In his book Mind and World (1994), John McDowell defends the Kantian position that the content of experience is conceptual. Without this Kantian assumption, he argues, it would be impossible to understand how experience may rationally constrain thought. But McDowell's Kantianism is either false or empty, and his view of the relation between mind and world cannot be stated without transcending the bounds of sense. McDowell's arguments supporting the Kantian thesis, which are very different from Kant's arguments, essentially involve a (...) fallacy of ambiguity. In order to understand how thought may be rationally constrained by experience we should become empiricists. (shrink)

The paper follows the track of a previous paper “Natural cybernetics of time” in relation to history in a research of the ways to be mathematized regardless of being a descriptive humanitarian science withal investigating unique events and thus rejecting any repeatability. The pathway of classical experimental science to be mathematized gradually and smoothly by more and more relevant mathematical models seems to be inapplicable. Anyway quantum mechanics suggests another pathway for mathematization; considering the historical reality as dual or “complimentary” (...) to its model. The historical reality by itself can be seen as mathematical if one considers it in Hegel’s manner as a specific interpretation of the totality being in a permanent self-movement due to being just the totality, i.e. by means of the “speculative dialectics” of history, however realized as a theory both mathematical and empirical and thus falsifiable as by logical contradictions within itself as emprical discrepancies to facts. Not less, a Husserlian kind of “historical phenomenology” is possible along with Hegel’s historical dialectics sharing the postulate of the totality (and thus, that of transcendentalism). One would be to suggest the transcendental counterpart: an “eternal”, i.e. atemporal and aspatial history to the usual, descriptive temporal history, and equating the real course of history as with its alternative, actually happened branches of the regions of the world as with only imaginable, counterfactual histories. That universal and transcendental history is properly mathematical by itself, even in a neo-Pythagorean model. It is only represented on the temporal screen of the standard historiography as a discrete series of unique events. An analogy to the readings of the apparatus in quantum mechanics can be useful. Even more, that analogy is considered rigorously and logically as implied by the mathematical transcendental history and sharing with it the same quantity of information as an invariant to all possible alternative or counterfactual histories. One can involve the hypothetical external viewpoint to history (as if outside of history or from “God’s viewpoint to it), to which all alternative or counterfactual histories can be granted as a class of equivalence sharing the same information (i.e. the number choices, but realized in different sequence or adding redundant ones in each branch) being similar and even mathematically isomorphic to Feynman trajectories in quantum mechanics. Particularly, a fundamental law of mathematical history, the law of least choice of the real historical pathway is deducible from the same approach. Its counterpart in physics is the well-known and confirmed law of least action as far as the quantity of action corresponds equivocally to the quantity of information or that of number elementary historical choices. (shrink)

I look at the debates of the status of Newton's laws, whether they can each, or all together be considered emprical or a priori.

"In the present work at attempt has been made to point out that according to Dharmakīrti continued significance and relevance of Buddha's philosophy could be legitimately hoped to be brought out with reference to paradigmaticity of emprical [i.e., empirical] world, the problem of pain and auffering [i.e., suffering] coming to human lot and doctrine of Anattā."--Page 4.

The present paper is part of a larger project of investigating how far puzzling questions about Carnap’s philosophical deflationism – as expressed most prominently in “Empricism, Semantics and Ontology”1 – can be answered by reference to his own preferred position in areas upon which this meta-philosophical position can be expected to have a bearing. For that project the explorations below provide a starting point; on the present occasion they will, I hope, be found to be of independent interest. At (...) issue is the question of what makes Carnap’s The Logical Structure of the World a pre-physicalist work. (shrink)

We investigate whether the display of portfolio performance as coming from one large portfolio or two smaller subportfolios matters to individuals and whether prospect theory can explain this preference. To this end, we run a large survey experiment of 3267 individuals in 5 European countries presenting an identical overall return as coming from one portfolio or two smaller subportfolios to individuals. We also elicited the coefficients of the prospect theory value function through price list lotteries. In losses, following prospect theory (...) and mental accounting predictions, we observe emprically a preference for the display of returns as coming from 2 subportfolios, one displaying a small gain and the other a large loss, over a unique portfolio displaying the aggregated resulting loss. As expected, for an overall gain, individuals favor one portfolio over two subportfolios, one displaying a small loss and the other a larger gain. The shape of the value function does not explain individuals’ preferences. The reference point seems to be the main factor involved in explaining individuals’ choice of two subportfolio presentations of the outcome. (shrink)

