_How does a man who once adored music beyond measure come to revile it as a form of tyranny?_ Throughout Pascal Quignard’s distinguished literary career, music has been a recurring obsession. As a musician he organized the International Festival of Baroque Opera and Theatre at Versailles in the early 1990s, and thus was instrumental in the rediscovery of much forgotten classical music. Yet in 1994 he abruptly renounced all musical activities. _The Hatred of Music_ is Quignard’s masterful exploration of the (...) power of music and what history reveals about the dangers it poses. From prehistoric chants to challenging contemporary compositions, Quignard reflects on music of all kinds and eras. He draws on vast cultural knowledge—the Bible, Greek mythology, early modern history, modern philosophy, the Holocaust, and more—to develop ten accessible treatises on music. In each of these small masterpieces the author exposes music’s potential to manipulate, to mesmerize, to domesticate. Especially disturbing is his scrutiny of the role music played in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. Quignard’s provocative book takes on particular relevance today, as we find ourselves surrounded by music as never before in history. (shrink)

_How does a man who once adored music beyond measure come to revile it as a form of tyranny?_ Throughout Pascal Quignard’s distinguished literary career, music has been a recurring obsession. As a musician he organized the International Festival of Baroque Opera and Theatre at Versailles in the early 1990s, and thus was instrumental in the rediscovery of much forgotten classical music. Yet in 1994 he abruptly renounced all musical activities. _The Hatred of Music_ is Quignard’s masterful exploration of the (...) power of music and what history reveals about the dangers it poses. From prehistoric chants to challenging contemporary compositions, Quignard reflects on music of all kinds and eras. He draws on vast cultural knowledge—the Bible, Greek mythology, early modern history, modern philosophy, the Holocaust, and more—to develop ten accessible treatises on music. In each of these small masterpieces the author exposes music’s potential to manipulate, to mesmerize, to domesticate. Especially disturbing is his scrutiny of the role music played in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. Quignard’s provocative book takes on particular relevance today, as we find ourselves surrounded by music as never before in history. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Prufrock's Question and Roquentin's AnswerWilliam IrwinThere could not be two more different literary figures than the right-wing, religious T. S. Eliot and the left-wing, atheistic Jean-Paul Sartre. Yet there are striking connections between their first major publications, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1917) and Nausea (1938). Eliot was aware of and critical of Sartre, especially in the commentary on No Exit in The Cocktail Party, and, no (...) doubt, Sartre became aware of Eliot.1 But as far as can be gleaned, Sartre did not read Eliot's Prufrock, prior to the publication of Nausea, despite his connection to Adrienne Monnier, the French translator of the poem. Indeed Simone de Beauvoir documents the couple's reading habits in some detail in The Prime of Life, including their admiration for Hemingway and Faulkner during that time, but there is no mention of Eliot or Prufrock.2Both the poem and the novel present us with subjective, mood-laden impressions of the internal melancholic lives of their protagonists. Like Prufrock, Roquentin admits "My passion was dead."3Nausea is presented as a diary intended to be read by no one, and Prufrock is presented as a self-confession that no one is to hear. As Guido da Montefeltro in the poem's epigram is willing to speak to Dante because he believes Dante will never return to share what he has heard with the living, so Prufrock is solipsistically introspecting. The "you" of "Let us go then, you and I" is likely Prufrock addressing himself. But if it is addressed to another person, it can only be a reader who is as hopeless as he is, with no chance of return or redemption—only such a reader would really understand what is said. The final line of the poem "Till human voices wake us, and we drown" takes us back to the "patient etherized upon a table." Like Roquentin, Prufrock has taken himself and the reader [End Page 184] by proxy on an inner journey, a dream-like state in which the real and surreal come together.In the opening stanza of the poem, Prufrock describes his internal cityscape as including "Streets that follow like a tedious argument / Of insidious intent / To lead you to an overwhelming question... / Oh, do not ask, 'What is it?'" The question is mentioned twice more, but it is never articulated. Obviously it is an issue of great existential import concerning the meaning of life. Though Prufrock does not verbalize it, the question must be essentially Roquentin's question to himself: "Can you justify your existence