One worrying aspect of contemporary Western Society is the increasing prevalence of instances of ‘Science Denial’ in popular culture. Examples include both cases where well-attested scientific hypotheses are rejected and conversely, where scientifically discredited ideas are stubbornly retained. The paper raises the question whether the kind of argument for an anti-realist conception of empirical scientific theory considered in my contribution to the inaugural issue of this journal could in principle provide intellectual succour for these trends. The discussion proceeds through an (...) examination of the role of ‘takings for granted’ in all reflective enquiry to the conclusion that a trusting acceptance of the general credibility of informants is a precondition for the exercise of individual epistemic responsibility, and that in that context an acceptance of at least the empirical adequacy, if not the truth, realistically understood, of the teachings of scientists in general is rationally non-optional. (shrink)

I claim that explanations of human behaviour by Edward O. Wilsonand Charles Lumsden are constituted by a religiously functioningmetaphysics: emergent materialism. The constitutive effects areidentified using six criteria, beginning with a metaphorical re-description of dissimilarities between levels of organization interms of the lower level, and consist of conceptual andexplanatory reductions (CER). Wilson and Lumsden practice CER,even though CER is not required by emergent materialism. Theypreconceive this practice by a re-description which conflates thelevels of organization and explain failure of CER in (...) terms oftechnical, not ontological or epistemological reasons. Iinterpret these three practices as a reaction of Wilson againsthis early Christian religious beliefs. Statements by Wilsonindicate this reaction ultimately constitutes his explanations ofsocial, moral and religious behaviour.Tested knowledge about matter at the lower level functions as ametaphysical belief when applied to the higher level becausethere it is untested. I offer twelve criteria for the diagnosisof religious functions of this metaphysical materialism, five ofwhich are satisfied. I show that the constitutive effects of thismaterialism in sociobiology are due to its religious functions,are beneficial for science and do not destroy its public nature. (shrink)

The idea that ambiguity can be productive in data science remains controversial. Efforts to make scientific publications and data intelligible to computers generally assume that accommodating multiple meanings for words, known as polysemy, undermines reasoning and communication. This assumption has nonetheless been contested by historians, philosophers, and social scientists, who have applied qualitative research methods to demonstrate the generative and strategic value of polysemy. Recent quantitative results from linguistics have also shown how polysemy can actually improve the efficiency of human (...) communication. I present a new conceptual typology based on a synthesis of prior research about the aims, norms, and circumstances under which polysemy arises and is evaluated. The typology supports a contextual pluralist view of polysemy’s value for scientific research practices: polysemy does both substantial positive and negative work in science, but its utility is context-sensitive in ways that are often overlooked by the norms people have formulated to regulate its use, including prior scholars researching polysemy. I also propose that historical patterns in the use of partial synonyms, i.e. terms with overlapping meanings, provide an especially promising phenomenon for integrative research addressing these issues. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that there are indispensable and irreducible metaphors in religious language and that this does not threaten a realist interpretation of religion. I first sketch a realist theory of religious language and argue that we cannot avoid addressing the problems metaphor poses to semantics. I then give a brief account of what it means for a metaphorical sentence to be true and how metaphors can refer to something even if what they mean is not expressible in (...) literal terms. Finally, I discuss how this realist theory of metaphor influences our understanding of negative theology and gives a new perspective on religious pluralism. (shrink)

In this essay I discuss the relationship between naturalism and culture by drawing on the aesthetic notions of two leading pragmatists, John Dewey and Richard Rorty. Rorty’s view of the cultural significance of metaphor, which is based on Donald Davidson’s theory of metaphor, centers on the distinction between a naturalistic and an idealistic view of the cognitive value of metaphor. I then discuss the development from idealism to naturalism in Dewey’s view of the imagination and the parallels that may be (...) drawn between Dewey’s and Rorty’s views, particularly regarding the latter’s critique of idealism and its failure to provide a credible philosophical understanding of culture. In the final section I outline a naturalistic view of the emergence of culture based on Dewey’s notions of rhythm and rite as presented in his classic work Art as Experience. (shrink)

