Switch to: References

Citations of:

How the laws of physics lie

New York: Oxford University Press (1983)

Add citations

You must login to add citations.
  1. Unification, explanation, and the composition of causes in Newtonian mechanics.Malcolm R. Forster - 1988 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 19 (1):55-101.
    William Whewell’s philosophy of scientific discovery is applied to the problem of understanding the nature of unification and explanation by the composition of causes in Newtonian mechanics. The essay attempts to demonstrate: the sense in which ”approximate’ laws successfully refer to real physical systems rather than to idealizations of them; why good theoretical constructs are not badly underdetermined by observation; and why, in particular, Newtonian forces are not conventional and how empiricist arguments against the existence of component causes, and against (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   45 citations  
  • Partial Traces in Decoherence and in Interpretation: What Do Reduced States Refer to?Sebastian Fortin & Olimpia Lombardi - 2014 - Foundations of Physics 44 (4):426-446.
    The interpretation of the concept of reduced state is a subtle issue that has relevant consequences when the task is the interpretation of quantum mechanics itself. The aim of this paper is to argue that reduced states are not the quantum states of subsystems in the same sense as quantum states are states of the whole composite system. After clearly stating the problem, our argument is developed in three stages. First, we consider the phenomenon of environment-induced decoherence as an example (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   11 citations  
  • Non-bayesian foundations for statistical estimation, prediction, and the ravens example.Malcolm R. Forster - 1994 - Erkenntnis 40 (3):357 - 376.
    The paper provides a formal proof that efficient estimates of parameters, which vary as as little as possible when measurements are repeated, may be expected to provide more accurate predictions. The definition of predictive accuracy is motivated by the work of Akaike (1973). Surprisingly, the same explanation provides a novel solution for a well known problem for standard theories of scientific confirmation — the Ravens Paradox. This is significant in light of the fact that standard Bayesian analyses of the paradox (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • How Should We Explain Remote Correlations?John Forge - 1993 - Philosophica 51.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • How to Tell When Simpler, More Unified, or Less A d Hoc Theories Will Provide More Accurate Predictions.Malcolm R. Forster & Elliott Sober - 1994 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 45 (1):1-35.
    Traditional analyses of the curve fitting problem maintain that the data do not indicate what form the fitted curve should take. Rather, this issue is said to be settled by prior probabilities, by simplicity, or by a background theory. In this paper, we describe a result due to Akaike [1973], which shows how the data can underwrite an inference concerning the curve's form based on an estimate of how predictively accurate it will be. We argue that this approach throws light (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   227 citations  
  • A pragmatic, existentialist approach to the scientific realism debate.Curtis Forbes - 2017 - Synthese 194 (9):3327-3346.
    It has become apparent that the debate between scientific realists and constructive empiricists has come to a stalemate. Neither view can reasonably claim to be the most rational philosophy of science, exclusively capable of making sense of all scientific activities. On one prominent analysis of the situation, whether we accept a realist or an anti-realist account of science actually seems to depend on which values we antecedently accept, rather than our commitment to “rationality” per se. Accordingly, several philosophers have attempted (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • Monismo anômalo: uma reconstrução e revisão da literatura.Marcelo Fischborn - 2014 - Principia: An International Journal of Epistemology 18 (1):53-66.
    Este artigo reconstrói os argumentos de Donald Davidson (1970) em favor de sua teoria do monismo anômalo e revisa as principais críticas que recebeu. Essa teoria é amplamente rejeitada atualmente e, dadas as inúmeras críticas recebidas, é razoável concluir que qualquer tentativa de reabilitação tem um longo caminho pela frente. A diversidade dessas críticas sugere que não há consenso sobre por que exatamente o monismo anômalo fracassa, embora as dificuldades pareçam convergir sobre a justificação e possibilidade da tese monista, e (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Diagnostics in computational organic chemistry.Grant Fisher - 2016 - Foundations of Chemistry 18 (3):241-262.
