Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Abstract

During the last decades, many philosophers of science have witnessed the failure of formal monistic analysis of key aspects of scientific practice such as explaining, representing, or testing. This failure has made some (actually many)  of them renounce traditional analytical projects and withdraw towards either pluralism, deflationism or string pragmatism. The goal of this talk is to resist such a move and defend the possibility of monistic analysis weakening them in two dimensions. First, changing the traditional demand of "sufficiency" with "quasi-sufficiency". Second, and more importantly, accepting the introduction of some crucial pragmatic elements in the formal analysis. This strategy is exemplified by the analysis of the concepts of explanation and of representation.