Physics seems to tell us that there are four fundamental force-fields in nature: the gravitational, the electromagnetic, the weak, and the strong (or interactions). But it also seems to tell us that gravity cannot possibly be a force-field, in the same sense as the other three are. And yet the search for a grand unification of all four force-fields is today one of the hottest pursuits. Is this the result of a simple confusion? This article aims at clarifying (...) this situation by (i) reviewing the gauge-field programme and its conception of unification of force-fields, (ii) examining the various attempts at a gauge theory of gravity, and (iii) articulating the nature of "gauging" and using it to explain the difference between gravity and the other force-fields. (shrink)

The debate between the defenders of explanatory unification and explanatory pluralism has been ongoing from the beginning of cognitive science and is one of the central themes of its philosophy. Does cognitive science need a grand unifying theory? Should explanatory pluralism be embraced instead? Or maybe local integrative efforts are needed? What are the advantages of explanatory unification as compared to the benefits of explanatory pluralism? These questions, among others, are addressed in this Synthese’s special issue. (...) In the introductory paper, we discuss the background of the questions, distinguishing integrative theorizing from building unified theories. On the one hand, integrative efforts involve collaboration between various disciplines, fields, approaches, or theories. These efforts could even be quite temporary, without establishing any long-term institutionalized fields or disciplines, but could also contribute to developing new interfield theories. On the other hand, unification can rely on developing complete theories of mechanisms and representations underlying all cognition, as Newell’s “unified theories of cognition”, or may appeal to grand principles, as predictive coding. Here, we also show that unification in contemporary cognitive science goes beyond reductive unity, and may involve various forms of joint efforts and division of explanatory labor. This conclusion is one of the themes present in the content of contributions constituting the special issue. (shrink)

This is a volume of new essays introducing the most influential developments in social and political theory over the last thirty years. In that period empiricism and the positivist ideal of the unification of science have been undermined and transformed by the impact of different, frequently Continental, traditions of thought. The introduction charts these charges and each of the contributors provides a brief and lucid account of the thought of one major figure or school which have helped to (...) bring about these changes. Those discussed include Althusser, Derrida, Foucault, Gadamer, Habermas, Kuhn, Levi-Strauss, Rawls and the Annales historians. Each essay has suggestions for further reading and a useful general bibliography is provided at the end of the volume. (shrink)

A survey is given of the concepts of interaction (force) and matter, i.e., of process and substance. The development of these concepts, first in antiquity, then in early modern times, and finally in the contemporary system of quantum field theory is described. After a summary of the basic phenomenological attributes (coupling strengths, symmetry quantities, charges), the common ground of concepts of quantum field theory for both interactions and matter entities is discussed. Then attention is focused on the gauge (...) principle which has been developed to describe all interaction fields in the same way, and hopefully to unite them all into one unified field. While a similar unification of all fundamental types of matter fields (quarks and leptons) into one family may be possible (SU 5), there still remains at this level a duality between interaction quanta (bosons with spin 1) and matter particles (fermions with spin 1/2). Whether this duality may be removed in some future supersymmetric theory is not discussed in this paper. Nor is Quantum Gravitation discussed, though the analogy of the gauge principle for the three fundamental non-gravitational interactions (hadronic, electromagnetic and weak) to Einstein's principle of equivalence for gravitation in spacetime is noted. However, the equivalence concept is applied not to spacetime but to the internal spaces for the matter (or charge) fields which are the sources between which the fundamental interactions operate. The gauge principle states that a change in the measures of the internal space charge of gauge or phases of the matter fields is equivalent to, and can be compensated by, suitably introduced interaction fields. From such an interaction field, the gauge potential field in the internal space, one may derive a gauge force field by exterior differentiation.Geometrically, the collection of all internal spaces, one over each point of spacetime, constitutes a fiber bundle. The gauge potential field represents a connection on the fiber bundle, and the gauge force field is the curvature (calculated by taking the exterior derivative of the connection and adding to it the exterior product of the connection with itself). Thus, just as gravitational force is interpreted as spacetime curvature, so the three other fundamental forces are interpretable as internal space curvature. The Standard Model which unites the three non-gravitational fields into an SU c 3 ×SU 2×U 1 structure, and the grand unified model, SU 5, are discussed briefly, and difficulties are noted. Finally it is suggested that a composite model, based on more subtle structure, may be needed to remove the present obscurities and difficulties that stand in the way of a unified theory. (shrink)

