John Calvin drew from patristic authors in a selective manner. His preference for the theological perspectives of Augustine is readily evident. Nevertheless, while he resonated with the doctrine of Augustine, he touted the interpretive and homiletic labors of John Chrysostom. Even though Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion critiqued Chrysostom’s understanding of grace and free will, the Antiochene bishop is the most frequently referenced patristic author within Calvin’s commentaries. Calvin composed a preface to a projected edition of Chrysostom’s homilies (...) (Praefatio in Chrysostomi Homilias). This preface argued for the necessity of reaching the general public with secondary aids along with the scriptures, explained Calvin’s esteem for Chrysostom’s homilies above other patristic texts, and acknowledged the theological dissimilarities that separated his views from Chrysostom’s. The Praefatio’s assessments reveal Calvin’s own hermeneutical, pastoral, and theological priorities. Calvin’s evaluations of Chrysostom and the other fathers are a window into his own interpretive concerns, homiletical aims, and dogmatic emphases. (shrink)

This unique volume takes readers behind the scenes for an "insider/outsider" view of education policymaking in action. Two state-level case studies of social studies curriculum reform and textbook policy illustrate how curriculum decision making becomes an arena in which battles are fought over national values and priorities. Written by a New York education professor and a California journalist, the text offers a rare blend of academic and journalistic voices. The "great speckled bird" is the authors' counter-symbol to the bald (...) eagle--a metaphor representing the racial-ethnic-cultural diversity that has characterized the U.S. since its beginnings and the multicultural reality of American society today. The text breaks new ground by focusing on the intersections of national debates and education policymaking. It situates the case studies within historical and contemporary cultural contexts--with particular attention to questions of power and knowledge control and how influence is exercised. By juxtaposing the contrasting cases of California and New York, the authors illustrate commonalities and differences in education policymaking goals and processes. By sharing stories of participants at and behind the scenes, policymaking comes alive rather than appearing to result from impersonal "forces" or "factors.". (shrink)

The present paper introduces "ontomimetic simulation" and argues that this class of models has enabled the investigation of hypotheses about complex systems in new ways that have epistemological relevance. Ontomimetic simulation can be differentiated from other types of modeling by its reliance on causal similarity in addition to representation. Phenomena are modeled not directly but via mimesis of the ontology (i.e. the "underlying physics", microlevel etc.) of systems and a subsequent animation of the resulting model ontology as a dynamical (...) system. While the ontology is clearly used for computing system states, what is epistemologically important is that it is viewed as a hypothesis about the makeup of the studied system. This type of simulation, where model ontologies are used as hypotheses, is here called inverse ontomimetic simulation since it reverses the typical informational path from the target to the model system. It links experimental and analytical techniques in being explicitly dynamical while at the same time capable of abstraction. Inverse ontomimetic simulation is argued to have a great impact on science and to be the tool for hypothesis-testing that has made systematic theory development for complex systems possible. (shrink)

Worldviews are windows to the world. They can be static in referring to visual connotations as suggested by their name, but they can hold a dynamic and genetic view as well. As such, they imply a fundamental cognitive orientation, involving selection, interpretation and interaction with the world. What matters, in this view, is a kind of sense-making or semiotization of the world. -/- The semiotization of the “sonic world”, accordingly, can be approached from different epistemological positions: is (...) music reducible to symbolic labels that function as names, or is it only music when it sounds? And is music to be considered as an artifact that is out there or as something that must be listened to in order to make sense? Rather than joining these discussions, I propose to broaden the focus and to embrace psychological claims as well. Though psychology is not commonly considered as semiotics’ companion theory of truth, there are points of convergence with respect to the hierarchical arrangement of epistemic interactions with the sounds: there is a lower level processing of sensory input (sensation), a somewhat higher level (perception) which involves a first level of sense-making—mostly at a preverbal level—, and a higher level of sense-making which is commonly labeled as cognition. -/- In what follows I will argue for a cumulative model with lower levels not being substituted by higher ones, but with higher levels being superposed on them. Music, in fact, is a sounding art with the richness of it sonorous unfolding as one of its major characteristics. Music processing, therefore, should keep step with the music as it unfolds over time, in a dynamic tension that does justice to the level of sensation as well as to the listener’s continuous epistemic interactions with the sounds. (shrink)

