Abstract
AbstractPsychological-epistemic accounts take scientific progress to consist in the development of some psychological-epistemic attitude. Disagreements over what the relevant attitude is – true belief, knowledge, or understanding – divide proponents of the semantic, epistemic, and noetic accounts of scientific progress, respectively. Proponents of all such accounts face a common challenge. On the face of it, only individuals have psychological attitudes. However, as I argue in what follows, increases in individual true belief, knowledge, and understanding are neither necessary nor sufficient for scientific progress. Rather than being fatal to the semantic, epistemic, and noetic accounts, this objection shows that these accounts are most plausible when they take the psychological states relevant to scientific progress to be states of communities, rather than individuals. I draw on recent work in social epistemology to develop two ways in which communities can be the bearers of irreducible psychological-epistemic states. Each way yields a strategy by which proponents of one of the psychological-epistemic accounts might attempt to account for the social dimensions of scientific progress. While I present serious reasons for concern about the first strategy, I argue that the second strategy, at least, offers a promising path forward for a psychological-epistemic account of scientific progress.
Highlights
Several prominent accounts of scientific progress take such progress to consist in the development of some psychological-epistemic attitude
In the second half of this paper, I draw on recent work in social epistemology to develop two strategies by which proponents of one of the psychological-epistemic accounts might attempt to account for the social dimensions of scientific progress
Supposing that scientific progress is a property of communities, how is such progress achieved? According to the PE accounts, scientific progress consists in the development of psychological-epistemic attitudes – true belief, knowledge, or understanding
Summary
Several prominent accounts of scientific progress take such progress to consist in the development of some psychological-epistemic attitude. Disagreements over what the relevant attitude is – true belief, knowledge, or understanding – divide proponents of the semantic, epistemic, and noetic accounts of scientific progress, respectively. The semantic, epistemic, and noetic accounts are, it seems, inadequate accounts of scientific progress. The semantic, epistemic, and noetic accounts are most plausible when they take the psychological states relevant to scientific progress to be states of communities, rather than individuals, or so I argue. In the second half of this paper, I draw on recent work in social epistemology to develop two strategies by which proponents of one of the psychological-epistemic accounts might attempt to account for the social dimensions of scientific progress. I argue that neither objection threatens the collective accounts of scientific progress defended here
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have