Winner of the 2000-2002 outstanding publication award of the Section on Environment and Technology of the American Sociological Association.Risk as we now know ...

Quantum gravity poses the problem of merging quantum mechanics and general relativity, the two great conceptual revolutions in the physics of the twentieth century. The loop and spinfoam approach, presented in this book, is one of the leading research programs in the field. The first part of the book discusses the reformulation of the basis of classical and quantum Hamiltonian physics required by general relativity. The second part covers the basic technical research directions. Appendices include a detailed history of the (...) subject of quantum gravity, hard-to-find mathematical material, and a discussion of some philosophical issues raised by the subject. This fascinating text is ideal for graduate students entering the field, as well as researchers already working in quantum gravity. It will also appeal to philosophers and other scholars interested in the nature of space and time. (shrink)

The concept of evidence has gone unanalysed in much of the current debate between proponents and critics of evidence-based medicine. In this paper I will suggest that part of the controversy rests on an understanding of the word “evidence” that is too broad, and therefore contains the contradictions that allow both camps to defend their position and charge their adversaries. I will argue that reconciling the different meanings of the word ‘evidence’ in “evidence-based medicine” should help put EBM in its (...) rightful place. (shrink)

The article examines the development of Husserl’s early philosophy from his Habilitationsschrift to the Philosophie der Arithmetik . An attempt will be made at reconstructing the lost Habilitationsschrift . The examined sources show that the original version of the Habilitationsschrift was by far broader than the printed version, and included most topics of the PA. The article contains an extensive and detailed comparison of these texts to illustrate the changes in Husserl’s position before and after February 1890. This date is (...) taken as a turning point in his development, because of Husserl’s announcement in a letter to Carl Stumpf that he was mistaken in his basic assumption, i.e. that the analysis of the concept of Anzahl would yield a foundation for arithmetic. Some interesting conclusions in this respect can also be drawn from an unpublished lecture that Husserl held in the WS 1889/90, in which he anticipates aspects of his position hitherto deemed to belong to the last phases of the PA. (shrink)

One of the world's most renowned theoretical physicists, Carlo Rovelli has entranced millions of readers with his singular perspective on the cosmos. In Helgoland, Rovelli examines the enduring enigma of quantum theory. The quantum world Rovelli describes is as beautiful as it is unnerving. Helgoland is a treeless island in the North Sea where the 21-year-old Werner Heisenberg first developed quantum theory, setting off a century of scientific revolution. Full of alarming ideas (ghost waves, distant objects that seem to (...) be magically connected, cats that appear both dead and alive), quantum physics has led to countless discoveries and technological advancements. Today our understanding of the world is based on this theory, yet it is still profoundly mysterious. As scientists and philosophers continue to fiercly debate the theory's meaning, Rovelli argues that its most unsettling contradictions can be explained by seeing the world as fundamentally made of relationships, not substances. We and everything around us exist only in our interactions with one another. This bold idea suggests new directions for understanding the structure of reality and even the nature of consciousness. Rovelli makes learning about quantum mechanics an almost psychedelic experience. Shifting our perspective once again, he takes us on a riveting journey through the universe so we can better understand our place in it. (shrink)

Translator's Introduction: Hans-Georg Gadamer first published this essay in 1991 in his Gesammelte Werke, but it appeared shortly before in a Gedenkschrift for Karl-Heinz Ilting, a scholar of German Idealism and ancient philosophy who studied under Gadamer’s colleague, Erich Rothacker. The essay is the product of a lifetime of studies in Plato and Aristotle, reflecting in particular Gadamer’s ongoing preoccupation with the “Socratic question” and the development of his views on it since his Habilitationsschrift, Plato’s Dialectical Ethics . The Socratic (...) question consists of two intertwined questions: what is the good thing to do in a particular situation; and what is the human good. The latter question is the subject of philosophical ethics and motivates the thought of both Plato and Aristotle. As Gadamer argues here, but more extensively in The Idea of the Good in Platonic-Aristotelian Philosophy , both thinkers see this question of the good as grounded in the relat .. (shrink)

In this paper I will discuss Edmund Husserl’s critique of Franz Brentano’s interpretation of categorical judgments as Double Judgments (Doppelurteile). This will be developed mostly as an internal critique, within the framework of the school of Brentano, and not through a direct contrast with Husserl’s own theory of judgment, as presented e.g. in the Fifth Investigation. Already during the 1890s Husserl overcame the psychologistic aspects of Brentano’s approach, advocating the importance of analysing the logical structure underlying language independently from psychology. (...) Moreover, Husserl’s critique seems to be also applicable to Bertrand Russell’s analysis, which shares an important aspect of Brentano’s theory. I will try to avoid going too deep into the various theories of judgment and keep mostly to the issue of double judgments. (shrink)

This article discusses the relation between empirical and normative approaches in bioethics. The issue of dwarf tossing, while admittedly unusual, is chosen as a point of departure because it challenges the reader to look with fresh eyes upon several central bioethical themes, including human dignity, autonomy, and the protection of vulnerable people. After an overview of current approaches to the integration of empirical and normative ethics, we consider five ways that the empirical and normative can be brought together to speak (...) to the problem of dwarf tossing: prescriptive applied ethics, theoretical ethics, critical applied ethics, particularist ethics and integrated empirical ethics. We defend a position of critical applied ethics that allows for a two-way relation between empirical and normative theories. Against efforts fully to integrate the normative and the empirical into one synthesis, we propose that the two should stand in tension and relation to one another. The approach we endorse acknowledges that a social practice can and should be judged both by the gathering of empirical data and by normative ethics. Critical applied ethics uses a five stage process that includes: (a) determination of the problem, (b) description of the problem, (c) empirical study of effects and alternatives, (d) normative weighing and (e) evaluation of the effects of a decision. In each stage, we explore the perspective from both the empirical (sociological) and the normative ethical point of view. We conclude by applying our five-stage critical applied ethics to the example of dwarf tossing. (shrink)

