Defences of perspectival realism are motivated, in part, by an attempt to find a middle ground between the realist intuition that science seems to tell us a true story about the world, and the Kuhnian intuition that scientific knowledge is historically and culturally situated. The first intuition pulls us towards a traditional, absolutist scientific picture, and the second towards a relativist one. Thus, perspectival realism can be seen as an attempt to secure situated knowledge without entailing (...) epistemic relativism. A very similar motivation is behind feminist standpoint theory, a view which aims to capture the idea that knowledge is socially situated, whilst retaining some kind of absolutism. Elsewhere I argue that the feminist project fails to achieve this balance; its commitment to situated knowledge unavoidably entails epistemic relativism (though of an unproblematic kind), which allows them to achieve all of their feminist goals. In this paper I will explore whether the same arguments apply to perspectival realism. And so I will be asking whether perspectival realism too is committed to an unproblematic kind of relativism, capable of achieving scientific goals; or, whether it succeeds in carving out a third view, between or beyond the relativism/absolutism dichotomy. (shrink)

The Japanese scholar Miura Baien (1723-1789) worked throughout his life to produce a philosophical analysis of the natural world. Misinterpretations of his intentions arise from drawing diagrams on his behalf that are inconsistent with his text, or by applying to his text Western academic terms that are quite foreign to his thought. When Baien's text is examined in his own terms we can understand its significant role in the scientific thought of the Edo period.

In Kant, Science, and Human Nature, Robert Hanna argues against a version of scientific realism founded on the Kripke/Putnam theory of reference, and defends a Kant-inspired manifest realism in its place. I reject Kriple/Putnam for different reasons than Hanna does, and argue that what should replace it is not manifest realism, but Kant‘s own scientific realism, which rests on a radically different theory of reference. Kant holds that we picture manifest objects by uniting manifolds of sensation using (...) concepts-qua-inferential-rules. When these rules are demonstrated to be invalid, we replace the picture of the macroscopic world with a picture of the microscopic entities of theoretical science that unites the very same manifolds using different rules of inference. Thus, we refer to "unobservable" theoretical entities in the same way that we do manifest ones: by specifying both their determinate location in space and time and the concepts by which they are understood. (shrink)

In considering relations between science and theology, the discussion of the Big Bang model plays a significant role. Amongst the sources of this model there are not only scientific achievements of recent decades taken as objective knowledge as seen in modern methodology, but also many non-scientific factors. The latter is connected with the quite obvious fact that the authors, as well as the recipients of the Model, are people who are guided in their activity - including obtaining their (...) rational knowledge - by non-rational motives. Those motives appear on the one hand in the very process of creation of the Model. Different scientific theories as well as unverified hypotheses are being joined in one "picture" called The Standard Model. It seems that it is being done on the grounds of various factors that lie outside the field of science. Among them there are the different convictions of the persons constructing this view of the world. However, those convictions, commonly shared by the authors and recipients of the Model, are not based on the rational criterion of scientific knowledge. On the other hand, the Big Bang model may be interpreted in opposite ways by its recipients. The influences of religious and other beliefs are so essential, that they may lead to extremely different conclusions though based on the same ground. It is demonstrated that, due to the epistemological status of cosmology, such a situation is inevitable, and no final verdict with regard to the idea of the cause of the world can be reached. (shrink)

Acknowledging that Nature is one unified whole, we expect that physics and biology are intimately related. Keeping in mind that physics became an exact science with which we are already familiar with, while, apparently, we do not have at present a similar knowledge about biology, we consider how can we make useful the clarity of physics to shed light to biology. The next question will be what are the most basic categories of physics and biology. If we do not want (...) to cut laws of Nature into different parts, we obtain a constraint, and the remaining part of physics will be the input data to the equations of physics. In these terms, our question will be: if we keep biological laws intact, as indivisible units, what remains in case of biology? This approach, just because it is more fundamental, has significant consequences for philosophy, and obviously offers a new conceptual framework considering the relation between the ontopoietic principle of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka and the biological principle. The quintessence of science, namely, the first essentially complete scientific world picture is presented in a detailed form. (shrink)

This thesis starts with three challenges to the structuralist accounts of applied mathematics. Structuralism views applied mathematics as a matter of building mapping functions between mathematical and target-ended structures. The first challenge concerns how it is possible for a non-mathematical target to be represented mathematically when the mapping functions per se are mathematical objects. The second challenge arises out of inconsistent early calculus, which suggests that mathematical representation does not require rigorous mathematical structures. The third challenge comes from renormalisation group (...) (RG) explanations of universality. It is argued that the structural mapping between the world and a highly abstract minimal model adds little value to our understanding of how RG obtains its explanatory force. I will address the first and second challenges from the similarity perspective. The similarity account captures representations as similarity relations, providing a more flexible and broader conception of representation than structuralism. It is the specification of the respect and degree of similarity that forges mathematics into a context of representation and directs it to represent a specific system in reality. Structuralism is treatable as a tool for explicating similarity rela-tions set-theoretically. The similarity account, combined with other approaches (e.g., Nguyen and Frigg’s extensional abstraction account and van Fraassen’s pragmatic equivalence), can dissolve the first challenge. Additionally, I will make a structuralist response to the second challenge, and suggestions regarding the role of infinitesimals from the similarity perspective. In light of the similarity account, I will propose the “hotchpotch picture” as a method-ological reflection of our study of representation and explanation. Its central insight is to dissect a representation or an explanation into several aspects and use different theories (that are usually thought of competing) to appropriate each of them. Based on the hotchpotch picture, RG explanations can be dissected to the “indexing” and “inferential” conceptions of explanation, which are captured or characterised by structural mappings. Therefore, structuralism accommodates RG explanations, and the third challenge is resolved. (shrink)

