Tushar Menon - Pragmatism & The Philosophy of Science: Fall 2024 Conference

[Applause]

so it's a pleasure to introduce our

first uh contributive speaker uh this is

a talk that was subed tar Menon who

was at Pittsburgh now currently as a

visitor and will soon be moving to MIT

and we'll get your

micone and we're going to hear about

scientific realism is a normative notion

twice over so take it away too

great thank you thank you so much Chris

uh and thank you very much to to the

organizers and to all of you this is uh

this is my pitch to all of you lovely

pragmatists in your lovely pragmatist

Treehouse to sort of let down the rope

ladder and let and let me in um I I want

to be a scientific realist I've always

wanted to be a scientific

realist and I mean there are various

reasons why people might want to be

realists I think mine comes from what

you would sort of navely refer to as a

particular kind of naturalist impulse

and it's one that I want to sharpen as

as as we go along um I think a good

place to start oops I seem to oh there

we go um I think a good place to start

is this is this line from from arin's

natural ontological attitude paper um

where he where he uh so for what it's

worth this is not what fine thinks but

this is what he attributes to the

realist the idea that uh realism is a

sort of good realization of a particular

kind of naturalism right he says it's

possible to accept the evidence of one

senses and to accept in the same way the

confirmed results of science only for a

realist and it's that in the same way

that's doing a whole lot of work right

and if we if we think about ways in

which you spell out you could spell out

that in the same way I think there are

broadly sort of three sorts of

uniformities that are that are kind of

all all being tucked under that that in

the same way rug right the first is what

we might call a metaphysical uniformity

I've called it here metaphysical realism

for reasons that'll become clear in a

second and that's basically the idea

that you know if we think of the world

as sort of populated with stuff there's

stuff we can we can see or observe or

interact with and there's stuff that we

can't but that's just a fact about us

you know the metaphysical status of

those of all of those things is is the

same right that's the uniformity bit but

then there's an additional bit which uh

we would attribute to a particular kind

of realist which is the idea that we

privilege methodologically speaking our

views about what you know chairs and

tables and observables are and we say

well whatever that kind of mind

Independence is that's what we attribute

to the stuff that we can't see and can't

touch and smell and stuff um and so

that's metaphysical realism that's

generally taken to be a component of uh

what I might call Standard scientific

realism right if you look at silos or

ladyman or any of the you know

chakravarti or any of the literature

since uh since the late ' 90s that's

kind of the the uh the stipulation of

what scientific realism is right so

having said that there's a second

component which I take to be a much more

important component than the

metaphysical one in the sense that again

it's I think methodologically prior

which is what we have to do when we talk

about these things right and once again

there's a kind of tethering thesis the

thing that we do when we talk about

observables about chairs and tables and

people that kind of semantic treatment

is what we extend to uh what you might

call theoretical terms what you might

call Troublesome terms I'm just going to

I think for the rest of the talk i'

