Uploaded February 2021 | Updated September 2026, 18 hours ago
Dr. Michael T. Stuart (CFvW Center, Tübingen): Metaepistemology of Cognitive Tools
Abstract:
There is a set of epistemic tools used in science that should be characterized as tools of the mind, in Francis Bacon’s sense. I claim these tools operate by providing impetus to the imagination, and guiding it in certain ways. There is a lot written about the use and epistemology of several of these tools, including thought experiments, mental models, diagrams, analogies, metaphors, and formal languages. But little has been said about the way we should go about doing epistemology of these tools, considered as a set. That is, how can we define a good tool of imagination if we cannot define a good imaginative act? I argue that a good imaginative act can be understood in at least three different ways, following epistemological consequentialism, deontic epistemology, and virtue epistemology. If we leave things here, “a good imaginative act” is ambiguous, and this ambiguity spreads to tools of imagination: a tool can also be “good” in at least these three senses. To judge between them, I consider how well each metaepistemological framework is able to capture what scientists themselves say about imagination. I conclude against deontic epistemology of imagination, and for both consequentialist and virtue epistemology, though these two frameworks are used for very different purposes by scientists: the former to evaluate past imaginings, and the latter to improve imagination for the future.
The talk was given at the Philosophy of Science & Methodology Colloquium (University of Tübingen) organized by Prof. Dr. Alexandra Zinke and Prof. Dr. Hong Yu Wong.
Dr. Michael T. Stuart (CFvW Center, Tübingen): Metaepistemology of Cognitive Tools
Abstract:
There is a set of epistemic tools used in science that should be characterized as tools of the mind, in Francis Bacon’s sense. I claim these tools operate by providing impetus to the imagination, and guiding it in certain ways. There is a lot written about the use and epistemology of several of these tools, including thought experiments, mental models, diagrams, analogies, metaphors, and formal languages. But little has been said about the way we should go about doing epistemology of these tools, considered as a set. That is, how can we define a good tool of imagination if we cannot define a good imaginative act? I argue that a good imaginative act can be understood in at least three different ways, following epistemological consequentialism, deontic epistemology, and virtue epistemology. If we leave things here, “a good imaginative act” is ambiguous, and this ambiguity spreads to tools of imagination: a tool can also be “good” in at least these three senses. To judge between them, I consider how well each metaepistemological framework is able to capture what scientists themselves say about imagination. I conclude against deontic epistemology of imagination, and for both consequentialist and virtue epistemology, though these two frameworks are used for very different purposes by scientists: the former to evaluate past imaginings, and the latter to improve imagination for the future.
The talk was given at the Philosophy of Science & Methodology Colloquium (University of Tübingen) organized by Prof. Dr. Alexandra Zinke and Prof. Dr. Hong Yu Wong.
