Much of the scholarship on the relativization of the a priori has taken its starting point from the way in which Reichenbach, in The Theory of Relativity and A Priori Knowledge (1920), accounts for the possibility of varying the coordinating principles linking abstract mathematical structures to empirical reality. Such are the principles that Reichenbach called a priori in the sense of constitutive of the objects of experience but no longer valid for all time as Kant thought. However, this poses the problem of distinguishing the relativization of the Kantian a priori from conventionalism. This paper aims to reconsider this issue in the example of Cassirer’s and Reichenbach’s discussions of the status of geometry in general relativity. It will be argued that both Cassirer and Reichenbach, when his work is read against the neo-Kantian background of the debate, offer a genuine option, according to which the relativization of the Kantian a priori depends on the interrelation of different levels of constitutivity
Philosophers of science interested in aesthetics have tended to privilege the epistemic and cognitive dimensions of science. Historians of science interested in aesthetics have largely focused on the aesthetics of scientific images and artefacts. Productive exchanges between these traditions of scholarship have been few and far between. Drawing inspiration from recent studies on the aesthetics of paleontology and geology, I aim to stimulate such exchanges by offering a historically rooted case study for the aesthetics of science, centred not on a theory or discipline but on an object: the snowflake. The history of snowflake science is replete with remarks about the aesthetic qualities of these objects and their study, offering various ways for scholars interested in aesthetics to approach this history. I propose three. First, I address the objects themselves, and how their aesthetic appreciation is related to the goal of understanding their formation. Focusing in particular on the question of the snowflake's symmetry, I show how aesthetic and epistemic values were often “blurred”. Second, I look at the embodied practice of observing the objects, and the way aesthetic pleasure influences it. I propose to view this influence in terms of physical costs and aesthetic benefits. Third, I draw attention to the environmental context of observation, and its relevance for the way aesthetic and epistemic understandings blurred.
Monism versus pluralism about biological species concepts remains contested terrain in the life sciences. Monists countenance one species concept. Pluralists embrace several. I reject three main schools of monistic species concepts and endorse a broadly evolutionary species concept using thin adequacy criteria. I then distinguish two species of pluralism based on their response to the cross-classification problem: is there a uniquely correct scheme for grouping biological organisms? Chaste pluralists reject cross-classificationism whereas promiscuous pluralists embrace it. Deciding between chaste and promiscuous pluralisms hinges on the frequency of “messy situations” in taxonomy. Using the adequacy conditions and considering the frequency of messy situations, I argue against the promiscuous pluralisms of Dupré, Kitcher, and Ereshefsky, against Ruse's chaste pluralism, and in favor of a moderately chaste pluralism. I argue that we must distinguish global and local varieties of promiscuous pluralism and chaste pluralism, and that a novel “hybrid pluralism” comprised of local chaste and local promiscuous pluralisms may be the most reasonable general conclusion to draw or at least a viable alternative to global promiscuous pluralism. Lastly, I sketch the relationship between the different forms of species pluralism and realism about biological species and argue that chaste pluralisms are compatible with species realism whereas promiscuous pluralisms are not, which may speak in favor of chaste pluralism considering species' explanatory role in the life sciences.
In the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, Kant famously argues that chemistry is not a proper science because chemistry does not allow for the application of mathematics. Although existing work on Kant and chemistry has greatly clarified many aspects of Kant's views on chemistry, a contextualized account of Kant's views on chemistry in relation to the chemistry books of his day is still a desideratum of Kant scholarship. In this article, I relate Kant's views on chemistry to the views of Stahl (1659-1734), Wiegleb (1732-1800), Erxleben (1744-1777), Weigel (1748-1831), Lavoisier (1743-1794), and Gren (1760-1798). I will highlight the structure and method of chemistry in Kant's time, arguing that chemistry was construed as ideally an axiomatic science in which non-fundamental judgments are deductively derived from fundamental judgments. Kant's denial that chemistry is a proper science can be fruitfully understood as a denial that chemistry has attained a proper axiomatic form. In line with this interpretation, I argue that it is not the case, as McNulty claims, that for Kant there are chemical laws.
