Summary The concept of unified theory is defined in logical and abstract semantic terms, and employed in the analysis of relations between empirical scientific theories. The conceptual framework of the approach applies to binary relations such as the reduction or replacement of one theory by another, and to multiple intertheory relations. Historically, unified theories tend to arise within the contexts of scientific conflicts which they may show susceptible of solution even in the most controversial cases of (...) the logical incompatibility or conceptual incommensurability of competing theories. These conclusions are exemplified by the Planck-Einstein quantum theory of thermal radiation. The analysis shows in which sense it can, and in which it cannot, be said that this theory unifies Wien's law and the Rayleigh-Jeans law of black-body radiation. (shrink)

Research in cognitive science has often assumed the existence of a privileged level that unifies theoretical explanations arising from different disciplines. Philosophical accounts differ about the locus of those intertheory relations. In this paper, four different views are analyzed: classical, connectionist, pragmatist, and reductionist, as exemplified in the works of von Eckardt, Horgan and Tienson, Hardcastle, and Bickle, respectively. Their divergences are characterized in terms of the possibility of such a privileged level. The classical view favors a privileged (...) computational level. The connectionist revision tries to draw biological intuitions into computational models to provide a link between neurons and computations. The pragmatist approach rejects the idea of a privileged level and offers a more eclectic view of cognitive theory building. The reductionist account pursues theoretical unification by means of the reduction of higher level theories to basic level ones. /// La investigatión en ciencia cognitiva suele asumir la existencia de un nivel privilegiado que unifica las explicaciones teóricas provenientes de distintas disciplinas. Las interpretaciones filósoficas difieren respecto al locus de tales relaciones interteóricas. En este artículo se analizan cuatro concepciones: clásica, conexionista, pragmática y reduccionista, ejemplificadas respectivamente en las obras de von Eckardt, Horgan y Tienson, Hardcastle y Bickle. Sus divergencias se caracterizan en términos de la posible existencia del nivel privilegiado. El enfoque clásico propugna un nivel privilegiado computacional. La revisión conexionista importa intuiciones de la biología a los modelos computacionales, con la intentión de vincular lo neuronal con lo computacional. El enfoque pragmático rechaza la idea de un nivel privilegiado y ofrece una visión más ecléctica de la teorización cognitiva. La conceptión reduccionista promueve la unificatión teórica mediante la reductión de teorías de alto nivel a teorías de nivel básico. (shrink)

In line with the semantic conception of scientific theories, I develop an account of the intertheory relation of comparative structural similarity. I argue that this relation is useful in explaining the concept of verisimilitude and I support this contention with a concrete historical example. Finally, I defend this relation against the familiar charge that the concept of similarity is insufficiently objective.

In this paper we give the gist of our reconstructed notion of (limiting case) correspondence. Our notion is very general, so that it should be applicable to all the cases in which a correspondence has been said to exist in actual science.

This paper considers the relationship between continuum hydrodynamics and discrete molecular dynamics in the context of explaining the behavior of breaking droplets. It is argued that the idealization of a fluid as a continuum is actually essential for a full explanation of the drop breaking phenomenon and that, therefore, the less "fundamental," emergent hydrodynamical theory plays an ineliminable role in our understanding.

It used to be a common view in the philosophy of science as well as among the scientists themselves that scientic change has been and will be continuos. Even in the most radical changes of theories the growth of knowledge was claimed to be cumulative. Thus, for instance, physicists may say that in radical, revolutionary changes of theories there obtains, however, some kind of correspondence between the old and new theories; the old theory can be regarded at least as a (...) limiting case of the new one. Thus, for instance, classical particle mechanics is a limiting case of both relativistic particle mechanics and quantum mechanics. Some philosophers, as, e.g., Stegmuller [17], go even further when they claim that there always obtains a reductive correlation in scientic change. The old theory can be reduced to the new one in some specic, or perhaps only intuitive, sense of reduction. However, in the light of what physicists say about correspondence and logicians about reduction, it seems obvious that correspondence should be distinguished from reduction and that one may claim the existence of the former relation, rather than the latter, in the scientic changes. We are not ready to say here what a correspondence relation would exactly consist of, but we will discuss what we think ought to be at least required in comparison with reduction and the related notion of interpre- tation. A detailed case study seems to sustain our views correspondence. (shrink)

