Cicero's De fato: On Hellenistic Conditionals and Free Will. The Serbo-Croatian translation of Cicero's De fato, with comments and detailed analysis of some arguments and problems of the text. -/- (s/h): Tekst Ciceronovog spisa "de fato", prevod, komentari i u dodacima, detaljnija analiza pojedinih argumenata i problema sadržanih u tekstu.

In the methodology of scientific research programs (MSRP) there are important features on the problem of prediction, especially regarding novel facts. In his approach, Imre Lakatos proposed three different levels on prediction: aim, process, and assessment. Chapter 5 pays attention to the characterization of prediction in the methodology of research programs. Thus, it takes into account several features: (1) its pragmatic characterization, (2) the logical perspective as a proposition, (3) the epistemological component, (4) its role in the appraisal of research (...) programs, and (5) its place as a value for scientific research. -/- The notion of “novel facts” is highly relevant in his conception, where several aspects are involved: the directions of novel facts, the different kinds of novelty, and the transition from six possible options of “novel facts” to four choices. Thereafter, the prediction of novel facts as the criterion of appraisal is considered. On the one hand, this requires analyzing the theoretical, empirical, and heuristic possibilities of appraisal; and, on the other, whether there is an overemphasis on the role of prediction in methodology of scientific research programs. As a consequence, there is an analysis of Lakatos’ criterion of appraisal in MSRP and economics. (shrink)

In this paper I reconstruct David Foster Wallace’s argument against fatalism in his undergraduate honors thesis, “Richard Taylor’s ‘Fatalism’ and the Semantics of Physical Modality”. My goal is to present the argument in a clear and concise way, so that it is easy to see its main line of reasoning and potential power. A secondary goal is to offer clarificatory and critical notes on some of the issues at stake. The reconstruction reveals interesting connections between Wallace’s argument and John MacFarlane’s (...) recent work on relative truth. (shrink)

Um dos grandes desafios da era da informação consiste em filtrar informações claras, rigorosas e atualizadas sobre tópicos importantes. O mesmo vale para a filosofia. Como encontrar conteúdo filosófico confiável em meio a milhares de artigos publicados diariamente na internet? Para ir ainda mais longe, como encontrar uma introdução a algum tópico com uma lista de referências bibliográficas atualizadas e que seja organizada por um especialista da área? Já que você começou a ler este livro, é provável que tenha ouvido (...) falar em algum momento da Enciclopédia Stanford de Filosofia, disponível gratuitamente na internet desde 1995. A página da Stanford faz exatamente isso. Ela cobre inúmeros verbetes sobre quase tudo em filosofia, oferecendo informação confiável sobre temas como feminismo, filosofia na América Latina, zumbis, metafísica e milhares de outros tópicos. A sugestão típica aos profissionais da filosofia que têm interesse em começar a estudar algum tópico, mas não sabem sequer por onde começar, é procurar pelo verbete relevante da Stanford. Infelizmente, o grande empecilho da página para o nosso contexto é que todos os verbetes estão disponíveis apenas em inglês, algo que cria um obstáculo a inúmeros estudantes e interessados que não dominam a língua. Neste sentido, acreditamos que esta publicação preencha um hiato importante na filosofia brasileira. Embora a filosofia no Brasil tenha se profissionalizado e expandido ao longo dos anos, há ainda lacunas em diversas áreas, e os verbetes foram aqui selecionados cuidadosamente no intuito de preencher ao menos algumas dessas lacunas. Este livro apresenta quatro verbetes cruciais para a filosofia, aqui divididos em quatro capítulos: (1) condições necessárias e suficientes, (2) referência (3) causação e (4) consciência. (shrink)

This open access book provides an exploration of the consequences of the ontological differences between natural and social objects (sometimes described as objects of nature and objects of thought) in the workings of causal and agency relationships. One of its important and possibly original conclusions is that causal and agency relationships do not encompass all of the dependent relationships encountered in social life. The idea that social reality is contingent has been known (and largely undisputed) at least since Wittgenstein’s “On (...) Certainty”, but social science, and most notably economics has continued to operate on the basis of causal and agency theories borrowed or adapted from the natural sciences. This volume contains essays that retain and justify the partial or qualified use of this approach and essays that totally reject any use of causal and agency theory built on determined facts (closed systems).The rejection is based on the possibly original claim that, whereas causation in the objects of the natural sciences reside in their properties, human action is a matter of intentionality. It engages with critical realist theory and re-examines the role of free will in theories of human action in general and economic theory in particular. (shrink)

