This book constitutes the strictly refereed post-workshop proceedings of the 11th International Workshop on Computer Science Logic, CSL '97, held as the 1997 Annual Conference of the European Association on Computer Science Logic, EACSL, in Aarhus, Denmark, in August 1997. The volume presents 26 revised full papers selected after two rounds of refereeing from initially 92 submissions; also included are four invited papers. The book addresses all current aspects of computer science logics and its applications and thus (...) presents the state of the art in the area. (shrink)

The article is a continuation of a series of works devoted to the methodological substantiation of the subject of philosophical anthropology. Using the example of specific searches for building the proper anthropological discourse, an attempt is made to analyze how different authors tried to build anthropology as a rigorous science. This makes it possible to analyze the problems associated with the methodology of science in its classical and non-classical versions. In this article, this work is done on the (...) material of E. Cassirer's searches, on building a connection between his classic work "Philosophy of Symbolic Forms" and his later work "Experience about Man", devoted to the anthropology as such. It is shown that Cassirer tried to overcome the substratum, naturalistic approach that dominated the essential paradigm in defining a person, by searching and describing the basic functional principle that singles out a person as a being. This is what Cassirer considers the principle of generating symbolic forms from which the entire space of culture is built. It is this that acts as the basic activity of a person, making him who he is and building his connection with culture. The symbolic form and the actual practice of form generation act as an intermediary between man and culture. This gives E. Cassirer the right to define man as a symbolic animal. The article also shows the difference between the classical discourse, which E. Cassirer continued to adhere to, and the non-classical one, which was proposed by M. Heidegger. This was shown in the famous discussion at Davos between two philosophers. (shrink)

Статья является первой в цикле работ, посвящённых попыткам методологического обоснования философской антропологии как науки. В данной работе обсуждается опыт обоснования Э. Гуссерлем идеала строгой науки через обоснование им феноменологии и феноменологического метода и попытку распространения этого метода на науки о человеке. В статье показано, что в стремлении к обоснованию строгой научности основатель феноменологии фактически приходит к выводам, известным с античной философии, согласно которым философия человека выстраивается не как учение или концепция, а как практика заботы о себе. Она так или иначе (...) ведёт к тому, что сам философ определяет правила своей жизни, направленные на служение философии и выстраивающиеся по нормам практик заботы, опыт которых известен в истории философии, начиная с римских стоиков. В статье обращается внимание на то, что Э. Гуссерль фактически своей жизнью показал идеал философии как духовной аскезы, продемонстрировав пример дисциплины ума. (shrink)

The idea that sociology has the status of a strict science—that is, that sociology, like mathematics, has at its disposal a well-founded, deductive system of propositions—is nowadays rejected even more by its pragmatic advocates than by its skeptical practitioners; it is refuted both by the arbitrary manipulation of sociology’s internally constitutive, theoretical interconnections at the hands of practical interests and technocratic utility, and by the resultant increasing relativization of its findings. However, as we shall see, the arbitrariness of (...) the treatment of sociology does not correspond with any arbitrariness in its object. On the contrary, with all empirical relativity a structural constancy persists in the agency constructing, comparing, and evaluating the experience of the everyday world, as well as scientific experience. This was precisely Kant’s discovery, that the conditions making possible our primary experience of objects must be, at the same time, the constitutive structure of the objects themselves, and also the framework for the scientifically systematic treatment of them, because otherwise there could be no knowledge in the sense of the structural identification of object, experience, and reflection. This Kantian principle guarantees, then, that sociology is indeed possible as a strict science; that is, it is completely possible as an integral, deductive aspect of theory, as long as we reconstruct, by means of axioms and postulates, the constitution of the object of theory out of the structure of our direct interpersonal experience. In this vein, Rene König, a pioneer in modern German social science, states. (shrink)

The article continues the series of works devoted to the problem of methodological substantiation of the subject of philosophical anthropology, and thereby its substantiation as a strict science. The conversation is based on search materials carried out in the German classics of the ХХ century. The first article was devoted to the experience of E. Husserl. This article is devoted to the M. Scheler’s search. The author thus relies not so much on the published and very fragmentary works (...) of M. Scheler as on the drafts of the philosopher, his diaries, lying without the application for a long time. It turns out that M. Scheler did not so much build philosophical anthropology as a positive science, but rather understood it more as a methodological science, that is, as reflexive, in which a certain search method is built, precisely because a person acts not so much as an object or subject but as constantly open problem, the one that overcomes itself, its own measure. (shrink)

