Computational philosophy (CP) aims at investigating many important concepts and problems of the philosophical and epistemological tradition in a new way by taking advantage of information-theoretic, cognitive, and artificial intelligence methodologies. I maintain that the results of computational philosophy meet the classical requirements of some Peircian pragmatic ambitions. Indeed, more than a 100 years ago, the American philosopher C.S. Peirce, when working on logical and philosophical problems, suggested the concept of pragmatism(pragmaticism, in his own words) as a logical criterion to (...) analyze what words and concepts express through their practical meaning. Many words have been spent on creative processes and reasoning, especially in the case of scientific practices. In fact, many philosophers have usually offered a number of ways of construing hypotheses generation, but they aim at demonstrating that the activity of generating hypotheses is paradoxical, obscure, and thus not analyzable. Those descriptions are often so far from Peircian pragmatic prescription and so abstract to result completely unknowable and obscure. To dismiss this tendency and gain interesting insight about the so-called logic of scientific discovery we need to build constructive procedures, which could play a role in moving the problem-solving process forward by implementing them in some actual models. The computational turn gives us a new way to understand creative processes in a strictly pragmatic sense. In fact, by exploiting artificial intelligence and cognitive science tools, computational philosophy allows us to test concepts and ideas previously conceived only in abstract terms. It is in the perspective of these actual computational models that I find the central role of abduction in the explanation of creative reasoning in science. I maintain that the computational philosophy analysis of model-based and manipulative abduction and of external and epistemic mediators is important not only to delineate the actual practice of abduction, but also to further enhance the development of programs computationally adequate in rediscovering, or discovering for the first time, for example, scientific hypotheses or mathematical theorems. The last part of the paper is devoted to illustrating the problem of the extra-theoretical dimension of reasoning and discovery from the perspective of some mathematical cases derived from calculus and geometry. (shrink)

The Utrecht professor of physics Gerrit Moll , well-known for his defence of British science against Charles Babbage's Reflections on the Decline of Science in England , did—in co-operation with members of the Natuurkundig Gezelschap at Utrecht—important work on the reception in The Netherlands of the new electromagnetic and electrodynamic discoveries . He also carried out fundamental research into the lifting power of electromagnets, which he had seen during his visit to London in 1828. In 1830, Moll published his experiments (...) with strong electromagnets having maximum lifting powers of 38 kilograms. With the results of similar experiments performed in the United States by Joseph Henry and Philip ten Eyck in mind, Moll continued his experiments with stronger electromagnets . Furthermore; he investigated the ability of very small galvanic batteries to develop a perceptible magnetism in a great horseshoe . A practical physicist, Moll was hardly interested in theoretical explanations. In The Netherlands his experiments aroused interest in the practical applications of electro- magnetic force. In the present paper, Moll's contributions to the science of electromagnetism and electrodynamics are discussed. (shrink)

Interdisciplinarity and the Development of Knowledge. The author is engaged in the question how to explain the development of scientific meanings of facts which does not coincide with producing them rather with processes of the scientists' public communication. So long as the facts are adjustable to the conventional theories of those discipline which the researcher belongs to this connection does not reveal perfectly clear. More instructive is a consideration of so-called 'anomalies'. The author demonstrates with an example of (...) the history of science that researchers in case of new phenomena use to borrow concepts from other disciplines for resolving the interpretative problems. It emerges a loose net-work of concepts. In this way the researchers are producing a disciplinary mixed public at the same time. This process is seen as an important phase of the development of new theories and, complementary, new disciplines. (shrink)

New discoveries and theories are crucial for the development of science, but they are often initially resisted by the scientific community. This paper analyses resistance to scientific discoveries that supplement previous research results or conclusions with new phenomena, such as long chains in macromolecules, Alfvén waves, parity nonconservation in weak interactions and quasicrystals. Construal-level theory is used to explain that the probability of new discoveries may be underestimated because of psychological distance. Thus, the insufficiently examined scope of an accepted (...) theory may lead to overstating the suitable scope and underestimating the probability of its undiscovered counter-examples. Therefore, psychological activity can result in people instinctively resisting new discoveries. Direct evidence can help people judge the validity of a hypothesis with rational thinking. The effects of authorities and textbooks on the resistance to discoveries are also discussed. From the results of our analysis, suggestions are provided to reduce resistance to real discoveries, which will benefit the development of science. (shrink)

Background: Upper limb functional exercise has a positive effect on promoting the rehabilitation of upper limb function. However, little is known, about what drives postoperative patients to engage in and even maintain the advised exercises. This study integrated the health action process approach and the theory of planned behavior theory to investigate the psychosocial determinants on the initiation and maintenance of ULFE in breast cancer patients. In addition, this study also tests key hypotheses relating to reasoned and implicit pathways to (...) ULFE and its maintenance among postoperative patients with breast cancer.Methods: Purposive sampling was used to recruit patients from two breast cancer wards in a provincial hospital in Jiangsu, China. Patients completed self-reported questionnaire about constructs from integrated theories concerning ULFE at an initial time point : task self-efficacy, positive outcome expectations, negative outcome expectations, risk perception, attitude behavior, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, behavioral intention, and ULFE-in hospital. Three months later, patients self-reported: maintenance self-efficacy, action planning, coping planning, recovery self-efficacy, and ULFE-maintenance.Results: The model has a good fit. For behavioral intention of ULFE, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control were positively directly related to behavioral intention. Regarding the initiation of ULFE, perceived behavioral control and behavioral intention had a direct positive relation to ULFE-IH. In the maintenance of ULFE, action planning, coping planning, maintenance self-efficacy, and recovery self-efficacy all had significant positive relation on ULFE-M. In addition, maintenance self-efficacy had a significant positive association on action planning, coping planning, and recovery self-efficacy. Coping planning was significantly predicted by behavioral intention. Additionally, behavioral intention is a mediator of subjective norm and perceived behavioral control to ULFE-IH. Action planning, coping planning, and recovery self-efficacy are mediators of maintaining self-efficacy to ULFE-M.Conclusions: This study presents the first attempt to integrate the health behavior model in ULFE in postoperative patients with breast cancer. The study has shown that the HAPA-TPB integrated model has good applicability and effectiveness to explain and predict ULFE initiation and maintenance. Future work can be considered to develop appropriate intervention strategies based on this integrated behavioral theory. (shrink)

Deep learning (DL) is a statistical technique for pattern classification through which AI researchers train artificial neural networks containing multiple layers that process massive amounts of data. I present a three-level account of explanation that can be reasonably expected from DL models in cognitive neuroscience and that illustrates the explanatory dynamics within a future-biased research program (Feest Philosophy of Science 84:1165–1176, 2017 ; Doerig et al. Nature Reviews: Neuroscience 24:431–450, 2023 ). By relying on the mechanistic framework (Craver Explaining the (...) brain: Mechanisms and the mosaic unity of neuroscience. Clarendon, 2007 ; Stinson Eppuor si muove: Doing history and philosophy of Science with Peter Machamer. Springer, 2017, The Routledge Handbook of the computational mind. Routledge, 2018 ), I develop an account that corresponds to the stages of mechanism discovery, i.e., our shifting epistemic position and epistemic goals, and propose a representative model for each level. Generic, theoretical DL models at _Level 1_ address the general features of a cognitive phenomenon through exploration and provide us with how-possibly explanations. On the other hand, DL models at _Level 2_ either identify the interaction between the features or represent the epistemic stage when the researcher is still unsure if the modeled features are crucial or arbitrary. These models should provide us with how-plausibly explanations. Finally, specific DL models of specific brain areas, i.e., ersatz models filled with relevant cognitive and neuroscientific details, are at _Level 3_. At this level, a researcher can advance how-actually explanations of cognitive phenomena. The main strength of this account is that it elucidates both _global explanatory dynamics_ and _local explanatory dynamics_ (cf. Dresow Synthese 199:10441–10474, 2021 ). The former occurs when the transition between levels happens in accordance with the process of obtaining more details about a particular cognitive phenomenon through multiple DL models. The latter, meanwhile, involves cases in which the transition between levels takes place within a single DL model by elucidating internal mechanisms (e.g., using Explainable AI techniques for rendering models more transparent). (shrink)

