In this essay, which was his presidential address to the Philosophy of Science Association, Ernan McMullin argued that the watershed between “classic” philosophy of science and the “new” philosophy of science can best be understood by analyzing the change in our perception of the role played by values in science. He begins with some general remarks about the nature of value, goes on to explore some of the historical sources for the claim that judgement in science is value‐laden, and concludes (...) by reflecting on the implications of this claim for traditional views of the objectivity of scientific knowledge‐claims. (shrink)

Nelson Goodman cast the ‘problem of induction’ as the task of articulating the principles and standards by which to distinguish valid from invalid inductive inferences. This paper explores some logical bounds on the ability of a rational reasoner to accomplish this task. By a simple argument, either an inductive inference method cannot admit its own fallibility, or there exists some non-inferable hypothesis whose non-inferability the method cannot infer (violating the principle of ‘negative introspection’). The paper discusses some implications of this (...) limited self-knowledge for the justifiability of inductive inferences, auto-epistemic logic, and the epistemic foundations of game theory. (shrink)

This paper responds to the essay reviews by David Haig, Alan Love and Rachel Brown of my recently published book “Homology, Genes and Evolutionary Innovation”. The issues addressed here relate to: the notion of classes and individuals, issues of explanatory value of adaptive and structuralist explanations in evolutionary biology, the role of homology in evolutionary theory, the limits of a pluralist stance vis a vis alternative explanations of homology, as well as the question whether and to what extend the perspective (...) laid out in HGEI can be or should be transferred to other branches of study, like comparative behavioral biology. (shrink)

Die vorliegende Schrift unternimmt eine Revision des vorherrschenden Bildes der Rolle und der Konzeptionen von Moral und Ethik im Wiener Kreis. Dieses Bild wird als zu einseitig und undifferenziert zurückgewiesen. Die Ansicht, die Mitglieder des Wiener Kreises hätten kein Interesse an Moral und Ethik gezeigt, wird widerlegt. Viele Mitglieder waren nicht nur moralisch und politisch interessiert, sondern auch engagiert. Des Weiteren vertraten nicht alle die Standardauffassung logisch-empiristischer Ethik, die neben der Anerkennung deskriptiv-empirischer Untersuchungen durch die Ablehnung jeglicher normativer und inhaltlicher (...) Ethik und der Verfechtung eines extremen Nonkognitivismus geprägt ist. Am meisten entspricht die Standardauffassung den Ansichten Rudolf Carnaps, weniger bereits jenen Karl Mengers, Otto Neuraths oder Philipp Franks. Am weitesten weichen Moritz Schlick, Victor Kraft sowie Herbert Feigl von der Standardauffassung ab. Entgegen dem herkömmlichen Bild weltabgewandter Logiker und Metaethiker wurde im Wiener Kreis sogar Angewandte Ethik betrieben, und dies bereits unter diesem Namen. Neben den ethischen Hauptthemen und Ansichten der jeweiligen Philosophen in ihrer Entwicklung im Rahmen ihres persönlichen und kulturellen Kontextes zeigt die Untersuchung, dass allen Ansätzen eine aufgeklärte und humanistische Version von Moral und Ethik gemeinsam ist. Dieser wissenschaftliche Humanismus, der sich schon in der Programmschrift Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung. Der Wiener Kreis findet, liegt jedoch in verschiedenen Ausprägungen vor. Was die Abweichungen von der Standardauffassung wesentlich betrifft, ist ihre unterschiedliche Auffassung von Moral als gemeinsames oder individuelles Unternehmen. Carnap führt ein extremer Individualismus zu einem extremen Nonkognitivismus, in dem ihm Menger folgt. Bei Schlick ist die Lage zweideutig, was sich in unterschiedlichen Moralbegriffen widerspiegelt. Bei Kraft und Feigl tritt das Verständnis von Moral als gemeinschaftlich geteilte Praxisform klar hervor. Auf der Basis eines gemeinsamen Begriffs des moralisch Guten, der auch eine Sachkomponente enthält, ist eine Verständigung über moralische Fragen möglich. Von einem extremen Nonkognitivismus kann dort nicht mehr die Rede sein. Mit diesen Ergebnissen verbietet es sich, dem Wiener Kreis allgemein eine Ablehnung normativer Ethik und einen extremen Nonkognitivismus zuzuschreiben. Eine systematische Ethik, die Moral als Gemeinschaftspraxis begreift, steht einigen im Wiener Kreis näher, als das vorherrschende Bild suggerieren möge. Wer meint, mit engem Bezug zur Tradition des Wiener Kreises nur Carnap folgen zu können und Ethik als suspektes Unternehmen betrachten zu müssen, irrt. Ethik war in der Tradition Analytischer Philosophie nicht immer so marginalisiert, wie sie es in manchen ihrer Teilrichtungen heute noch ist und Gegner(innen) der Analytischen Philosophie vorwerfen. Die vorliegende Untersuchung liefert die nötige Revision einer verfänglichen Fehlentwicklung. (shrink)

This book delivers much more than its title appears to promise; it is not merely a description of current methods for remotely monitoring brain activity. It primarily concentrates on just one such method: positron emission tomography, but it demonstrates beautifully how far that technique can now take us in the quest to discover the mechanisms underlying thought.

