It is argued that the narrow concept of selection used since the time ofDarwin is only concerned with the relation between organism and its environment . It did not include the organism itself, which was the object of the pre-phylogenetic idealistic morphology. An adequate understanding of the mechanism of evolution dispenses with the concept of morphology as the basis of phylogeny.Es wird aufgezeigt, da\ der aufDarwin selbst zurückgehende eingeengte Gebrauch des Selektionskonzeptes auf die Beziehung zwischen Organismus und Umwelt die biologische (...) Konstruktion der vorphylogenetischen idealistischen Morphologie überlassen hat. Ein zutreffendes VerstÄndnis des Evolutionsmechanismus begreift aber die biologische Apparatur ein, entzieht der Morphologie, soweit sie sich als Vorbedingung phylogenetischen Arbeitens versteht, den Boden. (shrink)

In the early sixties there broke out a fierce controversy concerning rationality in science which was labelled as the Popper-Kuhn controversy. It can be conceived in terms of the rationalism-relativism opposition. This may seem dubious, for the proper contrast to rationalism is irrationalism, and the one to relativism is absolutism. What is at issue, however, is whether scientific change comes about in consequence of argument or in consequence of-to use Kuhn's favourite dictum-conversion. The notion of argument does not involve here (...) anything absolute, while the one of conversion is intended to cover not merely the idea of irrationality of change, but the idea of self-authentication and constitution as one among many possible patterns of rationality. Thus the main message is that of break of communication between otherwise rational agents and not of their apparent irrationality. These are my reasons for thinking this unusual opposition better than the usual ones pointing at the substance of the controversy. I think also this opposition has in fact been implicit in the resulting debate. This explains, for instance, why in the first decade of the debate Feyerabend was commonly perceived as Kuhn's comrade and, consequently, largely misunderstood. Conflation of two different oppositions into one, on the other hand, results in some obscurity. This is perhaps why different commentators have rather freely qualified some participants of the debate to one or other faction. Among those who have been subjected to such a treatment there are found, in the first place, the authors of such mediational conceptions of the seventies as Lakatos (methodology of scientific research programmes), Sneed and Stegmiiller (non-statement view), Laudan (research traditions), and, in my country, Amsterdamski (ideals of science). It may well have been expected that Larry Laudan, who has recently put forward a new mediational conception of his own (see Laudan [1984]), again will be treated in the same way. This is due to the clear Popperian and Kuhnian inspirations of his work and his fidelity to his masters which is surprisingly great consider. (shrink)

Popper emphasised both the problem-solving nature of human knowledge, and the need to criticise a scientific theory as strongly as possible. These aims seem to contradict each other, in that the former stresses the problems that motivate scientific theories while the one ignores the character of the problems that led to the formation of the theories against which the criticism is directed. A resolution is proposed in which problems as such are taken as prime in the search for knowledge, and (...) subject to discussion. This approach is then applied to the problem of induction. Popper set great stake to his solution of it, but others doubted its legitimacy, in ways that are clarified by changing the form of the induction problem itself. That change draws upon logic, which is the subject of another application: namely, in contrast to Popper’s adhesion to classical logic as the only welcome form (because of the maximal strength of criticism that it dispenses), can other logics be used without abandoning his philosophy of criticism? (shrink)

Modern medicine has produced many successful theories concerning the causes of diseases. For example, we know that tuberculosis is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and that scurvy is caused by a deficiency of vitamin C. This chapter discusses the nature of medical theories from the perspective of the philosophy, history, and psychology of science. I will review prominent philosophical accounts of what constitutes a scientific theory, and develop a new account of medical theories as representations of mechanisms that explain (...) disease. An account of the nature of medical theories should illuminate many aspects of the development and application of medical knowledge. Most importantly, it should contribute to understanding of medical explanation, both at the general level of causes of diseases and at the individual level of diagnosis of particular cases of a disease. Medical researchers seek to explain the causes of diseases such as tuberculosis, while physicians seek to identify diseases that explain symptoms such as fever. A medical theory such as the bacterial theory of tuberculosis provides good explanations at both the general and individual levels. The primary aim of this chapter is to show how these explanations work. A secondary aim is to show how an account of medical theories can shed light on other aspects of medical research and practice, including the nature of medical discovery, the process of evaluation of competing medical theories, and the ways in which effective treatments of disease depend on the development of good mechanistic theories about diseases. (shrink)

