As inductive logic and the philosophy of probability theory have become of wider interest, it has become clear that a book of readings in these and related topics would be useful for courses since most of the important articles are scattered and inaccessible. The editors have fashioned an extensive collection of papers in four main areas: the meaning of probability, confirmation theory, simplicity of theories and structures, the justification of induction. Each chapter is preceded by an introduction which sets out (...) the basic problems of the topic under consideration. There are thirty-six papers in all, two-thirds of them in the first and last chapters. The first chapter includes articles by Ramsey, Carnap, Nagel, and Reichenbach. The second chapter is dominated by the work of Hempel, Oppenheim, and Kemeny; the third chapter features a long article by D. J. Hillman which takes as its basis the work of Goodman, and there are other papers by Bunge, Quine, and Barker. The discussion of induction and its justification contains articles by Hume and Mill, but the bulk of the papers are contemporary. There is a bibliography for each chapter at the end of the book.—P. J. M. (shrink)

This book contains a long introduction by MacKinnon, and 12 articles on various aspects of the problem of realism, all contemporary sources with the exception of two selections from Aristotle and Newton. In addition, there is a bibliographic essay. MacKinnon’s introduction contains a historical introduction to the problem of scientific realism followed by a systematic analysis of some of the basic issues. The introduction is designed to illustrate "the intimate relation between theories of knowledge and philosophical positions defending or attacking (...) a doctrine of scientific realism." What is the problem of scientific realism? MacKinnon claims that in practice, scientists tend to favor some form of realism. This functional pre-critical realism generates, but does not solve a critical problem. The problem is whether the conceptualizations used by scientists "represent the really real, the world as it actually is." This is a metaphysical issue and raises the question of whether "a successful solution of the critical problem yields a metaphysical realism that, in turn, supplies an ultimate basis for interpreting" the functional realism implicit in scientific practice. MacKinnon’s assessment is that there is at present no such adequate metaphysical realism. He suggests that contemporary Thomism might, despite some fundamental inadequacies, not the least of which is the apparent irrelevance of scientific results in the determination of the ultimately real, provide such an analysis. He makes some tentative suggestions as to how this might be done. The selected articles form a mixed bag. Included are selections by Aristotle, Newton, Carnap, Hempel, Nagel, Quine, Harris, Einstein, Sellars, MacKinnon, Bunge and Heelan. These present an introduction to the vast number of approaches that can be taken with the problem of scientific realism, but despite MacKinnon’s introduction it seems that we are continually losing sight of just what the problem is, let alone what its solution, if any, may be.—M. B. (shrink)

With the publication of this volume from the prolific pen of one of Germany's outstanding younger philosophers, the German-speaking scholarly world has a more extensive survey of key issues in the philosophy of science than the English-speaking world. The book is the first of a comprehensive work whose title is "Problems and Results in the Philosophy of Science and Analytic Philosophy." While the title of the book under consideration shows that it is primarily concerned with scientific explanation and justification, Stegmüller (...) not merely undertakes to acquaint his readers with the most important Anglo-American developments concerning these topics, but also independently develops his own ideas with respect to them and an important, if brief, feature of the volume is an appendix in which he sets forth over thirty "problems that are either unsolved or the solution of which is controversial." Without going into substantival detail, perhaps the quickest way to indicate Stegmüller's main concerns and general orientation is to note the extent of the page references in the index of names where, in descending order, one finds the names of Carl G. Hempel, to whom the volume is dedicated, R. Carnap, N. Goodman, N. Rescher, W. V. Quine, P. Oppenheim, E. Nagel, W. Dray and K. Popper. Curiously, Stegmüller indicates that, aside from Hempel, the man who has exercised the greatest influence on him has been Sir Karl Popper, but then he limits his consideration of him mainly to Popper's early exposition of explanation by reference to the breaking of a thread, while ignoring what he has to say about such topics as falsification, induction, and the problem of demarcation. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that there are no references to P. Duhem, J. Agassi, and P. Feyerabend, but there are also none to G. Bergmann, M. Bunge, P. Frank, N. R. Hanson, A. Koyré, V. Kraft, G. Radnitzky, and J. J. C. Smart, to mention just a few.--R. F. M. (shrink)

