Is logic normative for reasoning? In the wake of work by Gilbert Harman and John MacFarlane, this question has been reduced to: are there any adequate bridge principles which link logical facts to normative constraints on reasoning? Hitherto, defenders of the normativity of logic have exclusively focussed on identifying adequate validity bridge principles: principles linking validity facts—facts of the form 'gamma entails phi'—to normative constraints on reasoning. This paper argues for two claims. First, for the time being at least, Harman’s (...) challenge cannot be surmounted by articulating validity bridge principles. Second, Harman’s challenge can be met by articulating invalidity bridge principles: principles linking invalidity facts of the form 'gamma does not entail phi' to normative constraints on reasoning. In doing so, I provide a novel defence of the normativity of logic. (shrink)

According to tradition, logic is normative for reasoning. According to many contemporary philosophers of logic, there is more than one correct logic. What is the relationship between these two strands of thought? This paper makes two claims. First, logic is doubly normative for reasoning because, in addition to constraining the combinations of beliefs that we may have, logic also constrains the methods by which we may form them. Second, given that logic is doubly normative for reasoning, a wide array of (...) logical pluralisms are inconsistent with the normativity of logic as they entail contradictory claims about how agents ought to reason. Thus, if logic is normative for reasoning, these pluralisms are untenable. (shrink)

Researchers and practitioners are increasingly using machine‐generated synthetic data as a tool for advancing health science and practice, by expanding access to health data while—potentially—mitigating privacy and related ethical concerns around data sharing. While using synthetic data in this way holds promise, we argue that it also raises significant ethical, legal, and policy concerns, including persistent privacy and security problems, accuracy and reliability issues, worries about fairness and bias, and new regulatory challenges. The virtue of synthetic data is often understood (...) to be its detachment from the data subjects whose measurement data is used to generate it. However, we argue that addressing the ethical issues synthetic data raises might require bringing data subjects back into the picture, finding ways that researchers and data subjects can be more meaningfully engaged in the construction and evaluation of datasets and in the creation of institutional safeguards that promote responsible use. (shrink)

In this chapter, we argue that the web is a poietically- enabling environment, which both enhances and requires the development of a “constructionist ethics”. We begin by explaining the appropriate concept of “constructionist ethics”, and analysing virtue ethics as the primary example. We then show why CyberEthics (or Computer Ethics, as it is also called) cannot be based on virtue ethics, yet needs to retain a constructionist approach. After providing evidence for significant poietic uses of the web, we argue that (...) ethical constructionism is not only facilitated by the web, but is also what the web requires as an ethics of the digital environment. In conclusion, we relate the present discussion to standard positions in CyberEthics and to a broader project for Information Ethics. (shrink)

The problem of evil is set out as a dialectic between theist and critic, the aim being to reveal the place of ethical judgments in the theist's apology. I discover what ethical judgments, both normative and descriptive, are implicit in the theist's use of his premises as good reasons, and where his reasoning goes astray. I suggest what ethical judgments, in contrast to the theist's, are supported by good reasons.

This article presents a comparative theory of subjective argument strength simple enough for application. Using the axioms and corollaries of the theory, anyone with an elementary knowledge of logic and probability theory can produce an - at least minimally rational - ranking of any set of arguments according to their subjective strength, provided that the arguments in question are descriptive ones in standard form. The basic idea is that the strength of argument A as seen by person x is a (...) function of three values: x ’s degree of belief in the premisses of A; x ’s degree of belief in the conclusion of A under the assumption that all premisses of A are true; and x ’s belief in the conclusion of A under the assumption that not all premisses of A are true. (shrink)

The use of "levels of abstraction" in philosophical analysis (levellism) has recently come under attack. In this paper, we argue that a refined version of epistemological levellism should be retained as a fundamental method, which we call the method of abstraction. After a brief introduction, in section two we make clear the nature and applicability of the (epistemological) method of levels of abstraction. In section three, we show the fruitfulness of the new method by applying it to five case studies: (...) the concept of agenthood, the Turing test, the definition of emergence, quantum observation and decidable observation. In section four, we further characterise and support the method by distinguishing it from three other forms of "levellism": (i) levels of organisation; (ii) levels of explanation and (iii) conceptual schemes. In this context, we also briefly address the problems of relativism and antirealism. In the conclusion, we indicate some of the work that lies ahead, two potential limitations of the method and some results that have already been obtained by applying the method to some long-standing philosophical problems. (shrink)

