Scientific monism.--Evolution as a psycho-physical process.--Purpose.--The conceptual limit.--Factors of moral responsibility.--Social welfare.--Justice.--Heredity.--Environment.--Perception.--Psychic determinism.--The associative principle in evolution.--The origin and development of morals.--The intuitional factor in morals.--Necessary truths.--Relativity in the moral world.

The goal of this paper is to develop a counterfactual theory of explanation. The CTE provides a monist framework for causal and non-causal explanations, according to which both causal and non-causal explanations are explanatory by virtue of revealing counterfactual dependencies between the explanandum and the explanans. I argue that the CTE is applicable to two paradigmatic examples of non-causal explanations: Euler’s explanation and renormalization group explanations of universality.

The demonstration of a loophole-free violation of Bell's inequality by Hensen et al. (2015) leads to the inescapable conclusion that timelessness and abstractness exist alongside space-time. This finding is in full agreement with the triple-aspect monism of reality, with mathematical Platonism, free will and the eventual emergence of a scientific morality.

Logical monism is the view that there is ‘One True Logic’. This is the default position, against which pluralists react. If there were not ‘One True Logic’, it is hard to see how there could be one true theory of anything. A theory is closed under a logic! But what is logical monism? In this article, I consider semantic, logical, modal, scientific, and metaphysical proposals. I argue that, on no ‘factualist’ analysis (according to which ‘there is One (...) True Logic’ expresses a factual claim, rather than an attitude like approval), does the doctrine have both metaphysical and methodological import. Metaphysically, logics abound. Methodologically, what to infer from what is not settled by the facts, even the normative ones. I conclude that the only interesting sense in which there could be One True Logic is noncognitive. The same may be true of monism about normative areas, like moral, epistemic, and prudential ones, generally. (shrink)

This chapter defends a pluralistic view of science: the various projects of enquiry that fall under the general rubric of science share neither a methodology nor a subject matter. Ontologically, it is argued that sciences need have nothing in common beyond an antipathy to the supernatural. Epistemically one central virtue is defended, empiricism, meaning just that scientific knowledge must ultimately be answerable to experience. Prima facie science is as diverse as the world it studies; and rejection of this prima (...) facie diversity in favour of a spurious aspiration to unity is grounded in a priori assumption not experience. Disunity, however, does not mean disconnectedness, and the connections between different areas of knowledge are an important theme in the book. (shrink)

Scientific pluralism is the view according to which there is a plurality of scientific domains and of scientific theories, and these theories are empirically adequate relative to their own respective domains. Scientific monism is the view according to which there is a single domain to which all scientific theories apply. How are these views impacted by the presence of inconsistent scientific theories? There are consistency-preservation strategies and inconsistency-toleration strategies. Among the former, two prominent (...) strategies can be articulated: Compartmentalization and Information restriction. Among the inconsistency-toleration strategies, we have: Paraconsistent compartmentalization and Dialetheism. In this paper, I critically assess the adequacy of each of these four views. (shrink)

Philosophers have usually highlighted how the weakness and paucity of historical evidence underdetermine the choice between rival historical explanations. Focusing underdetermination on the link between theory and evidence comes, I argue, with three assumptions: competing hypotheses are easy to generate, investigators agree on the constitution and interpretation of the evidence and a plurality of hypotheses is a useful evil to reach consensus. The last assumption implies that the sustained coexistence of incompatible hypotheses is considered as a scientific failure. I (...) argue that this negative vision of sustained disagreement has monistic undertones. By drawing from a case study in evolutionary biology, this paper defends a form of scientific pluralism. Firstly, I show that underdetermination is not only found at the inferential level but also at the level of the constitution and interpretation of the evidence, on the choice of investigative scaffolds and when interpreting background theories. Because of that, competing hypotheses exhibit a degree of methodological incommensurability. While catastrophic from a monistic standpoint, I defend that scientific pluralism gives a different, and I think richer, account of such situations. On the plus side, competing approaches benefit from their sustained coexistence and interaction. I argue that this generates direct and indirect epistemic goods independently of whether the controversy is solved. Scientific pluralism also shifts our attention from achieving consensus to managing disagreement. The challenge becomes to maintain the conditions for fruitful interactions in a community with incommensurable approaches and heterogeneous expertise. (shrink)

