This essay presents a long, detailed, in many ways critical but also appreciative account, of David Bloor’s recent book The Enigma of the Aerofoil. I take that work as the crowning statement of ideas and principles developed over the past four decades by Bloor and other exponents of the ‘strong programme’ in the sociology of scientific knowledge. It therefore offers both a test-case of that approach and a welcome opportunity to review, clarify and extend some of the arguments brought against (...) it by critical realists. This purpose is particularly well served by Bloor’s having here assembled such a wealth of scientific, historical, political and socio-cultural data concerning one specific, very crucial period of research into theories of aerodynamic lift. His book thus provides an exceptionally useful point of engagement for anyone seeking to adjudicate these issues from a critically angled but engaged and constructive standpoint. (shrink)

The revelatory paper, “Dilemmas in the General Theory of Planning,” by Rittel and Webber (Policy Sci 4:155–169, 1973 ) has had great impact because it provides one example of an emergent consensus across many disciplines. Many “problems,” as addressed in real-world situations, involve elements that exceed the complexity of any known or hoped-for model, or are “wicked.” Many who encounter this work for the first time find that their concept of wicked problems aptly describes many environmental disputes. For those frustrated (...) with the lack of progress in many areas of environmental protection, Rittel and Webber’s work suggested a powerful explanatory hypothesis: Complex environmental problems cannot be comprehended within any of the accepted disciplinary models available in the academy or in discourses on public interest and policy. What should we conclude about the future of social improvements, and about the possibilities for rational discourse leading to cooperative action, with respect to this huge number of pressing public, environmental problems? Can we find ways to address environmental problems that improves the ability of communities to respond creatively and rationally to them? I will argue that, while the Rittel-Webber critique requires us to abandon many of the assumptions associated with a positivistic view of science and its applications to policy analysis, it also points to a more productive direction for the future of policy analysis. I will introduce “boundary critique,” developed within Critical Systems Theory (CST), an approach that offers some reason for optimism in dealing with some aspects of wickedness. (shrink)

This article examines various dilemmas (or, as I suggest, pseudo-dilemmas) that have dogged epistemology and philosophy of language since the 1940s heyday of logical empiricism. These have to do chiefly with the problem those thinkers faced in overcoming the various dichotomies imposed by their Humean insistence on maintaining a sharp distinction between logical 'truths of reason' and empirical 'matters of fact'. I trace this problem back to Kant's failure to offer any plausible, explanatorily adequate account of the process whereby 'sensuous (...) intuitions' were brought under 'concepts of understanding' through the joint (somewhat mysterious) agency of 'judgement' and 'imagination'. The argument then proceeds, via Quine's (on the face of it) radically anti-dualist critique of logical empiricism, to more recent attempts - by Davidson and McDowell - to locate the residual dualism in Quine (that of scheme and content), and thus to bring philosophy out on the far side of all these vexing dilemmas. I maintain that the problem goes much deeper and re-emerges with full force both in Davidson's coupling of a formalized (Tarskian) truth-theoretic approach with a strain of radical empiricism and likewise in McDowell's revisionist, supposedly 'naturalized', but none the less dualist reading of Kant on the twin powers of 'spontaneity' and 'receptivity'. Its ultimate source - I suggest - is the normative deficit, i.e., the lack of rational and justificatory values that has typified empiricist thinking from Hume to Quine, along with its attendant sceptical outlook as regards the existence of causal powers or the status and validity of causal explanations. My paper concludes by indicating briefly some alternative resources that might point a way beyond this longstanding impasse. (shrink)

(2000). STRUCTURE AND GENESIS IN SCIENTIFIC THEORY: HUSSERL, BACHELARD, DERRIDA. British Journal for the History of Philosophy: Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 107-139. doi: 10.1080/096087800360247.

