inspiration for any enterprise concerned with responding to the “Integration Challenge”, and thus to think the links between metaphysics and epistemology, an objective which the metaphysician is held to tackle, if he wants to be able to establish the conditions of possibility of a genuine metaphysical knowledge.

For most early pragmatists, including the founder C.S. Peirce and L. Wittgenstein, vagueness was a real and universal principle and not a mere defect of our knowledge or thought. This volume begins by exploring this pragmatist notion of vagueness and the way it was tied to their basic opposition to various kinds of reductionism and nominalism. It then develops towards an analysis of Peirce's original and wide views on vagueness, as seen through the angles of logic, semiotics, epistemology and metaphysics. In the final part of this book, the reader is presented with a case for the contemporary relevance of such a realistic pragmaticism for the ongoing debate on semantic, epistemic and ontic vagueness.

"La métaphysique de tradition analytique ou continentale est florissante. Elle n'est plus seulement travaillée comme objet de l'histoire de la philosophie, elle est redevenue sujet de l'activité philosophique et productrice d'oeuvres nouvelles - qu'il s'agisse de la tradition dite continentale ou de celle dite analytique. Du côté "continental", hérité de Heidegger, c'est estimer que la métaphysique, en tant qu'enquête rationnelle sur l'être, doit être dépassée au profit d'un questionnement poétique. Du côté analytique, hérité du Cercle de Vienne, et notamment de Carnap, c'est prolonger l'oeuvre de philosophes qui estimaient que la logique symbolique nouvellement façonnée devait permettre d'établir le fait que tous les énoncés métaphysiques étaient dénués de sens. L'apologiste de la science que fut Carnap, tout comme son pourfendeur que fut Heidegger, ont l'un et l'autre convergé sur un même mot d'ordre :"le dépassement de la métaphysique". Ce renouveau actuel est donc d'autant plus étonnant que ces deux courants se réclamaient l'un et l'autre de l'héritage de Kant, lequel récusait déjà la triple ambition de la métaphysique théorique à connaître rationnellement la surnature, les choses en soi et les faits ultimes constituant la nature. Cet ouvrage, qui réunit d'éminents spécialistes de la question, propose ainsi un état des lieux de la réflexion métaphysique contemporaine."--Page 4 of cover.

À l'heure des fake news et des sciences alternatives, on pourrait facilement croire que tout est relatif. Cet essai voudrait pourtant suggérer le contraire. De nombreux malentendus circulent sur les concepts de vérité, de connaissance ou de réalité, déformés par l'idée-même de post-vérité. En nous proposant de nous méfier de nos préjugés métaphysiques les plus ancrés et d'œuvrer à une authentique connaissance métaphysique, cet essai de philosophie engagée nous invite à nous installer dans un espace académique et démocratique des raisons, seul à même de garantir la liberté de conscience. Il démontre ainsi que les idéaux de vérité et de connaissance constituent moins un rempart ou un déni de la vie qu'ils ne sont les meilleurs alliés de nos idéaux de solidarité et de justice sociale"--Page 4 of cover.

This paper articulates and defends three interconnected claims: first, that the debate on the role of values for science misses a crucial dimension, the institutional one; second, that institutions occupy the intermediate level between scientific activities and values and that they are to be systematically integrated into the analysis; third, that the appraisal of the institutions of science with respect to values should be undertaken within the premises of a comparative approach rather than an ideal approach. Hence, I defend the view that the issue be framed in reference to the following question: "What kind of institutional rules should be in place in order for the scientific process to unfold in such a way that the values that we deem more important come to the fore?" Addressing this concern is equivalent to conducting a debate on institutions and their role for science.

Scientific progress has many facets and can be conceptualized in different ways, for example in terms of problem-solving, of truthlikeness or of growth of knowledge. The main claim of the paper is that the most important prerequisite of scientific progress is the institutionalization of competition and criticism. An institutional framework appropriately channeling competition and criticism is the crucial factor determining the direction and rate of scientific progress, independently on how one might wish to conceptualize scientific progress itself. The main intention is to narrow the divide between traditional philosophy of science and the sociological, economic and political outlook at science that emphasizes the private interests motivating scientists and the subsequent contingent nature of the enterprise. The aim is to show that although science is a social enterprise taking place in historical time and thus is of a contingent nature, it can and in fact does lead to genuine scientific progress - contrary to the claims of certain sociologists of science and other relativists who standardly stress its social nature, but deny its progressive character. I will first deal with the factual issue by way of introducing the main concepts and mechanisms of modern institutional theory and by applying them to the analysis of the cultural phenomenon that we call modern science. I will then turn to the normative issue: what is the appropriate content of the institutional framework, for scientific progress to emerge and be sustained at which level should it be set and by whom? Addressing this problematic is equivalent to conducting a constitutional debate leading to a Constitution of Science.

STUDENT: I thoroughly agree. And here is a set of thoughts. A state exists because it provides individuals with solutions to the twin problems of trust and protection from aggression by individuals of the same society and those of different societies. A state emerges once a society grows bigger and relationships among the members become increasingly impersonal. In cases of larger groups or societies, trust becomes scarce since the discipline of reciprocity and the “shadow of the future” are relatively low.