Conceptual Fragmentation and the Rise of Eliminativism

Taylor, H.; Vickers, P.

doi:10.1007/s13194-016-0136-2

Conceptual Fragmentation and the Rise of Eliminativism

Taylor, H.; Vickers, P.

Authors

H. Taylor

Professor Peter Vickers peter.vickers@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Abstract

Pluralist and eliminativist positions have proliferated within both science and philosophy of science in recent decades. This paper asks the question why this shift of thinking has occurred, and where it is leading us. We provide an explanation which, if correct, entails that we should expect pluralism and eliminativism to transform other debates currently unaffected, and for good reasons. We then consider the question under what circumstances eliminativism will be appropriate, arguing that it depends not only on the term in question, but also on the context of discussion and details of the debate at hand. The resultant selective eliminativism is an appealing compromise for various ‘pluralists’ and ‘eliminativists’ who are currently locking horns.

Citation

Taylor, H., & Vickers, P. (2017). Conceptual Fragmentation and the Rise of Eliminativism. European Journal for Philosophy of Science, 7(1), 17-40. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-016-0136-2

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Jan 18, 2016
Online Publication Date	Apr 7, 2016
Publication Date	Jan 1, 2017
Deposit Date	Jan 18, 2016
Publicly Available Date	Jan 19, 2016
Journal	European Journal for Philosophy of Science
Print ISSN	1879-4912
Electronic ISSN	1879-4920
Publisher	Springer
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	7
Issue	1
Pages	17-40
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-016-0136-2

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© The Author(s) 2016 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.