Table Of ContentThe Philosophy of Science
OXFORD STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
General Editor:
Paul Humphreys, University of Virginia
Advisory Board
Anouk Barberousse (European Editor)
Robert W. Batterman
Jeremy Butterfield
Peter Galison
Philip Kitcher
Margaret Morrison
James Woodward
The Book of Evidence Making Things Happen: A Theory of
Peter Achinstein Causal Explanation
James Woodward
Science, Truth, and Democracy
Philip Kitcher Mathematics and Scientific
Representation
Inconsistency, Asymmetery, and Non-
Christopher Pincock
Locality: A Philosophical Investigation of
Classical Electrodynamics Simulation and Similarity: Using
Mathias Frisch Models to Understand the World
Michael Weisberg
The Devil in the Details: Asymptotic
Reasoning in Explanation, Reduction, and Systemacity: The Nature of Science
Emergence Paul Hoyningen- Huene
Robert W. Batterman
Causation and Its Basis in
Science and Partial Truth: A Unitary Fundamental Physics
Approach to Models and Scientific Douglas Kutach
Reasoning
Reconstructing Reality: Models,
Newton C. A. da Costa and
Mathematics, and Simulations
Steven French
Margaret Morrison
Inventing Temperature: Measurement
The Ant Trap: Rebuilding the
and Scientific Progress
Foundations of the Social Sciences
Hasok Chang
Brian Epstein
The Reign of Relativity: Philosophy in
Understanding Scientific
Physics 1915– 1925
Understanding
Thomas Ryckman
Henk de Regt
The Philosophy of Science
A COMPANION
Edited by
Anouk Barberousse, Denis Bonnay, and Mikaël Cozic
1
1
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© English translation Oxford University Press 2018
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Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgments xiii
About the Contributors xv
Part I | General Philosophy of Science
1. Scientific Explanation— Denis Bonnay 3
2. Confirmation and Induction— Mikaël Cozic 53
3. Causality— Max Kistler 95
4. Metaphysics of Science as Naturalized Metaphysics—M ichael Esfeld 142
5. Theories and Models— Marion Vorms 171
6. Scientific Change— Anouk Barberousse and Marion Vorms 225
7. P hilosophy of Science and Science Studies— Anouk Barberousse 259
8. Reduction and Emergence— Pascal Ludwig 285
Part II | Philosophy of the Special Sciences
9. Philosophy of Logic— Philippe de Rouilhan 319
10. Philosophy of Mathematics— Denis Bonnay and Jacques Dubucs 349
11. Philosophy of Physics— Anouk Barberousse 405
12. Philosophy of Biology— Thomas Pradeu 430
13. Philosophy of Medicine— Élodie Giroux and Maël Lemoine 464
14. Philosophy of Social Sciences— Jon Elster and Hélène Landemore 510
15. Philosophy of Economics— Mikaël Cozic 542
v
vi Contents
16. Philosophy of Cognitive Science— Daniel Andler 595
17. Philosophy of Linguistics— Paul Égré 654
Index 727
Preface
General Introduction
Philosophy of science has the aim of answering those questions raised by scientific ac-
tivity that are not directly addressed by science itself. Among such questions, we can
mention: What are the overall goals of science, as well as the specific goals of its var-
ious branches? By what means are these goals pursued? What basic principles does it
put into practice? Philosophy of science also tries to understand the relationships that
exist between the scientific disciplines. To what extent, and in what sense, are they,
and should they be, unified? Also belonging to its domain is the relationship between
science and reality. What, if anything, does science tell us about reality? And to what
extent is it justified in making the claims it does?
Just like the sciences themselves, current philosophy of science is multifaceted and
specialized. A philosopher of science may embark on projects as diverse as the develop-
ment of a formal analysis of the concept of confirmation using probability theory and
the study of the potential contribution neuroscience may bring to our understanding
of consciousness. Thus, it becomes difficult for both students and researchers within
a given domain to be aware of the advances and challenges arising in any specific area
in philosophy of science.
The aim of the present book is to expose the main questions, as well as some of the
answers, being discussed in today’s philosophy of science. We view it as the “missing
link” between introductions and research, and our own goals will have been met if this
book successfully bridges the gap between introductions to the philosophy of science
meant for a general audience on the one hand, and research articles and monographs
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viii Preface
on the other. It is therefore primarily intended for the use of advanced undergrad-
uate or graduate students who, after a first introduction to the area, may now wish to
deepen their knowledge. We also hope that The Philosophy of Science: A Companion will
be useful to both junior and senior researchers in philosophy of science wishing to fa-
miliarize themselves with areas outside of their own.
