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On September 14, 2015 at 09:50:45 UTC the two detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory simultaneously observed a transient gravitational-wave signal. The signal sweeps upwards in frequency from 35 to 250 Hz with a peak gravitational-wave strain of 1.0 × 10−21. It matches the waveform predicted by general relativity for the inspiral and merger of a pair of black holes and the ringdown of the resulting single black hole. These observations demonstrate the existence of binary stellar-mass black hole systems. This is the first direct detection of gravitational waves and the first observation of a binary black hole merger. +
An account of Al-Kindi's life and philosophy. +
The paper discusses Descartes vortex theory of planetary motion, and how it fared among subsequent thinkers. +
How do scientists know—and justify—that they have erred? The question virtually
bristles with paradox. Error seems the very antithesis of knowledge. How could one justify such a "negative" discovery? Oddly perhaps, to know that a claim deemed right in one context is wrong requires justification. I focus here on this dimension of the scientific enterprise, the ascertaining of error, and its relation to the general problem of characterizing reliable knowledge. +
Scientists, philosophers and theologians have wrestled repeatedly with the question of whether knowledge is similar or different in their various understandings of the world and God. Although agreement is still elusive, the epistemology of critical realism, associated with Ian Barbour, John Polkinghorne and Arthur Peacocke, remains widely credible. Relying on the lifetime work of philosopher Ernan McMullin, this book expands our understanding of critical realism beyond a permanent stand-off between the subjective and objective, whether in science or theology. Critical realism illuminates the subject and the objectively known simultaneously. Responding to criticisms made against it, this book defends critical realism in science and theology with a specific role to play in our understanding of God. +
In a series of publications, [[Hasok Chang]] makes the case that activities carried out by epistemic agents form the basis of the scientific enterprise. This paper provides an action-based scientonomic perspective of scientific practice. I define ''epistemic action'' as an action of an epistemic agent that involves an epistemic element and highlight the difference between global and local actions. The availability of a local action to an epistemic agent amounts to the agent employing the norm that the local action is permissible/desirable. To unearth the mechanism by which local actions become available to epistemic agents, I derive ''the local action availability theorem'', according to which, a local epistemic action becomes available to an agent only when its permissibility is derivable from a non-empty subset of other elements of the agent’s mosaic, i.e., from that agent’s employed norms and accepted theories. This framework is then applied to the emergence of the local action of determining the composition of chemical substances by weighing as practiced by Lavoisier and his followers; it is shown that the respective norm became employed in accord with the local action availability theorem. +
This paper argues that the traditional scientonomic portrayal of theories of classical physics (e.g. Newtonian mechanics, thermodynamics) as merely ''used'' but no longer ''accepted'' is too simplistic. To that end, I consider the current status of the meteorological theory, which is accepted as the best available description of atmospheric phenomenon despite the fact that it is founded on the principles of classical physics, including those of Newtonian mechanics. This apparent paradox is resolved if the distinction between a theory’s ''ontology'' and its ''phenomenological'' laws is properly appreciated. The phenomenological laws of meteorology are accepted by the scientific community as the best available description of atmospheric phenomena. Yet, this acceptance does not imply that the classical ''ontology'' implicit in the current meteorological theory is also accepted. Thus, the modern meteorological theory (as well as many tenets of classical physics) can be said to be accepted as the best available description of the observable atmospheric phenomena even though its classical ontology is no longer accepted. +
To many, Aristotle is the last great fi gure in the distinguished philosophical tradition
of Greece that is thought to begin with Thales (ca. 600 BCE). Of course, Greek philosophy
did not end with Aristotle; it continued for several centuries in the various schools –
those of the Epicureans, Skeptics, and Stoics as well as Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s
own Peripatetic School – that fl ourished in Athens and elsewhere up to the early centuries
of the Byzantine Empire. Yet there is considerable truth in the opinion of the
many, if viewed as a claim about great individual fi gures in the Greek philosophical
tradition. For Aristotle was the last great individual philosopher of ancient times, one
of the three thinkers – the others being Socrates (470–399 BCE) and Plato (427–347
BCE) – that comprise what many consider to be the greatest philosophical trio of all time.
Their philosophical careers span more than a hundred years, and all three were major
fi gures in the lively philosophical scene of fi fth- and fourth-century Athens. It was a
unique moment in the history of philosophy, one that saw Socrates engaging in discussions
with Plato – by far the most distinguished of his followers – and Plato instructing
and debating with Aristotle – by far the most eminent student to graduate from and do
research in his own school, the Academy. +
The present volume does not provide a survey of all of Aristotle’s thought, and it was
not intended to do so. Its aim is to treat some central topics of his philosophy in as much
depth as is possible within the space of a short chapter. Ancient and later biographers
and historians of philosophy attribute to Aristotle a large number of works, two-thirds
of which have not survived. Even what has survived is an astounding achievement,
both in its size and scope. Aristotle’s extant works add up to more than two thousand
printed pages and range over an astonishingly large number of topics – from the highly
abstract problems of being, substance, essence, form, and matter to those relating solely
to the natural world, and especially to living things (e.g., nutrition and the other
faculties of the soul, generation, sleep, memory, dreaming, movement, and so on),
the human good and excellences, the political association and types of constitutions,
rhetoric, tragedy, and so on.
Clearly, not all the topics Aristotle examines in his works could be discussed in a
single volume, and choices had to be made as to which ones to include. The choices
were guided by an intuitive consideration – e.g., the centrality a topic has in the totality
of the Aristotelian corpus (e.g., substance, essence, cause, teleology) or in a single,
major work (e.g., the categories, the soul, and the generation of animals are the central
topics in three different Aristotelian treatises). These considerations produced a first list.
Still, the list was too long for a single volume, and had to be shortened. The topics that
made the final list seemed to the editor to be the ones that any volume with the objectives
of this one has to include. Others might have come up with different lists, but they
would not be radically different from this. The overwhelming majority of the topics
discussed below would be on every list that was aiming to achieve the objectives of this
volume. Individually, each one of these topics receives an extensive treatment in
Aristotle’s works, and the views he articulates on them, when put together, give a good
sense of the kinds of problems that exercised Aristotle’s mind and the immense and
lasting contributions he made in his investigations of them.
The contents of the volume are divided into five parts, with part I covering Aristotle’s
life and certain issues about the number, edition, and chronology of his works. The
division of the remaining chapters is based on the way Aristotle frequently characterizes
groups of inquiries in terms of their goals. Thus, part II consists of a number of
chapters discussing topics from the treatises that have been traditionally called Organon,i.e., those studying the instruments or tools for reasoning, demonstrating and, in
general, attaining knowledge and truth. Aristotle does not label these works (Categories,
On Interpretation, Prior Analytics, Posterior Analytics, Topics, On Sophistical Refutations)
Organon, but in several passages in his extant works he indicates that he views them
as the instruments of inquiry and knowledge. The division of the remaining chapters
into three parts – Theoretical, Practical, and Productive Knowledge – is, of course,
based on the way Aristotle himself frequently divides the various inquiries on the basis
of their ultimate goals – knowledge, action, and production. The chapters included in
each one of these parts are further subdivided into groups on the basis of the subfield
of Aristotelian philosophy to which a topic or the work(s) treating it belong – Metaphysics
(seven chapters), Physics (three), Psychology (three), Biology (three) in part III (theoretical
knowledge); Ethics (eight) and Politics (five) in part IV (practical knowledge);
and Rhetoric (two) and Art (two) in part V (productive knowledge). Of course, several
topics (e.g., cause, teleology, substance) are discussed in many different Aristotelian
treatises, with some of them falling into different groups with respect to their ultimate
goals – e.g., substance is explored in both the Categories (Organon) and the Metaphysics
(theoretical knowledge).
The contributors to the volume are many, and no attempt was made to impose a
uniform style with respect to writing, presentation, or argumentation. Each contributor
was left free to use her/his favoured approach, except in the way references to Aristotle’s
works or citations of specific passages in them are made – a uniform system has been
adopted. Although in some instances the whole title of a work (e.g., Politics) is given,
most frequently an abbreviation is used (e.g., Pol: see list of abbreviations). Citations of
passages in the Aristotelian corpus are made by giving: (1) the title of the specific work,
(e.g., Pol or An for de Anima); (2) the Book for those Aristotelian treatises that are divided
into Books in Roman numerals (e.g., I, II) – except for Met where Books are identified
by uppercase Greek letters (e.g., Γ, Θ) and lowercase alpha (α) for the second Book; (3)
the chapter within the Book or treatise in Arabic numerals; (4) and the Bekker page
and line number – e.g., An II.1 412a3, or Met Γ.4 1008b15. Each chapter includes a
short bibliography listing the sources cited in it and in some cases additional works on
the topic discussed that might be of interest to the reader. Space limitations did not
permit the inclusion of a comprehensive bibliography on Aristotle.
