In this contribution, I comment on Raffaella Campaner’s defense of explanatory pluralism in psychiatry (in this volume). In her paper, Campaner focuses primarily on explanatory pluralism in contrast to explanatory reductionism. Furthermore, she distinguishes between pluralists who consider pluralism to be a temporary state on the one hand and pluralists who consider it to be a persisting state on the other hand. I suggest that it would be helpful to distinguish more than those two versions of pluralism – different understandings (...) of explanatory pluralism both within philosophy of science and psychiatry – namely moderate/temporary pluralism, anything goes pluralism, isolationist pluralism, integrative pluralism and interactive pluralism. Next, I discuss the pros and cons of these different understandings of explanatory pluralism. Finally, I raise the question of how to implement or operationalize explanatory pluralism in scientific practice; how to structure the “genuine dialogue” or shape “the pluralistic attitude” Campaner is referring to. As tentative answers, I explore a question-based framework for explanatory pluralism as well as social-epistemological procedures for interaction among competing approaches and explanations. (shrink)

It is argued that in deterministic contexts evidence for causal relations states whether a boundary condition makes a difference or not to a phenomenon. In order to substantiate the analysis, I show that this difference/indifference making is the basic type of evidence required for eliminative induction in the tradition of Francis Bacon and John Stuart Mill. To this purpose, an account of eliminative induction is proposed with two distinguishing features: it includes a method to establish the causal irrelevance of boundary (...) conditions by means of indifference making, which is called strict method of agreement, and it introduces the notion of a background against which causal statements are evaluated. Causal statements thus become three-place-relations postulating the relevance or irrelevance of a circumstance C to the examined phenomenon P with respect to a background B of further conditions. To underline the importance of evidence in terms of difference/indifference making, I sketch two areas, in which eliminative induction is extensively used in natural and engineering sciences. One concerns exploratory experiments, the other engineering design methods. Given that a method is discussed that has been used for centuries, I make no claims to novelty in this paper, but hope that the combined discussion of several topics that are still somewhat underrepresented in the philosophy of science literature is of some merit. (shrink)

The Einstellung effect occurs when the first idea that comes to mind, triggered by familiar features of a problem, prevents a better solution being found. It has been shown to affect both people facing novel problems and experts within their field of expertise. We show that it works by influencing mechanisms that determine what information is attended to. Having found one solution, expert chess players reported that they were looking for a better one. But their eye movements showed that they (...) continued to look at features of the problem related to the solution they had already thought of. The mechanism which allows the first schema activated by familiar aspects of a problem to control the subsequent direction of attention may contribute to a wide range of biases both in everyday and expert thought - from confirmation bias in hypothesis testing to the tendency of scientists to ignore results that do not fit their favoured theories. (shrink)

Most recent discussions of John Stuart Mill’s System of Logic (1843) neglect the fifth book concerned with logical fallacies. Mill not only follows the revival of interest in the traditional Aristotelian doctrine of fallacies in Richard Whately and Augustus De Morgan, but he also develops new categories and an original analysis which enhance the study of fallacies within the context of what he calls ‘the philosophy of error’. After an exploration of this approach, the essay relates the philosophy of error (...) to the discussion of truth and error in chapter two of On Liberty (1859) concerned with freedom of thought and discussion. Drawing on Socratic and Baconian perspectives, Mill defends both the traditional study of logic against Jevons, Boole, De Morgan, and others, as well as the study of fallacies as the key to maintaining truth and its dissemination in numerous fields, such as science, morality, politics, and religion. In Mill’s view the study of fallacies also liberates ordinary people to explore the truth and falsity of ideas and, as such, to participate in society and politics and develop themselves as progressive beings. (shrink)

The “demarcation problem,” the issue of how to separate science from pseu- doscience, has been around since fall 1919—at least according to Karl Pop- per’s (1957) recollection of when he first started thinking about it. In Popper’s mind, the demarcation problem was intimately linked with one of the most vexing issues in philosophy of science, David Hume’s problem of induction (Vickers 2010) and, in particular, Hume’s contention that induction cannot be logically justified by appealing to the fact that “it works,” (...) as that in itself is an inductive argument, thereby potentially plunging the philosopher straight into the abyss of a viciously circular argument. (shrink)

Francis Bacon's experimental philosophy is discussed, and the way in which it not only shapes scientific methodology but also deeply pervades all philosophical and social learning. Bacon draws us in to participate in an experiment with experience. The central driving force is the idea that learning how to learn is necessary in order to know. To meet this requirement, he considers the relation of form and content of pivotal importance, and therefore the selection of the literary form and the form (...) of data inscription is decisive in the construction of a heuristic tool. His inductive method serves a dual purpose: first, the so-called indicative form aims at securing knowledge by a comprehensible procedure that controls and guides hypothetical thinking. Second, the literary forms "fragment" and "aphorism" embody the subjunctive, and invite intellectual openness and even speculation. In this article, special emphasis is put on Bacon's use and justification of the aphorism. Bacon's pervasive experimentalism meets in some sense today's broad adoption of the experimental mode. His philosophy calls for an ontology that is also at work in recent notions of co-action and co-working, or of affordance. (shrink)

Realism has been a central object of attention among analytical philosophers for some decades. Starting from analytical philosophy, the return of realism has spread into other contemporary philosophical traditions and given birth to new trends in current discussions, as for example in the debates about “new realism.” Discussions about realism focused on linguistic meaning, epistemology, metaphysics, theory of action and ethics. The implications for politics of discussion about realism in action theory and in ethics, however, are not much discussed.

