A central tenet of constructivist models of conceptual development is that children's initial conceptual level constrains how they make sense of new evidence and thus whether exposure to evidence will prompt conceptual change. Yet little experimental evidence directly examines this claim for the case of sustained, fundamental conceptual achievements. The present study combined scaling and experimental microgenetic methods to examine the processes underlying conceptual change in the context of an important conceptual achievement of early childhood—the development of a (...) representational theory of mind. Results from 47 children (M age = 3.7 years) indicate that only children who were conceptually close to understanding false belief at the beginning of the study, and who were experimentally exposed to evidence of people acting on false beliefs, reliably developed representational theories of minds. Combined scaling and microgenetic data revealed how prior conceptual level interacts with experience, thereby providing critical experimental evidence for how conceptual change results from the interplay between conceptions and evidence. (shrink)

One approach to understanding model-based reasoning in science is to examine how it develops during infancy, childhood, and adolescence. The way in which thinking changes sometimes provides clues to its nature. This paper examines cognitive developmental aspects of modeling practices and discusses how a developmental perspective can enrich the study of model-based scientific reasoning in adults. The paper begins with issues concerning developmental change, followed by a model of model-based reasoning. The rest of the paper describes how several key concepts (...) from recent developmental work could contribute to current work on model-based reasoning. Specifically, developmental research shows that (a) social processes are involved in model-based reasoning and scientific discovery, (b) the development of a theory of mind contributes to the development of scientific reasoning, (c) changes in scientific reasoning are characterized by cognitive variability, and (d) microgenetic methods could clarify conceptual change during model-based reasoning. (shrink)

There are plausible academic as well as social indicators that qualitative research has become an indispensable part of the methodological repertoire of the social sciences. Relying upon the tenets of the qualitative approach which require a priority of subject matter over method and a necessary socio-historical contextualization, I reconstruct some aspects of a social history that have shaped the quantitative—qualitative dichotomy and the quantitative imperative; these include modern individualism, monological rationality, manufacture operating on the grounds of common human labour, mechanics (...) as the first science, quantification as a technology of distanced objectivity and a search for certainty realized at the expense of qualitative attributes. The so-called renaissance of the qualitative approach starting in 1960s, understood as a kind of a return of repressed qualities, is also socio-culturally contextualized. Both anthropogenetic and sociogenetic reconstructions as well as a microgenetic analysis of the research process demonstrate that choices of subject matter and of methodology are socially and culturally embedded and necessarily linked to broader interests and beliefs. (shrink)

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Written in the 1960s, TRUTH AND METHOD is Gadamer's magnum opus.

For over a century and certainly since single-unit recordings in the 1960s the theory of perception that has dominated thinking and research, with implications for the understanding of all other cognitive domains, entails a neocortical process of progressive assembly from V-1 to V-4 leading to object-construction and secondary spatial updating and recognition. In recent years, however, difficulties with the theory have emerged in neurophysiological research though a compelling alternative has not been forcefully argued. It is the purpose of this paper (...) to review the main features of the microgenetic account of perception, which inverts standard theory 180 degrees, and aligns the perceptual process with patterns of evolutionary growth. This theory developed on clinical study, and perhaps for this reason has not received sufficient attention, in mainstream cognitive and affective neuroscience, though it provides an account not only of perception but of stages in memory, imagery, the present moment, and the mind/brain state. (shrink)

The chapters in this volume attempt to establish some foundational principles of a theory of the mind/brain grounded in evolutionary and process theory. From this standpoint, the book discusses some main problems in philosophical psychology, including the nature and origins of the mind/brain state, experience and consciousness, feeling, subjective time and free will. The approach — that of microgenesis — holds that formative phases in the generation of the mental state are the primary focus of explanation, not the assumed properties (...) of logical solids. For microgenesis, the process leading to a conscious end point is, together with the final content, part of an epochal state, the outcome of which, an act, object or word, incorporates earlier segments of that series, such as value, meaning and belief. (shrink)

