Data identity and perspectivism
- PDF / 288,538 Bytes
- 17 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 39 Downloads / 213 Views
Data identity and perspectivism Franklin Jacoby1 Received: 4 May 2019 / Accepted: 4 August 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract This paper uses several case studies to suggest that (1) two prominent definitions of data do not on their own capture how scientists use data and (2) a novel perspectival account of data is needed. It then outlines some key features of what this account could look like. Those prominent views, the relational and representational, do not fully capture what data are and how they function in science. The representational view is insensitive to the scientific context in which data are used. The relational account does not fully account for the empirical nature of data and how it is possible for data to be evidentially useful. The perspectival account surmounts these problems by accommodating a representational element to data. At the same time, data depend upon the epistemic context because they are the product of situated and informed judgements. Keywords Perspectivism · Data · Evidence · Representation · Relational account
1 Introduction What are scientific data? There are two main answers. One influential answer, first defended by Bogen and Woodward (1988), is that data are representational. They represent in virtue of being records produced by reliable experiments. Data provide empirical evidence and, as such, are free from theoretical assumptions and determined, in crucial ways, by nature. They are also stable, meaning their identity does not change even if theoretical or experimental practices change. Another answer, more recently defended, is the relational account (Leonelli 2016). Data are defined principally by their use as evidence. Consequently data identity depends upon the particular inquiry in which they feature and their identity changes as the inquiry changes. Different inquiries put different demands upon data and, to meet
B 1
Franklin Jacoby [email protected] Cherryfield, USA
123
Synthese
these demands, data change identity. Because these demands are many and varied, data identity changes often. Given these two seeming incompatible options, how should we define scientific data? Do data have a changing identity and, if so, what precipitates identity change? In trying to clarify the role of data in science, this paper will strike a middle option between the representational and relational accounts. I will call this third view a perspectival account, which is commited to two claims about data: (1) data identity changes much less frequently and easily than the relational account suggests because data are representational; and (2) data identity is not completely stable because data depend upon distinctions that scientists make. This dependence can be helpfully understood by appeal to perspectivism. In Sect. 2 I discuss why the relational account, as I have presented it, provides a foil to explicating a view with stronger representational commitments. Section 3 develops a case study that suggests data have some representational element. Section 4 shows what a representati
Data Loading...