The rules of scientific discovery as formulated by K. Popper are briefly reviewed. Historical examples such as the prediction of planets and outstanding events in elementary particle physics are used to show how these rules are applied by the working physicist. Thus these rules are shown to be actual tools rather than abstract norms in the development of physics.

This paper argues that the appraisal of theory is in important respects closer in structure to value-judgement than it is to the rule-governed inference that the classical tradition in philosophy of science took for granted.

Since the birth of computing as an academic discipline, the disciplinary identity of computing has been debated fiercely. The most heated question has concerned the scientific status of computing. Some consider computing to be a natural science and some consider it to be an experimental science. Others argue that computing is bad science, whereas some say that computing is not a science at all. This survey article presents viewpoints for and against computing as a science. Those viewpoints are analyzed against (...) basic positions in the philosophy of science. The article aims at giving the reader an overview, background, and a historical and theoretical frame of reference for understanding and interpreting some central questions in the debates about the disciplinary identity of computer science. The article argues that much of the discussion about the scientific nature of computing is misguided due to a deep conceptual uncertainty about science in general as well as computing in particular. (shrink)

Semantic information is usually supposed to satisfy the veridicality thesis: p qualifies as semantic information only if p is true. However, what it means for semantic information to be true is often left implicit, with correspondentist interpretations representing the most popular, default option. The article develops an alternative approach, namely a correctness theory of truth (CTT) for semantic information. This is meant as a contribution not only to the philosophy of information but also to the philosophical debate on the nature (...) of truth. After the introduction, in Sect. 2, semantic information is shown to be translatable into propositional semantic information (i). In Sect. 3, i is polarised into a query (Q) and a result (R), qualified by a specific context, a level of abstraction and a purpose. This polarization is normalised in Sect. 4, where [Q + R] is transformed into a Boolean question and its relative yes/no answer [Q + A]. This completes the reduction of the truth of i to the correctness of A. In Sects. 5 and 6, it is argued that (1) A is the correct answer to Q if and only if (2) A correctly saturates Q by verifying and validating it (in the computer science’s sense of verification and validation ); that (2) is the case if and only if (3) [Q + A] generates an adequate model (m) of the relevant system (s) identified by Q; that (3) is the case if and only if (4) m is a proxy of s (in the computer science’s sense of proxy ) and (5) proximal access to m commutes with the distal access to s (in the category theory’s sense of commutation ); and that (5) is the case if and only if (6) reading/writing (accessing, in the computer science’s technical sense of the term) m enables one to read/write (access) s. Sect. 7 provides some further clarifications about CTT, in the light of semantic paradoxes. Section 8 draws a general conclusion about the nature of CTT as a theory for systems designers not just systems users. In the course of the article all technical expressions from computer science are explained. (shrink)

Popper's well-known demarcation criterion has often been understood to distinguish statements of empirical science according to their logical form. Implicit in this interpretation of Popper's philosophy is the belief that when the universe of discourse of the empirical scientist is infinite, empirical universal sentences are falsifiable but not verifiable, whereas the converse holds for existential sentences. A remarkable elaboration of this belief is to be found in Watkins's early work on the statements he calls “all-and-some,” such as: “For every metal (...) there is a melting point.” All-and-some statements are both universally and existentially quantified in that order. Watkins argued that AS should be regarded as both nonfalsifiable and nonverifiable, for they partake in the logical fate of both universal and existential statements. This claim is subject to the proviso that the bound variables are “uncircumscribed” ; i.e., that the universe of discourse is infinite. (shrink)

The paper consists of three parts. The aim of the first part is to depict the concept of science in the analytic philosophy of science to point out its characteristic defects. The second part shows how the constructive philosophy of science is able to avoid these defects by honouring not special modes of research but speicial modes of foundation of results in research with its criteria for science. The third part finally refutes the main counter-arguments of analytic philosophy of science (...) against the constructive. (shrink)