This book consists of a series of papers "read and discussed at the first Symposium of Exact Philosophy" at Montreal in 1971. "Exact philosophy," the editor says, means "mathematical philosophy, i.e., philosophy done with the explicit help of mathematical logic and mathematics." Judging from the contents, a more accurate statement would be that "exact philosophy" means formal semantics and modal logic. Two thirds of the papers are on these topics. The others include an essay on "Concepts of Randomness" by Peter (...) Kirschenmann; a characteristically difficult paper on "Plato’s Phaedo Theory of Relations" by Hector Castañeda; a somewhat inexact discursus on "Foundations as a Branch of Mathematics" by William Hatcher with a reply by Charles Castonguay; and a paper by Raimo Tuomela on "Deductive Explanation of Scientific Laws", or, more exactly, on Ohmer’s discussion of that topic. The subject’s are highly specialized and their treatment is complex. In addition to those mentioned, other essays are "Matters of Relevance" by Hugues Leblanc, with an answer by Brian Chellas; "Translation and Reduction" by Lars Svenonius; "A Program for the Semantics of Science" by Mario Bunge; "S-P Interrogatives" by Nuel Belnap; "The Logic of Conditional Obligation" by Bas C. Van Frassen with commentary by Harry Beaty; and "The Intuitive Background of Normative Legal Discourse and Its Formalization" by Carlos E. Alchourron.—M.H. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Best Love of the Child: Being Loved and Being Taught to Love as the First Human Right ed. by Timothy P. JacksonMary M. Doyle RocheReview of The Best Love of the Child: Being Loved and Being Taught to Love as the First Human Right EDITED TIMOTHY P. JACKSON Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011. 416 pp. $28.00With The Best Love of the Child, Eerdmans adds to an already (...) impressive roster of books on children and families. While previous contributions to the field have challenged the appropriateness of rights in addressing the needs of children, Best Love explores the “best interest” standard that is commonly used by courts and international bodies to adjudicate cases involving children. The book’s fundamental claim is that what is “best” for children involves being loved and being taught to love. Although the essays in this volume acknowledge that the primary locus for the love and care of children is the family, they also engage other contexts including religious communities, courts, and legislative bodies.In a section dealing with social-psychological perspectives on this theme, Peter Benson and Eugene Roehlkepartain make the case that doing the best for children requires shifting from a deficit model that focuses on what children lack to a model that emphasizes their developmental assets. Other chapters in this section highlight the ways parents can pursue the best for children by introducing them to spiritual practices rooted in love for God and compassion [End Page 231] toward others, and by providing them with a narrative-rich environment that deepens bonds between adults and children.A section on historical perspectives continues this trajectory by highlighting the vocations of children from the late thirteenth century on to the early modern period. In his concluding essay in this section, Charles Reid links historical and contemporary concerns by focusing on the right to life and its implications for analyses of war and healthcare access.In a section on philosophical and theological perspectives, Cynthia Willett challenges liberal understandings of rights in view of the experiences of children and argues for an approach that recognizes a central paradox of human freedom: that relationships of interdependence do not weaken freedom but rather enhance it. This paves the way for developing a sense of collective responsibility for children based on shared commitments to justice and solidarity that reach beyond the privatized family. Richard Osmer tackles the concept of original sin in order to advance a vision of a missional church in which congregations work with families to encourage authoritative—rather than authoritarian—styles of parenting that model mutual forgiveness. Marcia Bunge’s contribution is the most practical, offering a list of practices for children, families, and congregations for nurturing children’s vocations.In a concluding section on legal perspectives, Michael Broyde notes that, in the context of custody cases in Jewish law, the primary question is not who loves the child the most but rather who can best meet the child’s needs in an atmosphere of respect. Margaret Brinig and Steven Nock argue that law can, in fact, foster the love of children and the potential children have for becoming loving themselves by promoting family structures that are stable and afforded status in the community. In this way families can model the covenantal relationships of unconditional love in which children thrive. The collection concludes with an essay by Don Browning that emphasizes weaving together love’s affective elements with the very practical activities of caring for children and respecting their emerging selves.By inviting thoughtful reflection on how loving and being loved are central to the well-being of children in families and other institutions, Best Love makes an important contribution to the interdisciplinary field of childhood studies. The book is best suited for graduate students, although the essays by Osmer and Bunge are relevant to pastoral settings. [End Page 232]Mary M. Doyle RocheCollege of the Holy CrossCopyright © 2015 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