Classical mechanics is empirically successful because the probabilistic mean values of quantum mechanical observables follow the classical equations of motion to a good approximation (Messiah 1970, 215). We examine this claim for the one-dimensional motion of a particle in a box, and extend the idea by deriving a special case of the ideal gas law in terms of the mean value of a generalized force used to define "pressure." The examples illustrate the importance of probabilistic averaging as a method of (...) abstracting away from the messy details of microphenomena, not only in physics, but in other sciences as well. (shrink)

Classical mechanics and quantum mechanics are two of the most successful scientific theories ever discovered, and yet how they can describe the same world is far from clear: one theory is deterministic, the other indeterministic; one theory describes a world in which chaos is pervasive, the other a world in which chaos is absent. Focusing on the exciting field of 'quantum chaos', this book reveals that there is a subtle and complex relation between classical and quantum mechanics. It challenges the (...) received view that classical and quantum mechanics are incommensurable, and revives another, largely forgotten tradition due to Niels Bohr and Paul Dirac. By artfully weaving together considerations from the history of science, philosophy of science, and contemporary physics, this book offers a new way of thinking about intertheory relations and scientific explanation. It will be of particular interest to historians and philosophers of science, philosophically-inclined physicists, and interested non-specialists. (shrink)

This is the first of two papers concerned with the philosophical significance of dualities as applied in recent fundamental physics. The general idea is that, for its peculiarity, this ‘new’ ingredient in theory construction can open unexpected perspectives in the current philosophical reflection on contemporary physics. In particular, today’s physical dualities represent an unusual type of intertheory relation, the meaning of which deserves to be investigated. The aim is to show how discussing this point brings into play, at the (...) same time, what is intended by a 'theory’ and in which sense dualities are to be considered 'symmetries'. This paper is introductory and focusses on the first form of duality explicitly applied in twentieth century physics, that is electromagnetic duality as discussed in Dirac’s theory of magnetic poles. The extension of electromagnetic duality in the context of quantum field theory and string theory is explored in a forthcoming companion paper. (shrink)

The authors survey some debates about the nature and structure of physical theories and about the connections between our physical theories and naturalized metaphysics. The discussion is organized around an “ideal view” of physical theories and criticisms that can be raised against it. This view includes controversial commitments regarding the best analysis of physical modalities and intertheory relations. The authors consider the case in favor of taking laws as the primary modal notion, discussing objections related to alleged violations (...) of the laws, the apparent need to appeal to causality, and the status of probability. The “ideal view” includes a commitment that fundamental physical theories are explanatorily sufficient. The authors discuss several challenges to recovering the manifest image from fundamental physics, along with a distinct challenge to reductionism based on acknowledging the contributions of less fundamental theories in physical explanations. (shrink)

The philosophies of education serve as the guide of the teachers in handling the teaching-learning process. However, a belief will remain as a belief unless it is practiced. This study aimed to find the relationship between the philosophical beliefs and practices of the 30 teachers of the schools in San Roque, Mabini, Bohol - San Roque Elementary School and San Roque National High School, S.Y. 2019-2020. The study utilized a quantitative method descriptive survey research design. The research instrument used was (...) a self-constructed questionnaire in which the reliability was tested by a Cronbach’s Alpha using Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) software. Simple percentage and weighted mean were some of the statistical treatments used. Kendall’s tau_b, a non-parametric test, was used to determine the correlation between philosophical beliefs and their equivalent pedagogical practices. All of the statistical treatments were also run using the SPSS software. Further, the researcher assured the proper observation of the research ethics protocol. Based on the results, the philosophies of Progressivism (3.63) and Perennialism (3.31) were the most and least prevailing philosophical beliefs, respectively. On the other hand, the most and least prevailing philosophies practiced are Progressivism (3.69) and Essentialism (3.19), respectively. Moreover, research findings revealed that there was a significant relationship between the philosophical beliefs of teachers and their pedagogical practices. In conclusion, this study claims that teachers’ pedagogical practices are dependent to their philosophical beliefs; and as the teachers believed on a particular philosophy of education, they practice it accordingly to the extent of their adherence to the belief. (shrink)

