Social ontology is the study of the nature and properties of the social world. It is concerned with analyzing the various entities in the world that arise from social interaction. -/- A prominent topic in social ontology is the analysis of social groups. Do social groups exist at all? If so, what sorts of entities are they, and how are they created? Is a social group distinct from the collection of people who are its members, and if so, how is (...) it different? What sorts of properties do social groups have? Can they have beliefs or intentions? Can they perform actions? And if so, what does it take for a group to believe, intend, or act? -/- Other entities investigated in social ontology include money, corporations, institutions, property, social classes, races, genders, artifacts, artworks, language, and law. It is difficult to delineate a precise scope for the field (see section 2.1). In general, though, the entities explored in social ontology largely overlap with those that social scientists work on. A good deal of the work in social ontology takes place within the social sciences (see sections 5.1–5.8). -/- Social ontology also addresses more basic questions about the nature of the social world. One set of questions pertains to the constituents, or building blocks, of social things in general. For instance, some theories argue that social entities are built out of the psychological states of individual people, while others argue that they are built out of actions, and yet others that they are built out of practices. Still other theories deny that a distinction can even be made between the social and the non-social. -/- A different set of questions pertains to how social categories are constructed or set up. Are social categories and kinds produced by our attitudes? By our language? Are they produced by causal patterns? And is there just one way social categories are set up, or are there many varieties of social construction? -/- The term ‘social ontology’ has only come into wide currency in recent years, but the nature of the social has been a topic of inquiry since ancient Greece. As a whole, the field can be understood as a branch of metaphysics, the general inquiry into the nature of entities. (shrink)

This paper attempts to explain the emergence of the logical empiricist philosophy of space and time as a collision of mathematical traditions. The historical development of the ``Riemannian'' and ``Helmholtzian'' traditions in 19th century mathematics is investigated. Whereas Helmholtz's insistence on rigid bodies in geometry was developed group theoretically by Lie and philosophically by Poincaré, Riemann's Habilitationsvotrag triggered Christoffel's and Lipschitz's work on quadratic differential forms, paving the way to Ricci's absolute differential calculus. The transition from special to general relativity (...) is briefly sketched as a process of escaping from the Helmholtzian tradition and entering the Riemannian one. Early logical empiricist conventionalism, it is argued, emerges as the failed attempt to interpret Einstein's reflections on rods and clocks in general relativity through the conceptual resources of the Helmholtzian tradition. Einstein's epistemology of geometry should, in spite of his rhetorical appeal to Helmholtz and Poincaré, be understood in the wake the Riemannian tradition and of its aftermath in the work of Levi-Civita, Weyl, Eddington, and others. (shrink)

Wesley Salmon and John Earman have presented influential Bayesian reconstructions of Thomas Kuhn’s account of theory-change. In this paper I argue that all attempts to give a Bayesian reading of Kuhn’s philosophy of science are fundamentally misguided due to the fact that Bayesian confirmation theory is in fact inconsistent with Kuhn’s account. The reasons for this inconsistency are traced to the role the concept of incommensurability plays with reference to the ‘observational vocabulary’ within Kuhn’s picture of scientific theories. The upshot (...) of the discussion is that it is impossible to integrate both Kuhn’s claims and Bayesianism within a coherent account of theory-change. (shrink)

Resumen: Janet Folina ha propuesto una interpretación del convencionalismo de Poincaré contraria a la que ofrecen Michael Friedman y Robert DiSalle. Ambos afirman que la propuesta de Poincaré queda refutada por la relati-vidad general pues supone una noción restrictiva de los principios a priori. Folina sostiene que el convencionalismo de Poincaré no es contradictorio con la relatividad general porque permite una noción relativizada de los princi-pios a priori. Intento mostrar que la estrategia de Folina es ineficaz porque Poincaré no puede (...) explicar el papel de la variedad de Riemann en la rela-tividad general. Concluyo que la tentativa de reconstruir el desarrollo de la relatividad general a partir de la filosofía de Poincaré puede constituir un obs-táculo para comprender la radicalidad del cambio que la relatividad generó en las relaciones entre física y geometría.: Janet Folina has proposed an interpretation of Poincaré’s conven-tionalism against Michael Friedman and Robert DiSalle. They both state that Poincaré’s proposal is refuted by general relativity, since it implies a restrictive notion of a priori principles. Folina claims that Poincaré’s conventionalism is not in conflict with general relativity because from Poincaré’s proposal it is possible to extract a relativized notion of a priori principles. I intend to show that Folina’s strategy is ineffective due to Poincaré’s inability to explain the role of Riemann manifold in general relativity. I conclude that the attempt to reconstruct the development of general relativity from Poincaré’s philosophy may be an obstacle to understanding the radical nature of the change that relativity brought to the relationship between physics and geometry. (shrink)

