Introduction to the Philosophy of Science: Cutting Nature at Its Seams is a clear and lively explanation of key concepts and issues in the philosophy of science. It surveys the field from positivism to social constructivism, focusing on the metaphysical implications of science as a form of knowledge gathering that explains what the world is really like, while simultaneously arguing for the superiority of a holistic model of scientific theories over competing models. An innovative feature is the use of immunology (...) as the central domain of illustration, in contrast to other philosophy of science texts that draw examples predominantly from physics. The text also presents Thomas Kuhn's model of science clearly and accurately, rectifying the notorious and widespread misinterpretations projected upon it in the past. Klee discusses both traditional models of science and alternative interpretations, most notably nonfeminist and feminist models inspired by the work of Kuhn. Richly illustrated and complete with a glossary of over eighty key terms, this book serves as an ideal text for undergraduates, because it presents a highly accessible and contemporary investigation of science as a form of inquiry capable of revealing to us the structure of the world. (shrink)

Contemporary scientific theories assume a primarily micro-deterministic view of nature. This paper explores the question of whether micro-determinism is incompatible with the alleged emergence of properties and laws that some biologists and philosophers assert occurs in various biological systems. I argue that a preferable unified treatment of these emergence claims takes properties, rather than laws, to be the units of emergence. Four distinct conceptions of emergence are explored and three shown to be compatible with micro-determinism. The remaining concept of emergence, (...) direct macro-determination, does not, I argue, meet the general requirement that an adequate scientific explanation provide a coherent mechanism or effective means of determination. (shrink)

After presenting and criticizing recent theoretical work on the nature of delusional belief, I argue that the works of the later Wittgenstein and Donald Davidson offer heretofore underappreciated insights into delusional belief. I distinguish two general kinds of delusion: pedestrian and stark. The former can be explained as cognitive mistakes of various kinds, whereas the latter I argue are necessarily inexplicable. This thesis requires the denial of the Davidsonian dogma that rationality is constitutive of mental content. I claim that the (...) dogma holds only for normal cognition and is violated precisely in the case of stark delusion. (shrink)

Background: The parent of a child with profound cognitive disability will have complex decisions to consider throughout the life of their child. An especially complex decision is whether to place a tracheotomy to support the child’s airway. The decision may involve the parent wanting a tracheotomy and the clinician advising against this intervention or the clinician recommending a tracheotomy while the parent is opposed to the intervention. This conflict over what is best for the child may lead to a bioethics (...) consult. Objective: The study explores the conflicts that may arise around tracheotomy placements. Research design: This study is a retrospective cohort study of pediatric patients for whom a tracheotomy decision required a bioethics consult. Participants and research context: Pediatric patients aged birth to 18 years old with a bioethics consult for a tracheotomy decision conflict between April 2010 and December 2016. A standardized data collection tool was used to review notes entered by the palliative care team, social workers, primary clinical team interim summaries, and the bioethics consult service. Ethical considerations: The study was reviewed and approved by the medical center’s institutional review board. Results: There were 248 clinical bioethics consults during the identified study period. There were 31 consults involving 21 children where the word tracheotomy was mentioned in the consult, and 13 of the 21 consults were for children with profound cognitive disability. Discussion and conclusion: Clinicians need to be aware of their own biases when discussing a child’s prognosis and treatment options while also understanding the parents’ values and what the parent might consider to be burdensome in the care of their child and the acceptable burden for the child to experience. (shrink)

Introduction to the Philosophy of Science: Cutting Nature at Its Seams is a clear and lively explanation of key concepts and issues in the philosophy of science. It surveys the field from positivism to social constructivism, focusing on the metaphysical implications of science as a form of knowledge gathering that explains what the world is really like, while simultaneously arguing for the superiority of a holistic model of scientific theories over competing models. An innovative feature is the use of immunology (...) as the central domain of illustration, in contrast to other philosophy of science texts that draw examples predominantly from physics. The text also presents Thomas Kuhn's model of science clearly and accurately, rectifying the notorious and widespread misinterpretations projected upon it in the past. Klee discusses both traditional models of science and alternative interpretations, most notably nonfeminist and feminist models inspired by the work of Kuhn. Richly illustrated and complete with a glossary of over eighty key terms, this book serves as an ideal text for undergraduates, because it presents a highly accessible and contemporary investigation of science as a form of inquiry capable of revealing to us the structure of the world. (shrink)