The paper investigates the implications of a nonaprioristic philosophy of science. It starts by developing a scheme of justification which draws its norms from the prevailing paradigm of rationality, which need not be universal or external. If the requirement for normativity is then abandoned we do not end up with a descriptive philosophy of science. The alternative to a prescriptive philosophy of science is a theoretical explanation of scientific decisions and acts. Explanation, rather than mere description, replaces justification; and (...) the paradigm of rationality becomes a scientific paradigm. The implications of these results for the discovery-justification distinction are investigated. An explanatory philosophy of science deals with the generation, as well as with the selection of scientific conjectures: both contexts have an epistemic dimension. * This paper was written under the auspices of the Wolfson Chair Extrordinary of Theoretical Physics, Tel Aviv University. (shrink)

Moore’s paradox, the infamous felt bizarreness of sincerely uttering something of the form “I believe grass is green, but it ain’t”—has attracted a lot of attention since its original discovery (Moore 1942). It is often taken to be a paradox of belief—in the sense that the locus of the inconsistency is the beliefs of someone who so sincerely utters. This claim has been labeled as the priority thesis: If you have an explanation of why a putative content could not (...) be coherently believed, you thereby have an explanation of why it cannot be coherently asserted. (Shoemaker 1995). The priority thesis, however, is insufficient to give a general explanation of Moore-paradoxical phenomena and, moreover, it’s false. I demonstrate this, then show how to give a commitment-theoretic account of Moore Paradoxicality, drawing on work by Bach and Harnish. The resulting account has the virtue of explaining not only cases of pragmatic incoherence involving assertions, but also cases of cognate incoherence arising for other speech acts, such as promising, guaranteeing, ordering, and the like. (shrink)

This article applies a theoretical framework developed by the late American sociologist Anselm Strauss to the discovery of a new resuscitation technique, closed-chest cardiac massage. The discovery, which took place in the laboratories of Johns Hopkins University between 1956 and 1960, is analyzed as the collective management of a trajectory over time. The article follows the discovery trajectory from its origins in defibrillator research to the establishment of closed-chest cardiac massage and cardiopulmonary resuscitation as a universal (...) life-saving method. The analytical focus on the experimental, clinical, and promotional activities performed by the different actors interacting with the emerging technology allows one to critically question the value of concepts such as closure, stabilization, and black boxing in sociology of science and technology. Instead of prematurely freezing the analysis of technoscience, a trajectory conceptual framework emphasizes the ongoing dynamic between actors and medical technology to define the scope, effectiveness, and multiple interpretations of the technology-actor interaction. (shrink)

A perspective in the philosophy of mathematics is developed from a consideration of the strengths and limitations of both logicism and platonism, with an early focus on Frege’s work. Importantly, although many set-theoretic structures may be developed each of which offers limited isomorphism with the system of natural numbers, no one of them may be identified with it. Furthermore, the timeless, ever present nature of mathematical concepts and results itself offers direct access, in the face of a platonist account which (...) generates a supposed problem of access. Crucially too, pure mathematics has its own distinctive method of confirming or validating results - mathematical proof - which supplies a higher level of confidence and objectivity than that available elsewhere. The dichotomy of invention and discovery is too jejune a framework for analysing creative mathematical activity. The Gödelian platonist perspective is evaluated and queried through scrutiny of the part played by mathematical resources and constraints in relation to human activity. It appears that there can be non-causal mathematical explanations and mathematical constraint on purely natural processes. Valuable implications of Quine’s naturalism are explored, but one must be cautious of his thesis of confirmational holism. The distinction between algebraic and non-algebraic mathematical theories usefully contributes to our understanding of the internally differentiated nature of the subject. (shrink)

A frequent criticism of the neuroscientific approach to consciousness is that its theories describe only 'correlates' or 'analogues' of consciousness, and so fail to address the nature of consciousness itself. Despite its apparent logical simplicity, this criticism in fact relies on some substantive assumptions about the nature and evolution of scientific explanations. In particular, it is usually assumed that, in expressing correlations, neural correlate of consciousness (NCC) theories must fail to capture the causal structure relating brain and mind. Drawing (...) on work in the history and philosophy of science, I argue that this assumption - along with the related claim that even a correct NCC theory would fail to explain consciousness - is grounded in an inadequate conception of the way in which scientific explanations develop. Examination of parallel developments in 20th century biology reveals that, under the right circumstances, seemingly crude correspondences can play an essential role in scientific discovery and can sometimes become central to our everyday understanding of the phenomena in question. A proper understanding of this process clarifies the value of NCC theories and sheds light on the standards by which they should be evaluated. In closing, I describe two specific criteria for evaluating NCC proposals: intertheoretic bridge potential and detailed mapping. (shrink)

This paper presents a specific concept of the legal system, bringing a contribution to the Theory of Law, from the line of analysis of the Semiotics of Law. The entire methodological approach of this concept is based on the contributions of the École de Paris, from a theoretical-semiotic perspective derived from the studies of Algirdas Julien Greimas. The analysis seeks to further and qualify previous studies and publications, and focuses on the task of presenting the concept of juridicity, deriving (...) the description of the concept of the legal system from it, understood as a set of connections between legal texts. Consequently, the paper presents a Mesh Model for the description of the legal system, replacing the positivist concept of the Pyramid Model, through restoring the relationship between Law and Moral, between Law and Society and Law and Justice. Throughout the theoretical explanation, the paper tries to trace, develop and qualify the main points with arguments that distinguish the operation of the legal system, such as the concentric movement, micro-universes of meaning, discursive practices, the task of legal actors, dynamic inter-textuality, the role of interpretation, the process of the production of legal meaning and the search for textual justice. (shrink)

The topic of history-of-science explanation is first briefly introduced as a generally important one for the light it may shed on action theory, on the logic of discovery, and on philosophy''s relations with historiography of science, intellectual history, and the sociology of knowledge. Then some problems and some conclusions are formulated by reference to some recent relevant literature: a critical analysis of Laudan''s views on the role of normative evaluations in rational explanations occasions the result that one must (...) make aconceptual distinction between evaluations and explanations of belief, and that there are at leastthree subclasses of the latter, rational, critical, and theoretical; I then discuss the problem of whether explanations of discoveries are self-evidencing and predictive by focusing on views of Hempel and Nickles, and I attempt a formalization of some aspects of the problem. Finally, a more systematic and concrete analysis is undertaken by using as an example the explanation of Galileo''s rejection of space-proportionality, and it is argued that the historical explanation of scientific beliefs is a type of logical analysis. (shrink)

