This inaugural handbook documents the distinctive research field that utilizes history and philosophy in investigation of theoretical, curricular and pedagogical issues in the teaching of science and mathematics. It is contributed to by 130 researchers from 30 countries; it provides a logically structured, fully referenced guide to the ways in which science and mathematics education is, informed by the history and philosophy of these disciplines, as well as by the philosophy of education more generally. The first handbook to cover the (...) field, it lays down a much-needed marker of progress to date and provides a platform for informed and coherent future analysis and research of the subject. -/- The publication comes at a time of heightened worldwide concern over the standard of science and mathematics education, attended by fierce debate over how best to reform curricula and enliven student engagement in the subjects There is a growing recognition among educators and policy makers that the learning of science must dovetail with learning about science; this handbook is uniquely positioned as a locus for the discussion. -/- The handbook features sections on pedagogical, theoretical, national, and biographical research, setting the literature of each tradition in its historical context. Each chapter engages in an assessment of the strengths and weakness of the research addressed, and suggests potentially fruitful avenues of future research. A key element of the handbook’s broader analytical framework is its identification and examination of unnoticed philosophical assumptions in science and mathematics research. It reminds readers at a crucial juncture that there has been a long and rich tradition of historical and philosophical engagements with science and mathematics teaching, and that lessons can be learnt from these engagements for the resolution of current theoretical, curricular and pedagogical questions that face teachers and administrators. (shrink)

The Two Selves takes the position that the self is not a "thing" easily reduced to an object of scientific analysis. Rather, the self consists in a multiplicity of aspects, some of which have a neuro-cognitive basis (and thus are amenable to scientific inquiry) while other aspects are best construed as first-person subjectivity, lacking material instantiation. As a consequence of their potential immateriality, the subjective aspect of self cannot be taken as an object and therefore is not easily amenable to (...) treatment by current scientific methods. -/- Klein argues that to fully appreciate the self, its two aspects must be acknowledged, since it is only in virtue of their interaction that the self of everyday experience becomes a phenomenological reality. However, given their different metaphysical commitments (i.e., material and immaterial aspects of reality), a number of issues must be addressed. These include, but are not limited to, the possibility of interaction between metaphysically distinct aspects of reality, questions of causal closure under the physical, the principle of energy conservation. -/- After addressing these concerns, Klein presents evidence based on self-reports from case studies of individuals who suffer from a chronic or temporary loss of their sense of personal ownership of their mental states. Drawing on this evidence, he argues that personal ownership may be the factor that closes the metaphysical gap between the material and immaterial selves, linking these two disparate aspects of reality, thereby enabling us to experience a unified sense of self despite its underlying multiplicity. -/- . (shrink)

In this paper I argue that much of the confusion and mystery surrounding the concept of "self" can be traced to a failure to appreciate the distinction between the self as a collection of diverse neural components that provide us with our beliefs, memories, desires, personality, emotions, etc (the epistemological self) and the self that is best conceived as subjective, unified awareness, a point of view in the first person (ontological self). While the former can, and indeed has, been extensively (...) studied by researchers of various disciplines in the human sciences, the latter most often has been ignored -- treated more as a place holder attached to a particular predicate of interest (e.g., concept, reference, deception, esteem, image, regulation, etc). These two aspects of the self, I contend, are not reducible -- one being an object (the epistemological self) and the other a subject (the ontological self). Until we appreciate the difficulties of applying scientific methods and analysis to what cannot be reduced to an object of inquiry without stripping it of its essential aspect (its status as subject), progress on the "self", taken as a pluralistic construct, will continue to address only one part of the problems we face in understanding this most fundamental aspect of human experience. (shrink)

Most philosophers accept some version of the requirement of total evidence (RTE), which tells us to always update on our complete evidence, which often includes ‘background information’ about how that evidence was collected. But different philosophers disagree about how to implement that requirement. In this article, I argue against one natural picture of how to implement the RTE in likelihood arguments, and I argue in favor of a different picture. I also apply my picture to the controversy over the so-called (...) ‘Objection from Anthropic Bias’ to the fine-tuning argument, and argue that the Objection from Anthropic Bias fails. (shrink)

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

The fine-tuning argument can be used to support the Many Universe hypothesis. The Inverse Gambler’s Fallacy objection seeks to undercut the support for the Many Universe hypothesis. The objection is that although the evidence that there is life somewhere confirms Many Universes, the specific evidence that there is life in this universe does not. I will argue that the Inverse Gambler’s Fallacy is not committed by the fine-tuning argument. The key issue is the procedure by which the universe with life (...) is selected for observation. Once we take account of the procedure, we find that the support for the Many Universe hypothesis remains. (shrink)

We present a precise form of structural realism, called group structural realism , which identifies ‘structure’ in quantum theory with symmetry groups. However, working out the details of this view actually illuminates a major problem for structural realism; namely, a structure can itself have structure. This article argues that, once a precise characterization of structure is given, the ‘metaphysical hierarchy’ on which group structural realism rests is overly extravagant and ultimately unmotivated.

I discuss a rarely mentioned correspondence between Einstein and Swann on the constructive approach to the special theory of relativity, in which Einstein points out that the attempts to construct a dynamical explanation of relativistic kinematical effects require postulating a fundamental length scale in the level of the dynamics. I use this correspondence to shed light on several issues under dispute in current philosophy of spacetime that were highlighted recently in Harvey Brown’s monograph Physical Relativity, namely, Einstein’s view on the (...) distinction between principle and constructive theories, and the consequences of pursuing the constructive approach in the context of spacetime theories. r 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Sometimes we learn what the world is like, and sometimes we learn where in the world we are. Are there any interesting differences between the two kinds of cases? The main aim of this article is to argue that learning where we are in the world brings into view the same kind of observation selection effects that operate when sampling from a population. I will first explain what observation selection effects are ( Section 1 ) and how they are relevant (...) to learning where we are in the world ( Section 2 ). I will show how measurements in the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics can be understood as learning where you are in the world via some observation selection effect ( Section 3 ). I will apply a similar argument to the Sleeping Beauty Problem ( Section 4 ) and explain what I take the significance of the analogy to be ( Section 5 ). Finally, I will defend the Restricted Principle of Indifference on which some of my arguments depend ( Section 6 ). (shrink)

In this dissertation, I examine a view called ‘Epistemic Structural Realism’, which holds that we can, at best, have knowledge of the structure of the physical world. Put crudely, we can know physical objects only to the extent that they are nodes in a structure. In the spirit of Occam’s razor, I argue that, given certain minimal assumptions, epistemic structural realism provides a viable and reasonable scientific realist position that is less vulnerable to anti-realist arguments than any of its rivals.

In this manuscript we initiate a systematic examination of the physical basis for the time concept in cosmology. We discuss and defend the idea that the physical basis of the time concept is necessarily related to physical processes which could conceivably take place among the material constituents available in the universe. As a consequence we motivate the idea that one cannot, in a well-defined manner, speak about time ‘before’ such physical processes were possible, and in particular, the idea that one (...) cannot speak about a time scale ‘before’ scale-setting physical processes were possible. It is common practice to link the concept of cosmic time with a space-time metric set up to describe the universe at large scales, and then define a cosmic time t as what is measured by a comoving standard clock. We want to examine, however, the physical basis for setting up a comoving reference frame and, in particular, what could be meant by a standard clock. For this purpose we introduce the concept of a `core' of a clock and we ask if such a core can - in principle - be found in the available physics contemplated in the various `stages' of the early universe. We find that a first problem arises above the quark-gluon phase transition where there might be no bound systems left, and the concept of a physical length scale to a certain extent disappears. A more serious problem appears above the electroweak phase transition believed to occur at $\sim 10^{-11}$ seconds. At this point the property of mass disappears and it becomes difficult to identify a physical basis for concepts like length scale, energy scale and temperature - which are all intimately linked to the concept of time in modern cosmology. This situation suggests that the concept of a time scale in `very early' universe cosmology lacks a physical basis or, at least, that the time scale will have to be based on speculative new physics. (shrink)

This article defends the Doomsday Argument, the Halfer Position in Sleeping Beauty, the Fine-Tuning Argument, and the applicability of Bayesian confirmation theory to the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics. It will argue that all four problems have the same structure, and it gives a unified treatment that uses simple models of the cases and no controversial assumptions about confirmation or self-locating evidence. The article will argue that the troublesome feature of all these cases is not self-location but selection effects.

Elliott Sober has recently argued that the cosmological design argument is unsound, since our observation of cosmic fine-tuning is subject to an observation selection effect (OSE). I argue that this view commits Sober to rejecting patently correct design inferences in more mundane scenarios. I show that Sober's view, that there are OSEs in those mundane cases, rests on a confusion about what information an agent ought to treat as background when evaluating likelihoods. Applying this analysis to the design argument shows (...) that our observation of fine-tuning is not rendered uninformative by an OSE. Design and the Anthropic Objection Previous responses to the Anthropic Objection Variations: experimental squads and survivor reunions Why there is no OSE in firing squad cases Application to the design argument. (shrink)

We outline Ladyman's 'metaphysical' or 'ontic' form of structuralrealism and defend it against various objections. Cao, in particular, has questioned theview of ontology presupposed by this approach and we argue that by reconceptualisingobjects in structural terms it offers the best hope for the realist in thecontext of modern physics.

Die Frage, ob die Gültigkeit alternativer begrifflicher Strukturen empirisch entscheidbar oder eine Sache der willkürlichen Festsetzung ist, wird, eingeschränkt auf den Fall der physikalischen Geometrie, diskutiert. Die erkenntnistheoretischen Komponenten der empirischen Bestimmung von metrischen und topologischen Eigenschaften des physikalischen Raumes werden in der neueren Wissenschaftstheorie verfolgt. In Anschluß an die Auseinandersetzung zwischen A. Grünbaum und H. Putnam wird eine Interpretation des semantischen Status des Kongruenzprädikates vorgeschlagen, die Schwierigkeiten im Verhältnis von Intension und Extension dieses Terms beseitigen soll. Bei der Konfrontation (...) von Folgerungen aus der Konventionalitätsthese mit der dynamischen Raumtheorie, wie sie im Anschluß an Clifford von J. A. Wheeler entwickelt wurde, treten Unvereinbarkeiten auf, die in der Gegensätzlichkeit von absoluter und relationaler Raumauffassung gründen. (shrink)

Biology in the popular mind remains tied to the doctrines of the struggle forsurvival and the survival of the fittest. Physics is linked to the heat deathof the universe – the inexorable march towards greater disorder,increasing entropy. Our field, on the other hand, focuses on orderedstructures, molecules and crystals, and their aggregates, and what holdsthem together. The philosophy of chemistry is centered on affinity,cohesion, the architecture of the very small, attraction, harmony, and, ifyou permit, beauty. Our discipline is the voice (...) of the twenty-first century,a message, a clarion call of life, of hope. This paper addresses failures ofreductionist and deterministic claims in the face of the cussedness ofchemical facts. It will examine uncertainty principles, Edmund Whitaker'spostulates of impotence, Gerald Holton's themata, Isaiah Berlin's warning –and the wisdom of the Chinese. We can teach the world the need for humilityin the face of the wonder and mystery of our world. (shrink)

"Partial realism" is a common position in the contemporary philosophy of science literature. It states that the "essential" elements of empirically successful scientific theories accurately represent corresponding features the world. This thesis makes several novel contributions related to this position. Firstly, it offers a new definition of the concept of “empirical success”, representing a principled merger between the use-novelty and unification accounts. Secondly, it provides a comparative critical analysis of various accounts of which elements are "essential" to the success of (...) a theory, including structural realism and the divide et impera strategy. A novel account of essentialness, entitled the “empirically successful sub-theory "account", is defended. Thirdly, it is argued that the realism/anti-realism debate should put to the side metaphysical questions and focus instead on partial realism's commitment to the continuity of science. Because this commitment lacks metaphysical implications, it is referred to as "deflationary realism". Anti-realists cannot reject deflationary realism as a matter of a priori principle; its overall viability can therefore only be assessed by a careful examination of the history of science. Finally, another consequence of partial realism, named "partial rationalism", is defended. Partial rationalism states that, in cases where several competing theories have been suggested, scientists are rational just in case they accept the essential elements of each of the scientific theories on offer. This novel position subverts the existing literature on scientific "revolutions", as it sometimes demands that scientists devise a synthesis between competing scientific theories, instead of "choosing" only one. The philosophical points defended in this thesis are illustrated and supported by case studies from the history of science, including Fresnel’s wave theory of light, the Copernican revolution, the "neo-Darwinian synthesis" in evolutionary biology, the "prion revolution" in molecular biology, the miasma theory of disease, and the chemical revolution. (shrink)

The aim of this doctoral dissertation is to closely explore the nature of Einstein’s block universe and to tease out its implications for the nature of time and human freedom. Four questions, in particular, are central to this dissertation, and set out the four dimensions of this philosophical investigation: (1) Does the block universe view of time follow inevitably from the theory of special relativity? (2) Is there room for the passage of time in the block universe? (3) Can we (...) distinguish past from future in the block universe? (4) Is there room for human freedom in the block universe? Although the answer of most philosophers would be yes, triple no, my own answer, controversially, is no, triple yes. -/- I thereby challenge the status quo with respect to each of these metaphysical questions, and argue that none of these questions can be answered from looking at physics alone. Physics may constrain our metaphysics, but it certainly does not settle it. What is needed in order to answer these questions, are additional metaphysical assumptions that fall outside the scope of modern physics. My primary goal in this dissertation, therefore, is not to settle the debates on the nature of time and human freedom, but to clarify them by expliciting the metaphysical assumptions that are otherwise left implicit. (shrink)

Human freedom is in tension with nomological determinism and with statistical determinism. The goal of this paper is to answer both challenges. Four contributions are made to the free-will debate. First, we propose a classification of scientific theories based on how much freedom they allow. We take into account that indeterminism comes in different degrees and that both the laws and the auxiliary conditions can place constraints. A scientific worldview pulls towards one end of this classification, while libertarianism pulls towards (...) the other end of the spectrum. Second, inspired by Hoefer, we argue that an interval of auxiliary conditions corresponds to a region in phase space, and to a bundle of possible block universes. We thus make room for a form of non-nomological indeterminism. Third, we combine crucial elements from the works of Hoefer and List; we attempt to give a libertarian reading of this combination. On our proposal, throughout spacetime, there is a certain amount of freedom that can be interpreted as the result of agential choices. Fourth, we focus on the principle of alternative possibilities throughout and propose three ways of strengthening it. (shrink)

This Target paper is about the hard problem of phenomenal consciousness (i.e., how is subjective experience possible given the scientific presumption that everything from molecules to minerals to minds is wholly physical?). I first argue that one of the most valuable tools in the scientific arsenal (metaphor) cannot be recruited to address the hard problem due to the inability to forge connections between the stubborn fact of subjective experience and physically grounded models of scientific explanation. I then argue that adherence (...) to the physicalist tenets of contemporary science has a limiting effect on a full appreciation of the phenomenon under discussion. (shrink)

Universal reductionism—the sort of project pursued by Carnap in the Aufbau, Lewis in his campaign on behalf of Humean supervenience, Jackson in From Metaphysics to Ethics, and Chalmers in Constructing the World—aims to reduce everything to some specified base, more or less austere as it may be. In this paper, I identify two constraints that a promising strategy to argue for universal reductionism needs to satisfy: the exhaustion constraint and the chaining constraint. As a case study, I then consider Chalmers’ (...) Constructing the World, in which a priori implication, or “scrutability”, plays the role of reduction. Chalmers first divides up the total vocabulary of our language into different families, and then argues, for each family separately, that truths involving expressions in that family are scrutable from the putative base. He does not systematically address the question whether “cross-family sentences”—sentences involving expressions from more than one family—are scrutable. I shall argue that this lacuna cannot be filled, since scrutability does not allow for the exhaustion constraint and the chaining constraint to be jointly satisfied. I further suggest that Carnap’s account, in which definability plays the role of reduction, has better prospects of meeting these constraints. (shrink)

According to a certain kind of naïve or folk understanding of physical matter, everyday ‘solid’ objects are composed of a homogeneous, gap-less substance, with sharply defined boundaries, which wholly fills the space they occupy. A further claim is that our perceptual experience of the environment represents or indicates that the objects around us conform to this sort of conception of physical matter. Were this further claim correct, it would mean that the way that the world appears to us in experience (...) conflicts with the deliverances of our best current scientific theories in the following respect: perceptual experience would be intrinsically misleading concerning the structure of physical matter. I argue against this further claim. Experience in itself is not committed to, nor does it provide evidence for, any such conception of the nature of physical matter. The naïve/folk conception of matter in question cannot simply be ‘read-off’ from perceptual appearances. (shrink)

According to the Fine-Tuning Argument, the existence of life in our universe confirms the Multiverse Hypothesis. A standard objection to FTA is that it violates the Requirement of Total Evidence. I argue that RTE should be rejected in favor of the Predesignation Requirement, according to which, in assessing the outcome of a probabilistic process, we should only use evidence characterizable in a manner available before observing the outcome. This produces the right verdicts in some simple cases in which RTE leads (...) us astray, and, when applied to FTA, it shows that our evidence does confirm HM. (shrink)

“Absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence” is a slogan that is popular among scientists and nonscientists alike. This article assesses its truth by using a probabilistic tool, the Law of Likelihood. Qualitative questions (“Is E evidence about H ?”) and quantitative questions (“How much evidence does E provide about H ?”) are both considered. The article discusses the example of fossil intermediates. If finding a fossil that is phenotypically intermediate between two extant species provides evidence that those species have (...) a common ancestor, does failing to find such a fossil constitute evidence that there was no common ancestor? Or should the failure merely be chalked up to the imperfection of the fossil record? The transitivity of the evidence relation in simple causal chains provides a broader context, which leads to discussion of the fine-tuning argument, the anthropic principle, and observation selection effects. (shrink)

The use of the Law of Likelihood (LL) as a general tool for assessing rival hypotheses has been criticized for its ambiguous treatment of background information. The LL endorses radically different answers depending on what information is designated as background versus evidence. I argue that once one distinguishes between two questions about evidentiary support, the ambiguity vanishes. I demonstrate this resolution by applying it to a debate over the status of the ‘fine-tuning argument’.

This chapter traces the development of structural realism within the scientific realism debate and the wider current of structuralism that has swept the philosophy of the natural sciences in the twentieth century.1 The primary aim is to make perspicuous the many manifestations of structural realism and their underlying claims. Among other things, I will compare structural realism’s various manifestations in order to throw more light onto the relations between them. At the end of the chapter, I will identify the main (...) objections raised against the epistemic form of structural realism. This last task will pave the way for the evaluation of the structural realist answer to the main epistemological question, an evaluation that will be central to the rest of this dissertation. (shrink)

And the first step of the Peripatetick argument is that, where Aristotle proveth the integrity and perfection of the World, telling us, that it is not a simple line, nor a bare superficies, but a body adorned with Longitude, Latitude and Profundity; and because there are no more dimensions but these three; the World having them, hath all, and having all, is to be concluded perfect. And again, that by simple length, that magnitude is constituted, which is called a line, (...) to which adding breadth, there is formed a Superficies, and yet further adding the altitude or profundity, there results the Body, and after these three the dimensions there is no passing farther, so that in these three the integrity, and to so speak, totality is terminated, which I might but with justice have required Aristotle to have proved to me by necessary consequences, the rather in regard he was able to do it very plainly and speedily. *Received 9. iii. 54. (shrink)

Falsificationism has dominated 20th century philosophy of science. It seemed to have eclipsed all forms of inductivism. Yet recent debates have revived a specific form of eliminative inductivism, the basic ideas of which go back to F. Bacon and J.S. Mill. These modern endorsements of eliminative inductivism claim to show that progressive problem solving is possible using induction, rather than falsification as a method of justification. But this common ground between falsificationism and eliminative inductivism has not led to a detailed (...) investigation into the relationship, if any, which may exist between these two methodologies. This paper reviews several versions of eliminative inductivism, establishes a natural relation between eliminative inductivism and falsificationism, which derives from the distinction between models and theories, and carries out this investigation against a case study of the construction of atom models. The result of the investigation is that falsificationism is a form of eliminative inductivism in the limit of certain constraints. (shrink)

There is a strong tradition of observational research in most areas of the social sciences, especially in Anthropology and Sociology. However, in business and management research observation is often seen as a poor relative to questionnaire surveys and qualitative interviewing. This chapter discusses the use of observational techniques especially for less experienced researchers planning their first major investigation, exploring the difference between participant and non-participant approaches, different techniques of data collection, recording and analysis. Rather than seeking to provide a full (...) guide to conducting participant observation, an impractical task in a single chapter, this offering discusses some of the key issues facing researchers in Business and Management who choose to conduct this sort of research, exploring different approaches to participant observation and some of the ethical and practical challenges associated with the collection and analysis of observational data. The chapter draws on the author’s experience of conducting participant observation in organizations with examples of both employee and customer perspectives. It will also draw from ‘classic’ observational studies such as Mars and Nicod and more recent examples such as Watson and Watson. (shrink)

The dual-aspect monist conjecture launched by Pauli and Jung in the mid-20th century will be couched in somewhat formal terms to characterize it more concisely than by verbal description alone. After some background material situating the Pauli–Jung conjecture among other conceptual approaches to the mind–matter problem, the main body of this paper outlines its general framework of a basic psychophysically neutral reality with its derivative mental and physical aspects and the nature of the correlations that connect these aspects. Some related (...) approaches are discussed to identify key similarities to and deviations from the Pauli–Jung framework that may be useful for cross-fertilization. (shrink)

This is a review of Hossenfelder’s book, Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray. The book gives a breezy exposition of the present situation in fundamental physics, and raises important questions: both about the content of the physics, and the way physics research is organized. I first state my main disagreements. Then, I mostly praise the book: I concentrate on Hossenfelder’s discussion of supersymmetry, naturalness and the multiverse.

I argue that the standard way of formalizing the fine-tuning argument for design is flawed, and I present an alternative formalization. On the alternative formalization, the existence of life is not treated as the evidence that confirms design; instead it is treated as part of the background knowledge, while the fact that fine tuning is required for life serves as the evidence. I argue that the alternative better captures the informal line of thought that gives the fine-tuning argument its intuitive (...) plausibility, and I show that the alternative formalization avoids all of the most prominent objections to the fine-tuning argument, including the objection from observation selection effects, the problem of old evidence, the problem of non-normalizable probability measures and a further objection due to Monton. I conclude that the alternative formalization is the one that attention should be focused on. (shrink)

This chapter traces the development of structural realism within the scientific realism debate and the wider current of structuralism that has swept the philosophy of the natural sciences in the twentieth century.1 The primary aim is to make perspicuous the many manifestations of structural realism and their underlying claims. Among other things, I will compare structural realism’s various manifestations in order to throw more light onto the relations between them. At the end of the chapter, I will identify the main (...) objections raised against the epistemic form of structural realism. This last task will pave the way for the evaluation of the structural realist answer to the main epistemological question, an evaluation that will be central to the rest of this dissertation. (shrink)

To ascertain the rational credences for the epistemic agents in the famous cases of self-locating belief, one should model the processes by which those agents acquire their evidence. This approach, taken by Darren Bradley (Phil. Review 121, 149–177) and Joseph Halpern (Ergo 2, 195–206), is immensely reasonable. Nevertheless, the work of those authors makes it seem as if this approach must lead to such conclusions as the Doomsday argument being correct, and that Sleeping Beauty should be a halfer. I argue (...) that this is due to an implicit existential bias: it is assumed that the first step in those processes is the determination that the agent in question must necessarily exist. It is much more reasonable to model that determination as contingent and a result of other, earlier, steps in the process. This paper offers such alternative models. They imply an endorsement of what has mockingly been called “presumptuous” reasoning, and a massive shift of credences in favor of (1) the existence of a multiverse and (2) the Everettian interpretation of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

This work is an analysis of F. P. Ramsey's philosophy of science. Twentieth-century philosophy of science was marked by attempts to consider the relation between scientific theories and our knowledge of the empirical world through considerations of abstract mathematical structure. Such considerations led Bertrand Russell to an account of the relation between our theoretical picture of the world and its real nature as a relation of structural similarity. Subsequently, Max Newman gave what has become a well-known logico-mathematical objection to this (...) account. William Demopoulos recently showed that Newman's problem applied not only to Russell's realist account, but also to a variety of otherwise disparate accounts of theoretical knowledge. The common element underlying these accounts is a conception of theories as abstract formal structures. Many such accounts have incorporated key elements of Ramsey's views, most notably the Ramsey-sentence. Moreover, Demopoulos has interpreted Ramsey's own view of theories as sharing the essential features of those abstract views, and therefore their common problem. My analysis aims to show that this abstract conception of theories does not adequately characterize Ramsey's view. Namely, his account of theories was not an attempt to do the epistemology of science in the fashion of Russell or Eddington, or of subsequent structuralist views that have adopted the Ramsey-sentence. I show this by a broader exposition of Ramsey's work on the nature of theories, comparing his seminal paper with his many other remarks on the nature and purpose of theories. I begin by discussing the historical context of Newman's objection, and a generalization of it that shows its broad applicability to abstract characterizations of theoretical knowledge. I then reconstruct Ramsey's view of theories, to show how far it extends beyond the Ramsey-sentence picture. Finally, I discuss the relevance of this view to contemporary debates concerning realism and instrumentalism. I characterize Ramsey's view as focused not on grounding our theoretical knowledge in abstract structure, but instead on demystifying the role of theoretical language and concepts in a theory's application to the world. (shrink)

According to Minkoswki, Einstein's special theory of relativity reveals that ‘space by itself, and time by itself are doomed to fade away into mere shadows’. But perceptual experience represents objects as instantiating shapes like squareness — properties of ‘space by itself’. Thus, STR seems to threaten the veridicality of shape experience. In response to this worry, some have argued that we should analyze the contents of our spatial experiences on the model of traditional secondary qualities. On this picture—defended in recent (...) work by Chalmers —an experience of squareness just represents whatever property usually causes such experiences. This view salvages the veridicality of shape experience, but leaves the nature of the properties we perceive outside our ken. I argue that such a move is unwarranted: STR is compatible with the idea that shape experience acquaints us with the spatial character of our world. In defending this claim, I propose a view on which shape experience presents familiar Euclidean spatial properties veridically, while implicitly representing those properties as instantiated in a particular manner — namely, relative to our own frame of reference. (shrink)

When dealing with a certain class of physical systems, the mathematical characterization of a generic system aims to describe the phase portrait of all its possible states. Because they are defined only up to isomorphism, the mathematical objects involved are “schematic structures”. If one imposes the condition that these mathematical definitions completely capture the physical information of a given system, one is led to a strong requirement of individuation for physical states. However, we show there are not enough qualitatively distinct (...) properties in an abstract Hilbert space to fulfill such a requirement. It thus appears there is a fundamental tension between the physicist’s purpose in providing a mathematical definition of a mechanical system and a feature of the basic formalism used in the theory. We will show how group theory provides tools to overcome this tension and to define physical properties. (shrink)

The ArgumentCassirer's analyses of twentieth-century physics from the perspective of the philosophy of science focuses on the concept of the object of scientific experience. Within his concept of functional knowledge, he takes a structural stance and claims that it is specifically this concept of the object that has paved the way for modern science. This article aims, first, to show that Cassirer's interpretation of Felix Klein's “Erlanger Programm” provided the impetus for this view. Then, it analyzes Kant's conception of objectivity (...) in order to examine whether Cassirer can rightfully claim that his view is a further development of transcendental principles. Finally, it is argued that it is Cassirer's concept of the object that enables him to integrate one decisive feature of scientific progress, namely, the increasinggeneralizationof the basic concepts of a science, into his conception of knowledge. This is illustrated in more detail through the example of the progression from Newton's mechanics to relativity theory. (shrink)

The conservation of energy and momentum have been viewed as undermining Cartesian mental causation since the 1690s. Modern discussions of the topic tend to use mid-nineteenth century physics, neglecting both locality and Noether’s theorem and its converse. The relevance of General Relativity has rarely been considered. But a few authors have proposed that the non-localizability of gravitational energy and consequent lack of physically meaningful local conservation laws answers the conservation objection to mental causation: conservation already fails in GR, so there (...) is nothing for minds to violate. This paper is motivated by two ideas. First, one might take seriously the fact that GR formally has an infinity of rigid symmetries of the action and hence, by Noether’s first theorem, an infinity of conserved energies-momenta. Second, Sean Carroll has asked how one should modify the Dirac–Maxwell–Einstein equations to describe mental causation. This paper uses the generalized Bianchi identities to show that General Relativity tends to exclude, not facilitate, such Cartesian mental causation. In the simplest case, Cartesian mental influence must be spatio-temporally constant, and hence 0. The difficulty may diminish for more complicated models. Its persuasiveness is also affected by larger world-view considerations. The new general relativistic objection provides some support for realism about gravitational energy-momentum in GR. Such realism also might help to answer an objection to theories of causation involving conserved quantities, because energies-momenta would be conserved even in GR. (shrink)

Il s’agit d’affronter la « figure » d’Ettore Majorana et d’en proposer un premier « profil philosophique ». La question des « fictions » apparaît alors centrale chez Majorana. On établit ensuite la dimension surrationaliste et européenne de ses affinités électives avec Giovanni Gentile Junior. Les deux oeuvres sont restituées dans le cadre d’un mathématisme constructif et inductif (Gaston Bachelard, puis Robert Blanché) qui s’oppose au géométrisme classique (Emile Meyerson) et au pythagorisme spiritualiste (Arthur Eddington).

Random noise in the neurobiology of animals allows for the generation of alternative possibilities for action. In lower animals, this shows up as behavioral freedom. Animals are not causally predetermined by prior events going back in a causal chain to the origin of the universe. In higher animals, randomness can be consciously invoked to generate surprising new behaviors. In humans, creative new ideas can be critically evaluated and deliberated. On reflection, options can be rejected and sent back for “second thoughts” (...) before a final responsible decision and action. When the indeterminism is limited to the early stage of a mental decision, the later decision itself can be described as adequately determined. This is called the two-stage model, first the “free” generation of ideas, then an adequately determinism evaluation and selection process we call “will.”. (shrink)