Essays on Aristotle's Sea-Battle, Lazy Argument, Argument Reaper, Diodorus' Master Argument -/- The book is devoted to the ancient logical theories, reconstruction of their semantic proprieties and possibilities of their interpretation by modern logical tools. The Ancient arguments are frequently misunderstood in modern interpretations since authors usually have tendency to ignore their historical proprieties and theoretical background what usually leads to a quite inappropriate picture of the argument’s original form and mission. Author’s primary intention was to draw attention to the (...) complexity of some historical arguments and to the theoretical context in which arguments were created, circulated, developed, and finally tuned. Four well-known ancient arguments – with a common central subject related to the future contingencies problem – are reconstructed from available historical sources: “The Sea Battle”, which is drawn from Aristotle’s treatise De Interpretatione; two arguments, usually ascribed to the Stoics, “The Lazy Argument” and “The Reaper”; “The Master Argument” of the Megarian philosopher Diodorus. Arguments are linguistically and semantically detaily analyzed, formally presented by reflecting some relevant corresponding hypotheses based on physical or logical theories of their ancient authors, and finally covered by appropriate logical tools familiar to a modern reader. Two appendices are added at the closing part of the book. One covering some assumptions relevant for understanding of rival streams in ancient theories of meaning related to the nature of names and naming; the other is devoted to the ancient understanding of logical proposition and attempts to find an adequate Latin translation of the Greek delicate philosophical term “ἀξίωμα”. (shrink)

The concept of event is one of the key notions of many theories dealing with causality or agency. In this paper we study different approaches to events that share the basic assumption that events can be analyzed fruitfully in branching-time structures. The terminological framework developed thereby may be helpful for further analyses in the fields of causality and agency and also in those fields of computational semantics, where similar concepts are considered.

This essay argues that Johannes von Kries analysis of the status in the criminal law of the rationally intending subject and the doctrine of _mens rea_ so closely associated with it (cf. Kries, 1886 ; 1888 ) was well known to Max Weber, who had initially trained in law, and highly significant both for the development of his sociology of subjective understanding and his parallel view that the social sciences must be jointly committed to combining a generalizing objective with an (...) individualizing method in their research. It also sees many indications that Weber believed that social scientific investigations could and should go further toward franchising the subject of such social research by encouraging active, even critical responses in his/her testimony in the interests of better achieving both causal and meaning adequacy. From this it would have been only a short step to what I call the practical activation of Alfred Schutz’s postulate of adequacy, which requires that intellectual type constructs in the social sciences not only make sense to research subjects but accord with their perceptions, observations and views. The essay discusses the obstacles provided by the environing authoritarian social and political framework, including the trajectories of those professions on which the social sciences had little choice but to model themselves, as reasons explaining why practical activation of the postulate of adequacy has not yet fully come to pass. It concludes by addressing new Weber scholarship which sees him as a complex and dynamic probabilist whose constructivist and interpretivist theory of human social action is based much more on _Chance_ and orientation than we thought, even to the point of being a model for practical activation of the postulate of adequacy as well as a new and revised basis for the analysis of social interaction itself (see Weber, [ 1913 ] ( 1981 ). (shrink)

This paper examines the way in which causal relations are understood in the dominant model in contemporary medicine. It argues that the causal relation is not definable in terms of the condition relation, but that in general for conditions of an occurrence to be among its causes they must answer instrumental interests in a certain way, and there are further criteria for distinguishing 'the' cause of a disease (i.e., its etiological agent) from other causal factors, which are based upon instrumental (...) interests peculiar to medicine. It also argues that diseases are complex processes of which both clinical and underlying patho-physiological manifestations are proper parts (as contrasted with effects). (shrink)

This paper takes a critical stance on Tallis’s separation of causation and agency. While his critique of the causal theory of action and the assumptions about causation underlying different versions of determinism, including the one based on neuroscience is right, his rejection of causation has implausible consequences. Denying the link between action and causation amounts to overlooking the role action plays in causal inference and in the origin of causal concepts. I suggest that a weaker version of Tallis’ claim, compatible (...) with causation understood as agency, would work better. (shrink)