Artificial agents (AAs), particularly but not only those in Cyberspace, extend the class of entities that can be involved in moral situations. For they can be conceived of as moral patients (as entities that can be acted upon for good or evil) and also as moral agents (as entities that can perform actions, again for good or evil). In this paper, we clarify the concept of agent and go on to separate the concerns of morality and responsibility of agents (most (...) interestingly for us, of AAs). We conclude that there is substantial and important scope, particularly in Computer Ethics, for the concept of moral agent not necessarily exhibiting free will, mental states or responsibility. This complements the more traditional approach, common at least since Montaigne and Descartes, which considers whether or not (artificial) agents have mental states, feelings, emotions and so on. By focussing directly on mind-less morality we are able to avoid that question and also many of the concerns of Artificial Intelligence. A vital component in our approach is the Method of Abstraction for analysing the level of abstraction (LoA) at which an agent is considered to act. The LoA is determined by the way in which one chooses to describe, analyse and discuss a system and its context. The Method of Abstraction is explained in terms of an interface or set of features or observables at a given LoA. Agenthood, and in particular moral agenthood, depends on a LoA. Our guidelines for agenthood are: interactivity (response to stimulus by change of state), autonomy (ability to change state without stimulus) and adaptability (ability to change the transition rules by which state is changed) at a given LoA. Morality may be thought of as a threshold defined on the observables in the interface determining the LoA under consideration. An agent is morally good if its actions all respect that threshold; and it is morally evil if some action violates it. That view is particularly informative when the agent constitutes a software or digital system, and the observables are numerical. Finally we review the consequences for Computer Ethics of our approach. In conclusion, this approach facilitates the discussion of the morality of agents not only in Cyberspace but also in the biosphere, where animals can be considered moral agents without their having to display free will, emotions or mental states, and in social contexts, where systems like organizations can play the role of moral agents. The primary cost of this facility is the extension of the class of agents and moral agents to embrace AAs. (shrink)

Moral reasoning traditionally distinguishes two types of evil:moral (ME) and natural (NE). The standard view is that ME is the product of human agency and so includes phenomena such as war,torture and psychological cruelty; that NE is the product of nonhuman agency, and so includes natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, disease and famine; and finally, that more complex cases are appropriately analysed as a combination of ME and NE. Recently, as a result of developments in autonomous agents in cyberspace, (...) a new class of interesting and important examples of hybrid evil has come to light. In this paper, it is called artificial evil (AE) and a case is made for considering it to complement ME and NE to produce a more adequate taxonomy. By isolating the features that have led to the appearance of AE, cyberspace is characterised as a self-contained environment that forms the essential component in any foundation of the emerging field of Computer Ethics (CE). It is argued that this goes someway towards providing a methodological explanation of why cyberspace is central to so many of CE's concerns; and it is shown how notions of good and evil can be formulated in cyberspace. Of considerable interest is how the propensity for an agent's action to be morally good or evil can be determined even in the absence of biologically sentient participants and thus allows artificial agents not only to perpetrate evil (and fort that matter good) but conversely to `receive' or `suffer from' it. The thesis defended is that the notion of entropy structure, which encapsulates human value judgement concerning cyberspace in a formal mathematical definition, is sufficient to achieve this purpose and, moreover, that the concept of AE can be determined formally, by mathematical methods. A consequence of this approach is that the debate on whether CE should be considered unique, and hence developed as a Macroethics, may be viewed, constructively,in an alternative manner. The case is made that whilst CE issues are not uncontroversially unique, they are sufficiently novel to render inadequate the approach of standard Macroethics such as Utilitarianism and Deontologism and hence to prompt the search for a robust ethical theory that can deal with them successfully. The name Information Ethics (IE) is proposed for that theory. Itis argued that the uniqueness of IE is justified by its being non-biologically biased and patient-oriented: IE is an Environmental Macroethics based on the concept of data entity rather than life. It follows that the novelty of CE issues such as AE can be appreciated properly because IE provides a new perspective (though not vice versa). In light of the discussion provided in this paper, it is concluded that Computer Ethics is worthy of independent study because it requires its own application-specific knowledge and is capable of supporting a methodological foundation, Information Ethics. (shrink)

The paper provides a critical review of the debate on the foundations of Computer Ethics (CE). Starting from a discussion of Moor’s classic interpretation of the need for CE caused by a policy and conceptual vacuum, five positions in the literature are identified and discussed: the “no resolution approach”, according to which CE can have no foundation; the professional approach, according to which CE is solely a professional ethics; the radical approach, according to which CE deals with absolutely unique issues, (...) in need of a unique approach; the conservative approach, according to which CE is only a particular applied ethics, discussing new species of traditional moral issues; and the innovative approach, according to which theoretical CE can expand the metaethical discourse with a substantially new perspective. In the course of the analysis, it is argued that, although CE issues are not uncontroversially unique, they are sufficiently novel to render inadequate the adoption of standard macroethics, such as Utilitarianism and Deontologism, as the foundation of CE and hence to prompt the search for a robust ethical theory. Information Ethics (IE) is proposed for that theory, as the satisfactory foundation for CE. IE is characterised as a biologically unbiased extension of environmental ethics, based on the concepts of information object/infosphere/entropy rather than life/ecosystem/pain. In light of the discussion provided in this paper, it is suggested that CE is worthy of independent study because it requires its own application-specific knowledge and is capable of supporting a methodological foundation, IE. (shrink)

Es werden vier verbreitete Verwendungsweisen des Wortes ‘Argument’ beschrieben, an Beispielen erläutert und dann schrittweise expliziert. Die wichtigsten Explikata sind: ‘eine Satzfolge x ist ein deskriptives Argument in Standardform’, ‘ein deskriptives Argument x in Standardform ist bei der subjektiven Wahrscheinlichkeitsverteilung p stark (bzw. schwach)’, ‘ein Aussagesatz x ist bei der subjektiven Wahrscheinlichkeitsverteilung p ein Argument für (bzw. gegen) einen Aussagesatz y’, ‘ein geordneter Tripel x von deskriptiven Argumenten in Standardform, von Argumentebenen und von Argumentsträngen ist eine deskriptive Argumenthierarchie in Standardform’, (...) ‘eine deskriptive Argumenthierarchie x in Standardform ist gültig (bzw. ungültig; stichhaltig; konsistent; inkonsistent; sichtlich zirkelhaft; stark (bzw. schwach) bei der subjektiven Wahrscheinlichkeitsverteilung p)’. (shrink)

