Since the publication of Carl Hempel and Paul Oppenheim's ground-breaking work "Studies in the Logic of Explanation," the theory of explanation has remained a major topic in the philosophy of science. This valuable collection provides readers with the opportunity to study some of the classic essays on the theory of explanation along with the best examples of the most recent work being done on the topic. In addition to the original Hempel and Oppenheim paper, the volume includes Scriven's critical reaction (...) to it, Wilfrid Sellars's discussion of the problem of theoretical explanation, and pieces by Salmon, Railton, van Fraassen, Friedman, Kitcher, and Achinstein in which they demonstrate the vitality of the subject by extending the scope of the inquiry. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

The question is how do Scanning Electron Microscopes (SEMs) give us access to the nano world? The images these instruments produce, I argue, do not allow us to see atoms in the same way that we see trees. To the extent that SEMs and STMs allow us to see the occupants of the nano world it is by way of metaphorical extension of the concept of “seeing”. The more general claim is that changes in scientific instrumentation effect changes in the (...) concepts central to our understanding of scientific results. (shrink)

Provides a set of normative measure sto assess the value of nature and proposes the new discipline of foundational ecology as a response to environmental crisis.

This volume is focused on understanding a key idea in modern semantics-direct reference-and its integration into a general semantics for natural language.

A thesis familiar by being as often disputed as defended has it that intentional action is action for a reason. The present paper contributes to the defence of a weaker version of it, namely: Acting with an intention or a purpose is acting (as things appear to one) for a reason.

Most causal discovery algorithms in the literature exploit an assumption usually referred to as the Causal Faithfulness or Stability Condition. In this paper, we highlight two components of the condition used in constraint-based algorithms, which we call “Adjacency-Faithfulness” and “Orientation- Faithfulness.” We point out that assuming Adjacency-Faithfulness is true, it is possible to test the validity of Orientation- Faithfulness. Motivated by this observation, we explore the consequence of making only the Adjacency-Faithfulness assumption. We show that the familiar PC algorithm has (...) to be modified to be correct under the weaker, Adjacency-Faithfulness assumption. The modified algorithm, called Conservative PC (CPC), checks whether Orientation- Faithfulness holds in the orientation phase, and if not, avoids drawing certain causal conclusions the PC algorithm would draw. Howtion: ever, if the stronger, standard causal Faith-. (shrink)

In this paper I focus on John Locke as a representative figure of English Enlightenment theorizing about the legitimacy of cognitive authority and examine the way in which a greater attention to the cultural milieu in which Locke worked can lead to a profound reexamination of his writings on cognitive authority. In particular, I suggest that an inattention to the rise of a culture of reading and the growing availability of books in Early Modern England has led historians of philosophy (...) largely to misrepresent Locke's theory of testimonial justification. At the core of my paper are two interrelated claims. First, with respect to the history of ideas, I argue that the Locke's interest in testimony as a source of justification was in fact greater than that of his Scholastic forebears, and that this fact has a simple, if as yet unacknowledged, cultural cause -- viz., the rise of the book as a mass commodity in the late 17th century. Second, with respect to the history of philosophy more particularly, I argue that this failure to acknowledge the cultural movements that led to a consideration of testimony as a topic of interest to epistemologists in the Modern era has led to a misreading of Locke's work on the subject. Indeed, Locke, though usually read as having attempted to denigrate testimony as a legitimate source of justification, in fact sought to devise an epistemology that would do justice to the centrality of testimony in the intellectual lives of growing numbers of his contemporaries in 17th and 18th century England and Scotland. (shrink)

Arthur Fine has recently argued that standard realist and anti-realist interpretations of science should be replaced by "natural ontological attitude" (NOA). I ask whether Fine's own justification for NOA can meet the standards of argument that underlie his criticisms of realism and anti-realism. Fine vacillates between two different ways of advocating NOA. The more minimalist defense ("why not try NOA?") begs the question against both realists and antirealists. A stronger program, based on Fine's arguments for a "no-theory" of truth, has (...) promise, but the arguments must be developed in a stronger, more general form if they are to justify NOA. (shrink)

If we can save the lives of only one of multiple groups of people, we might be inclined simply to save whichever group is largest. We may worry, though, that automatically saving the largest group fails to take each saveable individual sufficiently into account, offering some of these individuals no chance at all of being rescued. Still wanting to give larger groups higher chances of survival, we may then say that we ought to employ a proportionally weighted lottery to determine (...) which group to save. In this paper, I argue that this would be a mistake. Given the most plausible way of specifying it, the weighted-lottery view itself fails to treat each saveable individual with equal moral respect. (shrink)