Preparing this homage to David Keyt has been a labor of love for the editors and contributors alike. The volume contains fifteen essays by sixteen scholars including students, colleagues, and friends (the latter category being all inclusive!). All of the authors make important original contributions to the study of ancient Greek philosophy, and we wish to thank them all for agreeing to participate in this project, for their cooperation with the editing, and for the high quality of their essays. We are also grateful for their patience and good cheer throughout an unexpectedly protracted publication process. T he papers by Gerasimos Santas, Nils Rauhut, Mark McPherran, Charles Young, and Fred D. Miller, Jr. were delivered originally at a conference (aka “the Keytfest”) held at the University of Washington in Seattle in 2007 commemorating David Keyt’s fi ftieth year as a professor of philosophy. Kenneth Clatterbaugh, Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Washington, was very supportive of the program, and Bev Wessel provided valuable administrative assistance. Daniel Fisher, a student of David Keyt, offered generous fi nancial support. Richard Parker, another former student, served as quipster and consummate master of ceremonies. W e are pleased to thank a number of people who have been very helpful with the editing and publication of this volume including Professor Stephen Hetherington, the editor of Springer’s Philosophical Studies Series; Ingrid van Laarhoven; Christi Lue; Ties Nijssen; Hendrikje Tuerlings; Professor Nicholas D. Smith, who helped to fi nd a suitable publisher for the volume; and an anonymous reviewer who provided helpful comments. James Dabgotra ably assisted with the fi rst round of editing, and Pamela Phillips did an excellent job copyediting the entire typescript and preparing it for the publisher. We also gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation for the original conference and for the editing of the volume. Finally, we thank David Keyt for his assistance throughout the planning and preparation of the volume and especially for his willingness to contribute a fascinating memoir of his academic career which, in addition to delightful anecdotes about his encounters with notable scholars, offers illuminating insights into his own work and also into the recent history of the subdiscipline of ancient philosophy. With affection and admiration, we the editors and all the contributors dedicate this volume to David Keyt, in recognition of his major contributions to the study of ancient philosophy, and on behalf of the many students, colleagues, and friends whose lives he has touched and enriched over the past half century.
This Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article provides an historical overview of philosophical conceptions of the methods of science. The first section covers scientific methods, focusing on avowed methodologies prior to the twentieth century, from Plato and Aristotle to William Whewell and John Stuart Mill Mostly avowed methodologies are discussed. The logical positivists and their critics are then covered, including Popper's falsificationism. +
The Modes of Scepticism is one of the most important and influential of all ancient philosophical texts. The texts made an enormous impact on Western thought when they were rediscovered in the 16th century and they have shaped the whole future course of Western philosophy. Despite their importance, the Modes have been little discussed in recent times. This book translates the texts and supplies them with a discursive commentary, concentrating on philosophical issues but also including historical material. The book will be of interest to professional scholars and philosophers but its clear and non-technical style makes it intelligible to beginners and the interested layman. +
Peter Anstey presents a thorough and innovative study of John Locke's views on the method and content of natural philosophy. Focusing on Locke's Essay concerning Human Understanding, but also drawing extensively from his other writings and manuscript remains, Anstey argues that Locke was an advocate of the Experimental Philosophy: the new approach to natural philosophy championed by Robert Boyle and the early Royal Society who were opposed to speculative philosophy. On the question of method, Anstey shows how Locke's pessimism about the prospects for a demonstrative science of nature led him, in the Essay, to promote Francis Bacon's method of natural history, and to downplay the value of hypotheses and analogical reasoning in science. But, according to Anstey, Locke never abandoned the ideal of a demonstrative natural philosophy, for he believed that if we could discover the primary qualities of the tiny corpuscles that constitute material bodies, we could then establish a kind of corpuscular metric that would allow us a genuine science of nature. It was only after the publication of the Essay, however, that Locke came to realize that Newton's Principia provided a model for the role of demonstrative reasoning in science based on principles established upon observation, and this led him to make significant revisions to his views in the 1690s. On the content of Locke's natural philosophy, it is argued that even though Locke adhered to the Experimental Philosophy, he was not averse to speculation about the corpuscular nature of matter. Anstey takes us into new terrain and new interpretations of Locke's thought in his explorations of his mercurialist transmutational chymistry, his theory of generation by seminal principles, and his conventionalism about species. +
Both a history and a metahistory, Representing Electrons focuses on the development of various theoretical representations of electrons from the late 1890s to 1925 and the methodological problems associated with writing about unobservable scientific entities.
Using the electron - or rather its representation - as a historical actor, Theodore Arabatzis illustrates the emergence and gradual consolidation of its representation in physics, its career throughout old quantum theory, and its appropriation and reinterpretation by chemists. As Arabatzis develops this novel biographical approach, he portrays scientific representations as partly autonomous agents with lives of their own. Furthermore, he argues that the considerable variance in the representation of the electron does not undermine its stable identity or existence.
Raising philosophical issues of contentious debate in the history and philosophy of science -
namely, scientific realism and meaning change - Arabatzis addresses the history of the electron across disciplines, integrating historical narrative with philosophical analysis in a book that will be a touchstone for historians and philosophers of science and scientists alike. +
This special issue presents selected contributions to the conference “Integrated History and Philosophy of Science” (&HPS3) held at Indiana University in September 2010. The introduction revisits a previous special issue on History and Philosophy of Science, published in Perspectives on Science (2002), and reflects on the recent development of HPS as a field. Ten years ago, scholars expressed concern about the growing distance between mainstream history of science and mainstream philosophy of science. Today, we have good reason to be optimistic. The papers assembled in this special issue demonstrate that we now have a whole spectrum of combinations of historical, philosophical, and other perspectives to study science, ranging from augmenting historical studies by philosophical perspectives and vice versa to historicist reflection on methodological, epistemological, or scientific concepts and practices. This plurality of approaches to combining the historical and the philosophical perspectives on science is a hopeful sign that integrated HPS is here to stay. +
Some philosophers of science suggest that philosophical assumptions must
influence historical scholarship, because history (like science) has no neutral data and
because the treatment of any particular historical episode is going to be influenced to
some degree by one's prior philosophical conceptions of what is important in science.
However, if the history of science must be laden with philosophical assumptions, then how
can the history of science be evidence for the philosophy of science? Would not an
inductivist history of science confirm an inductivist philosophy of science and a
conventionalist history of science confirm a conventionalist philosophy of science? I
attempt to resolve this problem; essentially, I deny the claim that the history of science
must be influenced by one's conception of what is important in science - one's general
philosophy of science. To accomplish the task I look at a specific historical episode,
together with its history, and draw some metamethodological conclusions from it. The
specific historical episode I examine is Descartes' critique of Galileo's scientific methodology. +
The Oxford Translation of Aristotle was originally published in 12 volumes between 1912 and 1954. It is universally recognized as the standard English version of Aristotle. This revised edition contains the substance of the original Translation, slightly emended in light of recent scholarship; three of the original versions have been replaced by new translations; and a new and enlarged selection of Fragments has been added. The aim of the translation remains the same: to make the surviving works of Aristotle readily accessible to English speaking readers. +
William Paley (Natural Theology, 1802) developed the argument-from-design. The complex structure of the human eye evinces that it was designed by an intelligent Creator. The argument is based on the irreducible complexity (“relation”) of multiple interacting parts, all necessary for function. Paley adduces a wealth of biological examples leading to the same conclusion; his knowledge of the biology of his time was profound and extensive. Charles Darwin’s ''Origin of Species'' is an extended argument demonstrating that the “design” of organisms can be explained by natural selection. Moreover, the dysfunctions, defects, waste, and cruelty that prevail in the living world are incompatible with a benevolent and omnipotent Creator. They come about by a process that incorporates chance and necessity, mutation and natural selection. In addition to science, there are other ways of knowing, such as art, literature, philosophy, and religion. Matters of value, meaning, and purpose transcend science. +
B
This article argues that the limited influence of Ludwik Fleck's ideas on philosophy of science is due not only to their indirect dissemination by way of Thomas Kuhn, but also to an incommensurability between the standard conceptual framework of history and philosophy of science and Fleck's own more integratedly historico-social and praxis-oriented approach to understanding the evolution of scientific discovery. What Kuhn named "paradigm" offers a periphrastic rendering or oblique translation of Fleck's Denkstil/Denkkollektiv , a derivation that may also account for the lability of the term "paradigm". This was due not to Kuhn's unwillingness to credit Fleck but rather to the cold war political circumstances surrounding the writing of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions . Following a discussion of Fleck's anatomical allusions, I include a brief discussion of Aristotle (on menstruation and darkened mirrors) and conclude with a reference to the productivity of error in Mach and Nietzsche. +
