Hostname: page-component-f554764f5-nqxm9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-11T15:16:17.207Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Theoretical Virtues: Do Scientists Think What Philosophers Think They Ought to Think?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 January 2022

Samuel Schindler Open the ORCID record for Samuel Schindler [Opens in a new window]
Samuel Schindler*
Affiliation:
Centre for Science Studies, Department of Mathematics, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 118, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Theoretical virtues play an important role in the acceptance and belief of theories in science and philosophy. Philosophers have well-developed views on which virtues ought and ought not to influence one’s acceptance and belief. But what do scientists think? This paper presents the results of a quantitative study with scientists from the natural and social sciences and compares their views to those held by philosophers. Some of the more surprising results are: (i) all three groups have a preference order regarding theoretical virtues, making theory choice a much more determinate matter than what has sometimes been suggested; (ii) the preference orders are very similar for the three groups; (iii) simplicity is viewed as an epistemic virtue particularly by social scientists (but not by philosophers); and (iv) syntactic parsimony is preferred to ontological parsimony by all three groups.

Type
Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 89 , Issue 3 , July 2022 , pp. 542 - 564
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Achinstein, Peter. 2018. Speculation: Within and about Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baker, Alan. 2003. “Quantitative parsimony and explanatory power.” The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 54 (2):245–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baker, Alan. 2016. “Simplicity.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward, N. Zalta. Stanford: Stanford University Press. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/simplicity/ Google Scholar
Barnes, Eric C. 1995. “Inference to the loveliest explanation.” Synthese 103 (2):251–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beebe, James, and Dellsén, Finnur. 2020. “Scientific Realism in the Wild: An Empirical Study of Seven Sciences and HPS.” Philosophy of Science 87 (2):336–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chall, Cristin, King, Martin, Mättig, Peter, and Stöltzner, Michael. 2021. “From a Boson to the Standard Model Higgs: A Case Study in Confirmation and Model Dynamics.” Synthese 198:3779–811.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Douglas, Heather. 2009. Science, Policy, and the Value-Free Ideal. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Douglas, Heather. 2014. “The Value of Cognitive Values.” Philosophy of Science 80 (5):796–806.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Douven, Igor, and Schupbach, Jonah N.. 2015. “The Role of Explanatory Considerations in Updating.” Cognition 142:299–311.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Forster, Malcolm, and Sober, Elliott. 1994. “How to Tell when Simpler, More Unified, or Less Ad Hoc Theories will Provide More Accurate Predictions.” The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 45 (1):1–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friederich, Simon, Harlander, Robert V., and Karaca, Koray. 2014. “Philosophical Perspectives on Ad Hoc Hypotheses and the Higgs Mechanism.” Synthese 191 (16):3897–917.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hacking, Ian. 1982. “Experimentation and Scientific Realism.” Philosophical Topics 13 (1):71–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harman, Gilbert H. 1965. “The Inference to the Best Explanation.” The Philosophical Review 74 (1):88–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hitchcock, Christopher, and Sober, Elliott. 2004. “Prediction Versus Accommodation and the Risk of Overfitting.” The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 55 (1):1–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ivani, Silvia. 2018. “What We (Should) Talk About When We Talk About Fruitfulness.” European Journal for Philosophy of Science 9 (1):4.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jansson, Lina, and Tallant, Jonathan. 2017. “Quantitative Parsimony: Probably for the Better.” The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 68 (1):781–803.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kitcher, Philip. 1981. “Explanatory Unification.” Philosophy of Science 48 (4):507–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knobe, Joshua, and Nichols, Shaun. 2017. “Experimental Philosophy.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward, N. Zalta. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas S., ed. 1977. “Objectivity, Value Judgment, and Theory Choice.” In The Essential Tension, 320–33. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lange, Marc. 2017. Because Without Cause: Non-causal Explanations in Science and Mathematics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, David. 1973. Counterfactuals. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lipton, Peter. 