Event-causal libertarians maintain that an agent’s settling of whether certain states-of-affairs obtain on a particular occasion can be reduced to the causing of events by certain mental events or states, such as certain desires, beliefs and/or intentions. Agent-causal libertarians disagree. A common critique against event-causal libertarian accounts is that the agent’s role of settling matters is left unfilled and the agent “disappears” from such accounts—a problem known as the disappearing agent problem. Recently, Franklin has argued that an “enriched” event-causal account (...) can overcome this problem. Franklin, however, doesn’t consider whether, as Pereboom argues, the agent as decider of “torn decisions” disappears from even enriched accounts. As I show here, Franklin’s enriched account takes some modifying if it is to overcome Pereboom’s torn decision problem—a special case of the disappearing agent problem. However, as I also show, there is a more fundamental problem facing event-causal libertarian accounts. It is implausible that an agent qua event or state simultaneously settles whether and how she intervenes. The upshot is that events and/or states lack an ability essential to completely fulfilling an agent’s role qua settler. This isn’t a problem for agent-causal accounts like the one offered by Steward because in as much as an agent qua substance settles whether her body moves in certain ways on certain occasions she simultaneously settles whether and how she intervenes. As a consequence, event-causal libertarians face a dilemma, or rather several, that agent-causal libertarians do not. This may ultimately be explained by the irreducibility of causation by agents to causation by events. (shrink)

This essay introduces two leading Finnish philosophers of the twentieth century, Eino Kaila and Georg Henrik von Wright, who not only established analytic philosophy in Finland but also made original contributions to the development of pragmatism. The pragmatist dimensions of Kaila’s thought were clearly influenced by the classical American pragmatists, primarily William James, whose writings Kaila read and commented on already at an early stage of his career in the 1910s. Kaila then continued to develop a quasi-pragmatist idea of “practical (...) testability” during his logical empiricist period in the 1930s and 1940s. Unlike Kaila, von Wright was never directly inspired by James or any other classical pragmatists, although he did refer to Peirce and James as informal precursors of logical empiricism in the 1940s. His highly original theories of human action and causation, mostly developed in the 1970s, contain interesting pragmatist aspects, however. Both Kaila and von Wright, moreover, shared a life-long engagement with an issue that also troubled all the classical pragmatists: a reconciliation of a “humanist” philosophy with a thoroughgoing appreciation of the natural sciences. Thus, they both developed non-reductive versions of naturalism (or naturalist versions of pragmatist humanism) that, in their emphasis on the disunity of science, were not terribly far from the positions of classical pragmatists like James and Dewey. (shrink)

This essay reconsiders Wittgenstein’s relation to the pragmatist tradition. I first discuss, from a pragmatist perspective, three key issues of Wittgenstein studies: the distinction – invoked in recent discussions of On Certainty, in particular – between the propositional and the non-propositional (section 2); the tension between anti-Cartesian fallibilism and what has been called the ‘truth in skepticism’ in Wittgenstein (section 3); as well as the relation between metaphysics and the criticism of metaphysics in Wittgenstein’s philosophy, and Wittgensteinian philosophy more generally (...) (section 4). I then proceed to a more metaphilosophical consideration of yet another problematic dichotomy, the one between deconstructive (therapeutic) and (re)constructive or systematic, argumentative philosophy – which, I argue, the pragmatist, together with Wittgenstein, ought to overcome rather than rely on (section 5). After having gone through these open issues in Wittgenstein scholarship at a general level, I briefly apply my considerations to the philosophy of religion, which is an important field of inquiry for both Wittgensteinian and pragmatist thinkers (section 6). (shrink)

La description purement génétique de l’embryogenèse a récemment été mise en question. Un intérêt toujours plus ample est accordé aux effets des contraintes mécaniques. Afin de comprendre si ces travaux produisent une authentique intégration de niveaux, cet article propose l analyse d une de ces recherches d’un point de vue transcendantal. C’est-à-dire qu’on se posera la question du processus constitutif par lequel on décrit un objet biologique. Cette analyse révèle un processus d objectivation caractéristique du déterminisme génétique qui ne peut (...) pas représenter une intégration de niveaux. Cela nous conduira à introduire le concept de symétrie épistémologique qui se réfère à une façon équilibrée d’accéder à l’objet biologique. Enfin, on proposera un modèle de symétrie épistémologique explicitement dérivé du concept kantien d organisme. (shrink)

La description purement génétique de l’embryogenèse a récemment été mise en question. Un intérêt toujours plus ample est accordé aux effets des contraintes mécaniques. Afin de comprendre si ces travaux produisent une authentique intégration de niveaux, cet article propose l analyse d une de ces recherches d’un point de vue transcendantal. C’est-à-dire qu’on se posera la question du processus constitutif par lequel on décrit un objet biologique. Cette analyse révèle un processus d objectivation caractéristique du déterminisme génétique qui ne peut (...) pas représenter une intégration de niveaux. Cela nous conduira à introduire le concept de symétrie épistémologique qui se réfère à une façon équilibrée d’accéder à l’objet biologique. Enfin, on proposera un modèle de symétrie épistémologique explicitement dérivé du concept kantien d organisme. (shrink)