This paper argues that talk of ‘the aim of science’ should be avoided in the philosophy of science, with special reference to the way that van Fraassen sets up the difference between scientific realism and constructive empiricism. It also argues that talking instead of ‘what counts as success in science as such’ is unsatisfactory. The paper concludes by showing what this talk may be profitably replaced with, namely specific claims concerning science that fall into the following categories: descriptive, evaluative, normative, (...) and definitional. There are two key advantages to this proposal. First, realism and its competitors may be understood to consist of highly nuanced variants. Second, scientific realism and its competitors may be understood as something other than ‘all or nothing’ theses about science. More particularly, one may accept that there are general claims concerning science in some of the identified categories, but deny that there are such claims in the others. (shrink)

The human desire to acquire new capacities is as ancient as our species itself. We have always sought to expand the boundaries of our existence, be it socially, geographically, or mentally. There is a tendency in at least some individuals always to search for a way around every obstacle and limitation to human life and happiness.

In this piece, I advocate and motivate a new understanding of thought experiments, which avoids problems with the rival accounts of Brown and Norton.

This article addresses the question whether we can know on the basis of folk intuitions that we have character traits. I answer in the negative, arguing that on any of the primary theories of knowledge, our intuitions about traits do not amount to knowledge. For instance, because we would attribute traits to one another regardless of whether we actually possessed such metaphysically robust dispositions, Nozickian sensitivity theory disqualifies our intuitions about traits from being knowledge. Yet we do think we know (...) that we have traits, so I am advancing an error theory, which means that I owe an account of why we fall into error. Why do we feel so comfortable navigating the language of traits if we lack knowledge of them? To answer this question, I refer to a slew of heuristics and biases. Some, like the fundamental attribution error, the false consensus effect, and the power of construal, pertain directly to trait attributions. Others are more general cognitive heuristics and biases whose relevance to trait attributions requires explanation and can be classed under the headings of input heuristics and biases and processing heuristics and biases. Input heuristics and biases include selection bias, availability bias, availability cascade, and anchoring. Processing heuristics and biases include disregard of base rates, disregard of regression to the mean, and confirmation bias. (shrink)

Many enhancement technologies are distributed by healthcare professionals—by physicians—who are held to the Hippocratic Oath and the goals of medicine. While the ethics of enhancement has been widely discussed with regard to the social justice, humanism, morals and normative values of these interventions, their place in medicine has not attracted a great deal of attention. This paper investigates the potential for enhancement technologies to fulfil the goals of medicine, arguing that they play a role in promoting the health of individuals, (...) and thus, an unavoidable place in medicine. It also warns of potential dangers, suggesting a set of guidelines to initiate conversations regarding the role and responsibilities of physicians practising in an era of enhancement. (shrink)

What should be the primary aims of education? How might these aims be realized? These are foundational questions which Plato raised long ago in his Republic. The first of these questions is a normative, and profoundly philosophical, one which provides guidance to the whole endeavor of education. The second of these questions is a pedagogical one which informs educators as to how their work can be best conducted. In this work I endeavor to answer these interlocking educational questions. I follow (...) most closely in the footsteps of John Dewey. I believe that Dewey had it right when, decades ago, he argued that education ought to be concerned with the cultivation of good judgment. But here a difficulty arises. For "good judgment" is a complex philosophical concept which spills over into considerations of thinking, knowing, deciding, and acting. Despite the efforts of philosophers such as Aristotle, Kant, and Dewey, there is a lack of agreement about the precise meaning of good judgment. Before moving into matters of education, then, I first endeavor to vanquish this lack of conceptual clarity. What is good judgment? What are its elements? Can it, for that matter, even be cultivated? Having gotten clear on what good judgment is, I turn to matters of education. First, I argue that a vital task of education is the cultivation of good judgment. I then turn to the practical matter of how one might go about cultivating good judgment. The community of inquiry approach employed by The Philosophy for Children Program, I contend, is an effective pedagogical means through which to cultivate good judgment. (shrink)

Abstract: Laws of computer science are prescriptive in nature but can have descriptive analogs in the physical sciences. Here, we describe a law of conservation of information in network programming, and various laws of computational motion (invariants) for programming in general, along with their pedagogical utility. Invariants specify constraints on objects in abstract computational worlds, so we describe language and data abstraction employed by software developers and compare them to Floridi's concept of levels of abstraction. We also consider Floridi's structural (...) account of reality and its fit for describing abstract computational worlds. Being abstract, such worlds are products of programmers' creative imaginations, so any "laws" in these worlds are easily broken. The worlds of computational objects need laws in the form of self-prescribed invariants, but the suspension of these laws might be creative acts. Bending the rules of abstract reality facilitates algorithm design, as we demonstrate through the example of search trees. (shrink)

Various theories try to give accounts of how measures of this confidence do or ought to behave, both as far as the internal mental consistency of the agent as ...

Stephen Turner complains about weaknesses of Robert K. Merton's teachings without noticing that these are common. He puts down Merton's ideas despite his innovations, on the ground that they are not successful and not sufficiently revolutionary. The criteria by which he condemns Merton are too vague and too high. Merton's merit is in his having put the sociology of science on the map and drawn attention to the egalitarianism that was prominent in classical science and that is now diminished. Key (...) Words: American sociology • intellectual frameworks • Merton • middle axioms • time lag. (shrink)

If nature is by definition the object of the natural sciences, then the dichotomy ‘natural’ versus ‘chemical’, held by both chemists and nonchemists, suggests an idiosyncrasy of chemistry. The first part of the paper presents a selective historical analysis of the main notions of nature in chemistry, as developed in early Christian views of chemical crafts, alchemy, iatrochemistry, mechanical philosophy, organic chemistry, and contemporary drug research. I argue that the dichotomy as well as quasi-moral judgments of chemistry have been based (...) on static and teleological notions of nature throughout history and that chemists, unlike physicists, have neglected the dynamic notion of nature. The second part provides a philosophical criticism of the former notions and argues for the latter as well as for an explicit discourse about values in chemistry.Author Keywords: History and philosophy of chemistry; Notion of nature; Alchemy; Mechanical philosophy; Synthetic organic chemistry; Contemporary drug research. (shrink)

The paper begins with a discussion of Russell's view that the notion of cause is unnecessary for science and can therefore be eliminated. It is argued that this is true for theoretical physics but untrue for medicine, where the notion of cause plays a central role. Medical theories are closely connected with practical action (attempts to cure and prevent disease), whereas theoretical physics is more remote from applications. This suggests the view that causal laws are appropriate in a context where (...) there is a close connection to action. This leads to a development of an action-related theory of causality which is similar to the agency theory of Menzies and Price, but differs from it in a number of respects, one of which is the following. Menzies and Price connect ‘A causes B’ with an action to produce B by instantiating A, but, particularly in the case of medicine, the law can also be linked to the action of trying to avoid B by ensuring that A is not instantiated. The action-related theory has in common with the agency theory of Menzies and Price the ability to explain causal asymmetry in a simple fashion, but the introduction of avoidance actions together with some ideas taken from Russell enable some of the objections to agency accounts of causality to be met. Introduction Russell on causality Preliminary exposition of the action-related theory Differences between the action-related theory and the agency theory of Menzies and Price Explanation of causal asymmetry Objections to the action-related theory Extension of the theory to the indeterminate case. (shrink)

This paper explores the anatomical foundations of Aristotle's natural philosophy. Rather than simply looking at the body, he contrives specific procedures for revealing unmanifest phenomena. In some cases, these interventions seem extensive enough to qualify as experiments. At the work bench, one can observe the parts of animals in the manner Aristotle describes, even if his descriptions seem at odds with 20th century textbooks. Manipulating animals allows us to recover his teleological thought more fully. This consideration of Aristotle as a (...) sophisticated biologist helps our reading of his writings in other areas of philosophy. (shrink)

Falsificationism has dominated 20th century philosophy of science. It seemed to have eclipsed all forms of inductivism. Yet recent debates have revived a specific form of eliminative inductivism, the basic ideas of which go back to F. Bacon and J.S. Mill. These modern endorsements of eliminative inductivism claim to show that progressive problem solving is possible using induction, rather than falsification as a method of justification. But this common ground between falsificationism and eliminative inductivism has not led to a detailed (...) investigation into the relationship, if any, which may exist between these two methodologies. This paper reviews several versions of eliminative inductivism, establishes a natural relation between eliminative inductivism and falsificationism, which derives from the distinction between models and theories, and carries out this investigation against a case study of the construction of atom models. The result of the investigation is that falsificationism is a form of eliminative inductivism in the limit of certain constraints. (shrink)

In the popular literature of physics the electromagnetic field isoften treated as though it has an intrinsic particle nature. When thetheory is examined carefully, quantum theory only makes the weakerrequirement that the emission and absorption of light are restricted todiscrete amounts of energy. There are very few realizable experiments inoptics for which the classical Maxwell theory and the quantum theorymake a different prediction. I discuss some of these experiments with anemphasis on the distinction between what the experiments tell us aboutthe (...) measurement process, and what they tell us about the nature of thelight field. (shrink)

In this chapter we will argue, firstly, that Bacon’s engages in a pecu-liar form of mathematization of nature that develops a quali-quantitative methodology of measurement. Secondly, we will show that medicine is one of the disciplines where that dual way of measurement is practiced. In the first section of the chapter, we will expose the ontology involved in the Baconian proposal of measurement of nature. The second section will address the place that mixed mathematics occupies in Bacon’s scheme of scientific (...) branches and will suggest that a proper advancement of medicine can generate a new branch of mixed mathematics. The next section will reconstruct Bacon’s approach to measurement and expose its quali-quantitative import. In the last section, we will show some examples of medicine in which this quali-quantitative measurement is applied. (shrink)

Epistemologie a kognitivní věda se zabývají studiem procesů poznání. Z výsledků takového bádání vyplývají určité diagnostické a preskriptivní závěry s cílem pozitivně regulovat způsob myšlení. Předložená práce má za cíl ukázat, že epistemické a kognitivní studie nejsou doposud dostatečně vyvinuté, aby mohly kategoricky doporučit správný a universální způsob myšlení. Pokrok ve vědě je výsledek kolektivního úsilí nejen současnosti, ale i minulých objevů a omylů. Na historickém případě chybné teorie flogistonu se tato práce bude snažit doložit, že se na objevení pravdy (...) plodně podílí i nesprávné epistemické procesy. Tendence některých myslitelů dneška takové praktiky morálně odsuzovat na základě prevalence pseudovědeckých názorů je málo produktivní. Podrobné studium dynamiky chybující minulosti osvětlí poznávací proces lépe než soubor sterilních epistemických pravidel. (shrink)

At the centenary of Frank H. Knight’s Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit (1921), we explore the continuing relevance of Knightian uncertainty to the theory and practice of entrepreneurship. There are three challenges facing such assessment. First, RUP is complex and difficult to interpret. The key but neglected element of RUP is that Knight’s account is not solely about risk and uncertainty as states of nature, but about how an agent’s beliefs about uncertain outcomes and confidence in those beliefs guide their choices. (...) Second, RUP is Knight’s only effort in this area. His subsequent career led elsewhere, so he did not engage with subsequent interpretations of this work. Third, much of the current literature emphasizes that decisions must be different under the two states of nature with a consequent misunderstanding of entrepreneurial agency. This paper addresses each challenge in sequence. First, we explicate Knight’s (1921) approach and explain why that approach is murky. Second, as a complement to Knight’s interpretation, we examine Frank P. Ramsey’s approach to subjective probabilities to help clarify Knight’s murky approach. What links Knight and Ramsey is a shared pragmatism about entrepreneurial agency under uncertainty that depends upon the beliefs about, and confidence in, their judgments of possible outcomes. This Knight-Ramsey approach does not require actor’s behaviors to be determined by the class of uncertain environment (whether risk, uncertainty, or ambiguity) they face. We focus on the response by the entrepreneur to the existence of uncertainty in all its forms. We argue that this reductive account provides a foundation to examine common problems in management, including managerial hubris, the interaction between entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, and the need for experimentation (such as prototyping and market research) in advance of new product and venture launches. Third, we critique current literature that favors epistemic purism about the ontology of risk and uncertainty and ignores Knight-Ramsey pragmatism in meeting uncertainty, such as using formal and informal institutions for uncertainty mitigation. Our account locates Frank Knight’s subtleties in entrepreneurial behavior firmly in the literature on entrepreneurial agency a century later. (shrink)

This chapter considers the encounter of skepticism with the Kantian and post-Kantian philosophical enterprise and focuses on the intriguing feature whereby it is assimilated into this enterprise. In this period, skepticism becomes interchangeable with its other, which helps understand the proliferation of many kinds of views under its name and which forms the background for transforming skepticism into an anonymous, routine practice of raising objections and counter-objections to one’s own view. German philosophers of this era counterpose skepticism to dogmatism and (...) criticism, ancient to modern skepticism, and, importantly, conceptualize the transitions from one form to another, which forms the conceptual matrix in which new disciplinary forms, such as psychology, anthropology, and historicism contend for cultural-intellectual standing beside philosophy. I present this assimilationist trajectory by reviewing three well-known moments of this encounter of skepticism and idealism: (1) Kant’s idealization of skepticism as a floating position amidst various philosophical positions through the dialectic, polemics, systematics, and history of pure reason; (2) Fichte’s schematic conception of skepticism as a dispute of systems in the early Wissenschaftslehre following his review of the skeptic G. E. Schulze’s attacks on Critical philosophy; (3) Hegel’s historicizing conception of skepticism in the context of differences between subjective idealism and speculative thought and his early Jena review of another work by the same skeptic Schulze. (shrink)

XIX. yüzyılın ilk yarısında Auguste Comte tarafından sistemleştirilen pozitivizm akımı, deneye ve gözleme dayalı bilginin, tek geçerli bilgi türü olacağı varsayımından yola çıkan bir düşünce sistemidir. Pozitivizmi hazırlayan nedenlerin başında Fransız İhtilali ve aydınlanma düşüncesi yer almaktadır. Pozitivizmin Osmanlı düşüncesine girişi, devletin en buhranlı dönemini yaşadığı XIX. Yüzyıla denk gelir. Islahat hareketlerinin hız kazandığı, buna bağlı olarak batıcılık düşüncesinin iyiden iyiye hissedildiği bu yüzyılda, batı kaynaklı düşünce akımları da Osmanlı düşüncesinde kendilerine yer bulmaya başlamışlardır. Batılaşma çerçevesi içerisinde Fransa’ya gönderilen öğrenciler (...) ve tercüme eserler vasıtasıyla kendisini ortaya koyan pozitivizm, dönemin birçok düşünürünü etkilemiştir. Pozitivizmden etkilenen düşünürlerden birisi olarak Abdullah Cevdet, siyasi ve kültürel birçok alanda düşüncelerini bu doğrultuda dile getirmiştir. Cevdet’in düşünceleri başta yaşadığı dönem olmak üzere, kendisinden sonra da günümüze kadar ulaşmış ve pozitivist-materyalist cenahta kendisine yer bulmuştur. Halifelik müessesesini bünyesinde barındıran bir imparatorluk olarak Osmanlı’nın, pozitivist-materyalist görüşleri benimseme eğiliminde çok da istekli bir eğilim sergilemediği düşünülmektedir. Tüm eleştirilere ve kabullenememelere rağmen Abdullah Cevdet ve pozitivist fikirleri son dönem Osmanlı düşüncesinde sağladığı fikri dinamizm sebebiyle, düşünce dünyamız açısından olumlu bir etkiye sahip olmuştur. (shrink)

