The article discusses Friedman's classic claim that economics can be based on irrealistic assumptions. It exploits Samuelson's distinction between two "F-twists" (that is, "it is an advantage for an economic theory to use irrealistic assumptions" vs "the more irrealistic the assumptions, the better the economic theory"), as well as Nagel's distinction between three philosophy-of-science construals of the basic claim. On examination, only one of Nagel's construals seems promising enough. It involves the neo-positivistic distinction between theoretical and non-theoretical ("observable") terms; so (...) Friedman would in some sense argue for the major role of theoretical terms in economics. The paper uses a model-theoretic apparatus to refine the selected construal and check whether it can be made to support the claim. This inquiry leads to essentially negative results for both F-twists, and the final conclusion is that they are left unsupported. (shrink)

Starting with a discussion of what I call Koyré’s paradox of conceptual novelty, I introduce the ideas of Damerow et al. on the establishment of classical mechanics in Galileo’s work. I then argue that although the view of Damerow et al. on the nature of Galileo’s conceptual innovation is convincing, it misses an essential element: Galileo’s use of the experiments described in the first day of the Two New Sciences. I describe these experiments and analyze their function. Central to my (...) analysis is the idea that Galileo’s pendulum experiments serve to secure the reference of his theoretical models in actually occurring cases of free fall. In this way Galileo’s experiments constitute an essential part of the meaning of the new concepts of classical mechanics. (shrink)

All the attempts to find the justification of the privileged evolution of phenomena exclusively in the external world need to refer to the inescapable fact that we are living in such an asymmetric universe. This leads us to look for the origin of the “arrow of time” in the relationship between the subject and the world. The anthropic argument shows that the arrow of time is the condition of the possibility of emergence and maintenance of life in the universe. Moreover, (...) according to Bohr’s, Poincaré’s and Watanabe’s analysis, this agreement between the earlier-later direction of entropy increase and the past-future direction of life is the very condition of the possibility for meaningful action, representation and creation. Beyond this relationship of logical necessity between the meaning process and the arrow of time the question of their possible physical connection is explored. To answer affirmatively to this question, the meaning process is modelled as an evolving tree-like structure, called “Semantic Time”, where thermodynamic irreversibility can be shown. (shrink)

To explain the phenomena in the world of our experience, to answer the question “why?” rather than only the question “what?”, is one of the foremost objectives of all rational inquiry; and especially, scientific research in its various branches strives to go beyond a mere description of its subject matter by providing an explanation of the phenomena it investigates. While there is rather general agreement about this chief objective of science, there exists considerable difference of opinion as to the function (...) and the essential characteristics of scientific explanation. In the present essay, an attempt will be made to shed some light on these issues by means of an elementary survey of the basic pattern of scientific explanation and a subsequent more rigorous analysis of the concept of law and of the logical structure of explanatory arguments. (shrink)

Ethologists and others studying animal behavior in a spirit are in need of a descriptive language and method that are neither anachronistically bound by behaviorist scruples nor prematurely committed to particular Just such an interim descriptive method can be found in intentional system theory. The use of intentional system theory is illustrated with the case of the apparently communicative behavior of vervet monkeys. A way of using the theory to generate data - including usable, testable data - is sketched. The (...) underlying assumptions of this approach can be seen to ally it directly with theorizing in evolutionary biology, which has recently come under attack from Stephen Gould and Richard Lewontin, who castigate it as the Their arguments, which are strongly analogous to B. F, Skinner's arguments against point to certain pitfalls that attend the careless exercise of such thinking (and rival varieties of thinking as well), but do not constitute a fundamental objection to either adaptationist theorizing or its cousin, intentional system theory. (shrink)

As much as it is rooted in empirical facts, the concept of truth in natural sciences and technology has core dimensions marked by the sphere of the possible. As can be inferred from Cassirer’s symbol theory, this is, in both cultural forms, a structuring mode of their symbolic constitution and differentiation. But when the coupling of the two increases (as currently happens with the new pictorial forms of scientific prediction), it is necessary to know the major repercussions imposed on the (...) way of conceiving phenomena—among these, mainly those that concern the formation of our idea of nature. In addition to this theoretical imperative, it will be the purpose of this paper to show how Cassirer’s thought helps us to recognize and reconstruct the relationships between experimental scientific knowledge and technological mediation. Keeping this in mind, a narrow articulation of truth’s functional profile with the idea of the future that permeates both science (especially natural sciences) and technology will be conceived to see how the two symbolic forms reveal the prospective complexion of human thought and human action. (shrink)

