The view that species are individuals, as developed by Ghiselinand Hull, has been touted as explaining the role of type specimens intaxonomy. The kinship of this explanation with the Kripke-Putnam theoryof names has long been recognized. In light of this kinship, however,Hull's account of type specimens can be seen to entail two relatedinscrutability problems – unreasonable limits placed on the natureand extent of biological knowledge. An appreciation for these problemsinvites us to consider the proper relation between metaphysical andepistemological inquires in (...) the philosophy of science. (shrink)

Darwin in Argentina -- Conflicting Systems -- Francisco Javier Muniz (1795-1871) -- Hermann Burmeister (1807-1891) -- Francisco P. Moreno (1852-1919) -- Domingo F. Sarmiento (1811-1888) -- Eduardo Holmberg (1852-1937) -- Florentino Ameghino (1854-1911) -- Jose Ingenieros (1877-1925) -- Carlos Octavio Bunge (1875-1918).

Contemporary process metaphysics has achieved a number of important results, most significantly in accounting for emergence, a problem on which substance metaphysics has foundered since Plato. It also faces trenchant problems of its own, among them the related problems of boundaries and individuation. Historically, the quest for ontology may thus have been largely responsible for the persistence of substance metaphysics. But as Plato was well aware, an ontology of substantial things raises serious, perhaps insurmountable problems for any account of our (...) epistemic access to such things. Physical things are subject to change, and as such, they are poor objects of knowledge—if knowledge is to be more reliable than mere opinion. There is a reading of Plato’s Theaetetus on which knowledge may be understood as a relation between an epistemic subject and a logos, where logoi are intrinsically dialectical, and where dialectic is a kind of intersubjective activity. Insofar as this epistemology may be attributed to Plato, the project of this paper is Platonic in spirit. It is also, in a sense, Kantian, in that it divorces ontology from the search for things-in-themselves, redirecting our attention from things to objects: epistemic objects. Such objects can be understood, as Maurice Merleau-Ponty proposed, as shared by multiple subjects by virtue of their participation in an intersubjective world, constituted by what Shaun Gallagher calls participatory sense-making. On an epistemology constructed in this way, the fact that both epistemic objects and their subject are mutable is no obstacle to knowledge. Far-from-equilibrium systems are forever mutable; at thermodynamic equilibrium, there would be neither subject, nor object. Epistemic objects, on this picture, are metastable loci of interactive potential. (shrink)

Nineteenth and twentieth century philosophies of science have consistently failed to identify any rational basis for the compelling character of scientific analogies. This failure is particularly worrisome in light of the fact that the development and diffusion of certain scientific analogies, e.g. Darwin’s analogy between domestic breeds and naturally occurring species, constitute paradigm cases of good science. It is argued that the interactivist model, through the notion of a partition epistemology, provides a way to understand the persuasive character of compelling (...) scientific analogies without consigning them to an irrational or arational context of discovery. (shrink)

It is argued that a chief obstacle to a naturalistic explanation of the origins of mind is human exceptionalism, as exemplified in the 17th century by Descartes, and in the 20th century by Noam Chomsky. As an antidote to human exceptionalism we turn to the account of aesthetic judgment in Darwin’s Descent of Man, according to which the mental capacities of humans differ from those of lower animals only in degree, not in kind. Thoroughgoing naturalistic explanation of these capacities is (...) made easier by shifting away from the substance-metaphysical implications of the search for an account of mind, toward a dispositional account of the origins of mindfulness. (shrink)

