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SCIENCE STUDIES EVENTS
THEORY, OBSERVATION, AND SCIENTIFIC REALISM
Jody Azzouni
Philosophy Department
Tufts University
September 26, 2003
Friday, 12:30pm
Preston Seminar Room
A normative constraint on theories about objects which we take to be real
is explored: such theories are required to track the properties of the
objects they are theories of. Epistemic views in which observation (and
generalizations of it) play a central role, and holist views which see
epistemic virtues as applicable only to whole theories, are contrasted in
the light of this constraint. It is argued that global-style epistemic
virtues cannot meet the constraint, although (certain) epistemic views
within which observation (and more generally, thick epistemic access) are
centralized, do meet it.
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