Michela Massimi
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 3866280 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Michela Massimi |
| NOMBRES | Michela |
| APELLIDO | Massimi |
| FIRMA | MASSIMI M |
| AFILIACIONES | University of Edinburgh |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6626-9174 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 36 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 104 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 34 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 4 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2001 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 6 |
What role for local knowledge in ocean governance
Local knowledges and the right to participate in science
I discuss the right to participate in science in UNDHR (1948) and ICESCR (1966). My goal is to clarify how fulfilling this right requires engaging with varieties of local knowledges that are too often severed in scientific narratives. I tease out three main varieties of local knowledges and highlight their distinctive features and intersectionalities. I argue that a more careful appreciation of varieties of local knowledges is key for the fulfilm…
From the Right to Science as an Epistemic-Cultural Human Right to the Right to Expertise
I discuss the Right to Science originally recognised by the United Nations (UN) Declaration of Human Rights (UNDHR) in 1948 and subsequently embedded in the International Covenant for Economic Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) in 1966 (henceforth abbreviated as REBSP). My aim is twofold. First, I give the philosophical arguments for taking REBSP as an epistemic-cultural human right, namely a right concerning scientific knowledge (episteme in an…
The fraught legacy of the Common Heritage of Humankind principle for equitable ocean policy
This paper addresses a principle originally known as the Common Heritage of Mankind, which has been central to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and in the ocean governance concerning the exploration and exploitation of the deep ocean seabed (legally known as the ‘Area’) and the minerals (polymetallic nodules) it contains. In more recent times the applicability of the principle—renamed as Common Heritage of Humankind principle (hen…
Book Forum
Normative Foundations of Kant’s Cosmopolitan Right
Kant’s philosophy of natural science has traditionally concentrated on a host of issues including the role of laws of nature and teleological judgements. However, so far, the literature has made virtually no contact with the no less important tradition in Kant’s legal and political philosophy. This article explores one aspect of such connection in relation to the normative foundations of Kant’s notion of cosmopolitan right. I argue that Kant’s ar…
Perspectival Realism
Abstract What does it mean to be a realist about science if one takes seriously the view that scientific knowledge is always perspectival, namely historically and culturally situated? In Perspectival Realism, Michela Massimi articulates an original answer to this question. The result is a philosophical view that goes under the name of ‘perspectival realism’ and it offers a new lens for thinking about scientific knowledge, realism, and pluralism i…
Perspectival Realism
Points of view
Realism, perspectivism, and disagreement in science
This paper attends to two main tasks. First, I introduce the notion of perspectival disagreement in science. Second, I relate perspectival disagreement in science to the broader issue of realism about science: how to maintain realist ontological commitments in the face of perspectival disagreement among scientists? I argue that often enough perspectival disagreement is not at the level of the scientific knowledge claims but rather of the methodol…
Wilkins–Bernal–Medawar Lecture
In an era where science is increasingly specialized, what is the value of interdisciplinary research? I argue that research across disciplinary boundaries plays a pivotal role in scientific inquiry, and it has a threefold value: it is exploratory ; it is unifying ; and it offers critical engagement . Philosophy of science is an interesting example of interdisciplinary research at the junction between the sciences and the humanities. What good can…
Knowledge from a Human Point of View
This book – as the title suggests – explores some of the historical roots and epistemological ramifications of perspectivism. Perspectivism has recently emerged in philosophy of science as an interesting new position in the debate between scientific realism and anti-realism
Two Kinds of Exploratory Models
I analyze the exploratory function of two main modeling practices: targetless fictional models and hypothetical perspectival models. In both cases, I argue, modelers invite us to imagine or conceive something about the target system, which is known to be either nonexistent (fictional models) or just hypothetical (in perspectival models). I clarify the kind of imagining or conceiving involved in each modeling practice, and I show how each—in its o…