An authoritative critical edition, based on fresh collation of the seventeenth century texts and documented in an extensive textual apparatus, of Francis Bacon's The Advancement of Learning, the principal philosophical work in English announcing his comprehensive programme to restore and advance learning +
This volume inaugurates a new critical edition of the writings of the great English philosopher and sage Francis Bacon (1561-1626) – the first such complete edition for more than a hundred years. It contains six of Bacon’s Latin scientific works, each accompanied by entirely new facing-page translations which, together with the extensive introduction and commentaries, offer fresh insights into one of the great minds of the early seventeenth century. Volume VI includes Bacon’s speculative writings between c. 1611-c. 1619, including his Phaenomena universi, Descriptio globi intellectuali, Thema coeli, De principiis atque originibus. +
This is the first critical edition since the nineteenth century of Bacon’s principal philosophical work in English, The Twoo Bookes of Francis Bacon. Of the proficience and advancement of Learning, divine and humane – traditionally known as The Advancement of Learning. This authoritative critical edition is based upon the collation and analysis of the original editions. Its comprehensive introduction examines Bacon’s appraisal of the current state of learning and his efforts to involve his contemporaries in his programme to reform and advance learning. Extensive commentary explores Bacon’s sources and early modern contexts for Bacon’s most important philosophical work in English. +
This volume belongs to the first new critical edition of the works of Francis Bacon (1561-1626) to have been produced since the nineteenth century. The edition presents the works in broadly chronological order and according to the best principles of modern textual scholarship. The seven works in the present volume belong to the final completed stages (Parts III-V) of Bacon’s hugely ambitious six-part sequence of philosophical works, collectively entitled Instauratio magna (1620-6). All are presented in the original Latin with new facing-page translations. Three of the seven texts (substantial works in two cases, and all sharing a startlingly improbable textual history) are published and translated here for the first time: these are an early version of the Historia densi, the ‘lost’ Abecedarium, and the Historia de animato & inanimato. Another – the Prodromi sive anticipationes philosophiae secundae – has likewise never been translated before. Together with their commentaries and the introduction they open the way to important new understandings of Bacon’s mature philosophical thought. +
Bacon’s essays reflect the experience and wide reading of a Renaissance man – philosopher, historian, judge, politician, adviser to the Prince – above all, astute observer of human nature. With uncompromising candour, he exposes man as he is, not as he ought to be, examining such givens of Renaissance power as negotiating for position, expediting a personal suit, speaking effectively, and the role of dissimulation in social and political situations. He scrutinizes judicial prerogatives and probes the causes and dangers of atheism and superstition. Even such topics as boldness or love or deformity have a practical bent. In Bacon’s own phrase, these essays ‘come home to Mens Businesse and Bosomes.’ It is especially through their matchless style that they come home–with imaginative vigour, concrete language, and the colloquial force of individual sentences. An introduction places the essays in their original context, examines their evolution over Bacon’s lifetime, and elucidates their form and prose style; a commentary examines his sources and relates essays to his other writings; a glossary and index are also included. +
Volume XI of The Oxford Francis Bacon comprises the first new critical edition of Bacon’s most important philosophical work, the Novum Organum, for a hundred years. One of the foundation documents of early-modern philosophy, Novum Organum is edited in accordance with modern textual-critical principles for the first time. Graham Rees presents the only edition ever to include the original Latin text with a brand new, facing-page translation, and a thorough Introduction and detailed commentary of the text. The edition represents a major step towards the reinstatement of Bacon as a central figure in the history of early-modern philosophy, and will be essential reading for anyone studying the history of science and ideas in the seventeenth-century. +
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was a genuine midwife of modernity. He was one of the first thinkers to visualise a future which would be guided by a cooperative science-based vision of bettering human welfare. In this the first critical edition of his greatest philosophical work since the nineteenth-century, we find facing-page Latin translations and a thorough and detailed Introduction to the text. The text includes the original Latin with a facing-page translation, and has been edited in accordance with the highest standards of modern textual-critical principles, with a detailed and thorough introduction. +
This volume belongs to the critical edition of the complete works of Francis Bacon (1561-1626), an edition that presents the works in broadly chronological order and in accordance with the principles of modern textual scholarship. This volume contains critical editions of five varied works Bacon composed during the 1620s. The most significant and substantial of these five works is his biography of Henry VII (The historie of the raigne of King Henry the seventh) but the volume testifies as well to Bacon’s continuing robust allegiance to his youthful vaunt that all knowledge was his province, for it also includes his sketch for a biography of Henry VIII, An advertisement touching an holy war (a thoughtful debate over the prospect of holy war in his own time), Apophthegmes (a lively collection of witty anecdotes, classical to early modern), and his select verse translations from the psalms. In each case an authoritative text has been established based upon fresh collation of the relevant manuscripts and of multiple copies of the seventeenth editions, and subjected to a thorough bibliographical analysis of the treatment of Bacon’s texts in the early modern printing-house. The Introductions discuss the occasion and context for each work, evaluate his creative transmutation of his sources, and weigh their contemporary reception. A comprehensive commentary identifies and parses Bacon’s use of source material, from his refinement of published literary and historical sources and contemporary MSS to the political white papers composed while he served as counsellor to King James. An extensive glossary is integrated into this commentary. An Appendix provides full bibliographical descriptions of all of the textual witnesses, manuscript and printed edition. +
Harvey Siegel's (1985) attempts to revive the traditional epistemological formulation of the rationality of science. Contending that "a general commitment to evidence" is constitutive of method and rationality in science, Siegel advances its compatibility with specific, historically attuned formulations of principles of evidential support as a virtue of his aprioristic candidate for science's rationality. In point of fact, this account is compatible with virtually any formulation of evidential support, which runs afoul of Siegel's claim that scientific beliefs must be evaluated with respect to their rationality. The unwelcome consequence of Siegel's view is that most any belief, scientific or pseudoscientific, can be defended as rational. Indeed, if we want to furnish a warrant for rational choice, we must turn to the very historically informed principles of evidential support that are dismissed by Siegel as providing a misleading portrait of science's rationality. +
All students of physics need to understand the basic concepts of electricity and magnetism. E&M is central to the study of physics, and central to understanding the developments of the last two hundred years of not just science, but technology and society in general. But the core of electricity and magnetism can be difficult to understand - many of the ideas are counterintuitive and difficult to appreciate. This volume in the Greenwood Guides to Great Ideas in Science series traces the central concepts of electricity and magnetism from the ancient past to the present day, enabling students to develop a deeper understanding of how the science arose as it has. +
Covering physics, astronomy, chemistry, the various branches of biology, and geology, this book is the perfect introduction to the history of science. A compilation of interesting readings, Scientific Revolutions reflects the richness and diversity of scientific culture and practice. Its primary focus is on the extraordinary bursts of scientific activity that propel science in new and different directions. Useful as a reference work for readers interested in the sciences. +
Intriguingly different in approach from conventional works in the same area of inquiry, this study deals with the central problems and concerns of the sociology of knowledge as it has traditionally been conceived of. In other words, it is concerned with the relationship of knowledge, social interests and social structure, and with the various attempts which have been made to analyse the relationship.
Barry Barnes takes the classic writings in the sociology of knowledge – by Marx, Lukács, Weber, Mannheim, Goldmann, Habermas and others – and uses them as resources in coming to grips with what he regards as the currently most interesting and significant questions in this area. This approach reflects one of the principal themes of the book itself. Knowledge, it is argued, is best treated as a resource available to those possessing it. This is the best perspective from which to understand its relationship to action and its historical significance; it is a perspective which avoids the problems of holding that knowledge is derivative, as well as those generated by the view that knowledge is a strong determinant of consciousness. the result is an unusual textbook, particularly valuable when read in conjunction with the original works it discusses. +
The central thesis of this book is that sociological analysis is necessary for understanding scientific knowledge, though other fields, such as psychology and philosophy are also needed. Such knowledge is attained through historical case studies. The sociology of scientific knowledge is one part of a larger project to understand science itself in scientific terms. +
This book systematically creates a general descriptive theory of scientific change that explains the mechanics of changes in both scientific theories and the methods of their assessment. It was once believed that, while scientific theories change through time, their change itself is governed by a fixed method of science. Nowadays we know that there is no such thing as an unchangeable method of science; the criteria employed by scientists in theory evaluation also change through time. But if that is so, how and why do theories and methods change? Are there any general laws that govern this process, or is the choice of theories and methods completely arbitrary and random?