This collection of essays explores the metaphysical thesis that the living world is not made up of substantial particles or things, as has often been assumed, but is rather constituted by processes. The biological domain is organised as an interdependent hierarchy of processes, which are stabilised and actively maintained at different timescales. Even entities that intuitively appear to be paradigms of things, such as organisms, are actually better understood as processes. Unlike previous attempts to articulate processual views of biology, which (...) have tended to use Alfred North Whitehead’s panpsychist metaphysics as a foundation, this book takes a naturalistic approach to metaphysics. It submits that the main motivations for replacing an ontology of substances with one of processes are to be found in the empirical findings of science. Biology provides compelling reasons for thinking that the living realm is fundamentally dynamic, and that the existence of things is always conditional on the existence of processes. The phenomenon of life cries out for theories that prioritise processes over things, and it suggests that the central explanandum of biology is not change but rather stability, or more precisely, stability attained through constant change. This edited volume brings together philosophers of science and metaphysicians interested in exploring the consequences of a processual philosophy of biology. The contributors draw on an extremely wide range of biological case studies, and employ a process perspective to cast new light on a number of traditional philosophical problems, such as identity, persistence, and individuality. (shrink)

Karl Popper discovered in 1938 that the unconditional probability of a conditional of the form ‘If A, then B’ normally exceeds the conditional probability of B given A, provided that ‘If A, then B’ is taken to mean the same as ‘Not (A and not B)’. So it was clear (but presumably only to him at that time) that the conditional probability of B given A cannot be reduced to the unconditional probability of the material conditional ‘If A, then B’. (...) I describe how this insight was developed in Popper’s writings and I add to this historical study a logical one, in which I compare laws of excess in Kolmogorov probability theory with laws of excess in Popper probability theory. (shrink)

This is, to the best of my knowledge, the first published attempt at a rigorous logical formalization of a passage in Leibniz's Monadology. The method we followed was suggested by Johannes Czermak.

I set up two axiomatic theories of inductive support within the framework of Kolmogorovian probability theory. I call these theories ‘Popperian theories of inductive support’ because I think that their specific axioms express the core meaning of the word ‘inductive support’ as used by Popper (and, presumably, by many others, including some inductivists). As is to be expected from Popperian theories of inductive support, the main theorem of each of them is an anti-induction theorem, the stronger one of them saying, (...) in fact, that the relation of inductive support is identical with the empty relation. It seems to me that an axiomatic treatment of the idea(s) of inductive support within orthodox probability theory could be worthwhile for at least three reasons. Firstly, an axiomatic treatment demands from the builder of a theory of inductive support to state clearly in the form of specific axioms what he means by ‘inductive support’. Perhaps the discussion of the new anti-induction proofs of Karl Popper and David Miller would have been more fruitful if they had given an explicit definition of what inductive support is or should be. Secondly, an axiomatic treatment of the idea(s) of inductive support within Kolmogorovian probability theory might be accommodating to those philosophers who do not completely trust Popperian probability theory for having theorems which orthodox Kolmogorovian probability theory lacks; a transparent derivation of anti-induction theorems within a Kolmogorovian frame might bring additional persuasive power to the original anti-induction proofs of Popper and Miller, developed within the framework of Popperian probability theory. Thirdly, one of the main advantages of the axiomatic method is that it facilitates criticism of its products: the axiomatic theories. On the one hand, it is much easier than usual to check whether those statements which have been distinguished as theorems really are theorems of the theory under examination. On the other hand, after we have convinced ourselves that these statements are indeed theorems, we can take a critical look at the axioms—especially if we have a negative attitude towards one of the theorems. Since anti-induction theorems are not popular at all, the adequacy of some of the axioms they are derived from will certainly be doubted. If doubt should lead to a search for alternative axioms, sheer negative attitudes might develop into constructive criticism and even lead to new discoveries. -/- I proceed as follows. In section 1, I start with a small but sufficiently strong axiomatic theory of deductive dependence, closely following Popper and Miller (1987). In section 2, I extend that starting theory to an elementary Kolmogorovian theory of unconditional probability, which I extend, in section 3, to an elementary Kolmogorovian theory of conditional probability, which in its turn gets extended, in section 4, to a standard theory of probabilistic dependence, which also gets extended, in section 5, to a standard theory of probabilistic support, the main theorem of which will be a theorem about the incompatibility of probabilistic support and deductive independence. In section 6, I extend the theory of probabilistic support to a weak Popperian theory of inductive support, which I extend, in section 7, to a strong Popperian theory of inductive support. In section 8, I reconsider Popper's anti-inductivist theses in the light of the anti-induction theorems. I conclude the paper with a short discussion of possible objections to our anti-induction theorems, paying special attention to the topic of deductive relevance, which has so far been neglected in the discussion of the anti-induction proofs of Popper and Miller. (shrink)

