Abstract
This paper draws on the phenomenological-hermeneutical approaches to philosophy of science to develop realist perspectivism, an integration of experimental realism and perspectivism. Specifically, the paper employs the distinction between “manifestation” and “phenomenon” and it advances the view that the evidence of a real entity is “explorable” in order to argue that instrumentally-mediated robust evidence indicates real entities. Furthermore, it underpins the phenomenological notion of the horizonal nature of scientific observation with perspectivism, so accounting for scientific pluralism even in the cases of inconsistent models. Overall, realist perspectivism is proposed as the way to go for (phenomenologically-hermeneutically minded) philosophers of science.
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Notes
Wilfrid Sellars echoes the objectivist view when he says that “science is the measure of all things, of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not“ (1963, p. 173).
Weisberg (2007) discusses three kinds of idealization and concludes that they are compatible with a sophisticated definition of realism.
According to moderate foundationalism, basic beliefs are adequately justified, but they are not infallible, indubitable, or incorrigible. They can be defeated by other justified beliefs. Moderate foundationalism is also compatible with the view that (basic or non-basic) beliefs can get extra justificatory support from their coherence with other justified beliefs (Berghofer, 2018b, section 1.2).
On the active and passive dimensions of perception, see Gallagher and Zahavi (2012, p. 111).
In Section 4, I will explain the meaning of this “readability”.
The necessity of training applies as well to seeing a tree by young children (for instance, concerning the difference between a tree and a bush). But in scientific observation, a specialized, technical kind of training is necessary to observe correctly.
See also Eronen (2015). Both things and evidence can be described as robust. According to Eronen, we are justified in believing in a robust thing (including theoretical entities). According to my discussion in this section, we can similarly attribute robustness to evidence that relies on several modes of embodied or instrumental engagement with the same thing. Robust evidence provides justification for believing that a (robust) thing is real.
On the role of “exploratory action” in determining illusion, see also Merleau-Ponty (1962, pp. 296–297).
Vallor employ’s Heelan’s concept of ‘reading’. However, she does not discuss whether ‘reading’ is inferential or not. Heelan explicitly states that the direct perception of the hidden structures of reality is possible by means of instruments but without any act of inference. However, it seems that for Vallor only the signature or evidence of a real entity (rather than the entity itself) is perceivable: “the pregnant signature of that particle becomes manifest to the experimenter in a perceptual style” (Vallor, 2009, p. 15).
Perception is always a mixture of presence and absence. The present parts are called profiles. Some scholars distinguish the concepts of “side”, “aspect”, and “profile”; see, e.g., Sokolowski (2000, p. 19). I, nevertheless, use these concepts as roughly equivalent. Further on, I will expand the notion of a profile to include the perspectival dimension of empirical science.
This does not contradict the point that replicated experimental results are reliable. Robust or replicated results achieved from “overlapping perspectives” are not non-perspectival (see Giere, 2006a, pp. 57–58 and p. 92).
Cf. De Boer et al. (2018).
Note that I do not claim that science should or should not strive for unification of existing knowledge. My claim is not prescriptive, but rather descriptive and explanatory. It is descriptive in the sense that the study of actual scientific practice shows that there is a plurality in scientific models of an object of inquiry. It is explanatory as the concept of perspectives helps to account for this plurality. Those who disagree with the use of this concept, or similar ones such as conditions or contexts, run into difficulties with the explanation of the plurality in models actually built by scientists.
It can also be argued that realist perspectivism is compatible with other modest forms of realism. Section 6 has argued that perspectivism complements experimental realism. Likewise, an advanced version of structural realism would take seriously perspectivist ideas, and realist perspectivism would agree with compelling cases for structural realism. Wolff (2020) uses models of measurements to support the idea that perspectivism and structural realism are complementary. Also, Khalili (2022, section 6.6) develops a realist perspectivism that draws on ideas from structural realism. A detailed discussion of (the compatibility of) different versions of realism detracts from the main purpose of of this paper.
On the distinction between diachronic and synchronic perspectives, see Massimi (2018).
Another reason why I prefer the concept of “perspective” to, particularly, “paradigm” is that the origin of the word perspective implies that we basically look, but this looking is bounded by the instrumental and theoretical means through which the looking has been possible for us as human beings. Thus, perspectives are our basic means for discovering reality, although they are bounded by their contingent conditions. A paradigm, on the other hand, only helps us to solve puzzles. However, there is no implication that we discover reality by solving problems with the aid of a paradigm’s possibilities. For other comparisons between the notion of paradigm and perspective, see Giere (2006a, p. 82; 2013) and Massimi (2015).
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful for extensive and constructive feedback on this work from Hans Radder, Lieven Decock, and two reviewers for this journal. I would also like to acknowledge useful comments from Javad Akbari, Alireza Kazemi, and Ave Mets.
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Khalili, M. From phenomenological-hermeneutical approaches to realist perspectivism. Euro Jnl Phil Sci 12, 67 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-022-00495-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-022-00495-5