Between 1963 and 1970, the Smithsonian Institution held a grant from the US Army to observe migratory patterns of pelagic birds in the Central Pacific. For six years, the Pacific Ocean Biological Survey Program (POBSP) collected a vast amount of data from a quarter of the globe little known to science, and difficult for civilians to access. Its reports were (and remain) of great value to science. In 1969, however, the Program became embroiled in controversy. Some alleged that (...) the Smithsonian, by accepting the military's coin, had violated its own rules governing the receipt of government funds and the publication of research. Recent investigations have pointed to a number of unexplained relationships between the POBSP and the Army, during a period of intense activity in chemical and biological weapons testing. The controversy marked a watershed in Smithsonian-military relations. As yet, its history is incomplete. What is known, however, suggests that the POBSP involved a highly problematic mésalliance between science and secrecy during the height of the Cold War. Its gradual unfolding prompts questions of contemporary relevance that await contemporary answers. (shrink)

A type of argument occasionally made in metaethics, epistemology and philosophy of science notes that most ordinary uses of some expression fail to satisfy the strictest interpretation of the expression, and concludes that the ordinary assertions are false. This requires there to be a presumption in favour of a strict interpretation of expressions that admit of interpretations at different levels of strictness. We argue that this presumption is unmotivated, and thus the arguments fail.

The dissertation studies the mathematical strength of strict constructivism, a finitistic fragment of Bishop's constructivism, and explores its implications in the philosophy of mathematics. ;It consists of two chapters and four appendixes. Chapter 1 presents strict constructivism, shows that it is within the spirit of finitism, and explains how to represent sets, functions and elementary calculus in strict constructivism. Appendix A proves that the essentials of Bishop and Bridges' book Constructive Analysis can be developed within strict (...) constructivism. Appendix B further develops, within strict constructivism, the essentials of the functional analysis applied in quantum mechanics, including the spectral theorem, Stone's theorem, and the self-adjointness of some common quantum mechanical operators. Some comparisons with other related work, in particular, a comparison with S. Simpson's partial realization of Hilbert's program, and a discussion of the relevance of M. B. Pour-El and J. I. Richards' negative results in recursive analysis are given in Appendix C. ;Chapter 2 explores the possible philosophical implications of these technical results. It first suggests a fictionalistic account for the ontology of pure mathematics. This leaves a puzzle about how truths about fictional mathematical entities are applicable to science. The chapter then explains that for those applications of mathematics that can be reduced to applications of strict constructivism, fictional entities can be eliminated in the applications and the puzzle of applicability can be resolved. Therefore, if strict constructivism were essentially sufficient for all scientific applications, the applicability of mathematics of mathematics in science would be accountable. The chapter then argues that the reduction of mathematics to strict constructivism also reduces the epistemological question about mathematics to that about elementary arithmetic. The dissertation ends with a suggestion that a proper epistemological basis for arithmetic is perhaps a mixture of Mill's empiricism and the Kantian views. (shrink)

This paper consists of four parts. Part 1 is an introduction. Part 2 evaluates arguments for the claim that there are no strict empirical laws in biology. I argue that there are two types of arguments for this claim and they are as follows: (1) Biological properties are multiply realized and they require complex processes. For this reason, it is almost impossible to formulate strict empirical laws in biology. (2) Generalizations in biology hold contingently but laws go beyond (...) describing contingencies, so there cannot be strict laws in biology. I argue that both types of arguments fail. Part 3 considers some examples of biological laws in recent biological research and argues that they exemplify strict laws in biology. Part 4 considers the objection that the examples in part 3 may be strict laws but they are not distinctively biological laws. I argue that given a plausible account of what distinctively biological means, such laws are distinctively biological. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Philosophical Reconstruction Initial Options and Decisions The Preliminary Study of the Plurealist Argument The Systematic Analysis The Reconstruction: Constructivism, Realism and Plurealism The Dialogue Conclusions Notes References.

