This volume contains eighteen essays by established and younger historians that examine non-democratic alternative political systems and ideologies--oligarchies, monarchies, mixed constitutions--along with diverse forms of communal and regional associations such as ethnoi, amphiktyonies, and confederacies. The papers, which span the length and breadth of the Hellenic world highlight the immense political flexibility and diversity of ancient Greek civilization.

김창협의 「사단칠정설」은 그의 변화하는 생각을 수시로 기록한 필기였다. 본 글은 「사단칠정설」에서 주리주기 구분 및 칠포사 논제와 관련한 김창협의 논증과 주장의 변화를 분석하였다. 주리주기 구분과 관련해서, 김창협은 일관되게 사단을 주리, 칠정을 주기로 구분하지만, 그 논증에는 차이가 있다. 처음에 그는 설명 방식과 수양론 측면의 개념 차이를 통해 주리·주기를 구분하며, 이는 기대승의 해석과 유사했다. 이후 그는 사단과 칠정의 명칭을 통해 알 수 있는 정보의 차이에 근거해서 주리·주기를 구분하는데, 이는 그의 경위설 논제에 근거한 해석이다. 칠포사와 관련해서, 처음에 그는 칠정이 사단을 포함하지는 않지만, 교집합은 있다고 (...) 주장했다. 이후 그는 칠포사를 긍정하는 데, 주장이 바뀐 배경에는 그의 인간-자연 간 상관성 논제에 담긴 사유가 자리한다. 결론적으로 김창협의 사칠론은 외형상 퇴·율을 절충한 듯 보이지만, 그 내용은 이이의 사칠론에 기반해서 자신의 고유한 해석을 제안했다고 평가할 수 있다. (shrink)

This paper extends three decades of work arguing that researchers who discuss consciousness should not restrict themselves only to (adult) human minds, but should study (and attempt to model) many kinds of minds, natural and artificial, thereby contributing to our understanding of the space containing all of them. We need to study what they do or can do, how they can do it, and how the natural ones can be emulated in synthetic minds. That requires: (a) understanding sets of requirements (...) that are met by different sorts of minds, i.e. the niches that they occupy, (b) understanding the space of possible designs, and (c) understanding complex and varied relationships between requirements and designs. Attempts to model or explain any particular phenomenon, such as vision, emotion, learning, language use, or consciousness lead to muddle and confusion unless they are placed in that broader context. A methodology for making progress is summarised and a novel requirement proposed for a theory of how human minds work: the theory should support a single generic design for a learning, developing system that, in addition to meeting familiar requirements, should be capable of developing different and opposed philosophical viewpoints about consciousness, and the so-called hard problem. In other words, we need a common explanation for the mental machinations of mysterians, materialists, functionalists, identity theorists, and those who regard all such theories as attempting to answer incoherent questions. No designs proposed so far come close. (shrink)

According to traditional Judeo-Christian-Islamic theism, God is an omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect agent. This volume shows that philosophy of religion needs to take seriously alternative concepts of the divine, and demonstrates the considerable philosophical interest that they hold.

We propose two alternatives to Xu’s axiomatization of Chellas’s STIT. The first one simplifies its presentation, and also provides an alternative axiomatization of the deliberative STIT. The second one starts from the idea that the historic necessity operator can be defined as an abbreviation of operators of agency, and can thus be eliminated from the logic of Chellas’s STIT. The second axiomatization also allows us to establish that the problem of deciding the satisfiability of a STIT formula without temporal (...) operators is NP-complete in the single-agent case, and is NEXPTIME-complete in the multiagent case, both for the deliberative and Chellas’s STIT. (shrink)

I consider the implications of incommensurability for the assumption, in rational choice theory, that a rational agent’s preferences are complete. I argue that, contrary to appearances, the completeness assumption and the existence of incommensurability are compatible. Indeed, reflection on incommensurability suggests that one’s preferences should be complete over even the incommensurable alternatives one faces.