The need to revise scholars’ approach to the measurement of gender attitudes—long dominated by the separate-spheres paradigm—is growing increasingly timely as women’s share of the labor force approaches parity with men’s. Recent years have seen revived interest in marital name change as a gendered practice with the potential to aid in this task; however, scholars have yet to test its effectiveness as one possible indicator of gender attitudes. In this article we present views toward marital name change as a potential (...) window into contemporary gender attitudes and most centrally as an illustration of the types of measures that hold great potential for attitudinal research. Using quantitative analyses from a national survey, we show that views on name change reflect expected sociodemographic cleavages and are more strongly linked to a wide array of other gender-related attitudes than are views regarding gendered separate spheres—even net of sociodemographic factors. We then turn to interlinked qualitative data to illustrate three reasons why name-change measures so effectively capture broader beliefs about gender. We conclude by looking at what attitudes about name change can tell us about future directions for the conceptualization and measurement of gender attitudes. (shrink)

Frederick the Great of Prussia was hailed by many as the model of an ‘Enlightened Despot’. Historians continue to debate both the concept of ‘Enlightened Despotism’ and Frederick’s credentials as an enlightened monarch. Should we talk in terms of ‘enlightened absolutism’? Of ‘reform absolutism’? Or simply drop the use of any such terms for a monarch who used his enlightened philosophising and flute playing as window dressing for a system of governance that was essentially conventional absolutism? In light of (...) continuing debate about the nature of Frederick’s reign, it is worth revisiting the views of contemporaries. As a friend of Voltaire, Frederick’s place was well established in traditional depictions of the Enlightenment as centred on the French philosophes. In the past two decades, however, scholars have broadened and deepened our conception of Enlightenment by researching the ‘social history of ideas’ and illuminating Enlightenment in various national and cultural contexts. In this vein, an analysis of perceptions of Frederick the Great can shed light on the nature of Enlightenment in Britain. Frederick’s popularity in Britain reached dizzying heights in the late 1750s as he won spectacular victories in the Continental campaign against Britain’s enemies in the Seven Years War. From the 1760s on, however, British opinion was generally critical of his regulated and militaristic state and his aggrandisement through diplomacy. While it is not within the scope of this essay to explore broader perceptions of Frederick II in late eighteenth-century Britain, it appears that writers who can be located within ‘conservative’ enlightened thought had a more positive perception of Frederick than dissenters. Samuel Johnson declared that the King of Prussia could get away with wearing plain cloths because ‘of the dignity of his character’. On separate occasions in 1780 Edmund Burke praised Frederick for the economy and efficiency of his royal court and for his religious toleration. An article is in preparation that will explore the range of British opinion on Frederick the Great at the end of his long reign. This essay, however, will focus on how some leading Rational Dissenters perceived the self-consciously enlightened King of Prussia, and provide an exposition of the Memoirs of the life and reign of Frederick (1788) by Joseph Towers. (shrink)

Recently, two apparently quite different duality-based approaches to automata minimisation have appeared. One is based on ideas that originated from the controllability-observability duality from systems theory, and the other is based on ideas derived from Stone-type dualities specifically linking coalgebras with algebraic structures derived from modal logics. In the present paper, we develop a more abstract view and unify the two approaches. We show that dualities, or more generally dual adjunctions, between categories can be lifted (...) to dual adjunctions between categories of coalgebras and algebras, and from there to automata with initial as well as final states. As in the Stone-duality approach, algebras are essentially logics for reasoning about the automata. By exploiting the ability to pass between these categories, we show that one can minimize the corresponding automata. We give an abstract minimisation algorithm that has several instances, including the celebrated Brzozowski minimisation algorithm. We further develop three examples that have been treated in previous works: deterministic Kripke frames based on a Stone-type duality, weighted automata based on the self-duality of semimodules, and topological automata based on Gelfand duality. As a new example, we develop alternating automata based on the discrete duality between sets and complete atomic Boolean algebras. (shrink)

Agnieszka Olechnicka et al. have nicely documented developments in the internationalization of science and collaboration which raise important broader question. The traditional view, elaborated by Michael Polanyi, was that the transmission of science at the level of discaverers required personal contact, which normally inovolve time spent in laboratories of famous scientists, and hands-on experience with experiments and close interaction with collegues, which in turn implied a few international centres. Has this changed through digitalization and the internet? One change is (...) the increase in teamwork and the size and physical distribution of research teams, the outsourcing to the larger world of "open science", as well as novel forms of funding of collaboration, which creates the need for new arrangements for patents and credit. The huge size of the grant system and other funding for science from discovery and internal competition to "impact", which has inevitable effects on quality and the life-world orientation of scientists. Whether this has improved science is an open question: it has radically changed it. (shrink)