    Focusing on computational studies of pericyclic reactions from the late twentieth century into the twenty-first century, this paper argues that computational diagnostics is a key methodological development that characterize the management and coordination of plural approximation methods in computational organic chemistry. Predictive divergence between semi-empirical and ab initio approximation methods in the study of pericyclic reactions has issued in epistemic dissent. This has resulted in the use of diagnostics to unpack computational greyboxes in order to critically assess the effect of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Piecemeal realism.Arthur Fine - 1991 - Philosophical Studies 61 (1-2):79 - 96.
    Faced with realist-resistant sciences and the no-nonsense attitude of the times realism has moved away from the rather grandiose program that had traditionally been characteristic of its school. The objective of the shift seems to be to protect some doctrine still worthy of the "realist" name. The strategy is to relocate the school to where conditions seem optimal for its defense, and then to insinuate that the case for such a " piecemeal realism" could be made elsewhere too, were there (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   72 citations  
  • Correlations and efficiency: Testing the Bell inequalities. [REVIEW]Arthur Fine - 1989 - Foundations of Physics 19 (5):453-478.
    This paper examines the efficiency problem involved in experimental tests of so-called “local” hidden variables. It separates the phenomenological locality at issue in the Bell case from Einstein's different conception of locality, and shows how phenomenological locality also differs from the factorizability needed to derive the Bell inequalities in the stochastic case. It then pursues the question of whether factorizable, local models (or, equivalently, deterministic ones) exist for the experiments designed to test the Bell inequalities, thus rendering the experimental argument (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  • Art as a product of nature as a work of art.Paul Feyerabend - 1994 - World Futures 40 (1):87-100.
    Two claims are discussed. One is that works of art are a product of nature, no less than rocks and flowers. The other is that nature itself is an artifact, constructed by scientists and artisans, throughout centuries, from a partly yielding, partly resisting material of unknown properties. Since both claims are supported by convincing evidence, the world appears much more slippery than commonly assumed by rationalists. Intellectual generalizations around ?art,? ?nature? or ?science? are simplifying devices that can help us order (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • Idealization in Chemistry: Pure Substance and Laboratory Product.Manuel Fernández-González - 2013 - Science & Education 22 (7):1723-1740.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • Ceteris Paribus Laws and Minutis Rectis Laws.Luke Fenton-Glynn - 2016 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 93 (2):274-305.
    Special science generalizations admit of exceptions. Among the class of non-exceptionless special science generalizations, I distinguish minutis rectis generalizations from the more familiar category of ceteris paribus generalizations. I argue that the challenges involved in showing that mr generalizations can play the law role are underappreciated, and quite different from those involved in showing that cp generalizations can do so. I outline a strategy for meeting the challenges posed by mr generalizations.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • What's in a link?Jerome A. Feldman - 1989 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 12 (3):474-475.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • How (not) to bring psychology and biology together.Mark Fedyk - 2015 - Philosophical Studies 172 (4):949-967.
    Evolutionary psychologists often try to “bring together” biology and psychology by making predictions about what specific psychological mechanisms exist from theories about what patterns of behaviour would have been adaptive in the EEA for humans. This paper shows that one of the deepest methodological generalities in evolutionary biology—that proximate explanations and ultimate explanations stand in a many-to-many relation—entails that this inferential strategy is unsound. Ultimate explanations almost never entail the truth of any particular proximate hypothesis. But of course it does (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • Barad, Bohr, and quantum mechanics.Jan Faye & Rasmus Jaksland - 2021 - Synthese 199:8231-8255.
    The last decade has seen an increasing number of references to quantum mechanics in the humanities and social sciences. This development has in particular been driven by Karen Barad’s agential realism: a theoretical framework that, based on Niels Bohr’s interpretation of quantum mechanics, aims to inform social theorizing. In dealing with notions such as agency, power, and embodiment as well as the relation between the material and the discursive level, the influence of agential realism in fields such as feminist science (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • What are the phenomena of physics?Brigitte Falkenburg - 2011 - Synthese 182 (1):149-163.