This article critically examines one of the most prevalent metaphors in modern biology, namely the machine conception of the organism (MCO). Although the fundamental differences between organisms and machines make the MCO an inadequate metaphor for conceptualizing living systems, many biologists and philosophers continue to draw upon the MCO or tacitly accept it as the standard model of the organism. This paper analyses the specific difficulties that arise when the MCO is invoked in the study of development and evolution. In (...) developmental biology the MCO underlies a logically incoherent model of ontogeny, the genetic program, which serves to legitimate three problematic theses about development: genetic animism, neo-preformationism, and developmental computability. In evolutionary biology the MCO is responsible for grounding unwarranted theoretical appeals to the concept of design as well as to the interpretation of natural selection as an engineer, which promote a distorted understanding of the process and products of evolutionary change. Overall, it is argued that, despite its heuristic value, the MCO today is impeding rather than enabling further progress in our comprehension of living systems. (shrink)

In paragraph 21 of his "Logic of Scientific Discovery", Karl Popper characterizes with the help of two seemingly synonymous definitions the falsifiability of a theory as a logical relation between the theory itself and its basic statements. It is shown that his definitions do not agree with each other, and this result is applied to the problem of the falsifiability of contradictions, to the difference between falsifiable and empirical statements and to the demarcation criterion.

Zwischen 1987 und 1994 sandte ich 20 Briefe an Karl Popper. Die meisten betrafen Fragen bezüglich seiner Antiinduktionsbeweise und seiner Wahrscheinlichkeitstheorie, einige die organisatorische und inhaltliche Vorbereitung eines Fachgesprächs mit ihm in Kenly am 22. März 1989 (worauf hier nicht eingegangen werden soll), einige schließlich ganz oder in Teilen nicht-fachliche Angelegenheiten (die im vorliegenden Bericht ebenfalls unberücksichtigt bleiben). Von Karl Popper erhielt ich in diesem Zeitraum 10 Briefe. Der bedeutendste ist sein siebter, bestehend aus drei Teilen, geschrieben am 21., 22. (...) und 23. Oktober 1992, in dem er eine Vorform jener Definition der probabilistischen Unabhängigkeit entwickelte, die er 1994 im neuen Anhang *XX der 10. Auflage seiner Logik der Forschung (LdF) der wissenschaftstheoretischen Forschergemeinde vorstellte. Der berührendste ist sein letzter, geschrieben am 26. Juli 1994, in dem er trotz Erschöpfung mit Humor schildert, wie mühselig der Druck des Anhangs *XX verlaufen ist. Mein Bericht ist zugleich chronologisch und systematisch gegliedert: die ersten, vergleichsweise wenigen Briefe, großteils 1987 geschrieben, handeln von der Induktion; der große Rest, zeitlicher Schwerpunkt 1992, beschäftigt sich mit der Wahrscheinlichkeitstheorie. Das Kapitel 1 über Induktion ist in vier Abschnitte unterteilt: 1.1 Das Popper/Miller-Argument: eine Nachkonstruktion, 1.2 Karl Poppers Brief vom 25.8.1987: Deduktive Stützung, 1.3 Karl Poppers Brief vom 29.9.1987: Nochmals zur deduktiven Stützung, 1.4 Echt induktive Stützung und Schwächung: zwei eigene Beweise. Das Kapitel 2 über Wahrscheinlichkeit ist ebenfalls in vier Abschnitte unterteilt: 2.1 Ein Mangel an Überschußgesetzen in der Logic of Scientific Discovery, 2.2 Probabilistische Unabhängigkeit, 2.3 Wahrscheinlichkeitstheorie und Wahrscheinlichkeitssemantik, 2.4 Die neue Unabhängigkeitsdefinition im Anhang *XX der LdF. (shrink)

Bolzano hat seine Wahrscheinlichkeitslehre in 15 Punkten im § 14 des zweiten Teils seiner Religionswissenschaft sowie in 20 Punkten im § 161 des zweiten Bandes seiner Wissenschaftslehre niedergelegt. (Ich verweise auf die Religionswissenschaft mit 'RW II', auf die Wissenschaftslehre mit 'WL II'.) In der RW II (vgl. p. 37) ist seine Wahrscheinlichkeitslehre eingebettet in seine Ausführungen "Über die Natur der historischen Erkenntniß, besonders in Hinsicht auf Wunder", und die Lehrsätze, die er dort zusammenstellt, dienen dem ausdrücklichen Zweck, mit mathematischem Rüstzeug (...) Lehrmeinungen entgegentreten zu können, gemäß denen Wundererzählungen keine Glaubwürdigkeit zukommen könne. In der WL II (vgl. p. 171) führt Bolzano im großen und ganzen dieselben Lehrsätze an wie in der RW II, entwickelt nun aber die Wahrscheinlichkeitslehre innerhalb seiner Lehre von den Sätzen an sich. Dabei orientiert er sich zwar durchaus an den Lehrsätzen in den damaligen "Schriften über die Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung" (vg. WL II, p. 190), korrigiert aber dort, wo es ihm nötig erscheint (vgl. WL II, pp. 187–191), und leistet so im Grunde eine Reformulierung des elementaren Teils der Wahrscheinlichkeitslehre seiner Zeit innerhalb seiner logischen Theorie von den Sätzen an sich. — Ich bezwecke hier keine historische Studie über Bolzanos Wahrscheinlichkeitslehre, obwohl es von Interesse sein mag, herauszuschälen, worin Bolzano mit welchen Wahrscheinlichkeitstheoretikern seiner Zeit übereinstimmt, und worin nicht, insbesondere welche Schwächen von Bolzanos Wahrscheinlichkeitslehre Schwächen aller damaligen Wahrscheinlichkeitslehren waren. Eine wichtige systematische Studie über Bolzanos Wahrscheinlichkeitslehre bestünde — wie von Berg (1962, pp. 148-149) ansatzweise begonnen — in einer exakten Rekonstruktion seiner Wahrscheinlichkeitslehre innerhalb eines konsistenten logischen Systems der Sätze an sich. Ich werde im folgenden etwas bei weitem Bescheideneres, doch möglicherweise durchaus Fruchtbares versuchen, nämlich die Lehrsätze von Bolzanos Wahrscheinlichkeitslehre in die Sprache einer heutigen Wahrscheinlichkeitstheorie zu übersetzen und die übersetzten Lehrsätze dort herzuleiten, soweit dies möglich ist. Man könnte dann in einem zweiten Schritt, der hier nicht mehr unternommen wird, untersuchen, inwieweit jene Thesen, die den Herleitungstest überstanden haben, jenen Zweck erfüllen, den Bolzano ihnen ursprünglich zugedacht hat: als mathematisches Rüstzeug für seine Argumentationen gegen die Auffassung zu dienen, Wundererzählungen könnten nicht glaubwürdig sein. (shrink)

