Van Fraassen

Instrumentalism has as much history behind it as realism. This supposes that, from its origin, that is, for 2400 years, the scientific-philosophical thought of the West has been immersed in a controversy about what it is that we call science, how science makes it possible for us to be in touch with reality, and what we can expect from that relationship. Many of the lucid minds that have preceded us over the past centuries have rebelled against the idea that we humans can come into direct contact with, or know, 'the way the World is', as we are going to see in Section 3. Since the last century, the most accurate and successful attempts to confront scientific realism are found in pragmatist, positivist and/or clearly instrumentalist approaches. But what are the main theses identifying scientific instrumentalism? The objective of Section 2 is to enumerate them one by one, without pretending exclusivity or exhaustiveness, but with the idea of making a presentation of these theses as complete and accurate as possible.

ARTÍCULOS

ALESSIO GAVA
Kusch and van Fraassen on Microscopic Experience _ 7

FACUNDO BEY
Hans-Georg Gadamer sobre el Protréptico aristotélico: ética y política en la tradición socrático-platónica _ 33

GUILLERMO SIBILIA
El problema de la atribución de la eternidad a los modos finitos según Spinoza _ 63


NOTAS

MARIANELA CALLEJA
Pulcre cogitandum: analogías en la argumentación estética _ 95

CARLOS EMEL RENDÓN
"Vivir en los otros": Rousseau y el reconocimiento como extrañamiento _ 107


CRÓNICAS

CLARA ALICIA JALIF DE BERTRANOU
Juan Carlos Torchia Estrada (1927-2016) _ 123


COMENTARIOS BIBLIOGRÁFICOS

DIEGO LAWLER y DIANA I. PÉREZ (comps.)
La segunda persona y las emociones (M. Travaglia) _ 129

MIGUEL ESCRIBANO CABEZA
Complejidad y dinámica en Leibniz: un vitalismo ilustrado (F. Martínez Mosquera) _ 132

CARLOS THIEBAUT y ANTONIO GÓMEZ RAMOS
Las razones de la amargura: variaciones y tientos sobre el resentimiento, el perdón y la justicia (M. Fleitas González) _ 135

ADELA CORTINA
Aporofobia, el rechazo al pobre: un desafío para la democracia (D. Pallarés-Domínguez) _ 138

Astroparticle physics is an interdisciplinary field embracing astronomy, astrophysics and particle physics. In a recent paper on this topic, Brigitte Falkenburg (2012) defended that only scientific realism can make sense of it and that realistic beliefs constitute an indispensable methodological principle of research in this discipline. The aim of this work is to show that there exists an anti-realist alternative to this account, along the lines of what Bas van Fraassen showed in his famous book The Scientific Image (1980). Problems and results of astroparticle physics can be understood from an empiricist point of view too, namely that of van Fraassen's constructive empiricism, which is a more modest and metaphysics-free alternative to scientific realism. Although constructive empiricism can make sense of science no worse than scientific realism does, van Fraassen's goal is not to demonstrate that his stance is the only viable position, but just that it is not incoherent or proven false by his opponents (see Kusch 2015, 172). In this paper it will be shown that the constructive empiricist stance constitutes a legitimate alternative to scientific realism even when it gets to astroparticle physics and that it does indeed make sense of this new discipline, pace Falkenburg.

2020 is the year of the fortieth anniversary of Bas van Fraassen’s seminal book The Scientific Image. It is quite surprising, after such a long time, and considering how much the author’s proposal was debated during the last four decades, to find a new review of it on the March issue of Metascience. In “Concluding Unscientific Image”, Hans Halvorson claims that, in the work of the founder of constructive empiricism, not only is there a defense of an anti-realist perspective on science—and, at the same time, a critique of scientific realism—, but also a revolt against the way of doing philosophy that, since Quine, seemed to be hegemonic in analytical philosophy. The present study focuses on Halvorson’s allegations about what maintaining the empirical adequacy of a theory would encompass—and that, according to him, van Fraassen has in mind—and aims at showing that, perhaps, they do not correspond to what van Fraassen actually defends in his book.

Constructive empiricism is a prominent anti-realist position whose aim is to make sense of science. As is well known, it also crucially depends on the distinction between what is observable and what scientific theories postulate but is unobservable to us. Accordingly, adopting an adequate notion of observability is in order, on pain of failing to achieve the goal of grasping science and its aim. Bas van Fraassen, the originator of constructive empiricism, identifies observation with unaided (at least in principle) human perception. So far, though, he has not put forward any convincing argument to support this (unpopular) stand. He did it on the grounds that it is (allegedly) a matter for empirical investigation and not for philosophical analysis. Nonetheless, he seems to have introduced a criterion for observability that is not the result of any scientific research and is not supported by any scientific theory. Countering his own words, he seems to have instead reflected qua philosopher on how an empiricist should interpret the meaning of the verb " to observe. " And then he has tried to defend his point of view by means of metaphors and analogies. But the very same metaphors and analogies van Fraassen has put forward could be used to back up the opposite position. Worse, not only does his criterion counter common sense, it does not work either. Perhaps the time has come for van Fraassen to put forward or endorse alternative criteria of observability.