William Whewell’s 19th century philosophy of science is sometimes glossed over as a footnote to Kant. There is however a key feature of Whewell’s account worth noting. This is his appeal to Aristotle’s form/matter hylomorphism as a metaphor to explain how mind and world merge in successful scientific inquiry. Whewell’s hylomorphism suggests a middle way between rationalism and empiricism reminiscent of experience pragmatists like Steven Levine’s view that mind and world are entwined in experience. I argue however that Levine does (...) not adequately explain exactly how mind and world entwine. He could nonetheless do so if he appealed to Whewell’s hylomorphic metaphor. We may prefer a reductive metaphysical explanation, but I suggest that pragmatists only have recourse to metaphor in this case. Both reductive and metaphorical explanations can enjoy great explanatory power if they exhibit a suitable measure of what I will call sematic distance. Semantic distance measures how close or how far apart explanandum and explanans are from each other in meaning. Metaphorical explanation - as evident in Whewell’s hylomorphism and as detailed via the notion of semantic distance - presents a valuable new explanatory tool to those who hold that mind and world are entwined sans recourse to metaphysics. (shrink)

Cognitive scientists claim to have discovered a large number of cognitive biases, which have a tendency to mislead reasoners. Might cognitive scientists themselves be subject to the very biases they purport to discover? And how should this alter the way they evaluate their research as evidence for the existence of these biases? In this paper, we posit a new paradox (the ‘Self-Reflexive Bias Paradox’), which bears a striking resemblance to some classical logical paradoxes. Suppose that research R appears to be (...) good evidence for the existence of bias B, but if B exists, then R would have been subject to B. Thus, it seems sensible for the researcher to reject R as good evidence for the existence of B. However, rejecting R for this reason admits the existence of B. We examine four putative cognitive biases and criticisms of them, each of which seem to be subject to self-reflexivity. In two cases, we argue, paradox is avoidable. In the remaining two, we cannot find a way to avoid the paradox, which poses a practical obstacle to scientific inquiry and results in an intriguing theoretical quandary. (shrink)

The main purpose of this dissertation is to examine critically and discuss the role of imagination in science and religion, with particular emphasis on its possible epistemic, creative, and meaning-making functions. In order to answer my research questions, I apply theories and concepts from contemporary philosophy of mind on scientific and religious practices. This framework allows me to explore the mental state of imagination, not as an isolated phenomenon but, rather, as one of many mental states that co-exist and interplay (...) in our cogntive architecture. Based on the philosophical discourse of philosophy of mind, four types of imagination are indentified and conceptualized: sensory, propositional, experiential, and creative imagination. These categories are then employed on five phenomena that can be found in scientific and religious environments: metaphors, models, thought experiments, aspect perception, and - in the religious case - rituals. In relation to the concept of religious "seeing" I consider how imaginings may influence visionary experiences and visualization, and compare these phenomena with cases of scientific visualization and eureka experiences. In regard to scientific and religious models, a distinction is made between, on the one hand, two notions of truth and, on the other hand, truth-independent meaning-making. In light of these categories, I differentiate between, and critically discuss, the use of imagination in doxastic, non-doxastic and fictionalist accounts. In light of this investigation, I formulate and defend the position of interactivism, which acknowledges a constant interplay between different attitudes and mental states. In my examination of rituals and scientific and religious thought experiments, special attention is given to the mental capacity to recreate the experiences that are entailed in an imagined scenario. At the end of the investigation, I consider the possible impact that my study might have on how we view science and religion as well as the dialogue bewteen these two fields. (shrink)

What did John Dewey mean by the experience? Researchers of John Dewey’s work often attempt to decipher the American thinker’s thesis, statements and postulates. However, specific approaches have probably become inexact when interpreting many of his concepts, even thinking that they are superficial idealism. Detailed state-of-the-art review during the past decade, in terms of the idea of experience in Dewey, makes it possible to think that this concept –although not precisely defined as that of a dictionary– can be analyzed more (...) accurately. The last is the debate and reflection that will be open to the academic community in this paper; to clarify and, subsequently, define the concept, two fundamental and inherent aspects are presented in this document: first, the pragmatist line that addresses an epistemological framework of the idea; second, two Deweyan elements will be enlightened, these are the living organism and nature, which, as the axis of an empirical influence, are analyzed from the Vermont philosopher’s perspective. This concept also addresses three essential perspectives: biological, psychological and social, bearing in mind that, according to Dewey, real experiences occur if “meaning” comes after. Finally, an interpretative approach will answer, as possible, the question posed at the beginning of this abstract. (shrink)

