The Limits of Medical Paternalism defines and morally assesses paternalistic interventions, especially in the context of modern medicine and health care, particular emphasis is given to the analysis of the conceptual background of the paternalism issue. In this book an anti-paternalistic view is presented and defended.

'The most thorough and scrupulous of contemporary students of induction' (the execrable Quinton 1993, p. 172).

This paper discusses different interpretations of probability in relation to determinism. It is argued that both objective and subjective views on probability can be compatible with deterministic as well as indeterministic situations. The possibility of a conceptual independence between probability and determinism is argued to hold on a general level. The subsequent philosophical analysis of recent advances in classical statistical mechanics (ergodic theory) is of independent interest, but also adds weight to the claim that it is possible to justify an (...) objective interpretation of probabilities in a theory having as a basis the paradigmatically deterministic theory of classical mechanics. (shrink)

The tone of this paper is largely critical. Therefore, I would like to begin by praising Donald McCloskey and Arjo Klamer for their exciting and provocative initiative in the metatheory of economics. They have done us a great favor by opening our eyes to some hidden aspects in the intellectual practices of economists. They have shown that economics is rhetoric; it is persuasion, discourse, conversation, and negotiation, to use their favorite phrases. They have provided plausible arguments and illuminating examples to (...) convince us of the literary character of economic reasoning, notwithstanding the formal languages used by economists and the positivist pretensions typical of the self-image of the discipline. However, McCloskey and Klamer have been less successful in trying to convince us of what economics is not. In particular, it concerns me that they have opened up a gap between rhetoric and realism. They seem to think that because economics has a rhetorical character, it cannot be understood in realist terms. I will argue that this view is mistaken: rhetoric and realism do not exclude each other, but rather they are capable of being combined in a coherent methodology of economics. It is a valuable contribution to import the insights of the newly rehabilitated rhetoric to the metatheory of economics; but it is unnecessary to marry them with enthusiasm about the fashionable anti-realism of Richard Rorty and others. While this is my overall thesis, it is clear that only initial steps towards its substantiation can be taken in this paper. I intend to proceed as follows. I will first make an attempt to locate the problem at hand in the history of the metatheory of economics. Then I will point out those elements in rhetorical metatheory as practiced and defended by Klamer and McCloskey that apparently have anti-realist or non-realist assumptions or implications, either directly or via considerations of scientific rationality. Next I will formulate a few concepts of realism, the differences between which have been ignored in the methodology of economics to this day. Then I will make preliminary attempts to inquire into the mutual compatibility of the rhetorical insights provided by McCloskey and Klamer and realism in this context. I will show that, in principle, there should be no insurmountable obstacles to combining the two; in some of its senses, realism will even turn out to be presupposed by the rhetorical approach. I do not primarily intend to argue for realism as such in this paper. Instead, I will argue for the compatibility of realism and rhetoric. The argument is based on Klamer's and McCloskey's own commitments; in this sense, the argument is immanent to their rhetorical approach. As a final point, I will argue that one should not be indifferent about realism: it does make a difference in economics and in the methodology of economics whether rhetoric is accepted with or without realism. (shrink)

This critical note concerns Harold Kincaid's "Reduction, Explanation and Empiricism" (this journal, December 1986). Kincaid criticizes methodological individualism on several grounds. The present note argues that Kincaid fails at least in his attempt to show that it is false that individualistic theory suffices to fully explain social phenomena. Kincaid's main reason for claiming that individualistic theory is insufficient is that it cannot adequately explain social kinds. The present note contends that an individualist can suitably reinterpret the social talk in question (...) and so succeed in explaining social phenomena. In some cases his explanatory factors will presumably be direct counterparts to the holist's explanatory social kinds, whereas in some other cases they may not be--arguably need not be. (shrink)