Hierarchical expansions of the theory of natural selection exist in two distinct bodies of thought in evolutionary biology, the group selection and the species selection traditions. Both traditions share the point of view that the principles of natural selection apply at levels of biological organization above the level of the individual organism. This leads them both to considermultilevel selection situations, where selection is occurring simultaneously at more than one level. Impeding unification of the theoretical approaches of the multilevel selection traditions (...) are the different goals of investigators in the different subdisciplines and the different types of data potentially available for analysis. We identify two alternative approaches to multilevel situations, which we termmultilevel selection [1] andmultilevel selection [2]. Of interest in the former case are the effects of group membership onindividual fitnesses, and in the latter the tendencies for the groups themselves to go extinct or to found new groups (i.e., group fitnesses). We argue that: neither represents the entire multilevel selection process; both are aspects of any multilevel selection situation; and both are legitimate approaches, suitable for answering different questions. Using this formalism, we show that: multilevel selection [2] does not require emergent group properties in order to provide an explanatory mechanism of evolutionary change; multilevel selection [1] is usually more appropriate for neontological group selection studies; and species selection is most fruitfully considered from the point of view of multilevel selection [2]. Finally we argue that the effect hypothesis of macroevolution, requiring, in selection among species, both the absence of group effects on organismic fitness (multilevel selection [1]), and the direct determination of species fitnesses by those of organisms, is untestable with paleontological data. Furthermore, the conditions for the effect hypothesis to hold are extremely restrictive and unlikely to apply to the vast majority of situations encountered in nature. (shrink)

Globalization is often seen as a process of universal standardization under the auspices of market economics, technology, and hegemonic power. Resisting this process without endorsing parochial self-enclosure, Fred Dallmayr explores alternative visions that are rooted in distinct vernacular traditions and facilitate cross-cultural learning in an open-ended global arena.

Manuscript originally written in 1995. Discusses various attempts to characterize alternatives relevant for deliberation and for the formulation of act-consequentialist accounts of what actions ought to be performed.

Things we can say, and the ways in which we can say them, compete with one another. And this has consequences: words we decide not to pronounce have critical effects on the messages we end up conveying. For instance, in saying Chris is a good teacher, we may convey that Chris is not an amazing teacher. How this happens is an unsolvable problem, unless a theory of alternatives indicates what counts, among all the things that have not been pronounced. (...) It is sometimes assumed, explicitly or implicitly, that any word counts, as long as that word could have replaced one that was actually pronounced. We review arguments for going beyond this powerful idea. In doing so, we argue that the level of words is not the right level of analysis for alternatives. Instead, we capitalize on recent conceptual and associated methodological advances within the study of the so-called “language of thought” to reopen the problem from a new perspective. Specifically, we provide theoretical and experimental arguments that the relation between alternatives and words may be indirect, and that alternatives are not merely linguistic objects in the traditional sense. Rather, we propose that competition in language is significantly determined by general reasoning preferences, or thought preferences. We propose that such non-linguistic preferences can be measured and that these measures can be used to explain linguistic competition, non-linguistically, and more in depth. (shrink)

In “Contextualism and Knowledge Attributions,” I argue that advocates of the “Relevant Alternatives” theory of knowledge fall into certain mistakes result if they tie the content of a knowledge attribution, on a given occasion of use, too tightly to what the range of relevant alternatives is on that occasion, and I sketch an alternative approach to the issues involved that avoids such mistakes. In “The Shifting Content of Knowledge Attributions,” Anthony Brueckner charges that my own account of these (...) matters falls to an objection of his. But Brueckner is wrong about this, as I’ll here argue. (shrink)

The simple idea behind act-consequentialism isthat we ought to choose the action whoseoutcome is better than that of any alternativeaction. In a recent issue of this journal, ErikCarlson has argued that given a reasonableinterpretation of alternative actions thissimple idea cannot be upheld but that the newtheory he proposes nevertheless preserves theact-consequentialist spirit. My aim in thispaper is to show that Carlson is wrong on bothcounts. His theory, contrary to his ownintentions, is not an act-consequentialisttheory. By building on a theory formulated (...) byHolly Smith, I will show that the simple ideacan be upheld. The new theory I will proposehas all the merits of Carlson's theory withoutsharing its demerits. (shrink)

This essay challenges the widely accepted principle that a person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise. The author considers situations in which there are sufficient conditions for a certain choice or action to be performed by someone, So that it is impossible for the person to choose or to do otherwise, But in which these conditions do not in any way bring it about that the person chooses or acts as he (...) does. In such situations the person may well be morally responsible for what he chooses or does despite his inability to choose or to do otherwise. Finally the author considers certain suggestions for revising the principle he rejects or for replacing it with a principle of an altogether different kind. (shrink)