La description purement génétique de l’embryogenèse a récemment été mise en question. Un intérêt toujours plus ample est accordé aux effets des contraintes mécaniques. Afin de comprendre si ces travaux produisent une authentique intégration de niveaux, cet article propose l analyse d une de ces recherches d’un point de vue transcendantal. C’est-à-dire qu’on se posera la question du processus constitutif par lequel on décrit un objet biologique. Cette analyse révèle un processus d objectivation caractéristique du déterminisme génétique qui ne peut (...) pas représenter une intégration de niveaux. Cela nous conduira à introduire le concept de symétrie épistémologique qui se réfère à une façon équilibrée d’accéder à l’objet biologique. Enfin, on proposera un modèle de symétrie épistémologique explicitement dérivé du concept kantien d organisme. (shrink)

In Part I of ‘Causality and Determination” (CD), Anscombe writes that (1) we understand causality through understanding specific causal expressions, (2) efficient causation can be perceived, (3) “causality consists in the derivativeness of an effect from its causes”, and 4) no “analysis in terms of necessity or universality” has a place for this. Theses (1) and (2) represent fundamental and important insights. (3) is unsatisfactory; for, taken in a sense that does not already build on the general notion of causation, (...) deriving from does little to elucidate this notion. CD is however right to urge the need to identify a “core, the common feature, of causality in its various kinds”—a kind of criterion, such as the one suggested by Makin (2000), that takes account of (4) in that it is more substantial than, but does not entail, “necessity or universality”. What CD seems to underestimate is the important role of regularities, possibly neither necessary nor exceptionless, for our understanding of the causal relation. Finally, such understanding also requires us, not only to rely on a common criterion of causation, but also on a subjective component of this idea: the consciousness of our own causal agency. Anscombe’s own investigations into non-observational practical knowledge open the door to the study of this aspect of causality. (shrink)

In this paper we defend the view that the ordinary notions of cause and effect have a direct and essential connection with our ability to intervene in the world as agents.1 This is a well known but rather unpopular philosophical approach to causation, often called the manipulability theory. In the interests of brevity and accuracy, we prefer to call it the agency theory.2 Thus the central thesis of an agency account of causation is something like this: an event A is (...) a cause of a distinct event B just in case bringing about the occurrence of A would be an effective means by which a free agent could bring about the occurrence of B. In our view the unpopularity of the agency approach to causation may be traced to two factors. The first is a failure to appreciate certain distinctive advantages that this approach has over its various rivals. We have drawn attention to some of these advantages elsewhere, and we summarize below. However, the second and more important factor is the influence of a number of stock objections, objections that seem to have persuaded many philosophers that agency accounts face insuperable obstacles. In this paper we want to show that these objections have been vastly overrated. There are four main objections. (shrink)

This is my first professional philosophical essay. I wrote "The twofold meaning of being" in 1996 when I was a student of Nunzio Incardona at University of Palermo (Italy) and before my degree thesis, "The difference in Aristotle’s Metaphysics". It still waits to be published.

I will argue for the similarity between some aspects of Aristotle’s doctrine of causes and a particular kind of interventionist theory of causality. The interventionist account hypothesizes that there is a connection between causation and human intervention: the idea of a causal relation between two events is generated by the reflection of human beings on their own operating. This view is remindful of the Aristotelian concept of αἴτιον, which is linked to the figure of the αἴτιος, the person who is (...) responsible of an action. Aristotle conceives of the efficient cause as the active element which, in the φύσις, gives rise to movement and imposes the form, in analogy with the active element that in τέχνη operates the production: the craftsman. This analogy suggests that Aristotle conceives of the causation on the basis of the human ability to modify the environment with aims. Within the debate on the manipulative theory the classical accounts worked out by Collingwood, Gasking and von Wright have been recently criticized by Woodward. von Wright’s reductive account explains causation on the basis of human free action, while Woodward regards this reduction as a dangerous move which makes causal explanations too much anthropomorphic. I will show that Aristotle’s doctrine of causes is more similar to von Wright’s account and that the Aristotelian analysis of becoming supports von Wright’s reductive interventionism against Woodward’s criticism. Furthermore, I will draw a comparison between interventionism and dispositionalism, where the latter is another contemporary account of causation that claims Aristotelian roots. (shrink)

