An acceptable empiricist account of laws of nature would havesignificant implications for a number of philosophical projects. For example, such an account may vitiate argumentsthat the fundamental constants of nature are divinelydesigned so that laws produce a life permittinguniverse. On an empiricist account, laws do not produce the universe but are designed by us to systematize theevents of a universe which does in fact contain life; so any ``fine tuning'' of natural law has a naturalistic explanation.But there are problems for (...) the empiricist project. This paper develops a ``perspectival'' version of the Humean bestsystem approach and argues that this version solves the standard problems faced by the empiricist project.Furthermore, the paper argues, this version is best able to answer the proponents of divine design while leaving scientificlaw a suitably objective matter.[I]t is possible tocondense the enormous mass of results to a large extent – that is to find laws which summarize...Richard Feynman It has become fashionable in some circles to argue thatscience is ultimately a sham, that we scientists read order into nature, not out of nature, and that the laws of physicsare our laws, not nature's. I believe this is arrant nonsense. You would be hard-pressed to convince a physicist thatNewton's inverse square law of gravitation is a purely cultural concoction. The laws of physics, I submit, reallyexist in the world out there, and the job of the scientist is to uncover them, not invent them. True, at any giventime, the laws you find in the textbooks are tentative and approximate, but they mirror, albeit imperfectly, a reallyexisting order in the physical world. Of course, many scientists do not recognize that in accepting the reality of anorder in nature-the existence of laws `out there' – they are adopting a theological world view. P. C. W. Davies. (shrink)

The best-system account of scientific law proposes that laws and chances are to be defined in terms of systematic interpretation of all occurrences: L is a law and the chance of X is p just in case L and the chance p of X are consequences of the ideal axiom system for the totality of events. So, what seem to be further facts beyond the occurrences are just matters of the best way to interpret the totality of physical events. This (...) paper proposes treating mentalistic concepts in a similar fashion: humans have consciousness in virtue of the fact that their brains’ best selfmonitoring, first-person interpretation of events involves consciousness. Apparent “further facts” about the mental realm are just matters of the brain’s native way to interpret itself. On this view, a philosopher’s “zombie” is just a normal human interpreted in a non-mentalistic way. (shrink)

This paper offers a brief guide to implementation research and some of the conceptual and methodological issues it raises. In the course of reviewing investigations of the import of aspects of the 1988 Education Reform Act, it also considers the issues posed for education policy studies in a context where the 'centre' is connected to a dispersed and differentiated periphery.

(1991). Grant‐maintained schools: Making a difference without being really different 1 . British Journal of Educational Studies: Vol. 39, No. 4, pp. 409-424.

Many physics parameters need to be precisely set in order for life to exist in our universe. Or so says the fine-tuning argument. That the actual values are just right for life, the argument concludes, is a fact in need of deep physical or metaphysical explanation. Perhaps, the story goes, the parameter values settings are a matter of divine design. Or perhaps they result from a selection effect given our place in the “multiverse”. However, a very different approach to the (...) problem is possible. One may argue that the fine-tuning is an artefact of theorizing: it is explicable as the precise balancing act necessary for compact, systematic representation in science. Given such an explanation and drawing on earlier work from a number of sources, this essay shows how fine-tuning is best understood as evidence for a non-governing conception of laws rather than for design or multiverse. (shrink)

August 16, 1997 David Lewis2 has long defended an account of scientific law acceptable even to an empiricist with significant metaphysical scruples. On this account, the laws are defined to be the consequences of the best system for axiomitizing all occurrent fact. Here "best system" means the set of sentences which yields the best combination of strength of descriptive content 3 with simplicity of exposition. And occurrent facts, the facts to be systematized, are roughly the particular facts about a localized (...) space-time region that are non-modal, non-dispositional, and non-causal. Scientists providing or attempting to provide laws are plausibly seen as giving general principles that unify a body of data. Thus they organize or systematize the arrangement of occurrences. For this reason, Lewis's account has the important merits of providing contact with actual scientific practice while making sense of the standard philosophical conception that laws should be general but more than mere accidental generalizations. However, Lewis has long known about a potential problem with this account, a problem involving chance and credence.4 In a recent series of articles he, Michael Thau, and Ned Hall have developed a new formulation of the relationship between chance and credence which solves the problem. However, I will argue that these articles leave untouched and even exacerbate a closely related and more fundamental problem with the best system account, the problem of nomic necessity. Laws are supposed to be more than true; in some sense they must be true. Yet a principle's membership in the best systematization for one world seems to say nothing about its necessity, i.e., its truth at other worlds. I close by briefly describing how an alternative empiricist account may remove both problems. (shrink)

character. So, we have learned from early on that laws are meant to portray a sort of necessity in nature. The comings and goings described by law are not merely contingently related. Rather, it is part of the concept of law that these events are connected in some significant way: "nomically" connected. One important desideratum for an account of law, then, is that it respect and perhaps explain this modal character.