We are living at the dawn of the first truly scientific picture of the universe-as-a-whole, yet people are still dragging along prescientific ideas about God that cannot be true and are even meaningless in the universe we now know we live in. This makes it impossible to have a coherent big picture of the modern world that includes God. But we don't have to accept an impossible God or else no God. We can have a real (...) God if we redefine God in light of knowledge no one ever had before. The key question is, “Could anything actually exist in the scientific universe that is worthy of the name, God?” My answer is yes: God is an “emergent phenomenon,” as real as the global economy or the government or the worldwide web, which are all emergent phenomena. But God arose from something deeper: the complex interactions of all humanity's aspirations. An emerging God has enormous implications. (shrink)

Naturalism has typically been entangled with a physicalist view. Physicalism, on the other hand, falls short of accounting for qualitative states of mental phenomena. The hard problem of consciousness seems to be a natural epistemic boundary in such a way that we do not even have any conceptualization as to how we can possibly account for mental states in physicalist terms in the future, which leads us to some version of causal/ontological plurality in the sense that it does not seem (...) possible to explain everything with the same parameters even though the world fundamentally consists in a single substance. If plurality in multiple levels of scientific explanation is necessary, I argue that strong emergentism is, as a metaphysical framework, the best candidate to account for this fact. I will tackle two major physicalist views by Kim and Sider. Kim shows us that non-reductive physicalism is a bankrupt project whereas Sider’s physicalism that postulates a pure and complete fundamental level renders higher-level phenomena (including mental reality) metaphysically spurious. In relation to Kim and Sider’s accounts, I will try to elaborate on my view that physicalism, when pursued to the end, is inherently reductive and ultimately falls short of accounting for the mental reality. I emphasize that the causal identification of brain and mind rests on an arbitrary carving of world, namely a description of the world which cannot be intrinsic to nature. These are the main reasons why I conclude that our revised naturalism should be disentangled from physicalism and embrace the causal/ontological plurality of strong emergentism without falling for substance dualism. (shrink)

This article is intended as a contribution to the current debates about the relationship between politics and the philosophy of science in the Vienna Circle. I reconsider this issue by shifting the focus from philosophy of science as theory to philosophy of science as practice. From this perspective I take as a starting point the Vienna Circle’s scientific world-conception and emphasize its practical nature: I reinterpret its tenets as a set of recommendations that express the particular epistemological attitude (...) in which both the Vienna Circle’s (doing) philosophy of science and its political engagement were rooted. -/- Regarding politics, and referring to new primary sources, I reconstruct how the scientific world-conception placed the Vienna Circle within a neoliberal-socialist political network that pursued concrete political aims. In light of my reconstruction I shall argue that neither the Vienna Circle’s alleged ethical noncognitivism nor its alleged adhesion to the Weberian ideal of a value-free science rules out the possibility of ascribing to the Vienna Circle a politically engaged philosophy of science: the case of the Vienna Circle shows how philosophy of science, as a public activity, can itself become a form of political engagement, even without necessarily entailing a theory of objective values. (shrink)

An argument for the rationality of religious belief in the existence of God is defended. After reviewing three preconditions for rational belief, I show reasons to privilege the criterion of consistency. Taking the inconsistency of the religious belief in God and the belief in the scientific world picture as the impediment to a rational belief in God, I propose that we can overcome this objection by assuming, firstly, that God is a universal class. This allows us to (...) put the problem of God in set-theoretic terms, such that the antinomy that follows from such an assumption can be overcome by assuming that God is not a subject but a strict class that cannot be individuated. I conclude that that the self-contradictory nature of God does not prevent the believer from making a rational, ethical assessment that the contradiction resides in the possibility of using language to explain his existence, but that this does not make belief in the existence of God unjustifiable – on the contrary. In this way, we can say statements that claim God exists are justifiable. (shrink)

The idea that science explains or ought to explain every phenomenon finds Cartesian dualism of mind and body to be an unsatisfactory thesis. Consequently we have a variety of materialist theories regarding mind and consciousness. In recent times, we come across many philosophers who are committed to the scientific world picture, trying to locate mind within a world that is essentially physical.The central problems these philosophers have to tackle consist of consciousness and mental causation. In what (...) follows we discuss how Husserlian phenomenology responds to this debate. (shrink)

The present crisis of foundations in Fundamental Science is manifested as a comprehensive conceptual crisis, crisis of understanding, crisis of interpretation and representation, crisis of methodology, loss of certainty. Fundamental Science "rested" on the understanding of matter, space, nature of the "laws of nature", fundamental constants, number, time, information, consciousness. The question "What is fundametal?" pushes the mind to other questions → Is Fundamental Science fundamental? → What is the most fundamental in the Universum?.. Physics, do not be afraid of (...) Metaphysics! Levels of fundamentality. The problem №1 of Fundamental Science is the ontological justification (basification) of mathematics. To understand is to "grasp" Structure ("La Structure mère"). Key ontological ideas for emerging from the crisis of understanding: total unification of matter across all levels of the Universum, one ontological superaxiom, one ontological superprinciple. The ontological construction method of the knowledge basis (framework, carcass, foundation). The triune (absolute, ontological) space of eternal generation of new structures and meanings. Super concept of the scientific world picture of the Information era - Ontological (structural, cosmic) memory as "soul of matter", measure of the Universum being as the holistic generating process. The result of the ontological construction of the knowledge basis: primordial (absolute) generating structure is the most fundamental in the Universum. (shrink)