The predictive processing account of action, cognition, and perception is one of the most influential approaches to unifying research in cognitive science. However, its promises of grand unification will remain unfulfilled unless the account becomes theoretically robust. In this paper, we focus on empirical commitments of PP, since they are necessary both for its theoretical status to be established and for explanations of individual phenomena to be falsifiable. First, we argue that PP is a varied research tradition, which (...) may employ various kinds of scientific representations, differing in the scope of empirical commitments they entail. Two major perspectives on PP qua cognitive theory may then be distinguished: generalized vs. hierarchical. The first one fails to provide empirical detail, and the latter constrains possible physical implementations. However, we show that even hierarchical PP is insufficiently restrictive to disallow incorrect models and may be adjusted to explain any neurocognitive phenomenon–including non-existent or impossible ones–through flexible adjustments. This renders PP a universal modeling tool with an unrestricted number of degrees of freedom. Therefore, in contrast with declarations of its proponents, it should not be understood as a unifying theoretical perspective, but as a computational framework, possibly informing further theory development in cognitive science. (shrink)

Hao Wang was one of the few confidants of the great mathematician and logician Kurt Gödel. _A Logical Journey_ is a continuation of Wang's _Reflections on Gödel_ and also elaborates on discussions contained in _From Mathematics to Philosophy_. A decade in preparation, it contains important and unfamiliar insights into Gödel's views on a wide range of issues, from Platonism and the nature of logic, to minds and machines, the existence of God, and positivism and phenomenology. The impact of Gödel's theorem (...) on twentieth-century thought is on par with that of Einstein's theory of relativity, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, or Keynesian economics. These previously unpublished intimate and informal conversations, however, bring to light and amplify Gödel's other major contributions to logic and philosophy. They reveal that there is much more in Gödel's philosophy of mathematics than is commonly believed, and more in his philosophy than his philosophy of mathematics. Wang writes that "it is even possible that his quite informal and loosely structured conversations with me, which I am freely using in this book, will turn out to be the fullest existing expression of the diverse components of his inadequately articulated general philosophy." The first two chapters are devoted to Gödel's life and mental development. In the chapters that follow, Wang illustrates the quest for overarching solutions and grand unifications of knowledge and action in Gödel's written speculations on God and an afterlife. He gives the background and a chronological summary of the conversations, considers Gödel's comments on philosophies and philosophers, and his attempt to demonstrate the superiority of the mind's power over brains and machines. Three chapters are tied together by what Wang perceives to be Gödel's governing ideal of philosophy: an exact theory in which mathematics and Newtonian physics serve as a model for philosophy or metaphysics. Finally, in an epilog Wang sketches his own approach to philosophy in contrast to his interpretation of Gödel's outlook. (shrink)

Abstract Psychology's goal has been to become a science, taking the modern natural sciences as the model. It has not been understood that each science undergoes a transition from early disunification to later unification, that a fundmental dimension is involved that differentiates sciences. Psychology is a modern disunified science, distinguished by its chaotic knowledge and ways of operating. A philosophy of science based on modem unified science, as philosophies generally are, is inappropriate as a means of understanding psychology or (...) of guiding its development. We need a philosophy to describe the special problems of theory construction of modern disunified sciences, and to advance paths by which to work on those problems. Theory tasks to be undertaken in large quantities range from articles to reduce artificial diversity to the construction of grand unified theory. Psychology must begin those tasks, and it must understand its characteristics as a modern disunified science, if it is to make good decisions concerning its development and organization. Otherwise it will continue on its path towards fragmentation, an impenetrable obstacle to full development as a science and a profession. (shrink)

In the mid‐part of the twentieth century, the union of youthful science and the ancient philosophical dream of metaphysical completion begot a visionary doctrine known as the unity of science (see unity of science). This view of the relationship among scientific theories maintained that any theory aspiring to be truly “scientific” must fit into a hierarchy in which every theory was reducible to the theory immediately below it, save for the foundational theory of physics. Reduction would (...) be accomplished by establishing relations of coextension between the predicates of the reduced theory, T1, and the reducing theory, T2, sufficient to allow the mathematical deduction of the laws of T1 expressed entirely in terms drawn from T2 (see reductionism). The classic example is the reduction of phenomenological to statistical thermodynamics. The example suffers from the apparently serious defects of not meeting the conditions laid down by the unity of science and of being pretty much unique in achieving the degree of approximation to these conditions which it enjoys. It has become clear in the later stages of the century that despite the rich and complex interrelationships that prevail among scientific theories, there is little or no prospect of even roughly fulfilling the dream of the grand unification of all theories into a complete hierarchy of reduction. (One philosopher of science, Ian Hacking, bluntly assesses unity of science to be just another of philosophy's “idle pipedreams.”). (shrink)

