Some scientific categories seem to correspond to genuine features of the world and are indispensable for successful science in some domain; in short, they are natural kinds. This book gives a general account of what it is to be a natural kind and puts the account to work illuminating numerous specific examples.

A critical note on Christopher Bartel and Jack M. C. Kwong, ‘Pluralism, Eliminativism, and the Definition of Art’, Estetika 58 (2021): 100–113. Art pluralism is the view that there is no single, correct account of what art is. Instead, art is understood through a plurality of art concepts and with considerations that are different for particular arts. Although avowed pluralists have retained the word ‘art’ in their discussions, it is natural to ask whether the considerations that motivate pluralism should lead (...) us to abandon art talk altogether; that is, should pluralism lead to eliminativism? This paper addresses arguments both for and against this move. We ultimately argue that pluralism allows one to retain the word ‘art’, if one wants it, but only in a loose, conversational sense. The upshot of pluralism is that talk of art in general cannot be asked to do theoretical and philosophical work. (shrink)

Given the fact that many people use Wikipedia, we should ask: Can we trust it? The empirical evidence suggests that Wikipedia articles are sometimes quite good but that they vary a great deal. As such, it is wrong to ask for a monolithic verdict on Wikipedia. Interacting with Wikipedia involves assessing where it is likely to be reliable and where not. I identify five strategies that we use to assess claims from other sources and argue that, to a greater of (...) lesser degree, Wikipedia frustrates all of them. Interacting responsibly with something like Wikipedia requires new epistemic methods and strategies. (shrink)

The essay compares mark Johnston’s and Hilary Putnam’s approaches to the philosophy of religion in the framework of Charles Taylor’s claim that in modernity ”intermediate positions’ between theism and naturalism become increasingly attractive for a growing amount of people. both authors show that intermediate positions between naturalism and theism are conceptually plausible without having to deny that the conflicting worldviews are about a mind-independent reality. Johnston bridges the gap between naturalism and theism by developing a panentheistic worldview, Putnam denies the (...) necessity of bridging it by choosing an attitude toward the world that allows for the coexistence of at least partly incommensurable conceptualizations of what there is. In both cases the conceptual exploration of intermediate positions is fed by the authors’ commitment to intellectual integrity in coming to terms with the tension between scientific explanation and religious interpretation in the age of applied sciences. (shrink)

In response to an impasse, articulated in the late 1980s, the cognitive capacities of ordinary people assumed central place in contemporary critical social theory. The participants’ perspective gained precedence over scientific standards branded as external. The notion of cognition, however, went unchallenged. This article continues the move away from external standards, and discusses two models of critique, which differ based on their underlying notions of cognition. The representational model builds on cognitive content, misrecognition and normativity; three features which are illustrated (...) with positions adopted by prominent exponents of critical social theory. An alternative understanding relies on action-oriented disclosure and the participants’ basic familiarity with the social world. On this reading, what clashes with unequal structures is skilful coping, rather than representations and normative standards. The action-oriented approach may overcome the dilemma of understanding both the impact and the possible transcendence of unequal structures, although it cannot ultimately replace representational critique. (shrink)

The objective of this article is to see whether desire for recognition might contain an emancipatory aspect. Could this desire be a political ally? The argumentative strategy is to fully acknowledge the oppressive mechanisms at work before trying to find a way to other outcomes, including emancipation, with which desire for recognition has been associated in the tradition from Hegel. Through a re-interpretation of the master-and-slave dialectic, supplemented by sociological research on status expectations, I suggest a way out of the (...) vicious circle, where desire produced by power finds satisfaction through a preexisting other, resulting in an endless dynamic of compulsive conformity and regressive assertion of status. The hold of this dynamic must not be underestimated, yet, as I argue, both desire and what satisfies desire are liable to change, through struggle. The transformation of the generalized other, which provides recognition, is seen to be a crucial feature of all collective struggle. The very source of recognition is transformed, behind the backs of the actors, in turn affecting their desire. This can but must not lead to the emancipatory outcomes which are traditionally tied to recognition in the Hegelian tradition. (shrink)

