There is an ongoing methodological debate in philosophy of science concerning the use of case studies as evidence for and/or against theories about science. In this paper, I aim to make a contribution to this debate by taking an empirical approach. I present the results of a systematic survey of the PhilSci-Archive, which suggest that a sizeable proportion of papers in philosophy of science contain appeals to case studies, as indicated by the occurrence of the indicator words “case study” and/or (...) “case studies.” These results are confirmed by data mined from the JSTOR database on research articles published in leading journals in the field: Philosophy of Science, the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (BJPS), and the Journal for General Philosophy of Science (JGPS), as well as the Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association (PSA). The data also show upward trends in appeals to case studies in articles published in Philosophy of Science, the BJPS, and the JGPS. The empirical work I have done for this paper provides philosophers of science who are wary of the use of case studies as evidence for and/or against theories about science with a way to do philosophy of science that is informed by data rather than case studies. (shrink)

For many years—and with some energy since Laudan’s “Confutation of Convergent Realism” —the scientific realist has sought to accommodate examples of false-yet-successful theories in the history of science. One of the most prominent strategies is to identify ‘success fueling’ components of false theories that themselves are at least approximately true. In this article I develop both sides of the debate, introducing new challenges from the history of science as well as suggesting adjustments to the divide et impera realist strategy. A (...) new ‘recipe’ for the prospective identification of working/idle posits is considered. (shrink)

One of the popular realist responses to the pessimistic meta-induction is the ‘selective’ move, where a realist only commits to the ‘working posits’ of a successful theory, and withholds commitment to ‘idle posits’. Antirealists often criticise selective realists for not being able to articulate exactly what is meant by ‘working’ and/or not being able to identify the working posits except in hindsight. This paper aims to establish two results: sometimes a proposition is, in an important sense, ‘doing work’, and yet (...) does not warrant realist commitment, and the realist will be able to respond to PMI-style historical challenges if she can merely show that certain selected posits do not require realist commitment. These two results act to significantly adjust the dialectic vis-à-vis PMI-style challenges to selective realism. (shrink)

Many realist writings exemplify the spirit of ‘recipe realism’. Here I characterise recipe realism, challenge it, and propose replacing it with ‘exemplar realism’. This alternative understanding of realism is more piecemeal, robust, and better in tune with scientists’ own attitude towards their best theories, and thus to be preferred.

A success-to-truth inference has always been at the heart of scientific realist positions. But all attempts to articulate the inference have met with very significant challenges. This paper reconstructs the evolution of this inference, and brings together a number of qualifications in an attempt to articulate a contemporary success-to-truth inference which is realistic. I argue that this contemporary version of the inference has a chance, at least, of overcoming the historical challenges which have been proffered to date. However, there is (...) a price to pay: the developments which help the realist answer the historical challenges also serve to increase the number of non-historical challenges. (shrink)

Scientific realism, the position that successful theories are likely to be approximately true, is threatened by the pessimistic induction according to which the history of science is full of suc- cessful, but false theories. I aim to defend scientific realism against the pessimistic induction. My main thesis is that our current best theories each enjoy a very high degree of predictive success, far higher than was enjoyed by any of the refuted theories. I support this thesis by showing that both (...) the amount, and quality, of scientific evidence has increased enormously in the recent past, resulting in a big boost of success for the best theories. (shrink)

Two successes of old quantum theory are particularly notable: Bohr’s prediction of the spectral lines of ionised helium, and Sommerfeld’s prediction of the fine-structure of the hydrogen spectral lines. Many scientific realists would like to be able to explain these successes in terms of the truth or approximate truth of the assumptions which fuelled the relevant derivations. In this paper I argue that this will be difficult for the ionised helium success, and is almost certainly impossible for the fine-structure success. (...) Thus I submit that the case against the realist’s thesis that success is indicative of truth is marginally strengthened. (shrink)

Inferentialists about scientific representation hold that an apparatus’s representing a target system consists in the apparatus allowing “surrogative inferences” about the target. I argue that a serious problem for inferentialism arises from the fact that many scientific theories and models contain internal inconsistencies. Inferentialism, left unamended, implies that inconsistent scientific models have unlimited representational power, since an inconsistency permits any conclusion to be inferred. I consider a number of ways that inferentialists can respond to this challenge before suggesting my own (...) solution. I develop an analogy to exploitable glitches in a game. Even though inconsistent representational apparatuses may in some sense allow for contradictions to be generated within them, doing so violates the intended function of the apparatus’s parts and hence violates representational “gameplay.”. (shrink)