The nature of quantum mechanical probability has often seemed mysterious. To shed some light on this topic, the present paper analyzes the logical form of probability assignment in quantum mechanics. To begin the paper, I set out and criticize several attempts to analyze the form. I go on to propose a new form which utilizes a novel, probabilistic conditional and argue that this proposal is, overall, the best rendering of the quantum mechanical probability assignments. Finally, quantum mechanics aside, the discussion (...) here has consequences for counterfactual logic, conditional probability, and epistemic probability. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been much discussion over how to assure scientific integrity. It has become clear that a few scientists have fraudulently collected or reported data, conducted harmful or unethical experiments, or practiced “unscientific” procedure. What are regulative bodies to do? The approach has been to define research misconduct and then use that definition to assess scientific practice.[1] But just how to define research misconduct and hence, regulate the conduct of scientists in research? The debate that resulted in (...) response to this question, and that led ultimately to the new federal definition (42CFR50), has both theoretical and political underpinnings. The political underpinnings have been greatly discussed. But the theoretical underpinnings (and their connection to the political) have not. To give a definition of “good” versus “bad” science requires some understanding of the scientific process itself. So theoretical ideas about what constitutes good or bad science—ideas that influence and help shape our ideas and applications of research misconduct definitions—have political implications for the regulation of science. However, as the debates within both the scientific and philosophical communities have made clear, there are significant limits to any appropriate legislation of what counts as “good” science. A definition of research misconduct (or “bad” science) that spells out the nature of science too stringently may stifle scientific innovation. Consider the case of sociobiology when it was first introduced in the 1970’s. The idea is to account for social behavior of various species (including Homo sapiens) in terms of evolutionary biology. To take one example from sociobiology, the greater tendency of males toward rape is to be explained in terms of the evolutionary advantage for the male’s genes. Not surprisingly, sociobiology met with great controversy; some considered it an inappropriate application of biological principles to the social-interpretive-human domain. Still, few did or would suggest that it is the province of any regulatory body to silence the advocates of the new field. We will endorse and reinforce the standard arguments that the scientific process is too complicated to provide mechanical rules of conduct.. (shrink)

In chapter 1, I begin the task of giving a semantical theory which is appropriate for the general indeterministic context and which can profitably be applied to the special context of quantum mechanics. I treat the notion of indeterminism, and discuss tree structures. In the second chapter, I consider several theories of tense meant for the indeterministic context. All presuppose tree structures. I defend one of these as the best rendering of simple English future tense. ;In the third chapter, I (...) begin discussing counterfactual conditionals. It is the burden of this chapter to show that one well known analysis of counterfactuals, Stalnaker's theory, is not appropriate for the context of quantum mechanics. I show that his analysis leads all too easily to a contradiction of experimental evidence. Stalnaker's analysis--like many theories of counterfactuals--is based on the relation of comparative similarity between worlds. Recently this basis has been questioned. In chapter 4, I step back a bit from the project of analyzing counterfactuals and consider the foundations for any such analysis. I first argue that the similarity approach is still a promising one. But I go on to argue that a similarity approach requires a non-ordinary notion of 'similarity'. So 'similarity' is in need of explication. This, I argue, is something that should be done on a piecemeal basis. ;In the fifth chapter, I attempt to unify the results of earlier chapters by relating them to the quantum mechanical context. I begin by defending an analysis of counterfactuals which is given in terms of similarity between worlds. I try to show that this theory is a natural one for the quantum mechanical context. And I discuss how, for purposes of the analysis of counterfactuals, 'similarity' is to be understood in the quantum mechanical context. Also, I consider the logical form of quantum mechanical attribution of probability. These attributions, I argue, involve counterfactuals and tense in interesting ways. Utilizing the results of chapters 1 and 2, I argue for a somewhat novel rendering of these quantum mechanical attributions. (shrink)