The focus is on two texts by Wittgenstein where ‘forms of life’ constitute the pivot of an extended argument: ‘Cause and Effect’ and the discussion of colour concepts in ‘Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology’. The author argues that forms of life are above all Wittgenstein's response to the question what it is to analyse a concept. The remark that forms of life are ‘given’ and must be ‘accepted’ is a natural corollary of Wittgenstein’s antireductionism and his idea of philosophy (...) as a descriptive enterprise. Wittgenstein is, however, not offering forms of life as the ultimate foundation of our statements about causation or colour. He shifts the focus to the questioning activity itself. Our inquiries and descriptions imply conceptions of how to look and what to accept as verification. Forms of life are given, not because they cannot be analysed further, but because the investigation will take them as given. Comparisons are made, on the one hand, with G.H. von Wright’s interventionist account of the concept of causation and, on the other hand, with the two currently dominant interpretations of ‘forms of life’: the ‘linguistic community’ view and the ‘naturalist’ view. (shrink)

Backtracking influence is influence that zigzags in time. For example, backtracking influence exists when an event E_1 makes an event E_2 more likely by way of a nomic connection that goes from E_1 back in time to an event C and then forward in time to E_2. I contend that in our local region of spacetime, at least, backtracking influence is redundant in the sense that any existing backtracking influence exerted by E_1 on E_2 is equivalent to E_1's temporally direct (...) influence on E_2. I prove the redundancy of backtracking influence using several plausible physical principles without assuming any fundamental temporal or causal asymmetry. This explanation can play a prominent role in an account of why causation appears to be objectively asymmetric regardless of whether the fundamental laws are symmetric. (shrink)

David Lewis has proposed an analysis of lawhood in terms of membership of a system of regularities optimizing simplicity and strength in information content. This article studies his proposal against the broader background of the project of Humean supervenience. In particular, I claim that, in Lewis's account of lawhood, his intuition about small deviations from a given law in nearby worlds (in order to avoid backtracking and epiphenomena) leads to the conclusion that laws do not support (certain) counterfactuals and do (...) not bestow nomic necessity on (certain) facts induced by these laws. Support of counterfactuals and nomic necessity, however, are widely held to be important aspects of the concept of lawhood. In my view, therefore, it is not possible to abandon these criteria in any satisfactory analysis of the notion of laws of nature. In a final section, I suggest that the whole project of Humean supervenience is misleading. It does not sufficiently take notice of the important role that reasoning about contrary-to-fact situations plays in modern scientific practice. (shrink)

Thomas Szasz''s emphasis on goal-oriented behavior and moral responsibility has raised profound theoretical questions about an ancient and enduring problem in philosophy, the relationships amongfree will, determinism, and moral responsibility. Two early thinkers, Jonathan Edwards and Aristotle, have both contributed to an understanding of this dilemma. Edwards (1754) demonstrated that the concept of man as a moral agent and the doctrine of philosophical necessity are inextricably intertwined, in opposition to the tenets of contingency, moral indifference, and self-determining volition. However, his (...) argument rested on efficient causationalone. For further light on the problem we can turn to Aristotle''s writings, notably the distinguishing criteria of the practical sciences (including psychology) as opposed to the theoretical and the productive sciences; and multiple causation, one of the most powerful tools for intellectual analysis ever invented, which includes material, formal, and final causes as well as the efficient cause. The implications of Szasz''s work force a re-examination of the contributions of both Edwards and Aristotle and make them relevant to contemporary psychiatry. (shrink)

Thomas Szasz's emphasis on goal-oriented behavior and moral responsibility has raised profound theoretical questions about an ancient and enduring problem in philosophy, the relationships amongfree will, determinism, and moral responsibility. Two early thinkers, Jonathan Edwards and Aristotle, have both contributed to an understanding of this dilemma. Edwards (1754) demonstrated that the concept of man as a moral agent and the doctrine of philosophical necessity are inextricably intertwined, in opposition to the tenets of contingency, moral indifference, and self-determining volition. However, his (...) argument rested on efficient causationalone. For further light on the problem we can turn to Aristotle's writings, notably the distinguishing criteria of the ‘practical’ sciences (including psychology) as opposed to the theoretical and the productive sciences; and multiple causation, one of the most powerful tools for intellectual analysis ever invented, which includes material, formal, and final causes as well as the efficient cause. The implications of Szasz's work force a re-examination of the contributions of both Edwards and Aristotle and make them relevant to contemporary psychiatry. (shrink)