probably just refer to them as T terms

uh following terminology from button and

Walsh and I think that's the important

thing and that's what I'm going to focus

uh much of my attention on today there's

also a third component in the in the

same way an epistemic component which

basically says look there are certain

kinds of claims about observables that

we want we want to cons we want to

classify as knowledge claims we want to

make similar sorts of claims about

particular kinds of unobservables and

there's no there's no different kind of

thing that we're doing with them there

are certain ones that are that are good

there are certain claims that are good

with respect to observables we call

those knowledge claims there are certain

claims that are good with respect to

unobservables we call those knowledge

claims as well right and so you put

these three things together you get

scientific standard scientific realism

traditional scientific realism and you

can now see the link to the naturalism

that kind of motivated me in this in

this direction as I said I'm going to

concentrate just on the semantic

component because I think you know say

what you will about The Logical

empiricists um one thing that they got

sort of methodologically right was the

idea that we need to know what it is

that we're talking about before we start

start sort of all of our other kinds of

theorizing

so for the rest of the talk I'm only

going to I'm only going to focus on this

semantic realism and what I want to

explore is an argument for why we should

be semantic realists or in other words

why we should be privileging our

semantic approach to observables right

because this is something that's often

taken to be so sort of intuitively

obvious as to not require a

justification but if you say okay well

what is the justification for semantic

realism you can kind of pull out an

argument of this form from the

literature right you say you can say

something like the descriptive

deployment of theoretical vocabulary is

apt and these are sort of pragmatic you

know pragmatist tinged ways of thinking

about this um if and only if the

theoretical vocabulary is being treated

semantically in the same way there's the

fine the Fine Line uh as observational

uh vocabulary and of course if you're a

scientific realist in particular if

you're a semantic realist you're going

to say yes and that is indeed what

happens you might flesh it out a little

bit more you might you might use words

like literal right this comes up a lot

in in the scientific realist discussion

the semantic treatment is literal and

this is supposed to be something like

tasky model theoretic semantics and

generalizations thereof approximately T

terms refer in the in a in a sort of

straightforward

sense and you go all right fine that

constitutes that characterizes semantic

realism but why should why should we

treat observational vocabulary as by

default descriptive now this might seem

like a slightly odd question to ask

because well you'll go well surely if

anything is descriptive it's you know

the the table is brown or you know Chris

is on the sitting on the chair or

something like that but I want to I want

to ask well no what what is the

explanation for for the for the sort of

okayness for the litness of that um and

here's a line from a paper by Laura that

I was looking at um a couple of days ago

you know doing that thing that you do

before you go to a conference where you

just quickly sort of bump up in the

order of things to read papers that are

written by people whom you know you're

going to meet so that you can pretend

that this was stuff you've just known

for years and you just sort of drop into

conversation but then of course you give

away the game when you actually give the

talk um anyway Laura's La Laura has a

line which I think applies across the

board which is you know a good

interpretive strategy to tell us why we

should not merely that we should believe

X but also why we should believe X so

the question is why should we believe

that we're right to uh to think of

observational vocabulary as as

descriptive and I think that's an

interesting question to just answer but

for the purpose of this talk today it

turns out to be really helpful because

it pushes Us in the direction of what I

think is a better characterization of

scientific realism in particular the

semantic component and that's what I

want to draw your attention to today

right so here's my claim and I I I

struggle to think of any better

justification than this even for the

most hardcore siderian structural

metaphysics e grounding e type person

right um semantic realism about

observation vocabulary is rendered lit

by or the descriptive deployment rather

is rendered lit by the role that it

plays that that it's being treated as

such plays in US achieving our aims of

better navigating the world right and

navigating the world is where you put in

sort of that's the rug under which you

sort of sweep up all of the all of the

kind of aim kind of uh stuff uh and I

think this is basically right right this

gives us a good uh U explanation of why

you know a hallucination should not be

should not you know we should use

observational vocabulary to talk about

hallucinations in the same way that we

talk about chairs and tables and the

like and what I want to suggest is

that's what we need to be doing for

theoretical for well I'll call it

theoretical vocabulary here more

generally for Troublesome vocabulary

right I don't think it should be