본 논문은 의료기술이 발달하면서 등장하게 된 다양한 도덕적 문제 가운데 하나로, 회복 불가능한 환자에 대한 심폐소생술 결정 문제 및 최근 제정된 연명의료결정법 의 자기결정권에 대해 살펴보고자 한다. 연명의료결정법 이 제정되기 이전 한국사회에서는 회복불가능한 환자의 심폐소생술 시행 여부를 가족이 결정하는 특징을 보였으며, 이는 한국사회 특유의 유교적 정서로 논의되곤 했다. 연명의료결정법 의 등장 이후, 연명의료결정의 주요 주체는 환자 자신으로 전환되었으며 그 주요 근거는 자기결정권이다. 본 논문에서는 이러한 한국사회에서 가족결정 중심의 심폐소생술 금지 논의에서 자기결정권 중심의 연명의료결정법 으로의 전환을 살펴보고, 자기결정권과 관련하여 보충되어야 할 (...) 논의들과 연명의료결정법 의 철학적 근거가 되어야 할 生의 문제, 죽음에 대한 관점 등을 『周易』을 통해 살펴보고자 한다. 특히 주역의 연대적 生철학, 죽음이 아닌 마무리지어가는 과정을 중시하는 終始에 기반 한 死生觀을 통해, 연명의료결정법 에 보완되어야 할 사유를 논의해 보고자 한다. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this article I consider alternate but often complementary models for women’s republicanism from those discussed by Sandrine Bergès. In particular, I make use of Bergès’s insights about extending philosophical inquiry beyond traditional texts to analyse how militant political action was both informed by and informed the creation of philosophical texts, and consider the possibility of bringing direct action into the realm of philosophical investigation.

There is a prominent line of work in natural language semantics, rooted in the work of Hamblin, in which the meaning of a sentence is not taken to be a single proposition, but rather a set of propositions—a set of alternatives. This allows for a more fine-grained view on meaning, which has led to improved analyses of a wide range of linguistic phenomena. However, this approach also faces a number of problems. We focus here on two of these, in (...) our view the most fundamental ones. The first has to do with how meanings are composed, i.e., with the type-theoretic operations of function application and abstraction; the second has to do with how meanings are compared, i.e., the notion of entailment. Our aim is to reconcile what we take to be the essence of Hamblin’s proposal with the more orthodox type-theoretic framework rooted in the work of Montague in such a way that both the explanatory utility of the former and the solid formal foundations of the latter are preserved. Our proposal builds on insights from recent work on inquisitive semantics, and it also contributes to the further development of this framework by specifying how the inquisitive meaning of a sentence may be built up compositionally. (shrink)

This paper is a defense of traditional compatibilism. Traditional compatibilism is, roughly, the view that free will is essential to moral responsibility, free will requires alternative possibilities of action, or alternatives for short, and moral responsibility is compatible with determinism. Traditional compatibilism is a version of the traditional theory of free will. According to the traditional theory, a person S performed an action a freely only if S could have done otherwise, that is, only if S had alternatives. (...) The traditional theory is often contrasted with the source theory: S performed a freely only if S was the source of a. One may adopt a combined view of free will that sanctions both the traditional and source theories. As I use the terms ‘source theorist’ and ‘traditional theorist,’ the former refers to folks who accept the source theory and reject the traditional theory; the latter refers to folks who accept the traditional theory whether or not they accept the source theory. (shrink)

_If you were free in doing something and morally responsible for it, you could have done otherwise. That_ _has seemed a pretty firm proposition among the old, new, clear, unclear and other propositions in the_ _philosophical discussion of freedom and determinism. If you were free in what you did, there was an_ _alternative. It is also at least natural to think that if determinism is true, you can never do otherwise than_ _you do. G. E. Moore, that Cambridge reasoner in (...) whose shadow Wittgenstein ought to be standing,_ _considered the matter. He pointed out that even if determinism is true, there remains a sense in which you_ _can still do otherwise than you do: you will do otherwise if you so choose. That, on reflection, is consistent_ _with determinism. The doctrine of the compatibility of freedom and determinism is saved. Joseph Keim_ _Campbell, strong philosopher at Washington State University, provides the latest thinking on this seemingly_ _unavoidable dispute. You do not have to agree that either compatibilism or incompatibilism must be true in_ _order to appreciate the carefulness of his reasoning in this piece of ongoing American philosophy. It_ _requires and repays attention._. (shrink)

