This essay develops an inferential account of model explanation, based on Mauricio Suárez’s inferential conception of scientific representation and Alisa Bokulich’s counterfactual account of model explanation. It is suggested that the fact that a scientific model can explain is essentially linked to how a modeler uses an established model to make various inferences about the target system on the basis of results derived from the model. The inference practice is understood as a two-step activity, with the first step involving making (...) counterfactual statements about the model itself and the second step involving making hypothetical statements transferring over claims derived from the model onto the target. To illustrate how this two-step activity proceeds, an agent-based simulation model is discussed. (shrink)

I propose a dynamic causal approach to characterizing the notion of a mechanism. Levy and Bechtel, among others, have pointed out several critical limitations of the new mechanical philosophy, and pointed in a new direction to extend this philosophy. Nevertheless, they have not fully fleshed out what that extended philosophy would look like. Based on a closer look at neuroscientific practice, I propose that a mechanism is a dynamic causal system that involves various components interacting, typically nonlinearly, with one another (...) to produce a phenomenon of interest. (shrink)

Michael Weisberg’s account of scientific models concentrates on the ways in which models are similar to their targets. He intends not merely to explain what similarity consists in, but also to capture similarity judgments made by scientists. In order to scrutinize whether his account fulfills this goal, I outline one common way in which scientists judge whether a model is similar enough to its target, namely maximum likelihood estimation method. Then I consider whether Weisberg’s account could capture the judgments involved (...) in this practice. I argue that his account fails for three reasons. First, his account is simply too abstract to capture what is going on in MLE. Second, it implies an atomistic conception of similarity, while MLE operates in a holistic manner. Third, Weisberg’s atomistic conception of similarity can be traced back to a problematic set-theoretic approach to the structure of models. Finally, I tentatively suggest how these problems might be solved by a holistic approach in which models and targets are compared in a non-set-theoretic fashion. (shrink)

Polger and Shapiro argue that their official recipe, a criterion for judging when the phenomenon of multiple realization exists, renders MR less widespread than its proponents have assumed. I argue that, although Polger and Shapiro’s criterion is a useful contribution, they arrive at their conclusion too hastily. Contrary to Polger and Shapiro, I claim that the phenomenon of multiple realization in the biological world, judged by their criterion, is not as scarce as they suggest. To show this, an updated official (...) recipe, namely a multiple mechanistic realization thesis, integrating Polger and Shapiro’s criterion with a compositional conception of realization, is developed. Then, three examples of varied kinds are examined, showing that cases of MR are not so hard to find in the biological world. (shrink)

Thomas Polger and Lawrence Shapiro claim that unlike human-made artifacts cases of multiple realization in naturally occurring systems are uncommon. Drawing on cases from systems biology, I argue t...

This Key Concepts pivot examines the fundamental Chinese ideas of ‘Civilization’ and ‘culture’, considering their extensive influence both over Chinese society and East Asian societies. The pivot analyses the traditional connotations of those two concepts and their evolution in the Sino-Western exchanges as well as their renewed interpretation and application by contemporary Chinese scholars. It analyses how the years 1840-1900 which mark a period of major transition in China challenged these concepts, and highlights how the pursuit of innovation and international (...) perspective gave birth to new values ​​and paradigm shifts, and culminated in the May Fourth New Culture Movement. Considering the underlying humanistic ideas in the key concepts of traditional Chinese civilisation and culture, this pivot contributes to this series of Chinese Key Concept by offering a unique analysis of the conceptual evolutions brought about by the change of values in 21st century China. (shrink)

According to upper echelon theory, this research seeks to explore how environmental leadership (EL) influences environmental performance through green intellectual capital (GIC), while also considering environmental climate as a moderator. We analyze the data from 317 Chinese manufacturing companies in two waves to test these hypotheses. The findings suggest that EL positively affects environmental performance via green structural capital and green relational capital (GRC). Moreover, environmental climate strengthens the impacts of EL on green human capital and GRC. This research enriches (...) the existing literature on EL and GIC by revealing the vital roles of EL in promoting environmental performance and GIC, as well as explaining the mechanism between these relationships. (shrink)

This essay considers a mixed-effects modeling practice and its implications for the philosophical debate surrounding reductive explanation. Mixed-effects modeling is a species of the multilevel modeling practice, where a single model incorporates simultaneously two levels of explanatory variables to explain a phenomenon of interest. I argue that this practice makes the position of explanatory reductionism held by many philosophers untenable because it violates two central tenets of explanatory reductionism: single-level preference and lower-level obsession.

