Objectivity, as one of the key attributes of science, has become an indispensable part of its ethos and a central theme of the philosophy of science. As such, it has been a subject of philosophical reflection by a number of authors. In our project – in which both philosophers of science and scientists participate – we examine the concept of objectivity in the natural sciences with the tools of experimental philosophy. We aim to identify specific operational dimensions of objectivity, those (...) with which current scientist actually work, thus making them accessible for further theoretical analysis and research. In this text, we present results from the first, qualitative phase of our research based on in-depth interviews and focus groups with scientists working in the Czech Republic. Further, we confront this empirical data with theoretical notions of objectivity. We also present other findings from the research and formulate hypotheses for the research’s subsequent phases. (shrink)

Since the early 20th century underdetermination has been one of the most contentious problems in the philosophy of science. In this article I relate the underdetermination problem to models in biology and defend two main lines of argument: First, the use of models in this discipline lends strong support to the underdetermination thesis. Second, models and theories in biology are not determined strictly by the logic of representation of the studied phenomena, but also by other constraints such as research traditions, (...) backgrounds of the scientists, aims of the research and available technology. Convincing evidence for the existence of underdetermination in biology, where models abound, comes both from the fact that for a natural phenomenon we can create a number of candidate models but also from the fact that we do not have a universal rule that would adjudicate among them. This all makes a strong case for the general validity of underdetermination thesis. (shrink)

In this paper we present an exploratory study on the understanding of reality among scientists. The nature of reality has been a conundrum for generations of theologians, philosophers, and scientists as well as the lay public. It also appears as a scientific problem in various disciplines, from physics to psychiatry and neuroscience. For the purpose of our study, we employed Chamber REST (Restricted Environmental Stimulation), which has been known to produce substantial perceptual effects such as visual or auditory pseudo-hallucinations. We (...) hypothesized that such experiences could alter basic underlying metaphysical beliefs which our subject-scientists hold about reality. We conclude that the technique showed the potential to induce such changes, but the outcome is also probably dependent on their pre-existing views gained through previous experiences, such as for example altered states of consciousness. Also, the effects of Chamber REST seem to be in this respect comparable to psychedelic sessions. (shrink)

In this paper, I combine an exposition of the historical development of sociology and philosophy of science from the era of grand theories onwards, with an explication as to why the grand theories have failed. First, I trace some parallels in the history of each of the disciplines. After presenting their chronological development, I scrutinize the metatheoretical findings about the disciplines and examine the main ontological and epistemic reasons why attempts at these general theories or frameworks have not succeeded. Among (...) them are the lack of a universal methodology and of a theoretical core, together with the impossibility of achieving a common objective view. On this basis I conclude that general theories or frameworks are not achievable in principle. As it turns out, however, some contemporary social theorists and philosophers still harbor hopes that they can be successfully formulated, or at the least do not rule out such possibility. Thus, in closing, I argue that the critical points can also be applied to these latest attempts, as the call for grand theories or frameworks has never ceased and returns regularly with each new generation of social theorists and philosophers of science. (shrink)

V následujícím textu nejprve zařadíme Kantovo dílo do kontextu osvícenské filosofie a přiblížíme jeho náhled na některé otázky tehdejší metafyziky a přírodní filosofie. Poté se zaměříme zejména na Kantovu svéráznou koncepci prostoru a času v rámci transcendentální estetiky a transcendentální logiky, kterou Kant systematicky představil v Kritice čistého rozumu. Následně přezkoumáme hlavní námitky, které filosofové i vědci vůči této koncepci vznesli. To nám pak bude odrazovým můstkem k závěrečné debatě o vztahu fyzikálních pojmů a teorií k metafyzice.

