Imre Lakatos' philosophical and scientific papers are published here in two volumes. Volume I brings together his very influential but scattered papers on the philosophy of the physical sciences, and includes one important unpublished essay on the effect of Newton's scientific achievement. Volume II presents his work on the philosophy of mathematics (much of it unpublished), together with some critical essays on contemporary philosophers of science and some famous polemical writings on political and educational issues. Imre Lakatos had an influence (...) out of all proportion to the length of his philosophical career. This collection exhibits and confirms the originality, range and the essential unity of his work. It demonstrates too the force and spirit he brought to every issue with which he engaged, from his most abstract mathematical work to his passionate 'Letter to the director of the LSE'. Lakatos' ideas are now the focus of widespread and increasing interest, and these volumes should make possible for the first time their study as a whole and their proper assessment. (shrink)

Many prominent critiques of philosophical methods proceed by suggesting that some method is unreliable, especially in comparison to some alternative method. In light of this, it may seem natural to conclude that these (comparatively) unreliable methods should be abandoned. Drawing upon work on the division of cognitive labour in science, we argue things are not so straightforward. Rather, whether an unreliable method should be abandoned depends heavily on the crucial question of how we should divide philosophers’ time and effort between (...) different methods, in order to maximise our prospects of achieving epistemic success. We show that, in a range of cases, even a (comparatively) unreliable method deserves to be allocated some of these resources. (shrink)

This book is an examination of the nature of economic explanation. The opening chapters introduce current thinking in the philosophy of science and review the literature on methodology. Professor Blaug then turns to the troublesome question of the logical status of welfare economics, giving the reader an understanding of the outstanding issues in the methodology of economics. This is followed by a series of case studies of leading economic controversies, which shows how controversies in economics may be illuminated by paying (...) attention to questions of methodology. A final chapter draws the strands together and gives the author's view of what is wrong with modern economics. This book is a revised and updated edition of a classic work on the methodology of economics, in which Professor Blaug develops his discussion of the latest developments in macroeconomics, general equilibrium theory and international trade theory. A new section on the rationality postulate is also added. (shrink)

We explore Shelah's model‐theoretic dividing line methodology. In particular, we discuss how problems in model theory motivated new techniques in model theory, for example classifying theories by their potential (consistently with Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory with the axiom of choice (ZFC)) spectrum of cardinals in which there is a universal model. Two other examples are the study (with Malliaris) of the Keisler order leading to a new ZFC result on cardinal invariants and attempts to clarify the “main gap” by reducing the (...) dependence of certain versions on (highly independent) cardinal arithmetic. (shrink)

This article examines the methodology of a core branch of contemporary political theory or philosophy: “analytic” political theory. After distinguishing political theory from related fields, such as political science, moral philosophy, and legal theory, the article discusses the analysis of political concepts. It then turns to the notions of principles and theories, as distinct from concepts, and reviews the methods of assessing such principles and theories, for the purpose of justifying or criticizing them. Finally, it looks at a recent debate (...) on how abstract and idealized political theory should be, and assesses the significance of disagreement in political theory. The discussion is carried out from an angle inspired by the philosophy of science. (shrink)

We take up the challenge of developing an international network with capacity to survey the world's scientists on an ongoing basis, providing rich datasets regarding the opinions of scientists and scientific sub-communities, both at a time and also over time. The novel methodology employed sees local coordinators, at each institution in the network, sending survey invitation emails internally to scientists at their home institution. The emails link to a ‘10 second survey’, where the participant is presented with a single statement (...) to consider, and a standard five point Likert scale. In June 2023, a group of 30 philosophers and social scientists invited 20,085 scientists across 30 institutions in 12 countries to participate, gathering 6,807 responses to the statement 'Science has put it beyond reasonable doubt that COVID-19 is caused by a virus'. The study demonstrates that it is possible to establish a global network to quickly ascertain scientific opinion on a large international scale, with high response rate, low opt-out rate, and in a way that allows for significant (perhaps indefinite) repeatability. Measuring scientific opinion in this new way would be a valuable complement to currently available approaches, potentially informing policy decisions and public understanding across diverse fields. (shrink)

A review of U. Mäki (ed.). Fact and Fiction in Economics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. pp. xvi 384. ISBN 0521 00957. As people interested mainly in theory, methodologists and philos...

Although clinical ethics consultation has existed for more than 40 years in the USA and Europe, it was not available in Bulgaria until recently. In introducing clinical ethics consultation into our country, the Modular, Ethical, Treatment, Allocation of resources, Process methodology has been preferred because of its potential to be used in resource-poor settings and its strong educational function. This paper presents the results of a METAP evaluation in a hospital palliative care ward in the town of Vratsa. The evaluation (...) was based on Beauchamp and Childress’ four principles of biomedical ethics and involves implementation of specific instruments for clinical ethics decision-making. Research tasks emphasised analyses of ethics meetings in the ward. Data were processed by SPSS v.24 using descriptive statistical analysis. Altogether, 32 ethics meetings of an average duration 20.63 min were conducted on cases involving critically ill patients. Most of the participants expressed satisfaction with the ethics process. The principlist approach supported resolution of conflicts between autonomous patients and their relatives, clarified definitions of “medical benefit” and “social good,” and enabled assessments of the risk of unequal treatment. Even as the specific research tasks were achieved, further participant follow-up is necessary to identify any improvement in healthcare personnel’s ethical competence. METAP worked well in end-of-life care settings. Participants experienced several benefits, including improved team communication, better understanding of patient preferences, and confidence in the correctness of decisions. Despite the significant educational potential of METAP, the need for additional and ongoing ethics training of health professionals should not be underestimated. (shrink)

This article examines the methodology of a core branch of contemporary political theory or philosophy: “analytic” political theory. After distinguishing political theory from related fields, such as political science, moral philosophy, and legal theory, the article discusses the analysis of political concepts. It then turns to the notions of principles and theories, as distinct from concepts, and reviews the methods of assessing such principles and theories (e.g., the reflective-equilibrium method), for the purpose of justifying or criticizing them. Finally, it looks (...) at a recent debate on how abstract and idealized political theory should be, and assesses the significance of disagreement in political theory. The discussion is carried out from an angle inspired by the philosophy of science. (shrink)

In computer ethics, as in other branches of applied ethics, the problem of the justification of moral judgment is still unresolved. I argue that the method which is referred to as “The Method of Wide Reflective Equilibrium” (WRE) offers the best solution to it. It does not fall victim to the false dilemma of having to choose either case‐based particularist or principle‐based universalist approaches to the problem of moral justification. I claim that WRE also provides the best model of practical (...) moral reasoning available for computer ethics. It does not pretend to provide quasi‐algorithmic procedures for moral decision‐making, but neither does it abandon the regulative ideal of communicative transparency in discursive public justification. (shrink)

Discussions of Karl Popper's falsificationist philosophy of science appear regularly in the recent literature on economic methodology. In this literature, there seem to be two fundamental points of agreement about Popper. First, most economists take Popper's falsificationist method of bold conjecture and severe test to be the correct characterization of scientific conduct in the physical sciences. Second, most economists admit that economic theory fails miserably when judged by these same falsificationist standards. As Latsis states, “the development of economic analysis would (...) look a dismal affair through falsificationist spectacles.”. (shrink)

ELEMENTARY LOGIC GR. C. MOISIL Institute of Mathematics, Rumanian Academy, Bucharest, Rumania 1. We shall consider a typified logic of propositions. ...

L’un des défis posés par l’inclusion des soi-disant philosophies «non-occidentales» dans le discours de la philosophie «occidentale» a trait au fait que plusieurs textes philosophiques non-occidentaux diffèrent de façon significative, en termes de style et d’approche, des textes occidentaux, principalement ceux issus de la philosophie analytique contemporaine. Comment établir un dialogue constructif entre des textes écrits de façon littéraire, qui n’ont pas l’allure d’un exposé et qui n’avancent pas clairement des positions ou des arguments philosophiques et des textes qui, au (...) contraire, prennent la forme d’un exposé avançant des positions ou des arguments? Pourquoi, de prime abord, voudrait-on ouvrir un tel dialogue? Cet article pose ces questions par le biais de l’étude du cas du classique taoïste, leZhuāngzǐ. (shrink)