Three problems about multi-scale modelling in cosmology
Outline three challenges concerning modelling dark matter across scales. • Review the debate between LambdaCDM and MOND in cosmology in the light of the latest data and theoretical proposals. • Investigate problems and prospects in addressing the Baryonic Tully-Fisher relation. • Analyse the role of dark matter computer simulations in retrieving the Baryonic Tully-Fisher relation
Perspectival Modeling
The goal of this article is to address the problem of inconsistent models and the challenge it poses for perspectivism. I analyze the argument, draw attention to some hidden premises behind it, and deflate them. Then I introduce the notion of perspectival models as a distinctive class of modeling practices whose primary function is exploratory. I illustrate perspectival modeling with two examples taken from contemporary high-energy physics at the…
Epsa15 Selected Papers
What is this Thing Called ‘Scientific Knowledge’? – Kant on Imaginary Standpoints And the Regulative Role of Reason
In this essay I analyse Kant’s view on the regulative role of reason, and in particular on what he describes as the ‘indispensably necessary’ role of ideas qua foci imaginarii in the Appendix. I review two influential readings of what has become known as the ‘transcendental illusion’ and I offer a novel reading that builds on some of the insights of these earlier readings. I argue that ideas of reason act as imaginary standpoints, which are indis…
Kant and the Laws of Nature
Immanuel Kant’s complex and nuanced view on the laws of nature has been at the center of renewed attention among Kant scholars since the late 20th century. Kant’s view is one of the best examples in the Early Modern period of the philosophical view of nature as “ordered” and “lawful” that emerged with the scientific advancements of the 17th and 18th centuries. Building on the extraordinary success of Isaac Newton’s mechanics and optics, but also …
Three Tales of Scientific Success
Success-to-truth inferences have been the realist stronghold for a long time. Scientific success is the parameter by which realists claim to discern approximately true theories from false ones. But scientific success needs to be probed a bit deeper. In this article, I tell three tales of scientific success, by considering in turn success from nowhere, success from here now, and success from within. I argue for a suitable version of success from w…
Four Kinds of Perspectival Truth
In this paper, I assess recent claims in philosophy of science about scientific perspectivism being compatible with realism. I clarify the rationale for scientific perspectivism and the problems and challenges that perspectivism faces in delivering a form of realism. In particular, I concentrate my attention on truth, and on ways in which truth can be understood in perspectival terms. I offer a cost‐benefit analysis of each of them and defend a v…
Philosophy for Everyone
Computer simulations and experiments
The normativity of nature. Essays on Kant's Critique of Judgement
Kant's Critique of Judgement has long been at the centre of interpretive debates among Kant scholars. With a first part dedicated to aesthetics and a second part focused on teleology, Kant's third
Working in a new world’
Philosophy and the Sciences for Everyone
Four Kinds of Perspectival Truth
In this paper, I assess recent claims in philosophy of science about scientific perspectivism being compatible with realism. I clarify the rationale for scientific perspectivism and the problems and challenges that perspectivism faces in delivering a form of realism. In particular, I concentrate my attention on truth, and on ways in which truth can be understood in perspectival terms. I offer a cost‐benefit analysis of each of them and defend a v…
Perspectival Modeling
The goal of this article is to address the problem of inconsistent models and the challenge it poses for perspectivism. I analyze the argument, draw attention to some hidden premises behind it, and deflate them. Then I introduce the notion of perspectival models as a distinctive class of modeling practices whose primary function is exploratory. I illustrate perspectival modeling with two examples taken from contemporary high-energy physics at the…
Saving Unobservable Phenomena
In this paper I argue—against van Fraassen's constructive empiricism—that the practice of saving phenomena is much broader than usually thought, and includes unobservable phenomena as well as observable ones. My argument turns on the distinction between data and phenomena: I discuss how unobservable phenomena manifest themselves in data models and how theoretical models able to save them are chosen. I present a paradigmatic case study taken from …
Two Kinds of Exploratory Models