We consider first the most fundamental „design in Nature”, the explanatory structure of the Universe on the basis of the natural sciences, and the related problem of teleology in Nature. We point out that it is necessary to generalize the presently used explanatory scheme of physics. We derive here the first essentially complete scientific world picture, and obtain new insights answering to the problem of cosmic design. Considering some important objections against teleology, we present counter-arguments, give a (...) new classification of the main classes of teleology and their quantitative complexity measures. Comparing the new classification of teleology with that of Mayr, we give useful examples and indicate why teleology is useful for natural science. As a result, we outline a general picture of the basic types of design in Nature and provide their scientific explanation. (shrink)

Although biological autonomy is widely discussed, its description in scientific terms remains elusive. I present here a series of recent evidences on the existence of genuine biological autonomy. Nevertheless, nowadays it seems that the only acceptable ground to account for any natural phenomena, including biological autonomy, is physics. But if this were the case, then arguably there would be no way to account for genuine biological autonomy. The way out of such a situation is to build up an exact (...) theoretical biology, and one of the first steps is to clarify the basic concepts of biology, among them biological aim, function and autonomy. We found a physical mechanism to realize biological autonomy, namely, biologically initiated vacuum processes. In the newly emerging picture, biological autonomy shows up as a new, fundamental and inevitable element in our scientific world picture. It offers new perspectives for solving problems regarding the origin and nature of life, connecting ancient Greek philosophy with modern science. Namely, our proposal sheds light in what sense can the God as conceived by Xenophanes can move the material objects of the Universe by its thoughts without toil. (shrink)

In his late years, Thomas Kuhn became interested in the process of scientific specialization, which does not seem to possess the destructive element that is characteristic of scientific revolutions. It therefore makes sense to investigate whether and how Kuhn’s insights about specialization are consistent with, and actually fit, his model of scientific progress through revolutions. In this paper, I argue that the transition toward a new specialty corresponds to a revolutionary change for the group of scientists involved (...) in such a transition. I will clarify the role of the scientific community in revolutionary changes and characterize the incommensurability across specialties as possessing both semantic and methodological aspects. The discussion of the discovery of the structure of DNA will serve both as an illustration of my main argument and as reply to one criticism raised against Kuhn—namely, that his model cannot capture cases of revolutionary yet non-disruptive episodes of scientific progress. Revisiting Kuhn’s ideas on specialization will shed new light on some often overlooked features of scientific change. (shrink)

Two great problems of learning confront humanity: (1) learning about the universe, and about ourselves as a part of the universe, and (2) learning how to make progress towards as good a world as possible. We solved the first problem when we created modern science in the 17th century, but we have not yet solved the second problem. This puts us in a situation of unprecedented danger. Modern science and technology enormously increase our power to act, but not our (...) power to act wisely. All our current global crises have arisen as a result. What we need to do is learn from our solution to the first great problem of learning how to go about solving the second one. Properly implemented, this idea leads to a new kind of inquiry rationally devoted to helping humanity make progress towards as good a world as possible. (shrink)

A perennial problem in social epistemology is the problem of expert testimony, specifically expert testimony regarding scientific issues: for example, while it is important for me to know information pertaining to anthropogenic climate change, vaccine safety, Covid-19, etc., I may lack the scientific background required to determine whether the information I come across is, in fact, true. Without being able to evaluate the science itself, then, I need to find trustworthy expert testifiers to listen to. A major project (...) in social epistemology has thus become determining what the markers of trustworthiness are that laypersons can appeal to in order to identify and acquire information from expert testifiers. At the same time, the ways in which we acquire scientific information has changed significantly, with much of it nowadays being acquired in online environments. While much has been said about the potential pitfalls of seeking information online, little has been said about how the nature of seeking information online should make us think about the problem of expert testimony. Indeed, it seems to be an underlying assumption that good markers of trustworthiness apply equally well when seeking information from expert testifiers in online and offline environments alike, and that the new challenges and opportunities presented by online environments merely affects the methods by which we can acquire evidence of said trustworthiness. Here I argue that in making this assumption one risks failing to account for how unique features of the ways in which we acquire information online affect how we evaluate the trustworthiness of experts. Specifically, I argue for two main claims: first, that the nature of information-seeking online is such that the extent to which information is susceptible to manipulation is a dominant marker of trustworthiness; second, as a result, one will be more likely to seek out a particular kind of expert testifier in online environments, what I call a cooperative as opposed to preemptive expert. The result is that criteria for expert trustworthiness may look significantly different when acquiring information online as opposed to offline. (shrink)

The paper investigates the role played by pre-scientific experience in the philosophy of Josiah Royce and Edmund Husserl. Such a notion, generally associated with Husserl’s conception of the life-world (Lebenswelt) in the Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (1936), finds an equivalent and historical antecedent in Royce’s distinction between a world of description and a world of appreciation. The final goal is to show how, despite their different philosophical frameworks, Royce and Husserl agree on the (...) idea that, through the rejection of the world given through mere perception (Lebenswelt/world of appreciation), European sciences have somehow failed their task of universality. As it will be shown, this idea is also due to methodological affinities among the two thinkers. The experience of interconnectedness among individual minds, while precluded in the mere scientific explanation of the world, it becomes possible through the enactment of the Lebenswelt or, as in Royce’s case, through a return to the experience of the world of appreciation. (shrink)

The article includes a short biography of Hermann of Dalmatia and gives an account of his translations and philosophical and scientific work. In order to have a better understanding of Hermann’s philosophy, a reminder of Greek and Arabic philosophy of nature, on which he relies in his interpretation of the world picture, needs to be presented. Cosmological models by Plato, Aristotle, Eudoxus, Heraclides of Pont, Apollonius of Perga, Hipparchus, Ptolemy, and the Arab scientist Abu Ma’shar, are presented. (...) The main focus of interest is on Hermann’s translations. The immense importance of his translations from Greek and Arabic into Latin is due to the fact that some of the seminal Greek and Arabic works became known in Western Europe in the middle of the twelfth century. Hermann is also important as the author of the original work De essentiis, which presented a blend of Platonian and Aristotelian as well as Western European and Arab traditions. (shrink)

