En esta oportunidad, la filosofía de Mario Bunge nos seduce con la actitud de esos científicos que, poniendo las pruebas a la vista de todos, denuncian las falsificaciones y las supercherías con soltura intelectual y minuciosidad. Les advierto, en todo caso, que éste no es un texto de divulgación sino un ensayo filosófico. No obstante, aunque el marco conceptual es denso, uno recorre sus páginas con un creciente interés, como si este repertorio sistemático de ideas fuese una necesidad (...) ineludible frente al pensamiento débil y las triquiñuelas esotéricas. En el cuerpo de creencias que uno puede rebatir con las argumentaciones de Bunge figuran la parapsicología, el sociologismo, la psicología evolutiva, las ideologías fundamentalistas e incluso algunos postulados políticos y económicos. En el mágico país de las pseudociencias, donde no rige la retórica de la obviedad (sentido común, si lo prefieren) sino el ronroneo de lo posible, la voz del filósofo argentino suena con una especial intensidad. A lo largo del libro, las revelaciones son constantes. Vivimos en una época en la que casi todo vale, como quien dice. El menudeo posmoderno se manifiesta en demasiados ámbitos, conduciéndonos hacia un no man's land en el que los más rigurosos y críticos son los que tienen menos posibilidad de victoria. (shrink)

Hierdie boek is n inleiding tot moderne denkrigtings wat alle fasette van die staat betref. Dit verduidelik die verbintenis tussen die huidige proses van staatsvorming in Suid-Afrika en die tradisionele faktore wat dit elders in die w reld aangehelp het.

We prove that the category of Nachbin’s compact ordered spaces and order-preserving continuous maps between them is dually equivalent to a variety of algebras, with operations of at most countable arity. Furthermore, we observe that the countable bound on the arity is the best possible: the category of compact ordered spaces is not dually equivalent to any variety of finitary algebras. Indeed, the following stronger results hold: the category of compact ordered spaces is not dually equivalent to any finitely accessible (...) category, any first-order definable class of structures, and any class of finitary algebras closed under products and subalgebras. An explicit equational axiomatisation of the dual of the category of compact ordered spaces is obtained; in fact, we provide a finite one, meaning that our description uses only finitely many function symbols and finitely many equational axioms. In preparation for the latter result, we establish a generalisation of a celebrated theorem by Mundici: our result—whose proof is independent of Mundici’s theorem—asserts that the category of unital commutative distributive lattice-ordered monoids is equivalent to the category of what we call MV-monoidal algebras.Abstract taken directly from the thesis.E-mail: marco[email protected]: https://air.unimi.it/retrieve/handle/2434/812809/1698986/phd_unimi_R11882.pdf. (shrink)

This collection of essays by Jewish, Christian and Muslim scholars underscores the significance of sustained and serious ethical, interreligious and interdisciplinary reflection on children. Essays in the first half of the volume discuss fundamental beliefs and practices within the religious traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam regarding children, adult obligations to them, and a child's own obligations to others. The second half of the volume focuses on selected contemporary challenges regarding children and faithful responses to them. Marcia J. Bunge (...) brings together scholars from various disciplines and diverse strands within these three religious traditions, representing several views on essential questions about the nature and status of children and adult-child relationships and responsibilities. The volume not only contributes to intellectual inquiry regarding children in the specific areas of ethics, religious studies, children's rights and childhood studies, but also provides resources for child advocates, religious leaders and those engaged in interreligious dialogue. (shrink)

This book is about politics, political theory, and political philosophy. Although these disciplines are often conflated because they interact, they actually are distinct. Political theory is part of political science, whereas political philosophy is a hybrid of political theory and philosophy. The former discipline is descriptive and explanatory, whereas the latter is prescriptive--to the point that it is often called "normative theory." It is in fact the evaluative study of political societies. Whereas political theorists describe and explain politics, political philosophers (...) examine it critically and venture to suggest improvements and, on occasion, radically different social futures. Political philosophers propose scenarios and dreams where political scientists offer snapshots of existing polities. While these disciplines are distinct, Mario Bunge asserts that they must inform each other. Political philosophy is not yet a well-defined field: it hovers between political theory and utopian fantasizing. Few, if any earlier thinkers could have anticipated any of the most pressing political issues of our time, such as the need to stop global warming, reduce nuclear armaments, stop the rise of inequality between individuals and nations, and fight authoritarianism, particularly when it comes disguised as democracy or as socialism. Not even more recent social thinkers had much to say about such topical issues as environmental degradation, gender and race discriminations, participative democracy, nationalism, imperialism, the North-South divide, resource wars, the industrial-military complex, or the connections between poverty and environmental degradation, and between inequality and bad health. Beyond ideological divergences, most political philosophers have been nearly unanimous in their indifference to the plight of the Third World. Bunge does not share that indifference. He also believes that political philosophers should pay more attention to numbers, such as the standard index of income inequality and the more comprehensive United Nations human development index for the various nations. It is pointless to write about redistributive policies unless we have some of idea of current wealth distribution. This is, in short a modern treatise of inherited concerns. (shrink)

Chasing Reality deals with the controversies over the reality of the external world. Distinguished philosopher Mario Bunge offers an extended defence of realism, a critique of various forms of contemporary anti-realism, and a sketch of his own version of realism, namely hylorealism. Bunge examines the main varieties of antirealism - Berkeley's, Hume's, and Kant's; positivism, phenomenology, and constructivism - and argues that all of these in fact hinder scientific research. Bunge's realist contention is that genuine explanations in (...) the sciences appeal to causal laws and mechanisms that are not directly observable, rather than simply to empirical generalisations. Genuine science, in his view, is objective even when it deals with subjective phenomena such as feelings of fear. This work defends a realist view of universals, kinds, possibilities, and dispositions, while rejecting contemporary accounts of these that are couched in terms of modal logic and 'possible worlds.'. (shrink)

This volume has 41 chapters written to honor the 100th birthday of Mario Bunge. It celebrates the work of this influential Argentine/Canadian physicist and philosopher. Contributions show the value of Bunge’s science-informed philosophy and his systematic approach to philosophical problems. The chapters explore the exceptionally wide spectrum of Bunge’s contributions to: metaphysics, methodology and philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of physics, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of social science, philosophy of biology, philosophy of technology, moral philosophy, (...) social and political philosophy, medical philosophy, and education. The contributors include scholars from 16 countries. Bunge combines ontological realism with epistemological fallibilism. He believes that science provides the best and most warranted knowledge of the natural and social world, and that such knowledge is the only sound basis for moral decision making and social and political reform. Bunge argues for the unity of knowledge. In his eyes, science and philosophy constitute a fruitful and necessary partnership. Readers will discover the wisdom of this approach and will gain insight into the utility of cross-disciplinary scholarship. This anthology will appeal to researchers, students, and teachers in philosophy of science, social science, and liberal education programmes. 1. Introduction Section I. An Academic Vocation Section II. Philosophy Section III. Physics and Philosophy of Physics Section IV. Cognitive Science and Philosophy of Mind Section V. Sociology and Social Theory Section VI. Ethics and Political Philosophy Section VII. Biology and Philosophy of Biology Section VIII. Mathematics Section IX. Education Section X. Varia Section XI. Bibliography. (shrink)

This article addresses the following problems: What is a mechanism, how can it be discovered, and what is the role of the knowledge of mechanisms in scientific explanation and technological control? The proposed answers are these. A mechanism is one of the processes in a concrete system that makes it what it is — for example, metabolism in cells, interneuronal connections in brains, work in factories and offices, research in laboratories, and litigation in courts of law. Because mechanisms are largely (...) or totally imperceptible, they must be conjectured. Once hypothesized they help explain, because a deep scientific explanation is an answer to a question of the form, "How does it work, that is, what makes it tick—what are its mechanisms?" Thus, by contrast with the subsumption of particulars under a generalization, an explanation proper consists in unveiling some lawful mechanism, as when political stability is explained by either coercion, public opinion manipulation, or democratic participation. Finding mechanisms satisfies not only the yearning for understanding, but also the need for control. Key Words: explanation • function • mechanism • process • system • systemism. (shrink)

Edwin Southern developed a blotting technique for DNA in 1973, thereby creating a staple of molecular biology laboratory procedures still used after several decades. It became a seminal technology for studying the structure of DNA. The story of the creation and dissemination of this technology, which was not patented and was freely distributed throughout the scientific community, stands as a case study in open science. The Southern blot was developed at a time when attitudes about commercial intrusion into health research (...) were beginning to change and the practical value of molecular genetics was becoming apparent to industry. Interest from industry in fundamental molecular biological techniques meant that scientists began to think about commercial uses of their work even in otherwise "basic" research. The unpatented Southern blot is contrasted with later patented technologies, particularly microarray methods, which were created in the same environment by many of the same people, but which followed significant changes to UK policies encouraging commercialization of academic research and a norm shift friendlier to such commercialization within academic molecular biology. Professor Southern's personal experience illuminates how the technologies evolved, and his views provide insight into how scientists' attitudes about commercialization have changed. (shrink)

The recent detection of gravitational waves by the LIGO team has rightly been hailed as “the crowning achievemen of classical physics”. This detection, which came at the end of a decade-long quest, involved 950 investigators, and cost around one billion US dollars, was the scientific star of the year 2015. What, if any, is the philosophical impact of this scientific breakthrough, which Albert Einstein had anticipated one century earlier? To answer this question we start by examining the central equations of (...) Einstein’s theory of gravitation, also known as general relativity. Subsequently we analyze the special case of a hollow sphere, in an attempt to answer the question of the reality and even materiality of space or, rather, spacetime. As well, the view that gravitation is a manifestation of the curvature of spacetime is discussed, and the reality of gravitational waves is regarded as the coup de grâce to that view. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: I. METAPHYSICS -- 1. How Do Realism, Materialism, and Dialectics Fare in Contemporary Science? -- 2. New Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous -- 3. Energy: Between Physics and Metaphysics -- 4. The Revival of Causality -- 5. Emergence and the Mind -- 6 SCIENTIFIC REALISM -- 6. The Status of Concepts -- 7. Popper's Unworldly World 3 --II. METHODOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE -- 8. On Method in the Philosophy of Science -- 9. Induction in Science (...) -- 10. The GST Challenge to the Classical Philosophies of Science -- 11. The Power and Limits of Reduction -- 12. Thinking in Metaphors --III. PHILOSOPHY OF MATHEMATICS -- 13. Moderate Mathematical Fictionism -- 14. The Gap between Mathematics and Reality -- 15. Two Faces and Three Masks of Probability --IV. PHILOSOPHY OF PHYSICS -- 16. Physical Relativity and Philosophy -- 17. Hidden Variables, Separability, and Realism -- 18. Schrodinger's Cat Is Dead --V. PHILOSOPHY OF PSYCHOLOGY -- 19. From Mindless Neuroscience and Brainless Psychology to Neuropsychology -- 20. Explaining Creativity -- VI. PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE -- 21. Analytic Philosophy of Society and Social Science: -- The Systemic Approach as an Alternative to Holism and Individualism -- 22. Rational Choice Theory: A Critical Look at Its Foundations -- 23. Realism and Antirealism in Social Science --VII. PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY -- 24. The Nature of Applied Science and Technology -- 25. The Technology-Science-Philosophy Triangle in Its Social Context -- 26. The Technologies in Philosophy --VIII. MORAL PHILOSOPHY -- 27. A New Look at Moral Realism -- 28. Rights Imply Duties --IX. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY -- 29. Morality Is the Basis of Legal and Political Legitimacy -- 30. Technoholodemocracy: An Alternative to -- Capitalism and Socialism -- Bibliography -- Index of Names -- Index of Subjects. (shrink)

One of the most difficult and interesting problems of rational decision is the choice among possible diverging paths in theory construction and among competing scientific theories—i.e., systems of accurate testable hypotheses. This task involves many beliefs—some warranted and others not as warranted—and marks decisive crossroads. Suffice to recall the current conflict between the general theory of relativity and alternative theories of gravitation that account for the same empirical evidence, the rivalry among different interpretations of quantum mechanics, and the variety of (...) cosmological theories. They all account for the same observed facts although they may predict different kinds of as yet unknown facts; they are consequently, up to now, empirically equivalent theories even though they are conceptually different and may even involve different philosophical views—i.e., they are conceptually inequivalent. (shrink)

This book attempts to provide a general interpretation of the history of philosophy in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic.