1. Consider the basic outlines of the mind-body debate as it is found in contemporary Anglo-American analytic philosophy. The central question is “whether mental phenomena are physical phenomena, and if not, how they relate to physical phenomena.”1 Over the centuries, a wide range of possible solutions to this problem have emerged. These are the various “isms” familiar to any student of the debate: Cartesian dualism, idealism, epiphenomenalism, central state materialism, non- reductive physicalism, anomalous monism, and so forth. Each purports (...) to specify, among other things, the metaphysical relationship between the mental and the physical. They do so by specifying whether, or in what way, mental entities are identical to, reducible to, realized by, supervenient upon, or in causal interaction with physical entities. Thus, a convenient way to survey the range of positions is to enter them in a table. Rows correspond to the major kinds of metaphysical relation which might obtain between mental and physical entities. Each columns corresponds to one of the generic positions available in the debate. The particular theories defended by individual philosophers are usually just specific versions of generic positions. Thus Malebranche’s occasionalism is a version of causal dualism, distinguished by a peculiar account of the way in which causal interaction between mental and physical is actually effected. The central philosophical challenge is to determine which of these positions correctly describes the mental/physical relationship. Positions are evaluated for internal consistency, their fit with “intuitions,” their compatibility with scientific developments, and so forth. The mind-body debate, in this simple form, is set out in any number of. (shrink)

The following lecture on Monism is an informal address delivered extemporaneously on October 9, 1892, at Altenburg, on the seventy-fifth anniversary of the "Naturforschende Gesellschaft des Osterlandes." The immediate occasion of it was a previous address delivered by Professor Schlesinger of Vienna on "Scientific Articles of Faith." This philosophical discourse contained, with reference to the weightiest and most important problems of scientific investigation, much that was indisputable; but it also contained some assertions that challenged immediate rejoinder and (...) a statement of the opposite view. As I had for thirty years been very closely occupied with these problems of the philosophy of nature, and had set forth my convictions with respect to them in a number of writings, a wish was expressed by several members of the Congress that on this occasion I should give a summary account of these. (shrink)

We explore the prospects of a monist account of explanation for both non-causal explanations in science and pure mathematics. Our starting point is the counterfactual theory of explanation for explanations in science, as advocated in the recent literature on explanation. We argue that, despite the obvious differences between mathematical and scientific explanation, the CTE can be extended to cover both non-causal explanations in science and mathematical explanations. In particular, a successful application of the CTE to mathematical explanations requires us (...) to rely on counterpossibles. We conclude that the CTE is a promising candidate for a monist account of explanation in both science and mathematics. (shrink)

This groundbreaking volume casts light on the long shadow of naturalistic monism in modern thought and culture. When monism's philosophical proposition - the unity of all matter and thought in a single, universal substance - fused with scientific empiricism and Darwinism in the mid-nineteenth century, it led to the formation of a powerful worldview articulated in the work of figures such as Ernst Haeckel. The compelling essays collected here, written by leading international scholars, investigate the articulation of (...) monism in science, philosophy, and religion and its impact on a range of social movements, from socialism and early feminism to imperialism and eugenics. The result is a broad and comprehensive chronological, disciplinary, and geographic map of a century of monism, as well as a bellwether for innovative new directions in the interdisciplinary study of science, religion, philosophy, and culture. (shrink)

The Logical Reconstruction of the World (Aufbau) is oneof the major works of Rudolf Carnap in which he attempts to put an end to some of the traditional disputes in epistemology by using what he calls 'construction theory'. According to this theory, one or more constructional systems can be designed in which all the scientific and pre-scientific objects are logically made out of a limited number of basic elements. Carnap introduces some options for the basis of this system (...) and chooses the domain of the autopsychological, i.e., the domain of private elementary experiences, among them and tries to construct all the concepts out of them. This phenomenalistic reduction sometimes is seen as embracing a Cartesian dualism of mind and body or even a mentalistic monism. However, in this paper, I shall try to show that the traditional dualist-monist debates are among those disputes that the construction theory aims to get rid of. I will show that Carnap's position on the mind-body problem is really close to what Davidson later termed as 'Anomalous Monism' and that this is why Carnap fails to complete his logical construction at a crucial step. Whenever possible, logical constructions are to be substituted for inferred entities. (shrink)

In this article, I am interested in dual-aspect monism as a solution to the mind-body problem. This view is not new, but it is somewhat under-represented in the contemporary debate, and I would like to help it make its way. Dual-aspect monism is a parsimonious, elegant and simple view. It avoids problems with “mental causation”. It naturally explains how and why mental states are correlated with physical states while avoiding any mysteries concerning the nature of this relation. It (...) fits well with our ordinary picture of the world, as well as with the scientific picture. It gives its rightful place to the phenomenal, qualitative, subjective character of experience, instead of reducing it or eliminating it. It does not unnecessarily multiply ontological categories. It can come in many versions, and is compatible with other interesting views, such as panpsychism. (shrink)