Contrary to the widespread opinion, the book argues that scientific change is indeed a law-governed process and that there can be a general descriptive theory of scientific change. It does so by first presenting meta-theoretical issues, divided into chapters on the scope, possibility and assessment of theory of scientific change. It then builds a theory about the general laws that govern the process of scientific change, and goes into detail about the axioms and theorems of the theory. +
Recent developments in theoretical scientonomy coupled with a reflection on the practice of the Encyclopedia of Scientonomy all suggest that the ontology of scientific change currently accepted in scientonomy has serious flaws. The new ontology, suggested in this paper, solves some of the issues permeating the current ontology. Building on [[Modification:Sciento-2018-0002|Rawleigh’s suggestion]], it considers a ''theory'' as an attempt to answer a certain ''question''. It also introduces the category of ''definition'' as a subtype of theory. It also reveals that ''methods'' and ''methodologies'' of the currently accepted ontology do not differ from the perspective of their propositional content and, thus, belong to the same class of epistemic elements. This is captured in the new definition of ''method'' as a set of criteria for theory evaluation. It is also argued that ''methods'' are a subtype of ''normative theories''. It is shown that ''normative theories'' of all types, including methods, ethical norms, and aesthetic norms, can be both ''accepted and employed''. Finally, a new definition of ''scientific mosaic'' is suggested to fit the new ontology. +
Incomplete and imprecise temporal data is abundant in various branches of science and technology as well as everyday life (e.g., “''A'' began after 1066 but before 1069 and ended after 1245”, “''B'' took place no later than 156 BC”). While point-circles and lines/bars have been traditionally used to depict precise temporal points and intervals, it is unclear how imprecise and incomplete temporal data can be effectively visualized or even represented. This paper suggests an intuitive diagrammatic notation for visualizing both imprecise and incomplete temporal information. It suggests using traditional whiskers with edges to depict temporal imprecision and whiskers without edges to depict incomplete temporal entities. This notation can be easily incorporated into linear temporal visualizations, such as historical timelines, Gantt charts, and timetables, to identify gaps in temporal information. The paper lays down the diagrammatic elements of the notation and illustrates their applicability to all standard relations between temporal entities. It also shows how these elements can be combined to produce complex timelines. Some possible future directions are also outlined. +
Despite a growing body of literature that attempts to draw a line between legitimate and illegitimate forms of presentism in academic history, ‘avoid presentism’ is still often preached as the first rule of historiography. Distinct from other forms of presentism is ''selective presentism'' – the practice of taking some present-day activity, event, idea, or problem as a starting point in our selection of historical facts. Throughout the paper I examine the relation of some of the most popular selection criteria – ''selection by actor intentionality'', ''selection by later effect'', and ''selection by problem'' – to presentist practices and draw three conclusions. First, each of these selection criteria can produce presentist or non-presentist histories depending on the past of which specific activity, idea, or problem the historian is interested in. Second, the historiographic legitimacy of these selection criteria is independent from their presentist or non-presentist applications; importantly, selective presentism is not among the ‘bad’ forms of presentism and is not to be avoided. Finally, various selection criteria are best understood as complementary; pluralist history invites a variety of selection criteria that help shed light on different aspects of the past, and thus – collectively – enrich our understanding of it. +
Canonical discussions in the philosophy of science distinguish between acceptance and pursuit as epistemic stances that are customarily taken towards theories by epistemic agents (Laudan 1977; Wykstra 1980; Whitt 1990; Achinstein 1993; Barseghyan & Shaw 2017). Since a theory can be conceived as an attempt to answer a question (Jardine 2000; Rescher 2000; Rawleigh 2018) it is reasonable to inquire into the types of stances that epistemic agents can take towards questions. This paper explores the notion of ''question pursuit'' by differentiating it from related epistemic stances of ''theory pursuit'' and ''question acceptance''. The analysis of the extant academic literature reveals that in most cases the phrase ‘question pursuit’ and its cognates refer to a search for an answer to a question. The paper provides a definition of the term that reflects this common usage and draws five conclusions. First, question pursuit is different from question acceptance, for it is possible for an epistemic agent to accept a question without finding it pursuitworthy. Second, question pursuit and question acceptance are related semi-orthogonally: in order to be considered pursuitworthy a question must, at minimum, be accepted, but not all accepted questions are pursuitworthy. Third, question pursuit is irreducible to theory pursuit; finding a question pursuitworthy is not expressible in terms of finding some theory pursuitworthy. Fourth, a pursuit of a theory cannot be expressed as a pursuit of a same-order question, but only as a pursuit of a question about that theory, i.e. a higher-level question. Fifth, to have a chance to be considered pursuitworthy by an agent, a question must meet some minimal necessary preconditions: it should be accepted by that agent and the agent should either lack an accepted answer to the question or have reasons to suspect that the accepted answer might be improved upon. +
The paper presents a new scientonomic account of ''question dynamics''. To explain the process of question acceptance and rejection, we begin by introducing the notion of ''epistemic presupposition'' and show how it’s different from the notion of ''logical presupposition''. With the notion of epistemic presupposition at hand, we formulate ''the law of question acceptance'', a new scientonomic axiom, which states that a question becomes accepted only if all of its epistemic presuppositions are accepted, and it is accepted that the question is answerable. We then show how the process of question rejection can be explained by means of ''the question rejection theorem'', which states that a question becomes rejected when other elements that are incompatible with the question become accepted. To deduce this theorem in the usual scientonomic fashion (from the first law and the compatibility corollary), we first ascertain that the notion of compatibility/incompatibility is applicable to questions and show that one can legitimately speak of both question-theory and question-question incompatibility. We conclude by providing a quick illustration of the historical applicability of this new framework and suggest a number of questions for future research. +
The current scientonomic discourse focuses largely on theories and methods of natural, social, and formal ''sciences'', while the role of ''technological'' knowledge in the process of scientific change is virtually neglected. This neglect, we argue, has to do with the scientonomic distinction between two epistemic stances – ''acceptance'' of a theory as the best available description of its domain and its ''use'' in practical applications. The view that is implicit in contemporary ''scientonomy'' is that sciences alone can produce ''accepted'' knowledge, while technologies are all about knowledge ''use''. In contrast, we argue that there is ''accepted'' propositional technological knowledge which plays an indispensable role in the process of scientific change. We demonstrate that technological disciplines do not merely ''use'' theories but also produce ''accepted'' theories, such as “''x'' is an effective treatment for medical condition ''y''”, “''z'' is a viable technology for bridge-building”, and “''p'' is a statistically valid technique for assessing public opinion about ''q''”. There are both theoretical and historical reasons to believe that changes in technological knowledge exhibit the same patterns as changes in natural, social, and formal sciences. In addition, technological knowledge is intrinsically intertwined with scientific knowledge as accepted scientific and technological theories often jointly shape employed methods. +
In this paper, we demonstrate how a systematic ''taxonomy of stances'' can help elucidate two classic debates of the historical turn—the Lakatos–Feyerabend debate concerning theory rejection and the Feyerabend–Kuhn debate about pluralism during normal science. We contend that Kuhn, Feyerabend, and Lakatos were often talking at cross-purposes due to the lack of an agreed upon taxonomy of stances. Specifically, we provide three distinct stances that scientists take towards theories: ''acceptance'' of a theory as the best available description of its domain, ''use'' of a theory in practical applications, and ''pursuit'' (elaboration) of a theory. We argue that in the Lakatos–Feyerabend debate, Lakatos was concerned with ''acceptance'' whereas Feyerabend was mainly concerned with ''pursuit''. Additionally, we show how Feyerabend and Kuhn’s debate on the role of pluralism/monism in normal science involved a crucial conflation of all three stances. Finally, we outline a few general lessons concerning the process of scientific change. +
Many have struggled to identify the proper way(s) that normative philosophical claims about science can benefit from history. The primary worry here has been that deriving philosophical ‘oughts’ from historical facts would commit the naturalistic fallacy (Schickore, 2011). The task of this paper is to introduce a novel solution to this problem. Specifically, we claim that the emerging field of scientonomy provides a promising avenue for how philosophy of science may benefit from the history of science. By taking descriptive findings and coupling them with additional normative premises, philosophers of science can draw normative methodological conclusions which can guide future scientific practices. Moreover, it is sometimes thought that philosophical claims about science are invariably local due to the diversity of scientific practices. While acknowledging this disunity, we show how a general theory of scientific change is possible and how it can be used to inform normative philosophy of science. Thus, we aim to outline a viable path for integrated history and philosophy of science that does not relinquish normativity and avoids the problem of cherry-picking which has plagued general accounts of science (Chang, 2011; Mizrahi, 2015). +
During the so-called ‘historical turn’ in the philosophy of science, philosophers and historians boldly argued for general patterns throughout the history of science. From Kuhn’s landmark ''Structure of Scientific Revolutions'' until the ''Scrutinizing Science'' project led by Larry Laudan, there was optimism that there could be a general theoretical approach to understanding the process of scientific change. This optimism gradually faded as historians and philosophers began to focus on the details of specific case studies located within idiosyncratic historical, cultural, and political contexts, and abandoned attempts to uncover general patterns of how scientific theories and methods change through time. Recent research has suggested that while we have learned a great deal about the diversity and complexity of scientific practices across history, the push to abandon hope for a broader understanding of scientific change was premature. Because of this, philosophers, historians, and social scientists have become interested in reviving the project of understanding the mechanism of scientific change while respecting the diversity and complexity that has been unveiled by careful historical research over the past few decades.
The chapters in this volume consider a particular proposal for a general theory of how scientific theories and methods change over time, first articulated by Hakob Barseghyan in ''The Laws of Scientific Change'' and since developed in a series of papers by a variety of members of the scientonomy community. The chapters consider a wide range of issues, from conceptual and historical challenges to the posited intellectual patterns in the history of science, to the possibility of constructing a general theory of scientific change, to begin with. Offering a new take on the project of constructing a theory of scientific change and integrating historical, philosophical, and social studies of science, this volume will be of interest to historians, philosophers, and sociologists of science.
This resource provides a comprehensive introduction to the key issues in the history and philosophy of science. How do scientific theories and method change through time? Is there a universal and unchangeable method of science? What demarcates science from non-science? Can scientific theories provide true descriptions of the world? Is there scientific progress? What are the major worldviews in the history of science? This first half of this text considers pivotal questions of the philosophy of science, while the latter half of the text traces the genealogy of contemporary scientific worldview through key historical questions. +
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 12th International Conference on the Theory and Application of Diagrams, Diagrams 2021, held virtually in September 2021.
The 16 full papers and 25 short papers presented together with 16 posters were carefully reviewed and selected from 94 submissions. The papers are organized in the following topical sections: design of concrete diagrams; theory of diagrams; diagrams and mathematics; diagrams and logic; new representation systems; analysis of diagrams; diagrams and computation; cognitive analysis; diagrams as structural tools; formal diagrams; and understanding thought processes. +
A variety of scientific disciplines have set as their task explaining mental activities, recognizing that in some way these activities depend upon our brain. But, until recently, the opportunities to conduct experiments directly on our brains were limited. As a result, research efforts were split between disciplines such as cognitive psychology, linguistics, and artificial intelligence that investigated behavior, while disciplines such as neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and genetics experimented on the brains of non-human animals. In recent decades these disciplines integrated, and with the advent of techniques for imaging activity in human brains, the term cognitive neuroscience has been applied to the integrated investigations of mind and brain. This book is a philosophical examination of how these disciplines continue in the mission of explaining our mental capacities. +
This paper proposes a novel semantic analysis of the quantificational variability data discovered by Berman (1991). We suggest that the adverb of quantification in those data quantifies over semantic questions. Its domain is a division of the original question into subquestions, where a legitimate division into subquestions is one in which each member contributes towards the answer to the original question, and together the answers to all subquestions provide the complete answer to the original question. Thus the question itself is associated with a part/whole structure, based on information. We show that there are quantificational variability effects in which the matrix verb is exclusively question‐embedding. These data pose a problem for other theories of quantificational variability in questions (specifically Berman 1991 and Lahiri 2002) and motivate our analysis. There are other desirable consequences of our theory, including flexibility in what counts as a subquestion and flexibility in what counts as a complete answer. Beyond quantificational variability, associating questions with a part/whole structure receives independent motivation from questions that occur in collective and cumulative embedded contexts. +
Weak emergence has been offered as an explanation of the ubiquitous notion of emergence used in complexity science. After outlining the problem of emergence and comparing weak emergence with the tow other main objectivist approaches to emergence, this paper explains a version of weak emergence an illustrates it with cellular automata. Then it explains the sort of downward causation and explanatory autonomy involved in weak emergence. +
Hume’s theory of causation is one of the most famous and influential parts of his philosophy. When compared with the accounts provided by earlier philosophers whom Hume studied, such as Rene Descartes (1596–1650), John Locke (1632–1704), and Nicolas Malebranche(1638–1715), his theory is revolutionary. It is also controversial, and has been interpreted in a number of different ways. This is not surprising, because Hume’s ideas about causation are not only challenging in themselves, but also lie at the heart of much of the rest of his thought. As a result, interpretations of Hume on causation influence, and are influenced by, interpretations of his general philosophical aims, methods, and purposes. +
Edited by Colin Murray Turbayne in 1957. Originally published 1710.
In this book, Berkeley defends idealism by attacking the materialist alternative. +
A number of important theorists in ancient Greek natural philosophy held
that the universe is composed of physical ‘atoms’, literally ‘uncuttables’.
Some of these figures are treated in more depth in other articles in this
encyclopedia: the reader is encouraged to consult individual entries on
Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus and Lucretius. These philosophers
developed a systematic and comprehensive natural philosophy accounting
for the origins of everything from the interaction of indivisible bodies, as
these atoms—which have only a few intrinsic properties like size and
shape—strike against one another, rebound and interlock in an infinite
void. This atomist natural philosophy eschewed teleological explanation
and denied divine intervention or design, regarding every composite of
atoms as produced purely by material interactions of bodies, and
accounting for the perceived properties of macroscopic bodies as produced
by these same atomic interactions. Atomists formulated views on ethics,
theology, political philosophy and epistemology consistent with this
physical system. This powerful and consistent materialism, somewhat
modified from its original form by Epicurus, was regarded by Aristotle as
a chief competitor to teleological natural philosophy. +
The Greek tradition regarded Leucippus as the founder of atomism in
ancient Greek philosophy. Little is known about him, and his views are
hard to distinguish from those of his associate Democritus. He is
sometimes said to have been a student of Zeno of Elea, and to have
devised the atomist philosophy in order to escape from the problems
raised by Parmenides and his followers. +
Democritus, known in antiquity as the ‘laughing philosopher’ because of
his emphasis on the value of ‘cheerfulness,’ was one of the two founders
of ancient atomist theory. He elaborated a system originated by his teacher Leucippus into a materialist account of the natural world. The atomists held that there are smallest indivisible bodies from which everything else is composed, and that these move about in an infinite void. Of the ancient materialist accounts of the natural world which did not rely on some kind of teleology or purpose to account for the apparent order and regularity found in the world, atomism was the most influential. Even its chief critic, Aristotle, praised Democritus for arguing from sound considerations appropriate to natural philosophy. +
An analysis of the work and legacy of Thomas Kuhn. +
The article gives an overview of Thomas Kuhn's work, life, and intellectual influence on multiple fields. Kuhn began his career in physics, and acquired an interest in the history and philosophy of science through his undergraduate teaching in the history of science at Harvard. His work on a book about the Copernican revolution led him to develop a new view of science, which he published in his ''Structure of Scientific Revolutions''. The initial reception of Kuhn's work by philosophers, was hostile, although they recognized its importance. His use of historical and psychological ideas was unfamiliar to them. This hostility moderated once they gained a better understanding of them, and once he clarified some of his ideas in subsequent work. The book met a more friendly initial reception among sociologists, who saw in it a way to understand science in terms familiar to their discipline. +
For Hume, understanding the workings of the mind is the key to understanding everything else. There is a sense, therefore, in which to write about Hume’s philosophy of mind is to write about all of his philosophy. With that said, I shall nonetheless focus here on those specific doctrines that belong to what we today call the philosophy of mind, given our somewhat narrower conception of that subject. It should also be remembered that Hume describes his inquiry into the nature and workings of the mind as a science. This is an important clue to understanding both the goals and the results of that inquiry, as well as the methods Hume uses in pursuing it. As we will see, there is a thread running from Hume’s project of founding a science of the mind to that of the so-called cognitive sciences of the late twentieth century. For both, the study of the mind is in important respects just like the study of any other natural phenomenon. While it would be an overstatement to say that Hume’s entire interest lies in the construction of a science in this sense – he has other, more traditionally “philosophical,” concerns – recognizing the centrality of this scientific aim is essential for understanding him. +
Comprehensive perspective on scientific change from a sociological perspective. +
Bruno Latour is a vehement critic of the sociology of knowledge in general, and the Strong Program in particular. For those who are familiar with his books Science in Action (Latour, 1987), The Pasteurization of France (Latour, 1988) and We Have Never Been Modern (Latour, 1993) the pivotal role played by these criticisms in Latour's writing will be evident. To those who only know his work by repute, or who have only read the first edition of Latour and Woolgar's Laboratory Life (Latour and Woolgar, 1979), presenting him as a critic of the sociology of knowledge may seem surprising. Latour's work and the Strong Program in the sociology of knowledge are frequently classed together under the label of ‘social constructivism', and this creates the impression that the two enterprises must be fundamentally similar. This is reinforced by the fact that Latour wants to go further than sociologists of knowledge, whose work is said to represent something of a half-way house. He thinks sociologists are insufficiently radical in their critique of science (Latour, 1992, p. 273). Nevertheless, in reality, the two approaches are deeply opposed. In Latour's eyes the sociology of knowledge has been a failure, and it will continue to fail unless it adopts an entirely new approach which will qualitatively change its character +