Note: Sections at a more advanced level are indicated by ∞. Preface ix Acknowledgments x Introduction 1 I Nicolaus Copernicus: The Loss of Centrality 3 1 Ptolemy and Copernicus 3 2 A Clash of Two Worldviews 4 2.1 The geocentric worldview 5 2.2 Aristotle’s cosmology 5 2.3 Ptolemy’s geocentrism 9 2.4 A philosophical aside: Outlook 14 2.5 Shaking the presuppositions: Some medieval developments 17 3 The Heliocentric Worldview 20 3.1 Nicolaus Copernicus 21 3.2 The explanation of the seasons 25 3.3 (...) Copernicus and the Copernican turn 28 3.3.1 A philosophical aside: From empirical adequacy to theoretical validity 32 3.4 Copernicus consolidated: Kepler and Galileo 32 4 Copernicus was not a Scientifi c Revolutionary 37 4.1 The Copernican method 39 4.2 The relativity of motion 42 5 The Transition to Newton 43 5.1 On hypotheses 45 6 Some Philosophical Lessons 47 6.1 The loss of centrality 48 6.2 Was Copernicus a realist? 51 6.2.1 Lessons for instrumentalism and realism 52 6.3 Modern realism 55 6.4 The underdetermination of theories by evidence 58 6.4.1 The Duhem--Quine thesis 59 ∞ 6.4.2 The power of constraints 61 ∞ 6.5 Theories, models, and laws 64 ∞ 6.5.1 Theories and models 64 ∞ 6.5.2 Laws of nature, laws of science 68 ∞ 6.5.3 Philosophical views of laws 69 ∞ 6.5.3.1 The inference view 69 ∞ 6.5.3.2 The regularity view 70 ∞ 6.5.3.3 The necessitarian view 73 ∞ 6.5.3.4 The structural view 75 7 Copernicus and Scientifi c Revolutions 77 8 The Anthropic Principle: A Reversal of the Copernican Turn? 83 Reading List 87 Essay Questions 91 II Charles Darwin: The Loss of Rational Design 93 1 Darwin and Copernicus 93 2 Views of Organic Life 94 2.1 Teleology 94 2.1.1 The Great Chain of Being 97 2.1.2 Design arguments 99 2.1.3 Jean Baptiste Lamarck 104 3 Fossil Discoveries 106 3.1 Of bones and skeletons 108 3.2 The antiquity of man 110 4 Darwin’s Revolution 112 4.1 The Darwinian view of life 114 4.1.1 Principles of evolution 116 4.2 The descent of man 119 5 Philosophical Matters 124 5.1 Philosophical presuppositions: Mechanical worldview, determinism, materialism 125 5.2 From biology to the philosophy of mind 129 5.2.1 Empiricism 129 5.2.2 Philosophy of mind 132 5.2.3 Emergent minds 134 5.3 The loss of rational design 136 5.4 Intelligent design 139 6 A Question of Method 143 6.1 Darwinian inferences 143 6.2 Philosophical empiricism 147 6.3 Some principles of elimination 149 ∞ 6.4 Essential features of eliminative induction 150 6.5 Falsifi ability or testability? 155 6.6 Explanation and prediction 157 ∞ 6.7 Some models of scientifi c explanation 159 ∞ 6.7.1 Hempel’s models 160 ∞ 6.7.2 Functional models 161 ∞ 6.7.3 Causal models 163 6.7.3.1 A counterfactual-interventionist account 163 6.7.3.2 A conditional model of causation 165 ∞ 6.7.4 Structural explanations 169 6.8 A brief return to realism 172 6.9 Darwin and scientifi c revolutions 174 6.9.1 Philosophical consequences 176 Reading List 177 Essay Questions 183 III Sigmund Freud: The Loss of Transparency 185 1 Copernicus, Darwin, and Freud 185 2 Some Views of Humankind 187 2.1 Enlightenment views of human nature 188 2.2 Nietzsche’s view of human nature 190 3 Scientism and the Freudian Model of Personality 191 3.1 Freud’s model of the mind 192 3.1.1 A summary of psychoanalytic theory 192 3.1.2 Analogy with physics 195 3.1.3 Freud as an Enlightenment thinker 200 3.1.4 The scientifi c status of the Freudian model 202 3.1.4.1 Freud’s methods 202 ∞ 3.1.4.2 The method of eliminative induction, again 205 3.1.5 Freud stands between the empirical and the hermeneutic models 208 3.1.6 The role of mind in the social world 209 4 The Social Sciences beyond Freud 210 4.1 Two standard models of the social sciences -- some history 210 4.1.1 The naturalistic model 211 4.1.2 The hermeneutic model 213 4.2 Essential features of social science models 218 4.2.1 Essential features of the naturalistic model 218 4.2.2 Essential features of the hermeneutic model 221 4.3 Questions of methodology 224 ∞ 4.3.1 What is Verstehen? 225 ∞ 4.3.2 Weber’s methodology of ideal types 229 ∞ 4.3.3 Verstehen and objectivity 234 ∞ 4.4 Causation in the social sciences 236 ∞ 4.4.1 Weber on causation 236 ∞ 4.4.2 On the existence of social laws 239 4.4.3 Explanation and prediction in the social sciences 242 4.4.4 Underdetermination 243 4.4.5 Realism and relativism 244 ∞ 4.4.6 Reductionism and functionalism 248 5 Evolution and the Social Sciences 253 5.1 Sociobiology -- the fourth revolution? 254 5.2 Evolutionary psychology 257 6 Freud and Revolutions in Thought 261 6.1 Revolutions in thought vs. revolutions in science 263 Reading List 263 Essay Questions 269 Name Index 271 Subject Index 274. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to analyze the main contributions of Wesley C. Salmon to the philosophy of science, that is, his concepts of causation, common cause, and theoretical explanation, and to provide a critique of them. This critique will be based on a comparison of Salmon's concepts with categories developed by Hegel in his Science of Logic, and which can be applied to the issues treated by Salmon by means of the above given three concepts. It is (...) the author's contention that by means of Hegelian categories it becomes possible to provide a critique of Salmon's philosophy of science and at the same time to enlarge the concept framework of philosophy of science. (shrink)

We start this paper by arguing that causality should, in analogy with force in Newtonian physics, be understood as a theoretical concept that is not explicated by a single definition, but by the axioms of a theory. Such an understanding of causality implicitly underlies the well-known theory of causal nets and has been explicitly promoted by Glymour. In this paper we investigate the explanatory warrant and empirical content of TCN. We sketch how the assumption of directed cause–effect relations can (...) be philosophically justified by an inference to the best explanation. We then ask whether the explanations provided by TCN are merely post-facto or have independently testable empirical content. To answer this question we develop a fine-grained axiomatization of TCN, including a distinction of different kinds of faithfulness. A number of theorems show that although the core axioms of TCN are empirically empty, extended versions of TCN have successively increasing empirical content. (shrink)

The notion that manual gestures played an important role in the evolution of human language was strengthened by the discovery of mirror neurons in monkey area F5, the proposed homologue of human Broca's area. This idea is central to the thesis developed by Arbib, and lending further support to a link between motor resonance mechanisms and language/communication development is the case of autism and congenital blindness. We provide an account of how these conditions may relate to the aforementioned (...) theory. (shrink)

This dissertation reconstructs some aspects of the historical development of the concept of the electron from 1891, when the term "electron" was introduced, to 1925, when the notion of spin was put forward, in the light of the relevant historiographical and philosophical problems. The central historiographical tool employed is Karl Popper's notion of a problem situation. Furthermore, some of the historical episodes are reconstructed in terms of a "biographical" approach to theoretical entities that portrays them as active agents (...) that participate in the development of scientific knowledge. Their agency is due to the heuristic resources that they embody and to the resistance that they exhibit to manipulation. The historical analysis begins with a reconceptualization of the "discovery" of the electron and aims at situating the principal historical actors within the wider process which led to the acceptance of the electron as an element of the ontology of physics. I continue with a reconstruction of the discovery of the Zeeman effect in the light of recent work on the history and philosophy of experimental science. The next three chapters are devoted to a reading of the development of the old quantum theory of the atom , which aimed at understanding the behavior and distribution of electrons bound within the atom, from the perspective of the electron's biography. Furthermore, I discuss the chemists' representation of the electron and contrast it with its physical counterpart. The main philosophical problem examined concerns the implications of meaning change for scientific realism . I discuss in detail that issue and argue against the widespread view that meaning variance is incompatible with scientific realism. Thus, I provide a way out for the aspiring realist, without however committing myself to a realist position. Finally, I argue that the historical development of the concept of the electron from 1896 to 1925 is compatible with a realist construal of its ontological status. (shrink)

Theories of meaning developed within the analytic tradition, starting with Gottlob Frege, and within continental philosophy, starting with Husserl, can be distinguished by their disagreement about the phenomenon of collapse or failure of meaning. Our text focuses on Frege’s legacy, taken up by Rudolph Carnap, which culminated in a view of the collapse of meaning defined first by a purely syntactic conception of categorial error and second, when Tarski entered the scene, by the paradoxes created by the conflict between the (...) use of the predicate truth and the concept of proof. As positivism’s conventionalism and late model-theoretic semantics became the paradigms derived from this position, the result, in our view, was a conception of meaning success and meaning failure dominated by dependence on a technological conception. We will argue that this dependence leads to the inability to evaluate the breaks in rational parameters and crises of meaning addressed by the phenomenological and transcendental perspectives. Husserl’s critique of logic as technology is the basis for the reflexive standpoint on the phenomena of meaning failure that leads to a theoretical and eidetic ideal approach to that phenomenon. It is then suggested that this phenomenological reflective standpoint on the problem of meaning failure is the origin of the doors that lead to the divergent paths between the analytic and continental traditions. Thus, this is an article with three argumentative phases connected into a larger unity. The first phase presents Husserl’s critique of a purely extensional, syntactic, and recursive conception of logical consequence and the concept of truth; the second presents Hussel’s larger conception of meaning-failure; the third—presented in an appendix— presents a lesson on the division between continental and analytic philosophy. (shrink)

