The purpose of this paper is to analyze the structure and the defeasibility conditions of argument from analogy, addressing the issues of determining the nature of the comparison underlying the analogy and the types of inferences justifying the conclusion. In the dialectical tradition, different forms of similarity were distinguished and related to the possible inferences that can be drawn from them. The kinds of similarity can be divided into four categories, depending on whether they represent fundamental semantic features of the (...) terms of the comparison or non-semantic ones, indicating possible characteristics of the referents. Such distinct types of similarity characterize different kinds of analogical arguments, all based on a similar general structure, in which a common genus is abstracted. Depending on the nature of the abstracted common feature, different rules of inference will apply, guaranteeing the attribution of the analogical predicate to the genus and to the primary subject. This analysis of similarity and the relationship thereof with the rules of inference allows a deeper investigation of the defeasibility conditions. (shrink)

Causal reasoning is one of our most central cognitive competencies, enabling us to adapt to our world. Causal knowledge allows us to predict future events, or diagnose the causes of observed facts. We plan actions and solve problems using knowledge about cause-effect relations. Without our ability to discover and empirically test causal theories, we would not have made progress in various empirical sciences. In the past decades, the important role of causal knowledge has been discovered in many areas of cognitive (...) psychology. Despite the ubiquity of causal reasoning, textbooks of cognitive psychology have neglected this growing field. The goal of The Oxford Handbook of Causal Reasoning is to fill this gap. The handbook brings together the leading researchers in the field of causal reasoning and offers state-of-the-art presentations of theories and research. It provides introductions of competing theories of causal reasoning, and discusses its role in various cognitive functions and domains. The final section presents research from neighboring fields. 1. Causal Reasoning: An Introduction Michael R. Waldmann Part I: Theories of Causal Cognition 2. Associative Accounts of Causal Cognition Mike E. Le Pelley, Oren Griffiths, and Tom Beesley 3. Rules of Causal Judgment: Mapping Statistical Information Onto Causal Beliefs José C. Perales, Andrés Catena, Antonio Cándido, and Antonio Maldonado 4. The Inferential Reasoning Theory of Causal Learning: Toward a Multi- Process Propositional Account Yannick Boddez, Jan De Houwer, and Tom Beckers 5. Causal Invariance as an Essential Constraint for Creating a Causal Representation of the World: Generalizing the Invariance of Causal Power Patricia W. Cheng and Hongjing Lu 6. The Acquisition and Use of Causal Structure Knowledge Benjamin Margolin Rottman 7. Formalizing Prior Knowledge in Causal Induction Thomas L. Griffiths 8. Causal Mechanisms Samuel G. B. Johnson and Woo-kyoung Ahn 9. Force Dynamics and Causation Phillip Wolff and Robert Thorstad 10. Mental Models and Causation P. N. Johnson- Laird and Sangeet S. Khemlani 11. Pseudocontingencies Klaus Fiedler and Florian Kutzner 12. Singular Causation David Danks 13. Cognitive Neuroscience of Causal Reasoning Joachim T. Operskalski and Aron K. Barbey Part II: Basic Cognitive Functions 14. Visual Impressions of Causality Peter White 15. Goal-Directed Actions Bernhard Hommel 16. Planning and Control Magda Osman 17. Reinforcement Learning and Causal Models Samuel J. Gershman 18. Causation and the Probability of Causal Conditionals David E. Over 19. Causal Models and Conditional Reasoning Mike Oaksford and Nick Chater 20. Concepts as Causal Models: Categorization Bob Rehder 21. Concepts as Causal Models: Induction Bob Rehder 22. Causal Explanation Tania Lombrozo and Nadya Vasilyeva 23. Diagnostic Reasoning Björn Meder and Ralf Mayrhofer 24. Inferring Causal Relations by Analogy Keith J. Holyoak and Hee-Seung Lee 25. Causal Argument Ulrike Hahn, Roland Bluhm, and Frank Zenker 26. Causality in Decision- Making York Hagmayer and Philip M. Fernbach Part III: Domains of Causal Reasoning 27. Intuitive Theories Tobias Gerstenberg and Joshua B. Tenenbaum 28. Space, Time, and Causality Marc J. Buehner 29. Causation in Legal and Moral Reasoning David A. Lagnado and Tobias Gerstenberg 30. The Role of Causal Knowledge in Reasoning About Mental Disorders Woo-kyoung Ahn, Nancy S. Kim, and Matthew S. Lebowitz 31. Causality and Causal Reasoning in Natural Language Torgrim Solstad and Oliver Bott 32. Social Attribution and Explanation Denis Hilton Part IV: Development, Phylogeny, and Culture 33. The Development of Causal Reasoning Paul Muentener and Elizabeth Bonawitz 34. Causal Reasoning in Non-Human Animals Christian Schloegl and Julia Fischer 35. Causal Cognition and Culture Andrea Bender, Sieghard Beller, and Douglas L. Medin. (shrink)