The pragmatist rejects the possibility that we can step outside our conceptual scheme in order to assess its correspondence to an unconceptualized reality. Consequently, it seems, she can describe a certain sort of conceptual change, namely, inter-vocabulary change, as rational only retrospectively. In a recent paper, Matthew Shields attempts to show otherwise. He argues that the speaker of such change ought to be understood as performing the speech act of metalinguistic proposal, supposition, or stipulation, and that, thus understood, her utterance (...) is amenable to rational analysis. In this paper, I argue that Shields’ attempt fails. My aim is to show not that we pragmatists remain in search of a solution to this problem but rather that we do not need one. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Highlights of Past Literature Current Work Future Work.

In this paper, I take a critical look at the Davidsonian argument that metaphorical sentences do not express propositions because of the phenomenological experience—seeing one thing as another thing—involved in understanding them as metaphors. According to Davidson, seeing-as is not seeing-that. This verdict is aimed at dislodging metaphor from the position of being assessed with the semantic notions of propositions, meaning, and truth. I will argue that the phenomenological or perceptual experience associated with metaphors does not determine the propositional contentfulness (...) or truth-evaluability of metaphors. Truth-evaluability is not inconsistent but compatible with a perceptual model for metaphors. I argue for this partly by showing that seeing-as does not constitute understanding of metaphors when understanding is appropriately construed in terms of being able to use an expression. (shrink)

In this paper, I take a critical look at the Davidsonian argument that metaphorical sentences do not express propositions because of the phenomenological experience—seeing one thing as another thing—involved in understanding them as metaphors. According to Davidson, seeing-as is not seeing-that. This verdict is aimed at dislodging metaphor from the position of being assessed with the semantic notions of propositions, meaning, and truth. I will argue that the phenomenological or perceptual experience associated with metaphors does not determine the propositional contentfulness (...) or truth-evaluability of metaphors. Truth-evaluability is not inconsistent but compatible with a perceptual model for metaphors. I argue for this partly by showing that seeing-as does not constitute understanding of metaphors when understanding is appropriately construed in terms of being able to use an expression. (shrink)

Davidson argues that metaphorical sentences express no propositional contents other than the explicit literal contents they express. He offers a causal account, on the one hand, as an explanation of the supposed additional content of a metaphor in terms of the effects metaphors have on hearers, and on the other hand, as a reason for the non-propositional nature of the “something more” that a metaphor is alleged to mean. Davidson’s account is meant to restrict the semantic notions of meaning, content, (...) and truth, to literal sentences. I argue that the Davidsonian causal account does not satisfactorily account for metaphor’s figurativeness, speakers’ assertion and hearers’ uptake of metaphor, and our discursive practices of using metaphors in disagreements and argumentation. I offer a non-compositional analysis of a semantic account of metaphor within which one can make sense of the applicability of the notions of meaning and content to metaphor. This analysis shows that metaphorical sentences have meanings other than, and in addition to, their literal meanings and what speakers can use them to mean. (shrink)

Work on analogy has been done from a number of disciplinary perspectives throughout the history of Western thought. This work is a multidisciplinary guide to theorizing about analogy. It contains 1,406 references, primarily to journal articles and monographs, and primarily to English language material. classical through to contemporary sources are included. The work is classified into eight different sections (with a number of subsections). A brief introduction to each section is provided. Keywords and key expressions of importance to research on (...) analogy are discussed in the introductory material. Electronic resources for conducting research on analogy are listed as well. (shrink)

Excerpts from Chapters 1 and 3 of New Maps for Old: Explorations in Science and Religion (Gerhart and Russell 2001) explore the ramifications of metaphoric process for changes in thinking, especially those changes that lead to a new understanding of our world. Examples are provided from science, from religion, and from science and religion together. In excerpts from Chapter 8, a double analogy—theology is to science as science is to mathematics—is proposed for better understanding the contemporary relationship between science and (...) religion. A conservation of epistemological sufficiency is disclosed as one moves from mathematics to empirical science to theology—a move from one discipline to another that involves a sacrifice of one aspect of thought to gain another. (shrink)