Monsters as a category seem omnipresent in early modern natural philosophy, in what one might call a “long” early modern period stretching from the Renaissance to the late eighteenth century, when the science of teratology emerges. We no longer use this term to refer to developmental anomalies (whether a two-headed calf, an individual suffering from microcephaly or Proteus syndrome) or to “freak occurrences” like Mary Toft’s supposedly giving birth to a litter of rabbits, in Surrey in the early eighteenth-century (Todd (...) 1995). But the term itself has a rich semantic history, coming from the Latin verb monstrare (itself deriving from monere, to remind, warn, advise), “to show,” from which we also get words like “monitor,” “admonish,” “monument” and “premonition”; hence there are proverbs like, in French, le monstre est ce qui montre, difficult to render in English: “the monsters is that which shows.” Scholars have discussed how this “monstrative” dimension of the monster is in fact twofold: on the one hand, and most awkwardly, the monster is an individual who is “pointed at,” who is shown; on the other hand, the monster is a sign, a portent, an omen, and in that sense “shows us” something (on the complex semantic history of the term across Indo-European languages see Ochsner 2005). The latter dimension persists in naturalized form in the early modern period when authors like Bacon, Fontenelle or William Hunter insist that monsters (or anomalies) can show us something of the workings of Nature. (shrink)

How induction was understood took a substantial turn during the Renaissance. At the beginning, induction was understood as it had been throughout the medieval period, as a kind of propositional inference that is stronger the more it approximates deduction. During the Renaissance, an older understanding, one prevalent in antiquity, was rediscovered and adopted. By this understanding, induction identifies defining characteristics using a process of comparing and contrasting. Important participants in the change were Jean Buridan, humanists such as Lorenzo Valla and (...) Rudolph Agricola, Paduan Aristotelians such as Agostino Nifo, Jacopo Zabarella, and members of the medical faculty, writers on philosophy of mind such as the Englishman John Case, writers of reasoning handbooks, and Francis Bacon. (shrink)

Jordan Peterson has attracted a high level of attention. Controversies may bring people into contact with Peterson's work, but ideas are arguably what keep them there. Focusing on those ideas, this book explores Peterson’s answers to perennial questions. What is common to all humans, regardless of their background? Is complete knowledge ever possible? What would constitute a meaningful life? Why have humans evolved the capacity for intelligence? Should one treat others as individuals or as members of a group? Is a (...) single person powerless in the face of evil? What is the relation between speech, thought, and action? Why have religious myths and narratives figured so prominently in human history? Are the hierarchies we find in society good or bad? After devoting a chapter to each of these questions, Champagne unites the different strands of Peterson’s thinking in a handy summary. Champagne then spends the remaining third of the book articulating his main critical concerns. He argues that while building on tradition is inevitable and indeed desirable, Peterson’s individualist project is hindered by the non-revisable character and self-sacrificial content of religious belief. This engaging multidisciplinary study is ideal for those who know little about Peterson’s views, or for those who are familiar but want to see more clearly how Peterson’s views hang together. The debates spearheaded by Peterson are in full swing, so Myth, Meaning, and Antifragile Individualism should become a reference point for any serious engagement with Peterson’s ideas. (shrink)

Are species real categories or just conventions? Are species natural kinds? Are teleological statements a distinctive feature of biology? Can life sciences escape from teleology? These are common issues in philosophy of biology. This paper aims to show that in order to answer to each of these questions it is inevitable to take a position respecting the others. Therefore, there is a historical relation between the concept of species and teleological issues. In order to analyse such relation, I will take (...) a historical perspective.After making such historical reconstruction focused on the Aristotle, Linnaeus, Buffon and Lamarck thoughts, I will analyse the Darwinian peculiar view respect teleology and his ideas about species. Although Darwin set out the collapse of teleological essentialisms in biology, there are important vestiges of teleology in his theory. (shrink)

After decades of debates about species concepts, there is broad agreement that species are evolving lineages. However, species classification is still in a state of disorder: different methods of delimitation lead to competing outcomes for the same organisms, and the groups recognised as species are of widely different kinds. This paper considers whether this problem can be resolved by developing a unitary scale for evolutionary independence. Such a scale would show clearly when groups are comparable and allow taxonomists to choose (...) a conventional threshold of independence for species status. Existing measurement approaches to species delimitation are typically shot down by what I call the heterogeneity objection, according to which independently evolving groups are too heterogeneous to be captured by a single scale. I draw a parallel with the measurement of temperature to argue that this objection does not provide sufficient reasons to abandon the measurement approach, and that such an approach may even help to make the vague notion of evolutionary independence more precise. (shrink)

