The Pursuit of Knowledge and the Problem of the Unconceived Alternatives
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The Pursuit of Knowledge and the Problem of the Unconceived Alternatives Fabio Sterpetti1 · Marta Bertolaso1
© Springer Science+Business Media B.V., part of Springer Nature 2018
Abstract In the process of scientific discovery, knowledge ampliation is pursued by means of non-deductive inferences. When ampliative reasoning is performed, probabilities cannot be assigned objectively. One of the reasons is that we face the problem of the unconceived alternatives: we are unable to explore the space of all the possible alternatives to a given hypothesis, because we do not know how this space is shaped. So, if we want to adequately account for the process of knowledge ampliation, we need to develop an account of the process of scientific discovery which is not exclusively based on probability calculus. We argue that the analytic view of the method of science advocated by Cellucci is interestingly suited to this goal, since it rests on the concept of plausibility. In this perspective, in order to account for how probabilities are in fact assigned in uncertain contexts and knowledge ampliation is really pursued, we have to take into account plausibility-based considerations. Keywords Analytic view of the method of science · Knowledge ampliation · Plausibility · Probability · Problem of the unconceived alternatives · Scientific discovery · Uncertainty
1 Introduction: Knowledge and Uncertainty If we pursue new knowledge, it means that we are dealing with an uncertain domain. If there were no uncertainty, no additional knowledge would be required to deal with that domain. When we deal with uncertainty, we usually resort to probability-based considerations, and try to shift from a condition of ‘uncertainty’ to one of ‘risk’, i.e. a condition in which a reliable estimation of the probability of each possible outcome is available. In a sense, “knowledge about risk” and uncertainty “is knowledge about lack of knowledge,” and this “combination of knowledge and lack thereof contributes to making issues of risk” and uncertainty “complicated from an epistemological point of view” (Hansson 2014, Sect. 2). The article was jointly developed by both authors and the thesis commonly shared. Fabio Sterpetti was mainly responsible for the writing of Sects. 1, 3, 5, 7, and 7.1, Marta Bertolaso was mainly responsible for the writing of Sects. 2, 4, 6, 7.2, and 8. * Fabio Sterpetti [email protected] Marta Bertolaso [email protected] 1
Campus Bio-Medico University of Rome, Via Álvaro del Portillo 21, 00128 Rome, Italy
Indeed, probability cannot be assigned objectively to any possible event in a given domain unless we have knowledge about that domain which is certain.1 If we have reasons to think that our knowledge of a given domain is not certain, we try to acquire more knowledge about that domain in order to make probability assignment more objective. Acquiring more knowledge on a given domain and solving problems is precisely what scientific discovery aims at. In the pursuit of scientific knowledge, we perform ampliati
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