Should a Historically Motivated Anti-Realist Be a Stanfordite? Abstract: Suppose one believes that the historical record of science provides good evidence against scientific realism. Should one adopt Kyle Stanford’s specific version of this view, based on the Problem of Unconceived Alternatives (PUA)? I present reasons for answering this question in the negative. In particular, Stanford’s challenge cannot use many of the prima facie strongest pieces of historical evidence against realism, namely: (i) superseded theories whose successors were explicitly conceived, and (ii) superseded theories that were not the result of elimination-of-alternatives inferences. Attempts to accommodate (i) and (ii) within Stanford’s framework are incompatible with other commitments Stanford holds, such as anti-realism being piecemeal instead of global. As separate lines of criticism, I argue that there are problems with both Stanford’s claim that the PUA is the most important challenge to realism, and with his view of instrumentalist theory endorsement. 1. Introduction Many opponents of scientific realism appeal to the history of science as evidence for their position. The most important recent development in this tradition is probably Kyle Stanford’s Problem of Unconceived Alternatives (PUA), which underwrites his New Induction (NI) over the history of science. According to the PUA, “our cognitive constitutions or faculties are not well-suited to exhausting the kinds of spaces of serious alternative theoretical possibilities from which our fundamental theories of nature are drawn” (2006, p. 45). In other words, in ‘fundamental’ scientific theorizing, scientists lack the cognitive ability to devise all plausible hypotheses that would explain the evidence available to them. The NI states that historical scientists often failed to exhaust the space of scientifically respectable hypotheses that would explain the data available to them at that historical time; therefore, present scientists are probably failing similarly. For example, General Relativity can explain all the data that was available to Newton, but Einstein’s theory was not conceived until the early 20th Century. Stanford claims this creates a problem for realism, because many fundamental scientific theories are inferred via elimination of alternatives (also known as ‘disjunctive syllogism’) (2006, p. 28). In
Bernoulli had proposed a theory very similar to the modern kinetic theory of gases in 1738 (Brush 1976, p. 20), a century before the kinetic theory was widely accepted. A Stanfordite who appeals instead to (b) (viz. the objection from holism) would stress that some of Ptolemy’s arguments against the Earth’s diurnal rotation use parts of Aristotelian physics for premises. Thus, the appropriate ‘alternative’ hypothesis here is not the bare claim that the Earth rotates (which this Stanfordite grants was conceived in Ptolemy’s time), but rather the conjunction of this claim and the relevant parts of Newtonian or general relativistic dynamics. And those larger conjunctions were unconceived by Ptolemy, so this more holistically-conceived theory would be part of the inductive base for the NI. This deserves two replies. First, although Ptolemy’s arguments against the Earth’s diurnal rotation appeal to Aristotelian physics, his other arguments do not. For example, the arguments from lack of stellar parallax and the fact that every observer sees half the zodiac are independent of Aristotelian physics; they only rely on celestial phenomena. Second, more generally, this objection is in tension with Stanford’s professed aversion to confirmational holism. The ‘alternatives’ that were unconceived in this response are not individual hypotheses, but whole conglomerations of theories. I will not weigh the pros and cons of confirmational holism here, but Stanford himself expresses anti-holist sentiments (2006, §2.2). However, he does not declare conformational holism definitively false, so Stanfordites might well accept such holism to rescue their view from objections. Before beginning the next section, I should first clarify my use of the word ‘Stanfordite.’ Despite its appearance in the title of this article, I take no stand concerning
