Carl Hempel introduced what he called "Craig's theorem" into the philosophy of science in a famous discussion of the "problem of theoretical terms." Beginning with Hempel's use of 'Craig's theorem," I shall bring out some of the key differences between Hempel's treatment of the "problem of theoretical terms" and Carnap's in order to illuminate the peculiar function of Wissenschaftslogik in Carnap's mature philosophy. Carnap's treatment, in particular, is fundamentally antimetaphysical—he aims to use the tools of mathematical logic to dissolve rather (...) solve traditional philosophical problems—and it is precisely this point that is missed by his logically-minded contemporaries such as Hempel and Quine. (shrink)

Karl Popper (1902-1994) was one of the most influential philosophers of science of the 20th century. He made significant contributions to debates concerning general scientific methodology and theory choice, the demarcation of science from non-science, the nature of probability and quantum mechanics, and the methodology of the social sciences. His work is notable for its wide influence both within the philosophy of science, within science itself, and within a broader social context. Popper’s early work attempts to solve the problem of (...) demarcation and offer a clear criterion that distinguishes scientific theories from metaphysical or mythological claims. Popper’s falsificationist methodology holds that scientific theories are characterized by entailing predictions that future observations might reveal to be false. When theories are falsified by such observations, scientists can respond by revising the theory, or by rejecting the theory in favor of a rival or by maintaining the theory as is and changing an auxiliary hypothesis. In either case, however, this process must aim at the production of new, falsifiable predictions. While Popper recognizes that scientists can and do hold onto theories in the face of failed predictions when there are no predictively superior rivals to turn to. He holds that scientific practice is characterized by its continual effort to test theories against experience and make revisions based on the outcomes of these tests. By contrast, theories that are permanently immunized from falsification by the introduction of untestable ad hoc hypotheses can no longer be classified as scientific. Among other things, Popper argues that his falsificationist proposal allows for a solution of the problem of induction, since inductive reasoning plays no role in his account of theory choice. Along with his general proposals regarding falsification and scientific methodology, Popper is notable for his work on probability and quantum mechanics and on the methodology of the social sciences. Popper defends a propensity theory of probability, according to which probabilities are interpreted as objective, mind-independent properties of experimental setups. Popper then uses this theory to provide a realist interpretation of quantum mechanics, though its applicability goes beyond this specific case. With respect to the social sciences, Popper argued against the historicist attempt to formulate universal laws covering the whole of human history and instead argued in favor of methodological individualism and situational logic. Table of Contents 1. Background 2. Falsification and the Criterion of Demarcation a. Popper on Physics and Psychoanalysis b. Auxiliary and Ad Hoc Hypotheses c. Basic Sentences and the Role of Convention d. Induction, Corroboration, and Verisimilitude 3. Criticisms of Falsificationism 4. Realism, Quantum Mechanics, and Probability 5. Methodology in the Social Sciences 6. Popper’s Legacy 7. References and Further Reading a. Primary Sources b. Secondary Sources -/- . (shrink)

My dissertation explores the ways in which Rudolf Carnap sought to make philosophy scientific by further developing recent interpretive efforts to explain Carnap’s mature philosophical work as a form of engineering. It does this by looking in detail at his philosophical practice in his most sustained mature project, his work on pure and applied inductive logic. I, first, specify the sort of engineering Carnap is engaged in as involving an engineering design problem and then draw out the complications of design (...) problems from current work in history of engineering and technology studies. I then model Carnap’s practice based on those lessons and uncover ways in which Carnap’s technical work in inductive logic takes some of these lessons on board. This shows ways in which Carnap’s philosophical project subtly changes right through his late work on induction, providing an important corrective to interpretations that ignore the work on inductive logic. Specifically, I show that paying attention to the historical details of Carnap’s attempt to apply his work in inductive logic to decision theory and theoretical statistics in the 1950s and 1960s helps us understand how Carnap develops and rearticulates the philosophical point of the practical/theoretical distinction in his late work, offering thus a new interpretation of Carnap’s technical work within the broader context of philosophy of science and analytical philosophy in general. (shrink)

The investigation of the social and epistemological context of the rejection of ontology makes György Lukács’s critique of neopositivism an important moment of his late work, Zur Ontologie des gesellschaftlichen Seins . This article argues, on the one hand, that Lukács’s critique of neopositivism can be regarded as an indispensable contribution to understand the social roots of realist attitudes towards ontology, and, on the other hand, that the target of Lukács’s marxist critique of neopositivism is indeed a special, neutral epistemological (...) position between realism and instrumentalism, which became explicit only in a later period of history of neopositivism. To prove this assumption, I investigate some components of Lukács’s critique of neopositivism-critique by showing inter alia that Lukács fails to distinguish clearly between the two different forms of realism—scientific and moderate—which lead to the rejection of ontology. (shrink)