In 1887 the Open Court Publishing Company had its founding in a philosophy of monism. The company’s proprietor Edward C. Hegeler began the enterprise in an effort to promote his personal philosophic, religious, and moral ideas. He believed that these ideas could be conciliated with the growing scientific trends of the late nineteenth century, and that monism was the intellectual framework for doing so. Paul Carus, the editor of the journals The Open Court and The Monist, joined (...) Hegeler as an intellectual ally in this regard. For thirty years he openly defended the doctrines of monism in countless articles and books, successfully grounding the Open Court on this philosophy. This paper uncovers the historical development of the philosophical origin of the Open Court as it began with Hegeler’s personal religious motives, his ideological tension with the original editor Benjamin Underwood, and his embrace of the monistic writings of Paul Carus. It also examines Hegeler’s and Carus’s publications and personal letters from the 1880s and 1890s in order to determine the fundamental doctrines of their unique sense of monism. In Carus’s writings in particular is proposed a monism of causality that is compatible with a deterministic worldview and a unitary conception of the sciences. Also, both Carus and Hegeler propose a monistic ethics of meliorism that conceives the diverse periods of human history to be evolving toward the one final end of the moral improvement of humankind. While these are the positive doctrines that they accept, they further reject the antitheses of philosophical dualism and irreligious attitude of agnosticism of all varieties. (shrink)

The monistic worldview aims at a uniform description of nature based on scientific models. Quantum physical systems are mutually part of the other quantum physical systems. An aperture distributes the subsystems and the wave front in all possible ways. The system only takes one of the possible paths, as measurements show. Conclusion from Bell's theorem: Before the quantum physical measurement, there is no point-like location in the universe where all the information that explains the measurement is available. Distributed information (...) is possible. Movement of the particle and measuring process are deterministic. The oscillation between location uncertainty and momentum uncertainty leads photons to determine their own location at short intervals. The uncertainty principle focuses the systems. The fields of the surrounding matter influence the location of the new formation. The effect of all fields is based on a common mechanism. (shrink)

Scientific realism has three dimensions: a metaphysical commitment to the existence of a mind-independent world; a semantic commitment to a literal interpretation of scientific claims; and an epistemological commitment to scientific knowledge of both observable and unobservable entities. The semantic dimension is uncontroversial, and the epistemological dimension, though contested, is well articulated in a number of ways. The metaphysical dimension, however, is not even well articulated. In this paper, I elaborate a plausible understanding of mind independence for (...) the realist – plausible in conceding the force of sceptical arguments to the effect that there is no one correct way to carve nature at its joints, but realist in proposing an objective basis for carving nonetheless. Walking this line between implausible realism and full-blown constructivism leads down the path of three forms of relativism or pluralism: one concerning the ways in which scientists “package” properties into entities; another concerning the precise metaphysical natures of these entities; and another concerning the context relativity of their behaviour. (shrink)

A monist theory of explanation is one that seeks a common definition for all speech acts answering why-questions. One recent example is the counterfactual theory of explanation, which assumes that an ideal explanation can be characterized by the familiar Hempelian criteria for a scientific explanation plus a certain counterfactual that is supported by the laws mentioned in the explanans. I show that the CTE fails. My discussion leads to a critique of the CTE’s key concept of counterfactual dependence and (...) to the suggestion of an alternative: For an argument to be a scientific explanation, a certain necessary-condition claim must be true. For an answer to a why-question to be an explanation, it must express a certain necessary condition. (shrink)

Scientific specialties are the key unit of analysis in Kuhn’s theory of scientific change. Kuhn believed that scientific specialties, in their normal phases, are characterized by theoretical monism. This is what makes scientists so efficient in realizing their epistemic goals. Recent work in the philosophy of scientific practice raises questions about the extent to which there is or needs to be consensus in science, thus challenging a key dimension of Kuhn’s view. Hasok Chang has been (...) a leader in this project, focusing attention on the benefits of pluralism. I argue that Chang and other pluralists are overcorrecting. I argue that a variety of types of pluralism can be reconciled with theoretical monism, and that theoretical monism serves significant functions, aiding scientists in the effective pursuit of their epistemic goals. Thus, I aim to set limits to pluralism. I argue that Kuhn’s theoretical monism not only has room for the sort of pluralism that Chang and others aims to defend, I also show that it presupposes such forms of pluralism. (shrink)

Can we expect our scientific theories to make up a unified structure, or do they form a kind of “patchwork” whose pieces remain independent from each other? Does the proliferation of sometimes-incompatible representations of the same phenomenon compromise the ability of science to deliver reliable knowledge? Is there a single correct way to classify things that science should try to discover, or is taxonomic pluralism here to stay? These questions are at the heart of philosophical debate on the unity (...) or plurality of science, one of the most central issues in philosophy of science today. This book offers a critical overview and a new structure of this debate. It focuses on the methodological, epistemic, and metaphysical commitments of various philosophical attitudes surrounding monism and pluralism, and offers novel perspectives and pluralist theses on scientific methods and objects, reductionism, plurality of representations, natural kinds, and scientific classifications. (shrink)

This article makes the case that a more capacious understanding of the philosophy of naturalistic monism can place in a new light some of the chief intellectual, cultural, religious and political questions and conflicts in the period between the 1840s and 1940s, making this in many ways a “monist century.” It approaches this task from two directions. First, the article argues that monism represented a peculiar type of socially embodied knowledge that is little understood and yet which illuminates (...) one of the important ways in which religion, science, and philosophy coalesced in social and political movements in this period. It approaches this task through an analysis of two key terms in Ernst Haeckel’s epoch-making book "The Riddle of the Universe" (1899). Haeckel invoked the term “world riddles” to identify those points of conflict between dualistic and monist philosophical systems and to claim that the latter had solved this riddles through science. By contrast, this article identifies in the riddles the nodal points upon which the entire monist edifice was erected. Turning to the social embodiment of monism, I argue that rather than approaching monism as philosophy, religion, scientific paradigm or ideology, it is best understood as a novel formation of knowledge captured in the second key term “worldview.” Indeed, in many ways the German concept of Weltanschauung developed in tandem with and through the history of monism, so that monism offers a particularly rich avenue for exploring what made the monist century also an age of worldviews. (shrink)

Kant’s theory of cognition aimed to explain the possibility of scientific knowledge. Aesthetics and life science were not considered by Kant in the context of cognition. By contrast, Cassirer set himself a philosophical task to extend Kant’s theory of cognition to all forms of culture, including pre-scientific knowledge and aesthetics. The present study demonstrates how Cassirer explained the possibility of different objective forms, named symbolic, by employing and transforming Kant’s theory of cognition. For this goal, Cassirer took the (...) following steps: modified the definitions of a priori synthesis (the act of understanding) and pure intuition (the forms of space and time) - main building blocks of Kant’s cognition; indicated the necessary correlation of intuition and synthesis; characterized a priori synthesis and the intuition as notions which include contradicted meanings. Cassirer called this contradiction “twofold oppositions” as characteristic of a priori synthesis. The first argument of the article is that the possibility of various synthetic acts is rooted in the nature of a priori synthesis which carries together two different meanings: the act of uniting elements and the initial unity. One synthetic act forms the world of nature and is connected to scientific space and time, and the other is the product of immediate perceptional space and time, from which the world of myth and aesthetics appears. Thus, Cassirer expanded the scope of “pure” synthesis. The second argument is that Cassirer specified a priori synthesis and pure intuition as a functional concept. The functional concept belongs to the model of concept as-relation that Cassirer has elaborated. It includes moments that are separated and united simultaneously. This definition of concept breaks the rules of consistency. The concept of as-relation justifies the contradictory characteristics of a priori synthesis and pure intuition, which include both the combination of moments in a synthesizing act and the initial unity of intuition. (shrink)

SummaryIn this paper I argue that the intuitions which made Davidson and Hare use the word “supervenience,” were not the same as those which underlie current supervenience discussions. There are crucial differences between, on the one hand, the concerns of Davidson and Hare, as I interpret them, and “received” theories of supervenience on the other. I suggest the use of the term by Davidson and Hare lends support to turning the concept upside down by giving priority to the Manifest Image (...) rather than the Scientific Image. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to present and defend an empiricist, neo-Hempelian account of scientific explanation as ampliative, specialized embedding. The proposal aims to preserve what I take to be the core of Hempel’s empiricist account, by weakening it in some respects and strengthening it in others, introducing two new conditions that solve most of Hempel’s problems without abandoning his empiricist strictures. According to this proposal, to explain a phenomenon is to make it expectable by introducing new conceptual/ontological (...) machinery and using special, and non-ad hoc, non-accidental regularities. The new conditions are elaborated making essential use of two central structuralist ideas, namely T-theoreticity and specialization. I first introduce and qualify the project, then present the new account in detail and assess it vis-à-vis its rivals, and finally discuss some possible objections, concluding that the account fares better than its monistic rivals and well enough to qualify as a promising neo-Hempelian account. Even for those unpersuaded by its monistic goals, it has the merit of calling attention to two new necessary conditions not explicitly emphasized thus far and showing how they serve to answer many of the criticisms addressed against Hempel’s account. (shrink)