The intent of this work is to re-envision science in order to bring about the self-consciousness of scientific consciousness, to bring self-reflection to scientific thinking. I refer to the process of science becoming conscious of itself. A word of explanation regarding this apparent anthropomorphization of science is in order: My delineation of a direction of thought about the relation between scientific and normative thinking involves listening to the mute language of the history of science, the sensual speech of the history (...) of scientific discovery and invention. To decipher and render intelligible the sphere of thought generated by the history of scientific theorizing we must read it metaphorically, for example, seeing the relationship between classical and quantum theory as a metaphor "mutely appealing for an imaginative leap" . The history of science may be seen as a metaphor of the process of self-consciousness: the story of the soul understanding itself in the act of trying to understand the world. ;In this vein, the development of the notion of complementarity in the context of physics, and of autopoiesis in the context of open systems in biology and chemistry, represent moments of self-reference and potential self-consciousness in the history of science. The self-consciousness of anything, including science, amounts to a self-recognition. The history of scientific ideas, and their value to those who originated, inherited or used these ideas, must be the ground upon which the cultivation of self-discovery, self-recognition, and self-possessed expression of the human being must occur. Self-possession, as the understanding of one's own limits, is one of the necessary conditions for maturity and moral responsibility. ;In the concepts of autopoiesis and complementarity, science refers directly to itself in the process of making reference to nature: it becomes necessary to describe the describing system in order to proceed with a clear description of the subject matter at hand. In other words, the instrument must account for itself, the theory must, as a matter of theoretical necessity, compensate for its own epistemological limitation and gain perspective on its perspective. (shrink)

This paper investigates Aristotle’s account of the origins of philosophy in Met. A.3-10. To appreciate it as a guide to our understanding of the beginnings of philosophy, it is crucial to see that this account relies on the preceding account of wisdom understood as theoretical knowledge of things in terms of their principles and causes. Since there is a highest form of wisdom, which involves knowledge of the ultimate principles of what there is, there is also a philosophy which (...) aims at this sort of knowledge, that is philosophy in the primary sense of the word, i.e. metaphysics. Aristotle’s account in Met. A 3-10, the paper claims, is an introduction into such philosophy. The primary aim of the account is to show that philosophy is indeed a matter of explaining things in terms of principles or causes, of which there are exactly four types. Aristotle’s account of the origins of philosophy is thus a story of the progressive discovery of these four types of explanation, starting with Thales’ use of explanation in terms of matter. The crucial development in this story comes with the insight that reality is not exhausted by the sensible world, more specifically that there are immaterial substances which make the sensible world intelligible, which necessitated explanation in terms of form and purpose. (shrink)

Gary Marcus has written a very interesting book about mental development from a nativist perspective. For the general readership at which the book is largely aimed, it will be interesting because of its many informative examples of the development of cognitive structures and because of its illuminating explanations of ways in which genes can contribute to these developmental processes. However, the book is also interesting from a theoretical point of view. Marcus tries to make nativism compatible (...) with the central arguments that anti-nativists use to attack nativism and with many recent discoveries about genetic activity and brain development. In so doing, he reconfigures the nativist position to a considerable extent. (shrink)

Antes da Filosofia, a Sabedoria era a que continha o "saber" humano haurido da experiéncia vivida. E, portanto, Sabedoria expressava mais ou menos o que hoje concebemos como Cultura. Ora, a Filosofia construiu-se mediante a operacionalização de uma passagem: do contexto da Cultura (a qual se expressava mediante um sistema simbolico próprio do mito, da religião e da literatura heróica) para o contexto da Ciencia (a qual se expressou, na dependència do antigo, através de um novo sistema simbólico conceitual, pelo (...) exercicio de uma determinada competência). Do contexto de uma Sabedoria experimental, organizada no tempo da experiência da vida, construiu-se uma habilidade de tipo próprio: a de elaborar considerações sábias ou a de formular máximas mediante observações precisas. Tales representa, nos primórdios da descoberta do pensamento racional, orientando-a, não tanto para o governo da vida ou do viver, mas para o governo da Natureza, pela observação dos seus fenómenos. É sobre a instauração desta nova atitude (inferida do exercicio prático e não de discurso teórico feito por Tales) que se detém este artigo. Ele versa, num primeiro momento, sobre a sua figura de Sábio; sobre a sua necessidade de viajar, como forma de estudo e de instrução; sobre o seu envolvimento com a Geometria (uma ciência de feição especulativa, mas de carácter empírico); enfim, sobre a sua habilidade teórica e prática (mediante relatos de Platão e de Aristóteles). Num segundo momento, e finalmente, aborda a sua explicação racional da "physis". /// Avant la Philosophie, la sagesse détenait le "savoir" humain extrait de l'expérience vécue. La sagesse s'approchait done de ce que nous comprenons aujourd'hui comme culture. La Philosophic est le fruit du passage du contexte de la Culture (celle qui s'exprimait par un système symbolique propre au mythe, à la religion, à la littérature héroïque) à celui de la Science (qui s'est exprimée, pour la dépendance du système ancien, par le biais d'un nouveau système symbolique conceptuel moyennant l'exercice d'une compétence détérminée). C'est à partir de la Sagesse experimentale, organisée pendant l'expérience de la vie, que s'est construite une capacité propre: celle qui consiste à élaborer des considérations sages ou à formuler des maximes moyennant des observations précises. Aux origines de la découverte de la pensée rationnelle, Thalès fut un jalon dans ce mouvement de la sagesse: il a marqué le début d'une nouvelle activité du sage, par l'exercice spécifique de la recherche ou de l'élévation rationnelle, en l'orientant, non seulement pour la conduite de la vic (ou du vivre), mais encore pour la connaissance de la nature, grace à l'observation de ses phénomenes. Le thème de cet article aborde l'instauration de cette nouvelle attitude (induite de l'exercice pratique et non du discours théorique fait par Thalès). II traite, en un premier moment, de Thalès comme Savant; de ses voyages comme forme d'etude et d'instruction, de son introduction à la Géométrie (une science de nature spéculative mais de caractère empirique); enfin, de son habileté théorique et pratique (en utilisant des récits de Platon et d'Aristote). En un second moment, il traite de son explication rationnelle de la "Physis". /// Before Philosophy, Wisdom included much of human "knowledge" learned through the experience of life. Wisdom was thus approximately what we nowadays call Culture. Philosophy was built up by way of a passage: from the context of Culture (wheh espresses itself by means of a symbolic system peculiar to myth, religion and epic literature) to the context of Science (which although still dependent from the ancient tradition expresses itself through a new conceptual symbolic system by means of the exercise of a specific competence). Out of the context of an experimental Wisdom, a specific skill developed organized on the basis of experience of life: to elaborate wise considerations, or to formulate propositions based upon precise observations. In the early days of the discovery of rational thought, Thales represents a landmark in his sapiential movement: the inauguration of a new activity of Scholars, through the specific exercise either of research or of rational speculation, directed mainly not to the rule of life, but to the rule of Nature through the observations of its phenomena. This paper deals with the instauration of this new activity (inferred from Thales 1 practice and not from his theoretical discourse). First, Thales personality of a Scholar is analysed: his need to travel as a way of study and instruction; his interest for Geometry (a science of speculative kind, but of empirical character); his theoretical and practical skill (according to the reports of both Plato and Aristotle). In a second part, Thales' rational explanation of "physis" is examined. (shrink)

Evolutionary game theoretic accounts of justice attempt to explain our willingness to follow certain principles of justice by appealing to robustness properties possessed by those principles. Skyrms (1996) offers one sketch of how such an account might go for divide-the-dollar, the simplest version of the Nash bargaining game, using the replicator dynamics of Taylor and Jonker (1978). In a recent article, D'Arms et al. (1998) criticize his account and describe a model which, they allege, undermines his theory. I sketch a (...) theory of evolutionary explanations of justice which avoids their methodological criticisms, and develop a spatial model of divide-the-dollar with more robust convergence properties than the models of Skyrms (1996) and D'Arms et al. (1998). (shrink)

The focus of this paper is to develop a comprehensive conceptual framework for the relationship between internal employer brand image and talent retention. An extensive and semi-systematic literature review identified a number of antecedents and consequences that have been empirically tested in various cutting-edge research studies that were conducted around the world. The existing literature is reviewed using a topical approach, and 66 research studies, most recent from various repositories, were carefully chosen and reviewed based on the criteria. Such studies (...) have been discerned and synthesized in order to establish a complete and accurate understanding of the phenomenon. Finally, a comprehensive and relatively rich conceptual framework has been proposed for future empirical explanations in various social settings via prospective research. (shrink)