The received view in the history of the philosophy of psychology is that the logical positivists—Carnap and Hempel in particular—endorsed the position commonly known as “logical” or “analytical” behaviourism, according to which the relations between psychological statements and the physical-behavioural statements intended to give their meaning are analytic and knowable a priori. This chapter argues that this is sheer legend: most, if not all, such relations were viewed by the logical positivists as synthetic and knowable only a posteriori. It then (...) traces the origins of the legend to the logical positivists’ idiosyncratic extensional or at best weakly intensional use of what are now considered crucially strongly intensional semantic notions, such as “translation,” “meaning” and their cognates, focussing on a particular instance of this latter phenomenon, arguing that a conflation of explicit definition and analyticity may be the chief source of the legend. (shrink)

The philosophy of measurement studies the conceptual, ontological, epistemic, and technological conditions that make measurement possible and reliable. A new wave of philosophical scholarship has emerged in the last decade that emphasizes the material and historical dimensions of measurement and the relationships between measurement and theoretical modeling. This essay surveys these developments and contrasts them with earlier work on the semantics of quantity terms and the representational character of measurement. The conclusions highlight four characteristics of the emerging research program in (...) philosophy of measurement: it is epistemological, coherentist, practice oriented, and model based. (shrink)

This book explores the interplay between logic and science, describing new trends, new issues and potential research developments.

Michael Friedman’s project both historically and systematically testifies to the importance of the relativized a priori. The importance of implicit definitions clearly emerges from Schlick’s General Theory of Knowledge . The main aim of this paper is to show the relationship between both and the relativized a priori through a detailed discussion of Friedman’s work. Succeeding with this will amount to a contribution to recent scholarship showing the importance of Hilbert for Logical Empiricism.

Everything you always wanted to know about structural realism but were afraid to ask Content Type Journal Article Pages 227-276 DOI 10.1007/s13194-011-0025-7 Authors Roman Frigg, Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE UK Ioannis Votsis, Philosophisches Institut, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Universitätsstraße 1, Geb. 23.21/04.86, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany Journal European Journal for Philosophy of Science Online ISSN 1879-4920 Print ISSN 1879-4912 Journal Volume Volume 1 Journal Issue Volume 1, Number 2.

The Philosophy of Science Todayand Table of Contents : 0. The Philosophy of Science has a Remarkably Low Standard 1. Public Relations for Science is Counterproductive 2. Science is a Cultural Phenomenon 3. Science Needs no Promoters.

In this paper, I focus on life-threatening medical conditions and argue that from the point of view of natural properties, induction(s), and participation in laws, at least some of the ill organisms dealt with in somatic medicine form natural kinds in the same sense in which the kinds in the exact sciences are thought of as natural. By way of comparing two ‘divisions of nature’, viz., a ‘classical’ exact science kind (gold) and a kind of disease (Graves disease), I show (...) that there is no justifiable ‘ontological gap’ between disease kinds and exact sciences kinds. We have instead a difference of degree. (shrink)

A basic thesis of Neokantian epistemology and philosophy of science contends that the knowing subject and the object to be known are only abstractions. What really exists, is the relation between both. For the elucidation of this “knowledge relation ("Erkenntnisrelation") the Neokantians of the Marburg school used a variety of mathematical metaphors. In this con-tribution I reconsider some of these metaphors proposed by Paul Natorp, who was one of the leading members of the Marburg school. It is shown that Natorp's (...) metaphors are not unrelated to those used in some currents of contemporary epistemology and philosophy of science. (shrink)

Both realists and instrumentalists have found it difficult to understand (much less accept) Carnap's developed view on theoretical terms, which attempts to stake out a neutral position between realism and instrumentalism. I argue that Carnap's mature conception of a scientific theory as the conjunction of its Ramsey sentence and Carnap sentence can indeed achieve this neutral position. To see this, however, we need to see why the Newman problem raised in the context of recent work on structural realism is no (...) problem for Carnap's conception; and we also need to locate Carnap's work on theoretical terms within his wider program of Wissenschaftslogik or the logic of science. (shrink)

The present paper offers some remarks on the significance of first order model theory for our understanding of theories, and more generally, for our understanding of the “structuralist” accounts of the nature of theoretical knowledge that we associate with Russell, Ramsey and Carnap. What is unique about the presentation is the prominence it assigns to Craig’s Interpolation Lemma, some of its corollaries, and the manner of their demonstration. They form the underlying logical basis of the analysis.