Contemporary process metaphysics has achieved a number of important results, most significantly in accounting for emergence, a problem on which substance metaphysics has foundered since Plato. It also faces trenchant problems of its own, among them the related problems of boundaries and individuation. Historically, the quest for ontology may thus have been largely responsible for the persistence of substance metaphysics. But as Plato was well aware, an ontology of substantial things raises serious, perhaps insurmountable problems for any account of our (...) epistemic access to such things. Physical things are subject to change, and as such, they are poor objects of knowledge—if knowledge is to be more reliable than mere opinion. There is a reading of Plato’s Theaetetus on which knowledge may be understood as a relation between an epistemic subject and a logos, where logoi are intrinsically dialectical, and where dialectic is a kind of intersubjective activity. Insofar as this epistemology may be attributed to Plato, the project of this paper is Platonic in spirit. It is also, in a sense, Kantian, in that it divorces ontology from the search for things-in-themselves, redirecting our attention from things to objects: epistemic objects. Such objects can be understood, as Maurice Merleau-Ponty proposed, as shared by multiple subjects by virtue of their participation in an intersubjective world, constituted by what Shaun Gallagher calls ‘‘participatory sense-making.’’ On an epistemology constructed in this way, the fact that both epistemic objects and their subject are mutable is no obstacle to knowledge. Far-from-equilibrium systems are forever mutable; at thermodynamic equilibrium, there would be neither subject, nor object. Epistemic objects, on this picture, are metastable loci of interactive potential. (shrink)

Twentieth century philosophy of science has been dominated by a view of language with a strong prejudice against psychology, even while empirical psychology has moved away from the nineteenth century philosophical psychology against which the prejudice was originally directed. This legacy is shown to dominate even in recent Kripke‐inspired efforts toward new theories of meaning. Its influence is argued to undermine prospects for making sense of such phenomena as scientific progress. Avoiding this consequence requires that we pursue a psychologically informed (...) theory of meaning. (shrink)

Penelope Maddy's original solution to the dilemma posed by Benacerraf in his 'Mathematical Truth' was to reconcile mathematical empiricism with mathematical realism by arguing that we can perceive realistically construed sets. Though her hypothesis has attracted considerable critical attention, much of it, in my view, misses the point. In this paper I vigorously defend Maddy's account against published criticisms, not because I think it is true, but because these criticisms have functioned to obscure a more fundamental issue that is well (...) worth addressing: in general -- and not only in the mathematical domain -- empiricism and realism simply cannot be reconciled by means of an account of perception anything like Maddy's. But because Maddy's account of perception is so plausible, this conclusion raises the specter of the broader incompatibility of realism and empiricism, which contemporary philosophers are frequently at pains to forget. (shrink)

Historians and philosophers of science have, in recent decades, offered evidence in support of several influential models of conceptual change in science. These models have often drawn on and in turn driven research on conceptual change in childhood and in science education. This nexus of reciprocal influences is held together by several largely unexamined analogies and by several assumptions concerning analogy itself. In this chapter, we aim to shed some light on these hidden premises and subject them to critical scrutiny. (...) Our critical survey suggests the following hypothesis: conceptual change in both childhood and science is driven by the epistemic subject’s quest for coherence. (shrink)

The question, how is profound intellectual disagreement possible, even when addressed toward the paradigmatically reasonable activity of scientific communication, has generated a number of puzzling responses. On a response attributed to Thomas S. Kuhn, some episodes in the history of science don't allow for meaningful disagreement. In such situations, the adversaries talk at cross purposes until one side is either "converted" or dies off. ;This skeptical prospect has also been considered by those who study the differences between natural languages, and (...) the misunderstandings which punctuate a child's first language acquisition. I investigate theories of concepts in search of one capable of illuminating the apparent gaps in communication between scientists, between speakers of different languages, and between infants and adults. I begin by showing that the antipsychologist efforts of post-Fregean philosophers of language, in particular those built on a causal theory of reference, fail to explain either how communication is possible when it is, or why it isn't otherwise. Nor does recourse to a principle of charity or humanity help them in this regard. I conclude that such attempts can't ground an account of communication. ;I argue that an account of concept learning drawn in part from recent work in developmental psychology can explain both the possibility of serious disagreement, as well as the possibility of overcoming it reasonably. I urge that the revival of psychologism in the philosophy of language follows. Semantic psychologism is semantics informed by empirical psychology, not by the phenomenology Frege attacked. I explore the consequences of this doctrine for the philosophy and history of science. These include a rejection of the common philosophical assumption that all meaningful communication can be reduced to a form of translation, and renewed emphasis on the importance of analogy in communication. ;Finally, I apply this new semantic psychologism toward the historical interpretation of science. If the program is right, it should provide insight into the communicative dimensions of important episodes in the history of science. While a full exploration of this historical method lies beyond the scope of my thesis, two preliminary case studies indicate its fruitfulness. (shrink)

