Results for 'empirical equivalence'

953 found
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  1. Empirical equivalence, explanatory force, and the inference to the best theory.Igor Douven - 2005 - Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 83 (1):281-309.
    In this paper I discuss the rule of inference proposed by Kuipers under the name of Inference to the Best Theory. In particular, I argue that the rule needs to be strengthened if it is to serve realist purposes. I further describe a method for testing, and perhaps eventually justifying, a suitably strengthened version of it.
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  2. Quantum States of a Time-Asymmetric Universe: Wave Function, Density Matrix, and Empirical Equivalence.Eddy Keming Chen - 2019 - Dissertation, Rutgers University - New Brunswick
    What is the quantum state of the universe? Although there have been several interesting suggestions, the question remains open. In this paper, I consider a natural choice for the universal quantum state arising from the Past Hypothesis, a boundary condition that accounts for the time-asymmetry of the universe. The natural choice is given not by a wave function but by a density matrix. I begin by classifying quantum theories into two types: theories with a fundamental wave function and theories with (...)
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  3. What are empirical consequences? On dispensability and composite objects.Alex LeBrun - 2021 - Synthese 199 (5-6):13201-13223.
    Philosophers sometimes give arguments that presuppose the following principle: two theories can fail to be empirically equivalent on the sole basis that they present different “thick” metaphysical pictures of the world. Recently, a version of this principle has been invoked to respond to the argument that composite objects are dispensable to our best scientific theories. This response claims that our empirical evidence distinguishes between ordinary and composite-free theories, and it empirically favors the ordinary ones. In this paper, I ask (...)
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  4. Respecting boundaries: theoretical equivalence and structure beyond dynamics.William J. Wolf & James Read - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (4):1-28.
    A standard line in the contemporary philosophical literature has it that physical theories are equivalent only when they agree on their empirical content, where this empirical content is often understood as being encoded in the equations of motion of those theories. In this article, we question whether it is indeed the case that the empirical content of a theory is exhausted by its equations of motion, showing that (for example) considerations of boundary conditions play a key role (...)
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  5. Reinterpreting Relativity: Using the Equivalence Principle to Explain Away Cosmological Anomalies.Marcus Arvan - manuscript
    According to the standard interpretation of Einstein’s field equations, gravity consists of mass-energy curving spacetime, and an additional physical force or entity—denoted by Λ (the ‘cosmological constant’)—is responsible for the Universe’s metric-expansion. Although General Relativity’s direct predictions have been systematically confirmed, the dominant cosmological model thought to follow from it—the ΛCDM (Lambda cold dark matter) model of the Universe’s history and composition—faces considerable challenges, including various observational anomalies and experimental failures to detect dark matter, dark energy, or inflation-field candidates. This (...)
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  6. Overdetermination of theories by empirical models: A realist interpretation of empirical choices.Emma Ruttkamp - 2005 - Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 84 (1):409-436.
    A model-theoretic realist account of science places linguistic systems and their corresponding non-linguistic structures at different stages or different levels of abstraction of the scientific process. Apart from the obvious problem of underdetermination of theories by data, philosophers of science are also faced with the inverse (and very real) problem of overdetermination of theories by their empirical models, which is what this article will focus on. I acknowledge the contingency of the factors determining the nature – and choice – (...)
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  7. Density Matrix Realism.Eddy Keming Chen - 2024 - In Michael E. Cuffaro & Stephan Hartmann (eds.), Open Systems: Physics, Metaphysics, and Methodology (2025: Oxford University Press). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    Realism about quantum theory naturally leads to realism about the quantum state of the universe. It leaves open whether it is a pure state represented by a wave function, or an impure (mixed) one represented by a density matrix. I characterize and elaborate on Density Matrix Realism, the thesis that the universal quantum state is objective but can be impure. To clarify the thesis, I compare it with Wave Function Realism, explain the conditions under which they are empirically equivalent, consider (...)
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  8. The intelligibility objection against underdetermination.Rogério Passos Severo - 2012 - Principia: An International Journal of Epistemology 16 (1):121-146.