euroscience of Rule-Guided Behavior brings together, for the first time, the experiments and theories that have created the new science of rules. Rules are central to human behavior, but until now the field of neuroscience lacked a synthetic approach to understanding them. How are rules learned, retrieved from memory, maintained in consciousness and implemented? How are they used to solve problems and select among actions and activities? How are the various levels of rules represented in the brain, ranging from simple (...) conditional ones if a traffic light turns red, then stop to rules and strategies of such sophistication that they defy description? And how do brain regions interact to produce rule-guided behavior? These are among the most fundamental questions facing neuroscience, but until recently there was relatively little progress in answering them. It was difficult to probe brain mechanisms in humans, and expert opinion held that animals lacked the capacity for such high-level behavior. However, rapid progress in neuroimaging technology has allowed investigators to explore brain mechanisms in humans, while increasingly sophisticated behavioral methods have revealed that animals can and do use high-level rules to control their behavior. The resulting explosion of information has led to a new science of rules, but it has also produced a plethora of overlapping ideas and terminology and a field sorely in need of synthesis. In this book, Silvia Bunge and Jonathan Wallis bring together the worlds leading cognitive and systems neuroscientists to explain the most recent research on rule-guided behavior. Their work covers a wide range of disciplines and methods, including neuropsychology, functional magnetic resonance imaging, neurophysiology, electroencephalography, neuropharmacology, near-infrared spectroscopy, and transcranial magnetic stimulation. This unprecedented synthesis is a must-read for anyone interested in how complex behavior is controlled and organized by the brain. (shrink)

Life -- Influences -- Early critics -- Glossary -- Short synopses -- Spinoza scholarship.

Individualism comes in at least ten modes: ontological, logical, semantic, epistemological, methodological, axiological, praxiological, ethical, historical, and political. These modes are bound together. For example, ontological individualism motivates the thesis that relations are n-tuples of individuals, as well as radical reductionism and libertarianism. The flaws and merits of all ten sides of the individualist decagon are noted. So are those of its holist counterpart. It is argued that systemism has all the virtues and none of the defects of individualism and (...) holism. One such virtue is the ability to recognize that individualism is a system rather than an unstructured bag of opinions--which raises the question whether thorough and consistent individualism is at all possible. Key Words: holism • individualism • system • systemism. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to elucidate the notions of explanation and mechanism, in particular of the social kind. A mechanism is defined as what makes a concrete system tick, and it is argued that to propose an explanation proper is to exhibit a lawful mechanism. The so-called covering law model is shown to exhibit only the logical aspect of explanation: it just subsumes particulars under universals. A full or mechanismic explanation involves mechanismic law statements, not purely descriptive ones (...) such as functional relations and rate equations. Many examples from the natural, biosocial, and social sciences are examined. In particular, macro-micro-micro-macro social relations are shown to explain other wise puzzling macro-macro links. The last part of the article relates the author's progress, over half a century, toward understanding mechanism and explanation. (shrink)

This book attempts to provide a general interpretation of the history of philosophy in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic. It concentrates on the heritage of Humanism, and on the rise of Dutch Cartesianism and Spinozism.

In this "Dictionary," more than four hundred biographical entries encompass all the Dutch thinkers who exercised a major influence on the intellectual life of the Golden Age, as well as those who developed their ideas and beliefs through interaction with other scholars. Additional entries describe foreign philosophers who lived in the country temporarily and whose work was influenced by their stay. These include John Locke, Rene Descartes and Pierre Bayle.

This collection of essays deals with three clusters of problems in the philo sophy of science: scientific method, conceptual models, and ontological underpinnings. The disjointedness of topics is more apparent than real, since the whole book is concerned with the scientific knowledge of fact. Now, the aim of factual knowledge is the conceptual grasping of being, and this understanding is provided by theories of whatever there may be. If the theories are testable and specific, such as a theory of a (...) particular chemical reaction, then they are often called 'theoretical models' and clas sed as scientific. If the theories are extremely general, like a theory of syn thesis and dissociation without any reference to a particular kind of stuff, then they may be called 'metaphysical' - as well as 'scientific' if they are consonant with science. Between these two extremes there is a whole gamut of kinds of factual theories. Thus the entire spectrum should be dominated by the scientific method, quite irrespective of the subject matter. This is the leitmotiv of the present book. The introductory chapter, on method in the philosophy of science, tackles the question 'Why don't scientists listen to their philosophers?'. (shrink)