In their recent "A modest defense of manifestationalism" (2015), Asay and Bordner defend this position from a quite famous criticism put forward by Rosen (1994), according to which while manifestationalism can be seen as more compatible with the letter of empiricism than other popular stances, such as constructive empiricism, it fails nonetheless to make sense of science. The two authors reckon that Rosen's argument is actually flawed. In their view, manifestationalism could in fact represent a legitimate thesis about the nature of scientific inquiry. In this paper, I will show that Asay and Bordner's criticisms to Rosen are actually off target. Moreover, they rest upon an understanding of what the aim of science is that might serve to their purposes, but that does not seem to be in line with the scientific enterprise. Perhaps constructive empiricism still represents the best compromise so far presented between strict empiricism and the acknowledgment of the rationality of science.

According to Roy Sorensen, when one looks at the Moon, during a solar eclipse, what she sees is its inner (concave) part of the farther, reflective one, and not the always-facing-Earth side of our natural satellite. To make his point clearer, he put forward the famous example of a double eclipse involving the fictional planets Far and Near. From the observer's vantage point, the two planets have the same apparent diameter and overlap. What the agent sees is a dark disk, but believes that what she is seeing is Near, because Far is behind it. Sorensen claims that what she actually sees is planet Far and that the causal theory of perception explains why this is the case. Of course, this position stands against common sense. Sorensen shows that it counters Alvin Goldman's renowned observation criteria too. Nonetheless, he maintains, since Near is causally idle and the agent does see something, the only possible conclusion is that she sees Far, pace Goldman – and common sense. In this paper, I try to demonstrate that Sorensen is wrong and that the correct solution to the eclipse riddle is that the observer sees Near. As a matter of fact, besides meeting common sense and Goldman's observability criteria (along with others), Near can be legitimately be considered the object of a successful perceptual discrimination even in the light of the causal theory of perception .

The emphasis on the role of observation, one of the hallmarks of Empiricism, is
reaffirmed by the primacy of the distinction between observable and
unobservable in Bas van Fraassen’s Constructive Empiricism. In this paper it
will be showed that, despite being one the main topics of discussion in
contemporary philosophy of science, particularly thanks to van Fraassen, the
question of observation and observability is actually so old as philosophy itself
and has to do with the willingness, that defines empiricism, to keep ‘within the
limits’.

In his famous book "Seeing Dark Things: The Philosophy of Shadows" (2008), Roy Sorensen put forward a 'blocking theory of shadows', a causal view on these entities according to which a shadow is an absence of light caused by blockage. This approach allows him to solve a quite famous riddle on shadows, 'the Yale puzzle', that was devised by Robert Fogelin in the late 1960s and that Sorensen presents in the form mentioned by Bas van Fraassen (1989). István Aranyosi has recently criticized Sorensen's solution to the Yale puzzle, on the grounds that it does not resist another version of the riddle, that Aranyosi calls 'the Bilkent puzzle'. A new perspective on shadows, the 'Material Exstitution View', that allegedly permits to solve both puzzles, could be adopted as an alternative. In this paper I will show that Sorensen's blockage theory can actually handle both the Yale and the Bilkent puzzle, plus another one that I put forward ('the donut puzzle'), which instead is fatal to Aranyosi's position. As Sorensen puts it, nothing aside from the original blockage of light is needed.

The notion of epistemic community is crucial for the characterization of observability, a cornerstone for Bas van Fraassen’s constructive empiricism. As a matter of fact, observable is, to him, a short for observable-by-us. In this work, it will be shown that the alleged rigidity of the author of The Scientific Image, apparently not very keen to admitting changes in the epistemic community (constituted – according to him – by the human race), is actually an assumption of modesty and good judgment; it means recognizing that scientific enterprise is just a human activity, among many others.

Astroparticle physics is an interdisciplinary field embracing astronomy, astrophysics and particle physics. In a recent paper on this topic (2012), Brigitte Falkenburg defended that only scientific realism can make sense of it and that realist beliefs constitute an indispensable methodological principle of research in this discipline. The aim of this work is to show that there exists an anti-realist alternative to this account, along the lines of what Bas van Fraassen showed in his famous book The Scientific Image (1980). Problems and results of astroparticle physics can be understood from an empiricist point of view too, namely that of van Fraassen’s constructive empiricism, which is a more modest and metaphysics-free alternative to scientific realism. Although constructive empiricism can make sense of science no worse than scientific realism does, van Fraassen’s goal is not to demonstrate that his stance is the only viable position, but just that it is not incoherent or proven fal...

