This volume thus clears the ground for the productive and fruitful integration of these new developments into philosophy of science.

The ability to process center‐embedded structures has been claimed to represent a core function of the language faculty. Recently, several studies have investigated the learning of center‐embedded dependencies in artificial grammar settings. Yet some of the results seem to question the learnability of these structures in artificial grammar tasks. Here, we tested under which exposure conditions learning of center‐embedded structures in an artificial grammar is possible. We used naturally spoken syllable sequences and varied the presence of prosodic cues. The results (...) suggest that mere distributional information does not suffice for successful learning. Prosodic cues marking the boundaries of the major relevant units, however, can lead to learning success. Thus, our data are consistent with the hypothesis that center‐embedded syntactic structures can be learned in artificial grammar tasks if language‐like acoustic cues are provided. (shrink)

Mueller et al. discuss the role of acoustic cues in detecting language structure more generally. Across languages, there are clear links between acoustic cues and syntactic structure. They show that AGL experiments implementing analogous links demonstrate that prosodic cues, as well as various auditory biases, facilitate the learning of structural rules. Some of these biases, e.g. for auditory grouping, are also present in other species.

Sustained negative affect is a hallmark feature of depressive episodes. The ability to regulate emotional responses to negative events may therefore play a critical role in our understanding of this debilitating disorder. Individual differences in cognitive processes such as attention, memory, and interpretation may underlie difficulties in emotion regulation and numerous studies have identified cognitive biases and deficits that characterise depressed people. Few studies, however, have explicitly linked these biases to the difficulties in emotion regulation that are associated with depression. (...) In this paper we discuss relations among cognitive processes and emotion regulation and review the depression literature to identify cognitive biases and deficits that may underlie maladaptive responses to negative events and mood states. Our review suggests that difficulties in the disengagement from negative material, memory biases, and deficits in cognitive control are frequently observed in depressive disorders and may be associated with the use of maladaptive emotion regulation strategies, such as rumination. These biases may also be related to difficulties implementing strategies that are effective for non-depressed people, such as recall of mood-incongruent material and reappraisal. Our review also suggests, however, that empirical studies linking cognitive biases and emotion regulation in depression are still largely missing and would present an important goal for future research in this area. (shrink)

Depression is a disorder of impaired emotion regulation. Consequently, examining individual differences in the habitual use of emotion-regulation strategies has considerable potential to inform models of this debilitating disorder. The aim of the current study was to identify cognitive processes that may be associated with the use of emotion-regulation strategies and to elucidate their relation to depression. Depression has been found to be associated with difficulties in cognitive control and, more specifically, with difficulties inhibiting the processing of negative material. We (...) used a negative affective priming task to assess the relations among inhibition and individual differences in the habitual use of rumination, reappraisal, and expressive suppression in clinically depressed, formerly depressed, and never-depressed participants. We found that depressed participants exhibited the predicted lack of inhibition when processing negative material. Moreover, within the group of depressed participants, reduced inhibition of negative material was associated with greater rumination. Across the entire sample, reduced inhibition of negative material was related to less use of reappraisal and more use of expressive suppression. Finally, within the formerly depressed group, less use of reappraisal, more use of rumination, and greater expressive suppression were related to higher levels of depressive symptoms. These findings suggest that individual differences in the use of emotion-regulation strategies play an important role in depression, and that deficits in cognitive control are related to the use of maladaptive emotion-regulation strategies in this disorder. (shrink)

This essay is a contribution to the history of methodological thought. I focus on key methodological criteria for successful experimentation, replication and multiple determinations of empirical evidence. Drawing on reports of experiments with viper venom from the late seventeenth and late eighteenth centuries, as well as on present-day methodological thought I examine whether past experimenters regarded repetition, replication, and multiple determinations as criteria for validity; what exactly they meant by this; what they hoped to gain by repeating, varying, triangulating, and (...) replicating; and how relevant these criteria were for them. I also consider if this analysis has implications for current philosophical work on the methodology of experimental practice. (shrink)

This paper discusses the claim that science is “messy.” Part I argues first, that a good portion of today’s discussions about messy science is just a portrayal of familiar features of science in new terms. In the paper, I refer to this as “messy science talk.” Second, Part I draws out rhetorical functions of messy science talk, namely the denigration of science in the popular media and the celebration of the maverick. Part II identifies one way in which it is (...) enlightening to think about mess in current science, namely in reference to the problems that scientists need to address. It also shows that we do not need an entirely new conceptual inventory to analyze these problems. “Mess” and “wicked problems” were a theme in operations research and theories of social planning in the 1970s. These older analyses can illuminate important characteristics of today’s scientific problems. Wicked problems cut across different disciplines, engage different stakeholders (including non-scientists), are fluid, and cannot even be clearly formulated. They are urgent and need to be addressed before sufficient evidence is in. (shrink)

