This paper is a reaction to the book “Science and the Pursuit of Wisdom”, whose central concern is the philosophy of Nicholas Maxwell. I distinguish and discuss three concerns in Maxwell’s philosophy. The first is his critique of standard empiricism (SE) in the philosophy of science, the second his defense of aim-oriented rationality (AOR), and the third his philosophy of mind. I point at some problematic aspects of Maxwell’s rebuttal of SE and of his philosophy of mind and argue in (...) favor of AOR. (shrink)

Perhaps the most significant contemporary theory of lawhood is the Best System (/MRL) view on which laws are true generalizations that best systematize knowledge. Our question in this paper will be how best to formulate a theory of this kind. We’ll argue that an acceptable MRL should (i) avoid inter-system comparisons of simplicity, strength, and balance, (ii) make lawhood epistemically accessible, and (iii) allow for laws in the special sciences. Attention to these problems will bring into focus a useful menu (...) of novel MRL theories, some of which solve problems the original MRL theory could not. Hence we conceive of the paper as moving toward a better Best System theory of laws. (shrink)

According to an increasing number of authors, the best, if not the only, argument in favour of physicalism is the so-called 'overdetermination argument'. This argument, if sound, establishes that all the entities that enter into causal interactions with the physical world are physical. One key premise in the overdetermination argument is the principle of the causal closure of the physical world, said to be supported by contemporary physics. In this paper, I examine various ways in which physics may support the (...) principle, either as a methodological guide or as depending on some other laws and principles of physics. (shrink)

In some quarters within philosophy of medicine, more particularly in the phenomenological approaches, naturalism is looked upon with suspicion. This paper argues, first, that it is necessary to distinguish between two expressions of this attitude towards naturalism: phenomenological approaches to illness disagree with naturalism regarding various theoretical claims and they disapprove of naturalism on an ethical level. Second, this paper argues that both the disagreement with and the disapproval of naturalism are to a large extent confused. It then offers some (...) proposals to set up an agenda for future collaboration. (shrink)

Throughout the last century there has been much discussion over what it is that makes an activity or a theory 'scientific'. In the philosophy of science, conversation has focused on differentiating legitimate science from so-called 'pseudoscience'. In the broader cultural sphere this topic has received attention in multiple legal debates regarding the status of creationism, where it has been generally agreed that the 'supernatural' nature of the claims involved renders them unscientific. In this thesis I focus upon the latter of (...) these issues, arguing that although there may be merit in the larger demarcation project of separating science from pseudoscience, the notion of 'supernaturality' does not belong in this adjudication. Due to the complex cultural issues that have played a role in the history of this topic, this will involve a degree of historical and normative analysis alongside more philosophically abstract considerations. Complicating the discussion is thefact that neither the term 'science' nor 'supernatural' enjoys a widely agreed upon definition. In order to assess the question then, I will survey a wide variety of definitions of each term in order to identify areas of potential conflict. I argue that in none of the prevalent understandings can we find impediment to scientific investigation inherent in the supernaturality of a claim, but rather posit that where difficulty arises it does so for more mundane reasons. I conclude that not only is there no inherent issue with scientific investigation of the supernatural, but that the term 'supernatural' itself is too poorly defined to provide a useful role in philosophical discussion. While I argue that notions of supernaturality should be abandoned entirely when assessing demarcation criteria, I concede that numerous extraneous factors, including the significant degree of overlap between the supernatural and the 'religious', warrant consideration of a compromise position. (shrink)

ArgumentEvolutionary psychologists argue that because humans are biological creatures, cultural explanationsmustinclude biology. They thus offer to unify the natural and social sciences. Evolutionary psychologists rely on a specific history of cultural anthropology, particularly the work of Alfred Kroeber to make this point. A close examination of the history of cultural anthropology reveals that Kroeber acknowledged that humans were biological and culture had a biological foundation; however, he argued that we should treat culture as autonomous because that would bring benefits to (...) the biological sciences as well as the human sciences. Hence, the historical caricature of his work by evolutionary psychology fails. The paper concludes that cultural anthropologists were successful in creating their discipline, at least in part, because they argued by pragmatic definition. Evolutionary psychology, on the other hand, offers an essentialist definition of “culture” and thus offers a much less promising vision of interdisciplinary collaboration. (shrink)

An important obstacle to lawhood in the special sciences is the worry that such laws would require metaphysically extravagant conspiracies among fundamental particles. How, short of conspiracy, is this possible? In this paper we'll review a number of strategies that allow for the projectibility of special science generalizations without positing outlandish conspiracies: non-Humean pluralism, classical MRL theories of laws, and Albert and Loewer's theory. After arguing that none of the above fully succeed, we consider the conspiracy problem through the lens (...) of our preferred view of laws, an elaboration of the MRL view that we call the Better Best System (BBS) theory. BBS offers a picture on which, although all events supervene on a fundamental level, there is no one unique locus of projectibility; rather there are a large number of loci corresponding to the different areas (ecology, economics, solid-state chemistry, etc.) in which there are simple and strong generalizations to be made. While we expect that some amount of conspiracy-fear-inducing special science projectibility is inevitable given BBS, we'll argue that this is unobjectionable. It follows from BBS that the laws of any particular special or fundamental science amount to a proper subset of the laws. From this vantage point, the existence of projectible special science generalizations not guaranteed by the fundamental laws is not an occasion for conspiracy fantasies, but a predictable fact of life in a complex world. (shrink)

Throughout the 1990s, Jaegwon Kim developed a line of argument that what purport to be nonreductive forms of physicalism are ultimately untenable, since they cannot accommodate the causal efficacy of mental states. His argument has received a great deal of discussion, much of it critical. We believe that, while the argument needs some tweaking, its basic thrust is sound. In what follows, we will lay out our preferred version of the argument and highlight its essential dependence on a causal-powers metaphysic, (...) a dependence that Kim does not acknowledge in his official presentations of the argument.i We then discuss two recent physicalist strategies for preserving the causal efficacy of the mental in the face of this sort of challenge, strategies that (ostensibly) endorse a causal powers metaphysics of properties while offering distinctive accounts of the physical realization of mental properties. We argue that neither picture can be satisfactorily worked out, and that seeing why they fail strongly suggests that nonreductive physicalism and a causal powers metaphysic are not compatible, as our original argument contends. Since we also believe that robust realism concerning mental causation should not be abandoned, we take the argument of this paper to strongly motivate an account on which the mental is unrealized by and ontologically emergent from the physical. In a final section, we sketch what an ontologically emergentist account of the mental might look like. (shrink)

Evolutionary psychology as commonly presented is committed to the view that our cognitive architecture consists of a set of genetically pre-specified, domain specific, computational modules that are adaptations to the environment of our Pleistocene ancestors. These commitments yield a picture in which the underlying computational design of the human mind is genetically transmitted while cultural variation results from differential experiential inputs being processed through this common architecture. This view has been criticized from a developmental point of view. This paper develops (...) some of those criticisms specifically as they relate to the plasticity of neural structures and their responsiveness to social interactions. In best case scenarios the confirmation of adaptive explanations involves identifying the specific causal mechanisms of selection. This is illustrated in examples from ecological genetics. This is not possible in the case of evolutionary psychology. Instead claims that certain computational modules evolved as adaptations in the ancestral environment are supported by their cross-cultural occurrence in modern populations. However, evidence suggests that behavior itself, and cultural practices, are factors that influence the development of neural structures and the cognitive processes they instantiate. So while genes are playing a role in the development of the brain, they do not really encode its neural architecture. When selection favors one set of neural characteristics over alternatives, the genes that played a role in the development of those structures are passed on. But this does not guarantee replication of the structures themselves. What is being selected? Not genes, but organisms with certain neurological and behavioral tendencies in particular environments. Variation in the genetic determinants of neurological structure is not a necessary condition for natural selection to act on behavior. The necessary condition, as Darwin originally put the point, is that traits are heritable. Certainly heritability implies some genetic transmission between generations. But heritability of neural structure requires more than a genetic determinant because neural structures are so plastic. Some regulation of the experiential environment in which those genes act is also necessary. This suggests that an adequate account of the evolution of behavior requires a multi-level approach that recognizes that gene action and social behavior are related by a kind of causal reciprocity. Such an account would be quite different than the evolutionary psychologists’ model of culture being layered over the top of an underlying cognitive computer that is genetically propagated. (shrink)

In this article I explore the hypothesis of normative authority by epistemic authority. This is the idea that scientifically warranted claims in psychology, in being claims about human needs, interests, and concerns, can acquire authority on which values do or do not merit endorsement. The hypothesis is applied to attachment research: it seems that on the basis of what is now known about attachment, specific normative conclusions seem warranted. I argue that although attachment research and theory are value-laden, they are (...) empirically quite solid, hence entitled to epistemic authority. Having established this, I explain how such epistemic authority carries over into normative authority. (shrink)

This thesis philosophically examines, critically discusses, and proposes how a plausible philosophical framework of consciousness and free will should be formulated. This framework takes into account contemporary scientific research on human consciousness and free will and its possible challenges; also it is examined how this framework should be related to theistic beliefs – especially those connected to human and divine consciousness and free will. First, an overview of important research within the natural sciences about the conscious mind is presented together (...) with its challenges to a theistic worldview. Next, questions related to reductive physicalism and dualism as a thesis and an antithesis are discussed. This dialectical approach leads to two lines for possible alternatives: emergence theories and process panpsychism. The subsequent analysis suggests that a form of process panpsychism in combination with a weaker form of emergence is most plausible. After a discussion of some central ideas about determinism and indeterminism, together with a brief overview of standard arguments within the philosophical free will debate, the proposed emergent process panpsychism is related to these standard arguments in the free will debate and scientific research about decision-making. As a result it will be suggested how free will should be understood in relation to the emergent process panpsychism. The consequences of these results are then discussed in relation to a theistic worldview. Here panentheism will be suggested as the most reasonable conception of God. Also, the consequences for divine consciousness, divine action and interaction, the human soul, life before birth and after death, and more briefly a personal relationship with God, theological determinism, omniscience, and omnipotence will be discussed specifically in relation to panentheism in an emergent process panpsychist setting. (shrink)

Can Philosophy perform a useful function in contemporary society? This question is usually answered in the affirmative by philosophy teachers who point to the development of the mind as its most important tool, claiming thereby that this prepares students for entry into any profession. Over the years this answer has become less persuasive as students and academic administrators become more and more interested in courses which either train students for entry into a profession or add value to such training. The (...) advent of Philosophical Practice has attempted to remove this doubt concerning the instrumental uses of philosophy and what follows consists of an attempt to show how courses in Critical Thinking can be used to redress perceived short comings in students’ attitude and approach to learning. It focuses on the ‘culture of silence’ which describes the tendency of university students to shy away from intellectual conversations in the classroom and has been identified as a detrimental learner/graduate attribute in an African university and demonstrates how a form of critical thinking therapy can redress the problem. (shrink)

U svojoj inačici filozofije biologije Neven Sesardić izvodi dalekosežne moralne i političke posljedice određenih genetičkih istraživanja. On pretpostavlja da su uočene razlike u kvocijentu inteligencije između crnih i bijelih studenata urođene i da one ne mogu biti objašnjene niti promijenjene bilo kakvim utjecajem iz okoliša. Na toj osnovi on razvija teoriju o genetski određenoj inferiornosti crne rase. Teorija tvrdi da su svi podaci o društvenim i ekonomskim nedostatcima crne rase učinak njihovog lošeg biološkog nasljeđa, a ne društvene segregacije ili rasne (...) diskriminacije. Prema tome, bilo koja politika usmjerena na smanjivanje ili eliminiranje društvenih i ekonomskih razlika između siromašnih i bogatih ljudi, kao što je politika pozitivne diskriminacije, osuđena je na propast. U ovom se članku suprotstavljam Sesardićevu filozofskom tumačenju genetike i njegovim izvodima koji se tiču politike i društva. Pokazujem da mnogi relevantni genetičari ne prihvaćaju takvo filozofsko tumačenje i njegove političke posljedice. Suprotno Sesardićevoj tvrdnji da su svi environmentalisti zaraženi ljevičarskom političkom ideologijom, pokazujem da njih njihova znanstvena istraživanja, a ne apriorna politička uvjerenja, navode na odbacivanje jednostranih hereditarističkih filozofskih tumačenja i njihove političke primjene. Posebno sam usmjeren na povijest ropstva u Americi i na aktualne izvještaje o rasnoj diskriminaciji kao na važne elemente društvenog okoliša koji ne mogu biti zanijekani u bilo kojem ozbiljnom pokušaju objašnjavanja klasnih i rasnih odnosa u suvremenoj Americi. (shrink)