Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T08:17:26.948Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Empiricism, Conservativeness, and Quasi-Truth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Otávio Bueno
Otávio Bueno*
Affiliation:
California State University, Fresno
*
†Department of Philosophy, California State University, Fresno, Fresno, CA, 93740-8024; e-mail: otavio_bueno@csufresno.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A first step is taken towards articulating a constructive empiricist philosophy of mathematics, thus extending van Fraassen's account to this domain. In order to do so, I adapt Field's nominalization program, making it compatible with an empiricist stance. Two changes are introduced: (a) Instead of taking conservativeness as the norm of mathematics, the empiricist countenances the weaker notion of quasi-truth (as formulated by da Costa and French), from which the formal properties of conservativeness are derived; (b) Instead of quantifying over spacetime regions, the empiricist only admits quantification over occupied regions, since this is enough for his or her needs.

Type
Explanation, Confirmation, and Scientific Inference
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 66 , Issue S3: Supplement. Proceedings of the 1998 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part I: Contributed Papers Sep., 1999 , 1999 , pp. S474 - S485
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

‡

Many thanks to Philip Catton, Steven French, Sarah Kattau, David Miller, Stathis Psillos, Wade Savage, Elliott Sober, Mauricio Suárez and Bas van Fraassen for helpful discussions and comments on a previous version of this paper.

References

Bueno, Otávio (1997), “Empirical Adequacy: A Partial Structures Approach”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 28: 585–610.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bueno, Otávio and Souza, Edelcio de (1996), “The Concept of Quasi-Truth”, Logique et Analyse 153–154: 183–199.Google Scholar
da Costa, Newton C. A. (1986), “Pragmatic Probability”, Erkenntnis 25: 141–162.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
da Costa, Newton C. A. and French, Steven (1989), “Pragmatic Truth and the Logic of Induction”, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 40: 333–356.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
da Costa, Newton C. A. and French, Steven. (1990), “The Model-Theoretic Approach in the Philosophy of Science”, Philosophy of Science 57: 248–265.Google Scholar
Field, Hartry (1980), Science without Numbers. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Field, Hartry. (1989), Realism, Mathematics and Modality. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
French, Steven, Ladyman, James, and Bueno, Otávio (1998), “Partial Homomorphism, Empirical Adequacy and Scientific Practice”, unpublished manuscript, University of Leeds, University of Bristol, and California State University, Fresno.Google Scholar
Hilbert, David (1971), Foundations of Geometry. La Salle: Open Court.Google Scholar
Malament, David (1982), “Review of Field (1980)”, Journal of Philosophy 79: 523–534.Google Scholar
Mikenberg, Irene, da Costa, Newton C. A., and Chuaqui, Rolando (1986), “Pragmatic Truth and Approximation to Truth”, Journal of Symbolic Logic 51: 201–221.10.2307/2273956CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosen, Gideon (1994), “What is Constructive Empiricism?”, Philosophical Studies 74: 143–178.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Fraassen, Bas C. (1980), The Scientific Image. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Fraassen, Bas C. (1989), Laws and Symmetry. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar