The purpose of this article is to show why consciousness and thought are not manifested in digital computers. Analyzing the rationale for claiming that the formal manipulation of physical symbols in Turing machines would emulate human thought, the article attempts to show why this proved false. This is because the reinterpretation of designation and meaning to accommodate physical symbol manipulation eliminated their crucial functions in human discourse. Words have denotations and intensional meanings because the brain transforms the physical stimuli received (...) from the microworld into a qualitative, macroscopic representation for consciousness. Lacking this capacity as programmed machines, computers have no representations for their symbols to designate and mean. Unlike human beings in which consciousness and thought, with their inherent content, have emerged because of their organic natures, serial processing computers or parallel distributed processing systems, as programmed electrical machines, lack these causal capacities. (shrink)

The primary title of this essay is derived from Arthur Fine's recent book, The Shaky Game, which is a rephrasing of “risky game”, a term Einstein applied to the defenders of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, claiming that “‘most of them simply do not see what sort of risky game they are playing with reality‘”. Just as Einstein's term indicates his disagreement with this standard interpretation of quantum mechanics, Fine's term is being used to express disapproval of his interpretation (...) of the philosophy of physics of Einstein and Bohr. The subtitle forecasts my evaluation of Fine's attempt in NOA to provide a satisfactory ontological basis of scientific inquiry. (shrink)

According to Hume, no knowledge attainable by human beings would ever justify rational belief in recurrent physical properties and causal effects. He arrived at this conclusion because he denied the possibility of knowing--but not the reality of--either the 'inner natures' or the 'secret powers' of objects which would enable one to intuit or to demonstrate a 'necessary connection' between the internal structures of objects and their observable properties, or between the causal powers of entities and their effects. The purpose of (...) this article is to show that while Hume's scepticism was justifiable in his day given the generally accepted limitations then of scientific inquiry and explanations, it no longer is reasonable in light of later scientific discoveries and theories. To a degree to which no eighteenth-century philosopher or scientist could anticipate, experimental inquiry has disclosed the inherent natures of objects and the underlying causes of phenomena that attest to the interconnectedness of physical reality and thus justify, at least to some extent, our instinctive beliefs in the uniformity of nature and predictability of events. (shrink)

THE CONVICTION that nature as ordinarily experienced is the manifestation of a deeper, more extensive physical reality is now commonplace. While Aristotle could believe that the visible qualities and substantial forms of the perceptual world correspond to the real natures of things, the advent of modern classical mechanics, incorporating the atomic theory, dispelled this notion. As in the ancient atomic theories of Leucippus and Democritus, the composition, motion, and qualitative changes of phenomena were attributed to the interaction of "insensible particles," (...) atoms or corpuscles, due to the influence of forces such as gravity, impact, and acceleration. Yet even in the Hellenistic world the search for "hidden causes" to explain observable phenomena was an established tradition, as indicated in this passage from the first century A.D. (shrink)

IT IS A REMARKABLE TRIBUTE TO HUME that of all past philosophical views, his critique of causality is nearly unique in being considered as true today as when he first proposed it over two centuries ago. Arthur Fine, for example, states, "I think we ought to follow Hume's prescription on induction with regard to the external world," while Quine flatly claims that "the Humean predicament is the human predicament." Despite the glaring fact that Hume's skepticism was induced by the severe (...) limitations of scientific knowledge and the paucity of causal explanations at the time, most philosophers continue to believe that his analysis of causality conforms to our present level of scientific understanding. Yet just a glance at the difference in scientific knowledge should rattle that presumption. (shrink)

One purpose of this article is to correct the current false assumption that ordinary language is a self-Contained, Self-Sufficient, Absolute framework. Most of the article is devoted to showing how developments in the physical sciences from copernicanism to relativity theory have affected revisions in our conceptual framework, Imposing new representations of the world on our thought. It is suggested that these developments imply a relational conception of the universe described as "contextualistic realism". The challenge facing philosophers today is to revise (...) ordinary language to accommodate recent developments in physics conveying a radically different conception of the universe than that imposed by ordinary language. (shrink)