Recent years have seen growing interest in modifying interventionist accounts of causal explanation in order to characterise noncausal explanation. However, one surprising element of such accounts is that they have typically jettisoned the core feature of interventionism: interventions. Indeed, the prevailing opinion within the philosophy of science literature suggests that interventions exclusively demarcate causal relationships. This position is so prevalent that, until now, no one has even thought to name it. We call it “intervention puritanism” (I-puritanism, for short). In this (...) paper, we mount the first sustained defence of the idea that there are distinctively noncausal explanations which can be characterized in terms of possible interventions; a position we call “intervention liberalism” (I-liberalism, for short). While many have followed James Woodward (2003) in committing to I-puritanism, we trace support for I-liberalism back to the work of Jaegwon Kim (1974). Furthermore, we analyse two recent sources of scepticism regarding I-liberalism: debate surrounding mechanistic constitution; and attempts to provide a monistic account of explanation. We show that neither literature provides compelling reasons for adopting I-puritanism. Finally, we present a novel taxonomy of available positions upon the role of possible interventions in explanation: weak causal imperialism; strong causal imperialism; monist intervention puritanism; pluralist intervention puritanism; monist intervention liberalism; and finally, the specific position defended in this paper, pluralist intervention liberalism. (shrink)

Internalism about moral responsibility is the view that moral responsibility is determined primarily by an agent's mental states; externalism is the view that moral responsibility is determined primarily by an agent's overt behaviour and by circumstances external to the agent. In a series of papers, Michelle Ciurria has argued that most if not all current accounts of moral responsibility, including Strawsonian ones, are internalist. Ciurria defends externalism against these accounts, and she argues that, in contrast to his contemporary followers, P.F. (...) Strawson himself was an externalist. I believe that Ciurria's reading of Strawson is problematic. The aim of this paper is to elucidate Strawson's position with regard to the internalism-externalism issue against the background of Ciurria's reading of him. I conclude that Strawson was neither an internalist nor an externalist about moral responsibility. I draw extensively upon the whole body of Strawson's work, much of which is sadly neglected in discussions of ‘Freedom and Resentment’, although it illuminates many of the issues discussed there. (shrink)

Le concept du possible a pris récemment dans les sciences de la vie une place plus importante, en raison de réflexions nouvelles sur l’évolution biologique ainsi que du développement très important des biotechnologies. On souhaite ici explorer l’idée que les choses contingentes, celles qui pourraient être un peu différentes, sont modifiables. La contingence de l’évolution biologique a souvent été notée, et définie en des sens notoirement différents. Certains biologistes ont fait usage du conditionnel contrefactuel, en définissant la contingence par l’idée (...) que le monde existant aurait pu ne pas être. Si la contingence est définie comme l’opposé contradictoire du nécessaire et donc vue d’une manière unilatérale comme possibilité de ne pas être plutôt que comme possibilité d’être ou de ne pas être, il devient inévitable que les critiques des philosophies nécessitaristes (en biologie comme ailleurs) insistent sur des évolutions qui ne se sont pas produites, et fassent usage du conditionnel contrefactuel dans leur démonstration de la contingence. Le risque est alors de substituer à une métaphysique nécessitariste une métaphysique opposée. D’autres explications du cours réel de l’évolution biologique (et en particulier de ses grandes « décimations ») sont pourtant scientifiquement possibles. La contingence peut être également définie, d’une manière plus réaliste, comme variation, à savoir qu’il n’y a aucune impossibilité à ce que les choses existantes soient un peu différentes. On souhaite à cet égard donner des illustrations biologiques de la proximité, souvent notée par les philosophes, entre possible et réel. Le « bricolage biotechnologique » se fonde sur l’utilisation de procédés et d’outils directement issus de l’évolution biologique. Il répète certaines des opérations du « bricolage évolutif ». Les biotechnologies les plus récentes peuvent être décrites comme une « évolution dirigée ». Les possibilités de variations sur les thèmes fondamentaux de l’évolution biologique sont encore mal évaluées, et sont sans doute beaucoup plus grandes qu’il n’avait été imaginé, ce qui permettra vraisemblablement de contourner certaines difficultés rencontrées dans la mise en œuvre, en particulier, des biotechnologies médicales. (shrink)

