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The Value of Cognitive Values

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Heather Douglas
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Abstract

Traditionally, cognitive values have been thought of as a collective pool of considerations in science that frequently trade against each other. I argue here that a finer-grained account of the value of cognitive values can help reduce such tensions. I separate the values into groups, minimal epistemic criteria, pragmatic considerations, and genuine epistemic assurance, based in part on the distinction between values that describe theories per se and values that describe theory-evidence relationships. This allows us to clarify why these values are central to science and what role they should play, while reducing the tensions among them.

Type
General Philosophy of Science
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 80 , Issue 5 , December 2013 , pp. 796 - 806
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

My thanks to Kareem Khalifa for the conversation that got this paper going, to Ted Richards for his editing skill, to Dan Hicks for reading the paper at PSA in my absence, and to the National Science Foundation (grant 1026999) for supporting my time at the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh, where this wok began.

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