Computing is changing the traditional field of Philosophy of Science in a very profound way. First as a methodological tool, computing makes possible ``experimental Philosophy'' which is able to provide practical tests for different philosophical ideas. At the same time the ideal object of investigation of the Philosophy of Science is changing. For a long period of time the ideal science was Physics (e.g., Popper, Carnap, Kuhn, and Chalmers). Now the focus is shifting to the field of Computing/Informatics. There are (...) many good reasons for this paradigm shift, one of those being a long standing need of a new meeting between the sciences and humanities, for which the new discipline of Computing/Informatics gives innumerable possibilities. Contrary to Physics, Computing/Informatics is very much human-centered. It brings a potential for a new Renaissance, where Science and Humanities, Arts and Engineering can reach a new synthesis, so very much needed in our intellectually split culture. This paper investigates contemporary trends and the relation between the Philosophy of Science and the Philosophy of Computing and Information, which is equivalent to the present relation between Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Physics. (shrink)

In recent years, a revisionist process focused on logical positivism can be observed, particularly regarding Carnap’s work. In this paper, I argue against the interpretation that Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions having been published in the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, co-edited by Carnap, is evidence of the revisionist idea that Carnap “would have found Structure philosophically congenial”. I claim that Kuhn’s book, from Carnap’s point of view, is not in philosophy of science but rather in history of science (...) (in the context of a sharp discovery–justification distinction). It could also explain the fact that, despite his sympathetic letters to Kuhn as editor, Carnap never refers to Kuhn’s book in his work in philosophy of science. (shrink)

En este ensayo respondo negativamente a la pregunta del título al sostener que el enunciado “La suma de los ángulos internos de un triángulo es igual a 180°” es contingentemente verdadero. Para ello, intento refutar la tesis de Ramsey de que las verdades geométricas necesariamente son verdades necesarias, así como la tesis de Kripke de que no puede haber proposiciones matemáticas contingentemente verdaderas. Además, recurriendo a la concepción fregeana sobre lo a priori y lo a posteriori, sostengo que hay verdades (...) geométricas que pueden ser a priori sin tener que serlo. -/- . (shrink)

Super-substantivalism (of the type we’ll consider) roughly comprises two core tenets: (1) the physical properties which we attribute to matter (e.g. charge or mass) can be attributed to spacetime directly, with no need for matter as an extraneous carrier “on top of” spacetime; (2) spacetime is more fundamental than (ontologically prior to) matter. In the present paper, we revisit a recent argument in favour of super-substantivalism, based on General Relativity. A critique is offered that highlights the difference between (various accounts (...) of) fundamentality and (various forms of) ontological dependence. This affords a metaphysically more perspicuous view of what super-substantivalism’s tenets actually assert, and how it may be defended. We tentatively propose a re-formulation of the original argument that not only seems to apply to all classical physics, but also chimes with a standard interpretation of spacetime theories in the philosophy of physics. (shrink)

The essays in this volume concern the points of intersection between analytic philosophy and the philosophy of the exact sciences. More precisely, it concern connections between knowledge in mathematics and the exact sciences, on the one hand, and the conceptual foundations of knowledge in general. Its guiding idea is that, in contemporary philosophy of science, there are profound problems of theoretical interpretation-- problems that transcend both the methodological concerns of general philosophy of science, and the technical concerns of philosophers of (...) particular sciences. A fruitful approach to these problems combines the study of scientific detail with the kind of conceptual analysis that is characteristic of the modern analytic tradition. Such an approach is shared by these contributors: some primarily known as analytic philosophers, some as philosophers of science, but all deeply aware that the problems of analysis and interpretation link these fields together. (shrink)

Due to its high degree of complexity and its historical nature, evolutionary biology has been traditionally portrayed as a messy science. According to the supporters of such a view, evolutionary biology would be unable to formulate laws and robust theories, instead just delivering coherent narratives and local models. In this article, our aim is to challenge this view by showing how the Price equation can work as the core of a general theoretical framework for evolutionary phenomena. To support this claim, (...) we outline some unnoticed structural similarities between physical theories and evolutionary biology. More specifically, we shall argue that the Price equation, in the same way as fundamental formalisms in physics, can serve as a heuristic principle to formulate and systematise different theories and models in evolutionary biology. (shrink)