John Herschel's natural philosophy, as summarized in his Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy , has long been considered a continuation of Francis Bacon's New Organon; commentators have frequently interpreted both as promoting a naive, inductivist methodology. I argue rather that Herschel promotes a more warranted and more sophisticated account. A careful reading of the Discourse, as well as of his more specialized essays, shows instead that Herschel explicitly encourages and defends the use of hypothetical reasoning. Such a methodology also describes his own extensive investigations that range over much of the spectrum of the physical sciences in the early nineteenth century. In developing this methodology, Herschel also drew on textual resources of Bacon, Isaac Newton, Roger Boscovich, Dugald Stewart, and others; most importantly, he was especially indebted to the investigations, views, and methods of his astronomer father, William Herschel. In particular, John Herschel applied his synthesis of these ideas to the empirical confirmation of his father's wide-ranging and speculative theories. In both the Discourse and in his other works, such as the Treatise on Astronomy, John Herschel promotes the use of hypotheses and of deductive methods as the tools used by experts, portraying inductive methods as the means by which sciences begin or as the most appropriate approach employed by amateurs. I also show how events of his life, including the socio-political context of early-nineteenth-century Britain, shaped Herschel's expression of his natural philosophy. Herschel's central role in the rise of science and of the philosophy of science in the nineteenth century make it imperative that we obtain a more accurate understanding of the doctrines he disseminated to practitioners of science and to popular audiences of the Victorian era. This volume provides the beginning of this broader task +
Formal logic descriptions and application. +
The heart of the eighteenth century Enlightenment is the loosely organized activity of prominent French thinkers of the mid-decades of the eighteenth century, the so-called “philosophes” (e.g., Voltaire, D’Alembert, Diderot, Montesquieu). The philosophes constituted an informal society of men of letters who collaborated on a loosely defined project of Enlightenment exemplified by the project of the Encyclopedia. However, there are noteworthy centers of Enlightenment outside of France as well. There is a renowned Scottish Enlightenment (key figures are Frances Hutcheson, Adam Smith, [[David Hume]], Thomas Reid), a German Enlightenment (die Aufklärung, key figures of which include Christian Wolff, Moses Mendelssohn, G.E. Lessing and [[Immanuel Kant]]), and there are also other hubs of Enlightenment and Enlightenment thinkers scattered throughout Europe and America in the eighteenth century. +
This collection of new essays interprets and critically evaluates the philosophy of Paul Feyerabend. It offers innovative historical scholarship on Feyerabend's take on topics such as realism, empiricism, mimesis, voluntarism, pluralism, materialism, and the mind-body problem, as well as certain debates in the philosophy of physics. It also considers the ways in which Feyerabend's thought can contribute to contemporary debates in science and public policy, including questions about the nature of scientific methodology, the role of science in society, citizen science, scientism, and the role of expertise in public policy. The volume will provide readers with a comprehensive overview of the topics which Feyerabend engaged with throughout his career, showing both the breadth and the depth of his thought. +
The Fifth International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science was held at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada, 27 August to 2 September 1975. The Congress was held under the auspices of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science, Division of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, and was sponsored by the National Research Council of Canada and the University of Western Ontario. As those associated closely with the work of the Division over the years know well, the work undertaken by its members varies greatly and spans a number of fields not always obviously related. In addition, the volume of work done by first rate scholars and scientists in the various fields of the Division has risen enormously. For these and related reasons it seemed to the editors chosen by the Divisional officers that the usual format of publishing the proceedings of the Congress be abandoned in favour of a somewhat more flexible, and hopefully acceptable, method of presentation. Accordingly, the work of the invited participants to the Congress has been divided into four volumes appearing in the University of Western Ontario Series in Philosophy of Science. The volumes are entitled, Logic, Foundations of Mathematics and Computability Theory, Foundational Problems in the Special Sciences, Basic Problems in Methodology and Linguistics, and Historical and Philosophical Dimensions of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science. +
C
A summary of Émile Durkheim's ideas. +
We summarize here the main arguments, basic research lines, and results on the foundations of the logics of formal inconsistency. These involve, in particular, some classes of well-known paraconsistent systems. We also present their semantical interpretations by way of possible-translations semantics and their applications to human reasoning and machine reasoning.1 +
The Cognitive Basis of Science concerns the question ''What makes science possible?'' Specifically, what features of the human mind and of human culture and cognitive development permit and facilitate the conduct of science? The essays in this volume address these questions, which are inherently interdisciplinary, requiring co-operation between philosophers, psychologists, and others in the social and cognitive sciences. They concern the cognitive, social, and motivational underpinnings of scientific reasoning in children and lay persons as well as in professional scientists. The editors’ introduction lays out the background to the debates, and the volume includes a consolidated bibliography that will be a valuable reference resource for all those interested in this area. The volume will be of great importance to all researchers and students interested in the philosophy or psychology of scientific reasoning, as well as those, more generally, who are interested in the nature of the human mind. +
One hundred years after Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves, scientists have finally spotted these elusive ripples in space-time. +
This paper explores the process of the assessment and eventual acceptance of the existence of dark matter by the Western astronomy community in the period between 1930s and 1980s. By applying the framework of theoretical scientonomy, I trace the acceptance of two anomalous phenomena: the high mass-to-light ratio observed in galactic clusters, first documented by Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky in 1933, and the flat rotation curves of galaxies first observed by American astronomers Vera Rubin and Kent Ford in 1970. I also highlight how the community accepted two second-order propositions stating the inconsistency of these phenomena with the rest of the astronomical mosaic. I show that the acceptance of the existence of dark matter resulted from the acceptance of the existence of these anomalous phenomena and took place between 1982-1985, rather than in the mid-1970s as was previously assumed. +
The topic of unity in the sciences includes the following questions: Is there
one privileged, most basic kind of material, and if not, how are the
different kinds of material in the universe related? Can the various natural
sciences (physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology) be unified into a single
overarching theory, and can theories within a single science (e.g., general
relativity and quantum theory in physics) be unified? Does the unification
of these parts of science involve only matters of fact or are matters of
value involved as well? What about matters of method, material,
institutional, ethical and other aspects of intellectual cooperation?
Moreover, what kinds of unity in the sciences are there, and is unification
merely a relation between concepts or terms (i.e., a matter of semantics),
or is it also a relation between the theories, people, objects, or objectives
that they are part of? And is the relation one of reduction, translation,
explanation, logical inference, collaboration or something else? +
What is consciousness? How do physical processes in the brain give rise to the self-aware mind and to feelings as profoundly varied as love or hate, aesthetic pleasure or spiritual yearning? These questions today are among the most hotly debated issues among scientists and philosophers, and we have seen in recent years superb volumes by such eminent figures as Francis Crick, Daniel C. Dennett, Gerald Edelman, and Roger Penrose, all firing volleys in what has come to be called the consciousness wars. Now, in The Conscious Mind, philosopher David J. Chalmers offers a cogent analysis of this heated debate as he unveils a major new theory of consciousness, one that rejects the prevailing reductionist trend of science, while offering provocative insights into the relationship between mind and brain.
Writing in a rigorous, thought-provoking style, the author takes us on a far-reaching tour through the philosophical ramifications of consciousness. Chalmers convincingly reveals how contemporary cognitive science and neurobiology have failed to explain how and why mental events emerge from physiological occurrences in the brain. He proposes instead that conscious experience must be understood in an entirely new light--as an irreducible entity (similar to such physical properties as time, mass, and space) that exists at a fundamental level and cannot be understood as the sum of its parts. And after suggesting some intriguing possibilities about the structure and laws of conscious experience, he details how his unique reinterpretation of the mind could be the focus of a new science. Throughout the book, Chalmers provides fascinating thought experiments that trenchantly illustrate his ideas. For example, in exploring the notion that consciousness could be experienced by machines as well as humans, Chalmers asks us to imagine a thinking brain in which neurons are slowly replaced by silicon chips that precisely duplicate their functions--as the neurons are replaced, will consciousness gradually fade away? The book also features thoughtful discussions of how the author's theories might be practically applied to subjects as diverse as artificial intelligence and the interpretation of quantum mechanics.
All of us have pondered the nature and meaning of consciousness. Engaging and penetrating, The Conscious Mind adds a fresh new perspective to the subject that is sure to spark debate about our understanding of the mind for years to come.
What is temperature, and how can we measure it correctly? These may seem like simple questions, but the most renowned scientists struggled with them throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. In Inventing Temperature, Chang examines how scientists first created thermometers; how they measured temperature beyond the reach of standard thermometers; and how they managed to assess the reliability and accuracy of these instruments without a circular reliance on the instruments themselves.