In response to an impasse, articulated in the late 1980s, the cognitive capacities of ordinary people assumed central place in contemporary critical social theory. The participants’ perspective gained precedence over scientific standards branded as external. The notion of cognition, however, went unchallenged. This article continues the move away from external standards, and discusses two models of critique, which differ based on their underlying notions of cognition. The representational model builds on cognitive content, misrecognition and normativity; three features which are illustrated (...) with positions adopted by prominent exponents of critical social theory. An alternative understanding relies on action-oriented disclosure and the participants’ basic familiarity with the social world. On this reading, what clashes with unequal structures is skilful coping, rather than representations and normative standards. The action-oriented approach may overcome the dilemma of understanding both the impact and the possible transcendence of unequal structures, although it cannot ultimately replace representational critique. (shrink)

Abstract: There is a long tradition of trying to analyze art either by providing a definition (essentialism) or by tracing its contours as an indefinable, open concept (anti-essentialism). Both art essentialists and art anti-essentialists share an implicit assumption of art concept monism. This article argues that this assumption is a mistake. Species concept pluralism—a well-explored position in philosophy of biology—provides a model for art concept pluralism. The article explores the conditions under which concept pluralism is appropriate, and argues that they (...) obtain for art. Art concept pluralism allows us to recognize that different art concepts are useful for different purposes, and what has been feuding definitions can be seen as characterizations of specific art concepts. (shrink)

There is considerable disagreement about the epistemic value of novel predictive success, i.e. when a scientist predicts an unexpected phenomenon, experiments are conducted, and the prediction proves to be accurate. We survey the field on this question, noting both fully articulated views such as weak and strong predictivism, and more nascent views, such as pluralist reasons for the instrumental value of prediction. By examining the various reasons offered for the value of prediction across a range of inferential contexts , we (...) can see that neither weak nor strong predictivism captures all of the reasons for valuing prediction available. A third path is presented, Pluralist Instrumental Predictivism; PIP for short. (shrink)

The no-miracles argument and the pessimistic induction are arguably the main considerations for and against scientific realism. Recently these arguments have been accused of embodying a familiar, seductive fallacy. In each case, we are tricked by a base rate fallacy, one much-discussed in the psychological literature. In this paper we consider this accusation and use it as an explanation for why the two most prominent `wholesale' arguments in the literature seem irresolvable. Framed probabilistically, we can see very clearly why realists (...) and anti-realists have been talking past one another. We then formulate a dilemma for advocates of either argument, answer potential objections to our criticism, discuss what remains (if anything) of these two major arguments, and then speculate about a future philosophy of science freed from these two arguments. In so doing, we connect the point about base rates to the wholesale/retail distinction; we believe it hints at an answer of how to distinguish profitable from unprofitable realism debates. In short, we offer a probabilistic analysis of the feeling of ennui afflicting contemporary philosophy of science. (shrink)

Der Artikel stellt eine Unterrichtseinheit für die Lektürephase des Lateinunterrichts dar, die vor allem für die Sekundarstufe II geeignet ist. Die vorzustellende Unterrichtsreihe geht von der Fragestellung "Kann man Liebe lehren und lernen?" aus, wobei zunächst herausgearbeitet werden soll, was wir und was die Schüler unter "Liebe" verstehen, und dann allgemein und in Bezug auf unsere eigene Lebenswelt diskutiert wird, ob sich Liebe lehren und lernen lasse, sei es durch Ratgeber, Flirtschulen, oder Tipps von anderen. Im Anschluss beginnt die Lektüre (...) mit dem Proömium der Ars amatoria (ars 1, 1-40), in dem Ovid die eingangs erwähnte These aufstellt und die Liebe mit der Seefahrt und dem Kampf vergleicht, die man ja ebenfalls lernen könne und müsse, und das Programm seines "Lehrbuchs" vorstellt: ein Mädchen finden, es für sich gewinnen, der Beziehung Dauer verleihen. Im Anschluss daran wird die These Ovids diskutiert, sein Konzept wird mit dem moderner Liebesratgeber verglichen, sein Verständnis von "Liebe" wird näher charakterisiert und mit dem Vorverständnis der Lerngruppe zu "Liebe" und deren lernbarkeit verglichen. Um das Konzept besser zu verstehen, werden einige seiner "Tipps" aus den beiden ersten Büchern in kurzen Auszügen - ohne die langen mythologischen Exkurse - im Original, teils auch zweisprachig, gelesen. Zum Abschluss der Reihe kommt [Ovids] Eingangsthese gründlich auf den Prüfstand. Ein Leserbrief an Ovid dokumentiert das Textverständnis und die inhaltliche Auseinandersetzung mit dem Thema. Die Unterrichtsreihe ist für die Oberstufe gedacht und nimmt ca. 12-16 Unterrichtsstunden in Anspruch. Zum Artikel gehören die aufbereiteten Textauszüge sowie ein Tafelbild und eine Übersicht über das Lernvokabular (Aufbauwortschatz zur Lektürereihe). (shrink)