This paper argues that recent arguments to the effect that the debate between presentism and eternalism lacks any metaphysical substance ultimately fail, although important lessons can be gleaned from them in how to formulate a non-vacuous version of presentism. It suggests that presentism can best be characterized in the context of spacetime theories. The resulting position is an ersatzist version of presentism that admits merely non-present entities as abstracta deprived of physical existence. Ersatzist presentism both escapes the charges of triviality (...) and promises to offer a route to solving the grounding problem which befalls its more traditional cousins. (shrink)

Beliefs come in different strengths. What are the norms that govern these strengths of belief? Let an agent's belief function at a particular time be the function that assigns, to each of the propositions about which she has an opinion, the strength of her belief in that proposition at that time. Traditionally, philosophers have claimed that an agent's belief function at any time ought to be a probability function (Probabilism), and that she ought to update her belief function upon obtaining (...) new evidence by conditionalizing on that evidence (Conditionalization). Until recently, the central arguments for these claims have been pragmatic. But these putative justifications fail to identify what is epistemically irrational about violating Probabilism or Conditionalization. A new approach, which I will call epistemic utility theory, attempts to remedy this. It treats beliefs as epistemic acts; and it appeals to the notion of an epistemic utility function, which measures of how epistemically valuable a particular belief function is for a particular way the world might be. It then formulates fundamental epistemic norms that are analogous to the fundamental practical norms that underlie decision theory. I survey the results obtained so far in this young research project, and present a sustained critique of certain assumptions that have been made by a number of philosophers working in this area. (shrink)

I explore a challenge that idealisations pose to scientific realism and argue that the realist can best accommodate idealisations by capitalising on certain modal features of idealised models that are underwritten by laws of nature.

Much recent discussion in social epistemology has focussed on the question of whether peers can rationally sustain a disagreement. A growing number of social epistemologists hold that the answer is negative. We point to considerations from the history of science that favor rather the opposite answer. However, we also explain how the other position can appear intuitively attractive.

Philosophers of science have often favoured reductive approaches to how-possibly explanation. This article identifies three alternative conceptions making how-possibly explanation an interesting phenomenon in its own right. The first variety approaches “how possibly X?” by showing that X is not epistemically impossible. This can sometimes be achieved by removing misunderstandings concerning the implications of one’s current belief system but involves characteristically a modification of this belief system so that acceptance of X does not result in contradiction. The second variety offers (...) a potential how-explanation of X. It is usually followed by a range of further potential how-explanations of the same phenomenon. In recent literature the factual claims implied by the second variety have been downplayed whereas the heuristic role of mapping the space of conceptual possibilities has been emphasized. I will focus especially on this truth-bracketing sense of potentiality when looking closer at the second variety in the paper. The third variety has attracted less interest. It presents a partial how-explanation of X. Typically it aims to establish the existence of a mechanism by which X could be and was generated. The third conception stands out as the natural alternative for the advocate of ontic how-possibly explanations. This article transfers Salmon’s view that explanation-concepts can be broadly divided into epistemic, modal, and ontic to the context of how-possibly explanations. Moreover, it is argued that each of the three above-mentioned varieties of how-possibly explanation occurs in science. To recognize this may be especially relevant for philosophers. We are often misled by the promises of various why-explanation accounts, and seem to have forgotten nearly everything about the diversity of how-possibly explanations. (shrink)

For several decades now philosophers have discussed apparent examples of internally inconsistent scientific theories. However, there is still much controversy over how exactly we should conceive of scientific theories in the first place. Here I argue for a new approach, whereby all of the truly important questions about inconsistency in science can be asked and answered without disagreements about theories and theory-content getting in the way. Three examples commonly described as ‘internally inconsistent theories’ are analysed in the light of this (...) approach. In the process, the question ‘Is the theory inconsistent or not?’ is identified as a bad, or at least unimportant, question. (shrink)

A theory’s fertility is one of the standard theoretical virtues. But how is it to be construed? In current philosophical discourse, particularly in the realism debate, theoretical fertility is usually understood in terms of novel success: a theory is fertile if it manages to make successful novel predictions. Another, more permissible, notion of fertility can be found in the work of Ernan McMullin. This kind of fertility, McMullin claims, gives us just as strong grounds for realism. My paper critically assesses (...) McMullin’s notion of fertility and its realist rationale. It concludes that McMullin’s preferred example, namely the fertile development of the Bohr-Sommerfeld model of the atom, does not support McMullin’s argument for realism. Although the implications for the realism debate are as of yet unclear, the case study offers some important methodological lessons. (shrink)