In this essay I propose that what design principles in systems biology and systems neuroscience do is to present abstract characterizations of mechanisms, and thereby facilitate mechanistic explanation. To show this, one design principle in systems neuroscience, i.e., the multilayer perceptron, is examined. However, Braillard contends that design principles provide a sort of non-mechanistic explanation due to two related reasons: they are very general and describe non-causal dependence relationships. In response to this, I argue that, on the one hand, all (...) mechanisms are more or less general, and on the other, many design principles are causal systems. (shrink)

Anoixism is a new contemporary philosophy which has spread from Asia to Europe in recent years. Anoixism lists openness as its first principle, accepting and acknowledging every doctrine and philosophy in the world. Phoenixist liberalism and Anoixist naturalism are two main parts of Phoenixist ethics. It starts from human nature and respects every individual's human rights through Phoenixist Constitutionalism. Phoenixist ethics insists on respecting freedom to the maximum degree through its principle of openness, supporting "ethics with the least amount of (...) norms" and "government with the least amount of control," although it proposes a non-violent liberalism which places reservations on violence so as to respect the value of nature, life and humanity. With the Anoixist concept of being open to nature, life and humanity, Anoixism achieves Buddhist Non-being, Taoist Tao, Humanist liberty and any other possible ultimate value. (shrink)

This paper proposes a holistic approach to the model-world relationship, suggesting that the model-world relationship be viewed as an overall structural fit where one organized whole fits another organized whole. This approach is largely motivated by the implausibility of Michael Weisberg’s weighted feature-matching account of the model-world relationship, where a set-theoretic conception of the structures of models is assumed. To show the failure of Weisberg’s account and the plausibility of my approach, a concrete model, i.e. the San Francisco Bay model, (...) is discussed. (shrink)

This paper analyses the evolutionary characteristics of the interprovincial population mobility network structure in China and explores the roles of provinces from 2010 to 2015. By constructing the interprovincial population mobility network, we examine the provinces’ functions during periods of population mobility through population mobility diversity, population mobility, and population mobility intermediation. The results show that the coverage and tightness of the interprovincial population mobility network were influenced by national economic development, increasing steadily from 2010 to 2014 and then suddenly (...) falling in 2015. The regions that played essential roles in the province’s mobility diversity and intermediation showed a dispersion trend. In contrast, areas that played a vital role in the inflows or outflows were relatively concentrated and stable. Additionally, this work further explores how economic factors, e.g., GDP, residents’ consumption levels, total population, unemployment rate, and consumer price index, are used as independent variables to analyse the provinces’ roles in the interprovincial population mobility network. The analysis shows that the inflow or outflow volumes are easily affected by the five indices. These five indices are significantly related to network role indicators to different extents. (shrink)

This article argues for the explanatory autonomy of psychology drawing on cases from the multilevel modeling practice. This is done by considering a multilevel linear model in personality and social psychology, and discussing its philosophical implications for the reductionism debate in philosophy of psychology. I argue that this practice challenges the reductionist position in philosophy of psychology, and supports the explanatory autonomy of psychology.

This article focuses on the study of the emotional discourses contained in the Chu bamboo slips dating back to the Chu kingdom of the Warring States period, and announces a newly discovered tradition of Emotionalism in ancient China. In addition to the two main traditions of Confucianism and Taoism, there is a third tradition of Emotionalism that has hitherto not attracted adequate attention and has not been sufficiently studied. I propose that rather than perceiving traditional Chinese culture through the binary (...) looking glass of the dichotomous concept of “Complementation of Confucianism and Taoism,” Chinese culture may be represented more accurately if viewed in the light of a “Threefold Coexistence of Confucianism–Legalism, Taoism–Buddhism and Civil Emotionalism,” along with other lesser-known schools of thought. The uncovering of the hidden tradition of Emotionalism will reveal new perspectives on the modern transformation of traditional Chinese culture. This third tradition represents a conviction of civil liberalism that is of great importance to the transformation of ancient Chinese tradition into a modern constitutional culture. (shrink)