Der Aufsatz befasst sich mit der Lektüre philosophischer Texte im Latein- und Griechischunterricht. Er diskutiert Kriterien der Themen- und Textauswahl; erörtert Möglichkeiten der Motivierung der Schüler zur aktiven Auseinandersetzung mit philosophischen Themen und Texten sowie die Möglichkeit der Behandlung philosophischer Themen und Texte bereits in der Lehrbuchphase.

Krankheit und Verwundung gehörten in der Antike zum Alltag der Soldaten. Die militärische Fachschriftstellerei der Antike hat sich aus verschiedenen Blickwinkeln und mit unterschiedlichen Zielstellungen mit zahlreichen Aspekten des Militärwesens ihrer Zeit befasst. Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht deshalb die Behandlung von Krankheit und Verwundung in den griechischen und römischen militärischen Fachschriften vom 4. Jh. v. Chr. bis ins 6. Jh. n. Chr. Aufgrund der spärlichen Forschungsliteratur zu diesem Thema steht die vergleichende Quellenanalyse der erhaltenen militärischen Fachschriften dieses Zeitraums im Vordergrund. (...) Ein kurzer Überblick über die literarische Gattung „Antike militärische Fachschriften“ sowie über die Entwicklung der Militärmedizin in der griechisch-römischen Antike bietet den nötigen Bezugsrahmen für die historische und literaturhistorische Einordnung der untersuchten Quellen. -/- Diseases and wounds were part of a soldier‘s everyday life in Greco-Roman antiquity. Ancient military manuals dealt with numerous aspects of contemporary military affairs from different perspectives and with various objectives. Therefore, this paper analyses how ancient Greek and Roman military manuals between the fourth century BC and the sixth century AD deal with diseases and wounds in the military. Due to scarce research literature on this topic the present paper focuses on the analysis of the surviving military manuals from this period. A brief overview of ancient military manuals as a literary genre as well as of the development of the ancient military medicine provides an historical and literary historical reference framework for the source analysis. (shrink)

The Prussian Protestant Daniel Hermann is an important Neo-Latin poet. He lived from probably 1543 until 1601. Hermann studied at Königsberg, Straßburg, Basel and Wittenberg. Afterwards he served as a secretary at the Imperial Court at Vienna, later as a secretary of the city of Danzig and permanent ambassador of Danzig at the Royal Polish court during the wars against Russia. After the war he married and settled down in Riga and became the secretary of the Polish governor Cardinal Radziwil (...) and later of the general Georg Fahrensbach. Besides lots of poems on academical, political and private occasions he wrote letters in poetic form as well as theological, philosophical and political poems. This paper provides an overview over Hermann ’s life and his poetry, especially the poems written and published in Riga, and a short summary of the research on this poet. (shrink)

In the Anabasis, his autobiographical account on the retreat of the Greek mercenary army after the defeat of the Persian prince Cyrus the Younger, Xenophon mentions a significant number of sacrifices. This paper deals with the analysis of the ritual, pragmatical, and narratological functions of these references as well as of their lexis and complexity. Therefore also a short overview of the role of sacrifices in the ancient Greek religion with a focus on military contexts is given.

In the Odyssey, there is a description of Odysseus being recognized by his age-old and decrepit dog Argos, whom he had reared and trained himself before his departure for Troy. This so-called Argos episode (Od. 17.290–327) is still famous today. It has been continuously treated by generations of scholars from antiquity to our time and served as an inspiration to both the visual arts and literature. The present article deals with the function and intended effects of the Argos scene. After (...) a brief synopsis of the position of this scene within the Odyssey as well as of its content and structure, the author discusses the role of dogs in the Iliad and the Odyssey. The focus of this article lies on the interpretations of the Argos scene, suggested by scholars so far, and on their review by means of a close reading to check their plausibility. (shrink)

