This essay critically examines Joseph Rouse's arguments against, what he dubs, the "legitimation project", which are the attempts to delimit and justify the scientific enterprise by means of global, "a priori" principles. Stipulating that a more adequate picture of science can be obtained by viewing it as a continuously transforming pattern of situated activities, Rouse believes that only by refocusing attention upon the actual practice of science can philosophers begin to detach themselves from the irresolvable epistemological problems that (...) have remained the primary byproduct of the traditional philosophical approach. On closer inspection, however, Rouse's project appears susceptible to the criticism that it is either too relativistic to do the work he envisioned for it, or that it participates in the very same legitimation venture that it was intended to replace (in addition to its own brand metaphysical/epistemological problems). This unexpected outcome, moreover, suggests that such legitimation projects may be an integral component of the very practice of science, contrary to Rouse estimate. (shrink)

We leave in a beautiful and uniform world, a world where everything probable is possible. Since the epic theory of relativity many scientists have embarked in a pursuit of astonishing theoretical fantasies, abandoning the prudent and logical path to scientific inquiry. The theory is a complex theoretical framework that facilitates the understanding of the universal laws of physics. It is based on the space-time continuum fabric abstract concept, and it is well suited for interpreting cosmic events. However, it is (...) not well suited for handling of small, local topics as global warming, local energy issues, and overall common humanity matters. We now forward may fancy theories and spend unimaginable effort to validate them, even when we are perhaps headed in a wrong direction. For example, in our times matters of climate changes are debated by politicians based on economical considerations that are as illogical as they come. The venerable paths of scientific method developed during centuries by prominent scientists and philosophers has been willingly ignored and abandoned for various and prejudiced purpose. Contact email: [email protected] . (shrink)

Philosophers of science have come to accept that contextual values can play unavoidable and desirable roles in science. This has raised concerns about the need to distinguish legitimate and illegitimate value influences in scientific inquiry. I discuss here four such concerns: epistemic distortion, value imposition, undermining of public trust in science, and the use of objectionable values. I contend that preserving epistemic integrity and avoiding value imposition provide good reasons to attempt to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate influences of (...) values in science. However, the trust and the objectionable values concerns constitute no good reason for demarcation criteria. (shrink)

What is it to be clear? And will that question have the same answer in science, poetry, and philosophy? This paper offers a taxonomy of clarity, before focusing on two notions that are pertinent to the notions of clarity in science, poetry, and, in particular, philosophy. It argues that “scientific clarity,” which is marked by its reliance on technical terms, is, though often appropriate, not the only way in which something can be clear. In particular, poetry entirely eschews technical (...) terms—but can nonetheless be crystal clear. Poetry achieves this clarity by sensitivity to the richness of language: rhythm, ambiguity, and so on. The paper argues that some philosophy uses language in this same way to achieve its philosophical ends. Accordingly, we should allow that this is a legitimate philosophical method and should not judge the clarity of such philosophy by the standards of scientific clarity. (shrink)

A common but overlooked form of explanation in psychiatry is what I label ‘empathetic explanation’. Empathetic explanations invoke empathetic variables, which, in addition to providing an explanation of the target phenomenon, also afford an empathetic understanding of it. Focusing on the case of auditory verbal hallucination (AVH), I argue that empathetic explanation fails to provide an adequate account of the phenomenon, perniciously shapes empirical research, and confuses empathetic understanding with scientific understanding. I close by providing a general condition on (...) the legitimate application of empathetic explanation. (shrink)

My dissertation combines philosophy of science and political philosophy. Drawing directly on the work of Alasdair MacIntyre and inspired by John Dewey, I develop two rival conceptions of scientific practice. I show that these rivals are closely linked to the two basic sides in the science and values debate -- the debate over the extent to which ethical and political values may legitimately influence scientific inquiry. Finally, I start to develop an account of justice that is sensitive to (...) these legitimate and illegitimate influences. (shrink)

In this three-part paper, my concern is to expound and defend a conception of science, close to Einstein's, which I call aim-oriented empiricism. I argue that aim-oriented empiricsim has the following virtues. (i) It solve the problem of induction; (ii) it provides decisive reasons for rejecting van Fraassen's brilliantly defended but intuitively implausible constructive empiricism; (iii) it solves the problem of verisimilitude, the problem of explicating what it can mean to speak of scientific progress given that science advances from (...) one false theory to another; (iv) it enables us to hold that appropriate scientific theories, even though false, can nevertheless legitimately be interpreted realistically, as providing us with genuine , even if only approximate, knowledge of unobservable physical entities; (v) it provies science with a rational, even though fallible and non-mechanical, method for the discovery of fundamental new theories in physics. In the third part of the paper I show that Einstein made essential use of aim-oriented empiricism in scientific practice in developing special and general relativity. I conclude by considering to what extent Einstein came explicitly to advocate aim-oriented empiricism in his later years. (shrink)

As more objections have been raised against grant peer-review for being costly and time-consuming, the legitimate question arises whether machine learning algorithms could help assess the epistemic efficiency of the proposed projects. As a case study, we investigated whether project efficiency in high energy physics can be algorithmically predicted based on the data from the proposal. To analyze the potential of algorithmic prediction in HEP, we conducted a study on data about the structure and outcomes of HEP experiments with the (...) goal of predicting their efficiency. In the first step, we assessed the project efficiency using Data Envelopment Analysis of 67 experiments conducted in the HEP laboratory Fermilab. In the second step, we employed predictive algorithms to detect which team structures maximize the epistemic performance of an expert group. For this purpose, we used the efficiency scores obtained by DEA and applied predictive algorithms – lasso and ridge linear regression, neural network, and gradient boosted trees – on them. The results of the predictive analyses show moderately high accuracy, indicating that they can be beneficial as one of the steps in grant review. Still, their applicability in practice should be approached with caution. Some of the limitations of the algorithmic approach are the unreliability of citation patterns, unobservable variables that influence scientific success, and the potential predictability of the model. (shrink)

An account of scientific explanation is presented according to which (1) scientific explanation consists in solving “insight” problems (Metcalfe and Wiebe 1984) and (2) understanding is the result of solving such problems. The theory is pragmatic; it draws upon van Fraassen’s (1977, 1980) insights, avoids the objections to pragmatic accounts offered by Kitcher and Salmon (1987), and relates scientific explanation directly to understanding. The theory also accommodates cases of explanatory asymmetry and intuitively legitimate rejections of explanation requests.