justified by the manner in which it is

Tethered via a semantic treatment to

observational vocabulary I think no it

should just be directly uh justified in

the same way as we justify the

descriptive deployment of observational

vocabulary right and you know the better

navigating thing I'm not going to say

much in this talk I think there's a

there's a large literature on precisely

how we might cat this out it might be in

terms of better predictions it might be

in terms of developing better better

physics right that's you know in the in

the context of cosmology for example

that's one of the things I think is

going on in the dark matter versus

modified gravity um side of

things so yeah oops so that's it so that

so there's a straightforward and well

accepted sense I think in which semantic

realism should be treated as normative

but there's a second sense in which I

think it should also be treated as

normative and that's really what I want

to focus on

today I want to I want to claim so

here's here's the first side the first

side of normativity right how uh

basically what makes it okay for us to

descriptively deploy particular bits of

vocabulary but then I want to suggest

that the descriptive deployment of

vocabulary is itself best understood in

normative terms right in terms of what

you might call A A a normative pragmatic

metasemantics rather than a sort of

analyics Mantic metasemantics right and

in particular uh and I'm going to just

gesture in this direction because I

won't have the time to really flesh it

out it should be uh a sort of brandian

picture a seller's brandom picture of

material inferential deontic Norms

um so with that on the table this is how

I'm going to structure the uh well as it

happens just the second half of the talk

um I'm going to say a little bit about

uh a broader structure of analytic

pragmatism that brandom introduces in

his in his lock lectures I'm then going

to talk about specifically and very

briefly what it might mean to deploy

vocabulary descriptively understood in

once again a brand Doan sense but this

is the the sort of inferentialist

brandom of making it explicit now these

are these are two separate projects but

a bit like a bit like a Macbook and an

iPhone the the sort of they work best in

the same ecosystem so uh so this is this

is an a sort of pitch for for the

brandian ecosystem as it were and then

I'll come back to what motivated my

scientific realism in the first place

and kind of assess how well this does

with respect to those sorts of

considerations good analytic pragmatism

now that sounds like something of a

contradiction in terms but the uh I

guess the brandom wiish history of 20th

the briish history of 20th century

philosophy sees the sort of central the

core analytic project in these terms

right in terms of we've got a bunch of

okay vocabulary we've got a bunch of VO

forget for for now what what made that

okay wouldn't it be great wouldn't it be

lovely if the if if our discourse about

the world could only be um in terms of

that okay vocabulary and then you

realize ah that that doesn't really work

we've got mathematics modals intentional

vocabulary and for of particular

interest to us today scientific

theoretical vocabulary and so then the

project becomes one of understanding

semantic relations between a bad

vocabulary and a good vocabulary and the

sort of the failure of of at least a

large scale uh logical empiricist or

broadly empiricist project is the

failure to find a sufficiently general

semantic or logical relation between

these things right by which I mean

something like a ramification or a

reduction or an implicit definition or

something like that so you might think

okay well so so much the worse for this

for this cor analytic project but What

brandom suggests is we we can hold on to

some aspects of this namely the good

aspects which is to say our interest in

the relationship between different

vocabularies but do away with the idea

that we just need a straightforward

semantic or logical relation between

them right and this is where the

insights from pragmatism come in now as

we know and as we'll discover over the

course of this conference pragmatism is

something of a broad church I'm going to

take pragmatism in this talk to Simply

mean that our assessment of the content

of claims is inseparable from and in

some sense completely exhausted by the

impact that those claims have on our

agency within the world right so

understood as such this is a this is a

kind of metasemantic tethering thesis

right because the content of our claims

that's just broadly speaking what people

worry about when they worry about

meaning and our discursive agency within

the world that is to say what it is that

we do when we use language that's just

pragmatics and so pragmatism is just the

tethering of these two things right it's

uh if you want a slogan it's something

like there are no meaning conferral

facts that are not atic facts right if

you're a vidan you think this is this

will this this is kind of trivially true

just because there are no meaning

conferral facts but more broadly

speaking you know this is this is how I

understand the tethering thesis given

that we now end up with this picture uh

again the a brandian picture which says

we we shouldn't be looking for a

semantic relation between those two

things we should instead kind of

factorize or decompose that relation

into two relations one of which uses our

okay vocabulary to specify what it is

that we we need to be able to do right