This Hackett edition, first published in 1981, is an unabridged and unaltered republication of the seventh edition as published by Macmillan and Company, Limited. From the forward by John Rawls: In the utilitarian tradition Henry Sidgwick has an important place. His fundamental work, The Methods of Ethics, is the clearest and most accessible formulation of what we may call 'the classical utilitarian doctorine.' This classical doctrine holds that the ultimate moral end of social and individual action is the greatest (...) net sum of the happiness of all sentient beings. Happinesss is specified by the net balance of pleasure over pain, or, as Sidgwick preferred to say, as the net balance of agreeable over disagreeable consciousness.... (shrink)

An important method for finding the optimal solution for linear and nonlinear models is the graphical method, which is used if the linear or nonlinear mathematical model contains one, two, or three variables. The models that contain only two variables are among the most models for which the optimal solution has been obtained graphically, whether these models are linear or non-linear in references and research that are concerned with the science of operations research, when the data of the issue under (...) study is classical data. In this research, we will present a study through, which we present the graphical method for solving Neutrosophical nonlinear models in the following case: A nonlinear programming issue, the objective function is a nonlinear function, and the constraints are linear functions. Note that we can use the same method if (i) the objective function follower is a linear follower and the constraints are nonlinear; (ii) the objective function is a non-linear follower and the constraints are non-linear. In the three cases, the nonlinear models are neutrosophic, and as we know, the mathematical model is a nonlinear model if any of the components of the objective function or the constraints are nonlinear expressions, and the nonlinear expressions may be in both. At the left end of the constraints are neutrosophic values, at least one or all of them. Then, the possible solutions to the neutrosophic nonlinear programming problem are the set of rays that fulfills all the constraints. As for the region of possible solutions, it is the region that contains all the rays that fulfill the constraints. The optimal solution is the beam that fulfills all constraints and at which the function reaches a maximum or minimum value, depending on the nature of the issue under study (noting that it is not necessary to be alone). (shrink)

Scepticism about phenomenology typically begins with worries concerning the reliability of introspection. Such worries concern the accuracy or fidelity of descriptions of experience to the experience itself, although if pressed, such worries ultimately call into question the very idea of the experience itself. This chapter considers scepticism in both its epistemological and ontological varieties and questions whether either form genuinely engages phenomenological method, properly understood. Starting from the problematic identification of phenomenology with introspection and drawing upon considerations from the work (...) of Edmund Husserl, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, the chapter argues that phenomenological reflection, in its concern for essential structures, is largely unaffected by worries concerning how best to capture the details of particular episodes of experience. Moreover, many of the sceptical challenges phenomenology is alleged to face presuppose an overly objective understanding of experience that phenomenology typically rejects. The chapter concludes with a consideration of the underlying motives for phenomenological scepticism. These motives have little if anything to do with worries about introspection and the like, but instead involve scepticism about the viability of transcendental philosophy. The real challenge phenomenology confronts is one of establishing the legitimacy – and authority – of its distinctive methods in opposition to naturalism. (shrink)

In this paper, we first briefly survey the main responses to the challenge that experimental philosophy poses to the method of cases, given the common assumption that the latter is crucially based on intuitive judgments about cases. Second, we discuss two of the most popular responses in more detail: the expertise defense and the mischaracterization objection. Our take on the expertise defense is that the available empirical data do not support the claim that professional philosophers enjoy relevant expertise in their (...) intuitive judgments about cases. In contrast, the mischaracterization objection seems considerably more promising than its largely negative reception has suggested. We argue that the burden of proof is thus on philosophers who still hold that the method of cases crucially relies on intuitive judgments about cases. Finally, we discuss whether conceptual engineering provides an alternative to the method of cases in light of the challenge from experimental philosophy. We argue that this is not clearly the case, because conceptual engineering also requires descriptive information about the concepts it aims to improve. However, its primarily normative perspective on our concepts makes it largely orthogonal to the challenge from experimental philosophy, and it can also benefit from the empirical methods of the latter. (shrink)

Method of Medicine, a systematic and comprehensive account of the principles of treating injury and disease and one of Galen's greatest and most influential works.

Feyerabrend argues that intellectual progress relies on the creativity of the scientist, against the authority of science.

Argumentation, which can be abstractly defined as the interaction of different arguments for and against some conclusion, is an important skill to learn for everyday life, law, science, politics and business. The best way to learn it is to try it out on real instances of arguments found in everyday conversational exchanges and legal argumentation. The introductory chapter of this book gives a clear general idea of what the methods of argumentation are and how they work as tools that (...) can be used to analyze arguments. Each subsequent chapter then applies these methods to a leading problem of argumentation. Today the field of computing has embraced argumentation as a paradigm for research in artificial intelligence and multi-agent systems. Another purpose of this book is to present and refine tools and techniques from computing as components of the methods that can be handily used by scholars in other fields. (shrink)

Plato’s Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman exhibit several related dialectical methods relevant to Platonic education: maieutic in Theaetetus, bifurcatory division in Sophist and Statesman, and non-bifurcatory division in Statesman, related to the ‘god-given’ method in Philebus. I consider the nature of each method through the letter or element paradigm, used to reflect on each method. At issue are the element’s appearances in given contexts, its fitness for communing with other elements like it in kind, and its own nature defined through (...) its relations to others. These represent stages of inquiry for the Platonic student inquiring into the sources of knowledge. (shrink)

Introduction -- Ethics and politics -- Ethical judgments -- Pleasure and desire -- Free will -- Ethical principles and methods -- Egoism and self-love -- Chapter viii-intuitionism -- Good -- Book II: Egoism -- The principle and method of egoism -- Empirical hedonism -- Empirical hedonism (continued) -- Objective hedonism and common sense -- Happiness and duty -- Deductive hedonism -- Book III: Intuitionism -- Intuitionism -- Virtue and duty -- The intellectual virtues -- Benevolence -- Justice -- Laws (...) and promises -- Classification of duties. truth -- Other social duties and virtues -- Self-regarding virtues -- Courage, humility, etc. -- Review of the morality of common sense -- Motives or springs of action as subjects of moral judgment -- Philosophical intuitionism -- Ultimate good -- Book IV: Utilitarianism -- The meaning of utilitarianism -- The proof of utilitarianism -- The relation of utilitarianism to the morality of common sense -- The method of utilitarianism -- The method of utilitarianism (continued) -- Concluding chapter: The mutual relations of the three methods. (shrink)

(This is for the Cambridge Handbook of Analytic Philosophy, edited by Marcus Rossberg) In this handbook entry, I survey the different ways in which formal mathematical methods have been applied to philosophical questions throughout the history of analytic philosophy. I consider: formalization in symbolic logic, with examples such as Aquinas’ third way and Anselm’s ontological argument; Bayesian confirmation theory, with examples such as the fine-tuning argument for God and the paradox of the ravens; foundations of mathematics, with examples such (...) as Hilbert’s programme and Gödel’s incompleteness theorems; social choice theory, with examples such as Condorcet’s paradox and Arrow’s theorem; ‘how possibly’ results, with examples such as Condorcet’s jury theorem and recent work on intersectionality theory; and the application of advanced mathematics in philosophy, with examples such as accuracy-first epistemology. (shrink)

How does experimental philosophy address philosophical questions and problems? That is: What projects does experimental philosophy pursue? What is their philosophical relevance? And what empirical methods do they employ? Answers to these questions will reveal how experimental philosophy can contribute to the longstanding ambition of placing philosophy on the ‘secure path of a science’, as Kant put it. We argue that experimental philosophy has introduced a new methodological perspective – a ‘meta-philosophical naturalism’ that addresses philosophical questions about a phenomenon (...) by empirically investigating how people think about this phenomenon. This chapter asks how this novel perspective can be successfully implemented: How can the empirical investigation of how people think about something address genuinely philosophical problems? And what methods – and, specifically, what methods beyond the questionnaire – can this investigation employ? We first review core projects of experimental philosophy and raise the question of their philosophical relevance. For ambitious answers, we turn to experimental philosophy’s most direct historical precursor, mid-20th century ordinary language philosophy, and discuss empirical implementations of two of its research programmes that use experimental methods from psycholinguistics and corpus methods from the digital humanities. (shrink)

Introduction: "a matter so obscure, so difficult, and likewise so new . . ." -- Argument, narrative, and methods discourse -- Many, many experiments -- Trying again -- Newtonian poison: a mechanical account of viper venom -- Experiment as the only guide -- Thousands of experiments -- Practical criticisms -- Controlling experiment -- Unobservables -- Fragmentation and modularity: notes on crotoxin -- Conclusion: about methods.

By focusing on the nineteenth-century debate between William Whewell and Augustus De Morgan on the nature and scope of scientific method and induction, this article captures an important episode in the history of Baconianism. More specifically, it sheds new light on the social and intellectual construction of Francis Bacon as an emblem of modern science and on British Baconianism as part of the creation of a vision of the modern enterprise. A critic of Whewell’s renovated Baconianism and an advocate of (...) an alternative anti-Baconian (or pro-Newtonian) view of science, De Morgan is presented for the first time as a philosopher of science (or metascientist), one who pioneered the application of probability theory to scientific reasoning. (shrink)

" Vivid . . . immense clarity . . . the product of a brilliant and extremely forceful intellect." — Journal of the Royal Naval Scientific Service "Still a sheer joy to read." — Mathematical Gazette "Should be read by any student, teacher or researcher in mathematics." — Mathematics Teacher The originator of algebraic topology and of the theory of analytic functions of several complex variables, Henri Poincare (1854–1912) excelled at explaining the complexities of scientific and mathematical ideas to lay (...) readers. Science and Method, written in 1908, has been appreciated by a wide audience of nonprofessionals and translated into many languages. It defines the basic methodology and psychology of scientific discovery, particularly in regard to mathematics and mathematical physics. Drawing on examples from many fields, it explains how scientists analyze and choose their working facts, and it explores the nature of experimentation, theory, and the mind. 1914 edition. Translated by Francis Maitland. (shrink)

The goal of chapter 2 is to analyse Socrates’ method. Firstly, it is argued that theSocratic method is not able to reach definitive conclusions. Secondly, it is shown that this occurs because of the use of real rather than nominal definitions. Finally, it is noted that, although this method cannot provide any proper knowledge, it constitutes a very good starting point to address moral problems with great care.

The paper offers a reconstruction of Popper’s conception of the logical situation. It provides the analysis of the structure of this conception, its genesis, and the attempts at its explication, as well as its critical discussion. The authors confront Popper’s method of situational logic with Kmita’s method of humanistic interpretation.

This book gives a comprehensive account of methods in philosophy of education, it also examines their application in the 'real world' of education. It will therefore be of interest to philosophers and educators alike.

This title presents a comprehensive guide to interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) which is an increasingly popular approach to qualitative inquiry taught to undergraduate and postgraduate students today.

"Dr. Montessori was par excellence the great interpreter of the child; and though she herself has passed on from the scene of her labours her work will still go on."-- Westminster Cathedral Chronicle One of the landmark books in the history of education--and one of the least expensive editions now available--this volume describes a new system for educating youngsters. Based on a radical concept of liberty for the pupil and highly formal training of separate sensory, motor, and mental capacities, the (...) system enabled youngsters to master reading, writing, and arithmetic rapidly and substantially. Included are discussions of scientific pedagogy; discipline; the importance of proper diet, gymnastics, and manual labor; and many other topics. Unabridged reprint of the classic 1912 edition. (shrink)

On a traditional view, the primary role of a mathematical proof is to warrant the truth of the resulting theorem. This view fails to explain why it is very often the case that a new proof of a theorem is deemed important. Three case studies from elementary arithmetic show, informally, that there are many criteria by which ordinary proofs are valued. I argue that at least some of these criteria depend on the methods of inference the proofs employ, and (...) that standard models of formal deduction are not well-equipped to support such evaluations. I discuss a model of proof that is used in the automated deduction community, and show that this model does better in that respect. (shrink)

Until not too many years ago, all logics except classical logic (and, perhaps, intuitionistic logic too) were considered to be things esoteric. Today this state of a airs seems to have completely been changed. There is a growing interest in many types of nonclassical logics: modal and temporal logics, substructural logics, paraconsistent logics, non-monotonic logics { the list is long. The diversity of systems that have been proposed and studied is so great that a need is felt by many researchers (...) to try to put some order in the present logical jungle. Thus Cl91], Ep90] and Wo88] are three recent books in which an attempt is made to develop a general theoretical framework for the study of logics. On the more pragmatic side, several systems have been developed with the goal of providing a computerized logical framework in which many di erent logical systems can be implemented in a uniform way. An example is the Edinburgh LF( HHP91]). (shrink)

The aim of the article is to intervene in debates about the digital and, in particular, framings that imagine the digital in terms of epochal shifts or as redefining life. Instead, drawing on recent developments in digital methods, we explore the lively, productive and performative qualities of the digital by attending to the specificities of digital devices and how they interact, and sometimes compete, with older devices and their capacity to mobilize and materialize social and other relations. In doing (...) so, our aim is to explore the implications of digital devices and data for reassembling social science methods or what we call the social science apparatuses that assemble digital devices and data to ‘know’ the social and other relations. Building on recent work at CRESC on the social life of methods, we recommend a genealogical approach that is alive to the ways in which digital devices are simultaneously shaped by social worlds, and can in turn become agents that shape those worlds. This calls for attending to the specificities of digital devices themselves, how they are varied and composed of diverse socio-technical arrangements, and are enrolled in the creation of new knowledge spaces, institutions and actors. Rather than exploring what large-scale changes can be revealed and understood through the digital, we argue for explorations of how digital devices themselves are materially implicated in the production and performance of contemporary sociality. To that end we offer the following nine propositions about the implications of digital data and devices and argue that these demand rethinking the theoretical assumptions of social science methods: transactional actors; heterogeneity; visualization; continuous time; whole populations; granularity; expertise; mobile and mobilizing; and non-coherence. (shrink)

Science is founded on a method based on critical thinking. A prerequisite for this is not only a sufficient command of language but also the comprehension of the basic concepts underlying our understanding of reality. This constraint implies an awareness of the fact that the truth of the World is not directly accessible to us, but can only be glimpsed through the construction of mod- els designed to anticipate its behaviour. Because the relationship between models and reality rests on the (...) interpretation of founding postulates and in- stantiations of their predictions (and is therefore deeply rooted in language and culture), there can be no demarcation between science and non-science. However, critical thinking is essential to ensure that the link between models and reality is gradually made more adequate to reality, based on what has already been established, thus guaranteeing that science progresses on this basis and excluding any form of relativism. (shrink)

This paper offers a practical argument for metaphysical emergence. The main message is that the growing reliance on so-called irrational scientific methods provides evidence that objects of science are indecomposable and as such, are better described by metaphysical emergence as opposed to the prevalent reductionistic metaphysics. I show that a potential counterargument that science will eventually reduce everything to physics has little weight given where science is heading with its current methodological trend. I substantiate my arguments by detailed examples (...) from biological engineering, but the conclusions are extendable beyond that discipline. (shrink)

This chapter tries to answer the following question: How should we conceive of the method of mathematics, if we take a naturalist stance? The problem arises since mathematical knowledge is regarded as the paradigm of certain knowledge, because mathematics is based on the axiomatic method. Moreover, natural science is deeply mathematized, and science is crucial for any naturalist perspective. But mathematics seems to provide a counterexample both to methodological and ontological naturalism. To face this problem, some authors tried to naturalize (...) mathematics by relying on evolutionism. But several difficulties arise when we try to do this. This chapter suggests that, in order to naturalize mathematics, it is better to take the method of mathematics to be the analytic method, rather than the axiomatic method, and thus conceive of mathematical knowledge as plausible knowledge. (shrink)

Can ethical character be stimulated and enabled? Cognitive understanding of organizational ethics issues is important and necessary, but not sufficient. Ethical behavior does not emerge automatically. Effective political method is necessary. While it may be difficult to teach ethical character, nonetheless, skill development with respect to joined ethics understanding and action-learning methods can help us develop the skills and confidence we need to actualize our ethical characters and social concerns. An action-learning approach to organizational ethics can help stimulate and (...) enable ethical character. (shrink)