Summary Opinion is divided as to whether chemistry is reducible to physics. The problem can be given a satisfactory solution provided three conditions are met: that a science not be identified with its theories; that several notions of theory dependence be distinguished; and that quantum chemistry, rather than classical chemistry, be compared with physics. This paper proposes to perform all three tasks. It does so by analyzing the methodological concepts concerned as well as by examining the way a chemical rate (...) constant is derivable with the help of the quantum atomic theory. The conclusion is that chemistry, and in particular quantum chemistry, is not a part of physics although it is certainly based on the latter. (shrink)

This article gives a practice-based overview of the implementation aspects of Corporate Responsibility. After discussing the success factors for implementing Corporate Responsibility, the article describes a model for implementing Corporate Responsibility. Special attention is given to the success factors in the subsequent phases of implementation (sensitivity to the organizational environment, awareness of core values and clear leadership), to ensure that the most optimal results attainable for the organization can be reached. The implementation-model is clarified by looking at experiences in implementing (...) Corporate Responsibility at Chiquita. (shrink)

The author submits that Popper's social philosophy rests on seven pillars: rationality (both conceptual and practical), individualism (ontological and methodological), libertarianism, the nonexistence of historical laws, negative utilitarianism ("Do no harm"), piecemeal social engineering, and a view on social order. The first six pillars are judged to be weak, and the seventh broken. In short, it is argued that Popper did not build a comprehensive, profound, or even consistent system of social philosophy on a par with his work in epistemology. (...) Still, he did make some important contributions to the field, such as unveiling the philosophical roots of totalitarianism and defending social engineering against both revolutionists and conservatives. (shrink)

This article gives a practice-based overview of the implementation aspects of Corporate Responsibility. After discussing the success factors for implementing Corporate Responsibility, the article describes a model for implementing Corporate Responsibility. Special attention is given to the success factors in the subsequent phases of implementation (sensitivity to the organizational environment, awareness of core values and clear leadership), to ensure that the most optimal results attainable for the organization can be reached. The implementation-model is clarified by looking at experiences in implementing (...) Corporate Responsibility at Chiquita. (shrink)

Factual statements that might qualify for the status of law statements are classed from various philosophically relevant standpoints (referents, precision, structure of predicates, extension, systemicity, inferential power, inception, ostensiveness, testability, levels, and determination categories). More than seven dozen of not mutually exclusive kinds of lawlike statements emerge. Strictly universal and counterfactually powerful statements are seen to constitute just one kind of lawlike statements; classificatory and some statistical laws, e.g., are shown not to comply with the requirements of universality and counterfactual (...) force. Conditions for lawlike statements to be called laws are then examined, and a liberal criterion of lawfulness is finally proposed, which reads thus: A proposition is a law statement if and only if it is a posteriori (not logically true), general in some respect (does not refer to unique objects), has been satisfactorily corroborated for the time being in some domain, and belongs to a theory (whether adult or embryonic). It is claimed that criteria of laws change alongside with the emergence of new usages of the term 'law', and that by adopting a liberal criterion of lawfulness we would conform to contemporary usage and would cease inhibiting the search for regularities in the sciences of man. (shrink)

"Most entries are brief and nontechnical in nature, highlighting useful philosophical terms rather than trendy ones. Placing his emphasis on living philosophy, Bunge deliberately excludes many of the archaic terms and philosophical curios of other dictionaries.

The classification of medical interventions as either invasive or non-invasive is commonly regarded to be morally important. On the most commonly endorsed account of invasiveness, a medical intervention is invasive if and only if it involves either breaking the skin (‘incision’) or inserting an object into the body (‘insertion’). Building on recent discussions of the concept of invasiveness, we show that this standard account fails to capture three aspects of existing usage of the concept of invasiveness in relation to medical (...) interventions—namely, (1) usage implying that invasiveness comes in degrees, (2) that the invasiveness of an intervention can depend on the characteristics of the salient alternative interventions, and (3) that medical interventions can be invasive in non-physical ways. We then offer the beginnings of a revised account that, we argue, is able to capture a wider range of existing usage. Central to our account is a distinction between two properties: basic invasiveness and threshold invasiveness. We end by assessing what the standard account gets right, and what more needs to be done to complete our schematic account. (shrink)