JGPS 52 Suárez Pascal

 Suárez Pascal, C.D. N. R. Hanson and von Uexküll: A Biosemiotic and Evolutionary Account of Theories. J Gen Philos Sci 52, 247–261 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10838-021-09552-8

• Tenta ler Hanson (proponente da observação mediada por uma teoria prévia na filosofia da ciência) por meio da semiótica. O considera um cripto-semiótico

5-6

•   for Hanson theories provide the meaning which scientists need in order to make any observation, confrmation, or refutation intelligible. In the absence of such a semiotic resource, any observation or any scientifc recording is but an incoherent and confusing pattern of sensations or data
• Considered together with Hanson’s thesis about the theory-ladenness of observation, the latter assertion could be understood so as to support an interpretation of Hanson’s work— which would be close to the so-called social constructivism—in which scientists either construe scientifc data according to their previous theoretical (and extra-theoretical) commitments or are unable to see beyond that theory because it is substituted for the real world. To the contrary of such construals, there are two aspects of Hanson’s philosophy which allow us to substantiate a diferent, more plausible, interpretation which places him much closer to pragmatism, biosemiotics, and evolutionary epistemology than to the sociology of knowledge.
• In the frst place, as mentioned above, Hanson, following Wittgenstein (Lund 2010), explicitly rejects the view that a correct account of scientifc observation can be grounded on the separation between pristine sensation and its posterior interpretation. Indeed, for Hanson, theory-ladenness is not so much a feature of observation which restrains the scientists’ ability to interact with the world, but, to the contrary, it is, for him, an essential aspect of scientifc activity which enables scientists to engage reality; this is his thesis about the indispensability of theory-ladenness in observation. In the second place, it is not only implausible that Hanson would accept that scientifc observation is doomed to be intentionally biased by the scientists’ commitment to one or another theoretical framework, but he would also reject that reality adjusts itself to what we desire it to be, since, for him, reality presents structural possibilities to be described in some ways, but not in every way; this is his picture theory of theory-meaning (see next section).
• A observação mediada pela teoria é a ponte entre o conhecimento científico (de caráter linguístico, i.e. descritivo) e a visão das coisas (de caráter pictorial, i.e. mais ou menos exata, mas nunca certa ou errada).

7-8

• A semiotic description of the way in which theory-ladenness works in science is the following: Scientifc language, which is essentially symbolic, becomes interpreted by means of its being coordinated with experience. In Hanson’s view, this does not enable one to isolate a set of basic sentences which are more easily coordinated with perception than the rest of the language. On the contrary, he explicitly rejects a mythical connection between language and representation (1958, 29). Seemingly, for Hanson, such a coordination between theory and experience is only possible due to the expressiveness of language and mathematics. 
• Theories provide conceptual patterns, and, for Hanson, experiencing something in the world is not scientifcally relevant2 until one is able to see it as part of a conceptual pattern. Hence, for instance, a perception of blinking spots in my visual feld is of course an experience, but it is not germane to scientifc practice until one sees such spots (one interprets them) as a result of a variation in my blood pressure. This, in turn, allows an experimenter to see (or expect) that the substance she administered to me might be acting on the sympathetic nervous system, which may suggest to her the possibility of assaying other experiments.
• As such, scientifc (or experiential) meaning cannot be equated with an understanding of the linguistic (or even the mathematical) expression of a theory, it must rather be related to the meaningful coordination between the symbolic and the iconic (sensorial). That is, Hanson does not deny that a relationship can be established, in the scientifc context, between words and objects. A seemingly simple concept, just as ‘septic wound’ can be put into coordination with certain visual and olfactory sensations, as well as with procedures that include examining it under a microscope or disinfecting it. It is such a coordination, and the expectations which it brings about, that seem to constitute the meaning of that concept.3 
• What he denies is that words and sensations, alone, can, magically, turn into knowledge. It does not matter how many times I point my fnger at a rabbit, the concept of mammal will never, spontaneously, come out. On the other hand, when I see an animal as a vertebrate, at the same time I see that it must have a backbone, a spinal cord, and lungs to breath (if it is an adult organism), among other things. But the coordination which brings about the meaning of ‘vertebrate’ or ‘mammal’ in scientifc contexts is not the result of a special state of being in which sensations turn into symbols, it has to be forged either by learning or by discovery. In apprenticeship, a (historically) already existing system of symbols is put into coordination with experience, so that the former acquires a new (individual) meaning. In discovery, on the other hand, that symbolic system becomes altered (either by reconfguration or expansion), so that it brings about a new (historical) meaning.

11

• Hanson e Uexkull:  In the frst place, for both authors, interpretation plays a key role in the relationships that subjects (human or not) set up with their environment. The outcome of such an interpretation is a meaning which we can understand as the set of expectations, or their corresponding actions, which subjects pose (or which are laid out for them). In the second place, although subjects do not decide which meaning to extract based on certain inputs, they are neither passive in the sense that their responses be simply an efect of such inputs; i.e. while an organism’s responses are usually motivated by certain inputs, their causes must be looked for as much in the inputs as in the subject’s interpretative structures. At last, knowledge, in this view, will be located not in every relation that subjects have with their environment, but particularly in the correspondence between the subjects’ actions and the world.

13

• Na conclusão discute as críticas de Thagard a epistemologia evolutiva