One of the hallmarks of Kantian philosophy, especially in connection with its characterization of scientific knowledge, is the importance of unity, a theme that is also the driving force behind a good deal of contemporary high energy physics. There are a variety of ways that unity figures in modern science—there is unity of method where the same kinds of mathematical techniques are used in different sciences, like physics and biology; the search for unified theories like the unification of electromagnetism (...) and optics by Maxwell; and, more recently, the project of grand unification or the quest for a theory of everything which involves a reduction of the four fundamental forces under the umbrella of a single theory. In this latter case it is thought that when energies are high enough, the forces , while very different in strength, range and the types of particles on which they act, become one and the same force. The fact that these interactions are known to have many underlying mathematical features in common suggests that they can all be described by a unified field theory. Such a theory describes elementary particles in terms of force fields which further unifies all the interactions by treating particles and interactions in a technically and conceptually similar way. It is this theoretical framework that allows for the prediction that measurements made at a certain energy level will supposedly indicate that there is only one type of force. In other words, not only is there an ontological reduction of the forces themselves but the mathematical framework used to describe the fields associated with these forces facilitates their description in a unified theory. Specific types of symmetries serve an important function in establishing these kinds of unity, not only in the construction of quantum field theories but also in the classification of particles; classifications that can lead to new predictions and new ways of understanding properties like quantum numbers. Hence, in order to address issues about unification and reduction in contemporary physics we must also address the way that symmetries facilitate these processes. (shrink)

The General Theory of Relativity (GR) and the Dynamic Universe (DU) are evaluated in how they explain frequencies of atomic clocks. DU and GR predict the frequencies with equal accuracy, but their explanations, the postulates they apply in the explanations and the word-views that come along with them are entirely different. The central argument is that if unified and under- standable physics is appreciated, then DU deserves to be taken as a viable alternative to GR. In GR different frequencies (...) of identical atomic clocks are explained by letting rates of the flow of time in their frames of reference vary as functions of the clocks’ states of motion and gravitation. The GR- based world-view is nonunderstandable because GR violates absolute simultaneity, and disunified because quantum mechanics is built on different postulates than GR. In DU different frequencies of identical atomic clocks are explained by letting their frequencies vary as functions of their states of motion and gravitation. As DU commits to absolute simultaneity and as the postulates of DU suffice as the ontological ground of quantum mechanics at least partially, DU provides an under- standable and unified scientific world-view. -/- Résumé: La théorie de la relativité générale (RG) et de l’univers dynamique (UD) sont évalués sur la fac ̧on dont ils expliquent les fréquences des horloges atomiques. La RG et l’UD prédisent les fréquences avec une précision égale, mais leurs explications, les postulats qu’ils appliquent aux explications et les visions du monde qui les accompagnent sont entie`rement différents. L’argument central est que si l’on reconnaˆıt la physique unifiée et compréhensible, alors l’UD mérite d’ être considéré comme une alternative viable à la RG. En RG, différentes fréquences d’horloges atomiques identiques sont expliquées en faisant varier les vitesses de l’écoulement du temps dans leurs cadres de référence en fonction des états de mouvement et de la gravitation des horloges. La vue du monde basée sur la RG est incompréhensible parce que la RG viole la simultanéité absolue, et est désunifiée parce que la mécanique quantique est construite sur des postulats différents de ceux de la RG. Dans l’UD, différentes fréquences d’horloges atomiques identiques sont expliquées en laissant leurs fréquences varier en fonction de leurs états de mouvement et de gravitation. Comme l’UD s’engage à la simultanéité absolue et que les postulats de l’UD suffisent, au moins en partie, comme fondements ontologiques de la mécanique quantique, l’UD fournit une vision du monde scientifique compréhensible et unifiée. (shrink)

P. Kitcher's unification theory of explanation appears to endorse a reductionistic view of scientific explanation that is inconsistant with scientific practice. In this paper, I argue that this appearance is illusory. The existence of multiply realizable generalizations enable the unification theory to also count many high-level accounts as explanatory.