This essay is concerned with the epistemic roles of error in scientific practice. Usually, error is regarded as something negative, as an impediment or obstacle for the advancement of science. However, we also frequently say that we are learning from error. This common expression suggests that the role of error is not—at least not always—negative but that errors can make a fruitful contribution to the scientific enterprise. My paper explores the latter possibility. Can errors play an epistemically productive role in (...) scientific research? The paper begins with a review of several twentieth-century approaches to error and the various agendas behind them. It is shown that only very few scholars have considered whether errors can be productive. The main part of the paper examines a concrete debate in early nineteenth-century microscopy and analyses how the microscopists coped with the problem of error. Drawing on this material, the article offers some terminological clarifications of the common notion ‘learning from error’. The conclusion argues that error can indeed play epistemically productive roles in scientific practice.Keywords: Error; Nineteenth-century microscopic anatomy. (shrink)

Exploring the concepts of Freezing: Theoretical and empirical perspectives. Theoretical advancement. Ur Shlonsky and Luigi Rizzi: Criterial Freezing in small clauses and the cartography of copular constructions -- Angel J. Gallego: Freezing Effects in a free-Merge System -- Gereon Maller: Freezing in complex prefields. Empirical domains. Norbert Corver: The Freezing points of the (Dutch) adjectival system -- Jutta M. Hartmann: Freezing in it-clefts: Movement and focus -- Josef Bayer: Criterial Freezing in the syntax of particles -- Michael S. Rochemont: (...) Only syntax -- Maria Polinsky: Freezing and phi-feature agreement: On the role of [PERSON] -- BalÃízs SurÃínyi and Gerg Turi: Freezing, Topic Opacity and Phase-based Cyclicity in Subject Islands. Interface extensions. Peter W. Culicover and Susanne Winkler: Freezing: Between grammar and processing -- Andreas Konietzko: Heavy NP shift in context: On the interaction of information structure and subextraction from shifted constituents -- Rui P. Chaves: Freezing as a probabilistic phenomenon -- Marion Jaeger: An experimental study on freezing and topicalization in English. (shrink)

This essay offers some reflections on the recent history of the disputes about the relation between history and philosophy of science (HPS) and the merits and prospects of HPS as an intellectual endeavor. As everyone knows, the issue was hotly debated in the 1960s and 1970s. That was the hey-day of the slogan "history without philosophy of science is blind, philosophy without history of science is empty" as well as of the many variations on the theme of HPS as a (...) "marriage of convenience," "intimate relation," or "marriage for the sake of reason." There was a flurry of interest in the early 1990s, as evidenced by sections in the 1992 and 1994 issues of PSA, entitled: "Do the History of Science and the Philosophy of .. (shrink)

Summary The first systematic studies on the velocity of chemical reactions (now called reaction rates) were published in the 1850s and 1860s. Inquiring about the course of chemical change, their authors established empirical equations on the basis of their measurement results. But these laws, which represented reaction velocities as proportional to the actual concentration of the reagents, could not be given a physical foundation. The chemists themselves regarded their propositions as mere ad hoc hypotheses. In 1867 Leopold Pfaundler formulated a (...) qualitative theory of chemical processes based on Clausius's version of the kinetic gas theory (and more specifically on his theory of evaporation), and on Saint-Claire Deville's investigations of dissociation processes. Pfaundler's theory was based on farreaching analogies: between evaporation and dissociation; between the gaseous state and the activated state; and between evaporation- and chemical-equilibrium. Four points of Pfaundler's theory must be regarded as essential: (1) the reduction of chemical change to randomly occurring molecular collisions, only showing regularities in great numbers according to the laws of probability; (2) the idea that molecules are in different states of internal and external motion, which determines whether a collision results in a reaction; (3) the view of the reaction step as a transition from internal to external motion and vice versa; and (4) the introduction of a new molecular-kinetic definition of chemical affinity as the maximum of internal motion. With these assumptions, Pfaundler provided the empirical rate equations with a new statistical interpretation and a physical Justification. (shrink)

This essay deals with a conspicuous feature of early modern experimental reports: references to multiple repetitions. I examine an episode from the history of research on venomous snakes, the dispute between Francesco Redi and Moyse Charas about the cause of death from viper bites. I identify different kinds of repetitions that are described and specify the various different roles that are attributed to repetitions in experimental reports. I argue that repetition (the successive reproduction of one's own experimental trials) should be (...) distinguished from replication (reproducing other investigators' experiments). At first, replications played hardly any role in the exchange, but references to repetitions were crucial to show that contingencies had been obviated, to support inductive generalizations, and to specify the exact cause of an experimental effect. Notably, it appears that the replication of effects by different experimental means was not part of the repository of methodological notions that Redi and Charas brought to bear on their experiments. Reruns and repetitions with variations (including complementary trials) bore the epistemic weight. -/- . (shrink)

