Hostname: page-component-6766d58669-wvcvf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-24T08:36:34.628Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Data, Phenomena, and Reliability

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Jim Woodward
Jim Woodward*
Affiliation:
California Institute of Technology
*
†Send requests for reprints to the author, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences, 101–40, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA; e-mail: jfw@hss.caltech.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper explores how data serve as evidence for phenomena. In contrast to standard philosophical models which invite us to think of evidential relationships as logical relationships, I argue that evidential relationships in the context of data-to-phenomena reasoning are empirical relationships that depend on holding the right sort of pattern of counterfactual dependence between the data and the conclusions investigators reach on the phenomena themselves.

Information

Type
Experiment and Conceptual Change
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 67 , Issue S3: Supplement. Proceedings of the 1998 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers Sep., 2000 , 2000 , pp. S163 - S179
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

‡

Thanks to my co-symposiasts Peter Achinstein and Deborah Mayo, and also to Chris Hitchcock, Allan Franklin, and Elliott Sober for very helpful comments.

References

Achinstein, Peter (1991), Particles and Waves: Historical Essays in the Philosophy of Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bogen, James and Woodward, James (1988), “Saving the Phenomena”, The Philosophical Review 97: 303–352.10.2307/2185445CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bogen, James and Woodward, James. (1992), “Observations, Theories and the Evolution of the Human Spirit”, Philosophy of Science 59: 590–611.10.1086/289697CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bogen, James and Woodward, James. (forthcoming). “Evading the IRS”, in Cartwright, N. and Jones, M. (eds.), Correcting the Model: Idealization and Abstraction in Science. Amsterdam: Rodolpi.Google Scholar
Boring, E. (1950), A History of Experimental Psychology, 2nd ed. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.Google Scholar
Dretske, F. (1981), Knowledge and the Flow of Information. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Franklin, Allen (1986), The Neglect of Experiment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511624896CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franklin, Allen. (1997) “Calibration”, Perspectives on Science 5: 31–80.Google Scholar
Galison, P. (1985), “Bubble Chambers and the Experimental Workplace”, in Achinstein, P. and Hannaway, O. (eds.), Observation, Experiment and Hypothesis in Modern Physical Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 309–373.Google Scholar
Glen, William (1982), The Road to Jamarillo. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Goldman, Alvin (1986), Epistemology and Cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Good, Irving (1967), “The White Shoe is a Red Herring”, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 17:322.10.1093/bjps/17.4.322CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gregory, Richard (1981), Mind in Science: A History of Explanations in Psychology and Physics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hacking, Ian (1983), Representing and Intervening. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511814563CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howson, Colin and Urbach, Peter (1989), Scientific Reasoning: The Bayesian Approach. La Salle, IL: Open Court.Google Scholar
Kosso, P. (1989), “Science and Objectivity”, The Journal of Philosophy 86: 245–257.10.2307/2027109CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, D. (1986), “Veridical Hallucination and Prosthetic Vision”, reprinted in D. Lewis, Philosophical Papers, vol. 2. New York: Oxford University Press, 000–000.Google Scholar
Mayo, Deborah (1996), Error and the Growth of Experimental Knowledge. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226511993.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Millikan, R. (1913), “On the Elementary Charge and the Avogadro Constant”, Physical Review 2: 109–143.10.1103/PhysRev.2.109CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nozick, Robert (1981), Philosophical Explanations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Pearl, Judea (1988), Probabalistic Reasoning in Intelligent Systems. San Mateo, CA: Morgan and Kauffman.Google Scholar
Woodward, James (1989), “Data and Phenomena”, Synthese 79: 393–472.10.1007/BF00869282CrossRefGoogle Scholar