Nelida Gentile

María José Frápolli sostiene que el concepto de verdad es absolutamente neutral e independiente de los debates entre realistas y antirrealistas científicos. En el presente trabajo se analiza críticamente su propuesta y se argumenta que, de manera inadvertida, la autora ha caído presa de una contradicción pragmática: al pretender decir qué es la verdad está implícitamente utilizando una noción correspondentista de la verdad, precisamente, la noción que subyace a los debates entre realistas y antirrealistas, al menos entre realistas y antirrealistas científicos.

En el presente artículo, ofrecemos en primer término una revisión crítica de la concepción pragmática de la ciencia y cómo esta doctrina ha evolucionado hasta la actualidad. En segundo lugar, nos proponemos examinar la relación modelo-target cuyo valor epistémico ha sido cuestionado por algunos defensores de la visión pragmática. Uno de los principales objetivos del trabajo es mostrar que incluir la relación modelo-target en algunos contextos particulares —por ejemplo, en la concepción inferencial de modelos— no es en absoluto incompatible con la visión pragmática. Por otra parte, exploramos la relación entre pragmatismo y ficcionalismo en el contexto de la construcción de modelos. Con respecto a este tópico, rechazamos la posición que hemos denominado “ficcionalismo completo” y asumimos una actitud deflacionaria, “ficcionalismo estrecho”, el cual admite solo una clase de componentes no realísticos de un modelo: los que refieren a entidades no existentes.

The article focuses on the unifying and explanatory power of the selective realism defended by Anjan Chakravartty. Our main aim is twofold. First, we critically analyse the purported synthesis between entity realism and structural realism offered by the author. We give reasons to think that this unification is an inconvenient marriage. In the second step, we deal with certain controversial aspects of the intended unification among three metaphysical concepts: causation, laws of nature and natural kinds. After pointing out that Chakravartty’s conception of laws is a plausible view that a scientific realist might endorse, we contend, on the contrary, that the concept of natural kind is dispensable in the framework of Chakravartty’s realism.

To explain how theoretical terms can acquire and maintain ref-erence, Kitcher introduces the concepts of “mode of reference” and “reference potential”. The reference potential of an expression-type would be a function of the two basic modes of reference, the descriptive and the baptismal. Kitcher puts forward an argument: modes of reference correspond individually to each token and not to the expression-type, whereas the reference potential of a type is a compendium of modes of reference of its tokens. Different tokens of the same expression-type may be associated with different modes of reference and, therefore, some tokens of the same type could refer whereas others do not. We argue that a series of marks or of sounds became tokens of an expression-type precisely because they are instantiations of a type, and not the other way around, as Kitcher suggests. We argue that Kitcher’s main resource, to primarily link the reference to tokens rather than to expression-types, is based on a conflation that seems to have been passed over by his critics. So, both the descriptive and the baptismal basic ways of providing reference to general terms are useless to Kitcher’s theory on referring and we conclude that it is far from solving the problems it intended to overcome.

In the ’60s, under the slogan “how to be a good empiricist”, Feyerabend criticized two basic principles of traditional empiricism – the principle of derivability and the principle of meaning invariance – and developed a new model for the acquisition of knowledge. At one point he adhered to realism and falsationism. Later he adopted an anarchist position on scientific methodology, but finally took a notoriously moderate attitude. This paper reconstructs Feyerabend’s path and shows that at the end he was compelled to return to the path followed by the old empiricists. Key words: critique, theoretical proliferation, realism, principle of meaning invariance, principle of deducibility, incommensurability, pragmatic theory of observation.

It will be analyzed some views about laws and highlight certain aspects in each of them that, in our opinion, are to the detriment of their plausibility. The views that we will analyze are the standard regularist conception and the most sophisticated variant known as the Mill-Ramsey-Lewis (MRL) approach, on the one hand, and the necessitarianist versions of David Armstrong and Stephen Mumford, on the other. Finally, we present an alternative proposal that is intermediate between the regularist conception and Mumford’s nomological anti-realism. We believe that our proposal successfully avoids the reviewed difficulties and opens a new theoretical space within the dispute over the laws of nature.

