Project
A short description
Science enjoys enormous prestige for its success and applications. Yet, it also presents a puzzle variously characterized, most notably, by Husserl, Eddington and Sellars. In the latter’s terminology, it is a clash between the scientific image offered by science and the manifest image emerging from common sense. This dichotomy is typically put forward metaphysically in connection with the empirical sciences.
In this project we extend it to logic, by distinguishing between (i) an informal logic, a system of inferential principles presupposed in the manifest image, and (ii) a formal logic of the scientific image, involving the formulation of logical systems, which respond to phenomena in the light of which the informal logic appears problematic, especially the logical and semantic paradoxes. We thus envisage metaphysical and logical manifest/scientific dichotomies. We plan to explore them together in order to reach a deeper appreciation of each of them.
Both pose a trilemma: S-predominance, the scientific and the manifest images are incompatible and only the former should be endorsed; M-predominance, the scientific and the manifest images are incompatible and only the latter should be endorsed; SM-Compatibility, the two images are compatible, and both endorsable. SM-compatibility makes best sense of our various intellectual, practical and social commitments and it is thus the option that we wish to support: first and foremost via a parallel investigation of some crucial ontological and logical issues from the standpoint of both images; then, by addressing SM-Compatibility head on. We have thus identified three main goals, related subgoals and expected results, as follows.
G1. Achieving a better understanding of the manifest image, by focusing with the help of experimental philosophy on:
(G1a) properties and relations (PRs); we plan to support a hybrid view that acknowledges both sparse and abundant PRs and an approach to the differential application of relations based on ontological counterparts of linguistic thematic roles (the ones that will be acknowledged after a careful analyses of the competing proposals in linguistics).
(G1b) Time; we wish to construct a precise map of its commonsensical conception and we expect to validate the often-voiced supposition according to which common sense favors presentism.
(G1c) Informal logic; we wish to shed further light on which principles it implicitly accepts and we expect to validate a working hypothesis, according to which ordinary reasoners tend to accept both classical logic and naive principles of truth and predication.
G2. Getting a clearer grasp of the scientific image, by concentrating on:
(G2a) scientific realist commitments to properties, relations and unobservables; we wish to investigate whether and to which extent they can be taken seriously, despite instrumentalist criticisms, and the selective realist idea thatour theories could be only partially true. By tackling these issues from different perspectives we expect to support a realist attitude toward scientific theories.
(G2b) Time; we shall investigate whether there is still room for presentism or other dynamic conceptions of time in current physics, how the arrow of time must be understood in physical terms, and whether spacetime may be non-fundamental. We expect to reach novel interesting results either by combining appropriate conceptions of realism and time, or by appealing to the most recent research on quantum gravity.
(G2c) Formal logic; we shall study logical systems that grant consistency by circumscribing in various ways principles that appear to be accepted in the informal logic, such as those for truth and predication or laws of classical logic; we expect to present new systems and provide classifications of possible choices in terms of intuition and naturalness.
G3. Investigating how the two images must be related for them to be compatible at both the metaphysical level, and the logical level. As regards
(G3a) the metaphysical level, we expect to follow two compatible strategies. The former exploits selective realism, by pursuing the idea that one should avoid commitment to assumptions that defy all attempts of reconciliation with the manifest image. The latter relies on Sellars’ Kantian perspective, according to which the manifest image tells us how things appear to us through the senses, whereas the scientific image reveals how things are in themselves. As regards
(G3b) the logical level, we plan to rely on Batens’ adaptive logic to put on firmer grounds the approach according to which principles of classical logic and/or naive principles of truth and predication are default rather than necessarily truth preserving rules.
The expected results should shed light on topics that are hotly debated in science and philosophy. With appropriate dissemination and suitable further projects they may also have a positive impact on public life, education and information technology.