This paper examines narrativism’s claim that the historical past cannot be known once and for all because it must be continuously re-described from the standpoint of the present. We argue that this claim is based on a non sequitur. We take narrativism’s claim that the past must be re-described continuously from the perspective of the present to be the result of the following train of thought: 1) “all knowledge is conceptually mediated”; 2) “the conceptual framework through which knowledge of reality (...) is mediated changes with every new generation of historians”; therefore (narrativism’s claim) “the historical past changes with every new generation of historians”. The idea of an unchanging past, for the narrativist, requires denying premise 1 (all knowledge is conceptually mediated”) and therefore rests on a problematic commitment to the chimerical notion of the past as it is in-itself, wie es eigentlich gewesen. We argue that the narrativist’s conclusion does not follow unless one adds a further premise, namely 3) “it is not possible to view reality through the categorial framework of historical agents”. If one asserts the possibility of grasping reality through the categorial framework of others, be they contemporary or past agents (as much philosophy of history written in an idealist key does), then one no longer has to accept the narrativist’s inference that since the past cannot be known in-itself or independently of conceptual mediation, then it cannot be known as it always was for the historical agents. Narrativism’s inference that the past cannot be known as it always was does not follow from premises 1 and 2 unless one smuggles in another problematic premise, premise 3. In this paper we defend the claim that the past can be known as it always was (not as it is in-itself) by invoking a different conception of the role of conceptual mediation in historical knowledge, one which assumes the possibility of viewing reality through the categorial framework of others. This notion of the role of conceptual mediation in historical knowledge is prevalent in the idealist tradition but, in the interest of brevity, we will defend this notion of mediacy by specific reference to the idealist philosophy of R.G. Collingwood. (shrink)

There is now a considerable literature on Michel Foucault but this is the first monograph which explicitly addresses his influence and impact upon education. Personal autonomy has been seen as a major aim, if not the aim of liberal education. But if Foucault is correct that personal autonomy and the notion of the autonomous person are myths, then the pursuit of such an aim by educationalists is misguided. The author develops this critique of personal autonomy and liberal education from the (...) writings of Foucault, and also considers Foucault's own educational practices. The author, James Marshall, who lives in New Zealand, has already written several articles for academic journals on Foucault. (shrink)

Philosophers agree that scientific explanations aim to produce understanding, and that good ones succeed in this aim. But few seriously consider what understanding is, or what the cues are when we have it. If it is a psychological state or process, describing its specific nature is the job of psychological theorizing. This article examines the role of understanding in scientific explanation. It warns that the seductive, phenomenological sense of understanding is often, but mistakenly, viewed as a cue of genuine understanding. (...) The article closes with a discussion of several new paths of research that tie the psychology of scientific explanation to cognate notions of learning, testimony, and understanding. (shrink)

Scientists and laypeople alike use the sense of understanding that an explanation conveys as a cue to good or correct explanation. Although the occurrence of this sense or feeling of understanding is neither necessary nor sufficient for good explanation, it does drive judgments of the plausibility and, ultimately, the acceptability, of an explanation. This paper presents evidence that the sense of understanding is in part the routine consequence of two well-documented biases in cognitive psychology: overconfidence and hindsight. In light of (...) the prevalence of counterfeit understanding in the history of science, I argue that many forms of cognitive achievement do not involve a sense of understanding, and that only the truth or accuracy of an explanation make the sense of understanding a valid cue to genuine understanding. (shrink)

The cumbersome title of this argumentative and often tedious book is illustrative of its intention, which is to offer a Marxist interpretation of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. By presenting history as the progressive unfolding of the course of dialectical materialism, the authors are enabled to argue that political philosophy is best understood in the context of the ever evolving class struggle that constitutes that unfolding. The ancient world is conceived of as being divided into two hostile camps: reactionary, authoritarian aristocrats (...) on the one hand, and progressive, or liberating democrats on the other. As Athens became more of a polis, that is, as political life within it became more public or democratic, class lines between the "producers and appropriators" hardened. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, political partisans of the first order, were the articulate, although morally obtuse apologists for "the increasing class consciousness of the aristocracy." More often than not, the projection of this recent concept upon the distant past has the effect of reducing the thought of the past to simple ideological cant. (shrink)

