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Inductions, Red Herrings, And The Best Explanation For The Mixed Record Of Science, P.D. Magnus
Inductions, Red Herrings, And The Best Explanation For The Mixed Record Of Science, P.D. Magnus
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
Kyle Stanford has recently claimed to offer a new challenge to scientific realism. Taking his inspiration from the familiar Pessimistic Induction (PI), Stanford proposes a New Induction (NI). Contra Anjan Chakravartty’s suggestion that the NI is a ‘red herring’, I argue that it reveals something deep and important about science. The Problem of Unconceived Alternatives, which lies at the heart of the NI, yields a richer anti-realism than the PI. It explains why science falls short when it falls short, and so it might figure in the most coherent account of scientific practice. However, this best account will be antirealist …
What’S New About The New Induction?, P.D. Magnus
What’S New About The New Induction?, P.D. Magnus
Philosophy Faculty Scholarship
The problem of underdetermination is thought to hold important lessons for philosophy of science. Yet, as Kyle Stanford has recently argued, typical treatments of the offer only restatements of familiar philosophical problems. Following suggestions in Duhem and Sklar, Stanford calls for a New Induction from the history of science. It will provide proof, he thinks, of “the kind of underdetermination that the history of science reveals to be a distinctive and genuine threat to even our best scientific theories” [Sta01, p. S12]. This paper examines Stanford’s New Induction and argues that it— like the other forms of underdetermination that he …