The philosophy of science developed since the second half of the 20th century has included naturalized perspectives. Kuhn, Feyerabend and followers of the Strong Programme have claimed a role for History and Sociology. But to privilege the historical and sociological issues could precipitate the philosophy of science into a self-destructive relativism. Kuhn’s ideas on the relationship between philosophy and history of science have produced lasting effects in discrediting traditional philosophies of science. In this paper we focus on the tensions shown in the evolution of Kuhn’s thinking and we point out, among other difficulties, some fundamental inconsistencies at a metahistorical and meta-philosophical level.

Through his critique of traditional semantics, his attack on the “myth of a museum”, Quine established different relationships between the theses of the inscrutability of reference, the indeterminacy of translation and the underdetermination of theories by evidence. The elucidation of Quine’s ideas has produced many philosophic discussions. In this vein, Roth offers a reconstruction of Quine’s views and rejects some of the logic relationships mentioned above, for, according to Roth, Quine holds an inconsistent doctrine of radical translation. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the consistency of Quine’s doctrine of radical translation. It argues that if we pay attention to the evolution of his thinking, on the one hand, and to the differences between purely logical remarks and matters of fact possibilities, on the other hand, it is not possible to think that Quine has incurred in intolerable contradictions. Also, from a pragmatic point of view, it argues that in the course of his extended career Quine adopted an increasingly radical empiricism. Keywords: holism, Quine, reference, meaning, underdetermination, translation.

In several works that start from the seminal text Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories, Ruth Millikan has presented her well know teleosemantic approach to philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. Millikan presents her theory of linguistic signs as a theory which, unlike other semantic theories, is able to more adequately solve problems such as that which is called “Freges’s puzzle”. Millikan considers that the Fregean modes of presentation are inconsistent with a representational theory of mind. In this paper, the relevance of Millikan’s objections to Frege is evaluated and the scope of these objections is discussed in the context of her own conception. We conclude that Millikan’s analysis of Fregean semantics relies on false assumptions and, in consequence, her doctrine is weakened. Keywords: teleosemantic theory, Fregean semantics, senses, identity.

The purpose of this paper is to analize whether Goodman’s pluralism leaves room for a correspondentist version of truth, in spite of his explicit rejection of this. I will argue that Goodman associates the notion of correspondence exclusively with the perspective of traditional metaphysical realism that he refuses; but pace Goodman, it is perfectly possible to reconcile his pluralism with a correspondence theory of truth. I think that unless pluralism and the correspondence theory of truth can be combined, Goodman’s position is unsustainable due to restrictions he imposes to pluralism. Keywords: Nelson Goodman, irrealism, correspondence theory of truth.

The article focuses on the unifying and explanatory power of the selective realism defended by Anjan Chakravartty. Our main aim is twofold. First, we critically analyse the purported synthesis between entity realism and structural realism offered by the author. We give reasons to think that this unification is an inconvenient marriage. In the second step, we deal with certain controversial aspects of the intended unification among three metaphysical concepts: causation, laws of nature and natural kinds. After pointing out that Chakravartty’s conception of laws is a plausible view that a scientific realist might endorse, we contend, on the contrary, that the concept of natural kind is dispensable in the framework of Chakravartty’s realism.

In several works that start from the seminal text Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories, Ruth Millikan has presented her well know teleosemantic approach to philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. Millikan presents her theory of linguistic signs as a theory which, unlike other semantic theories, is able to more adequately solve problems such as that which is called “Freges’s puzzle”. Millikan considers that the Fregean modes of presentation are inconsistent with a representational theory of mind. In this paper, the relevance of Millikan’s objections to Frege is evaluated and the scope of these objections is discussed in the context of her own conception. We conclude that Millikan’s analysis of Fregean semantics relies on false assumptions and, in consequence, her doctrine is weakened.

In the early 80's the problem of incommensurability was reavived around of semantic holism versus causal realism discussion. In "Observation Reconsidered", Jerry Fodor argues -against Hanson, Kuhn and Feyerabend- the neutral character of perception judgments. Four years after Churchland writes "Perceptual Plasticity and Theoretical Neutrality: a Reply to Jerry Fodor". The objections are examined and answered again by Fodor in "A Reply To Churchland's 'Perceptual Plasticity and Theoretical Neutrality"'. In this paper I analyze the more relevan! aspects of this dispute and attempt to show the scarcity ofthe evidence available to solve the question. In a final section, however, I examine the conception holded by Michael Bishop that, in rny opinion, represents an interesting perspective in support for the Fodor's conclusions.