Uno dei principali scopi della riflessione filosofica sulla scienza è quello di formulare un criterio in grado di distinguere le scienze empiriche non solo dalle scienze formali (logica e matematica), ma anche e soprattutto dalle non-scienze, come la metafisica, la teologia, la religione, il mito e la pseudoscienza. Il problema della demarcazione è emerso con forza nei dibattiti sulle aspirazioni scientifiche di discipline come la psicoanalisi o la parapsicologia, ed è tornato recentemente di grande attualità anche per le sue importanti (...) ricadute culturali, politiche ed educative. Addentrandosi in questo affascinante terreno d’esplorazione filosofica, il volume riprende in modo rigoroso i termini del dibattito tra i neopositivisti (verificazionisti) e Popper (falsificazionista), mostra che entrambe le proposte sono incapaci di garantire un’adeguata distinzione tra scienza e non-scienza, ed infine propone la versione aggiornata di una terza soluzione, basata sulla teoria bayesiana della conferma. (shrink)

These are lectures prepared for a series of seminars I am invited to give at Princeton’s Philosophy Department in November 2024.

The Conventionality of Simultaneity espoused by Reichenbach, Grunbaum, Edwards, and Winnie is herein extended to mechanics and electrodynamics. The extension is seen to be a special case of a generally covariant formulation of physics, and therefore consistent with Special Relativity as the geometry of flat space-time. Many of the quantities of classical physics, such as mass, charge density, and force, are found to be synchronization dependent in this formulation and, therefore, in Reichenbach's terminology, "metrogenic." The relationship of these quantities to (...) 4-vectors and their physical significance is discussed. (shrink)

At least since Kuhn’s Structure, philosophers have studied the influence of social factors in science’s pursuit of truth and knowledge. More recently, formal models and computer simulations have allowed philosophers of science and social epistemologists to dig deeper into the detailed dynamics of scientific research and experimentation, and to develop very seemingly realistic models of the social organization of science. These models purport to be predictive of the optimal allocations of factors, such as diversity of methods used in science, size (...) of groups, and communication channels among researchers. In this paper we argue that the current research faces an empirical challenge. The challenge is to connect simulation models with data. We present possible scenarios about how the challenge may unfold. (shrink)

We discuss the principles for a primitive, object-linguistic notion of consequence proposed by ) that yield a version of Curry’s paradox. We propose and study several strategies to weaken these principles and overcome paradox: all these strategies are based on the intuition that the object-linguistic consequence predicate internalizes whichever meta-linguistic notion of consequence we accept in the first place. To these solutions will correspond different conceptions of consequence. In one possible reading of these principles, they give rise to a notion (...) of logical consequence: we study the corresponding theory of validity by showing that it is conservative over a wide range of base theories: this result is achieved via a well-behaved form of local reduction. The theory of logical consequence is based on a restriction of the introduction rule for the consequence predicate. To unrestrictedly maintain this principle, we develop a conception of object-linguistic consequence, which we call grounded consequence, that displays a restriction of the structural rule of reflexivity. This construction is obtained by generalizing Saul Kripke’s inductive theory of truth. Grounded validity will be shown to satisfy several desirable principles for a naïve, self-applicable notion of consequence. (shrink)

In this paper I analyze four so-called “principles of expertise”; that is, good epistemic practices that are normatively motivated by the epistemological literature on expert judgment. I highlight some of the problems that the four principles of expertise run into, when we try to implement them in concrete contexts of application (e.g. in science committees). I suggest some possible alternatives and adjustments to the principles, arguing in general that the epistemology of expertise should be informed both by case studies and (...) by the literature on the use of experts in science practice. (shrink)

There are fields of research on NE which still need attention: the edition of the text the style and rhetorical and logical instruments employed by Aristotle in setting out his position. After indicating the situation of the research on the text of NE, I describe some rhetorical devices used by Aristotle in his work: the presence of a preamble, clues about how the argument will be developed, a tendency to introduce new arguments in an inconspicuous way and the articulation of (...) general definitions through more specific analyses. At a deeper level NE seems to be organised on the model of investigating definitions described in the second Book of the Postenor Analytics, and not according the so-called' dialectical method'. In conclusion I argue that NE is not an early or a confused work, as some scholars maintain, but rather a skilful construction, the fruit of a mature intelligence. (shrink)

The view that the subject matter of epistemology is the concept of knowledge is faced with the problem that all attempts so far to define that concept are subject to counterexamples. As an alternative, this article argues that the subject matter of epistemology is knowledge itself rather than the concept of knowledge. Moreover, knowledge is not merely a state of mind but rather a certain kind of response to the environment that is essential for survival. In this perspective, the article (...) outlines an answer to four basic questions about knowledge: What is the role of knowledge in human life? What is the relation between knowledge and reality? How is knowledge acquired? Is there any a priori knowledge? (shrink)

Quantum mechanics is not about 'quantum states': it is about values of physical variables. I give a short fresh presentation and update on the *relational* perspective on the theory, and a comment on its philosophical implications.