According to the environment-induced approach to decoherence, the split of the Universe into the degrees of freedom which are of direct interest to the observer and the remaining degrees of freedom is absolutely essential for decoherence. However, the EID approach offers no general criterion for deciding where to place the “cut” between system and environment: the environment may be “external” or “internal”. The main purpose of this paper is to argue that decoherence is a relative phenomenon, better understood from a (...) closed-system perspective according to which the split of a closed quantum system into an open subsystem and its environment is just a way of selecting a particular space of relevant observables of the whole closed system. In order to support this claim, we shall consider the results obtained in a natural generalization of the simple spin-bath model usually studied in the literature. Our main thesis will lead us to two corollaries. First, the problem of identifying the system that decoheres is actually a pseudo-problem, which vanishes as soon as one acknowledges the relative nature of decoherence. Second, the usually supposed link between decoherence and energy dissipation is misguided. As previously pointed out, energy dissipation and decoherence are different phenomena, and we shall argue for this difference on the basis of the relative nature of decoherence. (shrink)

This paper discusses three shortcomings of the current state of the debate regarding historical evidence against scientific realism. Attending to these issues will direct the debate away from over-generalising wholesale arguments.

Psillos, Kitcher, and Leplin have defended convergent scientific realism against the pessimistic meta-induction by arguing for the divide et impera strategy. I argue that DEI faces a problem more serious than the pessimistic meta-induction: the problem of accretion. When empirically successful theories and principles are combined, they may no longer make successful predictions or allow for accurate calculations, or the combination otherwise may be an empirical failure. The shift from classical mechanics to the new quantum theory does not reflect the (...) discarding of “idle wheels.” Instead, scientists had to contend with new principles that made classical calculations difficult or impossible, and new results that were inconsistent with classical theorems, and that suggested a new way of conceiving of atomic dynamics. In this shift, reference to atoms and to electrons was preserved, but the underlying causal explanations and descriptions of atoms and electrons changed. I propose that the emphasis on accurate description of causal agents as a virtue of background theory be replaced with Ruetsche’s advocacy of pragmatic, modal resourcefulness. (shrink)

Stopping rules — rules dictating when to stop accumulating data and start analyzing it for the purposes of inferring from the experiment — divide Bayesians, Likelihoodists and classical statistical approaches to inference. Although the relationship between Bayesian philosophy of science and stopping rules can be complex (cf. Steel 2003), in general, Bayesians regard stopping rules as irrelevant to what inference should be drawn from the data. This position clashes with classical statistical accounts. For orthodox statistics, stopping rules do matter to (...) what inference should be drawn from the data. "The dispute over stopping rule is far from being a marginal quibble, but is instead a striking illustration of the divergence of fundamental aims and standards separating Bayesians and advocates of orthodox statistical methods" (Steel 2004, 195) ... (shrink)

The old antagonism between the Quinean and the Duhemian view on underdetermination is reexamined. In this respect, two theses will be defended. First, it is argued that the main differences between Quine's and Duhem's versions of underdetermination derive from a different attitude towards the history of science. While Quine considered underdetermination from an ahistorical, a logical point of view, Duhem approached it as a distinguished historian of physics. On this basis, a logical and a historical version of the underdetermination thesis (...) can be distinguished. The second thesis of the article is that the main objections against underdetermination are fatal only to the logical rendering. Taken together, the two theses constitute a defence of underdetermination. (shrink)

Suppose that several observations “coincide,” meaning that they are similar in some interesting respect. Is this coinciding a mere coincidence, or does it derive from a common cause? Those who reason about this kind of question—whether they embrace the first answer or the second—often deploy a mode of inference that I call probabilistic modus tollens. In this chapter I criticize probabilistic modus tollens and consider likelihood and Bayesian frameworks for reasoning about coincidences. I also consider the perspective offered by model (...) selection theory (including the Akaike information criterion), and argue that model selection often provides important insights. (shrink)

