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Positions within the Philosophy of Science

Image result for quarks


Here's a link to a fascinating diagram that surely represents a lot of work and thought,

https://chrisblattman.com/2014/11/17/positions-philosophy-science/?fbclid=IwAR0N9hy9FqL7Oo4czEp7TZOQ2r2xczO2jpH6TTWS5lEWW7tS1zLFNM07xbs

I hope you'll each follow the link and look around at the diagram. I won't try to reproduce it here. I'd either have to make it prohibitively small or crop some of it. Instead, my visual here is a diagram of quarks fusing.

The underlying question behind the philosophy of science, as least as it is portrayed in this chart, is the following: is a "quark" (for example) a real thing -- part of the furniture of the universe, like the tree just outside my window -- or is it merely a useful postulate?

As you can see if you follow the link, the fellow who prepared the graph takes the distinction between realism and anti-realism to be fundamental. The distinction is represented by a blank space in the middle -- and both positions are represented as arrows moving away from that blank space.

Some philosophers are portrayed as bridging the gap. Quine, Putnam, and Poincare are each represented as on both sides of the central gap. I don't think this is supposed to represent any ambiguity in their positions, though: I suspect in each case the philosopher in question had different phases in his own development that warrant the different placement.

"Pragmatism" appears, as a generic term, on the right side of the gap, in between the large labels "constructive empiricism" and "instrumentalism." The two pragmatists most deeply tied to such questions, Peirce and Dewey, are separately represented. Both Peirce and Dewey are a little bit to the 'right' of generic Pragmatism: that is, they are presumably a little less inclined to realism.

I would imagine that the generic term "Pragmatism" is here used to refer to William James. He spoke to the issue in broad terms only in brief passages, which have a somewhat cryptic sound to them. That may be why he is not actually named.

James also spoke to issues of scientific method in his writings as a psychologist, but the issues in that field are not quite the same as the philosophy-of-physics stuff that appears mostly to motivate this graph.

I'll make one more brief observation. I had no idea what "NOA" was until I saw this chart, which portrays it as the rightwardmost edge of realism. So I looked it up. The initials stand for "natural ontological attitude," and the abbreviation was created by philosopher Arthur Fine. (Fine is also represented by name, and as bridging the central gap.)

I'll leave further research to you.




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