Philosophy of science has become too specialized for this goal to be achieved by any
one person. Thus, our book is a collective effort. We have nevertheless endeavored to
present the basic problems that shape contemporary philosophy of science in a co-
herent way. In contrast with encyclopedias, where contributions tend to simply coexist
and thus lack organic unity, we have tried to maximize complementarity and cross-
referencing between the chapters. Our hope is that this has favored a strong sense of
unity, something that is always hard to attain in such collective undertakings.
Part I: General Philosophy of Science
The two parts of The Philosophy of Science mirror the traditional distinction between
general philosophy of science and philosophy of the special sciences. General Philosophy
of Science (Part I) deals with generic issues raised by scientific activity, independent
of specific disciplines. General philosophy of science was the very core of philosophy
of science up to the middle of the twentieth century. Philosophy of science itself has
dramatically evolved over the last several decades, becoming increasingly devoted to
issues raised by specific scientific disciplines. The study of general problems never-
theless remains a highly active element of philosophy of science. Moreover, it is our
opinion that the study of these general problems is indispensable to those who focus
on the philosophy of some particular scientific discipline or area, since they represent
a set of tools invaluable to understanding their own, specific objects of study.
The objective of the first part of the book is twofold. We intend to both take stock
of the traditional questions which have shaped analytic philosophy of science and to
introduce certain problems that have been raised more recently. Thus the first two
chapters, bearing upon explanation and confirmation, respectively, tackle issues that
were the subject of intense debate in the middle of the twentieth century— notably
among philosophers of science influenced by logical empiricism— and which, as we
shall see, are still much studied today. With causality, c hapter 3 also focuses on a tra-
ditional concept, though one to which logical empiricism has been rather hostile.
Causality is now at the epicenter of a very vibrant area, straddling the borders of phi-
losophy of science and metaphysics. Metaphysics is also at the heart of c hapter 4, which
deals with scientific realism (an issue that underwent a thorough overhaul during the
1980s) and the metaphysics of science, constituting a topic that is much discussed
today. Chapter 5 addresses the issue of knowing how best to analyze some of science’s
primary products, namely theories and models. Starting from the “received view” of
scientific theories, inherited from logical empiricism, it discusses the objections that
have been raised against this view while also looking at alternative conceptions. Lastly,
chapter 8 deals with issues surrounding the reduction and emergence of properties
Preface ix
and/ or theories coming from distinct scientific disciplines. Logical empiricism also
contributed greatly to this research area. We shall see that current reflection on the
matter is closely related to metaphysics, philosophy of knowledge, and sometimes also
to the philosophy of the special sciences (particularly the philosophy of mind).
In our view, these six topics—e xplanation, confirmation, causality, scientific re-
alism, the nature of theories and models, and reduction— constitute the core of gen-
eral philosophy of science, even if they do not exhaust it. This latter consideration
in mind, two further issues are also touched on in Part I. Chapter 6 studies the di-
achronic dimensions of scientific activity, a topic made famous by Kuhn’s much cel-
ebrated book (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 1962/ 1970). Chapter 7 is more
meta- philosophical in character: it reviews the relations between philosophy of science
and other approaches (notably historical and sociological) which share in the aim of
analyzing scientific activity and which are currently referred to as sciences studies.
Although comprehensive, this does not cover all topics having a justifiable claim to the
label of general philosophy of science. For instance, the growing literature on statistics
and statistical reasoning is not represented. But it is our contention that Part I of The
Philosophy of Science will provide the reader with a satisfyingly complete survey of con-
temporary general philosophy of science.
Part II: Philosophy of the Special Sciences
For several decades, philosophers of science have increasingly directed their attention
toward the finer details of scientific activity, in particular to issues exclusive to specific
disciplines. These issues are the object of the philosophy of the special sciences, to
which the second part of The Philosophy of Science is devoted.
Compared with general philosophy of science, philosophy of the special sciences
appears two- sided. Certain problems are essentially instances or applications of
issues belonging to general philosophy of science. In this case, more often than not,
the targeted area of knowledge requires some reconsideration of the issue on the
part of the philosopher. For instance, the issue of justification or confirmation of
theories raises specific problems when one studies, let’s say, economic or mathemat-
ical theories, as opposed to theories from physics, which often serve to illustrate con-
firmation theories. By contrast, certain other issues in the philosophy of the special
sciences are entirely generated by the specific concepts and methods of a given field.
The discussions on the concept of function (in biology) or on the nature of linguistic
universals (in linguistics) are two cases in point. The main objective of the second part
of this volume is to introduce the reader to a representative sample of the issues that
currently structure the philosophy of the special sciences. We have done our best to
respect this two- sided character, i.e., to show how some of the issues are very closely
linked to the “big” issues in general philosophy of science while others are specific to
certain specialized domains of science.
The first two chapters of Part II are devoted to the philosophy of the formal sciences.
More precisely, chapter 9 is concerned with logic and chapter 10 with mathematics. The