This chapter utilises scholarship in philosophy of biology and philosophy of chemistry to produce meaningful implications for biology and chemistry education. The primary purpose for studying philosophical literature is to identify different perspectives on the nature of laws and explanations within these disciplines. The goal is not to resolve ongoing debates about the nature of laws and explanations but to consider their multiple forms and purposes in ways that promote deep and practical understanding of biological and chemical knowledge in educational (...) contexts. Most studies on the nature of science in science education tend to focus on general features of scientific knowledge and underemphasise disciplinary nuances. The authors aim to contribute to science education research by focusing on the characterisations of laws and explanations in biology and chemistry in the philosophical literature and illustrating how the typical coverage of biology and chemistry textbooks does not problematise meta-perspectives on the nature of laws and explanations. The chapter concludes with suggestions for making science teaching, learning and curriculum more inclusive of the epistemological dimensions of biology and chemistry. (shrink)

Koriat & Goldsmith's distinction between the correspondence and storehouse metaphors is valuable for both memory theory and methodology. It is questionable, however, whether this distinction underlies the heated debate about so called “everyday memory” research. The distinction between experimental and naturalistic methodologies better characterizes this debate. I compare these distinctions and discuss how the methodological distinction, between experimental and naturalistic designs, could give rise to different theoretical approaches.

This commentary deals with criteria for assigning truth values to memory contents. A parallel with perception shows how truth values can be assigned by considering subjects' beliefs about the truth state of the memory content. This topic is also relevant to the study of processes of control over retrieval.

This article argues for an anti-deflationist view of scientific representation. Our discussion begins with an analysis of the recent Callender–Cohen deflationary view on scientific representation. We then argue that there are at least two radically different ways in which a thing can be represented: one is purely symbolic, and therefore conventional, and the other is epistemic. The failure to recognize that scientific models are epistemic vehicles rather than symbolic ones has led to the mistaken view that whatever distinguishes scientific models (...) from other representational vehicles must merely be a matter of pragmatics. It is then argued that even though epistemic vehicles also contain conventional elements, they do their job of demonstration in spite of such elements. (shrink)

In this thesis, I give a metascientific account of causality in medicine. I begin with two historical cases of causal discovery. These are the discovery of the causation of Burkitt’s lymphoma by the Epstein-Barr virus, and of the various viral causes suggested for cervical cancer. These historical cases then support a philosophical discussion of causality in medicine. This begins with an introduction to the Russo- Williamson thesis (RWT), and discussion of a range of counter-arguments against it. Despite these, I argue (...) that the RWT is historically workable, given a small number of modifications. I then expand Russo and Williamson’s account. I first develop their suggestion that causal relationships in medicine require some kind of evidence of mechanism. I begin with a number of accounts of mechanisms and produce a range of consensus features of them. I then develop this consensus position by reference to the two historical case studies with an eye to their operational competence. In particular, I suggest that it is mechanistic models and their representations which we are concerned with in medicine, rather than the mechanism as it exists in the world. -/- I then employ these mechanistic models to give an account of the sorts of evidence used in formulating and evaluating causal claims. Again, I use the two human viral oncogenesis cases to give this account. I characterise and distinguish evidence of mechanism from evidence of difference-making, and relate this to mechanistic models. I then suggest the relationship between types of evidence presents us with a means of tackling the reference-class problem. This sets the scene for the final chapter. Here, I suggest the manner in which these two different classes of evidence become integrated is also reflected in the way that developing research programmes change as their associated causal claims develop. (shrink)

In this paper, we address the different ways in which dream research can contribute to interdisciplinary consciousness research. As a second global state of consciousness aside from wakefulness, dreaming is an important contrast condition for theories of waking consciousness. However, programmatic suggestions for integrating dreaming into broader theories of consciousness, for instance by regarding dreams as a model system of standard or pathological wake states, have not yielded straightforward results. We review existing proposals for using dreaming as a model system, (...) taking into account concerns about the concept of modeling and the adequacy and practical feasibility of dreaming as a model system. We conclude that existing modeling approaches are premature and rely on controversial background assumptions. Instead, we suggest that contrastive analysis of dreaming and wakefulness presents a more promising strategy for integrating dreaming into a broader research context and solving many of the problems involved in the modeling approach. (shrink)