In the processing of subject-verb agreement, non-subject plural nouns following a singular subject sometimes “attract” the agreement with the verb, despite not being grammatically licensed to do so. This phenomenon generates agreement errors in production and an increased tendency to fail to notice such errors in comprehension, thereby providing a window into the representation of grammatical number in working memory during sentence processing. Research in this topic, however, is primarily done in related languages with similar agreement systems. In order (...) to increase the cross-linguistic coverage of the processing of agreement, we conducted a self-paced reading study in Modern Standard Arabic. We report robust agreement attraction errors in relative clauses, a configuration not particularly conducive to the generation of such errors for all possible lexicalizations. In particular, we examined the speed with which readers retrieve a subject controller for both grammatical and ungrammatical agreeing verbs in sentences where verbs are preceded by two NPs, one of which is a local non-subject NP that can act as a distractor for the successful resolution of subject-verb agreement. Our results suggest that the frequency of errors is modulated by the kind of plural formation strategy used on the attractor noun: nouns which form plurals by suffixation condition high rates of attraction, whereas nouns which form their plurals by internal vowel change (ablaut) generate lower rates of errors and reading-time attraction effects of smaller magnitudes. Furthermore, we show some evidence that these agreement attraction effects are mostly contained in the right tail of reaction time distributions. We also present modeling data in the ACT-R framework which supports a view of these ablauting patterns wherein they are differentially specified for number and evaluate the consequences of possible representations for theories of grammar and parsing. (shrink)

Embora a extensão da dependência entre teorias da estética e modelos da mente seja urna questão de aceso debate, é justo afirmar que as abordagens actuáis da consciência sugerem novas perspectivas sobre a natureza da experiência estética. As recentes descobertas da neurociência têm afetado a nossa forma de ver a estética e a arte. Todavia, enquanto é frequentemente sugerido que a neurociência vai, em breve, obter urna descrição completa da natureza da mente e, portanto, da experiência estética, aqui consideram-se as (...) consequências da recente bifurcação teórica a respeito da localizacão da mente (ou seja, as posições externalistas versus internalistas). A partir deste ponto de vista, as questões da unidade e do significado são usadas para investigar a natureza da experiência estética e da arte. A discussão baseia-se na distinção de William James entre núcleo e periferia, levando a uma perspectiva de convergência entre a psicologia, a fenomenologia e a neurociência. Por fim, a arte é explorada como urna janela para olhar para dentro de aspectos fundamentais da vida mental, quer por meio dos recentes resultados de imagens do cérebro, quer através dos modelos mais abrangentes da mente. While the extent of the dependence between theories of aesthetics and models of the mind is a matter of lively debate, it is fair to claim that current approaches to consciousness suggest new perspectives about the nature of aesthetic experience. Recent findings of neuroscience have affected how we see aesthetics and art. Nevertheless, while it is often suggested that neuroscience will soon offer a comprehensive account of the nature of mind and thus of aesthetic experience, here we consider the consequences on the recent theoretical bifurcation as to where mind is located (namely the externalist vs. the internalist stance). From such a view, the issues of unity and meaning are used to probe into the nature of aesthetic experience and art. The discussion draws upon William James' distinction between nucleus and fringe and puts forward a converging perspective between psychology, phenomenology and neuroscience. Eventually, art is exploited as a window to peer inside fundamental aspects of mental life by means both of recent brain imaging results and more extended models of the mind. (shrink)

The article combines later Wittgenstein’s fictitious language games, along with the forms of life associated with them, with the concept of otherness and places them both within the philosophy of education. The account of otherness overlaps with the view of fictional language games in that the latter deviates from our ordinary, extant uses of language and our Lebensform, and thus can be perceived as extraordinary, unusual, strange, and sometimes nonsensical. The advantages of dealing with such construed preposterousness rely, (...) first, on its leading to a better understanding of our own form of life; second, on its opening a window on the changing of our form of life; third, on its acquainting us with the other. The educational roles of it are presented, first, as being needed at the very beginning of a child’s language learning, when the learner probes the limits of sense and thus enters the domain of otherness; second, as freeing children from the tyranny of adults’ norms and showing the norms that adults accept as absurd; thirdly, as puzzlement that gives an impulse to our thought development, which occurs in contact with the other. Therefore, it is claimed that Wittgenstein’s later philosophy opens perspectives on educational thinking not only in terms of teacher training (Abrichtung) of the learner to follow the rules of existing practices, but also in terms of imagination and critical attitude towards the existing forms of life. (shrink)

The 19th-century missionary literary genre provides us with a window into how the missionaries viewed African cultural systems, such as polygamy. In their minds, polygamy was one of the obstacles to converting Africans to Christianity. Baptism functioned as a theatre of power and submission. To access baptism, a convert had to abandon and strip themselves of that which made them Africans and adopt Western colonial Christian norms and principles. In this article, we argue that the condemnation of polygamy by (...) missionaries was a wielding of power within the colonial matrix of power. We further maintain that the decolonisation of Christianity cannot be achieved without a critical analysis of the impact of the missionaries in the deformation and labelling of African cultural identities as heathen and uncivilised. Contribution: The cultural transfer that was achieved through Christianisation, civilisation and colonisation has led to what Biko referred to as the flight from the black self and what Du Bois referred to as double consciousness. The article applies the intersectionality of theoretical lenses of Africana critical thought, Foucauldian notion of power, negritude and decoloniality. (shrink)

Given the recent explosion of interest in applications of evolutionary biology to understanding human psychology, we think it timely to assure better understanding of modern evolutionary theory among the psychologists who might be using it. We find it necessary to do so because of the very reducd version of evolutionary theorizing that has been incorporated into much of evolutionary psychology so far. Our aim here is to clarify why the use of a reduced version of evolutionary genetics will lead to (...) faulty science and to indicate where other resources of evolutionary biology can be found that might elevate the standard of the evolutionary component of evolutionary psychology. (shrink)

In this paper I ask how educational researchers can believe the subjective perceptions of qualitative participant-observers given the concern for objectivity and generalisability of experimental research in the behavioural and social sciences. I critique the most common answer to this question within the educational research community, which posits the existence of two (or more) equally legitimate epistemological paradigms—positivism and constructivism—and offer an alternative that places a priority in educational research on understanding the purposes and meanings humans attribute to educational practices. (...) Only within the context of what I call a transcendent view from somewhere—higher ideals that govern human activities—can we make sense of quantitative as well as qualitative research findings. (shrink)

This book offers a metaphysical development of the notion of perspective. By explaining the functional nature of point of view, and by providing a concrete definition of point of view as a window through which to see the world, it offers a scientific realist theory that explains that points of view are real structures that ground properties and objects as well as perspectives. The notion of point of view has been of key importance in the (...) history of philosophy, and different philosophical schools have used this notion to conduct analyses from the external reality to the inner phenomenal status, or even to construct an entire philosophical system. However, there has been a lack of systematic analysis of what a point of view is and what its structure is; this book fills the gap in the literature and makes the transition between semantics and epistemology, and the philosophy of science. (shrink)

To cover as much as possible the various questions raised by the commentators, I have divided my Response into three major sections. In section R1, I reply to the major comments and remarks dealing with the basic hypothesis upon which the kinematic theory is built (Plamondon 1993b; 1993c; 1995a; 1995b). I focus on linearity, determinism, kinematics, and the biological significance of the model parameters. I conclude this section by showing how, from a practical point of view, the delta-lognormal (...) law can be used to group similar data prior to proceeding with further statistical analysis. In section R2, I address the main comments and remarks dealing with the speed/accuracy tradeoffs. First, I focus on the origin of speed/accuracy tradeoffs and the effect of visual feedback. Then I clarify some terminology problems and mathematical misinterpretations prior to providing new support for the theory using the experiments and data referred to by some commentators. I devote section R3 to a generalization of the kinematic theory and to some potential applications. I first provide new explanations of some classical experiments; then I show how more complex movements can be analyzed using the delta-lognormal law. I focus on perturbed and oscillatory movements as well as on cursive script and signature analysis. I conclude this section and my Response by showing some possible applications to the study of movement learning in children as well as to the study of aging phenomena in movement control. I complete my Response by recalling some technical problems that still need further analysis. Throughout the text, I try to convince the reader that the kinematic theory provides a new window on old and new data in the field. (shrink)

Self- Deception in General "A Liberal Decalogue" suggests (Russell, 1967, pp. 60-61) not to envy people who live in a fool's paradise: It is a place only for fools. This saying invites detailed commentary. A fool's paradise is not a place, but a state o f mind; it is a system of opinions, of assessments of situations, that calms one down, that reassures one into the opinion that all is well, even when all is far from well. Fools may (...) be ignorant of the severity of their situations, perhaps because being well informed tends to get them into a panic. This happens regularly, and there is little that can be done about it, except that the wise would still prefer to be well informed so as to try to cope with the panic more constructively. They would not easily fa ll for the reassuring hypothesis, preferring to examine any reasonable alternative hypothesis about any risk that might invite action - - so that if the hypothesis is corroborated they can try to mobilize some appropriate action. (shrink)

Preprint of Cole, Sacks, and Waterman. 2000. "On the immunity principle: A view from a robot." Trends in Cognitive Science 4 (5): 167, a response to Shaun Gallagher, S. 2000. "Philosophical conceptions of the self: implications for cognitive science," Trends in Cognitive Science 4 (1):14-21. Also see Shaun Gallagher, Reply to Cole, Sacks, and Waterman Trends in Cognitive Science 4, No. 5 (2000): 167-68.

