How to Make Selective Realism More Selective (and More Realist Too)

Selective realism is the thesis that some wisely chosen theoretical posits are essential to science and can therefore be considered as true or approximately true. How to choose them wisely, however, is a matter of fierce contention. Generally speaking, we should favor posits that are effectively deployed in successful prediction. In this paper I propose a refinement of the notion of deployment and I argue that selective realism can be extended to include the analysis of how theoretical posits are actually deployed in symbolic practices

Notes for a Political Epistemology of Algorithms

Algorithms are everywhere they watch us, they give us advice, sometimes they take autonomous decisions. They are agents mediating between reality and us by virtue of their capability to treat huge amounts of data and to see patterns that are invisible to us. It is pretty clear that they are political actors by virtue of their epistemic features. In this article, I try to put together these two points and outline a political epistemology of algorithms. Firstly, I define political epistemology as concerned with epistemic performances that are essentially situated and therefore political all the way down. Secondly, I show that, in this sense, an epistemic analysis of algorithms cannot help being a piece of political epistemology

Bridging Conceptual Gaps: The Kolmogorov-Sinai Entropy

The Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy is a fairly exotic mathematical concept which has recently aroused some interest on the philosophers’ part. The most salient trait of this concept is its working as a junction between such diverse ambits as statistical mechanics, information theory and algorithm theory. In this paper I argue that, in order to understand this very special feature of the Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy, is essential to reconstruct its genealogy. Somewhat surprisingly, this story takes us as far back as the beginning of celestial mechanics and through some of the most exciting developments of mathematical physics of the 19th century

Three Dogmas on Scientific Theory

Most philosophical accounts on scientific theories are affected by three dogmas or ingrained attitudes. These dogmas have led philosophers to choose between analyzing the internal structure of theories or their historical evolution. In this paper, I turn these three dogmas upside down. I argue (i) that mathematical practices are not epistemically neutral, (ii) that the morphology of theories can be very complex, and (iii) that one should view theoretical knowledge as the combination of internal factors and their intrinsic historicity

Heavenly Order: Concept Dynamics, Mathematical Practices, and the Stability of the Solar System

The proof of the stability of the solar system has been customarily presented as the solution of a great riddle originated by Newton and completed by Laplace. In this paper, I suggest a different narrative. I argue that Newton considered the stability of the solar system more a theological problem than a physical one and that he never raised the question whether the system is stable or unstable. After the introduction of analytical techniques, astronomers and mathematicians, concerned especially with practical problems such as the behavior of the Moon and with the improvement of perturbation theory, also largely neglected the issue of stability. It was only in 1781, when the cultural and scientific conditions were ripe, that Lagrange, not Laplace, finally set and solved, according to the standard of the time, the stability problem

Using, Abusing, and Perusing the Past

It deals with the problem of the construction of imagined past in historiograph