‘‘Adaptive radiation’’ is an evocative metaphor for explosive evolutionary divergence, which for over 100 years has given a powerful heuristic to countless scientists working on all types of organisms at all phylogenetic levels. However, success has come at the price of making ‘‘adaptive radiation’’ so vague that it can no longer reflect the detailed results yielded by powerful new phylogeny-based techniques that quantify continuous adaptive radiation variables such as speciation rate, phylogenetic tree shape, and morphological diversity. Attempts to shoehorn the (...) results of these techniques into categorical ‘‘adaptive radiation: yes/no’’ schemes lead to reification, in which arbitrary quantitative thresholds are regarded as real. Our account of the life cycle of metaphors in science suggests that it is time to exchange the spent metaphor for new concepts that better represent the full range of diversity, disparity, and speciation rate across all of life. (shrink)

Over the last few decades, theoretical discussions about metaphors have appeared with increasing frequency in the literature and, during the last fifteen years or so, such discussions have become more and more common in the methodology of economics. But what exactly is a metaphor? According to a tradition which dates back to Aristotle, a metaphor is the attribution to one object, A, of the name of another object, B, while this name or these qualities do not properly or normally belong (...) to A. Thus, a metaphor is present when a term used to describe A is a term which is already commonly used to name B. Defined in such a way, one must admit that metaphors are frequently found in economics as well as in other sciences. Let us consider, for example, a term like ‘elasticity’ which is extensively used by economists. According to the ordinary dictionary definition, this word designates a property of bodies by which they recover their initial form after having been submitted to a pressure; in a less technical sense, it refers to the flexibility of some bodies or to their responsiveness to pressures. (shrink)

Scientific representation is a currently booming topic, both in analytical philosophy and in history and philosophy of science. The analytical inquiry attempts to come to terms with the relation between theory and world; while historians and philosophers of science aim to develop an account of the practice of model building in the sciences. This article provides a review of recent work within both traditions, and ultimately argues for a practice-based account of the means employed by scientists to effectively achieve representation (...) in the modelling sciences. (shrink)

The structure-mapping theory has become the de-facto standard account of analogies in cognitive science and philosophy of science. In this paper I propose a distinction between two kinds of domains and I show how the account of analogies based on structure-preserving mappings fails in certain (object-rich) domains, which are very common in mathematics, and how the axiomatic approach to analogies, which is based on a common linguistic description of the analogs in terms of laws or axioms, can be used successfully (...) to explicate analogies of this kind. Thus, the two accounts of analogies should be regarded as complementary, since each of them is adequate for explicating analogies that are drawn between different kinds of domains. In addition, I illustrate how the account of analogies based on axioms has also considerable practical advantages, e. g., for the discovery of new analogies. (shrink)

A rationalist and realist model of scientific revolutions will be constructed by reference to two categories of criteria of theory-evaluation, denominated indicators of truth and of beauty. Whereas indicators of truth are formulateda priori and thus unite science in the pursuit of verisimilitude, aesthetic criteria are inductive constructs which lag behind the progression of theories in truthlikeness. Revolutions occur when the evaluative divergence between the two categories of criteria proves too wide to be recomposed or overlooked. This model of revolutions (...) depends upon a substantial new treatment of aesthetic criteria in science with which much of the paper will therefore be occupied. (shrink)

One worrying aspect of contemporary Western Society is the increasing prevalence of instances of ‘Science Denial’ in popular culture. Examples include both cases where well-attested scientific hypotheses are rejected and conversely, where scientifically discredited ideas are stubbornly retained. The paper raises the question whether the kind of argument for an anti-realist conception of empirical scientific theory considered in my contribution to the inaugural issue of this journal could in principle provide intellectual succour for these trends. The discussion proceeds through an (...) examination of the role of ‘takings for granted’ in all reflective enquiry to the conclusion that a trusting acceptance of the general credibility of informants is a precondition for the exercise of individual epistemic responsibility, and that in that context an acceptance of at least the empirical adequacy, if not the truth, realistically understood, of the teachings of scientists in general is rationally non-optional. (shrink)