This paper addresses a fundamental line of research in neuroscience: the identification of a putative neural processing core of the cerebral cortex, often claimed to be “canonical”. This “canonical” core would be shared by the entire cortex, and would explain why it is so powerful and diversified in tasks and functions, yet so uniform in architecture. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the search for canonical explanations over the past 40 years, discussing the theoretical frameworks informing (...) this research. It will highlight a bias that, in my opinion, has limited the success of this research project, that of overlooking the dimension of cortical development. The earliest explanation of the cerebral cortex as canonical was attempted by David Marr, deriving putative cortical circuits from general mathematical laws, loosely following a deductive-nomological account. Although Marr’s theory turned out to be incorrect, one of its merits was to have put the issue of cortical circuit development at the top of his agenda. This aspect has been largely neglected in much of the research on canonical models that has followed. Models proposed in the 1980s were conceived as mechanistic. They identified a small number of components that interacted as a basic circuit, with each component defined as a function. More recent models have been presented as idealized canonical computations, distinct from mechanistic explanations, due to the lack of identifiable cortical components. Currently, the entire enterprise of coming up with a single canonical explanation has been criticized as being misguided, and the premise of the uniformity of the cortex has been strongly challenged. This debate is analyzed here. The legacy of the canonical circuit concept is reflected in both positive and negative ways in recent large-scale brain projects, such as the Human Brain Project. One positive aspect is that these projects might achieve the aim of producing detailed simulations of cortical electrical activity, a negative one regards whether they will be able to find ways of simulating how circuits actually develop. (shrink)

This paper investigates Aristotle’s account of the origins of philosophy in Met. A.3-10. To appreciate it as a guide to our understanding of the beginnings of philosophy, it is crucial to see that this account relies on the preceding account of wisdom understood as theoretical knowledge of things in terms of their principles and causes. Since there is a highest form of wisdom, which involves knowledge of the ultimate principles of what there is, there is also a philosophy which (...) aims at this sort of knowledge, that is philosophy in the primary sense of the word, i.e. metaphysics. Aristotle’s account in Met. A 3-10, the paper claims, is an introduction into such philosophy. The primary aim of the account is to show that philosophy is indeed a matter of explaining things in terms of principles or causes, of which there are exactly four types. Aristotle’s account of the origins of philosophy is thus a story of the progressive discovery of these four types of explanation, starting with Thales’ use of explanation in terms of matter. The crucial development in this story comes with the insight that reality is not exhausted by the sensible world, more specifically that there are immaterial substances which make the sensible world intelligible, which necessitated explanation in terms of form and purpose. (shrink)

Jeff Bub has developed an information-theoretic interpretation of quantum mechanics on the basis of the programme to reaxiomatise the theory in terms of information-theoretic principles. According to the most recent version of the interpretation, reaxiomatisation can dissolve some of the demands for explanation traditionally associated with the task of providing an interpretation for the theory. The key idea is that the real lesson we should take away from quantum mechanics is that the ‘structure of in- formation’ is not what we (...) thought it was. In particular a feature of the new structure is intrinsic randomness of measurement, which allegedly dissolves a significant part of the measurement problem. I argue that it is difficult to find an appropriate argument to support the claim that measurement is intrinsically random in the relevant sense. (shrink)

Predictive processing (PP) has been repeatedly presented as a unificatory account of perception, action, and cognition. In this paper, we argue that this is premature: As a unifying theory, PP fails to deliver general, simple, homogeneous, and systematic explanations. By examining its current trajectory of development, we conclude that PP remains only loosely connected both to its computational framework and to its hypothetical biological underpinnings, which makes its fundamentals unclear. Instead of offering explanations that refer to the (...) same set of principles, we observe systematic equivocations in PP‐based models, or outright contradictions with its avowed principles. To make matters worse, PP‐based models are seldom empirically validated, and they are frequently offered as mere just‐so stories. The large number of PP‐based models is thus not evidence of theoretical progress in unifying perception, action, and cognition. On the contrary, we maintain that the gap between theory and its biological and computational bases contributes to the arrested development of PP as a unificatory theory. Thus, we urge the defenders of PP to focus on its critical problems instead of offering mere re‐descriptions of known phenomena, and to validate their models against possible alternative explanations that stem from different theoretical assumptions. Otherwise, PP will ultimately fail as a unified theory of cognition. (shrink)

Theory of Mind (ToM) is the cognitive achievement that enables us to report our propositional attitudes, to attribute such attitudes to others, and to use such postulated or observed mental states in the prediction and explanation of behavior. Most normally developing children acquire ToM between the ages of 3 and 5 years, but serious delays beyond this chronological and mental age have been observed in children with autism, as well as in those with severe sensory impairments. We examine data from (...) studies of ToM in normally developing children and those with deafness, blindness, autism and Williams syndrome, as well as data from lower primates, in a search for answers to key theoretical questions concerning the origins, nature and representation of knowledge about the mind. In answer to these, we offer a framework according to which ToM is jointly dependent upon language and social experience, and is produced by a conjunction of language acquisition with children's growing social understanding, acquired through conversation and interaction with others. We argue that adequate language and adequate social skills are jointly causally sufficient, and individually causally necessary, for producing ToM. Thus our account supports a social developmental theory of the genesis of human cognition, inspired by the work of Sellars and Vygotsky. How are we to decide whether to take reason to be an essentially private thing that can, however, turn on a public display when it chooses to do so, or, like conversing, to be an essentially social skill, which can, however, be retained a while through periods of solitary confinement? (Annette Baier, The Commons of the Mind, p. 5). The squirrel does not infer by induction that it is going to need stores next winter as well (Wittgenstein, On Certainty§ 287). The problem of thought and language thus extends beyond the limits of natural science and becomes the focal problem of historical human psychology, i.e. of social psychology. Consequently, it must be posed in a different way (Vygotsky, Thought and Language, p. 51). From the very first days of the child's development his activities acquire a meaning of their own in a system of social behaviour and, being directed towards a definite purpose, are refracted through the prism of the child's environment. The path from object to child and from child to object passes through another person. This complex human structure is the product of a developmental process deeply rooted in the links between individual and social history (Vygotsky, Mind in Society, p. 30). (shrink)

Critical realism claims to bring a significant improvement to social science, especially in comparison with empiricist and interpretive approaches. So far, however, it has fallen short of the high expectations it raises. Critical realist arguments are convincing on the philosophical or meta-theoretical level but the contributions of critical realism to social science in terms of research activities at the field level are less clear. Nonetheless, there is no way back. Moving forward requires that the practice of doing social scientific (...) research be no longer perceived as limited to the justification of specific knowledge claims but must be seen as an integral part of the cycle of scientific discovery. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Emergence of Scientific Culture: Science and the Shaping of Modernity, 1210–1685Helen HattabStephen Gaukroger. The Emergence of Scientific Culture: Science and the Shaping of Modernity, 1210–1685. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007. Pp. ix + 563. Cloth, $65.00.The sheer variety of both cognitive and non-cognitive contributions to the emergence of a scientific culture in the West and the complex relations to pre-modern developments that scholars have brought to light over (...) the past decades have put into question both the Enlightenment and Kuhnian accounts of the scientific revolution. Gaukroger’s work performs the ambitious but indispensable task of beginning to formulate an alternative way of understanding this momentous transition, one based on recent scholarship. Gaukroger treats science as both “a particular kind of cognitive product, and as a particular kind of cultural product” (3). His overarching goal is to show that examining the interrelations between the two can teach us something about modernity that focusing on one, to the exclusion of the other, cannot. He argues that the enduring success of Western science was not due to its advances (there were previous advances in other cultures), but due to its ability to consolidate. Successful consolidation promotes the cognitive claims of science and builds a scientific culture to legitimate them. Hence, throughout this book, Gaukroger explores how particular advances (e.g., in astronomy and natural philosophy) were legitimated by their ability to reinforce revelation, unify different disciplines, and exemplify the scientific persona. Since these means of consolidation, unlike methods of scientific discovery, rely on both cultural forces and intellectual advances, Gaukroger makes good on his promise to teach us something that intellectual and cultural histories taken separately cannot.Gaukroger characterizes Western modernity in terms of the eventual assimilation of all cognitive values to scientific ones. He targets the Enlightenment view which, as a result of this assimilation, reinterprets the success of scientific practices over others in ahistorical terms. On this view, the longstanding success of science results solely from cognitive advances, such as the commitment to objectivity (science was assumed to have dissociated itself from religion), the employment of adversarial, non-dogmatic arguments, and the development of quantitative and empirical methods. Gaukroger shows instead that: (1) early modern Epicurean and mechanist natural philosophies forged a closer connection to religious doctrine in response to the ultimate failure to maintain the Thomist reconciliation of theology with Aristotelian natural philosophy; (2) the threat posed by the naturalism of Renaissance philosophers like Pomponazzi led to a privileging of systematization over innovation in late Scholasticism, as well as a renewed interest in natural history, which later spawned the enterprise of physico-theology; (3) the adversarial character of ancient means of cultivating wisdom was rejected in favor of gentlemanly cooperation. This went hand-in-hand with a gradual reassignment of the aims of enquiry from the attainment of a transcendent truth to a productive truth, and the corresponding construction, by Bacon and others, of the scientific persona, which embodied the cognitive virtue of objectivity rather than the ethical virtue of ancient and medieval wisdom. Finally, (4) Beeckman and Descartes failed to achieve the quantification of natural philosophy they aimed for, in large part due to their conflicting commitment to corpuscularian matter theory. The successful replacement of Aristotelian causal explanations in natural philosophy by mechanistic explanations lay in mechanism’s ability to unify all causal explanation, rather than its ability to offer quantitative [End Page 640] explanations of various natural phenomena. Similarly, the experimental methods of Gilbert and Boyle were at first hotly contested, the eventual success of non-foundationalist, empirical approaches owing more to the unifying role played by the experiments of Gilbert, Boyle, and Newton. Although Boyle’s experimental philosophy included a mechanistic matter theory, unlike strict mechanists, experimentalists used experiments to focus and unify heterogeneous phenomena rather than grounding explanations in matter theory.Gaukroger presents the relevant cultural developments and theoretical advances with an impressive degree of detail and accuracy. Readers will gain insights about everything from the differences between early medieval Augustinianism and late medieval Aristotelianism, to Spinozism versus its late seventeenth-century alternatives. Scholars with expertise in specific areas will no doubt take issue with individual claims... (shrink)