Origin of life studies have presented one of the most serious challenges to the mechanistic conception that life can be explained scientifically as a mere product of chemistry and physics. Hypotheses about the origin of life can be divided into two categories: (1) biogenesis – life comes from life, and (2) abiogenesis – life comes from non-living matter. The theory of the spontaneous generation of life from inanimate matter had been held even by the ancient Greeks and by numerous scientists (...) well into the 19th century. The theory of abiogenesis poses many problems for understanding the origin of life on Earth, and the appearance of life early in Earth’s history. Numerous chemical, mathematical and informational problems arise which make random mechanical processes of cellular formation and function unlikely. Fossil evidence contradicts a gradualist evolutionary mechanism of development of life, especially the well-known Cambrian explosion, in which highly developed metazoan species suddenly appear in the geological column without intermediate predecessors. But the physical conundrums that mechanistic theories of chemistry and physics face are only one side of the problem. Along with a rising chorus of philosophers, Thomas Nagel, an atheist philosopher, has protested that essential questions about the origin of life, and features such as mind, intelligence and morality are completely left unexplained by mechanistic evolutionary theories. In Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False, Nagel plainly lays out his argument that the modern materialist approach to life has conspicuously failed to explain something so integral to nature as mind or consciousness, thereby threatening to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture of biology, evolutionary theory and cosmology. [13] As an alternative he argues that at least natural teleological principles must be admitted to play a role in our view of science. He writes: “Each of our lives is a part of the lengthy process of the universe gradually waking up and becoming aware of itself.” The Vedantic view of the Absolute as sentient conceives of Bhagavan as the conscious and consequently personal source of the universe. This view holds that life is fundamental, and not merely coextensive with matter. It is thus consistent with the law of biogenesis which is scientifically established in agreement with empirical evidence. Life is the basis of Nature, not matter, and Nature is a system in which the different species are nodes or niches, each possessed of variety and adaptability. Evolution is of consciousness, not of the bodies of organisms. The sedimentary fossils are the result of catastrophic deposits, and are thus not indicative of gradual evolution which is concluded only on the questionable assumption of uniformitarianism. (shrink)

Die Coronapandemie stellt die Gesellschaft vor große Herausforderungen. Vielen Menschen mangelt es an (elementaren) naturwissenschaftlichen Kenntnissen. Sie sind skeptisch und misstrauen grundlegenden Prinzipien und Konzepten der Forschung. Esoterik und (Aber-) Glaube ersetzen ihnen den Zugang zur Wirklichkeit. -/- Nicht nur Fakten sind neuerdings "alternativ". Auch pseudowissenschaftliche Heilmethoden und okkulte Verfahren wurden der Bevölkerung trotz fehlender Wirksamkeitsnachweise lange als gleichwertige Alternativen zur modernen Medizin präsentiert. Ganz so, als wären Vernunft oder Unsinn eben eine Frage des persönlichen Geschmacks, einer anderen Weltanschauung. Sekundiert (...) durch das Gerede von einem "übertrieben szientistischen Weltbild", wurden Empirie und Logik systematisch diffamiert. -/- Infolge dieses Zerrbilds grassieren nun allerhand Verschwörungstheorien. Geistheiler, Seher, Schamanen, Scharlatane, Quacksalber, Sektierer, und Eiferer aller Richtungen und Couleur haben Konjunktur. Ein diffuses Pandemiemanagement und eine miserable Kommunikation tun ihr Übriges und tragen dazu bei, dass Infektionsschutzmaßnahmen oft rundweg abgelehnt und Impfquoten sich nun kaum noch signifikant steigern lassen. -/- The corona pandemic poses major challenges for society. Many people lack (basic) scientific knowledge. They are skeptical and distrust fundamental research principles and concepts. Esotericism and superstition replace them access to reality. -/- Not only facts are recently considered "alternative". Pseudo-scientific healing methods and occult procedures have long been presented to the public as equivalent alternatives to modern medicine, despite the lack of evidence of their effectiveness. Just as if reason or nonsense were just a question of personal taste, a different world view. Seconded by talk of an "exaggeratedly scientific world view", empiricism and logic were systematically defamed. -/- As a result of this distorted picture, all kinds of conspiracy theories are now rampant. Spiritual healers, seers, shamans, charlatans, quacks, sectarians, and zealots of all stripes and persuasions are in demand. Diffuse pandemic management and miserable communication do the rest and contribute to the fact that infection control measures are often flatly rejected and vaccination rates can hardly be increased significantly. -/- . (shrink)

