HPASS: “On the Constitutive Aims of Science” – Josh Hunt, Syracuse University
January 8, 2025 | 5:00PM – 7:00PM
Dodd Hall 248 & Zoom
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Join us on Wednesday, January 8, 2025 in Dodd Hall 248 (and Zoom) for a talk by Josh Hunt, Syracuse University, as part of the History, Philosophy, and Science of Science (HPASS) speaker series.
On the Constitutive Aims of Science
I recast the debate between scientific realists and antirealists as a dispute over the constitutive aims of science. Drawing on accounts of epistemic normativity, I propose a general method for identifying the constitutive aims of an activity, understood as minimal criteria for success. Applying this method, I argue that the constitutive aim of science is to solve problems concerning physical phenomena, leading in the limit to an aim I call “ideal planning adequacy.” For non-logically omniscient agents like us, planning adequacy requires determining a theory’s inferential structure, i.e. what suffices or is needed to apply the theory. Clarifying a theory’s inferential structure requires considering its various formulations, thereby making theory reformulation a constitutive aim of science. By remaining neutral on what it takes to solve a scientific problem—be it truth, empirical adequacy, understanding, etc.—I provide a framework that both realists and antirealists can endorse.
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