Abstract
Mizrahi’s argument against Stanford’s challenge to scientific realism is analyzed. Mizrahi’s argument is worth of attention for at least two reasons: (1) unlike other criticisms that have been made to Stanford’s view so far, Mizrahi’s argument does not question any specific claim of Stanford’s argument, rather it puts into question the very coherence of Stanford’s position, because it argues that since Stanford’s argument rests on the problem of the unconceived alternatives, Stanford’s argument is self-defeating. Thus, if Mizrahi’s argument is effective in countering Stanford’s view, it may be able to question the validity of other philosophical positions which similarly rest on the problem of the unconceived alternatives; (2) Mizrahi’s argument against Stanford’s view is in part based on the development of a Stanford-like argument for the field of philosophy. This makes Mizrahi’s argument potentially relevant to the metaphilosophical debate. After careful examination, Mizrahi’s argument against Stanford’s instrumentalism is found wanting. Moreover, a Stanford-like argument is developed, which aims at challenging the metaphilosophical stance implied by Mizrahi’s argument against Stanford’s instrumentalism.
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Notes
In this paper we will not deal with each of the mentioned positions which rest on the problem of the unconceived alternatives. We will address Ballantyne’s criticism of epistemic optimism in Sect. 4. We will briefly illustrate van Fraassen’s criticism of the inference to the best explanation and Sklar’s criticism of Bayesian confirmation theories in Sect. 2. On the relation between van Fraassen’s and Sklar’s position and the problem of the unconceived alternatives, see Sterpetti and Bertolaso (2018).
Stanford (2006) regards Duhem as one of his precursors. Cf. Duhem (1954, p. 189): “Between two contradictory theorems of geometry there is no room for a third judgment; if one is false, the other is necessarily true. Do two hypotheses in physics ever constitute such a strict dilemma? Shall we ever dare to assert that no other hypothesis is imaginable? Light may be a swarm of projectiles, or it may be a vibratory motion whose waves are propagated in a medium; is it forbidden to be anything else at all?” Lyons (2013) traces back this line of reasoning to Mill. Cf. Mill (1900, p. 328): “Most thinkers […] allow, that an hypothesis […] is not to be received as probably true because it accounts for all the known phenomena, since this is a condition sometimes fulfilled tolerably well by two conflicting hypotheses […] while there are probably a thousand more which are equally possible, but which, for want of anything analogous in our experience, our minds are unfitted to conceive.”
See Klein (2015) for a survey on skepticism.
Cf. Rowbottom (2016, p. 3): “relative confirmation has no established connection to truth-likeness, even on the assumption that absolute confirmation […] does indicate truth-likeness […]. Hence, there are no grounds for thinking that h is truth-like unless there are grounds for thinking that there are no serious unconceived alternatives to h”.
According to Rowbottom, the significance of the problem of the unconceived alternatives “for the tenability of scientific realism, does not depend on any inductive inference from the past to the present (and future), although Stanford does make such an inference. Rather, it poses a challenge for the realist who claims that contemporary theories are typically approximately true, provided that they are well-confirmed. Why be confident that the confirmation value of any given theory […] would not change drastically if all the unconceived alternatives were appreciated? What licenses inferring absolute confirmation values from relative confirmation values? If the realist cannot answer satisfactorily, it is reasonable to deny realism” (Rowbottom 2016, p. 3).
Cf. Stanford (2006, p. 18): “the tough question, of course, is how to decide whether or not there really are typically unconceived competitors to our best scientific theories […]. To decide this we will need to know something about the set of hypotheses we haven’t yet considered […]. And of course, it is not easy to acquire compelling evidence about the existence of hypotheses that are, ex hypothesi, unconceived by us.”
For a different attempt to present the challenge to scientific realism which derives from the problem of the unconceived alternatives in a deductive form, see Lyons (2013).