The thesis proposes an account of the means of scientific representation focused on similarity, or more specifically, on the notion of “creative similarity”. I first distinguish between two different questions regarding the problem of representation: the question about the constituents and the question about the means of representation (following Suárez 2003; van Fraassen 2008). I argue that, although similarity is not a good candidate for constituent of representation, it can satisfactorily answer the question about the means of representation if adequately (...) characterized. To motivate this position, I dispute the main arguments offered against similarity as means of representation, namely the arguments from variety, vagueness, and misrepresentation, and contend that similarity plays a central epistemic role in practices of representing in science. The study of the role of similarity in scientific practice, I argue, requires the analysis of the uses of judgments of similarity in the construction of scientific models. I examine the cases of the Mississippi Basin Model and the San Francisco Bay Model to illustrate how judgments of similarity are directly involved in the production of epistemically fruitful models. Informed by the practical investigation developed throughout the thesis, I finally outline what I call the creative similarity account of the means of representation. The notion of “creative similarity” helps to capture the way in which similarity, as means of representation, intervenes in actual practices of representing, namely, in the form of a productive interplay of judgments of similarity and distortions (i.e. idealizations, abstractions, simplifications), which is employed by resourceful agents with the aim of understanding aspects of the natural world. (shrink)

Recently, interest has surged in similarity-based epistemologies of possibility. However, it has been pointed out that the notion of ‘relevant similarity’ is not properly developed in this literature. In this paper, I look at the research done in the field of analogical reasoning, where we find that one of the most promising ways of capturing relevance in similarity reasoning is by relying on the predictive analogy similarity relation. This takes relevant similarity to be based on shared properties that have structural (...) relations to the property of interest. I argue that if we base our epistemology of possibility on similarity reasoning on the predictive analogy similarity relation, we require prior knowledge of the specifics of these structural relations. I discuss a number of possible responses to this on behalf of the similarity theorists given their methodological approach to the epistemology of modality more generally. They could either opt for making explicit the metaphysics underlying these structural relations, in which case they need to spell out how we can come to know these relations. Or they could opt for developing a theory that explains why we do not need to have explicit knowledge of these structural relations; for example by suggesting that we make use of epistemic shortcuts. (shrink)

The main purpose of this dissertation is to examine critically and discuss the role of imagination in science and religion, with particular emphasis on its possible epistemic, creative, and meaning-making functions. In order to answer my research questions, I apply theories and concepts from contemporary philosophy of mind on scientific and religious practices. This framework allows me to explore the mental state of imagination, not as an isolated phenomenon but, rather, as one of many mental states that co-exist and interplay (...) in our cogntive architecture. Based on the philosophical discourse of philosophy of mind, four types of imagination are indentified and conceptualized: sensory, propositional, experiential, and creative imagination. These categories are then employed on five phenomena that can be found in scientific and religious environments: metaphors, models, thought experiments, aspect perception, and - in the religious case - rituals. In relation to the concept of religious "seeing" I consider how imaginings may influence visionary experiences and visualization, and compare these phenomena with cases of scientific visualization and eureka experiences. In regard to scientific and religious models, a distinction is made between, on the one hand, two notions of truth and, on the other hand, truth-independent meaning-making. In light of these categories, I differentiate between, and critically discuss, the use of imagination in doxastic, non-doxastic and fictionalist accounts. In light of this investigation, I formulate and defend the position of interactivism, which acknowledges a constant interplay between different attitudes and mental states. In my examination of rituals and scientific and religious thought experiments, special attention is given to the mental capacity to recreate the experiences that are entailed in an imagined scenario. At the end of the investigation, I consider the possible impact that my study might have on how we view science and religion as well as the dialogue bewteen these two fields. (shrink)

This paper analyzes three contrasting strategies for modeling intentional agency in contemporary analytic philosophy of mind and action, and draws parallels between them and similar strategies of scientific model-construction. Gricean modeling involves identifying primitive building blocks of intentional agency, and building up from such building blocks to prototypically agential behaviors. Analogical modeling is based on picking out an exemplary type of intentional agency, which is used as a model for other agential types. Theoretical modeling involves reasoning about intentional agency in (...) terms of some domain-general framework of lawlike regularities, which involves no detailed reference to particular building blocks or exemplars of intentional agency. Given the contrasting procedural approaches that they employ and the different types of knowledge that they embody, the three strategies are argued to provide mutually complementary perspectives on intentional agency. (shrink)

The paper investigates the epistemological and communicative competences the experts need to use and communicate evidence in the reasoning process leading to diagnosis. The diagnosis and diagnosis communication are presented as intertwined processes that should be jointly addressed in medical consultations, to empower patients’ compliance in illness management. The paper presents defeasible reasoning as specific to the diagnostic praxis, showing how this type of reasoning threatens effective diagnosis communication and entails that we should understand diagnostic evidence as defeasible as well. (...) It argues that metaphors might be effective communicative devices to let the patients understand the relevant defeasors in the diagnostic reasoning process, helping to improve effective diagnosis communication, and also encouraging a change in patients’ beliefs and attitudes on their own experience of illness and illness’ management. (shrink)