then? Just a little?" (p. 177).As we shall see, even though Sartre's philosophy as developed in Nausea and crystallized in Being and Nothingness comes later and likely with no knowledge of Prufrock, the philosophy can still shed light on the poem—and in a way that in turn elucidates the philosophy.4IMeaning for Sartre is found in existence itself, emerging through the coloring and conceptualization of consciousness.5 While this does not necessarily imply the stereotypical existential view that life is bleak, meaningless, and possibly not worth living, this does nevertheless seem to be the conclusion that Roquentin draws early in Nausea. Consider this dark concern: "My existence began to worry me seriously. Was I not a simple spectre?" (p. 86). Early in the novel Roquentin concludes "Nothing happens while you live. The scenery changes, people come in and go out, that's all. There are no beginnings. Days are tacked on to days without rhyme or reason, an interminable, monotonous addition" (p. 39). This life as Roquentin describes it sounds eerily like the humdrum pointless existence of Prufrock, who has measured out his life with coffee spoons and spit out the butt-ends of his days and ways amidst the monotony of women who come and go talking of Michelangelo—a great man he resembles not at all.Later in the novel Roquentin admits "And it was true, I had always realized it; I hadn't the right to exist. I had appeared by chance, I existed like a stone, a plant or a microbe. My life put... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rhetoric on the Bleachers, or, The Rhetorician as MelancholiacPhilippe-Joseph SalazarThose who cannot remember rhetoric are condemned to repeat it.*French philosopher Jacques Bouveresse (2008) asks, in his most recent book, Why is it that we think we need literary works, in addition to science and philosophy, to help solve moral questions? As one reviewer notes, this comes as a surprise from a man “better known as a specialist of Wittgenstein, (...) who has always defended philosophy, often with scathing irony, against brainless realism, and, in any case, defended the prerogatives of a reason reasonably attentive to reality, a defense that led him to dismiss relativism and its mixing up of truth and verifiability with fallacy and verisimilitude” (Maggiori 2008). 1Bouveresse, who holds the chair of the philosophy of language and knowledge at Collège de France, and whose elevation to this hallowed professorship was portrayed as a revenge of sorts against Jacques Derrida, is not unimportant for those in rhetoric studies who have an interest in philosophy as well.2 He is the one who, with indeed scathing irony, unraveled the rhetorical stakes of the unrivaled Sokal truancy against Social Text (Bouveresse 1999), namely, how analogy provides a common ground for the literary and the scientific within public discourse.3Bouveresse (1999, 129) recalls, tongue in cheek, how that famed connoisseur in manipulations, [End Page 356] Alexander Zinoviev, explains, in The Yawning Heights (1979), that sciences produce their own “doubles” for the sake of public argument. The literary use of scientific analogy mimics the way in which ideology has to produce its own “doubles” in order to exist in public consciousness.For Bouveresse, literary intellectuals, and some philosophers, manufacture doubles of science because our life is lived under the shadow of science insofar as it has something to say about everything we do as moral agents or think in terms of practical reason. Analogy rules therefore by a popular demand for science. To question analogy in relation to ethics—belief and opinion, custom and habitus, temperament and character—under the gaze of the massive presence of science in public discourse (from campaign claims of “experience” to policy claims made on the basis of scientific knowledge) is at once to engage with rhetoric.4 It is to ask the question: Why do we feel that, alongside science, philosophy, and works of fiction, we need to listen to that double, “speeches,” to solve ethical problems?However, at this juncture, or crossroad where doubles point in various directions, rhetoricians have a choice among four attitudes, or four paths (to put it in Heideggerian fashion). Faced with the real, moral dangers inherent to analogy, one can (like Bouveresse) be combative and assert reason’s prerogative against the sophistry of doubles; one may defend analogy as morally grounded or even a means to resistance (hence, the moral incentive Bouveresse now attaches to fiction); one may argue for a culture replete with figurations (by and large, a matter of religious belief and faith as truth, which necessitates an analogical reading of this debased reality called “the world”); or one may, having already played on these teams, decide to stay on the bleachers, watch players of this three-cornered game, and fall into melancholy.Thomas Farrell was, I think, a melancholic rhetorician. I do not mean he was not here and there combative, or sanguine, or controversial, merely that from his writings