It's been 41 years since the publication of Ernst Mayr's Cause and Effect in Biology wherein Mayr most clearly develops his version of the influential distinction between ultimate and proximate causes in biology. In critically assessing Mayr's essay I uncover false statements and red-herrings about biological explanation. Nevertheless, I argue to uphold an analogue of the ultimate/proximate distinction as it refers to two different kinds of explanations, one dynamical the other statistical.

The instrumentalist argument from the underdetermination of theories by data runs as follows: (1) every theory has empirically equivalent rivals; (2) the only warrant for believing one theory over another is its possession of a greater measure of empirical virtue; (3) therefore belief in any theory is arbitrary. In this paper, I examine the status of the first premise. Several arguments against the universal availability of empirically equivalent theoretical rivals are criticized, and four algorithms for producing empirically equivalent rivals are (...) defended. I conclude that the case for the first premise of the argument from underdetermination is very strong. The disposition of the argument itself depends on the fate of the second premise. (shrink)

Traditionally, this puzzle has been solved in various ways. Aristotle, for example, distinguished between “accidental” and “essential” changes. Accidental changes are ones that don't result in a change in an objects' identity after the change, such as when a house is painted, or one's hair turns gray, etc. Aristotle thought of these as changes in the accidental properties of a thing. Essential changes, by contrast, are those which don't preserve the identity of the object when it changes, such as when (...) a house burns to the ground and becomes ashes, or when someone dies. Armed with these distinctions, Aristotle would then say that, in the case of accidental changes, (1) and (2) are both false—a changing thing can really change one of its “accidental properties” and yet literally remain one and the same thing before and after the change. (shrink)

Forster and Sober present a solution to the curve-fitting problem based on Akaike's Theorem. Their analysis shows that the curve with the best epistemic credentials need not always be the curve that most closely fits the data. However, their solution does not, without further argument, avoid the two difficulties that are traditionally associated with the curve-fitting problem: that there are infinitely many equally good candidate-curves relative to any given set of data, and that these best candidates include curves with indefinitely (...) many bumps. (shrink)

Pierre André,Michel Bourban | : Dans un contexte d’urgence, les philosophes ne peuvent plus se contenter d’élaborer des théories idéales de la justice climatique fondées sur des motivations purement morales. Il est désormais nécessaire d’envisager des approches non idéales. Nous proposons ici de prendre au sérieux le problème de la motivation à l’action et nous mettons en avant certains motifs prudentiels pour lutter contre le changement climatique, en vue non pas de remplacer, mais de renforcer les motivations morales existantes, (...) mais insuffisantes. Nous commençons par présenter trois grandes approches idéales qui ont prévalu jusqu’ici dans la recherche sur la justice climatique et sont fondées respectivement sur l’éthique déontologique, sur l’éthique des vertus et sur l’utilitarisme. Nous mettons en évidence leurs limites pratiques, en ciblant le problème de la motivation à l’action. Nous proposons ensuite quelques pistes pour résoudre ce problème en esquissant une approche non idéale de la justice climatique. Cette approche est centrée sur les motivations amorales ressortant de l’examen attentif des perturbations systémiques globales et des contextes nationaux et locaux spécifiques. Elle est à notre sens incontournable pour motiver les États-nations, les entreprises et les individus. Il s’agit cependant moins de la substituer totalement aux théories idéales de la justice climatique que de compléter celles-ci pour établir une vision plus compréhensive qui distingue le problème de la justification morale de celui de la motivation. | : In a situation of urgency, philosophers can no longer rely exclusively on ideal theories of climate justice grounded on purely moral motives. It has become necessary to build nonideal approaches. We propose to give serious consideration to the problem of motivation to act by putting forward some prudential reasons for tackling climate change—with the aim not of replacing existing but inadequate moral motivations, but of strengthening them. First, we identify three major ideal approaches that have so far prevailed in climate justice research, grounded respectively on deontological ethics, on virtue ethics, and on utilitarianism. We highlight their practical limitations, particularly with regards to the problem of motivation to act. Second, we open the way for an alternative nonideal approach to climate justice based on amoral motivations issuing from a careful examination of global systemic disruptions as well as of specific national and local situations. This approach cannot be ignored if one wishes to motivate nation-states, corporations, and individuals to act. However, our goal is not to replace ideal theory with nonideal theory, but rather to complete the former with the latter for a more comprehensive account of climate justice that distinguishes the problem of moral justification from the problem of motivation. (shrink)