Science has had a profound influence in shaping contemporary perspectives of reality, yet few in the public have fully grasped the profound implications of scientific discoveries. This book describes three intellectual revolutions that led to the current scientific consensus, emphasizing how science over the centuries has undermined traditional, religious worldviews. The author begins in ancient Greece, where the first revolution took place. Beginning in the sixth-century BCE, a series of innovative thinkers rejected the mythology of their culture and turned to (...) rational analysis and the empirical study of reality. This change in thinking, though it lay dormant for the many centuries of Christian hegemony in the West, eventually gave rise to the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries--the second revolution. Highlighted by such luminaries as Kepler, Galileo, and Isaac Newton, the Enlightenment laid the foundations for our current understanding of the world. Today we live amidst the third scientific revolution, including Darwin's theory of evolution, Planck's concept of the quantum, Einstein's relativity theories, Bohr's quantum mechanics, along with Watson and Crick's decoding of the human genome with the prospect of improving human nature. Besides technological wonders, this revolution has also supported widespread respect for freedom of thought, greater educational opportunities, and democratic governments. Looking to the future, Schlagel sees many exciting possibilities yet also potentially devastating threats to the environment. He underscores the need for widespread scientific literacy, stressing that only unfettered scientific inquiry offers a realistic hope of overcoming these daunting challenges. (shrink)

THERE WAS A TIME, EONS AGO, when philosophy as the love of wisdom could lay claim to all knowledge. Aristotle’s corpus of writings covered all the main areas of inquiry then known, including an original organon on syllogistic logic and scientific method. But this hegemony over knowledge was soon challenged by separatist disciplines forming their own research strategies. As early as the third century B.C.E., following the deaths of Alexander and Aristotle, the ruling Ptolemies created in Alexandria two centers of (...) scientific research, the Library and the Museum, rivaling the Academy and Lyceum of Athens. In those state-supported institutions specialized research by grammarians, mathematicians, astronomers, physicists, biologists, and physiologists replaced the more speculative syntheses of knowledge of the previous Hellenic period. The resident scholars and those affiliated by correspondence or as legatees were the originators of axiomatic geometry and what we now refer to as protoscience: for example, Euclid, Herophilus, Erasistratus, Apollonius, Heraclides, Hipparchus, and Aristarchus. Each of the major founders of modern classical science acknowledged their indebtedness to these extraordinary ancient Greeks who initiated the scientific exploration of the universe. (shrink)

THERE WAS A TIME, EONS AGO, when philosophy as the love of wisdom could lay claim to all knowledge. Aristotle’s corpus of writings covered all the main areas of inquiry then known, including an original organon on syllogistic logic and scientific method. But this hegemony over knowledge was soon challenged by separatist disciplines forming their own research strategies. As early as the third century B.C.E., following the deaths of Alexander and Aristotle, the ruling Ptolemies created in Alexandria two centers of (...) scientific research, the Library and the Museum, rivaling the Academy and Lyceum of Athens. In those state-supported institutions specialized research by grammarians, mathematicians, astronomers, physicists, biologists, and physiologists replaced the more speculative syntheses of knowledge of the previous Hellenic period. The resident scholars and those affiliated by correspondence or as legatees were the originators of axiomatic geometry and what we now refer to as protoscience: for example, Euclid, Herophilus, Erasistratus, Apollonius, Heraclides, Hipparchus, and Aristarchus. Each of the major founders of modern classical science acknowledged their indebtedness to these extraordinary ancient Greeks who initiated the scientific exploration of the universe. (shrink)

Ever since the publication in 1962 of Thomas Kuhn's highly influential book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, there has been considerable investigation of the nature of scientific revolutions. In this book Paul Thagard, analyzing historical examples of radical scientific transformations, presents an account of conceptual revolutions based on the Theory of Explanatory Coherence and on the assumption that thinking is computational, such that the "cognitive architecture" underlying theory construction and change can be replicated in the computer program ECHO.

This book contains eight essays, of which six were previously published: "Statement," "Systematic Realism," "Philosophy and Meta-Philosophy of Science: Empiricism, Popperianism and Realism," "On Global Theories," "Methodology and Systematic Philosophy," "Surface Dazzle, Ghostly Depths: An Exposition and Critical Evaluation of van Fraassen's Vindication of Empiricism Against Realism," "Understanding and Control: An Essay on the Structural Dynamics of Human Cognition," "Evolutionary Naturalist Realism: Circa 1985." The first and eighth essays are new; the second, third, fourth, and fifth were written in 1974-1975, (...) while the first, sixth, seventh, and eighth were written from 1980 to 1985. In all, they represent the development of Hooker's views on the philosophy of science to the present on a much broader range of topics than the title suggests, although each occurs within the framework of an exposition and defense of a realistic theory of science. Since the essays contain promissory notes for further research on numerous topics, this is not intended as a final statement of his views but as a present culmination. (shrink)