[ENGLISH] The present article is a contribution to the development of metrological structural realism. This position of philosophy of science goes back to Matthias Neuber, who introduces it as a third variation of the main structural realisms: epistemic structural realism and ontic structural realism. Here, Neuber attempts to tackle the problems of OSR and ESR while preserving their respective strengths. Of central importance to his approach, are the concepts of invariance, structure and, especially, measurement. Starting from Eino Kaila’s „non-linguistic, realist (...) account of logical empricism“, the present article investigates the necessity of yet another position of structural realism. The established structural realisms are examined for their strengths and weaknesses. Afterwards, the requirements on MSR are formulated in a way that extends beyond Neuber’s account. These requirements are of ontological, epistemological and metrological nature. -/- [DEUTSCH] Der vorliegende Aufsatz ist ein Beitrag zur Entwicklung des Metrologischen Strukturenrealismus. Diese Wissenschaftstheoretische Position geht auf Matthias Neuber zurück, der sie als dritte Spielart zwischen den großen Strukturenrealismen – dem Epistemischen Strukturenrealismus und dem Ontischen Strukturenrealismus – ansiedelt. Neuber versucht, die wissenschaftstheoretischen Probleme von ESR und OSR anzugehen, gleichzeitig aber ihre jeweiligen Stärken beizubehalten. Dabei sind die Konzepte der Invarianz, der Struktur und besonders der Messung von zentraler Bedeutung. Ausgehend von Eino Kailas „non-linguistic, realist account of logical empiricism“ untersucht der vorliegende Aufsatz die Notwendigkeit einer weiteren strukturenrealistischen Position. Dazu werden die etablierten Strukturenrealismen auf ihre Stärken und Schwächen hin untersucht. Es folgt eine Ausformulierung der Forderungen an den MSR, die über die Darstellung bei Neuber hinaus geht. Diese Forderungen sind ontologischer, epistemischer und metrologischer Natur. (shrink)

The author proposes that Tomasello's kind of asking and answering questions is a kind of quasi transcendental naturalism . It is transcendental in the sense that he asks about the structural and functional conditions that enable emprical phenomena. But he changes the direction of this question to its answer – namely to different time frames in nature and to empirical methods. Furthermore, the article proposes precisions of his conception regarding the intelligence of chimpanzees; the problem of imitation ; the difference (...) between biological environment, socio-cultural environment and frames of worlds for persons. Finally, the article limits his explanatory claims with regard to the distinctions community versus society, concrete roles versus generalized roles of others, and to the personal pronouns of you , we, you and they differing from the usual dualism of first person percpective versus third person perspective in singular. (shrink)

It might seem inappropriate to describe Kant as an empiricist. He believed, contrary to the basic empiricist principle, that there are nontrivial propositions that can be known independently of experience. He devoted virtually all of his efforts as a researcher to discovering how it is possible for us to have this "synthetic a priori" knowledge. However, Kant also believed that there are some things that we can know only through sensory experience. Though he did not give these empirical propositions the (...) attention he lavished on their a priori companions, they are both numerous and significant. The purpose of this article is to examine the role of empirical elements in Kant's thought, and to expand on some of the implications that a due appreciation of this empiricism has for the interpretation of his positions on causality, the systematic unity of laws, and realism. In the process a pair of hitherto neglected Kantian notions will come up for close scrutiny: those of affinity and of the exponent of a rule. (shrink)

One of the most common criticisms one hears of the idea of granting a legitimate role for social values in theory choice in science is that it just doesn’t make sense to regard social preferences as relevant to the truth or to the way things are. “What is at issue,” wrote Susan Haack, is “whether it is possible to derive an ‘is’ from an ‘ought.’ ” One can see that this is not possible, she concludes, “as soon as one expresses (...) it plainly: that propositions about what states of affairs are desirable or deplorable could be evidence that things are, or are not, so” (Haack 1993a, 35, emphasis in original). The purpose of this chapter is not to determine whether this widespread view is correct, but rather to show that even if we grant it (which I do), we may still consistently believe that social values have a legitimate role in theory choice in science. I will defend this conclusion by outlining a view about social values and theory choice that is available to a Constructive Empiricist anti-realist, but not to a realist. (shrink)