The Multicriterial Approach to the Problem of Demarcation
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The Multicriterial Approach to the Problem of Demarcation Damian Fernandez‑Beanato1,2
© The Author(s) 2020
Abstract The problem of demarcating science from nonscience remains unsolved. This article executes an analytical process of elimination of different demarcation proposals put forward since the professionalization of the philosophy of science, explaining why each of those proposals is unsatisfactory or incomplete. Then, it elaborates on how to execute an alternative multicriterial scientific demarcation project put forward by Mahner (2007, 521–522; 2013, 29–43). This project allows for the demarcation not only of science from non-science and from pseudoscience, but also of different types of sciences and of scientific fields (e.g., formal sciences, natural sciences, social sciences) from each other. This article also offers arguments in favor of accepting two types of scientific demarcations, namely epistemicwarrant scientific demarcations and territorial scientific demarcations, and argues in favor of accepting a territorially broad scientific demarcation. Keywords Scientific demarcation · Non-science · Pseudoscience · Broad science
1 Introduction This work takes the main problems of scientific demarcation (SD) to be those of establishing criteria based on reflection on science and its history to: (1) most generally, intensionally demarcate science from non-science (i.e., the problem of defining “science”); and: (2) in particular, to intensionally demarcate science from pseudoscience.1 As these remain unsolved so far, this article outlines a project to solve them. To sharpen and improve our understanding of the phenomenon of science would be beneficial for human well-being. SD criteria would better inform reliable philosophical and scientific decisions as well as judgments pertaining to a wide array of everyday human 1 In line with common philosophical thought (Hansson 2017), this article defines a “pseudoscience” as a non-scientific doctrine or field that is presented by its theoreticians or practitioners as if it were scientific or a science, or that is easily taken to be so by a given epistemic community. My intended intensional demarcation of pseudoscientificity is not exhausted by this definition, in part because it depends on the intensional demarcation of scientificity.
* Damian Fernandez‑Beanato [email protected]; [email protected] 1
University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
2
Bristol, UK
13
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D. Fernandez‑Beanato
activities, including educational, financial, medical, legal, regulatory, and political endeavors, so the matter is of profound social relevance. Section 2.1 through Sect. 2.3 of this work execute an analytical process of elimination by considering the historical development of the SD problems, evaluating different SD proposals put forward since the professionalization of the philosophy of science, and explaining why each of those proposals is unsatisfactory or incomplete. Some of the objections that I will make are well-known, but a revi
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