This article considers the `Strong Programme' account of scientific knowledge from a fresh perspective. It argues that insufficient attention has been paid to the Strong Programme's monistic intent, that is, its aim to unify considerations of instrumental adequacy and social interests in explanations of the development of scientific knowledge. Although sharing the judgment of many critics that the Strong Programme approach is flawed, the article diverges from standard criticisms by suggesting that the best alternative is not a dualistic (...) framework but a more adequate monistic approach. Key Words: Strong Programme • interests • monism • finitism • classification. (shrink)

Reception of the Bohm-Hiley interpretation of quantum mechanics has a curiously Janus faced quality. On the one hand, it is frequently derided as a conservative throwback to outdated classical patterns of thought. On the other hand, it is equally often taken to task for encouraging a wild quantum mysticism, often regarded as anti-scientific. I will argue that there are reasons for this reception, but that a proper appreciation of the dual scientific and philosophical aspects of the view reveals (...) a powerful and extremely interesting metaphysical view of the world. This view is akin to that of Russellian Monism, in which the empirical world studied by science is restricted to relational features that stand in need of some background intrinsic properties to ground their reality. This allows for a theory that can embrace a world which exhibits a reasonable and plausible sort of emergence (especially of domains that fall under classical concepts) while also making room for distinctive and scientifically intransigent properties such as consciousness. (shrink)

Monism is a doctrine that claims to deduce the entire system of knowledge from one first principle. It must be a system of a mutually connected propositions that are obtained by a methodologically reliable unfolding of one original proposition accepted as self-evident and unquestionable. Modern philosophy in its rationalist version, beginning with Descartes, tends precisely to this kind of monistic construction of the system of knowledge from a first principle. The striving toward monism is demonstrated most clearly in (...) Spinoza's and Fichte's systems. Spinoza's original principle is substance-that which exists by itself and is comprehended through itself. Fichte replaces substance by the Absolute Subject, the Absolute I, which by an act of self-positing brings itself into being and defines itself only by itself. In one and the other, all the determinations of the system must follow from the original principle with indisputable necessity. It is this logical necessity that claims to be the pure image of the scientific spirit that was valued so highly by modern European thought. (shrink)

This Introduction to a Journal of Consciousness Studies Special Issue on Monist Alternatives to Physicalism summarises some of the basic problems of Physicalism and common fallacies in arguments for its defence that are found in the philosophical and scientific literature. It then introduces six monist alternatives: 1) a form of emergent panpsychism developed by William Seager; 2) a novel introduction to the process philosophy of A.N. Whitehead by Anderson Weekes; 3) a review of current developments in Russellian Monism (...) by Torin Alter and Yujin Nagasawa; 4) an analysis of dual-aspect monism and its relation to quantum mechanics originally proposed developed by Pauli and Jung and given a modern interpretation by Harald Atmanspacher; 5) a form of processing monism that might help to resolve ontological differences in Indian philosophy and psychology between dualist Samkya Yoga and nondualist Advaita Vedanta by K. Ramakrisna Rao; and 6) an account of Reflexive Monism, which, viewed as a global system, can incorporate many of the seemingly opposed “isms” that currently populate Consciousness Studies by Max Velmans. Whatever the fundamental nature of Nature might be, it must have the power to give rise to its observable manifestations. Consequently, all the papers in this issue are concerned to give a “natural” account of the relationships among consciousness, mind, and the material world that is entirely consistent with the findings of science, and they all accept that for a unified understanding, mind, consciousness and the material world must have a common base. The aim of the Special Issue is to contribute to a deeper understanding of that base, and to stimulate novel thinking about its nature. (shrink)

The earliest writer who deserves to be called a psychologist is Hobbes; and if we consider the time when he wrote, we cannot fail to be surprised at what I may term his prevision of the most important results which have now been established by science. He was the first clearly to sound the note which has ever since constituted the bass, or fundamental tone, of scientific thought. Let us listen to it through the clear instrumentality of his own (...) language:-. (shrink)

Free Energy Principle underlies a unifying framework that integrates theories of origins of life, cognition, and action. Recently, FEP has been developed into a Markovian monist perspective. The paper expresses scepticism about the validity of arguments for Markovian monism. The critique is based on the assumption that Markovian models are scientific models, and while we may defend ontological theories about the nature of scientific models, we could not read off metaphysical theses about the nature of target systems (...) from our theories of nature of scientific models. The paper draws attention to different ways of understanding Markovian models, as material entities, fictional entities, and mathematical structures. I argue that none of these interpretations contributes to the defence of a metaphysical stance. This is because scientific representation is a sophisticated process, and properties of Markovian models—such as the property of being neither physical nor mental—could not be projected onto their targets to determine the ontological properties of targets easily. (shrink)