Barbarism was by no means unique to the past 100 years, Jonathan Glover tells us, but ''it is still right that much of 20th-century history has been a very unpleasant surprise.'' This was the century of Passchendaele, Dresden, Nanking, Nagasaki and Rwanda; of the Final Solution, the gulag, the Great Leap Forward, Year Zero and ethnic cleansing -- names that stand for killings in the six and seven figures and for suffering beyond comprehension. The technological progress that inspired the optimism (...) of the Victorians turned out also to multiply the effects of old-fashioned evil and criminal stupidity. (shrink)

This paper discusses a conception of physics as a collection of theories that, from a logical point of view, is inconsistent. It is argued that this logical conception of the relations between physical theories is too crude. Mathematical subtleties allow for a much more nuanced and sophisticated understanding of the relations between different physical theories.

Harold Kincaid in Individualism and the Unity of Science postulates a model of unity-without-reduction in order to accurately describe the relation between individualism and macroeconomics. I present this model and apply it to the description of the relation between chemistry and quantum mechanics. I argue that, when it comes to the description of molecular structure, chemistry and quantum mechanics are unified in Kincaid’s sense. Specifically, the two disciplines contribute to the formation of a unified body of knowledge with respect to (...) molecular structure. (shrink)

Presents the fundamental ideas of Indian thinkers that have shaped the mind of Indian from 1770 to the post-modern era in the middle of 20th century in India. Lists the most Indian influential figures in the field of philosophy, political theory, activicism such as Rabindranath Tagore, Ram Mohan Roy, Swami Vivekananda, and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.

The aim of this article is to present a different perspective through which to examine reduction and emergence; namely, the perspective of chemistry’s relation to physics.

How many miles to Babylon? Three-score and ten. Can I get there by candle-light? Yes, and back again. If your heels are nimble dnd light, You may get there by candle-light. Any philosopher who takes more than a fleeting interest in the sciences and their development must at some stage confront the issue of incommensurability in one or other of its many manifes tations. For the philosopher of science concerned with problems of conceptual change and the growth of knowledge, matters (...) of incommensurability are of paramount concern. After many years of skating over, skimming through and skirting round this issue in my studies of intertheory relations in science, I decided to take the plunge and make the problem of incommensurability the central and unifying theme of a book. The present volume is the result of that decision. My interest in problems of comparability and commensurability in science was awakened in the formative years of my philosophi cal studies by my teacher, Jerzy Giedymin. From him I have learnt not only to enjoy philosophical problems but also to beware of simpleminded solutions to them. The vibrant seminars of Paul Feyerabend held at Sussex University in 1974 left me in no doubt that incommensurability was, and would remain, a major topic of debate and dispute in the philosophical study of human knowledge. (shrink)

Drawing inspiration from Lakatos’s philosophy of science, the paper presents a notion of intertheory explanation that is suitable to explain, from the point of view of a successor theory, its predecessor theory’s success (where it is successful) as well as the latter’s failure (where it fails) at the same time. A variation of the Ramsey-test is used, together with a standard AGM belief revision model, to give a semantics for open and counterfactual conditionals and ’because’-sentences featuring in such (...) class='Hi'>intertheory explanations. Pre-theoretically described idealizing assumptions play a crucial role in this model, especially when the predecessor theory and the successor theory contradict each other. (shrink)

The discussion of collective agency involves the reduction problem of the concept of a collective. Individualism and Cartesian internalism have long restricted orthodox theories and made them face the tension between an irreducible concept of a collective and ontological reductionism. Heterodox theories as functionalism and interpretationism reinterpret the concept of agency and accept it as realized on the level of a collective. In order to adequately explain social phenomena that have relations as their essence, in this paper we propose (...) a relational, holistic account of collective agency and argue that functionalism and interpretationism can be integrated into such an account. (shrink)

The book investigates the ways in which state-centred approaches to international relations have limited our understanding of global, political, economic and cultural processes. By assessing a wide range of such state-centred work, Youngs identifies the challenges we must address to grasp the complexity of the contemporary world.