. In the first part of this essay I sketch a view on cosmogenesis from the perspective of modern science, emphasizing, first, that the laws of nature are outcomes of the history of nature, not imposed on nature from outside of nature; and, second, that the universe, including human beings, is the result of a single, natural process. It consistently brings forth novelty through a probabilistic sequence of syntheses. Consequently, the new emerges from the unification of elements that were (...) previously unified. This universal creative process is both probabilistic and nonlinear. It is probabilistic because each creative event occurs within a cohort of also possible events. It is nonlinear because the new has qualities that its elements in isolation do not possess. I refer to this model of understanding cosmogenesis as strict naturalism. In the second part of the essay I argue that deistic and theistic models of cosmogenesis cannot cope with strict naturalism because they exclude teleology and supernatural interference in the creative process. In contrast to deism and theism, I show that Christianity is capable of integrating strict naturalism. To do that I focus on the Christian notion of incarnation. At the center of this reflection is the attempt to increase the understanding of Christian faith that only the Word of God creates. (shrink)

In “Advisory Opinion on Confidentiality, Its Limits and Duties to Others” the Canadian Interagency Advisory Panel on Research Ethics (PRE) articulates a rationale for a priori limitations to research confidentiality, based largely on putative legal duties to violate confidentiality in certain circumstances. We argue that PRE promotes a “Law of the Land” doctrine of research ethics that is but one approach to resolving potential conflicts between law and research ethics. PRE emphasises risks that have never materialized, and ignores jurisprudence on (...) challenges to research confidentiality. When we examine what the courts have actually done with research-based claims of privilege, we find they clearly recognize and affirm researchers’ ethical obligations to maintain strict confidentiality and protect research participants. Ironically, the one exception – where the court ordered that information be disclosed – occurred precisely because the researchers had limited confidentiality. The passive approach PRE espouses leaves vital questions about what protecting confidentiality to the “full extent possible in law” means, and leaves the impression that academics should accept whatever limitations the courts may impose without participating in the courtroom dialogue determining where those limits are drawn. In contrast, we believe confidentiality is so important to the protection of research participants and the integrity of the research enterprise that it is worth fighting for. The “ethics-first” doctrine of “strict confidentiality” we describe adheres to the social sciences’ and humanities’ longstanding commitment to research confidentiality and duty to the research participant. (shrink)

This paper proposes a concept of local strict envy-freeness (LS-envy-freeness), which is a local version of Zhou’s (1992) strict envy-freeness, and investigates its implications in large economies. In spite of the weakness of this concept, it works effectively by combining with efficiency. It is shown that an LS-envy-free and efficient allocation is a strict envy-free allocation. That is, efficiency expands the local version of strict envy-freeness into strict envy-freeness. Therefore, the set of LS-envy-free and efficient (...) allocations coincides with the set of equal-income Walrasian allocations. (shrink)

Our concern is the completeness problem for spi-logics, that is, sets of implications between strictly positive formulas built from propositional variables, conjunction and modal diamond operators. Originated in logic, algebra and computer science, spi-logics have two natural semantics: meet-semilattices with monotone operators providing Birkhoff-style calculi and first-order relational structures (aka Kripke frames) often used as the intended structures in applications. Here we lay foundations for a completeness theory that aims to answer the question whether the two semantics define the (...) same consequence relations for a given spi-logic. (shrink)

According to the theory of lexical access presented by Levelt, Roelofs & Meyer, processing of semantic–syntactic information and phonological information proceeds in a strictly discrete, serial manner. We will evaluate this claim in light of recent evidence from the literature and unpublished findings from our laboratory.

Scientists and 'anti-scientists' alike need a more realistic image of science. The traditional mode of research, academic science, is not just a 'method': it is a distinctive culture, whose members win esteem and employment by making public their findings. Fierce competition for credibility is strictly regulated by established practices such as peer review. Highly specialized international communities of independent experts form spontaneously and generate the type of knowledge we call 'scientific' - systematic, theoretical, empirically-tested, quantitative, and so on. (...) Ziman shows that these familiar 'philosophical' features of scientific knowledge are inseparable from the ordinary cognitive capabilities and peculiar social relationships of its producers. This wide-angled close-up of the natural and human sciences recognizes their unique value, whilst revealing the limits of their rationality, reliability, and universal applicability. It also shows how, for better or worse, the new 'post-academic' research culture of teamwork, accountability, etc. is changing these supposedly eternal philosophical characteristics. (shrink)

I just returned from a small conference attended by Basil Hiley, among a pestigious group of 17. An Oxford Philosopher of Science, S. Saunders, asserted strongly a point that I have often made, namely that the theory has never been extended to the relativistic case involving particle creation. Hiley did not disagree, but I believe admitted that this was indeed the case. So that is one reason why the theory as it stands is inadequate.