Le concept de responsabilité vient généralement et spontanément à l'esprit de la plupart d'entre nous quand il est question d'action humaine. Il est surprenant pour cette raison que dans l'histoire de la philosophie de l'action, particulièrement l'histoire récente, la responsabilité ait été tenue autant à l'écart des discussions. En effet, après avoir joué chez les philosophes de la première génération suivant Wittgenstein, comme Hart, Melden, Chisholm et Rayfield, un rôle important, le concept de responsabilité a été, semble-t-il, progressivement évacué des (...) débats en philosophie analytique de l'action. Évidemment, l'action est encore affaire de responsabilité, puisque toute action peut être en principe sujette à une évaluation normative. Mais c'est le processus par lequel on en vient à évaluer la responsabilité d'une action qui ne semble plus faire partie des préoccupations des philosophes de l'action. Ceux-ci considèrent en général que de telles attributions devraient rester du resort de l'éthique ou du droit et n'ont rien à voir avec l'entreprise de la philosophie de l'action contemporaine qui, a bien des egards, se definit tout d'abord comme une extension de la philosophie de l'esprit. (shrink)

It is pointed out that the probabilistic character of a theory does not indicate by itself a distancing with respect to the norms of objectification. Instead, the very structure of the calculation of probabilities utilised by this theory is capable of bearing the trace of a constitution of objectivity in Kant’s sense. Accordingly, the procedure of the constitution of objectivity is first studied in standard and in quantum cases with due reference to modern cognitive science. Then, an examination of the (...) differences between classical and quantum probabilities is performed. It is shown that the form of the quantum calculation of the probabilities carries the mark of the contextuality of the phenomena on which it bears. Conversely, certain conditions that have the form of Bell’s inequalities carry the mark of decontextualization. (shrink)

Emergence is interpreted in a non-dualist framework of thought. No metaphysical distinction between the higher and basic levels of organization is supposed, but only a duality of modes of access. Moreover, these modes of access are not construed as mere ways of revealing intrinsic patterns of organization: They are supposed to be constitutive of them, in Kant’s sense. The emergent levels of organization, and the inter-level causations as well, are therefore neither illusory nor ontologically real: They are objective in the (...) sense of transcendental epistemology. This neo-Kantian approach defuses several paradoxes associated with the concept of downward causation, and enables one to make good sense of it independently of any prejudice about the existence (or inexistence) of a hierarchy of levels of being. (shrink)

In this paper, we examine the causal framework within which integrated information theory of consciousness makes it claims. We argue that, in its current formulation, IIT is threatened by the causal exclusion problem. Some proponents of IIT have attempted to thwart the causal exclusion problem by arguing that IIT has the resources to demonstrate genuine causal emergence at macro scales. In contrast, we argue that their proposed solution to the problem is damagingly circular as a result of inter-defining information and (...) causation. As a solution, we propose that IIT should adopt the specific interventionist causal framework that we offer and show how IIT can harness this interventionist framework to avoid the causal exclusion problem. We demonstrate how our argument remains fully compatible with the methodology, empirical data, and conceptual aims of the theory. (shrink)

In the recent literature on causal and non-causal scientific explanations, there is an intuitive assumption according to which an explanation is non-causal by virtue of being abstract. In this context, to be ‘abstract’ means that the explanans in question leaves out many or almost all causal microphysical details of the target system. After motivating this assumption, we argue that the abstractness assumption, in placing the abstract and the causal character of an explanation in tension, is misguided in ways that are (...) independent of which view of causation or causal explanation one takes to be most accurate. On major accounts of causation, as well as on major accounts of causal explanation, the abstractness of an explanation is not sufficient for it being non-causal. That is, explanations are not non-causal by dint of being abstract. (shrink)

This work aims to make tense logic a more robust tool for ontologists, philosophers, knowledge engineers and programmers by outlining a fusion of tense logic and ontology of time. In order to make tense logic better understandable, the central formal primitives of standard tense logic are derived as theorems from an informal and intuitive ontology of time. In order to make formulation of temporal propositions easier, temporal operators that were introduced by Georg Henrik von Wright are developed, and mapped to (...) the ontology of time. (shrink)

In this contribution, I comment on Raffaella Campaner’s defense of explanatory pluralism in psychiatry (in this volume). In her paper, Campaner focuses primarily on explanatory pluralism in contrast to explanatory reductionism. Furthermore, she distinguishes between pluralists who consider pluralism to be a temporary state on the one hand and pluralists who consider it to be a persisting state on the other hand. I suggest that it would be helpful to distinguish more than those two versions of pluralism – different understandings (...) of explanatory pluralism both within philosophy of science and psychiatry – namely moderate/temporary pluralism, anything goes pluralism, isolationist pluralism, integrative pluralism and interactive pluralism. Next, I discuss the pros and cons of these different understandings of explanatory pluralism. Finally, I raise the question of how to implement or operationalize explanatory pluralism in scientific practice; how to structure the “genuine dialogue” or shape “the pluralistic attitude” Campaner is referring to. As tentative answers, I explore a question-based framework for explanatory pluralism as well as social-epistemological procedures for interaction among competing approaches and explanations. (shrink)