to specify a practice or an ability

which is such that if we successfully

engage in that practice then we know

what it is to to to deploy this

Troublesome

vocabulary um a simple example of this

might just be you know if I if I'm if

I'm troubled by something like

intentional vocabulary um and I want to

tell a a wholly extensional story about

it using for example possible World

semantics then I can do that I can put

the possible World semantics

in in the okay vocabulary and it tells

me what I need to do in order to be able

to talk about things like

intention um so given that what I want

to suggest today is we should reframe

this semantic realism uh discussion in

the following way we want to get rid of

the kind of descriptive uniformity

that's tacet in the standard setup right

because that relies on a particular kind

of primitive descriptivism that I feel

like I don't really have to justify in

these circles but I'm happy to if I if I

need to um and what I want to suggest is

a new framing I want to say look no no

no we still want a uniformity right

there's still a an in the same ainan in

the same way in the

background but um but that uniformity

should be understood in terms of meaning

conferral right in other words in other

words we just asked the basic question

do T terms Troublesome theoretical terms

become meaningful in the same way as o

terms do right are they justified in

being treated in a particular way in the

same way that our o terms are justified

in being treated and of course

understood from a pragat from a

pragmatist perspective you can ask the

question equivalently as do claims

involving T terms facilitate the

development of our plans to navigate the

world right rug rug rug sweep sweep

sweep in the same way as uh as o terms

observational okay terms do and if the

answer is yes then you're a semantic

realist if the answer is no then you're

not and and I think this apart from

everything else gives us a good way of

sort of doing Justice to the context

dependence of particular sorts of

realist claims right I in general you

sort of see things like oh should I be a

realist about quantum mechanics should I

be a realist about the quantum State and

things like that and that strikes me as

asking a question like should I be a

realist about nouns it's like sometimes

but can you give me a story about like

which nouns I ought to be a realist

about in the in a in a sort of

descriptivist sense and and I think this

gives us a way of of of of sorting that

out because now instead of thinking of

the okay vocabulary you know the

observational vocabulary as itself a

metav vocabulary for theoretical

vocabulary I want to think of both of

them as being sort of object

vocabularies about which we can use a

metav vocabulary to specify their

appropriate use and in particular if you

want to be a scientific realist sorry a

semantic realist um then that uh the the

deployment has to be descriptive in both

cases okay so now the question is what

do I mean by deploying vocabulary

descriptively and I'm just going to give

you a couple of slogans because it took

brandom over 2,000 pages I think to get

this across to me I don't have that much

time so um I'm just going to point you

in the direction of what I think is the

right way to think about this and that

direction is it's is best understood as

a sort of two-stage process right the

first is to understand what it is that

I'm doing when I'm declaring when I'm

making claims right what sorts of

practice is what sorts of vocalizations

are such that they are understood as

having the pragmatic significance of a

declaration once I figured out how to

identify those then I need to figure out

further how to think of the subset the

proper subset of those that corresponds

to what I'll call a descriptive

deployment right so declarative

deployment will be you know Murder is

wrong the cat is on the mat and then you

know a particular sort of um meta

ethical expressivist might want to say

well the murder is wrong thing should

not be understood uh in a in a sort of

descriptive sense and that's what's

going to uh that's what's going to allow

me to talk about uh descriptive

deployment right so if you now need to

identify what skills someone needs to

possess or abilities um one needs to

engage one needs to have in order to

counter same anything at all while the

brandian suggestion is we think of

declarations as speech acts that can

play the roles of premises and

conclusions of inferences right the the

sort of the picturesque slogan is it's

engaging in the game of giving and

asking for reasons right if we can

identify a practice as having the

structure such that we can understand

particular speech act as having this

form then we can ascribe to those speech

acts the significance of being uh

contentful of being

declarative we then want to ask well

which subset of the declarative

sentences or the declarative claims do

we understand in terms of representation

or in terms of um description and this

is spelled out in chapter 8 of making it

explicit and very work since the idea is

well there's some there's a particular

there's a particular crank you can turn

um in order to understand particular

sorts of attitude ascriptions as day

attitude ascriptions once you do that

you've understood those as being

descriptive in a particular way I'm not

going to say very much more about that

because um there is far too much to be

said about that but if you're on if if

if if you just if you spot me this for

now if you spot me this two-step um