    One of the objections against the thesis of underdetermination of theories by observations is that it is unintelligible. Any two empirically equivalent theories — so the argument goes—are in principle intertranslatable, hence cannot count as rivals in any non-trivial sense. Against that objection, this paper shows that empirically equivalent theories may contain theoretical sentences that are not intertranslatable. Examples are drawn from a related discussion about incommensurability that shows that theoretical non-intertranslatability is possible.
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  9. Conflating Abstraction with Empirical Observation: The False Mind-Matter Dichotomy.Bernardo Kastrup - 2018 - Constructivist Foundations 13 (3):341-361.
    > Context • The alleged dichotomy between mind and matter is pervasive. Therefore, the attempt to explain mat- ter in terms of mind (idealism) is often considered a mirror image of that of explaining mind in terms of mat- ter (mainstream physicalism), in the sense of being structurally equivalent despite being reversely arranged. > Problem • I argue that this is an error arising from language artifacts, for dichotomies must reside in the same level of abstraction. > Method • I (...)
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  10.  70
    Framing effects from misleading implicatures: an empirically based case against some purported nudges.Shang Long Yeo - forthcoming - Journal of Medical Ethics.
    Some bioethicists argue that a doctor may frame treatment options in terms of effects on survival rather than on mortality in order to influence patients to choose the better option. The debate over such framing typically assumes that the survival and mortality frames convey the same numerical information. However, certain empirical findings contest this numerical equivalence assumption, demonstrating that framing effects may in fact be due to the two frames implying different information about the numerical bounds of survival (...)
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  11. Study on Logic Reasoning and Ideological Characteristic of “Equivalence of Life and Death” of Chuang-Tzu. Di Wu - 2017 - Theory Horizon 526 (6):46-51.
    The Concept of Life and Death of Chuang-tzu have inherited and developed Confucianism and Taoism thoughts, establishing Ontological foundation of "Life - Body", distinguishing the transcendental concept of "Dead Heart" and the empirical concept of "Death Body", as well as proposing the thought of "Equivalence of Life and Death" finally. The logic Reasoning of Chuang-tzu "Equivalence of Life and Death", start from constructing the equal status of "Life" and “Death" from ontological argument. Life and Death then are (...)
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  12. Scientific Realism.Timothy D. Lyons - 2014 - In Paul Humphreys (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Science. New York, NY, USA: Oxford University Press. pp. 564-584.
    This article endeavors to identify the strongest versions of the two primary arguments against epistemic scientific realism: the historical argument—generally dubbed “the pessimistic meta-induction”—and the argument from underdetermination. It is shown that, contrary to the literature, both can be understood as historically informed but logically validmodus tollensarguments. After specifying the question relevant to underdetermination and showing why empirical equivalence is unnecessary, two types of competitors to contemporary scientific theories are identified, both of which are informed by science itself. (...)
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  13. Is There an Empirical Disagreement between Genic and Genotypic Selection Models? A Response to Brandon and Nijhout.Naftali Weinberger - 2011 - Philosophy of Science 78 (2):225-237.
    In a recent paper, Brandon and Nijhout argue against genic selectionism—the thesis, roughly, that evolutionary processes are best understood from the gene’s-eye point of view—by presenting a case in which genic models of selection allegedly make predictions that conflict with the (correct) predictions of higher-level genotypic selection models. Their argument, if successful, would refute the widely held belief that genic models and higher-level models are predictively equivalent. Here, I argue that Brandon and Nijhout fail to demonstrate that the models make (...)
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  14. Subdeterminación, equivalencia empírica y realismo científico.Alejandro Victor Thiry - 2013 - Revista Legein 16 (junio 2013):63-72.
    Two main theses of scientific realism —the epistemic thesis and the ontological thesis— are challenged by the underdetermination argument. Scientific realists deny the truth of the premises of this argument —particularly the thesis of the empirical equivalence among theories. But it can be shown that, even if that particular thesis were false, it is reasonable to be skeptic about the likelihood of the realistic theses. -/- .
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  15. The Simplicity of Physical Laws.Eddy Keming Chen - 2022 - Noûs.
    Physical laws are strikingly simple, although there is no a priori reason they must be so. I propose that nomic realists of all types (Humeans and non-Humeans) should accept that simplicity is a fundamental epistemic guide for discovering and evaluating candidate physical laws. The proposal addresses several problems of nomic realism and simplicity. A consequence is that the oft-cited epistemic advantage of Humeanism over non-Humeanism disappears, undercutting an influential epistemological argument for Humeanism. Moreover, simplicity is shown to be more tightly (...)
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  16. (1 other version)Duality and ontology.Baptiste Le Bihan & James Read - 2018 - Philosophy Compass 13 (12):e12555.
    A ‘duality’ is a formal mapping between the spaces of solutions of two empirically equivalent theories. In recent times, dualities have been found to be pervasive in string theory and quantum field theory. Naïvely interpreted, duality-related theories appear to make very different ontological claims about the world—differing in e.g. space-time structure, fundamental ontology, and mereological structure. In light of this, duality-related theories raise questions familiar from discussions of underdetermination in the philosophy of science: in the presence of dual theories, what (...)
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  17. Strong Determinism.Eddy Keming Chen - 2024 - Philosophers' Imprint 24 (1).
    A strongly deterministic theory of physics is one that permits exactly one possible history of the universe. In the words of Penrose (1989), "it is not just a matter of the future being determined by the past; the entire history of the universe is fixed, according to some precise mathematical scheme, for all time.” Such an extraordinary feature may appear unattainable in a world like ours. In this paper, I show that it can be achieved in a simple way and (...)
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  18. In Defence of Dimensions.Caspar Jacobs - forthcoming - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
    The distinction between dimensions and units in physics is commonplace. But are dimensions a feature of reality? The most widely-held view is that they are no more than a tool for keeping track of the values of quantities under a change of units. This anti-realist position is supported by an argument from underdetermination: one can assign dimensions to quantities in many different ways, all of which are empirically equivalent. In contrast, I defend a form of dimensional realism, on which some (...)
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  19. Typical Quantum States of the Universe are Observationally Indistinguishable.Eddy Keming Chen & Roderich Tumulka - 2024
    This paper is about the epistemology of quantum theory. We establish a new result about a limitation to knowledge of its central object---the quantum state of the universe. We show that, if the universal quantum state can be assumed to be a typical unit vector from a high-dimensional subspace of Hilbert space (such as the subspace defined by a low-entropy macro-state as prescribed by the Past Hypothesis), then no observation can determine (or even just narrow down significantly) which vector it (...)
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  20. The Appearance and the Reality of a Scientific Theory.Seungbae Park - 2020 - Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 9 (11):59-69.
    Scientific realists claim that the best of successful rival theories is (approximately) true. Relative realists object that we cannot make the absolute judgment that a theory is successful, and that we can only make the relative judgment that it is more successful than its competitor. I argue that this objection is undermined by the cases in which empirical equivalents are successful. Relative realists invoke the argument from a bad lot to undermine scientific realism and to support relative realism. In (...)
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  21. Disarming Context Dependence. A Formal Inquiry into Indexicalism and Truth-Conditional Pragmatics.Stellan Petersson - 2019 - Dissertation, University of Gothenburg
    In the debate about semantic context dependence, various truth-conditional frameworks have been proposed. Indexicalism, associated with e.g. Jason Stanley, accounts for contextual effects on truth conditions in terms of a rich covert syntax. Truth-conditional pragmatics, associated with e.g. François Recanati, does not locate the mechanisms for context dependence in the syntactic structure but provides a more complex semantics. In this dissertation, the hypothesis that indexicalism and truth-conditional pragmatics are empirically equivalent is explored. The conclusion that the hypothesis is correct emerges, (...)
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  22. Indeterminism in Physics, Classical Chaos and Bohmian Mechanics: Are Real Numbers Really Real?Nicolas Gisin - 2019 - Erkenntnis 86 (6):1469-1481.
    It is usual to identify initial conditions of classical dynamical systems with mathematical real numbers. However, almost all real numbers contain an infinite amount of information. I argue that a finite volume of space can’t contain more than a finite amount of information, hence that the mathematical real numbers are not physically relevant. Moreover, a better terminology for the so-called real numbers is “random numbers”, as their series of bits are truly random. I propose an alternative classical mechanics, which is (...)