The Homeostatic Property Cluster (HPC) account of natural kinds has become popular since it was proposed by Richard Boyd in the late 1980s. Although it is often taken as a defining natural kinds as such, it is easy enough to see that something's being a natural kind is neither necessary nor sufficient for its being an HPC. This paper argues that it is better not to understand HPCs as defining what it is to be a natural kind but instead as (...) providing the ontological realization of (some) natural kinds. (shrink)

Metrisch gebundene Texte sind aus dem altsprachlichen Unterricht nicht wegzudenken: Vergil, Ovid, Horaz, Catull und Martial sind nur einige typische Autoren für die Dichtungslektüre im Lateinunterricht; Homer, Sophokles und Euripides sind typische Beispiele für den Griechischunterricht. Die Curricula schlagen eine Vielzahl poetischer Texte als mögliche Lektüren vor. Allein diese unvollständige Autorenauswahl zeigt schon, dass man allein mit der Behandlung von daktylischem Hexameter und elegischem Distichon nicht besonders weit kommt, will man nicht die Textauswahl nach solchen rein formalen Kriterien unnötig und (...) unzulässig einschränken oder bei allen anderen Metra so tun, als läse man Prosa. Denn ein solches Vorgehen ermöglicht zwar eine Übersetzung, ein wirkliches Verständnis der Texte bleibt den Schülern aber verwehrt, da ihnen die Wirkung des Metrums, der Einschnitte, der Betonung bestimmter Positionen im Vers und nicht zuletzt ästhetische Aspekte verborgen bleiben oder allenfalls indirekt durch den metrischen Vortrag des Lehrers oder eine stilistische Analyse erschlossen werden. -/- Der vorliegende Band widmet sich daher grundlegenden Fragen zum Thema lateinischer und griechischer Prosodie und Metrik im Unterricht unter Einbeziehung der Lehrpläne und einer Befragung von Lehrkräften. Daneben finden sich Praxisbeispiele zu Catull, Ovid, Terenz und Homer, Überlegungen zur Beziehung von Musik und Metrik sowie eine Anregung zum Dichten in lateinischer Sprache. -/- Mit Beiträgen von: Gregor Bitto, John Bulwer, Fabiola Dengler, Boris Dunsch, Magnus Frisch, Hans-Joachim Glücklich, Christoph Kugelmeier, Immanuel Musäus, Jens Pickenhan, Anna Elissa Radke, Wolfgang Schoedel, Katharina Waack-Erdmann und Heike Wolf. (shrink)

When we ask what natural kinds are, there are two different things we might have in mind. The first, which I’ll call the taxonomy question, is what distinguishes a category which is a natural kind from an arbitrary class. The second, which I’ll call the ontology question, is what manner of stuff there is that realizes the category. Many philosophers have systematically conflated the two questions. The confusion is exhibited both by essentialists and by philosophers who pose their accounts in (...) terms of similarity. It also leads to misreading philosophers who do make the distinction. Distinguishing the questions allows for a more subtle understanding of both natural kinds and their underlying metaphysics. (shrink)

Kyle Stanford has recently claimed to offer a new challenge to scientific realism. Taking his inspiration from the familiar Pessimistic Induction (PI), Stanford proposes a New Induction (NI). Contra Anjan Chakravartty’s suggestion that the NI is a ‘red herring’, I argue that it reveals something deep and important about science. The Problem of Unconceived Alternatives, which lies at the heart of the NI, yields a richer anti-realism than the PI. It explains why science falls short when it falls short, and (...) so it might figure in the most coherent account of scientific practice. However, this best account will be antirealist in some respects and about some theories. It will not be a sweeping antirealism about all or most of science. (shrink)

Die Beiträge des vorliegenden Sammelbandes basieren auf Vorträgen aus der gleichnamigen fachdidaktischen Vortragsreihe, die seit 2013 am Seminar für Klassische Philologie der Philipps-Universität Marburg stattfindet. Sie beleuchten zentrale und aktuelle Aspekte eines zeitgemäßen altsprachlichen Unterrichts: von Fragen der Kompetenzorientierung (Rainer Nickel) und Individualisierung (Heike Wolf) über Textübersetzung und Wortschatzarbeit (Peter Kuhlmann), multimediale Zugänge zu Realien aus der Sicht des Althistorikers (Florian Krüpe) und Zugänge zum römischen Alltagsleben über die Dichtung (Tobias Brandt) sowie das Verhältnis von Text und Bild (Hans-Joachim Glücklich) (...) bis hin zu Überlegungen, was wir aus dem mittelalterlichen Lateinunterricht für die heutige Unterrichtspraxis lernen können (Jessica Kreutz). (shrink)