John Norton’s argument that all formal theories of induction fail raises substantive questions about the philosophical analysis of scientific reasoning. What are the criteria of adequacy for philosophical theories of induction, explanation, or theory structure? Is more than one adequate theory possible? Using a generalized version of Norton’s argument, I demonstrate that the competition between formal and material theories in philosophy of science results from adhering to different criteria of adequacy. This situation encourages an interpretation of “formal” and “material” as (...) indicators of divergent criteria that accompany different philosophical methodologies. I characterize another criterion of adequacy associated with material theories, the avoidance of imported problems, and conclude that one way to negotiate between conflicting criteria is to adopt a pluralist stance toward philosophical theories of scientific reasoning. (shrink)

According to a wrong interpretation of the Bell theorem, it has been repeatedly claimed in recent times that we are forced by experiments to drop any possible form of realism in the foundations of quantum mechanics. In this paper I defend the simple thesis according to which the above claim cannot be consistently supported: the Bell theorem does not concern realism, and realism per se cannot be refuted in itself by any quantum experiment. As a consequence, realism in quantum mechanics (...) is not something that can be simply explained away once and for all on the basis of experiments, but rather something that must be conceptually characterized and discussed in terms of its foundational virtues and vices. To assess it, we cannot rely on experimentation but rather on philosophical discussion: realism is not a phlogiston-like notion, despite the efforts of the contemporary quantum orthodoxy to conceive it in Russellian terms as the relics of a bygone age. (shrink)

In this paper I distinguish between two kinds of meta-hypotheses, or hypotheses about science, at issue in the scientific realism debate. The first are descriptive empirical hypotheses regarding the nature of scientific inquiry. The second are epistemological theories about what individuals should / can justifiably believe about scientific theories. Favoring the realist Type-D meta-hypotheses, I argue that a particular set of realist and non-realist efforts in the debate over Type-E’s have been valuable in the quest to describe and understand the (...) nature of scientific inquiry. For the realism debate itself has inadvertently and indirectly laid the foundations for an important kind of Type-D meta-hypothesis, one regarding creativity in the history of science—which, in turn, is relevant to refining our descriptions of inference. After illustrating this result with regard to the historical argument against realism, I suggest that these empirically attained meta-hypotheses pertaining to scientific creativity can, in turn, be made methodologically prescriptive. (shrink)

Scientific Realism (SR) has three crucial aspects: 1) the centrality of the concept of truth, 2) the idea that success is a reliable indicator of truth, and 3) the idea that the Inference to the Best Explanation is a reliable inference rule. It will be outlined how some realists try to overcome the difficulties which arise in justifying such crucial aspects relying on an adaptationist view of evolutionism, and why such attempts are inadequate. Finally, we will briefly sketch some of (...) the main difficulties the realist has to face in defending those crucial aspects, and how such difficulties are deeply related: they derive from the inability of SR to satisfyingly avoid the sceptical challenge of the criterion of truth. Indeed, SR seems not to be able to fill the so-called ‘epistemic gap’ (Sankey 2008). In fact, the epistemic gap cannot be filled in no way other than obtaining a criterion of truth, but such a criterion cannot be obtained if the epistemic gap obtains. (shrink)

The success of a few theories in statistical thermodynamics can be correlated with their selectivity to reality. These are the theories of Boltzmann, Gibbs, and Einstein. The starting point is Carnot’s theory, which defines implicitly the general selection of reality relevant to thermodynamics. The three other theories share this selection, but specify it further in detail. Each of them separates a few main aspects within the scope of the implicit thermodynamic reality. Their success grounds on that selection. Those aspects can (...) be represented by corresponding oppositions. These are: macroscopic – microscopic; elements – states; relational – non-relational; and observable – theoretical. They can be interpreted as axes of independent qualities constituting a common qualitative reference frame shared by those theories. Each of them can be situated in this reference frame occupying a different place. This reference frame can be interpreted as an additional selection of reality within Carnot’s initial selection describable as macroscopic and both observable and theoretical. The deduced reference frame refers implicitly to many scientific theories independent of their subject therefore defining a general and common space or subspace for scientific theories (not for all). The immediate conclusion is: The examples of a few statistical thermodynamic theories demonstrate that the concept of “reality” is changed or generalized, or even exemplified (i.e. “de-generalized”) from a theory to another. Still a few more general suggestions referring the scientific realism debate can be added: One can admit that reality in scientific theories is some partially shared common qualitative space or subspace describable by relevant oppositions and rather independent of their subject quite different in general. Many or maybe all theories can be situated in that space of reality, which should develop adding new dimensions in it for still newer and newer theories. Its division of independent subspaces can represent the many-realities conception. The subject of a theory determines some relevant subspace of reality. This represents a selection within reality, relevant to the theory in question. The success of that theory correlates essentially with the selection within reality, relevant to its subject. (shrink)

