Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T01:06:23.206Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

True Griceanism: Filling the Gaps in Callender and Cohen’s Account of Scientific Representation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Quentin Ruyant
Quentin Ruyant*
Affiliation:
To contact the author, please write to: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; e-mail: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Callender and Cohen have proposed to apply a “Gricean strategy” to the constitution problem of scientific representation. They suggest that scientific representation can be reduced to stipulation by epistemic agents. This account has been criticized for not making a distinction between symbolic and epistemic representation and not taking into account the communal aspects of representation. These criticisms would not apply if Grice’s actual strategy were properly employed. I transpose Grice’s strategy to epistemic representation. The main novelty of the resulting account is a distinction between contextual representational use and general representational status, which I address using the notion of indexicality.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 88 , Issue 3 , July 2021 , pp. 533 - 553
Copyright
Copyright 2021 by the Philosophy of Science Association. All rights reserved.

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.)

References

Bailer-Jones, Daniela M. 2003. “When Scientific Models Represent.” International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 17 (1): 59–74..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boesch, Brandon. 2017. “There Is a Special Problem of Scientific Representation.” Philosophy of Science 84 (5): 970–81..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bueno, Otavio, and French, Steven. 2011. “How Theories Represent.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 62 (4): 857–94..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Callender, Craig, and Cohen, Jonathan. 2006. “There Is No Special Problem about Scientific Representation.” Theoria 21 (1): 67–85..Google Scholar
Chakravartty, Anjan. 2010. “Informational versus Functional Theories of Scientific Representation.” Synthese 172 (2): 197–213..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ducheyne, Steffen. 2012. “Scientific Representations as Limiting Cases.” Erkenntnis 76 (1): 73–89..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frigg, Roman, and Nguyen, James. 2017. “Scientific Representation Is Representation-As.” In Philosophy of Science in Practice: Nancy Cartwright and the Nature of Scientific Reasoning, ed. Chao, Hsiang-Ke and Reiss, Julian, 149–79. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
Giere, Ronald. 1991. “Explaining Science: A Cognitive Approach.” Philosophical Review 100 (4): 653–56..Google Scholar
Giere, Ronald. 2004. “How Models Are Used to Represent Reality.” Philosophy of Science 71 (5): 742–52..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grice, H. Paul. 1968. “Utterer’s Meaning, Sentence-Meaning, and Word-Meaning.” Foundations of Language 4 (3): 225–42..Google Scholar
Grice, H. Paul. 1989. Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kaplan, David. 1989. “Demonstratives: An Essay on the Semantics, Logic, Metaphysics and Epistemology of Demonstratives and Other Indexicals.” In Themes From Kaplan, ed. Almog, Joseph, Perry, John, and Wettstein, Howard, 481–563. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Knuuttila, Tarja, and Boon, Mieke. 2011. “How Do Models Give Us Knowledge? The Case of Carnot’s Ideal Heat Engine.” European Journal for Philosophy of Science 1 (3): 309–34..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levy, Arnon. 2015. “Modeling without Models.” Philosophical Studies 172 (3): 781–98..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liu, Chuang. 2015. “Re-inflating the Conception of Scientific Representation.” International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 29 (1): 41–59..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mäki, Uskali. 2009. “MISSing the World: Models as Isolations and Credible Surrogate Systems.” Erkenntnis 70 (1): 29–43..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morgan, Mary, and Morrison, Margaret. 1999. Models as Mediators: Perspectives on Natural and Social Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morrison, Margaret. 2011. “One Phenomenon, Many Models: Inconsistency and Complementarity.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science A 42 (2): 342–51..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peschard, Isabelle. 2011. “Making Sense of Modeling: Beyond Representation.” European Journal for Philosophy of Science 1 (3): 335–52..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Suárez, Mauricio. 2003. “Scientific Representation: Against Similarity and Isomorphism.” International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 17 (3): 225–44..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toon, Adam. 2010. “Models as Make-Believe.” In Beyond Mimesis and Convention: Representation in Art and Science, ed. Frigg, Roman and Hunter, Matthew. Boston Studies in Philosophy of Science. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
van Fraassen, Bas. 2008. Scientific Representation: Paradoxes of Perspective. Vol. 70. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar