Artificial intelligence has arrived. In the online world it is already a part of everyday life, sitting invisibly behind a wide range of search engines and online commerce sites. It offers huge potential to enable more efficient and effective business and government but the use of artificial intelligence brings with it important questions about governance, accountability and ethics. Realising the full potential of artificial intelligence and avoiding possible adverse consequences requires societies to find satisfactory answers to these questions. This report (...) sets out some possible approaches, and describes some of the ways government is already engaging with these issues. (shrink)

Climate change has become one of the most pressing problems that can threaten the existence and development of humans around the globe. Almost all climate scientists have agreed that climate change is happening and is caused mainly by greenhouse gas emissions induced by anthropogenic activities. However, some groups still deny this fact or do not believe that climate change results from human activities. This essay discusses the causes, significance, and skeptical arguments of climate change denialism, as well as the roles (...) of scientists and science communication in addressing the issues. Through this essay, we call for the active participation of scientists in science communication activities with the public, the opening of new science communication sectors specified for climate change, and more attention to social sciences and humanities in addressing climate change issues. (shrink)

The paper describes the design of an intelligent tutoring system for teaching Introduction to Computer Science-a compulsory curriculum in Al-Azhar University of Gaza to students who attend the university. The basic idea of this system is a systematic introduction into computer science. The system presents topics with examples. The system is dynamically checks student's individual progress. An initial evaluation study was done to investigate the effect of using the intelligent tutoring system on the performance of students enrolled in (...) computer science curriculum at Al-Azhar University, Gaza. The results showed a positive impact on the evaluators. (shrink)

[from the publisher's website] Questions about the existence and attributes of God form the subject matter of natural theology, which seeks to gain knowledge of the divine by relying on reason and experience of the world. Arguments in natural theology rely largely on intuitions and inferences that seem natural to us, occurring spontaneously—at the sight of a beautiful landscape, perhaps, or in wonderment at the complexity of the cosmos—even to a nonphilosopher. In this book, Helen De Cruz and Johan De (...) Smedt examine the cognitive origins of arguments in natural theology. They find that although natural theological arguments can be very sophisticated, they are rooted in everyday intuitions about purpose, causation, agency, and morality. Using evidence and theories from disciplines including the cognitive science of religion, evolutionary ethics, evolutionary aesthetics, and the cognitive science of testimony, they show that these intuitions emerge early in development and are a stable part of human cognition. -/- De Cruz and De Smedt analyze the cognitive underpinnings of five well-known arguments for the existence of God: the argument from design, the cosmological argument, the moral argument, the argument from beauty, and the argument from miracles. Finally, they consider whether the cognitive origins of these natural theological arguments should affect their rationality. (shrink)

In 2003, biophysicist and Nobel Laureate Maurice Wilkins published his autobiography entitled The Third Man. In the preface, he diffidently points out that the title was chosen by his publisher, as a reference to the famous 1949 movie no doubt, featuring Orson Welles in his classical role as penicillin racketeer Harry Lime. In this paper I intend to show that there is much more to this title than merely its familiar ring. If subjected to a comparative analysis, multiple correspondences between (...) movie and memoirs can be brought to the fore. Taken together, these documents shed an intriguing light on the vicissitudes of budding life sciences research during the post-war era. I will focus my comparative analysis on issues still relevant today, such as dual use, the handling of sensitive scientific information and, finally, on the interwovenness of science and warfare. Thus, I will explain how science autobiographies on the one hand and genres of the imagination on the other may deepen our comprehension of tensions and dilemmas of life sciences research then and now. For that reason, science autobiographies can provide valuable input for teaching philosophy and history of science to science students. (shrink)

Replacing the value-free ideal (VFI) for science requires attention to the broader understanding of how science in society should function. In public spaces, science needed to project the VFI in norms for science advising, science education, and science communication. This resulted in the independent science advisor model and a focus on science literacy for science education and communication. Attending to these broader implications of the VFI which structure science and society (...) relationships is crucial if we are to properly replace the VFI with a better ideal. (shrink)

Alongside existing research into the social, political and economic impacts of the Web, there is a need to study the Web from a cognitive and epistemic perspective. This is particularly so as new and emerging technologies alter the nature of our interactive engagements with the Web, transforming the extent to which our thoughts and actions are shaped by the online environment. Situated and ecological approaches to cognition are relevant to understanding the cognitive significance of the Web because of the emphasis (...) they place on forces and factors that reside at the level of agent–world interactions. In particular, by adopting a situated or ecological approach to cognition, we are able to assess the significance of the Web from the perspective of research into embodied, extended, embedded, social and collective cognition. The results of this analysis help to reshape the interdisciplinary configuration of Web Science, expanding its theoretical and empirical remit to include the disciplines of both cognitive science and the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

During emerging public health crises, both policymakers and members of the public are looking to scientific experts to provide guidance. Even in cases where there are significant uncertainties, there is pressure for experts to “speak with one voice” to avoid confusion, allow officials to make evidence-based decisions rapidly, and encourage public support for such decisions. This can lead experts to engage in masking of information about the state of the science or regarding assumptions involved in policy recommendations. Although experts (...) might have good reasons for masking disagreements, uncertainties, or assumptions when offering policy advice, we argue that this strategy can result in epistemic harms. Using the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, we show that public health authorities masked two types of information necessary for laypersons to evaluate public health recommendations: (1) experts’ disagreements about the scientific evidence and (2) the role of values in making inferences from the science to policy positions. We contend that this resulted in epistemic harms against laypeople that provide a pro tanto case against masking information. We further argue that when the science is in flux and policies need to be implemented despite significant uncertainties, there is an all-things-considered case against masking the types of information discussed. (shrink)

As a working hypothesis for philosophy of science, the unity of science thesis has been decisively challenged in all its standard formulations; it cannot be assumed that the sciences presuppose an orderly world, that they are united by the goal of systematically describing and explaining this order, or that they rely on distinctively scientific methodologies which, properly applied, produce domain-specific results that converge on a single coherent and comprehensive system of knowledge. I first delineate the scope of arguments (...) against global unity theses. However implausible old-style global unity theses may now seem, I argue that unifying strategies of a more local and contingent nature do play an important role in scientific inquiry. This is particularly clear in archaeology where, to establish evidential claims of any kind, practitioners must exploit a range of inter-field and inter-theory connections. At the same time, the robustness of these evidential claims depends on significant disunity between the sciences from which archaeologists draw background assumptions and auxiliary hypotheses. This juxtaposition of unity with disunity poses a challenge to standard positions in the debate about scientific unity. (shrink)

Kevin Elliott and others separate two common arguments for the legitimacy of societal values in scientific reasoning as the gap and the error arguments. This article poses two questions: How are these two arguments related, and what can we learn from their interrelation? I contend that we can better understand the error argument as nested within the gap because the error is a limited case of the gap with narrower features. Furthermore, this nestedness provides philosophers with conceptual tools for analyzing (...) more robustly how values pervade science. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to discuss some possible connections between philosophical proposals about the social organisation of science and developments towards a greater democratisation of science policy. I suggest that there are important similarities between one approach to objectivity in philosophy of science—Helen Longino’s account of objectivity as freedom from individual biases achieved through interaction of a variety of perspectives—and some ideas about the epistemic benefits of wider representation of various groups’ perspectives in science (...) policy, as analysed by Mark Brown. Given these similarities, I suggest that they allow one to approach developments in science policy as if one of their aims were epistemic improvement that can be recommended on the basis of the philosophical account; analyses of political developments inspired by these ideas about the benefits of inclusive dialogue can then be used for understanding the possibility to implement a philosophical proposal for improving the objectivity of science in practice. Outlining this suggestion, I also discuss the possibility of important differences between the developments in the two spheres and show how the concern about the possible divergence of politically motivated and epistemically motivated changes may be mitigated. In order to substantiate further the suggestion I make, I discuss one example of a development where politically motivated and epistemically motivated changes converge in practice—the development of professional ethics in American archaeology as analysed by Alison Wylie. I suggest that analysing such specific developments and getting involved with them can be one of the tasks for philosophy of science. In the concluding part of the paper I discuss how this approach to philosophy of science is related to a number of arguments about a more politically relevant philosophy of science. (shrink)

The Comprehensibility of the Universe puts forward a radically new conception of science. According to the orthodox conception, scientific theories are accepted and rejected impartially with respect to evidence, no permanent assumption being made about the world independently of the evidence. Nicholas Maxwell argues that this orthodox view is untenable. He urges that in its place a new orthodoxy is needed, which sees science as making a hierarchy of metaphysical assumptions about the comprehensibility and knowability of the universe, (...) these assumptions asserting less and less as one ascends the hierarchy. This view has significant implications: that it is part of scientific knowledge that the universe is physically comprehensible; that metaphysics and philosophy are central to scientific knowledge; that science possesses a rational, if fallible, method of discovery; that a new understanding of scientific method and rationality is required. Maxwell argues that this new conception makes possible a natural resolution of long-standing philosophical problems about science, regarding simplicity, induction, and progress. His goal is the reform not just of the philosophy of science but of science itself, and the healing of the rift between the two. (shrink)

I examine some of the key scientific pre-commitments of modern psychology, and argue that their adoption has the unintended consequence of rendering a purely psychological analysis of mind indistinguishable from a purely biological treatment. And, since these pre-commitments sanction an “authority of the biological”, explanation of phenomena traditionally considered the purview of psychological analysis is fully subsumed under the biological. I next evaluate the epistemic warrant of these pre-commitments and suggest there are good reasons to question their applicability to psychological (...) science. I conclude that experiential aspects of reality give us reason to remain open to the need for psychological explanation in the treatment of mind. (shrink)

After raising some minor philosophical points about Kevin Elliott’s A Tapestry of Values (2017), I argue that we should expand on the themes raised in the book and that philosophers of science need to pay as much attention to the loom of science (i.e., the institutional structures which guide the pursuit of science) as the tapestry of science. The loom of science includes such institutional aspects as patents, funding sources, and evaluation regimes that shape how (...) science gets pursued, and that attending to these aspects will enable us to provide more robust guidance on the values that infuse the tapestry of science. (shrink)

We offer philosophical motivations for a method we call Virtual World Cognitive Science (VW CogSci), in which researchers use virtual embodied agents that are embedded in virtual worlds to explore questions in the field of Cognitive Science. We focus on questions about mental and linguistic representation and the ways that such computational modeling can add rigor to philosophical thought experiments, as well as the terminology used in the scientific study of such representations. We find that this method forces (...) researchers to take a god’s-eye view when describing dynamical relationships between entities in minds and entities in an environment in a way that eliminates the need for problematic talk of belief and concept types, such as the belief that cats are silly, and the concept CAT, while preserving belief and concept tokens in individual cognizers’ minds. We conclude with some further key advantages of VW CogSci for the scientific study of mental and linguistic representation and for Cognitive Science more broadly. (shrink)

Contents I Introduction II Subalternation and Theology III Theology and Dogmatic Declarations IV The Mixed Principles of Theology V Virtual Revelation: The Unity of Theology VI Theology as a Natural Science VII Theology’s Certitude VIII Conclusion Notes Bibliography All the contents are fully attributable to the author, Doctor Victor Salas. Should you wish to get this text republished, get in touch with the author or the editorial committee of the Studia Poinsotiana. Insofar as possible, we will be happy to (...) broker your contact. (shrink)

An historically important conception of the unity of science is explanatory reductionism, according to which the unity of science is achieved by explaining all laws of science in terms of their connection to microphysical law. There is, however, a separate tradition that advocates the unity of science. According to that tradition, the unity of science consists of the coordination of diverse fields of science, none of which is taken to have privileged epistemic status. This (...) alternate conception has roots in Otto Neurath’s notion of unified science. In this paper, I develop a version of the coordination approach to unity that is inspired by Neurath’s views. The resulting conception of the unity of science achieves aims similar to those of explanatory reductionism, but does so in a radically different way. As a result, it is immune to the criticisms facing explanatory reductionism. This conception of unity is also importantly different from the view that science is disunified, and I conclude by demonstrating how it accords better with scientific practice than do conceptions of the disunity of science. (shrink)

This chapter examines the pragmatist approach to cognition and experience and provides some of the conceptual background to the “pragmatic turn” currently underway in cognitive science. Classical pragmatists wrote extensively on cognition from a naturalistic perspective, and many of their views are compatible with contemporary pragmatist approaches such as enactivist, extended, and embodied-Bayesian approaches to cognition. Three principles of a pragmatic approach to cognition frame the discussion: First, thinking is structured by the interaction of an organism with its environment. (...) Second, cognition develops via exploratory inference, which remains a core cognitive ability throughout the life cycle. Finally, inquiry/problem solving begins with genuinely irritating doubts that arise in a situation and is carried out by exploratory inference. (shrink)

The relationship between economics and the philosophy of natural science has changed substantially during the last few years. What was once exclusively a one-way relationship from philosophy to economics now seems to be much closer to bilateral exchange. The purpose of this paper is to examine this new relationship. First, I document the change. Second, I examine the situation within contemporary philosophy of science in order to explain why economics might have its current appeal. Third, I consider some (...) of the issues that might jeopardize the success of this philosophical project. (shrink)

Physicist Percy Bridgman has been taken by Heather Douglas to be an exemplar defender of an untenable value-free ideal for science. This picture is complicated by a detailed study of Bridgman's philosophical views of the relation between science and society. The normative autonomy of science, a version of the value-free ideal, is defended. This restriction on the provenance of permissible values in science is given a basis in Bridgman's broader philosophical commitments, most importantly, his view that (...) science is primarily an individual commitment to a set of epistemic norms and values. Considerations of external moral or social values are not, on this view, intrinsic to scientific practice, though they have a broader pragmatic significance. What Bridgman takes as the proper relation between science and society is shown through analysis of his many writings on the topic and consideration of his rarely remarked upon involvement in the most problematic example of "Big Science" of his day: the atomic bomb. A reevaluation of Bridgman's views provides a unique characterization of what is at stake in the values in science debate: the normative autonomy of science. (shrink)

Feminist theorists have shown that knowledge is embodied in ways that make a difference in science. Intemann properly endorses feminist standpoint theory over Longino’s empiricism, insofar as the former better addresses embodiment. I argue that a pragmatist analysis further improves standpoint theory: Pragmatism avoids the radical subjectivity that otherwise leaves us unable to account for our ability to share scientific knowledge across bodies of different kinds; and it allows us to argue for the inclusion, not just of the knowledge (...) produced from marginalised bodies, but of the marginalised themselves. (shrink)

This book consolidates emerging research on Aristotle's science and ethics in order to explore the extent to which the concepts, methods, and practices he developed for scientific inquiry and explanation are used to investigate moral phenomena. Each chapter shows, in a different way, that Aristotle's ethics is much more like a science than it is typically represented. The upshot of this is twofold. First, uncovering the links between Aristotle's science and ethics promises to open up new and (...) innovative directions for research into his moral philosophy. Second, showing why Aristotle thinks ethics can never be fully assimilated to the model of science will help shed new light on his views about the limits of science. The volume thus promises to make a significant contribution to our understanding of the epistemological, metaphysical, and psychological foundations of Aristotle's ethics. (shrink)

From his earliest work forward, phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty attempted to develop a new ontology of nature that would avoid the antinomies of realism and idealism by showing that nature has its own intrinsic sense which is prior to reflection. The key to this new ontology was the concept of form, which he appropriated from Gestalt psychology. However, Merleau-Ponty struggled to give a positive characterization of the phenomenon of form which would clarify its ontological status. Evan Thompson has recently taken up (...) Merleau-Ponty’s ontology as the basis for a new, “enactive” approach to cognitive science, synthesizing it with concepts from dynamic systems theory and Francisco Varela’s theory of autopoiesis. However, Thompson does not quite succeed in resolving the ambiguities in Merleau-Ponty’s account of form. This article builds on an indication from Thompson in order to propose a new account of form as asymmetry, and of the genesis of form in nature as symmetry-breaking. These concepts help us to escape the antinomies of Modern thought by showing how nature is the autoproduction of a sense which can only be known by an embodied perceiver. (shrink)

This paper surveys some of the grounding literature searching for points of contact between theories of ground and science. I find that there are some places where a would-be naturalistic grounding theorist can draw inspiration. I synthesize a list of recommendations for how science may be put to use in theories of ground. I conclude that the prospects for naturalizing the metaphysics of ground are bright.

In this paper, three theories of progress and the aim of science are discussed: the theory of progress as increasing explanatory power, advocated by Popper in The logic of scientific discovery ; the theory of progress as approximation to the truth, introduced by Popper in Conjectures and refutations ; the theory of progress as a steady increase of competing alternatives, which Feyerabend put forward in the essay “Reply to criticism. Comments on Smart, Sellars and Putnam” and defended as late (...) as the last edition of Against method. It is argued that, contrary to what Feyerabend scholars have predominantly assumed, Feyerabend's changing attitude towards falsificationism—which he often advocated at the beginning of his career, and vociferously attacked in the 1970s and 1980s—must be explained by taking into account not only Feyerabend's very peculiar view of the aim of science, but also Popper's changing account of progress. (shrink)

Hume was a cognitive scientist of religion avant la lettre. His Natural History of Religion (1757 [2007]) locates the origins of religion in human nature. This paper explores similarities between some of his ideas and the cognitive science of religion, the multidisciplinary study of the psychological origins of religious beliefs. It also considers Hume’s distinction between two questions about religion: its foundation in reason (the domain of natural theology and philosophy of religion) and its origin in human nature (the (...) domain of cognitive science of religion). (shrink)

I critically analyze Kevin Elliott’s A Tapestry of Values in order to tease out his views on the nature and status of values or value judgments in the text. I show there is a tension in Elliott’s view that is closely connected to a major lacuna in the philosophical literature on values in science: the need for a better theory of values.

The creative aspect of language use provides a set of phenomena that a science of language must explain. It is the “central fact to which any signi- ficant linguistic theory must address itself” and thus “a theory of language that neglects this ‘creative’ aspect is of only marginal interest” (Chomsky 1964: 7–8). Therefore, the form and explanatory depth of linguistic science is restricted in accordance with this aspect of language. In this paper, the implications of the creative aspect (...) of language use for a scientific theory of language will be discussed, noting the possible further implications for a science of the mind. It will be argued that a corollary of the creative aspect of language use is that a science of language can study the mechanisms that make language use possible, but that such a science cannot explain how these mechanisms enter into human action in the form of language use. (shrink)

We report the results of an exploratory study that examines the judgments of climate scientists, climate policy experts, astrophysicists, and non-experts (N = 3367) about the factors that contribute to the creation and persistence of disagreement within climate science and astrophysics and about how one should respond to expert disagreement. We found that, as compared to non-experts, climate experts believe that within climate science (i) there is less disagreement about climate change, (ii) methodological factors play less of a (...) role in generating disagreements, (iii) fewer personal or institutional biases influence climate research, and (iv) there is more agreement about which methods should be used to examine relevant phenomena we also observed that the uniquely American political context predicted experts’ judgments about some of these factors. We also found that, in regard to disagreements concerning cosmic ray physics, and commensurate with the greater inherent uncertainty and data lacunae in their field, astrophysicists working on cosmic rays were generally more willing to acknowledge expert disagreement, more open to the idea that a set of data can have multiple valid interpretations, and generally less quick to dismiss someone articulating a non-standard view as non-expert, than climate scientists were in regard to climate science. (shrink)

The paper describes the author's experience in using the history of science in teaching physics to science teachers. lt was found that history becomes more useful to teachers when explicitly combined with 'investigative' experimentation, which, in turn. can benefit from various uses of the history of science.

Scientific method interests the linguist not only as it interests every scientific worker, but also in a special way, because the scientist, as part of his method, utters certain very peculiar speech-forms. The linguist naturally divides scientific activity into two phases: the scientist performs “handling” actions and utters speech. The speech-forms which the scientist utters are peculiar both in their form and in their effect upon hearers.

It has sometimes been suggested that the so-called new theory of reference (NTR) would provide an alternative picture of meaning and reference which avoids the unwelcome consequences of the meaning-variance thesis and incommesurability. However, numerous philosophers of science have been quite critical towards the idea and NTR in general. It is argued that many of them have an over-simplified and, in part, mistaken understanding of what NTR amounts to. It is submitted that NTR, when correctly understood, can be an (...) important ingredient in the realist toolkit for defending the rationality of science. (shrink)

This piece explores the origins of science fiction in philosophical speculation about the size of the universe, the existence of other solar systems and other galaxies, and the possibility of alien life. Science fiction helps us to grapple with the dizzying possibilities that a vast universe affords, by allowing our imagination to fill in the details.

The article evaluates the Domain Postulate of the Classical Model of Science and the related Aristotelian prohibition rule on kind-crossing as interpretative tools in the history of the development of mathematics into a general science of quantities. Special reference is made to Proclus’ commentary to Euclid’s first book of Elements , to the sixteenth century translations of Euclid’s work into Latin and to the works of Stevin, Wallis, Viète and Descartes. The prohibition rule on kind-crossing formulated by Aristotle (...) in Posterior analytics is used to distinguish between conceptions that share the same name but are substantively different: for example the search for a broader genus including all mathematical objects; the search for a common character of different species of mathematical objects; and the effort to treat magnitudes as numbers. (shrink)

Margaret Atwood and David Suzuki are two of the most prominent Canadian public ‎intellectuals ‎involved in the global warming debate. They both argue that anthropogenic global ‎warming is ‎occurring, warn against its grave consequences, and urge governments and the ‎public to take ‎immediate, decisive, extensive, and profound measures to prevent it. They differ, ‎however, in the ‎reasons and evidence they provide in support of their position. While Suzuki ‎stresses the scientific ‎evidence in favour of the global warming theory and the (...) scientific ‎consensus around it, Atwood is ‎suspicious of the objectivity of science, and draws on an ‎idiosyncratic neo-Malthusian theory of ‎human development. Their implicit views ‎about the cognitive authority of science may be ‎identified with Critical Contextual Empiricism ‎and Feminist Standpoint Epistemology, respectively, ‎both of which face difficulties with ‎providing solid grounds for the position they advocate.‎ ‎. (shrink)

A feminist standpoint addresses the ideals or norms and attendant practices involved in science and knowledge with a mind to lived experiences of oppression. That such matters of social context and awareness of that context influence the ability of individual people to know their worlds constitutes the Situated Knowledge Thesis (Intemann 2016; Wylie 2003). Situated knowledges provide the evidence and inspiration for the central epistemological tenet of feminist standpoint theory. Individuals and liberatory communities obtain the epistemic advantage of a (...) standpoint through an Outside- In Process of thinking, drawing into science and knowledge the “outside” values and experiences of marginalized people. Outside- in thinking manifests both as a theory and a methodology in feminist philosophy of science. (shrink)

The paper begins by acknowledging that weakened systematic precision in phenomenology has made its application in philosophy of science obscure and ineffective. The defining aspirations of early transcendental phenomenology are, however, believed to be important ones. A path is therefore explored that attempts to show how certain recent developments in the logic of self-reference fulfill in a clear and more rigorous fashion in the context of philosophy of science certain of the early hopes of phenomenologists. The resulting dual (...) approach is applied to several problems in the philosophy of science: on the one hand, to proposed rejections of scientific objectivity, to the doctrine of radical meaning variance, and to the Quine-Duhem thesis, and or. the other, to an analysis of hidden variable theory in quantum mechanics. (shrink)

In this article I take an unusual starting point from which to argue for a unified cognitive science, namely a position defined by what is sometimes called the ‘life-mind continuity thesis’. Accordingly, rather than taking a widely accepted starting point for granted and using it in order to propose answers to some well defined questions, I must first establish that the idea of life-mind continuity can amount to a proper starting point at all. To begin with, I therefore assess (...) the conceptual tools which are available to construct a theory of mind on this basis. By drawing on insights from a variety of disciplines, especially from a combination of existential phenomenology and organism-centered biology, I argue that mind can indeed be conceived as rooted in life, but only if we accept at the same time that social interaction plays a constitutive role for our cognitive capacities. (shrink)

This study investigated the experiences of Physical Science teachers who were not specialized in their field. Twelve out-of-field Physical Science teachers, selected via purposive sampling from the Schools Division of Baybay City, participated in the transcendental phenomenological study. For data collection and subsequent thematic analysis using Colaizzi's seven steps, in-depth semi-structured interviews were utilized. Five metaphors describe the study's findings in the form of emergent themes. The first theme is the Chameleon teacher described as an adaptable teacher, analogous (...) to a chameleon that alters its coloration to blend into its surroundings. Developing a resilient mindset is the second aspect, symbolized by the Phoenix Within, which signifies the capacity to triumph over challenges. Thirdly, the Symphony of Knowledge symbolizes teachers' and learners' synergistic partnership and active participation throughout the educational journey. The fourth theme, the Gardener of Knowledge, compares an educator to a conscientious gardener who nurtures their development and that of their students. Crossing Unfamiliar Territory is another theme that examines Physical Science teachers' difficulties when instructing outside their field. As a result, the experiences of these teachers mitigate the issue at hand, thus positively impacting the student's academic development. Sustaining resilience in the face of adversity was inexplicably enhanced through implementing fostering strategies and cultivating a positive mindset. Similar to the adverse encounters, they must confront the obstacles posed by their lack of pedagogical expertise, content knowledge, and struggles. The favorable and unfavorable experiences of physical science teachers who did not specialize in their field provided them professional development opportunities. They underscored the value of maintaining a positive outlook. (shrink)

This study examines the conflation of terms such as “knowledge” and “understanding” in peer-reviewed literature, and tests the hypothesis that little current research clearly distinguishes between importantly distinct epistemic states. Two sets of data are presented from papers published in the journal Public Understanding of Science. In the first set, the digital text analysis tool, Voyant, is used to analyze all papers published in 2014 for the use of epistemic success terms. In the second set of data, all papers (...) published in Public Understanding of Science from 2010–2015 are systematically analyzed to identify instances in which epistemic states are empirically measured. The results indicate that epistemic success terms are inconsistently defined, and that measurement of understanding, in particular, is rarely achieved in public understanding of science studies. We suggest that more diligent attention to measuring understanding, as opposed to mere knowledge, will increase efficacy of scientific outreach and communication efforts. (shrink)

William Whewell raised a series of objections concerning John Stuart Mill’s philosophy of science which suggested that Mill’s views were not properly informed by the history of science or by adequate reflection on scientific practices. The aim of this paper is to revisit and evaluate this incisive Whewellian criticism of Mill’s views by assessing Mill’s account of Michael Faraday’s discovery of electrical induction. The historical evidence demonstrates that Mill’s reconstruction is an inadequate reconstruction of this historical episode and (...) the scientific practices Faraday employed. But a study of Faraday’s research also raises some questions about Whewell’s characterization of this discovery. Thus, this example provides an opportunity to reconsider the debate between Whewell and Mill concerning the role of the sciences in the development of an adequate philosophy of scientific methodology.Keywords: Inductivism; Experiment; Theory; Methodology; Electromagnetism. (shrink)

This paper is devoted to a comparison between Ernst Mach's and Friedrich Nietzsche's anti-metaphysical approach to scientific and philosophical concepts. By making reference to Mach’s early essay on the conservation of energy (Die Geschichte und die Wurzel des Satzes von der Erhaltung der Arbeit, 1872), I argue that Nietzsche shares with him the idea that the concepts we adopt are only useful fictions developed during the history of humankind and its culture. This idea is fundamental for the development of modern (...) science, since Mach’s epistemology contributed to give up the mechanistic (Newtonian) view of physics. (shrink)

When solving a complex problem in a group, should group members always choose the best available solution that they are aware of? In this paper, I build simulation models to show that, perhaps surprisingly, a group of agents who individually randomly follow a better available solution than their own can end up outperforming a group of agents who individually always follow the best available solution. This result has implications for the feminist philosophy of science and social epistemology.

The issue of whether science is, or can be, value-free has been debated for more than a century. The idea of value-free science is of course as old as science itself, and so are the arguments against this idea. Plato defended it..

Abstract: Brentano’s conception of scientific philosophy had a strong influence on his students and on the intellectual atmosphere of Vienna in the late nineteenth century. The aim of this article is to expose Brentano’s conception and to contrast his views with that of two traditions he is said to have considerably influenced: phenomenology and analytic philosophy. I will shed light on the question of how and to what extent Brentano’s conception of philosophy as a rigorous science has had an (...) impact on these two traditions. The discussion will show that both took their liberties in the interpretation of the thesis, a move that allowed them to liberate themselves from Brentano’s inheritance and to fully develop their own philosophical positions. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis paper elaborates a conception of the unity of science that emerges in the context of Dilthey’s well-known treatment of the distinction between the Naturwissenschaften and the Geisteswissenschaften. Dilthey’s account of the epistemological foundations of the Geisteswissenschaften presupposes, this paper argues, their continuity with the natural sciences. The unity of the two domains has both a psychological and a biological basis. Whereas the psychological functions at work in scientific thinking, the articulation of which is the task of Dilthey’s proposed (...) science of ‘descriptive and analytic psychology’, are common to both kinds of sciences, their ontological ground consists in the embodied and environmentally situated context of human beings, and is expressed in Dilthey’s central concept of ‘life’. Accordingly, this paper develops the shared biopsychological foundations of the epistemology of the natural and human sciences from Dilthey’s writings in the 1880s and 1890s. Dilthey’s conception of unity, furthermore, has implications for philosophy’s orientation towards the special sciences. Thus, in conclusion, this paper applies the biopsychological account to sketch an outline of Dilthey’s historicist method in the philosophy of science, and considers its similarities and differences with a contemporary approach in ‘historical epistemology’. (shrink)

A qualitatively new, much more liberal and efficient organisation of science is proposed and justified in connection with emerging international science structures, such as the European Research Council, and growing debates about further role and development of fundamental science. Although the ideas are expressed in terms of "common sense" arguments accessible to a "general" audience, they are based on the rigorous analysis within the recently advanced "universal concept of complexity", which can be applied, due to its universality, (...) also to science structure itself considered as a complex system. We demonstrate thus the application of this ultimate criterion of completeness of a system of knowledge (and viability of related intelligence) that should be able to derive consistent, provable, and practically relevant conclusions about its own purpose, sense, evolution, and current state. (shrink)

50 years after its introduction, brain death remains controversial among scholars. The debates focus on one question: is brain death a good criterion for determining death? This question has been answered from various perspectives: medical, metaphysical, ethical, and legal or political. Most authors either defend the criterion as it is, propose some minor or major revisions, or advocate abandoning it and finding better solutions to the problems that brain death was intended to solve when it was introduced. Here I plead (...) for a different approach that has been overlooked in the literature: the philosophy of science approach. Some scholars claim that human death is a matter of fact, a biological phenomenon whose occurrence can be determined empirically, based on science. We should take this claim seriously, whether we agree with it or not. The question is: how do we know that human death is a scientific matter of fact? Taking the philosophy of science approach means, among other things, examining how the determination of human death became an object of scientific inquiry, exploring the nature of the brain death criterion itself, and analysing the meaning of its core concepts such as “irreversibility” and “functions”. (shrink)