In his (1981) paper, Stalnaker has revised his old theory of conditionals and has given the revision an interesting defense. Indeed, Stalnaker shows that this new theory meets the standard objections put to the old. However, I argue that the revision runs into difficulties in the context of quantum mechanics: If Stalnaker's theory of the conditional is assumed, then from plausible assumptions certain Bell-like conflicts with experiment can be derived. This result, I go on to argue, is a good reason (...) to reject Stalnaker's theory, at least for the quantum mechanical context. (shrink)

Conceptual problems for consciousness are analogous to a Humean’s problem with scientific laws. Just as consciousness is often seen to involve further facts beyond the physical, laws would seem to involve reality beyond the Humean’s occurrent facts1. I will attempt to show that a Lewis-style best-system solution to the problem for laws should be applied to the related problem for consciousness. The leading idea of a best-system account is that law and chance claims are true in virtue of their place (...) in ideal systematic treatment of the totality of occurrent fact. Nomic facts about law and chance, then, are not “further facts” beyond the occurrent; rather they are a matter of idealized scientific theory. (shrink)

Rachel Briggs’ critique of “antirealist” accounts of scientific law— including my own perspectivalist best-system account—is part of a project meant to show that Humean conceptions of scientific law are more problematic than has been commonly realized. Indeed, her argument provides a new challenge to the Humean, a thoroughly epistemic version of David Lewis’ “big, bad bug” for Humeanism. Still, I will argue, the antirealist (perspectivalist and expressivist) accounts she criticizes have the resources to withstand the challenge and come out stronger (...) for it. Attention to epistemic possibilities, I argue, shows a number of advantages to a perspectivalist account of scientific law. (shrink)

This paper evaluates the recent trend to renounce the similarity approach to counterfactuals in favor of the older metalinguistic theory. I try to show, first, that the metalinguistic theory cannot work in anything like its present form (the form described by many in the last decade who claim to be able to solve Goodman''s old problem of cotenability). This is so, I argue, because the metalinguistic theory requires laws of nature of a sort that we (apparently) do not have: current (...) physical theory cannot underwrite the metalinguistic theory. Second, I draw from the first point a motivation for the similarity approach, a motivation based on theoretical considerations apart from the standard ones of pretheoretical intuition. (shrink)

The Myopic Anthropic Principle: an attempt to show that the popular anthropic reasoning of our time — often taken to show that laws of nature are fine-tuned by a god for us — should be seen merely as an indication of fine-tuning by us. This preference for short-sightedness in this case is shown (shown?) to support the best-system account of scientific law.

David Lewis[ii] has long defended an account of scientific law acceptable even to an empiricist with significant metaphysical scruples. On this account, the laws are defined to be the consequences of the best system for axiomitizing all occurrent fact. Here "best system" means the set of sentences which yields the best combination of strength of descriptive content[iii] with simplicity of exposition. And occurrent facts, the facts to be systematized, are roughly the particular facts about a localized space-time region that are (...) non-modal, non-dispositional, and non-causal. (shrink)

Philosophy for International Lawyers: A review of Samantha Besson and John Tasioulas, The Philosophy of International Law by Patrick Capps.

To address the multiple grand challenges facing humanity, there is an urgent need for businesses to become more sustainable. This study explores the implementation of sustainability initiatives through an interview-based single case study of an organization in the food and beverage industry. Specifically, this study adopts a Natural-Resource-Based View of the firm to examine the role of organizational culture and structure in the implementation process. It argues that to successfully implement sustainability initiatives, a flexible structure and a green organizational culture (...) grounded in a shared sustainability vision are essential. The findings reveal that, despite the in-practice flat organizational structure of the case organization, there was limited knowledge of the organization's sustainability vision among organizational members across all organizational levels. This could be attributed to a lack of internal communication within the organization, which constitutes a barrier to the successful dissemination of green values throughout the organization's family-like, inclusive, and diverse work environment. This study proposes a three-part approach for practitioners attempting to implement sustainability initiatives: (1) enhance organizational awareness and communication of the sustainability vision; (2) cultivate a green organizational culture; and (3) advocate for a collaborative, inclusive and decentralized approach to fostering sustainability. This approach is vital not only for sustaining the organization's competitive advantage but also for achieving improved environmental and social outcomes. (shrink)

This book is written primarily for psychology and education students whose programs include a course in child psychology, child development, or theories of development. The text may also be used to supplement courses on child development organized thematically or chronologically. Instructors of graduate courses in child development may wish to consider this text as a primary synthesis containing more source material and source citations than others of its kind. The primary aim of the book is to describe what developmental theories (...) are, what they can do, where they come from, how they work, and how they can be used to explain human nature. (shrink)

The constructs of behavioral mass in research on the momentum of operant behavior and associative strength in Pavlovian conditioning have some interesting parallels, as suggested by Savastano & Miller. Some recent findings challenge the strict separation of operant and Pavlovian determiners of response rate and resistance to change in behavioral momentum, renewing the need for research on the interaction of processes that have traditionally been studied separately. Relatedly, Furedy notes that some autonomic responses may be refractory to conditioning, but a (...) combination of operant contingencies and enriched Pavlovian stimulus-reinforcer relations may prove effective. (shrink)

Social justice is a key concept in current education policy and practice. It is, however, a problematic one in its application to schooling. This paper begins with a critique of the account of social justice offered by Gewirtz followed by an alternative philosophical notion based on the perfect world argument and the just society where equality is to the fore. This leads on to an exploration of what it is to be an educated citizen, consideration of the just school and (...) discussion of the place of the school as an instrument for attaining social justice. The conclusion draws attention to the importance of the policy web as a way of developing coherent and unified policy designed to achieve social justice for all. (shrink)

Amidst the many voices clamoring to interpret the environmental crisis, some of the most important are the voices of religious traditions. Long before modernity's industrialism began the rape of Earth, premodern religious and philosophical traditions mediated to untold generations the wisdom of living as a part of nature. These traditions can illuminate and empower wiser ways of postmodern living. The original writings of Worldviews and Ecology creatively present and interpret worldviews of major religious and philosophical traditions on how humans can (...) live more sustainably on a fragile planet. Contributors include Charlene Spretnak, Larry Rasmussen, Noel Brown, Jay McDaniel, Tu Wei-Ming, Thomas Berry, David Ray Griffin, J. Baird Callicott, Eric Katz, Roger E. Timm, Robert A. White, Christopher Key Chapple, Brian Swimme, Brian Brown, Michael Tobias, Ralph Metzner, George Sessions, and Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim. Insights from traditions as diverse as Jain, Jewish, ecofeminist, deep ecology, Christian, Hindu, Bahai, and Whiteheadian will interest all who seek an honest analysis of what religious and philosophical traditions have to say to a modernity whose consciousness and conscience seems tragically narrow, the source of attitudes that imperil the biosphere. (shrink)

Postmodernism has established a significant hold in educational thought and some of the most important ideas are to be found in the writings of Michael Peters. This paper examines his postmodern stance and use of Lyotard's account of knowledge, and from a naturalist point of view raises a number of objections centred on science as a metanarrative, the unity of the empirical and the evaluative, and reason, truth and the growth of knowledge. It is concluded that postmodern epistemology, unlike naturalism, (...) does not serve education well. (shrink)

Postmodernism has established a significant hold in educational thought and some of the most important ideas are to be found in the writings of Michael Peters. This paper examines his postmodern stance and use of Lyotard's account of knowledge, and from a naturalist point of view raises a number of objections centred on science as a metanarrative, the unity of the empirical and the evaluative, and reason, truth and the growth of knowledge. It is concluded that postmodern epistemology, unlike naturalism, (...) does not serve education well. (shrink)

Sex steroids, through their receptors, have potent effects on the signal pathways involved in osteogenic or myogenic differentiation. However, a considerable segment of those signal pathways has a prominent role in epithelial neoplastic transformation. The capability to intervene locally has focused on specific ligands for the receptors. Nevertheless, many signals are mapped to interactions of steroid receptor motifs with heterologous regulatory proteins. Some of those proteins interact with the glucocorticoid receptor and other factors essential to cell fate. Interactions of steroid (...) receptor domain motifs with heterologous proteins affect specific target pathways; consequently, manipulation of specified protein modules complexed with steroid receptors may be a next major step for enhancing molecular targeted therapeutics. In the future, intervention at specific sections of receptor primary sequence may prove therapeutically more efficient in targeting pathways of choice than ligand selectivity can be. (shrink)