The aim of this book is not to impart a substantive knowledge of core psychological theories, or even to analyze critically selected theories. Instead, it is to prepare the reader to analyze and advance the theoretical literature in any tradition. Theoretical psychology stands in the same relation to psychology as theoretical physics does to physics. The traditional way to study theoretical psychology is to take up one approach after another--behavioral, psychoanalytic, cognitive, and so on. The aim of this book is (...) not to impart a substantive knowledge of core psychological theories, or even to analyze critically selected theories. Instead, it is to prepare the reader to analyze and advance the theoretical literature in any tradition. A good theoretician should be able to contribute to the study of psychoanalytic theory as readily as to behavioral theory. The skills required are the same. Instead of covering a sequence of theories, therefore, the book is organized around types of theoretical activities. It is not a work in theoretical psychology; it is a book about theoretical psychology. It also confronts psychologists' underestimation of the variety and the significance of theoretical work. Many theoretical issues do not call for empirical research--they require nothing but thinking. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Was Hume An Atheist? Shane Andre Hume's philosophy of religion, as expressed in the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, the Natural History of Religion, and sections 10 and 11 ofthe Enquiry ConcerningHuman Understanding,1 invites a number of diverse interpretations. At one extreme are those who see Hume as an "atheist"2 or "anti-theist."3 At the other extreme are those who see Hume as some kind of theist, though not a classical (...) or orthodox one.4 In between are others for whom Hume is an "agnostic* or "ironic skeptic."6 Still a fourth interpretation can be found, according to which Hume "seems to vacillate hopelessly" in his view ofreligion;7 in other words, no coherent philosophy ofreligion can be found in his work and so it is futile to look for one. Ofthe four alternatives, it seems to me that the fourth, being less interesting philosophically and less to Hume's credit as a major philosopher, should be rejected unless by default no coherent case can be made for one of the other three. Since I believe that Hume's views about the nature and existence of God are complex, somewhat unconventional, but still coherent, I will concentrate on the title question. Before tackling that question directly, however, we need to clarify the meaning of the term "atheist" and its cognates. While an atheist is popularly defined as one who does not believe in God, this definition is inadequate for two reasons. First, while the absence of belief is sometimes treated as a synonym for disbelief, it is clear that the two are not the same. An infant does not believe in God, but that does not make him an atheist,8 for, as yet, he does not have the linguistic competence to reflect on the question, Does God exist? Neither is the agnostic an atheist, for, though he has reflected on the question, he has not found reason to answer it affirmatively, Uke the theist, or negatively, like the atheist. For this reason, the atheist must be characterized more strongly, as one who disbelieves that God exists. But even this stronger characterization is insufficient, for, as is well-known but perhaps less widely takeninto account, there are many different conceptions ofGod, ranging from monotheism to polytheism, from beUef in a perfect being to belief in a being who shares some human limitations, from deism to pantheism, and so on. Accordingly, it has become commonplace in philosophy to recognize at least two senses ofthe term "God": a narrow sense, signifying "a supremely good being, creator of but separate from and independent of the world, omnipotent, omniscient, eternal and self-existent";9 and a wide sense, Volume XLX Number 1 141 SHANE ANDRE signifying one or more divine beings, personal or otherwise, manifesting extraordinarybut perhaps not superlative properties. For short, we could call the narrow sense the standard concept ofGod, and beliefin the existence ofsuch a being standard theism.10 And we could call the broad sense, applicable to any concept of the divine, the extended concept of God, and belief in the existence of such a being(s) extendedtheism. On this account, standard theists will alsobe extended theists, but of course someone could be an extended theist without being a standard theist. Let us call such a person (for example, Epicurus, who denied, not that the Gods exist, but that they intervene in human affairs) a limited theist. It is important to note that the limited theist rejects standard theism but is not an atheist simpliciter. How does recognition of these different forms oftheism affect our understanding of atheism? There seem to be two major possibilities. One is to characterize atheism in the narrow sense as disbeUef in standard theism; the other is to characterize it in the broad sense as disbeliefin any form of theism, including limited theism. While either option is open, it seems to me that the latter is preferable. For ifwe say that anyone who rejects standard theism is an atheist, we will end up with the paradoxical result that many distinguished theists will turn out to be atheists. For example, while Charles Hartshorne is not a standard theist, insofar as he rejects the... (shrink)