emanates a stubborn melancholy regarding the destiny of rhetoric, or, to recall the epigram placed, ironically, at the top of this essay: “Those who cannot remember rhetoric are condemned to repeat it.” In essence, our public is a-rhetorical; it evolves in a world of instant communication, of short-lived prudence, of ever-disappearing persuasion, while, at the same time, it is made to cling to opinions raised to standards of absolute value and unnegotiable belief. The main reason why rhetoric is no longer a technē lies in this tension. It cannot be a technē because [End Page 357] its rules and artifacts are divorced from culture. It cannot be an epistēmē because its productions are singular constructions.Rhetoricians are not rhetors, and rhetors have long vanished. Indeed, there are eloquent... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:On Women Englishing Homer RICHARD HUGHES GIBSON Seven kingdoms strove in which should swell the womb / That bore great Homer; whom Fame freed from tomb,” so begins the fourth of “Certain ancient Greek Epigrams ” that George Chapman placed at the head of his Odyssey at its debut in 1615.1 The epigram was no mere antiquarian dressing for the text. It suggests a historical parallel with the translator’s (...) own feat—for this Odyssey appeared on the heels of Chapman’s 1611 Iliad, the first complete English translation of Homer directly from the Greek. Indeed, the title page of that Iliad boasted, “Never before in any language truly translated” (italics mine). In “Englishing ” Homer (as he put it), Chapman had vanquished not only local rivals but also the whole international field.2 Through Chapman, England bore Homer anew. Yet within a few decades challengers appeared. An octogenarian Thomas Hobbes published an Odyssey translation in 1675 and an Iliad the following year. Alexander Pope’s versions (Iliad, 1715–1720; Odyssey, 1726) were bestsellers in the next century, yet others soon enough sought to better them, including the poet William Cowper (Iliad, 1791; Odyssey, 1809). The rate of Homeric production then intensified in the nineteenth century, becoming in Edith Hall’s apt phrase a “national pastime” in Victorian Britain—and, I would add, in the United States too.3 In the 1860s, a new English Iliad or Odyssey debuted nearly every year, making Matthew Arnold, then Professor of Poetry at Oxford, seem prescient in selecting “On Translating Homer” as the topic for his 1860 lecture series. Anglo-American output of new English Homers has been steady ever since. The opening decades arion 26.3 winter 2019 of our century have been especially high-yielding—more than ten new Iliads and eight new Odysseys have appeared in print alongside fresh editions of twentieth-century favorites. Digital versions now circulate, too. To Chapman we might thus reply: Once seven Greek cities strove to be Homer’s nurse; now seventy tomes vie to be his English verse. Run down the complete bibliography, and a pattern already hinted in my list of notables becomes pronounced: name after name after name belongs to a man. Flip around a bit, and one can often find traces of women in these volumes. Hobbes, for example, argued in the preface to his translations that women have as “just” a “pretence” (in the sense of “claim”) as men to the moral education afforded by heroic poems, though one might cynically read this as a marketing strategy.4 Pope readily acknowledged his debt to the scholarship of Anne Le Fèvre Dacier, Homer’s first French female translator, and listed prominent female supporters in the subscription lists at the front of his editions.5 Women thus long factored into the business of “Englishing” classical texts, though almost exclusively as paying audience members. For more than four centuries, Homer’s English audience listened to a boys’ choir. That tune has only just begun to change thanks to the efforts of three women: the classicist and nonfiction writer Caroline Alexander, who became the first woman to publish a complete English Iliad in 2015; Emily Wilson, Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, who published the first English Odyssey by a female translator in 2017; and the poet Alice Oswald, whose selective translation of the Iliad, Memorial, appeared in 2011.6 By virtue of their appearance in such short order, these books have been, and surely will be henceforth, grouped together. And rightly so: ending the male monopoly on the English channel to Homer is a major development. The Homeric epics have not only shaped Western culture; they enjoy enduring prestige. You still need to know Homer to fancy yourself “well-read.” These three books are thus 36 on women englishing homer potent symbols. They mark the passage of English-speaking women from the audience of male efforts to curate and transmit tradition to participants in those endeavors—from the subscription lists, we might say, to the title page. We sell these translations short, though, if we allow their collective meaning to obscure the patent differences in Alexander’s, Wilson’s, and Oswald... (shrink)