According to some critics, traditional armchair philosophical methodology relies in an illicit way on intuitions. But the particular structure of the critique is not often carefully articulated—a significant omission, since some of the critics’ arguments for skepticism about philosophy threaten to generalize to skepticism in general. More recently, some experimentalist critics have attempted to articulate a critique that is especially tailored to affect traditional methods, without generalizing too widely. Such critiques are more reasonable, and more worthy of serious consideration, than (...) are blunter critiques that generalize far too widely. I argue that a careful (empirical!) examination of extant philosophical practices shows that traditional philosophical methods can meet these more reasonable challenges. (shrink)

The rise of experimental philosophy is generating pressing methodological questions for philosophers. Can findings from experimental studies hold any significance for philosophy as a discipline? Can philosophical theorizing be improved through consideration of such studies? Do these studies threaten traditional philosophical methodology?

Newton's methodology is significantly richer than the hypothetico-deductive model. It is informed by a richer ideal of empirical success that requires not just accurate prediction but also accurate measurement of parameters by the predicted phenomena. It accepts theory-mediated measurements and theoretical propositions as guides to research. All of these enrichments are exemplified in the classical response to Mercury's perihelion problem. Contrary to Kuhn, Newton's method endorses the radical transition from his theory to Einstein's. The richer themes of Newton's method are (...) strikingly realized in a challenge to general relativity from a new problem posed by Mercury's perihelion. †To contact the author, please write to: Talbot College, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 3K7; e-mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

In the growing Prussian university system of the early nineteenth century, "Wissenschaft" (science) was seen as an endeavor common to university faculties, characterized by a rigorous methodology. On this view, history and jurisprudence are sciences, as much as is physics. Nineteenth century trends challenged this view: the increasing influence of materialist and positivist philosophies, profound changes in the relationships between university faculties, and the defense of Kant's classification of the sciences by neo-Kantians. Wilhelm Dilthey's defense of the independence of the (...) methodology of the human sciences (Geisteswissenschaften) from those of the natural sciences (Naturwissenschaften) is as much a return to the ideal of Wissenschaft as a cooperative endeavor as it is a defense of the autonomy of interpretive or hermeneutic methods. The debate between Dilthey and the neo-Kantian Wilhelm Windelband at the close of the century illuminates the development of this dialogue over the nineteenth century. (shrink)

What does feeling a sharp pain in one's hand have in common with seeing a red apple on the table? Some say not much, apart from the fact that they are both conscious experiences. To see an object is to perceive an extramental reality -- in this case, a red apple. To feel a pain, by contrast, is to undergo a conscious experience that doesn't necessarily relate the subject to an objective reality. Perceptualists, however, dispute this. They say that both (...) experiences are forms of perception of an objective reality. Feeling a pain in one's hand, according to this view, is perceiving an objective condition of one's hand. Who is closer to truth? Because of such metaphysical issues, the subjectivity of pains combined with their clinical urgency raises methodological problems for pain scientists. How can a subjective phenomenon be studied objectively? What is the role of the first-person method in science? Some suggest that the subjectivity of pains is due to their metaphysical irreducibility to purely physical processes in the nervous system. Can this be true? The study of pain and its puzzles offers opportunities for understanding such larger issues as the place of consciousness in the natural order and the methodology of psychological research. In this book, leading philosophers and scientists offer a wide range of views on how to conceptualize and study pain. The essays include discussions of perceptual and representationalist accounts of pain; the affective-motivational dimension of pain; whether animals feel pain, and how this question can be investigated; how social pain relates to physical pain; whether first-person methods of gathering data can be integrated with standard third-person methods; and other methodological and theoretical issues in the science and philosophy of pain. (shrink)

Teaching research methods is especially challenging because we not only wish to convey formal knowledge and encourage critical thinking, as with any course, but also to enable our students dream up meaningful research projects, translate them into logical steps, conduct the research in a professional manner, analyze the data, and write up the project in APA style. We also wish to spark interest in the topics of research papers, and in the intellectual challenge of creating a research report, but we (...) have learned just how difficult these goals can be from teaching undergraduates and from serving as journal reviewers: many submissions contain flaws such as elementary errors of logic (e.g., using a null control condition instead of a placebo or dummy treatment), tangled statistics, a lack of graphs, and ungrammatical, unclear writing that violates APA rules. Yet these manuscripts are written by university faculty, often with doctorates and years of experience. Even published papers may contain egregious faults (Standing & McKelvie, 1986). And although we have both published widely, we still hone our skills. It requires optimism to expect that a typical undergraduate will do better, on the basis of just a year or two of studies in psychology. In this paper, we describe a systematic set of methodology courses and two specific practices that we think can help. Methodology Courses as the Backbone of our Psychology Program How can methodology courses promote undergraduate involvem... (shrink)