Recent developments in astrophysical cosmology have revived support for the design argument among a growing clique of astrophysicists. I show that the scientific/mathematical evidence cited in support of intelligent design of the universe is infected with a mathematical sharp practice: the concepts of two numbers being of the same order of magnitude, and of being within an order of each other, have been stretched from their proper meanings so as to doctor the numbers evidentially. This practice started with A. S. (...) Eddington and P. A. M. Dirac in the 1920s and 1930s, but it is still very much alive today. 1 Introduction 2 The birth of a sharp practice 3 High tide for the anthropic principle 4 How not to do things with numbers 5 The recalcitrant sloppiness of crud 6 How excited can excited carbon-12 be? 7 Is a pile of doubts a doubtful pile? 8 Conclusion. (shrink)

While discussing the work of Kuhn and Hanson, John Greenwood (1990) misidentifies the nature of the relationship between the incommensurability of theories and the theory-ladenness of observation. After pointing out this error, I move on to consider Greenwood's main argument that the Quine-Duhem thesis suffers from a form of epistemological self-defeat if it is interpreted to mean that any recalcitrant observation can always be accommodated to any theory. Greenwood finds this interpretation implausible because some adjustments to auxiliary hypotheses undermine too (...) much of the prior observational evidence for the test theory. I argue that Greenwood mistakes the logico-metaphysical Quine-Duhem thesis for an epistemological one. All the argument he takes to undercut it actually illustrates how well the thesis works on a practical level. This is illustrated with an example from contemporary immunology. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook Jahrgang: 2017 Heft: 1 Seiten: 59-78.

Scientific Inquiry: Readings in the Philosophy of Science features an impressive collection of classical and contemporary readings on a wide range of issues in the philosophy of science. The volume is organized into six sections, each with its own introduction, and includes a general introduction that situates the philosophy of science in relation to other areas of intellectual inquiry. The selections focus on the main issues in the field, including the structure of scientific theories, models of scientific explanation, reductionism, historicist (...) challenges to the objectivity of science, and the dispute over the ontological interpretation of mature scientific theories. Both the positivist model of science and its competitors, including contemporary social constructivist models, are included. Ideal for introductory philosophy of science courses, Scientific Inquiry strives to provide students and other readers with a thorough knowledge of the philosophical complexity of modern science and an appreciation of its authoritative intellectual standing in contemporary life. (shrink)

Davidson has argued that there can be no laws linking psychological states with physical states. I stress that this argument depends crucially on there being no purely psychological laws. All of this has to do with the holism and indeterminacy of the psychological domain. I criticize this claim by showing how Davidson misconstrues the role of ceteris paribus clauses in psychological explanation. Using a model of how ceteris paribus clauses operate derived from Lakatos, I argue that if Davidson is correct, (...) then there can be no purely physical laws either. This is illustrated with a case from immunology involving interferons. Since there clearly are physical laws, Davidson cannot be correct. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 11.1 (2004) 95-99 [Access article in PDF] Delusional Content and the Public Nature of Meaning:Reply to the Other Contributors Robert Klee The contribution by professors Bayne and Pacherie (2004) is an earnest attempt to defend a popular model of monothematic delusions against criticisms launched by John Campbell (2001). This model of monothematic delusions holds that such delusions are rational attempts by the sufferer to explain (...) to herself specific kinds of anomalous sensory/affective experiences. Bayne, Pacherie, Campbell, and for that matter Sass, Harper, and Georgaca, write as if semantic meaning accrued to words in a language term by term, as if meaning is "private" to the deluded person, and that she might therefore mean almost anything by her own idiosyncratic use of the public language she otherwise speaks. This is a notorious mistake. As Hilary Putnam famously put it in his classic 1975 paper "The meaning of 'meaning,'" "Cut the pie any way you like, 'meanings' just ain't in the head" (1975, 227). That is, meanings are not ethereal interior mental objects, private to the speaker—they are not private inner episodes that take place in some mental center stage of consciousness. The deluded person does not and cannot succeed in changing the meaning of a term in a public language like English merely by an individual act of imaginative will involving the making of a bizarre assertion—not even if she repeats it a thousand times. The public nature of meaning, if I can coin a phrase for it, is the central theme in the work of the later Wittgenstein. Even before Putnam, Wittgenstein had made the same point in his Philosophical Investigations via a famous footnote in which he writes, Can I say 'bububu' and mean "If it doesn't rain I shall go for a walk"?—it is only in a language that I can mean something by something. This shows clearly that the grammar of 'to mean' is not like that of the expression 'to imagine' and the like." (2001, 18e) Wittgenstein argues that the answer to the rhetorical question in the footnote is an emphatic No. To mean something by the use of words in a public language is not equivalent to an act of individual free imagination. The languages we each speak, including the unfortunately deluded among us, are public not private, and insofar as the notion of meaning has an understandable sense, the meaning of a term is fixed by its actual public use, across large time intervals, in many different contexts, by the many millions of speakers of the language in question. It is time that segments of the intellectual map beyond the borders [End Page 95] of philosophy got the news about this, for I think an appreciation of this point would forestall certain objections and argumentative moves that otherwise take up space in the psychological literature.Bayne and Pacherie (2004) describe Campbell's model of monothematic delusions as proposing that "delusions can be usefully regarded as Wittgensteinian framework propositions" (p. 7). I have discussed this notion in my main paper, although I do not use the terms framework propositions; I stick to Wittgenstein's own words. Wittgenstein called them, literally in the German, propositions that "stand fast for us" (feststehen). This description strikes me as less misleading than calling them framework propositions, for the latter expression suggests that they could in some sense be replaceable by a different framework of framework propositions, something that Wittgenstein in no way ever meant to suggest. Wittgenstein did not think of these propositions as individualized or privately owned—as beliefs that might vary considerably across the population of speakers of the language in which they are expressed. That is why he explicitly wrote that they stand fast for us. Note the plural pronoun. There is something irreducibly collective, something publicly owned, about the epistemology of these propositions. These propositions represent the accumulated certainties that precipitate out of what is commonly shared in human experience over long time intervals. Precisely because what stands fast for us is... (shrink)

In a recent paper, Maslow has suggested that we turn from means-centering to problem-centering in science. In two other papers the present author offered a theoretical foundation which would make Maslow's suggestions psychologically sound. For as he suggests, it is only by centering ourselves towards the task that the task is accomplished or towards the problem that the problem is solved. This does not mean that methods or means, or, in the broader sense, of means as ends or of ends (...) per se, do not constitute problems. The whole problem of psychology is the means by which the organism obtains knowledge; the problem of education is that of means, or the problem of communication is one of means, or of any profession, e.g., engineering or medicine, the problem may be of means as a problem. Whichever is the case it is only so far as problems are solved that we are free to go on to tackle new ones or throw light on the more basic ones and thus enrich our lives. Problem solving, of course, does not mean that particular problems as framed are solvable. For example, if the rules state that one must connect each dot with every other dot on a piece of paper with lines that do not intersect, a four dot problem is solvable but a five dot situation cannot be resolved within these rules. In the latter case it may mean that the problem becomes: “can anyone solve it?” This has been the lesson of the mathematicians and the logical positivists. But what is problem solving? (shrink)

By placing Butler’s Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism (2012) in counterpoint with Said’s After the Last Sky: Palestinian Lives (1986), this essay aims to shed new light on Butler’s political and ethical writing, revealing, in particular, the ways in which a politics of cohabitation is inseparable from the process of translation. Both Butler and Said articulate the difficult yet necessary task of establishing a just cohabitation through the translation between two histories of exile, Jewish and Palestinian. Firstly, (...) I examine Butler’s efforts to derive a principle of cohabitation from the Jewish history of diaspora, arguing that it should be understood as a response to Said’s reflections on Jewishness in Freud and the Non-European. I then seek to illuminate how statelessness structures the interplay of text and image in After the Last Sky, arguing that exilic tension provides the framework for Said’s rethinking of comparativism. (shrink)

It is quite common in our texts and periodicals to run across formulations of the learning process in which the word acquire is used in some way as part of the description. Individuals are said to “acquire” habits or skills or languages or attitudes or solutions or emotions. The organism is said to “acquire” certain of its traits from the environment and even to “acquire” from heredity. Such usage is not technically incorrect. Webster defines acquire as follows: acquire. 1. To (...) gain by any means, usually by one's own exertions; to get as one's own. 2. To take on as part of one's nature or qualifications; to establish by means of repetition or effort, as characteristic in one's behavior or range of ability; as to acquire a habit. Syn., attain, procure, win, earn, secure; receive, learn, adopt, cultivate, affect. See obtain. (shrink)

When Swiss artist Paul Klee died in 1940, he left behind not only paintings that are a testament to his prodigious skill and vision but also a trove of writings and lectures that highlight his impressive intellectual prowess. Paul Klee: Philosophical Vision: From Nature to Art is the fully illustrated catalog accompanying an eponymous exhibition opening in 2012 at the McMullen Museum of Art that focuses on the philosophical depth of Klee's art. Demonstrating how ideas developed in Klee's written work (...) are realized in his paintings, Paul Kleeputs a keen emphasis on the artist as philosopher, both in his theoretical writings and in his artistic works. Klee's philosophy of nature and of the genesis of natural things is explored, as are the ways in which Klee translated these ideas into form, line, and color. His paintings are also decoded to reveal Klee as an astute critic of modern society, taking up topics as various as the impact of technology on art and the political failures of Germany that led to the rise of Hitler and Nazism. The exhibition and catalog will also look at twentieth- and twenty-first-century philosophers who have discussed Klee's work, including Benjamin, Heidegger, Foucault, and Merleau-Ponty, and will articulate the broad impact that Klee's art has had on recent philosophical thought. This book brings together contributions by an international group of scholars and also includes a new translation of Klee's "On Modern Art." A beautiful and rigorous treatment of one of the twentiethcentury's most famous painters, Paul Klee not only reveals the man himself as a thinker and artist, but also creates a larger paradigm for how philosophical ideas shape art, and vice versa. (shrink)

The scales across which physical properties exist are vast and subtle in their effects on particular systems placed locally on such scales. For example, human experiential access is restricted only to partial segments of the mass density, size, and temperature scales of the universe. I argue that philosophers must learn to appreciate better the effects of physical scales. Specifically, thought experiments in philosophy should be more sensitive to physical scale effects, because the conclusion of a thought experiment may be undermined (...) by unintentionally ignored scale effects, and the changes required to obtain the foreground state of affairs in a thought experiment might require unacknowledged scale-spanning changes to the contextual background. I discuss four philosophical thought experiments: Putnam's Twin Earth and Brain in a Vat, Searle's Chinese Room, and Chalmers's Zombies Without Qualia. I close by briefly defending the greater interest and importance of physical possibility over logical possibility. (shrink)

Formal models of theory contraction entered the philosophicalliterature with the prototype model by Alchourrón, Gärdenfors,and Makinson (Alchourrón et al. 1985). One influential modelinvolves theory contraction with respect to a relation calledepistemic entrenchment which orders the propositions of a theoryaccording to their relative degrees of theoretical importance.Various postulates have been suggested for characterizingepistemic entrenchment formally. I argue here that threesuggested postulates produce inappropriately bizarre results whenapplied to scientific theories. I argue that the postulates callednoncovering, continuing up, and continuing down, implyrespectively that, (...) (i) no scientific law is more epistemicallyentrenched than any of its instances, (ii) two distinct instances ofthe same scientific law must have different degrees of epistemicentrenchment, and (iii) any two scientific laws must have differentdegrees of epistemic entrenchment. I also argue that continuingup and continuing down each lead to incoherency. (shrink)

Formal models of theory contraction entered the philosophicalliterature with the prototype model by Alchourrón, Gärdenfors,and Makinson (Alchourrón et al. 1985). One influential modelinvolves theory contraction with respect to a relation calledepistemic entrenchment which orders the propositions of a theoryaccording to their relative degrees of theoretical importance.Various postulates have been suggested for characterizingepistemic entrenchment formally. I argue here that threesuggested postulates produce inappropriately bizarre results whenapplied to scientific theories. I argue that the postulates callednoncovering, continuing up, and continuing down, implyrespectively that, (...) (i) no scientific law is more epistemicallyentrenched than any of its instances, (ii) two distinct instances ofthe same scientific law must have different degrees of epistemicentrenchment, and (iii) any two scientific laws must have differentdegrees of epistemic entrenchment. I also argue that continuingup and continuing down each lead to incoherency. (shrink)