This article focuses on the conventions that sustain social interaction and argues that they are central to Simon's decision-making theory. Simon clearly identifies two kinds of coordination by convention: behavioral mores that shape human actions, and shared mental models that govern human perceptions. This article argues that Poincaré–Carnap's conventionalism provides powerful support for Simon's theory; it contends that this theory offers a more convincing account of decision and coordination than Lewis' concept of convention. Simon's approach to applying conventionalist logic to (...) social interaction emphasizes the normative role played by mental models in solving coordination problems and considers rationality in terms of both cognitive and moral considerations. By connecting conventional phenomena to social identifications, Simon stresses the resulting complexity of coordination problems. (shrink)

I will present two examples of influential (and incorrect) interpretations of Poincaré, pinpointing their errors and documenting some of their diffusion. The first example, which appears to have been initiated by Moritz Schlick, is the widespread misinterpretation of Poincaré’s argument for geometric conventionalism by basing it on the underdetermination of theories in science. The second example, having to do with Poincaré’s claim that Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries are inter-translatable, stems from Louis Rougier and was spread in the English language literature (...) by Max Black. I will then reflect on whether it is possible to avoid fragmentation in the interpretation of Poincaré, using Jeremy Gray’s admirable attempt at completeness in his intellectual biography of Poincaré as an example. Finally, I will propose one possible new direction for study of Poincaré that might enrich our view of him substantially by achieving a level of detail that has so far been lacking. (shrink)

By inserting the dialogue between Einstein, Schlick and Reichenbach in a wider network of debates about the epistemology of geometry, the paper shows, that not only Einstein and Logical Empiricists came to disagree about the role, principled or provisional, played by rods and clocks in General Relativity, but they actually, in their life-long interchange, never clearly identified the problem they were discussing. Einstein’s reflections on geometry can be understood only in the context of his “measuring rod objection” against Weyl. Logical (...) Empiricists, though carefully analyzing the Einstein-Weyl debate, tried on the contrary to interpret Einstein’s epistemology of geometry as a continuation of the Helmholtz-Poincaré debate by other means. The origin of the misunderstanding, it is argued, should be found in the failed appreciation of the difference between a “Helmhotzian” and a “Riemannian” tradition. The epistemological problems raised by General Relativity are extraneous to the first tradition and can only be understood in the context of the latter, whose philosophical significance, however, still needs to be fully explored. (shrink)

This paper attempts to explain the emergence of the logical empiricist philosophy of space and time as a collision of mathematical traditions. The historical development of the ``Riemannian'' and ``Helmholtzian'' traditions in 19th century mathematics is investigated. Whereas Helmholtz's insistence on rigid bodies in geometry was developed group theoretically by Lie and philosophically by Poincaré, Riemann's Habilitationsvotrag triggered Christoffel's and Lipschitz's work on quadratic differential forms, paving the way to Ricci's absolute differential calculus. The transition from special to general relativity (...) is briefly sketched as a process of escaping from the Helmholtzian tradition and entering the Riemannian one. Early logical empiricist conventionalism, it is argued, emerges as the failed attempt to interpret Einstein's reflections on rods and clocks in general relativity through the conceptual resources of the Helmholtzian tradition. Einstein's epistemology of geometry should, in spite of his rhetorical appeal to Helmholtz and Poincaré, be understood in the wake the Riemannian tradition and of its aftermath in the work of Levi-Civita, Weyl, Eddington, and others. (shrink)

There is a basic division in the philosophy of mathematics between realist, ‘platonist’ theories and anti-realist ‘constructivist’ theories. Platonism explains how mathematical truth is strongly objective, but it does this at the cost of invoking mind-independent mathematical objects. In contrast, constructivism avoids mind-independent mathematical objects, but the cost tends to be a weakened conception of mathematical truth. Neither alternative seems ideal. The purpose of this paper is to show that in the philosophical writings of Henri Poincaré there is a coherent (...) argument for an interesting position between the two traditional poles in the philosophy of mathematics. Relying on a semi-Kantian framework, Poincaré combines an epistemological and metaphysical constructivism with a more realist account of the nature of mathematical truth. (shrink)

I analyze the two main theses of Helmholtz's "The Applicability of the Axioms to the Physical World," in which he argued that the axioms of Euclidean geometry are not, as his neo-Kantian opponents had argued, binding on any experience of the external world. This required two argumentative steps: 1) a new account of the structure of our representations which was consistent both with the experience of our (for him) Euclidean world and with experience of a non-Euclidean one, and 2) a (...) demonstration of why geometric propositions are essentially connected to material and temporal aspects of experience. The effect of Helmholtz's discussion is to throw into relief an intermediate category of metrological objects--objects which are required for the properly theoretical activity of doing physical science (in this sense, a priori requirements for doing science), all while being recognizably contingent aspects of experience. (shrink)

By inserting the dialogue between Einstein, Schlick and Reichenbach into a wider network of debates about the epistemology of geometry, this paper shows that not only did Einstein and Logical Empiricists come to disagree about the role, principled or provisional, played by rods and clocks in General Relativity, but also that in their lifelong interchange, they never clearly identified the problem they were discussing. Einstein’s reflections on geometry can be understood only in the context of his ”measuring rod objection” against (...) Weyl. On the contrary, Logical Empiricists, though carefully analyzing the Einstein–Weyl debate, tried to interpret Einstein’s epistemology of geometry as a continuation of the Helmholtz–Poincaré debate by other means. The origin of the misunderstanding, it is argued, should be found in the failed appreciation of the difference between a “Helmholtzian” and a “Riemannian” tradition. The epistemological problems raised by General Relativity are extraneous to the first tradition and can only be understood in the context of the latter, the philosophical significance of which, however, still needs to be fully explored. (shrink)