A fresh, daring, and genuine alternative to the traditional story of scientific progress Explaining the world around us, and the life within it, is one of the most uniquely human drives, and the most celebrated activity of science. Good explanations are what provide accurate causal accounts of the things we wonder at, but explanation's earthly origins haven't grounded it: we have used it to account for the grandest and most wondrous mysteries in the natural world. Explanations give us a sense (...) of understanding, but an explanation that feels right doesn't mean it is true. For every true explanation, there is a false one that feels just as good. A good theory's explanations, though, have a much easier path to truth. This push for good explanations elevated science from medieval alchemy to electro-chemistry, or a pre-inertial physics to the forces underlying nanoparticles. And though the attempt to explain has existed as long as we have been able to wonder, a science timeline from pre-history to the present will reveal a steep curve of theoretical discovery that explodes around 1600, primarily in the West. Ranging over neuroscience, psychology, history, and policy, Wondrous Truths answers two fundamental questions-Why did science progress in the West? And why so quickly? J.D. Trout's answers are surprising. His central idea is that Western science rose above all others because it hit upon successive theories that were approximately true through an awkward assortment of accident and luck, geography and personal idiosyncrasy. Of course, intellectual ingenuity partially accounts for this persistent drive forward. But so too does the persistence of the objects of wonder. Wondrous Truths recovers the majesty of science, and provides a startling new look at the grand sweep of its biggest ideas. (shrink)

Scientific realism has been advanced as an interpretation of the natural sciences but never the behavioral sciences. This book introduces a novel version of scientific realism, Measured Realism, that characterizes the kind of theoretical progress in the social and psychological sciences that is uneven but indisputable. It proposes a theory of measurement, Population-Guided Estimation, that connects natural, psychological, and social scientific inquiry. Presenting quantitative methods in the behavioral sciences as at once successful and regulated by the world, the book will (...) engage philosophers of science, historians of science, sociologists of science, and scientists interested in the foundations of their own disciplines. Part I introduces measured realism beginning with a novel realist theory of measurement (Population-Guided Estimation, or PGE). It examines two other versions of scientific realism — minimal (Hacking) and robust (Boyd, Putnam, and Newton-Smith) — and advances measured realism as best supported by the evidence in the behavioral sciences. It also critically evaluates the anti-realist arguments of van Fraassen, Laudan, and Fine. Part II formulates and develops a version of epistemological naturalism most appropriate to measured realism. Drawing upon the realist theory of measurement developed earlier, it favorably appraises a variety of statistical methods in the behavioral sciences against selected criticisms. It concludes that traditional, narrative methods in the behavioral and social sciences are unreliable by the measures of epistemological naturalism. (shrink)

Bayesian probabilistic explication of inductive inference conflates neutrality of supporting evidence for some hypothesis H ("not supporting H") with disfavoring evidence ("supporting not-H"). This expressive inadequacy leads to spurious results that are artifacts of a poor choice of inductive logic. I illustrate how such artifacts have arisen in simple inductive inferences in cosmology. In the inductive disjunctive fallacy, neutral support for many possibilities is spuriously converted into strong support for their disjunction. The Bayesian "doomsday argument" is shown to rely entirely (...) on a similar artifact. Copyright 2010 by the Philosophy of Science Association. All rights reserved. (shrink)

At some distance from a high-rate source in an elastic half-space, the dominant wave motion at the free surface is a Rayleigh surface wave. The calculation of surface waves generated by a concentrated force in a half-space is a basic problem in elastodynamics. By straightforward manipulations, the result can be used to obtain surface waves for other kinds of wave-generating body-force arrangements. For example, appropriate combinations of double-forces (or dipoles) can be used to represent the surface loading due to laser (...) irradiation, or due to acoustic emission from the opening of a sub-surface crack or from sliding over a fault surface. The surface wave motion is usually obtained by the application of integral transform techniques and the subsequent extraction of the surface waves as the contributions from poles in the integral for the inverse transform. In this paper, we use a much simpler approach based on the elastodynamic reciprocity theorem. We consider a transversely isotropic solid whose axis of symmetry is normal to the surface of the half-space. Surface wave pulses generated by a single force, by irradiation from a laser source, and by opening of a crack, have been determined. (shrink)