The article develops and justifies, on the basis of the epistemological argumentation theory, two central pieces of the theory of evaluative argumentation interpretation: 1. criteria for recognizing argument types and 2. rules for adding reasons to create ideal arguments. Ad 1: The criteria for identifying argument types are a selection of essential elements from the definitions of the respective argument types. Ad 2: After presenting the general principles for adding reasons (benevolence, authenticity, immanence, optimization), heuristics are proposed for finding missing (...) reasons, for deductive arguments, e.g., semantic tableaux are suggested. (shrink)

The emergence of new technologies regularly involves comparisons with previous innovations. For instance, analogies with asbestos and genetically modified organisms have played a crucial role in the early societal debate about nanotechnology. This article explores the power of analogies in such debates and how they could be effectively and responsibly employed for imagining and governing emerging technologies in general and nanotechnology in particular. First, the concept of analogical imagination is developed to capture the explorative and anticipatory potential of analogies. Yet (...) analogies do not simply stimulate imagination, they also restrict it by framing emerging technologies in specific ways. Thus, second, the article argues that tracing the rhetorical and persuasive power of analogical arguments is essential for understanding how analogies are constructed to legitimise assessments, funding policies, and governance approaches. Third, the article addresses factors that account for the persuasiveness of analogies in debates about emerging technologies. The article concludes with reflections on how analogical imagination and an enhanced analogical sensibility for framing and persuasive effects can foster responsible research and innovation. (shrink)

The central question of this thesis is how one can learn about particular targets by using models of those targets. A widespread assumption is that models have to be representative models in order to foster knowledge about targets. Thus the thesis begins by examining the concept of representation from an epistemic point of view and supports an account of representation that does not distinguish between representation simpliciter and adequate representation. Representation, understood in the sense of a representative model, is regarded (...) as a success term. That is, a representative model is one relatum in a relation of adequate representation (Chapter 2). When a representative model represents a target, it allows users of this model to learn something about the target. It is argued that a representative model has this epistemic function because it shares relevant features with the target. This presupposes a similarity view of representation. Similarity views of representation face serious objections, which will be rebutted (Chapter 3). One way of spelling out a similarity view of representation is to defend an indirect view of representation. In this thesis, which does not argue for an indirect view, it is assumed that the indirect view is a good option, if not the best, for articulating the similarity view. It is demonstrated how such an indirect view can be expanded to account for cases of technological modeling. A case study in bioengineering is used to show that the indirect view of representation must acknowledge a distinction between two directions of fit in relations between vehicles and targets. In this context the notion of design is interpreted as a relation between a vehicle and a target, thereby connecting ideas from philosophy of science with ideas from philosophy of technology (Chapter 4). Fictionalist accounts of models are intended to tackle the issue of the ontology of models. In this thesis, however, two prominent fictionalist accounts are discussed from an epistemological point of view in light of the central question regarding how one can learn about targets by using models. This question is addressed from the standpoint of Waltonian fictionalism. The result of the discussion is that the two discussed Waltonian fictionalist accounts cannot sufficiently answer the question. These accounts are criticized for their inability to deliver a satisfactory epistemology of representation (Chapter 5). Although Waltonian fictionalism is criticized, the present thesis also shows that the foundational theory of Waltonian fictionalism, the theory of make-believe can nevertheless be used to account for the distinction between projections and predictions that is made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Chapter 6). (shrink)

This paper is a supplement to, and provides a proof of principle of, Kuhn vs. Popper on Criticism and Dogmatism in Science: A Resolution at the Group Level. It illustrates how calculations may be performed in order to determine how the balance between different functions in science—such as imaginative, critical, and dogmatic—should be struck, with respect to confirmation functions and rules of scientific method.