A number of imposing problems now have our best minds in thrall. These include questions regarding the unity or plurality of the races of Man, whether his creation ought to be dated thousands of years or thousands of centuries past, whether species are fixed, or rather undergo a slow, progressive transformation into new species, how supposedly eternal matter relates to the nothingness outside of it, and whether the idea of God is useless. These are just a few of the issues (...) now subject to learned debate. You need, however, have no fear that my address tonight has any pretensions toward resolving any one of these earnest questions. But in the neighborhood of such mysteries lies another question, more or less closely related, to which I may, perhaps, venture to direct your attention; for its complexities, which I have made the object of concerted and conscientious study, are accessible to experiment. This is the question of what we call "spontaneous generations." Mightn't matter, perhaps, organize itself? Or posed differently, mightn't creatures enter the world without parents, without forebears? This is the question I seek to resolve. (shrink)

Books reviewed in this essay:Fred d'Agostino, Naturalizing Epistemology: Thomas Kuhn and the Essential Tension (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010)Edwin H.-C. Hung, Beyond Kuhn: Scientific Explanation, Theory Structure, Incommensurability and Physical Necessity (Hants: Ashgate, 2006)Hanne Andersen, Peter Barker, and Xiang Chen, The Cognitive Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006)Forty-eight years after the publication of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, fourteen since the death of its author, Thomas S. Kuhn, and ten since the publication of the posthumous Road Since Structure (...) (2000), the Kuhn cottage industry continues to produce. In preparing this essay review I .. (shrink)

In this chapter we will try to show how the introduction of Darwinian evolutionary theory transformed metaphysics, and in particular, the philosophical understanding of the temporality of being. In the interests of brevity, we will focus on two particularly significant aspects of the impact of Darwinism on Latin America. We will consider, first, how the new evolutionary thought transformed past notions of temporality. Second, we will discuss the ways in which the ideas of regression and extinction, viewed as essential components (...) of the evolutionary process, problematized the nature of progress and civilization. We trace these developments in the work of three central figures of Latin American thought: José Martí, José Rodó, and Euclides da Cunha. All three of these men were extraordinarily versatile thinkers, and each has been the subject of voluminous secondary literature. But the first two, unlike some other influential figures—such as, famously, Domingo Sarmiento of Argentina—were hardly self-professed Darwinians. Still, we have chosen to discuss them because of this last fact, and not despite it. As for da Cunha, though he accepted the basic canons of the new evolutionary theory, he remained ambivalent about its application. All three struggled, each in his own way, to come to terms with the Darwinian legacy, and each found his thinking profoundly shaped by this struggle; they offer us three different, unique perspectives on the impact of Darwinism. The magnitude of the new evolutionism can only be understood if we consider the wide range of discussion it triggered in consequence of its profound philosophical impact. (shrink)

It is argued that a chief obstacle to a naturalistic explanation of the origins of mind is human exceptionalism, as exempli fi ed in the seventeenth century by René Descartes and in the twentieth century by Noam Chomsky. As an antidote to human exceptionalism, we turn to the account of aesthetic judgment in Charles Darwin’s Descent of Man , according to which the mental capacities of humans differ from those of lower animals only in degree, and not in kind. Thoroughgoing (...) naturalistic explanation of these capacities is made easier by shifting away from the substance-metaphysical implications of the search for an account of mind , toward a dispositional account of the origins of mindfulness . (shrink)