The report on educational research, commissioned by the Office for Standards in Education, written by James Tooley with assistance, and published under the title Educational Research: a critique, set out to ‘help provide some badly needed evidence to inform the debate about the quality of educational research’ . Whether this ‘snapshot’ actually upholds Hargreaves' contention that there is a considerable amount of ‘second rate educational research’ is far from clear, although Tooley does conclude that the majority of studies surveyed lacked (...) a clear focus, employed sloppy methodology and displayed partisanship. Now, those whose work was critiqued might, with some justification, grumble about Tooley's own ideological bias given his well‐known right‐wing, market‐oriented views about education. Concern could also be directed at the report's methodological inadequacies, including the procedures adopted to select the journal sample, the categories employed for analysis, and the validity of the conclusions reached. I leave all of these for others to address. Rather, I shall examine two basic distinctions which Tooley adopts and deems important for his investigation into the state of educational research in Britain. The first is between empirical and non‐empirical research, the second is between quantitative and qualitative empirical research. Philosophically, both of these distinctions are highly problematic and as a philosopher Tooley should, at the very least, have acknowledged their contentiousness rather than simply taking them for granted. The purpose of this short note is to indicate why Tooley's reliance on these two distinctions will not do. (shrink)

The report on educational research, commissioned by the Office for Standards in Education, written by James Tooley with assistance, and published under the title Educational Research: a critique, set out to ‘help provide some badly needed evidence to inform the debate about the quality of educational research’. Whether this ‘snapshot’ actually upholds Hargreaves' contention that there is a considerable amount of ‘second rate educational research’ is far from clear, although Tooley does conclude that the majority of studies surveyed lacked a (...) clear focus, employed sloppy methodology and displayed partisanship. Now, those whose work was critiqued might, with some justification, grumble about Tooley's own ideological bias given his well‐known right‐wing, market‐oriented views about education. Concern could also be directed at the report's methodological inadequacies, including the procedures adopted to select the journal sample, the categories employed for analysis, and the validity of the conclusions reached. I leave all of these for others to address. Rather, I shall examine two basic distinctions which Tooley adopts and deems important for his investigation into the state of educational research in Britain. The first is between empirical and non‐empirical research, the second is between quantitative and qualitative empirical research. Philosophically, both of these distinctions are highly problematic and as a philosopher Tooley should, at the very least, have acknowledged their contentiousness rather than simply taking them for granted. The purpose of this short note is to indicate why Tooley's reliance on these two distinctions will not do. (shrink)

A dramatic retelling of the story of the Transcendentalists, revealing them not as isolated authors but as a community of social activists who shaped progressive American values. Conflagration illuminates the connections between key members of the Transcendentalist circle—including James Freeman Clarke, Elizabeth Peabody, Caroline Healey Dall, Elizabeth Stanton, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Theodore Parker, and Margaret Fuller—who created a community dedicated to radical social activism. These authors and activists laid the groundwork for democratic and progressive religion in America. In the tumultuous (...) decades before and immediately after the Civil War, the Transcendentalists changed nineteenth-century America, leading what Theodore Parker called “a Second American Revolution.” They instigated lasting change in American society, not only through their literary achievements but also through their activism: transcendentalists fought for the abolition of slavery, democratically governed churches, equal rights for women, and against the dehumanizing effects of brutal economic competition and growing social inequality. The Transcendentalists’ passion for social equality stemmed from their belief in spiritual friendship—transcending differences in social situation, gender, class, theology, and race. Together, their fight for justice changed the American sociopolitical landscape. They understood that none of us can ever fulfill our own moral and spiritual potential unless we care about the full spiritual and moral flourishing of others. (shrink)

In Eco’s work between around 1960 and 1992, “openness” in a modern literary text can mean (a) “permitting more than one interpretation,” and (b) “requiring a good deal of decoding work from the reader,” which is close to my own position. These two aspects of openness are demonstrated using Baudelaire’s Les Chats, in regard to which Eco denies that the text may be cristallin in Lévi-Strauss’s sense, while still requiring constructive effort from the reader. It is apparent that this term (...) is equivalent to Riffaterreʼs textual “monumentality.” Eco does not go into detail about the reader’s work in assembling the text’s global propositional structure. It is left to Riffaterre and myself to detail the various stages of this work, involving comparison of images in order to discover their common underlying generative proposition. In contrast to Riffaterre, I have long suggested that the modern poetic text is built on two such propositions. It is at the stage of relations between text and sociolect that Eco contributes much to modern poetics. Openness (b) seems to be a prerequisite for perceptual change in the reader, produced by contrast between textual structure and its sociolectic context. Riffaterre prefers to remain within the text/intertext/interpretant triad, preventing him from describing the text-sociolect relation, where the propositional innovation of the modernist text takes effect. (shrink)

Previously published in The mountain path, quarterly published from Sri Ramanansramam.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in (...) the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)