This second companion volume on engineering studies considers engineering practice including contextual analyses of engineering identity, epistemologies and values. Key overlapping questions examine such issues as an engineering identity, engineering self-understandings enacted in the professional world, distinctive characters of engineering knowledge and how engineering science and engineering design interact in practice. -/- Authors bring with them perspectives from their institutional homes in Europe, North America, Australia\ and Asia. The volume includes 24 contributions by more than 30 authors from engineering, the (...) social sciences and the humanities. Additional issues the chapters scrutinize include prominent norms of engineering, how they interact with the values of efficiency or environmental sustainability. A concluding set of articles considers the meaning of context more generally by asking if engineers create their own contexts or are they created by contexts. -/- Taken as a whole, this collection of original scholarly work is unique in its broad, multidisciplinary consideration of the changing character of engineering practice. (shrink)

A number of researchers today make an appeal to quantum physics when trying to develop a satisfactory account of the mind, an appeal still felt to be controversial by many. Often these "quantum approaches" try to explain some well-known features of conscious experience (or mental processes more generally), thus using quantum physics to enrich the explanatory framework or explanans used in consciousness studies and cognitive science. This paper considers the less studied question of whether quantum physical intuitions could help us (...) to draw attention to new or neglected aspects of the mind in introspection, and in this way change our view about what needs explanation in the rst place. Although prima facie implausible, it is suggested that this could happen, for example, if there were analogies between quantum processes and mental processes (e.g., the process of thinking). The naive idea is that such analogies would help us to see mental processes and conscious experience in a new way. It has indeed been proposed long ago that such analogies exist, and this paper rst focuses at some length on David Bohm's formulation of them from 1951. It then briefly considers these analogies in relation to Smolensky's more recent analogies between cognitive science and physics, and Pylkko's aconceptual view of the mind. Finally, Bohm's early analogies will be briefly considered in relation to the analogies between quantum processes and the mind he proposed in his later work. (shrink)

In this essay, I critically evaluate components of Michael Weisberg’s approach to models and modeling in his book Simulation and Similarity. First, I criticize his account of the ontology of models and mathematics. Second, I respond to his objections to fictionalism regarding models arguing that they fail. Third, I sketch a deflationary approach to models that retains many elements of his account but avoids the inflationary commitments.

The concept of natural kind is center stage in the debates about scientific realism. Champions of scientific realism such as Richard Boyd hold that our most developed scientific theories allow us to “cut the world at its joints” (Boyd, 1981, 1984, 1991). In the long run we can disclose natural kinds as nature made them, though as science progresses improvements in theory allow us to revise the extension of natural kind terms.

A number of areas of biology raise questions about what is of value in the natural environment and how we ought to behave towards it: conservation biology, environmental science, and ecology, to name a few. Based on my experience teaching students from these and similar majors, I argue that the field of environmental ethics has much to teach these students. They come to me with pent-up questions and a feeling that more is needed to fully engage in their subjects, and (...) I believe some exposure to environmental ethics can help focus their interests and goals. I identify three primary areas in which environmental ethics can con- tribute to their education. The first is an examination of who (or what) should be considered to be part of our moral community (i.e., the community to whom we owe direct duties). Is it humans only? Or does it include all sentient life? Or all life? Or ecosystems considered holistically? Often, readings implicitly assume one or more of these answers; the goal is to make the student more sensitive to these implicit claims and to get them to think about the different reasons that support them. The second area, related to the first, is the application of the different answers concerning the extent of the ethical community to real environmental issues and problems. Students need to be aware of how the different answers concerning the moral community can imply conflicting answers for how we should act in certain cases and to think about ways to move toward conflict resolution. The third area in which environmental ethics can contribute is a more conceptual one, focusing on central concepts such as biodiversity, sustainability, species, and ecosystems. Exploring and evaluating various meanings of these terms will make students more reflective and thoughtful citizens and biologists, sensitive to the implications that different conceptual choices make. (shrink)

The “universality” of critical phenomena is much discussed in philosophy of scientific explanation, idealizations and philosophy of physics. Lange and Reutlinger recently opposed Batterman concerning the role of some deliberate distortions in unifying a large class of phenomena, regardless of microscopic constitution. They argue for an essential explanatory role for “commonalities” rather than that of idealizations. Building on Batterman's insight, this article aims to show that assessing the differences between the universality of critical phenomena and two paradigmatic cases of “commonality (...) strategy”—the ideal gas model and the harmonic oscillator model—is necessary to avoid the objections raised by Lange and Reutlinger. Taking these universal explanations as benchmarks for critical phenomena reveals the importance of the different roles played by analogies underlying the use of the models. A special combination of physical and formal analogies allows one to explain the epistemic autonomy of the universality of critical phenomena through an explicative loop. (shrink)