Paul Weingartner's classification of the sciences is analyzed in detail. There is a small mistake in the definition of the set of descriptive-normative sciences, which makes the classification incorrect, but which can easily be remedied.

Future robots should have common sense about the world in order to handle the problems they will encounter. A large part of this commonsense knowledge must be naive physics knowledge, since carrying out even the simplest everyday chores requires familiarity with physics laws. But how should one start codifying this knowledge? What kind of skills should be elicited from the experts (each and every one of us)? This paper will attempt to provide some hints by studying the mental models of (...) force and motion. (shrink)

It has become customary to conceptualize the living cell as an intricate piece of machinery, different to a man-made machine only in terms of its superior complexity. This familiar understanding grounds the conviction that a cell's organization can be explained reductionistically, as well as the idea that its molecular pathways can be construed as deterministic circuits. The machine conception of the cell owes a great deal of its success to the methods traditionally used in molecular biology. However, the recent introduction (...) of novel experimental techniques capable of tracking individual molecules within cells in real time is leading to the rapid accumulation of data that are inconsistent with an engineering view of the cell. This paper examines four major domains of current research in which the challenges to the machine conception of the cell are particularly pronounced: cellular architecture, protein complexes, intracellular transport, and cellular behaviour. It argues that a new theoretical understanding of the cell is emerging from the study of these phenomena which emphasizes the dynamic, self-organizing nature of its constitution, the fluidity and plasticity of its components, and the stochasticity and non-linearity of its underlying processes. (shrink)

Philosophy of biology is often said to have emerged in the last third of the twentieth century. Prior to this time, it has been alleged that the only authors who engaged philosophically with the life sciences were either logical empiricists who sought to impose the explanatory ideals of the physical sciences onto biology, or vitalists who invoked mystical agencies in an attempt to ward off the threat of physicochemical reduction. These schools paid little attention to actual biological science, and as (...) a result philosophy of biology languished in a state of futility for much of the twentieth century. The situation, we are told, only began to change in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when a new generation of researchers began to focus on problems internal to biology, leading to the consolidation of the discipline. In this paper we challenge this widely accepted narrative of the history of philosophy of biology. We do so by arguing that the most important tradition within early twentieth-century philosophy of biology was neither logical empiricism nor vitalism, but the organicist movement that flourished between the First and Second World Wars. We show that the organicist corpus is thematically and methodologically continuous with the contemporary literature in order to discredit the view that early work in the philosophy of biology was unproductive, and we emphasize the desirability of integrating the historical and contemporary conversations into a single, unified discourse. (shrink)

This chapter draws on insights from non-equilibrium thermodynamics to demonstrate the ontological inadequacy of the machine conception of the organism. The thermodynamic character of living systems underlies the importance of metabolism and calls for the adoption of a processual view, exemplified by the Heraclitean metaphor of the stream of life. This alternative conception is explored in its various historical formulations and the extent to which it captures the nature of living systems is examined. Following this, the chapter considers the metaphysical (...) implications of reconceptualizing the organism from complex machine to flowing stream. What do we learn when we reject the mechanical and embrace the processual? Three key lessons for biological ontology are identified. The first is that activity is a necessary condition for existence. The second is that persistence is grounded in the continuous self-maintenance of form. And the third is that order does not entail design. (shrink)

Edward Stuart Russell (1887–1954) was a central figure in the philosophy of biology during the first half of the twentieth century. Although he worked as a government fisheries scientist for much of his life, he still managed to establish himself as one of the most prominent biological theorists of his time. The views he developed, which were antireductionistic, organism-centred, and teleological, challenged the prevailing mechanistic orthodoxy. His book 'The Interpretation of Development and Heredity' (1930) provides one of themost incisive critiques (...) of the chromosomal theory of the gene ever published, and it has acquired a renewed relevance in light of recent empirical findings. Russell’s interest in the theoretical problems of biology is as much historical as philosophical, and many of his works, particularly his first book 'Form and Function' (1916), are still regarded today as landmark contributions to the history of biological thought. (shrink)

