In defense of ontological pluralism

OLIMPIA LOMBARDI

Buenos Aires

Congreso; 17th Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science (CLMPS 2023); 2023

Division of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science (DLMPS) y la Universidad de Buenos Aires

The idea thatscience moves forward by reaching truths as it unravels the veil of reality isstrongly present in many areas. In addition, it is usually supposed thatcertain disciplines and theories count on the privilege of describing thefundamental level of reality. That this view pervades the scientific communityis not surprising: it is an intuitive, commonsense realism. This position isstill powerful among philosophers of science, when they try to explain howscientific knowledge evolves by approaching to closer-to-truth theories, orwhen they are concerned with explaining how secondary disciplines andphenomenological theories are related to the fundamental descriptions of theworld.The aim of this talk is to recall Kant’sinsights, and to apply them to the philosophy of science. But learning from aphilosopher does not amount to glossing and repeating his works: completefidelity is not necessary to recognize his value. I will find my inspiration inKantian philosophy to face present-day problems, although at some point I willbe forced to depart from the philosopher’s doctrine. In fact, Kant’s philosophyis built upon two main ideas, which were very novel at his time: the role ofthe subject in the constitution of the object, and the transcendental characterof categories that makes them a priori conditions of any possible knowledge. Iwill definitely accept the first idea, but at the same time I will reject thesecond one in its original version, turning it into the view of a relative a priorithat underlies any theoretical body of knowledge. This not-completely Kantianbut Kantian-rooted perspective admits the existence of different conceptualschemes, both diachronically and synchronically. This view leads to anontological pluralism that allows for the coexistence of different, evenincompatible ontologies, breaking down the assumption about the priority ofcertain scientific theories and disciplines over others.