There is a standard story told about the rise and fall of ordinary language philosophy: it was a widespread, if not dominant, approach to philosophy in Great Britain in the aftermath of World War II up until the early 1960s, but with the development of systematic approaches to the study of language—formal semantic theories on one hand and Gricean pragmatics on the other—ordinary language philosophy more or less disappeared. In this paper we present quantitative evidence to evaluate the standard story (...) of the rise and fall of ordinary language philosophy, building on the topic model of over 30,000 philosophy articles in Weatherson (2022). Using a combination of qualitative judgment and a topic-model-based measurement of similarity between individual articles, we find evidence that supports the first part of the standard story, according to which ordinary language philosophy arises in the 1940s, peaks between the early 1950s and the late 1960s, and then rapidly declines. But we argue that there is also evidence of a "new wave" of ordinary language philosophy in the early 21st century that defies the second part of the standard story. (shrink)

In an essay entitled ‘Cinna the Poet’ published in 1974, T. P. Wiseman forcefully countered the arguments of Monroe E. Deutsch and others against the identification of the ‘neoteric’ poet Cinna with the tribune Gaius Helvius Cinna, who after Caesar's funeral was torn to pieces by an enraged mob, mistaken by it for the praetor Lucius Cornelius Cinna, who had applauded Caesar's murder. The identification of the poet with the tribune is supported by Plutarch, Brutus 20.4, where the murdered tribune (...) is called a ποιητικ⋯ς ⋯ν⋯ρ. As Wiseman says, ‘there are six other ancient accounts of the murder, drawn from a source or sources unknown; five of them call the victim a tribune of the plebs, and none of them says he was a poet. Impressed by this, many scholars have thought that the victim was not in fact the poet Helvius Cinna, and M. E. Deutsch suggested in 1925 that either the phrase in the Brutus describing him as a poet is a gloss, or “the tribune also dabbled in verse but was not the famous poet”.’ Wiseman's refutation of the various arguments of Deutsch and his followers against the identity of the poet and the tribune seems to me quite cogent, but the debate shows no sign of having been brought to a close: G. V. Sumner concludes his review of Wiseman's essay with an argument that the tribune was probably somewhat younger than the poet, and the suggestion that the tribune may have been ‘the adoptive, and hence homonymous, son of the poet’. (shrink)

(2002). Philosophy of Science 72 (January), 198-208.

In this paper we prove that the equational class generated by bounded BCK-algebras is the variety generated by the class of finite simple bounded BCK-algebras. To obtain these results we prove that every simple algebra in the equational class generated by bounded BCK-algebras is also a relatively simple bounded BCK-algebra. Moreover, we show that every simple bounded BCK-algebra can be embedded into a simple integral commutative bounded residuated lattice. We extend our main results to some richer subreducts of the class (...) of integral commutative bounded residuated lattices and to the involutive case. (© 2007 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim). (shrink)

In classical antiquity Propertius' eloquence was renowned. His successor Ovid referred to the blandi praecepta Properti and to blandi…Propertius oris. Quintilian stated that to his taste the most tersus and elegans Latin elegist was Tibullus, but sunt qui Propertium malint. Martial mentioned the facundi carmen iuuenale Properti. Turn now from the opinions of ancient authors to those of some modern commentators as they try to elucidate various passages as presented in the extant manuscripts, and you encounter not the adjectives blandus, (...) tersus, elegans, and facundus, but ‘strange’, ‘obscure’, ‘odd’, ‘slovenly’, and the like. A major reason for such striking differences of opinion should be evident. Ovid, to whom Propertius was blandi oris, read a text separated from Propertius' autograph by at most a few decades. Modern scholars, however, must form their text from a few relatively late manuscripts, none earlier than c. 1200, in which Propertius' eloquence has been obscured by over twelve centuries of careless blundering and deliberate interpolation by a succession of scribes. A generally accepted example of deliberate interpolation in the Propertian archetype is found at 2.32.3-6: nam quid Praenesti dubias, o Cynthia, sortes, quid petis Aeaei moenia Telegoni? cur tua te Herculeum deportant esseda Tibur? Appia cur totiens te uia †ducit anum†?, where the name of some neighbouring town is required in the fourth verse to balance Praeneste, Tusculum, and Herculeum in the preceding three. (shrink)