(1974). Ideas on the composition of muriatic acid and their relevance to the oxygen theory of acidity. Annals of Science: Vol. 31, No. 3, pp. 213-225.

Courtesy of its free energy formulation, the hierarchical predictive processing theory of the brain (PTB) is often claimed to be a grand unifying theory. To test this claim, we examine a central case: activity of mesocorticolimbic dopaminergic (DA) systems. After reviewing the three most prominent hypotheses of DA activity—the anhedonia, incentive salience, and reward prediction error hypotheses—we conclude that the evidence currently vindicates explanatory pluralism. This vindication implies that the grand unifying claims of advocates of PTB (...) are unwarranted. More generally, we suggest that the form of scientific progress in the cognitive sciences is unlikely to be a single overarching grand unifying theory. (shrink)

Making use as a guideline of a self-authored manuscript—dated February 2000—where the “_Maestro_” reveals himself, this essay explores the academic life and the scholarly achievements of Rodolfo Sacco, the Italian master of comparative law, who just recently passed away. His intellectual endeavor is described throughout the lenses of a common thread that underlies his entire scholarly output: it his ability to illuminate the dark places of law, finding it where no one had sought it before. This is the essence of (...) his original contribution to the understanding of the legal landscape’s dynamics and it is the core of his cultural legacy, not only to comparative lawyers, but also to the community of the jurists at large. (shrink)

The Second Creation is a dramatic--and human--chronicle of scientific investigators at the last frontier of knowledge. Robert Crease and Charles Mann take the reader on a fascinating journey in search of "unification" with brilliant scientists such as Niels Bohr, Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrödinger, Richard Feynman, Murray Gell-Mann, Sheldon Glashow, Steven Weinberg, and many others. They provide the definitive and highly entertaining story of the development of modern physics, and the human story of the physicists who set out (...) to find the "theory of everything.". (shrink)

To evaluate and extend climato-economic theory, the use of more micro units of analysis, such as cities and families, may open up new data sources. The consideration of environmental demands other than thermal climate may also broaden the range of useful data. Longitudinal designs can provide causal evidence, and so can experiments if the theory can be applied to individuals.

In this paper, we study overconfidence and goal-setting in academic performance, with and without monetary incentives. Students enrolled in a microeconomics course were offered the possibility of setting their own target grade before taking part in the final exam. They were also asked to guess their grade immediately after they had taken the exam (“post-diction”). In general, students overestimated their performance, both at the goal-setting and at the post-diction stages. Controlling for several sources of this bias (cognitive abilities, academic record (...) and self-reported academic confidence), we find that the use of monetary rewards mitigates the overestimation of potential achievements and eliminates overestimation of actual achievements through the improvement of actual performance. Our results suggest that monetary incentives do not cause subjects to put more effort into correct guesses but make them put more effort into academic performance. Using students’ academic records to measure overall skill, we find a strong Dunning–Kruger bias which is intensified in the presence of monetary rewards. (shrink)

Wealth inequality is a prevalent social issue. The present study focuses on acceptance of wealth inequality, and considers personal income, perceived upward mobility, and future time perspective as its antecedents, and collective action intention as its outcome. With reference to the social identity literature and socioemotional selectivity theory, we posit a conditional indirect effect of income on collective action intention through acceptance of wealth inequality: only when mobility and future time perspective are relatively high, higher income is associated with (...) higher acceptance of wealth inequality and in turn, lower collective action intention. Moderated mediation findings, based on territory–wide phone survey data from 866 Hong Kong adults, supported this prediction. This work indicates the relevance of an individual-level instrumental perspective to the understanding of acceptance of wealth inequality as well as collective action intention. (shrink)

If Europe wants to overcome its current crisis, it urgently needs to develop a new political vision and a new concept for political integration. By focusing on the idea of a cosmopolitan Europe, this article outlines such a political vision for Europe. To this end, it first suggests reformulating the concept of cosmopolitanism in such a way that it is not tied to the ‘cosmos’ or the ‘globe’. With the aid of such a generalized concept of cosmopolitanism it then presents (...) a novel, cosmopolitan approach to European integration that is no longer concerned with harmonizing rules and eliminating (national) differences, but with recognizing them. Finally, it outlines a new, post-national model of democracy for Europe that no longer disenfranchises citizens and instead gives them an active role in European decision-making processes. (shrink)

This article examines in detail a remarkable but short-lived cosmological theory of 1959. The theory depended crucially on a hypothesis that could be, and was, tested in the laboratory. I use the case to discuss the nature of testing in cosmology and to argue against ideas about astronomy suggested by Ian Hacking. The case of the electrical universe exemplifies how disagreements can be settled by good experiments and also how experiments of wide-ranging theoretical significance need not be biased (...) by either theory or the experimentalists’ predisposed ideas. I argue that the episode supports Allan Franklins “evidence model” and disputes accounts based on the sociology of scientific knowledge. (shrink)

In the work of the French thinker René Girard (1923-2015), Christology originates in the view of Jesus as a scapegoat and non-violent role model. Initially, imitation creates the conditions for sacrifice, and sacrifice becomes a way of holding a society together. Mimetic theory localises the problem in rivalistic desires, a process where those who rival each other become more and more preoccupied with outdoing each other. Imitating Christ therefore helps one overcome the desire for otherness and instead identify with (...) the other. A number of theological implications arise from Girard’s theory on divine imitation, and it seems that it is Christ’s perfect imitation of God that makes him divine. Through imitation, Christ becomes both a mediator and a representation of God. Girard seems to replace the notion of following Christ with imitating Christ, as imitating Christ indicates a more common and everyday relationship. (shrink)

이 논문은 다문화 시대의 한반도 통일론이 제기하는 세 가지 쟁점을 추출하고, 다문화주의가 시사하는 한반도 통일론의 방향성을 모색했다. 세 가지 쟁점은 다음과 같다. 첫째, 다문화 시대의 통일의 의미의 확대이다. 통일은 새로운 사회구성원들과 함께 한국 사회의 정체성을 새롭게 회복하고 분단으로 인한 사회적 갈등을 치유하는 수단이자 과정이 되어야 할 것이다. 둘째, 한반도 통일의 주체의 확장이다. 통일은 다중적 주체들의 참여에 의해 함께 만들어 가야 하는 과제가 되어야 할 것이다. 셋째, 민족공동체의 범주의 재해석이다. 다문화 시대의 민족의 관념은 세계차원의 문제와도 결합하여 정의에 대한 새로운 접근을 추구해야 (...) 할 것이다. 이러한 쟁점에 대해 다문화주의가 주는 함의는 다음과 같다. 첫째, 우리 사회의 다양한 구성원들이 통일을 추구해 가는 과정에서 우선 새로운 문화적 정체성의 필요를 인정하고 이를 위해 문화간 상호이해와 대화를 이루는 것이 중요하다. 이를 통해 문화간 다양성 속에 새로운 궤적으로서의 통일을 향한 통일문화적 정체성의 형성이 추구되어야 할 것이다. 둘째, 통일을 위한 다중적 주체들의 시민권을 확장해 가는 것이 필요하다. 우리는 확장되는 통일의 주체들을 단순히 시민으로 범주화하는 차원에 그치는 것이 아니라, 이들에게 시민적 권리와 함께 통일을 위한 시민으로서의 의무를 제시해야 하며, 통일에 참여하는 통일시민적 덕성의 가치와 본질을 강조해야 한다. 이를 위해서 시민사회, 가족, 교육체제, 사적 영역 등에서 통일시민적 덕성을 키우기 위한 중첩적인 노력이 추구되어야 할 것이다. 다중적 주체들은 민족국가 단위 내에서 민주주의를 잘 이루어 사회적 통합과 한반도 통일에 기여하며, 나아가 세계시민주의적 시민권에 대한 인식도 가질 수 있도록 해야 할 것이다. 셋째, 한반도 통일을 위한 민족․민족주의 담론이 보다 개방된 논리로 재구성되어야 한다. 우리의 민족․민족주의의 담론은 민주주의적이면서도 개방성을 담은 국제주의적 의미로 보완되고 구조화되어야 할 것이다. 우리는 보편적 인류애를 기반으로 한 국제주의적 보편성을 구현하는 체계를 갖추어 열린 민족주의를 표방하면서 국제사회의 평화와 화해․협력을 적극 구현해 가도록 해야 할 것이다. (shrink)

This paper articulates a way to ground a relatively high prior probability for grand explanatory theories apart from an appeal to simplicity. I explore the possibility of enumerating the space of plausible grand theories of the universe by using the explanatory properties of possible views to limit the number of plausible theories. I motivate this alternative grounding by showing that Swinburne’s appeal to simplicity is problematic along several dimensions. I then argue that there are three plausible grand (...) views—theism, atheism, and axiarchism—which satisfy explanatory requirements for plausibility. Other possible views lack the explanatory virtue of these three theories. Consequently, this explanatory grounding provides a way of securing a nontrivial prior probability for theism, atheism, and axiarchism. An important upshot of my approach is that a modest amount of empirical evidence can bear significantly on the posterior probability of grand theories of the universe. (shrink)