A collective understanding that traces a debate between 'what is science?’ and ‘what is a science about?’ has an extraction to the notion of scientific knowledge. The debate undertakes the pursuit of science that hardly extravagance the dogma of pseudo-science. Scientific conjectures invoke science as an intellectual activity poured by experiences and repetition of the objects that look independent of any idealist views (believes in the consensus of mind-dependence reality). The realistic machinery employs in an empiricist exposition of the objective (...) phenomenon by synchronizing the general method to make observational predictions that cover all the phenomena of the particular entity without any exception. The formation of science encloses several epistemological purviews and a succession of conjectures cum refutation that a newer theorem could reinstate. My attempt is to advocate a holistic plea of scientific conjectures that outruns the restricted regulation of experience or testable hypothesis to render the validity of a chain of logical reasoning (deductive or inductive) of basic scientific statements. The milieu of scientific intensification integrates speculation that loads efficiency towards a new experimental dimension where the reality is not itself objective or observers relative; in fact the observed phenomenon divulges in the constructive progression of preferred methods of falsifiability and uncertainty. (shrink)

American philosopher Wilfrid Sellars (1962) once said that “the aim of philosophy, abstractly formulated, is to understand how things in the broadest possible sense hang together in the broadest possible sense.” My main question is this: within the context of contemporary sustainability science, how does the concept of ‘sustainability’ in the broadest possible sense of the concept hang together in the broadest possible sense? I will answer this question by advancing two new explicative definitions of sustainability that jointly constitute a (...) unifying concept of sustainability. This meta-level concept accommodates most of the central meanings conventionally assigned to ‘sustainability’ by sustainability scientists and scholars, offers a useful division of labor between scientists and scholars, and makes explicit value judgements commonly associated with the concept of sustainability. (shrink)