setup then um I can give you a good way

to understand scientific realism in

terms of descriptive deployment oops in

terms of descriptive deployment right

because now what I'm saying is if my

metav vocabulary is such that it allows

me to specify practices uh that allow me

to make da attitude descriptions to my

interlocutors then I can ascribe to

those interlocutors a descriptive

deployment of particular sorts of

vocabulary and if I do that with respect

to both observational and theoretical

vocabulary that I that I've got my

semantic

realism so you might say okay great

normative normative you know I'm I'm on

board with all the normative stuff what

makes this what makes this realism you

can't just stipulate this right it's

it's you know I I will even grant you

that this is a good set of norms what

makes it what makes it realism and the

reason I'm thinking about this is

because uh you know recent work on

pragmatist realism at the hands of

people like hassk Chang have led to I

think very very good Progressive

doctrines about how we should think

about scientific knowledge

but I think they do founder a little bit

uh with respect to that that Fin and

impulse that drove me towards realism in

the first place namely an Impulse to

want to think about the the

circumstances under which I should be

deploying vocabulary

descriptively so why does my why does my

suggestion count as well semantic uh the

semantic component of scientific realism

well let's go back to that uh to the

justification that I gave a few pages

ago right if if if my descriptive

deployment of theoretical vocabulary is

such sorry if my deployment of

theoretical vocabulary is such that I'm

treating it in the same way as

observational

vocabulary that makes me at least that

gets me a large part of the way to the

original kind of semantic realist right

there was that pesky little model

theoretic something reference

stuff get rid of that but I still think

this gets us this captures most of what

it is that made a particular kind of

naturalist realism appealing at least at

least to me um and that is the idea that

we're treating the theoretical stuff in

the same way as the observational stuff

and of course now having asked for an

explanation of why that was lit I can I

have quite a satisfying context and

practice dependent account of why uh in

particular circumstances for example I

should treat the quantum State as

representational uh as descriptive and

in other contexts I should not

and so I just want to leave you with the

idea that on this way of thinking about

both realism and anti-realism I haven't

really said much about anti-realism but

anti-realism should also be understood

in these terms right it should just be

understood as a claim that certain bits

of our scientific vocabulary should not

be treated as being descriptively

deployed if you do that then we can

still hold on to the idea that both the

realists and the anti-realists are sort

of in the business of giving us kind of

progressive norms for science they just

defer on what it is that they think of

off as the best way to improve our

situation using science right it's it's

no longer pejorative to refer to someone

as an anti-realist and I think that's

probably a good thing because I think

there is something really interesting

and important about the debate that's

not quite captured by by its model

theoretic rendering that's really all I

wanted to say so I'm just going to leave

I'm just going to leave the the summary

of The Talk up here during the Q&A and

say thank you very much for your for

your

attention thank you very much well yes h

thank you it's very nice talk

um when you first put up semantic

minimalism and somebody who's familiar

with you know old debates about semantic

minimalism or deflationism and so on

it's it would be natural to think at

that point well there's an obvious

dilemma there um how are you thinking of

the semantic Notions and truth and rence

if you think of them in a deflationary

way

then there wasn't really enough content

in that semantic realism claim to do the

kind of theoretical work you want on the

other hand if you have a sort of more

substantive notion of reference involved

then within the framework of naturalism

science you've got a big problem because

you need a natural yeah of those um

semantic motions now your way of doing

things certainly avoids the the

of that dilemma because you're not

giving a you're instead of giving a sort

of productive account ount of relations

you're giving the the brand only kind of

account um question is whether it avoids

the first form of the Dilemma whether

it's sufficiently um sort Rich to um

make it the case that that semantic

realism isn't really uh a trivial thesis

because

the semantic motions are

to right

I I I think my my immediate response to

that is there will certainly be

so given that there's not a huge

difference in the in the game that's

being played between talking about just

sort of ordinary observational terms and

and theoretical terms I think in the

observational case what we end up with

is something sort of sufficiently

realist something that that that you

know that as it were um gives us a

semantic underpinning for why for

example tasky model theoretic semantics

is a good way to think about uh you know

what's what's going on with with

middle-sized dry goods what I want to

suggest is I don't want to suggest that

this is the final story about uh how we

might make this work in other contexts

right what I want to suggest is this is