Klink rejects the use of ecological models in environmental decision making because their predictions cannot be tested by rigorous scientific methods. I argue that models that cannot be tested according to the rigorous standards of the physical sciences can still be considered “scientific”; they are useful (and, in practice, used) for assessing the impacts of human actions on the environment and choosing between alternative courses of action. It is, however, important to be aware of the uncertainties and to make corrections (...) as new data and insights become available. The interplay between (1) model‐based decisions and action and (2) their consequences and subsequent corrections can be regarded as a dialogue between humans and nature (or God) in the sense proposed by Klink. Klink also claims that future actions should be informed by the larger vision of theology and should not be based on science. I suggest that science has an indispensible role. The larger vision is needed to respond to the fundamental religious question: How should I live—and why? But this question cannot be answered without first addressing the fundamental scientific question: How does the world work? I suggest that responses to the first question can be formulated as visions of a future state of existence that we feel compelled to strive to realize, and that science is necessary to provide “maps of reality” needed to realize visions. I also suggest that Christian traditions can probably provide adequate visions; the crucial need is for improving our “maps of reality.”. (shrink)

En este artículo se discuten las críticas de John Dupré contra la unidad metodológica de la ciencia. Como se sabe, a partir de la premisa del desorden de las cosas, Dupré rechaza tanto las versiones fuertes como las variantes débiles de unificación, pero construye sus mejores argumentos contra las últimas a partir de la tesis de que no hay una solución satisfactoria del problema de la demarcación. Tras exponer los argumentos de Dupré en favor de la implausibilidad de cualquier formulación (...) débil de la tesis de la unidad de la ciencia (incluyendo aquellas que se enfocan en la unidad metodológica), explicaré su formulación del problema de la demarcación, examinaré su caracterización de la teoría de la falsabilidad de Popper y responderé a sus argumentos en contra de la posición de Popper sobre la cientificidad. Mis argumentos mostrarán la inadecuación del tratamiento que da Dupré a este problema y señalarán una ruta para mostrar que la solución de Popper al problema de la demarcación, por medio del criterio de falsabilidad, permite defender una forma no reduccionista de la unidad de la ciencia. (shrink)

How do Dutch people let each other know that they disagree? What do they say when they want to resolve their difference of opinion by way of an argumentative discussion? In what way do they convey that they are convinced by each other’s argumentation? How do they criticize each other’s argumentative moves? Which words and expressions do they use in these endeavors? By answering these questions this short essay provides a brief inventory of the language of argumentation in Dutch.

This study considers the short list of Nature of Science features frequently published and widely known in the science education discourse. It is argued that these features were oversimplified and a refinement of the claims may enrich or sometimes reverse them. The analysis shows the need to address the range of variation in each particular aspect of NOS and to illustrate these variations with actual events from the history of science in order to adequately present the subject. Another implication of (...) the proposal is the highlighting of the central role of science educators who, facing various strong claims of researchers in education and philosophy of science, often have difficulty in making a choice of what to teach about NOS. It is suggested that a representative variation with regard to the traditional NOS claims may be appropriate for a genuine understanding of the subject. In that, using the discipline-culture structure of the fundamental theories of physics and addressing the plurality of scientific methods may be helpful in the actual teaching and learning of NOS. (shrink)

Clear statements of both extended and enactive conceptions of cognition can be found in John Dewey and other pragmatists. In this paper I'll argue that we can find resources in the pragmatists to address two ongoing debates: in contrast to recent disagreements between proponents of extended vs enactive cognition, pragmatism supports a more integrative view—an enactive conception of extended cognition, and pragmatist views suggest ways to answer the main objections raised against extended and enactive conceptions—specifically objections focused on constitution versus (...) causal factors, and the mark of the mental. (shrink)

Popper’s theory of the three worlds has been widely criticized. In this paper, the main points of criticism are discussed. It is shown that the most serious difficulties are caused by Popper’s assumption that world 3 contains ideal, Platonic objects, which nevertheless have a history and are, in a certain sense, able to create other world 3 objects. Then it is asked whether the idea of a third world is necessary to explain the growth of knowledge and the development of (...) culture. The question is answered in the negative. Finally, it is discussed whether the talk of world 3 objects can be interpreted in a way that does not raise the problems of Popper’s conception. (shrink)

InThere Are No Such Things As Theories(French 2020), the reification of theories is critically analysed and rejected. My aim here is to tease out some of the implications of this approach first of all, for how we, philosophers of science, should view the history of science; secondly, for how we should understand the devices that we use in our own philosophical practices; and thirdly, for how we might think about the relationship between the history of science and the philosophy of (...) science. (shrink)

This paper presents the content of the unpublished notes that the Dutch mathematician Arend Heyting wrote in different periods of his life on solipsism and that are preserved in Heyting's archive at the University of Amsterdam. Most of the notes are quoted here and translated into English. Their study shows the originality of Heyting's reflections on a subject that was typical of his master, L. E. J. Brouwer, the father of intuitionism.

In this article, I explain how a variant of David Miller's argument concerning the language dependence of the accuracy of predictions can be applied to Joyce's notion of the accuracy of “estimates of numerical truth-values”. This leads to a potential problem for Joyce's accuracy-dominance-based argument for the conclusion that credences should obey the probability calculus.

