David J Stump

University of San Francisco, Philosophy, Faculty Member

Followers

214

Following

Co-authors

Public Views

David J. Stump is a philosopher of science at the University of San Francisco. Educated at the University of California and Northwestern University, he is the author of Conceptual Change and the Philosophy of Science, co-editor and co-translator of a new edition of Poincaré's Science and Hypothesis, and the co-editor, with Peter Galison, of The Disunity of Science, as well as author of numerous journal articles on Poincaré, Duhem, the history and philosophy of mathematics, and naturalized philosophy of science. He is an active member of HOPOS, the International Society for the History of the Philosophy of Science.
Supervisors: Arthur Fine
Address: Philosophy, USF
2130 Fulton Street
San Francisco, CA 94117
USA

less

InterestsView All (20)

Uploads

Books by David J Stump

Science and Hypothesis: The Complete Text by Henri Poincaré New translation by Mélanie Frappier, Andrea Smith, and David J. Stump

with an Introduction by David J. Stump See link for a sample chapter (click on title, then file... more

Conceptual Change and the Philosophy of Science: Alternative Interpretations of the A Priori

NOW IN PAPERBACK, this book is about is how philosophers have understood conceptual change (i. ... more NOW IN PAPERBACK, this book is about is how philosophers have understood conceptual change (i. e. revolutions) in science. What do we make of what Einstein did? Every science makes some basic presuppositions, he changed those. These presuppositions used to be thought of as a priori knowledge, hence we have a changing a priori.

Download

The Disunity of Science

Papers by David J Stump

French Conventionalism

The Routledge Handbook of the History of Philosophy of Science, 2025

The label French Conventionalism has generally been used to refer to Poincaré and Duhem, who were... more The label French Conventionalism has generally been used to refer to Poincaré and Duhem, who were seen as having the same view. Current scholarship presents a more complex picture of French philosophy of science in the early twentieth century. There are many conflicting interpretations of both Poincaré and Duhem, but at least we have learned that they do not have the same viewpoint. However, Duhem and Poincaré do share the idea that in some areas of science, we make a choice that is not empirically determinable. We can certainly say that there was an important set of issues being debated in French philosophy of science in the very early twentieth century and that these debates centered on the views of Poincaré and Duhem, no matter what label we use.

Download

Ontological Relativity

Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Relativism, 2020

Ontological relativity is a widely held view when it is taken to follow from an analysis of langu... more Ontological relativity is a widely held view when it is taken to follow from an analysis of language, especially reference. The general idea of ontological relativity is that we cannot tell, ultimately, what we are talking about. We might say that the metaphysics of the world is unknown and that we describe the world in language using categories that are human constructions. The thesis of ontological relativity is that there are alternative constructions, descriptions, or models that work equally well for describing the world. However, few philosophers seem to embrace a metaphysical thesis of ontological relativity, instead holding at most that alternative descriptions of reality are possible, rather than that there are multiple worlds. The views of Carnap, Quine, Goodman and Putnam on ontological relativity will be considered here, as well as the related idea of structuralism in philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of science.

Fallibilism versus Relativism in the Philosophy of Science

Journal for General Philosophy of Science, Sep 30, 2021

In response to a recent argument by David Bloor, I argue that denying absolutes does not necessar... more In response to a recent argument by David Bloor, I argue that denying absolutes does not necessarily lead to relativism, that one can be a fallibilist without being a relativist. At issue are the empirical natural sciences and what might be called "framework relativism," that is, the idea that there is always a conceptual scheme or set of practices in use, and all observations are theory-laden relative to the framework. My strategy is to look at the elements that define a relativist stance and show where the pragmatic fallibilist disagrees. Defending the pragmatic notion of experience will be central, given that relativists reject the idea that experience can play a role in objectively justifying belief. We can reject all absolutes and start from the premise that everything is historical, contingent, and situated. One of the lessons of pragmatism is that universal and fixed principles are not necessary for objective knowledge.

The Kantian Elements in Arthur Pap’s Philosophy

Journal of Transcendental Philosophy , 2021

Arthur Pap worked in analytic philosophy while maintaining a strong Kantian or neo-Kantian elemen... more Arthur Pap worked in analytic philosophy while maintaining a strong
Kantian or neo-Kantian element throughout his career, stemming from his studying with Ernst Cassirer. I present these elements in the different periods of Pap’s works, showing him to be a consistent critic of logical empiricism, which Pap shows to be incapable of superseding the Kantian framework. Nevertheless, Pap’s work is definitely analytic philosophy, both in terms of the content and the style. According to Pap, the central topics of analytic philosophy concern meaning, modality, and analysis. Pap was also influenced by pragmatism, especially in his dissertation, although he does not fully embrace it in either its classical or its Quinean form.