Excerpts from Chapters 1 and 3 of New Maps for Old: Explorations in Science and Religion (Gerhart and Russell 2001) explore the ramifications of metaphoric process for changes in thinking, especially those changes that lead to a new understanding of our world. Examples are provided from science, from religion, and from science and religion together. In excerpts from Chapter 8, a double analogy—theology is to science as science is to mathematics—is proposed for better understanding the contemporary relationship between science and (...) religion. A conservation of epistemological sufficiency is disclosed as one moves from mathematics to empirical science to theology—a move from one discipline to another that involves a sacrifice of one aspect of thought to gain another. (shrink)

The ArgumentThis paper contains two main sections. In the first I suggest a mechanism of interpretation, based on a distinction between two aspects of meaning, analyzed using two kinds of rhetorical-poetical constructions:tropesto explore the linguistic relations—metaphors, metonyms, synecdoches, etc.—that endow terms with content, andtopicsto account for the structuring function of key expressions, which enables the recognition and adjudication of phrases, arguments, texts, genres, etc. In the second section I substantiate my claims by demonstrating how new light is shed on Galileo (...) Galilei's neglected and obscureDe Motuif these two aspects of the meaning of its central theoretical terms are taken into consideration; interpreted through this approach it is revealed as a text revolutionary in its ideas, while the communicative efficacy of its continuous use of the traditional terminology is unveiled. (shrink)

There is a recent scholarly trend drawing similarities between Aristotle’s conceptions of ethics and demonstrative science. One such similarity has become widely and rightly recognized: for Aristotle both ethics and demonstrative science seek essential definitions of phenomena. The task of the paper is to show that German philosopher and classicist Hans-Georg Gadamer not only prefigured this interpretative trend, he also identified a problematic feature of Aristotle’s method so construed. The problematic feature is semantic. For Aristotle essential definitions must consist of (...) univocal terms, but such univocity cannot be maintained if the definienda and definientes are concepts to be usefully employed in everyday ethical judgements. Gadamer therefore points out a problematic tension in Aristotle’s ethics. On the one hand, ethical inquiry should have practical application, but, on the other hand, the semantic assumptions underlying inquiry imply that it cannot. (shrink)

This article addresses some crucial assumptions that are rarely acknowledged when organisms and machines are compared. We begin by presenting a short historical reconstruction of the concept of “machine.” We show that there has never been a unique and widely accepted definition of “machine” and that the extant definitions are based on specific technologies. Then we argue that, despite the concept's ambiguity, we can still defend a more robust, specific, and useful notion of machine analogy that accounts for successful strategies (...) in connecting specific devices (or mechanisms) with particular living phenomena. For that purpose, we distinguish between what we call “generic identity” and proper “machine analogy.” We suggest that “generic identity”—which, roughly stated, presumes that some sort of vague similarity might exist between organisms and machines—is a source of the confusion haunting many persistent disagreements and that, accordingly, it should be dismissed. Instead, we endorse a particular form of “machine analogy” where the relation between organic phenomena and mechanical devices is not generic but specific and grounded on the identification of shared “invariants.” We propose that the machine analogy is a kind of analogy as proportion and we elucidate how this is used or might be used in scientific practices. We finally argue that while organisms are not machines in a generic sense, they might share many robust “invariants,” which justify the scientists' use of machine analogies for grasping living phenomena. (shrink)

During the past thirty years, immunological metaphors, motifs, and models have come to shape much social theory and philosophy. Immunology, so it seems, often has served to naturalize claims about self, identity, and sovereignty—perhaps most prominently in Jacques Derrida’s later studies. Yet the immunological science that functions as “nature” in these social and philosophical arguments is derived from interwar and Cold War social theory and philosophy. Theoretical immunologists and social theorists knowingly participated in a common culture. Thus the “naturalistic fallacy” (...) in this case might be reframed as an error of categorization: its conditions of possibility would require ceaseless effort to purify and separate out the categories of nature and culture. The problem—inasmuch as there is a problem—therefore is not so much the making of an appeal to nature as assuming privileged access to an independent, sovereign category called “nature.”. (shrink)

