2000 HSS/PSA Program 1 - History of Science Society

PSA Abstracts
Robin␣ Findlay Hendry University of Durham
Are Realism and Instrumentalism Methodologically Indifferent?
Arthur Fine and Andre Kukla have argued that realism and instrumentalism
are indifferent with respect to scientific practice. I argue that this claim is
ambiguous. One interpretation is that for any practice, the fact that that practice
yields predictively successful theories is evidentially indifferent between
scientific realism and instrumentalism. On the second construal, the claim is
that for any practice, adoption of that practice by a scientist is indifferent
between their being a realist or instrumentalist. I argue that there are no good
arguments for the indifference claim under the second interpretation, and good
reasons to think that it is false.
Robert␣ G. Hudson Algoma University College
Evaluating Background Independence
Over the years, a number of philosophers have been advocating the following
epistemic principle on observations (which I call ‘background independence’):
when using observational data to test some theory, use data that do not, in
themselves, presuppose the truth of the theory under test. Using as the focus
of my criticism Sober’s recent presentation of this principle (Sober 1999), I
argue that it has been vaguely interpreted by philosophers and that it has at
least two meanings, one which is irrelevant to issues of observational objectivity
and the other which is more properly understood as an instance of the Duhem-
Quine problem. My conclusion is that background independence is not as
important a principle as many people have assumed. Near the end of my paper
I draw further support for my view on background independence, support
deriving (surprising!) from the work of T. S. Kuhn. I also respond to a possible
objection to my view, an objection that highlights the occasional need for
blind tests.
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R.␣ I.␣ G. Hughes University of South Carolina
Conceptual Change and the DDI Account of Theoretical Representation
Ronald Giere has presented an account of theoretical practice couched in terms
of models. A variant of this account is coupled with an analysis of the kind of
representation that models provide, and the result — the Representational View
of Theories — is applied to aspects of the development of 17th and 18th century
mechanics. A new perspective is thereby gained, not only on individual
moments of this development, but also on transitions that took place within it,
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