The concept of mechanism in biology has three distinct meanings. It may refer to a philosophical thesis about the nature of life and biology (‘mechanicism’), to the internal workings of a machine-like structure (‘machine mechanism’), or to the causal explanation of a particular phenomenon (‘causal mechanism’). In this paper I trace the conceptual evolution of ‘mechanism’ in the history of biology, and I examine how the three meanings of this term have come to be featured in the philosophy of biology, (...) situating the new ‘mechanismic program’ in this context. I argue that the leading advocates of the mechanismic program (i.e., Craver, Darden, Bechtel, etc.) inadvertently conflate the different senses of ‘mechanism’. Specifically, they all inappropriately endow causal mechanisms with the ontic status of machine mechanisms, and this invariably results in problematic accounts of the role played by mechanism-talk in scientific practice. I suggest that for effective analyses of the concept of mechanism, causal mechanisms need to be distinguished from machine mechanisms, and the new mechanismic program in the philosophy of biology needs to be demarcated from the traditional concerns of mechanistic biology. (shrink)

Although it may seem like a truism to assert that biology is the science that studies organisms, during the second half of the twentieth century the organism category disappeared from biological theory. Over the past decade, however, biology has begun to witness the return of the organism as a fundamental explanatory concept. There are three major causes: (a) the realization that the Modern Synthesis does not provide a fully satisfactory understanding of evolution; (b) the growing awareness of the limits of (...) reductionism in molecular biology; and (c) the renewed interest in the nature of life as a genuine scientific problem. This essay examines these recent developments and considers the new epistemological roles being played by the organism in each of them. It also reflects on what the present resurgence of the organism means for the philosophy of biology. (shrink)

The machine conception of the organism (MCO) is one of the most pervasive notions in modern biology. However, it has not yet received much attention by philosophers of biology. The MCO has its origins in Cartesian natural philosophy, and it is based on the metaphorical redescription of the organism as a machine. In this paper I argue that although organisms and machines resemble each other in some basic respects, they are actually very different kinds of systems. I submit that the (...) most significant difference between organisms and machines is that the former are intrinsically purposive whereas the latter are extrinsically purposive. Using this distinction as a starting point, I discuss a wide range of dissimilarities between organisms and machines that collectively lay bare the inadequacy of the MCO as a general theory of living systems. To account for the MCO’s prevalence in biology, I distinguish between its theoretical, heuristic, and rhetorical functions. I explain why the MCO is valuable when it is employed heuristically but not theoretically, and finally I illustrate the serious problems that arise from the rhetorical appeal to the MCO. (shrink)

In 1926, Haldane published an essay titled 'On Being the Right Size' in which he argued that the structure, function, and behavior of an organism are strongly conditioned by the physical forces that exert the greatest impact at the scale at which it exists. This chapter puts Haldane’s insight to work in the context of contemporary cell and molecular biology. Owing to their minuscule size, cells and molecules are subject to very different forces than macroscopic organisms. In a sense, macroscopic (...) and microscopic entities inhabit different “worlds”: the former is ruled by gravity and inertia, whereas the latter is governed by Brownian motion. One implication is that we should be extremely skeptical of models and analogies that seek to explain properties of microscopic entities by appealing to properties of macroscopic ones. Unfortunately, this is precisely what the appeal to engineering metaphors in molecular biology attempts to do. Molecular biologists routinely resort to such metaphors because they are familiar and intuitively intelligible. But if our machines were the size of molecules it would be impossible for them to function the way they do. It follows that we should avoid distorting biological reality by construing it in engineering terms. In this chapter I examine four key metaphors in molecular biology – “genetic program,” “cellular circuitry,” “molecular machine,” and “molecular motor” – and I argue that their deficiencies derive from their neglect of scale. I also try to explain why many biologists today appear to have forgotten the importance of scale that Haldane drew attention to in his essay. I suggest that the reason has to do with the influence of Schrödinger’s argument in 'What is Life?' regarding the stability of the gene. (shrink)

The writings of Joseph Henry Woodger (1894–1981) are often taken to exemplify everything that was wrongheaded, misguided, and just plain wrong with early twentieth-century philosophy of biology. Over the years, commentators have said of Woodger: (a) that he was a fervent logical empiricist who tried to impose the explanatory gold standards of physics onto biology, (b) that his philosophical work was completely disconnected from biological science, (c) that he possessed no scientific or philosophical credentials, and (d) that his work was (...) disparaged – if not altogether ignored – by the biologists and philosophers of his era. In this paper, we provide the first systematic examination of Woodger’s oeuvre, and use it to demonstrate that the four preceding claims are false. We argue that Woodger’s ideas have exerted an important influence on biology and philosophy, and submit that the current consensus on his legacy stems from a highly selective reading of his works. By rehabilitating Woodger, we hope to show that there is no good reason to continue to disregard the numerous contributions to the philosophy of biology produced in the decades prior to the professionalization of the discipline. (shrink)