This book argues for the explanatory autonomy of the biological sciences. It does so by showing that scientific explanations in the biological sciences cannot be reduced to explanations in the fundamental sciences such as physics and chemistry and by demonstrating that biological explanations are advanced by models rather than laws of nature. To maintain the explanatory autonomy of the biological sciences, the author argues against explanatory reductionism and shows that explanation in the biological sciences can be achieved without reduction. Then, (...) he demonstrates that the biological sciences do not have laws of nature. Instead of laws, he suggests that biological models usually do the explanatory work. To understand how a biological model can explain phenomena in the world, the author proposes an inferential account of model explanation. The basic idea of this account is that, for a model to be explanatory, it must answer two kinds of questions: counterfactual-dependence questions that concern the model itself and hypothetical questions that concern the relationship between the model and its target system. The reason a biological model can answer these two kinds of questions is due to the fact that a model is a structure, and the holistic relationship between the model and its target warrants the hypothetical inference from the model to its target and thus helps to answer the second kind of question. The Explanatory Autonomy of the Biological Sciences will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working in philosophy of science, philosophy of biology and metaphysics. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the integration of algorithms in online platforms to facilitate people’s work and life. Algorithms are increasingly being utilized to tailor the selection and presentation of online content. Users’ awareness of algorithmic curation influences their ability to properly calibrate their reception of online content and interact with it accordingly. However, there has been a lack of research exploring the factors that contribute to users’ algorithmic awareness, especially in the roles of personality traits. In this study, we (...) explore the influence of Big Five personality traits on internet users’ algorithmic awareness of online content and examine the mediating effect of previous knowledge and moderating effect of breadth of internet use in in China during the pandemic era. We adapted the 13-item Algorithmic Media Content Awareness Scale to survey users’ algorithmic awareness of online content in four dimensions. Our data were collected using a survey of a random sample of internet users in China. The results of this study supported the moderated mediation model of open-mindedness, previous knowledge, breadth of internet use, and algorithmic awareness. The breadth of internet use was found to be a negative moderator between previous knowledge and algorithmic awareness. (shrink)

Entrepreneurship is the main engine of economic development. This paper aims to explore the impact of high executives’ entrepreneurial spirituality on the business performance in China under the background of “mass entrepreneurship and innovation.” By analyzing the relevant literature of entrepreneurship, the connotation and elements of ES are determined. According to the relevant research, we design the questionnaire of ES and business performance. The questionnaire was distributed to 100 private enterprise entrepreneurs by equidistant sampling, and 74 valid questionnaires were recovered. (...) According to the questionnaire, responsibility has the highest score, followed by innovation, proactiveness, and risk-taking. The ES of women is slightly higher than that of men. The entrepreneurs with higher education also have higher score in ES. After analyzing the impact of different elements of ES on enterprise performance using structural equation modeling and regression equation model, it is found that: ES has a positive impact on enterprise performance. Different factors of ES have different effects on business performance, and innovation and proactiveness play the greatest role. There is an inverted U-shaped relationship between innovation, risk-taking, and business performance. (shrink)

This paper studies the implication of channel discrepancy between the retail and direct channels in a dual-channel supply chain consisting of one common retailer and two manufacturers in which the manufacturers may have different market powers. Each manufacturer provides a substitutable product and opens an online channel to customers directly. We develop an analytical model to derive the optimal pricing strategies by using game theory and the backward induction method, and we examine related properties under three market power structures while (...) considering channel discrepancy, including the Nash equilibrium, the Manufacturers leader Stackelberg, and the M1 leader Stackelberg models. Numerical simulations are examined to reveal and verify the effect of channel discrepancy on optimal prices, demands, and profits. We find that a higher level of channel discrepancy induces higher prices, demands, and profits for each member in both channels, while this kind of stimulating impact for the leader manufacturer who obtains a higher level of channel discrepancy will be more significant than it is for the other members in the three models. In addition, the profit of the supply chain in the N model is always higher than it is in the MS model, while it may be higher or lower than it is in the M1S model depending on the level of channel discrepancy. (shrink)

As an efficient approach, the trust policy is implemented to defend against insider attacks in complex networks. However, the imperfection of trust relationships directly hinders the effort to quantitatively calculate trust value, especially in choosing a cooperative partner. Fortunately, the game theory is gradually concerned with addressing the above issue to further enhance security. In this paper, the game theory and the trust policy are reviewed briefly. Then, the research roadmap on game-based trust in complex networks is discussed and analysed (...) deeply. Furthermore, some research directions in the near future are given. It is worth mentioning that our contributions not only describe the evolution of the game-based trust clearly but also suggest the trust mechanism based on the bounded rational game more suitable to uncertain information. (shrink)