Nineteenth and twentieth century philosophies of science have consistently failed to identify any rational basis for the compelling character of scientific analogies. This failure is particularly worrisome in light of the fact that the development and diffusion of certain scientific analogies, e.g. Darwin’s analogy between domestic breeds and naturally occurring species, constitute paradigm cases of good science. It is argued that the interactivist model, through the notion of a partition epistemology, provides a way to understand the persuasive character of compelling (...) scientific analogies without consigning them to an irrational or arational context of discovery. (shrink)

Using four examples of models and computer simulations from the history of psychology, I discuss some of the methodological aspects involved in their construction and use, and I illustrate how the existence of a model can demonstrate the viability of a hypothesis that had previously been deemed impossible on a priori grounds. This shows a new way in which scientists can learn from models that extends the analysis of Morgan (1999), who has identified the construction and manipulation of models as (...) those phases in which learning from models takes place. (shrink)

An account of analogical characterization is developed in which the following things are claimed.(1) Analogical predications are irreflexive, asymmetrical, atransitive and non-inversive. (2) Analogies A and B share role-similarity descriptions sufficiently abstract to overcome the differences between A and B. Analogies pivot on the point of limited similarity and substantial, even radical, difference. (3) The semantical theory for sentences making analogical attributions requires a distinction between (sentential) meaning as truth conditions and (sentential) meaning as a functional compound of the meanings (...) of contained lexical items. Analogical sentences possess both kinds of meaning. They are true via their truth conditions and would be false via their lexical meanings. The distinctive feature of the lexical meaning of analogical sentences is the tightness of constraints on closure. The implications of analogical sentences, given their lexical meanings, though there, aren't drawn. It is in this sense that analogies are made and not found. (shrink)

Several philosophers of science have claimed that the correspondence principle can be generalized from quantum physics to all of (particularly physical) science and that in fact it constitutes one of the major heuristical rules for the construction of new theories. In order to evaluate these claims, first the use of the correspondence principle in (the genesis of) quantum mechanics will be examined in detail. It is concluded from this and from other examples in the history of science that the principle (...) should be qualified with respect to its nature and relativized with respect to its scope of application. At the same time this conclusion implies a qualification and a relativization of the heuristic power of the principle. Generally speaking, intertheoretical correspondence is primarily of a formal-mathematical and empirical but not of a conceptual nature. Moreover, it only applies to certain parts of the theories involved. Finally, a number of philosophical justifications of the principle are discussed and some conclusions are drawn concerning the debates on theory reduction and on the discovery-justification distinction. (shrink)

Biologically motivated computing seeks to transfer ideas from the biosciences to computer science. In seeking to make transfers it is helpful to be able to appreciate the metaphors which people use. This is because metaphors provide the context through which analogies and similes are made and by which many scientific models are constructed. As such, it is important for any rapidly evolving domain of knowledge to have developments accounted for in these terms. This paper seeks to provide one overview of (...) the process of modelling and shows how it can be used to account for a variety of biologically motivated computational models. Certain key ideas are identified in the subsequent analysis of biological sources, notably, systemic metaphors. Three important aspects of biological thinking are then considered in the light of computer science applications: biological organization, the cell, and models of evolution. The analysis throughout the paper is descriptive rather than formalized so that a large variety of potential applications may be considered. (shrink)

Deterrence is the backbone of military strategy. Dissuading an opponent from taking a specific action by threat of violence is the definition of deterrence. From the outset of the Cold War there has been a strong link between the study of deterrence and game theoretic analysis. There are compelling epistemic reasons for studying deterrence as a game. By doing so, the strategic interaction between actors is placed at the centre of the analysis, mapping the possible outcomes and revealing the strategies (...) available to the actors. Discussions about various models’ appropriateness and model comparison therefore play a central role in deterrence research; from underlying assumptions and deterrence representation to theory and evidence. This dissertation treats aspects of all of these topics. Article I, “Prospects of Deterrence – Deterrence Theory – Representation and Evidence”, analyses the relationship between model and theory and what happens to a deterrence theory when the rationality assumption is switched to a prospect theoretical utility function. Article II, “A Misfit Model – Bounded Rationality and Deterrence Representation”, defends and remodels Schelling’s idea of irrational threats for effective deterrence. Article III, “Comparable Deterrence – Target, Criteria and Purpose”, treats the issue of how one can compare game theoretic models with one another and proposes a meta-model for how this can be done. Article IV, “Deterring the Dauntless – Appraising the Effects of Naval Deterrence against the Somali Piracy”, estimates whether and to what extent Somali piracy was deterred by the naval intervention. (shrink)