In Social Decay and Transformation social and political critic Samuel Farber presents an analysis of social decline that has been missing from the contemporary scene: a view from the Left, one which draws from the ideas and traditions of the Enlightenment's left wing. Using a comparative approach to situate his theoretical conclusions in historical circumstances, Farber looks at the working class and temperance movements, civil rights rebellions and the Black Panthers, and the cultural revolutions of 1920s (...) Russia and the Bolsheviks. Providing carefully reasoned interrogations of contemporary thinkers such as James C. Scott and Robin D. G. Kelley, Farber clarifies the discussions on social decay currently taking place, adding an important voice of the Left to the current debate. (shrink)

In this article I examine several related views expressed by Robin Hendry concerning molecular structure, emergence and chemical bonding. There is a long-standing problem in the philosophy of chemistry arising from the fact that molecular structure cannot be strictly derived from quantum mechanics. Two or more compounds which share a molecular formula, but which differ with respect to their structures, have identical Hamiltonian operators within the quantum mechanical formalism. As a consequence, the properties of all such isomers yield (...) precisely the same calculated quantities such as their energies, dipole moments etc. The only means through which the difference between the isomers can be recovered is to build their structures into the quantum mechanical calculations, something that is carried out by the application of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation. Consequently, it has been argued by many authors that molecular structure is written in ‘by hand’ rather than derived. Robin Hendry is one such author, but he goes a great deal further by proposing that this situation implies the existence of emergence and downward causation. In the current article I argue that there are alternative explanations which render emergence and downward causation redundant. Such an alternative lies in the notion of quantum decoherence and the appeal to work in the foundations of physics, which posits that the various isomers exist as a superposition until their wavefunctions are collapsed either by observation or by interacting with their environment. Hendry also alludes to a debate among chemists as to whether chemical bonds are real or not, in the sense of directional connections between two or more nuclei in any given molecule. I reject this view and propose that the structural and energetic views of chemical bonding, that have been discussed by some philosophers of chemistry including Hendry, do not refer to any essential ontological differences. I agree that chemists view bonding in a more realistic fashion and may consider bonds to be in some senses real, while physicists may consider bonding in more abstract energetic terms. However, I do not believe that such differences in scientific practice and attitudes should be considered to offer a window as to the ontological status of bonding or whether bonding is real. Finally, I discuss the kinetic energy school of chemical bonding which would seem to challenge any notion of bonds as directional entities, since bonding is no longer regarded as being primarily due to the build-up of electron density between nuclei. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:192 HUME'S REFUTATION OF — WOLLASTON? Recently while rereading Book III of Hume's Treatise I was struck by an anomaly in the text that I had never noticed before. It consists in the juxtaposition of two arguments Hume offers regarding the source of the moral qualities of our actions. At first I dismissed Hume's arrangement of these arguments as being of little consequence — one of them appears in (...) a footnote — but the more I thought about the juxtaposition the more it intrigued and puzzled me. Expecting that it must have been noted by other readers I checked through the literature to find some discussion of it. Since after a long search I have failed to uncover anything, and believing the point, which relates to Hume's central view concerning morality, to be of some interest, I have decided to write this brief paper. Two passages from § 1, entitled "Moral Distinctions not deriv'd from Reason," of Part I, Book III, are involved. Hume begins the section by arguing that, because of the limited scope of its capacities, reason cannot distinguish between right and wrong or, as he puts it, between virtue and vice, and therefore that it is a mistake to speak of actions as being reasonable or unreasonable. Since Hume's views on this question are well-known and since they are not directly relevant to the point of my paper, I shall not pursue them further, but turn directly to the issue at hand. After having stated his argument at the beginning of § 1 and reached the conclusion that "actions may be laudable or blameable, but they cannot be reasonable or unreasonable," Hume turns to answer an objection that might be made against him by a rationalist ethicist. He writes: 193 But perhaps it may be said, that tho' no will or action can be immediately contradictory to reason, yet we may find such a contradiction in some of the attendants of the action, that is, in its causes or effects (T 459). Pursuing this objection, Hume first considers the causes of our actions. He acknowledges that we can be led astray in what we do in two ways; by making mistakes of fact, first, about the nature of some object we desire (e.g., thinking some fruit delicious when it really is not) and, second, about the means we should employ to gain the object (e.g., attempting to pluck the fruit when it is beyond our reach). Although these errors cause us to act in ways that may be termed unreasonable in a "figurative and improper way of speaking" (T 459), they cannot be the source of any immorality in what we do because they are committed involuntarily and innocently. A person who falls into such errors and acts on them is "more to be lamented than blam'd" (T 459). To conclude his answer to the rationalistic objection he has raised, Hume turns next to the issue of whether the immorality of our actions can be explained in terms of the unreasonableness of any of their effects. In a memorable passage he denies that the fact that false judgments are the effects of our actions can be the source of immorality in what we do. As to those judgments which are the effects of our actions, and which, when false, give occasion to pronounce the actions contrary to truth and reason; we may observe, that our actions never cause any judgment, either true or false, in ourselves, and that 'tis only on others they have such an influence. 'Tis certain, that an action, on many occasions, may give rise to false conclusions in others; and that a 194 person, who thro' a window sees any lewd behaviour of mine with my neighbour's wife, may be so simple as to imagine she is certainly my own. In this respect my action resembles somewhat a lye or falshood; only with this difference, which is material, that I perform not the action with any intention of giving rise to a false judgment in another, but merely to satisfy my lust and passion. It causes, however, a mistake and false judgment by accident; and the falshood... (shrink)

