Risālah fī al-falsafah al-ūlá -- Risālah fī al-ḥīlah li-dafʻ al-aḥzān -- Risālah fī al-ʻaql -- Risālah fī ḥudūd al-ashyāʼ wa-rusūmihā.

There are two widely held views in the literature as regards Wittgenstein’s philosophy. One says that Wittgenstein in his later work appeals to ordinary language in his effort to show how the philosophical problems can be dissolved, and the other says that his investigation is a grammatical one. This paper undertakes to examine what is meant by a grammatical investigation, especially in view of the fact that this investigation relies on empirical facts that have to do with linguistic usage. The (...) examination is carried out by concentrating on what Wittgenstein has to say on the issue of knowledge – in particular, how the way we use the word contributes to the dismissal of Moore's answer to the challenge of scepticism. The conclusion is that Wittgenstein's resort to ordinary language is not typically empirical. The examples of ordinary usage that he cites may be contingent, but they could not have been different given the language games they are part of. The correct use of words Wittgenstein appeals to is not fixed by some kind of essence, but neither is it decided by a majority rule. It gets entrenched in a complex nexus of practices. Wittgenstein's reference to “use” instead of ‘usage”and to “linguistic facts” instead of “sociological facts” lends support more to a logical than to an empirical investigation. (shrink)

Recent studies indicate that mammalian chromosomes contain discretecis‐acting loci that control replication timing, mitotic condensation, and stability of entire chromosomes. Disruption of the large non‐coding RNA gene ASAR6 results in late replication, an under‐condensed appearance during mitosis, and structural instability of human chromosome 6. Similarly, disruption of the mouse Xist gene in adult somatic cells results in a late replication and instability phenotype on the X chromosome. ASAR6 shares many characteristics with Xist, including random mono‐allelic expression and asynchronous replication timing. (...) Additional “chromosome engineering” studies indicate that certain chromosome rearrangements affecting many different chromosomes display this abnormal replication and instability phenotype. These observations suggest that all mammalian chromosomes contain “inactivation/stability centers” that control proper replication, condensation, and stability of individual chromosomes. Therefore, mammalian chromosomes contain four types ofcis‐acting elements, origins, telomeres, centromeres, and “inactivation/stability centers”, all functioning to ensure proper replication, condensation, segregation, and stability of individual chromosomes. (shrink)

Épître des définitions.--Propos succinct et bref sur l'âme.--Traité sur la quiddité du sommeil et de la vision.--De ce qu'il y a des substances incorporelles.--De l'unicité de Dieu et de la finitude du corps du monde.

In this essay I argue that Kuhn's account of science, as it was articulated in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, was mainly defended on philosophical rather than historical grounds. I thus lend support to Kuhn's later claim that his model can be derived from first principles. I propose a transcendental reading of his work and I suggest that Kuhn uses historical examples as anti-essentialist Wittgensteinian "reminders" that expose a variegated landscape in the development of science.

The present paper argues that there is an affinity between Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" and Wittgenstein's philosophy. It is maintained, in particular, that Kuhn's notion of paradigm draws on such Wittgensteinian concepts as language games, family resemblance, rules, forms of life. It is also claimed that Kuhn's incommensurability thesis is a sequel of the theory of meaning supplied by Wittgenstein's later philosophy. As such its assessment is not fallacious, since it is not an empirical hypothesis and it does (...) not have the relativistic implications Kuhn's critics repeatedly indicated. Although concepts are indeed relative to a language game or paradigm, interparadigmatic intelligibility is preserved through the standard techniques of translation or praxis. The impossibility of radical translation which is captured by the claim of incommensurability lies with that which cannot be said but only shown. (shrink)

In the paper I will, first, address certain apparent tensions in relation to Kuhn’s legacy in the history of science. Kuhn was a historian before he became a philosopher of science. He had done and published historical work, he only had history graduate students, he imbued philosophy of science with historical considerations. And, yet, his widely acknowledged influence on the history of science came mostly through his philosophical work which is, nevertheless, brushed off by historians of science as making dated (...) overarching and generalizing claims when their own attention has been increasingly focusing on the local and the particular. Secondly, I will discuss how Kuhn used history, the facts of the past, in his historical philosophy of science and will present a reading that takes his model of science as a Wittgensteinian object of comparison. Lastly, I will argue that Kuhn’s philosophical work impacted developments in the historiography of science and the corresponding discipline. (shrink)