With the publication of this volume from the prolific pen of one of Germany's outstanding younger philosophers, the German-speaking scholarly world has a more extensive survey of key issues in the philosophy of science than the English-speaking world. The book is the first of a comprehensive work whose title is "Problems and Results in the Philosophy of Science and Analytic Philosophy." While the title of the book under consideration shows that it is primarily concerned with scientific explanation and justification, Stegmüller (...) not merely undertakes to acquaint his readers with the most important Anglo-American developments concerning these topics, but also independently develops his own ideas with respect to them and an important, if brief, feature of the volume is an appendix in which he sets forth over thirty "problems that are either unsolved or the solution of which is controversial." Without going into substantival detail, perhaps the quickest way to indicate Stegmüller's main concerns and general orientation is to note the extent of the page references in the index of names where, in descending order, one finds the names of Carl G. Hempel, to whom the volume is dedicated, R. Carnap, N. Goodman, N. Rescher, W. V. Quine, P. Oppenheim, E. Nagel, W. Dray and K. Popper. Curiously, Stegmüller indicates that, aside from Hempel, the man who has exercised the greatest influence on him has been Sir Karl Popper, but then he limits his consideration of him mainly to Popper's early exposition of explanation by reference to the breaking of a thread, while ignoring what he has to say about such topics as falsification, induction, and the problem of demarcation. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that there are no references to P. Duhem, J. Agassi, and P. Feyerabend, but there are also none to G. Bergmann, M. Bunge, P. Frank, N. R. Hanson, A. Koyré, V. Kraft, G. Radnitzky, and J. J. C. Smart, to mention just a few.--R. F. M. (shrink)

As inductive logic and the philosophy of probability theory have become of wider interest, it has become clear that a book of readings in these and related topics would be useful for courses since most of the important articles are scattered and inaccessible. The editors have fashioned an extensive collection of papers in four main areas: the meaning of probability, confirmation theory, simplicity of theories and structures, the justification of induction. Each chapter is preceded by an introduction which sets out (...) the basic problems of the topic under consideration. There are thirty-six papers in all, two-thirds of them in the first and last chapters. The first chapter includes articles by Ramsey, Carnap, Nagel, and Reichenbach. The second chapter is dominated by the work of Hempel, Oppenheim, and Kemeny; the third chapter features a long article by D. J. Hillman which takes as its basis the work of Goodman, and there are other papers by Bunge, Quine, and Barker. The discussion of induction and its justification contains articles by Hume and Mill, but the bulk of the papers are contemporary. There is a bibliography for each chapter at the end of the book.—P. J. M. (shrink)

In the last of this set of ten essays, "How do Realism, Material and Dialectics Fare in Contemporary Science?," Professor Bunge invites his audience to join him in developing a philosophy he chooses to call logical materialism. This philosophy presupposes mathematical logic and includes a critical realist epistemology wherein scientific theories are symbolic, partial representations of things out there, and a dynamical materialist ontology wherein every existent is an ever changing system situated in emerging multiple levels of complexity and organization (...) the behavior of which is lawful, both of which are seen as programmatic. In arriving at this program, Bunge is both critical of and shares important points with the dominate Anglo-American approaches to philosophy of science. For example, with the tradition of logical positivism-empiricism he shares the heavy use of formal logic, semantics, and axiomatization, as a way to understanding scientific theories. At the same time he applauds the historico-philosophical tradition for its careful attention to the history of science and he insists that real science must be the object of analysis in philosophy of science, rather than what he considers to be unilluminating examples like green emeralds or black ravens. (shrink)

The main claim of this study is that, contrary to Latour’s view about the need to leave aside epistemology to deal with anything valuable about science, Mario Bunge has consistently built up a detailed and thorough epistemology. The argumentative strategy will be to show that (a) it is not true that we have never been modern (b) epistemology is here to stay, and (c) Mario Bunge endorses a strong scientific realism, a brand of materialism, systemism and emergentism, including a moral (...) dimension (there are objective values like, truth, peace and justice that deserve to be respected). Then, Bunge’s realism rejects axiological neutrality making scientists responsible for their actions. Bunge has always been modern and keeps enriching his own views. (shrink)