After biologist Deborah Gordon made a series of experimental discoveries in the 1980s, she argued that a change in terminology regarding the division of labor among castes of specialists was needed. Gordon’s investigations of the interactive effects of ants in colonies led her to believe that the established approach Edward O. Wilson had pioneered was biased in a way that made some alternative candidate adaptive explanations invisible. Gordon argued that this was because the term “division of labor” implied a (...) division among specialists that was unwarranted, and proposed “task allocation” as a better description that did not bias research against the alternative causes she had discovered. Gordon’s empirical findings and theoretical proposals also vindicate the initial critics of Wilson’s human sociobiology who have been dismissed as political radicals, but her proposals have been widely misunderstood by many contemporary behavioral ecologists. The terminological and methodological confusions rampant in contemporary discourse can be clarified by applying a framework developed by Elisabeth Lloyd involving an analysis of the constraints imposed by different research questions. Applying this framework will show how the methodological problems involving description raised by the initial critics of Wilson’s human sociobiology extended to his analysis of ants, indicating that they were not challenging Wilson’s naturalistic approach to the study of human evolution, but rather his methods. It will also show how confusion over how Gordon’s proposed research questions have been conflated with the possible answers she has argued ought to be investigated. This in turn will clarify contemporary disputes over her proposal to abandon the term “division of labor.”. (shrink)

By the 1840s and 1850s biogeographical theory had polarized into two opposing views — both of which had their origins in the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries. At issue in this polarization was the question of God's involvement with His creation. At one end of the spectrum were Sclater, Agassiz, Kirby, and others who saw a neatly designed world in which geographical distributions were planned and executed by the hand of God at creation. For most of these naturalists, organisms were created (...) en masse within the regions they now occupy. Disjunct distributions were proof to them that God had indeed created species in situ as many individuals. These naturalists hoped to reveal God's biogeographical plan by discovering His regions of creation. They had hoped to demonstrate a neatly devised set of regions of creation which might be applicable to all creatures, but in attempting to do so, they arrived at conflicting sets of delineations — thus helping to undermine their conceptions of nature in which design (both idealist and utilitarian) played an important part.93At the other end of the biogeographical spectrum were the theoretical ideas of Prichard and Lyell, who viewed a more remote God — one who allowed His creation to be shaped and modified by secondary laws. Lyell in particular wished to leave considerations of design aside, hoping to demonstrate that the shape of the present creation is due to natural laws. Prichard and Lyell saw God's role in the creation of species (and distributions) as being extremely limited. In fact, the regions of creation seen today are in actuality only natural artifacts produced by migrations and barriers. They saw distributions being in constant flux, as was the rest of nature.Those supporting the views of Prichard and Lyell spent a great deal of effort in attempting to remove a major obstacle in their paths — disjunct distributions. If disjunct distributions were indeed the products of separate creative acts, as Sclater and others claimed, then the arguments of Prichard and Lyell would be negated. For if the creation of a species was shown to be the product of multiple creations, then what was the need of migrations and dispersal mechanisms? Also at stake, of course, was the concept of species based upon generation. Darwin was well aware that if the supernatural implications of disjunct distributions could not be refuted, then his evolutionary system — founded upon a species concept based on descent — would be in peril.94A further barrier to the acceptance of the Prichard/Lyell view was the fact that those sympathetic to a nonsupernatural explanation of disjunct distributions could not agree upon a natural explanation for those anomalies, and an internal debate between naturalists within this group raged for decades.95By 1859 a biogeographical stalemate had occurred. Sclater and others, supporting their static view of nature, continued to look for regions of creation, pointing to disjunct distributions in support of their arguments, while those favorable to the views of Prichard and Lyell continued to search for natural explanations for such biogeographical anomalies.The key needed to resolve the biogeographical debate was a credible theory for species origins. By 1858 there were essentially three options for British naturalists: supernatural creation, Lamarckian transmutation, or natural creation. A few British naturalists grasped at these straws, but most workers preferred the option of remaining silent until a more viable explanation for the origin and distribution of species could be advanced.96 And not until the publication of Darwin's theory did that explanation become available. (shrink)

The basic task of the essay is to exhibit science as a rational enterprise. I argue that in order to do this we need to change quite fundamentally our whole conception of science. Today it is rather generally taken for granted that a precondition for science to be rational is that in science we do not make substantial assumptions about the world, or about the phenomena we are investigating, which are held permanently immune from empirical appraisal. According to this standard (...) view, science is rational precisely because science does not make a priori metaphysical presuppositions about the world forever preserved from possible empirical refutation. It is of course accepted that an individual scientist, developing a new theory, may well be influenced by his own metaphysical presuppositions. In addition, it is acknowledged that a successful scientific theory, within the context of a particular research program, may be protected for a while from refutation, thus acquiring a kind of temporary metaphysical status, as long as the program continues to be empirically progressive. All such views unite, however, in maintaining that science cannot make permanent metaphysical presuppositions, held permanently immune from objective empirical evaluation. According to this standard view, the rationality of science arises, not from the way in which new theories are discovered, but rather from the way in which already formulated theories are appraised in the light of empirical considerations. And the fundamental problem of the rationality of science—the Humean problem of induction— concerns precisely the crucial issue of the rationality of accepting theories in the light of evidence. In this essay I argue that this widely accepted standard conception of science must be completely rejected if we are to see science as a rational enterprise. In order to assess the rationality of accepting a theory in the light of evidence it is essential to consider the ultimate aims of science. This is because adopting different aims for science will lead us, quite rationally, to accept different theories in the light of evidence. I argue that a basic aim of science is to explain. At the outset science simply presupposes, in a completely a priori fashion, that explanations can be found, that the world is ultimately intelligible or simple. In other words, science simply presupposes in an a priori way the metaphysical thesis that the world is intelligible, and then seeks to convert this presupposed metaphysical theory into a testable scientific theory. Scientific theories are only accepted insofar as they promise to help us realize this fundamental aim. At once a crucial problem arises. If scientific theories are only accepted insofar as they promise to lead us towards articulating a presupposed metaphysical theory, it is clearly essential that we can choose rationally, in an a priori way, between all the very different possible metaphysical theories that can be thought up, all the very different ways in which the universe might ultimately be intelligible. For holding different aims, accepting different metaphysical theories conceived of as blueprints for future scientific theories will, quite rationally, lead us to accept different scientific theories. Thus it is only if we can choose rationally between conflicting metaphysical blueprints for future scientific theories that we will be in a position to appraise rationally the acceptability of our present day scientific theories. We thus face the crucial problem: How can we choose rationally between conflicting possible aims for science, conflicting metaphysical blueprints for future scientific theories ? It is only if we can solve this fundamental problem concerning the aims of science that we can be in a position to appraise rationally the acceptability of existing scientific theories. There is a further point here. If we could choose rationally between rival aims, rival metaphysical blueprints for future scientific theories, then we would in effect have a rational method for the discovery of new scientific theories! Thus we reach the result: there is only a rational method for the appraisal of existing scientific theories if there is a rational method of discovery. I shall argue that the aim-oriented theory of scientific inquiry to be advocated here succeeds in exhibiting science as a rational enterprise in that it succeeds in providing a rational procedure for choosing between rival metaphysical blueprints: it thus provides a rational, if fallible, method of discovery, and a rational method for the appraisal of existing scientific theories—thus resolving the Humean problem. In Part I of the essay I argue that the orthodox conception of science fails to exhibit science as a rational enterprise because it fails to solve the Humean problem of induction. The presuppositional view advocated here does however succeed in resolving the Humean problem. In Part II of the essay I spell out the new aim-oriented theory of scientific method that becomes inevitable once we accept the basic presuppositional viewpoint. I argue that this new aim oriented conception of scientific method is essentially a rational method of scientific discovery, and that the theory has important implications for scientific practice. (shrink)