This essay responds to Jeff Malpas's foregoing article, itself written in response to my various publications over the past two decades concerning Donald Davidson's ideas about truth, meaning, and interpretation. It has to do mainly with our disagreement as regards the substantive content of Davidson's truth-based semantic approach in relation to the problematic legacy of logical empiricism, including Quine's incisive but no less problematical critique of that legacy. I also raise questions with respect to Malpas's coupling of Davidson with Heidegger, (...) intended to provide a more adequate depth-ontological grounding for the formalized (logico-semantic) conception of truth that Davidson adopts from Tarski. My essay then argues the case for an outlook of objectivist causal realism joined with a theory of inference to the best, most rational explanation that would satisfy this need in more philosophically (as well as scientifically) accountable terms. (shrink)

This article offers a critical review of various ontological-relativist arguments, mostly deriving from the work of W. V. Quine and Thomas K hn. I maintain that these arguments are (1) internally contradictory, (2) incapable of accounting for our knowledge of the growth of scientific knowledge, and (3) shown up as fallacious from the standpoint of a causal-realist approach to issues of truth, meaning, and interpretation. Moreover, they have often been viewed as lending support to such programmes as the 'strong' sociology (...) of knowledge and the turn towards wholesale cultural-relativist doctrines, whether of the Wittgensteinian ('language-games') or Heideggerian (depth-hermeneutic) varieties. Thus Richard Rorty recommends that we should henceforth drop all that old-fashioned talk of 'truth', 'knowledge', or 'reality', since whatever warrants those descriptions from time to time is just the product of some currently favoured language-game or range of elective metaphors. Such ideas have little in common with Quine's general outlook of robust physicalism, nor again - though the case is less clear - with Kuhn's reconsidered approach to these issues as set forth in his 1969 Postscript to The Structure of Scientific Revolutions . However, both thinkers have left themselves open to misconstrual by adopting a sceptical-relativist fallback position in response to the well-known problems with logical empiricism. This essay therefore reviews those problems with reference to alternative, more adequate accounts of what is involved in the process of scientific discovery and theory-change. (shrink)

Much recent work in neuroscience aims to shed light on whether we have free will. Can it? Can any science? To answer, we need to disentangle different notions of free will, and clarify what we mean by ‘empirical’ and ‘testable’. That done, my main conclusion is, duly interpreted: that free will is not a testable hypothesis. In particular, it is neither verifiable nor falsifiable by empirical evidence. The arguments for this are not a priori but rather are based on a (...) posteriori consideration of the relevant neuroscientific investigations, as well as on standard philosophy of science work on the notion of testability. (shrink)

Hilary Putnam once proposed a semantic approach to, as well as a deflationist resolution of, the problem of analyticity. I take up and defend both ideas. First of all, I defend Putnam's semantic construal of the issue against Quine's reductive understanding. Secondly, I devise a semantics that successfully explains the genesis of the relevant analytic truths and that shows them to be harmless. Finally, I rebut the aspirations of the neo-descriptivist semantics, prominently propounded by David Chalmers and Frank Jackson, that (...) is widely presumed to spearhead the re-establishment of substantial analyticities. I conclude that analytic truths—at least those discussed—are indeed harmless. (shrink)

Some philosophers argue that many contemporary debates in metaphysics are “illegitimate,” “shallow,” or “trivial,” and that “contemporary analytic metaphysics, a professional activity engaged in by some extremely intelligent and morally serious people, fails to qualify as part of the enlightened pursuit of objective truth, and should be discontinued” (Ladyman and Ross, Every thing must go: Metaphysics naturalized , 2007 ). Many of these critics are explicit about their sympathies with Rudolf Carnap and his circle, calling themselves ‘neo-positivists’ or ‘neo-Carnapians.’ Yet (...) despite the fact that one of the main conclusions of logical positivism was that metaphysical statements are meaningless, many of these neo-positivists are themselves engaged in metaphysical projects. This paper aims to clarify how we may see a neo-positivist metaphysics as proceeding in good faith, one that starts with serious engagement with the findings of science, particularly fundamental physics, but also has room for traditional, armchair methods. (shrink)

The question “What are cognitive processes?” can be understood variously as meaning “What is the nature of cognitive processes?”, “Can we distinguish epistemically cognitive processes from physical and biochemical processes on the one hand, and from mental or conscious processes on the other?”, and “Can we establish a fruitful notion of cognitive process?” The present aim is to deliver a positive answer to the last question by developing criteria for what would count as a paradigmatic exemplar of a cognitive process, (...) and then to offer the comparator mechanism as a convincing paradigmatic example. Thus, the paper argues, given the current state of science, we can indeed establish a fruitful scientific notion of a cognitive process. Nevertheless, it is left open whether the example-based characterization ends up as merely highlighting a fruitful convention within the early-twentyfirst century interdisciplinary investigation of intelligent behaviour in humans, animals, and robots, or whether the examples determine a natural kind or a property cluster. (shrink)