This is a thesis in support of the conceptual yoking of analytic truth to a priori knowledge. My approach is a semantic one; the primary subject matter throughout the thesis is linguistic objects, such as propositions or sentences. I evaluate arguments, and also forward my own, about how such linguistic objects’ truth is determined, how their meaning is fixed and how we, respectively, know the conditions under which their truth and meaning are obtained. The strategy is to make explicit what (...) is distinctive about analytic truths. The objective is to show that truths, known a priori, are trivial in a highly circumscribed way. My arguments are premised on a language-relative account of analytic truth. The language relative account which underwrites much of what I do has two central tenets: 1. Conventionalism about truth and, 2. Non-factualism about meaning. I argue that one decisive way of establishing conventionalism and non-factualism is to prioritise epistemological questions. Once it is established that some truths are not known empirically an account of truth must follow which precludes factual truths being known non-empirically. The function of Part 1 is, chiefly, to render Carnap’s language-relative account of analytic truth. I do not offer arguments in support of Carnap at this stage, but throughout Parts 2 and 3, by looking at more current literature on a priori knowledge and analytic truth, it becomes quickly evident that I take Carnap to be correct, and why. In order to illustrate the extent to which Carnap’s account is conventionalist and non-factualist I pose his arguments against those of his predecessors, Kant and Frege. Part 1 is a lightly retrospective background to the concepts of ‘analytic’ and ‘a priori’. The strategy therein is more mercenary than exegetical: I select the parts from Kant and Frege most relevant to Carnap’s eventual reaction to them. Hereby I give the reasons why Carnap foregoes a factual and objective basis for logical truth. The upshot of this is an account of analytic truth (i.e. logical truth, to him) which ensures its trivial nature. In opposition to accounts of a priori knowledge, which describe it as knowledge gained from rational apprehension, I argue that it is either knowledge from logical deduction or knowledge of stipulations. I therefore reject, in Part 2, three epistemologies for knowing linguistic conventions (e.g. implicit definitions): 1. intuition, 2. inferential a priori knowledge and, 3. a posteriori knowledge. At base, all three epistemologies are rejected because they are incompatible with conventionalism and non-factualism. I argue this point by signalling that such accounts of knowledge yield unsubstantiated second-order claims and/or they render the relevant linguistic conventions epistemically arrogant. For a convention to be arrogant it must be stipulated to be true. The stipulation is then considered arrogant when its meaning cannot be fixed, and its truth cannot be determined without empirical ‘work’. Once a working explication of ‘a priori’ has been given, partially in Part 1 (as inferential) and then in Part 2 (as non-inferential) I look, in Part 3, at an apriorist account of analytic truth, which, I argue, renders analytic truth non-trivial. The particular subject matter here is the implicit definitions of logical terms. The opposition’s argument holds that logical truths are known a priori (this is part of their identification criteria) and that their meaning is factually based. From here it follows that analytic truth, being determined by factually based meaning, is also factual. I oppose these arguments by exposing the internal inconsistencies; that implicit definition is premised on the arbitrary stipulation of truth which is inconsistent with saying that there are facts which determine the same truth. In doing so, I endorse the standard irrealist position about implicit definition and analytic truth (along with the “early friends of implicit definition” such as Wittgenstein and Carnap). What is it that I am trying to get at by doing all of the abovementioned? Here is a very abstracted explanation. The unmitigated realism of the rationalists of old, e.g. Plato, Descartes, Kant, have stoically borne the brunt of the allegation of yielding ‘synthetic a priori’ claims. The anti-rationalist phase of this accusation I am most interested in is that forwarded by the semantically driven empiricism of the early 20th century. It is here that the charge of the ‘synthetic a priori’ really takes hold. Since then new methods and accusatory terms are employed by, chiefly, non-realist positions. I plan to give these proper attention in due course. However, it seems to me that the reframing of the debate in these new terms has also created the illusion that current philosophical realism, whether naturalistic realism, realism in science, realism in logic and mathematics, is somehow not guilty of the same epistemological and semantic charges levelled against Plato, Descartes and Kant. It is of interest to me that in, particularly, current analytic philosophy (given its rationale) realism in many areas seems to escape the accusation of yielding synthetic priori claims. Yet yielding synthetic a priori claims is something which realism so easily falls prey to. Perhaps this is a function of the fact that the phrase, ‘synthetic a priori’, used as an allegation, is now outmoded. This thesis is nothing other than an indictment of metaphysics, or speculative philosophy (this being the crime), brought against a specific selection of realist arguments. I, therefore, ask of my reader to see my explicit, and perhaps outmoded, charge of the ‘synthetic a priori’ levelled against respective theorists as an attempt to draw a direct comparison with the speculative metaphysics so many analytic philosophers now love to hate. I think the phrase ‘synthetic a priori’ still does a lot of work in this regard, precisely because so many current theorists wrongly think they are immune to this charge. Consequently, I shall say much about what is not permitted. Such is, I suppose, the nature of arguing ‘against’ something. I’ll argue that it is not permitted to be a factualist about logical principles and say that they are known a priori. I’ll argue that it is not permitted to say linguistic conventions are a posteriori, when there is a complete failure in locating such a posteriori conventions. Both such philosophical claims are candidates for the synthetic a priori, for unmitigated rationalism. But on the positive side, we now have these two assets: Firstly, I do not ask us to abandon any of the linguistic practises discussed; merely to adopt the correct attitude towards them. For instance, where we use the laws of logic, let us remember that there are no known/knowable facts about logic. These laws are therefore, to the best of our knowledge, conventions not dissimilar to the rules of a game. And, secondly, once we pass sentence on knowing, a priori, anything but trivial truths we shall have at our disposal the sharpest of philosophical tools. A tool which can only proffer a better brand of empiricism. (shrink)

I offer an explicit account of the underdetermination thesis as well as of the many challenges it poses to scientific realism; a way to answer to these challenges is explored and outlined, by shifting attention to the content of theories. I argue that, even if we have solid grounds (as I contend we do) to support that some varieties of the underdetermination thesis are true, scientific realism can still offer an adequate picture of the aims and achievements of science.

This essay examines the relation between causation and causal explanation. It distinguishes two prominent roles that causes play within the sciences. On the one hand, causes may work as metaphysical posits. From this standpoint, mainstream in contemporary philosophy, causation provides the ‘raw material’ for explanation. On the other hand, causes may be conceived as explanatory postulates, theoretical hypotheses lacking any substantial ontological commitment. This unduly neglected distinction provides the conceptual resources to revisit longstanding philosophical issues, such as overdetermination and causal (...) pluralism. It also inspires a provocative reframing of Russell’s famous, if notoriously elusive, remarks on the nature of causation. (shrink)

Priority Theory is an increasingly popular view in metaphysics. By seeing metaphysical questions as primarily concerned with what explains what, instead of merely what exists, it promises not only an interesting approach to traditional metaphysical issues but also the resolution of some outstanding disputes. In a recent paper, Louis deRosset argues that Priority Theory isn’t up to the task: Priority Theory is committed to there being explanations that violate a formal constraint on any adequate explanation. This paper critically examines deRosset’s (...) challenge to Priority Theory. We argue that deRosset’s challenge ultimately fails: his proposed constraint on explanation is neither well-motivated nor a general constraint. Nonetheless, lurking behind his criticism is a deep problem for prominent ways of developing Priority Theory, a problem which we develop. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop a metasemantics for relaxed moral realism. More precisely, I argue that relaxed realists should be inferentialists about meaning and explain that the role of evaluative moral vocabulary is to organise and structure language exit transitions, much as the role of theoretical vocabulary is to organise and structure language entry transitions.