This comparison between Boudon and Mises focuses on the main tenets of their respective conceptions of social science. It covers action theory, the theory of belief, the epistemology of social science, and also addresses the topic of liberalism.

The problem of distance from the truth, and more generally distance between hypotheses, is considered here with respect to the case of quantitative hypotheses concerning the value of a given scientific quantity.Our main goal consists in the explication of the concept of distance D(I, ) between an interval hypothesis I and a point hypothesis . In particular, we attempt to give an axiomatic foundation of this notion on the basis of a small number of adequacy conditions.

Il y a une seconde économie de Keynes, comme il y a une seconde philosophie de Wittgenstein : l'une et l'autre ont été élaborées sur le même campus, dans la même période (1930-1936), avec un même tournant décisif en 1933, par un économiste et un philosophe qui ont eu de nombreuses et importantes discussions. Tous deux entendaient lutter contre de puissantes orthodoxies, dans lesquelles s'inscrivaient leurs premières æuvres, pour faire émerger une nouvelle figure de l'économie comme de la philosophie, enfin (...) lucides sur leur inscription dans le « jeu de langage » de leur communauté académique. L'hypothèse d'une certaine interdépendance entre ces deux découvertes gagne fortement en plausibilité quand on prête attention, dans la rédaction de la Théorie générale, à l'apologie keynésienne du « sens commun » et du « langage ordinaire », face aux dangers des langages formels, qui menacent le discours savant sur l'économie. (shrink)

Over the last three decades, non-adaptationism has developed as an alternative model to more traditional, adaptationist approaches within Evolutionary Epistemology. Despite its great explanatory strength, non-adaptationist EE finds a potential Achilles heel in its adherence to conceptual relativism, namely the idea that empirical content can be relative to many different and radically incommensurable conceptual schemes. In his seminal essay “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme”, Donald Davidson did in fact prove the unintelligibility of an analogous form of conceptual (...) relativism. Although Davidson’s original intent was to debunk a conceptual relativist position which he discerned in the works of authors such as Kuhn, Quine, and Whorf, given the apparent similarity between the conceptual relativism supported by non-adaptationist EE and the one criticised by Davidson, one might well wonder if Davidson’s objections would have the same debunking effect if applied to non-adaptationist EE. In this paper I propose to answer this question by directing Davidson’s critiques of conceptual relativism to non-adaptationist EE and by testing to what extent the latter is de facto undermined by Davidson’s attacks. I demonstrate that Davidson’s arguments do not detract from the reliability of non-adaptationist perspectives and, to some extent, they appear to substantiate the non-adaptationist evolutionary epistemological cause anew. (shrink)

The long-term persistence of neurotic symptoms, such as anxiety, poses difficult problems for any psychological theory. An attempt is made to revive the Watson-Mowrer conditioning theory and to avoid the many criticisms directed against it in the past. It is suggested that recent research has produced changes in learning theory that can be used to render this possible. In the first place, the doctrine of equipotentiality has been shown to be wrong, and some such concept as Seligman's “preparedness” is required, (...) that is the notion that certain CS are biologically prepared to be more readily connected with anxiety responses than others. In the second place, the law of extinction has to be amended, and the law of incubation or enhancement added, according to which the exposure of the CS-only may, under certain specified conditions, have the effect of increasing the strength of the CR, rather than reducing it. The major conditions favouring incubation are Pavlovian B conditioning, that is a type of conditioning in which the CR is a drive; a strong UCS, and short exposure of the CS-only. (shrink)

This paper considers the prospects for objectivity in reasoning strategies in response to empirical studies that apparently show systematic culture‐based differences in patterns of reasoning. I argue that there is at least one modest class of exceptions to the claim that there are alternative, equally warranted standards of good reasoning: the class that entails the solution of certain well‐structured problems which, suitably chosen, are common, or touchstone, to the sorts of culturally different viewpoints discussed. There is evidence that some cognitive (...) tasks are seen in much the same way across cultures, not least by virtue of the common run of experiences with the world of material objects in early childhood by creatures with similar cognitive endowments. These tasks thus present as similarly structured sets of claims that have similar priority: what is framed, and what is bracketed, or held constant in the background, is shown to be naturally common across cultures. As a consequence, a normative view of reasoning and, by implication, critical thinking can be defended. While this might be a modest sense of objectivity, the high level of intercultural articulation that is able to occur among people of different backgrounds suggests that it provides cognitive scaffolding for a lot of other reasoning tasks as well. (shrink)

