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SUMMARY:Reference failure: why worry? - Christina McLeish (St Catharine's 
 College and Department of History and Philosophy of Science)
DTSTART:20070222T163000Z
DTEND:20070222T180000Z
UID:TALK6080@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Stephen John
DESCRIPTION:For some time\, philosophers of science have felt that a good 
 account of reference must be a significant part of the realist response to
  antirealist threats like incommensurability and the pessimistic induction
 . There is a very large literature which wrestles with the advantages or o
 therwise of one suitably tweaked view over another. A lot of this tweaking
  is over how we should best cope with the historical problem of reference 
 failure. The realist needs to balance the competing demands of the histori
 cal record\, which apparently shows that many of the theoretical objects o
 f science past don't exist\, with the desire to demonstrate that science h
 as a special ontological continuity. Getting the balance right has tied th
 e debate up into some famous knots.\n\nSome philosophers have lately expre
 ssed frustration with this concern about reference. They think that the pr
 oblem is a red herring\, and that trying to solve it doesn't scratch where
  realism itches. Some have argued that the debate confuses issues about se
 mantics with issues about existence\, and that existence is where the trou
 ble really is. Others have argued that even if the problem could be solved
 \, that wouldn't provide the support for realism that the proponents of th
 e debate apparently think it would.\n\nI'll try to show that reference fai
 lure is a proper problem for realists to tackle. I'll first argue that I t
 hink the various 'red herring' arguments are mistaken. Among other things\
 , I'll consider the curious fact that no-one supposes that there are _no_ 
 cases of reference failure for the theoretical terms of science\, even tho
 ugh they disagree over what the cases are. I'll argue that this is surpris
 ing\, because it covertly supposes that reference failure is indeed a legi
 timate target of realist explanation.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, History and Philosophy of Science\, Department o
 f
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