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SUMMARY:The instrument of science - Darrell Rowbottom (Lingnan University)
DTSTART:20190502T143000Z
DTEND:20190502T160000Z
UID:TALK112837@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Agnes Bolinska
DESCRIPTION:In my recently published monograph\, _The Instrument of Scienc
 e: Scientific Anti-Realism Revitalised_ (Routledge)\, I develop and defend
  a position that I call 'cognitive instrumentalism'. This involves three c
 ore theses. First\, science makes theoretical progress primarily when it f
 urnishes us with more predictive power or understanding concerning observa
 ble things. Second\, scientific discourse concerning unobservable things s
 hould only be taken literally in so far as it involves observable properti
 es or analogies with observable things. Third\, scientific claims about un
 observable things are probably neither approximately true nor liable to ch
 ange in such a way as to increase in truthlikeness. In this talk I will of
 fer some arguments for each thesis\, using examples from the history of sc
 ience\, and hence cognitive instrumentalism as a whole.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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