Ve stati představíme teorii vektorů rozhodování Miriam Solomonové, která vytváří komplexní rámec pro uchopení nejrůznějších zkreslení, stereotypů, efektů a heuristik doprovázejících činnost vědců. V úvodu se nicméně vrátíme k nauce o idolech Francise Bacona, která je jedním z jejích předobrazů, přestože je dělí bezmála čtyři staletí. Následně zevrubně popíšeme koncepci Solomonové, především typologii vektorů a její aplikace a omezení, které budou dokumentovány na konkrétních příkladech z historie vědy. Rovněž budeme diskutovat o jejím významu pro filozofii i sociologii vědy, například v (...) souvislosti s teorií kontingence, epistemickou neutralitou, koncepcí „neviditelné ruky“, s přihlédnutím k dobovému kontextu i paralelnímu vývoji v dalších disciplínách, jako jsou kognitivní vědy a psychologie. V závěru se pak vrátíme ke srovnání Baconova normativního ideálu a deskriptivní teorie Solomonové a k otázce, zda lze vůbec po staletích vývoje učinit nějaký generalizující úsudek o úloze zkreslení ve vědě. (shrink)

Ve stati představíme teorii vektorů rozhodování Miriam Solomonové, která vytváří komplexní rámec pro uchopení nejrůznějších zkreslení, stereotypů, efektů a heuristik doprovázejících činnost vědců. V úvodu se nicméně vrátíme k nauce o idolech Francise Bacona, která je jedním z jejích předobrazů, přestože je dělí bezmála čtyři staletí. Následně zevrubně popíšeme koncepci Solomonové, především typologii vektorů a její aplikace a omezení, které budou dokumentovány na konkrétních příkladech z historie vědy. Rovněž budeme diskutovat o jejím významu pro filozofii i sociologii vědy, například v (...) souvislosti s teorií kontingence, epistemickou neutralitou, koncepcí „neviditelné ruky“, s přihlédnutím k dobovému kontextu i paralelnímu vývoji v dalších disciplínách, jako jsou kognitivní vědy a psychologie. V závěru se pak vrátíme ke srovnání Baconova normativního ideálu a deskriptivní teorie Solomonové a k otázce, zda lze vůbec po staletích vývoje učinit nějaký generalizující úsudek o úloze zkreslení ve vědě. (shrink)

Review: Ippoliti, Emiliano, Sterpetti, Fabio, Nickles Thomas : Models and Inferences in Science.

Recenze: William J. DEVLIN - Alisa BOKULICH, Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions - 50 Years On. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science. Boston: Springer 2015, 199 s.

Abstrakt Stať seznamuje se dvěma koncepcemi stylů – „styly vědeckého myšlení“ historika Alistaira C. Crombieho a „styly uvažování“ filozofa Iana Hackinga – a vyplňuje tak určitou mezeru v českém prostředí, kde jim zatím nebyla věnována patřičná pozornost. Na úvod bude představena historická koncepce Crombieho, která styly používá jako organizující kategorie pro výklad dějin západní vědy, a následně jejich Hackingova transformace ve filozofické kategorie uplatnitelné i v současné vědě. V návaznosti na to budou stručně nastíněny okolnosti jejich vzniku, vzájemné odlišnosti a (...) recepce dalšími autory. Těžiště statě spočívá v uvedení stylů do souvislosti s objektivitou, protože pro Crombieho i Hackinga jsou právě styly tím, co konstituuje vědeckou objektivitu. Odlišné pojetí objektivity v různých disciplínách je pak výsledkem ontologické mnohosti zkoumaných objektů i teoretické a metodologické plurality, mající původ právě v historicky odlišných stylech vědy. To bude ilustrováno na příkladu pravděpodobnostního a statistického stylu, který Hacking v několika svých prací detailně rozpracoval. (shrink)

In the last few decades many formal systems of fuzzy logics have been developed. Since the main differences between fuzzy and classical logics lie at the propositional level, the fuzzy predicate logics have developed more slowly (compared to the propositional ones). In this text we aim to promote interest in fuzzy predicate logics by contributing to the model theory of fuzzy predicate logics. First, we generalize the completeness theorem, then we use it to get results on conservative extensions of theories (...) and on witnessed models. (shrink)

A simple complete axiomatic system is presented for the many-valued propositional logic based on the conjunction interpreted as product, the coresponding implication (Goguen's implication) and the corresponding negation (Gödel's negation). Algebraic proof methods are used. The meaning for fuzzy logic (in the narrow sense) is shortly discussed.

