How can philosophy of science be of more practical use? One thing we can do is provide practicable advice about how to determine when one empirical claim is relevant to the truth of another; i.e., about evidential relevance. This matters especially for evidence-based policy, where advice is thin—and misleading—about how to tell what counts as evidence for policy effectiveness. This paper argues that good efficacy results (as in randomized controlled trials), which are all the rage now, are only a very (...) small part of the story. To tell what facts are relevant for judging policy effectiveness, we need to construct causal scenarios about will happen when the policy is implemented. (shrink)

Wolfgang Spohn’s Frege prize lecture, like the work on which it is based, is a tour de force of rich, elegant, coherent argument about how the projected world that we experience is constructed. But we do not live in this projected world nor reason about it. The things Spohn constructs are there from the start—or so my Stanford School pragmatism teaches. This paper explores a deep difference in philosophical approaches—Spohn’s elegant proofs versus the stocky, tangled arguments I advocate—and illustrates how (...) these play out in far more detailed disputes about the nature of causality and causal inference. (shrink)

The Scientific Revolution spawned not just one methodology, but two. We have emphasized Bacon's inductivism at the expense of Galileo's more abstract, sophisticated method of successive approximation, and so have failed to appreciate Galileo's contribution to the ceteris paribus problem in philosophy of science. My purpose here is to help redress this imbalance. I first briefly review the old unsolved problems, and then point out the Baconian basis of ceteris paribus, as this clause is conventionally understood, and its history from (...) Aristotle to twentieth century Positivism. Then I explore Galileo's method of dealing with unwanted impediments, and the more general problem of 'accidents.' I trace his methodology back to Archimedes and forward through the economic theories of Adam Smith (18th century), J. S. Mill (19th) and Milton Friedman (20th). Finally, I point out ways in which I think Galileo's scientific method sheds light on, and provides a partial solution to, the ceteris paribus problem. (shrink)

Recently, it has been argued that the use of Big Data transforms the sciences, making data-driven research possible and studying causality redundant. In this paper, I focus on the claim on causal knowledge by examining the Big Data project EXPOsOMICS, whose research is funded by the European Commission and considered capable of improving our understanding of the relation between exposure and disease. While EXPOsOMICS may seem the perfect exemplification of the data-driven view, I show how causal knowledge is necessary for (...) the project, both as a source for handling complexity and as an output for meeting the project’s goals. Consequently, I argue that data-driven claims about causality are fundamentally flawed and causal knowledge should be considered a necessary aspect of Big Data science. In addition, I present the consequences of this result on other data-driven claims, concerning the role of theoretical considerations. I argue that the importance of causal knowledge and other kinds of theoretical engagement in EXPOsOMICS undermine theory-free accounts and suggest alternative ways of framing science based on Big Data. (shrink)

On the relation between experiment and thought experiment in the natural sciences. To understand the reciprocal autonomy and complementarity of thought and real experiment, it is necessary to distinguish between a ‘positive’ (empirical or formal) and a transcendental perspective. Empirically and formally, real and thought experiments are indistinguishable. However, from a reflexive-transcendental viewpoint thought experiment is at the same time irreducible and complementary to real experiment. This is due to the fact that the hypothetical-anticipatory moment is in principle irreducible to (...) physical reality—even though it refers to physical reality and is bound with the empirical use of our understanding. The presence of counterfactuals is the condition of the possibility for thought experiments to become in principle real ones, by means of a series of technical realisations that gradually approximate the idealisations that they contain. (shrink)

There exists a fundamental convergence between some major trends of modern epistemology—as outlined, for instance, by Filmer Northrop and Henry Margenau—and the theories actually developed within sciences of the human mind where two types of thought—one implicit and, the other, explicit—tend to refer to two different lines of development. Moreover, these theories can find in the psychology of Lev Vygotsky some seminal hypotheses of a major importance. In order to highlight this convergence, we parallel the role played by structured conceptual (...) systems in Vygotsky’s conception of intellectual development and Northrop’s epistemology. We show how these conceptual systems account for the notion of causality and can explain the success of scientific thought, i.e. its possible match with the real world, while this match falsely justified an overall biological model of intellectual development in Jean Piaget’s work. We conclude that dual process theorists should no longer neglect cognitive tools, and especially conceptual systems, which underpin the awareness and mastery of thought that are characteristic of type 2 processes. This whole analysis leads us to maintain that human psychology is not characterized in the first instance by a need to act, but a quest for meaning. (shrink)