The corona pandemic poses major challenges for society. Many people lack (basic) scientific knowledge. They are skeptical and distrust fundamental research principles and concepts. Esotericism and superstition replace them access to reality. -/- Not only facts are recently considered "alternative". Pseudo-scientific healing methods and occult procedures have long been presented to the public as equivalent alternatives to modern medicine, despite the lack of evidence of their effectiveness. Just as if reason or nonsense were just a question of personal (...) taste, a different world view. Seconded by talk of an "exaggeratedly scientific world view", empiricism and logic were systematically defamed. -/- As a result of this distorted picture, all kinds of conspiracy theories are now rampant. Spiritual healers, seers, shamans, charlatans, quacks, sectarians, and zealots of all stripes and persuasions are in demand. Diffuse pandemic management and miserable communication do the rest and contribute to the fact that infection control measures are often flatly rejected and vaccination rates can hardly be increased significantly. -/- Die Coronapandemie stellt die Gesellschaft vor große Herausforderungen. Vielen Menschen mangelt es an (elementaren) naturwissenschaftlichen Kenntnissen. Sie sind skeptisch und misstrauen grundlegenden Prinzipien und Konzepten der Forschung. Esoterik und (Aber-) Glaube ersetzen ihnen den Zugang zur Wirklichkeit. -/- Nicht nur Fakten sind neuerdings "alternativ". Auch pseudowissenschaftliche Heilmethoden und okkulte Verfahren wurden der Bevölkerung trotz fehlender Wirksamkeitsnachweise lange als gleichwertige Alternativen zur modernen Medizin präsentiert. Ganz so, als wären Vernunft oder Unsinn eben eine Frage des persönlichen Geschmacks, einer anderen Weltanschauung. Sekundiert durch das Gerede von einem "übertrieben szientistischen Weltbild", wurden Empirie und Logik systematisch diffamiert. -/- Infolge dieses Zerrbilds grassieren nun allerhand Verschwörungstheorien. Geistheiler, Seher, Schamanen, Scharlatane, Quacksalber, Sektierer, und Eiferer aller Richtungen und Couleur haben Konjunktur. Ein diffuses Pandemiemanagement und eine miserable Kommunikation tun ihr Übriges und tragen dazu bei, dass Infektionsschutzmaßnahmen oft rundweg abgelehnt und Impfquoten sich nun kaum noch signifikant steigern lassen. -/- . (shrink)

In The Age of the World Picture, philosopher Martin Heidegger claims that scientific representations do not reduce themselves to pure appropriations of what they present. Rather, they convey investigations that confine being to rules of appropriation. Those rules govern how natural science accesses phenomena. The choice of natural science as the predominant mode of representation of reality entails what Heidegger calls a process of objectification (Vergegenständlichung). In his Zollikon Seminars, Heidegger questions the tribute paid by the sciences (...) of the mind to the logic of the natural sciences, and stresses that Freud, by thinking of the mind as a machine driven by instinctive powers, assigns to human phenomena the objective features set by the natural sciences. This paper purports to show that Winnicott, by formulating a theory of personal maturing, disagrees with the objectifying requirements of the natural sciences. For Winnicott, traditional psychoanalysis uses categories that are inadequate for describing the changes babies undergo in the environment that gives them care and attention, because its analysis is confined to the field of libido relations. With that in mind, it is not possible to speak about human maturation processes using an objectifying language; Winnicott stresses (in The newborn and his mother) that “I cannot sacrifice a patient on the altar of science”. This paper argues that Winnicott disagrees with the naturalistic imperative, which reduces the real to what is objective and places physics as a model for the sciences. The paper also broaches on the issue of how far the considerations of Heidegger and Winnicott regarding access to human phenomena allow us to discuss the current overwhelming process of medicating everyday life. (shrink)

Some scientific categories seem to correspond to genuine features of the world and are indispensable for successful science in some domain; in short, they are natural kinds. This book gives a general account of what it is to be a natural kind and puts the account to work illuminating numerous specific examples.

This book has been inspired by Walter Benjamin’s idea of an afterlife of an original in its translations and probes into a wide variety of extensions of Carroll’s story in six languages. For one thing, it deals with language that speaks and more or less automatically steers its users in a particular direction and, for another, it discusses the creativity of individual translators who not only share a definite picture of the world with their language community but, in (...) great many instances, reveal a unique resourcefulness in resisting its power. Each chapter deals first with a separate theoretical issue (e.g. literalness, style, gender, and tense) and then proceeds to examine its practical actualization in various translations of Alice. (shrink)

This is a copy of the presentation given at the "Workshop on Agency and Distributed Cognition" at Macquarie University, March 2012. What is noteworthy about this piece of work is that (i) it is a very early foray into the pedagogy, ontology, and epistemology of virtual worlds (it's 2012, way before David Chalmers' book "Reality+" in 2022); and (ii) it was my first foray into "social epistemology" beyond the standard "S knows that p" epistemology, drawing on Vygotskian collaborative approaches to (...) learning and teaching, moving beyond analytic philosophy into educational research. Finally, (iii) there's a hyperlink to the actual virtual world in Unity3D created by a cross-disciplinary team of researchers from Sydney University and Macquarie University for the purposes of teaching scientific inquiry. (shrink)

The review of the theory of electromagnetic field together with the special and general theories of relativity has been made. The similar theory of gravitation has been presented which has the property of Lorentz-invariancy in its own representation in which the information is transferred at the speed of propagation of the gravitational field. Generalization of the specified gravitation theory on noninertial reference systems has been made with the help of the mathematical apparatus of the general relativity. It allows to avoid (...) some drawbacks of the standard general relativity theory and to expand its applicability. The possibility of complementary descriptions of the physical phenomena with the help of simultaneous use of the theories of gravitational and electromagnetic fields has been shown. (shrink)

Hyperintensionality – the failure of substitutivity salva veritate of intensionally equivalent expressions – is one of the most debated topics in recent philosophy of language. Being a phenomenon that affects a wide variety of different sentential contexts, a question concerning its source arises: is hyperintensionality something that can originate from actual features of the world, or it is simply some kind of representational phenomenon, which entirely depends on our conceptual faculties and preferred semantics? After a brief general introduction to (...) the topic from the semantic standpoint, in the present work I defend a view developed by Daniel Nolan, according to which hyperintensionality can be a worldly, non-representational phenomenon. I first reconstruct Nolan’s view and argument for worldly hyperintensionality, understood through the comparison with de re intensional modality. Then, I address the main criticism that has been raised against it, developing three objections. Evidence for worldly hyperintensionality is thereby presented, by focusing on a paradigmatic trigger: counterpossible conditionals. I provide two jointly sufficient criteria for a counterpossible to be a genuine instance of worldly hyperintensionality, then illustrate three case studies from scientific practices that all rely on counterpossible reasoning: reducibility in relative computability theory; scientific explanation of certain substances’ essential properties; and emergent molecular structure in chemistry. Each of them is evaluated by checking if it satisfies the criteria for worldly hyperintensionality, leading to the detection of patterns of counterpossible dependence occurring in at least some specific instances of the case studies discussed. Finally, I suggest a possible realist reading of such dependence relation, locating its relata in the world, independently from our representations. (shrink)

According to the received view of scientific theories, a scientific theory is an axiomatic-deductive linguistic structure which must include some set of guidelines (“correspondence rules”) for interpreting its theoretical terms with reference to the world of observable phenomena. According to the semantic view, a scientific theory need not be formulated as an axiomatic-deductive structure with correspondence rules, but need only specify models which are said to be “isomorphic” with actual phenomenal systems. In this paper, I consider (...) both the received and semantic views as they bear on the issue of how a theory relates to the world (Section 1). Then I offer a critique of some arguments frequently put forth in support of the semantic view (Section 2). Finally, I suggest a more convincing “meta-methodological” argument (based on the thought of Bernard Lonergan) in favor of the semantic view (Section 3). (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that global scientific promises aka “scientific world-conceptions” have an interesting history that should be taken into account also for contemporary debates. I argue that the prototypes of many contemporary philosophical positions concerning the role of science in society can already be found in the philosophy of science of the 1920s and 1930s. First to be mentioned in this respect is the Scientific World-Conception of the Vienna Circle (The (...) Manifesto) that promised to contribute to the realization of an enlightened, rational and science-oriented society and culture. The Manifesto was not the only „scientific world-conception“ that philosophers and scientists put forward in the 1920s. Also the scientific world-conception of the philosopher and physicist Moritz Schlick, and the Weltanschauung of Sigmund Freud deserve to be mentioned. Still other examples of are Carnap’s Scientific Humanism and the project of The International Encyclopedia of Unified Science which was related to American pragmatism as well, as is shown by Charles W. Morris and others. Forgotten for a long time, since the beginning of the 21rst century, at least some of the Viennese projects are reconsidered in a new wave of „socially engaged philosophy of science”. (shrink)

List of Illustrations Introduction 1 The Didactic and the Elegant: Some Thoughts on Scientific and Technological Illustrations in the Middle Ages and Renaissance 3 2 Temples of the Body and Temples of the Cosmos: Vision and Visualization in the Vesalian and Copernican Revolutions 40 3 Descartes’s Scientific Illustrations and ’la grande mecanique de la nature’ 86 4 Illustrating Chemistry 135 5 Representations of the Natural System in the Nineteenth Century 164 6 Visual Representation in Archaeology: Depicting the Missing-Link (...) in Human Origins 184 7 Towards an Epistemology of Scientific Illustration 215 8 Illustration and Inference 250 9 Visual Models and Scientific Judgment 269 10 Are Pictures Really Necessary? The Case of Sewall Wright’s ’Adaptive Landscapes’ 303 Bibliography 339 Notes on Contributors 373 Index 377. (shrink)

This paper argues for a possible worlds theory of the content of pictures, with three complications: depictive content is centred, two-dimensional and structured. The paper argues that this theory supports a strong analogy between depictive and other kinds of representation and the platitude that depiction is mediated by resemblance.

"Understanding Scientific Progress constitutes a potentially enormous and revolutionary advancement in philosophy of science. It deserves to be read and studied by everyone with any interest in or connection with physics or the theory of science. Maxwell cites the work of Hume, Kant, J.S. Mill, Ludwig Bolzmann, Pierre Duhem, Einstein, Henri Poincaré, C.S. Peirce, Whitehead, Russell, Carnap, A.J. Ayer, Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, Imre Lakatos, Paul Feyerabend, Nelson Goodman, Bas van Fraassen, and numerous others. He lauds Popper for advancing (...) beyond verificationism and Hume’s problem of induction, but faults both Kuhn and Popper for being unable to show that and how their work could lead nearer to the truth." —Dr. LLOYD EBY teaches philosophy at The George Washington University and The Catholic University of America, in Washington, DC "Maxwell's aim-oriented empiricism is in my opinion a very significant contribution to the philosophy of science. I hope that it will be widely discussed and debated." – ALAN SOKAL, Professor of Physics, New York University "Maxwell takes up the philosophical challenge of how natural science makes progress and provides a superb treatment of the problem in terms of the contrast between traditional conceptions and his own scientifically-informed theory—aim-oriented empiricism. This clear and rigorously-argued work deserves the attention of scientists and philosophers alike, especially those who believe that it is the accumulation of knowledge and technology that answers the question."—LEEMON McHENRY, California State University, Northridge "Maxwell has distilled the finest essence of the scientific enterprise. Science is about making the world a better place. Sometimes science loses its way. The future depends on scientists doing the right things for the right reasons. Maxwell's Aim-Oriented Empiricism is a map to put science back on the right track."—TIMOTHY McGETTIGAN, Professor of Sociology, Colorado State University - Pueblo "Maxwell has a great deal to offer with these important ideas, and deserves to be much more widely recognised than he is. Readers with a background in philosophy of science will appreciate the rigour and thoroughness of his argument, while more general readers will find his aim-oriented rationality a promising way forward in terms of a future sustainable and wise social order."—David Lorimer, Paradigm Explorer, 2017/2 "This is a book about the very core problems of the philosophy of science. The idea of replacing Standard Empiricism with Aim-Oriented Empiricism is understood by Maxwell as the key to the solution of these central problems. Maxwell handles his main tool masterfully, producing a fascinating and important reading to his colleagues in the field. However, Nicholas Maxwell is much more than just a philosopher of science. In the closing part of the book he lets the reader know about his deep concern and possible solutions of the biggest problems humanity is facing."—Professor PEETER MŰŰREPP, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia “For many years, Maxwell has been arguing that fundamental philosophical problems about scientific progress, especially the problem of induction, cannot be solved granted standard empiricism (SE), a doctrine which, he thinks, most scientists and philosophers of science take for granted. A key tenet of SE is that no permanent thesis about the world can be accepted as a part of scientific knowledge independent of evidence. For a number of reasons, Maxwell argues, we need to adopt a rather different conception of science which he calls aim-oriented empiricism (AOE). This holds that we need to construe physics as accepting, as a part of theoretical scientific knowledge, a hierarchy of metaphysical theses about the comprehensibility and knowability of the universe, which become increasingly insubstantial as we go up the hierarchy. In his book “Understanding Scientific Progress: Aim-Oriented Empiricism”, Maxwell gives a concise and excellent illustration of this view and the arguments supporting it… Maxwell’s book is a potentially important contribution to our understanding of scientific progress and philosophy of science more generally. Maybe it is the time for scientists and philosophers to acknowledge that science has to make metaphysical assumptions concerning the knowability and comprehensibility of the universe. Fundamental philosophical problems about scientific progress, which cannot be solved granted SE, may be solved granted AOE.” Professor SHAN GAO, Shanxi University, China . (shrink)

