Scientific Rationality and Inconsistency: A Partial Structures Perspective

摘要

Traditional approaches to scientific rationality presuppose that consistency is a necessary condition for rationality. Although the requirement is sensible (in particular in the presence of classical logic), it fails to provide an adequate account of scientific practice, given the widespread existence of inconsistent scientific theories. Unless we are willing to entertain the idea that science is an irrational enterprise, we need to provide a model in which inconsistencies can be reconciled with rationality. In this paper I suggest an alternative picture of scientific rationality, one that is able to accommodate inconsistencies without triviality. The proposal employs a framework developed by da Costa and French in terms of partial structures and quasi-truth. Although inconsistent theories typically cannot be simultaneously true, they still can be quasi-true at the same time. Triviality is then avoided by the fact that the logic of quasi-true is paraconsistent. In this way, there is room for rationality even in the presence of inconsistencies.