Of primary importance in formulating a response to the increasing prevalence and power of artificial intelligence (AI) applications in society are questions of ontology. Questions such as: What “are” these systems? How are they to be regarded? How does an algorithm come to be regarded as an agent? We discuss three factors which hinder discussion and obscure attempts to form a clear ontology of AI: (1) the various and evolving definitions of AI, (2) the tendency for pre-existing technologies to be (...) assimilated and regarded as “normal,” and (3) the tendency of human beings to anthropomorphize. This list is not intended as exhaustive, nor is it seen to preclude entirely a clear ontology, however, these challenges are a necessary set of topics for consideration. Each of these factors is seen to present a 'moving target' for discussion, which poses a challenge for both technical specialists and non-practitioners of AI systems development (e.g., philosophers and theologians) to speak meaningfully given that the corpus of AI structures and capabilities evolves at a rapid pace. Finally, we present avenues for moving forward, including opportunities for collaborative synthesis for scholars in philosophy and science. (shrink)

The primary purpose of this article is to explore the limits that an agent, such as the government or the American Psychological Association, may place on one's right to pursue a program of research or to share the findings of a research project. The primary argument that evolves here is that researchers' rights to pursue an interesting hypothesis, and their freedom of expression, are conditional. The author examines the potential pragmatic and epistemological barriers to a program of research and the (...) responsibilities that researchers bear to address epistemological and nonepistemological matters while reviewing the implications of their work. (shrink)

In modernity, the distinction between nature and artifice disappears, so that machines made by men become privileged models for the explanation of natural bodies, as can be observed in Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, among others. This new relationship between nature and artifice is correlated with the mechanization and refutation of finality in nature, insofar as the adoption of mechanics as a model of nature’s explanation is associated to the rejection of the use of final causes in physics and to the conception (...) that bodies are devoid of immanent principles of movement or of any incorporeal principle that predisposes them to a process of change teleologically structured and oriented. Leibniz also conceives nature as artifice and organic bodies as automata, but his conception of natural bodies as artificial machines goes even further, to the point of characterizing the natural beings as those which carry the character of artificial rather than the artificial things themselves. However, unlike Bacon, Descartes, and Hobbes, Leibniz uses the analogy of nature as a machine and deepens it precisely to argue that nature is teleologically structured and that the difference between the machines made by men and the natural (divine) ones lies in the fact that while those have a purely extrinsic finality, these have an immanent finality inscribed in each of their parts to infinity. (shrink)

Cognitive science has been beset for thirty years by foundational disputes about the nature and extension of cognition—e.g. whether cognition is necessarily representational, whether cognitive processes extend outside the brain or body, and whether plants or microbes have them. Whereas previous philosophical work aimed to settle these disputes, I aim to understand what conception of cognition scientists could share given that they disagree so fundamentally. To this end, I develop a number of variations on traditional conceptual explication, and defend a (...) novel explication of cognition called the sensitive management hypothesis. -/- Since expert judgments about the extension of “cognition” vary so much, I argue that there is value in explication that accurately models the variance in judgments rather than taking sides or treating that variance as noise. I say of explications that accomplish this that they are ecumenically extensionally adequate. Thus, rather than adjudicating whether, say, plants can have cognitive processes like humans, an ecumenically adequate explication should classify these cases differently: human cognitive processes as paradigmatically cognitive, and plant processes as controversially cognitive. -/- I achieve ecumenical adequacy by articulating conceptual explications with parameters, or terms that can be assigned a number of distinct interpretations based on the background commitments of participants in a discourse. For example, an explication might require that cognition cause “behavior,” and imply that plant processes are cognitive or not depending on whether anything plants do can be considered “behavior.” Parameterization provides a unified treatment of embattled concepts by isolating topics of disagreement in a small number of parameters. -/- I incorporate these innovations into an account on which cognition is the “sensitive management of organismal behavior.” The sensitive management hypothesis is ecumenically extensionally adequate, accurately classifying a broad variety of cases as paradigmatically or controversially cognitive phenomena. I also describe an extremely permissive version of the sensitive management hypothesis, arguing that it has the potential to explain several features of cognitive scientific discourse, including various facts about the way cognitive scientists ascribe representations to cognitive systems. (shrink)

Summary This paper examines the experimentum crucis under the light of the Duhem’s holistic thesis. This methodological instrument is not usable in physics, because physical theories are always logically connected to many assumptions. On the contrary, it is usable in psychological research oriented to perceptual laws, when these laws are, without any hypothetical term, isolated systems. An application of experimentum crucis in Experimental Phenomenology of perception is presented. In conclusion, the role of perceptual knowledge as an essential assumption in other (...) scientific disciplines that have a high degree of theoricity is also underlined. (shrink)

Drama is a relatively unexplored tool in academic science education. This paper addresses in what way the use of drama may allow science students to deepen their understanding of recent developments in the emerging and controversial field of neuro-enhancement, by means of a case study approach. First, we emphasise the congruency between drama and science, notably the dramatic dimension of experimental research. Subsequently, we draw on educational literature to elaborate the potential of using drama as a teaching modality, specifically focusing (...) on the ethical and moral dimensions of future techno-scientific innovations. Our case study consisted of a drama experiment as a module in a philosophy course on human enhancement. Twenty-two students from various science disciplines performed multiple roles, as authors, actors, audience and reviewers. Qualitative data were collected on the educational process and student performance during the course, i.e. observations and video recordings of class discussions, group work and plays, interviews and questionnaires. Our drama experiment proved to be effective in enabling students to explore and relate to a future life world affected by enhancement technologies. It allowed them to deepen their awareness of social and ethical implications of neuro-technologies and of the different viewpoints people may have on this issue in academic, professional or everyday settings. Moreover, drama allowed them to develop a reflexive position of their own in the neuro-enhancement debate by enacting a moral dilemma in front of an audience. Our results confirm the potential of drama as a tool for exploring techno-scientific futures in science education. (shrink)

