If one looks to the current textbook lore for reliable taxonomic and analytical information about the petitio principii, one is met with conceptual disarray and much too much nonsense. The present writers have recently attempted to furnish the beginnings of a theoretical reconstruction of this fallacy which is at once faithful to its formidable complexity yet useful as guide for its detection and avoidance. The fact is that the petitio has had a lengthy and interesting history, and in this paper (...) we shall want to explore certain features of its development, such as it may have been. The principal origins of the concept of circular argument are to be found in Aristotle. The Aristotelian doctrine recurs with variations in the sophismata literature of the middle ages and in logic texts and manuals right up to the present day. (shrink)

The article distinguishes between subjectivist and objectivist interpretations of scientific method, links subjectivism with good reasons, and argues its uselessness for our understanding of science. It applies the distinction to the method of falsification, explains why objectivism regards falsification to be conjectural, immune to the Duhem–Quine thesis, and immune to the problem of underdetermination. It confronts the falsifying mode of inference with the fallacy of begging the question and with the paradox of inference, and suggests how modus tollens helps scientists (...) to find out that a tested theory is false, in spite of the fact that the falsity of the theory is asserted in its premises. (shrink)

We suffer from genealogical anxiety when we worry that the contingent origins of our representations, once revealed, will somehow undermine or cast doubt on those representations. Is such anxiety ever rational? Many have apparently thought so, from pre-Socratic critics of Greek theology to contemporary evolutionary debunkers of morality. One strategy for vindicating critical genealogies is to see them as undermining the epistemic standing of our representations—the justification of our beliefs, the aptness of our concepts, and so on. I argue that (...) this strategy is not as promising as it might first seem. Instead, I suggest that critical genealogies can wield a sort of meta-epistemic power; in so far as we wish to resist the genealogical critic, we are under pressure to see ourselves as the beneficiaries of a certain kind of good luck: what I call genealogical luck. But there is also a resolutely non-epistemic way of understanding the power of critical genealogies, one that is essential, I argue, for understanding the genealogical projects of various theorists, including Nietzsche and Catharine MacKinnon. For critical genealogies can reveal what it is that our representations do—and what we, in turn, might do with them. (shrink)

According to the traditional account Mendel's paper on pea hybrids reported a study of inheritance and its laws. Hence, Mendel came to be known as The Father of Genetics. This paper demonstrates that, in fact, Mendel's objective in his research was finding the empirical laws which describe the formation of hybrids and the development of their offspring over several generations. Having found these laws (and not the laws of inheritance that he is generally credited with) he proposed a theoretical scheme (...) involving the formation of germinal and pollen cells in hybrids and their combination in fertilization competent to explain why his laws took the form that they did. Mendel's research shows a pattern of development closely paralleling the stages of empirical investigation beginning at the level of qualitative description in common language rising through four levels of increasing abstraction and culminating in a fifth level, his simple mechanical theory. This mechanism met all the tests that a theory of this type must pass. In that respect Mendel was highly successful and this success might be the reason why he did not push his theory to a higher level, a sixth level involving the use of particulate determiners; despite this fact, Mendel was credited with having taken exactly that step. (shrink)

Four ordering systems have been used most frequently in taxonomy: (1) special purpose classifications, (2) downward classifications (identification schemes), (3) upward or grouping classifications (traditional), and (4) Hennigian phylogenetic systems. The special properties of these four systems are critically evaluated. Grouping classifications and phylogenetic systems have very different objectives: the former the documentation of similarity and closeness of relationship, the latter of phylogeny. Both are legitimate ordering systems.

This paper is about the mode of being of names. The paper begins by explaining why the joke is on commentators who see Lewis Carroll's White Knight as applying the use/mention distinction. Then it argues that the real problem with the distinction is that the idea that names are used to mention what they name depends on mistakenly conceiving of language as existing autonomously; and that philosophers have this conception because they fail to appreciate what they are doing when they (...) philosophise about language. This failure also explains why philosophers mistakenly think of any manifestation of a name as a (physical) token. (shrink)

(2013). The processes of inference. Argument & Computation: Vol. 4, Formal Models of Reasoning in Cognitive Psychology, pp. 4-20. doi: 10.1080/19462166.2012.674060.

If one investigates a process that has several causes but assumes that it has only one cause, one risks ruling out important causal factors. Three mechanisms account for this mistake: either the significance of the single cause under test is masked by noise contributed by the unsuspected and uncontrolled factors, or the process appears only when two or more causes interact, or the process appears when there are present any of a number of sufficient causes which are not mutally exclusive. (...) In ecology and evolutionary biology, experiments usually test single factor hypotheses, and many scientists apparently believe that hypotheses incorporating several factors are so much more difficult to test that to do so would not be practical. We discuss several areas in ecology and evolutionary biology in which the presupposition of simple causation has apparently impeded progress. We also examine a more mature field, the study of atherosclerosis, in which single factor studies did significantly delay progress towards understanding what now appears to be a multifactor process. The problem has three solutions: either factorial experiments, dynamic models that make quantitative predictions, response-surface methods, or all three. In choosing a definition for ‘cause’, we make a presupposition that profoundly influences subsequent observations and experimental designs. Alternative definitions of causation should be considered as contributing to potential cures for research problems. (shrink)