The basic task of the essay is to exhibit science as a rational enterprise. I argue that in order to do this we need to change quite fundamentally our whole conception of science. Today it is rather generally taken for granted that a precondition for science to be rational is that in science we do not make substantial assumptions about the world, or about the phenomena we are investigating, which are held permanently immune from empirical appraisal. According to this standard (...) view, science is rational precisely because science does not make a priori metaphysical presuppositions about the world forever preserved from possible empirical refutation. It is of course accepted that an individual scientist, developing a new theory, may well be influenced by his own metaphysical presuppositions. In addition, it is acknowledged that a successful scientific theory, within the context of a particular research program, may be protected for a while from refutation, thus acquiring a kind of temporary metaphysical status, as long as the program continues to be empirically progressive. All such views unite, however, in maintaining that science cannot make permanent metaphysical presuppositions, held permanently immune from objective empirical evaluation. According to this standard view, the rationality of science arises, not from the way in which new theories are discovered, but rather from the way in which already formulated theories are appraised in the light of empirical considerations. And the fundamental problem of the rationality of science--the Humean problem of induction--concerns precisely the crucial issue of the rationality of accepting theories in the light of evidence. In this essay I argue that this widely accepted standard conception of science must be completely rejected if we are to see science as a rational enterprise. In order to assess the rationality of accepting a theory in the light of evidence it is essential to consider the ultimate aims of science. This is because adopting different aims for science will lead us, quite rationally, to accept different theories in the light of evidence. I argue that a basic aim of science is to explain. At the outset science simply presupposes, in a completely a priori fashion, that explanations can be found, that the world is ultimately intelligible or simple. In other words, science simply presupposes in an a priori way the metaphysical thesis that the world is intelligible, and then seeks to convert this presupposed metaphysical theory into a testable scientific theory. Scientific theories are only accepted insofar as they promise to help us realize this fundamental aim. At once a crucial problem arises. If scientific theories are only accepted insofar as they promise to lead us towards articulating a presupposed metaphysical theory, it is clearly essential that we can choose rationally, in an a priori way, between all the very different possible metaphysical theories that can be thought up, all the very different ways in which the universe might ultimately be intelligible. For holding different aims, accepting different metaphysical theories conceived of as blueprints for future scientific theories will, quite rationally, lead us to accept different scientific theories. Thus it is only if we can choose rationally between conflicting metaphysical blueprints for future scientific theories that we will be in a position to appraise rationally the acceptability of our present day scientific theories. We thus face the crucial problem: How can we choose rationally between conflicting possible aims for science, conflicting metaphysical blueprints for future scientific theories? It is only if we can solve this fundamental problem concerning the aims of science that we can be in a position to appraise rationally the acceptability of existing scientific theories. There is a further point here. If we could choose rationally between rival aims, rival metaphysical blueprints for future scientific theories, then we would in effect have a rational method for the discovery of new scientific theories! Thus we reach the result: there is only a rational method for the appraisal of existing scientific theories if there is a rational method of discovery. I shall argue that the aim-oriented theory of scientific inquiry to be advocated here succeeds in exhibiting science as a rational enterprise in that it succeeds in providing a rational procedure for choosing between rival metaphysical blueprints: it thus provides a rational, if fallible, method of discovery, and a rational method for the appraisal of existing scientific theories--thus resolving the Humean problem. In Part I of the essay I argue that the orthodox conception of science fails to exhibit science as a rational enterprise because it fails to solve the Humean problem of induction. The presuppositional view advocated here does however succeed in resolving the Humean problem. In Part II of the essay I spell out the new aim-oriented theory of scientific method that becomes inevitable once we accept the basic presuppositional viewpoint. I argue that this new aim oriented conception of scientific method is essentially a rational method of scientific discovery, and that the theory has important implications for scientific practice. (shrink)

Taking the metaphor of Black CNN as a starting point, the project attempts to analyze the potential of the musical form of expression of hip hop as a communication structure of the black minority in the USA. After a historical-cultural explanation, which deals with the tradition of reflecting social and political aspects in the different musical expressions of the Black ethnic group in the USA, and which already shows the importance of this form of expression in the context of an (...) internal colonialsm, those socio-demographic developments are made comprehensible as a central point of criticism in the verbal articulations of hip hop. Against the theoretical background of cultural citizenship - a concept for determining cultural participation in the media society - 25 text samples found in hip hop releases from 1982 to 2004 will be examined for their correspondence with indicators that can be derived from political and social functions attributed to the media. (shrink)

The topic of the presence, legitimacy and epistemic worth of narrative explanations in different kinds of scientific discourse has already enjoyed several revivals within related discussions in contemporary philosophy of science. In fact, we have recently witnessed a more extensive, more unprejudiced and ambitious attention to narrative modes of making science. I think we need a systematic theoretical framework in order to categorize these different functions of narratives and understand their role in scientific explanatory and justificatory practice. My (...) claim is that some distinctions and analytic tools developed within the field of contemporary Argumentation Theory might be of help. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to analyze the main contributions of Wesley C. Salmon to the philosophy of science, that is, his concepts of causation, common cause, and theoretical explanation, and to provide a critique of them. This critique will be based on a comparison of Salmon’s concepts with categories developed by Hegel in his Science of Logic and which can be applied to issues treated by Salmon by means of the above given three concepts. It is the (...) author’s contention that by means of Hegelian categories it becomes possible to provide a critique of Salmon’s philosophy of science and at the same time to enlarge the concept framework of philosophy of science. (shrink)

The much larger appearance of the moon near horizon than the perceived size of the moon at zenith has motivated many scientists to develop theories that aim at explaining this puzzling phenomenon. Considering that the size of retinal images of the moon in these positions are very similar, the explanation of difference in their apparent sizes has relied on perceptual cues of distance embedded in the retinal image of their respective contexts. Although this account of the moon illusion is quite (...) popular, it does not explain all aspects of this phenomenon. The theoretical formulation of the moon illusion based on other factors such as size contrast later may have had some advantages but has also created some new problems. Although the moon is perceived in a three-dimensional (3D) environment, the present analysis proposes that an explanation of the moon illusion based on two-dimensional (2D) cues can remove some of the unnecessary problems. The empty space and size contrast that have already been considered in explaining classic geometric-optical illusions play a parallel role in explaining the moon illusion. In other words, the role of open space in interaction with the image of the moon and different objects near horizon, all reflected on the retina, are considered as the main explaining factors. The advantages of this approach will be discussed and some of the facts pertaining to the moon illusion will be explained within this theoretical framework. (shrink)