The appearance of consciousness in the universe remains one of the major mysteries unsolved by science or philosophy. Absent an agreed-upon definition of consciousness or even a convenient system to test theories of consciousness, a confusing heterogeneity of theories proliferate. In pursuit of clarifying this complicated discourse, we here interpret various frameworks for the scientific and philosophical study of consciousness through the lens of social insect evolutionary biology. To do so, we first discuss the notion of a forward test (...) versus a reverse test, analogous to the normal and revolutionary phases of the scientific process. Contemporary theories of consciousness are forward tests for consciousness, in that they strive to become a means to classify the level of consciousness of arbitrary states and systems. Yet no such theory of consciousness has earned sufficient confidence such that it might be actually used as a forward test in ambiguous settings. What is needed now is thus a legitimate reverse test for theories of consciousness, to provide internal and external calibration of different frameworks. A reverse test for consciousness would ideally look like a method for referencing theories of consciousness to a tractable model system. We introduce the Ant Colony Test as a rigorous reverse test for consciousness. We show that social insect colonies, though disaggregated collectives, fulfill many of the prerequisites for conscious awareness met by humans and honey bee workers. A long lineage of philosophically-neutral neurobehavioral, evolutionary, and ecological studies on social insect colonies can thus be redeployed for the study of consciousness in general. We suggest that the ACT can provide insight into the nature of consciousness, and highlight the ant colony as a model system for ethically performing clarifying experiments about consciousness. (shrink)

A general insight of 20th-century philosophy of science is that the acceptance of a scientific theory is grounded, not merely on a theory's relation to data, but on its status as having no, or being superior to its, competitors. I explore the ways in which scientific realists might be thought to utilise this insight, have in fact utilised it, and can legitimately utilise it. In more detail, I point out that, barring a natural but mistaken characterisation of (...) class='Hi'>scientific realism, traditional realism has not utilised that insight regarding scientific theories, i.e., has not explicitly factored that insight into, and invoked it as justification for, what realists believe. Nonetheless, a new form of realism has. In response to a key historical threat, two of the most thoroughly developed contemporary versions of realism—one put forward by Jarrett Leplin, another by Stathis Psillos—are anchored on the sensible tactic of requiring that the theories to which realists commit themselves have no competitors. I argue, however, that the particular kind of non-competitor condition they invoke is illegitimate in the context of the realism debate. I contend further that invoking a non-competitor condition that is legitimate, sensible, and even, as it turns out, required in the context of the debate threatens to eliminate the possibility of scientific realism altogether. (shrink)

The debate concerning the scientific or unscientific status of the social sciences and the question of the (in) applicability of the methods of research in the natural sciences to social investigations are still unsettled in Philosophy of the Social Sciences. Some of the questions which are often asked concerning these issues include: are the social sciences really scientific? Do they merit the name science? Can we apply the same methods used in the natural research to social research? Are (...) the objects of inquiry in both areas the same? Attempts to answer these questions and numerous related others, have polarized Philosophers of the social sciences into two different ideological camps. Those who answer the questions affirmatively are regarded as the naturalists while those who answer negatively are regarded as the anti-naturalists or humanists. However, using the methods of critical argumentation and conceptual clarification, we intend to argue in this paper for a complementary ground between the two. Consequently, we contend that though the methods of the natural and the social sciences are different due to the fact that their respective objects of investigations are not the same, methods of the two fields are imperative to inquiries that would promote human knowledge and aid their intellectual development. This is necessary in order to foster interdisciplinary research and de-compartmentalisation of disciplines. We also intend to argue that the view that the social sciences are not scientific arose from a narrow conception of the term “science.” Our submission, therefore, is that the social sciences, legitimately, are sciences in their own right. (shrink)

As a candidate theory of quantum gravity, the popularity of string theory has waxed and waned over the past four decades. One current source of scepticism is that the theory can be used to derive, depending upon the input geometrical assumptions that one makes, a vast range of different quantum field theories, giving rise to the so-called landscape problem. One apparent way to address the landscape problem is to posit the existence of a multiverse; this, however, has in turn drawn (...) heightened attention to questions regarding the empirical testability and predictivity of string theory. We argue first that the landscape problem relies on dubious assumptions and does not motivate a multiverse hypothesis. Nevertheless, we then show that the multiverse hypothesis is scientifically legitimate and could be coupled to string theory for other empirical reasons. Looking at various cosmological approaches, we offer an empirical criterion to assess the scientific status of multiverse hypotheses. (shrink)

Psychotherapy is effective. Since the 1970’s, meta-analyses, and meta-analyses of meta-analyses, have consistently shown a significant effect size for psychotherapeutic interventions when compared to no treatment or placebo treatments. This effectiveness is normally taken as a sign of the scientific legitimization of clinical psychotherapy. A significant problem, however, is that most psychotherapies appear to be equally effective. This poses a problem for specific psychotherapies: they may work, but likely not for the reasons that ground their theoretical explanations for their (...) effectiveness. A prominent explanation for the findings of common efficacy in psychotherapy is to postulate that all successful therapies work by altering maladaptive meanings and providing patients with new, more adaptive meanings. This paper argues that the ‘meaning view’ of psychological change is likely mistaken; psychological problems are not normally problems of meaning nor are they directly ameliorated by changes in meaning. This paper then outlines a skill-based explanation for the findings of the common efficacy of psychotherapy. (shrink)

The essay questions the role of neurons in the concept of mind. The mind is considered as an emerging but physical property of the brain: a mental brain configuration does exist. This configuration is relatively resistant to brain damage, coma, hypoxia and normal (electro)physiological brain states and is envisioned as a relatively stable (nearly anatomical) structure. Consistent with this idea is that, despite the lifetime turnover of their constituents (e.g. proteins and nucleotides) and morphological changes, brain neurons do not divide. (...) Brain neurons are continuously modified, for example by lifetime experiences: genetic and epigenetic support for this thesis is provided. The presumed mental brain configuration guarantees lifetime storage of information, but does not imply that this information and memories remain unmodified during aging. In principle, neurons permanently affected by mental processes can be identified in vitro or in vivo, despite anticipated practical problems. This essay may help to scientifically legitimate complementary neurobiological ad psychotherapeutic approaches in psychiatry. (shrink)

Du Bois regarded social reform as a legitimate object for the scientist. He gave a place to non-epistemic values in scientific reasoning and, to counter the effects of scientific racism, he constructed his approach around the belief that scientists must adopt an assumption or scientific hypothesis that African Americans are human. His engagement in scientific research was a way to reform the society in which he lived, which in turn, led him to defend the faithfulness to (...) fact as his conception of scientific objectivity. This essay examines his sophisticated theory of facts, account of the difference between the natural and human sciences, and unique pragmatist theory of truth. (shrink)

There are many ways of construing the claim that some categories are more “natural" than others. One can ask whether a system of categories is innate or acquired by learning, whether it pertains to a natural phenomenon or to a social institution, whether it is lexicalized in natural language or requires a compound linguistic expression. This renders suspect any univocal answer to this question in any particular case. Yet another question one can ask, which some authors take to have a (...) bearing on the issue of the naturalness of categories, is whether a system of categories constitutes a unique way of organizing a particular set of entities or phenomena, or whether there are other legitimate classification schemes that can coexist with it. Another way of putting this is by asking whether systems of categories can cut across one another, and if so, under what circumstances. Some philosophers have claimed that crosscutting systems of categories cannot exist as genuine natural kinds. This paper examines that claim and puts forward some counterexamples, concluding that this notion of natural kind is not in tune with scientific classification and ought to be rejected in favor of an alternative. (shrink)

With twentieth- and twenty-first-century philosophy of science’s unfolding acceptance of the nature of scientific inquiry being value-laden, the persistent worry has been that there are no means for legitimate negotiation of the social or non-epistemic values that enter into science. The rejection of the value-free ideal in science has thereby been coupled with the spectres of indiscriminate relativism and bias in scientific inquiry. I challenge this view in the context of recently expressed concerns regarding Canada's death of evidence (...) controversy. The worry, raised by Stathis Psillos, is that as constructivist accounts of science demoted the previously secure status of evidence for drawing justified conclusions in science, we were left with no rational delineation between the right and wrong values for science. The implication for the death of evidence controversy is that we may have no rational grounds for claiming that the Canadian Government is wrong to interfere with scientific enterprise. But he does offer another avenue for reaching the conclusion that the wrong social values are directing the current stifling of some sectors of Canadian science. Psillos draws from standpoint epistemologies to devise a salient defence of ‘valuing evidence’ as a universalizable social value. That is, government bodies ought to enable scientific research via adequate funding as well as political non-interference. In this paper, I counter that non-epistemic values can be rationally evaluated and that standpoint epistemology’s universalizable standpoint provides an inadequate framework for negotiating social values in science. Regarding, I draw from the evidence-based medicine debate in philosophy of medicine and from feminist empiricist investigations into the science–values relationship in order to make the argument for empirically driven value arbitration. If social values can be rationally chosen in the context of justification, then we can have grounds for charging the Canadian leadership with being ‘at war with science’. I further argue that my recommended empiricist methodology is preferable to Psillos’s search for universalizable perspectives for negotiating social values in science because the latter method permits little more than the trivial conclusion that evidence is valuable to science. (shrink)

‘Shallow’ and ‘deep’ versions of scientific realism may be distinguished as follows: the shallow realist is satisfied with belief in the existence of the posits of our best scientific theories; by contrast, deep realists claim that realism can be legitimate only if such entities are described in metaphysical terms. We argue that this methodological discussion can be fruitfully applied in Everettian quantum mechanics, specifically on the debate concerning the existence of worlds and the recent dispute between Everettian actualism (...) and quantum modal realism. After presenting what is involved in such dispute, we point to a dilemma for realists: either we don’t have the available metaphysical tools to answer the deep realist’s demands, and realism is not justified in this case, or such demands of metaphysical dressing are not mandatory for scientific realism, and deep versions of realism are not really required. (shrink)

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)

After commending Moleski for his excellent study, I focus attention on three areas that merit further clarification: (1) that Michael Polanyi’s quest for public recognition was legitimate and not the effect of a runaway vanity, (2) that Kuhn’s straining to define his dependence upon Polanyi was blocked by the unspecifiability clouding the discovery process and by his notion that Polanyi appealed to ESP to explain the dynamics of· discovery, and (3) that Kuhn’s success in gaining public recognition for his paradigm (...) shift was understandable. In the end, I list five areas wherein Kuhn’s account of scientific revolutions could be substantially improved by joining forces with Polanyi. (shrink)

The Value-free ideal of science (VFI) is a view that claims that scientists should not use non-epistemic values when they are justifying their hypotheses, and is widely considered to be obsolete in the philosophy of science. I will defend the ideal by demonstrating that acceptance of non-epistemic values, prohibited by VFI, necessitates legitimizing certain problematic scientific practices. Such practices, including biased methodological decisions or Questionable Research Practices (QRP), significantly contribute to the Replication Crisis. I will argue that the realizability (...) of VFI is not a necessary condition for its validity. Then, I will show how some of the prominent proposals of value-laden science legitimize problematic scientific practices, provide real-world examples, and generalize the argument. Finally, I will show how value-laden methodological decisions contribute to the Replicability Crisis and discuss two strategies for realizing VFI. (shrink)

Bioethicists’ views diverge public opinion on various ethical issues, particularly in healthcare. For instance, bioethicists generally oppose payment for organs and advocate for preventing death at any age, whereas the public is more supportive of organ payment and prioritizing younger patients. I offer four arguments on how best to view this divergence. (a) Bioethicists’ specialized training, objectivity, and reliance on research often lead to views that differ from those of the public, which may be less informed and more influenced by (...) biases. (b) Further, divergence between expert and public opinion is a normal and sometimes necessary aspect of bioethics. Divergence can lead to more informed and progressive ethical practices. (c) While public input is valuable, achieving meaningful engagement is difficult due to varying values, risk perceptions, and socioeconomic circumstances. Effective bioethics would balance expert knowledge with public input, aiming for policies that are both scientifically sound and democratically legitimate. (d) Maintaining public trust in bioethics does not require full alignment with public opinion. Instead, bioethicists should focus on educating the public and incorporating informed public perspectives into their analysis and recommendations. (shrink)

