Maarten Van Dyck

Bas van Fraassen’s constructive empiricism has significantly shaped the debate on scientific realism. However, many commentators have been puzzled by the precise nature of the argument for this position. This paper reconstructs that argument. The first half of the paper distinguishes between van Fraassen’s defensive moves and what he has called the “positive argument” for the position. Particular attention is given to elaborating this positive argument – namely, that constructive empiricism offers the best interpretation of scientific practice. The second half reflects on what it can mean to justify an interpretation of science, and it considers the implications for the scientific realism debate. It is shown that a crucial distinction must be made. On the one hand, the aim of science is historically instituted by scientific practice as a collective endeavor. On the other hand, the question of what to believe is determined by an epistemic policy for which each individual must take responsibility through the stance they adopt towards this collective practice. The overall aim of the paper is to demonstrate that constructive empiricism remains a very appealing position, grounded in a deep appreciation of the pluralist and historical dimensions of scientific practice – aspects further highlighted by the empiricist stance.

In this article, we provide a detailed discussion of Hasok Chang’s analysis of the Chemical Revolution. Our focus lies on his use of the framework of systems of practice and his claim that the abandonment of the phlogiston theory was irrational. We argue that his framework runs into problems when applied to the chemical revolution because of its static view on the aims of the historical actors and we suggest using Nicholas Jardine’s concept of the reality of questions instead as a more flexible historiographical tool. We show how Chang’s claim regarding the irrational aspects of the chemical revolution follows from his strictly individualistic epistemology, leading him to see institutional and social aspects that impact the determination of aims as external to scientific rationality. We argue that a viable pragmatist and pluralist philosophy of science needs to embrace ‘academic politics’ as an explicit part of its view of rationality.

Many prominent arguments for epistemic relativism take their departure from the observation that a certain kind of epistemic symmetry is present in particular empirical cases. In this paper, we seek to attain further clarity about the kind of symmetry at issue, and the sort of relativism to which such symmetry can reasonably be taken to give rise. The need for such an investigation is made apparent, we believe, by the fact that prominent anti-relativist arguments such as that advanced by Boghossian in his influential book Fear of Knowledge (2006) yield distorted pictures of the matter. Following Boghossian, we present our argument through a detailed consideration of the dispute between Bellarmine and Galileo concerning heliocentrism. Contrary to what Boghossian claims, the relevant sort of symmetry does not concern a difference in fundamental epistemic principles between Bellarmine and Galileo, but rather a much more localized difference in procedures for adjudication between shared principles in the novel epistemic circumstances generated by Galileo's telescopic observations. Bellarmine and Galileo advance fundamentally different procedures of adjudication that are nevertheless equally rational. The upshot is not so much the denial that there are absolute epistemic facts as such, as Boghossian thinks, but rather the denial that there is an absolute fact of the matter as to which was the most rational way to proceed: Bellarmine's or Galileo's. What this gives us, is the denial that there is a certain kind of absolute epistemic fact.

The novel use of symbolism in early modern mathematics poses both philosophical and historical questions. How can we trace its development and transmission through manuscript sources? Is it intrinsically related to the emergence of symbolic algebra? How does symbolism relate to the use of diagrams? What are the consequences of symbolic reasoning on our understanding of nature? Can a symbolic language enable new forms of reasoning? Does a universal symbolic language exist which enable us to express all knowledge? This book brings together a collection of papers that address all these and related questions which were initially posed at a conference held in Ghent (Belgium) in August 2009. Scholars working on philosophy of science, history of philosophy and history of mathematics provide an insight into the role and function of symbolic representations in the development of early modern mathematics. The papers cover the period from early abbaco arithmetic and algebra (14h century) up to Leibniz (early 18th century).

The concept of impetus denoted the transmission of a power from the mover to the object moved. Many authors resorted to this concept to explain why a projectile keeps on moving when no longer in contact with its initial mover. But its application went further, as impetus was also appealed to in attempts to explain the acceleration of falling bodies or the motion of the heavens. It was widely applied in Renaissance natural philosophy, but it also raised a number of ontological questions concerning its precise nature.

Akin to the mathematical recreations, John Wilkins' Mathematicall Magick (1648) elaborates the pleasant, useful and wondrous part of practical mathematics, dealing in particular with its material culture of machines and instruments. We contextualize the Mathematicall Magick by studying its institutional setting and its place within changing conceptions of art, nature, religion and mathematics. We devote special attention to the way Wilkins inscribes mechanical innovations within a discourse of wonder. Instead of treating ‘wonder’ as a monolithic category, we present a typology, showing that wonders were not only recreative, but were meant to inspire Wilkins' readers to new mathematical inventions.

This paper offers a reassesment of Simon Stevin’s mechanics, by focusing on how Stevin tries to anchor his mathematical demonstrations in the behavior of material instruments. It is shown how his views on the relation between spiegheling and daet are crucial to correctly understand his famous proof of the law of the inclined plane and his experimental test of the Aristotelian law of free fall. The distance separating spiegheling and daet is reproduced in that between instruments at rest and instruments in motion, because of Stevin’s claim that impediments to motion are “inseperable accidents” of all moving objects.

How Galileo Galilei discovered the law of fall, and the difference that this makes Galileo’s law of fall is one of the crucial building blocks of classical mechanics. The question how this law was discovered has often been a topic of debate. This article offers a reconstruction of the developments within Galileo’s research that led to the discovery of the law. This reconstruction is offered to make a philosophical point regarding the epistemic status of experimental results: Galileo’s experiments can offer sufficient justification for the acceptance of the law of fall only because of their place in a broad research programme.

In this article we criticize two recent articles that examine the relation between explanation and unification. Halonen and Hintikka (1999), on the one hand, claim that no unification is explanation. Schurz (1999), on the other hand, claims that all explanation is unification. We give counterexamples to both claims. We propose a pluralistic approach to the problem: explanation sometimes consists in unification, but in other cases different kinds of explanation (e.g., causal explanation) are required; and none of these kinds is more fundamental