According to a defense of scientific realism known as the “divide et impera move”, mature scientific theories enjoying predictive success are partially true. This paper investigates a paradigmatic historical case: the prediction, based on Fresnel’s wave theory of light, that a bright spot should figure in the shadow of a disc. Two different derivations of this prediction have been given by both Poisson and Fresnel. I argue that the details of these derivations highlight two problems of indispensability arguments, which state (...) that only the indispensable constituents of this success are worthy of belief and retained through theory-change. The first problem is that, contrary to a common claim, Fresnel’s integrals are not needed to predict the bright spot phenomenon. The second problem is that the hypotheses shared by to these two derivations include problematic idealizations. I claim that this example leads us to be skeptical about which aspects of our current theories are worthy of belief. (shrink)

The Representational Theory of Measurement conceives measurement as establishing homomorphisms from empirical relational structures into numerical relation structures, called models. There are two different approaches to deal with the justification of a model: an axiomatic and an empirical approach. The axiomatic approach verifies whether a given relational structure satisfies certain axioms to secure homomorphic mapping. The empirical approach conceives models to function as measuring instruments by transferring observations of a phenomenon under investigation into quantitative facts about that phenomenon. These facts (...) are evaluated by their accuracy and precision. Precision is generally achieved by least squares methods and accuracy by calibration. For calibration standards are needed. Then two polar strategies can be distinguished: white-box modeling and black-box modeling. The first strategy of modeling aims at estimating the invariant equations of the phenomenon, thereby fulfilling Hertz’s correctness requirement. The latter strategy of modeling is to use known stable facts about the phenomenon to adjust the model parameters, thereby fulfilling Hertz’s appropriateness requirement. For this latter strategy, the requirement of models as homomorphic mappings has been dropped. Where one will find the axiomatic approach more often used for measurement in the laboratory, the empirical approach is more appropriate for measurement outside the laboratory. The reason for this is that for measurement of phenomena outside the laboratory, one also needs to take account of the environment to achieve accurate results. Environments are generally too relation-rich for an axiomatic approach, which are only applicable for relation-poor systems. The white-box modeling strategy, reflecting the complexity of the environment due to its correctness requirement, will, however, lead to immensely large models. To avoid this problem, modular design is an appropriate strategy to reduce this complexity. Modular design is a grey-box modeling strategy. Grey-box models are assemblies of modules; these are black boxes with standard interface. It should be noted that the structure of the assemblage need not be homomorphic to the relations describing the interaction between phenomenon and environment. These three modeling strategies map out the possible designs for computer simulations as measuring instruments. Whether a simulation is based on a white-box, grey-box or black-box model is only determined by the relationship between the phenomenon and its environment and not by e.g. its materiality or physicality. (shrink)

Summary: Responding to Laudan’s skeptical reading of history an influential group of realists claim that the seriously wrong claims past successful theories licensed were not really implicated in the predictions that once singled them out as successful. For example, in the case of Fresnel’s theory of light, it is said that although he appealed to the ether he didn’t actually need to in order to derive his famous experimental predictions—in them, we are assured, the ether concept was “idle,” “inessential,” “peripheral” (...) or worse. This view, developed by J. Worrall and P. Kitcher in the 1980s and subsequently supplemented by J. Leplin and by S. Psillos has received critical attention in the literature over the last decade, but more needs to be said on the subject—or so I suggest in this paper. I bring forward four converging argumentative lines to show how and why, from the days of Fresnel to at least the decade after the Michelson-Morley experiments, the ether functioned and was understood as an “essential” posit in physics. My first line draws Fresnel’s actual deployment of the ether concept and the way he and his circle understood the achievements of his theory. The second line draws is from epistemological assessments of surprising implication in theories and its impact on leading theorists in the last two-thirds of the century. The third line draws from discussions of the optical ether in end-of-century reports circa 1900. The fourth focuses on entrenched metaphysical assumptions that persisted in the practice of physics until the advent of special relativity. Pulling these four lines together shows, I think, why attempts at synchronic identification of sound theory-parts are bound to fail, and also how realists might try to meet the challenge this creates. (shrink)