My analysis of the mind-body problem suggests that the mind-body problem is a "problem" because: There are discrepancies in use between scientific notions like "physical" and philosophical notions like "phenomenal character". Phenomenological conceptions of the mind are primarily used as contrast-terms in arguments against metaphysical physicalism. "Qualia" and similar terms - properly analysed - reveal that they do not, as often claimed, have a "folk-psychological" origin. Rather these terms should be described as highly sophisticated technical terms and should not (...) be confused with non-philosophical notions expressing experiential content. Dualists are obliged to offer us a positive, thus substantive, account of what they mean by "subjective experience" and similar idioms. This is, as I shall point out, a very hard task, mainly due to the strong contrast-mode in which these terms are used. When disconnected from the paradigmatic contrast-context these terms appear more or less out of place. But when faced with a hard-core reductionism the appeal to "phenomenal qualities" seems very appropriate. In my analysis, terms like "what it is like" and "experiential character" are concept that, as such, make perfect sense, but only in a limited context. The strong contrast mode in which these terms are used, I think, also explains why it is so hard to give a satisfactory semantic account for these terms. (shrink)

'A scientific opinion is one which there is some reason to believe is true; an unscientific opinion is one which is held for some reason other than its probable truth.' - Bertrand Russell One of Russell's most important books, this early classic on science illuminates his thinking on the promise and threat of scientific progress. Russell considers three questions fundamental to an understanding of science: the nature and scope of scientific knowledge, the increased power over nature that (...) science affords, and the changes in the lives of human beings that result from new forms of science. With customary wit and clarity, Russell offers brilliant discussions of many major scientific figures, including Aristotle, Galileo, Newton and Darwin. With a new introduciton by David Papineau, King's College, London. (shrink)

This paper has two main aims. The first is to present a general approach for understanding “dispositional” and “categorical” properties; the second aim is to use this approach to criticize Russellian Monism. On the approach I suggest, what are usually thought of as “dispositional” and “categorical” properties are really just the extreme ends of a spectrum of options. The approach allows for a number of options between these extremes, and it is plausible, I suggest, that just about everything of (...) scientific interest falls in this middle ground. I argue that Russellian Monism depends for its plausibility on the unarticulated assumption that there are no properties in the middle ground. (shrink)

Parmenides of Elea was the most important and influential philosopher before Plato. He rejected as impossible the scientific inquiry practiced by the earlier Presocratic philosophers and held that generation, destruction, and change are unreal and that only one thing exists. In this book, Patricia Curd argues that Parmenides sought to reform rather than to reject scientific inquiry, and she offers a more coherent account of his influence on later philosophers._ _The Legacy of Parmenides_ examines Parmenides' arguments, considering his (...) connection to earlier Greek thought and how his account of what-is could have served as a model for later philosophers. Curd also explores the theories of his successors, including the Pluralists, the Atomists, the later Eleatics, and the later Presocratics. She concludes with a discussion of the importance of Parmenides' work to Plato's _Theory of Forms._ _The Legacy of Parmenides_ challenges traditional views of early Greek philosophy and provides new insights into the work of Parmenides. "_The Legacy of Parmenides_ represents a milestone... of Parmenides' interpretation. It is full of ideas and tells a coherent story about Parmenides and early Greek thought." --_ Alexander Nehamas, Princeton University___ "Professor Curd offers a genuinely original and possibly correct interpretation of the core thesis of the poem of Parmenides in a field so well worked over that saying something both new and true is profoundly difficult, this is a notable achievement." --_ Thomas M. Robinson, University of Toronto___ "This will be a substantial book in the story of early Greek philosophy, and future writers on the tradition from Thales through Plato will not be able to ignore it without missing an important interpretive alternative. It will be of value to students of Presocratic philosophy or the Greek tradition, as well as to students of the scientific revolution, cosmology, the origins of logic, or comparative mysticism." --_ Scott W. Austin, Texas A&M University___ PATRICIA CURD_ is professor at Purdue University where she works primarily in Ancient Philosophy. She is a co-editor of _Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy_, and is the editor of _A Presocratics Reader._. (shrink)

In this article, we focus on Proclus' commentary on Plato's Timaeus about how the divine Demiurge intervenes in matter. It is an interesting extract due to the fact that Proclus manages to combine philosophical perspective with theological interpretation and scientific analysis. In the six chapters of the article, we present the theory on dualism established by the representatives of Middle Platonism, we approach the question of the production of the corporeal hypostases, we examine limit and unlimited as productive powers, (...) we explain production in the sense of co-production as well as why matter without qualities is excluded from the entire procedure, and we discuss the principle of the supremacy of the supreme Principle. The most important conclusion drawn according to Proclus, who adopts moderate skepticism, is that, although in his early dialogues Plato tends to dualism, he does this for methodological purposes, for Plato's views are actually connected with ontological monism. (shrink)