Doren Recker has criticized the prevailing accounts of Darwin's argument for the theory of natural selection in the Origin of Species. In this note I argue that Recker fails to distinguish between a deductive short argument for the principle of natural selection, and a non-deductive, long argument which aims at establishing that the principle has explanatory power in the various domains of application. I shall try to show that the semantic view of theories, especially in its structuralist form, makes it (...) easy to distinguish between the two arguments and to explain how Darwin's long argument counts as one argument. I also raise a question about Recker's views on Darwin's mid-Victorian background, arguing that Newton's First Rule of Reasoning was not just a constraint on hypotheses involving unobservables, but a general request to keep conjecture and certainty apart. (shrink)

Hume's conception of causation and induction is discussed in the context where the causal evolution is represented by the motion of a free particle in space. The difference between classical and relativistic mechanics is shown to be significant for the discussion.

This paper discusses different interpretations of probability in relation to determinism. It is argued that both objective and subjective views on probability can be compatible with deterministic as well as indeterministic situations. The possibility of a conceptual independence between probability and determinism is argued to hold on a general level. The subsequent philosophical analysis of recent advances in classical statistical mechanics is of independent interest, but also adds weight to the claim that it is possible to justify an objective interpretation (...) of probabilities in a theory having as a basis the paradigmatically deterministic theory of classical mechanics. (shrink)

Bruno de Finetti's earliest works on the foundations of probability are reviewed. These include the notion of exchangeability and the theory of random processes with independent increments. The latter theory relates to de Finetti's ideas for a probabilistic science more generally. Different aspects of his work are united by his foundational programme for a theory of subjective probabilities.

We revive the idea that a deductive-nomological explanation of a scientific theory by its successor may be defensible, even in those common and troublesome cases where the theories concerned are mutually incompatible; and limiting, approximating and counterfactual assumptions may be required in order to define a logical relation between them. Our solution is based on a general characterization of limiting relations between physical theories using the method of nonstandard analysis.

Popper distinguishes the problems of theoretical and pragmatic preference between rival theories, but he claims that there is a common non-inductive solution to both of them, viz. the "best-tested theory", or the theory with the highest degree of corroboration. He further suggests that the degrees of corroboration serve as indicators of verisimilitude. One may therefore raise the question whether the recent theory of verisimilitude gives a general non-inductive solution to the problem of theoretical preference. This paper argues that this is (...) not the case: the theory of verisimilitude is applicable to this problem if and only if there is an independent solution to the problem of induction. Moreover, the solutions to the theoretical and pragmatic problems of preference coincide only in some special cases. (shrink)

This paper argues that both technological determinism (the development of technology is uniquely determined by internal laws) and technological voluntarism (technological change can be externally directed and regulated by the wants and free choice of human beings) are one‐sided and partly mistaken. The determinists are right in the sense that technology has a power to influence our values and behaviour, and thereby appear to direct ‘technological imperatives’ to us. However, such commands are always conditional on some value premises; the voluntarists (...) are thus right in pointing out that we need not obey such imperatives. The principle ‘Can implies Ought’ (all technological possibilities should be realized) is therefore invalid. (shrink)

In 1958, to refute the argument known as the theoretician's dilemma, Hempel suggested that theoretical terms might be logically indispensable for inductive systematization of observational statements. This thesis, in some form or another, has later been supported by Scheffler, Lehrer, and Tuomela, and opposed by Bohnert, Hooker, Stegmüller, and Cornman. In this paper, a critical survey of this discussion is given. Several different putative definitions of the crucial notion inductive systematization achieved by a theory are discussed by reference to the (...) properties of inductive inference. The consequences of the following differences between deductive and inductive inference are emphasized: the lack of simple transitivity properties (even in a modified sense) of inductive inference, and the failure of the inductive analogue of the converse of The Deduction Theorem. The main conclusions are: (i) Hempel's original thesis may very well be right but his argument for it is unsatisfactory, (ii) theoretical terms can be logically indispensable for a non-Hempelian kind of inductive systematization, relative to both Craigian and Ramseyan elimination, (iii) Lehrer's attempt to prove the indispensability of theoretical terms for inductive-probabilistic systematization is, as a modification of Hempelian kind of inductive-deterministic systematization, unsatisfactory, and (iv) there does not seem to be much hope of escaping the conclusion (ii), if it is true, by extending the Craigian replacement programme along the lines suggested by Cornman. (shrink)

