Wikipedia:Peer review/Quine–Putnam indispensability argument/archive1

Quine–Putnam indispensability argument

I've listed this article for peer review because following a successful GAN, I've proceeded to rework and add content to the article and would like feedback on how to further its continued improvement with the tentative eventual goal of putting it up for FAC. Comments on anything from structure, prose/copyediting advice, compliance with the MOS, article content or even work towards the FA criteria would be helpful.

Thanks! Alduin2000 (talk) 00:09, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

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I decided to review this article since it has already waited for almost 1.5 months even though I'm not sure how much I can contribute here. It's well written, well-sourced, and covers many details of the subject. I check a few sources at random and they supported the sentences they were used for. I fixed a few minor linguistic issues, like "that" vs "which" and Oxford commas. There are a few long sentences that could be improved by simplifying them and splitting them into several shorter sentences, like the changes done here. A few examples that might be improved in a similar way are:

• The indispensability argument differs from other arguments for platonism because it only argues for belief in the parts of mathematics that are indispensable to science, meaning that it does not necessarily justify belief in the most abstract parts of set theory, which Quine called "mathematical recreation … without ontological rights".
• In his arguments against mathematical formalism—a view that argues that mathematics is akin to a game like chess with rules about how mathematical symbols such as "2" can be manipulated—Frege argued in 1903 that "it is applicability alone which elevates arithmetic from a game to the rank of a science."
• Whilst Quine's original argument was an argument for platonism, or the existence of abstract mathematical objects, indispensability arguments can also be constructed to argue for the weaker claim of sentence realism, which simply claims that mathematical theory is objectively true but not necessarily that there are abstract mathematical objects.
• Quine criticized sense data as self-defeating, instead arguing that we must believe in ordinary objects in order to organize our experiences of the world and that as science is our best theory of how sense experience gives us beliefs about ordinary objects, we should believe in it as well.

Contentwise, it would be a welcome addition to mention truthmaker theory somewhere. The basic idea is: for a sentence to be true, it needs a truthmaker: some entity whose existence makes the sentence true. For mathematical sentences, mathematical objects like numbers are great truthmaker candidates. Details on the relation to indispensability arguments can be found here and here.

Another idea would be to include the difference between weak and strong indispensability arguments mentioned here though you are probably a better judge than me about how significant this is.

One question: are there indispensability arguments outside the domain of mathematics? If so, it would be a good idea to give somewhere a definition of what an indispensability argument in general is and then show how the indispensability arguments discussed in this article are one special case. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:54, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments Phlsph7 (and for cleaning up my terrible misuse of the word which!). I am aware about the connection between truthmaker theory and the indispensability argument and I'll see if I can find a good place to add it in (it is getting harder to add details at this point without the article getting pretty dense and maybe going into excessive detail). I'll also think about weak vs strong but I think this distinction is mainly just from that paper so may be undue (haven't seen it covered elsewhere but I'll have a look).

are there indispensability arguments outside the domain of mathematics? Yes! Some other areas where indispensability arguments have been used are philosophy of science and ethics (arguing for scientific/moral realism). It's possible that details on this could be added to the background section. This is a good idea and I have no idea why it never occurred to me. I know there is at least a general definition from Hartry Field that could be used but I wonder if there is one from outside this area altogether that would be better, either way this can totally be done.

Also, thanks for some concrete examples of overly long sentences. It's very easy to become blind to problems like that when you're going over stuff a lot. Alduin2000 (talk) 14:27, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

Also, sorry to ping you again Phlsph7 but just wondered whether you have any thoughts on the "Overview of the argument" section? Specifically, does it seem easy enough to understand/readable, is its length okay, anything you would do to change it, or is it mostly ok? If you don't have any thoughts on this (or the time to make more comments), no worries! Alduin2000 (talk) 15:15, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

No worries about pinging me and further questions. I don't have much practice with peer reviewing so I'm happy about the opportunity to get some experience. I already have some responses for the earlier points and I'll get back to you later concerning the section "Overview of the argument".

As for truthmaker theory: according to the paper by Baron, various arguments against the ontological commitments (like the ones by Azzouni and Melia mentioned at Quine–Putnam_indispensability_argument#Counterarguments) can be avoided by the truthmaker version of the indispensability argument. Azzouni's argument is also mentioned in the book chapter by Asay. So maybe the section "Counterarguments" might be a good place to mention this alternative approach. Or it could be presented in the section "Overview of the argument" as an alternative formulation. I'm not sure if it deserves a full paragraph but mentioning it in a couple of sentences would be good.

As for alternative indispensability arguments: a similar topic about any type of ontological commitment of scientific theories based on existential quantification is often discussed in meta-ontology, see, for example, Meta-ontology#Quinean_approach and Ontology#Quine.

As for weak vs strong: on a short look, this was the only paper that mentioned this distinction, or at least that specific terminology. The article is already quite comprehensive so leaving it out may be better to avoid getting too much into detail.

