HPS Research Seminar - Empirical Adequacy and Scientific Practice

Abstract:

How should we understand empirical adequacy in such a way that the aim of constructing empirically adequate theories can guide scientific practice in a fruitful way? I argue that we ought to understand empirical adequacy as manifest adequacy, according to which it is enough for a theory to fit actual observations (past, present, and future) of actual phenomena; a theory needn’t fit possible but non-actual observations or phenomena in order to be empirically adequate. I argue for this conclusion on the grounds that the activity of constructing manifestly adequate theories has a higher degree of operational coherence than the activity of constructing theories that fit possible but non-actual observations and/or phenomena. Finally, I motivate a pluralist empiricism, according to which the aim of constructing manifestly adequate theories is not the primary aim of science but rather one among many empiricist aims, none of which is primary.

Biography:

Prof. Jonathon Hricko is Associate Professor in the Institute of Philosophy of Mind and Cognition, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University. Prof Hricko obtained his BA in Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh and his PhD in Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University. He is mainly interested in history and philosophy of science and published his work in such journals as Synthese, European Journal for Philosophy of Science, and Studies in History and Philosophy of Science.