According to semantic antirealism, intuitionistic logic satisfies the requirement that truth should be constrained by provability in principle. Some philosophers have argued that semantic antirealism must be committed to effective provability and that the commitment leads to a stronger kind of logical revisionism exemplified by substructural logics. I shall take into account two different kinds of reply. The first is concerned with meaning per se and grasp or fixing of meaning. It rests on the idea that if we have a (...) method which may be used over some surveyable range, we have determined a way of applying the method everywhere in principle, and that this is enough as far as fixing or grasping meaning is concerned. The second concerns two radical antirealist principles disqualifying structural rules: Token Preservation and Preservation of Local Feasibility. Against criticisms, I shall argue that conceptual support may be provided for both. The main point in this debate is that there is a decisive difference between the rejection of classical logic via the curbing of the epistemic idealizations embedded in structural rules and the rejection of classical logic via the intuitionistic criticism of invalid introduction and elimination rules. It will be explained why the second rejection is stronger than the former. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to determine the plausibility of Robert Kirk’s strict implication thesis as an explication of physicalism and its relation to Jackson and Chalmer’s notion of application conditionals, to the notion of global supervenience and to a posteriori identities. It is argued that the strict implication thesis is subject to the same objection that affects the notion of global supervenience. Furthermore, reference to an idealised physics in the formulation of strict implication threatens to (...) make the thesis vacuous. Third, Kirk’s claim that the strict implication thesis does not entail reduction of the mental to the physical (excluding phenomenal properties) is untenable if a functional model of reduction is preferred over Nagel’s classical model. Finally, Kirk’s claim that the physical facts entail in an a priori way the fact that certain brain states feel somehow seems to be unfounded. (shrink)

In this article, I provide phenomenological reflections on patients’ experiences of undergoing extreme isolation protocols while admitted to Intensive Care Units [ICU] during the first wave of COVID-19. Based on observation studies from within the patient isolation rooms and retrospective, in-depth phenomenological interviews with patients, I characterize this exceptional experience as one of becoming anonymous. To illustrate this, I start by establishing a perspective on embodied existence as constituted on a scale between anonymous embodiment and being enrooted into a personal (...) niche. Against the backdrop of this framework, I illustrate how being admitted to the ICU under strict isolation protocols produced extraordinary experiences of becoming anonymous. Sources of the anonymization were: (1) Mechanical expropriation, pacification and disownership of the visceral-kinaesthetic body; (2) Objectification; (3) Spatial and intercorporeal anonymity (4) Surrealism: the intermingling of objective impressions and dream-like interpretations. Finally, I illustrate how anonymization induced an experience of embodiment as raw materiality, confronting the patient with what Martin Heidegger called the facticity of naked existence. This experience is discussed against Levinas’ critique of Heidegger, while I propose that insights from this exceptional case may substantiate Heidegger’s account. (shrink)

Race is becoming an increasingly common lens through which biomedical researchers are studying the relevance of genes to group predispositions that may affect disease susceptibility and drug response. These investigations contravene decades of research in the natural and social sciences demonstrating that social categories of race have little genetic significance. Nevertheless, a resounding debate has ensued over the utility of race in biomedical research — particularly as new drugs claiming to serve particular racial populations enter the marketplace. Now that the (...) Food and Drug Administration has approved BiDil as the first race-specific treatment despite conflicting evidence and unsettled debates, is there a way for federal regulators to promote research that may address minority health concerns without giving undue credence to the dangerous idea that social understandings of race are genetically relevant? It may be useful for the FDA to turn to an area with experience negotiating such dilemmas — constitutional law — and its approach — strict scrutiny — to help guide when and under which circumstances government should give effect to racial categories in biomedicine. (shrink)