This paper applies the theory of networks to the problem of how agents should assign weights to other agents in the Lehrer-Wagner model for consensus formation. The Lehrer- Wagner theory of consensus is introduced, and the problem of weight assignment is highlighted as one of the open prob- lems for the theory. The paper argues that the application of the theory of networks to the Lehrer-Wagner model con- stitutes an interesting and fruitful option, among others, for the problem of weight (...) assignment. (shrink)

Kirchhoff’s 1882 theory of optical diffraction forms the centerpiece in the long-term development of wave optics, one that commenced in the 1820s when Fresnel produced an empirically successful theory based on a reinterpretation of Huygens’ principle, but without working from a wave equation. Then, in 1856, Stokes demonstrated that the principle was derivable from such an equation albeit without consideration of boundary conditions. Kirchhoff’s work a quarter century later marked a crucial, and widely influential, point for he produced Fresnel’s results (...) by means of Green’s theorem and function under specific boundary conditions. In the late 1880s, Poincaré uncovered an inconsistency between Kirchhoff’s conditions and his solution, one that seemed to imply that waves should not exist at all. Researchers nevertheless continued to use Kirchhoff’s theory—even though Rayleigh, and much later Sommerfeld, developed a different and mathematically consistent formulation that, however, did not match experimental data better than Kirchhoff’s theory. After all, Kirchhoff’s formula worked quite well in a specific approximation regime. Finally, in 1964, Marchand and Wolf employed the transformation of Kirchhoff’s surface integral that had been developed by Maggi and Rubinowicz for other purposes. The result yielded a consistent boundary condition that, while introducing a species of discontinuity, nevertheless rescued the essential structure of Kirchhoff’s original formulation from Poincaré’s paradox. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss Tim Maudlin’s attempt to reject the theory of universals based on the interpretation of gauge theories in the fiber bundle framework. The project is novel and assuring, but, I argue, it is vulnerable to several objections stemming from both metaphysics and physics. I complement his project by emphasizing two missing elements: first, a commitment to realism; second, the fundamentality or non-fundamentality of gauge theories.

According to the ‘mating intelligence’ theory by evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller, human morality is a system of sexually selected traits which serve as costly signals to the other sex about one’s fitness and readiness to take care for possible offspring. Starting from the standard prediction of evolutionary psychology that sexual selection produces psychological sex differences in human mating strategies, ‘mating intelligence’ theory is analyzed for its compatibility with several psychological theories about sex differences in moral traits like moral reasoning, judgment (...) and orientation. It is argued that the ‘mating intelligence’ theory, as a theory about the the evolution of morality, comes too dangerously close to being unfalsifiable because it embodies some auxiliary hypotheses and vague definitions which make it practically immune to every possible empirical finding concerning sex differences in human moral traits. (shrink)

Selective realist projects have made significant improvements over the last two decades. Judging by the literature, however, antirealist quarters seem little impressed with the results. Section I considers the selectivist case and its perceived shortcomings. One shortcoming is that selectivist offerings are nuanced in ways that deprive them of features that—according to many—cannot be absent from any realism “worth having”. Section II considers eight features widely required of realist positions, none of them honored by selectivist projects. Modulo those requirements, even (...) if selectivists managed to clear other shortcomings of their project selectivism would still not be a position worth considering. Next the historical background and present credentials of the requirements in question are examined. All are found to rest on myths and confusions about science and knowledge. If this is correct, realists and antirealists should reject the requirements. (shrink)

Evidence is an objective matter. This is the prevailing view within science, and confirmation theory should aim to capture the objective nature of scientific evidence. Modeling an objective evidence relation in a probabilistic framework faces two challenges: the probabilities must have the right epistemic foundation, and they must be specifiable given the hypotheses and data under consideration. Here I will explore how Sober's approach to confirmation handles these challenges of foundation and specification. In particular, I will argue that the specification (...) problem proves especially difficult, and undermines the law of likelihood as an adequate representation of the objective nature of scientific evidence. (shrink)

Under the eternalist hypothesis that objects or events exist temporally, but independently of being present two different views of persistence are on the market: Persisting objects endure if they are multiply located in time, and persisting objects perdure if they are singly located by having numerically different temporal parts. In the framework of the special theory of relativity, the metaphysics of persistence is confronted with peculiar difficulties. Things persist by being “wholly present” at more than one time; but what are (...) times within a temporally non-separated spacetime? Things persist by having different temporal parts at different times; but what are the temporal parts of a four-dimensional object in Minkowski spacetime? Recently, several authors have argued that SR favours perdurantism over its endurantist rival. In this paper, I intend to show that the purported arguments are only those against endurantism. The first simply fails, but the second, more convincing one, is such that with a similar strategy we should argue against perdurantism as well: Enduring and perduring entities are hence both in conflict with SR which undermines the eternalist hypothesis. (shrink)