Scientific realists have argued that the truth(likeness) of our theories provides the only explanation for the success of science. I consider alternative explanations proposed by antirealists. I endorse Leplin's contention that neither van Fraassen's Darwinist explanation nor Laudan's methodological explanation provides the sort of explanatory alternative which is called for in this debate. Fine's suggestion--that the empirical adequacy of our theories already explains their success--is more promising for antirealists. Leplin claims that this putative explanation collapses into realism on one reading (...) and into vacuity on another reading. But his analysis conflates three doctrines into two, and one of the three avoids both realism and vacuity. (shrink)

The Antecedent-Behavior-Consequence (ABC)-analysis is a tool for analyzing behavior and stems from the field of psychology where it is used as a tool for the understanding of behavior in general and organizational behavior in particular. In this paper the ABC-analysis is implemented as a tool to understand why people behave ethically in organizations, through the identification of key environmental factors that cause such behavior. This analysis can be the first step to recognizing the complexity of circumstances determining ethical behavior, as (...) well as trigger for changing that behavior. This will be elaborated in the implementation process of an ethical code. The working of the ABC-analysis will be illustrated with an example derived from field research concerning the reorganization of a department of a chemical company. (shrink)

The thesis that every truth is knowable is usually glossed by decomposing knowability into possibility and knowledge. Under elementary assumptions about possibility and knowledge, considered as modal operators, the thesis collapses the distinction between truth and knowledge (as shown by the so-called Fitch-argument). We show that there is a more plausible interpretation of knowability—one that does not decompose the notion in the usual way—to which the Fitch-argument does not apply. We call this the potential knowledge-interpretation of knowability. We compare our (...) interpretation with the rephrasal of knowability proposed by Edgington and Rabinowicz and Segerberg, inserting an actuality-operator. This proposal shares some key features with ours but suffers from requiring specific transworld-knowledge. We observe that potential knowledge involves no transworld-knowledge. We describe the logic of potential knowledge by providing models for interpreting the new operator. Finally we show that the knowability thesis can be added to elementary conditions on potential knowledge without collapsing modal distinctions. (shrink)

We explore the notion that culture influences people’s values, and their subsequent ideologies and ethical behaviors. We present the idea that culture itself changes with time, and explore the influence of culture and generational markers on consumer ethics by examining differences in these ethical dimensions between Australians, Indonesians, and Indonesian Migrants in Australia, as well as differences between Generation X versus Generations Y and Z. The present study addresses the need to investigate the role that culture plays in consumer ethics, (...) and the interaction between culture and generational attitudes in determining consumer ethics. Results established a distinct multiculturality in our three cultural samples, including a generational cohort differences. This suggests that culture and generational markers influence ethical beliefs, ideologies, and consumer ethics. It further indicates that Indonesian Migrants have acculturated to Australian society both in terms of their values and consumer behaviors, illustrating a crossvergence effect; scores indicate that these Migrants have the highest cultural intelligence among our samples. Implications of the findings for consumer ethics theory and practice are considered and future directions identified. (shrink)

Empirical research is largely supportive of the assertion of instrumental stakeholder theory that a positive relationship exists between “managing for stakeholders” and firm performance. However, despite considerable debate on the subject, the amount of variation across firm investments in stakeholders (stakeholder management performance) has not been adequately investigated. We address this gap using a sample of more than eighteen thousand firm-level observations over ten years. We find evidence to support an inverted U–shaped relationship between variation in stakeholder management performance and (...) Tobin’sq, suggesting that firms that have some imbalance in their stakeholder management, but not too much, perform best. We discuss the implications of our study for instrumental stakeholder theory and managerial practice. (shrink)