This article is on political normativity. It urges scepticism about attempts to reduce political normativity to morality. Modern liberalism leaves a question about how far morality can be accommodated by the form of normativity characteristic of politics. The article casts doubt on whether individual moral norms carry over to collective, for example, political, action, and whether the former ‘trump’ other kinds of reasons in politics. It then sketches an alternative view of politics as an irreducibly collective enterprise. Reasons for acting (...) politically, including the understandings on which perceptions of legitimacy rest, are largely artefacts of the political culture and thus only marginally subject to generic conditions of validity: this is true in particular of liberal acceptability-conditions. Thus legitimacy, though not a redundant notion, must be geared to local political norms. (shrink)

Contrary to the common-sense view and positivist aspirations, scientific concepts are often imprecise. Many of these concepts are ambiguous, vague, or have an under-specified meaning. In this paper, I discuss how imprecise concepts promote integration in biology and thus benefit science. Previous discussions of this issue focus on the concepts of molecular gene and evolutionary novelty. The concept of molecular gene helps biologists integrate explanatory practices, while the notion of evolutionary novelty helps them integrate research questions into an interdisciplinary problem (...) New directions in the philosophy of science, Springer, Dordrecht, 2014). In what follows, I compare molecular gene and evolutionary novelty to another imprecise concept, namely biological lineage. This concept promotes two other types of scientific integration: it helps biologists integrate theoretical principles and methodologies into different areas of biology. The concept of biological lineage facilitates these types of integration because it is broad and under-specified in ways that the concepts of molecular gene and evolutionary novelty are not. Hence, I use the concept of biological lineage as a case study to reveal types of integration that have been overlooked by philosophers. This case study also shows that even very imprecise concepts can be beneficial to scientific practice. (shrink)

Susanna Schellenberg develops a unified account—“capacitism”—of perceptual content, phenomenology, and epistemic force. In this paper, I raise questions about her arguments for a capacitist account of evidential force, and then challenge her claim that such an account, even if correct, demands that our evidence be less than fully transparent to us.

Appeals to some thesis of underdetermination, to the idea that scientific theories and hypotheses are not entailed by the evidence that supports them, are common in feminist philosophy of science. These appeals seek to understand and explain how androcentrism and other problematic approaches to gender have found their way into good science, as well as the reverse – how feminist approaches to gender and science that are also value-laden, can contribute to good science. Focusing on W.V. Quine’s positions on holism (...) and underdetermination, I argue that although Quine’s general thesis of holism does not entail his thesis of global underdetermination, his account of and arguments for moderate holism entail a localized and generalizable underdetermination, which I call moderate underdetermination. This moderate underdetermination is not transient or true of only some theories and hypotheses. Rather, it is a permanent state of affairs that characterizes all reasonably inclusive theories and hypotheses, however much evidence for them accumulates. I contend that Quine’s moderate holism entails the most robust and defensible argument for localized underdetermination, and that feminists would do well to appeal to it in arguing that values inform good science. (shrink)

In this paper, it is argued that both the belief state and its input should be represented as epistemic entrenchment (EE) relations. A belief revision operation is constructed that updates a given EE relation to a new one in light of an evidential EE relation, and an axiomatic characterization of this operation is given. Unlike most belief revision operations, the one developed here can handle both multiple belief revision and iterated belief revision.

