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SUMMARY:Scientific perspectivism and its foes - Michela Massimi (Universit
 y College London)
DTSTART:20120202T163000Z
DTEND:20120202T180000Z
UID:TALK35053@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Karin Ekholm
DESCRIPTION:In this paper I discuss Ron Giere's scientific perspectivism (
 2006) and a recent challenge raised by Anjan Chakravartty (_SHPS_ 41\, 201
 0). Scientific perspectivism is meant to be a middle ground between what G
 iere calls 'objectivist realism' and 'relativism'\, but – as foes have n
 oted – the position seems trapped between two strictures. It either (1) 
 collapses into another variant of relativism\, or (2) it is not worth purs
 uing since perspectival knowledge is ultimately reducible to non-perspecti
 val knowledge of objects' dispositions.\n\nI tackle objection (2)\, and sh
 ow that perspectivism is worth pursing after all. Perspectival knowledge d
 oes not reduce to knowledge of non-perspectival\, dispositional facts abou
 t the target system\, if we interpret 'reduce' in the philosophically inte
 resting\, epistemic sense of how we come to know those facts. I draw on Er
 nest Sosa's perspectival coherentism to illustrate this point against disp
 ositional realists.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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