The article explores novel directions in the phenomenology of economics. It analyzes how the approaches of Till Düppe and Alfred Schütz, both inspired by Edmund Husserl, may shed light on the historical development of economics. I examine the substance and meaning of economics in the context of the forceful criticism of the whole discipline recently raised by Düppe. This examination uncovers important weaknesses and omissions inherent in Düppe’s argument against the economists’ scientific aspirations. The analysis of the social (...) class='Hi'>scientific endeavors by Alfred Schütz who develops a phenomenologically informed ‘telescopic’ concept of an ideal type is then shown to be a more fruitful and methodologically rigorous way towards understanding the developments within economics. The Schützian view permits us to see how abstract economic models originate in the experience of the life-world and are continuous with it. Accordingly, the historical development of economic science may be viewed as consisting from two broadly defined phases, where at first the formalism is steadily increasing (the ‘zooming out’ phase) and later the discipline converges back to context-specific empirical examinations (the ‘zooming in’ phase). A case study concentrating on the economic theory of politics illustrates that both the drive towards abstraction that has culminated around 1950s and the more recent ‘zooming in’ is methodologically legitimate from the phenomenological point of view. I conclude that economics has never been completely severed from the paramount reality of the everyday life and for decades the interconnection has been growing stronger by the day. (shrink)

If humans may indeed legitimately intervene in conservation areas to let nature be and to protect the lives of all the diverse individual animals under their care, then the management of elephants must be legitimate as part of the conservation of natural world diversities. If this is so, to what extent are current management options ethically acceptable? In this article I address the ethics of the management options available once the judgement has been made that there are too many elephants (...) in a conservation area. I evaluate the ethical acceptability of four options, i.e., the simulation of nature, translocation, contraception, and culling. I furthermore ask whether the harsh blow of culling under very specific conditions can be softened by the taming and training of African elephants. I then examine the ethics of decision making about these issues. Before I do so, two issues must be discussed that decisively influence the management of elephants. The one is whether it is ethically justifiable to fence in elephants. The second is the ethical requirements of the scientific practice that informs management decisions. In the article I come to the conclusion that all four options are ethically flawed. All four require some violation of the important injunction to let nature be and to treat individual animals with respect. However, to do nothing and allow a loss of other species violates the important goal of conserving natural world diversity. (shrink)

Paleolinguistics (or linguistic paleontology) is a scientific discipline that combines the methodology of historical linguistics with archaeological insights. Specifically, paleolinguists aim to reconstruct the linguistic expression of a particular archeological culture. In this paper I deal with the methodology of paleolinguistics since this has recently come under the scrutiny of philosophersfor instance, Mallory (2020) has argued that tools of the philosophy of language can be employed for charting the space of legitimate use of paleolinguistics, most notably the position of (...) semantic internalism. Specifically, in his view, linguistic reconstructions of the Proto-Indo-European lexicon express Sinn or sense, whereas the proto-lexicon is best understood as a model of conceptual capabilities of a particular historical community. I want to show that one can consider semantic externalism as a more fruitful alternative. In other words, I propose to see the proto lexicon as a model that shows a feedback loop between speakers’ conceptual capabilities and scaffolding of these capabilities through speakers’ interaction with the environment. I show that the process of scaffolding can be mediated by cognitive fossils which, in turn, forges a tighter methodological link between paleolinguistics, archaeology, and the study of human cognition. (shrink)

Gatekeeping, or determining membership of your group, is crucial to science: the moniker ‘scientific’ is a stamp of epistemic quality or even authority. But gatekeeping in science is fraught with dangers. Gatekeepers must exclude bad science, science fraud and pseudoscience, while including the disagreeing viewpoints on which science thrives. This is a difficult tightrope, not least because gatekeeping is a human matter and can be influenced by biases such as groupthink. After spelling out these general tensions around gatekeeping in (...) science, we shed light on them with a case study from psychology. This concerns whether academic psychologists rightly or wrongly classify the applied-psychology framework of NLP (‘neuro-linguistic programming’) as unscientific and even pseudoscientific. This example of gatekeeping is particularly instructive because both the NLP community and the psychology community, we argue, make legitimate but also illegitimate moves. This case gives rise to several general insights about gatekeeping in science more generally. (shrink)

Philosophy of science in the 20th century is to be considered as mostly characterized by a fundamentally systematic heuristic attitude, which looks to mathematics, and more generally to the philosophy of mathematics, for a genuinely and epistemologically legitimate form of knowledge. Rooted in this assumption, the book provides a formal reconsidering of the dynamics of scientific theories, especially in the field of the physical sciences, and offers a significant contribution to current epistemological investigations regarding the validity of using formal (...) (especially: model-theoretic) methods of analysis, as developed principally by Stegmüller, Sneed, Suppes, Moulines, “to bring the airy flights of analytical philosophy back down to earth”, to borrow Stephan Hartmann’s provocative statement. At the same time, the volume represents a comprehensive account of the epistemic content of physical theories, the logic of theory change in science, and specific (inter-)theoretical core aspects of scientific progress, particularly in the form suggested informally by Thomas Kuhn. As C. Ulises Moulines writes in the preface, “there is no other example in present-day literature (in any language) on this topic, i.e. the formal analysis of the ideographic characterization of the dynamics of theories between Kuhn’s theory of science and structural epistemology, that is as systematic and complete as Perrone’s work”. (shrink)

The controversy over the old ideal of “value-free science” has cooled significantly over the past decade. Many philosophers of science now agree that even ethical and political values may play a substantial role in all aspects of scientific inquiry. Consequently, in the last few years, work in science and values has become more specific: Which values may influence science, and in which ways? Or, how do we distinguish illegitimate from illegitimate kinds of influence? In this paper, I argue that (...) this problem requires philosophers of science to take a new direction. I present two case studies in the influence of values on scientific inquiry: feminist values in archaeology and commercial values in pharmaceutical research. I offer a preliminary assessment of these cases, that the influence of values was legitimate in the feminist case, but not in the pharmaceutical case. I then turn to three major approaches to distinguish legitimate from illegitimate influences of values, including the distinction between epistemic and non-epistemic values and Heather Douglas’ distinction between direct and indirect roles for values. I argue that none of these three approaches gives an adequate analysis of the two cases. In the concluding section, I briefly sketch my own approach, which draws more heavily on ethics than the others, and is more promising as a solution to the current problem. This is the new direction in which I think science and values should move. (shrink)