In classical antiquity Propertius' eloquence was renowned. His successor Ovid referred to the blandi praecepta Properti and to blandi…Propertius oris . Quintilian stated that to his taste the most tersus and elegans Latin elegist was Tibullus, but sunt qui Propertium malint. Martial mentioned the facundi carmen iuuenale Properti. Turn now from the opinions of ancient authors to those of some modern commentators as they try to elucidate various passages as presented in the extant manuscripts, and you encounter not the adjectives (...) blandus, tersus, elegans, and facundus, but ‘strange’, ‘obscure’, ‘odd’, ‘slovenly’, and the like. A major reason for such striking differences of opinion should be evident. Ovid, to whom Propertius was blandi oris, read a text separated from Propertius' autograph by at most a few decades. Modern scholars, however, must form their text from a few relatively late manuscripts, none earlier than c. 1200, in which Propertius' eloquence has been obscured by over twelve centuries of careless blundering and deliberate interpolation by a succession of scribes. A generally accepted example of deliberate interpolation in the Propertian archetype is found at 2.32.3-6: nam quid Praenesti dubias, o Cynthia, sortes, quid petis Aeaei moenia Telegoni? cur tua te Herculeum deportant esseda Tibur? Appia cur totiens te uia †ducit anum†? , where the name of some neighbouring town is required in the fourth verse to balance Praeneste, Tusculum, and Herculeum in the preceding three. (shrink)

For a defence of ‘crudum’ against Courtney's strictures, see the reviews by Goodyear and Reeve. I am presently concerned not with the unresolved crux in verse 144, but with the medical reason for the death of the glutton. Galen , quoted by Mayor, warned that one should not bathe after eating να μ μραξις κατ νερς κα παρ γνηται. More recently, Courtney ad loc. has quoted Persius 3.98ff. and has attributed the death to ‘apoplexy’, which in more modern parlance is (...) called a ‘stroke’ or a ‘cerebral haemorrhage’. What Persius and Juvenal are actually describing is not a stroke but what was formerly known as ‘acute indigestion’ and is now called a ‘heart attack’, as indeed ought to have been obvious from ‘nescio quid trepidat mihi pectus’ at Persius 3.88, and ‘tange, miser, uenas et pone in pectore dextram’ at 3.107. As Duff says, ‘the natural and ordinary time for bathing was just before the cena, but the gluttons of this time had discovered that digestion was temporarily promoted by the unhealthy practice of bathing in very hot water immediately after the meal’. Modern medical research has shown why this practice was very unhealthy indeed. As a meal is digested, the pulse rate is elevated, and bathing in hot water increases it even further. The consumption of alcohol, such as that described at Persius 3.92–3 and 99–100, would further accelerate the heart beat. The synergistic effect of these three circumstances, digesting a heavy meal, metabolising a large dose of alcohol, and bathing in hot water, was liable to cause a heart attack in an overweight man whose arteries were clogged with cholesterol. (shrink)

For a defence of ‘crudum’ against Courtney's strictures, see the reviews by Goodyear and Reeve. I am presently concerned not with the unresolved crux in verse 144, but with the medical reason for the death of the glutton. Galen, quoted by Mayor, warned that one should not bathe after eating να μ μραξις κατ νερς κα παρ γνηται. More recently, Courtney ad loc. has quoted Persius 3.98ff. and has attributed the death to ‘apoplexy’, which in more modern parlance is called (...) a ‘stroke’ or a ‘cerebral haemorrhage’. What Persius and Juvenal are actually describing is not a stroke but what was formerly known as ‘acute indigestion’ and is now called a ‘heart attack’, as indeed ought to have been obvious from ‘nescio quid trepidat mihi pectus’ at Persius 3.88, and ‘tange, miser, uenas et pone in pectore dextram’ at 3.107. As Duff says, ‘the natural and ordinary time for bathing was just before the cena, but the gluttons of this time had discovered that digestion was temporarily promoted by the unhealthy practice of bathing in very hot water immediately after the meal’. Modern medical research has shown why this practice was very unhealthy indeed. As a meal is digested, the pulse rate is elevated, and bathing in hot water increases it even further. The consumption of alcohol, such as that described at Persius 3.92–3 and 99–100, would further accelerate the heart beat. The synergistic effect of these three circumstances, digesting a heavy meal, metabolising a large dose of alcohol, and bathing in hot water, was liable to cause a heart attack in an overweight man whose arteries were clogged with cholesterol. (shrink)