La propuesta de naturalización de la epistemología explicitada por Quine en su célebre artículo de 1969 ha generado debates y consecuencias que de algún modo se prolongan hasta nuestros días a través de la evaluación de diversas propuestas de naturalización, todas ellas de algún modo vinculadas a la idea original de Quine. Sin embargo, varios aspectos bastante centrales de su propuesta continúan sin ser suficientemente aclarados. Ni siquiera se ha logrado consenso sobre cuáles serían las tareas específicas de una epistemología (...) naturalizada y cuáles retoma de la tradición. La persistencia de dichos debates no debería resultar sorprendente si uno considera que, al menos para la interpretación inicial, se estaría proponiendo un programa descriptivo para una disciplina que tenía un propósito claramente normativo; o que se estaba proponiendo apoyarse en las ciencias cuando la disciplina había nacido precisamente para fundamentar a esos estudios. Incluso, que se trataba de proponer una filosofía luego que se prescindiera de la aprioridad y de la analiticidad, cuando la tradición había concebido a la filosofía justamente a partir de ese tipo de enunciados. Para colmo, la epistemología naturalizada proclamaba abiertamente que entre epistemología y ciencias no habría fundamentación sino circularidad supuestamente no ilegítima. Eran pues, varias y fundamentales las posiciones de la tradición que aparecían así claramente desafiadas. En este sentido, en este trabajo nos proponemos: 1 – Revisar sumariamente el contenido básico de la propuesta de naturalización en relación a los temas clásicos de la teoría del conocimiento. 2 – Analizar y evaluar la acusación de falta de normatividad de la epistemología naturalizada. 3 – Analizar el tema de la aprioridad y la analiticidad en relación a las tareas filosóficas de la epistemología naturalizada. 4 – Analizar el posible fundamento y la supuesta circularidad de la propuesta de naturalización.En todos los casos vamos a defender una interpretación algo alejada de la que ha sido mayoritaria y vamos a apoyarnos para ello en la propios desarrollos epistemológicos de Quine y en algunas aclaraciones realizadas por el autor en escritos tardíos. En el tema del fundamento y la circularidad creemos oportuno vincular su posición con la idea de equilibrio reflexivo de Goodman y con desarrollos más recientes en teoría de la justificación no lineal. (shrink)

Discussions of conservatism in epistemology often fail to demonstrate that the principle of conservatism is supported by epistemic considerations. In this paper, I hope to show two things. First, there is a defensible version of the principle of conservatism, a version that applies only to what I will call our basic beliefs. Those who deny that conservatism is supported by epistemic considerations do so because they fail to take into account the necessarily social, diachronic and self-correcting nature of our epistemic (...) practice. Second, I will attempt to show how our basic beliefs are justified via this principle of conservatism. (shrink)

The debate over scientific or critical realism is characterized by confusion, which I claim is a result of approaching the issue from both modern and ‘postmodern’ perspectives. Modern thought is characterized by foundationalism in epistemology and representationalism in philosophy of language, while holism in epistemology and the theory of meaning as use in philosophy of language are postmodern. Typical forms of scientific realism (which seek referents for theoretical terms or correspondence accounts of the truth of scientific theories) are positions at (...) home only in a modern framework. Postmodern presuppositions of other participants in the debate account for the ability of opponents to talk past one another. (shrink)

In the following précis, I provide a summary of Interdisciplinary Foundations for the Science of Emotion. Much of what I say can be found in the “About the “Book” section of my book, although I provide some elaborations here. My summary focuses primarily on the central aim of the book, and the general strategy that I take in order to achieve my aim. What I present is a proposal for an interdisciplinary science of emotion. That proposal goes by the name (...) of meta-semantic pluralisme, and a central principle of this proposal is what I refer to as the α-ωe principle. My summary includes chapter summaries, which provides not only a more detailed account of my general strategy, but also a summary of the fruitfulness of this first principle for interdisciplinary research and theorizing in the science of emotion, including the work it can do in the areas of metaphysics, language, consciousness, intentionality, rationality, and epistemology. Finally, one should note that some of the contents of this précis should also provide a response to at least some of the commentators’ requests for clarification, and I address the concerns not covered in this précis in my subsequent replies. (shrink)

Ayn Rand’s Objectivist epistemology is the foundation of an impressive, comprehensive, and integrated system of political philosophy, psychology, art, and literature. Friedrich Hayek’s operational system of epistemology and his analysis of the psychology of perception (presented primarily in The Sensory Order) is not as clearly integrated with his economics and political philosophy—and many have debated their consistency with one another. This paper engages in a comparative analysis of Rand’s and Hayek’s epistemology.