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  23.  55
    Kripkenstein and Aborigines: The True Order of Language and Rule-Following Paradox.A. Nekhaev - 2013 - Tomsk State University Journal of Philosophy, Sociology and Political Science 7 (2):143-155.
    This article is devoted to thirtieth anniversary of the first publication in 1982 Saul Kripke's book "Wittgenstein on rules and private language". Radical skeptical interpretation of the work 'late' Ludwig Wittgenstein proposed by Saul Kripke in this book is considered one of the most famous "puzzle" of modern philosophy of language, which has become a source of much debate and discussion on the nature of the linguistic sign and its meaning. This article examines some of the consequences of a radical (...)
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  24. Worlds in a Stochastic Universe: On the Emergence of World Histories in Minimal Bohmian Mechanics.Alexander Ehmann - 2020 - Dissertation, Lingnan University
    This thesis develops a detailed account of the emergence of for all practical purposes continuous, quasi-classical world histories from the discontinuous, stochastic micro dynamics of Minimal Bohmian Mechanics (MBM). MBM is a non-relativistic quantum theory. It results from excising the guiding equation from standard Bohmian Mechanics (BM) and reinterpreting the quantum equilibrium hypothesis as a stochastic guidance law for the random actualization of configurations of Bohmian particles. On MBM, there are no continuous trajectories linking up individual configurations. Instead, individual configurations (...)
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  25. (1 other version)Instrumentalism Revisited.Elliott Sober - 1999 - Critica 31 (91):3-39.
    The logical empiricists said some good things about epistemology and scientific method. However, they associated those epistemological ideas with some rather less good ideas about philosophy of language. There is something epistemologically suspect about statements that cannot be tested. But to say that those statements are meaningless is to go too far. And there is something impossible about trying to figure out which of two empirically equivalent theories is true. But to say that those theories are synonymous is also to (...)
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  26. Touching Reality.David Merritt - unknown - Iai News.
    Dark matter has never been detected, yet it is a key part of the dominant theory of cosmology. An alternative theory, MOND, is empirically equivalent and more successful at making predictions. But the fact that it has no place for the existence of dark matter is a problem for scientific realists who see science as building on past theories.
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  27. Reckoning the shape of everything: Underdetermination and cosmotopology.P. D. Magnus - 2005 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 56 (3):541-557.
    This paper offers a general characterization of underdetermination and gives a prima facie case for the underdetermination of the topology of the universe. A survey of several philosophical approaches to the problem fails to resolve the issue: the case involves the possibility of massive reduplication, but Strawson on massive reduplication provides no help here; it is not obvious that any of the rival theories are to be preferred on grounds of simplicity; and the usual talk of empirically equivalent theories misses (...)
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  28. Constructive empiricism and the argument from underdetermination.Maarten Van Dyck - 2007 - In Bradley John Monton (ed.), Images of empiricism: essays on science and stances, with a reply from Bas C. van Fraassen. New York: Oxford University Press.
    It is argued that, contrary to prevailing opinion, Bas van Fraassen nowhere uses the argument from underdetermination in his argument for constructive empiricism. It is explained that van Fraassen’s use of the notion of empirical equivalence in The Scientific Image has been widely misunderstood. A reconstruction of the main arguments for constructive empiricism is offered, showing how the passages that have been taken to be part of an appeal to the argument from underdetermination should actually be interpreted.
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  29. The Ontology of Electromagnetism.Lars-Göran Johansson - 2017 - Studia Philosophica Estonica 10 (1):25-44.
    Electromagnetism is usually understood as a theory describing how charged particles and eletromagnetic fields interact. In this paper I argue that a double ontology comprising both particles and fields is problematic. Either we should think of electromagnetism as a theory about charged particles directly interacting with each other, or as theory of fields whose local interactions are manifested as field quanta, called "particles." From a purely theoretical point of view the choice between a particle and a field interpretation does not (...)
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  30. The inscrutability of reference.Robert Williams - 2005 - Dissertation, University of St Andrews
    The metaphysics of representation poses questions such as: in virtue of what does a sentence, picture, or mental state represent that the world is a certain way? In the first instance, I have focused on the semantic properties of language: for example, what is it for a name such as ‘London’ to refer to something? Interpretationism concerning what it is for linguistic expressions to have meaning, says that constitutively, semantic facts are fixed by best semantic theory. As here developed, it (...)
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  31. Background theories and total science.P. D. Magnus - 2005 - Philosophy of Science 72 (5):1064-1075.
    Background theories in science are used both to prove and to disprove that theory choice is underdetermined by data. The alleged proof appeals to the fact that experiments to decide between theories typically require auxiliary assumptions from other theories. If this generates a kind of underdetermination, it shows that standards of scientific inference are fallible and must be appropriately contextualized. The alleged disproof appeals to the possibility of suitable background theories to show that no theory choice can be timelessly or (...)
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  32.  67
    Are geometrical trinity of gravity underdetermined?Yitong Zhou - manuscript
    General relativity (GR) describes gravity through the curvature of spacetime. However, there are two equivalents of GR that describe flat spacetimes with gravitational effects attributed to torison or non-metricity. These theories, together with GR, are known as the geometrical trinity of gravity and are said to present a case of underdetermination by Wolf et al. (2024). In this article, I argue against this stance by examining the empirical equivalence and possible interpretations of the trinity. I propose a unifying (...)
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  33. Internal Realism and the Objectivity of Scientific Knowledge.Rinat Nugayev - 2011 - Analytica 5:1-35.
    Arguments pro and contra convergent realism – underdetermination of theory by observational evidence and pessimistic meta-induction from past falsity – are considered. It is argued that, to meet the counter-arguments challenge, convergent realism should be considerably changed with a help of modification of the propositions from this meta-programme “hard core” or “protecting belt”. Two well-known convergent realism rivals – “entity realism” of Nancy Cartwright and Ian Hacking and John Worrall’s “structural realism” – are considered. Entity realism’s main drawback is fundamental (...)
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  34. Origin and Resolution of Theory-Choice Situations in Modern Theory of gravity.Rinat M. Nugayev - 1987 - Methodology and Science 20 (4):177-197.
    A methodological model of origin and settlement of theory-choice situations (previously tried on the theories of Einstein and Lorentz in electrodynamics) is applied to modern Theory of Gravity. The process of origin and growth of empirically-equivalent relativistic theories of gravitation is theoretically reproduced. It is argued that all of them are proposed within the two rival research programmes – (1) metric (A. Einstein et al.) and (2) nonmetric (H. Poincare et al.). Each programme aims at elimination of the cross-contradiction between (...)
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  35. Slaves of the defunct: the epistemic intractability of the Hayek–Keynes debate.Scott Scheall - 2015 - Journal of Economic Methodology (2):1-20.
    The present essay addresses the epistemic difficulties involved in achieving consensus with respect to the Hayek–Keynes debate. It is argued that the empirical implications of the relevant theories are such that, regardless of what is observed, both theories can be interpreted as true, or at least, as not falsified. The essay explicates the respects in which the empirical evidence underdetermines the choice between the relevant theories. In particular, it is argued both that there are convenient responses that protect (...)
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  36. Externalismo semántico y subdeterminación empírica. Respuesta a un desafío al realismo científico.Marc Jiménez Rolland - 2017 - Dissertation, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana
    I offer an explicit account of the underdetermination thesis as well as of the many challenges it poses to scientific realism; a way to answer to these challenges is explored and outlined, by shifting attention to the content of theories. I argue that, even if we have solid grounds (as I contend we do) to support that some varieties of the underdetermination thesis are true, scientific realism can still offer an adequate picture of the aims and achievements of science.
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  37. Decoherence, Branching, and the Born Rule in a Mixed-State Everettian Multiverse.Eugene Y. S. Chua & Eddy Keming Chen - manuscript
    In Everettian quantum mechanics, justifications for the Born rule appeal to self-locating uncertainty or decision theory. Such justifications have focused exclusively on a pure-state Everettian multiverse, represented by a wave function. Recent works in quantum foundations suggest that it is viable to consider a mixed-state Everettian multiverse, represented by a (mixed-state) density matrix. Here, we develop the conceptual foundations for decoherence and branching in a mixed-state multiverse, and extend the standard Everettian justifications for the Born rule to this setting. This (...)
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  38. Symmetries and Representation.Sebastián Murgueitio Ramírez & Geoffrey Hall - forthcoming - Philosophy Compass.