Applied sociology will be understood in the following discussion as a unique and original form of sociology; i.e., in its logic and practice distinguished from traditional sociology it is understood as an explanatory body of knowledge and an intellectual discourse about intentional/purposeful social action and behavior. The application of sociology proper to such substantive fields as family, art, law and sport, commonly called applied sociology, which reproduce the body of sociological knowledge just a second time, is not part of such (...) understanding. Applied sociology in its original sense has its own logic in which purpose, implementation and the process of social-problem solution are crucial. It will in the end lead to an applied action or implementation theory. It is, to paraphrase Lazarsfeld, the methodology of “sociology in action” (1960). (shrink)

There is growing debate about what is the correct methodology for research in the ontology of artworks. In the first part of this essay, I introduce my view: I argue that semantic descriptivism is a semantic approach that has an impact on meta-ontological views and can be linked with a hermeneutic fictionalist proposal on the meta-ontology of artworks such as works of music. In the second part, I offer a synthetic presentation of the four main positive meta-ontological views that have (...) been defended in philosophical literature about artworks and of some criticisms that can be lodged against them: Amie Thomasson’s global descriptivism, Andrew Kania’s local descriptivism, Julian Dodd’s folk-theoretic modesty, and David Davies’ rational accountability view. In the conclusion, I show the advantages of my view. (shrink)

I discuss methodology in epistemology. I argue that settling the facts, even the epistemic facts, fails to settle the questions of intellectual policy at the center of our epistemic lives. An upshot is that the standard methodology of analyzing concepts like knowledge, justification, rationality, and so on is misconceived. More generally, any epistemic method that seeks to issue in intellectual policy by settling the facts, whether by way of abductive theorizing or empirical investigation, no matter how reliable, is inapt. The (...) argument is a radicalization of Moore’s Open Question Argument. I conclude by considering the ramifications of this conclusion for the debate surrounding “Modal Security”, a proposed necessary condition on undermining defeat. (shrink)

The paper highlights the problems of the methodology of linguistics in the light of modern cultural transformations. The research object is the methodology of linguistic studies in the paradigm of postmodernism. The purpose is to substantiate the need for parity between rational and irrational approaches in the methodology of linguistic research. A point of the problem is the state inconsistency of the linguistic methodology with modern requests of global communication. In the process of research, a brief analysis of postmodernism in (...) its relationship with linguistics is given; the causes of methodological disagreements of linguistic practices are determined; the parity of rationalism and irrationalism in the interpretation of the text is declared; a philosophical substantiation of the position on the correspondence of the narrative form of linguistic methodology to the humanistic potential of postmodernism is given. The conclusion is that the requirements of the philosophy of postmodernism should become an immanent part of research in linguistic methodology. The significance is improving the efficiency of the practical implementation of linguistic research. (shrink)

Discourse analysis is a relatively recent form of inquiry without a strict step‐by‐step method. The methodology of discourse analysis has a longer history in Continental Europe than in other countries.1 The complex theoretical assumptions, the goals and the target (discourse) have been explicated, but the methodology may be applied in different ways. This paper will describe discourse analysis and give examples of some of the possible variations. It is the claim of this paper that discourse analysis deserves consideration as a (...) methodology for nursing inquiry. (shrink)

M̀atter Matters is a work of genius. The work exhibits a breathtaking spread of erudition from antiquity to the present, mobilized to elucidate the early modern significance of the concept of matter. The slight play of words in the title expresses the principal thesis of the work, that mathematics is intelligible for Descartes if and only if matter exists as its object. Smith understands, better than anyone, how Descartes could claim, literally, that "my physics is nothing but geometry." Many will (...) be convinced, some dismayed, and all will be dazzled by this book.'---Thomas M. Lennon, The University of Western Ontario". (shrink)