This article identifies a fundamental distinction in scientific practice: the mismatch between what scientists do and what they state they did when they communicate their findings in their publications. The insight that such a mismatch exists is not new. It was already implied in Hans Reichenbach's distinction between the contexts of discovery and justification, and it is taken for granted across the board in philosophy of science and science studies. But while there is general agreement that the mismatch exists, the (...) epistemological implications of that mismatch are not at all clear. Philosophers, historians, and sociologists of different stripes have expressed widely different views about how one should understand and interpret the relation between what scientists do and what they state they did. This article surveys a number of approaches to the mismatch. Based on this survey, I offer an assessment of the epistemological significance of the mismatch and identify the major meta-epistemological challenges that it poses for the analysis of scientific practice. *Received May 2007; revised April 2008. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of History and Philosophy of Science, 1011 East Third Street, Goodbody Hall 130, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405; e-mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

This introduction to the special issue of the same title sets out the context for a critical examination of contemporary developments in sociotechnical systems deployed in the name of security. Our focus is on technologies of tracking, with their claims to enable the identification of those who comprise legitimate targets for the use of violent force. Taking these claims as deeply problematic, we join a growing body of scholarship on the technopolitical logics that underpin an increasingly violent landscape of institutions, (...) infrastructures, and actions, promising protection to some but arguably contributing to our collective insecurity. We examine the asymmetric distributions of sociotechnologies of security; their deadly and injurious effects; and the legal, ethical, and moral questions that haunt their operations. (shrink)

This paper discusses two methodological notions, the concepts Gegenprobe (countercheck) and Gegenversuch (counter-trial), which were widely applied, discussed, relied upon, and defended in German-language writings about empirical inquiry. In the decades around 1800, they were common in physiology; medicine; agriculture; chemistry; various technologies, such as printing, metallurgy, and mining; accounting; and legal and political argumentation. The ubiquity of those concepts signals a broad concern with securing empirical findings and empirical knowledge. Gegenproben and Gegenversuche – the terms as well as the (...) practices – are evidence for the close connection among explicitly knowledge-seeking endeavors and crafts and technologies. Physiological experiments, chemical analyses, agricultural or vaccination trials were indebted to applied and practical procedures of making and assaying. What united these different fields was the fact that the problems that had to be solved were very complex yet at the same time of immediate relevance to everyday lives (like diseases or crops) or highly controversial (like vital forces or spontaneous generation). We know that late eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century practices of inquiry were firmly embedded in applied, technical contexts; this essay shows that methodological notions were anchored in applied, technical contexts as well. (shrink)

Marsilio Ficino, Protegé Cosimos, Pieros und Lorenzos von Medici, gilt als Zentralgestalt des italienischen Renaissance-Platonismus. Mit den Übersetzungen der Dialoge Platons, der Schriften Plotins und des Corpus Hermeticum sowie durch eine theoretische Verknüpfung von antiker Philosophie mit christlicher Religion übte er einen unübersehbar grossen Einfluss auf die europäische Wissenschafts- und Geistesgeschichte aus. Im Zentrum seines Theorie-Gebäudes steht ein komplexes Konzept von Magie, dessen Konstruktion bis heute erforscht wird. Es hat dem Band den Titel gegeben, dessen Themen sich Ficinos intellektuellem Horizont (...) entsprechend jedoch in eine Vielzahl weiterer Aspekte ausdifferenzieren. Diese literarisch-künstlerischen, literaturwissenschaftlichen, wissenschaftshistorischen und philosophisch-theologischen Implikationen von Ficinos Schriften werden paradigmatisch und vergleichend behandelt. (shrink)

Für Nietzsches Philosophie der tragischen Bejahung, die eine der Transformation ist, sind die Relationen zwischen dem Übermenschen und der ewigen Wiederkehr von enormer Bedeutung. Um diese herauszuarbeiten, untersucht die Studie die nietzscheanischen Menschentypen? ausgehend von der These, dass es Nietzsche immer um den schaffenden Menschen geht? vom 'Heerdenthier' bis zum Übermenschen, sodass die mit ihnen verbundenen Dispositive (Metaphysik, Religion, Moral, Philosophie und Kunst) in Nietzsches Evaluation transparent werden.

