Daian Bica
Heinrich-Heine-Universität
In the current talk, I shall compare two recent approaches to the role of the Best System Analysis’s (in short, BSA) laws in the scientific practice. The first view is Massimi’s perspectival interpretation of the BSA, i.e., laws/lawhood are relative to the epistemic needs of scientific communities occupying various perspectives throughout history (cf. Massimi 2022). The second view is Jaag’s and Loew’s pragmatist version of the BSA, i.e., laws are tailored for enhancing the cognitive efficiency of embodied cognitive creatures with scarce resources (cf. Jaag & Loew 2018).
The underlying motivation is to show that both approaches structurally share the same challenge of mismatch: There may arise a mismatch between the ideal laws of real working scientists and the laws of the metaphysicians of science (cf. Demarest 2017, Loewer 2021). In fact, the metaphysical joints, posited by the BSA, may not match “nature’s scientific joints” of the ideal physics (cf. Loewer 2021).
On the face of the Perspectival BSA, laws are the results of the theoretical and experimental resources of a community in a given period, that shall satisfy the epistemic needs of the community in question. Within this approach, the problem of mismatch does not arise after all. Moreover, the concept of epistemic needs is in need of further explanation. Mutatis mutandis, the Pragmatist BSA does not encounter by default the problem of mismatch. The cognitive usefulness places the burden on the shoulders of the scientist to decide in which language(s) they want to formulate their laws. However, the Pragmatist BSA seems to rely on a narrow individualistic understanding of scientific practice.
Against this background, I will argue that the pragmatist approach can improve the blind spots of the perspectival realist one, and vice versa. While the Pragmatist BSA can furnish (a) a better suited cognitive understanding of the epistemic needs (cf. Author 2023 for a criticism of Massimi’s approach), the Perspectival BSA can deliver (b) a broader communitarian understanding of the scientific practice. Regarding (b), I shall prove that laws enhance the cognitive efficiency of limited creatures because the work done in the scientific practice is a collaborative effort, of scientists working in epistemic communities.
Chair: Isa Kooiman
Time: September 13th, 10:00 – 10:30
Location: SR 1.004, online
SOPhiA 2026 