Perspectivism Versus a Completed Copernican Revolution

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• 作者：Thomas Nickles
• 关键词：Discovery ; justification distinction ; Epistemological conservatism ; Heuristic appraisal ; Historicism ; Instrumentalism ; Perspectivism ; Realism ; Rhetoric ; Scientific progress
• 刊名：Axiomathes
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：December 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：26
• 期：4
• 页码：367-382
• 全文大小：421 KB
• 刊物类别：Humanities, Social Sciences and Law
• 刊物主题：Philosophy
  Philosophy
  Ontology
  Linguistics
  Cognitive Psychology
  Logic
  
• 出版者：Springer Netherlands
• ISSN：1572-8390
• 卷排序：26

文摘

I discuss changes of perspective of four kinds in science and about science. Section 2 defends a perspectival nonrealism—something akin to Giere’s perspectival realism but not a realism—against the idea of complete, “Copernican” objectivity. Section 3 contends that there is an inverse relationship between epistemological conservatism and scientific progress. Section 4 casts doubt on strong forms of scientific realism by taking a long-term historical perspective that includes future history. Section 5 defends a partial reversal in the status of so-called context of discovery and context of justification. Section 6 addresses the question of how we can have scientific progress without scientific realism—how progress is possible without the accumulation of representational truth. The overall result (Sect. 7) is a pragmatic instrumentalist perspective on the sciences and how to study them philosophically, one that contains a kernel of realism—instrumental realism.