Can Contemporary Science Inspire Philosophical and Theological Reflection on Causality? The cooperation between natural science, philosophy, and theology in an analysis of the causal structure and co-dependency of entities in the universe seems to be both legitimate and expected. It turns out, however, that in practice it oftentimes raises some tensions, questions and difficulties, leading to the development of alternative and in a sense competitive models of causality and of God’s action in the world. What is more, the attitude of (...) natural sciences since modernity, concentrated on gaining knowledge about natural phenomena to predict and control them, without trying to determine the nature of their ultimate causes, Humean criticism and rejection of the concept of causality as such, and concentration of analytic philosophers on the description of what accompanies phenomena classified as causal, leaving aside the question of the metaphysical status of causes and effects – they all seem to make impossible an interaction and mutual reference of contemporary science, philosophy, and theology in their reflection on the topic of causation. The main goal of this article is to defend the thesis about the possible and actual influence of scientific analysis of cause and effect relationships on the philosophical and theological reflection on causation, not only in the Middle Ages and Modernity, but also in contemporary thought. The presentation of the latest positions in the debate on divine action in the natural world will be followed by an argument in favor of the relevance of the model developed by philosophers and theologians representing the Thomistic school. (shrink)

Pacifists and their opponents disagree not only about moral questions, but most often about factual questions as well. For example, they came to divergent descriptions of the crisis in Kosovo. According to my reconstruction of pacifism, this is not a surprise because the pacifist, legitimately, looks at the facts in the light of her system of value. Her opponent, in turn, looks at the facts in the light of alternative systems of value, and the quarrel between the two parties about (...) supposedly descriptive matters does not come to an end as there is no objective reality about the war in question that could settle the issue. If I am right, the pacifist's value-laden way of looking at reality can be reconstructed as an obedience to three epistemic imperatives. First, the Epistemic Imperative concerning Human Nature ("Resist against demonizing the other side; always try to understand the case from their point of view"). Second, the Epistemic Imperative concerning Non-Violent Alternatives ("Always search for non-violent alternatives to projected military action"). Third, the Epistemic Imperative concerning Uncontrolled Escalation ("Sharpen your attention for uncontrolled, irreversible side effects of military action, particularly for the danger of escalation to another world war"). Objective reality does not decide how far one should go in following these imperatives. Rather, the decision about this is our's—similarly as in case of the scientist who decides to search for common deep structure behind the chaos of the manifold. So the pacifist's epistemic imperatives can be compared to Kant's regulative principles that are necessary for guiding the scientific scrutiny of reality. (shrink)

There is a worry about the intellectual legitimacy of philosophy. Although the sciences have a progressive history, with later theories largely building on earlier ones, and a tremendous amount of agreement within the scientific community about the approximate truth of current theory, philosophy is different. We do not see a progressive history of philosophical theorizing, and there is little agreement within the philosophical community about which theories are even roughly correct. This not only encourages a certain skepticism about the (...) possibility of philosophical knowledge, but a real question about whether the activity of philosophical theorizing is intellectually legitimate. It is argued here that there are features of a naturalistic methodology in philosophy which have the resources to respond to these concerns. (shrink)

Metaphysics, seen as a legitimizing narrative or a paradigm (Lyotard, 1984), prop up a certain practice in providing the basis for its assumptions. While Western medicine can be properly characterized as governed by a biophysical model (Hewa, 1994; Bates, 2002), such a model for traditional healing practices in the Philippines has yet to be derived. No philosopher has attempted to derive an indigenous metaphysics from traditional healing practices. The only study made so far (Fajardo & Pansacola, 2013), however, needlessly pigeonholes (...) these unique practices into incommensurable Western scientific concepts. While they collated data from healers all over the country, they attempted to use Western scientific concepts such as oxygen, carbon, electro-magnetic force, and others. These concepts dangerously obfuscate indigenous understandings of the human body and reality as a whole since they are directly lifted from a language and practice informed by Western metaphysics. Therefore, there has yet to be an adequate extraction of a locally derived metaphysics that informs and self-legitimizes these medicinal practices. Conscious of recent critiques to homogenizing tendencies in Philippine Studies (Guillermo, 2009) and Filipino philosophy (Pada, 2014; Abulad, 2016), specifically that of Mercado (1972) and Timbreza (2017), I attempt to derive a Filipino metaphysics from the traditional healing practices of two traditional healers in San Mateo, Rizal of the Southern Tagalog Region in Luzon through a particularist anthropological approach in Filipino philosophy. I derive four distinct characteristics of this metaphysics which are distinct from the biophysical presuppositions of Western medicine: (1) a law of conservation based on the concept of “balik,” (2) predestination, (3) an ontological dualism between the visible and the invisible, and (4) the performativity of words as utterances. (shrink)

To what extent are questions of sovereign debt a matter for political rather than scientific or moral adjudication? We answer that question by defending three claims. We argue that (i) moral and technocratic takes on sovereign debt tend to be ideological in a pejorative sense of the term, and that therefore (ii) sovereign debt should be politicised all the way down. We then show that this sort of politicisation need not boil down to the crude Realpolitik of debtor-creditor power (...) relations—a conclusion that would leave no room for normative theory, among other problems. Rather, we argue that (iii) in a democratic context, a realist approach to politics centred on what Bernard Williams calls ‘The Basic Legitimation Demand’ affords a deliberative approach to the normative evaluation of public debt policy options. (shrink)

Teleology has a complicated history in the biological sciences. Some have argued that Darwin’s theory has allowed biology to purge itself of teleological explanations. Others have been content to retain teleology and to treat it as metaphorical, or have sought to replace it with less problematic notions like teleonomy. And still others have tried to naturalize it in a way that distances it from the vitalism of the nineteenth century, focusing on the role that function plays in teleological explanation. No (...) consensus has seemed possible in this debate. This paper takes a different approach. It argues that teleology is a perfectly acceptable scientific notion, but that the debate took an unfortunate misstep some 2300 years ago, one that has confused things ever since. The misstep comes in the beginning of Aristotle’s Physics when a distinction is made between two types of teleological explanation. One type pertains to artifacts while the other pertains to entities in nature. For Aristotle, artifacts are guided by something external to themselves, human intentions, while natural entities are guided by an internal nature. We aim to show that there is, in fact, only one type of legitimate teleological explanation, what Aristotle would have considered a variant of an artifact model, where entities are guided by external fields. We begin with an analysis of the differences between the two types of explanation. We then examine some evidence in Aristotle’s biological works suggesting that on account of his natural-artifactual distinction, he encountered difficulties in trying to provide teleological accounts of spontaneous generation. And we show that it is possible to resolve these difficulties with a more robust version of an artifact model of teleology, in other words, with an externalist teleology. This is McShea’s model, in which goal-directed entities are guided by a nested series of upper-level fields. To explain teleological behavior, this account invokes only external physical forces rather than mysterious internal natures. We then consider how field theory differs from other efforts to naturalize teleology in biology. And finally, we show how the account enables us to grapple with certain difficult cases – genes and intentions – where, even in biology today, the temptation to posit internal natures remains strong. (shrink)