The axiom of infinity states that infinite sets exist. I will argue that this axiom lacks justification. I start by showing that the axiom is not self-evident, so it needs separate justification. Following Maddy’s :481–511, 1988) distinction, I argue that the axiom of infinity lacks both intrinsic and extrinsic justification. Crucial to my project is Skolem’s From Frege to Gödel: a source book in mathematical logic, 1879–1931, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, pp. 290–301, 1922) distinction between a theory of real sets, (...) and a theory of objects that theory calls “sets”. While Dedekind’s argument fails, his approach was correct: the axiom of infinity needs a justification it currently lacks. This epistemic situation is at variance with everyday mathematical practice. A dilemma ensues: should we relax epistemic standards or insist, in a skeptical vein, that a foundational problem has been ignored? (shrink)

This paper argues that just as full beliefs can constitute knowledge, so can properties of your credence distribution. The resulting notion of probabilistic knowledge helps us give a natural account of knowledge ascriptions embedding language of subjective uncertainty, and a simple diagnosis of probabilistic analogs of Gettier cases. Just like propositional knowledge, probabilistic knowledge is factive, safe, and sensitive. And it helps us build knowledge-based norms of action without accepting implausible semantic assumptions or endorsing the claim that knowledge is interest-relative.

Suppose you're unable to discriminate the colors of two objects. According to the triangulation view, their colors might nonetheless look different to you, and that's something you can discover as a result of further comparisons. The primary motivation for this view is its apparent ability to solve a puzzle involving a series of pairwise indiscriminable objects. I argue that, due to visual noise, the triangulation view doesn't really solve the puzzle.

In his “Wissenschaftslogik: The Role of Logic in the Philosophy of Science,” Michael Friedman argues that Carnap’s philosophy of science “is fundamentally anti-metaphysical—he aims to use the tools of mathematical logic to dissolve rather [than] solve traditional philosophical problems—and it is precisely this point that is missed by his logically-minded contemporaries such as Hempel and Quine”. In this paper, I take issue with this claim, arguing that Quine, too, is a part of this anti-metaphysical tradition. I begin in section I (...) with Russell’s account of scientific philosophy, focusing on its critique of metaphysics and its reliance on logical constructions. I then argue that each of Carnap and Quine take up this call to scientific philosophizing but that they both find Russell’s account of logic wanting. In section II, I first provide an account of Carnap’s critique of metaphysics and its reliance on developments in logic. This is followed by a discussion of his appeal to the analytic/synthetic distinction so as to improve upon Russell’s account of logic. Section III follows this same structure but focuses on Quine. In the end, though, Quine turns not to the analytic/synthetic distinction but to holism to provide an account of logic suitable to scientific philosophy. Carnap had claimed to be “more Russellian than Russell,” and in this final move by Quine I argue that he is “being more Carnapian than Carnap.” I conclude by showing how, contrary to Friedman’s view, Quine’s rejection of the analytic/synthetic distinction does not yield a return to the kind metaphysics that he, Carnap, and Russell all objected to. (shrink)

This paper is an examination of evidential holism, a prominent position in epistemology and the philosophy of science which claims that experiments only ever confirm or refute entire theories. The position is historically associated with W.V. Quine, and it is at once both popular and notorious, as well as being largely under-described. But even though there’s no univocal statement of what holism is or what it does, philosophers have nevertheless made substantial assumptions about its content and its truth. Moreover they (...) have drawn controversial and important conclusions from these assumptions. In this paper I distinguish three types of evidential holism and argue that the most oft-cited and controversial thesis is entirely unmotivated. The other two theses are much overlooked, but are well-motivated and free from controversial implications. (shrink)

The indispensability argument is a method for showing that abstract mathematical objects exist. Various versions of this argument have been proposed. Lately, commentators seem to have agreed that a holistic indispensability argument will not work, and that an explanatory indispensability argument is the best candidate. In this paper I argue that the dominant reasons for rejecting the holistic indispensability argument are mistaken. This is largely due to an overestimation of the consequences that follow from evidential holism. Nevertheless, the holistic indispensability (...) argument should be rejected, but for a different reason —in order that an indispensability argument relying on holism can work, it must invoke an unmotivated version of evidential holism. Such an argument will be unsound. Correcting the argument with a proper construal of evidential holism means that it can no longer deliver mathematical Platonism as a conclusion: such an argument for Platonism will be invalid. I then show how the reasons for rejecting the holistic indispensability argument importantly constrain what kind of account of explanation will be permissible in explanatory versions. (shrink)