Bayesian decision theory, in its classical or strict form, requires agents to have a determinate probability function. In recent years many decision theorists have come to think that this requirement should be weakened to allow for cases in which the agent makes indeterminate probability judgments. It has been claimed that this weakening makes the theory more realistic, and that it makes the theory more tenable as a normative ideal. This paper shows that the usual technique for weakening strict (...) Bayesianism has neither of these claimed advantages. (shrink)

Abner Shimony called it coherence; John Kemeny called it strict fairness; today many people speak of strict coherence. According to Shimony's definition, a set of betting rates on a series of propositions hi and ei is strictly incoherent, when “there exists a choice of stakes Si such that, if X accepts the series of bets at these stakes, then no matter what the actual truth values of hi, and ei may be, X can at best lose nothing, and (...) in at least one possible eventuality he will suffer a positive loss”. (shrink)

Though Kant is best known for his strictly philosophical works in the 1780s, many of his early publications in particular were devoted to what we would call 'natural science'. Kant's Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens (1755) made a significant advance in cosmology, and he was also instrumental in establishing the newly emerging discipline of physical geography, lecturing on it for almost his entire career. In this volume Eric Watkins brings together new English translations of Kant's first (...) publication, Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces (1746-1749), the entirety of Physical Geography (1802), a series of shorter essays, along with many of Kant's most important publications in natural science. The volume is rich in material for the student and the scholar, with extensive linguistic and explanatory notes, editorial introductions and a glossary of key terms. (shrink)

Bayesian decision theory in its classical formulation supposes that for any rational agent and for any possible state x of the world, there is a number P(x). which represents the agent’s judgment of the probability of x. Similarly, the theory assumes that for any possible outcome y of the agent’s actions, there is a number u(y) which represents the utility or value of y to the agent. Given these assumptions, the theory is able to define the expected value for the (...) agent of any act. Bayesian decision theory then recommends that the agent should choose, from amongst the available acts, one which has maximal expected utility.The assumption that an agent has a determinate personal probability function has often been attacked. (shrink)

It is now commonly held that values play a role in scientific judgment, but many arguments for that conclusion are limited. First, many arguments do not show that values are, strictly speaking, indispensable. The role of values could in principle be filled by a random or arbitrary decision. Second, many arguments concern scientific theories and concepts which have obvious practical consequences, thus suggesting or at least leaving open the possibility that abstruse sciences without such a connection could be value-free. Third, (...) many arguments concern the role values play in inferring from evidence, thus taking evidence as given. This paper argues that these limitations do not hold in general. There are values involved in every scientific judgment. They cannot even conceivably be replaced by a coin toss, they arise as much for exotic as for practical sciences, and they are at issue as much for observation as for explicit inference. (shrink)

Following recent debate on the relations between philosophy of science and the sciences, we wish to draw attention to some actual ways of training both young philosophers of science and young life scientists and clinicians. First, we recall a successful case of training philosophers of the life sciences in a strictly scientific environment. Second, after a brief review of the reasons why life scientists and clinicians are currently asking for more ethics, more methodology of science, and more (...) philosophy of science in the training of life scientists and clinicians, we present two training models that could spur the discussion on how to meet the requests coming from the scientific community. We argue that in order to reflect on mutual relations between philosophy of science and the sciences and to foster proper interactions, issues regarding the topics considered, the features of educational curricula, and the institutional organizations should be addressed jointly. (shrink)

Though Kant is best known for his strictly philosophical works in the 1780s, many of his early publications in particular were devoted to what we would call 'natural science'. Kant's Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens made a significant advance in cosmology, and he was also instrumental in establishing the newly emerging discipline of physical geography, lecturing on it for almost his entire career. In this volume Eric Watkins brings together new English translations of Kant's first publication, (...) Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces, the entirety of Physical Geography, a series of shorter essays, along with many of Kant's most important publications in natural science. The volume is rich in material for the student and the scholar, with extensive linguistic and explanatory notes, editorial introductions and a glossary of key terms. (shrink)