In this article I examine several related views expressed by Robin Hendry concerning molecular structure, emergence and chemical bonding. There is a long-standing problem in the philosophy of chemistry arising from the fact that molecular structure cannot be strictly derived from quantum mechanics. Two or more compounds which share a molecular formula, but which differ with respect to their structures, have identical Hamiltonian operators within the quantum mechanical formalism. As a consequence, the properties of all such isomers yield (...) precisely the same calculated quantities such as their energies, dipole moments etc. The only means through which the difference between the isomers can be recovered is to build their structures into the quantum mechanical calculations, something that is carried out by the application of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation. Consequently, it has been argued by many authors that molecular structure is written in ‘by hand’ rather than derived. Robin Hendry is one such author, but he goes a great deal further by proposing that this situation implies the existence of emergence and downward causation. In the current article I argue that there are alternative explanations which render emergence and downward causation redundant. Such an alternative lies in the notion of quantum decoherence and the appeal to work in the foundations of physics, which posits that the various isomers exist as a superposition until their wavefunctions are collapsed either by observation or by interacting with their environment.Hendry also alludes to a debate among chemists as to whether chemical bonds are real or not, in the sense of directional connections between two or more nuclei in any given molecule. I reject this view and propose that the structural and energetic views of chemical bonding, that have been discussed by some philosophers of chemistry including Hendry, do not refer to any essential ontological differences. I agree that chemists view bonding in a more realistic fashion and may consider bonds to be in some senses real, while physicists may consider bonding in more abstract energetic terms. However, I do not believe that such differences in scientific practice and attitudes should be considered to offer a window as to the ontological status of bonding or whether bonding is real. Finally, I discuss the kinetic energy school of chemical bonding which would seem to challenge any notion of bonds as directional entities, since bonding is no longer regarded as being primarily due to the build-up of electron density between nuclei. (shrink)

The book argues for realism defined as the assertion of the self-subsistence of entities. Trigg rejects Rescher's conceptual idealism, which maintains that since without mind there would be no way of distinguishing, and mind only sees a chair from a perspective, we cannot say what a chair is "in itself." This view keeps us on one side of the correspondence relation, Trigg says. He proposes that our concepts are "a window on reality." Peirce's "Final Agreement," what reality (...) corresponds to, is an attempt to bring together realism and idealism, but "final agreement" is an ideal limit to enquiry, not a future event. It is epistemologically, not ontologically, realist. (shrink)