Harry Frankfurt Journal of Philosophy, 66, 829–39 famously attacked what he called the principle of alternate possibilities. PAP states that being able to do otherwise is necessary for moral responsibility. He gave counterexamples to PAP known since then as “Frankfurt cases.” This paper sidesteps the enormous literature on Frankfurt cases while preserving some of our salient pretheoretical intuitions about the relation between alternate possibilities and moral responsibility. In particular, I introduce, explain, and defend a principle that has so far been (...) overlooked, namely, “the principle of doxastic moral asymmetry” : a rational agent, S, is morally responsible for an action that S performed, E, only if, when S did E, S justifiably believed either that E was closer to S’s most praiseworthy alternate possibility than it was to S’s most blameworthy alternate possibility, or that E was closer to S’s most blameworthy alternate possibility than it was to S’s most praiseworthy alternate possibility. (shrink)

We discuss the 'problem of convergent knowledge', an argument presented by J. Schaffer in favour of contextualism about knowledge attributions, and against the idea that knowledge- wh can be simply reduced to knowledge of the proposition answering the question. Schaffer's argument centrally involves alternative questions of the form 'whether A or B'. We propose an analysis of these on which the problem of convergent knowledge does not arise. While alternative questions can contextually restrict the possibilities relevant for knowledge attributions, what (...) Schaffer's puzzle reveals is a pragmatic ambiguity in what 'knowing the answer' means: in his problematic cases, the subject knows only a partial answer to the question. This partial knowledge can be counted as adequate only on externalist grounds. (shrink)

This paper examines the relationship between perceptual knowledge and discrimination in the light of the so-called ‘relevant alternatives’ intuition. It begins by outlining an intuitive relevant alternatives account of perceptual knowledge which incorporates the insight that there is a close connection between perceptual knowledge and the possession of relevant discriminatory abilities. It is argued, however, that in order to resolve certain problems that face this view, it is essential to recognise an important distinction between favouring and discriminating epistemic (...) support that is often overlooked in the literature. This distinction complicates the story regarding how an alternative becomes relevant, and in doing so weakens the connection between perceptual knowledge and discrimination. The theory that results, however—what I term a ‘two-tiered’ relevant alternatives theory of perceptual knowledge—accommodates many of our intuitions about perceptual knowledge and so avoids the revisionism of some recent proposals in the epistemological literature. (shrink)

Orthodox semantics for natural language modals give rise to two puzzles for their interactions with disjunction: Ross’s puzzle and the puzzle of free choice permission. It is widely assumed that each puzzle can be explained in terms of the licensing of ‘Diversity’ inferences: from the truth of a possibility or necessity modal with an embedded disjunction, hearers infer that each disjunct is compatible with the relevant set of worlds. I argue that Diversity inferences are too weak to explain the full (...) range of data. Instead, I argue, modals with embedded disjunctions license ‘Independence’ inferences: from the truth of a modal with an embedded disjunction, hearers infer that each disjunct is an independent alternative among the relevant set of worlds. I then develop a bilateral inquisitive semantics for modals that predicts the validity of these Independence inferences. My account vindicates common intuitions about both Ross’s puzzle and the puzzle of free choice permission, and explains the full range of data. (shrink)

In the Caribbean as in many other areas costly biomedical resources and personnel are limited, and more and more people are turning to alternative medicine and folk practitioners for health care. To meet the goal of providing health care for all, research on nonbiomedical therapies is needed, along with legal recognition of folk practitioners to establish standards of practice.

In this chapter, the authors trace the epistemic challenge initiated by colonialism as part of its civilizing and modernizing missions, and the epistemological violence that undermined Africa’s knowledge systems. The chapter argues that the anticolonial and decolonization efforts have been more programmatic without pushing the boundary of decolonizing the epistemic basis of colonialism. The chapter then contends that decolonizing resistance can best be captured in the form of a reversed epistemic process that not only excavates Africa’s knowledge forms, Africanizes other (...) available knowledges, but more importantly generates an epistemological framework that establishes and reinforces a combative alternative Afrocentric mythology that subverts the existing Eurocentric mythology. Such an alternative myth constitutes a new vision of the African continent and all it can achieve outside of the grip of Eurocentric epistemic hegemony. (shrink)

This paper argues that there are practical problems of such a kind that neither impartial morality nor rational choice theory can provide us with comfort and guidance in our attempt to make the right choice if confronted with such a problem. It argues that both morality and rational choice theory are bound to misconstrue problems of this kind. Appreciating the limits of both morality and rational choice theory, as currently discussed in the literature (Wolf, Morton, Pettit, Hollis & Sugden), enables (...) us to identify the features of these particular practical problems, and allows us to elaborate the idea of an alternative of oneself, which is crucial to a proper understanding of the kind of practical problem the paper draws attention to. (shrink)

This paper empirically investigates how perspective bears on putative salient alternative effects on knowledge ascriptions. Some theoretical accounts predict salient alternative effects in both fir...

