Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SciRepMod (The Roles of Modalities in Scientific Representation)
Reporting period: 2021-09-01 to 2023-08-31
A large spectrum of discourse in science is typically analysed in modal terms, that is, in terms of what is possible or necessary. This includes scientific explanations, physical laws and constraints, causation, counterfactual reasoning and probabilities. There is a large amount of literature on the metaphysics of natural necessity in science at a general level, with proposed analyses in terms of governing laws of nature, or dispositions, etc. However, necessity comes in many varieties and other kinds of modalities than natural necessity are involved in scientific discourse. This is certainly the case for epistemic modality, involved, for example, in assessing the credibility of a hypothesis, but it can also be the case for logical, conceptual or normative modalities. It is not always easy to identify which kind of modality is involved in a piece of scientific reasoning, and this difficulty is a source of debate not only among philosophers, but also among physicists, for example concerning the interpretation of probabilities in quantum mechanics. Arguably, the lack of a systematic way to disentangle various kinds of modalities is an obstacle to a finer understanding of what science tells us about the world.
The aim of this project was to overcome this problem pragmatically, by connecting the topic of modalities with that of scientific representation. Debates on scientific representation concern the relationship between representational vehicles (e.g. models), their users and their targets. The project was to examine the representational status of various kinds of modalities and modal structures and their relationship: whether they are represented, or whether they play a role in the very act of representing, for example, in assessing the accuracy or credibility of a model. The purpose is to arrive at a means of distinguishing different kinds of modalities pragmatically, so as to provide tools for interpreting the modal aspect of scientific theories and scientific discourse more precisely.
The aim of this project was to overcome this problem pragmatically, by connecting the topic of modalities with that of scientific representation. Debates on scientific representation concern the relationship between representational vehicles (e.g. models), their users and their targets. The project was to examine the representational status of various kinds of modalities and modal structures and their relationship: whether they are represented, or whether they play a role in the very act of representing, for example, in assessing the accuracy or credibility of a model. The purpose is to arrive at a means of distinguishing different kinds of modalities pragmatically, so as to provide tools for interpreting the modal aspect of scientific theories and scientific discourse more precisely.
During the first phase of the project, the researcher worked on sheding light on the role different kinds of modalities play in representation, postulating that epistemic and practical possibilites have to do with attitudes towards representations (typically models) and their contexts of application, while natural modalities are represented within models and determine their accuracy. He applied this way of thinking about representation for various analyses, including: the status of kinematical possibilities in Lagrangian mechanics, in collaboration with Alexandre Guay, the interpretation of quantum mechanics, using the consistent histories formulation, the empirical status of symmetries in physics, cosmological arguments and the role of values in science, in relation to the notion of scientific objectivity.
The researcher presented these results on several occasions during the project, participating in 11 congresses and conferences across Europe. He organised a workshop in Madrid on the theme of the project the first year and a symposium at the EPSA congress the second year, inviting renowned philosophers from Europe, including Timothy Williamson, Michela Massimi, Roman Frigg, Mauricio Suárez and Tarja Knuuttila. He invited Richard Healey, a famous philosopher of physics, to talk to two seminars in Madrid, including one in collaboration with the faculty of physics. He did a one-week research stay in Louvain-la-Neuve. During the period of the project, the researcher has published three articles in top philosophy reviews, one magazine article for a large audience, he has two more articles still under review, and he is working on a further article on the epistemology of probabilities with Mauricio Suárez, the supervisor of the project.
His research led to a new research project that will attempt to establish bridges between the philosophy of language and the philosophy of science, transposing the formal notion of aboutness to scientific representation, which was accepted for funding.
The researcher presented these results on several occasions during the project, participating in 11 congresses and conferences across Europe. He organised a workshop in Madrid on the theme of the project the first year and a symposium at the EPSA congress the second year, inviting renowned philosophers from Europe, including Timothy Williamson, Michela Massimi, Roman Frigg, Mauricio Suárez and Tarja Knuuttila. He invited Richard Healey, a famous philosopher of physics, to talk to two seminars in Madrid, including one in collaboration with the faculty of physics. He did a one-week research stay in Louvain-la-Neuve. During the period of the project, the researcher has published three articles in top philosophy reviews, one magazine article for a large audience, he has two more articles still under review, and he is working on a further article on the epistemology of probabilities with Mauricio Suárez, the supervisor of the project.
