In Plato’s Protagoras, Socrates argues that ‘the many’ are confused about the experience they describe as ‘being overcome by pleasure’. They think the cause is ‘something other than ignorance’. He argues it follows from what they believe that the cause is ‘ignorance’ and ‘false belief’. I show that his argument depends on a premise he does not introduce but they should deny: that when someone is overcome by pleasure, the desire stems from a belief. To explain why Plato does not (...) make Socrates introduce this premise, the account I construct is speculative. It starts from the assumption that Plato is thinking through an understanding of human beings and what they must do to live good lives that he takes the historical Socrates to set out. (shrink)

In the Phaedo, to explain why the philosopher lives in the unusually ascetic way he does, Socrates explains what someone realizes when philosophy takes possession of his soul and how he changes his behavior on the basis of this information. This paper considers the conception of belief the character uses in this explanation and whether it is the same as the conception Michael Frede thinks the historical Socrates is likely to have held and that the Stoics much later incorporated into (...) their doctrine of practice. (shrink)

In Plato’s Gorgias, Socrates says to Callicles that “your love of the people, existing in your soul, stands against me, but if we closely examine these same matters often and in a better way, you will be persuaded” (513c7–d1). I argue for an interpretation that explains how Socrates understands Callicles’s love of the people to stand against him and why he believes examination often and in a better way will persuade Callicles.

A brief dissertation on what knowledge is.

A short dissertation on a definition for knowledge. Although similar to binary opposition, this treatise follows the logic to conclude that knowledge is finite.

Contemporary developments in economicmethodology have produced a vibrant agenda ofcompeting positions. These include, amongothers, constructivism, critical realism andrhetoric, with each contributing to the Realistvs. Pragmatism debate in the philosophies of thesocial sciences. A major development in theneo-pragmatist contribution to economicmethodology has been Quine's pragmatic assaulton the dogmas of empiricism, which are nowclearly acknowledged within contemporaryeconomic methodology. This assault isencapsulated in the celebrated Duhem-Quinethesis, which according to a number ofcontemporary leading philosophers of economics,poses a particularly serious methodologicalproblem for economics. This problem, (...) asreflected in Hausman's analysis, consists ofthe inability of economics to learn fromexperience, thereby subverting the capacity totest economic theories. In this paper wedispute this position. Our argument is basedon a combination of Quine's holism with VanFraassen's constructive empiricism, especiallythe latter's analysis of empirical adequacy andhis pragmatic approach to explanation. Theresulting reorientation of economic methodologyrestores the capacity of economics to learnfrom experience and reinstates the imperativeof developing alternatives to orthodoxtheorizing in economics. (shrink)

The role of evolutionary theory at the origin of life is an extensively debated topic. The origin and early development of life is usually separated into a prebiotic phase and a protocellular phase, ultimately leading to the Last Universal Common Ancestor. Most likely, the Last Universal Common Ancestor was subject to Darwinian evolution, but the question remains to what extent Darwinian evolution applies to the prebiotic and protocellular phases. In this review, we reflect on the current status of evolutionary theory (...) in origins of life research by bringing together philosophy of science, evolutionary biology, and empirical research in the origins field. We explore the various ways in which evolutionary theory has been extended beyond biology; we look at how these extensions apply to the prebiotic development of (proto)metabolism; and we investigate how the terminology from evolutionary theory is currently being employed in state-of-the-art origins of life research. In doing so, we identify some of the current obstacles to an evolutionary account of the origins of life, as well as open up new avenues of research. (shrink)

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska, USA, conducted a species status assessment for a petition to list the Alexander Archipelago wolf (Canis lupus ligoni) under the Endangered Species Act in 2020-2022. This federal undertaking could not be adequately prepared without including the knowledge of Indigenous People who have a deep cultural connection with the subspecies. Our objective is to communicate the authoritative expertise and voice of the Indigenous People who partnered on the project by demonstrating how their (...) knowledge contributed to the species status assessment. The Indigenous knowledge applied in the assessment is the cultural and intellectual property of those who have shared it. We employed rapid appraisal research to expeditiously develop a preliminary and qualitative understanding of Indigenous People's cultural and ecological knowledge of Alexander Archipelago wolves. We used semi-directed interviewing and inductive coding from grounded theory for text analysis. Indigenous knowledge contributed to the agency's understanding of the Alexander Archipelago wolf in Southeast Alaska and helped the agency with their classification decision. Indigenous research partners explained the rich cultural significance and position of wolves in Tlingit society and described human–wolf relationships and ecological interactions. The agency used a single-species assessment approach based in species ecology and conservation biology, whereas the Indigenous wolf experts applied a multi-species, community ecology approach based in a sociocultural context of balance and respect. The Indigenous wolf experts successfully addressed knowledge gaps identified by the agency. The partners were challenged by a short regulatory timeframe that did not allow for comprehensive study of Indigenous knowledge and constrained review and feedback by Indigenous experts. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service learned that its assessment framework was not designed to account for an Indigenous worldview. To level the playing field, the agency and Indigenous experts should discuss how to co-develop an assessment framework that equitably applies both perspectives. (shrink)

Ever since its inception, the theory of evolution has been reified into an “-ism”: Darwinism. While biologists today tend to shy away from the term in their research, the term is still actively used in the broader academic and societal contexts. What exactly is Darwinism, and how precisely are its various uses and abuses related to the scientific theory of evolution? Some call for limiting the meaning of the term “Darwinism” to its scientific context; others call for its abolition; yet (...) others claim the term refers to a myth-like story. In this paper we propose a conceptually grounded overview of the term. We show how the scientific dimension of Darwinism feeds into, and is influenced by, guises of Darwinism as a methodology and as an ethically and politically charged “worldview”. The full meaning of Darwinism, as well as how this meaning has changed over time, can only be understood through the complex interaction between these three dimensions. (shrink)

A key source of support for the view that challenging people’s beliefs about free will may undermine moral behavior is two classic studies by Vohs and Schooler (2008). These authors reported that exposure to certain prompts suggesting that free will is an illusion increased cheating behavior. In the present paper, we report several attempts to replicate this influential and widely cited work. Over a series of five studies (sample sizes of N = 162, N = 283, N = 268, N (...) = 804, N = 982) (four preregistered) we tested the relationship between (1) anti-free-will prompts and free will beliefs and (2) free will beliefs and immoral behavior. Our primary task was to closely replicate the findings from Vohs and Schooler (2008) using the same or highly similar manipulations and measurements as the ones used in their original studies. Our efforts were largely unsuccessful. We suggest that manipulating free will beliefs in a robust way is more difficult than has been implied by prior work, and that the proposed link with immoral behavior may not be as consistent as previous work suggests. (shrink)

The most contentious tenet of Husserl's phenomenology of feelings is his conclusion that there is an analogy between axiological reason and theoretical reason. Simply, Husserl asserts that the axiological validation of feelings is analogical to the theoretical validation of judgments. While the scholarship has debated the merits of Husserl's analogy over the last 120 years, this paper presents a new accurate interpretation, because it is the first to highlight how Husserl develops this analogy by most often comparing the fulfillment of (...) judgments to the fulfillment of wish feeling intentions. Specifically, I examine how Husserl analogizes wish fulfillment to theoretical fulfillment at different times; in the 1901 Logical Investigations, in his 1908 Lectures on Ethics, and in 1910 manuscripts from Studien zur Struktur des Bewusstseins. In light of this original interpretation, I conclude by arguing – contra popular readings – that Husserl does not over‐intellectualize feelings and their validation. (shrink)

When some P implies some Q, this should have some impact on what attitudes we take to P and Q. In other words: logical consequence has a normative import. I use this idea, recently explored by a number of scholars, as a stepping stone to a bolder view: that relations of logical consequence can be identified with norms on our propositional attitudes, or at least that our talk of logical consequence can be explained in terms of such norms. I investigate (...) the prospects of such a cognitive norm account of logical consequence. I go over the challenges involved in finding a plausible bridge principle connecting logical consequence to cognitive norms, in particular a biconditional principle that gives us not only necessary but sufficient conditions for logical consequence in terms of norms on propositional attitudes. Then, on the assumption that an adequate norm can be found, I consider what the philosophical merits of such a cognitive norm account would be, and what theoretical commitments it would generate. (shrink)

We discuss abstraction principles in the context of modal and temporal logic. It is argued that abstractionism conflicts with both serious presentism and serious actualism.

What determines whether an object is an artwork? In this paper I consider what I will call ‘social’ theories of art, according to which the arthood of objects depends in some way on the art-related social practices that we have. Though such a dependence claim is plausible in principle, social theories of art tend to unpack the determining link between artworks and social practices in terms of intentional relations between the objects in question and the people involved in the relevant (...) practices. This intentionalism has unappealing upshots. Drawing on two-dimensional approaches in social ontology, I show how social theories of art can be done differently, improving their prospects. (shrink)

In this dialogue Thomas A and Jeito intuitively discuss the difference between a miracle and a fact. They conclude that the doings of God aren’t miracles.

REMARKS ON EVOLUTION AND TIME-SCALES, Graham Cairns-Smith; HODGSON'S BLACK BOX, Thomas Clark; DO HODGSON'S PROPOSITIONS UNIQUELY CHARACTERIZE FREE WILL?, Ravi Gomatam; WHAT SHOULD WE RETAIN FROM A PLAIN PERSON'S CONCEPT OF FREE WILL?, Gilberto Gomes; ISOLATING DISPARATE CHALLENGES TO HODGSON'S ACCOUNT OF FREE WILL, Liberty Jaswal; FREE AGENCY AND LAWS OF NATURE, Robert Kane; SCIENCE VERSUS REALIZATION OF VALUE, NOT DETERMINISM VERSUS CHOICE, Nicholas Maxwell; COMMENTS ON HODGSON, J.J.C. Smart; THE VIEW FROM WITHIN, Sean Spence; COMMENTARY ON HODGSON, Henry (...) Stapp. (shrink)

In the Summa Theologiae, I, q. 5, art. 4, Thomas argues that the good has the ratio of the final cause.1 This thesis is problematic because there seems to be a difference between the definitions and uses of “good” and “final cause.” If Thomas is arguing that the good and the final cause are in no way distinct, then why might we plausibly describe something as good even if it has no causal role? If not, then what does (...) it mean for the ratio of goodness to be the same as that of final causality? Later Thomists disagree over the precise relationship between goodness and final causality, and their disagreement is reflected in their different interpretations of the argument and conclusion of this text. Few hold that Thomas merely means to say that goodness is the fundament of being an end, or that being an end is something like a proper passion of goodness. But they disagree over what the additional connection between the two might be. (shrink)

According to general wisdom, Carnap's quasianalysis is an ingenious but definitively flawed approach to epistemology and philosophy of science. I argue that this assessment is mistaken. Rather, Carnapian quasianalysis can be reconstructed as a special case of a general theory of structural representation. This enables us to exploit some interesting analogies of quasianalysis with the representational theory of measurement. It is shown how Goodman's well-known objections against the quasianalytical approach may be defused in the new framework. As an application, I (...) sketch how the thesis of empirical underdetermination of theories may be elucidated in the framework of quasianalysis. (shrink)

Would compulsory treatment or vaccination for Covid-19 be justified? In England, there would be significant legal barriers to it. However, we offer a conditional ethical argument in favour of allowing compulsory treatment and vaccination, drawing on an ethical comparison with external constraints—such as quarantine, isolation and ‘lockdown’—that have already been authorised to control the pandemic. We argue that, if the permissive English approach to external constraints for Covid-19 has been justified, then there is a case for a similarly permissive approach (...) to compulsory medical interventions. (shrink)

Using a model of cognition as extended and enactive, we examine the role of materiality in making minds as exemplified by lithics and writing, forms associated with conceptual thought and meta-awareness of conceptual domains. We address ways in which brain functions may change in response to interactions with material forms, the attributes of material forms that may cause such change, and the spans of time required for neurofunctional reorganization. We also offer three hypotheses for investigating co-influence and change in cognition (...) and material culture. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 785793. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose a solution to the problem of singular propositions and non-present objects within the view of presentism- that is, how can we refer to past objects if presentism claims only objects in the present exist and that objects outside of the present do not exist, if an object does not exist, how can we refer to it? I will propose that past objects which once did exist have had a lasting effect on the present which allows (...) us, in the present, to refer to those objects indirectly. These effects, which exist in the present and cannot come to be without a cause, allow us to refer to the past object as the cause of those effects. The effect of the past object on the present means that the cause (the past object) has not entirely gone out of existence allowing us to refer to the cause or the past object in the present. (shrink)

The work of Thomas White represents a systematic attempt to combine the best of the new science of the seventeenth century with the best of Aristotelian tradition. This attempt earned him the criticism of Hobbes and the praise of Leibniz, but today, most of his attempts to navigate between traditions remain to be explored in detail. This paper does so for his ontology of accidents. It argues that his criticism of accidents in the category of location as entities over (...) and above substances was likely aimed at Francisco Suárez, and shows how White’s worries about the analysis of location were linked with his broader cosmological views. White rejects real qualities, but holds that the quantity of a substance is somehow distinct from its bearer. This reveals a common ground with some of his scholastic interlocutors, but lays bare a deep disagreement with thinkers like Descartes on the nature of matter. (shrink)

This paper examines the differences between moralist, realist, and pragmatist approaches to political legitimacy by articulating their largely implicit views of judgment. Three claims are advanced. First, the salient opposition among approaches to legitimacy is not between “moralism” and “realism.” Recent realist proposals for rethinking legitimacy share with moralist views a distinctive form, called “normativism”: a quest for knowledge of principles that solve the question of legitimacy. This assumes that judging legitimacy is a matter of applying such principles to a (...) case at hand. Second, neither Rawls nor Habermas is a normativist about political legitimacy. The principles of legitimacy they proffer claim to express rather than adjudicate the legitimacy of a liberal-democratic regime, and thus cannot solve the question of legitimacy at a fundamental level. But perhaps we should question the normativist aspiration to theoretically resolving the problem to begin with. My third claim is that a “pragmatist” approach enables us to rethink political legitimacy more deeply by shifting focus from the articulation of principles to the activity of judging. Implicit in Rawls’s and Habermas’s theories I then find clues towards an alternative account of judgment, in which the question of legitimacy calls not for theoretical resolution but for ongoing practical engagement. (shrink)

This paper accomplishes two goals. First, the essay elucidates Husserl’s descriptions of meaning consciousness from the 1901 Logical Investigations. I examine Husserl’s observations about the three ways we can experience meaning and I discuss his conclusions about the structure of meaning intentions. Second, the paper explores how Husserl reworked that 1901 theory in his 1913/14 Revisions to the Sixth Investigation. I explore how Husserl transformed his descriptions of the three intentions involved in meaningful experience. By doing so, Husserl not only (...) recognized intersubjective communication as the condition of possibility of linguistic meaning acts, but also transformed his account of the structure of both signitive and intuitive acts. In the conclusion, I cash out this analysis, by showing how, on the basis of these new insights, Husserl reconstructs his theory of fulfillment. (shrink)

Public health care interventions—regarding vaccination, obesity, and HIV, for example—standardly take the form of information dissemination across a community. But information networks can vary importantly between different ethnic communities, as can levels of trust in information from different sources. We use data from the Greater Pittsburgh Random Household Health Survey to construct models of information networks for White and Black communities--models which reflect the degree of information contact between individuals, with degrees of trust in information from various sources correlated with (...) positions in that social network. With simple assumptions regarding belief change and social reinforcement, we use those modeled networks to build dynamic agent-based models of how information can be expected to flow and how beliefs can be expected to change across each community. With contrasting information from governmental and religious sources, the results show importantly different dynamic patterns of belief polarization within the two communities. (shrink)

According to the argument from moral disagreement, the existence of widespread or persistent moral disagreement is best explained by, and thus supports, the view that there are no objective moral truths. One of the most common charges against this argument is that it “overgeneralises”: it implausibly forces its proponents to also deny the existence of objective truths about certain matters of physics, history, philosophy, etc. (“companions in guilt” objections) or even about the argument’s own conclusion or its own soundness (“self-defeat” (...) objections). My aim in this article is to provide a detailed clarification and assessment of this overgeneralisation charge. Various (mostly empirical) issues relevant to assessing the above objections have so far not been sufficiently investigated. Nevertheless, there are good reasons to believe that realists have exaggerated the significance of their overgeneralisation charge. Both its companions in guilt and its self-defeat versions likely fail. (shrink)

Instability occurs when the very fact of choosing one particular possible option rather than another affects the expected values of those possible options. In decision theory: An act is stable iff given that it is actually performed, its expected utility is maximal. When there is no stable choice available, the resulting instability can seem to pose a dilemma of practical rationality. A structurally very similar kind of instability, which occurs in cases of anti-expertise, can likewise seem to create dilemmas of (...) epistemic rationality. One possible line of response to such cases of instability, suggested by both Jeffrey (1983) and Sorensen (1987), is to insist that a rational agent can simply refuse to accept that such instability applies to herself in the first place. According to this line of thought it can be rational for a subject to discount even very strong empirical evidence that the anti-expertise condition obtains. I present a new variety of anti-expertise condition where no particular empirical stage-setting is required, since the subject can deduce a priori that an anti-expertise condition obtains. This kind of anti-expertise case is therefore not amenable to the line of response that Jeffrey and Sorensen recommend. (shrink)

This essay comprises a first phenomenological semiotics of ChatGPT. I analyse how we experience the language signs generated by that AI. This task is accomplished in two steps. First, I introduce a conceptual scaffolding for the project, by introducing core tenets of Husserl's semiotics. Second, I mould Husserl's theory to develop my phenomenology of the passive and active consciousness of the language signs composed by ChatGPT. On the one hand, by discussing temporality, I demonstrate that ChatGPT can passively demand me (...) to understand its signs. On the other hand, I show that a conflict arises between active and passive consciousness when reading ChatGPT. While I actively know that there is no communicating subject, I still passively experience these signs as made by another. I argue that it is this conflict which lends ChatGPT its 'magical' character. I conclude by showing how these observations can inform future regulation of AI models. (shrink)

We have a variety of different ways of dividing up, classifying, mapping, sorting and listing the objects in reality. The theory of granular partitions presented here seeks to provide a general and unified basis for understanding such phenomena in formal terms that is more realistic than existing alternatives. Our theory has two orthogonal parts: the first is a theory of classification; it provides an account of partitions as cells and subcells; the second is a theory of reference or intentionality; it (...) provides an account of how cells and subcells relate to objects in reality. We define a notion of well-formedness for partitions, and we give an account of what it means for a partition to project onto objects in reality. We continue by classifying partitions along three axes: (a) in terms of the degree of correspondence between partition cells and objects in reality; (b) in terms of the degree to which a partition represents the mereological structure of the domain it is projected onto; and (c) in terms of the degree of completeness with which a partition represents this domain. (shrink)

We seek to develop a plausible conception of genetic parenthood, taking a recent discussion by Heidi Mertes as our point of departure. Mertes considers two conceptions of genetic parenthood—one invoking genetic resemblance, and the other genetic inheritance—and presents counter-examples to both conceptions. We revise Mertes’ second conception so as to avoid these and related counter-examples.

[ROYAL INSTITUTE OF PHILOSOPHY 2023 ESSAY PRIZE WINNER] I argue that the term ‘naturalism’ is so empty of meaning that it is not suitable for serious theorizing in philosophy. In particular, I argue that the question of whether or not some theory or thesis should count as naturalistic is an empty verbal dispute with no further theoretical significance. I also discuss naturalism construed as a methodological thesis and argue that any plausible version will collapse into triviality. Lastly, I briefly discuss (...) the idea that naturalism is not a thesis at all but rather a ‘stance’ and suggest that this too succumbs to the charge of emptiness. I conclude that we should stop talking about naturalism altogether. (shrink)

In Pietroski ( 2018 ) a simple representation language called SMPL is introduced, construed as a hypothesis about core conceptual structure. The present work is a study of this system from a logical perspective. In addition to establishing a completeness result and a complexity characterization for reasoning in the system, we also pinpoint its expressive limits, in particular showing that the fourth corner in the square of opposition (“ Some_not ”) eludes expression. We then study a seemingly small extension, called (...) SMPL +, which allows for a minimal predicate-binding operator. Perhaps surprisingly, the resulting system is shown to encode precisely the concepts expressible in first-order logic. However, unlike the latter class, the class of SMPL + expressions admits a simple procedural (context-free) characterization. Our contribution brings together research strands in logic—including natural logic, modal logic, description logic, and hybrid logic—with recent advances in semantics and philosophy of language. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to compile a selection of the various formalisms found in conversation theory to introduce readers to Pask's discursive algebra. In this way, the text demonstrates how concept sharing and concept formation by means of the interaction of two participants may be formalized. The approach taken in this study is to examine the formal notation system used by Pask and demonstrate how such formalisms may be used to represent concept sharing and concept formation through conversation. (...) The compilation of the discursive algebra using the framework provided by conversation theory could potentially be used as an auxiliary framework to study conversational interactions in multi-agent systems theory. (shrink)

This essay critically assesses Roman Ingarden’s 1915 review of the second edition of Edmund Husserl’s Logical Investigations. I elucidate and critique Ingarden’s analysis of the differences between the 1901 first edition and the 1913 second edition. I specifically examine three tenets of Ingarden’s interpretation. First, I demonstrate that Ingarden correctly denounces Husserl’s claim that he only engages in an eidetic study of consciousness in 1913, as Husserl was already performing eidetic analyses in 1901. Second, I show that Ingarden is misguided, (...) when he asserts that Husserl had fully transformed his philosophy into a transcendental idealism in the second edition. While Husserl does appear to adopt a transcendental phenomenology by asserting–in his programmatic claims–that the intentional content and object are now included in his domain of research, he does not alter his actual descriptions of the intentional relationship in any pertinent manner. Third, I show Ingarden correctly predicts many of the insights Husserl would arrive at about logic in his late philosophy. This analysis augments current readings of the evolution of Ingarden’s philosophy, by more closely examining the development of his largely neglected early thought. I execute this critical assessment by drawing both from Husserl’s later writings and from recent literature on the Investigations. By doing so, I hope to additionally demonstrate how research on the Investigations has matured in the one hundred years since the release of that text, while also presenting my own views concerning these difficult interpretative issues. (shrink)

Is it possible for an individual that has gone out of being to come back into being again? The English Aristotelian, Thomas White, argued that it is not. Thomas Hobbes disagreed, and used the case of the Ship of Theseus to argue that individuals that have gone out of being may come back into being again. This paper provides the first systematic account of their arguments. It is doubtful that Hobbes has a consistent case against White. Still his (...) criticism may have prompted White to clarify his views on identity over time in his later work. (shrink)

Andreas Schmidt and Neil Levy have recently defended nudging against the objection that nudges fail to treat nudgees as rational agents. Schmidt rejects two theses that have been taken to support the objection: that nudges harness irrational processes in the nudgee, and that they subvert the nudgee’s rationality. Levy rejects a third thesis that may support the objection: that nudges fail to give reasons. I argue that these defences can be extrapolated from nudges to some nonconsensual neurointerventions; if Schmidt’s and (...) Levy’s defences succeed, then some nonconsensual neurointerventions neither harness irrationality, nor subvert rationality, nor fail to give reasons. This, I claim, poses a challenge both to opponents of nonconsensual neurointerventions, and to defenders of nudging. (shrink)

Abstract. In Dynamics of Reason Michael Friedman proposes a kind of synthesis between the neokantianism of Ernst Cassirer, the logical empiricism of Rudolf Carnap, and the historicism of Thomas Kuhn. Cassirer and Carnap are to take care of the Kantian legacy of modern philosophy of science, encapsulated in the concept of a relativized a priori and the globally rational or continuous evolution of scientific knowledge,while Kuhn´s role is to ensure that the historicist character of scientific knowledge is taken seriously. (...) More precisely, Carnapian linguistic frameworks, guarantee that the evolution of science procedes in a rational manner locally,while Cassirer’s concept of an internally defined conceptual convergence of empirical theories provides the means to maintain the global continuity of scientific reason. In this paper it is argued that Friedman’s neokantian account of scientific reason based on the concept of the relativized a priori underestimates the pragmatic aspects of the dynamics of scientific reason. To overcome this short-coming, I propose to reconsider C.I. Lewis’s account of a pragmatic the priori, recently modernized and elaborated by Hasok Chang. This may be<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br&g t;<br><br><br><br><br><br>Keywords: Dynamics of reason, Paradigms, Logical Empiricism,Neokantianism, Pragmatism, Mathematics, Communicative Rationality. (shrink)

In this paper some classical representational ideas of Hertz and Duhem are used to show how the dichotomy between representation and intervention can be overcome. More precisely, scientific theories are reconstructed as complex networks of intervening representations (or representational interventions). The formal apparatus developed is applied to elucidate various theoretical and practical aspects of the in vivo/in vitro problem of biochemistry. Moreover, adjoint situations (Galois connections) are used to explain the relation berween empirical facts and theoretical laws in a new (...) way. (shrink)