Issue: Issue 16 • Author/s: Mauro Dorato
Topics: Epistemology, Metaphysics, Ontology, Philosophy of science, Theoretical philosophy
In the first part of the paper, I discuss three possible ways to achieve some unity between Sellars’ manifest and scientific image of the world. The plurality of scientific methods that I am advocating is compatible with the fact that all empirical sciences strive for beliefs based on the normative concepts of evidence, explanatory power, and experimental accuracy. Such methods provide different means to reach the common purpose of justification. In the second part of the paper, I criticize Sellars’ definition of the manifest image in terms of a suddenly…
Issue: Issue 16 • Author/s: Vincenzo Fano
Topics: Epistemology, Metaphysics, Ontology, Philosophy of science, Theoretical philosophy
Doing metaphysics by building on empirical sciences is a very controversial matter. This paper outlines a middle road between the Scylla of denying the possibility of metaphysics and the Charybdis of doing metaphysics a priori. This is possible if, on the one hand, we accept a moderate form of scientific realism. On the other, we establish a logico-epistemological framework adequate to face the underdetermination of metaphysical theses with respect to our best scientific theories. The case of the debate between eternalism and presentism tests my perspective. In this case study,…
Issue: Issue 17 • Author/s: Giovanni Buonocore, Emilia Margoni, Francesca Pero
Topics: Epistemology, Philosophy of mind, Philosophy of science, Theoretical philosophy
Stanford’s unconceived alternative argument is inductively based on the history of science and tells us that when a scientist is choosing a theory T1 at time t1 over a set of less promising alternatives, she is concurrently failing to conceive valid theoretical alternatives to T1, i.e., theories that will be accepted by a scientific community at later times, thus displacing T1. The aim of the present paper is to argue that the actual strength and reach of Stanford’s argument sensibly vary according to the status of the unconceived alternatives at…
Issue: Issue 17 • Author/s: Giovanni Galli
Topics: Epistemology, Metaphysics, Philosophy of science, Theoretical philosophy
The scientific enterprise enriches the debate about models. In particular, in the field of structural biology, a new deep-learning neural network system called AlphaFold has been applied for many purposes. It allows us to predict a protein’s structure with high accuracy. I will present the system in light of the discussion of structure representation and argue for a specific kind of representational relation holding between the predicted model structure and its target-system. By doing so, I will criticize the artifactual approach advanced by Knuuttila (2021) and present the features that…
Issue: Issue 17 • Author/s: Lisa Zorzato
Topics: Epistemology, Metaphysics, Ontology, Philosophy of science, Theoretical philosophy
In this paper, I will deal with the use of fictional models in the context of the realism vs antirealism debate. Specifically, I will argue that the explanatory role of fictional models can be accommodated by scientific realism. I will refer to the work of Alisa Bokulich, who has proposed a modification of realism in order to account for explanations employing fictional models. My own approach will be to offer an alternative: instead of a modification of realism, I will propose a modified notion of representation. Based on the work…
Issue: Issue 17 • Author/s: Gustavo Cevolani, Luca Tambolo
Topics: Epistemology, Metaphysics, Philosophy of language, Philosophy of science, Theoretical philosophy
Realists and antirealists agree that different theories can be more or less empirically successful, even if they disagree on how to interpret this fact. Most of their arguments rely on how the notion of success is understood; still, few definitions of success are available, and their adequacy is doubtful. In this paper, we discuss some of these definitions and introduce a new measure of the success of a theory relative to a body of evidence aimed at overcoming some of their limitations. We moreover discuss how empirical success is connected…
Issue: Issue 17 • Author/s: Valentina Savojardo
Topics: Epistemology, Metaethics, Philosophy of science, Theoretical philosophy
Starting from some results of neuroscience, and especially of Embodied Cognition, I’ll discuss the problem of the intelligent use of tools, as a useful perspective under which to investigate the link between common knowledge and scientific knowledge. The philosophical question from which I shall start my reflection is the following: how do we represent reality to ourselves when we intervene on it through the intelligent use of a tool? The answer to this problem will be developed in two fundamental steps. 1. The problem of the intelligent use of tools…
Issue: Issue 17 • Author/s: Adriano Angelucci, Vincenzo Fano, Gabriele Ferretti, Roberto Macrelli, Gino Tarozzi
Topics: Cognitive science, Epistemology, Metaphysics, Philosophy of mind, Philosophy of science, Theoretical philosophy
The currently mainstream view is that, in normal conditions, our perceptual representations are largely accurate, as natural selection tends to favor epistemically reliable perceptual systems. This latter assumption has been questioned by Donald Hoffman and his collaborators by drawing on the formal tools of evolutionary game theory. According to their model, an organism whose visual system were tuned to objective reality would be driven to extinction. We argue that their model fails to take environmental modifications into due account, and we show that, once such changes are incorporated into the…
Issue: Issue 19 • Author/s: Andrea Strollo
Topics: Epistemology, Metaphysics, Ontology, Philosophy of logic, Philosophy of science, Theoretical philosophy
Analytic metaphysics has been criticized for its dubious epistemological status. Today, anti-metaphysical sentiments often promote naturalized metaphysics as the only viable way to metaphysical theorizing. In this paper, I argue that analytic metaphysics (or at least a significant portion of it) has the same kind of legitimacy that naturalized metaphysics exhibits. I first point out that naturalized metaphysics is secured by the de facto legitimacy of natural science and its continuity with it. Then, I argue that analytic metaphysics can pursue a similar strategy by relying on the de facto…