a way to begin to think about how even

if we don't have that model theoretic

semantics in in the in these other

domains we can nonetheless find

ourselves in a situation where we don't

just have to throw up our hands and say

oh so therefore we can't talk about

representation we can't talk about

realism and we can't talk about truth

it's sort of more like a prisy note for

someone who wants to say look and then

we can use this to think about how we

might um talk about for example quantum

mechanics which is a situation in which

we don't sort of have the these kinds of

model theoretic resources at our

disposal but I don't want to suggest

that this is going to give you

everything on its own um I can I can

say so just just quickly I I mean I

think um talking about the model

theoretic um resources doesn't really

get to the heart of the issue because

deflationist will say they're to that

but but nevertheless they think that the

truth and reference are not sufficiently

robust Notions to ground any interest in

notion of

realism right well I guess I guess you

could go in one of two ways then right

so one thing you could say is well my

notion of realism doesn't say anything

about truth right and so if you think

truth is not truth is not truth and

reference are not robust enough to

ground realism great you can use this we

we we'll have to come up with some kind

of proxies that sort of have a similar

flavor on the other hand if you think no

no no I do need truth and and and

reference even with respect to

theoretical talk and all of that I think

this this this program still works but

it but at that point it's not deliver it

at that point it's saying okay and now

give me the thing that satisfies that

that would be a sort of satisfactory

truth referential semantics and my my I

guess my my um my wager is that this

will still give you a good way to

understand whatever it is that satisfies

you with respect to however inflationary

or deflationary you want to be with

respect to your truth and reference

talk thank you

John thank you uh this was great

sympathetic as you know I wanted to ask

what's the status of observation at the

end of all this so if I understood

correctly the thought was well

observation vocabulary has been

privileged in these times of real

debates we're going ask ourselves why we

going say oh it's because and

navigability then you say well we should

just focus on navigability put

observation distinction to the side yeah

um so then at the end I I to think you

know observational vocabulary is not an

interesting

category um no not really I think um I

mean I I I want to get

basically I want to get observational

theoretical vocabulary kind of on a on a

on the same footing and so I would want

it to be on a sort of relatively High

footing uh and so I I I don't want to

suggest that this in any way impunes the

importance of observational vocabulary I

just want to suggest that um we you know

we we we still need to take

observational vocabulary seriously but

it doesn't have to be the tether onto

which we you know the the the

seriousness with which we take

theoretical vocabul doesn't have to flow

from from sort of um hooking our

theoretical vocabulary onto that I I

with respect to observational vocabulary

I think a lot of things said by a lot of

the people in this room are sort of

extremely sensible things to say from a

pragmatist perspective um and I didn't

really want to focus on that because I

think you know broadly speaking I I I I

think those are the the right sorts of

things the right sorts of things to say

right I think we should as pragmatists

be representationalist about certain

types of observational claims I didn't

really I I kind of took that as red over

here

Mak um you started by presenting the

kind of standard take on what scientific

realism is and I wonder whether the

other two components are going to need

to be revised they

reworked yeah um yes I think uh I think

they should I mean the other two comp

the metaphysical component seems um I

mean it's it's all done in terms of a

kind of very atomistic uh conception of

semantics right and uh you know the idea

is I need to think in terms of words and

objects rather than in terms of sort of

something a bit more holistic and I

think the the the sort of holism that

comes in from the semantic treatment

will have to bleed into the into what

you say about both the metaphysics and

the epistemology I think that's

absolutely right um what

sorry I think somebody once said part of

a scientific realism SS is that terms in

the mure SCI is typically refer and I'm

a little bit worried about what happens

to that cross oh good right so I I think

I don't want to cross out the refer I

want to cross out the typically uh what

I what I want what I want to suggest is

there are going to be there are going to

be circumstances

sorry oh did I

um oh yeah but I cross out all of that

but uh sure fine fine um um yeah

actually there should be a typical that

should be crossed out no what I so um

when in Crossing this out I am I I'm uh

rening on a commitment to that I'm not

endorsing a commitment to the negation

of that that's that's what I want to say

so I want to say look there will be

circumstances where you know the world

is sufficiently cooperative with our

practices that for all such that for all

practical purposes we can think of uh

you know our judgments as fact rising

down into claims about objects and you

know the world will not penalize us for

thinking about things in that way and in