ArgumentA growing cross-disciplinary literature has acknowledged the importance of verbal-visual interaction in the creation and communication of scientific texts. I contend that the proper understanding of these texts must flow from a hermeneutic model that takes verbal-visual interaction seriously, one that is firmly grounded in cognitive constraints and affordances. The model I propose has two modules, one for perception, derived from Gestalt psychology, the other for cognition, derived from Peirce's semiotics. I apply this model to an important but largely neglected (...) text in the history of nineteenth-century science, Charles Lyell'sThe Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man, and to two accounts by well-respected historians of science, both of the same key discovery in quantum physics. In doing so, I hope to demonstrate the advisability of incorporating the exegetical practices my model entails into the everyday practices of historians of science. (shrink)

When Peter Strawson subtitled the most celebrated book in ordinary language philosophy, Individuals, ‘An essay in descriptive metaphysics’, he shocked mainly for having reintroduced ‘metaphysics’ into intellectually respectable English a quarter-century after A.J. Ayer had consigned it to the logical positivists' index of forbidden philosophical words . Few at the time appreciated the import of the modifiers ‘descriptive’ and its opposite, ‘revisionary’. Now, another half century on, philosophers have come around to Bertrand Russell's original view that both the ordinary language (...) philosophy Strawson championed and the ideal scientific language philosophy Ayer championed offer alternative metaphysical visions. The remaining question of philosophical interest is what hangs in the balance between a descriptive and revisionary approach to metaphysics – or, for that matter, any branch of philosophy. This paper critically examines the currently dominant descriptive approach from a revisionary standpoint, initially relying on the terms Strawson uses to frame the distinction, and then moving outward to consider its implications for our understanding of the history of modern philosophy, especially the ‘naturalist’ sensibility that has been especially influential in analytic social epistemology. (shrink)

In recent years Duncan Kennedy has turned to the question, what is Contemporary Legal Thought? For the most part, his answers have focused on the modes of legal argument he believes are indigenous to Contemporary Legal Thought in the United States, and possibly, at a transnational or global level as well. In this article, I bracket the question of content and ask instead, if we are interested in exploring the category of a legal ‘contemporary’, how do we do so? What (...) historiographic methods are well-suited to the task of constituting ‘Contemporary Legal Thought’? My focus here is entirely on legal structuralism, the historical method I associate with Kennedy’s work beginning in the 1970s. By the mid-1980s, legal structuralism was under assault and quickly fading from the repertoire of available styles of doing history on the left. By the turn of the century, legal structuralism appeared to have vanished. I think that this was regrettable and unnecessary, and in this article I argue for a return to structuralist historiography. I do not pretend, however, that this return entails a second coming of the totalizing, originary center. Rather, I encourage thinking about legal structuralism in the way that I understand Roland Barthes, Hayden White, and to a large extent Duncan Kennedy himself to have thought about it: as a style. And as a style, legal structuralism is worth reawakening, a style back in style once more. (shrink)

According to a view going back to Plato, the aim of philosophy is to acquire knowledge and there is a method to acquire knowledge, namely a method of discovery. In the last century, however, this view has been completely abandoned, the attempt to give a rational account of discovery has been given up, and logic has been disconnected from discovery. This paper outlines a way of reconnecting logic with discovery.

Kirkpatrick's contribution is evaluated in the context of historical developments and persistent crisis in the psychology of religion. The field has been characterized by the lack of a unifying theory, as well as by some literature being driven by religious apologetics. Kirkpatrick's approach has been truly theory-driven, always seeking a general psychological framework for analyzing religion and religiosity. His personal odyssey led him to embrace Bowlby's attachment theory, which has had a unique impact of research in academic psychology. But then (...) Kirkpatrick demonstrates his honesty and courage in realizing that the attachment framework was less than adequate for the task of unifying the field. Instead, he invites us to join him in embracing the broader framework of cognitive-evolutionary theory, which should serve as the unifying framework for the field. I concur with his judgment. (shrink)

Discussions of critical thinking across the curriculum typically make and explain points and distinctions that bear on one or a few standard issues. In this article Robert Ennis takes a different approach, starting with a fairly comprehensive concrete proposal for a four-year higher-education curriculum incorporating critical-thinking at hypothetical Wisdom University. Aspects of the Program include a one-year critical thinking freshman course with practical everyday-life and academic critical thinking goals; extensive infusion of critical thinking in other courses; a senior project; attention (...) to both critical thinking dispositions and skills; a glossary of critical thinking terms; emphasis on teaching ; communication at all levels; and last, but definitely not least, assessment. Advantages and disadvantages will be noted. Subsequently, Ennis takes and defends a position on each of several relevant controversial issues, including: 1) having a separate critical thinking course, or embedding critical thinking in existing subject matter courses, or doing both ; 2) the meaning of “critical thinking”; 3) the importance of teaching critical thinking because of its role in our everyday vocational, civic, and personal lives, as well as in our academic experiences; 4) the degree of subject-specificity of critical thinking; 5) the importance of making critical thinking principles explicit; and 6) the possible threat to subject matter coverage from the addition of critical thinking to the curriculum. (shrink)