This paper attempts to show how the logical empiricists’ interpretation of the relation between geometry and reality emerges from a “collision” of mathematical traditions. Considering Riemann’s work as the initiator of a 19th century geometrical tradition, whose main protagonists were Helmholtz and Poincaré, the logical empiricists neglected the fact that Riemann’s revolutionary insight flourished instead in a non-geometrical tradition dominated by the works of Christoffel and Ricci-Curbastro roughly in the same years. I will argue that, in the attempt to interpret (...) general relativity as the last link of the chain Riemann–Helmholtz–Poincaré–Einstein, logical empiricists were led to argue that Einstein’s theory of gravitation mainly raised a problem of mathematical under-determination, i.e. the discovery that there are physical differences that cannot be expressed in the relevant mathematical structure of the theory. However, a historical reconstruction of the alternative Riemann–Christoffel–Ricci–Einstein line of evolution shows on the contrary that the main philosophical issue raised by Einstein’s theory was instead that of mathematical over-determination, i.e. the recognition of the presence of redundant mathematical differences that do not have any correspondence in physical reality. (shrink)

Matthias Neuber’s book represents an important contribution to the relatively young discipline of the History of Philosophy of Science. Starting roughly in the 1980s, increasing attention has been devoted not only to the relationship between philosophy and the history of science, but to an accurate historical reconstruction of earlier projects within philosophy of science. One of the most outstanding results of these investigations has probably been the radical reshaping of the rather caricatural image of logical empiricism—for better or worse the (...) core of the philosophical heritage of many philosophers of science—summarized in the so-called ‘standard view’. By analyzing the historical, sociological, and philosophical questions surrounding logical empiricism new light has been shed on the sense of a cultural, social, and political mission that characterized it before its emigration from Europe to North America in the 1930s and 1940s. What came to be known as .. (shrink)

Wesley Salmon and John Earman have presented influential Bayesian reconstructions of Thomas Kuhn's account of theory-change. In this paper I argue that all attempts to give a Bayesian reading of Kuhn's philosophy of science are fundamentally misguided due to the fact that Bayesian confirmation theory is in fact inconsistent with Kuhn's account. The reasons for this inconsistency are traced to the role the concept of incommensurability plays with reference to the 'observational vocabulary' within Kuhn's picture of scientific theories. The upshot (...) of the discussion is that it is impossible to integrate both Kuhn's Claims and Bayesianism within a coherent account of theory-change. (shrink)

In the introduction to his famous book, La Science et l’hypothèse, Poincaré remarks on the necessary role and legitimacy of hypotheses. He establishes a triple classification of hypotheses, dividing them into verifiable, useful, and apparent. However, in chapter 9, entitled ‘Les hypothèses en physique’, he gives a slightly different triadic classification: natural hypotheses, indifferent hypotheses, and real generalizations. The origin of this second classification is a lecture given at the International Congress of Physics, Paris, 1900. What are the similarities and (...) differences between these two classifications? My main purpose is to provide a possible equivalence between the two classifications in order to clarify the role of hypotheses in Poincaré’s epistemology of natural science. The discussion will be based on the two fundamental texts mentioned above and on the contrast between Poincaré’s use of the notion of hypothesis and that of some of his contemporaries. (shrink)

This paper has four aims: first, to outline the role of the sceptical problem of the criterion in the principal argument for epistemic relativism; second, to establish that methodist and particularist responses to the problem of the criterion do not, by themselves, constitute successful strategies for resisting epistemic relativism; third, to argue that a more fruitful strategy is to attempt to evaluate epistemic frameworks on the basis of the epistemic resources that they have in common; and finally, to make the (...) case that finding this common ground will necessarily involve determining how it is that a framework’s constituent epistemic methods depend on one another for not only their warrant, but for their application. (shrink)

Einstein’s “point-coincidence argument'” as a response to the “hole argument” is usually considered as an expression of “Leibniz equivalence,” a restatement of indiscernibility in the sense of Leibniz. Through a historical-critical analysis of Logical Empiricists' interpretation of General Relativity, the paper attempts to show that this labeling is misleading. Logical Empiricists tried explicitly to understand the point-coincidence argument as an indiscernibility argument of the Leibnizian kind, such as those formulated in the 19th century debate about geometry, by authors such as (...) Poincaré, Helmholtz or Hausdorff. However, they clearly failed to give a plausible account of General Relativity. Thus the point-coincidence/hole argument cannot be interpreted as Leibnizian indiscernibility argument, but must be considered as an indiscernibility argument of a new kind. Weyl's analysis of Leibniz's and Einstein's indiscernibility arguments is used to support this claim. (shrink)