In “Well-Being and Pluralism” (2021), Polly Mitchell and Anna Alexandrova defend conceptual pluralism about well-being. Conceptual pluralism about well-being holds that there are multiple, irreducible concepts of well-being that are employed in different contexts, all equally legitimate as concepts of well-being. Moreover, “Conceptual pluralism about well-being entails that there is no single essence which characterises all and only instances of well-being.” (Mitchell and Alexandrova, 2021, p. 2422) Conceptual monism about well-being, on the other hand, holds, at a minimum, that (...) there is some essence that unites all legitimate uses of ‘well- being’. In this paper, I will argue that there is a version of conceptual monism about well-being, the network theory of well-being defended by Michael Bishop in his book The Good Life (2015), that can secure all of the benefits of Mitchell and Alexandrova’s conceptual pluralism, namely accommodating the wide range of uses of “well-being” in the sciences of well-being and in ordinary language. Mitchell and Alexandrova’s argument for pluralism depends on the inability of a monistic theory of well-being to account for this diversity of conceptions of well-being and the diversity of instruments used to measure well-being in the sciences. Bishop’s network theory, like Mitchell and Alexandrova’s pluralism, is designed to accommodate the scientific study of well-being. Because of this, it avoids the pitfalls of traditional, monistic conceptions of well-being despite its monistic credentials. I conclude with two novel arguments for the network theory. (shrink)

In this paper I shall be looking at the state of science before and after the 17th century especially with regard to the question of the nature of scientific knowledge, specifically scientific paradigms. I will argue that some of the major differences between modern science and pre-modern science are due to (i) methodological changes, (ii) the rise of paradigmatic monism in modern science as opposed to paradigmatic pluralism in pre-modern science, (iii) the integration of science with technology (...) after the 17th century. These changes, I maintain, also redefine the role of scientific knowledge in society and culture, and bring in its wake certain problems and challenges, which in turn elicit different types of responses. Pre-modern science, I argue, are admirably suited to play a cultural and religious role, partly because of a lack of a pragmatic criterion of knowledge, and the emphasis on rational coherence. This makes enchantment of nature through science, possible. However, with the further evolution of science, especially the introduction of the experimental method and the emphasis on empiricism in the 17th century, scientific knowledge now has to conform to different criteria of knowledge -pragmatic in partleading to 'paradigmatic monism' and the consequent loss of enchantment in our conception of nature. The rise of the new science beginning in the 17th century thus brings in its wake a new set of epistemological and cultural challenges which were met with in different ways. I will then comment on the different types of responses made against the rise of the new science. (shrink)

In this paper I shall be looking at the state of science before and after the 17th century especially with regard to the question of the nature of scientific knowledge, specifically scientific paradigms. I will argue that some of the major differences between modern science and pre-modern science are due to (i) methodological changes, (ii) the rise of paradigmatic monism in modern science as opposed to paradigmatic pluralism in pre-modern science, (iii) the integration of science with technology (...) after the 17th century. These changes, I maintain, also redefine the role of scientific knowledge in society and culture, and bring in its wake certain problems and challenges, which in turn elicit different types of responses. Pre-modern science, I argue, are admirably suited to play a cultural and religious role, partly because of a lack of a pragmatic criterion of knowledge, and the emphasis on rational coherence. This makes enchantment of nature through science, possible. However, with the further evolution of science, especially the introduction of the experimental method and the emphasis on empiricism in the 17th century, scientific knowledge now has to conform to different criteria of knowledge -pragmatic in partleading to 'paradigmatic monism' and the consequent loss of enchantment in our conception of nature. The rise of the new science beginning in the 17th century thus brings in its wake a new set of epistemological and cultural challenges which were met with in different ways. I will then comment on the different types of responses made against the rise of the new science. (shrink)

Scientific realism is the view that one can be justified in believing, of some theory about unobservable entities, that the entities it posits are real and accurately described by the theory, in the same sense as one can be justified in believing that the theory’s empirical predictions are accurate, and that so to believe is what it means for a scientist to “accept” that theory, because the goal of science is to describe reality, even its unobservable features. The first (...) part is an epistemic claim, whereas the second concerns the rational reconstruction of scientific practice. Together they suggest that evidence justifying scientific acceptance of a theory justifies belief that the unobservable entities it posits are real and as the theory purports them to be. Anti-realism denies ; it holds that claims about unobservables are either unjustified or justified in a different sense from predictions of observations. It also denies ; it maintains that in her scientific work, as rationally reconstructed, a scientist who accepts a claim about unobservables believes that it yields accurate predictions of observables, not that it describes unobservables. (shrink)