Accounts of analogical inference are usually categorized into four broad groups: abductive, deductive, inductive and sui generis. The purpose of this paper is to defend a sui generis model of analogical inference. It focuses on the sui generis account, as developed by Juthe [2005, 2009, 2015, 2016] and Botting’s [2017] criticism of it. This paper uses the pragmadialectical theory of argumentation as the methodological framework for analyzing and reconstructing argumentation. The paper has two main points. First, that Juthe’s arguments against (...) a deductive interpretation of prima facie analogy argumentation remain unaffected by Botting’s criticism, which means that many of the reasons against deductive reformulation of analogy argumentation still stand. The additional argument, which Botting himself brings up, that a deductive interpretation cannot account for the cumulative effect of analogies, just provides further reason to reject deductivism. The second main point of this paper is that an inductive interpretation of analogical inference also fails. There are constitutional differences between inductive and analogical inference that cannot be bridged. The result is a firm defense of the sui generis view of analogical inference. (shrink)

My topic is extraterrestrial intelligence. Following current conventions, I use the abbreviation ‘ETI’ to stand for three related concepts: the abstract idea of extraterrestrial intelligence, individuals who are both extraterrestrial and intelligent, and the hypothesis that there are ETIs. SETI is the search for ETIs, and CETI is the attempt to communicate with ETIs. In this paper, I will try to answer the two most basic questions in extraterrestrial studies. First, what is the status of the ETI hypothesis? In the (...) light of what we know, how likely is it that there are ETIs? Secondly, what is the value of pursuing SETI? Are the expected epistemic and pragmatic payoffs sufficient to warrant an extensive search? The first, substantive question is discussed in Section 2, Section 3 and Section 4. The second, ‘program evaluation’ question is the subject of Section 5 and Section 6. But first we'll take a brief look at some of the early history of the topic. (shrink)

European Journal of Political Theory, Volume 21, Issue 2, Page 368-389, April 2022. Epistemic impairment has been the decisive yardstick when excluding infants from political agency. One of the suggestions to bypass the epistemic requirement of political agency and to encourage the inclusion of infants in representative democracies is to resort to proxies or surrogates who share or advocate interests which may be coincidental with their interests. However, this solution is far from desirable, given that it privileges the political agency (...) of parents, guardians and trustees over other adult citizens. This article offers an alternative to this conceptual frame of reference by making a case for the political agency of infants. Firstly, it maintains that political agency can be understood in terms of the several facets involved in political representation. Secondly, it claims that the all-affected principle can be reformulated as an ‘infant-affected-interests principle’ in light of which infants are members of the class of the represented. Thirdly, it explores the ways through which this political agency can occur without having to resort to alternative conceptions of representation. The conclusion ascertains that infant enfranchisement is highly undesirable and that there are more viable forms to promote infant political agency, such as virtual representation, infant-beneficial principles of political action and ombudspersons for infants. (shrink)

Judith Andre examines the issue of the scope of the market. She offers a framework for thinking about the issue of blocked exchanges that draws upon concepts of ownership, alienation, and the impact of the market on exchanges, interactions, and market participants. She shows where Michael Walzer's notion of dominance fits into her wider taxonomy of the limits of the market.

Rationality demands at least that we eliminate incoherencies among our beliefs when we are apprised of them. This minimal requirement gives us no grounds for condemning a refusal to look for incoherencies, or indeed to deliberate altogether. Several stronger conditions on rationality are explored and rejected. There are presently no good arguments against logical sloth.

