A collective understanding that traces a debate between 'what is science?’ and ‘what is a science about?’ has an extraction to the notion of scientific knowledge. The debate undertakes the pursuit of science that hardly extravagance the dogma of pseudo-science. Scientific conjectures invoke science as an intellectual activity poured by experiences and repetition of the objects that look independent of any idealist views (believes in the consensus of mind-dependence reality). The realistic machinery employs in an empiricist exposition of the objective (...) phenomenon by synchronizing the general method to make observational predictions that cover all the phenomena of the particular entity without any exception. The formation of science encloses several epistemological purviews and a succession of conjectures cum refutation that a newer theorem could reinstate. My attempt is to advocate a holistic plea of scientific conjectures that outruns the restricted regulation of experience or testable hypothesis to render the validity of a chain of logical reasoning (deductive or inductive) of basic scientific statements. The milieu of scientific intensification integrates speculation that loads efficiency towards a new experimental dimension where the reality is not itself objective or observers relative; in fact the observed phenomenon divulges in the constructive progression of preferred methods of falsifiability and uncertainty. (shrink)

Popper's account of refutation is the linchpin of his famous view that the method of science is the method of conjecture and refutation. This thesis critically examines his account of refutation, and in particular the practice he deprecates as avoiding a refutation. I try to explain how he comes to hold the views that he does about these matters; how he seeks to make them plausible; how he has influenced others to accept his mistakes, and (...) how some of the ideas or responses to Popper of such people are thus similarly mistaken. I draw some distinctions necessary to the provision of an adequate account of the so-called practice of avoiding a refutation, and try to rid the debate about this practice of at least one red herring. I analyse one case of 'avoiding' a refutation in detail to show how the rationality of scientific practice eludes both Popper and many of his commentators. Popper's skepticism about contingent knowledge prevents him from providing an acceptable account of contingent refutation, and so his method is really the method of conjecture and conjecture. He cannot do without the concepts of knowledge and refutation, however, if his account of science is to be plausible or persuasive, and so he equivocates between, amongst other things, refutation as disproof and refutation as the weaker notion of discorroboration. I criticise David Stove's account of this matter, in particular to show how he misses this point. An additional advantage Popper would secure from this equivocation is that if refutations were mere discorroborations they would be easier to achieve, and hence more common in science, than is the case. On Popper's weak notion of refutation, it would be possible to refute true theories since corroboration does not entail truth. There are two other related doctrines Popper holds about refutation which, if accepted, make some refutations seem easier to obtain than is the case. I call these doctrines 'Strong Popperian Falsificationism' (SPF) and 'Weak Popperian Falsificationism' (WPF). SPF is the false doctrine that if a prediction from some theory is refuted then that theory is refuted. Popper does not always endorse SPF. In particular, when confronted with a counterexample to it, he retreats to WPF, which is the false doctrine that if a prediction from some theory is refuted then that theory is prima facie refuted. WPF , or even SPF, can seem plausible if one has in mind predictions derived from theories in strong or conclusive tests of those theories, which I suggest Popper characteristically does. v Popper is disposed to describe any such case of predictive failure which does not lead to the refutation of the theory concerned as one in which that refutation has been avoided. To reinforce his portrayal of the refutation, or the attempted refutation, of major scientific theories as the rational core of scientific practice, Popper treats the so-called practice of avoiding a refutation as untypical of science, and much so-called avoidance he dismisses as unscientific or pseudo-scientific. I argue that his notion of avoiding a refutation is incoherent. Popper is further driven to believe that such avoidance is possible, however, because he conflates sentences with propositions and propositions with propositional beliefs. Also, he wishes to avoid being saddled with the relativisim that is a consequence of his weak account of refutation as discorroboration. Popper believes that ad hoc hypotheses are the most important of the unscientific means of avoiding a refutation. I argue that his account of such hypotheses is also incoherent, and that several hypotheses thought to be ad hoc in his sense are not. Such hypotheses appear to be so largely because of Popper's use of rhetoric and partly because these hypotheses are unacceptable for other reasons. I conclude that to know that a hypothesis is ad hoc in Popper's sense does not illuminate scientific practice. Popper has also attempted to explicate ad hocness in terms of some undesirable, or allegedly undesirable, properties of hypotheses or the explanations they would provide. The first such property is circularity, which is undesirable; the second such property is reduction in empirical content, which is not. In the former case I argue that non-circularity is clearly preferable to non-ad hocness as a criterion for a satisfactory explanation or explanans, as the case may be, and in the latter case that Popper is barking up the wrong tree. Some cases of so-called avoidance are obviously not unscientific. The discovery of Neptune from a prediction based on the reasonable belief that there were residual perturbations in the motion of Uranus is an important case in point, and one that is much discussed in the literature. The manifest failure of astronomers to account for Uranus's motion did not lead to the refutation of Newton's law of gravitiation, yet significant scientific progress obviously did result. Retreating to WPF, Popper claims that Newton's law was prima facie refuted. In general, astronomers have never shared this view, and they are correct in not doing so. I argue that the law of gravitation would have been prima facie refuted only if there had been good reason at the time to believe as false what is true, namely, that an unknown trans-Uranian planet was the cause of those Uranian residuals. Knowledge of the trans-Uranian region was then so slight that it was merely a convenient assumption, one which there was little reason to believe was false, that the known influences on Uranus's motion were the only such influences. I conclude that in believing vi or supposing that it was this assumption that was false, rather than the law of gravitation, Leverrier and Adams, the co-predictors of Neptune, were acting rationally and intelligently. Popper's commentators offer a variety of accounts of the alleged practice of avoiding a refutation, and of this case in particular. I analyse a sample of their accounts to show how common is the acceptance of some of Popper's basic mistakes, even amongst those who claim to reject his falsificationism, and to display the effects on their accounts of this acceptance of his mistakes. Many commentators recognize that anomalies are typically dealt with by changes in the boundary conditions or in other of the auxiliary propositions employed. Where many still go wrong, however, is in retaining the presupposition of WPF which encouraged Popper to hold the contradictory view about anomalies in the first place. Thus Imre Lakatos and others, for example, have developed a 'siege mentality' about major scientific theories; they see them as under continual threat of refutation from anomalies, and so come to believe that dogmatism is essential in science if such theories are to survive as they do. I examine various such doomed attempts to reconcile Popper with the history of science. It is a common failure in this literature to conflate or to fail to see the need to distinguish a belief from a supposition, and an epistemic reason from a pragmatic reason. I argue that only if one does draw these distinctions can one give an adequate account of how anomalies are rationally dealt with in science. The other important strand in Popper's thinking about 'avoidance' of refutation which has seriously misled some of his commentators is his unfounded belief in the dangers of ad hoc hypotheses. I examine the accounts that a sample of such commentators provide of the trans-Uranian planet hypotheses of Leverrier and Adams. These commentators imply or assert what Popper only hints at, namely, that there is something fishy about this hypothesis. I provide a further defence of the rationality of entertaining this hypothesis at the time. I conclude with a few remarks about Popper's dilemma in respect of scientific practice and his long standing emphasis on refutations. (shrink)

The two principal models of design in methodological circles in architecture—analysis/synthesis and conjecture/analysis—have their roots in philosophy of science, in different conceptions of scientific method. This paper explores the philosophical origins of these models and the reasons for rejecting analysis/synthesis in favour of conjecture/analysis, the latter being derived from Karl Popper’s view of scientific method. I discuss a fundamental problem with Popper’s view, however, and indicate a framework for conjecture/analysis to avoid this problem.

ABSTRACT The individual-community relationship has always been one of the most fundamental topics of social sciences. In sociology, this is known as the micro-macro relationship while in economics it refers to the processes, through which, individual actions lead to macroeconomic phenomena. Based on philosophical discourse and systems theory, many sociologists even use the term "emergence" in their understanding of micro-macro relationship, which refers to collective phenomena that are created by the cooperation of individuals, but cannot be reduced to individual actions. (...) "Emergence" theories attempt to explain the nature of society as a complex system by examining how individuals and their relationships lead to the creation of integrated and macro-social phenomena such as markets, educational systems, cultural beliefs, and shared social practices. As a prelude to activity, every researcher has to answer the question from the methodological point of view, how is it possible to study the behavior of social groups and how can we gain knowledge about the laws related to social groups? Anyone who deals with humanities and social sciences or any reality and phenomenon that affects human beings, inevitably deals with the reality that is emerging. In fact, emergence occurs when one level of reality emerges radically from another level. Examples of emergent levels of reality include how the mind emerges from the body; or the way society emerges from human beings. Therefore, when there is an emerging factor, different scientific disciplines should be used, because it is inevitable to talk about social affairs, psychology and neurobiology, as well as physical and even chemical. -/- INTRODUCTION Since its beginning in the 19th century, sociology has faced the fundamental question of what a social phenomena stands for? At a glance, sociologists deal with the study of social groups, collective behavior, institutions, social structures, social networks, and social dynamics, and ultimately all such phenomena are composed of individuals. Therefore, social phenomena seem to have no independent ontological status, and in this case, sociology is ultimately about reducible individuals. Different approaches about the micro-macro relationship, using the concept of "emergence", argue that although collective phenomena are created by individuals, they cannot be reduced to individual action. The term "emergence" is used to distinguish "emergent results" from " Procedural results". Results are called Procedural that can only be calculated by adding or subtracting the causes that act together. On the contrary, they are emergent outcomes that are qualitatively novel compared to the causes from which they originate. An example of such emergent results is mental characteristics that emerge from neural processes, but are not considered among the characteristics of neural processes of components - which are their origin. Philosophical debates about emergentism and reductionism focus on the mind-brain relationship, but as many philosophers have noted, they can be generalized to apply to any hierarchical set of features. The cognitive revolution reactivated a 19th century controversy between theorists of Identity and dualism. The theorists of Identity believe in reductionist materialism and elimination of metaphysics, according to which the mind is nothing more than the biological, while the dualists believe that the mind and the brain are distinct from each other. Emergence has been considered as a third way between the theories of Identity and dualism. -/- METHODOLOGY Interdisciplinarity Is fundamentally indicated by the dominance of open systems as well as social and emerging systems at different levels. Therefore, as long as we are facing a new emergentism, there will necessarily be different fields and an interdisciplinary method. The commonality of social sciences and cognitive sciences on the issue of emergence provides the possibility of interaction and exchange of concepts between these two for deeper research. Therefore, in this research, apart from the concepts of Subvenience and downward causation, we have used multiple realization and wildly disjunctive, which are used to explain the emerging concept in cognitive sciences, including neurobiology, psychology, and philosophy. For analytical and interdisciplinary approaches, after examining the concepts of subvenience, and wildly disjunctive, Individualistic and collectivist emergentism have been reviewed. And then their adequacy is criticized and evaluated in meeting strong emergence conditions. -/- FINDINGS Philosophers of the mind have been able to define the conditions of irreducibility and downward causation, which are essential for strong emergence, by using the principle of subvenience with the help of multiple realization and wildly disjunctive principles. Therefore, by definition, emergentist individualism suffers from the problem of how to explain downward causality and irreducibility, and emergentist collectivism faces the challenge of reification. The analysis of the challenges facing the two methodological approaches of individualism and collectivism leads us to three unresolved issues about the emerging phenomenon, which are realism, downward causality, and mechanism. Despite the differences in the stances of these two approaches regarding the aforementioned triple problems, individualists and collectivists both agree that some social characteristics are reducible; and some others are irreducible due to their complexity, the determination of which, depends on the case study of the mechanism of emergence of each social characteristic. -/- CONCLUSION An emergence that is consistent with reductionism is called a weak emergence. And strong emergence includes the principle of irreducibility and downward causality. According to strong emergence, the characteristics of social phenomena have downward causal power, which cannot be reduced to the causal forces. The principle of subvenience, together with multiple realization and wildly disjunctive, can provide the conditions of irreducibility and downward causality, which are essential conditions of strong emergence. Based on the philosophical analysis of two methodological approaches, individualist and collectivist, it can be concluded that emergentist individualism suffers from the problem of how to explain downward causality and irreducibility, and reification collectivism faces the challenge of reification. The analysis of the problems faced by these two approaches leads us to three unresolved issues, which are realism, downward causality, and mechanism. individualist emergentists acknowledge the existence of emergent social characteristics, but despite this, they believe that these characteristics are not real but merely analytical constructs that require explanation based on individuals and their mutual actions. But collectivists argue that emergentism yields a categorical ontology and supports social realism. They accept the dependence of social characteristics on individuals, but claim that social entities and structures are ontologically independent. Individualists and collectivists both agree that some social characteristics are reducible; and others are irreducible due to their complexity; and the only way to recognize this is to engage in empirical studies of the mechanisms and temporal processes of "emergence" that create social characteristics. -/- NOVELTY The newness of this compact article is as follows: a) Presenting an interdisciplinary approach using the analysis of philosophy of cognitive sciences, including the philosophy of mind, neurobiology and psychology to formulate the issue of social emergence; b) Criticizing individualist and collectivist methodological approaches to the issue of social emergence and explaining the sufficiency and shortcomings of both in providing weak and strong emerging conditions; c) Explaining and categorizing the challenges facing methodological approaches in explaining the phenomenon of social emergence, in three categories: realism, downward causality, and mechanism. BIBLIOGRAPHY Beckermann, A., Flohr, H., & Kim, J. (eds.) (1992). Emergence or reduction? Essays on the prospects of nonreductive physicalism. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Bhaskar, R. (1979). The possibility of Naturalism. New York: Routledge. Bhaskar, R., Danermark, B. & Price, L. (2018). Interdisciplinarity and wellbeing: A critical realist general theory of interdisciplinarity. London and New York: Routledge. Blau, P.M. (1981). Introduction: diverse views of social structure and their common denominator. In Blau, P.M. & Merton, R.K. (eds.), Continuity in Structural Inquiry (pp. 1–23). Beverly Hills: Sage. Blau, P.M. (1987). Microprocess and macrostructure. In K.S. Cook (ed.), Social Exchange Theory (pp. 83–100). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Brooks, R.A., & Maes, P. (eds). (1994). Artificial life IV; proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. Clark, A. (1997). Being there: Putting brain, body, and world together again. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Coleman, J. S. (1987). Microfoundations and macrosocial behavior. In: J. C. Alexander, B. Giesen, R. Munch, & Neil J. Smelser (Eds.). The Micro-Macro Link (pp. 153–73). Berkeley: University of California. Coleman, J. S. (1990). Foundations of social theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Elster, J. (1985). Making sense of Marx. New York: Cambridge University Press. Fodor, J.A. (1974). Special sciences (Or: The disunity of science as a working hypothesis). Synthese, 28(2), 97–115. Fodor, J.A. (1989). Making mind matter more. Philosophical Topics, 17, 59-79. Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society: Outline of the theory of structuration. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hempel, C.G. (1965). Aspects of scientific explanation and other essays in the philosophy of science. New York: The Free Press. Horgan, T. (1993). From supervenience to superdupervenience: meeting the demands of a material world. Mind, 102, 555-586. Humphreys, P. (1997). How properties emerge”. Philosophy of Science, 64, 1-17. Kim, J. (1999). Making sense of emergence. Philosophical Studies, 95, 3–36. Kincaid, H. (1997). Individualism and the unity of science. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. Lewis, D.K. (1986). The plurality of worlds. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nigel, G., & Conte, R. (eds.) (1995). Artificial societies; The computer simulation of social life. London: UCL Press. O’Connor, T. (1994). Emergent properties. American Philosophical Quarterly, 31, 91-104. Popper, K.R. (1968). Conjectures and refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge. New York: Harper & Row. Sawyer, R. K. (2001). Emergence in sociology: contemporary philosophy of mind and some implications for sociological theory. American Journal of Sociology, 107, 551-585. Sawyer, R. K. (2004). The mechanisms of emergence. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 34, 260–282. Sawyer, R. K. (2005). Social emergence: societies as complex systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sawyer, R.K. (2003). Nonreductive individualism: Part 2, Social causation. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 33, 203–224. Winch, P. (1993). The idea of a social science and its relation to philosophy‭ (SAMT, Trans.). Tehran, Iran: SAMT. (shrink)

The objective of this work is to present Ludwig Wittgenstein's perspective on the impossibility of the existence of philosophical problems, to then reflect on the implications of such a perspective based on Popper's thought. For that, Wittgenstein's perspective, as exposed in his work Tractatus logico-philosophicus, is contrasted with Karl Popper's perspective presented in “The nature of philosophical problems and their scientific roots” (in Conjectures and refutations). The example of the problem faced by Kant in his work Critique of pure reason (...) will also be considered for the analysis of Wittgenstein's argument. According to Wittgenstein, philosophical problems are pseudo-problems because they have no solution. However, despite admitting the existence of pseudo-problems, Popper argues that factual, logical, or hybrid problems, under certain circumstances, can be philosophical. Thus, the aim is to contrast these two perspectives in order to emphasize how not all philosophical problems are pseudo-problems. (shrink)

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)

Karl Popper is famous for having proposed that science advances by a process of conjecture and refutation. He is also famous for defending the open society against what he saw as its arch enemies – Plato and Marx. Popper’s contributions to thought are of profound importance, but they are not the last word on the subject. They need to be improved. My concern in this book is to spell out what is of greatest importance in Popper’s work, what (...) its failings are, how it needs to be improved to overcome these failings, and what implications emerge as a result. The book consists of a collection of essays which dramatically develop Karl Popper’s views about natural and social science, and how we should go about trying to solve social problems. Criticism of Popper’s falsificationist philosophy of natural science leads to a conception of science that I call aim-oriented empiricism. This makes explicit metaphysical theses concerning the comprehensibility and knowability of the universe that are an implicit part of scientific knowledge – implicit in the way science excludes all theories that are not explanatory, even those that are more successful empirically than accepted theories. Aim-oriented empiricism has major implications, not just for the academic discipline of philosophy of science, but for science itself. Popper generalized his philosophy of science of falsificationism to arrive at a new conception of rationality – critical rationalism – the key methodological idea of Popper’s profound critical exploration of political and social issues in his The Open Society and Its Enemies, and The Poverty of Historicism. This path of Popper, from scientific method to rationality and social and political issues is followed here, but the starting point is aim-oriented empiricism rather than falsificationism. Aim-oriented empiricism is generalized to form a conception of rationality I call aim-oriented rationalism. This has far-reaching implications for political and social issues, for the nature of social inquiry and the humanities, and indeed for academic inquiry as a whole. The strategies for tackling social problems that arise from aim-oriented rationalism improve on Popper’s recommended strategies of piecemeal social engineering and critical rationalism, associated with Popper’s conception of the open society. This book thus sets out to develop Popper’s philosophy in new and fruitful directions. The theme of the book, in short, is to discover what can be learned from scientific progress about how to achieve social progress towards a better world. (shrink)

As a philosopher, psychologist, and physician, the German thinker Hermann Lotze defies classification. Working in the mid-nineteenth-century era of programmatic realism, he critically reviewed and rearranged theories and concepts in books on pathology, physiology, medical psychology, anthropology, history, aesthetics, metaphysics, logic, and religion. Leading anatomists and physiologists reworked his hypotheses about the central and autonomic nervous systems. Dozens of fin-de-siècle philosophical contemporaries emulated him, yet often without acknowledgment, precisely because he had made conjecture and refutation into a method. (...) In spite of Lotze's status as a pivotal figure in nineteenth-century intellectual thought, no complete treatment of his work exists, and certainly no effort to take account of the feminist secondary literature. Hermann Lotze: An Intellectual Biography is the first full-length historical study of Lotze's intellectual origins, scientific community, institutional context, and worldwide reception. (shrink)

Jerry Fodor deemed informational encapsulation ‘the essence’ of a system’s modularity and argued that human perceptual processing comprises modular systems, thus construed. Nowadays, his conclusion is widely challenged. Often, this is because experimental work is seen to somehow demonstrate the cognitive penetrability of perceptual processing, where this is assumed to conflict with the informational encapsulation of perceptual systems. Here, I deny the conflict, proposing that cognitive penetration need not have any straightforward bearing on the conjecture that perceptual processing is (...) composed of nothing but informationally encapsulated modules, the conjecture that each and every perceptual computation is performed by an informationally encapsulated module, and the consequences perceptual encapsulation was traditionally expected to have for a perception-cognition border, the epistemology of perception and cognitive science. With these points in view, I propose that particularly plausible cases of cognitive penetration would actually seem to evince the encapsulation of perceptual systems rather than refute/problematize this conjecture. (shrink)

Around 3 decades ago, Jayant Narlikar & Halton Arp argued on possible variable mass hypothesis cosmology (VMH). In the meantime, the Earth expansion problem has attracted great interest, and recent study gives geodetic evidence that the Earth has been expanding, at least over the recent several decades. Therefore, in the present article discusses some interesting effects related to varying G, but here we argue that instead of varying G we can think of varying mass (M). Among other things we discuss (...) receding planets from the Sun, calculation of Pioneer spacecraft anomaly as proposed by B.G. Sidharth, and also possible slight change of LAGEOS Satellite. Further observation to verify or refute this conjecture is recommended, especially based on geological evidence of expanding earth. (shrink)

Karl Popper is the greatest philosopher of the 20th century. No other philosopher of the period has produced a body of work that is as significant. What is best in Popper's output is contained in his first four published books. These tackle fundamental problems with ferocious, exemplary integrity, clarity, simplicity and originality. They have widespread, fruitful implications, for science, for philosophy, for the social sciences, for education, for art, for politics and political philosophy. This article provides a critical survey of (...) Popper’s work. (shrink)

Primarily using philosophy, but also some social science, Escape from Leviathan (EfL) explains and defends what it calls an extreme version of the implicit ‘classical liberal compatibility thesis’: liberty, welfare, and anarchy are overwhelmingly complementary in normal practice (rationality is added for its intimate theoretical connections to these categories). This is done using theories, not definitions, of each concept. This important thesis is entirely positive. Therefore, somewhat unusually, all normative issues are avoided as irrelevant distractions in this context. In addition, (...) the epistemology used is also unorthodox. A justificationist, or foundationalist, approach would be literally illogical: the self-refuting trilemma faced by ‘supporting justifications’ (as regards arguments and evidence) is of entailing infinite regresses, dogmatic starting points, or circularities. Consequently, critical rationalism is assumed: conjecture and criticism are all that is possible. Thus all aspects of the conjectured thesis are explained and defended from criticism as thoroughly as the book can encompass. It is concluded that the thesis has not been refuted and so may be critically preferred. (However, this could all still be viewed as a ‘justification’ by those thus inclined.) All of this is made clear enough in the short introductory chapter and repeated where relevant throughout. Yet some reviews do not have a firm grasp of the specific project and so reject it with unsound criticisms. We now turn to one such example. (shrink)

The ecologist today finds scarce ground safe from controversy. Decisions must be made about what combination of data, goals, methods, and theories offers them the foundations and tools they need to construct and defend their research. When push comes to shove, ecologists often turn to philosophy to justify why it is their approach that is scientific. Karl Popper’s image of science as bold conjectures and heroic refutations is routinely enlisted to justify testing hypotheses over merely confirming them. One of the (...) most controversial theories in contemporary science is the Neutral Theory of Ecology. Its chief developer and proponent, Stephen Hubbell, presents the neutral theory as a bold conjecture that has so far escaped refutation. Critics of the neutral theory claim that it already stands refuted, despite what the dogmatic neutralists say. We see the controversy through a Popperian lens. But Popper’s is an impoverished philosophy of science that distorts contemporary ecology. -/- The controversy surrounding the neutral theory actually rests on a methodological fault. There is a strong but messy historical link between the concepts of being neutral and being null in biology, and Hubbell perpetuates this when he claims that the neutral theory is supplies the appropriate null for testing alternative theories. What method is being followed here? There are three contenders: -/- Null hypothesis testing tests for whether a there is a pattern to be explained. Null modeling tests for whether a process is causally relevant to a pattern. Baseline modeling apportions relative responsibility to multiple processes each relevant to a pattern. -/- Whether the neutral theory supplies an appropriate “null” depends upon whether null hypothesis, null modeling, or baseline model is intended. These methods prescribe distinct inference patterns. If they are null hypothesis testing or null modeling, the neutralists’s reasoning is invalid. If they are baseline modeling, the justification of a crucial assumption remains opaque. Either way, the neutral-null connection is being exploited rhetorically to privilege the neutral theory over its rivals. Clarifying the reasoning immunizes us against the rhetoric and foregrounds the underlying virtues of the neutralist approach to ecology. -/- The Popperian lens distorts theoretical development as dogmatism. Lakatos’s view of science as the development of research programmes clarifies the epistemology of the neutral theory. Focusing philosophical attention on the neutralist research programme illuminates (1) the synchronic uses of the neutral theory to make predictions and give descriptions and explanations; (2) its diachronic development in response to theoretical innovation and confrontation with data; (3) its complex relationships to alternative theories. For example, baseline modeling is now seen to be its primary explanatory heuristic. The justification for baseline modeling with the neutral theory, previously hidden from view, is seen in the logic of in the neutralist research programme. (shrink)

Clayton and Stevens argue that political liberals should engage with the religiously unreasonable by offering religious responses and showing that their religious views are mistaken, instead of refusing to engage with them. Yet they recognize that political liberals will face a dilemma due to such religious responses: either their responses will alienate certain reasonable citizens, or their engagements will appear disingenuous. Thus, there should be a division of justificatory labour. The duty of engagement should be delegated to religious citizens. In (...) this comment, I will argue that the division of justificatory labour is indefensible. This dilemma can be avoided if politicians and political philosophers correctly use conjecture, a form of discourse that involves non-public reason. As a conditional response, conjecture avoids alienating any reasonable citizens. Also, if conjecture is given in a sincere and open-minded manner, then the problem of disingenuousness can be overcome. My comment concludes that while the engagement of politicians and political philosophers does not necessarily jeopardize overlapping consensus, they should be permitted, or perhaps even required, to engage with the religiously unreasonable due to the natural duty of justice. (shrink)

Eyal Shahar’s essay review [1] of James Penston’s remarkable book [2] seems more inspired playful academic provocation than review or essay, expressing dramatic views of impossible validity. The account given of modern biostatistical causation reveals the slide from science into the intellectual confusion and non-science RCTs have created: “…. the purpose of medical research is to estimate the magnitude of the effect of a causal contrast, for example the probability ratio of a binary outcome …” But Shahar’s world is simultaneously (...) not probabilistic, but of absolute uncertainty: “We should have no confidence in any type of evidence ….. We should have no confidence at all”. Shahar’s "Causal contrast" is attractive. It seems to make sense, but bypasses in two words the means of establishing causation by the scientific method. This phrase assumes a numeric statistically significant “contrast” is causal rather than a potential correlation requiring further investigation. The concept of “causal contrast” is a slippery slope from sense into biostatistical non-science. This can be illustrated with an hypothetical RCT where 100% of interventions exhibit a posited treatment effect and 0% of placebo controls. Internal validity is seemingly quite reasonably assumed satisfied (common-sense dictating the likelihood of an awesome magnificent fraud, bias or plain error of the magnitude required is infinitesimal). Scientific method appears satisfied. The RCT demonstrates: (1) strict regularity of outcome in the presence of posited cause; (2) the absence of outcome in its absence and (3) an intervention (experiment) showing the direction of causation is from posited cause to posited effect. Now travel further down the slope from science. Assume 50% of interventions and 0% of controls are positive. We compromise scientific method, but justify this by assuming a large subgroup which we say surely must on these figures be exhibiting the posited treatment effect. But what of 10% of interventions and 9% of placebo controls exhibiting the posited treatment effect? Our biostatistician says the 1% “causal contrast” is statistically significant. But we have: (1) minimal evidence of regularity; (2) the posited outcome irrespective of presence of posited cause and (3) our intervention is at the highest equivocal in demonstrating any form of causation. This is not science. It is, however, where biostatistics has unthinkingly taken us, as Penston has shown comprehensively [2]. We, the audience of published medical research, are now for the 10% / 9% example well down the slope from science. An unattractive hypothesis results requiring numerous assumptions similar to these:- "There is a 'contrast' which is ‘causal’, albeit the method employed is not scientific. An effect of the intervention has been observed in a very small subgroup. This subgroup is susceptible to treatment. The similar number of placebo controls exhibiting the outcome sought is irrelevant, because the 1% difference between intervention and controls is statistically significant. The statistical analysis is valid and reliable. The RCT’s internal validity is sufficiently satisfied. No funding or bias or fraud has affected the results or their analysis.” As Penston notes: “Confirming and refuting the results of research is crucial to science …. But … there’s no way of testing the results of any particular large-scale RCT or epidemiological study. Each study … is left hanging in the air, unsupported.” It gets worse. To identify a rare serious adverse reaction of a frequency of 1:10,000 can require a trial of 200,000 or larger split between controls and interventions. This is not done. But for every 100 who prospectively benefit from the intervention, 9,900 also receive it. And for every 100 benefiting one person (who likely gains no benefit) will suffer a serious unidentified adverse reaction. This is also without taking account of more common adverse reactions whether serious or otherwise. References [1] Shahar, E. (2011) Research and medicine: human conjectures at every turn. International Journal of Person Centered Medicine 1 (2), 250-253. [2] Penston, J. (2010). stats.con: How we’ve been fooled by statistics-based research in medicine. London: The London Press, UK. (shrink)

The authors of this collection fail to make clear the distinction between naturalistic and purely logical/methodological approaches to the philosophy of science. I also criticise Thomas Nickles's attempt to devise an explanatory method for discovery in science using programs that produce trial and error explorations of a domain, which he thinks replaces the need for a conjecture a refutation approach (cf. Popper and Campbell). Such programs embody undeclared conjectures in the way they are set up.

This review investigates the potential of non-orientable topology as a fundamental framework for understanding the Poincaré conjecture and its implications across various scientific disciplines. Integrating insights from Dokuchaev (2020), Rapoport, Christianto, Chandra, Smarandache (under review), and other pioneering works, this article explores the theoretical foundations linking non-orientable spaces to resolving the Poincaré conjecture and its broader implications in theoretical physics, geology, cosmology, and biology.

A scientific theory, according to Popper, can be legitimately saved from falsification by introducing an auxiliary hypothesis to generate new, falsifiable predictions. Also, if there are suspicions of bias or error, the researchers might introduce an auxiliary falsifiable hypothesis that would allow testing. But this technique can not solve the problem in general, because any auxiliary hypothesis can be challenged in the same way, ad infinitum. To solve this regression, Popper introduces the idea of ​​a basic statement, an empirical statement (...) that can be used both to determine whether a given theory is falsifiable and, if necessary, to corroborate falsification assumptions. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.22162.09923. (shrink)

In this paper I will develop a lambda-term calculus, lambda-2Int, for a bi-intuitionistic logic and discuss its implications for the notions of sense and denotation of derivations in a bilateralist setting. Thus, I will use the Curry-Howard correspondence, which has been well-established between the simply typed lambda-calculus and natural deduction systems for intuitionistic logic, and apply it to a bilateralist proof system displaying two derivability relations, one for proving and one for refuting. The basis will be the natural deduction system (...) of Wansing's bi-intuitionistic logic 2Int, which I will turn into a term-annotated form. Therefore, we need a type theory that extends to a two-sorted typed lambda-calculus. I will present such a term-annotated proof system for 2Int and prove a Dualization Theorem relating proofs and refutations in this system. On the basis of these formal results I will argue that this gives us interesting insights into questions about sense and denotation as well as synonymy and identity of proofs from a bilateralist point of view. (shrink)

Despite the criticism of Karl Popper's falsifiability theory for the demarcation between science and non-science, mainly pseudo-science, this criterion is still very useful, and perfectly valid after it was perfected by Popper and his followers. Moreover, even in his original version, considered by Lakatos as "dogmatic", Popper did not assert that this methodology is an absolute demarcation criterion: a single counter-example is not enough to falsify a theory; a theory can legitimately be saved from falsification by introducing an auxiliary hypothesis. (...) Compared to Kuhn's theory of revolutions, which he himself later dissociated from it transforming it into a theory of "micro-revolutions," I consider that Popper's demarcation methodology, along with the subsequent development proposed by him, including the corroboration and the verisimilitude, though imperfect, is not only valid today, but it is still the best demarcation methodology. For argumentation, I used the main works of Popper dealing with this issue, and his main critics and supporters. After a brief presentation of Karl Popper, and an introduction to the demarcation problem and the falsification methodology, I review the main criticisms and the arguments of his supporters, emphasizing the idea that Popper has never put the sign of equality between falsification and rejection. Finally, I present my own conclusions on this issue. CONTENTS -/- Abstract Introduction 1 The demarcation problem 2 Pseudoscience 3 Falsifiability 4 Falsification and refutation 5 Extension of falsifiability 6 Criticism of falsifiability 7 Support of falsifiability 8 The current trend Conclusions Bibliography Notes -/- DOI: 10.58679/MM99220. (shrink)

Number Nativism is the view that humans innately represent precise natural numbers. Despite a long and venerable history, it is often considered hopelessly out of touch with the empirical record. I argue that this is a mistake. After clarifying Number Nativism and distancing it from related conjectures, I distinguish three arguments which have been seen to refute the view. I argue that, while popular, two of these arguments miss the mark, and fail to place pressure on Number Nativism. Meanwhile, a (...) third argument is best construed as a challenge: rather than refuting Number Nativism, it challenges its proponents to provide positive evidence for their thesis and show that this can be squared with apparent counterevidence. In response, I introduce psycholinguistic work on The Tolerance Principle (not yet considered in this context), propose that it is hard to make sense of without positing precise and innate representations of natural numbers, and argue that there is no obvious reason why these innate representations couldn’t serve as a basis for mature numeric conception. (shrink)

intro to Part 1 - -/- Most people disliked mathematics when they were at school and they were absolutely correct to do so. This is because maths as we know it is severely incomplete. No matter how elaborated and complicated mathematical equations become, in today's world they're based on 1+1=2. This certainly conforms to the world our physical senses perceive and to the world scientific instruments detect. It has been of immeasurable value to all knowledge throughout history and has elevated (...) science to the lofty status it enjoys. Science is now striving towards Unification - where the subatomic realm, all matter, energy, forces, space and time will be seen as entangled parts of one universe. While 1+1=2 has been vital in getting humanity to this point, it's time to suppress our attachments to the past and realize that whereas 1+1 will always equal 2, it's also capable of equalling the 1 which represents unification. -/- intro to Part 2 -/- b) Division by zero is accepted, in Newtonian maths, to be impossible. But we can regard division by zero as division by nothing i.e. division that has no effect. In this case, 1 divided by 0 is 1. However, to a physicist there is no such thing as nothing (even empty space contains energy). What could the something called 0 actually be? It could be a binary digit. If we use the base of ten (for simplicity) and attach one and zero to it as exponents, we get 10^1 divided by 10^0 = 10^1. If we then cancel 10 from each factor in the expression, we get 1 divided by 0 = 1. At the start of the paragraph, this was referred to as division by nothing. Then 0 was called a binary digit and division by nothing became division by something. The 1 that the division equals is the unified field of space-time. Division by 0 is impossible in Newtonian maths because the result can be infinity. But the word “infinity” can, as the last section of this book shows, apply to the unified field of spacetime. So division by zero is not impossible because it results in the universe, which is obviously possible … a possibility that has always been, and always will be, realized. -/- intro to Part 3 -/- If quantum entanglement has existed in the entire universe forever, everything would be everywhere and everywhen. Space, time and 5th-dimensional hyperspace would not be restricted to certain parts of the Mobius Universe but would exist in every particle. Past, present and future would not exist as the distinct periods which everyday life assumes. All instants of all periods would exist eternally, permitting time travel to any point in the past and to any point in the future. Entanglement may be created by simply zipping along at close to the speed of light - “Quantum entanglement of moving bodies” by Robert M. Gingrich and Christoph Adami in Physical Review Letters 89, 270402 (issue of 30 December 2002) – which might be achieved, according to this book, by warping space so it’s either a fraction of the 90 degrees allowing instantaneous travel or almost at 270 degrees to space as we know it. (shrink)

This is a partly provocative essay edited as a humanitarian study in philosophy of science and social philosophy. The starting point is Isaac Asimov’s famous sci-fi novella “Profession” (1957) to be “back” extrapolated to today’s relation between Thomas Kuhn’s “normal science” and “scientific revolutions” (1962). The latter should be accomplished by Asimov’s main personage George Platen’s ilk (called “feeble minded” in the novella) versus the “burned minded” professionals able only to “normal science”. Francis Fukuyama’s “end of history” in post-Hegelian manner (...) is now interpreted to an analogically supposed “end of scientific history” without “scientific revolutions” any more. The relevant dystopia of the prolonged or even “eternal” period of normal science is justified to the contemporary institution of science due to mechanisms such as “peer-review”, “impact-factor rating”, the projects’ competition for funding, etc. Positive feedbacks forcing all scientists needing careers to be more and more orthodox are demonstrated therefore establishing for that dystopia to be the real state of contemporary science. Two counterfactual case studies based correspondingly on Feyerabend’s “Against method” (1975) if Galilei should make his discoveries today and Sokal’s hoax (1996) if he suggested a scientific masterpiece to be really rejected by journals are discussed. Still one case study considering the abundance of Kelvin’s “clouds” on the horizon of today’s physics (dark matter, dark energy, entanglement, quantum gravitation, phenomena refuting the Big Bang, etc.) serves to verify the aforementioned conjecture that science has already entered that dystopia of eternal normal science. The conception of “ontomathematics” implying “creation ex nihilo” being scandalous for the dominating paradigm is sketched as an eventual revolutionary way out. An imaginary and utopic “happy end” reinterpreting the analogical “happy end” of Asimov’s “Profession” finishes the essay “instead of conclusion” relying on the Internet and AI in an increasingly “fluid” and anti-hierarchical society. (shrink)

This paper considers logics which are formally dual to intuitionistic logic in order to investigate a co-constructive logic for proofs and refutations. This is philosophically motivated by a set of problems regarding the nature of constructive truth, and its relation to falsity. It is well known both that intuitionism can not deal constructively with negative information, and that defining falsity by means of intuitionistic negation leads, under widely-held assumptions, to a justification of bivalence. For example, we do not want to (...) equate falsity with the non-existence of a proof since this would render a statement such as “pi is transcendental” false prior to 1882. In addition, the intuitionist account of negation as shorthand for the derivation of absurdity is inadequate, particularly outside of purely mathematical contexts. To deal with these issues, I investigate the dual of intuitionistic logic, co-intuitionistic logic, as a logic of refutation, alongside intuitionistic logic of proofs. Direct proof and refutation are dual to each other, and are constructive, whilst there also exist syntactic, weak, negations within both logics. In this respect, the logic of refutation is weakly paraconsistent in the sense that it allows for statements for which, neither they, nor their negation, are refuted. I provide a proof theory for the co-constructive logic, a formal dualizing map between the logics, and a Kripke-style semantics. This is given an intuitive philosophical rendering in a re-interpretation of Kolmogorov’s logic of problems. (shrink)

DNA evidence is one of the most significant modern advances in the search for truth since the cross examination, but its format as a random-match-probability makes it difficult for people to assign an appropriate probative value (Koehler, 2001). While Frequentist theories propose that the presentation of the match as a frequency rather than a probability facilitates more accurate assessment (e.g., Slovic et al., 2000), Exemplar-Cueing Theory predicts that the subjective weight assigned may be affected by the frequency or probability format, (...) and how easily examples of the event, i.e., ‘exemplars’, are generated from linguistic cues that frame the match in light of further evidence (Koehler & Macchi, 2004). This paper presents two juror research studies to examine the difficulties that jurors have in assigning appropriate probative value to DNA evidence when contradictory evidence is presented. Study 1 showed that refuting evidence significantly reduced guilt judgments when exemplars were linguistically cued, even when the probability match and the refuting evidence had the same objective probative value. Moreover, qualitative reason for judgment responses revealed that interpreting refuting evidence was found to be complex and not necessarily reductive; refutation was found indicative of innocence or guilt depending on whether exemplars have been cued or not. Study 2 showed that the introduction of judges’ directions to linguistically cue exemplars, did not increase the impact of refuting evidence beyond its objective probative value, but less guilty verdicts were returned when jurors were instructed to consider all possible explanations of the evidence. The results are discussed in light of contradictory frequentist and exemplar-cueing theoretical positions, and their real-world consequences. (shrink)

Plato argues, at Theaetetus 170e-171c, that Protagoras’ relativism is self-refuting. This argument, known as the ‘exquisite argument’, and its merits have been the subject of much controversy over the past few decades. Burnyeat (1976b) has argued in defense of Plato’s argument, but his reconstruction of the argument has been criticized as question-begging. After offering an interpretation of Protagoras’ relativism, I argue that the exquisite argument is successful, for reasons that Burnyeat hints at but fails to develop sufficiently. I consider Protagorean (...) relativism under both of the two possible readings with respect to its scope: global relativism, according to which all truths are only relatively true, and qualified relativism, according to which the relativistic thesis itself is excepted. Taking into consideration some contemporary work on relativism and self-refutation, I show that Plato’s argument succeeds on both of these readings. Given that Protagoras could avoid self-contradiction simply by denying that an enduring subject exists, I argue that the exquisite argument is best understood as confronting Protagoras with a dilemma between self-contradiction and self-defeat of various sorts, all of which lead to the same result, that Protagoras violates the requirements of rational discourse in such a way that he becomes an absurd figure who has nothing to say to us. (shrink)

Richard Dawkins’s The Blind Watchmaker argues that evolution is a blind, mechanistic process devoid of purpose or intelligence. This paper provides a complete and total refutation of Dawkins’s claims using Aristotelian metaphysics and Ethical Empirical Rationalism (EER), a doctrine that integrates empirical truth, rational coherence, and ethical universality. Through a focus on Dawkins’s three primary errors, this paper demonstrates how Aristotle’s concepts of form, purpose, and agency offer a superior framework for understanding evolution. Using Cognita as an illustration, this (...) paper highlights how EER establishes a coherent, truth-centered approach to nature, in contrast to Dawkins’s reductionist perspective. (shrink)

Elgin offers an influential and far-reaching challenge to veritism. She takes scientific understanding to be non-factive and maintains that there are epistemically useful falsehoods that figure ineliminably in scientific understanding and whose falsehood is no epistemic defect. Veritism, she argues, cannot account for these facts. This paper argues that while Elgin rightly draws attention to several features of epistemic practices frequently neglected by veritists, veritists have numerous plausible ways of responding to her arguments. In particular, it is not clear that (...) false propositional commitments figure ineliminably in understanding in the manner supposed by Elgin. Moreover, even if scientific understanding were non-factive and false propositional commitments did figure ineliminably in understanding, the veritist can account for this in several ways without thereby abandoning veritism. (shrink)

We ordinarily assume that we have reliable knowledge of our immediate surroundings, so much so that almost all the time we entrust our lives to the truth of what we take ourselves to know, without a moment’s thought. But if, as Karl Popper and others have maintained, all our knowledge is conjectural, then this habitual assumption that our common sense knowledge of our environment is secure and trustworthy would seem to be an illusion. Popper’s philosophy of science, in particular, fails (...) to do justice to the distinction we ordinarily draw between secure knowledge and mere conjecture. But Popper’s philosophy of science, in particular his attempted solution to the problem of induction, is defective. It fails to take into account that physics, in only accepting unified theories, even though endlessly empirically more successful disunified rivals are always available, makes the persistent metaphysical assumption that all disunified theories are false. Once this point is acknowledged, it becomes clear that a new conception of scientific method is required which sees science as making a hierarchy of metaphysical assumptions concerning the comprehensibility and knowability of the universe. This provides a framework of relatively unproblematic assumptions and associated methods of science within which much more problematic assumptions and associated methods can be critically assessed and improved. This hierarchical view seems at first to intensify the problem of distinguishing certainty from conjecture, in that it emphasizes that scientific knowledge, and even humble common sense knowledge, contain usually unacknowledged cosmological conjectures. But actually it explicates the basis we have for drawing the distinction between trustworthy knowledge and mere conjecture, and even goes some way towards providing a rationale for this distinction, in so far as one exists. (shrink)

Determinism is established in quantum mechanics by tracing the probabilities in the Born rules back to the absolute (overall) phase constants of the wave functions and recognizing these phase constants as pseudorandom numbers. The reduction process (collapse) is independent of measurement. It occurs when two wavepackets overlap in ordinary space and satisfy a certain criterion, which depends on the phase constants of both wavepackets. Reduction means contraction of the wavepackets to the place of overlap. The measurement apparatus fans out the (...) incoming wavepacket into spatially separated eigenpackets of the chosen observable. When one of these eigenpackets together with a wavepacket located in the apparatus satisfy the criterion, the reduction associates the place of contraction with an eigenvalue of the observable. The theory is nonlocal and contextual. Keywords:. (shrink)

With this book we want to illustrate the way we philosophers think that public argument and debate should be. Our goal is not to present a collection of academic texts. Although most of us are part of the academy, we want to present to the lay public shorter, more essay-like texts, originally published on an Internet page called Refutations. The page is not, of course, an academic journal; it is a digital magazine with opinion texts that share simplicity, rigor and (...) total accessibility to anyone not initiated to the philosophers' way of thinking. And although the magazine's columnists are friends, they actively disagree on the most diverse topics, such as politics, economics, ethics and art. The reader, therefore, has before him a book with the most varied opinions on some of the main contemporary themes. Naturally, we do not expect to have the last word on any matter. Our intention is much more modest, but also very important: to show that it is possible, even without putting an end to the debates, to think in a creative, clear and civilized way. / Com este livro queremos ilustrar a maneira como nós, filósofos, pensamos que a argumentação e o debate públicos devem ser. Nosso objetivo não é apresentar uma coletânea de textos acadêmicos. Embora a maioria de nós seja parte da academia, queremos apresentar ao público leigo textos mais curtos e ensaísticos, originalmente publicados em uma página na Internet chamada Refutações. A página não é, naturalmente, um periódico acadêmico; trata-se de uma revista digital com textos de opinião que compartilham a simplicidade, o rigor e a total acessibilidade a qualquer não iniciado ao modo de pensar dos filósofos. E, embora os colunistas da revista sejam amigos, eles discordam ativamente a respeito dos mais diversos temas, como política, economia, ética e arte. O leitor, portanto, tem diante de si um livro com as mais variadas opiniões a respeito de alguns dos principais temas contemporâneos. Naturalmente, não esperamos dar a última palavra a respeito de qualquer assunto. Nossa pretensão é bem mais modesta, mas também muito importante: mostrar que é possível, mesmo sem colocar pontos finais aos debates, pensar de forma criativa, clara e civilizada. (shrink)

Where Consciousness has been described previously, it is only in the context of strictly unconscious means – we leave ourselves under the guise of some manifestation of consciousness from alien means, and lose ourselves in the mysterianism that has formed a true government over conjectural thought on the study of consciousness. This article instead proposes that the information which, to us, occupies a passive basis is formative for consciousness – derivative on a prerogative for formation that is observed in GWT (...) and IIT that rejects any preconceived notion of immediate innateness for consciousness – and that it provides a shape for consciousness that suggests its function to be explicitly limited to its faculties. (shrink)

Originally proposed by John Rawls, the idea of reasoning from conjecture is popular among the proponents of political liberalism in normative political theory. Reasoning from conjecture consists in discussing with fellow citizens who are attracted to illiberal and antidemocratic ideas by focusing on their religious or otherwise comprehensive doctrines, attempting to convince them that such doctrines actually call for loyalty to liberal democracy. Our goal is to criticise reasoning from conjecture as a tool aimed at persuasion and, (...) in turn, at improving the stability of liberal democratic institutions. To pursue this goal, we use as case study real-world efforts to counter-radicalise at-risk Muslim citizens, which, at first glance, reasoning from conjecture seems well-placed to contribute to. This case study helps us to argue that the supporters of reasoning from conjecture over-intellectualise opposition to liberal democracy and what societies can do to counter it. Specifically, they (i) underestimate how few members of society can effectively perform reasoning from conjecture; (ii) overlook that the burdens of judgement, a key notion for political liberals, highlight how dim the prospects of reasoning from conjecture are and (iii) do not pay attention to the causes of religious persons’ opposition to liberal democracy. However, not everything is lost for political liberals, provided that they redirect attention to different and under-researched resources contained in Rawls’s theory. In closing, we briefly explain how such resources are much better placed than reasoning from conjecture to provide guidance relative to counter-radicalisation in societies (i) populated by persons who do not generally hold anything close to a fully worked out and internally consistent comprehensive doctrine and (ii) where political institutions should take responsibility for at least part of the existing alienation from liberal democratic values. (shrink)

I propose and defend the conjecture that what explains why Gettiered subjects fail to know is the fact that their justified true belief depends essentially on unknown propositions. The conjecture follows from the plausible principle about inference in general according to which one knows the conclusion of one’s inference only if one knows all the premises it involves essentially.

The paper deals with an argument reported by Razi (d. 1210) that was used to attempt to refute the immateriality of human nature. This argument is based on an epistemic asymmetry between our self-knowledge and our knowledge of immaterial things. After some preliminary remarks, the paper analyzes the structure of the argument in four steps. From a methodological point of view, the argument is similar to a family of epistemological arguments (notably, the Cartesian argument from doubt) and is vulnerable to (...) the same objection that can be raised against that form of reasoning. The last section points out that the argument can be used indirectly to highlight the weakness in some arguments for the claim that there is something immaterial in human beings. (shrink)

This article discusses the significance of historical research in normative political philosophy. Methodologically ahistoricist philosophers argue that historical research has limited relevance to political philosophy as it only serves to validate if a theory is sufficiently historically fact-sensitive. However, this perspective allows for minimal engagement with intellectual history. In contrast, I advocate for a more substantial role of historical research, suggesting that it not only provides evidence to refute political philosophical views but also serves as a source of imaginative resources. (...) I show that thinkers from across the humanities, like R.J. Collingwood, Quentin Skinner, Michel Foucault, Raymond Geuss, David Graeber, and Bernard Williams, have recognised the importance of these imaginative resources in shaping methodological reflections. These thinkers are concerned that limiting the relevance of history to normative theorising exposes ahistoricist thinkers to imaginative failures. I argue that this is best construed as a concern about the epistemic reliability of their evaluative judgments. Imaginative failures can introduce biases that unjustifiably restrict the range of solutions to practical collective problems they contemplate. Historical research serves a normative function that is unavailable to the methodologically ahistoricist approach by preventing such failures. (shrink)

To evaluate and compare the “Decreasing Universe theory” with the LCDM model, I created a potentially falsifiable prediction and the data was extracted and analyzed.

Let G be an additive subgroup of ℂ, let Wn = {xi = 1, xi + xj = xk: i, j, k ∈ {1, …, n }}, and define En = {xi = 1, xi + xj = xk, xi · xj = xk: i, j, k ∈ {1, …, n }}. We discuss two conjectures. If a system S ⊆ En is consistent over ℝ, then S has a real solution which consists of numbers whose absolute values belong to (...) [0, 22n –2]. If a system S ⊆ Wn is consistent over G, then S has a solution ∈ n in which |xj| ≤ 2n –1 for each j. (shrink)

Pragmatic self-refutation is when one asserts something but one’s act of assertion refutes the content of that assertion. In this paper, I consider whether Donald Davidson is guilty of this when arguing against the possibility of alternative conceptual schemes.

The conventional notion of a formal system is adapted to conform to the sound deductive inference model operating on finite strings. Finite strings stipulated to have the semantic value of Boolean true provide the sound deductive premises. Truth preserving finite string transformation rules provide the valid deductive inference. Sound deductive conclusions are the result of these finite string transformation rules.

In his paper, "Free Choice, Incommensurable Goods and the Self-Refutation of Determinism,"' Joseph Boyle seeks to show how the argument for the self-refutation of determinism - first articulated over twenty-five years ago - is an argument whose force depends on (first) a proper understanding of just what free choice is, and (secondly) a proper understanding of how free choice is a principle of moral responsibility. According to Boyle, a person can make a genuinely free choice only if he (...) is presented with alternative options that are incommensurable in their goodness or desirability. If the goodness or desirability of alternative options could be commensurated, or compared in accordance with some common standard, then it would be possible in principle for a person to determine which of the two options offered more, and which offered less, of the same sort of good represented by the two options. But if this sort of commensuration or comparison were possible, according to Boyle, then there would really be no need to choose. Rather, the only task that would have to be performed in order to determine the person's selection among alternative options would be the task clarifying or calculating which of the alternative options offered most fully what it is that makes both options desirable in the first place. Once the clarification or calculation is done, there would be no need-and in fact, no possibility--of really choosing: the calculation alone would settle which option is the best option, and thus which option is to be selected. Now if genuinely free choice requires that the choosing person be presented with options that are incommensurable in goodness or desirability, then it also seems to be the case that genuine choice-and the moral responsibility that goes along with it-requires that the person be presented with alternative possibilities from which to choose. And yet some compatibilist thinkers have held that moral responsibility does not really require the presence of alternative possibilities. In particular, Harry G. Frankfurt has sought to show (by means of counter-example) that a person can be a moral agent and morally responsible, even if the person did not, in fact, have any alternative possibilities available to him (that is, even if the person could not have done otherwise). Frankfurt's counter-example offers a direct challenge to the sort of incompatibilism that Boyle seeks to defend; and so Boyle is quite right to address Frankfurt head-on. For if Frankfurt is right, then it is erroneous to hold "the principle of alternative possibilities" (the principle that a person can be morally responsible for what he has done, only if he had alternative possibilities, or only if he could have done otherwise). But if it is erroneous to hold the principle of alternative possibilities, then it also seems erroneous to hold the more robust position that Boyle wishes to defend: namely, the position that moral responsibility requires not only alternative possibilities, but also alternative possibilities representing options that are incommensurable in their goodness. (shrink)

In this paper I provide support for the view that at least some forms of adversariality in argumentation are legitimate. The support comes from Aristotle’s theory of illegitimate adversarial argumentation in dialectical contexts: his theory of eristic in his work On Sophistical Refutations. Here Aristotle develops non-epistemic standards for evaluating the legitimacy of dialectical procedures, standards which I propose can be understood in terms of the pragmatic notion of context as common ground. Put briefly, Aristotle makes the answerer’s meaning in (...) giving assent in dialectical contexts the basis for further moves in the game of dialectic. Moves which subvert the answerer’s meaning or do not solicit the answerer’s consent are marked as eristic, i.e. adversarial in a problematic sense. I conclude with remarks on what Aristotle’s theory may teach us about how semantic features relate to the normative evaluation of argumentation. (shrink)

This is a conjecture about the conditions and operating structures that are required for the phenomenality of certain mental states. Specifically, full-blown phenomenality is assumed, as contrasted with constrained examples of phenomenal experience such as sensations of color and pain. Propositional attitudes and content, while not phenomenal per se, are standardly concurrent and may condition phenomenal states (e.g., when tied to false beliefs). It is conjectured that full phenomenality natively arises in coherent processes of situated sensory synthesis and representation (...) (with conceptual content) that are looped, mereologically whole and multi-dimensional. And that phenomenal states are typically phase-states within a parameterized conjoint structure of world and experiencer processes that are causally modulated across Markov blankets (which are conditionally independent and may be nested: cf. M. Kirchoff, et. al., 2017, 2018; and T. Burge, 2010, re: anti-individualism). Though they may, it is not accepted that phenomenally conscious states must be targets of higher-order representations (cf. A. Byrne, 2004). (shrink)

I introduce a formalization of probability which takes the concept of 'evidence' as primitive. In parallel to the intuitionistic conception of truth, in which 'proof' is primitive and an assertion A is judged to be true just in case there is a proof witnessing it, here 'evidence' is primitive and A is judged to be probable just in case there is evidence supporting it. I formalize this outlook by representing propositions as types in Martin-Lof type theory (MLTT) and defining a (...) 'probability type' on top of the existing machinery of MLTT, whose inhabitants represent pieces of evidence in favor of a proposition. One upshot of this approach is the potential for a mathematical formalism which treats 'conjectures' as mathematical objects in their own right. Other intuitive properties of evidence occur as theorems in this formalism. (shrink)

Within the (Haskell Curry) notion of a formal system we complete Tarski's formal correctness: ∀x True(x) ↔ ⊢ x and use this finally formalized notion of Truth to refute his own Undefinability Theorem (based on the Liar Paradox), the Liar Paradox, and the (Panu Raatikainen) essence of the conclusion of the 1931 Incompleteness Theorem.

My purpose is to refute the intentionalist approach to perception. Drawing from mainstream literature, I identify a principle on which any version of intentional theory relies. My paper is a detailed attack on the truth of the principle. In the first section I will introduce terminology and will taxonomize various statements of the intentional view. In the second section I will briefly outline a sketch of the skeletal intentionalist theory that develops from the assumption of the principle alone. Then, in (...) the third section, I will advance my reasons against this theory. In the fourth section, I will set forth anintuitive and definitive counterexample to the adequacy of the principle of intentionalism to accounting for ordinary perception. Moving from this, in the fifth section, I will provide some reasons explaining why intentionalism is condemned at being unsuccessful. Finally, in the last section of the paper, I will give my conclusions. (shrink)

How were reliable predictions made before Pascal and Fermat's discovery of the mathematics of probability in 1654? What methods in law, science, commerce, philosophy, and logic helped us to get at the truth in cases where certainty was not attainable? The book examines how judges, witch inquisitors, and juries evaluated evidence; how scientists weighed reasons for and against scientific theories; and how merchants counted shipwrecks to determine insurance rates. Also included are the problem of induction before Hume, design arguments for (...) the existence of God, and theories on how to evaluate scientific and historical hypotheses. It is explained how Pascal and Fermat's work on chance arose out of legal thought on aleatory contracts. The book interprets pre-Pascalian unquantified probability in a generally objective Bayesian or logical probabilist sense. (shrink)