In this article I argue for an empiricist view on laws. Some laws are fundamental in the sense that they are the result of inductive generalisations of observed regularities and at the same time in their formulation contain a new theoretical predicate. The inductive generalisations simul- taneously function as implicit definitions of these new predicates. Other laws are either explicit definitions or consequences of other previously established laws. I discuss the laws of classical mechanics, relativity theory and electromagnetism in detail. (...) Laws are necessary, whereas acciden- tal generalisations are not. But necessity here is not a modal concept, but rather interpreted as short for the semantic predicate “... is necessarily true”. Thus no modal logic is needed. The neces- sity attributed to law sentences is in turn interpreted as “necessary condition for the rest of the the- ory”, which is true since fundamental laws are implicit definitions of theoretical predicates use in the theory. (shrink)

How do we make the case for "knowledge democracy" in the face of the growing influence of right-wing figures and movements that denounce experts and expertise? While the threats to knowledge posed by these movements are real, it would be a mistake to return to a classic intellectual strategy--the politics of demarcation--in the face of this danger. Examining practical proposals for combatting fake news and opinion manipulation on the Internet, namely so-called "fact-checking" tools and services, I argue that they threaten (...) to enroll us in a problematic normative project, one that aims to re-establish a hierarchy between knowledge and its presumed opposite, non-knowledge, or anti-knowledge. I list a number of shortcomings of this strategy. Most importantly, it distracts us from the role of technology in the crisis of public evidence in today's computationally-intensive societies. Social media are a truth-less public sphere by design. A politics of demarcation also puts us at risk of forgetting a key insight from the previous century that remains valid today: knowledge democracy is a re-constructive practice and an ideal. Instead of consolidating hierarchies of knowledge through facts that derive their authority form outside the public sphere, we need to recover the central role in public life of experimental facts: statements whose truth value is unstable. The experimental validation of public knowledge must happen in the public domain. (shrink)

An ontological causal relation is a quantified relation between certain interactions and changes in corresponding properties. Key ideas in physics, such as Newton’s second law and the first law of thermodynamics, are representative examples of these relations. In connection with the teaching and learning of these relations, this study investigated three issues: the appropriate view concerning ontological category, the role and status of ontological causal relations, and university students’ understanding of the role and status of these relations. Concerning the issue (...) of proper ontology, this study suggests an alternative view that distinguishes between interaction and property at the macroscopic level, in contrast to Chi and colleagues’ influential view. Concerning the role and status of the relations, we conclude that fundamental ontological causal relations should be regarded as knowledge at the core of relevant physics theories. However, upon analysis of participants’ responses, this study finds that university students’ views on the status of the heat capacity relation and Newton’s second law are quite different. Several possible educational implications of these results are discussed. (shrink)

We propose a formal framework to examine the relationship between models and observations. To make our analysis precise,models are reduced to first-order theories that represent both terminological knowledge – e.g., the laws that are supposed to regulate the domain under analysis and that allow for explanations, predictions, and simulations – and assertional knowledge – e.g., information about specific entities in the domain of interest. Observations are introduced into the domain of quantification of a distinct first-order theory that describes their nature (...) and their organization and takes track of the way they are experimentally acquired or intentionally elaborated. A model mainly represents the theoretical knowledge or hypotheses on a domain, while the theory of observations mainly represents the empirical knowledge and the given experimental practices. We propose a precise identity criterion for observations and we explore different links between models and observations by assuming a degree of independence between them. By exploiting some techniques developed in the field of social choice theory and judgment aggregation, we sketch some strategies to solve inconsistencies between a given set of observations and the assumed theoretical hypotheses. The solutions of these inconsistencies can impact both the observations – e.g., the theoretical knowledge and the analysis of the way observations are collected or produced may highlight some unreliable sources – and the models – e.g. empirical evidences may invalidate some theoretical laws. (shrink)

