David Teira Serrano

A positivist tradition in early demand theory

In this paper I explore a positivist methodological tradition in early demand theory, as exemplified by several common traits that I draw from the works of V. Pareto, H. L. Moore and H. Schultz. Assuming a current approach to explanation in the social sciences, I will discuss the building of their various explanans, showing that the three authors agreed on two distinctive methodological features: the exclusion of any causal commitment to psychology when explaining individual choice and the mandate to test the truth of demand theory on aggregate data by statistical means. However, I also contend, from an epistemological point of view, that the truth of demand theory was conceived of in three different ways by our authors. Inspired by Poincaré, Pareto assumed that many different theories could account for the same data on individual choice, coming close to a kind of conventionalism – though I prefer to refer to this position as theoreticism. Moore was himself akin to Pearsons approach, which could be named descriptivist in so far as it resolved scientific laws into statistical descriptions of the data. Finally, Schultz tried to reconcile both approaches in an adequationist stance with no success, as we shall see.

The Centrality of Probability

This chapter deals with a topic whose importance is too often ignored with respect to Ethical Counselling: probability. Probability, indeed, is at the core of many ethical decisions encountered in the age of molecular medicine, as in the case, for example, of carrier tests or predictive and presymptomatic tests, or whenever survival rates are at issue. Thus, understanding correctly the probabilistic information is extremely important and crucial and an ethical counsellor cannot be unprovided with such knowledge.

Editors' introduction: Science, normativity and the public

Taylor and Francis Ltd SEP_A_212474.sgm 10.1080/0 691 2061125423 Social Epistemology 0269-1728 (pri t)/1464-5297 (online) Original Article 2 07 & Francis 1 000Ma ch 2007 D vidTeira dteir @fsof.un d.es Social epistemology is becoming increasingly aware of its normative foundations, in particular regarding the organization of scientific communities. Given that the most relevant epistemic output of their activity is a collective agreement on a set of propositions, we may inquire into the fairness of the procedures generating such consensus and the existence of other normative criteria that either determine those procedures or help us in their critical assessment. Intuitively, we may expect scientists taking part in it to follow certain rules in order to regulate their debates. Social epistemologists have been trying to make these norms explicit and either justify or criticize their cogency in terms of the intuitions they capture. One way or another, these norms reflect our expectations as to what scientific debates should be like. So far, such expectations are usually taken as given: when, say, Helen Longino, Philip Kitcher or Miriam Solomon present their models for a social epistemology of scientific activity, they argue as if their own intuitions as to the normative underpinnings of scientific debates were widely shared among their colleagues, scientists and the public in general. This is the standard strategy in moral analytic philosophy and it is not at all unfruitful. But since we are trying to make epistemology more social, perhaps we better not take such expectations for granted. Our preliminary research suggests that our normative intuitions about science are currently undergoing a substantial revision. This is namely due to the emergence of an interest-driven approach to scientific research which is spread more and more among