This paper considers the importance of unification in the context of developing scientific theories. I argue that unifying hypotheses are not valuable simply because they are supported by multiple lines of evidence. Instead, they can be valuable because they guide experimental research in different domains in such a way that the results from those experiments inform the scope of the theory being developed. I support this characterization by appealing to the early development of quantum theory. I then (...) draw some comparisons with discussions of robustness reasoning. (shrink)

String Theory is the result of the conjunction of three conceptually independent elements: the metaphysical idea of a nomological unity of the forces, the model-theoretical paradigm of Quantum Field Theory, and the conflict resulting from classical gravity in a quantum world - the motivational starting point of the search for a theory of Quantum Gravity. String Theory is sometimes assumed to solve this conflict: by means of an application of the model-theoretical apparatus of Quantum Field (...) class='Hi'>Theory, interpreting gravity as the result of an exchange of gravitons, taken here to be dynamical states of the string. But, String Theory does not really solve the conflict. Rather it exemplifies the inadequacy of the apparatus of Quantum Field Theory in the context of Quantum Gravity: After several decades of development it still exists only in an essentially perturbative formulation. And, due to its quantum field theoretical heritage, it is conceptually incompatible with central implications of General Relativity, especially those resulting from the general relativistic relation between gravity and spacetime. All known formulations of String Theory are background-dependent. And no physical motivation is given for this conceptual incompatibility. On the other hand, although String Theory identifies all gauge bosons as string states, it was not even possible to reproduce the Standard Model. Instead, String Theory led to a multitude of internal problems - and to the plethora of low-energy scenarios with different nomologies and symmetries, known as the String Landscape. All attempts to find a dynamically motivated selection principle remained without success, leaving String Theory without any predictive power. The nomological unification of the fundamental forces, including gravity, is only achieved in a purely formal way within the model-theoretical paradigm of Quantum Field Theory - by means of physically unmotivated epicycles like higher dimensionality, Calabi-Yau spaces, branes, etc. Finally, the possibility remains that some of the central assumptions of String Theory are physically wrong. On the one hand, the idea of a nomological unity of the forces could be simply wrong. On the other hand, even if a nomological unity of all fundamental forces should be realized in nature, the possibility remains that gravity is not a fundamental force, but a residual, emergent and possibly intrinsically classical phenomenon, resulting from a quantum substrate without any gravitational degrees of freedom. (shrink)

L'Æsthetica de Baumgarten est restée depuis plus de deux cents ans dans l'ombre de la «révolution» au moins nominale qu'elle a représentée pour l'histoire de la philosophic moderne. Et de fait, Baumgarten doit moins son importance historique à l'évaluation rigoureuse qu'on a pu faire des concepts qu'il a contribué à développer, qu'à l'ouverture d'un champ théorique et philosophique particulier. Car quelles que soient les limites et les lacunes historiques de son projet théorique, il n'en reste pas moins qu'une grande partie (...) de la tradition philosophique de l'esthétique, en particulier dans le contexte de la philosophie allemande, y a trouvé la possibilité d'une unification et comme la marque d'une «origine». C'est Baumgarten qui, le premier en Allemagne, a réuni les conditions nécessaires pour assurer à la théorie de l'art et du beau une cohérence systématique qui lui avait été auparavant refusée et, par voie de conséquence, pour lui permettre de former un champ théorique et philosophique distinct. On a souvent fait remarquer que Baumgarten avait «inventé» très peu de thèmes nouveaux en esthétique; et il est indéniable qu'il s'est contenté la plupart du temps de réorganiser, dans ses observations, un matériau à la fois ancien et restreint, qu'il tire presque exclusivement de la rhétorique et de la poétique traditionnelles. Mais la pertinence historique de sa pensée tient plutôt au fait qu'il crée une nouvelle perspective unifiée, un nouveau centre de gravité qui permet d'organiser de façon neuve un ensemble de phénomènes qui avaient été traités avant lui de façon indépendante. (shrink)

Recently, Michael Redhead has argued that the grouping of particles into multiplets by grand unified gauge theories (GUT's) does not, by itself, imply an ontological reduction in the number of elementary particles. While sympathetic to Redhead's argument, in this note I argue that under certain conditions involving Kaluza-Klein theories, GUT's would provide such an ontological reduction.