Ryle's recent retirement after almost a half-century of study, teaching and writing might well be regarded as the end of an era. A large segment of the philosophical world has come to regard him as the embodiment of the spirit of Oxford. His clear and informal style, his gift for fresh analogies and striking similes, his mastery of the epigram, have set new literary standards for philosophical writing. Largely responsible for inaugurating the B. Phil. and D. Phil. programs after World (...) War II for the benefit of graduate students from abroad, Ryle both as Waynflete professor of metaphysics and editor of Mind has enormously influenced the thinking of Anglo-American philosophers. Apart from his Concept of Mind, Dilemmas and Plato's Progress, his writings have taken the form of reviews, short articles or essays addressed to specific philosophical issues. Though many of these have become minor classics and have graced innumerable anthologies, it is only now that we have virtually the whole of this important segment of his writings available in book form. With the exception of four essays published originally in French, the papers in these two volumes have been published previously in English, mostly in the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Analysis or Mind. They range in time from his early days at Oxford to 1968 and cover a wide range of topics, mainly in the areas of philosophical methodology, the philosophy of logic and the philosophy of mind. Only the fields of moral, political and aesthetic philosophy are comparatively neglected. The first volume contains his critical essays on individual thinkers. They include studies on Plato, Locke and Hume as well as his pieces on such contemporary thinkers as Husserl, Heidegger, Carnap, Wittgenstein, G. E. Moore and John Anderson, who dominated the Australian scene during the first half of this century. The second volume contains 37 pieces dating back to 1929. It is worth mentioning that despite their brevity, Ryle's introductions to these volumes throw considerable light on his philosophical development. While professional philosophers will be happy to have these collected papers in their present form, we hope they will soon become available in less costly editions for student use.--A. B. W. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:La poétique d’Ovide, de l’élégie à l’épopée des Métamorphoses: Essai sur un style dans l’histoirePramit ChaudhuriAnne Videau. La poétique d’Ovide, de l’élégie à l’épopée des Métamorphoses: Essai sur un style dans l’histoire. Rome et ses renaissances. Paris: Presses de l’université Paris-Sorbonne, 2010. 608 pp. Paper, €22.Anne Videau’s detailed study of Ovidian elegy and epic is, above all, about the stylistic manifestations of Ovid’s response to power: how the (...) macroscopic interplay of lover and beloved, ruler and subject, are represented in antitheses, allusions, and verbal conceits. In addition to several smaller, recurrent themes [End Page 528] running through the book—ambiguity of expression and apotheosis, to name but two—the larger argument attempts to sketch a unified picture of Ovid’s poetics as informed by generic expectations and historical context. The book consists of two parts, the first of which is as much a history of Roman elegy as a study of Ovid and identifies some distinguishing features of the genre that will resurface in the Metamorphoses. The second part, though it begins with a similar attempt to contextualize the epic’s place in the genre, focuses on a selection of episodes in the Metamorphoses, principally the Theban cycle of Books 3–4 (those interested in this part of the poem now have plenty to digest in Videau’s substantial reading set alongside Micaela Janan’s recent monograph). Despite the politico-cultural analyses promised at the outset and discussed mainly in the final chapter and conclusion, concerns of generic tradition and verbal play predominate and, indeed, this is where the strength of the book lies.The author engages with a wide range of scholarship in multiple languages, though she makes especially extensive use of work by Gilles Tronchet and Jacqueline Fabre-Serris. Readers less familiar with the French scholarship will find Videau’s concerns and approach a particularly refreshing complement to recent Anglophone studies of Ovid and Augustan culture by, e.g., Andrew Feldherr and Michèle Lowrie. Those who know Videau’s own earlier work, however, will recognize an unusually large proportion of the book’s content from previous publications. The attempt to yoke them together has mixed results, and some readers will find the whole less compelling than the individual components, despite their frequent brilliance.The chapters in part 1 explore the coherence in the Roman elegiac tradition both internally and in its relationship to Greek precedents. Videau is primarily interested in the historical moment of Roman elegy, its meditations on erotics and power, and (in part 2) the related developments of the erotika pathēmata theme in the Metamorphoses. Before getting to Ovid, she introduces the main topics through an extended reading of Catullus 66 (chap. 1), a precursor to Roman love elegy and a useful comparandum with the Hellenistic tradition (given the length of her analysis, a text of the poem might have been included). Videau traces its themes of liminality, feminine perspective, and dependency on a figure of power through the later poets, culminating with Ovid’s exile poetry. She shows in particular how Catullus’ poem inaugurates a tradition by combining and adapting the generic functions of ex-voto and funerary epigram through Berenice’s dedication of the lock for the welfare of Ptolemy and the lock’s separation from the queen through catasterism (59 ff.). The duality of the poem and its unusual protagonist—hovering between generic roles and states of existence—describes the situation of the elegiac poet and lover learning to cope with a new and destabilizing condition, whether political or erotic. These issues are explored in greater depth in the subsequent chapters, which discuss, among other subjects, the generic roots of the oscillation between anger and peace in Ovid’s depiction of the princeps (178 ff.), and the increasingly marked tension between elegy and epic from Tibullus to Ovid (205 ff.). In certain cases the exposition of familiar [End Page 529] issues can seem belabored, but even the overlong treatment of liminality in Tibullus, for instance, contains rewarding close readings of the text, such as the spatio-temporal effects... (shrink)