In his “Epistemology Naturalized,” Quine embraces a form of Humeanism. In this paper, I try to work out the significance of this Humeanism. In particular, I argue that it represents an anti-metaphysical position that Quine shares with Carnap. Crucial to my account is that contrary to much contemporary thinking on metaphysics, Carnap, and Quine following him, recognize both an ontological and an epistemological sense of metaphysics. As commentators have frequently acknowledged, Carnap and Quine disagree over rejecting metaphysics in the ontological (...) sense. I will argue, though, that they agree in rejecting metaphysics in their shared epistemological sense of the term. (shrink)

ABSTRACTI argue that Bernard Suits’ definition of game playing, suitably extended with David Lewis’ account of coordinating conventions, is robust enough to withstand some common objections made ag...

I argue that pace Quine, indeterminacy of translation affects observation sentences. I illustrate this indeterminacy with examples and show how it is tied to the indeterminacy affecting the analytical status of observation categoricals. I propose my own construal of the thesis of indeterminacy of translation, according to which indeterminacy is based on the inextricability of meaning and belief. I explain why this construal should be favored over Quine’s.

Some philosophers hold that the depth of an emotion is a question of how embedded it is among the person’s other mental states. That means, the emotion is inter-connected with other states such that its alteration or removal would lead to widespread changes in the mind. This paper argues that it is necessary to distinguish two different concepts of embeddedness: the inter-connections could either be rational or causal. The difference is non-trivial. This paper argues that the rational approach cannot admit (...) that certain types of recalcitrant emotion are deep without violating requirements of charity in the interpretation of others. Furthermore, it also argues that the causal approach is necessary to explain the depth of even non-recalcitrant emotions. So, if emotional depth is to be conceived as a kind of embeddedness, the relevant concept of embeddedness must be the causal one. (shrink)

According to one widely held view, a belief is fully justified only if it holds up against the strongest available counterarguments, and we can be appropriately confident that it does hold up only if there is free and open critical discussion of those beliefs between us and our epistemic peers. In this paper I argue that this common picture of ideal rational group inquiry interacts with epistemic problems concerning reasonable disagreement in a way that makes those problems particularly difficult to (...) resolve. By focusing on this idealized context, we get a clearer picture of the epistemic principles at issue. In the end, I argue that the best way to resolve the resulting epistemic conflicts is by appeal to the underdetermination of theory by evidence together with a principle of epistemic conservatism. (shrink)

With the systematic aim of clarifying the phenomenon sometimes described as “the intellectual apprehension of first principles,” Descartes’ first principle par excellence is interpreted before the historical backcloth of Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics. To begin with, three “faces” of the cogito are distinguished: (1) the proto-cogito (“I think”), (2) the cogito proper (“I think, therefore I am”), and (3) the cogito principle (“Whatever thinks, is”). There follows a detailed (though inevitably somewhat conjectural) reconstruction of the transition of the mind from (1) (...) via (3) to (2) and back again to (3). What emerges is, surprisingly, a non-circular, non-logical, and ultimately non-mysterious process by which first principles implicitly contained in a complex intuition are gradually rendered explicit (and, if abstract, grasped in their abstract universality). This process bears a striking family resemblance to that intuitive induction (“grasping the universal in the particular”) which Aristotle scholars have distinguished from empirical forms of induction. (shrink)

Despite the praise his writing garnered during his lifetime, e.g., from readers such as Einstein and de Broglie, Émile Meyerson has been largely forgotten. The rich tradition of French épistémologie has recently been taken up in some Anglo-American scholarship, but Meyerson—who popularized the term épistémologie through his historical method of analyzing science, and criticized positivism long before Quine and Kuhn—remains overlooked. If Meyerson is remembered at all, it is as a historian of classical science. This paper attempts to rectify both (...) states of affairs by explicating one of Meyerson׳s last and untranslated works, Réel et déterminisme dans la théorie quantique, an opuscule on quantum physics.I provide an overview of Meyerson׳s philosophy, his critique of Max Planck׳s interpretation of quantum physics, and then outline and evaluate Meyerson׳s neo-Kantian alternative. I then compare and contrast this interpretation with Cassirer׳s neo-Kantian program. Finally I show that, while Meyerson believes the revolutionary new physics requires "profoundly" modifying our conception of reality, ultimately, he thinks, it secures the legitimacy of his thesis: that science seeks explanations in the form of what he calls "identification." I hope my research will enable a more general and systematic engagement with Meyerson׳s work, especially with a view to assessing its viability as a philosophical method today. (shrink)