What is mathematics about? And if it is about some sort of mathematical reality, how can we have access to it? This is the problem raised by Plato, which still today is the subject of lively philosophical disputes. This book traces the history of the problem, from its origins to its contemporary treatment. It discusses the answers given by Aristotle, Proclus and Kant, through Frege's and Russell's versions of logicism, Hilbert's formalism, Gödel's platonism, up to the the current debate on (...) Benacerraf's dilemma and the indispensability argument. Through the considerations of themes in the philosophy of language, ontology, and the philosophy of science, the book aims at offering an historically-informed introduction to the philosophy of mathematics, approached through the lenses of its most fundamental problem. (shrink)

Evolutionary psychiatry suggests that mental disorders can be explained in evolutionary terms (a) as failures of psychological mechanisms to produce the adaptive effects for which they were naturally selected, (b) as mismatches between naturally selected psychological mechanisms and contemporary environmental pressures, or (c) as naturally selected psychological mechanisms whose effects continue to be adaptive. In this paper, I present a philosophical critique of evolutionary psychiatry that draws on Subrena Smith’s matching problem for evolutionary psychology. For evolutionary psychiatry hypotheses to be (...) empirically supported, proponents of evolutionary psychiatry must demonstrate (1) that the contemporary psychological mechanisms involved in mental disorders resemble the psychological mechanisms of our evolutionary ancestors, (2) that the contemporary psychological mechanisms are phylogenetically descended from the ancestral psychological mechanisms, and (3) that the ancestral psychological mechanisms were naturally selected because their effects had adaptive benefits. However, for many mental disorders, evolutionary psychiatry lacks the methodological resources to demonstrate these conditions. Therefore, many evolutionary psychiatry hypotheses are empirically untestable and remain indefinitely underdetermined by data. (shrink)

Neurath’s scientific utopianism is the proposal that the social sciences should engage in the elaboration, development, and comparison of counterfactual scenarios, the ‘utopias’. Such scenarios can be understood as centerpieces of scientific thought experiments, that is, in exercises of imagination that not only promote conceptual revision, but also stimulate creativity to deal with experienced problems, as utopias are efforts to imagine what the future could look like. Moreover, utopian thought experiments can offer scientific knowledge to inform political debates and decisions, (...) contributing to the shaping of society. This essay reconstructs a historical event as an example of Neurath’s utopianist methodology. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a scientific and political commission appointed by the Western German Parliament devised and compared four scenarios for future energetic-economic policies. Conclusions of the commission informed political decisions that put Western (later reunified) Germany in a route towards becoming a green industrial power. A fundamental part of the commission’s work involved an appeal to imagination, allowing for the characterization under Neurath’s methodology. (shrink)

In his book Modal Logic as Metaphysics, Timothy Williamson defends first-order necessitism using simplicity as a powerful argument. However, simplicity is decomposed into two different, even antagonistic, sides: elegance and parsimony. On the one hand, elegance is the property of theories possessing few and simple principles that allow them to deploy all their theoretical power; on the other hand, parsimony is the property of theories having the fair and necessary number of ontological entities that allow such theories give an account (...) of themselves. Since necessitism endorses Barcan Formulae for the sake of elegance, it is committed to a vast number of contingently non-concrete objects, so one may think that it is not qualitatively parsimonious. I argue that necessitism could be viewed as an additive case in the sense that Alan Baker characterizes the adjective so quantitative parsimony should be considered when it comes to necessitism instead of qualitative parsimony. (shrink)

It is widely believed that if a piece of evidence for a theory was known at the time the theory was proposed, then it does not confirm the theory as strongly as it would if the evidence had been discovered after the theory was proposed. I shall call this view the predictivist thesis. Those who have endorsed it include Leibniz (1678), Huygens (1690, preface), Whewell (1847 vol. 2, p. 64f.), Peirce (1883), Duhem (1914, ch. II, §5), Popper (1965, p. 241f.), (...) Lakatos (1970, p. 123), and Kuhn (1977, p. 322). On the other hand, the thesis has been rejected by a number of philosophers, including Mill (1872 bk. III, ch. 14, §6), Keynes (1921, p. 305), Rosenkrantz (1977, p. 169f.), Horwich (1982, pp. 108-117) and Schlesinger (1987). Others, while not rejecting the predictivist thesis, nevertheless regard the justification of the thesis as problematic; these include Hempel (1966, p. 38) and Gardner (1982). (shrink)