This paper considers some issues to do with valuational presentations of consequence relations, and the Galois connections between spaces of valuations and spaces of consequence relations. Some of what we present is known, and some even well-known; but much is new. The aim is a systematic overview of a range of results applicable to nonreflexive and nontransitive logics, as well as more familiar logics. We conclude by considering some connectives suggested by this approach.

• Why does topicalization decline in Middle English but not disappear? If the change a parametric one, it should go to completion. Otherwise, topicalization, a clear case of stylistic variation might be expected to be stable in frequency over time.

Steven French and Decio Krause examine the metaphysical foundations of quantum physics. They draw together historical, logical, and philosophical perspectives on the fundamental nature of quantum particles and offer new insights on a range of important issues. Focusing on the concepts of identity and individuality, the authors explore two alternative metaphysical views; according to one, quantum particles are no different from books, tables, and people in this respect; according to the other, they most certainly are. Each view comes with certain (...) costs attached and after describing their origins in the history of quantum theory, the authors carefully consider whether these costs are worth bearing. Recent contributions to these discussions are analyzed in detail and the authors present their own original perspective on the issues. The final chapter suggests how this perspective can be taken forward in the context of quantum field theory. (shrink)

The view that quantum particles cannot be regarded as individuals was articulated in the early days of the 'quantum revolution' and became so well-entrenched that French and Krause called it 'the Received View'. However it was subsequently shown that quantum statistics is in fact compatible with a metaphysics of particle individuality, subject to certain caveats. As a consequent it has been claim that there exists a kind of underdetermination of the metaphysics by the physics which in turn has been used (...) to motivate a form of 'notice' structural realism. In this essay I will review this purported underdetermination and the motivation for structural realism that it purportedly provides in the context of recent developments in both the philosophy of physics and metaphysics. I aim to conclude that such developments reinforce the underdetermination and allow one to respond to certain critical concerns regarding its motivational power. (shrink)

Quasi-set theory has been proposed as a means of handling collections of indiscernible objects. Although the most direct application of the theory is quantum physics, it can be seen per se as a non-classical logic (a non-reflexive logic). In this paper we revise and correct some aspects of quasi-set theory as presented in [12], so as to avoid some misunderstandings and possible misinterpretations about the results achieved by the theory. Some further ideas with regard to quantum field theory are also (...) advanced in this paper. (shrink)

We give a simple sequent calculus presentation of R.B. Angell’s logic of analytic containment, recently championed by Kit Fine as a plausible logic of partial content.

Steven French articulates and defends the bold claim that there are no objects in the world. He draws on metaphysics and philosophy of science to argue for structural realism--the position that we live in a world of structures--and defends a form of eliminativism about objects that sets laws and symmetry principles at the heart of ontology.

Explores the philosophy of corporate responsibility in in terms of collective vs individualist theory. It reports and defends distinctions among collectivities that run counter to individualist theory, develops a theory of the corporation as a moral person, and provides applications of the theory to actual cases.

We present four classical theories of counterpossibles that combine modalities and counterfactuals. Two theories are anti-vacuist and forbid vacuously true counterfactuals, two are quasi-vacuist and allow counterfactuals to be vacuously true when their antecedent is not only impossible, but also inconceivable. The theories vary on how they restrict the interaction of modalities and counterfactuals. We provide a logical cartography with precise acceptable boundaries, illustrating to what extent nonvacuism about counterpossibles can be reconciled with classical logic.