This book shows how the traditional concerns of political theory push it increasingly into the study of international relations. This is done, first, by demonstrating how many of the issues usually dealt with by political theory, such as democracy and justice, arise within an increasingly global context and, secondly, by considering how international issues, such as colonialism and war, are best illuminated by building on the work of political theorists. The book suggests that political theory and international relations (...) theory can now both be successfully engaged in as a joint enterprise only. (shrink)

Maya Zehfuss critiques constructivist theories of international relations (currently considered to be at the cutting edge of the discipline) and finds them wanting and even politically dangerous. Zehfuss uses Germany's first shift toward using its military abroad after the end of the Cold War to illustrate why constructivism does not work and how it leads to particular analytical outcomes and forecloses others. She argues that scholars are limiting their abilities to act responsibly in international relations by looking towards (...) constructivism as the future. (shrink)

How Propaganda Became Public Relations pulls back the curtain on propaganda: how it was born, how it works, and how it has masked the bulk of its operations by rebranding itself as public relations. Cory Wimberly uses archival materials and wide variety of sources — Foucault’s work on governmentality, political economy, liberalism, mass psychology, and history — to mount a genealogical challenge to two commonplaces about propaganda. First, modern propaganda did not originate in the state and was never (...) primarily located in the state; instead, it began and flourished as a for-profit service for businesses. Further, propaganda is not focused on public beliefs and does not operate mainly through lies and deceit; propaganda is an apparatus of government that aims to create the publics that will freely undertake the conduct its clients’ desire. Businesses have used propaganda since the early twentieth century to construct the laboring, consuming, and voting publics that they needed to secure and grow their operations. Over that time, corporations have become the most numerous and well-funded apparatuses of government in the West, operating privately and without democratic accountability. Wimberly explains why liberal strategies of resistance have failed and a new focus on creating mass subjectivity through democratic means is essential to countering propaganda. This book offers a sophisticated analysis that will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in social and political philosophy, Continental philosophy, political communication, the history of capitalism, and the history of public relations. (shrink)

In this article, we examine the relationship between nursing and sacrifice in the context of Shanghai-based nurses volunteering to treat COVID-19 patients in Wuhan during the pandemic in 2019 and 2020. In the paper, we explore the relationship between metaphors, such as ‘the war on COVID’ with the notion of sacrifice among our participants. The contribution that this article makes is to examine the lived experiences of the sacrifices made by individual nurses in a wider ‘relational’ framework. This relational framework (...) examines, not just the sacrifices of the nurses but also the sacrifices made by their families during their service in Wuhan. As such, the article explores not only the relationship (or conflict) between self-love, self-prolonging and self-preservation and ‘self-sacrifice’ in the moral philosophical tradition of Kant – through the lived experiences of our participants – we extend sacrifice and the sacrificial beyond the individual (nurse) to examine the relational and familial lived experiences of the sacrifice of the nurses and their families in the context of their nursing on the COVID-19 wards in Wuhan. (shrink)

Mental causes are threatened from two directions: from below, since they would appear to be screened off by lower-order, e.g., neural states; and from within, since they would also appear to be screened off by intrinsic, e.g., syntactical states. A principle needed to parry the first threat -causes should be proportional to their effects- appears to leave us open to the second; for why should unneeded extrinsic detail be any less offensive to proportionality than excess microstructure? I say that the (...) second threat relies on a perversion of proportionality that would lay waste to all causal relations. (shrink)

Contemporary proponents of republican political theory often focus on the concept of freedom as non-domination, and how best to promote it within a state. However, there is little attention paid to what the republican conception of freedom demands in the international realm. In this essay I examine what is required for an agent to enjoy freedom as non-domination, and argue that this might only be achieved for individuals if one of two possibilities is pursued internationally: either (1) all nations are (...) made equally powerful, such that none may arbitrarily impose its will on another without penalty, or (2) all nations are joined under a global sovereign which guarantees that the weaker states are not subject to the whims of the stronger. I further argue that the first condition cannot suffice for achieving true non-domination, and as a result, republicanism must prescribe working toward the establishment of a global state. This paper provides an important contribution to the literature by addressing the international implications of the republican conception of freedom. (shrink)