As regard how ‘serious’ has to be understood in order to determine whether or not a given objection to a given hypothesis is serious, Mizrahi (2014) does not give us a criterion, rather he gives us a list of examples of serious objections to philosophical theories that were unconceived at the time those theories were firstly presented, but that philosophers have subsequently elaborated and regarded as ‘serious’. Mizrahi (2016) gives another list of examples. We can fairly say that in this view it is the philosophical community that judges over the seriousness of a given objection to a given theory. Mizrahi’s lists are drawn from the history of philosophy, in analogy with Laudan’s list, which was drawn from the history of science. Cf. e.g. Mizrahi (2014, p. 428): “In his seminal paper ‘On Denoting’ (1905), and later in his Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (1919), Russell articulates and defends his description theory of proper names. The theory now faces what are considered by many philosophers to be serious objections, which were put forth by Kripke (1980) among others.” Here we are dealing with Mizrahi’s view, so we will not deal with the issue of whether a more satisfactory criterion of ‘seriousness’ can be given.
Mizrahi (2014) explains that in developing a Stanford-like argument for philosophy he preferred to consider ‘objections’ rather than ‘alternatives’, because, despite he does not subscribe to such a view, many philosophers assume that defending a claim amounts to support that claim, and that supporting a claim amounts to anticipate and defeat possible objections to that claim.
We wish to thank an anonymous reviewer for urging us to clarify this point.
The anti-realist attitude is in some sense analogous to the skeptical one, at least to the extent that it is motivated by the aim of contrasting what the anti-realist perceives as a form of unjustified optimism. Cf. Fumerton (1995, p. 53): “the philosopher is interested in and wants a kind of justification that ordinary people do not even think about in their day-to-day lives. The philosophical skeptic may best be construed as telling the philosopher that this kind of justification is unavailable. In every other walk of life people must get used to the idea that they cannot have everything they want, and the skeptic might maintain that it is a kind of perverted optimism to suppose that the kind of justification that would satisfy the kind of curiosity that afflicts the epistemologist is there to be found.” Cf. also Bueno (2015, p. 161): “A critical mode of engagement […] is central to anti-realism since this stance is typically adopted as a reaction to what is perceived as the excesses of realist alternatives. […]. Precisely this sort of critical engagement is similarly crucial to Pyrrhonism, which also emerges in response to the excesses of dogmatic philosophies in their attempt at establishing the truth […] about the relevant domains.”
We wish to thank an anonymous reviewer for pressing us to clarify this point.
Even if we cannot develop here this point for reasons of space, we wish to mention that, following Elga (2007), one could include among counterfactual philosophers also one’s past and future selves.
On the difficulty of proving that undefeatable arguments exist, see Keller (2015).
Cf. Mironov (2013, p. 13): “Philosophy cannot […] be a system of generally accepted knowledge, and in this sense no progress in philosophy is possible […]. But this fact gives philosophy an entirely different impetus for development: as a permanent struggle of contrary conceptions.”
Cf. Chalmers (2015, p. 18): “philosophical arguments typically lead not to agreement but to sophisticated disagreement.”
Cf. Priest (2006, p. 189): “the nature of philosophy […] is still very much an open question. One of the reasons this is so is that the nature of philosophy is itself a philosophical question, so uncontentious answers are not to be expected—if philosophers ever ceased disagreeing with one another our profession would be done for.”
Cf. Beebee (2018, p. 1): “Philosophical scepticism […] is scepticism about philosophy: the claim is that philosophers do not, and cannot, know many of the substantive philosophical claims that they make or implicitly assume.”
Cf., e.g., Priest (2006, p. 207): “I have criticised some views about the nature of philosophy, and have developed a rival view, which is not subject to the same objections. I have no doubt that philosophers who are interested in the matter are likely to want to challenge the view and raise other objections. But that—if I am right—is exactly what you should expect.”
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Sterpetti, F. On Mizrahi’s Argument Against Stanford’s Instrumentalism. Axiomathes 29, 103–125 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-018-9392-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-018-9392-4