Pluralism about scientific method is more-or-less accepted, but the consequences have yet to be drawn out. Scientists adopt different methods in response to different epistemic situations: depending on the system they are interested in, the resources at their disposal, and so forth. If it is right that different methods are appropriate in different situations, then mismatches between methods and situations are possible. This is most likely to occur due to method bias: when we prefer a particular kind (...) of method, despite that method clashing with evidential context or our aims. To explore these ideas, we sketch a kind of method pluralism which turns on two properties of evidence, before using agent-based models to examine the relationship between methods, epistemic situations, and bias. Based on our results, we suggest that although method bias can undermine the efficiency of a scientific community, it can also be productive through preserving a diversity of evidence. We consider circumstances where method bias could be particularly egregious, and those where it is a potential virtue, and argue that consideration of method bias reveals that community standards deserve a central place in the epistemology of science. (shrink)

This paper is an essay based on many years of reviewing journal submissions and discussions with business ethics scholars on a range of themes regarding methods. To some extent, it contains condensed thoughts from two experienced scholars in the field, which we hope will be useful, especially to emerging scholars who, to some extent, may still be wrestling with some of the issues raised in the paper. The validity and reliability of research methods in business ethics research is (...) discussed in terms of legitimate methods to employ in the discipline, the epistemic challenges in the discipline, the debate between qualitative and quantitative methods, and some considered comments on ‘researching well’ in this discipline. Within each theme, we attempt to convey our distilled thoughts in the hope that methods employed in future studies will avoid some of the failures we have observed in the past. (shrink)

Nous présentons ici la traduction d’une conférence donnée par Ernst Cassirer au Cercle linguistique de New York en 1945, intitulée « Le structuralisme dans la linguistique moderne ». Dans ce texte, Cassirer propose une généalogie de l’approche structurale dans la linguistique moderne, en faisant remonter la problématique aux débats épistémologiques des xviii e et xix e siècles sur la constitution des sciences du vivant. La conférence de Cassirer revêt ainsi à nos yeux un double intérêt : d’une part, elle rend (...) compte de l’unité de l’œuvre cassirerienne, puisque l’auteur y mobilise des concepts dont il a posé les premiers jalons dès 1910 dans _Substance et fonction_ ; d’autre part, elle permet de rendre compte de la spécificité méthodologique des sciences de la culture, à partir d’une généalogie conceptuelle de la méthode en train de naître dans les cercles linguistiques de l’époque. Nous tâcherons de présenter les différentes étapes de l’argumentation de Cassirer, allant d’une redéfiniti... (shrink)

Despite its successes, to date Artificial Intelligence (AI) is still characterized by a number of shortcomings with regards to different application domains and goals. These limitations are arguably both conceptual (e.g., related to the underlying theoretical models, such as symbolic vs.connectionist), and operational (e.g., related to robustness and ability to generalize). Biologically inspired AI, and more specifically brain-inspired AI, promises to provide further biological aspects beyond those that are already traditionally included in AI, making it possible to assess and possibly (...) overcome some of its present shortcomings. This article examines some conceptual, technical, and ethical issues raised by the development and use of brain-inspired AI. Against this background, the paper asks whether there is anything ethically unique about brain-inspired AI. The aim of the paper is to introduce a method that has a heuristic nature and that can be applied to identify and address the ethical issues arising from brain-inspired AI (and from AI more generally). The conclusion resulting from the application of this method is that, compared to traditional AI, brain-inspired AI raises new foundational ethical issues and some new practical ethical issues, and exacerbates some of the issues raised by traditional AI. (shrink)

The core argument of chapter 9 is the thesis that the epistemological distinction between knowledge and beliefs introduced in the Meno plays a crucial role in the consideration of virtues. Thanks to this distinction, Plato can indeed dismiss the theory according to which virtues are only instrumental. Therefore, it is demonstrated that the theory of virtue of the early dialogues is the result of having knowledge of the importance of virtues but not a proper and true knowledge of them.