12 found
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  1. Scientific realism: what it is, the contemporary debate, and new directions.Darrell P. Rowbottom - 2019 - Synthese 196 (2):451-484.
    First, I answer the controversial question ’What is scientific realism?’ with extensive reference to the varied accounts of the position in the literature. Second, I provide an overview of the key developments in the debate concerning scientific realism over the past decade. Third, I provide a summary of the other contributions to this special issue.
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  2. Scientific progress without increasing verisimilitude: In response to Niiniluoto.Darrell Patrick Rowbottom - 2015 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 51:100-104.
    First, I argue that scientific progress is possible in the absence of increasing verisimilitude in science’s 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.
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  3. Extending the Argument from Unconceived Alternatives: Observations, Models, Predictions, Explanations, Methods, Instruments, Experiments, and Values.Darrell P. Rowbottom - 2016 - Synthese (10).
    Stanford’s argument against scientific realism focuses on theories, just as many earlier arguments from inconceivability have. However, there are possible arguments against scientific realism involving unconceived (or inconceivable) entities of different types: observations, models, predictions, explanations, methods, instruments, experiments, and values. This paper charts such arguments. In combination, they present the strongest challenge yet to scientific realism.
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  4. What is (Dis)Agreement?Darrell Patrick Rowbottom - 2018 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 97 (1):223-236.
    When do we agree? The answer might once have seemed simple and obvious; we agree that p when we each believe that p. But from a formal epistemological perspective, where degrees of belief are more fundamental than beliefs, this answer is unsatisfactory. On the one hand, there is reason to suppose that it is false; degrees of belief about p might differ when beliefs simpliciter on p do not. On the other hand, even if it is true, it is too (...)
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  5. 'In Between Believing' and Degrees of Belief.Darrell P. Rowbottom - 2007 - Teorema: International Journal of Philosophy 26 (1):131-137.
    Schwitzgebel (2001) — henceforth 'S' — offers three examples in order to convince us that there are situations in which individuals are neither accurately describable as believing that p or failing to so believe, but are rather in 'in-between states of belief'. He then argues that there are no 'Bayesian' or representational strategies for explicating these, and proposes a dispositional account. I do not have any fundamental objection to the idea that there might be 'in-between states of belief'. What I (...)
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  6. How might degrees of belief shift? On action conflicting with professed beliefs.Darrell Patrick Rowbottom - 2016 - Philosophical Psychology 29 (5):732-742.
    People often act in ways that appear incompatible with their sincere assertions. But how might we explain such cases? On the shifting view, subjects’ degrees of belief may be highly sensitive to changes in context. This paper articulates and refines this view, after defending it against recent criticisms. It details two mechanisms by which degrees of beliefs may shift.
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  7. Bertrand's Paradox and the Maximum Entropy Principle.Nicholas Shackel & Darrell P. Rowbottom - 2019 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 101 (3):505-523.
    An important suggestion of objective Bayesians is that the maximum entropy principle can replace a principle which is known to get into paradoxical difficulties: the principle of indifference. No one has previously determined whether the maximum entropy principle is better able to solve Bertrand’s chord paradox than the principle of indifference. In this paper I show that it is not. Additionally, the course of the analysis brings to light a new paradox, a revenge paradox of the chords, that is unique (...)
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  8. On Component Forces in Physics: A Pragmatic View.Darrell Patrick Rowbottom - 2016 - In Hsiang-Ke Chao & Julian Reiss (eds.), Philosophy of Science in Practice: Nancy Cartwright and the nature of scientific reasoning. Cham: Springer International Publishing.
    Do component forces exist? I argue that the answer lies in the affirmative, on historical and operational grounds.
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  9. To Thine Own Self Be Untrue: A Diagnosis of the Cable Guy Paradox.Darrell Patrick Rowbottom & Peter Baumann - 2008 - Logique Et Analyse 51 (204):355-364.
    Hájek has recently presented the following paradox. You are certain that a cable guy will visit you tomorrow between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. but you have no further information about when. And you agree to a bet on whether he will come in the morning interval (8, 12] or in the afternoon interval (12, 4). At first, you have no reason to prefer one possibility rather than the other. But you soon realise that there will definitely be a future (...)
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  10. Beyond Kuhn: Methodological Contextualism and Partial Paradigms.Darrell P. Rowbottom - 2017 - In Moti Mizrahi (ed.), The Kuhnian Image of Science: Time for a Decisive Transformation? London: Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 191-208.
    Kuhn’s view of science is as follows. Science involves two key phases: normal and extraordinary. In normal science, disciplinary matrices (DMs) are large and pervasive. DMs involve “beliefs, values, techniques, and so on shared by the members of a given community” (Kuhn 1996, 175). “And so on” is regrettably vague, but Kuhn (1977, 1996) mentions three other key elements: symbolic generalizations (such as F=dp/dt), models (such as Bohr’s atomic model), and exemplars. These components of DMs overlap somewhat. For instance, symbolic (...)
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  11. A methodological argument against scientific realism.Darrell P. Rowbottom - 2019 - Synthese 198 (3):2153-2167.
    First, I identify a methodological thesis associated with scientific realism. This has different variants, but each concerns the reliability of scientific methods in connection with acquiring, or approaching, truth or approximate truth. Second, I show how this thesis bears on what scientists should do when considering new theories that significantly contradict older theories. Third, I explore how vulnerable scientific realism is to a reductio ad absurdum as a result. Finally, I consider which variants of the methodological thesis are the most (...)
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  12.  49
    On Component Forces in Physics: A Pragmatic View.Darrell Patrick Rowbottom - 2016 - In Hsiang-Ke Chao & Julian Reiss (eds.), Philosophy of Science in Practice: Nancy Cartwright and the nature of scientific reasoning. Cham: Springer International Publishing.
    Do component forces exist? I argue that the answer lies in the affirmative, on historical and operational grounds.
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