Technological advancements, especially with regard to enhancements of human capacities and powers, have instigated a collision between opposing views of the human person. I begin with the premise that the predominant classical view of the human person attained its clearest and most cogent expression in the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas and can be termed the theory of the homo integralis. The human person is, for Thomas, the integrated being par excellence: he is a union of the material (body) and the (...) immaterial (soul); his freedom is guided by a normative nature; he is himself a product of and participant in nature; he is a member of a common species from which he draws his identity; and he balances the needs of his embodied state with a recognition that his existence is not limited to it. Due to the philosophical and technological revolutions of the modern period, themselves an outgrowth perhaps of earlier attitudes, a contrasting view of the human person emerged: the homo technologicus. Technological man, unlike his classical predecessor, is marked by fundamental disintegration: he is divided in himself, between mind and body; he is dissociated from a normative human nature; he is divided from nature itself as he sets himself against it through technological means; he is divided from the human community in radical, self-determining autonomy; and he is severed from any sense of transcendent purpose or value aside from that which can be attained through his own powers, technological or otherwise. By recovering a sense of the homo integralis as articulated by Thomas Aquinas, a fresh appraisal of contemporary issues regarding the human relationship to technology, human capacities and powers as evaluated by movements like transhumanism, and ultimately, human meaning and value, is made possible and is shown to provide a consistent and appealing rejoinder to the disintegrated vision of man that emerges in a technologized world. (shrink)

The author identifies the major micro-, meso-, and macro-level financial risk shifting factors that contributed to the Great Global Recession and how the absence of a compelling moral vision of responsible financial risk management perpetuated the economic crisis and undermined the recovery by blind reliance upon insufficiently accountable bailouts. The author offers a new theoretical model of Sustainable Stakeholder Capitalism by exercising moral imagination which inclusively and moderately balances four multi-level factors: types of capitalism, moral theories, human nature drives, and (...) credit risk profiles. Finally, the author recommends micro-, meso-, and macro-level practical reforms to prevent a recurrence of the current economic freefall, to re-create systemic global financial institution integrity, and to promote responsible risk management for sustainable global prosperity for current and future generations. (shrink)

Au Centre Pompidou-Metz, faisant écho à l'exposition inaugurale, un colloque international a étudié de manière pluridisciplinaire et transversale la question du chef-d'œuvre. Loin de se focaliser sur le débat esthétique, les diverses approches ont assigné le droit, l'histoire, la sociologie, l'économie et les sciences exactes, pour mieux soumettre cet "objet" à un véritable examen clinique. Cette question ne serait-elle plus d'actualité? Loin s'en faut! Entre cœur et raison, la sacralisation des œuvres d'art produit toujours autant de savoirs, de savoir-faire et (...) de savoirs sur le faire. Mettant en avant le patrimoine, restaurant les objets de l'art, les reconstituant, favorisant le tourisme culturel, exhumant le vrai, condamnant le faux : à sa mesure, le "chef-œuvre" dynamise encore et toujours les divers moments de l'art. (shrink)

Lucid, original and ultimately wise, this book is as much a work of literature as it is of philosophy.

This is a copy of the Proceedings version of a paper presented at the Workshop on Computational Intelligence and Semiotics, organized by João Queiroz and Ricardo Gudwin, held at Itaú Cultural, São Paulo, Brazil, on 8-9 October, 2002. (This version contains material not actually delivered at the conference.) Queiroz and Gudwin will be releasing the Proceedings volume on a..

This epic piece of storytelling brings the world of fifteenth-century Italy to life as it traces Machiavelli's rise from young boy to controversial political thinker. The often-vilified Renaissance politico and author of The Prince comes to life as a diabolically clever, yet mild mannered and conscientious civil servant. Author Joseph Markulin presents Machiavelli's life as a true adventure story, replete with violence, treachery, heroism, betrayal, sex, bad popes, noble outlaws, deformed kings, menacing Turks, even more menacing Lutherans, unscrupulous astrologers, (...) untrustworthy dentists--and, of course, forbidden love. While sharing the stage with Florence's Medici family, the nefarious and perhaps incestuous Borgias, the artists Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, and the doomed prophet Savonarola, Machiavelli is imprisoned, tortured, and ultimately abandoned. Nevertheless, he remains the sworn enemy of tyranny and a tireless champion of freedom and the republican form of government. Out of the cesspool that was Florentine Renaissance politics, only one name is still uttered today--that of Niccolo Machiavelli. This mesmerizing, vividly told story will show you why his fame endures. (shrink)