RésuméLe Dr French résume ici très briévement les idées développées dans un ouvrage qu'il publiera prochainement sous le titre Intégration of behavior . – Le comportement comprend deux aspects essentiels que ľon peut désigner des termes de motivation et compréhension intelligente {insight). Cette dernière àété admirablement analľsée par ľécole gestaltiste , qui à cependant eu le tort de la présenter comme de soi consciente. Or, il ľà des insights inconscients, áľœuvre par exemple dans ľacquisition des réflexes conditionnels, des habiletés motrices (...) et de certaines réactions pathologiques. Conscient ou inconscient, ľinsight implique un groupement sľstématique des données sensorielles, non plus considérées isolément, mais mises en relation les unes avec les autrès.La manifestation la plus simple ?insight est la construction ?un champ cognitif qui choisit et groupe les données élémentaires, et fait répondre, non plus à ces données séparément, mais à leur groupement. Le cognitive field peut demeurer purement cognitif. II prend le nom de champ intégratif lorsqu'il exerce une influence régulatrice sur le comportement. Ces champs intégratifs ne restent pas isolés. lis interfèrent et se combinent entre eux, par exemple dans ľaction à long terme, par un processus de résonance ou ?induction mutuelle. Ceci joue notamment dans les cas ou ľindividu fait des plans relativement à un but éloigné. Une induction mutuelle s'établit alors entre le champ de ľimagination et celui de la réalité et de la perception.Champs cognitifs et intégratifs sont activeés par des pressions motivationnelles ?intensité variable. II faut ici distinguer entre pressions purement négatives, qui poussent ľindividu àéchapper à un état de dissatisfaction et tendent à se décharger en activités musculaires diffuses, et pressions positives, stimulées par ľespoir et par la présence ou le souvenir ?une satisfaction possible dans ľenvironnement. Besoins et espoirs jouent dans le comportement un rôle complémentaire. Ľespoir substitue á la primitive décharge motrice caractéristique des besoins, une activité canalisée et orientée vers le but. Ceci, qui peut être inné dans les espèces animales inférieures, est chez ľhomme matière ?apprentissage. Pour atteindre un but, ľhomme doit apprendre á inhiber les décharges motrices originelles, et á leur substituer une conduite guidée par ľespoir, les mécanismes ?intégration et la construction de plans.Le succès de cette entreprise dépend de ľintensité de la pression motivationnelle. Si celle‐ci dépasse certaines limites , les mécanismes ?intégration et ?élaboration de plans sont rendus plus difficiles et Ľindividuperd la tête, c'est‐à‐dire que Ľinsight régulateur ne peut plus contrôler les décharges motrices. Comme c'est ľespoir du succès qui déclenche le travail ?intégration et de prévision, la capacityé?intégration ?un individu dans une circonstance donnée augmente en proportion de ses espoirs de succès et diminue en proportion de ses appréhensions ?échec.Ces considérations nous acheminent jusqu'aux réactions pathologiques, névrotiques et psychotiques, dont s'occupe la psychanalyse. Dans ces comportements irrationnels, les mécanismes ?intégration ont, sous ľeffet des facteurs qui viennent ?être indiqués, subi une sorte de fragmentation, suivie ?habitude par des réintégrations partielles de certains de leurs fragments. (shrink)

Cartwright and her collaborators have elaborated a provocative view of science which emphasises the independence from theory &unknown;in methods and aims&unknown; of phenomenological model building. This thesis has been supported in a recent paper by an analysis of the London and London model of superconductivity. In the present work we begin with a critique of Cartwright's account of the relationship between theoretical and phenomenological models before elaborating an alternative picture within the framework of the partial structures version of the semantic (...) approach to theories. Drawing on the recent histories of superconductivity by Dahl and Gavroglu, together with the original works by London and London and by F. London separately, and taking due consideration of the heuristic aspects, we argue that the historical details fail to support Cartwright et al.'s claims but that they fit comfortably within the partial structures framework. (shrink)