I have spent over 50 years of dedicated research on this theme. These are my overall conclusions. I think that science-as-it-is has come to too-limited conclusions, largely because, by in large, they are using an outmoded, "Newtonian" model of reality, (echoing Penrose, D'Espagnat, Maturana). Twentieth century physics has changed that, and it is time to apply its results to the rest of our world picture. I contend that the "materialists", as exemplified by Dennett, are archeological artifacts! There still (...) remains room for the human mind and the human soul -and my book shows how! This book proposes an entirely new perspective and an actual solution to the problem based on modern biology,(Maturana), modern physics, (Bohr, D'Espagnat, Einstein), modern logic, (Quine) and modern philosophy, (Cassirer), but it is still firmly grounded in Realism. It's conclusion is that the existence of "mind" is a necessary consequence of realism. (shrink)

Distinctions in fundamentality between different levels of description are central to the viability of contemporary decoherence-based Everettian quantum mechanics (EQM). This approach to quantum theory characteristically combines a determinate fundamental reality (one universal wave function) with an indeterminate emergent reality (multiple decoherent worlds). In this chapter I explore how the Everettian appeal to fundamentality and emergence can be understood within existing metaphysical frameworks, identify grounding and concept fundamentality as promising theoretical tools, and use them to characterize a system of explanatory (...) levels (with associated laws of nature) for EQM. This Everettian level structure encompasses and extends the ‘classical’ levels structure. The ‘classical’ levels of physics, chemistry, biology, etc. are recovered, but they are emergent in character and potentially variable across Everett worlds. EQM invokes an additional fundamental level, not present in the classical levels picture, and a novel potential role for self-location in interlevel metaphysics. When given a modal realist interpretation, EQM also makes trouble for supervenience-based approaches to levels. (shrink)

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 whether this response to the dispensability argument is tenable. I claim that it is not. This is because it presupposes an indefensible thesis about when two empirical consequences are distinct or the same. My argument provides some insight into what our empirical consequences are, and I conclude that empirical evidence is radically metaphysically neutral. This gives us some insight into the significant content of our scientific theories—the content that a scientific realist is committed to—and I show how this insight relates to questions about theoretical equivalence more broadly. (shrink)

Scientific realism is the position that the aim of science is to advance on truth and increase knowledge about observable and unobservable aspects of the mind-independent world which we inhabit. This book articulates and defends that position. In presenting a clear formulation and addressing the major arguments for scientific realism Sankey appeals to philosophers beyond the community of, typically Anglo-American, analytic philosophers of science to appreciate and understand the doctrine. The book emphasizes the epistemological aspects of (...) class='Hi'>scientific realism and contains an original solution to the problem of induction that rests on an appeal to the principle of uniformity of nature. (shrink)

In this paper is considered the linguistic approach to the problem of the relationship between a human being and reality. If in the Christian tradition language was given by God and God endowed human beings with the ability to name objects, then in the 17th century German speaking philosophers, following Descartes’ turn to the ego, had changed this thought. Since Herder and Humboldt language has been considered not as a representation of reality, but as a representation of a human mind. (...) These thinkers were the first who revealed the inseparable interdependence of human thinking and language, the influence of language on the socio- cultural lifeworld of human beings, and the role of language in the development of the world-view. (shrink)

What exists at the fundamental level of reality? On the standard picture, the fundamental reality contains (among other things) fundamental matter, such as particles, fields, or even the quantum state. Non-fundamental facts are explained by facts about fundamental matter, at least in part. In this paper, I introduce a non-standard picture called the "cosmic void” in which the universe is devoid of any fundamental material ontology. Facts about tables and chairs are recovered from a special kind of laws (...) that satisfy strong determinism. All non-fundamental facts are completely explained by nomic facts. I discuss a concrete example of this picture in a strongly deterministic version of the many-worlds theory of quantum mechanics. I discuss some philosophical and scientific challenges to this view, as well as some connections to ontological nihilism. (shrink)

This is a big-picture discussion of an important implication of Darwinism for ethics. I argue that there is a misfit between our scientific view of the natural world and the view, still dominant in academic philosophy and wider society alike, that there is a discrete hierarchy of moral status among conscious beings. I will suggest that the clear line of traditional morality – between human beings and other animals – is a remnant of an obsolete moral outlook, (...) not least because it has no counterpart in empirical reality, and I will invite the reader to think, with me, about tenable alternatives. (shrink)

