Understanding Defectiveness in the Sciences
It is well known that the presence and use of defective —false, imprecise, conflicting, incomplete, inconsistent, partial, ambiguous and vague— information in science is ubiquitous and tends to be naturally seen as part of the dynamics of scientific development. Nonetheless, it is also thought that to be satisfactorily understood, bodies of information should fulfill certain epistemic virtues. All this considered, philosophers and logicians of science should start wondering which are the possible connections between scientific understanding and the constant use of defective information in science.
The workshop welcomes formal and informal contributions on the different ways to explain and understand defective information in the sciences. Topics include, but are not limited to the following:
- Is it possible to distinguish between different types of doxastic commitments towards defective information?
- Is it possible to fully achieve scientific
understanding of (any type of) defective information in the sciences? If so, which type of scientific understanding is it available? - What are the distinct inferential mechanisms that could underlie the phenomenon of handling defective information in the sciences?
- Can we be realistic about the sets of defective information? If so, how can we do it?
- What are the styles of reasoning involved in dealing with defectiveness in the sciences?
- Is there any logic for the use of defective information in the sciences?
We invite submissions for 40-minute presentations, with additional time for discussion.