Some philosophers understand natural kinds to be the categories which are constraints on enquiry. In order to elaborate the metaphysics appropriate to such an account, I consider the complicated history of scurvy, citrus, and vitamin C. It may be tempting to understand these categories in a shallow way (as mere property clusters) or in a deep way (as fundamental properties). Neither approach is adequate, and the case instead calls for middle-range ontology: starting from categories which we identify in the world (...) and elaborating their structure, but not pretending to jump ahead to a complete story about fundamental being. (shrink)

The accepted narrative treats John Stuart Mill’s Kinds as the historical prototype for our natural kinds, but Mill actually employs two separate notions: Kinds and natural groups. Considering these, along with the accounts of Mill’s nineteenth-century interlocutors, forces us to recognize two distinct questions. First, what marks a natural kind as worthy of inclusion in taxonomy? Second, what exists in the world that makes a category meet that criterion? Mill’s two notions offer separate answers to the two questions: natural groups (...) for taxonomy and Kinds for ontology. This distinction is ignored in many contemporary debates about natural kinds and is obscured by the standard narrative that treats our natural kinds just as a development of Mill’s Kinds. (shrink)

Homeostatic property clusters (HPCs) are offered as a way of understanding natural kinds, especially biological species. I review the HPC approach and then discuss an objection by Ereshefsky and Matthen, to the effect that an HPC qua cluster seems ill-fitted as a description of a polymorphic species. The standard response by champions of the HPC approach is to say that all members of a polymorphic species have things in common, namely dispositions or conditional properties. I argue that this response fails. (...) Instances of an HPC kind need not all be similar in their exhibited properties. Instead, HPCs should instead be understood as unified by the underlying causal mechanism that maintains them. The causal mechanism can both produce and explain some systematic differences between a kind’s members. An HPC kind is best understood not as a single cluster of properties maintained in stasis by causal forces, but as a complex of related property clusters kept in relation by an underlying causal process. This approach requires recognizing that taxonomic systems serve both explanatory and inductive purposes. (shrink)

Nelson Goodman's distinction between autographic and allographic arts is appealing, we suggest, because it promises to resolve several prima facie puzzles. We consider and rebut a recent argument that alleges that digital images explode the autographic/allographic distinction. Regardless, there is another familiar problem with the distinction, especially as Goodman formulates it: it seems to entirely ignore an important sense in which all artworks are historical. We note in reply that some artworks can be considered both as historical products and as (...) formal structures. Talk about such works is ambiguous between the two conceptions. This allows us to recover Goodman's distinction: art forms that are ambiguous in this way are allographic. With that formulation settled, we argue that digital images are allographic. We conclude by considering the objection that digital photographs, unlike other digital images, would count as autographic by our criterion; we reply that this points to the vexed nature of photography rather than any problem with the distinction. (shrink)

The Argument from Inductive Risk (AIR) is taken to show that values are inevitably involved in making judgements or forming beliefs. After reviewing this conclusion, I pose cases which are prima facie counterexamples: the unreflective application of conventions, use of black-boxed instruments, reliance on opaque algorithms, and unskilled observation reports. These cases are counterexamples to the AIR posed in ethical terms as a matter of personal values. Nevertheless, it need not be understood in those terms. The values which load a (...) theory choice may be those of institutions or past actors. This means that the challenge of responsibly handling inductive risk is not merely an ethical issue, but is also social, political, and historical. (shrink)

forall x: Calgary is a full-featured textbook on formal logic. It covers key notions of logic such as consequence and validity of arguments, the syntax of truth-functional propositional logic TFL and truth-table semantics, the syntax of first-order (predicate) logic FOL with identity (first-order interpretations), symbolizing English in TFL and FOL, and Fitch-style natural deduction proof systems for both TFL and FOL. It also deals with some advanced topics such as modal logic, soundness, and functional completeness. Exercises with solutions are available. (...) It is provided in PDF (for screen reading, printing, and a special version for dyslexics), HTML, and in LaTeX source code. (shrink)

There are two senses of ‘what scientists know’: An individual sense (the separate opinions of individual scientists) and a collective sense (the state of the discipline). The latter is what matters for policy and planning, but it is not something that can be directly observed or reported. A function can be defined to map individual judgments onto an aggregate judgment. I argue that such a function cannot effectively capture community opinion, especially in cases that matter to us.

