Introduction

• Published in: Understanding Perspectivism pp. 1 - 9
• Main Authors: Massimi, Michela, McCoy, Casey D.
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 2020
• Edition: 1
• Subjects: Scientific Realism Debate; Perspectival Realism; Explanatory Perspectives; NSG; Multiple Alternative Models; NSG Mouse; Multiple Perspectival Models; Agent Based Computer Simulations; Liquid Drop Model; Scientific Realism; Chaperone Interactions; Referential Realism; Traditional Scientific Realism; Epistemic Humility; Cancer Stem Cells; Explanatory Challenge; Universality Classes; Ordinary Differential Equations; Spinal Cord; Cancer Research; Scientific Challenges; Single Cancer Type; Interdisciplinary Research; Perspectival Pluralism
• ISBN: 1138503061; 9781138503069
• DOI: 10.4324/9781315145198-1

The editors introduce the collection by situating perspectivism within the broader context of pluralism, relativism, and pragmatism in the contemporary philosophy of science. This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book offers a slightly different take on the topic, but the overall emphasis is on scientific challenges and methodological prospects. It presents the "explanatory challenge" for interdisciplinary research, which arises from the diverse explanatory commitments in different specializations being an impediment to integrated interdisciplinary explanations. The book is concerned to resolve the challenge presented by multiple conflicting idealized models, which afflicts accounts of the explanatory use of idealized models in science. It utilises models of measurements as a case for exploring two forms of scientific realism that are meant to address the problem of plurality of models in science: structural realism and perspectival realism. The book addresses the relations between pluralities of models that arise from the partiality of representation.