Procedural justifications of democracy emphasize inclusiveness and respect and by doing so come into conflict with instrumental justifications that depend on voters’ competence. This conflict raises questions about jury theorems and makes their standing in democratic theory contested. We show that a type of no-regret learning called meta-induction can help to satisfy the competence assumption without excluding voters or diverse opinion leaders on an a priori basis. Meta-induction assigns weights to opinion leaders based on their past predictive performance to determine (...) the level of their inclusion in recommendations for voters. The weighting minimizes the difference between the performance of meta-induction and the best opinion leader in hindsight. The difference represents the regret of meta-induction whose minimization ensures that the recommendations are optimal in supporting voters’ competence. Meta-induction has optimal truth-tracking properties that support voters’ competence even if it is targeted by mis/disinformation and should be considered a tool for supporting democracy in hyper-plurality. (shrink)

Current thinking suggests that dissociation could be a significant comorbid diagnosis in a proportion of schizophrenic patients with a history of trauma. This potentially may explain the term “schizophrenia” in its original definition by Bleuler, as influenced by his clinical experience and personal view. Additionally, recent findings suggest a partial overlap between dissociative symptoms and the positive symptoms of schizophrenia, which could be explained by inhibitory deficits. In this context, the process of dissociation could serve as an important conceptual framework (...) for understanding schizophrenia, which is supported by current neuroimaging studies and research of corollary discharges. These data indicate that the original conception of “split mind” may be relevant in an updated context. Finally, recent data suggest that the phenomenal aspects of dissociation and conscious disintegration could be related to underlying disruptions of connectivity patterns and neural integration. (shrink)

Can one extend crisp Peano arithmetic PA by a possibly many-valued predicate Tr(x) saying "x is true" and satisfying the "dequotation schema" $\varphi \equiv \text{Tr}(\bar{\varphi})$ for all sentences φ? This problem is investigated in the frame of Lukasiewicz infinitely valued logic.

The paper proposes a synthesis between human scientists and artificial representation learning models as a way of augmenting epistemic warrants of realist theories against various anti-realist attempts. Towards this end, the paper fleshes out unconceived alternatives not as a critique of scientific realism but rather a reinforcement, as it rejects the retrospective interpretations of scientific progress, which brought about the problem of alternatives in the first place. By utilising adversarial machine learning, the synthesis explores possibility spaces of available evidence for (...) unconceived alternatives providing modal knowledge of what is possible therein. As a result, the epistemic warrant of synthesised realist theories should emerge bolstered as the underdetermination by available evidence gets reduced. While shifting the realist commitment away from theoretical artefacts towards modalities of the possibility spaces, the synthesis comes out as a kind of perspectival modelling. (shrink)

Can one extend crisp Peano arithmetic PA by a possibly many-valued predicate Tr(x) saying “xis true” and satisfying the “dequotation schema”for all sentences φ? This problem is investigated in the frame of Łukasiewicz infinitely valued logic.