We propose a non-representationalist framework for deep learning relying on a novel method computational phenomenology, a dialogue between the first-person perspective (relying on phenomenology) and the mechanisms of computational models. We thereby propose an alternative to the modern cognitivist interpretation of deep learning, according to which artificial neural networks encode representations of external entities. This interpretation mainly relies on neuro-representationalism, a position that combines a strong ontological commitment towards scientific theoretical entities and the idea that the brain operates on symbolic (...) representations of these entities. We proceed as follows: after offering a review of cognitivism and neuro-representationalism in the field of deep learning, we first elaborate a phenomenological critique of these positions; we then sketch out computational phenomenology and distinguish it from existing alternatives; finally we apply this new method to deep learning models trained on specific tasks, in order to formulate a conceptual framework of deep-learning, that allows one to think of artificial neural networks’ mechanisms in terms of lived experience. (shrink)

Some moral disagreements are so persistent that we suspect they are deep : we would disagree even when we have all relevant information and no one makes any mistakes. The possibility of deep disagreement is thought to drive cognitivists toward relativism, but most cognitivists reject relativism. There is an alternative. According to divergentism, cognitivists can reject relativism while allowing for deep disagreement. This view has rarely been defended at length, but many philosophers have implicitly endorsed its elements. I will defend (...) it. (shrink)

I construe Relevant Alternatives Theory (RAT) as an abstract combination of anti-skepticism and epistemic modesty, then re-evaluate the challenge posed to it by the missed clue counter-examples of Schaffer [2001]. The import of this challenge has been underestimated, as Schaffer’s specific argument invites distracting objections. I offer a novel formalization of RAT, accommodating a suitably wide class of concrete theories of knowledge. Then, I introduce abstract missed clue cases and prove that every RA theory, as formalized, admits such a (...) case. This yields an argument - in Schaffer’s spirit - that resists easy dismissal. (shrink)

Causation is one of the most controversial topics in philosophy. There is a wide range of philosophical accounts of causation, for example, the regularity account, the probabilistic account, the counterfactual account, the interventionist account, which can be all classified as ‘difference-making’ accounts; and the mechanistic account. Many argue that only one of these accounts is correct as there is only one type of causal relation (causal monism), while others maintain that there are multiple types of causation (causal pluralism). In addition, (...) there are eliminativists argue that science has no need of causation at all, while primitivists maintain that causation is unanalysable. Recently, the difference-making and mechanistic approaches have dominated recent philosophical discussion of causation. Other approaches and positions have been insufficiently discussed and assessed, especially in the context of philosophy of science. This volume explores and examines alternative approaches to causation. It revisits causal primitivism and causal eliminativism in the context of recent literature. It further explores the pluralistic approach, the fictionalist approach, the inferentialist approach, and the informational approach. It also examines the application of the dispositional approach, the epistemic approach, and the powerful particulars approach to the natural and social sciences. Overall, the volume is complementary to the recent discussion on the difference-making and mechanistic approaches and sheds new light on the metaphysical, epistemological, conceptual and methodological issues on causation. As such, it provides foundations for further research and teaching of this hotly debated topic. (shrink)

The simple model maintains that morally relevant factors combine in a simple, additive way, like weights on a scale. Although intuitive and familiar, this model entails that certain plausible views about particular cases and how morally relevant factors combine and interact therein are false. Shelly Kagan suggests that we could accommodate the relevant views and interactions by rejecting either of two assumptions the simple model makes: that the moral status of an act is determined by the sum of the contributions (...) made by each of the factors relevant thereto (additivity); and that neither the “weight” nor the “valence” of a factor’s contribution can be affected by other factors (atomism). But is there an atomistic option, a way of accommodating the relevant views and interactions by rejecting additivity rather than atomism? I argue that developing an atomistic option requires offering a conception of contribution that renders coherent the particular claims that must be true if there is, indeed, such an option. And I consider whether Rossian pluralism—the locus classicus for the idea of a contributory right-making factor—offers the resources necessary to offer such a conception, and whether it could accommodate the relevant views and interactions other than by rejecting atomism. (shrink)

I consider a number of questions for foundational epistemology that arise from further reflection on salience of alternatives and epistemic position. On this basis, I turn to more applied issues. First, I will consider work in social psychology to motivate the working-hypothesis that social stereotypes will make some alternatives more, and some less, salient. A related working-hypothesis is that social stereotypes may lead to both overestimation and underestimation of a subject’s epistemic position. If these working-hypotheses are true, the (...) outcome may be a distinctive route to epistemic injustice. (shrink)

This paper argues that NPs with case as head noun stand for situations in their role as truthmakers within a sentential or epistemic case space. The paper develops a unified semantic analysis of case-constructions of the various sorts within a truthmaker-based version of alternative semantics.

