Epistemic Values and Scientific Theories

The frame of this thesis is the longstanding issue in philosophy of science concerning the relationship between scientific theories and epistemic values. Indeed, here, I present three essays, each of which constitutes a chapter, dealing with such an issue from a formal point of view, i.e., by using logical patterns, and mathematical tools borrowed from economics and statistics. More specifically, the thesis has the following structure. Chapter 1's starting point is Samir Okasha's 2011 paper "Theory Choice and Social choice: Kuhn versus Arrow", in which Okasha applies Kenneth Arrow's impossibility for social choice to scientific theory choice based on Kuhn's epistemic criteria. In this regard, the chapter aims to investigate whether it is possible to escape from Arrovian impossibility for ‘large scale’ theory choices, i.e. choices among ‘key theories’ which imply a change of paradigm, based on Kuhn’s criteria. Chapter 2 looks at the problem of old evidence (POE) for Bayesian confirmation theory from the point of view of the Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE). Particularly, the chapter has two main aims. The first consists of gauging the weakness and strengths of Eva and Hartmann's two new solutions from IBE's perspective. The second aim is to asses the static dimension of POE and its counterfactual solution from this same perspective. Finally, Chapter 3 focuses on abduction as a search strategy, and looks for case studies of abduction in this sense in the Covid-19 pandemic.