Derek Turner
（2007年7月刊行，Cambridge University Press［Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Biology］, Cambridge, xiv+223 pp., ISBN:9780521875202 [hbk] → 版元ページ）
直接の観察を拒否する歴史的事象の「認識的非対称性（epistemic asymmetry）」を出発点として，歴史科学すなわち地質学・古生物学・進化生物学・宇宙論・考古学など「先史学 prehistory」として一括りされる学問分野に共通する問題群を論じる．William Whewell ならば palaetiological sciences，Avezier Tucker ならば historiographic sciences と命名したであろう諸科学がターゲットだ．まだ読み始めたばかりだが，著者が解決策の柱として提唱する「自然な歴史学的態度（the natural historical attitude）」がとても気になる．推論様式としてのアブダクションとのからみも要注意．
【目次】
List of figures xii
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction 1
1. Asymmetries 10
1.1 Limits to our knowledge of prehistory 10
1.2 The time asymmetry of knowledge 17
1.3 The past vs. the microphysical 23
1.4 Scientific realism 27
1.5 A skewed debate 342. The colors of the dinosaurs 37
2.1 Lewis on the asymmetry of overdeterminism 38
2.2 Cleland's argument 39
2.3 Why causal / metaphysical overdeterminism does not rule out epistemic underdeterminism 44
2.4 Local underdetermination problems in historical science 46
2.5 How historical processes destroy information 53
2.6 A fossilized dinosaur heart 56
2.7 The roles of background theories in historical vs. experimental science 573. Manipulation matters 61
3.1 Can we observe the past? 62
3.2 The context-dependence of the range of the observable 65
3.3 Two species of scientific realism 66
3.4 Two roles for unobservables 70
3.5 Two basic arguments for realism: Davitt and Hacking 72
3.6 The classical abductive argument for realism: Boyd 74
3.7 McMullin on fertility and metaphor in science 814. Paleontology's chimeras 85
4.1 The analogue asymmetry 85
4.2 Misleading observable analogue in paleontology 87
4.3 Explaining past scientific mistakes 92
4.4 The analogue asymmetry and the pessimistic induction 965. Novel predictions in historical science 101
5.1 Novel, untestable predictions 101
5.2 Why suppose that predictive novelty carries any extra evidential weight? 104
5.3 Novel predictions in historical science 109
5.4 Why are novel predictions in historical science so difficult to test? 114
5.5 Coping with the asymmetries 123
5.6 Numerical experiments 1256. Making prehistory: could the past be socially constructed? 130
6.1 What does it mean to say that something is socially constructed? 131
6.2 Five roads to social constructivism, all paved with good intentions 135
6.3 Are there any good arguments for constructivism? 143
6.4 Why the abductive argument for realism does not support metaphysical realism 145
6.5 A priori arguments against historical constructivism 149
6.6 The natural historical attitude 154
6.7 Two prehistories 1617. The natural historical attitude 163
7.1 Arthur Fine's trust in science 164
7.2 Empirical adequacy 167
7.3 Constructive empiricism and skepticism about the past 169
7.4 A sense in which the natural historical attitude is “natural” 171
7.5 Truth and reference 174
7.6 Another way in which the realism debate has been skewed 1788. Snowball Earth in the balance 180
8.1 The appeal to consilience in the snowball Earth debate 181
8.2 Going beyond “seat-of-the-pants feel” 185
8.3 Is consilience merely a pragmatic virtue? 192
8.4 Reducing non-empirical to empirical virtue 195
8.5 Consequences of the asymmetries: snowball vs. slushball Earth 198
Conclusion 204
References 207
Index 216