that sense we're totally fine talking

about reference even in particular sorts

of scientific contexts right I would

think you know astrophysics for example

is a good example of that so yeah so I

and none of that is affected by the

broader kind of metasemantic point about

sort of taking a step back and thinking

about all of these things in from an

inferentialist uh perspective precisely

because the inferential perspective

gives us the the the U the leeway to be

able to um circumscribe the

circumstances under which for all

practical purposes reference is fine

right it's not it's not anti- that it's

just anti the idea that that's the

that's the kind of semantic model on

which everything else needs to be built

so I think once you give up on that once

you give up on that kind of atomism it

doesn't mean that you have to jettison

any kind of atomism and therefore

jettison any kind of metaphysical claims

that rely on particular sorts of atomism

I think what you need to do is be very

clear about the circumstances under

which those sorts of things are are sort

of you won't be penalized by doing those

sorts of things by the way the world is

and I think I'll turn to the to Jim for

the final question and the other people

who had questions you'll have to find to

during the coffee

break thanks very much for your talk um

so I'm I'm wondering um the the the um I

think that you're thinking about the

observational vocabulary as something

that might be uh described in ordinary

language or it's just kind of continuous

with talk about tables and chairs and so

on and so forth um and then you want to

say that the theoretical vocabulary

should be in some sense treated in the

same way but of course in uh many areas

of science the way in which the

theoretical component is presented is in

terms of mathematics sure yeah and so

one one question might be whether that

kind of picture of you know ordinary

language subject and predicate and so on

whether that's a good framework for

understanding right uh the role of

mathematics and just to give you a you

know concrete example think about um uh

two formulations of neonian

gravitational one of which it postulates

a separate uh gravitational force and

the other of which builds in effect

builds the force into in the SpaceTime

structure um what does your version of

realism say about something like that is

is

is can can we say that gravitational

forces really exist and and the

SpaceTime formulation is you know not to

be interpreted realistically or the

other way around how in other words how

do we how do we deal with the fact that

um scientific

theories science often seems to

individuate theories much more coarsely

than you would if you were to kind of

follow a standard subject predicate uh

kind of treatment right thanks thanks

very much for that question Jim that's

um so I think the the way that I want to

think about this is there's a kind of

auster mathematical presentation of

various theories that you would that you

might get from particular kinds of

particular kinds of textbooks but

ultimately the the the sorts of claims

that we want to make when we use

particular scientific theories are

claims that we make to each other they

don't necessarily need to be in subject

predicate form they could be for example

you know magnitude claims in in

Newtonian mechanics or you know uh

probabilistic claims in quantum

mechanics or whatever what I want to

what I want to use this to suggest is

that the level at which these these

sorts of underdetermination questions

come up right the level at which uh is

this description supported by the

science better than this description um

and these two descriptions are are kind

of intention with each other I think

that um that finess of descriptive grain

is a uh the the sorry the belief that

that our descriptive grain is finer than

our scientif our linguistic descriptive

grain is finer than our scientific

descriptive grain which is the source of

these under determination worries I want

to suggest that that's not that's kind

of getting it backwards right we

shouldn't be thinking of the the

scientific claims that we want to make

as first um to be to be understood in

the first instance as uh this

formulation makes these descriptive

claims this formulation makes these

descriptive claims these two

formulations are equivalent and

therefore we've got under determination

what I want to suggest is these two say

what you will about the mathematical

formulations and the isomorphisms and

various sorts of things with respect to

things that they both agree on with

respect to description Nam that the

particle will be detected at such and

such a place and have such those are the

those are the claims at which the

descript the level at which the

descriptive deployment is fine what I

want to suggest is precisely at the

level at which you get into questions of

oh is there really a gravitational field

or is there or is it curvature of

SpaceTime I want to suggest that the

correct way to think about the use of

vocabulary is that descriptive

deployment in those cases is just off

the table and so that's what that's what

so in a sense it's it's kind of doing

something similar to what some of the

structural realist particular in

particular people like David Wallace

want to do with the with the math first

scientific realism or structural realism

but it's approaching it from a from a

from a from a different perspective it's

um but yeah I I'll I'll stop there

thanks okay well let's thank tar

again and we have