This article is primarily a study of the group selection controversy, with special emphasis on the period from 1962 to the present, and the rise of inclusive fitness theory. Interest is focused on the relations between individual fitness theory and other fitness theories and on the methodological imperatives used in the controversy over the status of these theories. An appendix formalizes the notion of "assertive part" which is used in the informal discussion of the methodological imperatives elicited from the controversy.

A brief discussion is offered of what it means to say that a set of statements provides D-N explanation with special emphasis given to approximative D-N explanation. An idealized theory is seen to provide approximative D-N explanation. An ideal case provides explanation only if postulates are offered which connect the ideal antecedent condition with actual conditions. Such postulates will help in accounting for deviations between what the consequent of the ideal case entails and what actually occurs. Three ways are presented (...) for deciding on the acceptability of idealizations: (i) as actual conditions more closely approximate the ideal antecedent conditions specified in an ideal case, the more closely actual cases ought to approximate the consequent of the ideal case; (ii) the additional postulates connecting ideal antecedent conditions with actual conditions ought to account for deviations between what is entailed by an idealized theory and what actually occurs; and (iii) an idealized theory is explained by a more general theory when certain state variables in the more general theory are given extreme values. It is argued that (iii) is not a necessary condition for the acceptability of idealizations. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is to defend the deductive-nomological model of explanation against a number of criticisms that have been made of it. It has traditionally been thought that scientific explanations were causal and that scientific explanations involved deduction from laws. In recent years, however, this three-fold identity has been challenged: there are, it is argued, causal explanations that are not scientific, scientific explanations that are not deductive, deductions from laws that are neither causal explanations nor scientific explanations, and (...) causal explanations that involve no deductions from laws. The aim of the present essay is to defend the traditional identities, and to show that the more recent attempts at invalidating them fail in their object. More specifically, this essay argues that a Humean version of the deductive-nomological model of explanation can be defended as the correct account of scientific explanation of individual facts and processes, and as the correct account of causal explanations of individual facts and processes. The deductive-nomological model holds that to explain an event E, say that a is G, one must find some initial conditions C, say that a is F, and a law or theory T such that T and C jointly entail E, and both are essential to the deduction. (shrink)

This paper presents a new formal model for D–N explanation that gives intuitive criteria of acceptability, avoids the known trivializations, and links explanation with confirmation theory. Although set in the twenty-five year tradition of attempts to formalize D–N explanation, it proposes a new direction for the model that is to be distinguished from the syntactical and informational approaches by its introduction of restrictions which derive from the use which the D–N model can have in hypothesis testing. This model, illustrating the (...) verificational approach, revises the classic H–O requirements and amends the notion of partial self-explanation to meet a criticism to which the H–O notion is vulnerable. (shrink)

Malgré les critiques de toutes sortes dont elle fut et dont elle est encore l'objet, la grammaire transformationnelle est devenue en vingt ans, sous l'impulsion de Noam Chomsky, le paradigme dominant de la linguistique contemporaine. Et, bien sûr, l'incroyable rapidité de cette ascension s'est accompagnée de nombreuses crises de croissance. Linguistes, philosophes et psychologues, ainsi amenés à s'interroger sur les fondements épistémologiques de cette étrange discipline, se sont heurtés à de redoutables énigmes métathéoriques: de quel domaine factuel la linguistique est-elle (...) la science? les grammaires sont-elles empiriquement falsifiables? quel rôle l'intuition du locuteur – et singulièrement celle du linguiste – joue-t-elle dans l'élaboration et la confirmation de la théorie? quelle relation y a-t-il entre règles et lois? quel est le rapport théorique de la linguistique à la psychologie, à la sociologie, à la neurophysiologie? … Ces questions et d'autres semblables ont donné lieu ces dernières années à une étonnante profusion de livres et d'articles, où, à propos d'une discipline particulière et d'exemples précis, sont discutés, souvent en profondeur, tous les principaux problemes de l'épistémologie contemporaine. (shrink)

This paper discusses the D-N model of scientific explanation. It is suggested that explanation is a part of assertive discourse where certain principles must be observed. Then use is made of the relation between the informative content and logical content of a sentence (as shown, for instance, by Popper) to draw some of the conditions necessary for a sound model. It is claimed that the conditions of the model proposed in the present paper exhaust the insights of the papers in (...) the literature, solve the difficulties encountered by other authors, but have some damaging consequences on the D-N model of scientific explanation. (shrink)

Almost every formal model of explanation thus far proposed has been demonstrated to be faulty. In this paper, a new model, proposed by Raimo Tuomela, is also demonstrated to be faulty. In particular, one condition of the model is shown to be too restrictive, and another condition of the model is shown to be too permissive.

The present paper first shows that the validity of deductive-nomological (D-N) explanations (systematizations) depends in general on the interpretation context of the predicates involved in the explanation. Therefore, no logical-semantical model can be adequate. This problem is solved by relativisation of the validity criteria on both the confirmation context and the definition context of the premisses. Based upon this, a logical-pragmatical model of D-N explanation is developed. Thereby, especially explanations of laws and global explanations are taken into consideration, since these (...) can be regarded as prototypes of scientific explanation. (shrink)