This dissertation is a defense of a particular theory of the metaphysics of time which I call "accretivism", but which is popularly known in a form usually called the "Growing Block Theory". The goal of a metaphysics of time is to incorporate the various aspects of our temporal experience into a single, comprehensive whole. To this end I delineate five aspects of our ordinary experience of time: 1) The Tensed Aspect, in virtue of which objects are presented to us as (...) past, present, or future; 2) The Transitory Aspect, in virtue of which time passes or "flows"; 3) The Durational Aspect, in virtue of which entities have a certain temporal extent; 4) The Structural Aspect, in virtue of which entities are given as being in temporal relations to one another, and 5) The Differential-Repetitive Aspect, in virtue of which things are different from one time to another, and yet there is a certain recurrence of aspects of our experience form one time to another. I contrast the accretivist picture of time, according to which that which is past and that which is present both have ontological status, but nothing which is future has ontological status, and in which temporal passage consists in the coming-into-being of new entities at the temporal edge of reality marked by the present, with the two dominant theories of time in the contemporary literature: 1) presentism, according to which only that which is present has ontological status, and 2) four-dimensionalism, according to which time is to be understood on analogy with spatial dimensions. Accretivism, I argue, is superior to the other two views in virtue of the fact that it gives full status to both the Structural Aspect of Time, for which the presentist has difficulty accounting, and the Transitory Aspect of Time, for which the four-dimensionalist has difficulty accounting. I then defend the accretivist picture against a variety of objections that might be raised to it. (shrink)

Carnap's mature philosophy of science is an attempt to dissolve the scientific realism debate altogether as a philosophical pseudo-question. His argument depends upon a logico-semantic thesis regarding the structure of a scientific theory, and more importantly, a meta-ontological thesis regarding the explication of existence claims. The latter commits Carnap to a distinction between the analytic and the synthetic, which was allegedly refuted by Quine. The contemporary philosophy of science has therefore sought to distance itself from logico-semantic considerations, and has pursued (...) the scientific realism debate as an essentially epistemological thesis. I show however that one of the most prominent positions in this recent debate—van Fraassen's constructive empiricism—not only ends up in very close proximity to Carnap's attempted dissolution, but even provides the resources for extending and refining his programme. Rather than a historical footnote, Carnap's mature philosophy of science offers a live-option in the current debate. (shrink)

In order to comprehend the world around us and construct explaining theories for this purpose, we need a conception of physical probability, since we come across many (apparently) probabilistic phenomena in our world. But how should we understand objective probability claims? Since pure frequency approaches of probability are not appropriate, we have to use a single case propensity interpretation. Unfortunately, many philosophers believe that this understanding of probability is burdened with significant difficulties. My main aim is to show that we (...) can treat propensity as a theoretical concept that exhibits many similarities to other theoretical concepts, and its difficulties are not insuperable if we make explicit some general presuppositions of scientific practice and apply them to propensities. At least this is true if we formulate the right bridge principle for propensity and rely on further methodological rules in dealing with propensity assertions to make them empirically testable. (shrink)

Psychoanalysis often claims that an appraisal of its constituent hypotheses necessitates a personal analysis on the part of the critic with respect to the latter's ability to render a worthwhile and insightful evaluation of psychoanalytic theory. The objection to this position, namely one of ?privileged access?, has been voiced in numerous contexts, but a philosophical defense of the position has rarely been offered. In this paper such a defense is put forth, and it is argued that psychoanalysis is, in certain (...) crucial respects, analogous to physics in its scientific or structural respects, and insofar as this analogy holds, certain claims about one's familiarity with the latter also hold with respect to the former. Thus, a knowledge of physics entails an understanding of the laboratory procedures whereby physicists carry on their investigations. In the case of psychoanalysis certain ?laboratory operations? and ?instruments? are identifiable also. Where in the physics laboratory the physicist deals with cyclotrons, thermometers and the like, the psychoanalyst deals with the character traits of himself and the analysand. The character trait is the instrument whereby the analyst understands the analysand in a specifically psychoanalytic manner. Since the philosopher must know how the physicist works in the physics laboratory in order to understand physics, one must also understand the laboratory methodology of the analyst. Without the experience of psychoanalysis, however, such an understanding is truncated at best and nonexistent at worst. (shrink)

This paper is the sequel of a previous one where we have introduced a paraconsistent logic termed paraclassical logic to deal with 'complementary propositions'. Here, we enlarge upon the discussion by considering certain 'meaning principles', which sanction either some restrictions of 'classical' procedures or the utilization of certain 'classical' incompatible schemes in the domain of the physical theories. Here, the term 'classical' refers to classical physics. Some general comments on the logical basis of a scientific theory are also put in (...) between the text, motivated by the discussion of complementarity. (shrink)