The problem of underdetermination is thought to hold important lessons for philosophy of science. Yet, as Kyle Stanford has recently argued, typical treatments of it offer only restatements of familiar philosophical problems. Following suggestions in Duhem and Sklar, Stanford calls for a New Induction from the history of science. It will provide proof, he thinks, of “the kind of underdetermination that the history of science reveals to be a distinctive and genuine threat to even our best scientific theories” (Stanford 2001, (...) p. S12). This paper examines Stanford’s New Induction and argues that it – like the other forms of underdetermination that he criticizes – merely recapitulates familiar philosophical conundra. (shrink)

There is a history of thinking that photographs provide a special kind of access to the objects depicted in them, beyond the access that would be provided by a painting or drawing. What is included in the photograph does not depend on the photographer’s beliefs about what is in front of the camera. This feature leads Kendall Walton to argue that photographs literally allow us to see the objects which appear in them. Current generative algorithms produce images in response to (...) users’ text prompts. Depending on the parameters, the output can resemble specific people or things which are named in the prompt. This resemblance does not depend on the user’s beliefs, so generated images are in this sense like photographs. Given this parallel, how should we think about AI-generated images? (shrink)

According to the standard narrative, natural kind is a technical notion that was introduced by John Stuart Mill in the 1840s and the recent craze for natural kinds, launched by Putnam and Kripke, is a continuation of that tradition. I argue that the standard narrative is mistaken. The Millian tradition of kinds was not particularly influential in the 20th-century, and the Putnam-Kripke revolution did not clearly engage with even the remnants that were left of it. The presently active tradition of (...) natural kinds is less than half a century old. Recognizing this might help us better appreciate both Mill and natural kinds. (shrink)

The underdetermination of theory by evidence is supposed to be a reason to rethink science. It is not. Many authors claim that underdetermination has momentous consequences for the status of scientific claims, but such claims are hidden in an umbra of obscurity and a penumbra of equivocation. So many various phenomena pass for `underdetermination' that it's tempting to think that it is no unified phenomenon at all, so I begin by providing a framework within which all these worries can be (...) seen as species of one genus: A claim of underdetermination involves (at least implicitly) a set of rival theories, a standard of responsible judgment, and a scope of circumstances in which responsible choice between the rivals is impossible. Within this framework, I show that one variety of underdetermination motivated modern scepticism and thus is a familiar problem at the heart of epistemology. I survey arguments that infer from underdetermination to some reëvaluation of science: top-down arguments infer a priori from the ubiquity of underdetermination to some conclusion about science; bottom-up arguments infer from specific instances of underdetermination, to the claim that underdetermination is widespread, and then to some conclusion about science. The top-down arguments either fail to deliver underdetermination of any great significance or (as with modern scepticism) deliver some well-worn epistemic concern. The bottom-up arguments must rely on cases. I consider several promising cases and find them to either be so specialized that they cannot underwrite conclusions about science in general or not be underdetermined at all. Neither top-down nor bottom-up arguments can motivate any deep reconsideration of science. (shrink)

It is now commonly held that values play a role in scientific judgment, but many arguments for that conclusion are limited. First, many arguments do not show that values are, strictly speaking, indispensable. The role of values could in principle be filled by a random or arbitrary decision. Second, many arguments concern scientific theories and concepts which have obvious practical consequences, thus suggesting or at least leaving open the possibility that abstruse sciences without such a connection could be value-free. Third, (...) many arguments concern the role values play in inferring from evidence, thus taking evidence as given. This paper argues that these limitations do not hold in general. There are values involved in every scientific judgment. They cannot even conceivably be replaced by a coin toss, they arise as much for exotic as for practical sciences, and they are at issue as much for observation as for explicit inference. (shrink)

