P. Kyle Stanford

Refusing the Devil's Bargain: What Kind of Underdetermination Should We Take Seriously?

Advocates have sought to prove that underdetermination obtains because all theories have empirical equivalents. But algorithms for generating empirical equivalents simply exchange underdetermination for familiar philosophical chestnuts, while the few convincing examples of empirical equivalents will not support the desired sweeping conclusions. Nonetheless, underdetermination does not depend on empirical equivalents: our warrant for current theories is equally undermined by presently unconceived alternatives as well-confirmed merely by the existing evidence, so long as this transient predicament recurs for each theory and body of evidence we consider. The historical record supports the claim that this recurrent, transient underdetermination predicament is our own.

For Pluralism and against Realism about Species

I argue for accepting a pluralist approach to species, while rejecting the realism about species espoused by P. Kitcher and a number of other philosophers of biology. I develop an alternative view of species concepts as divisions of organisms into groups for study which are relative to the systematic explanatory interests of biologists at a particular time. I also show how this conception resolves a number of difficult puzzles which plague the application of particular species concepts.

No Refuge for Realism: Selective Confirmation and the History of Science

Realists have responded to challenges from the historical record of successful but ultimately rejected theories with what I call the selective confirmation strategy: arguing that only idle parts of past theories have been rejected, while truly success‐generating features have been confirmed by further inquiry. I argue first, that this strategy is unconvincing without some prospectively applicable criterion of idleness for theoretical posits, and second, that existing efforts to provide one either convict all theoretical posits of idleness (Kitcher) or stand refuted by detailed consideration of the very examples (optical/electromagnetic ether, caloric fluid) to which they appeal (Psillos). I also argue that available avenues for improving on these proposals are unpromising.

An Antirealist Explanation of the Success of Science

I develop an account of predictive similarity that allows even Antirealists who accept a correspondence conception of truth to answer the Realist demand (recently given sophisticated reformulations by Musgrave and Leplin) to explain the success of particular scientific theories by appeal to some intrinsic feature of those theories (notwithstanding the failure of past efforts by van Fraassen, Fine, and Laudan). I conclude by arguing that we have no reason to find truth a better (i.e., more plausible) explanation of a theorys success than predictive similarity, even of its success in making novel predictions.

Scientific Realism, the Atomic Theory, and the Catch-All Hypothesis: Can We Test Fundamental Theories Against All Serious Alternatives?

Sherri Roush ([2005]) and I ([2001], [2006]) have each argued independently that the most significant challenge to scientific realism arises from our inability to consider the full range of serious alternatives to a given hypothesis we seek to test, but we diverge significantly concerning the range of cases in which this problem becomes acute. Here I argue against Roushs further suggestion that the atomic hypothesis represents a case in which scientific ingenuity has enabled us to overcome the problem, showing how her general strategy is undermined by evidence I have already offered in support of what I have called the ‘problem of unconceived alternatives’. I then go on to show why her strategy will not generally (if ever) allow us to formulate and test exhaustive spaces of hypotheses in cases of fundamental scientific theorizing. 1. Roush, Stanford, and Unconceived Alternatives2. Perrin and Brownian Motion3. Retention and Possible Alternatives: New Lessons from Some Familiar History4. Whither Exhaustion?5. Conclusion Roush, Stanford, and Unconceived Alternatives Perrin and Brownian Motion Retention and Possible Alternatives: New Lessons from Some Familiar History Whither Exhaustion? Conclusion

Reference and Natural Kind Termas: The Real Essence of Locke's View

J. L. Mackies famous claim that Locke ‘anticipates’ Kripkes Causal Theory of Reference (CTR) rests, I suggest, upon a pair of important misunderstandings. Contra Mackie, as well as the more recent accounts of Paul Guyer and Michael Ayers, Lockean Real Essences consist of those features of an entity from which all of its experienceable properties can be logically deduced; thus a substantival Real Essence consists of features of a Real Constitution plus logically necessary objective connections between them and features of some particular Nominal Essence. Furthermore, what Locke actually anticipates is the most significant contemporary challenge to the CTR: the qua-problem.

The Manifest Connection: Causation, Meaning, and David Hume

EXCITING RECENT HUME SCHOLARSHIP has challenged the traditional view that Hume’s theory of meaning leads him to deny the very intelligibility or coherence of supposing that there are objective causal powers or intrinsic necessary connections between causally related entities. Influential recent interpretations have variously held that Hume himself accepted the existence of such powers and connections, that he was genuinely agnostic about them, or that he denied their existence while nonetheless holding it to be a perfectly coherent possibility, indeed one that we routinely (albeit mistakenly) think actual. In this paper I will argue against all three of these lines of interpretation and in favor of what I consider a neglected alternative: that Hume rejects the existence of objective necessary connections or causal powers as literally incoherent or meaningless, but on subtle and sophisticated semantic grounds, rather than simplistic ones.1 I find support for this semantic reading and against the alternatives not only in passages whose significance to the debate is widely appreciated, but also in Hume’s discussions “Of Liberty and Necessity” and “Of the Immateriality of the Soul.”

Catastrophism, Uniformitarianism, and a Scientific Realism Debate That Makes a Difference

Some scientific realists suggest that scientific communities have improved in their ability to discover alternative theoretical possibilities and that the problem of unconceived alternatives therefore poses a less significant threat to contemporary scientific communities than it did to their historical predecessors. I first argue that the most profound and fundamental historical transformations of the scientific enterprise have actually increased rather than decreased our vulnerability to the problem. I then argue that whether we are troubled by even the prospect of increasing theoretical conservatism in science should depend on the position we occupy in the ongoing debate concerning scientific realism itself.

Darwin's Pangenesis and the Problem of Unconceived Alternatives

In earlier work I have argued that the most substantial threat to scientific realism arises from the problem of unconceived alternatives: the repeated failure of past scientists and scientific communities to conceive of alternatives to extant scientific theories, even when such alternatives were both (1) well confirmed by the evidence available at the time and (2) sufficiently scientifically serious as to be later embraced by actual scientific communities. In this paper I explore Charles Darwins development and defense of his ‘pangenesis’ theory of inheritance and conclude that this particular historical example offers impressive support for the challenge posed to realism by this problem of unconceived alternatives. 1. Introduction2. Darwin and pangenesis: The search for the material basis of generation and heredity3. A crucial unconceived alternative: common-cause mechanisms of inheritance4. Galton and common-cause inheritance5. Conclusion Introduction Darwin and pangenesis: The search for the material basis of generation and heredity A crucial unconceived alternative: common-cause mechanisms of inheritance Galton and common-cause inheritance Conclusion

Damn the Consequences: Projective Evidence and the Heterogeneity of Scientific Confirmation

I contrast our own evidence for the hypothesis of organic fossil origins with that available in previous centuries, suggesting that the most powerful contemporary evidence consists in a form of projective support whose distinctive features are not well captured by familiar hypothetico-deductive, abductive, or even more recent and more technically sophisticated (e.g., Bayesian) accounts of scientific confirmation. I suggest that such accounts either misrepresent or ignore something important about the heterogeneous ways in which scientific hypotheses can be supported by evidence, and I go on to suggest that the search for any single such account may be misguided in any case.