Popper's theory of demarcation has set the standard of falsifiability for all sciences. But not all falsifiable theories are part of science and some tests of scientific theories are better than others. Popper's theory has led to the banning of metaphysical and/or philosophical anthropological theories from science. But Joseph Agassi has supplemented Popper's theory to explain how such theories are useful as research programs within science. This theory can also be used to explain how interesting tests may be found. Theories (...) of rationality may be used to illustrate this point by showing how they fail or succeed in producing interesting and testable hypotheses in the social sciences. (shrink)

This paper describes the development of theories of scientific explanation since Hempel's earliest models in the 1940ies. It focuses on deductive and probabilistic whyexplanations and their main problems: lawlikeness, explanation-prediction asymmetries, causality, deductive and probabilistic relevance, maximal specifity and homogenity, the height of the probability value. For all of these topic the paper explains the most important approaches as well as their criticism, including the author's own accounts. Three main theses of this paper are: (1) Both deductive and probabilistic explanations (...) are important in science, not reducible to each other. (2) One must distinguish between (cause giving) explanations and (reason giving) justifications and predictions. (3) The adequacy of deductive as well as probabilistic explanations is relative to a pragmatically given background knowledge-which does not exclude, however, the possibility of purely semantic models. (shrink)

The present paper is an attempt to explore the impact of Karl Popper's ideas on the views of a number of intellectual groups in post-revolutionary Iran. Throughout the text, we have tried to make use of original sources and our own personal experiences. The upshot of the arguments of the paper is that the Viennese philosopher has made a long-lasting impression on the intellectual scene of present-day Iran in that even those socio-political groups which are not in favour of his (...) ideas, especially his model of critical rationalism, have felt the urgent need to make themselves familiar with them. Moreover, many of Popper's ideas have directly or indirectly influenced the thinking of the decision-makers in Iran since 1978. (shrink)

Summary In the first part of this contribution, the three probably most influential conceptions of evolutionary epistemology are surveyed, as they were put forward by Konrad Lorenz, Gerhard Vollmer, and Rupert Riedl, respectively. It is demonstrated that, as far as the essentials are concerned, these conceptions largely correspond with each other as well as with a further conception advanced by Karl Popper from the point of view of Critical Rationalism. It can be clearly shown, moreover, that fundamentals of the latter (...) conception can be traced back to Popper's earliest publications (e. g., to hisLogik der Forschung [The Logic of Scientific Discovery]). By means of an examination of the language used by these authors, it is tried to elucidate the fact that, for the reasons of lacking consideration of the lingual/non-lingual distinction and of faults and inadequacies in consequence of this lack alone, the proposed conceptions can be rejected as being at least highly defective. (shrink)

The symbolic paraphrase of 'because' sentences suggested by Frege, which is still widely accepted, will be gradually developed into a more adequate, though much more complicated, form. Out of the different types of such sentences, the 'for the only reason that' type will be given especial consideration. Furthermore, it will be expounded that contrary-to-fact conditionals may function either as 'for the only reason that' explanations, or as 'for at least the reason that' explanations, or as arguments, the difference being dependent (...) partly on certain temporal characteristics of their constituents and partly on the pragmatic features of the speech act situation. Consequently, counterfactuals have no definite logical structure, which is a reason, hitherto unnoticed, why they cannot be used in defining dispositional predicates. It will be shown, however, that 'for the only reason that' explanations can serve this purpose quite properly. (shrink)

Pictures of normal brain activity during human thought can be worth a great deal. Electrophysiology and functional neuroimaging together allow both temporal and spatial dimensions of neurocognitive functions to be explored. Although these techniqueshave their limitations, the Cognitive Neuroscience approach is well-suited to pursuing questions about how words are perceived, understood, and remembered.

I present some counterexamples to Adams's Thesis and explain how they undermine arguments that indicative conditionals cannot be truth-evaluable propositions.

The paper approaches the topic of what a general philosophy of science could mean today from the perspective of a historical epistemology. Consequently, in a first step, the paper looks at the notion of generality in the sciences, and how it evolved over time, on the example of the life sciences. In the second part of the paper, the urgency of a general philosophy of science is located in the history of philosophy of science. Two attempts at the beginning of (...) the twentieth century are particularly highlighted: that of Karl Popper and that of Martin Heidegger. Both of them concentrate, albeit in widely different form, on the phenomenon of research as an open-ended process. This trend is even more pronounced in Gaston Bachelard’s version of a historical epistemology, whose work is taken as a point of reference for a general historical epistemology of research. The paper concludes with a plea to look, with Georges Canguilhem, at the history of the sciences as a laboratory for epistemology. (shrink)