What do Jerry Fodor and Bas van Fraassen, the archetypical scientific realist and his antirealist shadow, have in common? They’re both defenders of the theory-observation distinction. It isn’t surprising that a realist and an antirealist should agree about something; but it is curious that van Fraassen’s and Fodor’s defenses of the theory-observation distinction play diametrically opposite roles in their philosophical agendas. Van Fraassen needs it to support his antirealism; Fodor wants it in support of his realism. Van Fraassen needs the (...) distinction in order to protect antirealism from the charge of incoherence. Antirealists wish to ascribe a more exalted status to the observational import of a theory than to its nonobservational claims. Van Fraassen’s version of the antirealist thesis is that belief in observational claims is rationally warranted under some logically and nomologically possible conditions, whereas belief in theoretical claims is never warranted. This identifies the species of antirealism at issue as epistemic antirealism. This position would be a nonstarter if the observational import couldn’t be distinguished from the rest. And, in fact, denying the coherence of the theory-observation distinction has been a popular realist gambit in the debate about scientific realism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:André Cadieux THE JUNGLE OF DIONYSUS: THE SELF IN MANN AND NIETZSCHE "nphe self," wrote Kierkegaard, "is a relation which relates itself to A its own self." From this cryptic saying we may at least infer that to be a self is to be self-conscious. But the human self has always resisted its reflexive scrutiny, and thus remains mysterious to itself. "What—on the assumption that it has one—is (...) its essence?" "Of what moral nature is that essence?" "What possibilities of self-transcendence does the self contain?" These questions are, or ought to be insofar as we pride ourselves on being reflective, central questions for us all. They were surely central to Friedrich Nietzsche and Thomas Mann, but it is the burden of this article to argue that these men were united, at least at a certain point in the career of each, in their answers as well as in their questions. If we accept this claim, then we must either find dubious Mann's assertion about Nietzsche, "I took nothing literally, I believed him hardly at all,"1 or accept it on pain of believing in the occurrence of an extraordinary coincidence. For (I submit) a full understanding of Aschenbach's fate in Death in Venice yields a vision of human life and the self that is identical to that of Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy. Mann's central symbol is thejungle; it is, in fact, thejungle of Nietzsche's Dionysus. I When death, in the person of the gaunt stranger with the vertical furrows in his brow (pp. 4-5),3 comes to lead Aschenbach on his last journey, our sense of symmetry disposes us to find in the story some symbol of life as well. And initially it looks as if, in Aschenbach's vision of the jungle "thick with incredible bloom" (pp. 5-6), we have it. But if we follow Mann into the psyche of Gustave Aschenbach, we shall see that the matter is not so simple. Aschenbach, at the height of 53 54Philosophy and Literature his powers—a nobleman at fifty, whose prose is by now a textbook paradigm (p. 14)—is declining, suffering from a "growing fatigue, which no one must suspect," and longs to travel because travel will remove him from "the spot which was the daily theatre of a rigid, cold, and passionate service" (p. 7), a service which he finds it increasingly difficult to maintain. But why the difficulty? He was not naturally robust—which made his efforts of will "the more morally valiant" (p. 9); but what is there in the writer's art that should demand such stamina? Aschenbach had himself said "that almost everything conspicuously great is great in despite," and of the truth of that saying his own life was an exemplar (p. 1 1). But in despite of what? The text mentions mundane obstructions and afflictions, but these are superficial. We must look for our answer in that force against which Aschenbach has most strenuously set himself. That force, it emerges, is knowledge. The conspicuously great is great in despite of its temptation by knowledge. Knowledge is for Aschenbach, strangely, a "sharp and bitter irritant" which blunts the mind, and because it had for him this property he "turned his back on the realm of knowledge, and passed it by with averted face" (pp. 12-13). He renounces sympathy with this "abyss," and in its place achieves "the miracle of regained detachment," which issues in a style of "lofty purity, symmetry, and simplicity, which gave his productions a stamp of the classic" (p. 13). But what is this dread knowledge, why is it dreaded, and what is the detachment sought in its stead? It is knowledge, we must conclude, of the human soul. Aschenbach's great novel, The Abject, is to be interpreted as "a rebuke to the excesses of a psychology-ridden age," excesses which stand condemned because they issue in "the flabby humanitarianism" expressed in Madame de StaëPs maxim that to understand all is to forgive all (p. 13). Aschenbach, in short, rejects knowledge of the true self because it leads to the self's acceptance of the self... (shrink)

Mit seiner Theorie der vernünftigen Übereinkunft liefert André Olbrich die Grundlegung eines Kriteriums für moralische Urteile über richtig und falsch: Im Anschluss an klassische und moderne Vertragstheoretiker wird die Akzeptanz eines Urteils durch die Betroffenen zum obersten Rechtfertigungsmaßstab erhoben. Das vertragstheoretische Denken wird weiterentwickelt und konsequent als umfassende normative Theorie ausformuliert. Die Leserinnen und Leser erfahren, von welchem Standpunkt aus sich die Regeln unseres sozialen Miteinanders einer Kritik unterziehen lassen und auf welchen moralischen Grundlagen Recht und Politik aufbauen.