William James’ argument against William Clifford in The Will to Believe is often understood in terms of doxastic efficacy, the power of belief to influence an outcome. Although that is one strand of James’ argument, there is another which is driven by ampliative risk. The second strand of James’ argument, when applied to scientific cases, is tantamount to what is now called the Argument from Inductive Risk. Either strand of James’ argument is sufficient to rebut Clifford's strong evidentialism and show (...) that it is sometimes permissible to believe in the absence of compelling evidence. However, the two considerations have different scope and force. Doxastic efficacy applies in only some cases but allows any values to play a role in determining belief; risk applies in all cases but only allows particular conditional values to play a role. (shrink)

This paper gives a characterization of distributed cognition (d-cog) and explores ways that the framework might be applied in studies of science. I argue that a system can only be given a d-cog description if it is thought of as performing a task. Turning our attention to science, we can try to give a global d-cog account of science or local d-cog accounts of particular scientific projects. Several accounts of science can be seen as global d-cog accounts: Robert Merton's sociology (...) of scientific norms, Philip Kitcher's 20th-century account of cognitive labor, and Kitcher's 21st-century notion of well-ordered science. Problems that arise for them arise just because of the way that they attribute a function to science. The paper concludes by considering local d-cog accounts. Here, too, the task is the crux of the matter. (shrink)

According to many philosophers, psychological explanation canlegitimately be given in terms of belief and desire, but not in termsof knowledge. To explain why someone does what they do (so the common wisdom holds) you can appeal to what they think or what they want, but not what they know. Timothy Williamson has recently argued against this view. Knowledge, Williamson insists, plays an essential role in ordinary psychological explanation.Williamson's argument works on two fronts.First, he argues against the claim that, unlike knowledge, (...) belief is``composite'' (representable as a conjunction of a narrow and a broadcondition). Belief's failure to be composite, Williamson thinks, undermines the usual motivations for psychological explanation in terms of belief rather than knowledge.Unfortunately, we claim, the motivations Williamson argues against donot depend on the claim that belief is composite, so what he saysleaves the case for a psychology of belief unscathed.Second, Williamson argues that knowledge can sometimes provide abetter explanation of action than belief can.We argue that, in the cases considered, explanations that cite beliefs(but not knowledge) are no less successful than explanations that citeknowledge. Thus, we conclude that Williamson's arguments fail both coming andgoing: they fail to undermine a psychology of belief, and they fail tomotivate a psychology of knowledge. (shrink)

This discussion note addresses Caleb Hazelwood’s ‘Practice-Centered Pluralism and a Disjunctive Theory of Art’. Hazelwood advances a disjunctive definition of art on the basis of an analogy with species concept pluralism in the philosophy of biology. We recognize the analogy between species and art, we applaud attention to practice, and we are bullish on pluralism—but it is a mistake to take these as the basis for a disjunctive definition.

Cover versions form a loose but identifiable category of tracks and performances. We distinguish four kinds of covers and argue that they mark important differences in the modes of evaluation that are possible or appropriate for each: mimic covers, which aim merely to echo the canonical track; rendition covers, which change the sound of the canonical track; transformative covers, which diverge so much as to instantiate a distinct, albeit derivative song; and referential covers, which not only instantiate a distinct song, (...) but for which the new song is in part about the original song. In order to allow for the very possibility of transformative and referential covers, we argue that a cover is characterized by relation to a canonical track rather than merely by being a new instance of a song that had been recorded previously. (shrink)

This paper offers a general characterization of underdetermination and gives a prima facie case for the underdetermination of the topology of the universe. A survey of several philosophical approaches to the problem fails to resolve the issue: the case involves the possibility of massive reduplication, but Strawson on massive reduplication provides no help here; it is not obvious that any of the rival theories are to be preferred on grounds of simplicity; and the usual talk of empirically equivalent theories misses (...) the point entirely. (If the choice is underdetermined, then the theories are not empirically equivalent!) Yet the thought experiment is analogous to a live scientific possibility, and actual astronomy faces underdetermination of this kind. This paper concludes by suggesting how the matter can be resolved, either by localizing the underdetermination or by defeating it entirely. Introduction A brief preliminary Around the universe in 80 days Some attempts at resolving the problem 4.1 Indexicality 4.2 Simplicity 4.3 Empirical equivalence 4.4 Is this just a philosophers' fantasy? Move along... ...nothing to see here 6.1 Rules of repetition 6.2 Some possible replies Conclusion. (shrink)