Cosmos+Taxis published a special issue with a symposium discussing Robert Vinten's book Wittgenstein and the Social Sciences. The symposium was edited by Richard Eldridge and it contains contributions from Paul Roth (Distinguished Professor, UC Santa Cruz), Daniel Little (Professor, University of Michigan, Dearborn), Rafael Azize (Associate Professor, Federal University of Bahia), Richard Raatzsch (Professor, EBS Universität), and Rupert Read (Associate Professor, UEA) - with a response by Robert Vinten ('Response to Critics'). Within the issue the papers compare Wittgenstein's philosophy to (...) art, compare Wittgenstein to Brecht, and examine the nature of the social sciences. (shrink)

Causation has always been a philosophically controversial subject matter. While David Hume’s empiricist account of causation has been the dominant influence in analytic philosophy and science during modern times, a minority view has instead connected causation essentially to agency and manipulation. A related approach has for the first time gained widespread popularity in recent years, due to new powerful theories of causal inference in science that are based in a technical notion of intervention, and James Woodward’s closely connected interventionist theory (...) of causation in philosophy. This monograph assesses five manipulationist or interventionist theories of causation, viewed as theories that purport to tell us what causation is by providing us with the meaning of causal claims. It is shown that they cannot do this, as the conditions on causation that they impose are too weak, mainly due to ineliminable circularities in their definitions of causal terms. It is then argued that a subset of Woodward’s theory can nevertheless contribute crucially to an explanation of the unique role that manipulation has in our acquisition of causal knowledge. This explanation differs from the common regularist explanation of the epistemic utility of manipulation and experiment, and it is taken to confirm several important manipulationist intuitions. However, the success of the explanation depends on (this subset of) interventionism not itself being understood as a theory of causation, but as a theory of intervention. (shrink)

Describes the received theory of necessary and sufficient conditions, explains some standard objections to it, and lays out alternative ways of thinking about conditions and conditionals.

Von Wright’s philosophy is seldom seen as original when compared to that of his master, Ludwig Wittgenstein. Contrary to that orientation, this work seeks to establish the opposition of von Wright to Wittgenstein in relation to the question of whether ethics is an area where logic can legitimately extend. For Wittgenstein, logic deals with what is necessarily true. On the basis of this characterization of logic, Wittgenstein thinks that logic cannot legitimately help to capture ethics for the reason that the (...) referents of ethical discourse are not in the world. Only the referents of scientific discourse are there. For Wittgenstein, therefore, we must adopt a mystical position in ethics both by giving it the greatest importance but also by applying the greatest silence. Von Wright admits, following Wittgenstein, the varieties of goodness. However, he stresses that the varieties of goodness do not leave room for absolute relativism. Norms have both a prescriptive dimension that can be relative to a culture, and a descriptive dimension that makes them assessable to logical standards. (shrink)

The paper deals with the possible readings of The Reaper Argument premisses. Some conjectures related to the Stoics’ alleged proof of the argument are discussed.

The expressions sufficient condition and necessary condition are frequently used in various areas in sciences as well as in everyday usage; therefore, they might be taken as expressing well defined notions which should not lead to any serious misunderstandings when used. According to the widely accepted definitions of both concepts, the concept of sufficient condition and that of necessary condition imply their symmetry : if one thing poses a sufficient condition to another thing, the latter is a necessary condition for (...) the former; however, this symmetry is hardly intuitive and it is refused by many scholars. Given the analyses of practical examples and a symmetry concept defence test, one may conclude that this view is unfounded. As a result, the definitions of the two notions are not determined enough and so is the question whether there is just a single pair of the notions or whether there are more of them. (shrink)

This paper discusses von Wright's theory of causation from Explanation and Understanding and Causality and Determinism in contemporary context. I argue that there are two important common points that von Wright's view shares with the version of manipulability currently supported by Woodward: the analysis of causal relations in a system modelled on controlled experiments, and the explanation of manipulability through counterfactuals - with focus on the counterfactual account of unmanipulable causes. These points also mark von Wright's departure from previous action-based (...) theories of causation. Owing to these two features, I argue that, upon classifying different versions of manipulability theories, von Wright's view should be placed closer to the interventionist approach than to the agency theory, where it currently stands. Furthermore, given its relevance in contemporary context, which this paper aims to establish, I claim that von Wright's theory can be employed to solve present problems connected to manipulability approaches to causation. (shrink)