In his prefatory epistle dedicating his Naturalis Historia to Vespasian, the elder Pliny takes great pains to plead that his magnum opus is unworthy of the emperor: ‘maiorem te sciebam, quam ut descensurum hue putarem’ . Continuing in this vein, Pliny goes on to say ‘praeterea est quaedam publica etiam eruditorum reiectio’, and appeals for support to the great Cicero: ‘utitur ilia et M. Tullius extra omnem ingenii aleam positus, et, quod miremur, per aduocatum defenditur’ . Cicero's aduocatus is the (...) satirist Lucilius, from whom a mangled fragment in trochaic septenarii is then quoted: ‘nec doctissimis. Manium Persium haec legere nolo, Iunium Congum uolo.’ The sense of this fragment, which Pliny very probably quoted from the now-lost beginning of Cicero's preface to his De Re Publica, can be restored from Cicero, De Oratore 2.25: ‘nam ut C. Lucilius…dicere solebat ea quae scriberet neque ab indoctissimis se neque a doctissimis legi uelle, quod alteri nihil intelligerent, alteri plus fortasse quam ipse; quo etiam scripsit “Persium non curo legere” , “Laelium Decimum uolo” : sic ego…’. This latter passage has allowed the former to be restored, to some extent exempli gratia, to the following form in Warmington's and Krenkel's editions of Lucilius. (shrink)

In his prefatory epistle dedicating his Naturalis Historia to Vespasian, the elder Pliny takes great pains to plead that his magnum opus is unworthy of the emperor: ‘maiorem te sciebam, quam ut descensurum hue putarem’. Continuing in this vein, Pliny goes on to say ‘praeterea est quaedam publica etiam eruditorum reiectio’, and appeals for support to the great Cicero: ‘utitur ilia et M. Tullius extra omnem ingenii aleam positus, et, quod miremur, per aduocatum defenditur’. Cicero's aduocatus is the satirist Lucilius, (...) from whom a mangled fragment in trochaic septenarii is then quoted: ‘nec doctissimis. Manium Persium haec legere nolo, Iunium Congum uolo.’ The sense of this fragment, which Pliny very probably quoted from the now-lost beginning of Cicero's preface to his De Re Publica, can be restored from Cicero, De Oratore 2.25: ‘nam ut C. Lucilius…dicere solebat ea quae scriberet neque ab indoctissimis se neque a doctissimis legi uelle, quod alteri nihil intelligerent, alteri plus fortasse quam ipse; quo etiam scripsit “Persium non curo legere”, “Laelium Decimum uolo” : sic ego…’. This latter passage has allowed the former to be restored, to some extent exempli gratia, to the following form in Warmington's and Krenkel's editions of Lucilius. (shrink)

This is the reading of Clausen's OCT, in which no variant for line 131 is recorded in the apparatus. No doubt the hendiadys ‘scutica et metus…erilis’ is not impossible,2 but it seems to me not to be a well chosen expression. Since the scutica belongs to the master, one is tempted to construe erilis with both nouns, not just with metus. But then the adjective must function in two different ways: ‘scutica… erilis’ is possessive, ‘his master's strap’, but ‘metus…erilis’ is (...) objective, ‘fear of his master’. And ‘metus…erilis’ in this passage receives no support from ‘erilis…metus’ at Plautus, Amphitruo 1069, which means ‘fear for my mistress’. (shrink)

This is the reading of Clausen's OCT, in which no variant for line 131 is recorded in the apparatus. No doubt the hendiadys ‘scutica et metus…erilis’ is not impossible,2 but it seems to me not to be a well chosen expression. Since the scutica belongs to the master, one is tempted to construe erilis with both nouns, not just with metus. But then the adjective must function in two different ways: ‘scutica… erilis’ is possessive, ‘his master's strap’, but ‘metus…erilis’ is (...) objective, ‘fear of his master’. And ‘metus…erilis’ in this passage receives no support from ‘erilis…metus’ at Plautus, Amphitruo 1069, which means ‘fear for my mistress’. (shrink)