Cover songs are a familiar feature of contemporary popular music. Musicians describe their own performances as covers, and audiences use the category to organize their listening and appreciation. However, until now philosophers have not had much to say about them. This book explores how to think about covers, appreciating covers, and the metaphysics of covers and songs. Along the way, it explores a range of issues raised by covers, from the question of what precisely constitutes a cover, to the history (...) and taxonomy of the category, the various relationships that hold between songs, performances, and tracks, and the appreciation and evaluation of covers. (shrink)

Philip Kitcher develops the Galilean Strategy to defend realism against its many opponents. I explore the structure of the Galilean Strategy and consider it specifically as an instrument against constructive empiricism. Kitcher claims that the Galilean Strategy underwrites an inference from success to truth. We should resist that conclusion, I argue, but the Galilean Strategy should lead us by other routes to believe in many things about which the empiricist would rather remain agnostic. 1 Target: empiricism 2 The Galilean Strategy (...) 3 Strengthening the argument 4 Success and truth 5 Conclusion. (shrink)

Although some authors hold that natural kinds are necessarily relative to disciplinary domains, many authors presume that natural kinds must be absolute, categorical features of the reality —often assuming that without even mentioning the alternative. Recognizing both possibilities, one may ask whether the difference especially matters. I argue that it does. Looking at recent arguments about natural kind realism, I argue that we can best make sense of the realism question by thinking of natural kindness as a relation that holds (...) between a category and a domain. (shrink)

If two theory formulations are merely different expressions of the same theory, then any problem of choosing between them cannot be due to the underdetermination of theories by data. So one might suspect that we need to be able to tell distinct theories from mere alternate formulations before we can say anything substantive about underdetermination, that we need to solve the problem of identical rivals before addressing the problem of underdetermination. Here I consider two possible solutions: Quine proposes that we (...) call two theories identical if they are equivalent under a reconstrual of predicates, but this would mishandle important cases. Another proposal is to defer to the particular judgements of actual scientists. Consideration of an historical episodethe alleged equivalence of wave and matrix mechanicsshows that this second proposal also fails. Nevertheless, I suggest, the original suspicion is wrong; there are ways to enquire into underdetermination without having solved the problem of identical rivals. (shrink)

It seems obvious that a community of one thousand scientists working together to make discoveries and solve puzzles should arrange itself differently than would one thousand scientist-hermits working independently. Because of limited time, resources, and attention, an independent scientist can explore only some of the possible approaches to a problem. Working alone, each hermit would explore the most promising approaches. They would needlessly duplicate the work of others and would be unlikely to develop approaches which look unpromising but really have (...) tremendous potential. Contrariwise, a large community can more rigorously explore the space of possible approaches. Most scientists should work on the most promising approaches, but a smaller number can be committed to approaches that initially look less promising. Exploratory work can reveal if one of those initially unpromising approaches has unrealized potential, and more scientists can adopt it once its potential becomes more apparent. (shrink)

Peter Baumann offers the tantalizing suggestion that Thomas Reid is almost, but not quite, a pragmatist. He motivates this claim by posing a dilemma for common sense philosophy: Will it be dogmatism or scepticism? Baumann claims that Reid points to but does not embrace a pragmatist third way between these unsavory options. If we understand `pragmatism' differently than Baumann does, however, we need not be so equivocal in attributing it to Reid. Reid makes what we could call an argument from (...) practical commitment, and this is plausibly an instance of what William James calls the pragmatic method. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore and defend the idea that musical works are historical individuals. Guy Rohrbaugh (2003) proposes this for works of art in general. Julian Dodd (2007) objects that the whole idea is outré metaphysics, that it is too far beyond the pale to be taken seriously. Their disagreement could be seen as a skirmish in the broader war between revisionists and reactionaries, a conflict about which of metaphysics and art should trump the other when there is a (...) conflict. That dispute is a matter of philosophical methodology as much as it is a dispute about art. I argue that the ontology of works as individuals need not be dunked in that morass. My primary strategy is to show, contra Dodd's accusation, that historical individuals are familiar parts of the world. Although the ontological details are open to debate, it is the standard opinion of biologists is that biological species are historical individuals. So there is no conflict here between fidelity to art and respectable metaphysics. What suits species will fit musical work as well. (shrink)