Cette étude défend l’idée que, contrairement à l’opinion de Latour sur la nécessité de laisser de côté l’épistémologie pour traiter de tout ce qui a de la valeur pour la science, Mario Bunge a systématiquement construit une épistémologie détaillée et approfondie. La stratégie argumentative consistera à montrer (a) qu’il est faux que nous n’avons jamais été modernes (b) que l’épistémologie est là pour de bon et (c) que Mario Bunge soutient un réalisme scientifique fort, une version du matérialisme, du systémisme (...) et de l’émergentisme, comportant une dimension morale (il existe des valeurs objectives comme la vérité, la paix et la justice qui méritent d’être étudiées). Ensuite, le réalisme de Bunge rejette la neutralité axiologique rendant les scientifiques responsables de leurs actions. Bunge a toujours été moderne et continue à enrichir ses propres positions. (shrink)

Ce texte est le fruit d’une collaboration entre un astrophysicien, Jean-René Roy, et un philosophe de l’éducation, Normand Baillargeon. Ils ont en commun d’avoir été marqués par la fréquentation des oeuvres de Mario Bunge, auxquelles ils attachent un grand prix, sur un plan personnel, d’abord, mais aussi, et c’est ce qu’ils veulent rappeler dans ces pages : parce qu’ils estiment que les oeuvres de Bunge contribuent de manière extrêmement forte et positive à rendre plus salubre la vie de l’esprit, en (...) enrichissant notre intellect et en luttant contre diverses formes troublantes d’obscurantisme qui y sévissent parfois, notamment dans les domaines familiers aux deux auteurs. (shrink)

This collection addresses a post-WWII shift in the hierarchy of scientific explanations, where the highest goal moves from reductionism towards some ...

This book attempts to provide a general interpretation of the history of philosophy in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic. It concentrates on the heritage of Humanism, and on the rise of Dutch Cartesianism and Spinozism.

For the theorists of crisis, the revolutionary state comes into existence through violence, and due to its inability to provide an authoritative katechon (restrainer) against internal and external violence, it perpetuates violence until it self-destructs. Writing during extreme economic depression and growing social and political violence, the crisis theorists––Joseph de Maistre, Juan Donoso Cortés, and Carl Schmitt––each sought to blame the chaos of their time upon the Janus-faced postrevolutionary ideals of liberalism and socialism by urging a return to pre-revolutionary moral (...) and religious values. They are united by three counterrevolutionary principles, all of which are purported to remedy revolutionary violence: traditional constitutional fidelity, the philosophy of the decision, and opposition to bourgeois liberalism. This essay is followed by the first complete English translation and publication of Donoso’s letter of October 24, 1851, which contains Donoso’s only reference to the “discussing class,” a political entity later popularized by Schmitt in his 1922 work Political Theology. (shrink)

(1993). Balthasar Bekker's Cartesian hermeneutics and the challenge of Spinozism. British Journal for the History of Philosophy: Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 55-79.

This book attempts to provide a general interpretation of the history of philosophy in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic.

Life -- Influences -- Early critics -- Glossary -- Short synopses -- Spinoza scholarship.

In much of the current academic and public discussion, conspiracy theories are portrayed as a negative phenomenon, linked to misinformation, mistrust in experts and institutions, and political propaganda. Rather surprisingly, however, philosophers working on this topic have been reluctant to incorporate a negatively evaluative aspect when either analyzing or engineering the concept conspiracy theory. In this paper, we present empirical data on the nature of the concept conspiracy theory from five studies designed to test the existence, prevalence and exact form (...) of an evaluative dimension to the ordinary concept conspiracy theory. These results reveal that, while there is a descriptive concept of conspiracy theory, the predominant use of conspiracy theory is deeply evaluative, encoding information about epistemic deficiency and often also derogatory and disparaging information. On the basis of these results, we present a new strategy for engineering conspiracy theory to promote theoretical investigations and institutional discussions of this phenomenon. We argue for engineering conspiracy theory to encode an epistemic evaluation, and to introduce a descriptive expression—such as ‘conspiratorial explanation’—to refer to the purely descriptive concept conspiracy theory. (shrink)

Mara van der Lugt’s Dark Matters is elegant in its composition and beautifully written. It offers a brilliant attempt to give both early modern optimism and pessimism their due as philosophical sta...