Scientific realism is the view that our best scientific theories can be regarded as (approximately) true. This is connected with the view that science, physics in particular, and metaphysics could (and should) inform one another: on the one hand, science tells us what the world is like, and on the other hand, metaphysical principles allow us to select between the various possible theories which are underdetermined by the data. Nonetheless, quantum mechanics has always been regarded as, at (...) best, puzzling, if not contradictory. As such, it has been considered for a long time at odds with scientific realism, and thus a naturalized quantum metaphysics was deemed impossible. Luckily, now we have many quantum theories compatible with a realist interpretation. However, scientific realists assumed that the wave-function, regarded as the principal ingredient of quantum theories, had to represent a physical entity, and because of this they struggled with quantum superpositions. In this paper I discuss a particular approach which makes quantum mechanics compatible with scientific realism without doing that. In this approach, the wave-function does not represent matter which is instead represented by some spatio-temporal entity dubbed the primitive ontology: point-particles, continuous matter fields, space-time events. I argue how within this framework one develops a distinctive theory-construction schema, which allows to perform a more informed theory evaluation by analyzing the various ingredients of the approach and their inter-relations. (shrink)

What is scientific progress? On Alexander Bird’s epistemic account of scientific progress, an episode in science is progressive precisely when there is more scientific knowledge at the end of the episode than at the beginning. Using Bird’s epistemic account as a foil, this paper develops an alternative understanding-based account on which an episode in science is progressive precisely when scientists grasp how to correctly explain or predict more aspects of the world at the end of the (...) episode than at the beginning. This account is shown to be superior to the epistemic account by examining cases in which knowledge and understanding come apart. In these cases, it is argued that scientific progress matches increases in scientific understanding rather than accumulations of knowledge. In addition, considerations having to do with minimalist idealizations, pragmatic virtues, and epistemic value all favor this understanding-based account over its epistemic counterpart. (shrink)

Scientific explanations must bear the proper relationship to the world: they must depict what, out in the world, is responsible for the explanandum. But explanations must also bear the proper relationship to their audience: they must be able to create human understanding. With few exceptions, philosophical accounts of explanation either ignore entirely the relationship between explanations and their audience or else demote this consideration to an ancillary role. In contrast, I argue that considering an explanation’s communicative role (...) is crucial to any satisfactory account of explanation. (shrink)

This paper describes the position of scientific realism and presents the basic lines of argument for the position. Simply put, scientific realism is the view that the aim of science is knowledge of the truth about observable and unobservable aspects of a mind-independent, objective reality. Scientific realism is supported by several distinct lines of argument. It derives from a non-anthropocentric conception of our place in the natural world, and it is grounded in the epistemology and metaphysics (...) of common sense. Further, the success of science entitles us to infer both the approximate truth of mature scientific theories and the truth-conduciveness of the methods of science. (shrink)

Humans experience a profound and indescribable emotion when they unearth artifacts from ancient times. Scientific disciplines like paleontology and archaeology reflect our curiosity and desire to understand the natural world’s past and evolutionary history. Physics also invests significant effort in exploring the origin and evolution of the universe. In social life, the study field of humanities also has journals about art history, such as the Art History or Journal of Art History. Through our shared thoughts and efforts to (...) restore humanities for the cause of ecological and biological conservation, we have discovered a picture of a kingfisher taken nearly a century ago by A. F. Skutch in The Condor. Obtaining such a vivid, genuine, and emotionally evocative image was no easy task. This image has the power to stir the thoughts and awaken the conscience of the viewer, emphasizing the importance of a vibrant environment. (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)

Heidegger’s analysis of the use of tools under the rubric of the ready to hand , or handiness, introduced in the first division of Being and Time, has been an important influence on Lee Braver’s thinking. Braver reads Heidegger’s ready to hand alongside the later Wittgenstein’s language games as articulations of a mode of creativity he describes as absorbed, engaged coping. This mode is both more immediate and more fundamental than representational, conceptual thinking. In this paper, I compare Heidegger’s account (...) of the ready to hand with Braver’s model of engaged coping. My contention is that Heidegger’s radically temporal understanding of the gesture of the ideal, the empirical and their relation differs significantly from Braver’s existentialist reading of him. The latter’s analysis of mindful and mindless coping falls within the orbit of the metaphysical epoch Heidegger called the age of the world picture. This causes Braver to misread Heidegger’s concept of world projection as the formation of worldviews. As a consequence, Braver understands sameness and otherness, mindfulness and mindlessness in such a way as to reverse the roles concepts such as conspicuousness and inconspicuousness, concealment and unconcealment play in Heidegger’s texts. Whereas when Braver studies the machinations of technology or the conformity of Das Man, he sees only the exclusion of alterity and subversive becoming, Heidegger sees a privative, dimmed down mode of understanding that nevertheless enacts self-transformative movement every moment. (shrink)

This paper reconsiders the challenge presented to scientific realism by the semantic incommensurability thesis. A twofold distinction is drawn between methodological and semantic incommensurability, and between semantic incommensurability due to variation of sense and due to discontinuity of reference. Only the latter presents a challenge to scientific realism. The realist may dispose of this challenge on the basis of a modified causal theory of reference, as argued in the author’s 1994 book, The incommensurability thesis. This referential response has (...) been the subject of a charge of meta-incommensurability by Hoyningen-Huene et al., who argue that the realist’s referential response begs the question against anti-realist advocates of incommensurability. In reply, it is noted that a tu quoque rejoinder is available to the realist. It is also argued that the dialectical situation favours the scientific realist, since the anti-realist defence of incommensurability depends on an incoherent distinction between phenomenal world and world-in-itself. In light of such incoherence, and a strong commonsense presumption in favour of realism, the referential response to semantic incommensurability may be justifiably based on realism. (shrink)