Stein once urged us not to confuse the means of representation with that which is being represented. Yet that is precisely what philosophers of science appear to have done at the meta-level when it comes to representing the practice of science. Proponents of the so-called ‘syntactic’ view identify theories as logically closed sets of sentences or propositions and models as idealised interpretations, or ‘theoruncula, as Braithwaite called them. Adherents of the ‘semantic’ approach, on the other hand, are typically characterised as (...) taking them to be families of models that are set-theoretic, according to Suppes and others, or abstract, as Giere has argued. da Costa and French (Science and Partial Truth. OUP, Oxford, 2003) suggested that we should refrain from ontological speculation as to the nature of scientific theories and models and focus on their appropriate representation for various purposes within the philosophy of science. Such an approach allows both linguistic and non-linguistic resources to play their appropriate role (see also French and Saatsi, Philosophy of Science, Proceedings of the 2004 PSA Meeting, 78:548–559, 2006) and can be supported by recent case studies illustrating the heterogeneity of scientific practice. My aim in this paper is to further develop this ‘quietist’ view, and to indicate how it offers a fruitful way forward for the philosophy of science. (shrink)

In There Are No Such Things As Theories (French 2020), the reification of theories is critically analysed and rejected. My aim here is to tease out some of the implications of this approach first of all, for how we, philosophers of science, should view the history of science; secondly, for how we should understand the devices that we use in our own philosophical practices; and thirdly, for how we might think about the relationship between the history of science and the (...) philosophy of science. (shrink)

Lowe has recently argued that quantum particles offer examples of vague objects. While accepting the premise of the argument that such particles can be regarded as individuals, we point out that there is a lacuna here, to be filled by a detailed analysis of the nature of the entangled states which they enter into. We then elaborate the alternative view, according to which such particles should be regarded as non- individuals' and situate it in the context of recent developments of (...) a logic of non- individuality. Our conclusion is that it is here that one encounters genuine ontic vagueness. (shrink)

Challenges conventional wisdom and presents the most up-to-date studies to define, quantify and test the predictions of the main models of implicit learning.

The semantic, or model-theoretic, approach to theories has recently come under criticism on two fronts: (i) it is claimed that it cannot account for the wide diversity of models employed in scientific practice—a claim which has led some to propose a “deflationary” account of models; (ii) it is further contended that the sense of “model” used by the approach differs from that given in model theory. Our aim in the present work is to articulate a possible response to these claims, (...) drawing on recent developments within the semantic approach itself. Thus, the first is answered by utilizing the notion of a “partial structure”, first introduced in this context by da Costa and French in 1990. The second claim is undermined by consideration of van Fraassen's understanding of “model” which corresponds well with that evinced by modem mathematicians. This latter discussion, in particular, has an impact on the continuing debate regarding the relative merits of the semantic and syntactic views and the developments presented here can be taken to provide further support to the former. (shrink)

What role have experiments played, and should they play, in physics? How does one come to believe rationally in experimental results? The Neglect of Experiment attempts to provide answers to both of these questions. Professor Franklin's approach combines the detailed study of four episodes in the history of twentieth century physics with an examination of some of the philosophical issues involved. The episodes are the discovery of parity nonconservation in the 1950s; the nondiscovery of parity nonconservation in the 1930s, when (...) the results of experiments indicated, at least in retrospect, the symmetry violation, but the significance of those results was not realized; the discovery and acceptance of CP symmetry; and Millikan's oil-drop experiment. Franklin examines the various roles that experiment plays, including its role in deciding between competing theories, confirming theories, and calling fo new theories. The author argues that one can provide a philosophical justification for these roles. He contends that if experiment plays such important roles, then one must have good reason to believe in experimental results. He then deals with deveral problems concerning such reslults, including the epistemology of experiment, how one comes to believe rationally in experimental results, the question of the influence of theoretical presuppositions on results, and the problem of scientific fruad. This original and important contribution to the study of the philosophy of experimental science is an outgrowth of many years of research. Franklin brings to this work more than a decade of experience as an experimental high-energy physicist, along with his significant contributions to the history and philosophy of science. (shrink)

My purposes in this paper are to explain the constitutive-regulative distinction as set out by Kant in the Dialectic and Methodology, and to note its reappearance in contemporary philosophy.

Peter French examines the world of the western, one in which death is annihilation, the culmination of life, and there is nothing else. In that world he finds alternatives to Judeo-Christian traditions that dominate our ethical theories, alternatives that also attack the views of the most prominent ethicists of the past three centuries.

Philosophical Issues, Volume 30, Issue 1, Page 102-119, October 2020.