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Methods of Representation as Inferential Devices

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Abstract

In this article I am going to reconstruct Stephen Toulmin’s procedural theory of concepts and explanations in order to develop two overlooked ideas from his philosophy of science: methods of representations and inferential techniques. I argue that these notions, when properly articulated, could be useful for shedding some light on how scientific reasoning is related to representational structures, concepts, and explanation within scientific practices. I will explore and illustrate these ideas by studying the development of the notion of instantaneous speed during the passage from Galileo’s geometrical physics to analytical mechanics. At the end, I will argue that methods of representations could be considered as constitutive of scientific inference; and I will show how these notions could connect with other similar ideas from contemporary philosophy of science like those of models and model-based reasoning.

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Notes

  1. From a more fundamental perspective, all these theories are a reaction to the formalist view of high-level cognition promoted by the computationalist approach of Fodor and Pylyshyn. See, for example, Oaksford and Chater (1991) for an explanation of the limitation of the aforementioned approach.

  2. The inferential role of a concept is determined by the set of inferences that the concept may allow or participate in within a certain inferential practice.

  3. Except for the cases of Nersessian (1999, 2010) and Thagard (1992).

  4. There are, however, some differences concerning the interpretation of the extension of the quality in Oresmes and Galileo (see Palmerino 2010 or Schemmel 2008 for a detailed explanation).

  5. Guicciardini (2013).

  6. Following Roux (2010, 3), we can say that Galileo’s case shows how mathematical language is not “conceptually neutral”.

  7. It is common in the literature to talk about mathematization in Galileo, but I believe, following Blay and Panza, that there is an important difference between geometrization of motion in the tradition of Galileo–Descartes–Newton and the kind of mathematization in the development of analytical mechanics (see Panza 2002; Blay 1992).

  8. Toulmin’s ideas on representation, specially those developed in his 1972 book, are also a clear antecedent of Suarez’s inferential view of scientific representation (Suárez 2004). However, discussing this particular relation exceeds the scope of this article.

  9. Against what he calls an “instantial view”, which understands models as instantiations of the axioms and mathematical structures of theories and focuses on the problem of truth and reference in the relationship between models and target phenomena.

  10. See Magnani (2001, Ch. 3).

  11. In this sense, inferential techniques are close to Hacking’s notion of “style of reasoning” (see Hacking 1994).

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Max Kistler and two anonymous reviewers for comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

Funding

The funding was provided by ANII (Agencia Nacional de Investigación e Innovación), Uruguay.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. IHPST (Institut d’Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques), CNRS/Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, 13 rue du Four, 75006, Paris, France

    Matías Osta Vélez

  2. Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, 80539, Munich, Germany

    Matías Osta Vélez

  3. Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Universidad de la República, Av. Uruguay, 11200, Montevideo, Uruguay

    Matías Osta Vélez

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Osta Vélez, M. Methods of Representation as Inferential Devices. J Gen Philos Sci 50, 231–245 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10838-019-09449-7

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