Scientific realists have suggested that changes in our scientific communities over the course of their history have rendered those communities progressively less vulnerable to the problem of unconcieved alternatives over time. I argue in response not only that the most fundamental historical transformations of the scientific enterprise have generated steadily mounting obstacles to revolutionary, transformative, or unorthodox scientific theorizing, but also that we have substantial independent evidence that the institutional apparatus of contemporary scientific inquiry fosters an exceedingly and increasingly (...) theoretically conservative form of that inquiry. I conclude that contemporary scientific communities are actually more vulnerable to the problem of unconceived alternatives than their historical predecessors, and I briefly suggest how we might seek to pursue scientific inquiry in a less theoretically conservative way. (shrink)

The Alternative University: Lessons from Bolivarian Venezuela explores the educational reforms undertaken under late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavéz. Focusing on the University of Bolivarian Venez...

This paper argues that there are practical problems of such a kind that neither impartial morality nor rational choice theory can provide us with comfort and guidance in our attempt to make the right choice if confronted with such a problem. It argues that both morality and rational choice theory are bound to misconstrue problems of this kind. Appreciating the limits of both morality and rational choice theory, as currently discussed in the literature (Wolf, Morton, Pettit, Hollis & Sugden), enables (...) us to identify the features of these particular practical problems, and allows us to elaborate the idea of an alternative of oneself, which is crucial to a proper understanding of the kind of practical problem the paper draws attention to. (shrink)

In this new collection of essays, Andrew Feenberg argues that conflicts over the design and organization of the technical systems that structure our society shape deep choices for the future. A pioneer in the philosophy of technology, Feenberg demonstrates the continuing vitality of the critical theory of the Frankfurt School. He calls into question the anti-technological stance commonly associated with its theoretical legacy and argues that technology contains potentialities that could be developed as the basis for an alternative form of (...) modern society. Feenberg's critical reflections on the ideas of Jürgen Habermas, Herbert Marcuse, Jean-François Lyotard, and Kitaro Nishida shed new light on the philosophical study of technology and modernity. He contests the prevalent conception of technology as an unstoppable force responsive only to its own internal dynamic and politicizes the discussion of its social and cultural construction. This argument is substantiated in a series of compelling and well-grounded case studies. Through his exploration of science fiction and film, AIDS research, the French experience with the "information superhighway," and the Japanese reception of Western values, he demonstrates how technology, when subjected to public pressure and debate, can incorporate ethical and aesthetic values. (shrink)

Scientific theories are hard to find, and once scientists have found a theory, H, they often believe that there are not many distinct alternatives to H. But is this belief justified? What should scientists believe about the number of alternatives to H, and how should they change these beliefs in the light of new evidence? These are some of the questions that we will address in this article. We also ask under which conditions failure to find an alternative (...) to H confirms the theory in question. This kind of reasoning is frequently used in science and therefore deserves a careful philosophical analysis. 1 Introduction2 The Conceptual Framework3 The No Alternatives Argument4 Discussion I: A Quantitative Analysis of the No Alternatives Argument5 Discussion II: The Number of Alternatives and the Problem of Underdetermination6 ConclusionsAppendix AAppendix B. (shrink)

Scientific realists have suggested that changes in our scientific communities over the course of their history have rendered those communities progressively less vulnerable to the problem of unconcieved alternatives over time. I argue in response not only that the most fundamental historical transformations of the scientific enterprise have generated steadily mounting obstacles to revolutionary, transformative, or unorthodox scientific theorizing, but also that we have substantial independent evidence that the institutional apparatus of contemporary scientific inquiry fosters an exceedingly and increasingly (...) theoretically conservative form of that inquiry. I conclude that contemporary scientific communities are actually more vulnerable to the problem of unconceived alternatives than their historical predecessors, and I briefly suggest how we might seek to pursue scientific inquiry in a less theoretically conservative way. (shrink)