I hope I didn't get too sidetracked with ideas for new things to add and I'll try to focus more on what is already there in my next reply. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:20, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

No problem Phlsph7! I don't have much experience with peer review either. Any feedback is very helpful, including ideas for new content (e.g. adding info in indispensability arguments in general), I just need to figure out how to incorporate it into what's already there. That's not a problem with the suggestion though, it's more just the practicality of achieving it while balancing comprehensiveness, appropriate amount of depth, due weight etc. I think it's particularly hard for a topic like this where there's an almost endless literature to be summarised. Anyway, don't feel any obligation to spend more time than you can or will find useful on this, your comments so far have already been super useful! Will look forward to hearing what you think about the "Overview of the argument" section. Alduin2000 (talk) 18:51, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

The paragraphs in the section "Overview of the argument" are well-sourced and articulated in a clear way. The examples here are helpful. But, as has been pointed out in the GA review, the topic is difficult and someone with no prior knowledge may still struggle. However, I'm not sure that much can be done about this since it belongs more to the topic itself and less to the exposition.

I made a few changes. It was initially not clear why the section starts with the explanation of naturalism, confirmational holism, and mathematization. One had to get all the way to the 4th paragraph to understand why one had to read what one just read. I rehearsed the argument in a very basic form at the start of the section to clarify why these explanations are relevant. Also: I'm not sure that naturalism and confirmational holism are, strictly speaking, "components" of the first premise or "make up" the first premise. According to to SEP article, they provide support for the premise: "This support comes from the doctrines of naturalism and holism." I made some changes to address these issues but you are probably better suited to check whether these formulations are acceptable or need to be further revised.

In the section's last paragraph, two concepts are introduced: theory construction and subordination of practice. Theory construction is never mentioned again and does not seem particularly important to the argument as a whole so I removed it. Subordination of practice is mentioned, I think, in two other places in the article, so I left it in a simplified form.

Thanks for including the note on truthmaker theory. I agree that it's often difficult to balance the amount of information and the details mentioned. Are there other sections that might profit from a closer look? Phlsph7 (talk) 08:35, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

I just saw: the SEP article gives a general characterization of indispensability arguments: "In general, an indispensability argument is an argument that purports to establish the truth of some claim based on the indispensability of the claim in question for certain purposes (to be specified by the particular argument). For example, if explanation is specified as the purpose, then we have an explanatory indispensability argument. Thus we see that inference to the best explanation is a special case of an indispensability argument." Maybe this could also be included somewhere at the beginning of the section "Background" or at the beginning of the section "Overview of the argument". Phlsph7 (talk) 08:53, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the work on that section, especially the simplifications which now make it much easier to understand. Also, I was going to make the case for keeping theory construction, but I actually think you're right that it isn't really needed for the article. It is mainly the starting point of Quine's thinking and comes up briefly in the influences on Quine section (about sense data) but probably isn't super relevant to a broad summary of the argument. Plus this condenses down the section now to an ok size I think. As to the truthmakers note, I may come back to it in future and attempt to incorporate it into the actual prose but I felt like the formulation I came up with was a bit too long, preferably I would squeeze all that information down into a sentence but I'm not sure that can be done without cutting out useful info. Also, thanks for pointing out the SEP definition, it is very similar to Field's formulation so they've probably just taken it from him but having a secondary source is always useful for determining weight and making sure there's no OR. I'll leave another comment if I have more questions or think another section needs looking over. In the meantime I'll see if I can incorporate info about general indispensability arguments somewhere, although I'll probably be less active until Monday. Thanks again. Alduin2000 (talk) 10:39, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

I don't feel very strongly about the explanation of "theory construction". If it is relevant to a particular point or section, it could be readded there, for example. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:38, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

I made a first attempt to include a general characterization of indispensability arguments. I added it to the section "Background" but I'm not sure whether this is the best place and the section "Overview of the argument" would also be a good candidate. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:55, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for adding that in! I'll see if I can find any more papers that talk about indispensability arguments in general and make any changes if necessary. Otherwise this seems pretty good. Alduin2000 (talk) 11:42, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

@Phlsph7: I've expanded on your addition and just wondered what you think? I mostly wanted to emphasise the fact that this general strategy of argument transfers confirmation etc. from entities which can be directly investigated to those that cannot. I think the extra detail is justified but it's always good to get a second opinion. Thanks. Alduin2000 (talk) 12:12, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

The changes are fine. I just found some expressions a little bit repetitive so I tried to reformulate them accordingly. But repetition is not always a bad thing so feel free to add them back if they help with clarity. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:00, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

As you were editing, I also made some changes to the Overview section. I was thinking about what you said about it being unclear why the section begins with naturalism, confirmational holism etc. and thought "why not just move the argument right to the top and explain everything else afterwards?" Do you think this is a better solution or do you think a brief exposition followed by an explicit formulation later on is better? Alduin2000 (talk) 13:08, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Also, the less repetitive wording on indispensability arguments in general is far better, thanks. Alduin2000 (talk) 13:10, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Putting the main formulation at the beginning makes the structure of the Overview section clearer. It also helps reduce repetitions: the argument does not need to be first summed up and later quoted again. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:19, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Ok, thanks Phlsph7. I don't have any more specific questions about the article at the moment. Let me know if you have any more thoughts. If not, I can close the peer review here if you like. Thanks for all the feedback, the article is now a lot better than it was before! Alduin2000 (talk) 13:38, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

We could discuss further issues on the article talk page as they come up. Good luck for the FAC, I'll keep my fingers crossed. Phlsph7 (talk) 15:00, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Phlsph7. Feel free to continue contributing to the article after I close the peer review too which will hopefully give it a better chance at FAC. I probably won't nominate it straight away but it should be soon, after some smaller changes to the article and a request at WP:GOCE. Alduin2000 (talk) 15:11, 20 September 2022 (UTC)