In a discussion that brings together the history of science with the philosophy of science, Chang presents the simple yet challenging epistemic and technical questions about these instruments, and the complex web of abstract philosophical issues surrounding them. Chang's book shows that many items of knowledge that we take for granted now are in fact spectacular achievements, obtained only after a great deal of innovative thinking, painstaking experiments, bold conjectures, and controversy. Lurking behind these achievements are some very important philosophical questions about how and when people accept the authority of science. +
Any database project needs to be based on an ontology that is suitable for its subject matter. For the scientonomy project, it is important to conceive a good ontology of the human actions that constitute scientific practice, which allows rigorously conceived activity-based analyses of science. Mainstream philosophers of science have offered very precise analyses of scientific knowledge, but only in terms of beliefs and their assessments. Recent historians of science have been more attentive to the activities undertaken by scientists, but only offered imprecise analyses of them. Scientonomers have a chance to get the ontology right from this early stage of their enterprise. In this paper I make some programmatic proposals on the ontology of scientific work, in terms of epistemic activities and systems of practice. I also offer a framework for conceptualizing epistemic agents, and some clues on the ontology of the processes of inquiry. Scientonomy as the general “science of science” should not have an overly limited ontology. In particular, I suggest that the “scientific mosaic” should include a diverse array of elements and consider other aspects of methodology in addition to theory-assessment. +
Locke's philosophy, as edited by Chappell. +
From dust jacket notes: "...In the first major popular biography of Sir Isaac Newton in 50 years, historian Gale E. Christianson paints a compelling portrait of this seminal thinker -- a towering genius who, in the words of Albert Einstein, 'stands before us, strong, certain, and alone.' Drawing on the full body of Newton papers (nearly four million words), this majestic work details Newton's life in its entirety: from an introspective boyhood in rural Lincolnshire, to Cambridge, where he came to question the very order of things, to the heretical religious ideas that would ultimately absorb him more than science itself, to celebrity as leonine Master of the Mint and President of the Royal Society. Throughout, Newton emerges as a passionate recluse, given to sleepless nights working alone with little more nourishment than bread and wine. As the legend unfolds, so , too, do Newton's epoch-making discoveries in mathematics, physics, optics, and astronomy. At 23 he had already established the elements of differential calculus. Soon after he created the reflecting telescope and described the properties of light. At 45 Newton secured his reputation by publishing the Principia Mathematica, a treatise on universal gravitation that would alter forever man's vision of the cosmos...." +
Biological brains are increasingly cast as ‘prediction machines’: evolved organs
whose core operating principle is to learn about the world by trying to predict their
own patterns of sensory stimulation. This, some argue, should lead us to embrace
a brain-bound ‘neurocentric’ vision of the mind. The mind, such views suggest,
consists entirely in the skull-bound activity of the predictive brain. In this paper I
reject the inference from predictive brains to skull-bound minds. Predictive brains,
I hope to show, can be apt participants in larger cognitive circuits. The path is
thus cleared for a new synthesis in which predictive brains act as entry-points for
‘extended minds’, and embodiment and action contribute constitutively to knowing
contact with the world. +
An argument for the central importance of testimony in establishing, and transmitting, scientific knowledge. +
Within the last ten years, the interest of historians and philosophers of science in the epistemological writings of the Polish medical microbiologist Ludwik Fleck (1896-1961), who had up to then been almost completely unknown, has advanced with great strides. His main writings on epistemological questions were published in the mid-1930's, but they remained almost unnoticed. Today, however, one may rightly call Fleck a 'classical' figure both of episte mology and of the historical sociology of science, one whose works are comparable with Popper's Logic of Scientific Discovery or Merton's pioneer ing study of the relations among economics, Puritanism, and natural science, both also originally published in the mid-1930's. The story of this book of 'materials on Ludwik Fleck' is also the story of the reception of Ludwik Fleck. In this volume, some essential materials which have been produced by that reception have been gathered together. We will sketch both the reception and the materials. +
Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727) was one of the greatest scientists of all time, a thinker of extraordinary range and creativity who has left enduring legacies in mathematics and the natural sciences. In this volume a team of distinguished contributors examine all the main aspects of Newton's thought, including not only his approach to space, time, mechanics, and universal gravity in his Principia, his research in optics, and his contributions to mathematics, but also his more clandestine investigations into alchemy, theology, and prophecy, which have sometimes been overshadowed by his mathematical and scientific interests. +
The death of Imre Lakatos on February 2, 1974 was a personal and philosophical loss to the worldwide circle of his friends, colleagues and students. This volume reflects the range of his interests in mathematics, logic, politics and especially in the history and methodology of the sciences. Indeed, Lakatos was a man in search of rationality in all of its forms. He thought he had found it in the historical development of scientific knowledge, yet he also saw rationality endangered everywhere. To honor Lakatos is to honor his sharp and aggressive criticism as well as his humane warmth and his quick wit. He was a person to love and to struggle with. +
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) was one of the great thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and is known as the last “universal genius”. He made deep and important contributions to the fields of metaphysics, epistemology, logic, philosophy of religion, as well as mathematics, physics, geology, jurisprudence, and history. The aim of this entry is primarily to introduce Leibniz's life and summarize and explicate his views in the realms of metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophical theology. +
The concept of emergence has seen a significant resurgence in philosophy and the sciences, yet debates regarding emergentist and reductionist visions of the natural world continue to be hampered by imprecision or ambiguity. Emergent phenomena are said to arise out of and be sustained by more basic phenomena, while at the same time exerting a "top-down" control upon those very sustaining processes. To some critics, this has the air of magic, as it seems to suggest a kind of circular causality. Other critics deem the concept of emergence to be objectionably anti-naturalistic. Objections such as these have led many thinkers to construe emergent phenomena instead as coarse-grained patterns in the world that, while calling for distinctive concepts, do not "disrupt" the ordinary dynamics of the finer-grained (more fundamental) levels. Yet, reconciling emergence with a (presumed) pervasive causal continuity at the fundamental level can seem to deflate emergence of its initially profound significance. This basic problematic is mirrored by similar controversy over how best to characterize the opposite systematizing impulse, most commonly given an equally evocative but vague term, "reductionism." The original essays in this volume help to clarify the alternatives: inadequacies in some older formulations and arguments are exposed and new lines of argument on behalf the two visions are advanced. +
In the introduction to the Cambridge Companion to Descartes editor John Cottingham reviews the highlights of Descartes' life and philosophy. +
This is a further volume in a series of companions to major philosophers. Each volume contains specially commissioned essays by an international team of scholars together with a substantial bibliography and will serve as a reference work for students and nonspecialists. One aim of the series is to dispel the intimidation such readers often feel when faced with the work of a difficult and challenging thinker.
Descartes occupies a position of pivotal importance as one of the founding fathers of modern philosophy; he is, perhaps, the most widely studied of all philosophers. In this authoritative collection an international team of leading scholars in Cartesian studies present the full range of Descartes' extraordinary philosophical achievement. His life and the development of his thought, as well as the intellectual background to and reception of his work, are treated at length. At the core of the volume are a group of chapters on his metaphysics: the celebrated "Cogito" argument, the proofs of God's existence, the "Cartesian circle" and the dualistic theory of the mind and its relation to his theological and scientific views. Other chapters cover the philosophical implications of his work in algebra, his place in the seventeenth-century scientific revolution, the structure of his physics, and his work on physiology, psychology, and ethics.
New readers and nonspecialists will find this the most comprehensive and accessible guide to Descartes currently available. Advanced students and specialists will find a conspectus of recent developments in the interpretation of Descartes. +
In Science as Social Knowledge, Helen Longino offers a contextual analysis ofevidential relevance. She claims that this "contextual empiricism" reconciles the objectivity of science with the claim that science is socially constructed. I argue that while her account does offer key insights into the role that values play in science, her claim that science is nonetheless objective is problematic. +
The Presocratics were 6th and 5th century BCE Greek thinkers who
introduced a new way of inquiring into the world and the place of human
beings in it. They were recognized in antiquity as the first philosophers
and scientists of the Western tradition. This article is a general
introduction to the most important Presocratic philosophers and the main
themes of Presocratic thought. More detailed discussions can be found by
consulting the articles on these philosophers (and related topics) in the
SEP (listed below). The standard collection of texts for the Presocratics is
that by H. Diels revised by W. Kranz (abbreviated as DK). In it, each
thinker is assigned an identifying chapter number (e.g., Heraclitus is 22,
Anaxagoras 59); then the reports from ancient authors about that thinker's
life and thought are collected in a section of “testimonies” (A) and
numbered in order, while the passages the editors take to be direct
quotations are collected and numbered in a section of “fragments” (B).