The present paper argues that there is an affinity between Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" and Wittgenstein's philosophy. It is maintained, in particular, that Kuhn's notion of paradigm draws on such Wittgensteinian concepts as language games, family resemblance, rules, forms of life. It is also claimed that Kuhn's incommensurability thesis is a sequel of the theory of meaning supplied by Wittgenstein's later philosophy. As such its assessment is not fallacious, since it is not an empirical hypothesis and it does (...) not have the relativistic implications Kuhn's critics repeatedly indicated. Although concepts are indeed relative to a language game or paradigm, interparadigmatic intelligibility is preserved through the standard techniques of translation or praxis. The impossibility of radical translation which is captured by the claim of incommensurability lies with that which cannot be said but only shown. (shrink)

A historical investigation of the exclusion of Africa and Asia from modern histories of philosophy.

Both Kuhn and Cavell acknowledge their indebtedness to each other in their respective books of the 60s. Cavell in (Must We Mean What We Say (1969)) and Kuhn in (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 1962). They were together at Berkeley where they had both moved in 1956 as assistant professors after their first encounter at the Society of Fellows at Harvard (Kuhn 2000d, p. 197). In Berkeley, Cavell and Kuhn discovered a mutual understanding and an intellectual affinity. They had regular (...) conversations which Cavell describes as "extremely important" (Conant 1989, p. 40; cf. Cavell 1979, p. xix). Cavell says that he felt he wanted to assure Kuhn that "philosophy did not have standing answers to the questions [Kuhn] .. (shrink)

: In this essay I argue that Kuhn's account of science, as it was articulated in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, was mainly defended on philosophical rather than historical grounds. I thus lend support to Kuhn's later claim that his model can be derived from first principles. I propose a transcendental reading of his work and I suggest that Kuhn uses historical examples as anti-essentialist Wittgensteinian "reminders" that expose a variegated landscape in the development of science.

This article criticizes the attempts by Bas van Fraassen and Michael Friedman to address the challenge to rationality posed by the Kuhnian analysis of scientific revolutions. In the paper, I argue that van Fraassen's solution, which invokes a Sartrean theory of emotions to account for radical change, does not amount to justifying rationally the advancement of science but, rather, despite his protestations to the contrary, is an explanation of how change is effected. Friedman's approach, which appeals to philosophical developments at (...) a meta-theoretical level, does not really address the problem of rationality as posed by Kuhn's work. Instead of showing how, despite revolutions, scientific development is, indeed, rational, he gives a transcendental account of rational scientific progress. (shrink)

Up to the introduction of the term and concept of incommensurability by T. S. Kuhn and P. K. Feyerabend in the early 1960s, scientific texts were supposed to pose no problem as regards their translation, unlike literature, which was thought very difficult to translate. After the introduction of the term, translation of scientific language became equally problematic because, due to conceptual and perceptual incommensurability, there was no common observation basis to ground linguistic equivalences between languages of incommensurable paradigms. This article (...) highlights the presuppositions that link incommensurability to dramatic consequences (impossibility of communication, translation, and comparative evaluation of paradigms) and tries to sketch an alternative way of understanding incommensurability and translation drawing on Kuhn’s work. From this perspective, translation is not an all-or-nothing affair for either science or literature and becomes a problem to be solved for each particular set of circumstances. (shrink)

In the present chapter, I argue that commentators who criticize Kuhn’s work are most often fighting a straw man. Their target is a stereotype that is not to be found in Kuhn’s texts. I will consider the charge based on the stereotype that the Kuhnian schema is not borne out by historical evidence and will argue that Kuhn’s model, which is not actually what his critics take it to be, was not supposed to be based on, or accurately depict, historical (...) facts. It was not a historical representation but a philosophical model that was used to challenge an ideal image of science. I suggest that giving a more accurate account of Kuhn’s model will not only do justice to Kuhn’s work but also draw attention to issues that, because of the stereotype, have remained in obscurity. (shrink)

Philosophy of science was formed as a distinct discipline in the early twentieth century around the work of the logical positivists, or logical empiricists, originally in Vienna in the mid‐twenties and in other European cities such as Berlin and Prague. It further developed in the United States, where most logical positivists moved to escape persecution by the Nazis or World War II and met the American pragmatist philosophers of science. Logical positivism, or logical empiricism, is the school of thought that (...) is most responsible for the shaping of philosophy of science as a contemporary, distinct academic discipline in the early twentieth century. The historical turn in philosophy of science in the late 1950s and early 1960s has been associated mostly with the work of philosophers such as Stephen Toulmin, N.R. Hanson, Thomas Kuhn, and Paul Feyerabend, who were active publishing books and papers at that time in the United States. (shrink)