The primary title of this essay is derived from Arthur Fine's recent book, The Shaky Game, which is a rephrasing of “risky game”, a term Einstein applied to the defenders of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, claiming that “‘most of them simply do not see what sort of risky game they are playing with reality‘”. Just as Einstein's term indicates his disagreement with this standard interpretation of quantum mechanics, Fine's term is being used to express disapproval of his interpretation (...) of the philosophy of physics of Einstein and Bohr. The subtitle forecasts my evaluation of Fine's attempt in NOA to provide a satisfactory ontological basis of scientific inquiry. (shrink)

Concerned with delineating the nature of mental content and explaining its role in knowledge and behavior, this book is divided into three long chapters, discussing respectively the location, utility, and basis of content.

Clearly written and persuasively argued, this book illustrates how far philosophers of science have progressed since the heyday of logical positivism. In contrast to the positivists who ignored the "context of discovery" while forcing scientific inquiry into their a priori logical constraints of the "context of justification," the present approach carefully examines previous scientific discoveries to determine whether the procedures followed conform to commonly espoused theories of scientific method. Achinstein carries this technique to perfection.

The primary title of this essay is derived from Arthur Fine's recent book, The Shaky Game, which is a rephrasing of “risky game”, a term Einstein applied to the defenders of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, claiming that “‘most of them simply do not see what sort of risky game they are playing with reality‘”. Just as Einstein's term indicates his disagreement with this standard interpretation of quantum mechanics, Fine's term is being used to express disapproval of his interpretation (...) of the philosophy of physics of Einstein and Bohr. The subtitle forecasts my evaluation of Fine's attempt in NOA to provide a satisfactory ontological basis of scientific inquiry. (shrink)

The legalization of Christianity occurred in 313 when Constantine’s Edict of Milan granted freedom of worship to Christians, along with tax exemption and patronage to bishops, expecting this would consolidate the Church and unify the Empire. Instead, he was confronted with bitter doctrinal disputes and incessant jurisdictional rivalry owing to scriptural obscurity provoking diverse interpretations. As Freeman states, “when one puts together the Gospels, the letters of Paul, the Book of Revelation and the Old Testament, there is no sense of (...) a coherent ‘axiomatic’ base on which to build theological truths”. Though claiming that Christian doctrines were divinely revealed once and for all, in fact since the fourth century they were decided by imperial councils or papal decrees. (shrink)

In an interview with Thomas Kuhn the day before he died, Niels Bohr claimed "I think that it would be reasonable to say that no man who is called a philosopher really understands what is meant by the complementary descriptions." Since the "principle of complementarity," which Bohr initially formulated in 1927 and continued to refine throughout his life, lies at the heart of his influential "Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics," this was a regrettable acknowledgment. Now, however, we are exceedingly fortunate (...) in having two recent publications presenting such comprehensive and penetrating analyses of Bohr's philosophy of physics, that were he alive today, I am certain he would retract the above statement. (shrink)

Not so long ago the physical sciences were looked upon as paradigms of rationality and paragons of progress. Those prophets of science, the logical positivists or empiricists, went so far as to declare most other forms of human discourse or expression, other than logic and mathematics, either nonsensical or emotive--only science which purportedly was grounded on the secure foundations of sense data or ordinary observations and whose theoretical constructs were constructed from these empirical data was considered to be significant knowledge.

This book is based on some of Suppe's revised published and unpublished papers with eight new chapters. Having written a definitive critical study of the positivist Received Theory in The Structure of Scientific Theories, Suppe has now "undertaken to provide the most comprehensive discussion of the Semantic Conception of Theories yet attempted...". The Semantic Conception derives its name from the fact that it "construes theories as what their formulations refer to when the formulations are given a semantic interpretation".

Margolis’s book is driven by two convictions: that the problem of realism “is the master theme of the whole of modern philosophy” and that “[s]cientism remains the most salient vision of … analytic philosophy”. While tracing the former problem in Descartes, Kant, and post-Kantian Idealists, his main focus is the analytical scientism of the positivists developed during the first half of the twentieth century, superceded by American analytical philosophy in the second half. Defining scientism as materialism, extensionalism, reductionalism, and eliminativism (...) with the intent of establishing a wholly scientific vision of the universe, Margolis opposes the project. (shrink)