His research led to a new research project that will attempt to establish bridges between the philosophy of language and the philosophy of science, transposing the formal notion of aboutness to scientific representation, which was accepted for funding.
During the project research, it became clear to me that the usual way of thinking of modalities in philosophy, in terms of possible worlds, is inappropriate to analyse the role played by different kinds of modalities and in particular to establish the distinction between context and content on which these differences seem to rest. The researcher started to develop an alternative view based on the notion of situation that he had already used in his previous work, where a situation represents the particular focus of modelers. It can be characterised in terms of an anchor, that is, a state of affairs of reference, and a partition of possibility space for this state of affairs, that is, a relevant class of contrast. This way of thinking allows one to distinguish between the modalities that concern our intentional attitudes towards representations, or towards the context itself, and the modalities that concern the represented situation: what is possible or not for the situation that the model is about. They respectively correspond to epistemic, practical and natural modalities. This analysis appears to be in line with analyses of modal talk in linguistics, where the scope of modals can concern either full sentences ("it is possible that p") or particular objects ("it is possible for X to Y"). The latter are normally interpreted as objective possibilities, and the former as epistemic possibilities in ordinary discourse. We find the same scope relation in scientific modeling if we take a model to be analogous with a proposition about its target system. My work thus sheds light on what distinguishes various modals, and how they interface with modelling activities.
The distinction between a context that is the object of intentional attitudes, and a content that represent natural possibilities, has implications for various topics. The researcher presented it in relation with the interpretation of quantum mechanics, where he defended that identifying contexts with frameworks in the consistent histories formulation helps solve interpretive problems. He also examined its relation with the empirical status of coordinate system symmetries in physics, arguing that it blocks a symmetry-to-reality inference, and to cosmological arguments and self-location uncertainty issues, where he defend that this context corresponds to a Bayesian background in inferences, which has important implications on how to formulate such cosmological arguments. Another outcome of the project is the speculation that we can organise representational contexts (what models are about) in a hierarchy of abstraction, where abstract contexts are ranges of possible concrete contexts, in a practical sense of possibility, associated with various potential aims. This idea has implications for the notion of scientific objectivity and the role of social values in science. It allows for a compromise between defenders and detractors of the value-free ideal, if we accept to associate abstraction with a detachement from local values.
The project has shown that an alternative to possible world semantics is needed in order to properly analyse representation in science in general. This led to a new research project that has been accepted for funding by FCT, Portugal. The project is to establish bridges between the notion of aboutness in philosophy of language and scientific representation.
The distinction between a context that is the object of intentional attitudes, and a content that represent natural possibilities, has implications for various topics. The researcher presented it in relation with the interpretation of quantum mechanics, where he defended that identifying contexts with frameworks in the consistent histories formulation helps solve interpretive problems. He also examined its relation with the empirical status of coordinate system symmetries in physics, arguing that it blocks a symmetry-to-reality inference, and to cosmological arguments and self-location uncertainty issues, where he defend that this context corresponds to a Bayesian background in inferences, which has important implications on how to formulate such cosmological arguments. Another outcome of the project is the speculation that we can organise representational contexts (what models are about) in a hierarchy of abstraction, where abstract contexts are ranges of possible concrete contexts, in a practical sense of possibility, associated with various potential aims. This idea has implications for the notion of scientific objectivity and the role of social values in science. It allows for a compromise between defenders and detractors of the value-free ideal, if we accept to associate abstraction with a detachement from local values.
The project has shown that an alternative to possible world semantics is needed in order to properly analyse representation in science in general. This led to a new research project that has been accepted for funding by FCT, Portugal. The project is to establish bridges between the notion of aboutness in philosophy of language and scientific representation.