Cosmological models that invoke a multiverse - a collection of unobservable regions of space where conditions are very different from the region around us - are controversial, on the grounds that unobservable phenomena shouldn't play a crucial role in legitimate scientific theories. I argue that the way we evaluate multiverse models is precisely the same as the way we evaluate any other models, on the basis of abduction, Bayesian inference, and empirical success. There is no scientifically respectable way to (...) do cosmology without taking into account different possibilities for what the universe might be like outside our horizon. Multiverse theories are utterly conventionally scientific, even if evaluating them can be difficult in practice. (shrink)

Contemporary naturalism has two components. The first is ontological, and says, roughly, that all and only what the sciences say exists, really does exist. The other is methodological, and it says that only scientific explanations are legitimate explanations. Together these commitments promise a coherent picture of the world that is nicely integrated with an attractive epistemology. Despite the obvious appeal of naturalism, I would like to sound a note of caution. First, I would like to argue that naturalism's ontological (...) commitment cannot be vindicated. Not, that is, that it is false; rather, I argue that any attempt to show that it is true presupposes that it is not. Second, I argue that methodological naturalism is false. But, again, the problem is not straightforward. I will not claim that there are gaps in the explanations offered by science, such that the scientific project would be incomplete without emendation. Instead I argue that the goodness of an explanation depends, in part, on how the event to be explained is described, and that, some events, under some descriptions, call for non-scientific explanations. (shrink)

This paper reviews current debates in social epistemology about the relations ‎between ‎knowledge ‎and consensus. These relations are philosophically interesting on their ‎own, but ‎also have ‎practical consequences, as consensus takes an increasingly significant ‎role in ‎informing public ‎decision making. The paper addresses the following questions. ‎When is a ‎consensus attributable to an epistemic community? Under what conditions may ‎we ‎legitimately infer that a consensual view is knowledge-based or otherwise ‎epistemically ‎justified? Should consensus be the aim of scientific inquiry, (...) and if so, what ‎kind of ‎consensus? How should dissent be handled? It is argued that a legitimate inference ‎that a ‎theory is correct from the fact that there is a scientific consensus on it requires taking ‎into ‎consideration both cognitive properties of the theory as well as social properties of ‎the ‎consensus. The last section of the paper reviews computational models of ‎consensus ‎formation.‎. (shrink)

Recent philosophical work on the concept of human nature disagrees on how to respond to the Darwinian challenge, according to which biological species do not have traditional essences. Three broad kinds of reactions can be distinguished: conservative intrinsic essentialism, which defends essences in the traditional sense, eliminativism, which suggests dropping the concept of human nature altogether, and constructive approaches, which argue that revisions can generate sensible concepts of human nature beyond traditional essences. The different constructive approaches pick out one or (...) two of the three epistemic roles that are fused in traditional essentialist conceptions of human nature: descriptive, explanatory, definitional, or explanatory and definitional. These turns towards diverging epistemic roles are best interpreted pluralistically: there is a plurality of concepts of human nature that have to be clearly distinguished, each with a legitimate role in respective scientific contexts. (shrink)

Context: The majority of contemporary enactivist work is influenced by the philosophical biology of Hans Jonas. Jonas credits all living organisms with experience that involves particular “existential” structures: nascent forms of concern for self-preservation and desire for objects and outcomes that promote well-being. We argue that Jonas’s attitude towards living systems involves a problematic anthropomorphism that threatens to place enactivism at odds with cognitive science, and undermine its legitimate aims to become a new paradigm for scientific investigation and understanding (...) of the mind. Problem: Enactivism needs to address the tension between its Jonasian influences and its aspirations to become a new paradigm for cognitive science. By relying on Jonasian phenomenology, contemporary enactivism obscures alternative ways in which phenomenology can be more smoothly integrated with cognitive science. Method: We outline the historical relationship between enactivism and phenomenology, and explain why anthropomorphism is problematic for a research program that aspires to become a new paradigm for cognitive science. We examine the roots of Jonas’s existential interpretation of biological facts, and describe how and why Jonas himself understood his project as founded on an anthropomorphic assumption that is incompatible with a crucial methodological assumption of scientific enquiry: the prohibition of unexplained natural purposes. We describe the way in which phenomenology can be integrated into Maturana’s autopoietic theory, and use this as an example of how an alternative, non-anthropomorphic science of the biological roots of cognition might proceed. Results: Our analysis reveals a crucial tension between Jonas’s influence on enactivism and enactivism’s paradigmatic aspirations. This suggests the possibility of, and need to investigate, other ways of integrating phenomenology with cognitive science that do not succumb to this tension. Implications: In light of this, enactivists should either eliminate the Jonasian inference from properties of our human experience to properties of the experience of all living organisms, or articulate an alternative conception of scientific enquiry that can tolerate the anthropomorphism this inference entails. The Maturanian view we present in the article’s final section constitutes a possible framework within which enactivist tools and concepts can be used to understand cognition and phenomenology, and that does not involve a problematic anthropomorphism. Constructivist content: Any constructivist approach that aims for integration with current scientific practice must either avoid the type of anthropomorphic inference on which Jonas bases his work, or specify a new conception of scientific enquiry that renders anthropomorphism unproblematic. (shrink)

As neither a classical naturalist nor a non-naturalist, Merleau-Ponty appears to be a moderate or liberal naturalist. But can a phenomenologist really be a naturalist, even a liberal one? A lot hinges on how we tease this out, both as to whether it is plausible to claim Merleau-Ponty as a liberal naturalist (I argue it is), and as to whether it is an attractive and coherent position. Indeed, despite its important challenges to orthodox naturalism, there are arguably two traps to (...) avoid. If it becomes too liberal, we get: dualism or an ontological pluralism that is difficult to distinguish from a constructivism; or, in seeking to sidestep that metaphysical dilemma, there is sometimes an insistence on an overly neat methodological separation between description/understanding and explanation that is belied in practice (both scientific and philosophical). It is doubtful that such positions can legitimately claim to be naturalist in orientation, liberal or not. Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy avoids these traps, however, and it is thus a useful resource for contemporary work trying to navigate between scientific naturalism and non-naturalism. (shrink)

