Realism, perspectivism, and disagreement in science

Massimi, Michela

doi:10.1007/s11229-019-02500-6

Cited by 13 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Such situations can arise, according to Feest, when it is actually indeterminate whether an experiment is reliable or not. As such, the discussion that is to follow differs from the experiments discussed by Massimi (2012;2019a), where we have good grounds to believe that we are in fact dealing with reliable experiments. While Feest does not formulate her analysis of how scientists handle such situations in perspectivist terms, I will argue that it can provide us with a better understanding of the role played byu perspectives in the way in which scientists transform an experiment about which it is indeterminate whether it is reliable to a reliably operating experiment.…”

Section: Massimi's Reply: Perspectivism As Historically Situated Realismmentioning

confidence: 83%

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Perspectivism and the epistemology of experimentation

Potters¹

2020

Euro Jnl Phil Sci

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My aim in this paper is to propose a way to study the role of perspectives in both the production and justification of experimental knowledge claims. My starting point for this will be Anjan Chakravartty's claim that Ronald Giere's perspectival account of the role of instruments in the production of such claims entails relativism in the form of irreducibly incompatible truths. This led Michela Massimi to argue that perspectivism, insofar as it wants to form a realist position, is only concerned with the justification of such claims: whether they are produced reliably is, on her view, a perspective-independent fact of the matter. Following a suggestion by Giere on how scientists handle incompatible experimental results, I will then argue that Massimi's perspectivism can be extended to also cover the production of such claims, without falling into relativism. I will elaborate this suggestion by means of Uljana Feest's work on how scientists handle incompatible experimental results. I will argue that, if we reconceptualize perspectives The author would like to acknowledge the Research Foundation-Flanders (FWO) as funding institution. Part of this paper was written during a stay as a visiting researcher at the University of Edinburgh with Michela Massimi's ERC-project Perspectival Realism: Science, Knowledge and Truth from a Human Vantage Point.

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Section: Massimi's Reply: Perspectivism As Historically Situated Realismmentioning

confidence: 83%

“…] key to perspectivism as a pluralist view about ways of knowing" (2019a, p. 11). (At the time of writing, this article (Massimi, 2019a) is online-only. Hence, page-references are not to the journal page numbers, but rather to the page numbers of the pdf-version found online.)…”

Section: Perspectives and The Process Of Interpretationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perspectivism and the epistemology of experimentation

Potters¹

2020

Euro Jnl Phil Sci

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“…I am eager to see what prospects may arise for realism after its being pluralistically (and, on a closely related note, perspectivally) informed, with suchlike projects being well underway (e.g. Chang, 2017;Giere, 2010;Glick, 2019;Massimi, 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Problems of empirical solutions to the theory-ladenness of observation

Pantazakos

2021

Synthese

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Recent years have seen enticing empirical approaches to solving the epistemological problem of the theory-ladenness of observation. I group these approaches in two categories according to their method of choice: testing and refereeing. I argue that none deliver what friends of theory-neutrality want them to. Testing does not work because both evidence from cognitive neuroscience and perceptual pluralism independently invalidate the existence of a common observation core. Refereeing does not work because it treats theory-ladenness as a kind of superficial, removable bias. Even if such treatment is plausible, there is likely no method to ascertain that effects of this bias are not present. More importantly, evidence from cognitive neuroscience suggests that a deeper, likely irremovable kind of theory-ladenness lies within the perceptual modules.

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“…In this case, the 'scaling-up' metaphor translates into how the charged 'electrolytes' (as Faraday called them) became the charged 'idle wheels' in Maxwell's honeycomb model of the ether (1861-2/ 1890), which in turn served as an inferential blueprint for a different phenomenon: that of electromagnetic induction. In Maxwell's model (see Bokulich 2015 andMassimi 2019c), ethereal vortices represented the magnetic field and its strength while idle wheels among vortices represented the electric displacement associated with the magnetic field. Such ethereal vortices accompanied by charged particles resurfaced with J.J. Thomson and his 'Faraday tubes' , still described in the Silliman Lectures of 1906 as a model for electrostatic induction.…”

Section: Inferential Blueprints Encore and Modally Robust Phenomenamentioning

confidence: 99%

Perspectival Realism

Massimi¹

2022

Self Cite

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What does it mean to be a realist about science if one takes seriously the view that scientific knowledge is always perspectival, namely historically and culturally situated? In Perspectival Realism, Michela Massimi articulates an original answer to this question. The result is a philosophical view that goes under the name of ‘perspectival realism’ and it offers a new lens for thinking about scientific knowledge, realism, and pluralism in science. Perspectival Realism begins with an exploration of how epistemic communities often resort to several models and a plurality of practices in some areas of inquiry, drawing on examples from nuclear physics, climate science, and developmental psychology. Taking this plurality in science as a starting point, Massimi explains the perspectival nature of scientific representation, the role of scientific models as inferential blueprints, and the variety of realism that naturally accompanies such a view. Perspectival realism is realism about phenomena (rather than about theories or unobservable entities). The result of this novel view is a portrait of scientific knowledge as a collaborative inquiry, where the reliability of science is made possible by a plurality of historically and culturally situated scientific perspectives. Along the way, Massimi offers insights into the nature of scientific modelling, scientific knowledge qua modal knowledge, data-to-phenomena inferences, and natural kinds as sortal concepts. Perspectival realism offers a realist view that takes the multicultural roots of science seriously and couples it with cosmopolitan duties about how one ought to think about scientific knowledge and the distribution of benefits gained from scientific advancements.

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Realism, perspectivism, and disagreement in science

Cited by 13 publications

References 30 publications

Perspectivism and the epistemology of experimentation

Perspectivism and the epistemology of experimentation

Problems of empirical solutions to the theory-ladenness of observation

Perspectival Realism

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