School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Research Publications
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ItemOn Mr Truetemp's Lack of Virtue(Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brasil, 2022)Keith Lehrer’s case of Mr Truetemp, whose reliably formed true beliefs about the temperature are the result of a tempucomp implanted in his head, is designed as a counter-example to process reliabilism. In this short note, the example is explored from the point of view of the two main forms of virtue epistemology. It is suggested that Truetemp’s reliably formed true beliefs about the temperature fail to be virtuously formed in either the sense of the virtue reliabilist or the virtue responsibilist. Hence, virtue epistemology is able to handle the case of Mr Truetemp.
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ItemK. Brad Wray, ed. Interpreting Kuhn: Critical Essays, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. pp. xv+267. ISBN 978-1-108-49829-6.(University of Chicago Press, 2022-03-01)
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ItemObjective Facts(De Gruyter, 2022-04-27)This is a brief exploration of the notion of an objective fact. The form of objectivity at issue is distinct from epistemic objectivity or objectivity about truth. It is an ontological form of objectivity. Objective facts may obtain whether or not we know, believe or are aware of them. They depend upon objects, for example, on the properties that objects have or the relationships into which objects enter. Setting scepticism to one side, there is a perfectly mundane sense in which we may come to have knowledge or fail to have knowledge of such facts. We must perceive objective facts from a perspective, but this does not enter into the facts. Nor does the fact that we must describe facts using language mean that facts are language-dependent.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableReview of the book Kuhn's Intellectual Path by K. Brad Wray(British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 2022)
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ItemKuhn, values and academic freedom(Institutul European din Romania, 2021)For Kuhn, there are a number of values which provide scientists with a shared basis for theory-choice. These values include accuracy, breadth, consistency, simplicity and fruitfulness. Each of these values may be interpreted in different ways. Moreover, there may be conflict between the values in application to specific theories. In this short paper, Kuhn's idea of scientific values is extended to the value of academic freedom. The value of academic freedom may be interpreted in a number of different ways. Moreover, there are other values which play a role in the functioning of our academic institutions. As with the possible conflict between scientific values, there may be conflict among the academic values.
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ItemHow Not to Know the Principle of Induction(BRILL, 2021-08)Abstract In The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell presents a justification of induction based on a principle he refers to as “the principle of induction.” Owing to the ambiguity of the notion of probability, the principle of induction may be interpreted in two different ways. If interpreted in terms of the subjective interpretation of probability, the principle of induction may be known a priori to be true. But it is unclear how this should give us any confidence in our use of induction, since induction is applied to the external world outside our minds. If the principle is interpreted in light of the objective interpretation of induction, it cannot be known to be true a priori, since it applies to frequencies that occur in the world outside the mind, and these cannot be known without recourse to experience. Russell’s principle of induction therefore fails to provide a satisfactory justification of induction.
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ItemInduction and Natural Kinds Revisited(Oxford University Press, 2021)Howard Sankey reconsiders a special issue closely connected with causal powers—the problem of induction. He addresses a deep version of problem of circularity originally raised by Psillos, and argues that the circularity can be avoided. The key is recognizing certain epistemically externalist results of the Megaric consequences of the commitment to dispositional essentialism. Circularity can be avoided, Sankey argues, because it is the way the world is, rather than the inductive inference itself, that grounds the reliability of the inductive inference in his previous account. What are doing the work for Sankey here are the Megaric consequences of his adoption of Ellis’s dispositional essentialism. The uniformity in question is one that stretches across possible worlds: nature is uniform in the precise sense that there are natural kinds whose members all possess a shared set of essential properties. The significance of this commitment lies in how the possible and the temporal intersect through restrictions placed on the accessibility relation between the actual and the possible. Ipso facto, when considering questions about the future behaviours of objects, which is how Sankey understands the problem of induction to be, the uniformity of nature can ground the reliability of beliefs about those future behaviours precisely because the domain of possibility is restricted to those worlds accessible to the actual world, which is fixed by the commitments of dispositional essentialism.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableThe Relativistic Legacy of Kuhn and Feyerabend(Routledge, 2020)Thomas S. Kuhn (1922–1996) and Paul K. Feyerabend (1924–1994) were central figures in the historical turn that took place in the philosophy of science in the latter half of the twentieth century. In a break with positivist orthodoxy, advocates of the historical approach sought to understand the sciences in terms of the developmental processes which underlie scientific change. With growing recognition of the extent to which science is subject to change, the suggestion that the sciences may be approached in relativistic terms came increasingly to the fore. In no small part, the work of Feyerabend and Kuhn was responsible for this trend.
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ItemRealism and the Epistemic Objectivity of Science(De Gruyter, 2021)The paper presents a realist account of the epistemic objectivity of science. Epistemic objectivity is distinguished from ontological objectivity and the objectivity of truth. As background, T.S. Kuhn’s idea that scientific theory-choice is based on shared scientific values with a role for both objective and subjective factors is discussed. Kuhn’s values are epistemologically ungrounded, hence provide a minimal sense of objectivity. A robust account of epistemic objectivity on which methodological norms are reliable means of arriving at the truth is presented. The problem remains that deliberative judgement is required to determine the relevance and relative significance of a range of methodological norms. A role is sketched for cognitive virtues which may be exercised in the course of the deliberative judgement.
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ItemScientific Realism and the Conflict with Common Sense(De Gruyter, 2020)The aim of this paper is to identify and resolve a tension between scientific realism and commonsense realism that arises due to a purported conflict between science and common sense. It has sometimes been held that common sense is antiquated theory which is found to be false and eliminated with the advance of science. In this paper, a distinction is proposed between three kinds of common sense: practical skill; widely held belief; basic common sense. It is agreed that common sense in the sense of widely held belief does succumb to the advance of science. It is left open to what extent practical skill varies with scientific change. It is argued that basic common sense is by and large resistant to change due to scientific change. Epistemological aspects of basic common sense are explored. A number of objections to the proposal about basic common sense are considered. It is suggested that basic common sense is sufficiently epistemologically robust to provide a foundation both for scientific knowledge and for scientific realism.