Otto Neurath’s empiricist methodology of economics and his contributions to political economy have gained increasing attention in recent years. We connect this research with contemporary debates regarding the epistemological status of thought experiments by reconstructing Neurath’s utopias as linchpins of thought experiments. In our three reconstructed examples of different uses of utopias/dystopias in thought experiments we employ a reformulation of Häggqvist’s model for thought experiments and we argue that: (1) Our reformulation of Häggqvist’s model more adequately complies with many uses (...) of thought experiments, especially with the open-ended discussions of utopias and dystopias in thought experiments. (2) As a strict logical empiricist, Neurath is committed to a strictly empiricist account of thought experiments. John Norton’s empiricist argument view can indeed account for the justifications of empirical beliefs and genuine discoveries targeted by scientific utopianism in three distinct (yet connected) ways, all of which Neurath already contemplated: (2.I) Dealing with utopias and thought experiments on a regular basis increases creativity and inventiveness. (2.II) Particular ways of presenting knowledge facilitate scientific discovery and social progress. (2.III) The use of utopias in thought experiments can prompt conceptual change and allow access to new phenomena. We conclude by highlighting that, even though thought experiments support a positive attitude for exploring new social possibilities, Neurath points out that active decisions are unavoidable. The exploration of alternatives and the awareness of a need for decisions in policy discussion avert a technocratic outlook in social science. (shrink)

Otto Neurath’s empiricist methodology of economics and his contributions to politi- cal economy have gained increasing attention in recent years. We connect this research with contemporary debates regarding the epistemological status of thought experiments by reconstructing Neurath’s utopias as linchpins of thought experiments. In our three reconstructed examples of different uses of utopias/dystopias in thought experiments we employ a reformulation of Häggqvist’s model for thought experiments and we argue that: (1) Our reformulation of Häggqvist’s model more adequately complies with many (...) uses of thought experiments, especially with the open-ended discussions of utopias and dys- topias in thought experiments. (2) As a strict logical empiricist, Neurath is committed to a strictly empiricist account of thought experiments. John Norton’s empiricist argument view can indeed account for the justifications of empirical beliefs and genuine discoveries targeted by scientific utopianism in three distinct (yet connected) ways, all of which Neur- ath already contemplated: (2.I) Dealing with utopias and thought experiments on a regular basis increases creativity and inventiveness. (2.II) Particular ways of presenting knowl- edge facilitate scientific discovery and social progress. (2.III) The use of utopias in thought experiments can prompt conceptual change and allow access to new phenomena. We con- clude by highlighting that, even though thought experiments support a positive attitude for exploring new social possibilities, Neurath points out that active decisions are unavoidable. The exploration of alternatives and the awareness of a need for decisions in policy discus- sion avert a technocratic outlook in social science. (shrink)

This paper summarises the contributions to our Topical Collection on indeterminacy and underdetermination. The collection includes papers in ethics, metaethics, logic, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of science, philosophy of language and philosophy of computation.

Good physical experiments conform to the basic methodological standards of experimental design: they are objective, reliable, and valid. But is this also true of thought experiments? Especially problems of personal identity have engendered hypothetical scenarios that are very distant from the actual world. These imagined situations have been conspicuously ineffective at resolving conflicting intuitions and deciding between the different accounts of personal identity. Using prominent examples from the literature, I argue that this is due to many of these thought experiments (...) not adhering to the methodological standards that guide experimental design in nearly all other disciplines. I also show how empirically unwarranted background assumptions about human physiology render some of the hypothetical scenarios that are employed in the debate about personal identity highly misleading. (shrink)

The model of a closed linear measure space, which can be used to model Aristotle’s treatment of motion (kinesis), can be analogically extended to the qualitative ‘spaces’ implied by his theory of contraries in Physics I and in Metaphysics Iota, and to the dimensionless ‘space’ of the unity of matter and form discussed in book Eta of the Metaphysics. By examining Aristotle’s remarks on contraries, the subject of change, continuity, and the unity of matter and form, Aristotle’s thoughts on motion, (...) on contraries, and on the unity of substance can be brought together under a single interpretive framework, which can provide an approach to interpreting his ontology. (shrink)

On a now orthodox view, humans and many other animals possess a “number sense,” or approximate number system, that represents number. Recently, this orthodox view has been subject to numerous critiques that question whether the ANS genuinely represents number. We distinguish three lines of critique – the arguments from congruency, confounds, and imprecision – and show that none succeed. We then provide positive reasons to think that the ANS genuinely represents numbers, and not just non-numerical confounds or exotic substitutes for (...) number, such as “numerosities” or “quanticals,” as critics propose. In so doing, we raise a neglected question: numbers of what kind? Proponents of the orthodox view have been remarkably coy on this issue. But this is unsatisfactory since the predictions of the orthodox view, including the situations in which the ANS is expected to succeed or fail, turn on the kind of number being represented. In response, we propose that the ANS represents not only natural numbers, but also non-natural rational numbers. It does not represent irrational numbers, however, and thereby fails to represent the real numbers more generally. This distances our proposal from existing conjectures, refines our understanding of the ANS, and paves the way for future research. (shrink)

When does a human being cease to exist? For millennia, the answer to this question had remained largely unchanged: death had been diagnosed when heartbeat and breathing were permanently absent. Only comparatively recently, in the 1950s, rapid developments in intensive-care medicine called into question this widely accepted criterion. What had previously been deemed a permanent cessation of vital functions suddenly became reversible. -/- A new criterion of death was needed. It was suggested that the destruction of the brain could indicate (...) the death of the organism in the presence of external life support. Soon the so-called brain death became the new worldwide standard. In recent years, however, doubts about this neurological criterion have been growing. Is brain death really our death? -/- This is the question that this thesis seeks to answer. To this end, we shall connect the medical debate about the definition of death to the philosophical debate about personal identity. While we will find that the destruction of its brain does in fact not correspond to an organism’s death, we shall also ask whether the assumption that we are essentially organisms is correct. May brain death be the ceasing to exist of a different entity? -/- Substituting clinical case reports and considerations about human physiology for the use of thought experiments, the thesis takes a novel and philosophically unconventional approach to the problem of what we essentially are. We shall analyse various pathological conditions and their respective effects on the bodily and mental characteristics of our existence. We will conclude that brain death is indeed our death – but for reasons entirely different from those cited in the original justification of this criterion. (shrink)

Three metascientific concepts that have been object of philosophical analysis are the concepts oflaw, model and theory. The aim ofthis article is to present the explication of these concepts, and of their relationships, made within the framework of Sneedean or Metatheoretical Structuralism (Balzer et al. 1987), and of their application to a case from the realm of biology: Population Dynamics. The analysis carried out will make it possible to support, contrary to what some philosophers of science in general and of (...) biology in particular hold, the following claims: a) there are "laws" in biological sciences, b) many of the heterogeneous and different "models" of biology can be accommodated under some "theory", and c) this is exactly what confers great unifying power to biological theories. (shrink)

Two metascientific concepts that have been ― and still are ― object of philosophical analysis are the concepts of model and theory. But while the concept of scientific theory was one of the concepts to which philosophers of science devoted most attention during the 20th century, it is only in recent decades that the concept of scientific model has come to occupy a central position in philosophical reflection. However, it has done so in such a way that, at present, as (...) Jim Bogen states in the back cover of the book Scientific Models in the Philosophy of Science, by Daniela Bailer-Jones, “[t]he standard philosophical literature on the role of models in scientific reasoning is voluminous, disorganized, and confusing”. In spite of this, one of the axes that would allow us to organize at least part of this literature, and with which Bailer-Jones’ book closes, is that which is identified as one of the “contemporary philosophical issues: how theories and models relate to each other” (Bailer-Jones 2009, p. 208).That is why, in this introduction to the special issues of Metatheoria devoted to the topic of “Models and Theories in Biology”, we will present the main advances that have been made in the philosophical analysis of the concepts of model and theory in general and in biology in particular, and we will also do the same with the answers that have been given to the problem of "how theories and models relate to each other”. (shrink)

In this book, we interpret post-truth as a multifaceted phenomenon which involves fake news, emotion-driven rhetoric (vs fact-driven discussion), credulism in the social-media, conspiracy theories and scientific denialism. We develop three models intended to represent the multifaceted nature of post-truth in terms of deviated forms of enquiry – which we label “post-enquiries”. The first form of post-enquiry posits the existence of alternative facts; the second prioritizes emotions over facts; the third limits the scope of the norms of enquiry. We elaborate (...) on the third model in relation to scientific denialism and we apply it to analyse the case of flat-earthism. (shrink)

On a now orthodox view, humans and many other animals are endowed with a “number sense”, or approximate number system (ANS), that represents number. Recently, this orthodox view has been subject to numerous critiques, with critics maintaining either that numerical content is absent altogether, or else that some primitive analog of number (‘numerosity’) is represented as opposed to number itself. We distinguish three arguments for these claims – the arguments from congruency, confounds, and imprecision – and show that none succeed. (...) We then highlight positive reasons for thinking that the ANS genuinely represents numbers. The upshot is that proponents of the orthodox view should not feel troubled by recent critiques of their position. (shrink)

Abstract : A measurement result is never absolutely accurate: it is affected by an unknown “measurement error” which characterizes the discrepancy between the obtained value and the “true value” of the quantity intended to be measured. As a consequence, to be acceptable a measurement result cannot take the form of a unique numerical value, but has to be accompanied by an indication of its “measurement uncertainty”, which enunciates a state of doubt. What, though, is the value of measurement uncertainty? What (...) is its numerical value: how does one calculate it? What is its epistemic value: how one should interpret a measurement result? Firstly, we describe the statistical models that scientists make use of in contemporary metrology to perform an uncertainty analysis, and we show that the issue of the interpretation of probabilities is vigorously debated. This debate brings out epistemological issues about the nature and function of physical measurements, metrologists insisting in particular on the subjective aspect of measurement. Secondly, we examine the philosophical elaboration of metrologists in their technical works, where they criticize the use of the notion of “true value” of a physical quantity. We then challenge this elaboration and defend such a notion. The third part turns to a specific use of measurement uncertainty in order to address our thematic from the perspective of precision physics, considering the activity of the adjustments of physical constants. In the course of this activity, physicists have developed a dynamic conception of the accuracy of their measurement results, oriented towards a future progress of knowledge, and underlining the epistemic virtues of a never-ending process of identification and correction of measurement errors. (shrink)

Evoluția testelor gravitaționale dintr-o perspectivă epistemologică încadrată în conceputul de reconstrucție rațională al lui Imre Lakatos, pe baza metodologiei acestuia a programelor de cercetare. Perioada evaluată este foarte vastă, începând cu filosofia naturală a lui Newton și până la teoriile gravitației cuantice din zilele noastre. Pentru a explica mai rațional evoluția complexă a conceptului de gravitație din ultimul secol, propun o extindere naturală a metodologiei programelor de cercetare pe care o folosesc apoi pe parcursul lucrării. Consider că această abordare oferă (...) o nouă perspectivă asupra modului în care au evaluat în timp conceptul de gravitație și metodele de testare a fiecărei teorii a gravitației, prin observații și experimente. Argumentez, pe baza metodologiei programelor de cercetare și a studiilor oamenilor de știință și filosofilor, că actualele teorii ale gravitației cuantice sunt degenerative, datorită lipsei dovezilor experimentale pe o perioadă îndelungată de timp și a auto-imunizării împotriva posibilității falsificării. Mai mult, în prezent este în curs de dezvoltare un curent metodologic care atribuie un rol secundar, neimportant, verificărilor prin observații și/sau experimente. Din această cauză, nu va fi posibilă o teorie completă a gravitației cuantice în forma actuală care să includă la limită relativitatea generală, întrucât teoriile fizice au fost dintotdeauna ajustate, în decursul evoluției lor, pe baza testelor observaționale sau experimentale, și verificate prin predicțiile făcute. De asemenea, contrar unei opinii răspândite și a unor programe active actuale privind unificarea tuturor forțelor fundamentale ale fizicii într-o singură teorie finală, pe baza teoriei corzilor, argumentez că este puțin probabil în general să se realizeze această unificare, și nu este posibil oricum ca unificarea să se elaboreze pe baza teoriilor actuale ale gravitației cuantice, inclusiv prin teoria corzilor. În plus, susțin punctele de vedere ale unor oameni de știință și filosofi că în prezent se consumă mult prea multe resurse pe ideea dezvoltării teoriilor gravitației cuantice, și în special teoria corzilor, care să includă relativitatea generală și să unifice gravitația cu celelalte forțe, în condițiile în care știința nu impune astfel de programe de cercetare. -/- DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.14582.75842 . (shrink)

Verificationism has had a bad press for many years. The view that the meaning of our words is bound up with the discernible difference it would make if what we say, think or write were true or false, nowadays is scorned as “positivist” though it was shared by eminent empiricists and pragmatists. This paper seeks to sort through some of the complexities of what is often portrayed as an unduly simplistic conception. I begin with an overview of its main logical (...) empiricist varieties before considering which aspects of it fall victim to which of the three major types of objection that have been raised against it. I will conclude that what is left standing is a modest proposal that seems worth further investigation. (shrink)

In a recent paper Samir Okasha has suggested an application of Arrow’s impossibility theorem to theory choice. When epistemic virtues are interpreted as ‘voters’ in charge of ranking competing theories, and there are more than two theories at stake, the final ordering is bound to coincide with the one proposed by one of the voters, provided a number of seemingly reasonable conditions are in place. In a similar spirit, Jacob Stegenga has shown that Arrow’s theorem applies to the amalgamation of (...) evidence; the ‘voters’ here are the different sources of evidence. As with Okasha’s proposal, it is not clear how to avoid Arrow’s pessimistic conclusion.In this paper we develop a novel argument that purports to show that, in typical examples, Arrow’s result does not obtain when dealing with evidence amalgamation. The reason is that we cannot escape the well-known Duhem problem: the evidence actually confirms complex conjunctions that include various auxiliary hypotheses. We argue that confirmational holism induces us to restrict the domain of a reasonable amalgamation function, thus violating one of Arrow’s conditions. The upshot is that we are now able to see the Duhem problem under a different, positive light – namely, as a phenomenon that makes the aggregation of the evidence possible in the first place, when there are at least three options on the table. (shrink)

The empirical underdetermination of theories is a philosophical problem which until the last century has not seriously troubled actual science. The reason is that confirmation does not depend only on empirical consequences, and theoretical virtues allow to choose among empirically equivalent theories. Moreover, I argue that the theories selected in this way are not just pragmatically or aesthetically better, but more probably true. At present in quantum mechanics not even theoretical virtues allow to choose among many competing theories and interpretations, (...) but this is because none of them possess those virtues to a sufficient degree. However, first, we can hope for some future advancement. Second, even if no further progress came forth, all the most credited competitors agree on a substantial core of theoretical assumptions. Therefore underdetermination does not show that we cannot be realist on unobservable entities in general, but at most that in particular fields our inquiry may encounter some de facto limits. (shrink)

Paul Feyerabend once made a remark to the effect that his pragmatic theory of observation can be traced back to proposals put forward by leading Logical Empiricists during the height of the protocol sentence debate. In this paper I want to vindicate the systematic side of Feyerabend’s remark and show that a pragmatic theory of observation can in fact be found in Rudolf Carnap’s writings of 1932. I first proceed to dispel a misunderstanding concerning the term “pragmatic” raised by Thomas (...) Oberdan. Following Morris’ and Carnap’s documented usage, I show that the intended meaning of “pragmatic” refers to a specific semiotic relation between users of a language and their environment describable by empirical means. I reconstruct such a pragmatic theory in terms of a detector model that interprets observation sentences as bodily dispositions indicating physical events in the surroundings of the detector. I then proceed to show how Feyerabend’s later theory of observation picks up central features of Carnap’s account and also shares some of the motivations. I conclude by noting how an empirical theory of observation sentences offers a bootstrapping solution to the “basis problem”. (shrink)

During the past few decades, a radical shift has occurred in how philosophers conceive of the relation between science and philosophy. A great number of analytic philosophers have adopted what is commonly called a ‘naturalistic’ approach, arguing that their inquiries ought to be in some sense continuous with science. Where early analytic philosophers often relied on a sharp distinction between science and philosophy—the former an empirical discipline concerned with fact, the latter an a priori discipline concerned with meaning—philosophers today largely (...) follow Willard Van Orman Quine (1908-2000) in his seminal rejection of this distinction. -/- This book offers a comprehensive study of Quine’s naturalism. Building on Quine’s published corpus as well as thousands of unpublished letters, notes, lectures, papers, proposals, and annotations from the Quine archives, this book aims to reconstruct both the nature (chapters 2-4) and the development (chapter 5-7) of his naturalism. As such, this book aims to contribute to the rapidly developing historiography of analytic philosophy, and to provide a better, historically informed, understanding of what is philosophically at stake in the contemporary naturalistic turn. (shrink)

What is the pragmatic maxim? The aim here is to present in an elementary and intuitive way what the pragmatic maxim was originally intended to convey, at least in Peirce’s earliest statements, and to briefly discuss some of the consequences of this maxim for philosophical method.

This paper is intended to link the notion of bon sens with the Greek notion of noûs, that exposes the role played by the first notion in the thought of Pierre Duhem and explains the concept of noûs in the thought of Aristotle. Later, it attempts to carry out the explanation of the link that can have both notions.

The rejection of the idea that the so‐called Duhem‐Quine thesis in fact expresses a thesis upheld by either Duhem or Quine invites a more detailed comparison of their views. It is suggested that the arguments of each have a certain impact on the positions maintained by the other. In particular, Quine's development of his notion of ontological commitment is enlisted in the interpretation of Duhem's position. It is argued that this counts against the instrumentalist construal usually put on what Duhem (...) says about approximation and historical continuity. (shrink)

I argue that some important elements of the current cosmological model are 'conventionalist’ in the sense defined by Karl Popper. These elements include dark matter and dark energy; both are auxiliary hypotheses that were invoked in response to observations that falsified the standard model as it existed at the time.

Quine is routinely perceived as having changed his mind about the scope of the Duhem-Quine thesis, shifting from what has been called an 'extreme holism' to a more moderate view. Where the Quine of 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism' argues that “the unit of empirical significance is the whole of science” (1951, 42), the later Quine seems to back away from this “needlessly strong statement of holism” (1991, 393). In this paper, I show that the received view is incorrect. I distinguish (...) three ways in which Quine's early holism can be said to be wide-scoped and show that he has never changed his mind about any one of these aspects of his early view. Instead, I argue that Quine's apparent change of mind can be explained away as a mere shift of emphasis. (shrink)

State of the art paper on the topic realism/anti-realism. The first part of the paper elucidates the notions of existence and independence of the metaphysical characterization of the realism/anti-realism dispute. The second part of the paper presents a critical taxonomy of the most important positions and doctrines in the contemporary literature on the domains of science and mathematics: scientific realism, scientific anti-realism, constructive empiricism, structural realism, mathematical Platonism, mathematical indispensability, mathematical empiricism, intuitionism, mathematical fictionalism and second philosophy.

I argue for the Wittgensteinian thesis that mathematical statements are expressions of norms, rather than descriptions of the world. An expression of a norm is a statement like a promise or a New Year's resolution, which says that someone is committed or entitled to a certain line of action. A expression of a norm is not a mere description of a regularity of human behavior, nor is it merely a descriptive statement which happens to entail a norms. The view can (...) be thought of as a sort of logicism for the logical expressivist---a person who believes that the purpose of logical language is to make explicit commitments and entitlements that are implicit in ordinary practice. The thesis that mathematical statements are expression of norms is a kind of logicism, not because it says that mathematics can be reduced to logic, but because it says that mathematical statements play the same role as logical statements. ;I contrast my position with two sets of views, an empiricist view, which says that mathematical knowledge is acquired and justified through experience, and a cluster of nativist and apriorist views, which say that mathematical knowledge is either hardwired into the human brain, or justified a priori, or both. To develop the empiricist view, I look at the work of Kitcher and Mill, arguing that although their ideas can withstand the criticisms brought against empiricism by Frege and others, they cannot reply to a version of the critique brought by Wittgenstein in the Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics. To develop the nativist and apriorist views, I look at the work of contemporary developmental psychologists, like Gelman and Gallistel and Karen Wynn, as well as the work of philosophers who advocate the existence of a mathematical intuition, such as Kant, Husserl, and Parsons. After clarifying the definitions of "innate" and "a priori," I argue that the mechanisms proposed by the nativists cannot bring knowledge, and the existence of the mechanisms proposed by the apriorists is not supported by the arguments they give. (shrink)

It is widely believed that the development of the general theory of relativity coincided with a shift in Einstein’s philosophy of science from a kind of Machian positivism to a form of scientific realism. This article criticizes that view, arguing that a kind of realism was present from the start but that Einstein was skeptical all along about some of the bolder metaphysical and epistemological claims made on behalf of what we now would call scientific realism. If we read Einstein’s (...) philosophy of science in its proper late nineteenth-and early twentieth-century philosophical context, we find that a kind of Duhemian under determinationist holism and conventionalism was more important to Einstein than either positivism or realism. And, reading his philosophy of science in its proper scientific. (shrink)

This essay offers an interpretation and partial defense of Nietzsche's idea that moralities and moral judgments are “sign-languages” or “symptoms” of our affects, that is, of our emotions or feelings. According to Nietzsche, as I reconstruct his view, moral judgments result from the interaction of two kinds of affective responses: first, a “basic affect” of inclination toward or aversion from certain acts, and then a further affective response to that basic affect. I argue that Nietzsche views basic affects asnoncognitive, that (...) is, as identifiable solely by how they feel to the subject who experiences the affect. By contrast, I suggest that meta-affects sometimes incorporate acognitivecomponent like belief. After showing how this account of moral judgment comports with a reading of Nietzsche's moral philosophy that I have offered in previous work, I conclude by adducing philosophical and empirical psychological reasons for thinking that Nietzsche's account of moral judgment is correct. (shrink)

It is often claimed that the debate between presentism and eternalism is merely verbal, because when we use tensed, detensed or tenseless notions of existence, there is no difference in the accepted metaphysical statements between the adherents of both views. On the contrary, it is shown in this paper that when we express their positions making use, in accordance with intentions of the presentists and the eternalists, of the tensed notion of existence (in the case of the presentists) and the (...) detensed or tenseless notion (in the case of the eternalists), the controversy remains deep and very important for us, because both ontological claims express a different attitude to the existence of the flow of time. It is shown that not only does the proposed approach to presentism and eternalism exactly express the intentions of the adherents of both views but it also offers a better understanding of them joining together seemingly different theses maintained by the presentists and the eternalists, and explaining at the same time the dynamism of the presentists' ontology. The paper takes for granted that we should assess metaphysical theories in a similar way as we assess scientific theories, that is on the basis of their explanatory value. (shrink)

Taken at face value, a programming language is defined by a formal grammar. But, clearly, there is more to it. By themselves, the naked strings of the language do not determine when a program is correct relative to some specification. For this, the constructs of the language must be given some semantic content. Moreover, to be employed to generate physical computations, a programming language must have a physical implementation. How are we to conceptualize this complex package? Ontologically, what kind of (...) thing is it? In this paper, we shall argue that an appropriate conceptualization is furnished by the notion of a technical artifact. (shrink)

Hypothetico-deductive (H-D) confirmation builds on the idea that confirming evidence consists of successful predictions that deductively follow from the hypothesis under test. This article reviews scope, history and recent development of the venerable H-D account: First, we motivate the approach and clarify its relationship to Bayesian confirmation theory. Second, we explain and discuss the tacking paradoxes which exploit the fact that H-D confirmation gives no account of evidential relevance. Third, we review several recent proposals that aim at a sounder and (...) more comprehensive formulation of H-D confirmation. Finally, we conclude that the reputation of hypothetico-deductive confirmation as outdated and hopeless is undeserved: not only can the technical problems be addressed satisfactorily, the hypothetico-deductive method is also highly relevant for scientific practice. (shrink)

I offer an account of how the quantum theory we have helps us explain so much. The account depends on a pragmatist interpretation of the theory: this takes a quantum state to serve as a source of sound advice to physically situated agents on the content and appropriate degree of belief about matters concerning which they are currently inevitably ignorant. The general account of how to use quantum states and probabilities to explain otherwise puzzling regularities is then illustrated by showing (...) how we can explain single-particle interference phenomena, the stability of matter, and interference of Bose–Einstein condensates. Finally, I note some open problems and relate this account to alternative approaches to explanation that emphasize the importance of causation, of unification, and of structure. 1 Introduction2 Two Requirements on Explanations in Physics3 What We Can use Quantum Theory to Explain4 The Function of Quantum States and Born Probabilities5 How These Functions Contribute to the Explanatory Task6 Example One: Single-Particle Interference7 Example Two: Explanation of the Stability of Matter8 Example Three: Bose Condensation9 Conclusion. (shrink)

In this article, I analyze Quine’s conception of science, which is a radical defence of extensionalism on the grounds that first‐order logic is the most adequate logic for science. I examine some criticisms addressed to it, which show the role of modalities and probabilities in science and argue that Quine’s treatment of probability minimizes the intensional character of scientific language and methods by considering that probability is extensionalizable. But this extensionalizing leads to untenable results in some cases and is not (...) consistent with the fact that Quine himself admits confirmation which includes probability. Quine’s extensionalism does not account for this fact and then seems unrealistic, even if science ought to be extensional in so far as it is descriptive and mathematically expressible. (shrink)

‘Bayesian epistemology’ became an epistemological movement in the 20th century, though its two main features can be traced back to the eponymous Reverend Thomas Bayes (c. 1701-61). Those two features are: (1) the introduction of a formal apparatus for inductive logic; (2) the introduction of a pragmatic self-defeat test (as illustrated by Dutch Book Arguments) for epistemic rationality as a way of extending the justification of the laws of deductive logic to include a justification for the laws of inductive logic. (...) The formal apparatus itself has two main elements: the use of the laws of probability as coherence constraints on rational degrees of belief (or degrees of confidence) and the introduction of a rule of probabilistic inference, a rule or principle of conditionalization. (shrink)

The sheer multitude of criteria of empirical significance has been taken as evidence that the pre-analytic notion being explicated is too vague to be useful. I show instead that a significant number of these criteria—by Ayer, Popper, Przełęcki, Suppes, and David Lewis, among others—not only form a coherent whole, but also connect directly to the theory of definition, the notion of empirical content as explicated by Ramsey sentences, and the theory of measurement; two criteria by Carnap and Sober are trivial, (...) but can be saved and connected to the other criteria by slight modifications. A corollary is that the ordinary language defense of Lewis, the conceptual arguments by Ayer and Popper, the theoretical considerations by Przełęcki, and the practical considerations by Suppes all apply to the same criterion or closely related criteria. Furthermore, the equivalence of some criteria allows for their individual justifications to be taken cumulatively and, together with the entailment relations between nonequivalent criteria, suggest criteria for general auxiliary assumptions, comparative criteria, and more liberal conceptions of observation. (shrink)