In this article, we argue that it can be fruitful for philosophers interested in the nature and moral significance of racism to pay more attention to psychology. We do this by showing that psychology provides new arguments against Garcia's views about the nature and moral significance of racism. We contend that some scientific studies of racial cognition undermine Garcia's moral and psychological monism about racism: Garcia disregards (1) the rich affective texture of racism and (2) the diversity of (...) what makes racial ills morally wrong. Key Words: racism • emotions • implicit bias • psychology • racial ills • pluralism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Scientific Method in PhilosophyAuthor's note: Thanks to Gregory Landini for helpful clarifications.Gregory Landini. Repairing Bertrand Russell's 1913 Theory of Knowledge. (History of Analytic Philosophy.) London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022. Pp. x, 397. isbn: 978-3-030-66355-1, us$139 (hb); 978-3-030-66356-8, us$109 (ebook).The title of this book might suggest a rather narrow study of a problem with Russell's Theory of Knowledge and a proposed solution. But as with Landini's first book, Russell's Hidden (...) Substitutional Theory, the title does not capture the full scope of the work. That work did not just point out the lingering substitution theory in Principia, but gave a sweeping view of Russell's overall development from Principles to Principia and one of the most detailed accounts of the formal system in Principia in any work. This work gives a sweeping overview of Russell's philosophy up to 1918, including not just Russell's multiple-relation theory of judgment, but the whole project of what Russell called scientific method in philosophy, which was the subtitle to his 1914 Our Knowledge of the ExternalWorld. Landini thinks this is the height of Russell's philosophy and proposes a fix to the problems which led Russell to abandon the project.Landini does not just present Russell's views during this period, but vigorously defends them, and not just the multiple-relation theory of judgment mostly associated with Theory of Knowledge, but also the views that logic should be understood as synthetic a priori, Russell's doctrine of acquaintance, including the acquaintance with universals as the grounding of synthetic a priori knowledge, and Russell's view that logic is the essence of philosophy. The book contains a wide range of discussions, including issues in philosophy of mind, theories of representation, theories of universals, evolution in philosophy, and the metaphysics of time and space.The book opens with an overview of some main themes, including Landini's view of the three main phases of Russell's post-idealist philosophy and his discussion of what he calls the revolutions in logic and mathematics. The three phases Landini has in mind are the Principles phase, the Principia phase [End Page 81] (which includes The Problems of Philosophy and Theory of Knowledge) and the neutral monist phase, which Landini sees as a mistake Russell made when he didn't see how to repair his 1913 work. According to Landini, the Principles era ends with the failure of the substitution theory from the po /ao paradox, the Principia era ends by 1918 with the abandonment of the attempt to finish the project of the 1913 Theory of Knowledge, and the neutral monist era begins in 1919 and continues through 1948. Landini wants to concentrate on repairing the view in the Principia era. Any remarks of Russell's from later rejecting, for example, his view of the subject, of acquaintance, of neutral monism, and remarks concerning logic as consisting of tautologies are to be rejected. Landini firmly believes that after abandoning the 1913 project, Russell took a wrong turn. Landini's discussion of the multiple-relation theory of judgment is therefore quite different from the other discussion in the literature, in that most commentators have thought Russell was correct in abandoning the theory and most think there is something to Wittgenstein's criticism. Landini thinks Wittgenstein's criticism was based on his new vision of logic, and that Russell should have rejected it and proceeded with the project of Theory of Knowledge.Given the controversies involved in these claims, I think the best way forward is an explication of Landini's new emphasis on the revolutions in logic and mathematics and some of the key claims Landini makes concerning the Principia era. Then we can look at the details of Landini's repairing of the project.the two revolutionsWhat is striking about Landini's more recent work is his emphasis on these two revolutions. One is the revolution within logic, which originates with Frege; the other a revolution in mathematics which originates with Weierstrass, von Staudt, Pieri and Cantor. While most historians of this period are aware of the important shifts... (shrink)

In Effective Intentions: The Power of Conscious Will (Mele 2009), I argue that scientists—neuroscientists and others—have not proved that free will is an illusion and have not produced powerful evidence for that claim. Manuel Vargas has suggested that in that book I ignore a serious scientific threat to free will (2009). The alleged threat is identified in section 1. It is the topic of this article.

The paper demonstrates that Parmenides’ monism is a logical consequence of his criteria for philosophy, in conjunction with the logical operators he uses, and their holistic connection. Parmenides, I argue, is the first philosopher to set out explicit criteria for philosophy, establishing as criterion not only consistency, but also what I call rational admissibility, the requirement when giving an account of something that the account be based on rational analysis and can withstand rational scrutiny. I give a detailed account (...) of the logical operators Parmenides uses in his argument and of the way in which his notion of being is tailored to fit both them and his criteria for philoso-phy. (shrink)