For the last three decades, the discussion on Hilary Putnam’s provocative suggestions around the issue of realism has raged widely. Putnam’s various formulations of, and arguments for, what he called internal realism in contrast to what he called metaphysical realism have been scrutinised from a variety of perspectives. One angle of attack has been missing, though: the view from the social sciences and the ontology of society. This perspective, I believe, will provide further confirmation to the observation (...) that Putnam’s two concepts of realism are all too aggregative in that they conflate elements that had better be kept distinct, at least for many important purposes (e.g. Niiniluoto 1996). The present essay can be read as an argument for a topic-specific examination of realism. This means that it challenges the overall validity of Richard Boyd’s arguments against what he calls “realism about”, that is, against “a certain fragmented conception of scientific realism, one according to which realism is deeply topic specific” (Boyd 1990, p. 175). Boyd takes the ‘x’ in realism about x” to designate two kinds of things: entities postulated in scientific theories (“realism about the ether” and “realism about higher taxa”) and scientific disciplines (“realism about physics” and “realism about biology”) (ibid., pp. 175, 190). He also suggests that “it seems possible cogently to accept realism about the natural sciences while denying it about at least some of the social sciences” (ibid., p. 191). In Boyd’s view, the possibility of realism about social sciences is undermined by their weak instrumental success; it is the instrumental reliability of method that he takes as the basis for a realist account of science. I do not underwrite this connection between realism and instrumental success, thus I am not compelled to reject realism about social sciences on these grounds; and, as we shall see, social sciences have other peculiarities as well (see Mäki 1996). I think we should, at least to some degree, disaggregate and relativize the issue of realism. I do have sympathy with Boyd’s strategic arguments against “realisms about”, but yet I believe realists will be better off by adopting a more concrete and localized approach to the issue (Mäki 2005). Social objects and social sciences deserve a separate treatment. There are two strategies that can be followed in examining a realism about x (type of entity, theory, discipline). One is to first fix the meaning of realism’ and then specify the extension of ‘x’. This is Boyd’s strategy. The other is to fix some part of the extension of ‘x’ and then adjust the meaning of ‘realism’ so as to accommodate whatever peculiarities the x in question may have (and finally to check whether the adjusted meaning of ‘realism’ meets the criteria of a minimal notion of realism; it would be here that we encounter a relatively fixed idea of some minimal realism, or a set of realist intuitions). The latter is my approach here. I begin with the interconnected ideas of “realism about social objects” andrealism about social sciences”. I am not only interested in what comes after ‘about’; I am also interested in what goes before it, namely ‘realism’ itself. Here is one premise of the discussion: the issue of proper forms of realism for dealing with specific problems is an issue to be settled at least partly a posteriori. Here is the problem for which a solution will be sought: what constraints, if any, does what we know about the social sciences and society (as depicted by the social sciences and our commonsense views) impose upon the forms of realism that can justifiably be adopted about them? This paper suggests to offer only some partial insight into this issue. It seeks to do so indirectly by discussing Putnam’s characterizations of internal and metaphysical realism. The focus will be on two aspects of Putnam’s realisms: [1] the role and kinds of independence and dependence (in relation to the human mind and related things); and [2] the possibility of error. It is shown that the nature of social objects has implications concerning the appropriate constraints on [1] and [2], and thereby on the kinds of realism that are available to social scientists. (shrink)

A number of recent discussions about ethical issues in climate change, as engaged in by economists, have focused on the value of the parameter representing the rate of time preference within models of optimal growth. This essay examines many economists' antipathy to serious discussion of ethical matters, and suggests that the avoidance of questions of intergenerational equity is related to another set of value judgments concerning the quality and objectivity of economic practice. Using insights from feminist philosophy of science (...) and research on high reliability organizations, this essay argues that a more ethically transparent, real-world-oriented, and flexible economic practice would lead to more strongly objective, reliable, and useful knowledge. (shrink)

Ever since Newton created dynamics, there has been controversy about its foundations. Are space and time absolute? Do they form a rigid but invisible framework and container of the universe? Or are space, time, and motion relative? If so, does Newton's 'framework' arise through the influence of the universe at large, as Ernst Mach suggested? Einstein's aim when creating his general theory of relativity was to demonstrate this and thereby implement 'Mach's Principle'. However, it is widely believed that he achieved (...) only partial success. This question of whether motion is absolute or relative has been a central issues in philosophy; the nature of time has perennial interest. Current attempts to create a quantum description of the whole universe keep these issues at the cutting edge of modern research. Written by the world's leading expert on Mach's Principle, The Discovery of Dynamics is a highly original account of the development of notions about space, time, and motion. Widely praised in its hardback version, it is one of the fullest and most readable accounts of the astronomical studies that culminated in Kepler's laws of planetary motion and of the creation of dynamics by Galileo, Descartes, Huygens, and Newton. Originally published as Absolute or Relative Motion?, Vol. 1: The Discovery of Dynamics, The Discovery of Dynamics provides the technical background to Barbour's recently published The End of Time, in which he argues that time disappears from the description of the quantum universe. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question as to whether the methodology followed in building/assessing string theory can be considered scientific in the same sense, say, that the methodology followed in building/assessing the Standard Model of particle physics is scientific, by focussing on the "founding" period of the theory. More precisely, its aim is to argue for a positive answer to the above question – there is no real change of scientific status in the way of proceeding and reasoning in fundamental physical (...) research – in the light of a historical analysis of the early developments of the string theoretical framework. (shrink)