This essay proposes a comprehensive blueprint for the hylomorphic foundations of cosmology. The key philosophical explananda in cosmology are those dealing with global processes and structures, the regularity of global regularities, and the existence of the global as such. The possibility of elucidating these using alternatives to hylomorphism is outlined and difficulties with these alternatives are raised. Hylomorphism, by contrast, provides a sound philosophical ground for cosmology insofar as it leads to notions of cosmic essence, the unity of complex essences, (...) and globally emergent properties. These are used as the basis to account for the aforementioned cosmological explananda and to resolve two problems in the philosophy of cosmology: the meta-law dilemma and the uniqueness of the universe. In summary, cosmology needs hylomorphism because it is able to ground cosmology’s efforts as a scientific inquiry. It can do so because hylomorphism philosophically accounts for changing substances and aggregates of substances, the various scales of law-governed behavior measured by the natures of those substances, and how those substances as parts relate to the universe as a whole. (shrink)

Niels Bohr’s model of the hydrogen atom is widely cited as an example of an inconsistent scientific theory because of its reliance on classical electrodynamics together with assumptions about interactions between matter and electromagnetic radiation that could not be reconciled with CED. This view of Bohr’s model is controversial, but we believe a recently proposed approach to reasoning with inconsistent commitments offers a promising formal reading of how Bohr’s model worked. In this paper we present this new way of reasoning (...) with inconsistent commitments and compare it with other approaches before applying it to Bohr’s model and offering some suggestions for how it might be extended to account for subsequent developments in old quantum theory. (shrink)

The foundations of probability are viewed through the lens of the subjectivist interpretation. This article surveys conditional probability, arguments for probabilism, probability dynamics, and the evidential and subjective interpretations of probability.

The Darwinian theory of evolution is itself evolving and this book presents the details of the core of modern Darwinism and its latest developmental directions. The authors present current scientific work addressing theoretical problems and challenges in four sections, beginning with the concepts of evolution theory, its processes of variation, heredity, selection, adaptation and function, and its patterns of character, species, descent and life. The second part of this book scrutinizes Darwinism in the philosophy of science and its usefulness in (...) understanding ecosystems, whilst the third section deals with its application in disciplines beyond the biological sciences, including evolutionary psychology and evolutionary economics, Darwinian morality and phylolinguistics. The final section addresses anti-Darwinism, the creationist view and issues around teaching evolution in secondary schools. The reader learns how current experimental biology is opening important perspectives on the sources of variation, and thus of the very power of natural selection. This work examines numerous examples of the extension of the principle of natural selection and provides the opportunity to critically reflect on a rich theory, on the methodological rigour that presides in its extensions and exportations, and on the necessity to measure its advantages and also its limits. Scholars interested in modern Darwinism and scientific research, its concepts, research programs and controversies will find this book an excellent read, and those considering how Darwinism might evolve, how it can apply to the human sciences and other disciplines beyond its origins will find it particularly valuable. Originally produced in French (Les Mondes Darwiniens), the scope and usefulness of the book have led to the production of this English text, to reach a wider audience. This book is a milestone in the impressive penetration by Francophone scholars into the world of Darwinian science, its historiography and philosophy over the last two decades. Alex Rosenberg, R. Taylor Cole Professor of Philosophy, Duke University Until now this useful and comprehensive handbook has only been available to francophones. Thanks to this invaluable new translation, this collection of insightful and original essays can reach the global audience it deserves. Tim Lewens, University of Cambridge. (shrink)