In this article I intend to show that certain aspects of the axiomatical structure of mathematical theories can be, by a phenomenologically motivated approach, reduced to two distinct types of idealization, the first-level idealization associated with the concrete intuition of the objects of mathematical theories as discrete, finite sign-configurations and the second-level idealization associated with the intuition of infinite mathematical objects as extensions over constituted temporality. This is the main standpoint from which I review Cantor’s conception of infinite cardinalities and (...) also the metatheoretical content of some later well-known theorems of mathematical foundations. These are, the Skolem-Löwenheim Theorem which, except for its importance as such, it is also chosen for an interpretation of the associated metatheoretical paradox (Skolem Paradox), and Gödel’s (first) incompleteness result which, notwithstanding its obvious influence in the mathematical foundations, is still open to philosophical inquiry. On the phenomenological level, first-level and second-level idealizations, as above, are associated respectively with intentional acts carried out in actual present and with certain modes of a temporal constitution process. (shrink)

We compare Jan ?ukasiewicz's and Karl Popper's views on induction. The English translation of the two ?ukasiewicz's papers is included in the Appendix.

Reichenbach emphasizes the central importance of prediction, which is—for him—the principal aim of science. This paper offers a critical reconstruction of his concept of prediction, taking into account the different periods of his thought. First, prediction is studied as a key factor in rejecting the positivism of the Vienna Circle. This part of the discussion concentres on the general features of prediction before Experience and Prediction (EP) (section 1). Second, prediction is considered in the context of Reichenbach's disagreements with his (...) contemporaries—Carnap and Popper—(section 2). Pointing out these differences gives an additional basis for understanding how Reichenbach saw “prediction” in the period when EP was written. Third, Reichenbach's theoretical framework of prediction is analysed following EP. This analysis studies the semantical, logical, epistemological and methodological bases of his concept of prediction (section 3). Fourth, Reichenbach's conception of prediction, based on an objectivist interpretation of probabilities, is compared with the perspective on prediction of subjective Bayesians (the present personalists). This comparison (section 4) illustrates Reichenbach's views regarding the links of prediction with probability. Fifth, innovations and elements of continuity after EP are noted which give a more complete picture of Reichenbach's thought on prediction (section 5). This contributes to a comprehensive characterization of his concept of prediction. Finally, there is an assessment of his whole view of the matter and a presentation of the ingredients for a satisfactory alternative (section 6). (shrink)

1. Despite the plain fact that there is nothing in this world that can be proved without reliance on some assumption or another, there is an inalienable difference between an argument that begins by assuming what it is designed to establish and one that begins by assuming the contradictory of what it is designed to establish. Arguments of the first kind are uncontroversially acknowledged to be circular, or question-begging; though valid they achieve nothing. Those of the second kind conform to (...) the classical pattern of reductio ad absurdum or indirect proof. A typical example is the proof of the irrationality of √2, which begins by assuming that for some integral m, n the identity m2/n2 = 2, and arrives at a contradiction. Nothing whatever is established or justified by arguments of the first kind, even granted the truth of all the other assumptions, and the validity of the rules of inference; while the second may establish that, if those assumptions are true, then the additional assumption is false. (shrink)

Summary I try to apply Lakatos's metacriterion of the rationality of normative philosophies of science to normative political theories, stressing that Lakatos's metacriterion is not only an extension of Popper's idea of tests by potentially falsifyingdescriptive basic judgments to tests by potentially falsifyingnormative judgments. Rather, its application is a test by demonstrating the tested theory's capability of reconstructing its own history as rational. Finally I argue that the tradition of utilitarian political theories is fittest to be confirmed by a Lakatosian (...) test. (shrink)

Summary In the last decade analytical philosophy of science has been considered by many people as a descriptive activity. In part I of this paper we show that philosophy of science has been designed as normative logical analysis by Reichenbach and Carnap before world war II. Thus the identification analytical = descriptive is historically unjustified. In part II we discuss three tasks of analytical philosophy of science, the logical reconstruction of concepts, theories, and methods. While the first is mainly descriptive, (...) the third mainly normative, the second may be both, depending on the intended goal. (shrink)

