Darrell Patrick Rowbottom

What Scientific Progress Is Not: Against Bird’s Epistemic View

This article challenges Bird’s view that scientific progress should be understood in terms of knowledge, by arguing that unjustified scientific beliefs (and/or changes in belief) may nevertheless be progressive. It also argues that false beliefs may promote progress.

How to change it: modes of engagement, rationality, and stance voluntarism

We have three goals in this paper. First, we outline an ontology of stance, and explain the role that modes of engagement and styles of reasoning play in the characterization of a stance. Second, we argue that we do enjoy a degree of control over the modes of engagement and styles of reasoning we adopt. Third, we contend that maximizing one’s prospects for change (within the framework of other constraints, e.g., beliefs, one has) also maximizes one’s rationality.

Stances and paradigms: a reflection

This paper compares and contrasts the concept of a stance with that of a paradigm qua disciplinary matrix, in an attempt to illuminate both notions. First, it considers to what extent it is appropriate to draw an analogy between stances (which operate at the level of the individual) and disciplinary matrices (which operate at the level of the community). It suggests that despite first appearances, a disciplinary matrix is not simply a stance writ large. Second, it examines how we might reinterpret disciplinary matrices in terms of stances, and shows how doing so can provide us with a better insight into non-revolutionary science. Finally, it identifies two directions for future research: “Can the rationality of scientific revolutions be understood in terms of the dynamic between stances and paradigms?” and “Do stances help us to understand incommensurability between disciplinary matrices?”

Scientific progress without increasing verisimilitude : in response to Niiniluoto

First, I argue that scientific progress is possible in the absence of increasing verisimilitude in sciences theories. Second, I argue that increasing theoretical verisimilitude is not the central, or primary, dimension of scientific progress. Third, I defend my previous argument that unjustified changes in scientific belief may be progressive. Fourth, I illustrate how false beliefs can promote scientific progress in ways that cannot be explicated by appeal to verisimilitude.

Corroboration and auxiliary hypotheses: Duhem’s thesis revisited

This paper argues that Duhem’s thesis does not decisively refute a corroboration-based account of scientific methodology (or ‘falsificationism’), but instead that auxiliary hypotheses are themselves subject to measurements of corroboration which can be used to inform practice. It argues that a corroboration-based account is equal to the popular Bayesian alternative, which has received much more recent attention, in this respect.

Evolutionary Epistemology and the Aim of Science

Both Popper and van Fraassen have used evolutionary analogies to defend their views on the aim of science, although these are diametrically opposed. By employing Prices equation in an illustrative capacity, this paper considers which view is better supported. It shows that even if our observations and experimental results are reliable, an evolutionary analogy fails to demonstrate why conjecture and refutation should result in: (1) the isolation of true theories; (2) successive generations of theories of increasing truth-likeness; (3) empirically adequate theories; or (4) successive generations of theories of increasing proximity to empirical adequacy. Furthermore, it illustrates that appeals to induction do not appear to help. It concludes that an evolutionary analogy is only sufficient to defend the notion that the aim of science is to isolate a particular class of false theories, namely those that are empirically inadequate.

The instrumentalist’s new clothes

This article develops a new version of instrumentalism, in light of progress in the realism debate in recent decades, and thereby defends the view that instrumentalism remains a viable philosophical position on science. The key idea is that talk of unobservable objects should be taken literally only when those objects are assigned properties (or described in terms of analogies involving things) with which we are experientially (or otherwise) acquainted. This is derivative from the instrumentalist tradition insofar as the distinction between unobservable and observable is taken to have significance with respect to meaning.

The Empirical Stance vs. The Critical Attitude

Abstract Van Fraassen has recently argued that empiricism can be construed as a stance, involving commitments, attitudes, values, and goals, in addition to beliefs and opinions. But this characterisation emerges from his recognition that to be an empiricist cannot be to believe, or decide to commit to belief in, a foundational proposition, without removing any basis for a non-dogmatic empiricist critique of other philosophical approaches, such as materialism. However, noticeable by its absence in Van Fraassen’s discussions is any mention of Bartley’s ‘pancritical rationalism’, for Bartley offers a cohesive argument that genuine dogmatism lies precisely in the act of commitment to an idea. The consequence of denying this, he thinks, is an opening of the floodgates to irrationalism: if to rely on reasoned argument in decision-making is fundamentally an act of faith, then there is a tu quoque - “I simply have a different faith” - that may be employed by those who wish to shield their views from criticism. This raises the following question: why should it be any less dogmatic to adopt particular commitments, attitudes, values, and goals, rather than a particular belief or opinion, come what may? And if Bartley is right that there is only one non-dogmatic attitude - the critical attitude - then why might this not be adopted by an empiricist, a materialist, a metaphysician, or anyone else?

The Insufficiency of the Dutch Book Argument

It is a common view that the axioms of probability can be derived from the following assumptions: (a) probabilities reflect (rational) degrees of belief, (b) degrees of belief can be measured as betting quotients; and (c) a rational agent must select betting quotients that are coherent. In this paper, I argue that a consideration of reasonable betting behaviour, with respect to the alleged derivation of the first axiom of probability, suggests that (b) and (c) are incorrect. In particular, I show how a rational agent might assign a ‘probability’ of zero to an event which she is sure will occur.

Information versus knowledge in confirmation theory

I argue that so-called ‘background knowledge’ in confirmation theory has little, if anything, to do with ‘knowledge’ in the sense of mainstream epistemology. I argue that it is better construed as ‘background information’, which need not be believed in, justified, or true.