This paper contributes to the explanation of human cooperative behaviour, examining the implications of Brian Skyrms’ modelling of the prisoner’s dilemma. Augmenting a PD with signalling strategies promotes cooperation, but a challenge that must be addressed is what prevents signals being subverted by deceptive behaviour. Empirical results suggest that emotional displays can play a signalling role and, to some extent, are secure from subversion. I examine proximate explanations and then offer an evolutionary explanation for the translucency of emotional displays. Selection (...) acts on the basis of lifetime fitness consequences and, crucially for my argument, the intensity of selection decreases over the course of a lifetime. Hence we tend to possess traits that promote survival when young and, with regard to emotional displays, translucency allows successful maturation over our protracted period of nurturing by close kin. This is due to the vital role played by emotional interactions in the normal cognitive and social development of Homo sapiens. (shrink)

In this paper, I study the application of phylogenetic analysis in evolutionary archaeology. I show how transfer of this apparently general analytic tool is affected by salient differences in disciplinary context. One is that archaeologists, unlike many biologists, do not regard cladistics as a tool for classification, but are primarily interested in explanation. The other is that explanation is traditionally sought in terms of individual-level rather than population-level mechanisms. The latter disciplinary difference creates an ambiguity in the application and interpretation (...) of phylogenetic analyses. Moreover, I argue that, while archaeologists have claimed that “cladistics is useful for reconstructing artefact phylogenies”, these reconstructions only contribute minimally to the explanatory research agenda of evolutionary archaeology. (shrink)

My goal in this paper is to see the extent to which judgment aggregation methods subsume meta-analytic ones. To this end, I derive a generalized version of the classical Condorcet Jury Theorem, the aggregative implications of which have been widely exploited in the area of rational choice theory, but not yet in philosophy of science. I contend that the generalized CJT that I prove below is useful for modelling at least some meta-analytic procedures.

Most science requires applied mathematics. This truism underlies the Quine-Putnam indispensability argument: we cannot be mathematical nominalists without rejecting whole swaths of good science that are seamlessly linked with mathematics. One style of response accepts the challenge head-on and attempts to show how to do science without mathematics. There is some consensus that the response fails because the nominalistic apparatus deployed either is not extendible to all of mathematical physics or is merely a deft reconstrual equivalent to standard mathematics. A (...) second style of response denies that indispensability entails realism: when we mathematize a physical problem we treat its physical content as if it were the mathematical representation; provided the two are sufficiently similar, we can use the mathematics to draw conclusions about the physics; even if we cannot represent physical facts without mathematical tools, as-if-fictionalism is reasonable. In this paper I argue that uses of mathematics in science reach deeper than is appreciated by this second response and, indeed, in the more general literature. More specifically, our confidence that we can use the mathematics to draw conclusions about the physics itself depends on mathematics. If the mathematical premises we employ in concluding that a certain application is trustworthy are false, we may lack a justification for supposing that the application will reliably lead us from correct input to correct output. For example, solutions to many physical problems require the determination of a function satisfying a differential equation. Sometimes the existence of a solution for initial value problems can be established directly; where direct methods fail, the existence of a solution must be established indirectly, generally by constructing a sequence of functions that converges to a limit function that satisfies the initial value problem. Moreover, the solution often cannot be evaluated by analytic methods, and scientists must rely on finite element numerical methods to approximate the solution. Mathematical analysis of errors provides further useful information governing the choice of approximation method and of the step size and number of elements needed for the approximation to reach a desired precision. Mathematical physicists rely on the background mathematical theories presupposed in proving the existence of the solutions and approximating them. It is difficult to see how they could do this while adding the fictionalist disclaimer, “But, you know, I don’t believe any of the mathematics I’m using”. It is difficult to see how a fictionalist pursuing the second strategy can account for the soundness of mathematical reasoning in mathematical physics and elsewhere in the sciences. The paper will fill out this argument by appeal to examples and attempt to make clear how mathematics is indispensable to understanding – and thus underwriting our confidence in – applications that would otherwise be shaky approximations and idealizations and how this role is difficult to square with fictionalism. (shrink)

