Mazviita Chirimuuta (University of Edinburgh)
15.00-17.00, Wednesday 11th February
Dalhousie 2F13
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A complaint of pragmatists against scientific realism (of the non-pragmatist sort) is that it rests on “kryptotheological” assumptions about the pre-given structure of reality and human cognitive capacities to discover this structure (Chang 2022:217). The concern is that standard scientific realism is not compatible with an entirely naturalistic worldview. In this talk I argue that there are normative dimensions to the pragmatists’ push for a more thorough naturalism that were discussed by pragmatists of the past, while contemporary pragmatists have been relatively quiet about them (Dewey 1920, Rorty 1999). By situating pragmatist philosophy of science in a wider philosophical conversation, we can better evaluate this approach.
Originally trained in visual neuroscience, M. Chirimuuta writes on the central ideas of the mind/brain sciences. She is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and the author of Outside Color (MIT Press).