Biological atomism postulates that all life is composed of elementary and indivisible vital units. The activity of a living organism is thus conceived as the result of the activities and interactions of its elementary constituents, each of which individually already exhibits all the attributes proper to life. This paper surveys some of the key episodes in the history of biological atomism, and situates cell theory within this tradition. The atomistic foundations of cell theory are subsequently dissected and discussed, together with (...) the theory’s conceptual development and eventual consolidation. This paper then examines the major criticisms that have been waged against cell theory, and argues that these too can be interpreted through the prism of biological atomism as attempts to relocate the true biological atom away from the cell to a level of organization above or below it. Overall, biological atomism provides a useful perspective through which to examine the history and philosophy of cell theory, and it also opens up a new way of thinking about the epistemic decomposition of living organisms that significantly departs from the physicochemical reductionism of mechanistic biology. (shrink)

Joseph HenryWoodger (1894–1981) was one of the foremost theoretical biologists of the twentieth century. Starting out his career as an experimental embryologist and cytologist, Woodger became increasingly interested in the conceptual foundations of biology. Eventually, he abandoned all empirical research so that he could devote himself fully to studying the structure of biological theories. Perhaps his major accomplishment was the 500-page treatise 'Biological Principles: A Critical Study' (1929), which systematically investigated the epistemological basis of biological knowledge through an analysis of (...) its central concepts. Today, he is mostly remembered for his audacious monograph 'The Axiomatic Method in Biology' (1937), which remains the most ambitious attempt to reformulate the propositions of biology (especially genetics, embryology, and taxonomy) using the tools of symbolic logic and pure mathematics. Woodger is also known for establishing the Theoretical Biology Club, and for introducing the ‘Bauplan’ concept into Anglophone biology. The insect Terpandrus Woodgeri (Woodger’s Gumleaf Katydid) is named in his honour. (shrink)

This chapter argues that scientific and philosophical progress in our understanding of the living world requires that we abandon a metaphysics of things in favour of one centred on processes. We identify three main empirical motivations for adopting a process ontology in biology: metabolic turnover, life cycles, and ecological interdependence. We show how taking a processual stance in the philosophy of biology enables us to ground existing critiques of essentialism, reductionism, and mechanicism, all of which have traditionally been associated with (...) substance ontology. We illustrate the consequences of embracing an ontology of processes in biology by considering some of its implications for physiology, genetics, evolution, and medicine. And we attempt to locate the subsequent chapters of the book in relation to the position we defend. (shrink)

Ausgangspunkt ist die Frage, was Masse ist, wodurch sie insbesondere befähigt ist, Dauer zu konstituieren und deshalb - im Sinn des kinematischen Relativitätsprinzips - ebenso als bewegt wie als ruhend betrachtet werden kann. In einem Gedankenexperiment wird diese Frage, in Umkehrung der Perspektive, hier nicht von der Masse selbst, sondern von einer stehenden Lichtwelle her angegangen. In diesem Modell lassen sich masse-analoge Strukturen rekonstruieren, die in relativer Bewegung sein können. Die (empirisch bekannte) Unabhängigkeit der Lichtgeschwindigkeit vom Bezugssystem ist dabei nicht (...) vorausgesetzt. Doch kann gezeigt werden, dass die Lichtgeschwindigkeit Grenzgeschwindigkeit solcher relativer Bewegungen ist, dass dies für alle durch masse-analoge Strukturen konstituierte, relativ zueinander gleichförmig bewegten Bezugssysteme gilt und dass die Lichtgeschwindigkeit selbst in allen diesen Systemen gleich ist. Die Absolutheit der Lichtgeschwindigkeit und die Relativität der Massebewegungen erweisen sich so als zwar differente, aber intrinsisch zusammengehörende Momente des kinematischen Relativitätsprinzips: ein Beitrag zu einer Philosophie der Relativitätstheorie. - Die mathematischen Zusammenhänge werden im Anhang ausführlicher dargelegt. (shrink)

Commonsense reasoning about the physical world, as exemplified by "Iron sinks in water" or "If a ball is dropped it gains speed," will be indispensable in future programs. We argue that to make such predictions (namely, envisioning), programs should use abstract entities (such as the gravitational field), principles (such as the principle of superposition), and laws (such as the conservation of energy) of physics for representation and reasoning. These arguments are in accord with a recent study in physics instruction where (...) expert problem solving is related to the construction of physical representations that contain fictitious, imagined entities such as forces and momenta (Larkin 1983). We give several examples showing the power of physical representations. (shrink)

According to robust virtue epistemology , knowledge is type-identical with a particular species of cognitive achievement. The identification itself is subject to some criticism on the grounds that it fails to account for the anti-luck features of knowledge. Although critics have largely focused on environmental luck, the fundamental philosophical problem facing RVE is that it is not clear why it should be a distinctive feature of cognitive abilities that they ordinarily produce beliefs in a way that is safe. We propose (...) a novel way to resolve this problem. Key to our proposal will be an appreciation of different representational states beholden to truth. We suggest these different representational states are distinguished by how, in the proper governance of these states, the twin goods of attaining truth and avoiding error are weighted. Moreover, we explain how varieties of representational states line up with varieties of cognitive achievement such that knowledge, cum cognitive achievement, must be safe because of the kind of attempt at success that belief is—namely, an attempt that places the premium it does on avoiding error. (shrink)