De Neys's incisive critique of empirical and theoretical research on the exclusivity feature underscores the depth of the challenge of explaining the interplay of fast and slow processes. We argue that a closer look at research on mindreading reveals abundant evidence for the exclusivity feature – as well as methodological and theoretical perspectives that could inform research on fast and slow thinking.

The aim of this paper is to reformulate the Linguistic Underdeterminacy Thesis by making use of Austin’s theory of speech acts. Viewed from the post-Gricean perspective, linguistic underdeterminacy consists in there being a gap between the encoded meaning of a sentence uttered by a speaker and the proposition that she communicates. According to the Austinian model offered in this paper, linguistic underdeterminacy should be analysed in terms of semantic and force potentials conventionally associated with the lexical and syntactic properties (...) of the pheme uttered by the speaker; in short, it is claimed that the conventionally specified phatic meaning of an utterance underdetermines its content and force. This Austinian version of the Linguistic Underdeterminacy Thesis plays a central role in a contextualist model of verbal communication. The model is eliminativist with respect to rhetic content and illocutionary force: it takes contents and forces to be one-off constructions whose function is to classify individual utterances in terms of their representational and institutional effects, respectively. (shrink)

Right now my conscious experience is directed at part of the world. It takes in some aspects of things around me and not others. Some bits of the world occupy my attention, other worldly goings on condition or colour the character of my current perceptual experience. I experience buildings in view through the window, the clothes in the corner of the room, the colour of the walls, the plate with breads, the coffee mugs, the smell of fresh laundry, (...) the muffled sounds of someone in the kitchen, the sounds from the street: a sequence of things that in turn capture my attention moment to moment. And all the while thoughts occur to me, modulating my conscious awareness. I have no doubt that the world and my place in it, together with my recent past history, explains the particular form my consciousness takes right now. But what shape does that explanation take? Things out there beyond the boundaries of my skin enter into the conscious events I undergo. The inner is in this way shaped and determined by those outer things that impress themselves on the mind. What is it, though, for consciousness of this kind to go on at all? (shrink)

In a recent no-go theorem [Bong et al., Nature Physics (2020)], we proved that the predictions of unitary quantum mechanics for an extended Wigner’s friend scenario are incompatible with any theory satisfying three metaphysical assumptions, the conjunction of which we call “Local Friendliness”: Absoluteness of Observed Events, Locality and No-Superdeterminism. In this paper (based on an invited talk for the QBism jubilee at the 2019 Växjö conference) I discuss the implications of this theorem for QBism, as seen from the (...) point of view of experimental metaphysics. I argue that the key distinction between QBism and realist interpretations of quantum mechanics is best understood in terms of their adherence to different theories of truth: the pragmatist versus the correspondence theories. I argue that a productive pathway to resolve the measurement problem within a pragmatist view involves taking seriously the perspective of quantum betting agents, even those in what I call a “Wigner bubble”. The notion of reality afforded by QBism, I propose, will correspond to the invariant elements of any theory that has pragmatic value to all rational agents—that is, the elements that are invariant upon changes of agent perspectives. The classical notion of ‘event’ is not among those invariants, even when those events are observed by some agent. Neither are quantum states. Nevertheless, I argue that far from solipsism, a personalist view of quantum states is an expression of its precise opposite: Copernicanism. (shrink)

In this article, I explore connections among sport, competition, and capitalist society by drawing from works in the philosophy of sport and critical theory. Initially, I identify games, especially sports, as fundamental activities in contemporary life. In particular, I claim that the glorification of victory in sporting contests permeates the attitude toward competition of individuals in capitalist societies. Thus, sports can be understood as windows to observe the “achievement ethos” inherent in capitalism. Subsequently, I explore both philosophical victory-centric and (...) mutualistic views of sporting competition. What follows from this examination is that competition itself is not inherently negative. It becomes detrimental when pursued at any cost. In alignment with Robert L. Simon’s sport mutualism, I advocate that competition may yield positive moral and social outcomes when approached as a “mutual quest for excellence.” To conclude, I trace this positive, mutualistic conception of competition back to ancient Greek and post-Hellenic reflections on agōn and excellence. (shrink)