Previous studies found similarities in adults’ disgust responses to benign (e.g. obesity) and actual disease signs (e.g. influenza). However, limited research has compared visual (i.e. benign and actual) to cognitive (i.e. disease label) disease cues in different age groups. The current study investigated disgust responses across middle childhood (7–9 years), late childhood (10–12 years), adolescence (13–17 years), and adulthood (18+ years). Participants viewed individuals representing a benign visual disease (obese), sick-looking (staphylococcus), sick-label (cold/flu), and healthy condition. Disgust-related outcomes were: (1) (...) avoidance, or contact level with apparel the individual was said to have worn, (2) disgust facial reactions, and (3) a combination of (1) and (2). Avoidance was greater for the sick-looking and sick-label than the healthy and obese conditions. For facial reaction and combination outcomes, middle childhood participants responded with greater disgust to the sick-looking than the healthy condition, while late childhood participants expressed stronger disgust towards the sick-looking and obese conditions than the healthy condition. Adolescents and adults exhibited stronger disgust towards sick-label and sick-looking than obese and healthy conditions. Results suggest visual cues are central to children’s disgust responses whereas adolescents and adult responses considered cognitive cues. (shrink)

This article addresses the tensions between the struggle for gender equality and the struggle for cultural rights in the particular form championed by traditionalists within the ANC after 1994. While both sets of rights are recognized in the 1996 Constitution, the right to equality takes precedence. Nevertheless, a ‘turn to tradition’ within the ANC has seen the consolidation of patriarchal traditional institutions in the communal areas. These developments reflect the predominance of very thin understandings of both gender equality and culture (...) within the organization. They have, however, been challenged by activists, with the principle of gender equality proving to be a significant impediment to the traditionalist agenda. The manner in which these dynamics have unfolded places gender at the centre of struggles over the meaning and practice of equality and democracy in post-apartheid South Africa. (shrink)

Epistemic Contextualism is generally treated as a semantic thesis that may or may not have epistemological consequences. It is sometimes taken to concern only knowledge claims (as the assertion that the word “know” means different things in different contexts of use). Still, at other times it is taken to regard the knowledge relation itself (as the assertion that knowledge itself has no single univocal nature). Call the former view Semantic EC, the latter view Substantive EC, and the idea that the (...) plausibility of Semantic EC presupposes that of Substantive EC, the “Presupposition Thesis.” Numerous authors argue against the Presupposition Thesis on the grounds that an understanding of the nature of knowledge is no more required to understand the meaning of knowledge assertions than an understanding of the self, for instance, is needed to understand the meaning of sentences containing “I.” These authors then offer additional arguments for the same conclusion, using further comparisons between “know” and other indexicals, as well as between “know” and quantifiers, gradable and modal adjectives. Herein, I defend the Presupposition Thesis by arguing against these authors’ claims (based as they are on these types of comparisons) that Semantic EC is plausible without the supposition of Substantive EC. (shrink)

The ability to represent same-different relations is an important condition for abstract thought. However, there is mixed evidence for when this ability develops, both ontogenetically and phylogenetically. Apparent success in relational reasoning may be evidence for genuine conceptual understanding or may be the result of low-level, perceptual strategies. We introduce a method to discriminate these possibilities by pitting two conditions that are perceptually matched but conceptually different: in a "fused" condition, same and different objects are joined, creating single objects (...) that have the same perceptual features as the two object pairs in the "relational" condition. However, the "fused" objects do not provide evidence for the relation 'same.' Using this method with human toddlers in a causal relational reasoning task provides evidence for genuine conceptual understanding. This novel technique offers a simple manipulation that may be applied to a variety of existing match-to-sample procedures used to assess same-different reasoning to include in future research with non-human animals across species, as well as human infants. (shrink)

Agents are often assumed to have degrees of belief (“credences”) and also binary beliefs (“beliefs simpliciter”). How are these related to each other? A much-discussed answer asserts that it is rational to believe a proposition if and only if one has a high enough degree of belief in it. But this answer runs into the “lottery paradox”: the set of believed propositions may violate the key rationality conditions of consistency and deductive closure. In earlier work, we showed that this problem (...) generalizes: there exists no local function from degrees of belief to binary beliefs that satisfies some minimal conditions of rationality and non-triviality. “Locality” means that the binary belief in each proposition depends only on the degree of belief in that proposition, not on the degrees of belief in others. One might think that the impossibility can be avoided by dropping the assumption that binary beliefs are a function of degrees of belief. We prove that, even if we drop the “functionality” restriction, there still exists no local relation between degrees of belief and binary beliefs that satisfies some minimal conditions. Thus functionality is not the source of the impossibility; its source is the condition of locality. If there is any non-trivial relation between degrees of belief and binary beliefs at all, it must be a “holistic” one. We explore several concrete forms this “holistic” relation could take. (shrink)