What is wrong with ad hoc hypotheses? Ever since Popper’s falsificationist account of adhocness, there has been a lively philosophical discussion about what constitutes adhocness in scientific explanation, and what, if anything, distinguishes legitimate auxiliary hypotheses from illicit ad hoc ones. This paper draws upon distinct examples from pseudoscience to provide us with a clearer view as to what is troubling about ad hoc hypotheses. In contrast with other philosophical proposals, our approach retains the colloquial, derogative meaning of adhocness, (...) and calls attention to the way in which the context of a theoretical move bears on the charge of adhocness. We also discuss the role of motivations implicit in the concept of adhocness, and the way ad hoc moves draw on theory-internal rationalizations. (shrink)

Moral concern with food intake is as old asmorality itself. In the course of history, however,several ways of critically examining practices of foodproduction and food intake have been developed.Whereas ancient Greek food ethics concentrated on theproblem of temperance, and ancient Jewish ethics onthe distinction between legitimate and illicit foodproducts, early Christian morality simply refused toattach any moral significance to food intake. Yet,during the middle ages food became one of theprinciple objects of monastic programs for moralexercise (askesis). During the seventeenth andeighteenth (...) century, food ethics was transformed interms of the increasing scientific interest in foodintake, while in the nineteenth century the socialdimension of food ethics was discovered, with theresult that more and more attention was given to theproduction and distribution of food products. Becauseof the increasing distance between the production andconsumption of food products ever since, theoutstanding feature of contemporary food ethics is itreliance and dependence on labeling practices. (shrink)

The category of ‘organism’ has an ambiguous status: is it scientific or is it philosophical? Or, if one looks at it from within the relatively recent field or sub-field of philosophy of biology, is it a central, or at least legitimate category therein, or should it be dispensed with? In any case, it has long served as a kind of scientific “bolstering” for a philosophical train of argument which seeks to refute the “mechanistic” or “reductionist” trend, which has (...) been perceived as dominant since the 17th century, whether in the case of Stahlian animism, Leibnizian monadology, the neo-vitalism of Hans Driesch, or, lastly, of the “phenomenology of organic life” in the 20th century, with authors such as Kurt Goldstein, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Georges Canguilhem. In this paper I try to reconstruct some of the main interpretive ‘stages’ or ‘layers’ of the concept of organism in order to critically evaluate it. How might ‘organism’ be a useful concept if one rules out the excesses of ‘organismic’ biology and metaphysics? Varieties of instrumentalism and what I call the ‘projective’ concept of organism are appealing, but perhaps ultimately unsatisfying. (shrink)

This paper addresses a particular interpretation of quantum mechanics, i.e. superdeterminism. In short, superdeterminism i) takes the world to be fundamentally deterministic, ii) postulates hidden variables, and iii) contra Bell, saves locality at the cost of violating the principle of statistical independence. Superdeterminism currently enjoys little support in the physics and philosophy communities. Many take it to posit the ubiquitous occurrence of hard-to-digest conspiratorial and coincidental events; others object that violating the principle of statistical independence implies the death of the (...) scientific methodology. In this paper, we offer a defense to these and other objections. To counter the conspiracy objection, we draw upon the philosophical literature on time travel, and conclude that the picture of the world offered by the superdeterminist does not need to be particularly surprising or conspiratorial. We then move on to other recent objections, in particular those that focus on the methodology of science and the nature of the physical laws compatible with superdeterminism. A key ingredient of our arguments is that the principle of statistical independence may be violated in theory, but valid for practical purposes. Our overarching goal is to offer a defense of superdeterminism with respect to its main objections, so that it can earn its keep as a legitimate contender among the possible interpretations of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Change is the fundamental idea of evolution. Explaining the extraordinary biological change we see written in the history of genomes and fossil beds is the primary occupation of the evolutionary biologist. Yet it is a surprising fact that for the majority of evolutionary research, we have rarely studied how evolution typically unfolds in nature, in changing ecological environments, over space and time. While ecology played a major role in the eventual acceptance of the population genetic viewpoint of evolution in the (...) synthetic era (circa 1918-1956), it held a lesser role in the development of evolutionary theory until the 1980s, when we began to systematically study the evolutionary dynamics of natural populations in space and time. As a result, early evolutionary theory was initially constructed in an abstract vacuum that was unrepresentative of evolution in nature. The subtle synthesis between ecology with evolutionary biology (eco-evo synthesis) over the past 40 years has progressed our knowledge of natural selection dynamics as they are found in nature, thus revealing how natural selection varies in strength, direction, form, and, more surprisingly, level of biological organization. Natural selection can no longer be reduced to lower levels of biological organization (i.e., individuals, selfish genes) over shorter timescales but should be expanded to include adaptation at higher levels and over longer timescales. Long-term and/or emergent evolutionary phenomena, such as multilevel selection or evolvability, have thus become tenable concepts within an evolutionary biology that embraces ecology and spatiotemporal change. Evolutionary biology is currently suspended at an intermediate stage of scientific progress that calls for the organization of all the recent knowledge revealed by the eco-evo synthesis into a coherent and unified theoretical framework. This is where philosophers of biology can be of particular use, acting as a bridge between the subdisciplines of biology and inventing new theoretical strategies to organize and accommodate the recent knowledge. Philosophers have recommended transitioning away from outdated philosophies that were originally derived from physics within the philosophical zeitgeist of logical positivism (i.e., monism, reductionism, and monocausation) and toward a distinct philosophy of biology that can capture the natural complexity of multifaceted biological systems within diverse ecosystems—one that embraces the emerging philosophies of pluralism, emergence, and multicausality. Therefore, I see recent advances in ecology, evolutionary biology, and the philosophy of biology as laying the groundwork for another major biological synthesis, what I refer to as the Second Synthesis because, in many respects, it is analogous to the aims and outcomes of the first major biological synthesis (but is notably distinct from the inorganic and contrived progressive movement known as the extended evolutionary synthesis). With the general development of a distinctive philosophy of science, biology has rightfully emerged as an autonomous science. Thus, while the first synthesis legitimized biology, the Second Synthesis autonomized biology and afforded biology its own philosophy, allowing biology to finally realize its full scientific potential. (shrink)