This Alfred Schutz Memorial Lecture discusses the relationship between the phenomenological life-world analysis and the methodology of the social sciences, which was the central motive of Schutz’s work. I have set two major goals in this lecture. The first is to scrutinize the postulate of adequacy, as this postulate is the most crucial of Schutz’s methodological postulates. Max Weber devised the postulate ‘adequacy of meaning’ in analogy to the postulate of ‘causal adequacy’ (a concept used in jurisprudence) and regarded both (...) as complementary and, in the context of sociological analysis, critical. Schutz extracted the two postulates from the Neokantian epistemology, dismissed the concept of causality, and reduced Weber’s two postulates of adequacy into one, namely, the adequacy of meaning. I discuss the benefits and shortcomings of this reduction. A major problem, in my view, is that Schutz’s reformulation lost the empirical concern that was inherent in Weber’s ‘causal adequacy’. As a result, the models of economics (which shaped Schutz’s conception of social science) are considered to be adequate if they are ‘understandable’ to an everyday actor, even when they are based on the most unrealistic assumptions. To recapture Weber’s empirical orientation I recommend a more restrictive interpretation of the postulate of adequacy that links it to qualitative research and unfolds the critical potential of Schutz’s phenomenological life-world analysis. My second goal is to report on some current developments in German sociology in which a number of approaches explicitly refer to Schutz’s analysis of the life-world and attempt to pursue ‘adequate’ empirical research. This lecture focuses on three approaches: ethnophenomenology, life-world analytic ethnography, and social scientific hermeneutics. (shrink)

We take up the challenge of developing an international network with capacity to survey the world’s scientists on an ongoing basis, providing rich datasets regarding the opinions of scientists and scientific sub-communities, both at a time and also over time. The novel methodology employed sees local coordinators, at each institution in the network, sending survey invitation emails internally to scientists at their home institution. The emails link to a ‘10 second survey’, where the participant is presented with a single statement (...) to consider, and a standard five-point Likert scale. In June 2023, a group of 30 philosophers and social scientists invited 20,085 scientists across 30 institutions in 12 countries to participate, gathering 6,807 responses to the statement Science has put it beyond reasonable doubt that COVID-19 is caused by a virus. The study demonstrates that it is possible to establish a global network to quickly ascertain scientific opinion on a large international scale, with high response rate, low opt-out rate, and in a way that allows for significant (perhaps indefinite) repeatability. Measuring scientific opinion in this new way would be a valuable complement to currently available approaches, potentially informing policy decisions and public understanding across diverse fields. (shrink)

The article analyzes the concept of «reception», which has recently gained popularity, but remains not sufficiently clarified in studies of the history of philosophy. It is assumed that the concept has become the subject of explicit methodological reflection only in the reception aesthetics (Rezeptionsästhetik) of the Constance School of Literary Studies, where it not only opposes the concept of influence, but is interpreted in the context of a horizontal structure for text understanding. At the same time, it is important to (...) distinguish not only the «historical horizon» and the «horizon of modernity» (Gadamer), but also the «horizon of expectations» in its duality: both coded in the text itself and the life practice of the reader, «inter literary» and «external literary» horizons of expectation. The empirical trend of the reception study, developed later, makes it possible to formulate a number of specific proposals for the methodology of historical and philosophical research, which focuses on the principle of «history of receptions». It is clear that only «reproductive» and «productive» reception categories are relevant to this type of research. In particular, it is an analysis of the institutional prerequisites for the reception, the classification of the source base of that received, the channels (re)broadcast of that received, the specification of the types of scientific communication, the tradition determined positive or negative factors of reception, the status of philosophy in particular historical periods. (shrink)

David Lewis’s genuine modal realism is a controversial thesis in modal metaphysics. Charles Chihara and Ross Cameron have each argued that Lewis’s defence of his thesis involves his committing serious methodological errors; in particular, that his replies to two well-known and important objections are question-begging. Scott Shalkowski has further argued that Lewis’s attempt to analyse modal talk in non-modal terms is viciously circular. This paper considers the methodology which Lewis uses to argue for his thesis, and the paper tries to (...) show that it is guilty of no methodological errors. (shrink)