Alleged imitations in later authors are sometimes added in a section
labeled C. Thus, each piece of text can be uniquely identified: DK
59B12.3 identifies line 3 of Anaxagoras fragment 12; DK 22A1 identifies
testimonium 1 on Heraclitus. +
D
Hume follows Newton in replacing the mechanical philosophy's demonstrative ideal of science by the Principia's ideal of inductive proof(especially as formulated in Newton's Rule Ill); in this respect, Hume differs sharply from Locke. Hume is also guided by Newton's own criticisms of the mechanical philosophers' hypotheses. The first stage of Hume's skeptical argument concerning causation targets central tenets of the mechanical philosophers' (in particular, Locke's) conception of causation, all of which
rely on the a priori postulation of a hidden configuration of primary qualities. The skeptical argument concerning the causal inductive inference (with its implicit principle that nature is, in Newton's words, "ever consonant with itself") then raises doubts about what Hume himself regards as our very best inductive method. Hume's own "Rules" (T 1.3.15) further substantiate his reliance on Newton. Finally, Locke's distinction between "Knowledge" and "Probability" ("Opinion") does not leave room for Hume's Newtonian notion of inductive proof. +
Kant famously attempted to “answer” what he took to be Hume's skeptical view of causality, most explicitly in the Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783); and, because causality, for Kant, is a central example of a category or pure concept of the understanding, his relationship to Hume on this topic is central to his philosophy as a whole. Moreover, because Hume's famous discussion of causality and induction is equally central to his philosophy, understanding the relationship between the two philosophers on this issue is crucial for a proper understanding of modern philosophy more generally. Yet ever since Kant offered his response to Hume the topic has been subject to intense controversy. There is no consensus, of course, over whether Kant's response succeeds, but there is no more consensus about what this response is supposed to be. There has been sharp disagreement concerning Kant's conception of causality, as well as Hume's, and, accordingly, there has also been controversy over whether the two conceptions really significantly differ. There has even been disagreement concerning whether Hume's conception of causality and induction is skeptical at all. We shall not discuss these controversies in detail; rather, we shall concentrate on presenting one particular
perspective on this very complicated set of issues. We shall clearly
indicate, however, where especially controversial points of interpretation
arise and briefly describe some of the main alternatives. +
A comprehensive comparison between the theories, methodologies, and scientific view of John Locke, David Hume, and Isaac Newton. +
Scientonomy seems to hold conflicting views about the historicity of scientific method. On the one hand, it is said that scientific methods are immanent to scientific mosaics and therefore change through time. On the other hand, the distinction between substantive and procedural methods seems to suggest that there are transcendent, unchangeable methods. I argue that this contradiction can be resolved by re-evaluating the role of problems: by integrating problems as constitutive elements of scientific mosaics, scientonomy can work towards a theory of scientific change without relying on the presupposition that some normative aspects of science must not change. In that perspective, norms originate in the relation between a problem, which creates a need for theoretical innovation, and a method, which creates an actual means to solve a problem. A problem-based scientonomy would then have to build a genealogical, rather than normative, approach to the source of scientificity by describing the progression from mysteries to scientific problems. Moreover, because they do not come from nowhere but express actual interactions with the world, problems can help us understand the relation between scientific change and other kinds of change. The primacy of actual problems over rational norms points to the immanence of reason: reason should be conceived as an evolutive feature of human communities. Finally, the relation between a theory of scientific change, evolutionary epistemology, and a general theory of change is investigated. +
In 1979 astronomer Carl Sagan popularized the aphorism "extraordinary
claims require extraordinary evidence" (ECREE). But Sagan never defined the term
"extraordinary". Ambiguity in what constitutes "extraordinary" has led to misuse of the
aphorism. ECREE is commonly invoked to discredit research dealing with scientific
anomalies, and has even been rhetorically employed in attempts to raise doubts
concerning mainstream scientific hypotheses that have substantive empirical support.
The origin of ECREE lies in eighteenth-century Enlightenment criticisms of miracles.
The most important of these was Hume’s essay On Miracles. Hume precisely defined
an extraordinary claim as one that is directly contradicted by a massive amount of
existing evidence. For a claim to qualify as extraordinary there must exist overwhelming
empirical data of the exact antithesis. Extraordinary evidence is not a separate
category or type of evidence–it is an extraordinarily large number of observations.
Claims that are merely novel or those which violate human consensus are not properly
characterized as extraordinary. Science does not contemplate two types of evidence.
The misuse of ECREE to suppress innovation and maintain orthodoxy should be
avoided as it must inevitably retard the scientific goal of establishing reliable
knowledge. +
Although the basis of modern biology is Cartesian, Descartes's theories of biology have been more often ridiculed than studied. Yet, Dennis Des Chene demonstrates, the themes, arguments, and vocabulary of his mechanistic biology pervade the writings of many seventeenth-century authors. In his illuminating account of Cartesian physiology in its historical context, Des Chene focuses on the philosopher's innovative reworking of that field, including the nature of life, the problem of generation, and the concepts of health and illness. Des Chene begins by surveying works that Descartes would likely have encountered, from late Aristotelian theories of the soul to medical literature and treatises on machines. The Cartesian theory of vital operations is examined with particular attention to the generation of animals. Des Chene also considers the role of the machine-model in furnishing a method in physiology, the ambiguities of the notion of machine, and of Descartes's problem of simulation. Finally, he looks at the various kinds of unity of the body, both in itself and in its union with the soul. Spirits and Clocks continues Des Chene's highly regarded exploration―begun in his previous book, Life's Form―of the scholastic and Cartesian sciences as well as the dialogue between these two worldviews. +
Tr./Ed. Jonathan Bennett. Originally published in 1641.
Written as a series of reflections over several days, Descartes elaborates on his epistemological and metaphysical system first laid out in Discourse on the Method in 1637. +
Tr./Ed. Jonathan Bennett. Originally published in 1637.
If this discourse seems too long to be read at a sitting you may divide it into six parts. In 1 you will find various considerations regarding the sciences; in 2 the main rules of the method that the author has sought; in 3 some of the moral rules he has derived from this method; in 4 the arguments by which he proves the existence of God and the human soul, on which his metaphysics is based; in 5 the order of the questions in physics that he has investigated, particularly the explanation of the movement of the heart and of some other problems in the medical sphere, and also the difference between our soul and that of the lower animals; and in 6 the things he believes are needed if we are to go further than he has in the investigation of nature, and his reasons for writing this discourse +
Tr./Ed. Jonathan Bennett. Originally produced between 1643 and 1649.
A collection of translated text and summaries of the correspondences between Rene Descartes and Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia between 1643 and 1649. +
''Principles of Philosophy'' (Latin: ''Principia philosophiae'') is a book by René Descartes. In essence it is a synthesis of the ''Discourse on Method'' and ''Meditations on First Philosophy''. It was written in Latin, published in 1644 and dedicated to Elisabeth of Bohemia, with whom Descartes had a long-standing friendship. A French version (''Les Principes de la Philosophie'') followed in 1647. It set forth the principles of nature—the Laws of Physics—as Descartes viewed them. Most notably, it set forth the principle that in the absence of external forces, an object's motion will be uniform and in a straight line. Newton borrowed this principle from Descartes and included it in his own Principia; to this day, it is still generally referred to as Newton's First Law of Motion. The book was primarily intended to replace the Aristotelian curriculum then used in French and British universities. The work provides a systematic statement of his metaphysics and natural philosophy, and represents the first truly comprehensive, mechanistic account of the universe. +
We offer a new account of the role of values in theory choice that captures a temporal dimension to the values themselves.We argue that nonepistemic values sometimes serve as “inquiry tickets,” justifying scientists’ pursuit of certain questions in the short run, while the answers to those questions mitigate transient underdetermination in the long run. Our account of inquiry tickets shows that the role of nonepistemic values need not be restricted to belief or acceptance in order to be relevant to hypothesis choice: the relevance of nonepistemic values to a particular cognitive attitude with respect to ''h'' varies over time. +
This article is a brief summary of the history of the Philosophy of Science Association from its founding until 1970. The Philosophy of Science Association began in 1933 and published a quarterly called 'Philosophy of Science'. In the late 1950's the association underwent a major reorganization due to declining membership. Its early meetings were held in association with the American Society for the Advancement of Science, but it began to hold independent meetings in 1968. +
George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, was one of the great philosophers of
the early modern period. He was a brilliant critic of his predecessors,
particularly Descartes, Malebranche, and Locke. He was a talented
metaphysician famous for defending idealism, that is, the view that reality
consists exclusively of minds and their ideas. Berkeley's system, while it
strikes many as counter-intuitive, is strong and flexible enough to counter most objections. His most-studied works, the Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (Principles, for short) and Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (Dialogues), are beautifully written and dense with the sort of arguments that delight contemporary
philosophers. He was also a wide-ranging thinker with interests in religion (which were fundamental to his philosophical motivations), the psychology of vision, mathematics, physics, morals, economics, and medicine. Although many of Berkeley's first readers greeted him with incomprehension, he influenced both Hume and Kant, and is much read (if little followed) in our own day. +
"This volume assembles twelve texts published between 1892 and 1915... The editors allow one to see the genesis of the ideas of Duhem, philosopher and historian, of the variety of his styles, and sometimes also the limits of his work... A useful index, probably unique in the field of Duhemian studies, completes the book... The English-language public may be assured an exemplary translation and a reliable critical apparatus." -Jean Gayon, ''Revue d'Histoire des Sciences'' +
John Locke (1632-1704) one of the greatest English philosophers of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, argued in his masterpiece, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, that our knowledge is founded in experience and reaches us principally through our senses; but its message has been curiously misunderstood. In this book John Dunn shows how Locke arrived at his theory of knowledge, and how his exposition of the liberal values of toleration
and responsible government formed the backbone of enlightened European thought of the eighteenth century. +
A description of Aristotle's life and philosophy. +