I develop a concept of observability that pertains to qualities rather than objects: a quality is observable if it can be registered by human sensation (possibly with the aid of instruments) without involving optional interpretations. This concept supports a better description of observations in science and everyday life than the object-based observability concepts presupposing causal information-transfer from the object to the observer. It also allows a rehabilitation of the traditional empiricist distinction between observations and their interpretations, but without a presumption (...) that observations are infallible. Using this concept of observability, I also propose a re-formulation of constructive empiricism that is easier to defend against realist attacks, while open to reasonable realist intuitions. (shrink)

Based on archival material from the Carnap and FeiglArchives, this paper re-examines Carnap's approach tothe issue of scientific realism in the 1950s and theearly 1960s. It focuses on Carnap's re-invention ofthe Ramsey-sentence approach to scientific theoriesand argues that Carnap wanted to entertain a genuineneutral stance in the realism-instrumentalism debate.Following Grover Maxwell, it claims that Carnap'sposition may be best understood as a version of`structural realism'. However, thus understood,Carnap's position faces the challenge that Newmanraised against Russell's structuralism: the claim thatthe knowledge of (...) the unobservable is limited to itspurely structural characteristics is eitheruninformative or unsustainable. (shrink)

The logical positivists adopted Poincare's doctrine of the conventionality of geometry and made it a key part of their philosophical interpretation of relativity theory. I argue, however, that the positivists deeply misunderstood Poincare's doctrine. For Poincare's own conception was based on the group-theoretical picture of geometry expressed in the Helmholtz-Lie solution of the space problem, and also on a hierarchical picture of the sciences according to which geometry must be presupposed be any properly physical theory. But both of this pictures (...) are entirely incompatible with the radically new conception of space and geometry articulated in the general theory of relativity. The logical positivists's attempt to combine Poincare's conventionalism with Einstein's new theory was therefore, in the end, simply incoherent. Underlying this problem, moreover, was a fundamental philosophical difference between Poincare's and the positivists concerning the status of synthetic a priori truths. (shrink)

Jurado: Mario Gómez-Torrente (presidente), Miguel Ángel Fernández Vargas (vocal), Santiago Echeverri Saldarriaga (secretario). [Graduado con Mención Honorífica.].

Contemporary decision theory places crucial emphasis on a family of mathematical results called representation theorems, which relate criteria for evaluating the available options to axioms pertaining to the decision-maker’s preferences. Various claims have been made concerning the reasons for the importance of these results. The goal of this article is to assess their semantic role: representation theorems are purported to provide definitions of the decision-theoretic concepts involved in the evaluation criteria. In particular, this claim shall be examined from the perspective (...) of philosophical theories of the meaning of theoretical terms. (shrink)

For over a century the definitions of mass and derivations of its relation with energy continue to be elaborated, demonstrating that the concept of mass is still not satisfactorily understood. The aim of this study is to show that, starting from the properties of Minkowski spacetime and from the principle of least action, energy expresses the property of inertia of a body. This implies that inertial mass can only be the object of a definition—the so called mass-energy relation—aimed at measuring (...) energy in different units, more suitable to describe the huge amount of it enclosed in what we call the “rest-energy” of a body. Likewise, the concept of gravitational mass becomes unnecessary, being replaceable by energy, thus making the weak equivalence principle intrinsically verified. In dealing with mass, a new unit of measurement is foretold for it, which relies on the de Broglie frequency of atoms, the value of which can today be measured with an accuracy of a few parts in 109. (shrink)

Psychological research has shown that cognitive illusions, of which visual illusions are just a special case, are systematic and pervasive, raising epistemological questions about how error in all forms of research can be identified and eliminated. The quantitative sciences make use of statistical techniques for this purpose, but it is not clear what the qualitative equivalent is, particularly in view of widespread scepticism about validity and objectivity. I argue that, in the light of cognitive psychology, the ‘error question’ cannot be (...) dismissed as a positivist obsession, and that the concepts of truth and objectivity are unavoidable. However, they constitute only a ‘minimal realism’, which does not necessarily bring a commitment to ‘absolute’ truth, certainty, correspondence, causation, reductionism, or universal laws in its wake. The assumption that it does reflects a misreading of positivism and, ironically, precipitates a ‘crisis of legitimation and representation’, as described by constructivist authors. (shrink)