In a recent article [4], Fred I. Dretske has proposed a new analysis of natural laws. Dretske rejects the more or less standard view which says that laws are universal truths with a special function or status in science. As an alternative account, he suggests that laws are expressed by singular statements describing the relationship between universal properties and magnitudes: the statement It is a law that F's are G's3.is to be analysed as F-ness ↦ G-ness.I shall argue, however, that (...) Dretske's reasons for rejecting the standard account are not conclusive. Moreover, his own proposal seems to be either inadequate or reducible to that version of the standard account which takes laws to be nomically necessary generalizations. (shrink)

My thesis is that some methodological ideas of the Pozna school, i.e., the principles of idealization and concretization (factualization), and the correspondence principle can be represented rather successfully using the relations of theoretization and specialization of revised structuralism.Let n(i), t(j)> (i=1,...m, j=1,...k) denote the conceptual apparatus of a theory T, and a class M={} (i=1,...m, j=1,...k) the models of T. The n-components refer to the values of dependent variables and t-components to the values of independent variables of the theory. The (...) n- and t-components in turn represent appropriate concepts. Consider T * as a conceptual enrichment of T with concepts n(i *), t(j *)> (ii * or jj *) and models M *={D *, n(i *), t(j *)>}. If the classes M and M * are suitably related, then the situation illustrates both the case of the theoretization-relation of (revised) structuralism and of the factualization-principle of the Pozna school. (shrink)

In the present paper Cohen's and Lee's theory of social conformity and Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance are first reconstructed according to a revised form of the so-called “structuralist theory-conception” developed by Sneed and Stegmüller with their collaborators. Then the two theories are conceptually correlated in the sense of a technical notion of conceptual correlation which can be shown to be an essential generalization of the theory-relations handled by the structuralist. It will turn out that there is no unique way (...) to connect these theories with each other. However, it is shown that two ontologically and conceptually different theories can be correlated. This in turn gives in principle an opportunity to compare critically these two theories given that the constructed conceptual correlation is sufficiently sound and that the theories are empirically testable to a sufficient extent. (shrink)

Summary A survey of recent work in the philosophy of science in Finland, with a bibliography. The main sources of influence emphasized are Eino Kaila (1890–1958) and G. H. von Wright (b. 1916). The main topics covered are: induction and probability; information and explanation; the acceptance and application of theories; the role of auxiliary (theoretical) terms; measurement; general methodology of social and behavioral sciences; finalistic explanation; methodology of sociology and history.

This paper discusses the probabilities of inductive generalizations in languages containing two-place predicates. The depth of the sentences considered here is restricted to two, that is, they contain at most two layers of quantifiers. The analysis of relational hypotheses presented below is based on the theory of distributive normal forms in first-order logic. The main purpose of this paper is not to present methods of calculating unique probability-values for various generalizations, but rather to clarify the general conceptual situation and concentrate (...) on issues of philosophical interest. (shrink)

The Macarthur-Wilson equilibrium theory of island biogeography has had a contradictory role in ecology. As a lasting contribution, the theory has created a new way of viewing insular environments as dynamical systems. On the other hand, many of the applications of the theory have reduced to mere unimaginative curve-fitting. I analyze this paradox in semiotic terms: the theory was mainly equated with the simple species-area relationship which became a signifier of interesting island ecology. The theory is, however, better viewed as (...) a theoretical framework that suggests specific hypotheses on the ecology of colonization of insular environments. This paradox is inherent in the use of simplifying analytic models. Analytic models are necessary and fruitful in the work of ecologists, but they ought to be supplemented with a broader, pluralistic appreciation of the role of theories in general. (shrink)