2004. Inference to the Best Explanation. 2nd ed. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Longino, Helen E. 1996. “Cognitive and Non-cognitive Values in Science: Rethinking the Dichotomy.” In Feminism, Science, and the Philosophy of Science, edited by Lynn Hankinson Nelson and Jack Nelson, 39–58. New York: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Machery, Edouard. 2017. Philosophy Within its Proper Bounds. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mättig, Peter, and Stöltzner, Michael. 2019. “Model Choice and Crucial Tests. On the Empirical Epistemology of the Higgs Discovery.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 65:73–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McAllister, James W. 1999. Beauty and Revolution in Science. Cornell: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McMullin, Ernan. 1976. “The Fertility of Theory and the Unit for Appraisal in Science.” In Essays in the Memory of Imre Lakatos, edited by Robert, S. Cohen, 395–432. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McMullin, Ernan. 1983. “Values in Science.” PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers, edited by Peter Asquith and Thomas Nickles, 3–28.Google Scholar
McMullin, Ernan. 1995. “Epistemic Virtue and Theory Appraisal.” In Realism in the Sciences: Proceedings of the Ernan McMullin Symposium, Leuven, 1995, edited by Douven, I. and Horsten, L.. Leuven: Leuven University Press.Google Scholar
Mizrahi, Moti. forthcoming. “Theoretical Virtues in Scientific Practice: An Empirical Study.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (online). http://doi.org/10.1086/714790.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morrison, Margaret. 2000. Unifying Scientific Theories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nolan, Daniel. 1997. “Quantitative Parsimony.” The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 48 (3):329–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Okasha, Samir. 2011. “Theory Choice and Social Choice: Kuhn Versus Arrow.” Mind 120 (477):83–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, Brian, Gonnerman, Chad, and O’Rourke, Michael. 2019. “Experimental Philosophy of Science and Philosophical Differences across the Sciences.” Philosophy of Science 86 (3):551–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schindler, Samuel. 2014. “A Matter of Kuhnian Theory Choice? The GWS Model and the Neutral Current.” Perspectives on Science 22 (4):491–522.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schindler, Samuel. 2018. Theoretical Virtues in Science: Uncovering Reality Through Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schupbach, Jonah N. 2011. “Comparing Probabilistic Measures of Explanatory Power.” Philosophy of Science 78 (5):813–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sober, Elliott. 2015. Ockham's Razors. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steel, Daniel. 2010. “Epistemic Values and the Argument from Inductive Risk.” Philosophy of Science 77 (1):14–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steel, Daniel, Gonnerman, Chad, and O'Rourke, Michael. 2017. “Scientists’ Attitudes on Science and Values: Case Studies and Survey Methods in Philosophy of Science.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 63:22–30.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stotz, Karola. 2009. “Philosophy in the Trenches: From Naturalized to Experimental Philosophy (of Science).” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 40 (2):225–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stotz, Karola, and Griffiths, Paul. 2004. “Genes: Philosophical Analyses Put to the Test.” History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 26 (1):5–28.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tulodziecki, Dana. 2012. “Epistemic Equivalence and Epistemic Incapacitation.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 63 (2):313–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Fraassen, Bas. 1980. The Scientific Image. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Fraassen, Bas. 1989. Laws and symmetry. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waskan, Jonathan, Ian Harmon, Zachary Horne, Spino, Joseph, and Clevenger, John. 2014. “Explanatory Anti-psychologism Overturned by Lay and Scientific Case Classifications.” Synthese 191 (5):1013–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilkenfeld, Daniel A., and Lombrozo, Tania. 2020. “Explanation Classification Depends on Understanding: Extending the Epistemic Side-effect Effect.” Synthese 197:2565–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodward, James. 2014a. “Scientific Explanation.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward, N. Zalta. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Woodward, James. 2014b. “Simplicity in the Best Systems Account of Laws of Nature.” The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 65 (1):91–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Worrall, John. 2014. “Prediction and Accommodation Revisited.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 45:54–61.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wray, K Brad. 2018. Resisting Scientific Realism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar