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Synthese 28 (2):97-115 (1974)

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  1. The metaphysics of emergence.Timothy O'Connor - 2005 - Noûs 39 (4):658-678.
    The objective probability of every physical event is fixed by prior physical events and laws alone. (This thesis is sometimes expressed in terms of explanation: In tracing the causal history of any physical event, one need not advert to any non-physical events or laws. To the extent that there is any explanation available for a physical event, there is a complete explanation available couched entirely in physical vocabulary. We prefer the probability formulation, as it should be acceptable to any physicalist, (...)
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  • Emergent individuals.Timothy O'Connor & Jonathan D. Jacobs - 2003 - Philosophical Quarterly 53 (213):540-555.
    We explain the thesis that human mental states are ontologically emergent aspects of a fundamentally biological organism. We then explore the consequences of this thesis for the identity of a human person over time. As these consequences are not obviously independent of one's general ontology of objects and their properties, we consider four such accounts: transcendent universals, kind-Aristotelianism, immanent universals, and tropes. We suggest there are reasons for emergentists to favor the latter two accounts. We then argue that within such (...)
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  • Success Semantics, Reinforcing Satisfaction, and Sensory Inclinations.Howard Nye & Meysam Shojaeenejad - 2023 - Dialogue:1-12.
    Success semantics holds, roughly, that what it is for a state of an agent to be a belief that P is for it to be disposed to combine with her desires to cause behaviour that would fulfill those desires if P. J. T. Whyte supplements this with an account of the contents of an agent's “basic desires” to provide an attractive naturalistic theory of mental content. We argue that Whyte's strategy can avoid the objections raised against it by restricting “basic (...)
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  • Elme és evolúció.Bence Nanay - 2000 - Kávé..
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  • A non-reductive science of personality, character, and well-being must take the person's worldview into account.Artur Nilsson - 2014 - Frontiers in Psychology 5.
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  • Rethinking Woodger’s Legacy in the Philosophy of Biology.Daniel J. Nicholson & Richard Gawne - 2014 - Journal of the History of Biology 47 (2):243-292.
    The writings of Joseph Henry Woodger (1894–1981) are often taken to exemplify everything that was wrongheaded, misguided, and just plain wrong with early twentieth-century philosophy of biology. Over the years, commentators have said of Woodger: (a) that he was a fervent logical empiricist who tried to impose the explanatory gold standards of physics onto biology, (b) that his philosophical work was completely disconnected from biological science, (c) that he possessed no scientific or philosophical credentials, and (d) that his work was (...)
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  • The notion of computation is fundamental to an autonomous neuroscience.Garrett Neske - 2010 - Complexity 16 (1):10-19.
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  • Some issues surrounding the reduction of macroeconomics to microeconomics.Alan Nelson - 1984 - Philosophy of Science 51 (4):573–594.
    This paper examines the relationship between modern theories of microeconomics and macroeconomics and, more generally, it evaluates the prospects of theoretically reducing macroeconomics to microeconomics. Many economists have shown strong interest in providing "microfoundations" for macroeconomics and much of their work is germane to the issue of theoretical reduction. Especially relevant is the work that has been done on what is called The Problem of Aggregation. On some accounts, The Problem of Aggregation just is the problem of reducing macroeconomics to (...)
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  • Unificatory Explanation.Marco J. Nathan - 2017 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 68 (1).
    Philosophers have traditionally addressed the issue of scientific unification in terms of theoretical reduction. Reductive models, however, cannot explain the occurrence of unification in areas of science where successful reductions are hard to find. The goal of this essay is to analyse a concrete example of integration in biology—the developmental synthesis—and to generalize it into a model of scientific unification, according to which two fields are in the process of being unified when they become explanatorily relevant to each other. I (...)
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  • The Future of Cognitive Neuroscience? Reverse Inference in Focus.Marco J. Nathan & Guillermo Del Pinal - 2017 - Philosophy Compass 12 (7):e12427.
    This article presents and discusses one of the most prominent inferential strategies currently employed in cognitive neuropsychology, namely, reverse inference. Simply put, this is the practice of inferring, in the context of experimental tasks, the engagement of cognitive processes from locations or patterns of neural activation. This technique is notoriously controversial because, critics argue, it presupposes the problematic assumption that neural areas are functionally selective. We proceed as follows. We begin by introducing the basic structure of traditional “location-based” reverse inference (...)
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  • Reincarnating the Identity Theory.Erik Myin & Farid Zahnoun - 2018 - Frontiers in Psychology 9 (3):1--9.
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  • A roadmap to explanatory pluralism: introduction to the topical collection The Biology of Behaviour.Eric Muszynski & Christophe Malaterre - 2020 - Synthese 199 (1-2):1777-1789.
    Pluralism is widely appealed to in many areas of philosophy of science, though what is meant by ‘pluralism’ may profoundly vary. Because explanations of behaviour have been a favoured target for pluralistic theses, the sciences of behaviour offer a rich context in which to further investigate pluralism. This is what the topical collection The Biology of Behaviour: Explanatory pluralism across the life sciences is about. In the present introduction, we briefly review major strands of pluralist theses and their motivations. We (...)
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  • Subset Realization and Physical Identification.Kevin Morris - 2011 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 41 (2):317-335.
    According to a prominent line of thought, we can be physicalists, but not reductive physicalists, by holding that mental and other ‘higher-level’ or ‘nonbasic’ properties — properties that are not obviously physical properties — are all physically realized. Spelling this out requires an account of realization, an account of what it is for one property to realize another. And while several accounts of realization have been advanced in recent years,1 my interest here is in the ‘subset view,’ which has often (...)
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  • Physicalism, Truthmaking, and Levels of Reality: Prospects and Problems.Kevin Morris - 2018 - Topoi 37 (3):473-482.
    This paper considers the extent to which the notion of truthmaking can play a substantive role in defining physicalism. While a truthmaking-based approach to physicalism is prima facie attractive, there is some reason to doubt that truthmaking can do much work when it comes to understanding physicalism, and perhaps austere metaphysical frameworks in general. First, despite promising to dispense with higher-level properties and states, truthmaking appears to make little progress on issues concerning higher-level items and how they are related to (...)
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  • Does functional reduction need bridge laws? A response to Marras.Kevin Morris - 2009 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 60 (3):647-657.
    In his recent article ‘Consciousness and Reduction’, Ausonio Marras argues that functional reduction must appeal to bridge laws and thus does not represent a genuine alternative to Nagelian reduction. In response, I first argue that even if functional reduction must use bridge laws, it still represents a genuine alternative to Nagelian reduction. Further, I argue that Marras does not succeed in showing that functional reduction must use bridge laws. Introduction Nagelian Reduction, Functional Reduction, and Bridge Laws Marras on Functional Reduction (...)
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  • Role Functionalism and Epiphenomenalism.Dwayne Moore - 2011 - Philosophia 39 (3):511-525.
    The type-type reductive identity of the mental to the physical was once the dominant position in the mental causation debate. In time this consensus was overturned, largely due to its inability to handle the problem of multiple realizability. In its place a nonreductive position emerged which often included an adherence to functionalism. Functionalism construes mental properties as functional states of an organism, which in turn have specific physical realizers. This nonreductive form of functionalism, henceforth called role functionalism, has faced a (...)
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  • Causal Exclusion and Dependent Overdetermination.Dwayne Moore - 2012 - Erkenntnis 76 (3):319-335.
    Jaegwon Kim argues that unreduced mental causes are excluded from efficacy because physical causes are sufficient in themselves. One response to this causal exclusion argument is to embrace some form of overdetermination. In this paper I consider two forms of overdetermination. Independent overdetermination suggests that two individually sufficient causes bring about one effect. This model fails because the sufficiency of one cause renders the other cause unnecessary. Dependent overdetermination suggests that a physical cause is necessary and sufficient for a given (...)
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  • A nonreductive physicalist libertarian free will.Dwayne Moore - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
    Libertarian free will is, roughly, the view that the same agential states can cause different possible actions. Nonreductive physicalism is, roughly, the view that mental states cause actions to occur, while these actions also have sufficient physical causes. Though libertarian free will and nonreductive physicalism have overlapping subject matter, and while libertarian free will is currently trending at the same time as nonreductive physicalism is a dominant metaphysical posture, there are few sustained expositions of a nonreductive physicalist model of libertarian (...)
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  • The reductionist ideal in cognitive psychology.Richard Montgomery - 1990 - Synthese 85 (November):279-314.
    I offer support for the view that physicalist theories of cognition don't reduce to neurophysiological theories. On my view, the mind-brain relationship is to be explained in terms of evolutionary forces, some of which tug in the direction of a reductionistic mind-brain relationship, and some of which which tug in the opposite direction. This theory of forces makes possible an anti-reductionist account of the cognitive mind-brain relationship which avoids psychophysical anomalism. This theory thus also responds to the complaint which arguably (...)
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  • Grades of explanation in cognitive science.Richard Montgomery - 1998 - Synthese 114 (3):463-495.
    I sketch an explanatory framework that fits a variety of contemporary research programs in cognitive science. I then investigate the scope and the implications of this framework. The framework emphasizes (a) the explanatory role played by the semantic content of cognitive representations, and (b) the important mechanistic, non-intentional dimension of cognitive explanations. I show how both of these features are present simultaneously in certain varieties of cognitive explanation. I also consider the explanatory role played by grounded representational content, that is, (...)
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  • Does epistemology reduce to cognitive psychology?Richard Montgomery - 1989 - Philosophia 19 (2-3):245-263.
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  • Compatibilist Libertarianism: Advantages and Challenges (Conference Report).Jan-Felix Müller - 2022 - Kriterion – Journal of Philosophy 36 (3-4):323-334.
    This paper tries to summarize the main lines of discussion at the conference "Compatibilist Libertarianism: Advantages and Challenges" (October 29, 2021). This conference, organised by Alexander Gebharter and Maria Sekatskaya, served the discussion of Christian List's account of compatibilist libertarianism. Speakers were Taylor W. Cyr, Nadine Elzein, Alexander Gebharter, Christian List, Alfred R. Mele, Leonhard Menges, Tuomas K. Pernu, and Maria Sekatskaya.
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  • Is Multiple Realizability a Valid Argument against Methodological Individualism?Branko Mitrović - 2017 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 47 (1):28-43.
    In recent decades, a number of authors have relied on the multiple realizability argument to reject methodological individualism. In this article, I argue that this strategy results in serious difficulties and makes it impossible to identify social entities and phenomena.
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  • Introduction to the special issue: Skepticism, relativism, pluralism.Veli Mitova, Robert McIntyre & Sherif Salem - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
    The precise and proper territorial boundaries of skepticism, relativism, and pluralism have been perennial topics of debate in philosophy. Very few philosophers endorse these positions in an unqual...
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  • Emergence: logical, functional and dynamical. [REVIEW]Sandra D. Mitchell - 2012 - Synthese 185 (2):171-186.
    Philosophical accounts of emergence have been explicated in terms of logical relationships between statements (derivation) or static properties (function and realization). Jaegwon Kim is a modern proponent. A property is emergent if it is not explainable by (or reducible to) the properties of lower level components. This approach, I will argue, is unable to make sense of the kinds of emergence that are widespread in scientific explanations of complex systems. The standard philosophical notion of emergence posits the wrong dichotomies, confuses (...)
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  • Essentialist Non-Reductivism.Taylor-Grey Edward Miller - 2022 - Philosophers' Imprint 22.
    According to many contemporary metaphysicians, we ought to theorize in terms of grounding because of its promise to explicate the idea of reality having a layered structure. However, a tension emerges when one combines the layered structure view with the view that higher-level facts are not reducible to lower-level facts. This tension emerges from two problems. The first problem arises from the fact that grounding explanations entail true universal generalizations. In order to satisfy this constraint, we will face serious pressure (...)
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  • Chemical reduction and quantum interpretation: A case for thomistic emergence.Ryan Miller - 2023 - Foundations of Chemistry 25 (3):405-417.
    The debate between ontological reductionists and emergentists in chemistry has revolved around quantum mechanics. What Franklin and Seifert (BJPS 2020) add to the long-running dispute is an attention to the measurement problem. They contend that all three realist interpretations of the quantum formalism capable of resolving the measurement problem also obviate any need for chemical emergence. I push their argument further, arguing that the realist interpretations of quantum mechanics actually subvert the basis for reduction as well, by undercutting the idea (...)
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  • Compressibility and the Reality of Patterns.Tyler Millhouse - 2021 - Philosophy of Science 88 (1):22-43.
    Daniel Dennett distinguishes real patterns from bogus patterns by appeal to compressibility. As information theorists have shown, data are compressible if and only if those data exhibit a pattern....
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  • A Logic for Best Explanations.Jared Millson & Christian Straßer - 2019 - Journal of Applied Non-Classical Logics 29 (2):184-231.
    Efforts to formalize qualitative accounts of inference to the best explanation (IBE) confront two obstacles: the imprecise nature of such accounts and the unusual logical properties that explanations exhibit, such as contradiction-intolerance and irreflexivity. This paper aims to surmount these challenges by utilising a new, more precise theory that treats explanations as expressions that codify defeasible inferences. To formalise this account, we provide a sequent calculus in which IBE serves as an elimination rule for a connective that exhibits many of (...)
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  • Social intelligence: How to integrate research? A mechanistic perspective.Marcin Miłkowski - 2019 - AI and Society 34 (4):735-744.
    Is there a field of social intelligence? Many various disciplines approach the subject and it may only seem natural to suppose that different fields of study aim at explaining different phenomena; in other words, there is no special field of study of social intelligence. In this paper, I argue for an opposite claim. Namely, there is a way to integrate research on social intelligence, as long as one accepts the mechanistic account to explanation. Mechanistic integration of different explanations, however, comes (...)
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  • Social intelligence: How to integrate research? A mechanistic perspective.Marcin Miłkowski - 2019 - AI and Society 34 (4):735-744.
    Is there a field of social intelligence? Many various disciplines approach the subject and it may only seem natural to suppose that different fields of study aim at explaining different phenomena; in other words, there is no special field of study of social intelligence. In this paper, I argue for an opposite claim. Namely, there is a way to integrate research on social intelligence, as long as one accepts the mechanistic account to explanation. Mechanistic integration of different explanations, however, comes (...)
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  • From Computer Metaphor to Computational Modeling: The Evolution of Computationalism.Marcin Miłkowski - 2018 - Minds and Machines 28 (3):515-541.
    In this paper, I argue that computationalism is a progressive research tradition. Its metaphysical assumptions are that nervous systems are computational, and that information processing is necessary for cognition to occur. First, the primary reasons why information processing should explain cognition are reviewed. Then I argue that early formulations of these reasons are outdated. However, by relying on the mechanistic account of physical computation, they can be recast in a compelling way. Next, I contrast two computational models of working memory (...)
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  • Fish and microchips: on fish pain and multiple realization.Matthias Michel - 2019 - Philosophical Studies 176 (9):2411-2428.
    Opponents to consciousness in fish argue that fish do not feel pain because they do not have a neocortex, which is a necessary condition for feeling pain. A common counter-argument appeals to the multiple realizability of pain: while a neocortex might be necessary for feeling pain in humans, pain might be realized differently in fish. This paper argues, first, that it is impossible to find a criterion allowing us to demarcate between plausible and implausible cases of multiple realization of pain (...)
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  • In Defense of a Realization Formulation of Physicalism.Andrew Melnyk - 2018 - Topoi 37 (3):483-493.
    In earlier work, I proposed and defended a formulation of physicalism that was distinctive in appealing to a carefully-defined relation of physical realization. Various philosophers (Robert Francescotti, Daniel Stoljar, Carl Gillett, and Susan Schneider) have since presented challenges to this formulation. In the present paper, I aim to show that these challenges can be overcome.
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  • Being a physicalist: How and (more importantly) why.Andrew Melnyk - 1994 - Philosophical Studies 74 (2):221-241.
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  • Unnatural Normativity? Critical notice of Ralph Wedgwood's Nature of Normativity. [REVIEW]Tristram Mcpherson - 2009 - Philosophical Books 50 (2):63-82.
    Ralph Wedgwood’s The Nature of Normativity significantly advances our understanding of metaethical realism. After briefly reviewing the overall structure of Wedgwood’s argument for a Platonist realism about normativity, this critical notice focuses on three of the central metaphysical and epistemological claims that he defends. I first explain and raise difficulties for Wedgwood’s core claim that the intentional is normative. I then argue that his innovative attempt to finesse the supervenience problem that faces metaethical Platonists fails. Finally, I critically examine his (...)
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  • Heidegger and the Supposition of a Single, Objective World.Denis McManus - 2012 - European Journal of Philosophy 23 (2):195-220.
    Christina Lafont has argued that the early Heidegger's reflections on truth and understanding are incompatible with ‘the supposition of a single objective world’. This paper presents her argument, reviews some responses that the existing Heidegger literature suggests, and offers what I argue is a superior response. Building on a deeper exploration of just what the above ‘supposition’ demands, I argue that a crucial assumption that Lafont and Haugeland both accept must be rejected, namely, that different ‘understandings of Being’ can be (...)
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  • Marr’s Three Levels: A Re-evaluation. [REVIEW]Ron McClamrock - 1990 - Minds and Machines 1 (May):185-196.
    the _algorithmic_, and the _implementational_; Zenon Pylyshyn (1984) calls them the _semantic_, the _syntactic_, and the _physical_; and textbooks in cognitive psychology sometimes call them the levels of _content_, _form_, and _medium_ (e.g. Glass, Holyoak, and Santa 1979).
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  • Hypothetical identities and ontological economizing: Comments on Causey's program for the unity of science.Robert N. McCauley - 1981 - Philosophy of Science 48 (2):218-227.
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  • Evolving Concepts of Functional Localization.Joseph B. McCaffrey - 2023 - Philosophy Compass 18 (5):e12914.
    Functional localization is a central aim of cognitive neuroscience. But the nature and extent of functional localization in the human brain have been subjects of fierce theoretical debate since the 19th Century. In this essay, I first examine how concepts of functional localization have changed over time. I then analyze contemporary challenges to functional localization drawing from research on neural reuse, neural degeneracy, and the context-dependence of neural functions. I explore the consequences of these challenges for topics in philosophy of (...)
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  • Can connectionists explain systematicity?Robert J. Matthews - 1997 - Mind and Language 12 (2):154-77.
    Classicists and connectionists alike claim to be able to explain systematicity. The proposed classicist explanation, I argue, is little more than a promissory note, one that classicists have no idea how to redeem. Smolensky's (1995) proposed connectionist explanation fares little better: it is not vulnerable to recent classicist objections, but it nonetheless fails, particularly if one requires, as some classicists do, that explanations of systematicity take the form of a‘functional analysis’. Nonetheless, there are, I argue, reasons for cautious optimism about (...)
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  • Can Connectionists Explain Systematicity?Robert J. Matthews - 1997 - Mind and Language 12 (2):154-177.
    Classicists and connectionists alike claim to be able to explain systematicity. The proposed classicist explanation, I argue, is little more than a promissory note, one that classicists have no idea how to redeem. Smolensky's (1995) proposed connectionist explanation fares little better: it is not vulnerable to recent classicist objections, but it nonetheless fails, particularly if one requires, as some classicists do, that explanations of systematicity take the form of a‘functional analysis’. Nonetheless, there are, I argue, reasons for cautious optimism about (...)
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  • Psychophysical supervenience and nonreductive materialism.Ausonio Marras - 1993 - Synthese 95 (2):275-304.
    Jaegwon Kim and others have claimed that (strong) psychophysical supervenience entails the reducibility of mental properties to physical properties. I argue that this claim is unwarranted with respect to epistemic (explanatory) reducibility (either of a global or of a local sort), as well as with respect to ontological reducibility. I then attempt to show that a robust version of nonreductive materialism (which I call supervenient token-physicalism) can be defended against the charge that nonreductive materialism leads to epiphenomenalism in failing to (...)
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  • Neural Oscillations as Representations.Manolo Martínez & Marc Artiga - 2023 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 74 (3):619-648.
    We explore the contribution made by oscillatory, synchronous neural activity to representation in the brain. We closely examine six prominent examples of brain function in which neural oscillations play a central role, and identify two levels of involvement that these oscillations take in the emergence of representations: enabling (when oscillations help to establish a communication channel between sender and receiver, or are causally involved in triggering a representation) and properly representational (when oscillations are a constitutive part of the representation). We (...)
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  • Humean laws and explanation.Dan Marshall - 2015 - Philosophical Studies 172 (12):3145-3165.
    A common objection to Humeanism about natural laws is that, given Humeanism, laws cannot help explain their instances, since, given the best Humean account of laws, facts about laws are explained by facts about their instances rather than vice versa. After rejecting a recent influential reply to this objection that appeals to the distinction between scientific and metaphysical explanation, I will argue that the objection fails by failing to distinguish between two types of facts, only one of which Humeans should (...)
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  • Evaluation of Research(ers) and its Threat to Epistemic Pluralisms.Marco Viola - 2017 - European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 13 (2):55-78.
    While some form of evaluation has always been employed in science (e.g. peer review, hiring), formal systems of evaluation of research and researchers have recently come to play a more prominent role in many countries because of the adoption of new models of governance. According to such models, the quality of the output of both researchers and their institutions is measured, and issues such as eligibility for tenure or the allocation of public funding to research institutions crucially depends on the (...)
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  • Two routes to narrow content: Both dead ends.Pat A. Manfredi - 1993 - Philosophical Psychology 6 (1):3-22.
    If psychology requires a taxonomy that categorizes mental states according to their causal powers, the common sense method of individuating mental states (a taxonomy by intentional content) is unacceptable because mental states can have different intentional content, but identical causal powers. This difference threatens both the vindication of belief/desire psychology and the viability of scientific theories whose posits include intentional states. To resolve this conflict, Fodor has proposed that for scientific purposes mental states should be classified by their narrow content. (...)
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  • Supervenience and neuroscience.Pete Mandik - 2011 - Synthese 180 (3):443 - 463.
    The philosophical technical term "supervenience" is frequently used in the philosophy of mind as a concise way of characterizing the core idea of physicalism in a manner that is neutral with respect to debates between reductive physicalists and nonreductive physicalists. I argue against this alleged neutrality and side with reductive physicalists. I am especially interested here in debates between psychoneural reductionists and nonreductive functionalist physicalists. Central to my arguments will be considerations concerning how best to articulate the spirit of the (...)
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  • How Much Philosophy in the Philosophy of Chemistry?Alexandru Manafu - 2014 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 45 (1):33-44.
    This paper aims to show that there is a lot of philosophy in the philosophy of chemistry—not only in the problems and questions specific to chemistry, which this science brings up in philosophical discussions, but also in the topics of wider interest like reductionism and emergence, for which chemistry proves to be an ideal case study. The fact that chemical entities and properties are amenable to a quantitative understanding, to measurement and experiment to a greater extent than those in psychology (...)
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  • Get the Latest Upgrade: Functionalism 6.3.1.Corey Maley & Gualtiero Piccinini - 2013 - Philosophia Scientae 17 (2):135-149.
    Functionalism is a popular solution to the mind–body problem. It has a number of versions. We outline some of the major releases of functionalism, listing some of their important features as well as some of the bugs that plagued these releases. We outline how different versions are related. Many have been pessimistic about functionalism’s prospects, but most criticisms have missed the latest upgrades. We end by suggesting a version of functionalism that provides a complete account of the mind.
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