In this paper, I critically assess the thesis that the discovery of mirror neuron systems provides empirical support for the simulation theory of social cognition. This thesis can be analyzed into two claims: that MNSs are involved in understanding others’ intentions or emotions; and that the way in which they do so supports a simulationist viewpoint. I will be giving qualified support to both claims. Starting with, I will present theoretical and empirical points in support of the view that MNSs (...) play a substantial role and are perhaps neces¬sary although not sufficient for understanding at least some intentions or emo¬tions. Turning to, I will argue that the work on MNSs best supports a fairly weak version of ST, according to which social cognition involves simulation simply because conceptual thought in gen¬eral has a simulationist component. In elucidating this idea, I appeal to Law¬rence Barsalou’s embodied theory of concepts. Crucially, the term “simula¬tion” here refers not to simulations of a target agent’s experience, nor even spe¬cifically to one’s own experience in a similar counterfactual situation, but to simulations of experience in general - activating sensory, motor, proprioceptive, affective, and introspective representations that match representations one would have when perceiving, carrying out actions, experiencing emotions, etc. I then sketch an expanded simulationist framework for understanding the contribution of MNSs to social cognition. The ap¬peal to empirical work on MNSs in support of ST is therefore a two-edged sword; making this appeal persuasive requires us to modify our understanding of simulation to make it line up with the empirical work. (shrink)

An argument to the effect that non-relativistic quantum particles can be understood as individual objects in spite of the empirical evidence seemingly lending support to the opposite conclusion. Ways to understand quantum indistinguishability and quantum statistics in terms of individuals are indicated.

In response to difficulties in understanding the notion of chemical substance at issue in Gibbs’ phase rule, there is a long tradition of reformulating the simple statement of the rule. The leading idea is to rewrite the rule with a term for the number of substances actually present and to introduce additional terms making explicit the various kinds of restrictions which in the original formulation are taken to be incorporated into Gibbs’ notion of the number of independent substances. Although the (...) number of independent substances cannot in general be interpreted as the number of substances actually present, it is not an entirely derivative concept as the authors of the reformulations sometimes seem to presuppose. In particular, it is doubtful whether the number of substances actually present is a clearly delimited concept which can be determined prior to the application of the phase rule. In that case, the phase rule provides a useful source of information for the determination of the number and nature of the substances actually present in a mixture which should be properly reflected in an adequate interpretation of Gibbs’ notion of independent substances. For this purpose, I propose a mereological interpretation of the way independent substances are related to the substances actually present which makes sense of the fact that the former are not uniquely fixed but can be chosen from the latter in several ways. (shrink)

Perhaps the strongest argument for scientific realism, the no-miracles-argument, has been said to commit the so-called base rate fallacy. The apparent elusiveness of the base rate of true theories has even been said to undermine the rationality of the entire realism debate. In this paper, I confront this challenge by arguing, on the basis of the Kuhnian picture of theory choice, that a theory is likely to be true if it possesses multiple theoretical virtues and is embraced by numerous scientists, (...) even when the base rate converges to zero. (shrink)

I present two relatively independent sets of remarks on common causes and the violation of Bell inequalities in algebraic quantum field theory. The first set of remarks concerns the possibility of reconciling Reichenbachian ideas on common causes with quantum field theory in the face of an already known difficulty: the event shown to satisfy statistical relations for being the common cause of two correlated events has been associated with the union, rather than the intersection, of the backward light cones of (...) the correlated events. I explore a way of overcoming this difficulty by considering the common cause to be a conjunction of suitably located events. But I show that this line of thought too is beset with interpretational problems. My second set of remarks concerns the type of inequality one may derive from the common-common cause hypothesis: I argue, on grounds of interpretation, that the Clauser-Horne type, and not the Bell type, of inequalities emerge more naturally in this context. (shrink)

Abner Shimony argues that degrees of belief satisfy the axioms of probability because their epistemic goal is to match estimates of objective probabilities. Because the estimates obey the axioms of probability, degrees of belief must also obey them to reach their epistemic goal. This calibration argument meets some objections, but with a few revisions it can surmount those objections. It offers a good alternative to the Dutch book argument for compliance with the probability axioms. The defense of Shimony's calibration argument (...) examines rational pursuit of an epistemic goal, introduces strength of evidence and its measurement, and distinguishes epistemic goals and functions. (shrink)