Cognitive control processes, such as updating task-relevant information while switching between multiple tasks, are substantially impaired in older adults. However, it has also been shown that these cognitive control processes can be improved by training interventions, e.g., by training in task switching. Here, we applied an event-related potential approach to identify whether a cognitive training improves task-preparatory processes such as updating of relevant task goals. To do so, we applied a pretest-training-posttest design with eight training sessions. Two groups of older (...) adults were either trained in task switching or in performing single tasks and we compared their performance to a group of untrained younger adults. To foster cue updating in the treatment group, we applied a cue-based switching task in which the two task cues were randomly selected prior to target presentation so that participants had time to prepare for the upcoming task. In contrast, the control group also received task cues but those were redundant as only one task had to be performed. We also examined whether training in cue updating during task switching can be transferred to a similar cognitive control task measuring updating of context information, namely a modified version of the AX-Continuous Performance Task. The results revealed training-specific improvements in task switching, that is, a larger improvement in blocks requiring switching in comparison to single tasks at the behavioral level. In addition, training specific-effects were also found at the neuronal level. Older adults trained in cue updating while switching showed a reduction in mixing costs in the cue-related P3, indicating an improvement in preparatory updating processes. Additionally, P3 topography changed with training from a very broad to a parietally focused scalp distribution similar to the one found in younger adults. However, we did not obtain training-specific improvements in context updating in the AX-CPT neither at the behavioral level nor at the neuronal level. Results are discussed in the context of the ongoing debate on whether transfer of cognitive training improvements is possible. (shrink)

Of the Merits of History for Philosophy of Science. This essay is inspired by some of the contributions to the two special issues “History of Science and Philosophy of Science” of the journal Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte. I consider possible roles of historical study for philosophy of science. The first part of the essay discusses contributions to the Anglo‐American debate about history and philosophy of science in the 1960s and 1970s. I present two approaches. According to Larry Laudan and others, philosophy (...) of science should be regarded as an empirical theory of science, which has to be tested against historical episodes. I show why this conception of philosophy of science is problematic. According to Dudley Shapere and others, by contrast, philosophical analysis of science requires hermeneutic understanding and should include the study of the development of scientific knowledge. I agree that the method of philosophy of science is best described as hermeneutic. To defend a genuine historical‐hermeneutic philosophy of science, however, one would have to demonstrate the privilege of historical analysis over other forms of science studies, such as sociology of science or studies of science communication. I do not think that such a demonstration can be made. (shrink)

This anthology of articles provides contemporary international feminist perspectives on issues of identity, agency, and difference as they pertain to both feminist politics in particular, and contemporary western politics more generally.

Introduction: "a matter so obscure, so difficult, and likewise so new . . ." -- Argument, narrative, and methods discourse -- Many, many experiments -- Trying again -- Newtonian poison: a mechanical account of viper venom -- Experiment as the only guide -- Thousands of experiments -- Practical criticisms -- Controlling experiment -- Unobservables -- Fragmentation and modularity: notes on crotoxin -- Conclusion: about methods.

This article presents a new framework for the analysis of experimental control. The framework highlights different functions for experimental controls in the realization of an experiment: experimental controls that serve as tests and experimental controls that serve as probes. The approach to experimental control proposed here can illuminate the constitutive role of controls in knowledge production, and it sheds new light on the notion of exploratory experimentation. It also clarifies what can and what cannot be expected from reviewers of scientific (...) journal articles giving feedback on experimental controls. (shrink)

This article examines a metaphilosophical issue, namely existing disagreements in philosophy of science about the significance of using multiple means of determination in scientific practice. We argue that this disagreement can, in part, be resolved by separating different questions that can be asked about the use of multiple means of determination, including the following: what can be concluded from the convergence of data or the convergence of claims about phenomena? Are the conclusions drawn from the convergence of data and of (...) statements about phenomena of special importance to the debate about realism and antirealism? Do inferences based on multiple means of determination have stronger epistemic force than inferences that are secured in other ways? Is the epistemic goal of deploying multiple means of determination well entrenched within the scientific community? Most of these questions can be discussed both in a formal and in an empirical perspective. If the differences in perspective are taken into account, some disagreements can be easily resolved. In part, however, the disagreements reflect historiographical challenges that are very difficult, if not impossible to meet. (shrink)

In recent developments in Artificial Intelligence and especially in robotics we can observe a tendency towards building intelligent artefacts that are meant to be social, to have ‘human social’ characteristics like emotions, the ability to conduct dialogue, to learn, to develop personality, character traits, and social competencies. Care, entertainment, pet and educational robots are conceptualised as friendly, understanding partners and credible assistants which communicate ‘naturally’ with users, show emotions and support them in everyday life. Social robots are often designed to (...) interact physically, affectively and socially with humans in order to learn from them. To achieve this goal, roboticists often model the human‐robot interaction on early caregiver‐infant interactions. In this paper I want to analyse prominent visions of these ‘socio‐emotional’ machines as well as early prototypes and commercial products with regard to the human‐machine interface. By means of this I will ask how feminist critiques of technology could be applied to the field of social robotics in which concepts like sociality or emotion are crucial elements while, at the same time, these concepts play an important role in feminist critiques of technology. (shrink)