Abstract We argue that there is no general theory of explanation that spans the sciences, mathematics, and ethics, etc. More specifically, there is no good reason to believe that substantive and domain-invariant constraints on explanatory information exist. Using Nickel (Noûs 44 (2): 305–328, 2010) as an exemplar of the contrary, generalist position, we first show that Nickel's arguments rest on several ambiguities, and then show that even when these ambiguities are charitably corrected, Nickel's defense of general theories of ...

In 1985, Alan Musgrave raised a serious objection against the possibility that a constructive empiricist could coherently draw the distinction – crucial to her – between observables and unobservables. In his brief response, in the same year, Bas van Fraassen claimed that Musgrave’s argument only works within the so-called “syntactic view” of theories, while it loses its force in the context of the “semantic view”. But that was not enough, or so claimed F. A. Muller, who published two articles (2004 and 2005) in order to extend the epistemic policy of constructive empiricism. In order to do so, Muller provided a rigorous characterization of observability, but this could only be accomplished by using modal logic. The outcome was a new (extended) epistemic policy for constructive empiricism, which van Fraassen apparently endorsed (cf. MULLER; VAN FRAASSEN, 2008). As it will be shown in this article, however, Muller’s extended epistemic policy is superfluous. Moreover, and more importantly, Musgrave’s argument seems to be a pseudo-problem.

The primacy of the act of observation, one of the hallmarks of Empiricism, found new life in the centrality of the distinction between observable and unobservable of Bas van Fraassen’s Constructive Empiricism. As Elliott Sober (and others) pointed out, though, it is not clear what observing an object involves, according to van Fraassen. Worse, the Dutch philosopher does not seem to consider that a clarification of this point is necessary. This, of course, represents an important lacuna in a position generally considered as the main reference for modern Empiricism. Our goal is to retrieve the counterfactual conditionals characterizing perception that Otávio Bueno presented in 2011 on this journal and to also consider the observability and the existence criteria proposed by Filip Buekens (1999) and Michel Ghins (2005), in order to get to a ‘definition’ of observation that should give van Fraassen’s observability concept the support it actually lacks, but without presenting itself as an ad hoc solution.

Microscopes - not only the optic ones - are commonly considered, particularly by scientists and laboratory technicians, as devices that allow to widen the scope of our limited sensory system and see entities that would otherwise be unobservable. A notorious exception is Bas van Fraassen’s interpretation. This important and well-known philosopher of science sees these instruments as ‘engines of creation’ (of images), thus rejecting the ‘window onto the unobservable world’ metaphor. In this paper I will present, under the perspective of the realism/anti-realism debate in philosophy of science, the Dutch author’s position and show that, despite being a peculiar and isolated stand, it does not exhibit flaws or contradictions - from a strictly logical point of view, at least. The case of the mesosome, a folded invagination in the plasma membrane of bacteria that is produced by chemical fixation (for electron microscopy), is particularly instructive in this respect.

Observation and observability represent a crucial topic in the philosophy of science, as the huge production of papers and books on the subject attests. Philosophy of perception, on the other hand, is a field of study that took root effectively in the last decades. Even then, apparently, the main theories on observation have neglected the issue of determining which is the object of a successful perception. As a consequence, some theses that have recently been proposed are actually paradoxical, despite deriving from renowned and, prima facie, satisfactory and complete theories. This is the situation of van Fraassen’s assertions on the (putative?) observation of images and rainbows (see 2001 and 2008) and of Sorensen’s claims on what one actually sees during a solar eclipse (see 2008). After putting forward a possible characterization of the object of perception, with no need of discussing the issue of intentionality, in this paper it will be shown that devoting adequate attention to this topic, together with acknowledging that observation is an action, in which the subject plays an indeed active role, would make it possible to avoid drawing conclusions that do not seem to be correct, such as the ones just mentioned. Any theory about observation will only be complete and adequate provided the object of perception is taken into account.

Constructive Empiricism, the anti-realist position about science proposed by the Dutch philosopher Bas van Fraassen in 1980, heavily relies upon the distinction between observable and unobservable entities. In 2004 and 2005, F. A. Muller provided a rigorous characterization of observability, later endorsed, apparently, by van Fraassen (cf. Muller & van Fraassen 2008). However, an analysis of what it means to observe is needed to secure Muller’s ‘definition’. Van Fraassen always maintained that observation is an empirical matter, but I argue that a philosophical analysis is also needed and that van Fraassen himself relied on philosophical principles to address the issue of observability.