Realismo científico : uma defesa particularista

A defesa explicativista do realismo científica baseia-se no sucesso da atividade científica. Em contraste, o realismo local propõe que a postura realista deva ser justificada de modo contextual, considerando individualmente a evidência científica para cada teoria. Defendo que tais abordagens possam ser harmonizadas a partir de uma epistemologia particularista. A apreciação do realismo local como uma atitude particularista permite reavaliar sua relação com a defesa explicativista do realismo científico. Realistas locais têm rejeitado a defesa explicativista como incompatível com a postura localista, mas segundo o particularismo, nossa atribuição de conhecimento à casos particulares é feita de modo prima facie, e pode ser ponderada e aprimorada através da formulação e avaliação de normas epistêmicas. Podemos formular critérios de justificação inspecionando casos particulares de conhecimento. E podemos avaliar empiricamente a adequação de nossos critérios ajustando-os às nossas atribuições particulares de conhecimento, seguindo o processo de equilíbrio reflexivo. A função dos critérios epistêmicos não é a de provar que temos conhecimento, mas a de revelar a natureza de tal conhecimento. Isso é o que a defesa explicativista do realismo faz. Nesta tese, apresento uma defesa particularista do realismo científico, mostrando como tal postura pode se manter razoável perante os principais argumentos antirrealistas: a indução pessimista; o problema das alternativas não concebidas; e o argumento da subdeterminação da teoria pela evidência.The explanatory defense of scientific realism is motivated by science’s success. By contrast, local realists claim that scientific realism must be justified contextually, by considering individually the scientific evidence relevant to assess each theory. I propose that both approaches can be harmonized by appealing to a particularist epistemology. The characterization of local realism as a form of particularism allows us to re-evaluate its relation to the explanatory defense. Local realists reject the explanatory defense as incompatible with the localist stance, but according to particularism, our attribution of knowledge to particular cases is made prima facie, in a way open to the refinement of our epistemic norms. The function of epistemic criteria is not to demonstrate that we have knowledge, but rather to reveal its epistemic nature. One can formulate epistemological criteria by inspecting particular instances of knowledge. And one can evaluate the adequacy of his criteria by adjusting them to his cognitive life in a process of reflective equilibrium. And this is precisely what the explanatory defense of realism does. In this thesis, I develop a particularist defense of scientific realism, showing how a realist stance can be reasonably sustained in the face of the main anti-realist arguments: the pessimistic meta-induction; the problem of unconceived alternatives; and the argument from underdetermination of theory by data

The Mother of Chaos and Night: Kant\u27s Metaphilosophical Attack on Indifferentism

Kant positions the Critical philosophy as a response to the crisis of metaphysics - a crisis that is still with us. But his diagnosis of that crisis in terms of a struggle between dogmatism, skepticism, and indifferentism is given short shrift in the secondary literature, despite its promise to help us understand Kant\u27s claim that transcendental philosophy represents a radical alternative to these philosophical modi vivendi. After a consideration of Kant\u27s remarks on what philosophy is in general, I argue that all four of these mutually-exclusive ways of philosophizing are best understood as metaphilosophical stances: ways of conceiving of the ends or aims of philosophy, which collectively determine the legitimate moves in philosophical argumentation, thereby setting the terms of success for such inquiry. I then make these four competing stances explicit, by drawing on Kant\u27s scattered remarks on them and their history. This involves articulating and defending Kant\u27s complex and surprisingly sophisticated relationship to dogmatism and skepticism, and hence a general assessment of Kant\u27s attempts to incorporate these stances\u27 insights, and so subvert their appeal, in the course of developing his transcendental philosophy. Readings of Kant which myopically take him to be focused on bluntly refuting the dogmatist (e.g., Allison), or the skeptic (e.g., Guyer), fall into characteristic errors as a result. Even more importantly, I show that Kant\u27s central target is in fact the much-neglected indifferentist, whose metaphilosophical stance is defined by a denial of the distinctness and autonomy of philosophy, in a way antithetical to Kant\u27s attempt to ground his philosophical activity on the fact of human agency. Indifferentism has numerous adherents, though naturally not under that name, both in Kant\u27s day (e.g., the so-called Popularphilosophen) and in our own (e.g., the Wittgenstein of On Certainty). Reading Kant against these thinkers sharply clarifies his aims and methods in the Critical philosophy, in a way that the predominant anti-dogmatic and anti-skeptical readings fail to do. Kant\u27s assault on indifferentism centrally employs a set of arguments designed to put us in a position to rationally endorse our high-order normative principles without risk of (indifferentistically) ascribing that endorsement either to passive uptake from the wider culture, or to the oracular dictates of common sense. Thus, it is only by means of Kant\u27s distinctive transcendental proofs that can we invoke the authority of reason in philosophy without making one of two fatal errors: making reason utterly transcendent, which produces skepticism; or casting reason as wholly immanent, which yields dogmatism. Taken together, Kant\u27s metaphilosophical views promise a revitalization of transcendental philosophy for our contemporary age