Unification of theories is achieved when several theories T 1, T 2, …, Tn previously regarded as distinct are subsumed into a theory of broader scope T*. Classic examples are the unification of theories of electricity, magnetism, and light into Maxwell's theory of electrodynamics, and the unification of evolutionary and genetic theory in the modern synthesis (Mayr and Provine 1980).

In this paper, we defend a novel, multidimensional account of representational unification, which we distinguish from integration. The dimensions of unity are simplicity, generality and scope, non-monstrosity, and systematization. In our account, unification is a graded property. The account is used to investigate the issue of how research traditions contribute to representational unification, focusing on embodied cognition in cognitive science. Embodied cognition contributes to unification even if it fails to offer a grand unification of (...) cognitive science. The study of this failure shows that unification, contrary to what defenders of mechanistic explanation claim, is an important mechanistic virtue of research traditions. (shrink)

In this article the problem of unification of mathematical theories is discussed. We argue, that specific problems arise here, which are quite different than the problems in the case of empirical sciences. In particular, the notion of unification depends on the philosophical standpoint. We give an analysis of the notion of unification from the point of view of formalism, Gödel's platonism and Quine's realism. In particular we show, that the concept of “having the same object of study” (...) should be made precise in the case of mathematical theories. In the appendix we give a working proposal of a certain understanding of this notion. (shrink)

This book presents a theory that unifies these theories by using a philosophical approach to disclose an oversight in the theory of relativity.

Many different, seemingly mutually exclusive, theories of categorization have been proposed in recent years. The most notable theories have been those based on prototypes, exemplars, and causal models. This chapter provides “representation theorems” for each of these theories in the framework of probabilistic graphical models. More specifically, it shows for each of these psychological theories that the categorization judgments predicted and explained by the theory can be wholly captured using probabilistic graphical models. In other words, probabilistic graphical models provide (...) a lingua franca for these disparate categorization theories, and so we can quite directly compare the different types of theories. These formal results are used to explain a variety of surprising empirical results, and to propose several novel theories of categorization. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Grand Theory on Trial:Kafka, Derrida, and the Will to PowerNina Pelikan StrausIn summa: so that man may respect himself he must be capable of doing evil.(Nietzsche, The Will to Power)1IThe following pages offer evidence that in The Trial Kafka invents characters who deploy a Nietzschean-sourced language of deconstruction related to what we now call theory; that in "Before the Law" Kafka's priest deconstructs The Law to (...) which K. is subjected, and that Kafka exposes the discursive devices by which laws can be deconstructed. Kafka's text then opens the way to another kind of deconstruction of that-which-is-already-deconstructed as performed by Jacques Derrida in his 1987 essay, "Before the Law."2 Although this claim may seem self-evident or rhetorically circular to some readers of Kafka and his commentators, it is the result of years of puzzlement concerning the impact of Grand Theory in American criticism.This puzzlement, often accompanied by antagonism, is shared by critics whose essays comprise Patia's and Corral's Theory's Empire: An Anthology of Dissent. The 2005 volume includes major reassessments of poststructuralist theory, notably Derrida's, by Tzetan Todorov, Thomas Nagel, M. H. Abrams, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Frederick Crews, René Welleck, David Bromwich, and others. While the deconstructionist idea of the arbitrariness of the signifier appears to be a central target of these critics' analysis, it is precisely the arbitrariness of the signifier called the Law that Kafka explores in The Trial.Kafka's intended relation to what he exposes has been much debated. [End Page 378] Stanley Corngold refers to the "undecidability" of Kafka's work and its "narrative mood of neutrality."3 The emphasis on "undecidability" in Kafka can be viewed as symptomatic of the influence of French Theory embraced by the American literary academy in the 1970s and 1980s. This latter view of Kafka's writing contrasts sharply with an earlier view, such as Hannah Arendt's, that The Trial, for all its ambiguity and multivalence, carries precise political meanings and warnings that Kafka fully intended. The deconstructionist moment did not bury convictions such as Adorno's or Canetti's that "from the beginning, Kafka sided with the humiliated,"4 or that for "a generation of early readers Joseph K.'s arrest was... a prophetic anticipation of the fate awaiting Hitler's victims."5 But deconstruction's skeptical effect undermined the certitude that Kafka was a politically important novelist. For its detractors, the deconstructionist view that there is "nothing outside of the text" ignores that texts like Kafka's have shaped human lives and human history. Wellek, who helped to introduce French theory to American literature departments, now asserts that theory has destroyed literary studies, while Frederick Crews argues that "Derrida's judgment that 'there is nothing outside the text' automatically precludes recourse to evidence." In Crews's view, "both Derrida and his myriad followers think nothing of appropriating and denaturing propositions from systems of thought whose premises they have already rejected." Thomas Nagel goes further in condemning "post-modern relativism" as a "quick fix" which puts reason to sleep. In Theory's Empire, Derrida's language is described as a "maze," a "prison house of language," a "limbo of combined attention and nonassertion."6The arguments against deconstruction theory can scarcely be summarized here, but a sampling of the commentaries in Theory's Empire on Derrida can lead us through and eventually back to what is or isn't at political stake in reading The Trial. Two questions are of concern: How much of Kafka's political acumen does Derrida ignore or misread in his commentary on "Before the Law"? And: to what degree do Derrida's rhetorical devices and ingenious language games resemble the language of the Courtiers who torture Joseph K.? What might such an analogy imply? Other questions follow, such as David Bromwich's very important ones. "About the status of Derrida's procedures there was always a puzzle," he writes. "Was deconstruction a technique proper to the commentator, and necessary as a tactic against the naïve constructionism of the author? Or was it something the author's writing practiced for itself, in... (shrink)