This article reviews recent findings indicating some common brain processes during dissociative states and dreaming with the aim to outline a perspective that neural chaotic states during dreaming can be closely related to dissociative states that may manifest in dreams scenery. These data are in agreement with various clinical findings that dissociated states can be projected into the “dream scenery” in REM sleep periods and dreams may represent their specific interactions that may uncover unusual psychological potential of creativity in psychotherapy, (...) art and scientific discoveries. (shrink)

This paper is a contribution to the study of the rôle of disjunction inAlgebraic Logic. Several kinds of (generalized) disjunctions, usually defined using a suitable variant of the proof by cases property, were introduced and extensively studied in the literature mainly in the context of finitary logics. The goals of this paper are to extend these results to all logics, to systematize the multitude of notions of disjunction (both those already considered in the literature and those introduced in this paper), (...) and to show several interesting applications allowed by the presence of a suitable disjunction in a given logic. (shrink)

In contrast to Anglophone debates on personal identity initially formed by John Locke’s investigation of personal identity in the sense of personal continuity or persistence through time, the Continental tradition focuses on what constitutes ipseity in the sense of individuality or uniqueness of the human being “constituted” by its continuous transformation through changing experience. In this study, I claim that contemporary phenomenological research in France—especially the “phenomenology of the event” as represented by Henri Maldiney and Claude Romano—contributes to this Continental (...) discussion in a significant way: it formulates the conditions of personal uniqueness or distinctiveness with regard to other persons, conditions not to be found in Heidegger’s existential conception of selfhood in Being and Time. More precisely, Maldiney and Romano allow us to answer the principal questions of this study: In what does the personal uniqueness consist? What exactly individualizes the first-person selfhood disclosed in Dasein’s relation to death? In my three-stage analysis, I first deal with Heidegger’s conception of selfhood in Being and Time and its limits with respect to the question of personal uniqueness. Next, I analyse Maldiney’s conception of “eventful selfhood” in which he “completes” Heidegger’s conception of selfhood by describing Dasein’s openness to ontical, and yet fully authentic events. Finally, I develop the argumentation by presenting Romano’s even more radical conception of the “happening subjectivity”, which allows us to return to the second major feature of personal identity: personal persistence. Nonetheless, I conclude that the connection between personal uniqueness and persistence is not sufficiently examined in the phenomenology of the event, which opens the path towards another related inquiry into the following problem: What is the proper subjective dimension or the “underlying thing” in the background of personal persistence which somehow resists events? (shrink)

Axiomatic set theory with full comprehension is known to be consistent in Łukasiewicz fuzzy predicate logic. But we cannot assume the existence of natural numbers satisfying a simple schema of induction; this extension is shown to be inconsistent.

This monograph presents a general theory of weakly implicative logics, a family covering a vast number of non-classical logics studied in the literature, concentrating mainly on the abstract study of the relationship between logics and their algebraic semantics. It can also serve as an introduction to algebraic logic, both propositional and first-order, with special attention paid to the role of implication, lattice and residuated connectives, and generalized disjunctions. Based on their recent work, the authors develop a powerful uniform framework for (...) the study of non-classical logics. In a self-contained and didactic style, starting from very elementary notions, they build a general theory with a substantial number of abstract results. The theory is then applied to obtain numerous results for prominent families of logics and their algebraic counterparts, in particular for superintuitionistic, modal, substructural, fuzzy, and relevant logics. The book may be of interest to a wide audience, especially students and scholars in the fields of mathematics, philosophy, computer science, or related areas, looking for an introduction to a general theory of non-classical logics and their algebraic semantics. (shrink)

This paper is a contribution to Mathematical fuzzy logic, in particular to the algebraic study of t-norm based fuzzy logics. In the general framework of propositional core and Δ-core fuzzy logics we consider three properties of completeness with respect to any semantics of linearly ordered algebras. Useful algebraic characterizations of these completeness properties are obtained and their relations are studied. Moreover, we concentrate on five kinds of distinguished semantics for these logics–namely the class of algebras defined over the real unit (...) interval, the rational unit interval, the hyperreals , the strict hyperreals and finite chains, respectively–and we survey the known completeness methods and results for prominent logics. We also obtain new interesting relations between the real, rational and hyperreal semantics, and good characterizations for the completeness with respect to the semantics of finite chains. Finally, all completeness properties and distinguished semantics are also considered for the first-order versions of the logics where a number of new results are proved. (shrink)

Fuzzy logic is understood as a logic with a comparative and truth-functional notion of truth. Arithmetical complexity of sets of tautologies and satisfiable sentences as well of sets of provable formulas of the most important systems of fuzzy predicate logic is determined or at least estimated.

