No, that is not my perspective. I am just pointing out that that perspective is implicit in some of the claims thrown around here, and when I do, there is always a retreat to “clarification” and pluri-perspectivism - which offer very little useful guidance to working scientists.
Ultimately, the role of Philosophy of Science amounts to what Locke stated "it is ambition enough to be employed as an under-labourer in clearing the ground a little, and removing some of the rubbish that lies in the way to knowledge." That said, there's an awful lot of rubbish to clear.
Whatever rubbish there is to clear in science, I am still waiting for a convincing example of any such rubbish having been cleared by philosophy of science in the past. Scientists always had to clean their own rubbish, and I suspect that they will do it in the future, too. Nobody else can help much.
Okay then. Look up “species concepts“ and tell me how that hot mess has been cleaned up. Be thorough.
Only philosophers of biology and some zoologists fuss about the concept of species. Most biologists who have any use for the concept know that there is no definition that can be made to work for all branches of the tree of life. And no working biologists have need for a unifying definition.
How many conceptual problems in biology boil down to "how long is a piece of string"?
Yep. Insisting on a universal definition of some biological concepts amounts to "doing things with words" in a way that would inevitably make the resulting definition less useful. We use operative definitions that might differ according to context; there is no problem as long as we are aware of it.
I'm making precisely this point in my paper. That is: there is no such thing as "conceptual analysis" - apart from the analysis that scientists themselves need to make at "the front line of science". There are no "meanings" out there to be grasped with Pure Thought: it's all about expedient use.
(A few clarifications. 1st, I do think there is a role for conceptual analysis, not just in a detached sense. 2nd, some fields might find such analysis more useful than others. 3rd, such analysis often plays a major role in inter/multidisciplinary contexts, and when culture/politics is involved.)
As it happens, that is my published position. But if philosophy of science is such a bad thing, why do so many scientists do it?
P.S. I have never said or thought that philosophy of science is a bad thing. Just that it cannot do things for science and scientists that some people here claim it can (and should).
Nor, if you reread my original response upthread, did I say philosophy of science is needed by science.
The original post did.
I don’t know, but C. P. Snow had a suggestion why, back in 1934 :) Seriousy: in my field (genomics) very few scientists do philosophy of science. My conjecture is that there is too much to do in genomics itself. It appears to be more common in fields in which progress has slowed down.
Surely it's botanist more than zoologists who might get their minds occupied by the species problem? And sure, biologists working on specific fields/issues (yes, a major part of biologists/their work) might not find the problem relevant. But it becomes relevant once you start unifying the projects.
Most botanists are pragmatic and know they do not have anything as sharp as mammalian or avian reproductive barrier to make it the main criterion. And those who work on asexually reproducing species know that, in their case, the species is no more special than the taxonomic ranks above and below it.
My point was merely: *if there are biologists bothered by the problem, *then these are more likely to be botanists than zoologists. Anyway, I might be sympathetic to (some) of the things you are saying. I'd ask: perhaps it's a mistake to think that philosophy should be relevant to sciences? Cf:
P.S. Thanks for the paper link - looks very interesting and relevant, and indeed, it seems that we do agree on many things.
I thought we would! I get what you are saying. I'm a philosopher. But I've worked with scientists, biologists in particular (spent 10 yrs at a physiology deparment). I do think there's a lot of hot air in philosophy of science. I don't think it's useless, but the project is largely misunderstood.
" I'd ask: perhaps it's a mistake to think that philosophy should be relevant to sciences?" - That is the exact claim Carl made in the original post I reacted to - because I thought it might be a mistake.
I've had such discussions before. It always goes thus: somebody claims philosophy is relevant for sciences, I ask for details/evidence, and in the end I get "why do you think philosophy should be relevant for sciences?" :) I don't; it is the OP who did.
This is an intricate topic (do have a look at that paper of mine - I give an argument for this scepticism). However, one of my points is that philosophy/philosophy of science might simply be relevant in a different way (it's a mistake that it's relevant at the "front line"). Discussion here too:
A colleague of mine is working on defining "control" in AVH. She argues that different psychologists use the concept of "control" in very different ways, which explains their seemingly contradictory findings. Maybe not phil of sci, but it seems to be a good example of philosophy guiding science.
Yes, the same word in different context can have different operating definition (like "species" - different in vertebrate zoology and in microbiology; or "gene" - different in population genetics and genomics). We know that without philosophy guiding us.
And our domain knowledge makes us see why insisting on unifying definition is a waste of time - the definition would have to be so abstract as to be useless for practical work. (I cannot say anythiing about how psychologists use "control", but I doubt that they are unaware of how they do it.)