The epistemological problems of unification of two distinct theories are discussed. An approach related to the work of Soviet authors (Stepin, Podgoretzky and Smorodinsky) is used and developed. The notion of ‘crossbred objects’—theoretical objects with contradictory properties which are part of the domain of application of two independent theories—is introduced which helps to describe the dynamics of revolutionary theory change. The occurrence of the cross-contradiction of two theories is reconstructed and the reductionistic and the synthetic means of its (...) elimination are proposed. The results of the methodological analysis are applied to the paradox of equivalence. (shrink)

According to Michael Friedman’s theory of explanation, a law X explains laws Y1, Y2, …, Yn precisely when X unifies the Y’s, where unification is understood in terms of reducing the number of independently acceptable laws. Philip Kitcher criticized Friedman’s theory but did not analyze the concept of independent acceptability. Here we show that Kitcher’s objection can be met by modifying an element in Friedman’s account. In addition, we argue that there are serious objections to the use (...) that Friedman makes of the concept of independent acceptability. (shrink)

Environmental ethics has been strongly influenced by biological ideas. This essay traces a number of these influences. Unfortunately, environmental ethicists have tended to produce moral theories on a grand scale. This tendency is criticized. It is argued that environmental ethicists should allow the ecological conception of the complexity of biological communities to influence their conception of the moral community. If this were to happen, it is argued, they would have to turn away from grand theories to 'theories of (...) the middle range' while adopting a more 'empirical' approach to moral philosophy. (shrink)

Although Trautman (1966) appears to give a unified‐field treatment of electrodynamics in Newtonian spacetime, there are difficulties in cogently interpreting it as such in relation to the facts of electromagnetic and magneto‐electric induction. Presented here is a covariant, nonunified field treatment of the Maxwell‐Lorentz theory with absolute space. This dispels a worry in Earman (1989) as to whether there are any historically realistic examples in which absolute space plays an indispensable role. It also shows how Trautman's formulation can be (...) rendered coherent, albeit at the cost of deunification, by reinterpreting the Maxwell tensor as a composite object involving, in part, elements from Newtonian spacetime. (shrink)

Given that scientific realism is based on the assumption that there is a connection between a model's predictive success and its truth, and given the success of multiple incompatible models in scientific practice, the realist has a problem. When the different models can be shown to arise as different approximations to a unified theory, however, one might think the realist to be able to accommodate such cases. I discuss a special class of models and argue that a realist interpretation (...) has to understand these models of a system as ‘ perspectival ’, in close analogy to different spatial perspectives onto the same object. For this sort of case, I also respond to Morrison's recent claim that in the process of unifying models into an overarching theory, explanatory and descriptive power are lost, leaving the unified theory with less of a claim to a realist interpretation than the models themselves. Introduction Perspectival models from singular perturbation problems Unification of perspectives without losses of explanatory power Perspectives as different levels of a system Perspectival models, idealizations and pluralism. (shrink)