Science as we know it is “dappled”. Its picture of the world is a mosaic in which different aspects of the world, different systems, are represented by narrow-scope theories or models that are largely disconnected from one another. The best explanation for this disunity in our representation of the world, Nancy Cartwright has proposed, is a disunity in the world itself: rather than being governed by a small set of strict fundamental laws, events unfold according to a patchwork (...) of principles covering different kinds of systems or segments of reality, each with something less than full omnipotence and with the possibility of anomic indeterminism at the boundaries. This paper attempts to undercut Cartwright’s argument for a dappled world by showing that the motley nature of science, both now and even at the completion of empirical inquiry, can equally well be explained by proponents of the “fundamentalist” view that the universe’s initial conditions and fundamental physical laws determine everything that ever happens. (shrink)

Nowadays, science is treated an instrument of policy, serving the material interests of government and commerce. Traditionally, however, it also has important non-instrumental social functions, such as the creation of critical scenarios and world pictures, the stimulation of rational attitudes, and the production of enlightened practitioners and independent experts. The transition from academic to ‘post-academic’ science threatens the performance of these functions, which are inconsistent with strictly instrumental modes of knowledge production. In particular, expert objectivity is negated by (...) entanglement with political and commercial interests. We cannot go back to the old academic model for science, but need to consider how to maintain its vital non-instrumental roles. (shrink)

The general character of science and the methodology it employs are in specific terms referred to as observation and experimentation. These two methodologies reflect how science differs from other systematic modes of inquiries. This description characterises, strictly, ‘Western science’ and it is contrasted with the indigenous mode of enquiry that has come under the name, ‘African science’. In contemporary scholarship, ‘African science’ is being condemned to the level of the mysticoreligious or supernaturalist worldview. ‘African (...) class='Hi'>science’ is said to be purely esoteric, personal, and devoid of elements of objectivity and rigorous theorization. In this paper, I re-examine this recondite issue by further reflecting and strengthening some of the ideas put forward by some African scholars to affirm that there is a distinct method of ‘African science’ that can be termed scientific. In defending a pluralist thesis toward knowledge, scientific inclusive, this paper posits that there exist varieties of inquiry beyond what has been developed in the ‘West’ which can still be justifiably termed scientific. In addition to pluralism, it argues further that the social character of science, which makes it a part of social and cultural traditions, qualifiedly justifies ‘African science’ as a true science. I will employ the newly formulated conversational method endorsed by the Conversational School of Philosophy in this inquiry. Keywords : African science, mystico-religious, rigorous, pluralism, Western science. (shrink)

The analogy between science and theater work is so strict as to be normally taken for granted without the need of further specification. This implies that the analogy is completely ignored. Here I try to go in depth into the character of this analogy and to demonstrate how stopping and thinking about this issue could give some useful hints for solving problems that contemporary science is experiencing.

The debate about the rational and the social in science has sometimes been developed in the context of a distinction between epistemic and non-epistemic values. Paying particular attention to two important discussion in the last decade, by Longino and by McMullin, I argue that a fuller understanding of values in science ultimately requires abandoning the distinction itself. This is argued directly in terms of an analysis of the lack of clarity concerning what epistemic values are. I also argue (...) that the philosophical import of much of the feminist work in philosophy of science is restricted by any kind of strict adherence to the distinction. (shrink)

This paper rejects a view of science called "methodological naturalism." -/- According to many defenders of mainstream science and Darwinian evolution, anti-evolution critics--creationists and intelligent design proponents--are conceptually and epistemologically confusing science and religion, a supernatural view of world. These defenders of evolution contend that doing science requires adhering to a methodology that is strictly and essentially naturalistic: science is essentially committed to "methodological naturalism" and assumes that all the phenomena it investigates are entirely natural (...) and consistent with the laws of physics. Thus encountering any unexplained phenomenon, science assumes a priori that there is some natural cause and will only test a natural hypothesis. Since by definition supernatural causes are assumed to be not subject to the constraints of physical or natural law as understood by science, supernatural hypotheses and explanations must be banned from proper science. Science simply can't say that God did, or did not do it. -/- I argue that the success of science is directly relevant to rational belief in supernatural causes, and that in fact science can and does say in particular cases that "God didn't do it." I suggest that pro-evolution proponents can better defend science and the theory of evolution by rejecting methodological naturalism. -/- . (shrink)