For millennia self has been conjectured to be necessary for consciousness. But scant empirical evidence has been adduced to support this hypothesis. Inconsistent explications of “self” and failure to design apt experiments have impeded progress. Advocates of phenomenological psychiatry, however, have helped explicate “self,” and employed it to explain some psychopathological symptoms. In those studies, “self” is understood in a minimalist sense, sheer “for-me-ness.” Unfortunately, explication of the “minimal self” (MS) has relied on conceptual analysis, and applications to psychopathology have (...) been hermeneutic, allowing for many degrees of interpretive latitude. The result is that MS’s current scientific status is analogous to that of the “atom,” at the time when “atom” was just beginning to undergo transformation from a philosophical to a scientific concept. Fortunately, there is now an opportunity to promote a similar transformation for “MS.” Discovery of the brain’s Default Mode Network (DMN) opened the door to neuroimaging investigations of self. Taking the DMN and other forms of intrinsic activity as a starting point, an empirical foothold can be established, one that spurs experimental research and that enables extension of research into multiple phenomena. New experimental protocols that posit “MS” can help explain phenomena hitherto not thought to be related to self, thereby hastening development of a mature science of self. In particular, targeting phenomena wherein consciousness is lost and recovered, as in some cases of Unresponsive Wakefulness Syndrome (UWS), allow for design of neuroimaging probes that enable detection of MS during non-conscious states. These probes, as well as other experimental protocols applied to NREM Sleep, General Anesthesia (GA), and the waking state, provide some evidence to suggest that not only can self and consciousness dissociate, MS might be a necessary precondition for conscious experience. Finally, these findings have implications for the science of consciousness: it has been suggested that “levels of consciousness” (LoC) is not a legitimate concept for the science of consciousness. But because we have the conceptual and methodological tools with which to refine investigations of MS, we have the means to identify a possible foundation—a bifurcation point—for consciousness, as well as the means by which to measure degrees of distance from that foundation. These neuroimaging investigations of MS position us to better assess whether LoC has a role to play in a mature science of consciousness. (shrink)

In the last two decades, a robust consensus has emerged among philosophers of science, whereby political, ethical, or social values must play some role in scientific inquiry, and that the ‘value-free ideal’ is thus a misguided conception of science. However, the question of how to distinguish, in a principled way, which values may legitimately influence science remains. This question, which has been dubbed the ‘new demarcation problem,’ has until recently received comparatively less attention from philosophers of science. In this (...) paper, I appeal to Rawls’s theory of justice (1971) on the basis of which I defend a Rawlsian solution to the new demarcation problem. As I argue, the Rawlsian solution places plausible constraints on which values ought to influence scientific inquiry, and, moreover, can be fruitfully applied to concrete cases to determine how the conflicting interests of stakeholders should be balanced. After considering and responding to the objection that Rawls’s theory of justice applies only to the “basic structure” of society, I compare the Rawlsian solution to some other approaches to the new demarcation problem, especially those that emphasize democratic criteria. (shrink)

This book argues that moral philosophy should be based on seven scientific principles of theory selection. It then argues that a new moral theory—Rightness as Fairness—satisfies those principles more successfully than existing theories. Chapter 1 explicates the seven principles of theory-selection, arguing that moral philosophy must conform to them to be truth-apt. Chapter 2 argues those principles jointly support founding moral philosophy in known facts of empirical moral psychology: specifically, our capacities for mental time-travel and modal imagination. Chapter 2 (...) then shows that these capacities present human decisionmakers with a problem of diachronic rationality that includes but generalizes beyond, L.A. Paul’s problem of transformative experience: a problem that I call “the problem of possible future selves.” Chapter 3 then argues that a new principle of rationality—the Categorical-Instrumental Imperative—is the only rational solution to this problem, as it requires our present and future selves to forge and uphold a recursive, bi-directional contract with each another given mutual recognition of the problem. Chapter 4 then shows that the Categorical-Instrumental Imperative has three identical formulations analogous but superior to Immanuel Kant’s various formulations of his ‘categorical imperative.’ Chapter 5 shows that these unified formulas jointly entail a particular test of moral principles: a Moral Original Position similar to John Rawls’ famous ‘original position’, but which avoids a variety of problems with Rawls' model. Chapter 6 then shows that the Moral Original Position generates Four Principles of Fairness, which can then be combined into a single principle of moral rightness: Rightness as Fairness. This new conception of rightness is shown to reconcile four dominant moral frameworks (deontology, consequentialism, virtue ethics, and contractualism), as well as entail a new method of moral decisionmaking for applied ethics: a method of “principled fair negotiation” according to which applied ethical issues cannot be wholly resolved through principled debate, but must instead be resolved by actual negotiation and compromise. This method is then argued to generate novel, nuanced analyses of a variety of applied moral issues, including trolley cases, torture, and the ethical treatment of nonhuman animals. Chapter 7 then shows that Rightness as Fairness reconciles three leading political frameworks—libertarianism, egalitarianism, and communitarianism—showing how all three embody legitimate moral ideals that can, and should, be fairly negotiated against each other to settle the scope, and nature, of domestic, international, and global justice on an ongoing, iterated basis. Finally, Chapter 8 argues that Rightness as Fairness satisfies all seven of the principles of theory-selected defended in Chapter 1 more successfully than rival theories. (shrink)

The idea of personalised medicine (PM) has gathered momentum recently, attracting funding and generating hopes as well as scepticism. As PM gives rise to differing interpretations, there have been several attempts to clarify the concept. In an influential paper published in this journal, Schleidgen and colleagues have proposed a precise and narrow definition of PM on the basis of a systematic literature review. Given that their conclusion is at odds with those of other recent attempts to understand PM, we consider (...) whether their systematic review gives them an edge over competing interpretations. We have found some methodological weaknesses and questionable assumptions in Schleidgen and colleagues’ attempt to provide a more specific definition of PM. Our perplexities concern the lack of criteria for assessing the epistemic strength of the definitions that they consider, as well as the logical principles used to extract a more precise definition, the narrowness of the pool from which they have drawn their empirical data, and finally their overlooking the fact that definitions depend on the context of use. We are also worried that their ethical assumption that only patients’ interests are legitimate is too simplistic and drives all other stakeholders’ interests—including those that are justifiable—underground, thus compromising any hope of a transparent and fair negotiation among a plurality of actors and interests. As an alternative to the shortcomings of attempting a semantic disciplining of the concept we propose a pragmatic approach. Rather than considering PM to be a scientific concept in need of precise demarcation, we look at it as an open and negotiable concept used in a variety of contexts including at the level of orienting research goals and policy objectives. We believe that since PM is still more an ideal than an achieved reality, a plurality of visions is to be expected and we need to pay attention to the people, reasons and interests behind these alternative conceptions. In other words, the logic and politics of PM cannot be disentangled and disagreements need to be tackled addressing the normative and strategic conflicts behind them. (shrink)