In the paper I consider how empirical material, from either history or sociology, features in Kuhn’s account of science in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and argue that the study of scientific practice did not offer him data to be used as evidence for defending hypotheses but rather cultivated a sensitivity for detail and difference which helped him undermine an idealized conception of science. Recent attempts in the science studies literature, appealing to Wittgenstein’s philosophy, have aimed at reducing philosophy to (...) multifaceted empirical research in relation to science. I discuss how this turn which is at odds with Wittgenstein’s philosophy, cannot be a continuation of Kuhn’s project which bears similarities to Wittgenstein’s. (shrink)

Vaesen infers unique properties of mind from the appearance of specific cultural innovation – a correlation without causal direction. Shifts in habitat, population density, and group dynamics are the only independently verifiable incentives for changes in cultural practices. The transition from Acheulean to Late Stone Age technologies requires that we consider how population and social dynamics affect cultural innovation and mental function.

Vasso Kindi examines, first, whether Collingwood’s logic of question and answer, which was to replace the symbolic logic of the logical positivists, does indeed bear similarities to Bacon’s and Kant’s use of questions, as Collingwood claims. She argues that Collingwood’s emphasis on questions is more similar to Kant’s concern with presuppositions that make knowledge possible than to Bacon’s interest in pursuing and questioning nature to divulge her secrets. She, then, explains how Collingwood’s emphasis on questions is tied to his view (...) that propositions are not abstract entities with intrinsic meaning in isolation from the network of presuppositions in which they are embedded. Finally, she suggests that the metaphysician’s task, according to Collingwood, is to ‘excavate’ different complexes of questions and answers until the absolute presuppositions which govern them are reached. It is this historical methodology that gives Collingwood’s metaphysics its distinctive character. (shrink)

Abstract Biography is usually distinguished from history and, in comparison, looked down upon. R. G. Collingwood's view of biography seems to fit this statement considering that he says it has only gossip-value and that “history it can never be“. His main concern is that biography exploits and arouses emotions which he excludes from the domain of history. In the paper I will try to show that one can salvage a more positive view of biography from within Collingwood's work and claim (...) that his explicit attacks against biography target specifically the sensationalist kind. First, I will show that Collingwood, in his later writings, allowed that, not only thought, but also relevant emotions can be the subject matter of history, which means that even if one takes biography to deal with emotions, it can still qualify as history. Second, I will argue, based mainly on Collingwood's Principles of Art , that biography can be compared to portrait painting, in which case, it can be redeemed as a work of art and not just craft and, thus, have more than entertainment value. It can also be part of history, and more specifically part of the history of art which Collingwood endorses, if one takes the life of an individual, recounted by a biographer, to be an artistic creation, as Collingwood seems to suggest. (shrink)

The first English translation of Fichte’s second set of 1804 lectures on the Wissenschaftslehre.

In the paper I examine Collingwood’s historical metaphysics, i.e., the fusion Collingwood attempts between history and philosophy. Collingwood’s metaphysical analysis aims to identify and uncover the absolute presuppositions of a particular type of discourse or phase in history and, in so doing, it arrives at historical facts recorded by metaphysical/ historical propositions. I present Collingwood’s account and, to further explicate it, I compare it to two other approaches which also involve, or ultimately terminate at, some kind of description of facts, (...) Strawson’s descriptive metaphysics and Wittgenstein’s grammatical investigations. I bring out the differences between these three approaches but I also argue that their emphasis on assembling particular facts does not yield empirical but rather logical accounts which fold in historical and linguistic considerations. In Collingwood’s case, the historical dimension of his logical investigation is hermeneutical and developmental and highlights diversity. (shrink)

International Studies in the Philosophy of Science aims to publish original articles, book reviews and discussion notes that fall within what is currently understood as philosophy of science and th...

2020 was the year of the Covid-19 pandemic. The challenges it presented brought science to the fore in a multitude of ways. The world economy depended on science, governments consulted it, the publ...

[opening paragraph]: Drs. Ramachandran and Hirstein break new ground in ‘The Science of Art: A Neurological Theory of Aesthetic Experience', by setting out an unprecedented theory of how the brain processes and responds to art. There is much to be learned here about vision, the act of seeing and its relationship to the body's limbic system.