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Deflationary Representation, Inference, and Practice

Suárez, Mauricio (2015) Deflationary Representation, Inference, and Practice. [Preprint]

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Abstract

This paper defends the deflationary character of two recent views regarding scientific representation, namely RIG Hughes’ DDI model and the inferential conception. It is first argued that these views’ deflationism is akin to the homonymous position in discussions regarding the nature of truth. There, we are invited to consider the platitudes that the predicate “true” obeys at the level of practice, disregarding any deeper, or more substantive, account of its nature. More generally, for any concept X, a deflationary approach is then defined in opposition to a substantive approach, where a substantive approach to X is an analysis of X in terms of some property P, or relation R, accounting for and explaining the standard use of X. It then becomes possible to characterize a deflationary view of scientific representation in three distinct senses, namely: a “no-theory” view, a “minimalist” view, and a “use-based” view – in line with three standard deflationary responses in the philosophical literature on truth. It is then argued that both the DDI model and the inferential conception may be suitably understood in any of these three different senses. The application of these deflationary ‘hermeneutics’ moreover yields significant improvements on the DDI model, which bring it closer to the inferential conception. It is finally argued that what these approaches have in common – the key to any deflationary account of scientific representation – is the denial that scientific representation may be ultimately reduced to any substantive explanatory property of sources, or targets, or their relations.


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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Suárez, Mauriciomsuarez@filos.ucm.es
Additional Information: This is a previous draft of the paper now published in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 49 (1), pp. 36-47.
Keywords: Deflationary Representation; models and idealization; deflationary accounts; theories of truth; inference.
Subjects: General Issues > History of Philosophy of Science
General Issues > History of Science Case Studies
General Issues > Models and Idealization
General Issues > Philosophers of Science
General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism
General Issues > Theory/Observation
Depositing User: Prof Mauricio Suárez
Date Deposited: 06 Jan 2015 15:28
Last Modified: 06 Jan 2015 15:28
Item ID: 11246
Official URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S...
DOI or Unique Handle: 10.1016/j.shpsa.2014.11.001
Subjects: General Issues > History of Philosophy of Science
General Issues > History of Science Case Studies
General Issues > Models and Idealization
General Issues > Philosophers of Science
General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism
General Issues > Theory/Observation
Date: February 2015
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/11246

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