Our intention here is to present the essential character of classical, sunnī kalām within a strictly formal perspective and to set out its basic aspects. It was conceived by the mutakallimīn as a rational, conceptual, and critical science and, although kalām differed in a number of basic concepts and constructs and in its analytic system, the topical organisation of the major compendia parallels that of metaphysics as understood in the contemporary Aristotelian tradition. The debates between kalām and falsafa need (...) to be examined within this context. Kalām, however, is theological in the strict sense of the term and it is as such that its problematic and its procedures are primarily to be understood. Thus seen, the object of kalām is to rationalise the cognitive content presented to Believers in the symbolic language of the koranic revelation. It has, then, four principal tasks, sc, to conceptualise, to order, to explain, and where possible to justify the primary doctrines of the community whose belief is held to be normative. Within this framework the differences that characterise the major schools as such and the various tendencies of individual masters within each school may readily be brought to light. On se propose ici de présenter, d'un point de vue strictement formel, la nature du kālam classique sunnite et d'identifier ses caractéristiques principales. II avait été conçu par les mutakallimin comme une science rationelle, conceptuelle et critique. L'organisation des matières dans ses traités reprend celle de la métaphysique dans la tradition aristotélicienne de l'époque, bien que le kalām s'en distingue par plusieurs de ses structures et concepts fondamentaux, ainsi que par son système analytique. C'est dans ce contexte qu'il faut considérer les debats qui s'instaurèrent entre kalām et falsafa. Le kalām, cependant, est d'ordre strictement théologique et c'est principalement dans ce cadre qu'il faut comprendre sa problématique et ses procédures. Le kalām a pour fonction de rationaliser le contenu cognitif offert aux croyants dans le langage symbolique de la révélation coranique. Il en résulte quatre tâches principales; il s'agit de conceptualiser, ordonner, expliquer et, dans le mesure du possible, justifier les doctrines principales reconnues par la communauté faisant référence en matière de croyance. Dans ce cadre, il sera possible de mettre en lumière les différences entre les principales écoles, ainsi que les tendances qui distinguent certains de leurs grands maîtres respectifs. (shrink)

In Frege’s analysis of the relationship between science and fiction there are two important aspects, which the paper will discuss. It shows that Frege makes a strict distinction between Dichtung und Wissenschaft on the level of object language but not on the level of metalanguage. In his “On Sense and Reference” and in scattered remarks elsewhere Frege explains the semantics of scientific and everyday discourse. As a kind of side product he presents an explication of the concept of (...) fictional discourse concerning questions of illocutionary force and reference. Here Frege anticipates J. R. Searle’s speech-act-theory of fictional discourse, which allows to understand works of fiction as consisting of fictional discourse. On the basis of Frege’s distinctions this approach is defended against ontological arguments, which make use of terms like ‘fictive entities’ or ‘non-existent objects’ in the Meinongian tradition. Frege excludes the connotative or figurative elements of language, called “colourings and shadings” of sense or thought, from the scientific use of language and assigns such elements to “the art of poetry” or “eloquence”. The fact that the expression ‘colouring’ is itself a figurative term, raises a paradoxical question: To what extent does understanding Frege’s own explanation of the difference between sense and colouring depend on the poetic or at least rhetoric use of language? There are reasons to believe that Frege was—even if only reluctantly—aware of this paradox. Otherwise he would not have repeatedly emphasized that explanations of categorial logical distinctions cannot dispense with “figurative expressions”. Insofar as such distinctions are “reliant upon the accommodating understanding of the reader”, they pay tribute to a rhetoric of cognition. While Frege denies that colourings contribute to cognitive content, he must still admit that they make an indispensable protreptic contribution to conveying cognition. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: Abstract Most modern knowledge is not science. The physical sciences have successfully validated theories to infer they can be used universally to predict in previously unexperienced circumstances. According to the conventional conception of science such inferences are falsified by a single irregular outcome. And verification is by the scientific method which requires strict regularity of outcome and establishes cause and effect. -/- Medicine, medical research and many “soft” sciences are concerned with individual people in complex heterogeneous (...) populations. These populations cannot be tested to demonstrate strict regularity of outcome in every individual. Neither randomised controlled trials nor observational studies in medicine are science in the conventional conception. Establishing and using medical and other “soft science” theories cannot be scientific. It requires conceptually different means: requiring expert judgement applying all available evidence in the relevant available factual matrix. -/- The practice of medicine is observational. Prediction of outcomes for the individual requires professional expertise applying available medical knowledge and evidence. Expertise in any profession can only be acquired through experience. Prior cases are the fundament of knowledge and expertise in medicine. Case histories, studies and series can provide knowledge of extremely high reliability applicable to establishing reliable general theories and falsifying others. Their collation, study and analysis should be a priority in medicine. Their devaluation as evidence, the failure to apply their lessons, the devaluation of expert professional judgement and the attempt to emulate the scientific method are all historic errors in the theory and practice of modern medicine. (shrink)