Este ensayo busca mostrar que la ciencia macroeconómica desde hace mucho tiempo no es una disciplina cuyas investigaciones están encuadradas dentro del denominado empirismo lógico y tampoco sus controversias se dirimen dentro del algúnparadigma al estilo de Thomas Kuhn, sino que está conformada por un conjunto de propuestas teóricas que conforman lo que Laudan denomina como “tradiciones de investigación”. Aunque los fenómenos que estudia la macroeconomía son externos a la consciencia del investigador, del diseñador de política económica y del público (...) en general, sus realizaciones tienden más hacia las propuestas de un realismo perspectivistade corte naturalista y que sus hallazgos expresan verdades acerca de las “tendencias” y “capacidades” que subyacen en los fenómenos económicos.This essay tries to show that macroeconomic science from a long time rather to make economic research taking account neo positivist principles and point of view is a discipline with different perspectives and theories within “research traditions” as Larry Laudan said. Although, whether the macroeconomic phenomena is outside of researchers, public policy makers, and people in general, the understanding of macroeconomic as a science trends to be a form of perspective realism with a methodological commitment to naturalism, using models as primary representational entities of economic problems, and where truth are about its trends and capacities as suggested Ronald GiereandNancy Cartwright. (shrink)

According to epistemic structural realism scientific theories provide us only with knowledge about the structure of the unobservable world, but not about its nature. The most significant objection that this posi- tion has faced is the so-called Newman’s problem. In this paper I offer an alternative objection to EER. I argue that its formulation leads to undesirable skeptical positions in two fields close to scientific realism: the debates on modality and laws of nature. I also show that there is an (...) interesting sense in which my objection is stronger than the one offered by Newman. (shrink)

This article outlines a philosophy of science in practice that focuses on the engineering sciences. A methodological issue is that these practices seem to be divided by two different styles of scientific reasoning, namely, causal-mechanistic and mathematical reasoning. These styles are philosophically characterized by what Kuhn called ?disciplinary matrices?. Due to distinct metaphysical background pictures and/or distinct ideas of what counts as intelligible, they entail distinct ideas of the character of phenomena and what counts as a scientific explanation. It is (...) argued that the two styles cannot be reduced to each other. At the same time, although they are incompatible, they must not be regarded as competing. Instead, they produce different kinds of epistemic results, which serve different kinds of epistemic functions. Moreover, some scientific breakthroughs essentially result from relating them. This view of complementary styles of scientific reasoning is supported by pluralism about metaphysical background pictures. (shrink)

The complex societal challenges of the twenty-first Century require scientific researchers and academically educated professionals capable of conducting scientific research in complex problem contexts. Our central claim is that educational approaches inspired by a traditional empiricist epistemology insufficiently foster the required deep conceptual understanding and higher-order thinking skills necessary for epistemic tasks in scientific research. Conversely, we argue that constructivist epistemologies provide better guidance to educational approaches to promote research skills. We also argue that teachers adopting a constructivist learning theory (...) do not necessarily embrace a constructivist epistemology. On the contrary, in educational practice, novel educational approaches that adopt constructivist learning theories often maintain traditional empiricist epistemologies. Philosophers of science can help develop educational designs focused on learning to conduct scientific research, combining constructivist learning theory with constructivist epistemology. We illustrate this by an example from a bachelor’s program in Biomedical Engineering, where we introduce conceptual models and modeling as an alternative to the traditional focus on hypothesis testing in conducting scientific research. This educational approach includes the so-called B&K method for constructing scientific models to scaffold teaching and learning conceptual modeling. (shrink)

In the mid-1970s, the biomedical model of medicine gave way to the biopsychosocial model of medicine; it was billed as a more comprehensive and compassionate model of medicine. After more than a century of disentangling medicine from religion, the medicine and spirituality movement is attempting to bring religion and spirituality back into medicine. It is doing so under a biopsychosociospiritual model. I unpack one model for allowing religion back into medicine called the RCOPE. RCOPE is an instrument designed to categorize (...) religion and spirituality as psychological coping mechanisms. I explore how such instruments are related to the history of statistical measurement and demonstrate the political impetus that governs such enterprises. The biopsychosociospiritual medicine is billed as a more holistic and comprehensive model. This new model of medicine offers total care. However, I demonstrate how this total care becomes totalizing, indeed totalitarian, admitting religion and spirituality back into the fold of medicine under a new secularized medical control. (shrink)

Many authors have argued in favour of an ontology of properties as powers, and it has been widely argued that this ontology allows us to address certain philosophical problems in novel and illuminating ways, for example, causation, representation, intentionality, free will and liberty. I argue that the ontology of powers, even if successful as an account of fundamental natural properties, does not provide the insight claimed as regards the aforementioned non-fundamental phenomena. I illustrate this argument by criticizing the powers theory (...) of causation presented by Mumford and Anjum and showing that related criticisms can be directed at other abuses of powers. (shrink)

Humeanism – the idea that there are no necessary connections between distinct existences – and Nomic Essentialism – the idea that properties essentially play the nomic roles that they do – are two of the most important and influential positions in the metaphysics of science. Traditionally, it has been thought that these positions were incompatible competitors. We disagree. We argue that there is an attractive version of Humeanism that captures the idea that, for example, mass essentially plays the role that (...) it actually does in the laws of nature. In this paper we consider the arguments that have lead many to conclude that Humeanism cannot be combined with Nomic Essentialism; we identify the weaknesses in these arguments; and we argue in detail that a version of Humeanism based on a variant of the Best System account of laws captures the key intuitions behind nomic essentialism. (shrink)

Teaching false theories goes against the general pedagogical and philosophical belief that we must only teach and learn what is true. In general, the goal of pedagogy is taken to be epistemic: to gain knowledge and avoid ignorance. In this article, I argue that for realists and antirealists alike, epistemological and pedagogical goals have to come apart. I argue that the falsity of a theory does not automatically make it unfit for being taught. There are several good reasons for teaching (...) false theories in school science. These are false theories can bring about genuine understanding of the world; teaching some false theories from the history of science that line up with children’s ideas can provide students “intellectual empathy” and also aid in better grasp of concepts; teaching false theories from the history of science can sharpen students’ understanding of the nature of science; scientists routinely use false theories and models in their practice and it is good sense for science education to mirror scientific practice; and learning about patently non-scientific and antiscientific ideas will prepare students to face and respond to them. In making arguments for the foregoing five points, I draw upon the work of a variety of philosophers and historians of science, cognitive scientists, science education scholars, and scientists. My goal here is not only to justify theories considered false already being taught, but also to actively endorse the teaching of some theories considered false that are by and large not currently taught. (shrink)

The Great Divide in metaphysical debates about laws of nature is between Humeans, who think that laws merely describe the distribution of matter, and non-Humeans, who think that laws govern it. The metaphysics can place demands on the proper formulations of physical theories. It is sometimes assumed that the governing view requires a fundamental / intrinsic direction of time: to govern, laws must be dynamical, producing later states of the world from earlier ones, in accord with the fundamental direction of (...) time in the universe. In this paper, we propose a minimal primitivism about laws of nature (MinP) according to which there is no such requirement. On our view, laws govern by constraining the physical possibilities. Our view captures the essence of the governing view without taking on extraneous commitments about the direction of time or dynamic production. Moreover, as a version of primitivism, our view requires no reduction / analysis of laws in terms of universals, powers, or dispositions. Our view accommodates several potential candidates for fundamental laws, including the principle of least action, the Past Hypothesis, the Einstein equation of general relativity, and even controversial examples found in the Wheeler-Feynman theory of electrodynamics and retrocausal theories of quantum mechanics. By understanding governing as constraining, non-Humeans who accept MinP have the same freedom to contemplate a wide variety of candidate fundamental laws as Humeans do. (shrink)

The majority of the currently flourishing theories of actual causation are located in a broadly counterfactual framework that draws on structural equations. In order to account for cases of symmetric overdeterminiation and preemption, these theories resort to rather intricate analytical tools, most of all, to what Hitchcock has labeled explicitly nonforetracking counterfactuals. This paper introduces a regularity theoretic approach to actual causation that only employs material conditionals, standard Boolean minimization procedures, and a stability condition that regulates the behavior of causal (...) models under model expansions. Notwithstanding its lightweight analytical toolbox, this regularity theory performs at least as well as the structural equations accounts with their heavy appliances. (shrink)

Standard microbial evolutionary ontology is organized according to a nested hierarchy of entities at various levels of biological organization. It typically detects and defines these entities in relation to the most stable aspects of evolutionary processes, by identifying lineages evolving by a process of vertical inheritance from an ancestral entity. However, recent advances in microbiology indicate that such an ontology has important limitations. The various dynamics detected within microbiological systems reveal that a focus on the most stable entities (or features (...) of entities) over time inevitably underestimates the extent and nature of microbial diversity. These dynamics are not the outcome of the process of vertical descent alone. Other processes, often involving causal interactions between entities from distinct levels of biological organisation, or operating at different time scales, are responsible not only for the destabilisation of pre-existing entities, but also for the emergence and stabilisation of novel entities in the microbial world. In this article we consider microbial entities as more or less stabilised functional wholes, and sketch a network-based ontology that can represent a diverse set of processes including, for example, as well as phylogenetic relations, interactions that stabilise or destabilise the interacting entities, spatial relations, ecological connections, and genetic exchanges. We use this pluralistic framework for evaluating (i) the existing ontological assumptions in evolution (e.g. whether currently recognized entities are adequate for understanding the causes of change and stabilisation in the microbial world), and (ii) for identifying hidden ontological kinds, essentially invisible from within a more limited perspective. We propose to recognize additional classes of entities that provide new insights into the structure of the microbial world, namely “processually equivalent” entities, “processually versatile” entities, and “stabilized” entities. (shrink)

I argue that the contemporary interplay of cosmology and particle physics in their joint effort to understand the processes at work during the first moments of the big bang has important implications for understanding the nature of lawhood. I focus on the phenomenon of spontaneous symmetry breaking responsible for generating the masses of certain particles. This phenomenon presents problems for the currently fashionable Dretske-Tooley-Armstrong theory and strongly favors a rival nomic ontology of causal powers.

Both clinical research and basic science rely on the epistemic practice of extrapolation from surrogate models, to the point that explanatory accounts presented in review papers and biology textbooks are in fact composite pictures reconstituted from data gathered in a variety of distinct experimental setups. This raises two new challenges to previously proposed mechanistic-similarity solutions to the problem of extrapolation: one pertaining to the absence of mechanistic knowledge in the early stages of research and the second to the large number (...) of extrapolations underpinning explanatory accounts. An analysis of the strategies deployed in experimental research supports the conclusion that while results from validated surrogate models are treated as a legitimate line of evidence supporting claims about target systems, the overall structure of research projects also demonstrates that extrapolative inferences are not considered definitive or sufficient evidence, but only partially justified hypotheses subjected to further testing. 1 Introduction2 Surrogate Models2.1 What exactly is a surrogate model?2.2 Why use surrogate models?3 Prior Validation of Surrogate Models3.1 The validation and ranking of surrogate models in the early stages of basic research3.2 The validation of surrogate models in later stages of basic research and in clinical research4 ‘Big Picture’ Accounts and the Extrapolations Underpinning Them4.1 The mosaic nature of mechanistic descriptions in basic science4.2 Challenges for mechanistic-similarity-based validation protocols5 Retrospective Testing of Extrapolated Knowledge5.1 Holistic confirmation5.2 Fallback strategies6 Conclusions. (shrink)

According to the hypothesis-generator account, valid extrapolations from a source to a target system are circular, since they rely on knowledge of relevant similarities and differences that can onl...

In recent years, a new dispute has risen to prominence: the dispute between realists and anti-realists about causal powers. Albeit sometimes overlooked, the meta-ontological features of this “question of realism for powers” are quite peculiar. For friends and foes of causal powers have characterized their contrasting views in a variety of different ways; as existence claims, as semantic or truth-making claims, as fundamentality claims, as claims about the nature of certain properties. Not only does this multiplicity of interpretations make it (...) unclear what the genuine bone of contention is, if there is one; some of them appear to be mutually exclusive. Some light can be shed on this apparent yet widespread confusion by distinguishing three degrees of ontological involvement in dispositional truths; viz., three ways, of increasing robustness, to read ontological commitments from dispositional truths. Relatedly, by exploring the literature, and focusing on some selected examples of power realism and anti-realism, we can observe that power realists vastly disagree over the intrinsic nature ad make-up of dispositional properties. Such examples furthermore invite the thought that the question of realism for powers is best understood not as the debate around the existence of properties with a distinctive identity, but rather as a debate about metaphysical hierarchy. Finally, some anti-realists positions are indistinguishable from realist ones, using merely intensional resources: power realism is best appreciated by going hyperintensional. (shrink)

The historical variation of scientific knowledge has lent itself to the development of historical epistemology, which attempts to historicize the origin and establishment of knowledge claims. The questions I address in this paper revolve around the historicity of the objects of those claims: How and why do new scientific objects appear? What exactly comes into being in such cases? Do scientific objects evolve over time and in what ways? I put forward and defend two theses: First, the ontology of science (...) is so rich and variegated that there are no universally valid answers to these questions. Second, we need a pluralist account of scientific objects, a pluralist metaphysics that can do justice to their rich diversity and their various modes of being and becoming. I then focus on hidden objects, which are supposed to be part of the permanent furniture of the universe, and I discuss their birth and historicity: They emerge when various phenomena coalesce as manifestations of a single hidden cause and their representations change over time. Finally, I examine the conditions under which an evolving representation may still refer to the same object and I illustrate my argument drawing upon the early history of electrons. (shrink)

In this chapter I investigate the prospects of integrated history and philosophy of science, by examining how philosophical issues raised by “hidden entities”, entities that are not accessible to unmediated observation, can enrich the historical investigation of their careers. Conversely, I suggest that the history of those entities has important lessons to teach to the philosophy of science. Hidden entities have played a crucial role in the development of the natural sciences. Despite their centrality to past scientific practice, however, several (...) of them (e.g., phlogiston, caloric, and the ether) turned out to be fictitious. For this reason, they have figured prominently in recent debates on scientific realism. The issues I explore in this paper are entangled with those debates. I argue that our understanding of hidden entities and their role in experimental practice can be enhanced by adopting an integrated historical-cum-philosophical approach. On the one hand, philosophical reflection on the reality of those entities has a lot to gain by examining historically how they were ntroduced and investigated. On the other hand, the historical reconstruction of the careers of those entities may profit from philosophical reflection on their existence. (shrink)

This paper addresses the methodological problem of analysing what it is to explain observed behaviours of engineered computing systems, focusing on the crucial role that abstraction and idealization play in explanations of both correct and incorrect BECS. First, it is argued that an understanding of explanatory requests about observed miscomputations crucially involves reference to the rich background afforded by hierarchies of functional specifications. Second, many explanations concerning incorrect BECS are found to abstract away from descriptions of physical components and processes (...) of computing systems that one finds below the logic circuit and gate layer of functional specification hierarchies. Third, model-based explanations of both correct and incorrect BECS that are provided in the framework of formal verification methods often involve idealizations. Moreover, a distinction between restrictive and permissive idealizations is introduced and their roles in BECS explanations are analysed. (shrink)

Questions concerning the epistemological status of computer science are, in this paper, answered from the point of view of the formal verification framework. State space reduction techniques adopted to simplify computational models in model checking are analysed in terms of Aristotelian abstractions and Galilean idealizations characterizing the inquiry of empirical systems. Methodological considerations drawn here are employed to argue in favour of the scientific understanding of computer science as a discipline. Specifically, reduced models gained by Dataion are acknowledged as Aristotelian (...) abstractions that include only data which are sufficient to examine the interested executions. The present study highlights how the need to maximize incompatible properties is at the basis of both Abstraction Refinement, the process of generating a cascade of computational models to achieve a balance between simplicity and informativeness, and the Multiple Model Idealization approach in biology. Finally, fairness constraints, imposed to computational models to allow fair behaviours only, are defined as ceteris paribus conditions under which temporal formulas, formalizing software requirements, acquire the status of law-like statements about the software systems executions. (shrink)

In the recent literature on causal and non-causal scientific explanations, there is an intuitive assumption according to which an explanation is non-causal by virtue of being abstract. In this context, to be ‘abstract’ means that the explanans in question leaves out many or almost all causal microphysical details of the target system. After motivating this assumption, we argue that the abstractness assumption, in placing the abstract and the causal character of an explanation in tension, is misguided in ways that are (...) independent of which view of causation or causal explanation one takes to be most accurate. On major accounts of causation, as well as on major accounts of causal explanation, the abstractness of an explanation is not sufficient for it being non-causal. That is, explanations are not non-causal by dint of being abstract. (shrink)

Numerous articles in top IS journals note as a limitation and lack of generalizability that their findings are specific to a certain type of technology, culture, and so on. We argue that this generalizability concern is about limited scope. The IS literature notes this preference for generalizability as a characteristic of good science and it is sometimes confused with statistical generalizability. We argue that such generalizability can be in conflict with explanation or prediction accuracy. An increase in scope can decrease (...) explanation or prediction accuracy. Thus, in sciences such as cancer research, where explanation and prediction accuracy are highly valued, the cancer accounts have become increasingly narrower. IS thinking has not yet benefitted from these considerations. Whether generalizability is valued should be linked with the research aims. If the aim is practical applicability through explanation or prediction accuracy, then “limited” generalizability could be a strength rather than a weakness. (shrink)

To succeed, political science usually requires either prediction or contextual historical work. Both of these methods favor explanations that are narrow-scope, applying to only one or a few cases. Because of the difficulty of prediction, the main focus of political science should often be contextual historical work. These epistemological conclusions follow from the ubiquity of causal fragility, under-determination, and noise. They tell against several practices that are widespread in the discipline: wide-scope retrospective testing, such as much large-n statistical work; lack (...) of emphasis on prediction; and resources devoted to ‘pure theory’ divorced from frequent empirical application. I illustrate, via Donatella della Porta’s work on political violence, the important role that is still left for theory. I conclude by assessing the scope for political science to offer policy advice. (shrink)

There is good reason to believe that scientific realism requires a commitment to the objective modal structure of the physical world. Causality, equilibrium, laws of nature, and probability all feature prominently in scientific theory and explanation, and each one is a modal notion. If we are committed to the content of our best scientific theories, we must accept the modal nature of the physical world. But what does the scientific realist’s commitment to physical modality require? We consider whether scientific realism (...) is compatible with Humeanism about the laws of nature, and we conclude that it is not. We specifically identify three major problems for the best-systems account of lawhood: its central concept of strength cannot be formulated non-circularly, it cannot offer a satisfactory account of the laws of the special sciences, and it can offer no explanation of the success of inductive inference. In addition, Humeanism fails to be naturalistically motivated. For these reasons, we conclude that the scientific realist must embrace natural necessity. (shrink)

We offer a review of some of the most influential views on the status of Reichenbach’s Principle of the Common Cause (RPCC) for genuinely indeterministic systems. We first argue that the RPCC is properly a conjunction of two distinct claims, one metaphysical and another methodological. Both claims can and have been contested in the literature, but here we simply assume that the metaphysical claim is correct, in order to focus our analysis on the status of the methodological claim. We briefly (...) review the most entrenched or classical positions, including Salmon’s ‘interactive forks’, van Fraassen’s scepticism, and Cartwright’s generalisation of the fork criterion. We then go on to review the results of the ‘Budapest school’ on the existence of formally defined screening­ off events for any correlation —by means of the ideas of probability space extensibility and (Reichenbachian common cause) completability. We distinguish the Budapest doctrine clearly from any of the classical conceptions, and thus present an overall framework for discussions of causal inference in quantum mechanics. We argue that this review is preliminary essential work for a thorough assessment of the conditions under which RCCP may be a reliable tool for causal inference in a genuinely probabilistic (indeterministic) context. (shrink)

The use of multiple means of determination to “triangulate” on the existence and character of a common phenomenon, object, or result has had a long tradition in science but has seldom been a matter of primary focus. As with many traditions, it is traceable to Aristotle, who valued having multiple explanations of a phenomenon, and it may also be involved in his distinction between special objects of sense and common sensibles. It is implicit though not emphasized in the distinction between (...) primary and secondary qualities from Galileo onward. It is arguably one of several conceptions involved in Whewell’s method of the “consilience of inductions” (Laudan 1971) and is to be found in several places in Peirce. (From M. Brewer and B. Collins, eds., (1981); Scientific Inquiry in the Social Sciences (a festschrift for Donald T. Campbell), San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp. 123–162.). (shrink)

Policymakers who seek to make scientifically informed decisions are constantly confronted by scientific uncertainty and expert disagreement. This thesis asks: how can policymakers rationally respond to expert disagreement and scientific uncertainty? This is a work of non-ideal theory, which applies formal philosophical tools developed by ideal theorists to more realistic cases of policymaking under scientific uncertainty. I start with Bayesian approaches to expert testimony and the problem of expert disagreement, arguing that two popular approaches— supra-Bayesianism and the standard model of (...) expert deference—are insufficient. I develop a novel model of expert deference and show how it can deal with many of these problems raised for them. I then turn to opinion pooling, a popular method for dealing with disagreement. I show that various theoretical motivations for pooling functions are irrelevant to realistic policymaking cases. This leads to a cautious recommendation of linear pooling. However, I then show that any pooling method relies on value judgements, that are hidden in the selection of the scoring rule. My focus then narrows to a more specific case of scientific uncertainty: multiple models of the same system. I introduce a particular case study involving hurricane models developed to support insurance decision-making. I recapitulate my analysis of opinion pooling in the context of model ensembles, confirming that my hesitations apply. This motivates a shift of perspective, to viewing the problem as a decision theoretic one. I rework a recently developed ambiguity theory, called the confidence approach, to take input from model ensembles. I show how it facilitates the resolution of the policymaker’s problem in a way that avoids the issues encountered in previous chapters. This concludes my main study of the problem of expert disagreement. In the final chapter, I turn to methodological reflection. I argue that philosophers who employ the mathematical methods of the prior chapters are modelling. Employing results from the philosophy of scientific models, I develop the theory of normative modelling. I argue that it has important methodological conclusions for the practice of formal epistemology, ruling out popular moves such as searching for counterexamples. (shrink)

Cicero's De fato: On Hellenistic Conditionals and Free Will. The Serbo-Croatian translation of Cicero's De fato, with comments and detailed analysis of some arguments and problems of the text. -/- (s/h): Tekst Ciceronovog spisa "de fato", prevod, komentari i u dodacima, detaljnija analiza pojedinih argumenata i problema sadržanih u tekstu.

Analyzing causation in terms of Woodward's interventionist theory and describing the structure of the world in terms of causal powers are usually regarded as quite different projects in contemporary philosophy. Interventionists aim to give an account of how causal relations can be empirically discovered and described, without committing themselves to views about what causation really is. Causal powers theorists engage in precisely the latter project, aiming to describe the metaphysical structure of the world. In this paper, I argue that interventionism (...) can benefit from incorporating considerations about causal powers. I describe a previously undiscussed problem for Woodward's definition of an intervention variable that arises when interventionist causal models include disjunctive variables. This problem is solved not by excluding disjunctive (or logically compound) variables per se, but by excluding variables whose values represent disjunctions of too different causal powers. This suggests that interventionism and causal powers theories may be less distant from each other than is often assumed. (shrink)

Powers, capacities and dispositions (in what follows I will use these terms synonymously) have become prominent in recent debates in metaphysics, philosophy of science and other areas of philosophy. In this paper I will analyse in some detail a well-known argument from scientific practice to the existence of powers/capacities/dispositions. According to this argument the practice of extrapolating scientific knowledge from one kind of situation to a different kind of situation requires a specific interpretation of laws of nature, namely as attributing (...) dispositions to systems. My main interest will be to discuss what characteristics these dispositions need to have in order to account for the scientific practice in question. I will furthermore assess whether the introduction of dispositions in the context of the extrapolation argument can be described as a ‘revitalization’ or as a ‘return’ to those notions repudiated by early modern philosophers. More particularly I will argue for the following claims: I. In repudiating scholastic terminology, including substantial forms with their causal powers, post-cartesian philosophers focussed on a concept of causation that was much stronger than 21st century conceptions of causation. For this reason alone, whatever ‘causal’ is supposed to mean in today’s causal powers, embracing causal powers is not a simple return to a pre-cartesian notion. II. The dispositions presupposed in scientific practice need not (and should not) be construed in causal terms (whether strong or weak). III. While some early modern philosophers contrasted the characterisation of the natural world in terms of substantial forms (and their causal powers) on the one hand and a mathematical characterization on the other and suggested that these approaches are incompatible, the dispositions postulated by the extrapolation argument to account for scientific practice are themselves characterized in mathematical terms. More precisely: The behaviour the systems are disposed to display is – at least in physics – often characterized in mathematical terms. IV. The dispositions assumed in the law-statements in scientific practice are determinable rather than determinate properties. (shrink)