Originally published in 1944, this book presents a study of the life and work of Roman Catholic priest and scholar Alfred Loisy, written by fellow Modernist Maude Petre. Petre died shortly after completing this short biography, and the text begins with a note on her life by James A. Walker. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in this important figure in the controversial Catholic Modernist movement.

Social networks can influence people’s behaviour and therefore it is assumed that central individuals in social networks, also called “opinion leaders”, play a key role in driving change in agricultural and food systems. I analyse the outcomes of an intervention (that encouraged Sulawesi smallholder farmers to take a specific action toward improving the health of their cocoa trees) to assess the impact of engaging opinion leaders in agricultural programs that aim to change farmers’ practices. The intervention has been implemented through (...) (a) 18 opinion leaders identified by interviews and a social network survey of 1885 cocoa farmers; and (b) 18 randomly selected farmers who were not central in local social networks. The obtained social networks and statistical data were quantitatively analysed and the results were interpreted with input from the field staff. Contrary to expectations, the highly socially central opinion leaders were not more effective in promoting the initiative in their communities. On average, randomly selected low-centrality farmers convinced almost twice as many of their peers to take the recommended action as compared to the identified opinion leaders (17.1 versus 8.6) but the variation within the random group was also significantly higher. Importantly, while the identified opinion leaders were mostly senior men, women performed better in influencing others into taking action even when their centrality in local social networks of agricultural advice was lower. I discuss the implications of the conventional selection of perceived opinion leaders as model farmers for achieving sustainable and equitable change at scale in agriculture and propose practical alternatives. (shrink)

A very simple many-valued predicate calculus is presented; a completeness theorem is proved and the arithmetical complexity of some notions concerning provability is determined.

Witnessed models of fuzzy predicate logic are models in which each quantified formula is witnessed, i.e. the truth value of a universally quantified formula is the minimum of the values of its instances and similarly for existential quantification. Systematic theory of known fuzzy logics endowed with this semantics is developed with special attention paid to problems of arithmetical complexity of sets of tautologies and of satisfiable formulas.

Structural completeness properties are investigated for a range of popular t-norm based fuzzy logics—including Łukasiewicz Logic, Gödel Logic, Product Logic, and Hájek's Basic Logic—and their fragments. General methods are defined and used to establish these properties or exhibit their failure, solving a number of open problems.

The paper deals with the problem of divine causation in relation to created agents in general and human rational agents in particular. Beyond creation and conservation, Aquinas specifies divine contribution to created agents’ operation as application in the role of the first cause and the operation of the principal cause employing an instrumental cause. It is especially the latter which is open to varying interpretation and which might be potentially threatening to human freedom. There are different readings of what it (...) is for the secondary agent to “act through the power of the principal cause”. Either the divine cause causes only the existence of the effect of the secondary cause, or it also causes the cause to operate in the sense that it determines its outcome. The latter seems to contradict human freedom. Both readings of Aquinas were developed in the latter half of the sixteenth century within scholastic philosophy and theology. (shrink)

We ask how to use machine learning to expand observability, which presently depends on human learning that informs conceivability. The issue is engaged by considering the question of correspondence between conceived observability counterfactuals and observable, yet so far unobserved or unconceived, states of affairs. A possible answer lies in importing out of reference frame content which could provide means for conceiving further observability counterfactuals. They allow us to define high-fidelity observability, increasing the level of correspondence in question. To achieve high-fidelity (...) observability, we propose to use generative machine learning models as the providers of the out of reference frame content. From an applied point of view, such a role of generative machine learning models shows an emerging dimension of human-machine cooperation. (shrink)