Michela Massimi

Non‐defensible Middle Ground for Experimental Realism: Why We Are Justified to Believe in Colored Quarks*

Experimental realism aims at striking a middle ground between scientific realism and anti‐realism, between the success of experimental physics it would explain and the realism about scientific theories it would supplant. This middle ground reinstates the engineering idea that belief in scientific entities is justified on purely experimental grounds, without any commitment to scientific theories and laws. This paper argues that there is no defensible middle ground to be staked out when it comes to justifying physicists’ belief in colored quarks, and that experimental realism shifts, under analysis, into scientific realism.

What Demonstrative Induction Can Do Against the Threat of Underdetermination: Bohr, Heisenberg, and Pauli on Spectroscopic Anomalies (1921–24)

In this paper I argue that demonstrative induction can deal with the problem ofthe underdetermination of theory by evidence. I present the historical case studyof spectroscopy in the early 1920s, where the choice among different theorieswas apparently underdetermined by spectroscopic evidence concerning the alkalidoublets and their anomalous Zeeman effect. By casting this historical episodewithin the methodological framework of demonstrative induction, the localunderdetermination among Bohrs, Heisenbergs, and Paulis rival theories isresolved in favour of Paulis theory of the electrons spin.

Four Kinds of Perspectival Truth

In this paper, I assess recent claims in philosophy of science about scientific perspectivism being compatible with realism. I clarify the rationale for scientific perspectivism and the problems and challenges that perspectivism faces in delivering a form of realism. In particular, I concentrate my attention on truth, and on ways in which truth can be understood in perspectival terms. I offer a cost‐benefit analysis of each of them and defend a version that in my view is most promising in living up to realist expectations.

Dark energy, paradigm shifts, and the role of evidence

We comment on cases in the history of Astronomy, which may shed some light on the current established but enigmatic concordance model of Cosmology. Should the model be understood by adding new entities such as Dark Matter and Dark Energy, or by modifying the underlying theory? For example, the prediction and discovery of planet Neptune can be regarded as analogous to finding a dark component; while explaining the anomalous perihelion precession of Mercury by General Relativity can be taken as analogous to the possibility that modified gravity is an alternative to dark components of the universe. In this paper, we revise this analogy coming from the history of astronomy with an eye to illustrating some of the similarities and differences between the two cases.

Prescribing laws to nature. Part I.: Newton, the pre-Critical Kant, and three problems about the lawfulness of nature

Abstract: This paper traces the early reflections of the pre-Critical Kant on laws of nature back to Newton’s governing conception of laws. Three problems with the Newtonian conception are identified. I argue that in the attempt to provide a solution to them, in 1763 Kant came to forge a novel governing conception of laws. Key to Kant’s novel view are the notions of ground and its determinations. The role of these two notions in delivering the nomological necessity, explanatory power, and unity of the laws of nature is discussed and analysed.

Laws in Biology and the Unity of Nature

Kant’s philosophy of science is famous for putting the lawful unity of nature centerstage. Kant argues that all natural phenomena are law-governed. Any appearance of lawlessness is only the result of our ignorance, and this is true whether we consider the animate or inanimate world. Kant puts this point unambiguously at the start of the Jäsche Logic: Everything in nature, both in the lifeless and in the living world, takes place according to rules, although we are not always acquainted with these rules. – Water falls according to laws of gravity, and in the case of animals locomotion also takes place according to rules. The fish in the water, the bird in the air, move according to rules. The whole of nature in general is really nothing but a connection of appearances according to rules; and there is no absence of rules anywhere. If we believe we have found such a thing, then in this case we can only say that we are not acquainted with the rules. (JL 9:11) Kant here uses “rules” in the place of “laws,” but his central claim is clear.1 There is no exception to the law-governed character of natural phenomena. Kant develops this

Three problems about multi-scale modelling in cosmology

The debate in cosmology concerning LambdaCDM and MOND depends crucially on their respective ability of modelling across scales, and dealing with some of the specific problems that arise along the way. The main upshot of this article is to present three main problems facing multi-scale modelling in contemporary cosmology. The LambdaCDM model, which is the standard and by far most successful current cosmological model, faces what I call the downscaling problem when it comes to explain some recalcitrant evidence at the scale of individual galaxies, such as the mass-discrepancy acceleration relation (MDAR) and the baryonic Tully-Fisher relation (BTF). While the fastgrowing development of computer simulations has addressed these problems, nagging worries remain about some of the epistemic limits of these computer simulations in retrieving (as opposed to explaining) the data. The so-called upscaling problem affects MOND and its ability not just to explain but even simply retrieve large-scale structure and galaxy clusters. Recent attempts at extending MOND (EMOND) have had a limited empirical success, and are still far from providing a consistent explanation for possible formation mechanisms at the large-scale structure. Finally, the in between scales problem affects proposals designed to achieve the best of both worlds at the meso-scale. This is a fascinating area from a physical and a philosophical point of view, where the main challenge is the ability to have genuine predictive novelty.

What is this thing called 'scientific knowledge?' Kant on imaginary standpoints and the regulative role of reason

Abstract In this essay I analyse Kant’s view on the regulative role of reason, and in particular on what he describes as the ‘indispensably necessary’ role of ideas qua foci imaginarii in the Appendix. I review two influential readings of what has become known as the ‘transcendental illusion’ and I offer a novel reading that builds on some of the insights of these earlier readings. I argue that ideas of reason act as imaginary standpoints, which are indispensably necessary for scientific knowledge by making inter-conversational agreement possible. Thus, I characterise scientific knowledge as a distinctive kind of perspectival knowledge. This novel reading can illuminate the role of reason in complementing the faculty of understanding and sheds light on the apparent dichotomy between the first and the second part of the Appendix. More to the point, this novel reading takes us right to the heart of what scientific knowledge is, according to Kant, and how it differs from bogus knowledge and opinion.

Walking the Line: Kuhn Between Realism and Relativism

In this chapter, I evaluate the thorny issue as to whether Thomas Kuhn’s view supports a form of realism or relativism. I consider two prominent realist readings of Kuhn, offered respectively by Hoyningen-Huene and Giere, and some of the challenges each of them faces. I offer then a reading of Kuhn’s contentious claim about “working in a new world” in terms of what I call naturalized Kantian kinds. I show how this reading can escape some of the challenges and deliver a mild form of realism.

Three tales of scientific success

Success-to-truth inferences have been the realist stronghold for a long time. Scientific success is the parameter by which realists claim to discern approximately true theories from false ones. But scientific success needs to be probed a bit deeper. In this article, I tell three tales of scientific success, by considering in turn success from nowhere, success from here now, and success from within. I argue for a suitable version of success from within that can do justice to the historically situated nature of our scientific knowledge. The outcome is a new way of thinking about success-to-truth inferences along perspectivalist lines.