It is commonly argued that values “fill the logical gap” of underdetermination of theory by evidence, namely, values affect our choice between two or more theories that fit the same evidence. The underdetermination model, however, does not exhaust the roles values play in evidential reasoning. I introduce WAVE – a novel account of the logical relations between values and evidence. WAVE states that values influence evidential reasoning by adjusting evidential weights. I argue that the weight-adjusting role of values is distinct (...) from their underdetermination gap-filling role. Values adjust weights in three ways. First, values affect our trust in the testimony of others. Second, values influence the evidential thresholds required for justified epistemic judgments. Third, values influence the relative weight of a certain type of evidence within a body of multimodal discordant evidence. WAVE explains, from an epistemic perspective, rather than psychological, how smokers, for example, can find the same evidence about the dangers of smoking less persuasive than non-smokers. WAVE allows for a wider effect of values on our accepted scientific theories and beliefs than the effect for which the underdetermination model allows alone; therefore, science studies scholars must consider WAVE in their research and analysis of evidential case studies. (shrink)

Much of the recent literature on the normativity of belief has focused on undermining or defending narrow scope readings of doxastic norms. Wide scope readings are largely assumed to have been decisively refuted. This paper will oppose this trend by defending a wide scope reading of the norm of belief. We shall argue for the modest claim that if it is plausible to regard belief as constitutively normative (in the minimal sense that false belief is eo ipso defective), then a (...) modified version of the wide scope reading of the norm of belief should be preferred to the narrow scope reading. (This is subject to certain attractive conditions relating to the holism involved in the fixation and confirmation of belief.). (shrink)

Recent work on skin-brain thesis suggests the possibility of empirical evidence that empiricism is false. It implies that early animals need no traditional sensory receptors to be engaged in cognitive activity. The neural structure required to coordinate extensive sheets of contractile tissue for motility provides the starting point for a new multicellular organized form of sensing. Moving a body by muscle contraction provides the basis for a multicellular organization that is sensitive to external surface structure at the scale of the (...) animal body. In other words, the nervous system first evolved for action, not for receiving sensory input. Thus, sensory input is not required for minimal cognition; only action is. The whole body of an organism, in particular its highly specific animal sensorimotor organization, reflects the bodily and environmental spatiotemporal structure. The skin-brain thesis suggests that, in contrast to empiricist claims that cognition is constituted by sensory systems, cognition may be also constituted by action-oriented feedback mechanisms. Instead of positing the reflex arc as the elementary building block of nervous systems, it proposes that endogenous motor activity is crucial for cognitive processes. In the paper, I discuss the issue whether the skin-brain thesis and its supporting evidence can be really used to overthrow the main tenet of empiricism empirically, by pointing out to cognizing agents that fail to have any sensory apparatus. (shrink)

Quine’s general approach is to treat ontology as a matter of what a theory says there is. This turns ontology into a question of which existential statements are consequences of that theory. This approach is contrasted favourably with the view that takes ontological commitment as a relation to things. However within the broadly Quinean approach we can distinguish different accounts, differing as to the nature of the consequence relation best suited for determining those consequences. It is suggested that Quine’s own (...) narrowly formal account fails. Then a consideration of the necessitation approach championed by Jackson and Lewis shows that it does not do justice to the role of acknowledging consequences in determining rationality. I suggest that an approach which puts a priori consequence as the key relation does a better job. The task of spelling out the nature of a priori consequence is sketched, along with reasons to doubt the adequacy of the double indexing approach to analysing the a priori. The sorts of relations we can stand in to theories which allow us to inherit ontological commitments are touched on with a number of important philosophical strategies for introducing belief-like attitudes which nevertheless avoid ontological commitment. (shrink)

