Perspectival Realism

Cover
Series
Perspectival Realism
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Plate
I. PERSPECTIVAL MODELLING
	1. The short tale of a long journey
		1.1 Why I wrote a book on realism about science
		1.2 What I mean by ‘scientific perspective’
		1.3 Two main motivations for this book
		1.4 Structure and highlights
		1.5 What flavour of realism in perspectival realism?
		1.6 Short autobiographical note and acknowledgements
	2. The perspectival nature of scientific representation
		2.1 Introduction
		2.2 Two varieties of perspectival representations in art
		2.3 Locating the perspectival nature of scientific representation
		2.4 A problem with perspectival representations in science
		2.5 Indexicality: the pragmatics of perspectival representations
	3. Pluralism and perspectivism
		3.1 Varieties of scientific pluralism
		3.2 The ‘pluralist stance’ and the problem of inconsistent models
		3.3 Two varieties of scientific perspectivism
		3.4 Three perspectival answers to the problem of inconsistent models
		3.5 Is perspectivism redundant, inconsistent, and unstable?
		3.6 Resisting some of the premises behind PIM
	4. Perspectival modelling as modelling possibilities
		4.1 Where to go from here?
		4.2 Non-​perspectival varieties of model pluralism
		4.3 Perspectival modelling and its exploratory role
THREE CASE STUDIES
	4.a. A tale from the atomic nucleus, ca. 1930s–​1950s
		4.a.1 Scientific perspectives on atomic abundances, ca. 1900–​1924
			4.a.1.1 Volcanoes, igneous rocks, and the relative abundances of elements in the earth’s crust
			4.a.1.2 Noble gases, meteorology, and the relative abundances of elements in the atmosphere
			4.a.1.3 Meteorites, isotopes, and the mass spectrograph
		4.a.2 From silicate crust and meteorites to the phenomenon of  ‘nuclear stability’
		4.a.3 Perspectival models of the nucleus around the 1930s–​1950s: the liquid drop model, the odd-​particle model, and the shell model
			4.a.3.1 From Gamow’s liquid drop model to Bohr’s compound  model of the nucleus
			4.a.3.2 The odd-​particle model: a bridge between the liquid drop model and the 1949 shell model
			4.a.3.3 The Nobel Prize-​winning shell model of 1949 and the  ‘unified model’ of Rainwater, Bohr, and Mottelson
			4.a.4 Concluding reflections on perspectival modelling
	4.b. A tale from the ice, the sea, and the land: climate modelling
		4.b.1 Model pluralism in climate science
		4.b.2 Knowing the past global temperature: from tree rings,  boreholes, and corals to ‘climate signals’, and from there  to the phenomenon of global warming
		4.b.3 Future climate projections: RCPs, possibilities, and the role of perspectival modelling
	4.c. A tale from the development of language in children
		4.c.1 Four scientific perspectives on dyslexia: behavioural,  educational, neurobiological, and developmental
		4.c.2 The phenomenon of ‘difficulties with reading’ and perspectival data-​to-​phenomena inferences
		4.c.3 Developmental Contingency Modelling (DCM) as  perspectival modelling
	5. Inferential blueprints and windows on reality
		5.1 What blueprints are for
		5.2 Perspectival models qua inferential blueprints
		5.3 Conceivability and possibility for perspectival models
		5.4 Physical conceivability
		5.5 Laws of nature and varieties of physical conceivability
			5.5.1 Law-​driven physical conceivability
			5.5.2 Law-​enabled physical conceivability
			5.5.3 Law-​bounded physical conceivability
		5.6 A perspectivalist take on laws of nature
		5.7 Indicative conditionals and subjunctive conditionals:  a division of modal labour
II. THE WORLD AS WE PERSPECTIVALLY MODEL IT
	6. From data to phenomena
		6.1 Three philosophical traditions
		6.2 Data and phenomena
		6.3 The evidential inference problem
		6.4 The evidential inference problem dissolved
		6.5 No stringently empirical phenomena
		6.6 No ready-​made phenomena teeming with causal  properties either
		6.7 Rethinking phenomena
			6.7.1 The ‘quiet revolution’
			6.7.2 A phenomena-​first approach to ontology: stable events and their lawlikeness
			6.7.3 Empowered phenomena: modal robustness as a secondary quality
			6.7.4 Perspectival data-​to-​phenomena inferences
	7. Natural Kinds with a Human Face
		7.1 From phenomena to kinds: intersecting perspectives
		7.2 What are natural kinds for?
		7.3 Hachimoji DNA and RNA: the effective naturalness  of engineered kinds
		7.4 Corpuscles and Faraday tubes: the unexpected unanimity of evolving kinds
		7.5 Lavoisier–​Laplace’s ice calorimeter: the unreasonable projectibility of empty kinds
		7.6 Dark matter: the nomological resilience of a kind  in-​the-​making
	8. The inferentialist view of natural kinds
		8.1 Introduction
		8.2 Neurath’s Boat and the inferentialist turn
		8.3 Historical naturalism and situated knowledge
		8.4 Gymnopodium floribundum and Ts’íits’ilche’ honey: an example from ethnobotany
		8.5 The inferentialist view behind NKHF
	9. Sorting phenomena into kinds
		9.1 Navigating Neurath’s Boat of natural kinds
		9.2 Doing away with deep essentialism
		9.3 Why I am a contingentist of the most unusual kind
		9.4 Spinozian sortals for natural kinds
		9.5 What holds open-​ended groupings of phenomena together?
	10. Evolving natural kinds
		10.1 Die kleine h
		10.2 Hebridean kelp, glass-​blowing, and electrical research:  J. J. Thomson’s perspective around 1897–​1906
		10.3 Grotthuss’s and Helmholtz’s electrochemical perspective  ca. 1805–​1881
		10.4 Max Planck’s quantum perspective: the electric charge as a ‘natural unit’
		10.5 Walking in the garden of inferential forking paths
		10.6 Inferential blueprints encore and modally robust phenomena
		10.7 Chains of conditionals-​supporting inferences
		10.8 Coda: what remains of truth?
	11. Multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism in science
		11.1 Introduction
		11.2 Multicultural science and interlacing scientific perspectives
				11.3 	Historical lineages and two notions of situatedness
		11.4 Han geomancers, the monk from St Albans, and Norse sailors
		11.5 Two varieties of epistemic injustice in science
		11.6 Non-​classist scientific cosmopolitanism
References
Index
Backcover