I analyze the exploratory function of two main modeling practices: targetless fictional models and hypothetical perspectival models. In both cases, I argue, modelers invite us to imagine or conceive something about the target system, which is known to be either nonexistent (fictional models) or just hypothetical (in perspectival models). I clarify the kind of imagining or conceiving involved in each modeling practice, and I show how each—in its o…
Prescribing laws to nature. Part I. Newton, the pre-Critical Kant, and three problems about the lawfulness of nature
This paper traces the early reflections of the pre-Critical Kant on laws of nature back to Newton’s governing conception of laws. Three problems with the Newtonian conception are identified. I argue that in the attempt to provide a solution to them, in 1763 Kant came to forge a novel governing conception of laws. Key to Kant’s novel view are the notions of ground and its determinations. The role of these two notions in delivering the nomological …
What is this Thing Called ‘Scientific Knowledge’? – Kant on Imaginary Standpoints And the Regulative Role of Reason
In this essay I analyse Kant’s view on the regulative role of reason, and in particular on what he describes as the ‘indispensably necessary’ role of ideas qua foci imaginarii in the Appendix. I review two influential readings of what has become known as the ‘transcendental illusion’ and I offer a novel reading that builds on some of the insights of these earlier readings. I argue that ideas of reason act as imaginary standpoints, which are indis…
Kant’s dynamical theory of matter in 1755, and its debt to speculative Newtonian experimentalism
From data to phenomena
Non-defensible Middle Ground for Experimental Realism
Experimental realism aims at striking a middle ground between scientific realism and anti-realism, between the success of experimental physics it would explain and the realism about scientific theories it would supplant. This middle ground reinstates the engineering idea that belief in scientific entities is justified on purely experimental grounds, without any commitment to scientific theories and laws. This paper argues that there is no defensi…
Exclusion Principle and the Identity of Indiscernibles
This paper concerns the question of whether Pauli's Exclusion Principle (EP) vindicates the contingent truth of Leibniz's Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles (PII) for fermions as H. Weyl first suggested with the nomenclature ‘Pauli–Leibniz principle’. This claim has been challenged by a time‐honoured argument, originally due to H. Margenau and further articulated and champione by other authors. According to this argument, the Exclusion P…
Points of view
What Demonstrative Induction Can Do Against the Threat of Underdetermination
Realism, perspectivism, and disagreement in science
This paper attends to two main tasks. First, I introduce the notion of perspectival disagreement in science. Second, I relate perspectival disagreement in science to the broader issue of realism about science: how to maintain realist ontological commitments in the face of perspectival disagreement among scientists? I argue that often enough perspectival disagreement is not at the level of the scientific knowledge claims but rather of the methodol…
Three Tales of Scientific Success
Success-to-truth inferences have been the realist stronghold for a long time. Scientific success is the parameter by which realists claim to discern approximately true theories from false ones. But scientific success needs to be probed a bit deeper. In this article, I tell three tales of scientific success, by considering in turn success from nowhere, success from here now, and success from within. I argue for a suitable version of success from w…
Working in a new world’
Cartesian echoes in Kant’s philosophy of nature
Exclusion Principle and the Identity of Indiscernibles
This paper concerns the question of whether Pauli's Exclusion Principle (EP) vindicates the contingent truth of Leibniz's Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles (PII) for fermions as H. Weyl first suggested with the nomenclature ‘Pauli–Leibniz principle’. This claim has been challenged by a time‐honoured argument, originally due to H. Margenau and further articulated and champione by other authors. According to this argument, the Exclusion P…
Weinberg's proof of the spin-statistics theorem
What Demonstrative Induction Can Do Against the Threat of Underdetermination
Non-defensible Middle Ground for Experimental Realism
Experimental realism aims at striking a middle ground between scientific realism and anti-realism, between the success of experimental physics it would explain and the realism about scientific theories it would supplant. This middle ground reinstates the engineering idea that belief in scientific entities is justified on purely experimental grounds, without any commitment to scientific theories and laws. This paper argues that there is no defensi…
Reference, Representation and Realism