Common everyday materials such as textiles, foodstuffs, soil or skin can have complex, mutable and varied appearances. Under typical viewing conditions, most observers can visually recognize materials effortlessly, and determine many of their properties without touching them. Visual material perception raises many fascinating questions for vision researchers, neuroscientists and philosophers, yet has received little attention compared to the perception of color or shape. Here we discuss some of the challenges that material perception raises and argue that further philosophical thought should (...) be directed to how we see materials. (shrink)

The current study is a pilot trial to examine the effects of a nonelective, classroom-based, teacher-implemented, mindfulness meditation intervention on standard clinical measures of mental health and affect in middle school children. A total of 101 healthy sixth-grade students (55 boys, 46 girls) were randomized to either an Asian history course with daily mindfulness meditation practice (intervention group) or an African history course with a matched experiential activity (active control group). Self-reported measures included the Youth Self Report (YSR), a modified (...) Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and the Cognitive and Affective Mindfulness Measure –Revised. Both groups decreased significantly on clinical syndrome subscales and affect but did not differ in the extent of their improvements. Meditators were significantly less likely to develop suicidal ideation or thoughts of self-harm than controls. These results suggest that mindfulness training may yield both unique and non-specific benefits that are shared by other novel activities. (shrink)

We develop and defend a new approach to counterlogicals. Non-vacuous counterlogicals, we argue, fall within a broader class of counterfactuals known as counterconventionals. Existing semantics for counterconventionals, 459–482 ) and, 1–27 ) allow counterfactuals to shift the interpretation of predicates and relations. We extend these theories to counterlogicals by allowing counterfactuals to shift the interpretation of logical vocabulary. This yields an elegant semantics for counterlogicals that avoids problems with the usual impossible worlds semantics. We conclude by showing how this approach (...) can be extended to counterpossibles more generally. (shrink)

Precision Medicine is driven by the idea that the rapidly increasing range of relatively cheap and efficient self-tracking devices make it feasible to collect multiple kinds of phenotypic data. Advocates of N = 1 research emphasize the countless opportunities personal data provide for optimizing individual health. At the same time, using biomarker data for lifestyle interventions has shown to entail complex challenges. In this paper, we argue that researchers in the field of precision medicine need to address the performative dimension (...) of collecting data. We propose the fun-house mirror as a metaphor for the use of personal health data; each health data source yields a particular type of image that can be regarded as a ‘data mirror’ that is by definition specific and skewed. This requires competence on the part of individuals to adequately interpret the images thus provided. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to show a structural relationship in Dutch between sentences with the main verb "duren" (last) and specifying complements such as een week (a week) or "drie kwartier" (three quarters of an hour) on the one hand, and sentences with Duration Measuring Adverbials such as "gedurende een week" (for a week), "gedurende die week" (lit: for that week) on the other.

This chapter describes the potential far‐reaching consequences of contemplative higher education for the fields of science and medicine.

This paper provides a retrospective and prospective overview of TU Delft’s approach to engineering ethics education. For over twenty years, the Ethics and Philosophy of Technology Section at TU Delft has been at the forefront of engineering ethics education, offering education to a wide range of engineering and design students. The approach developed at TU Delft is deeply informed by the research of the Section, which is centered around Responsible Research and Innovation, Design for Values, and Risk Ethics. These theoretical (...) approaches are premised on the notion that technologies are inherently value-laden, and as such contain the possibility of fostering or hindering moral values. Each of these approaches encourages students to take a proactive attitude with respect to their projects and profession, thinking creatively about – and taking responsibility for – how to both prevent harm and do good via the technologies they help develop. To explain how this is put into practice, this paper sketches a brief history of ethics teaching at TU Delft, outlines current activities, and presents future plans for Bachelor and Master’s level engineering ethics education at TU Delft. (shrink)

Consciousness and evolution are complex phenomena. It is sometimes thought that if adaptation explanations for some varieties of consciousness, say, conscious visual perception, can be had, then we may be reassured that at least those kinds of consciousness are not epiphenomena. But what if other varieties of consciousness, for example, dreams, are not adaptations? We sort out the connections among evolution, adaptation, and epiphenomenalism in order to show that the consequences for the nature and causal efficacy of consciousness are not (...) as dire as has sometimes been supposed. (shrink)

Scholarly processes play a pivotal role in discovering, challenging, improving, advancing, synthesizing, codifying, and disseminating knowledge. Since the 17th Century, both the quality and quantity of knowledge that scholarship has produced has increased tremendously, granting academic research a pivotal role in ensuring material and social progress. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is poised to enable a new leap in the creation of scholarly content. New forms of engagement with AI systems, such as collaborations with large language models like GPT-3, offer affordances that (...) will change the nature of both the scholarly process and the artifacts it produces. (shrink)

Deliberate contextual vocabulary acquisition (CVA) is a reader’s ability to figure out a (not the) meaning for an unknown word from its “context”, without external sources of help such as dictionaries or people. The appropriate context for such CVA is the “belief-revised integration” of the reader’s prior knowledge with the reader’s “internalization” of the text. We discuss unwarranted assumptions behind some classic objections to CVA, and present and defend a computational theory of CVA that we have adapted to a new (...) classroom curriculum designed to help students use CVA to improve their reading comprehension. (shrink)