what criteria are necessary and sufficient to qualify as a Stanfordite. One need not accept every claim in Stanford’s corpus to be a Stanfordite. In particular, one need not believe those claims about which Stanford himself expresses some uncertainty; this is why a holist about confirmation can be a Stanfordite. I use the term primarily to distinguish Stanford’s position from those positions that Stanford claims are importantly distinct from his view—in particular, from the ‘classic’ pessimistic induction(s) (most often associated today with Laudan) and van Fraassen’s Constructive Empiricism. So, in the way I am using ‘Stanfordite’ here, you could reject many of Stanford’s assertions and remain a Stanfordite, but only if those rejections did not convert you into e.g. an adherent of the classical pessimistic induction (from which Stanford distinguishes his view). There is most likely a continuum of positions between the conjunction of claims in Exceeding our Grasp and that of the classic pessimistic induction, and I have no interest in drawing a precise line distinguishing the Stanfordite and the classic pessimistic inductor. This may seem potentially inconsistent with my titular question, but the aim of the arguments in this paper is to show that: (1) Stanford’s position suffers from some problems that the classic pessimistic induction does not, and (2) amending Stanford’s position to save it from those objections pushes one much closer to the classic pessimistic induction. But, for example, this paper contains no argument that the PUA and NI fail. Rather, the view is that the PUA leaves out important evidence that many historically motivated anti-realists have used, and if one adds that evidence to the PUA and NI, one’s position will be much closer to the classical pessimistic induction. 3. The Problem of Unconceived Unrepresentativeness
p. 234), the proper way to draw the line between projective and eliminative inference is by distinguishing inferences that are “amenable to construal as a kind of inductive projection” from those inferences that are not amenable to such construal (2010, p. 235). That is, Stanford thinks inferences that cannot be couched as projective inferences should be viewed with ‘considerably more suspicion’ than those that can. This seems to rule out the ‘eliminative inference in disguise’ route for Stanford, since all that is required for an inference to be projective in the sense Stanford considers epistemically important is that the inference can be framed as projective—and the above examples certainly can be framed as projective. 4. Can’t Stanford accept the PI? The previous two sections aimed to show that a proponent of the NI cannot appeal to many of the ‘Greatest Hits’ in the standard historically-motivated anti-realist’s catalogue, without giving up some of Stanford’s other central commitments. Stanford might respond that he can agree with everything in the previous two sections along the following lines. Chapters 6 and 7 of Exceeding Our Grasp defend (more or less) the PI from realist criticisms. And Stanford himself says: “I view the problem of unconceived alternatives not as competing with the traditional challenges of underdetermination and the pessimistic induction so much as bringing out what was most significant and compelling about those challenges to begin with” (2006, p. 45; my emphasis). I agree that the PUA and the NI are consistent with the PI: historically based anti-realists can make the new induction, but keep the old. However, accepting the PI is inconsistent with Stanford’s piecemeal instrumentalism (4.1). Furthermore, I disagree
Stanford’s views or not. Even if someone accepted every purported problem with Stanford’s position above, it is still rationally open to that person to say ‘Yes, I recognize that Stanford’s view has certain weaknesses, but every other version of historically motivated anti-realism has even worse problems, or lacks the strengths Stanford’s position enjoys.’ To respond to this, an alternative version of historically motivated would have to be presented, and shown to have a better balance of strengths to weaknesses than Stanford’s version. That task must await another occasion. References Achinstein, P. (2002). “Is There a Valid Experimental Argument for Realism?” The Journal of Philosophy 99: 470-495. Barber, B. (1961). “Resistance by Scientists to Scientific Discovery,” Science 134: Black, J. (1806). Lectures on the Elements of Chemistry, Vol. I. Philadelphia: Mathew Carey. Bratman, M. (1993). “Practical Reasoning and Acceptance in a Context,” Mind 102: Brush, S. (1976). The Kind of Motion We Call Heat, Book 1, New York: New Holland Press. Carman, C. and Díez, J. (2015). “Did Ptolemy Make Novel Predictions? Launching Ptolemaic Astronomy into the Scientific Realism Debate,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 52: 20-34. Chang, H. (2003). “Preservative Realism and its Discontents,” Philosophy of Science 70: 902-912. Cohen, J. L. (1992). An Essay on Belief and Acceptance. New York: Oxford University Press. Engel, P. (1998). “Believing, Holding True, and Accepting,” Philosophical Explorations 1: 140-151.