    It is often said in physics that if two models of a theory are related by a symmetry, then the two models provide (or could provide) two different representations of the very same situation, alike the case of two maps of different color for the very same city. It is also said that the situations represented by two models of a theory are indiscernible in some ways when the models in question are related by a symmetry of the theory, just (...)
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  39. Measurement in biology is methodized by theory.Maël Montévil - 2019 - Biology and Philosophy 34 (3):35.
    We characterize access to empirical objects in biology from a theoretical perspective. Unlike objects in current physical theories, biological objects are the result of a history and their variations continue to generate a history. This property is the starting point of our concept of measurement. We argue that biological measurement is relative to a natural history which is shared by the different objects subjected to the measurement and is more or less constrained by biologists. We call symmetrization the theoretical (...)
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  40. Z badań nad teorią zdań odrzuconych.Urszula Wybraniec-Skardowska & Grzegorz Bryll - 1969 - Opole, Poland: Wydawnictwo Wyższej Szkoły Pedagogicznej w Opolu, Zeszyty Naukowe, Seria B: Studia i Monografie nr 22. Edited by Urszula Wybraniec-Skardowska & Grzegorz Bryll.
    The monograph contains three works on research on the concept of a rejected sentence. This research, conducted under the supervision of Prof. Jerzy Słupecki by U. Wybraniec-Skardowska (1) "Theory of rejected sentences" and G. Bryll (2) "Some supplements of theory of rejected sentences" and (3) "Logical relations between sentences of empirical sciences" led to the construction of a theory rejected sentences and made it possible to formalize certain issues in the methodology of empirical sciences. The concept of a (...)
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  41. Duhem–Quine virtue epistemology.Abrol Fairweather - 2012 - Synthese 187 (2):673-692.
    The Duhem-Quine Thesis is the claim that it is impossible to test a scientific hypothesis in isolation because any empirical test requires assuming the truth of one or more auxiliary hypotheses. This is taken by many philosophers, and is assumed here, to support the further thesis that theory choice is underdetermined by empirical evidence. This inquiry is focused strictly on the axiological commitments engendered in solutions to underdetermination, specifically those of Pierre Duhem and W. V. Quine. Duhem resolves (...)
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  42. Two switches in the theory of counterfactuals: A study of truth conditionality and minimal change.Ivano Ciardelli, Linmin Zhang & Lucas Champollion - 2018 - Linguistics and Philosophy (6).
    Based on a crowdsourced truth value judgment experiment, we provide empirical evidence challenging two classical views in semantics, and we develop a novel account of counterfactuals that combines ideas from inquisitive semantics and causal reasoning. First, we show that two truth-conditionally equivalent clauses can make different semantic contributions when embedded in a counterfactual antecedent. Assuming compositionality, this means that the meaning of these clauses is not fully determined by their truth conditions. This finding has a clear explanation in inquisitive (...)
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  43. Carbon Offsetting.Dan Baras - 2023 - Ethics, Policy and Environment 27 (3):281-298.
    Do carbon-offsetting schemes morally offset emissions? The moral equivalence thesis is the claim that the combination of emitting greenhouse gasses and offsetting those emissions is morally equivalent to not emitting at all. This thesis implies that in response to climate change, we need not make any lifestyle changes to reduce our emissions as long as we offset them. An influential argument in favor of this thesis is premised on two claims, one empirical and the other normative: (1) When (...)
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  44. On What Ground Do Thin Objects Exist? In Search of the Cognitive Foundation of Number Concepts.Markus Pantsar - 2023 - Theoria 89 (3):298-313.
    Linnebo in 2018 argues that abstract objects like numbers are “thin” because they are only required to be referents of singular terms in abstraction principles, such as Hume's principle. As the specification of existence claims made by analytic truths (the abstraction principles), their existence does not make any substantial demands of the world; however, as Linnebo notes, there is a potential counter-argument concerning infinite regress against introducing objects this way. Against this, he argues that vicious regress is avoided in the (...)
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  45. Asymmetries in prior conviction reasoning: Truth suppression effects in child protection contexts.Michelle B. Cowley-Cunningham - 2010 - Psychology, Crime and Law 3 (16):211-231.
