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Instrumental Rationality and Naturalized Philosophy of Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Harvey Siegel
Harvey Siegel*
Affiliation:
University of Miami
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Abstract

In two recent papers, I criticized Ronald N. Giere's and Larry Laudan's arguments for ‘naturalizing’ the philosophy of science (Siegel 1989, 1990). Both Giere and Laudan replied to my criticisms (Giere 1989, Laudan 1990b). The key issue arising in both interchanges is these naturalists' embrace of instrumental conceptions of rationality, and their concomitant rejection of non-instrumental conceptions of that key normative notion. In this reply I argue that their accounts of science's rationality as exclusively instrumental fail, and consequently that their cases for ‘normatively naturalizing’ the philosophy of science fail as well.

Type
Methodology Naturalized and Contextualized
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 63 , Issue S3: Supplement. Proceedings of the 1996 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part I: Contributed Papers Sep., 1996. , 1996 , pp. S116 - S124
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1996

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Footnotes

†

This paper draws upon an invited address presented at the Eastern Divison APA meeting in Washington, D.C. on December 29, 1992. I am grateful to Robert Almeder for his insightful commentary on that occasion, to Hal Brown, Jaegwon Kim, Ellen Klein, and Matthias Steup, and to members of audiences at the APA session, the University of Florida, and the University of Miami, especially John Biro, Leonard Carrier, Susan Haack, Risto Hilpinen, Alan Goldman, Peter Klein, Kirk Ludwig, and Howard Pospesel, for their incisive criticisms of earlier drafts. Special thanks to Ed Erwin for his excellent analysis and suggestions.

‡

Department of Philosophy, University of Miami, P.O. Box 248054, Coral Gables, FL 33124-4670.

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