Summary In the methodology of science, intersubjectivity is usually associated with replicability of experimental results. A related, judicial conception of objectivity as impartiality has it that a theory or judgment is objective if it covers all the relevant angles of the object or phenomenon in question, ensuring that the latter is not ephemeral and the concepts referring to them are valid. Based on the assumption that in the social sciences, the researcher is also a participant, an alternative view was conceived, (...) according to the notion that intersubjectivity rests on either sharing of a lifeworld and its associated practices or on empathy, or on some form of direct social cognition. My aim in this paper is to bring some elements of the Gestalt theory – and more specifically, Rudolf Arnheim’s (1988) adapted model of field dynamics – to bear on the problematic of intersubjectivity. The proposed model suggests that intersubjectivity is a dynamic phenomenon, best described as a product of two vectors: a vector describing a movement across the circumference combined with a vector describing the movement from the center to the circumference. While the first vector corresponds to impartiality, the second represents the tension between cognitive distancing and direct experience. Overall, it is argued that intersubjectivity cannot be divorced from either subjectivity or objectivity and it amounts to skillful navigation within different frames of reference. (shrink)

The relativist position on knowledge is summarized by Protagoras’ phrase “Man is the measure of all things”. Protagoras’ detractors countered that there was no reason for his pupils to employ him since, by his own admission, his lessons lacked privilege. This the educationist’s relativist paradox. The Enlightenment tradition of Descartes, Locke and Kant solved this paradox by distinguishing given objective knowledge from constructed subjective knowledge, but this position has itself been discredited by the work of Sellars, Quine and many other (...) thinkers. Because the Enlightenment solution to the educationist’s relativist paradox is no longer satisfactory, an alternative solution to this paradox is proposed. This alternative re-examines both the basis of empiricism and the role and origins of language, and introduces the concepts of triggered hallucinations, cognitive evolutionary pressure, and cognitive empathetic resonance. Cognitive empathetic resonance provides a mechanism that can explain how our thoughts and actions are made possible by language; it is language that acts as a creative and generative force and helps us to live in the world we do. This approach inverts the empiricist claim that ideas start off grounded in an external reality and develop into more sophisticated concepts. The view of ideas presented here is that ideas are free-floating and, if they are grounded at all, are grounded as an active post-hoc process. The conclusion is that although facts do exist and are privileged, this is not because they are ‘given’ but because they are the ante required to join a space of discourse. (shrink)

In "Why Feynman Diagrams Represent", I argued that Feynman diagrams have two distinct functions: they are both calculational devices, developed to keep track of the long mathematical expressions of quantum electrodynamics,1 and they are pictorial representations. This challenges the common view that FDs are calculational devices alone and that it is misleading, if not an outright error, to think of them as pictorial. Following Kendall Walton's account of representation, I drew out what it means to think of FDs as pictures, (...) which in turn explained why FDs represent. However, my defence conceded an important point: not all of... (shrink)

Mechanistic explanations, according to one prominent account, are derived from objective explanations (Craver 2007, 2014 ). Mechanistic standards of explanation are in turn pulled from nature, and are thereby insulated from the values of investigators, since explanation is an objectively defined achievement grounded in the causal structure of the world (Craver 2014 ). This results in the closure of mechanism’s explanatory standards—it is insulated from the values, norms and goals of investigators. I raise two problems with this position. First, it (...) relies on several ontological claims which, while plausible, fail to guarantee the objectivity of mechanistic explanatory standards to the degree of certainty required. Second, Craver’s position itself introduces a value–laden explanatory standard—the 3M requirement (Kaplan & Craver 2011 )—which undermines the closure of explanatory standards. I show how in practice mechanistic explanation is in part guided by explanatory taste, shorthand for background contextual values that influence our standards of explanation. Mechanism often has a particular pragmatically-oriented taste for control, and gerrymanders explanatory standards in order to obtain it. I conclude by arguing that objectivity, rather than being obtained through the right set of explanatory standards, is better thought of as the result of processes of intersubjective criticism, which renders visible the contextual values of communities of investigators and allows them to be controlled for (Longino 1990 ). (shrink)