What is a physical object according to the theory of quantum mechanics? The first answer to be considered is that given by Bohr in terms of the concept of complementarity. This interpretation is illustrated by way of an example, the two slit experiment, which highlights some of the associated problems of ontology. One such problem is the so-called problem of measurement or observation. Various interpretations of measurement in Quantum Theory, including those of Heisenberg, von Neumann, Everett and Bohr, are compared (...) and contrasted. A second problem concerns whether or not QT can be considered complete and therefore satisfactory as a basis for physics. Various attempts to complete QT by means of the addition of ‘hidden variables’ to the quantum mechanical state function are considered and their aims and achievements assessed. Finally, we investigate some of the characteristic ontological problems for the orthodox interpretation of Relativistic Quantum Theory. -/- . (shrink)

This paper defends the naïve thesis that the method of experiment has per se an epistemic superiority over the method of computer simulation, a view that has been rejected by some philosophers writing about simulation, and whose grounds have been hard to pin down by its defenders. I further argue that this superiority does not come from the experiment’s object being materially similar to the target in the world that the investigator is trying to learn about, as both sides of (...) dispute over the epistemic superiority thesis have assumed. The superiority depends on features of the question and on a property of natural kinds that has been mistaken for material similarity. Seeing this requires holding other things equal in the comparison of the two methods, thereby exposing that, under the conditions that will be specified, the simulation is necessarily epistemically one step behind the corresponding experiment. Practical constraints like feasibility and morality mean that scientists do not often face an other-things- equal comparison when they choose between experiment and simulation. Nevertheless, I argue, awareness of this superiority and of the general distinction between experiment and simulation is important for maintaining motivation to seek answers to new questions. (shrink)

The present century has seen renewed interest in characterizing cognition, the object of inquiry of the cognitive sciences. In this paper, I describe the problem of cognition—the absence of a positive characterization of cognition despite a felt need for one. It is widely recognized that the problem is motivated by decades of controversy among cognitive scientists over foundational questions, such as whether non-neural parts of the body or environment can realize cognitive processes, or whether plants and microbes have cognitive processes. (...) The dominant strategy for addressing the problem of cognition is to seek a dichotomous criterion that vindicates some set of controversial claims. However, I argue that the problem of cognition is also motivated by ongoing conceptual development in cognitive science, and I describe four benefits that a characterization of cognition could confer. Given these benefits, I recommend an alternative criterion of success, ecumenical extensional adequacy, on which the aim is to describe the variation in expert judgments rather than to correct this variation by taking sides in sectarian disputes. I argue that if we had an ecumenical solution to the problem of cognition, we would have achieved much of what we should want from a “mark of the cognitive”. (shrink)

Sumário: 1. El caso del método científico, Alberto Oliva; 2. Un capítulo de la prehistoria de las ciencias humanas: la defensa por Vico de la tópica, Jorge Alberto Molina; 3. La figura de lo cognoscible y los mundos, Pablo Vélez León; 4. Lebenswelt de Husserl y las neurociencias, Vanessa Fontana; 5. El uso estético del concepto de mundos posibles, Jairo Dias Carvalho; 6. Realismo normativo no naturalista y mundos morales imposibles, Alcino Eduardo Bonella; 7. En la lógica de pragmatismo, Hércules (...) de Araujo Feitosa, Luiz Henrique da Cruz Silvestrini; 8 La lógica, el tiempo y el lenguaje natural: un sistema formal para tiempos de portugués, Carlos Luciano Manholi. / Temas em filosofia contemporânea II / Jonas Rafael Becker Arenhart, Jaimir Conte, Cezar Augusto Mortari (orgs.) – Florianópolis : NEL/UFSC, 2016. 167 p. : tabs. - (Rumos da epistemologia ; v. 14); ISBN 978-85-87253-27-9 (papel); ISBN 978-85-87253-26-2 (e-book). (shrink)

What is scientific progress? On Alexander Bird’s epistemic account of scientific progress, an episode in science is progressive precisely when there is more scientific knowledge at the end of the episode than at the beginning. Using Bird’s epistemic account as a foil, this paper develops an alternative understanding-based account on which an episode in science is progressive precisely when scientists grasp how to correctly explain or predict more aspects of the world at the end of the episode than at the (...) beginning. This account is shown to be superior to the epistemic account by examining cases in which knowledge and understanding come apart. In these cases, it is argued that scientific progress matches increases in scientific understanding rather than accumulations of knowledge. In addition, considerations having to do with minimalist idealizations, pragmatic virtues, and epistemic value all favor this understanding-based account over its epistemic counterpart. (shrink)