Saving Unobservable Phenomena
In this paper I argue—against van Fraassen's constructive empiricism—that the practice of saving phenomena is much broader than usually thought, and includes unobservable phenomena as well as observable ones. My argument turns on the distinction between data and phenomena: I discuss how unobservable phenomena manifest themselves in data models and how theoretical models able to save them are chosen. I present a paradigmatic case study taken from …
The Relevance of Kant’s Philosophy for Nineteenth Century Sciences
From data to phenomena
Kant’s dynamical theory of matter in 1755, and its debt to speculative Newtonian experimentalism
Cartesian echoes in Kant’s philosophy of nature
Philosophy of natural science from Newton to Kant
Philosophy and the Sciences for Everyone
Prescribing laws to nature. Part I. Newton, the pre-Critical Kant, and three problems about the lawfulness of nature
This paper traces the early reflections of the pre-Critical Kant on laws of nature back to Newton’s governing conception of laws. Three problems with the Newtonian conception are identified. I argue that in the attempt to provide a solution to them, in 1763 Kant came to forge a novel governing conception of laws. Key to Kant’s novel view are the notions of ground and its determinations. The role of these two notions in delivering the nomological …
Philosophy and the Sciences for Everyone
Computer simulations and experiments
The normativity of nature. Essays on Kant's Critique of Judgement
Kant's Critique of Judgement has long been at the centre of interpretive debates among Kant scholars. With a first part dedicated to aesthetics and a second part focused on teleology, Kant's third
Working in a new world’
Kant and the Laws of Nature
Immanuel Kant’s complex and nuanced view on the laws of nature has been at the center of renewed attention among Kant scholars since the late 20th century. Kant’s view is one of the best examples in the Early Modern period of the philosophical view of nature as “ordered” and “lawful” that emerged with the scientific advancements of the 17th and 18th centuries. Building on the extraordinary success of Isaac Newton’s mechanics and optics, but also …
Three Tales of Scientific Success
Success-to-truth inferences have been the realist stronghold for a long time. Scientific success is the parameter by which realists claim to discern approximately true theories from false ones. But scientific success needs to be probed a bit deeper. In this article, I tell three tales of scientific success, by considering in turn success from nowhere, success from here now, and success from within. I argue for a suitable version of success from w…
Four Kinds of Perspectival Truth
In this paper, I assess recent claims in philosophy of science about scientific perspectivism being compatible with realism. I clarify the rationale for scientific perspectivism and the problems and challenges that perspectivism faces in delivering a form of realism. In particular, I concentrate my attention on truth, and on ways in which truth can be understood in perspectival terms. I offer a cost‐benefit analysis of each of them and defend a v…
Philosophy for Everyone
Epsa15 Selected Papers
What is this Thing Called ‘Scientific Knowledge’? – Kant on Imaginary Standpoints And the Regulative Role of Reason
In this essay I analyse Kant’s view on the regulative role of reason, and in particular on what he describes as the ‘indispensably necessary’ role of ideas qua foci imaginarii in the Appendix. I review two influential readings of what has become known as the ‘transcendental illusion’ and I offer a novel reading that builds on some of the insights of these earlier readings. I argue that ideas of reason act as imaginary standpoints, which are indis…
Three problems about multi-scale modelling in cosmology
Outline three challenges concerning modelling dark matter across scales. • Review the debate between LambdaCDM and MOND in cosmology in the light of the latest data and theoretical proposals. • Investigate problems and prospects in addressing the Baryonic Tully-Fisher relation. • Analyse the role of dark matter computer simulations in retrieving the Baryonic Tully-Fisher relation
Perspectival Modeling
The goal of this article is to address the problem of inconsistent models and the challenge it poses for perspectivism. I analyze the argument, draw attention to some hidden premises behind it, and deflate them. Then I introduce the notion of perspectival models as a distinctive class of modeling practices whose primary function is exploratory. I illustrate perspectival modeling with two examples taken from contemporary high-energy physics at the…
Philosophy (28 obras) · Epistemology (27 obras) · Philosophy and History of Science (19 obras) · Philosophy (13 obras) · Philosophy of science (11 obras) · Computer Science (10 obras) · Physics (8 obras) · Political science (8 obras) · Mathematics (7 obras) · Metaphysics (7 obras)