The article provides the general opinion of philosophers, scientists, and engineers heading institutes and centers of Samara National Research University regarding the issues of scientific and technological progress, social management problems under the condition of digital reality, human functions in new artificial environments. The technology is classically understood as satisfaction of human needs through the ability to apply knowledge of the laws of universe or nature in the broad sense. With advances in technology, the artificial human environment, the metacosmos, emerges. (...) It is formed by technologies: by energy conversion machines, information processing machines, and presently by artificial intelligence. The evolution of the artificial environment, caused by scientific and technological development, entails social transformations, changes in the goals and methods of management system in human communities. Nowadays, the accumulated amount of contradictions of the information society testifies to the need of the search for a new form of organization of social structure, for new goals that would include human development, its creative potential growth, increase of the role of man in scientific and technological development. The authors discuss what the artificial intelligence technologies creating a new artificial human environment should be like to meet those goals. The article analyzes the impact of the fourth industrial revolution on the transformation of society. The question is raised from what philosophical positions one should understand man, society, technology, social development, and its goals. Analyzing the fundament for the philosophy of technology concepts of human, space, evolution, technology, artificial nature, the principles of the society 5.0 are introduced, which were formulated by Noritsugu Uemura. The authors conclude that the development of the artificial intelligence technologies provides opportunities for consistent unlocking the human potential, for advancement in personal growth, and finally for overcoming the crisis of the imbalance between the technological and the human, which characterizes contemporary information society. (shrink)

The article discusses Karl Popper’s account of Lamarckism. In this article I use Popper’s published and unpublished statements regarding Lamarckism as well as his correspondence with the Australian immunologist Edward Steele and other biologists to examine why Popper was interested in Lamarckism, how his account of Lamarckism can be understood in the context of his philosophy, and what, if any, new context Popper provided for the discussion of this abandoned doctrine. I begin by discussing Popper’s frame of reference regarding Lamarckism, (...) examining how it changed following his involvement with different “transitory groups” of biologists concerned with redefining the boundaries between traditional disciplines. I then discuss Popper’s account of Lamarckism in positioning it in relation to three aspects of his philosophy: his distinction between the principles of induction/instruction and deduction/selection, his distinction between scientific and teleological concepts, and his concept of progress in science. Then, I follow the debate concerning Steele’s Lamarckian experiments with a closer look at Popper’s role and his position in this controversy. I conclude that Popper’s writings provided a new context for the discussion of Lamarckism in the 1970s and 1980s, thus making it “scientifically acceptable” again. I preface this discussion by a brief outline of Steele’s Lamarckian hypothesis and Popper’s comments on Steele’s work. (shrink)

Bas van Fraassen’s Darwinian explanation for the success of science has sparked four decades of discussion, with scientific realists and antirealists alike using biologically inspired reasoning to support their points of view. Based on critical engagement with van Fraassen’s proposal itself and later contributions by Stathis Psillos and K. Brad Wray, we claim that central arguments on both sides of this controversy suffer from an insufficient understanding of Darwinism and its underlying biological concepts. Adding the necessary biological background turns out (...) to subvert the argumentative force of viewing the success of scientific theories as analogous to the behaviour of biotic entities. In conclusion, we sketch more productive ways of viewing the relationship between biology and scientific realism. (shrink)

Starting from a concept of reasonableness as well-consideredness, it is discussed in what way science could serve as a model for reasonable argumentation. It turns out that in order to be reasonable two requirements have to be fulfilled. The argumentation should comply with rules which are both problem-valid and intersubjectively valid. Geometrical and anthropological perspectives don't meet these criteria, but a critical perspective does. It is explained that a pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation which agrees with this critical perspective is indeed (...) problem-valid and that strong pragmatic and utilitarian arguments can be given for its intersubjective validity. Thus, conventional validity is promoted for a code of conduct for discussants who want to resolve their disputes reasonably by way of a critical discussion. (shrink)

This book consists thematically of three broad sections: a lengthy introduction in which Grünbaum critically assesses the hermeneutic construal of psychoanalysis, as represented in the work of Habermas, G. S. Klein, and Ricoeur; a critical examination of Popper's assessment of both psychoanalysis and inductivism; and a logical analysis of core psychoanalytic ideas that constitute the foundation for much of psychoanalytic theory. This last section is, in my view, the heart of the book and therefore, it is that section on which (...) I will focus in this review. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article deals with the recent interest shown by critical realists in the study of generative mechanisms in sociology and proposes stronger integration of hermeneutics into this theoretical approach. There are important differences between realism and hermeneutics. While realism strives to overcome the extremes of empiricism and interpretivism with a new version of naturalism, hermeneutics bases its explanations of society on research into meanings. The question is whether underlining these differences is useful for social theory. On the one hand, underestimating (...) hermeneutics makes it difficult for realists to recognize fully the role that processes of understanding play in generating social change. On the other hand, hermeneutical arguments in sociology idealistically identify being with interpreted being. The concept of generative hermeneutics is designed to help to build an alliance between realism and hermeneutics, since one-sided overemphasis on mechanistic logic devaluates the study of social interaction pursued by interpretative sociology. (shrink)