Abstract‘Critique’ means the questioning judgement of human actions, particularly with reference to a criterion of judgement that is inseparable from the judged state of affairs but is dependent on a decision of the person judging. Informative judgements of a state of affairs contain two relevant components, one concerned with recognition of the objects of judgment, the other concerned with their evaluation. This evaluation is not directly extractable from that state of affairs, but the quality of the evaluation does depend in (...) part upon the quality of its explanation. Thus, when the content-description is flawed, the evaluation is affected by the flawed description. The phrase ‘the domestication of critique’ refers to the successful attempts that have been made to cause critics to neglect the truth claims of the judgement in favour of normative dominant interests. Domesticated critique is not concerned with the testing but rather with the justification or interpretation of a state of affairs. Domesticated critique does not depend on the quality of the argument but rather on whether the critique succeeds in legitimating dominant interests and immunising them against undomesticated critique. The educational relevance of the domestication of critique lies in the fact that a critical education which is domesticated will alleviate the need for overt repression on the part of dominant interests in favour of a particular view of the world and replace it with the semblance of a critical attitude that in fact reinforces the existing order through apparently rational means. Education based on domesticated critique can have no radical implications. (shrink)

: The distinction between science and philosophy plays a central role in methodological, programmatic and institutional debates. Discussions of disciplinary identities typically focus on boundaries or else on genealogies, yielding models of demarcation and models of dynamics. Considerations of a discipline's self-image, often based on history, often plays an important role in the values, projects and practices of its members. Recent focus on the dynamics of scientific change supplements Kuhnian neat model with a role for philosophy and yields a model (...) of the evolution of philosophy of science. This view illuminates important aspects of science and itself contributes to philosophy of science. This interactive model is general yet based on exclusive attention to physics. In this paper and two sequels, I focus on the human sciences and argue that their role in the history of philosophy of science is just as important and it also involves a close involvement of the history of philosophy. The focus is on Gestalt psychology and it points to some lessons for philosophy of science. But, unlike the discussion of natural sciences, the discussion here brings out more complication than explication, and skews certain kinds of generalizations. (shrink)

Introduction to Synthese SI: Systematicity: The Nature of Science?

The paper expands on Goshal’s criticism of what management as a scientific discipline teaches and the effects on managerial and societal ethics. The main argument put forward is that the economisation of management has a detrimental effect on the practice of management and on society in large. The ideology of economism is described and analysed from an epistemological perspective. The paper argues that the economisation of management not only introduces the problems of economics (three are identified and discussed) but destroys (...) the very essence of management because economics is focused on efficiency and management should be focused on effectiveness. What is more, the basic axioms of mainstream economics stand in stark contrast to the philosophy of the Enlightenment and therefore endanger the foundations of Western societies. Management theory (via corporate governance) is the Trojan horse carrying economism into society. (shrink)

Posner & Raichle's (1994) exciting, wonderfully illustrated book describes the past successes and future potential of the relatively noninvasive imaging of the nervous systems of living people. The focus has been on cognitive processes but there is no reason why emotional and motivational systems cannot also be tapped. Although the authors do not formally address such contentious issues as consciousness and the private experience of other species, imaging methods may hold promise for helping us to understand these phenomena, as well (...) as to integrate psychological processes into ethological and phylogenetic research in general. (shrink)

In Posner & Raichle's (1994) book, two essential and strictly related limitations of cognitive neurophysiology are not sufficiently enhanced: (1) The problem of “coding,” namely the capability of a natural brain to redefine its own “basic symbols” as a function of a changing environment; (2) the inadequacy of a Hebbian rule to reckon with complex computational problems such as those solved by real brains.

Posner & Raichle's (1994) book is a fascinating and readable account of the studies the authors have conducted on the localization of cognitive functions in the brain mainly using PET and EEC evoked potential methods. Our criticism concerns the underrepresentation of some imaging techniques (magnetoencephalography) and some forms of brain activity (spontaneous activity). Furthermore, the book leaves the reader with the impression that the brain only responds to external events.

Carnap’s work was instrumental to the liberalization of empiricism in the 1930s that transformed the logical positivism of the Vienna Circle to what came to be known as logical empiricism. A central feature of this liberalization was the deployment of the Principle of Tolerance, originally introduced in logic, but now invoked in an epistemological context in “Testability and Meaning”. Immediately afterwards, starting with Foundations of Logic and Mathematics, Carnap embraced semantics and turned to interpretation to guide the choice of a (...) theoretical language for science. The first thesis of this paper is that recourse to an intended interpretation led to a partial retrenchment of the conventionalism implied by the Principle of Tolerance. It required that the choice of a language be based on abstraction from a context; this procedure later became a component of the process of explication that was distinctive to Carnap’s mature views. The interpretive origin of formal systems also ensured their likely syntactic consistency, an issue on which Carnap was strongly criticized by figures such as Beth and Gödel. The second thesis of this paper is that this reliance on an intended interpretation enabled constructed formal systems to be relevant to the development of empirical science. (shrink)