This study reassesses the occult philosophy of the British polymath John Dee. Focusing on his treatise Monas hieroglyphica and his notorious angelic conversations in the 1580s, it describes Dee’s philosophical career as a continuous search for a language which could yield knowledge of both nature and God. Situating Dee’s philosophy in the context of early modern “symbolic exegesis”, a group of discursive practices aimed at uncovering the creative principles of God by means of language, the study is an attempt to (...) show how Dee’s seemingly divergent interests were interrelated. In Monas hieroglyphica he treated such disciplines as grammar, biblical exegesis, kabbalah, astronomy, alchemy, and mathematics as grounded on a common foundation, identical to the Word of God. By conceiving a graphical symbol, expressing God’s Word in visual form, Dee believed that he could bring these sciences to perfection. In the later angelic conversations, Dee’s aim was to recover the language spoken by the prelapsarian Adam. The Adamic language was conceived of as representing accurately God’s creative Word, and Dee’s recovery of this tongue would ultimately result in a complete restitution of both religion and knowledge. Dee’s works provide an example of how metaphoric associations between the Word of God, language, nature and the human soul could be exploited in Renaissance occult thought. Such metaphoric associations had an important role in shaping and legitimizing early modern views of symbolism, mysticism, and magic. Relying on Dee’s own sources, many of which still survive with his annotations, this study tries to reconstruct Dee’s search for the perfect language, while simultaneously stressing the syncretistic character of his views. (shrink)

This thesis offers a naturalist revision of Alain Badiou’s philosophy. This goal is pursued through an encounter of Badiou’s mathematical ontology and theory of truth with contemporary trends in philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of science. I take issue with Badiou’s inability to elucidate the link between the empirical and the ontological, and his residual reliance on a Heideggerian project of fundamental ontology, which undermines his own immanentist principles. I will argue for both a bottom-up naturalisation of Badiou’s philosophical approach (...) to mathematics and a top-down naturalisation. Articulating my particular understanding of what realism and naturalism should commit us to, I propose a creative fusion of Badiou’s attention to metamathematical results with a structural-informational metaphysics, proposing a ‘matherialism’ uniting the more daring speculative insights of the former with the naturalist and empiricist commitments motivating the latter. (shrink)

Der Begriff ‘Modell’ leitet sich vom Lateinischen ‘modulus’ (das Maß) ab, im Italienischen existiert seit dem 16. Jh. ‘modello’ und R. Descartes verwendet im 17. Jh. ‘modèlle’. Während der Begriff in Architektur und Kunst schon seit der Renaissance gängig ist, wird er in den Naturwissenschaften erst im 19. Jh. verwendet.1 Dort greifen wissenschaftliche Modelle die für eine gegebene Problemstellung als wesentlich erachteten Charakteristika (Eigenschaften, Beziehungen, etc.) eines Untersuchungsgegenstandes heraus und machen diesen so einem Verständnis bzw. einer weiterführenden Untersuchung zugänglich. Es (...) ist üblich, zwischen Skalenmodellen, Analogmodellen und theoretischen Modellen zu unterscheiden. (shrink)

The function of metaphor in science has been labeled as decorative, persuasive, heuristic, instrumental, facilitating or obstructing. It has sometimes been regarded as inspiring, provoking, perverting or destroying rational thought. Metaphor’s positive role has been noted by philosophers, historians of chemistry, and science education researchers. It has been hailed as a descriptive and explanatory device that stimulates and shapes concept development. I discuss how metaphor functions in science generally, then refine this idea through an examination metaphor’s role in chemical thinking (...) in three contexts: the history and philosophy of chemistry, laboratory research practice, and chemical education. I aim to show how metaphor is already operative in the chemist’s use of the concept of chemical element and that this understanding characterizes chemical thinking in general. The chapter concludes with a discussion of a specifically chemical understanding of metaphor. (shrink)