The adaptive BCI known as ‘closed-loop deep brain stimulation’ (clDBS) is a device that stimulates the brain in order to prevent pathological neural activity and automatically adjusts stimulation levels based on computational algorithms that detect or predict those pathological processes. One of the prominent ethical concerns raised by clDBS is that, by inhibiting or modulating the undesirable neural states of a cognitive agent automatically, the device potentially undermines her autonomy. It has been argued that clDBS is not a threat because (...) autonomy is fundamentally relational, i.e., it essentially depends on external (e.g., social or cultural) factors. If the relational approach to autonomy includes human-computer interaction, then the mechanisms of clDBS, even if external to the brain and exerting some degree of control over the individual, may support her autonomy. However, DBS applications are substantially different from one another, each involving a specific neurological or psychiatric condition, neural target, mechanism and symptom(s), and therefore at least some of them may not fit into the relational analysis. I examine different clDBS applications for treatment resistant depression and claim that while internal capsule/ventral striatum (VC/VS) clDBS is a case of relational autonomy, subgenual cingulate gyrus (Cg25) clDBS is not. Autonomy (relational or otherwise) requires some degree of self-regulation of our motivational states, which is supported by VC/VS DBS but is absent in Cg25 DBS. In Cg25 DBS the device itself directly influences motivational states, thus substituting or overriding (instead of supporting) the auto-regulatory cognitive processes required for autonomous action. (shrink)

_A Relational Moral Theory_ draws on neglected resources from the Global South and especially the African philosophical tradition to provide a new answer to a perennial philosophical question: what do all morally right actions have in common as distinct from wrong ones? Metz points out that the principles of utility and of respect for autonomy, the two rivals that have dominated Western moral theory for the last two centuries, share an individualist premise. Once that common assumption is replaced by a (...) relational perspective given prominence in African ethical thought, a different comprehensive principle, one focused on harmony or friendliness, emerges. Metz argues that this principle corrects the blind spots of the Western moral principles, and has implications for a wide array of controversies in applied ethics that an international audience of moral philosophers, professional ethicists, and similar thinkers will find compelling. (shrink)

In this paper I provide a state of the art survey and assessment of the contemporary debate about relations. After (1) distinguishing different varieties of relations, symmetric from non-symmetric, internal from external relations etc. and relations from their set-theoretic models or sequences, I proceed (2) to consider Bradley’s regress and whether relations can be eliminated altogether. Next I turn (3) to the question whether relations can be reduced, bringing to bear considerations from the philosophy (...) of physics as well as metaphysics. Finally, (3) I consider in what sense relations have order, and whether to make sense of this we are required to conceive of relations as having direction or argument positions. (shrink)

This paper asks whether phenomenal intentionality (intentionality that arises from phenomenal consciousness alone) has a relational structure of the sort envisaged in Russell’s theory of acquaintance. I put forward three arguments in favor of a relation view: one phenomenological, one linguistic, and one based on the view’s ability to account for the truth conditions of phenomenally intentional states. I then consider several objections to the relation view. The chief objection to the relation view takes the form of a dilemma between (...) Platonic and Aristotelian conceptions of the properties constitutive of the contents of phenomenally intentional states on this view: the Aristotelian view seems unable to account for all the apparent contents of phenomenally intentional states, but the Platonic view seems to be ontologically unacceptable. I also consider other objections from physicalism, phenomenology, and epistemology. (shrink)

This article presents a new interpretation and critique of some aspects of Aquinas’s metaphysics of relations, with special reference to a theological problem—the relation of God to creatures—that catalyzed Aquinas’s and much medieval thought on the ontology of relations. I will show that Aquinas’s ontologically reductive theory of categorical real relations should equip him to identify certain relations as real relations, which he actually identifies as relations of reason, most notably the relation of God (...) to creatures. (shrink)