The Case Study Method in Philosophy of Science: An Empirical Study

Mizrahi, Moti

doi:10.1162/posc_a_00333

Cited by 18 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…2 On the methodological problems associated with using case studies from the history of science as evidence in philosophy of science, see Sauer and Scholl ([2016], pp. 1-10), Bolinska and Martin ([2019]), and Mizrahi ([2020]). 3 On the application of the methods of data science, such as data mining and corpus analysis, to philosophy of science, see Mizrahi ([2013]) and Mizrahi ([2016]).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Theoretical Virtues in Scientific Practice: An Empirical Study

Mizrahi¹

2022

The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science

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It is a common view among philosophers of science that theoretical virtues (also known as epistemic or cognitive values), such as simplicity and consistency, play an important role in scientific practice. In this paper, I set out to study the role that theoretical virtues play in scientific practice empirically. I apply the methods of data science, such as text mining and corpus analysis, to study large corpora of scientific texts in order to uncover patterns of usage. These patterns of usage, in turn, might shed some light on the role that theoretical virtues play in scientific practice. Overall, the results of this empirical study suggest that scientists invoke theoretical virtues explicitly, albeit rather infrequently, when they talk about models (less than 30%), theories (less than 20%), and hypotheses (less than 15%) in their published works. To the extent that they are mentioned in scientific publications, the results of this study suggest that accuracy, consistency, and simplicity are the theoretical virtues that scientists invoke more frequently than the other theoretical virtues tested in this study. Interestingly, however, depending on whether they talk about hypotheses, theories, or models, scientists may invoke one of those theoretical virtues more than the others. Introduction 2. Methods 3. Results Discussion Appendix

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Theoretical Virtues in Scientific Practice: An Empirical Study

Mizrahi¹

2022

The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science

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“…2 From scientific literature to philosophical claims: clarifying the problem 2 We will consider later some broad examples of the kinds of philosophical questions that can be profitably treated using digital tools. For readers who would like to investigate some more completely fleshed out cases of digital analyses in philosophy of science, we can recommend, at least: Overton ([2013]), Ramsey and Pence ([2016]), Murdock et al ([2017]), Pence and Ramsey ([2018]), Murdock et al ([2018]), Malaterre et al ([2019]), Mizrahi ([2020a]), Mizrahi ([2020b]), or Wray ([2020]). We thank an anonymous reviewer for encouraging us to highlight these results.…”

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confidence: 99%

Digital Literature Analysis for Empirical Philosophy of Science

Lean¹,

Rivelli²,

Pence³

2023

The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science

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Empirical philosophers of science aim to base their philosophical theories on observations of scientific practice. But since there is far too much science to observe it all, how can we form and test hypotheses about science that are sufficiently rigorous and broad in scope, while avoiding the pitfalls of bias and subjectivity in our methods?Part of the answer, we claim, lies in the computational tools of the digital humanities (DH), which allow us to analyze large volumes of scientific literature. Here we advocate for the use of these methods by addressing a number of large-scale, justificatory concerns-specifically, about the epistemic value of journal articles as evidence for what happens elsewhere in science, and about the ability of DH tools to extract this evidence. Far from ignoring the gap between scientific literature and the rest of scientific practice, effective use of DH tools requires critical reflection about these relationships.

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“…10 On methodological issues in philosophy of mathematics, seeCellucci (2013). On the use of case studies in philosophy of science, seeMizrahi (2020). 11 For more on the application of text mining and corpus analysis methods to philosophy of logic and mathematics, seePease et al (2018) andMizrahi (2019).…”

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Proof, Explanation, and Justification in Mathematical Practice

Mizrahi

2020

J Gen Philos Sci

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In this paper, I propose that applying the methods of data science to "the problem of whether mathematical explanations occur within mathematics itself" (Mancosu 2018) might be a fruitful way to shed new light on the problem. By carefully selecting indicator words for explanation and justification, and then systematically searching for these indicators in databases of scholarly works in mathematics, we can get an idea of how mathematicians use these terms in mathematical practice and with what frequency. The results of this empirical study suggest that mathematical explanations do occur in research articles published in mathematics journals, as indicated by the occurrence of explanation indicators. When compared with the use of justification indicators, however, the data suggest that justifications occur much more frequently than explanations in scholarly mathematical practice. The results also suggest that justificatory proofs occur much more frequently than explanatory proofs, thus suggesting that proof may be playing a larger justificatory role than an explanatory role in scholarly mathematical practice.

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The Case Study Method in Philosophy of Science: An Empirical Study

Cited by 18 publications

References 42 publications

Theoretical Virtues in Scientific Practice: An Empirical Study

Theoretical Virtues in Scientific Practice: An Empirical Study

Digital Literature Analysis for Empirical Philosophy of Science

Proof, Explanation, and Justification in Mathematical Practice

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