§1. Introduction. Natural sets that can be enumerated by a computable function always seem to be either actually computable or of the same complexity as the Halting Problem, the complete r.e. set K. The obvious question, first posed in Post [1944] and since then called Post's Problem is then just whether there are r.e. sets which are neither computable nor complete, i.e., neither recursive nor of the same Turing degree as K?Let be the r.e. degrees, i.e., the r.e. sets modulo (...) the equivalence relation of equicomputable with the partial order induced by Turing computability. This structure is a partial order with least element 0, the degree of the computable sets, and greatest element 1 or 0′, the degree of K. Post's problem then asks if there are any other elements of.The solution of Post's problem by Friedberg [1957] and Muchnik [1956] was followed by various algebraic or order theoretic results that were interpreted as saying that the structure was in some way well behaved:Theorem 1.1. Every countable partial ordering or even uppersemilattice can be embedded into.Theorem 1.2. For every nonrecursive r.e. degreeathere are r.e. degreesb, c < asuch thatb ∨ c = a.Theorem 1.3. For every pair of nonrecursive r.e. degreesa < bthere is an r.e. degreecsuch thata < c < b. (shrink)

A theory of intergenerational justice consists in the study of the moral and political status of the relations between present and past or future people, more specifically, of the obligations and entitlements they can potentially generate. The challenges that justify talking about responsibilities between generations are myriad. And the disputes they prompt can focus on the past just as much as on the present, even though the fact that the human species has reached a state of technological progress that enables (...) it to have an irredeemable impact on the planet and perhaps even endanger future human existence tends to make concerns about the future more pressing. Debates on intergenerational justice are twofold. The first revolves around the issue of whether claims of justice across generations whose members' lifetimes do not necessarily overlap could be justified. And the second revolves around the specific conception of justice in play, that is, around the nature of the standard that must be applied as well as around the identification of the contents of the duties that present generations supposedly have vis-à-vis past or future generations. This survey article depicts the conceptual and argumentative framework in which these debates are set. It aims to outline certain of the main features shared by the most influential contemporary theories of intergenerational justice, and the problems inherent in them. It concludes by suggesting that, even though the idea of succeeding generations is merely an abstraction, there are specific empirical states of affairs that require different theoretical responses to intergenerational justice. (shrink)

Unlike other classical arguments for the existence of God, Pascal’s Wager provides a pragmatic rationale for theistic belief. Its most popular version says that it is rationally mandatory to choose a way of life that seeks to cultivate belief in God because this is the option of maximum expected utility. Despite its initial attractiveness, this long-standing argument has been subject to various criticisms by many philosophers. What is less discussed, however, is the rationality of this choice in situations where the (...) decision-makers are confronted with greater uncertainty. In this paper, I examine the imprecise version of Pascal’s Wager: those scenarios where an agent’s credence that God exists is imprecise or vague rather than precise. After introducing some technical background on imprecise probabilities, I apply five different principles for decision-making to two cases of state uncertainty. In the final part of the paper, I argue that it is not rationally permitted to include zero as the lower probability of God’s existence. Although the conditions for what makes an act uniquely optimal vary significantly across those principles, I also show how the option of wagering for God can defeat any mixed strategy under two distinct interpretations of salvation. (shrink)

What do Jerry Fodor and Bas van Fraassen, the archetypical scientific realist and his antirealist shadow, have in common? They’re both defenders of the theory-observation distinction. It isn’t surprising that a realist and an antirealist should agree about something; but it is curious that van Fraassen’s and Fodor’s defenses of the theory-observation distinction play diametrically opposite roles in their philosophical agendas. Van Fraassen needs it to support his antirealism; Fodor wants it in support of his realism. Van Fraassen needs the (...) distinction in order to protect antirealism from the charge of incoherence. Antirealists wish to ascribe a more exalted status to the observational import of a theory than to its nonobservational claims. Van Fraassen’s version of the antirealist thesis is that belief in observational claims is rationally warranted under some logically and nomologically possible conditions, whereas belief in theoretical claims is never warranted. This identifies the species of antirealism at issue as epistemic antirealism. This position would be a nonstarter if the observational import couldn’t be distinguished from the rest. And, in fact, denying the coherence of the theory-observation distinction has been a popular realist gambit in the debate about scientific realism. (shrink)

A bold and insightful departure from related texts, _Descartes_ goes beyond the categorical associations placed on the philosopher’s ideas, and explores the subtleties of his beliefs. An elegant, compelling and insightful introduction to Descartes' life and work. Discusses a broad range of his most scrutinized philosophical thought, including his contributions to logic, philosophy of the mind, epistemology, metaphysics, the philosophy of science, and the philosophy of religion. Explores the subtleties of Descartes' seemingly contradictory beliefs. Addresses themes left unexamined in other (...) works on Descartes. (shrink)