Today a failure of the physical sciences accompanies a failure of the social sciences; and the failure of both consists in part in this: in the lack of a fully-developed and implemented sense of social responsibility. Both have denied guilt for their shortcomings in this respect: advancing rationalizations to the effect that social reform is not the task of science; that objectivity suffers if such motivations are allowed to become involved; and that science makes its most valuable contributions (...) to social welfare rather by maintaining a strict laboratory manner of impartiality. Implied often, as well, is the conclusion that not science itself but the misuse of science; not the patience and care of science itself but the impatience and carelessness of non-scientists is responsible for the miscarriage of its contributions. (shrink)

As a Franciscan friar, student, teacher, philosopher, theologian, and political theorist, William of Ockham was and remains one of the most stimulating thinkers of the Middle Ages. The one consistent characteristic of his professional output—both as a student and later as an opponent of papal authoritarianism—was the provocative nature of his ideas. In required commentaries on standard theological texts as well as in his later, more independently inspired treatises, Ockham demonstrated a genuine talent for suggesting and sustaining a number of (...) original, unorthodox and, occasionally, even outrageous ideas. Accordingly, Ockham holds the distinction of being the most rejected but influential philosopher-theologian of the fourteenth century, an observation that applies to his views on causality in which, for example, Ockham held the principle of action at a distance in order to save the causal account of some phenomena. One of the more interesting distinctions that he made, however, occurs in his treatment of sacramental theology as part of his account of God's causal activity with respect to the sacraments. (shrink)

This volume goes beyond presently available phenomenological analyses based on the structures and constitution of the lifeworld. It shows how the science of history is the mediator between the human and the natural sciences. It demonstrates that the distinction between interpretation and explanation does not imply a strict separation of the natural and the human sciences. Finally, it shows that the natural sciences and technology are inseparable, but that technology is one-sidedly founded in pre-scientific encounters with reality in (...) the lifeworld. In positivism the natural sciences are sciences because they offer causal explanations testable in experiments and the humanities are human sciences only if they use methods of the natural sciences. For epistemologists following Dilthey, the human sciences presuppose interpretation and the human and natural sciences must be separated. There is phenomenology interested in psychology and the social sciences that distinguish the natural and the human sciences, but little can be found about the historical human sciences. This volume fills the gap by presenting analyses of the material foundations of the "understanding" of expressions of other persons, and of primordial recollections and expectations founding explicit expectations and predictions in the lifeworld. Next, it shows, on the basis of history as applying philological methods in interpretations of sources, the role of a universal spatio-temporal framework for reconstructions and causal explanations of "what has really happened". (shrink)

First published in 1999, this engaging interdisciplinary study of romantic science focuses on the work of five influential figures in twentieth-century transatlantic intellectual history. In this book, Martin Halliwell constructs an innovative tradition of romantic science by indicating points of theoretical and historical intersection in the thought of William James ; Otto Rank ; Ludwig Binswanger ; Erik Erikson ; and Oliver Sacks. Beginning with the ferment of intellectual activity in late eighteenth-century German Romanticism, Halliwell argues that only (...) with William James’ theory of pragmatism early in the twentieth century did romantic science become a viable counter-tradition to strictly empirical science. Stimulated by debates over rival models of consciousness and renewed interest in theories of the self, Halliwell reveals that in their challenge to Freud’s adoption of ideas from nineteenth-century natural science, these thinkers have enlarged the possibilities of romantic science for bridging the perceived gulf between the arts and sciences. (shrink)