Philosophers and scientists both ask questions about what the world is like. How do these fields interact with one another? How should they? Naturalism Beyond the Limits of Science investigates an approach to these questions called methodological naturalism. According to methodological naturalism, when coming up with theories about what the world is like, philosophers should, whenever possible, make use of the same methodology that is deployed by scientists. Although many contemporary philosophers have implicit commitments that lead straightforwardly to methodological naturalism, (...) few have a clear understanding of how widespread and disruptive methodological naturalism promises to be for the field. By way of a series of case studies involving laws of nature, composition, time and modality, and drawing on historical and contemporary scientific developments including the discovery of the neutrino, the introduction of dark energy, and the advent of relativity theory, this book demonstrates the ways in which scientists rely on extra-empirical reasoning and how that very same extra-empirical reasoning can yield surprising results when applied to philosophical debates. Along the way, Nina Emery's investigation illuminates the complex relationship between philosophy and the sciences, and makes the case that philosophers and scientists alike would benefit from a greater understanding of the connections between the two fields. (shrink)

According to public health data, the US Hispanic population is far healthier than would be expected for a population with low socioeconomic status. Ever since Kyriakos Markides and Jeannine Coreil highlighted this in a seminal 1986 article, public health researchers have sought to explain the so-called “Hispanic paradox.” Several candidate explanations have been offered over the years, but the debate goes on. This article offers a philosophical analysis that clarifies how two sets of obstacles make it particularly difficult to (...) explain the Hispanic paradox. First, different research projects define the Hispanic paradox phenomenon in substantially different ways. Moreover, using Bas van Fraassen’s pragmatic theory of explanation and Sean Valles’s extension of it with the concept of “phenomenon choice,” it also becomes clear that there are also multiple ways of explaining each individual definition of the phenomenon. A second set of philosophical and methodological challenges arises during any attempt to study “Hispanic” phenomena, with one key challenge being that the “Hispanic” panethnic concept was intentionally made vague as it was developed and popularized during the 1960s–1970s. After comparing this case with similar cases in the philosophical literature, the article concludes with observations on what makes this problem unique, particularly its ethical features. (shrink)

In temporal binding, the temporal interval between one event and another, occurring some time later, is subjectively compressed. We discuss two ways in which temporal binding has been conceptualized. In studies showing temporal binding between a voluntary action and its causal consequences, such binding is typically interpreted as providing a measure of an implicit or pre-reflective “sense of agency”. However, temporal binding has also been observed in contexts not involving voluntary action, but only the passive observation of a cause-effect sequence. (...) In those contexts, it has been interpreted as a top-down effect on perception reflecting a belief in causality. These two views need not be in conflict with one another, if one thinks of them as concerning two separate mechanisms through which temporal binding can occur. In this paper, we explore an alternative possibility: that there is a unitary way of explaining temporal binding both within and outside the context of voluntary action as a top-down effect on perception reflecting a belief in causality. Any such explanation needs to account for ways in which agency, and factors connected with agency, have been shown to affect the strength of temporal binding. We show that principles of causal inference and causal selection already familiar from the literature on causal learning have the potential to explain why the strength of people’s causal beliefs can be affected by the extent to which they are themselves actively involved in bringing about events, thus in turn affecting binding. (shrink)

Explanations in the life sciences frequently involve presenting a model of the mechanism taken to be responsible for a given phenomenon. Such explanations depart in numerous ways from nomological explanations commonly presented in philosophy of science. This paper focuses on three sorts of differences. First, scientists who develop mechanistic explanations are not limited to linguistic representations and logical inference; they frequently employ diagrams to characterize mechanisms and simulations to reason about them. Thus, the epistemic resources for (...) presenting mechanistic explanations are considerably richer than those suggested by a nomological framework. Second, the fact that mechanisms involve organized systems of component parts and operations provides direction to both the discovery and testing of mechanistic explanations. Finally, models of mechanisms are developed for specific exemplars and are not represented in terms of universally quantified statements. Generalization involves investigating both the similarity of new exemplars to those already studied and the variations between them. (shrink)

The relationship between Peircean abduction and the modern notion of Inference to the Best Explanation is a matter of dispute. Some philosophers, such as Harman :88–95, 1965) and Lipton, claim that abduction and IBE are virtually the same. Others, however, hold that they are quite different :503, 1998; Minnameier in Erkenntnis 60:75–105, 2004) and there is no link between them :419–442, 2009). In this paper, I argue that neither of these views is correct. I show that abduction and IBE have (...) important similarities as well as differences. Moreover, by bringing a historical perspective to the study of the relationship between abduction and IBE—a perspective that is lacking in the literature—I show that their differences can be well understood in terms of two historic developments in the history of philosophy of science: first, Reichenbach’s distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification—and the consequent jettisoning of the context of discovery from philosophy of science—and second, underdetermination of theory by data. (shrink)

In this article I will challenge a received orthodoxy in the philosophy of social science by showing that Collingwood was right in insisting that reenactment is epistemically central for historical explanations of individual agency. Situating Collingwood within the context of the debate between simulation theory and what has come to be called “theory theory” in contemporary philosophy of mind and psychology, I will develop two systematic arguments that attempt to show the essential importance of reenactment for our understanding of (...) rational agency. I will furthermore show that Gadamer’s influential critique of the reenactment model distinguishes insufficiently between the interpretation of certain types of texts and the explanation of individual actions. In providing an account of individual agency, we are committed to a realistic understanding of our ordinary scheme of actionexplanations and have thus to recognize the centrality of reenactment. Nevertheless, Collingwood’s emphasis on reenactment is certainly one-sided. I will demonstrate its limitations even for accounting for individual agency, and show how it has to be supplemented by various theoretical considerations, by analyzing the different explanatory strategies that Christopher Browning and Daniel Goldhagen use to explain the behavior of the ordinary men in Reserve Battalion 101 during World War II. (shrink)

This book tells the curious story of an unexpected finding that sheds light on a crucial moment in the development of physics: the discovery of artificial radioactivity induced by neutrons. The finding in question is a notebook, clearly written in Fermi's handwriting, which records the frenzied days and nights that Fermi spent experimenting alone, driven by his theoretical ideas on beta decay. The notebook was found by the authors while browsing through documents left by Oscar D'Agostino, the (...) chemist among Fermi's group. From Fermi's notes, they reconstruct with skill and expertise the detailed timeline of the critical days leading up to his vital discovery. While much is already known about the road that led Fermi to his important result, this is the first time that it has been possible to reconstruct precisely when and how the initial evidence of neutron-induced decay was obtained. In relating this fascinating story, the book will be of great interest not only to those with a passion for the history of science but also to a wider audience. (shrink)

Using Grunbaum 1984 and 1993 as a springboard, Greenwood (this issue) claims to have offered several methodologically salubrious and exegetically illuminating theses on empirical evaluations of theoretical explanations of psychotherapeutic efficacy. According to his exegesis of Grunbaum's construction (1984, Ch. 2, Section C; 1993, 184-204) of Freud's "Tally Argument," that argument bespeaks a rife neglect of the epistemologically-significant distinction between empirical evaluations of the efficacy of psychotherapy and evaluations of theoretical explanations of that efficacy. Greenwood presents (...) a defense of a qualified version of Popper's critique of psychoanalysis against Grunbaum's objections to it (1984, Ch. 1B). Finally, Greenwood offers a clarification of the concept of a "placebo control" investigation, taking issue with Grunbaum's 1993 (84-87, 91-93). In the present paper, it is argued contra Greenwood that: (1) his purportedly "best" reading of Freud's Tally Argument and of its import founders, (2) the distinction that Greenwood bemoans as being neglected by mental health researchers actually is a commonplace in the literature on treatment-process and therapeutic outcome, (3) Greenwood's defense of Popper's critique of psychoanalysis is an anachronism, and (4) Greenwood's conceptual analysis of placebo controls is nebulous and misconceived. (shrink)

Attention is drawn to two closely related functions served by scientific theory which are of fundamental importance in physical science but as yet little discussed in philosophy. As indicated by their names, they constitute the theoretical basis of physical measurements. After analysing some historically important examples and sketching the historical development of these ideas, this paper examines the similarities and differences between the estimate functions of theory and such well-known functions as prediction and explanation. The pervasiveness of the (...) estimative functions even when theory is but poorly developed is noted; and some of the problems raised by the physical equivalence of the measuring instrument to the object measured are discussed. The relations of estimation to ‘reductive logic’ are also considered. We then apply this understanding of estimative functioning to distinguishing experimental errors from those genuine anomalies which result in discovery. It is also shown that there can be no facts established nor any verification of predictions except on the basis of valid estimates derived, in turn, from antecedently accepted theories. (shrink)