    Depending on different positions in the debate on scientific realism, there are various accounts of the phenomena of physics. For scientific realists like Bogen and Woodward, phenomena are matters of fact in nature, i.e., the effects explained and predicted by physical theories. For empiricists like van Fraassen, the phenomena of physics are the appearances observed or perceived by sensory experience. Constructivists, however, regard the phenomena of physics as artificial structures generated by experimental and mathematical methods. My paper investigates the historical (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Pragmatic Unification, Observation and Realism in Astroparticle Physics.Brigitte Falkenburg - 2012 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 43 (2):327-345.
    Astroparticle physics is a recent sub-discipline of physics that emerged from early cosmic ray studies, astrophysics, and particle physics. Its theoretical foundations range from quantum field theory to general relativity, but the underlying “standard models” of cosmology and particle physics are far from being unified. The paper explores the pragmatic strategies employed in astroparticle physics in order to unify a disunified research field, the concept of observation involved in these strategies, and their relations to scientific realism.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • Causal Overdetermination for Humeans?Michael Esfeld - 2010 - Metaphysica 11 (2):99-104.
    The paper argues against systematic overdetermination being an acceptable solution to the problem of mental causation within a Humean counterfactual theory of causation. The truth-makers of the counterfactuals in question include laws of nature, and there are laws that support physical to physical counterfactuals, but no laws in the same sense that support mental to physical counterfactuals.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  • Humean time-reversal symmetry.Michael Esfeld & Cristian López - 2023 - Synthese 202 (2):1-19.
    In this paper, we put forward an alternative interpretation of time-reversal symmetry in philosophy of physics: Humean time-reversal symmetry. According to it, time-reversal symmetry is understood as a heuristic, epistemic virtue of the best system, not as a property of the Humean mosaic. One of the consequences of this view is that one of the main arguments against a primitive direction of time is rendered harmless, which paves the way for primitivism about the direction of time.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Robustness and reality.Markus I. Eronen - 2015 - Synthese 192 (12):3961-3977.
    Robustness is often presented as a guideline for distinguishing the true or real from mere appearances or artifacts. Most of recent discussions of robustness have focused on the kind of derivational robustness analysis introduced by Levins, while the related but distinct idea of robustness as multiple accessibility, defended by Wimsatt, has received less attention. In this paper, I argue that the latter kind of robustness, when properly understood, can provide justification for ontological commitments. The idea is that we are justified (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   28 citations  
  • Robust realism for the life sciences.Markus I. Eronen - 2019 - Synthese 196 (6):2341-2354.
    Although scientific realism is the default position in the life sciences, philosophical accounts of realism are geared towards physics and run into trouble when applied to fields such as biology or neuroscience. In this paper, I formulate a new robustness-based version of entity realism, and show that it provides a plausible account of realism for the life sciences that is also continuous with scientific practice. It is based on the idea that if there are several independent ways of measuring, detecting (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Simulated experiments: Methodology for a virtual world.Winsberg Eric - 2003 - Philosophy of Science 70 (1):105-125.
    This paper examines the relationship between simulation and experiment. Many discussions of simulation, and indeed the term "numerical experiments," invoke a strong metaphor of experimentation. On the other hand, many simulations begin as attempts to apply scientific theories. This has lead many to characterize simulation as lying between theory and experiment. The aim of the paper is to try to reconcile these two points of viewto understand what methodological and epistemological features simulation has in common with experimentation, while at the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   91 citations  
  • The semantic approach to evolutionary theory.Marc Ereshefsky - 1991 - Biology and Philosophy 6 (1):59-80.
    Paul Thompson, John Beatty, and Elisabeth Lloyd argue that attempts to resolve certain conceptual issues within evolutionary biology have failed because of a general adherence to the received view of scientific theories. They maintain that such issues can be clarified and resolved when one adopts a semantic approach to theories. In this paper, I argue that such conceptual issues are just as problematic on a semantic approach. Such issues arise from the complexity involved in providing formal accounts of theoretical laws (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   19 citations  
  • Breaking the law: Promoting domain-specificity in chemical education in the context of arguing about the periodic law. [REVIEW]Sibel Erduran - 2007 - Foundations of Chemistry 9 (3):247-263.
    In this paper, domain-specificity is presented as an understudied problem in chemical education. This argument is unpacked by drawing from two bodies of literature: learning of science and epistemology of science, both themes that have cognitive as well as philosophical undertones. The wider context is students’ engagement in scientific inquiry, an important goal for science education and one that has not been well executed in everyday classrooms. The focus on science learning illustrates the role of domain specificity in scientific reasoning. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   10 citations  
  • Agent‐based computational models and generative social science.Joshua M. Epstein - 1999 - Complexity 4 (5):41-60.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   56 citations  
  • Internal realism.Brian Ellis - 1988 - Synthese 76 (3):409 - 434.
    I argue in this paper that anyone who accepts the ontology of scientific realism can only accept a pragmatic theory of truth, i.e., a theory on which truth is what it is epistemically right to believe. But the combination of realism with such a theory of truth is a form of internal realism; therefore, a scientific realist should be an internal realist. The strategy of the paper is to argue that there is no adequate semantic or correspondence theory of truth (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • Idealization.Alkistis Elliott-Graves & Michael Weisberg - 2014 - Philosophy Compass 9 (3):176-185.
    This article reviews the recent literature on idealization, specifically idealization in the course of scientific modeling. We argue that idealization is not a unified concept and that there are three different types of idealization: Galilean, minimalist, and multiple models, each with its own justification. We explore the extent to which idealization is a permanent feature of scientific representation and discuss its implications for debates about scientific realism.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   23 citations  
  • Correlation, partial correlation, and causation.Frederick S. Ellett & David P. Ericson - 1986 - Synthese 67 (2):157-173.
    Philosophers and scientists have maintained that causation, correlation, and partial correlation are essentially related. These views give rise to various rules of causal inference. This essay considers the claims of several philosophers and social scientists for causal systems with dichotomous variables. In section 2 important commonalities and differences are explicated among four major conceptions of correlation. In section 3 it is argued that whether correlation can serve as a measure of A's causal influence on B depends upon the conception of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  • An Analysis of Probabilistic Causation in Dichotomous Structures.Frederick S. Elett & David P. Ericson - 1986 - Synthese 67 (2):175-193.
    During the past decades several philosophers of science and social scientists have been interested in the problems of causation. Recently attention has been given to probabilistic causation in dichotomous causal systems. The paper uses the basic features of probabilistic causation to argue that the causal modeling approaches developed by such researchers as Blalock and Duncan can provide, when an additional assumption is added, adequate qualitative measures of one variableś causal influence upon another. Finally, some of the difficulties and issues involved (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • There may be strict empirical laws in biology, after all.Mehmet Elgin - 2006 - Biology and Philosophy 21 (1):119-134.
    This paper consists of four parts. Part 1 is an introduction. Part 2 evaluates arguments for the claim that there are no strict empirical laws in biology. I argue that there are two types of arguments for this claim and they are as follows: (1) Biological properties are multiply realized and they require complex processes. For this reason, it is almost impossible to formulate strict empirical laws in biology. (2) Generalizations in biology hold contingently but laws go beyond describing contingencies, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   28 citations  
  • True enough.Catherine Z. Elgin - 2004 - Philosophical Issues 14 (1):113–131.
    Truth is standardly considered a requirement on epistemic acceptability. But science and philosophy deploy models, idealizations and thought experiments that prescind from truth to achieve other cognitive ends. I argue that such felicitous falsehoods function as cognitively useful fictions. They are cognitively useful because they exemplify and afford epistemic access to features they share with the relevant facts. They are falsehoods in that they diverge from the facts. Nonetheless, they are true enough to serve their epistemic purposes. Theories that contain (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   317 citations  
  • Keeping things in perspective. [REVIEW]Catherine Z. Elgin - 2010 - Philosophical Studies 150 (3):439 - 447.
    Scientific realism holds that scientific representations are utterly objective. They describe the way the world is, independent of any point of view. In Scientific Representation, van Fraassen argues otherwise. If science is to afford an understanding of nature, it must be grounded in evidence. Since evidence is perspectivai, science cannot vindicate its claims using only utterly objective representations. For science to do its epistemic job, it must involve perspectivai representations. I explicate this argument and show its power.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • Language, Partial Truth, and Logic. [REVIEW]C. Z. Elgin - 2011 - Analysis 71 (2):313-322.
    In Hard Truths, Elijah Millgram maintains that analytic philosophy rests on a mistake. 1 It is committed to bivalence – the contention that every truth bearer is either true or false. As a result of this commitment, its views about logic and metaphysics are profoundly misguided. He believes that rather than restricting ourselves to two truth values, we should recognize a plethora of partial truths – sentences, beliefs and opinions that are partly true or true in a way. These are (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Cartwright on explanation and idealization.Mehmet Elgin & Elliott Sober - 2002 - Erkenntnis 57 (3):441 - 450.
    Nancy Cartwright (1983, 1999) argues that (1) the fundamental laws of physics are true when and only when appropriate ceteris paribus modifiers are attached and that (2) ceteris paribus modifiers describe conditions that are almost never satisfied. She concludes that when the fundamental laws of physics are true, they don't apply in the real world, but only in highly idealized counterfactual situations. In this paper, we argue that (1) and (2) together with an assumption about contraposition entail the opposite conclusion (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   43 citations  
  • The problem of harmonizing laws.Crawford L. Elder - 2001 - Philosophical Studies 105 (1):25 - 41.
    More laws obtain in the world,it appears, than just those of microphysics –e.g. laws of genetics, perceptual psychology,economics. This paper assumes there indeedare laws in the special sciences, and notjust scrambled versions of microphysical laws. Yet the objects which obey them are composedwholly of microparticles. How can themicroparticles in such an object lawfully domore than what is required of them by the lawsof microphysics? Are there additional laws formicroparticles – which seems to violate closureof microphysics – or is the ``more'' (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Introduction: An Empiricist View of Scientific Theories and Practices.Matthias Egg - 2024 - In Claus Beisbart & Michael Frauchiger (eds.), Scientific Theories and Philosophical Stances: Themes from van Fraassen. De Gruyter. pp. 1-12.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Expanding Our Grasp: Causal Knowledge and the Problem of Unconceived Alternatives.Matthias Egg - 2016 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 67 (1):115-141.
    I argue that scientific realism, insofar as it is only committed to those scientific posits of which we have causal knowledge, is immune to Kyle Stanford’s argument from unconceived alternatives. This causal strategy is shown not to repeat the shortcomings of previous realist responses to Stanford’s argument. Furthermore, I show that the notion of causal knowledge underlying it can be made sufficiently precise by means of conceptual tools recently introduced into the debate on scientific realism. Finally, I apply this strategy (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   19 citations  
  • Causal Warrant for Realism about Particle Physics.Matthias Egg - 2012 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 43 (2):259-280.
    While scientific realism generally assumes that successful scientific explanations yield information about reality, realists also have to admit that not all information acquired in this way is equally well warranted. Some versions of scientific realism do this by saying that explanatory posits with which we have established some kind of causal contact are better warranted than those that merely appear in theoretical hypotheses. I first explicate this distinction by considering some general criteria that permit us to distinguish causal warrant from (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   16 citations  
  • Book review: Rich-mond Campbell. Illusions of paradox: A feminist epistemology naturalized. Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998. [REVIEW]Edrie Sobstyl - 2002 - Hypatia 17 (1):226-230.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Complexity and Context-Dependency.Bruce Edmonds - 2013 - Foundations of Science 18 (4):745-755.
    It is argued that given the “anti-anthropomorphic” principle—that the universe is not structured for our benefit—modelling trade-offs will necessarily mean that many of our models will be context-specific. It is argued that context-specificity is not the same as relativism. The “context heuristic”—that of dividing processing into rich, fuzzy context-recognition and crisp, conscious reasoning and learning—is outlined. The consequences of accepting the impact of this human heuristic in the light of the necessity of accepting context-specificity in our modelling of complex systems (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Introduction to the epistemology of causation.Frederick Eberhardt - 2009 - Philosophy Compass 4 (6):913-925.
    This survey presents some of the main principles involved in discovering causal relations. They belong to a large array of possible assumptions and conditions about causal relations, whose various combinations limit the possibilities of acquiring causal knowledge in different ways. How much and in what detail the causal structure can be discovered from what kinds of data depends on the particular set of assumptions one is able to make. The assumptions considered here provide a starting point to explore further the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  • Contact with the nomic: A challenge for deniers of Humean supervenience about laws of nature part II: The epistemological argument for Humean supervenience.John Earman & John T. Roberts - 2005 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 71 (2):253–286.
    In Part I, we presented and motivated a new formulation of Humean Supervenience about Laws of Nature (HS). Here in Part II, we present an epistemological argument in defense of HS, thus formulated. Our contention is that one can combine a modest realism about laws of nature with a proper recognition of the importance of empirical testability in the epistemology of science only if one accepts HS.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   25 citations  
  • "Ceteris Paribus", There Is No Problem of Provisos.John Earman & John T. Roberts - 1999 - Synthese 118 (3):439 - 478.
    Much of the literature on "ceteris paribus" laws is based on a misguided egalitarianism about the sciences. For example, it is commonly held that the special sciences are riddled with ceteris paribus laws; from this many commentators conclude that if the special sciences are not to be accorded a second class status, it must be ceteris paribus all the way down to fundamental physics. We argue that the (purported) laws of fundamental physics are not hedged by ceteris paribus clauses and (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   111 citations  
  • Réalisme et fictionalisme chez Claude Bernard.Luiz Henrique A. Dutrdea - 1999 - Dialogue 38 (4):719-.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Models and the Semantic and Pragmatic Views of Theories.Luiz Henrique de A. Dutra - 2008 - Principia 12 (1):73-86.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/1808-1711.2008v12n1p73 This paper aims at discussing from the point of view of a pragmatic stance the concept of model as an abstract replica. According to this view, scientific models are abstract structures different from set-theoretic models. The view of models argued for here stems from the conceptions of some important philosophers of science who elaborated on the notion of model, such as Suppe, Cartwright, Hempel, and Nagel. Differently from all those authors, however, the conception of model argued for here is (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Scientific Pluralism and the Plurality of the Sciences: Comments on David Hull’s S cience as a Process.John Dupré - 1990 - Philosophical Studies 60 (1-2):61 - 76.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • Modeling modeling: Stephen M. Downes: Models and modeling in the sciences: A philosophical introduction. New York and London: Routledge, 2020, 114 pp, £34.99 PB.Gabe Dupre - 2020 - Metascience 30 (1):95-98.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Living Causes.John Dupré - 2013 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 87 (1):19-37.
    This paper considers the applicability of standard accounts of causation to living systems. In particular it examines critically the increasing tendency to equate causal explanation with the identification of a mechanism. A range of differences between living systems and paradigm mechanisms are identified and discussed. While in principle it might be possible to accommodate an account of mechanism to these features, the attempt to do so risks reducing the idea of a mechanism to vacuity. It is proposed that the solution (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   43 citations  
  • I—John Dupré: Living Causes.John Dupré - 2013 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 87 (1):19-37.
    This paper considers the applicability of standard accounts of causation to living systems. In particular it examines critically the increasing tendency to equate causal explanation with the identification of a mechanism. A range of differences between living systems and paradigm mechanisms are identified and discussed. While in principle it might be possible to accommodate an account of mechanism to these features, the attempt to do so risks reducing the idea of a mechanism to vacuity. It is proposed that the solution (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   30 citations