Perspectival Instruments.

Despite its potential implications for the objectivity of scientific knowledge, the claim that "scientific instruments are perspectival" has received little critical attention. I show that this claim is best understood as highlighting the dependence of instruments on different perspectives. When clo...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado en:Philosophy of Science Vol. 89; no. 3; pp. 521 - 542
Autor principal: Creţu, Ana-Maria
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Cambridge University Press Jul2022
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
Descripción
Sumario:Despite its potential implications for the objectivity of scientific knowledge, the claim that "scientific instruments are perspectival" has received little critical attention. I show that this claim is best understood as highlighting the dependence of instruments on different perspectives. When closely analyzed, instead of constituting a novel epistemic challenge, this dependence can be exploited to mount novel strategies for resolving two old epistemic problems: conceptual relativism and theory-ladeness. The novel content of this article consists in articulating and developing these strategies by introducing two fine-grained notions of perspectives as the key units of analysis: "broad perspectives" and "narrow perspectives."