Abstract
This paper considers how to best relate the competing accounts of scientific knowledge that Russell and Reichenbach proposed in the 1930s and 1940s. At the heart of their disagreements are two different accounts of how to best combine a theory of knowledge with scientific realism. Reichenbach argued that a broadly empiricist epistemology should be based on decisions. These decisions or “posits” informed Reichenbach’s defense of induction and a corresponding conception of what knowledge required. Russell maintained that a scientific realist must abandon empiricism in favor of knowledge of some non-demonstrative principles with a non-empirical basis. After identifying the best versions of realism offered by Reichenbach and Russell, the paper concludes with a brief discussion of the limitations of these two approaches.
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Notes
Russell to Reichenbach, Sept. 6, 1940 (Bertrand Russell Archives, 53895 RA3 17K).
See also Dalkey’s description of H. Reichenbach’s “stereo pictures” and the summer of 1940 spent with Russell’s family, with visits by Reichenbach (1978, I, p. 50).
Cf. Schott’s recollection that Reichenbach “used such images to demonstrate that visual perception is not just a matter of retinal images” (Reichenbach 1978, I, p. 53).
I am grateful to an anonymous referee for drawing this paper to my attention. See also Shaffer (2017).
This is perhaps a continuation of the debate about perception from 1940 that was noted in Sect. 2.
See also Salmon’s recollection in Reichenbach (1978, I, p. 73).
See also Reichenbach (1949b). Russell wrote a brief letter in response to Reichenbach, dated 1949/4/22. He concedes one “mathematical error” in an objection to Reichenbach that we have not discussed, but adds that “most of the other points seem more capable of being argued” (Bertrand Russell Archives 53900 RA3 17K).
See also Eberhart and Glymour (2011). They note that Reichenbach offered an explicit response to Goodman (1947) in the revised English edition of his Theory of Probability (1949a, pp. 448–450), but complain that this response “makes no sense” (2011, p. 384). Reichenbach’s published reply to Goodman is very similar to his response to Russell.
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Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Workshop on the History of Analytic Philosophy, Université Clermont-Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand, France, May 2019. I am grateful to the audience for their helpful suggestions, especially Sébastien Gandon and Henri Galinon. I would also like to thank Alexander Klein for his assistance in obtaining the correspondence between Russell and Reichenbach. Two anonymous referees offered very helpful suggestions for how to improve this paper.
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This article belongs to the topical collection on All Things Reichenbach, edited by Erik Curiel and Flavia Padovani.
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Pincock, C. Reichenbach, Russell and scientific realism. Synthese 199, 8485–8506 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-021-03172-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-021-03172-x