    In three empirical studies we examined how people reason about prior convictions in child abuse cases. We tested whether the disclosure of similar prior convictions prompts a mental representation or an additive probative value (Criminal Justice Act, 2003). Asymmetrical use of similar priors were observed in three studies. A pilot study showed that disclosure of a second prior did not contribute a weight equivalent to that of the first disclosure. Study 1 showed jurors did not see left-handed evidence (i.e. (...)
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  46. Kant’s derivation of the moral ‘ought’ from a metaphysical ‘is’.Colin Marshall - 2022 - In Schafer Karl & Stang Nicholas (eds.), The Sensible and Intelligible Worlds: New Essays on Kant's Metaphysics and Epistemology. Oxforrd University Press. pp. 382-404.
    In this chapter, I argue that Kant can be read as holding that "ought" judgments follow from certain "is" judgments by mere analysis. More specifically, I defend an interpretation according to which (1) Kant holds that “S ought to F” is analytically equivalent to “If, as it can and would were there no other influences on the will, S’s faculty of reason determined S’s willing, S would F” and (2) Kant’s notions of reason, the will, and freedom are all fundamentally (...)
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  47. (9 other versions)Stepping Beyond the Newtonian Paradigm in Biology. Towards an Integrable Model of Life: Accelerating Discovery in the Biological Foundations of Science.Plamen L. Simeonov, Edwin Brezina, Ron Cottam, Andreé C. Ehresmann, Arran Gare, Ted Goranson, Jaime Gomez-­‐Ramirez, Brian D. Josephson, Bruno Marchal, Koichiro Matsuno, Robert S. Root-­Bernstein, Otto E. Rössler, Stanley N. Salthe, Marcin Schroeder, Bill Seaman & Pridi Siregar - 2012 - In Plamen L. Simeonov, Leslie S. Smith & Andrée C. Ehresmann (eds.), Integral Biomathics: Tracing the Road to Reality. Springer. pp. 328-427.
    The INBIOSA project brings together a group of experts across many disciplines who believe that science requires a revolutionary transformative step in order to address many of the vexing challenges presented by the world. It is INBIOSA’s purpose to enable the focused collaboration of an interdisciplinary community of original thinkers. This paper sets out the case for support for this effort. The focus of the transformative research program proposal is biology-centric. We admit that biology to date has been more fact-oriented (...)
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  48. Reconciling the opposing effects of neurobiological evidence on criminal sentencing judgments.Corey Allen, Karina Vold, Gidon Felson, Jennifer Blumenthal-Barby & Eyal Aharoni - 2019 - PLoS ONE 1:1-17.
    Legal theorists have characterized physical evidence of brain dysfunction as a double-edged sword, wherein the very quality that reduces the defendant’s responsibility for his transgression could simultaneously increase motivations to punish him by virtue of his apparently increased dangerousness. However, empirical evidence of this pattern has been elusive, perhaps owing to a heavy reliance on singular measures that fail to distinguish between plural, often competing internal motivations for punishment. The present study employed a test of the theorized double-edge pattern (...)
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  49. The good of today depends not on the good of tomorrow: a constraint on theories of well-being.Owen C. King - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (8):2365-2380.
    This article addresses three questions about well-being. First, is well-being future-sensitive? I.e., can present well-being depend on future events? Second, is well-being recursively dependent? I.e., can present well-being depend on itself? Third, can present and future well-being be interdependent? The third question combines the first two, in the sense that a yes to it is equivalent to yeses to both the first and second. To do justice to the diverse ways we contemplate well-being, I consider our thought and discourse about (...)
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  50.  30
    Evaluating Boolean relationships in Configurational Comparative Methods.Luna De Souter - 2024 - Journal of Causal Inference 12 (1).
    Configurational Comparative Methods (CCMs) aim to learn causal structures from datasets by exploiting Boolean sufficiency and necessity relationships. One important challenge for these methods is that such Boolean relationships are often not satisfied in real-life datasets, as these datasets usually contain noise. Hence, CCMs infer models that only approximately fit the data, introducing a risk of inferring incorrect or incomplete models, especially when data are also fragmented (have limited empirical diversity). To minimize this risk, evaluation measures for sufficiency and (...)
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