This study evaluated the feasibility of using occipitoparietal alpha activity to drive target/non-target classification in a brain-computer interface for communication. EEG data were collected from 12 participants who completed BCI Rapid Serial Visual Presentation calibrations at two different presentation rates: 1 and 4 Hz. Attention-related changes in posterior alpha activity were compared to two event-related potentials : N200 and P300. Machine learning approaches evaluated target/non-target classification accuracy using alpha activity. Results indicated significant alpha attenuation following target letters at both 1 (...) and 4 Hz presentation rates, though this effect was significantly reduced in the 4 Hz condition. Target-related alpha attenuation was not correlated with coincident N200 or P300 target effects. Classification using posterior alpha activity was above chance and benefitted from individualized tuning procedures. These findings suggest that target-related posterior alpha attenuation is detectable in a BCI RSVP calibration and that this signal could be leveraged in machine learning algorithms used for RSVP or comparable attention-based BCI paradigms. (shrink)

This paper contains a preliminary investigation of an experimental, first-order logic with identity which encodes as an inference rule the faulty reasoning which Von Domarus (1944) suggested underwrote much of the bizarre thinking seen in certain forms of schizophrenia. I begin with a discussion of the "Von Domarus thesis," note its fate under statistical testing, and remark on its continued explanatory power in the hands of certain psychiatrists. I next discuss a proof calculus which contains a rule representing Von Domarus (...) reasoning — the phrenetic calculus — and present several nonstandard theorems which are provable in this system. In an appendix the phrenetic calculus is proven to be absolutely consistent, but unsound, yet complete. After a brief aside which addresses certain caveats and restrictions required in order to avoid rendering the calculus trivial, I close with a discussion of three of the nonstandard theorems, each of which are consistent in interesting ways with known schizophrenic cognitive deficits. (shrink)

Steady-state visual evoked potentials are commonly used for functional objective diagnostics. In general, the main response at the stimulation frequency is used. However, some studies reported the main response at the second harmonic of the stimulation frequency. The aim of our study was to analyze the influence of the stimulus design on the harmonic components of ssVEPs. We studied 22 subjects using a circular layout. At a given eccentricity, the stimulus was presented according to a 7.5 Hz square wave with (...) 50% duty cycle. To analyze the influence of the stimulus eccentricity, a background luminance of 30 cd/m2 was added to suppress foveal stray light effects; to analyze the influence of simultaneous foveal and peripheral stimulations, stimulations are performed without stray light suppression. For statistical analysis, medians M of the amplitude ratios for amplitudes at the second harmonic to the first harmonic and the probability of the occurrence of the main response at the second harmonic P are calculated. For stimulations with foveal stray light suppression, the medians were M0–1.6° = 0.45, M1.6–3.5° = 0.45, M3.5–6.4° = 0.76, M6.4–10.9° = 0.72, and M10.9–18° = 0.48, and the probabilities were P0–1.6° = 0.05, P1.6–3.5° = 0.05, P3.5–6.4° = 0.32, P6.4–10.9° = 0.29, and P10.9–18° = 0.30. For stimulations without foveal stray light suppression, the medians M were M0–1.6° = 0.29, M1.6–3.5° = 0.37, M3.5–6.4° = 0.98, M6.4–10.9° = 1.08, and M10.9–18° = 1.24, and the probabilities were P0–1.6° = 0.09, P1.6–3.5° = 0.05, P3.5–6.4° = 0.50, P6.4–10.9° = 0.55, and P10.9–18° = 0.55. In conclusion, the stimulus design has an influence on the harmonic components of ssVEPs. An increase in stimulation eccentricity during extrafoveal stimulation leads to a transition of the main response to the second harmonic. The effect is enhanced by a simultaneous foveal stimulation. (shrink)