Abstract What should we do when we discover that our assessment of probabilities is incoherent? I explore the hypothesis that there is a logic of incoherence?a set of universally valid rules that specify how incoherent probability assessments are to be repaired. I examine a pair of candidate?rules of incoherence logic that have been employed in philosophical reconstructions of scientific arguments. Despite their intuitive plausibility, both rules turn out to be invalid. There are presently no viable candidate?rules for an incoherence logic (...) on the table. Other ways of dealing with incoherence are surveyed, and found either to be unsatisfactory or to rely on a logic of incoherence in the end. The resolution of these antagonistic conclusions is left to future researchers. (shrink)

According to a certain type of instrumentalist, we may have good reasons for accepting scientific theories, but never for believing more than their empirical consequences. Horwich (1991) considers several attempts to capture a difference between acceptance and belief, and claims that none of them succeed. He concludes that instrumentalism has not been shown to be a coherent position. However, in the course of his discussion, Horwich himself deploys a conceptual apparatus which is sufficient for formulating the instrumentalist doctrine in a (...) coherent manner. The worst accusation that can be laid against instrumentalists is that they have violated common linguistic usage. (shrink)

The taxonomy of scientific problems constructed by Laudan is not exhaustive of all types of scientific work. For one thing, it does not take into account projects which produce an increase of theoretical virtue in a theory that does not suffer from conceptual problems. It is argued that any work which alters the amount of theoretical virtue possessed by a theory constitutes a scientific advance. A new taxonomy is proposed which distinguishes scientific contributions on the basis of which theoretical virtue (...) is altered, whether the alteration produces an increase or a decrease in virtue, and whether the alteration is due to a logical invention, a logical discovery, or an empirical discovery. (shrink)

Drawing on a half century of scholarship, of Polish studies of Copernicus and Cracow University, and of Copernicus's sources, this book offers a comprehensive re-evaluation of Copernicus's achievement, and explains his commitment to the ...

Pierre Duhem rejected unambiguously the strong version of realism that he believed was held by Copernicus. In fact, although Copernicus believed that his theory was clearly superior to Ptolemy's, he seems to have recognized that his theory was at best only approximately true. Accordingly, he recognized that his arguments were not demonstrative in the traditional sense but probable and persuasive. Duhem regarded even the belief in probably true explanations as misguided. Nevertheless, Duhem recognized that, even if metaphysical intuition does not (...) enter into the content of physical theories, the rejection of hypotheses could be explained only by appeal to common sense. Hence, Duhem held a qualified instrumentalism according to which physical theories are not realist, but the terms of ordinary experience and empirical laws are realist. Accordingly, Duhem rejected the complete subordination of science to philosophy as well as the complete separation of science from philosophy. Duhem's history of cosmological doctrines reflects his belief in the origin of the subordination of science to philosophy and of the struggle to achieve the proper balance without being driven to the opposite extreme of their complete separation. (shrink)

The one world, one science argument (so named by Rescher) is advanced by Carl Sagan and others to support the thesis that we will be able to learn to converse with intelligent extraterrestrials if and when we encounter them. The prima facie obstacle to extraterrestrial communication is that the aliens’ culture and geography are bound to be so different from ours that we would find it extremely difficult, if not practically impossible, to find a common topic on which we can (...) both converse. Sagan's rebuttal is that we will share mathematics and the laws of physics, these being the same for all intelligent beings regardless of local cultural and geographical variations. I show that this argument fails even if its contentious assumptions about science and the world are granted—that is to say, it fails on uncontentious grounds. 1 OWOS 2 OWOS and Social Constructivism 3 OWOS and Conceptual Relativism 4 OWOS and the Selection Problem 5 The Fundamental Laws Solution 6 The Mathematics Solution 7 The Radio Solution 8 The Common Conditions Solution 9 The Intractability of the Selection Problem 10 The Superfluity of OWOS CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

We investigate the upper semilattice Eq* of recursively enumerable equivalence relations modulo finite differences. Several natural subclasses are shown to be first-order definable in Eq*. Building on this we define a copy of the structure of recursively enumerable many-one degrees in Eq*, thereby showing that Th has the same computational complexity as the true first-order arithmetic.