This paper proposes a framework for representing in Bayesian terms the idea that analogical arguments of various degrees of strength may provide inductive support to yet untested scientific hypotheses. On this account, contextual information plays a crucial role in determining whether, and to what extent, a given similarity or dissimilarity between source and target may confirm an empirical hypothesis over a rival one. In addition to showing confirmation by analogy compatible with the adoption of a Bayesian standpoint, the proposal outlined (...) in this paper reveals a close agreement between the fulfillment of Hesse’s (Models and analogies in science, University of Notre Dame Press, 1963) criteria for analogical arguments capable of inductive support and the attribution of confirmatory power by the lights of Bayesian confirmation theory. In this sense, the Bayesian representation not only enriches a framework, Hesse’s, of enduring relevance for understanding scientific activity, but may offer something akin to a proof of concept of it. (shrink)

A difference-making account of causality is proposed that is based on a counterfactual definition, but differs from traditional counterfactual approaches to causation in a number of crucial respects: it introduces a notion of causal irrelevance; it evaluates the truth-value of counterfactual statements in terms of difference-making; it renders causal statements background-dependent. On the basis of the fundamental notions 'causal relevance' and 'causal irrelevance', further causal concepts are defined including causal factors, alternative causes, and importantly inus-conditions. Problems and advantages of the (...) proposed account are discussed. Finally, it is shown how the account can shed new light on three classic problems in epistemology, the problem of induction, the logic of analogy, and the framing of eliminative induction. (shrink)

The function of metaphor in science has been labeled as decorative, persuasive, heuristic, instrumental, facilitating or obstructing. It has sometimes been regarded as inspiring, provoking, perverting or destroying rational thought. Metaphor’s positive role has been noted by philosophers, historians of chemistry, and science education researchers. It has been hailed as a descriptive and explanatory device that stimulates and shapes concept development. I discuss how metaphor functions in science generally, then refine this idea through an examination metaphor’s role in chemical thinking (...) in three contexts: the history and philosophy of chemistry, laboratory research practice, and chemical education. I aim to show how metaphor is already operative in the chemist’s use of the concept of chemical element and that this understanding characterizes chemical thinking in general. The chapter concludes with a discussion of a specifically chemical understanding of metaphor. (shrink)

Koriat & Goldsmith's thesis is provocative but has three problems: First, quantity and accuracy are not simply related, they are complementary. Second, the storehouse metaphor is not the driving force behind contemporary theories of memory and may not be viable. Third, the taxonomy is incomplete, leaving unclassified several extremely influential methods and measures, such as priming and response latency.

The question is discussed how noise gained a functional meaning in the context of biology. According to the common view, noise is considered a disturbance or perturbation. I analyze how this understanding changed and what kind of developments during the last 10 years contributed to the emergence of a new understanding of noise. Results gained during a field study in a synthetic biology laboratory show that the emergence of this new research discipline—its highly interdisciplinary character, its new technologies and novel (...) modeling strategies—provided essential impulses, which led to the observed change in the concept of noise. The laboratory study is combined with a historical analysis, which explores the general question as to how concepts travel between disciplines and, specifically, how noise was transferred from engineering and physics into biology. In the past, scientists, such as Lotka and Goodwin, tried to introduce a statistical mechanics into biology and discussed the problem of “unfitting” concepts. The change in the meaning of the concept can be interpreted as a way of making it fit to the novel context in which it is applied. (shrink)

I argue against theories that attempt to reduce scientific representation to similarity or isomorphism. These reductive theories aim to radically naturalize the notion of representation, since they treat scientist's purposes and intentions as non-essential to representation. I distinguish between the means and the constituents of representation, and I argue that similarity and isomorphism are common but not universal means of representation. I then present four other arguments to show that similarity and isomorphism are not the constituents of scientific representation. I (...) finish by looking at the prospects for weakened versions of these theories, and I argue that only those that abandon the aim to radically naturalize scientific representation are likely to be successful. (shrink)

This paper addresses the role of analogical reasoning in archaeoastronomy - the discipline which studies the connections between the ancient monuments and the heavens. Archaeoastronomy is a highly interdisciplinary science, placed at the border between the humanities – especially archaeology – and the scientific approach to cultural heritage. As a consequence, its scientific foundations are a delicate matter. We plan to investigate here the question of what constitutes the evidence for analogical inferences in archaeoastronomy and to what extent one can (...) achieve confirmation of archaeoastronomical hypotheses by means of such analogies. Our claim will be that, when deployed in accordance with the methodology articulated in this paper, analogies can be a highly effective epistemic tool for generating and supporting hypotheses about the relation of archaeological sites with astronomical events. (shrink)