Michel Fichant; Sophie Roux (Editors). Louis Couturat (1868–1914): Mathématiques, langage, philosophie. 363 pp., apps., bibl., index. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2017. €46 (paper)

Isis

Naturalizing Barham's Poincaréan evolutionary pragmatism

Journal of Social and Biological Systems

Scientific pluralism and metaphysics

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A

A Life in Science, Philosophy, and the Public Domain: Three Biographies of PoincaréJeremy J. Gray.Henri Poincaré: A Scientific Biography. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013. Pp. xii+592. $35.00/£24.95 (cloth).Ferdinand Verhulst.Henri Poincaré: Impatient Genius. New York: Springer, 20...

HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science, 2016

Essay review of three biographies of Poincaré: Jeremy J. Gray.Henri Poincaré: A Scientific Bio... more Essay review of three biographies of Poincaré:

Jeremy J. Gray.Henri Poincaré: A Scientific Biography. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013. Pp. xii+592. $35.00/£24.95 (cloth).

Ferdinand Verhulst.Henri Poincaré: Impatient Genius. New York: Springer, 20...

Jean-Marc Ginoux and Christian Gerini. 2012.Henri Poincaré: Une biographie au(x) quotidien(s). Paris: Ellipses, 2012. Pp. iv+298. €24.00 (paper).

Download

Douglas M. Jesseph , Berkeley's Philosophy of Mathematics . Reviewed by

Philosophy in Review, 1995

Douglas M. Jesseph , Berkeley's Philosophy of Mathematics Reviewed by.

Pragmatism, Activism, and the Icy Slopes of Logic in George Reisch’s Portrait of the Philosophy of Science as a Young Field

Science Education, 2009

This paper considers several models of politically engaged philosophy with the aim of provoking d... more This paper considers several models of politically engaged philosophy with the aim of provoking discussion of George Reisch's How the Cold War Transformed Philosophy of Science. At issue is the Unity of Science movement's conception of the philosophy of science in particular and what politically engaged philosophy of science might look like in general. The paper discusses the role that the pragmatist Sidney Hook plays in the book and considers some of the questions raised by the role that he plays: What does it mean to be a politically engaged philosopher of science? Do we want philosophy of science to be politically engaged? Empty, vast, and cold were the halls of the Snow Queen. The flickering flame of the northern lights could be plainly seen, whether they rose high or low in the heavens, from every part of the castle. In the midst of its empty, endless halls of snow was a frozen lake, broken on its surface into a thousand forms; each piece resembled another, from being in itself perfect as a work of art, and in the center of this lake sat the Snow Queen, when she was at home. She called the lake 'The Mirror of Reason,' and said that it was the best, and indeed the only one in the world.

Download

Gila Sher , The Bounds of Logic: A Generalized Viewpoint Reviewed by

Philosophy in Review, 1995

Gila Sher , The Bounds of Logic: a Generalized Viewpoint Reviewed by.

Bertrand Russell , An Essay on the Foundations of Geometry . Reviewed by

Philosophy in Review, 1997

Bertrand Russell , An Essay on the Foundations of Geometry Reviewed by.

Socially Constructed Technology

Inquiry, Nov 6, 2010

The main innovation in Questioning Technology is Feenberg? s use of the results of various social... more The main innovation in Questioning Technology is Feenberg? s use of the results of various social constructivist accounts of science and technology to rethink the philosophy of technology. I agree with Feenberg that the social constructivist studies developed by historians and sociologists refute the essentialist account of technology that has been the mainstream position of philosophers of technology. The autonomy of technology seems to be nothing but a myth from the point of view of social construction, since social and ...

Naturalized Philosophy of Science with a Plurality of Methods

Philosophy of Science, 1992

Naturalism implies unity of method-an application of the methods of science to the methodology of... more Naturalism implies unity of method-an application of the methods of science to the methodology of science itself and to value theory. Epistemological naturalists have tried to find a privileged discipline to be the methodological model of philosophy of science and epistemology. However, since science itself is not unitary, the use of one science as a model amounts to a reduction and distorts the philosophy of science just as badly as traditional philosophy of science distorted science, despite the fact that the central theme of naturalized philosophy of science is that methodology should be true to science as practiced. I argue that naturalized philosophy of science must apply a plurality of methods to epistemological issues.

Download

New perspectives on Pierre Duhem’s The aim and structure of physical theory

Metascience, 2011

This specially invited book symposium launches a new series of symposia on old classic books by e... more

Download

The disunity of science: Boundaries, contexts, and power

Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 1997

Download

A Reconsideration of the Status of Newton��s Laws

What Place for the A Priori?, Apr 1, 2011

The longstanding controversy concerning the epistemological status of Newton's laws of motio... more The longstanding controversy concerning the epistemological status of Newton's laws of motion can be stated by the question: Are all three laws empirical, a priori, or conventional, or are they collectively some mix of empirical, a priori and convention? 1 Even in the twentieth century, after Newton's laws were replaced with those found in the Special and General Theories of Relativity, a lively debate over the status of Newton's laws of motion took place in the philosophical literature, where their introduction was seen as an ...

David J Stump

Uploads

Books by David J Stump

Papers by David J Stump

Log In