INVESTIGADORES
LÓPEZ Cristian Ariel
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
How to deal with pluralism in philosophy of sciences
Autor/es:
MARIANA CÓRDOBA; HERNAN ACCORINTI; CRISTIAN LÓPEZ
Lugar:
Lausanne
Reunión:
Congreso; 6ª congrès de la société de philosophie des sciences; 2016
Institución organizadora:
Universitè de Lausanne
Resumen:
Pluralism has gained supporters in the last decades, particularly in philosophy of science. According to some authors, a pluralistic approach would provide the key to understand the development of scientific practice and work out certain classical philosophical problems. Indeed, pluralism takes the actual and multiple scientific practice and history of science as the spearhead against monism, reductionism and fundamentalism. It shows that the existence of universal laws or the belief in a single scientific system are wrong and misguided assumptions that do not fit in with the dappled and multicolor picture of science. For that reason, pluralism has found a comfortable place and has grown in the realms of special philosophies of sciences. Nevertheless, it is not possible to identify pluralism with a single and coherent set of thesis: some authors hold a merely epistemological or methodological pluralism (Chang 2004, 2012), whereas others assume a stronger one committed to the idea of a plural reality ?generally an internal or constituted reality (Dupré 1993, Cartwright 1999, Lombardi and Perez-Ransanz 2008, 2012). The notion of truth has an undeniable value in philosophy of science. Some issues involved in discussions regarding scientific realism, in particular semantic and epistemic realism, are useful to understand the question of truth in pluralism and with this, its boundaries and scopes. Within pluralistic approach there is a widely spread dictum according to which pluralism has to leave behind every idea of truth in the sense of correspondence. In accordance with the fundamental intuition of a correspondence theory, truth depends on the fact that a state of things showed by the world satisfies the assert of a statement. Hasok Chang?s pluralism, for instance, claims that monism would imply a notion of truth as correspondence and certain ontological commitment since it assumes that the world is one and, consequently, truth about the world is one. Thus, not only the task of science must be looking for truth but there is also one answer to every scientific question. However, Chang seems to hold the contrary implication as well: correspondence notion of truth implies monism so that every reasonable pluralistic position cannot assume a correspondence notion of truth. Instead, a coherence notion of truth seems to be in line with a genuine pluralism. Chang offers several arguments for supporting his pluralism but the defense is based fundamentally on his rejection of monism: the search for truth, as it is one of the most firm motivations for monism, constitutes a restriction for scientific practice because it cuts short multiple alternative lines of research. Thus, a pluralistic point of view would be a preferred choice for diversifying the scientific research.However, some authors have gone one step further within pluralism. Nancy Cartwright (1999) argues we live in a dappled world; our best scientific theories describe the world adequately, but natural laws apply only to very special cases or shielded environments. Hence a scientific theory is only true in its particular domain that cannot be universal. Her nomological pluralism claims nature is governed in different domains by different systems of laws not necessarily related to each other in any systematic or uniform way. That is why natural laws describing this world are a patchwork. Cartwright?s pluralism is semantically (and ontologically) stronger than Chang?s since it not only gives up fundamentalism and universalism but it also holds a strong realism where natural laws are literally true. Therefore, it assumes a correspondence notion of truth being at odds with the Chang?s dictum. Also, Rudolf Carnap advocated a pluralism approach and a correspondence notion of truth in his famous paper ?Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology? (1956). Conforming to Carnap, questions about existence of entities or natural laws have to be made within a linguistic framework: it is only in relation to a linguistic framework that questions of existence make sense, since to be real means to be an element of a linguistic system. External questions related to the existence of the ?thing world? itself cannot be answered because they are formulated in a wrong way. This kind of carnapian pluralism has mutatis mutandis been development and carried on by Hillary Putnam and its internal realism (1981) and by Olimpia Lombardi and Ana Rosa Perez Ransanz (2008, 2012), who stand up for an ontological pluralism of Kantian roots. Even though Putnam?s internal realism maintains a notion of truth based on ?idealized rational acceptability? (closer than Chang), Olimpia?s and Ransanz?s pluralism, following Kant?s philosophy, holds a correspondence notion of truth which makes sense within conceptual scheme that constitutes reality.However, boundaries and scopes of pluralism are unclear and fuzzy. Must pluralism in philosophy of science only be epistemic? Must it assume a coherence notion of truth and reject realism? To put them in another way, may pluralism be realistic and hold a correspondence notion of truth? And if it were so, what kind of correspondence are we talking about if it always depends on conceptual scheme?In this work, we will try to shed some light on these questions. On the one hand, we shall argue against the Chang?s dictum: pluralism is not intrinsically and unavoidably engaged with a coherence notion of truth neither with instrumentalism. Thus, a correspondence notion of truth under a realistic pluralism may be advocated. We think it would be philosophically fruit-bearing for pluralism because it allows going beyond Chang?s constraint. On the other hand, we shall discuss the idea of an ontological pluralism and a correspondence notion of truth in relation to a linguistic framework or conceptual scheme. We suspect that classical discussion between the metaphysical realism and pluralistic realism comes from certain misunderstandings about what it is meant by "reality" and by "correspondence". Indeed, it seems that while the metaphysical realism strategy claims to endorse Carnaps external sense, the pluralistic one is to talk about reality and correspondence but always within Carnap internal sense. That is why we wonder if the discussion is necessarily developed on the basis of these unrecognized misunderstandings or if it is possible to defend a pluralistic position without ?deflating? reality subordinating it to a constitutional framework.ReferencesCarnap, Rudolf (1956) ?Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology? Reprinted in the Supplement to Meaning and Necessity: A Study in Semantics and Modal Logic, enlarged edition, Chicago, University of Chicago Press.Cartwright, Nancy (1999), The dappled world: A study of the boundaries of science, Cambridge, CUP. Chang, Hasok (2004), Inventing temperature: Measurement and scientific progress, New York, OUP.Chang, Hasok (2012), Is water H2O? Evidence, Realism and Pluralism Dordrecht, Springer.Dupré, John (1993), The Disorder of Things: Metaphysical Foundations of the Disunity of Science, Cambridge MA, HUP.Lombardi, O. y Pérez Ransanz, A. R., (2008), ?Lenguaje, ontología y relaciones interteóricas: en favor de un genuino pluralismo ontológico?, Revista Arbor. Ciencia, Pensamiento y Cultura 187: 43-52.Lombardi, Olimpia y Pérez Ransanz, Ana Rosa (2012), Los Múltiples Mundos de la Ciencia. Un Realismo Pluralista y su Aplicación a la Filosofía de la Física, México, Siglo XXI.Putnam, Hilary (1981), Reason, Truth and History, Cambridge, CUP.