Theory and Reality

by Peter Godfrey-Smith

  Paradigm. A term made famous by Kuhn's theory of science. He used the term in a number of ways. I distinguish two main senses. In the narrow sense, a paradigm is an impressive achievement that inspires and guides a tradition of further scientific work-a tradition of normal science. In the broad sense, a paradigm is a whole "way of doing science" that has grown up around a paradigm in the narrow sense. In this sense, a paradigm will typically include theoretical ideas about the world, methods, and subtle habits of mind and standards used to assess "good work" in the field. (chapters 5, 6, section 7.7)

  Pessimistic Induction from the History of Science (Pessimistic Meta-Induction). An argument against some forms of scientific realism. The argument holds that theories have changed so much in the history of science that we should not have much confidence in our current theories. In the past, scientists have often been very confident that their theories were true, but (the argument goes) they usually turned out to be wrong. So we should expect the same for our own current theories. The argument can also be made specifically about the reality of entities postulated by past and present theories. (12.3)

  Phenomenalism. The view that when we seem to be talking and thinking about real physical objects, all we are really talking and thinking about are patterns in the flow of our sensations.

  The word "phenomenon" is often used far more broadly than this strict meaning of "phenomenalism" would suggest. The word is used in much philosophy with something like its everyday meaning, that is (roughly), something that happens. In science, the term "phenomenological law" is sometimes used to refer to a law of nature that is, in some sense, not deeply explanatory but just describes a pattern or regularity.

  Posterior Probability. In Bayesianism, a posterior probability is a probability of a hypothesis (h) given some piece of evidence (e). So it is a probability of the form P(bl e). (chapter 4

  Pragmatism. A family of unorthodox empiricist philosophical views that emphasize the relation between thought and action. For pragmatists, the chief purpose of thought and language is practical problemsolving. The "classical" figures in the movement are C. S. Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. Richard Rorty is a more recent defender of a form of pragmatism (but with less of a connection to empiricism). Pragmatists reject the correspondence theory of truth. (I z.6)

  Prior Probability. In Bayesianism, a prior probability is the initial or "unconditional" probability of a hypothesis (h), within an application of Bayes's theorem. So it is a probability of the form P(h). Bayes's theorem gives a formula for moving from the prior probability of a hypothesis to the posterior probability, the probability given some (usually new) piece of evidence. (chapter 14)

  Rationalism. In an older usage of this term, rationalism holds that some real knowledge about the world can be gained via pure reasoning of a kind that does not depend on experience. Mathematics has been seen as an example. So in this sense, rationalism is opposed to empiricism.

  More recently, the term has been used for vaguer ideas that do not necessarily clash with empiricism. As a view about science, "rationalism" is often used for the idea that theory change is guided by good reasoning and attention to evidence, as opposed to various kinds of bias or arbitrariness. For example, Popper's view of science, which I classify in this book as an unorthodox kind of empiricism, is often referred to as rationalist.

  Realism. A huge variety of views can be described as "realist" in some sense or other, and debates about realism can involve many different issues and dimensions. Perhaps the most basic idea is this: a realist about X's is someone who thinks that X's exist in a way that does not depend on our thoughts, language, or point of view. Questions about realism can be asked very broadly, perhaps about all facts, or about ordinary objects in the physical world. They can also be asked more narrowly, in which case X's might be numbers, moral facts, colors, or some other special category.

  This type of question is often recast as a question about language or about knowledge-what is the meaning of our term "X"? Is it a term that aims to designate some entity in the world? Can we ever have any knowledge at all about the alleged X's? A somewhat special set of issues arise in the case of scientific realism.

  Relativism. The idea that the truth or justification of a claim, or the applicability of a standard or principle, depends on one's situation or point of view. Such a position can be asserted generally (about all truth or all standards) or specifically (about some particular domain, like morality or logic). The "point of view" might be that of an individual, a social group, the users of a particular language, or some other group. (6.3, 9.4, 9.5)

  Research Program. In Lakatos's view of science, a research program is a sequence of scientific theories that all explore and develop the same basic theoretical ideas. Later theories in the sequence are developed in response to problems with the earlier ones. Some ideas in a research program-the "hard core"-are essential to the program and cannot be changed. Science typically involves ongoing competition between rival research programs in each field. (7.2)

  Research Tradition. Laudan's research traditions are similar to Lakatos's research programs. There are some differences, however, and Laudan's concept is probably more useful. For example, Laudan's research traditions include more than just theoretical ideas about the world; they include values and methods as well. Also, for Laudan the borderline between the fundamental ideas of a research tradition and the everchanging details is not necessarily fixed. (7.3)

  Scientific Realism. A family of positions that assert some kind of realist (see realism) attitude toward the world as understood by science. I defend a fairly cautious kind of scientific realism. This version holds, roughly, that there is a real world that we all inhabit and that one reasonable goal of science is describing what the world is like.

  Many other defenses of scientific realism include a general statement of confidence in our current scientific theories, or about progress in the history of science. Some also include detailed claims about scientific language. (z.5, chapter r z)

  Subjectivism (also Personalism). An interpretation of the mathematics of probability theory, especially associated with Bayesianism. Subjectivists (at least of the strict kind) hold that probabilities are degrees of belief rather than measures of some kind of objective "chances" that exist in the world. Less strict versions of the view allow that there might be two kinds of probabilities, subjective ones and objective ones. (14.3)

  TheoryLadenness of Observation. A family of ideas that all claim, in some way, that observation cannot be an unbiased way to test rival theories (or larger units like paradigms), because observational judgments (or observation reports, or both) are affected by the theoretical beliefs of the observer. (10.3)

  Truth. In ordinary discussion, a true claim or sentence is one that describes how things really are; a false claim is one that misrepresents the world. Some, but not all, philosophical treatments of truth follow this familiar idea.

  "Correspondence" theories of truth hold that true statements are those that have some definite "matching" relationship to the world (so they obviously agree with the familiar, everyday view above). The term "correspondence" suggests a picturing of some kind, but this is not usually what is meant. It has been extremely difficult to say anything plausible about what this special relationship is. (I said "matching" just now, but that does not seem to help much either.) Other theories have tried to treat truth as depending only on what sort of evidence lies behind a claim or what sort of usefulness the claim has. More recently, some philosophers have argued that we should not think of truth as a special relationship to the world or a feature of a representation at all. Instead, we should think of the word "true" as a tool used in discussion to express agreement and to make some other harmless linguistic moves. (12-7)

  Verification ism. A theory of meaning associated with logical positivism. Verificationism is often summarized with the claim that the meaning of a sentence is its method of verification. "Verification" here is a less appropriate word t
han "testing." Perhaps a better way to express the view is to say that to know the meaning of a sentence is the same thing as knowing how, in principle, to test it. The theory only applies to those parts of language that purport to describe the world (as opposed to expressing emotion, expressing commands, etc.). (2.3, 2.4)

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