In this systematic study, Professor Achinstein analyzes such concepts as definitions, theories, and models, and contrasts his view with currently held positions that he finds inadequate.

This anthology presents work on major topics surrounding the concept of evidence as employed in the empirical sciences. Focusing on the "classificatory" concept of evidence rather than the quantitative "degree of confirmation," the selections include Carl G. Hempel's satisfaction definition, R.B. Braithwaite's hypothetic-deductive view, N.R. Hanson's account of retroduction, Nelson Goodman's entrenchment theory, probability definitions discussed by Rudolf Carnap and Wesley Salmon, Clark Glymour's bootstrap theory, and a view of Achinstein's that combines probability and explanation.

I consider and reject William Whewell's attack on the inductivism of Isaac Newton and John Stuart Mill, as well as John Norton's attack on any universal system of inductive rules. I also explain how a system of inductive rules of the sort proposed by Newton and Mill should be understood.

Confirmation theorists seek to define a function that will take into account the various factors relevant in determining the degree to which an hypothesis is confirmed by its evidence. Among confirmation theorists, only Rudolf Carnap has constructed a system which purports to consider factors in addition to the number of instances, viz. the variety manifested by the instances and the amount of analogy between the instances. It is the purpose of this paper to examine the problem which these additional factors (...) raise for confirmation theory, and to prove that, despite Carnap's claim, no confirmation function satisfying the requirements he has specified can take account of variety and analogy. This result is first proved for a special case, and then, in a subsequent section, is generalized through the introduction of a theorem (the proof of which is given in Appendix I). In the final section of the paper it is shown that, contrary to a claim which Carnap has made, not even the concept of the "logical width" of a predicate will enable confirmation functions satisfying his requirements to take adequate account of analogies between instances. (shrink)

Newton deplored speculation in science, Einstein reveled in it. What exactly are scientific speculations? Are they ever legitimate? Are they subject to constraints? This book defends a pragmatic approach to these issues and applies it to speculations within science and to speculations about science.

Recently in this journal Sherrilyn Roush (2004) defends positive relevance as a necessary (albeit not a sufficient) condition for evidence by rejecting two of the counterexamples from my earlier (2001) work. In this reply I argue that Roush's critique is not successful.

The relationship of part to whole is one of the most fundamental there is, yet until now there has been no full-length study of this concept. This book shows that mereology, the formal theory of part and whole, is essential to ontology. Peter Simons surveys and criticizes previous theories, especially the standard extensional view, and proposes a more adequate account which encompasses both temporal and modal considerations in detail. This has far-reaching consequences for our understanding of such classical philosophical (...) concepts as identity, individual, class, substance and accident, matter, form, essence, dependence, and integral whole. It also enables the author to offer new solutions to long-standing problems surrounding these concepts, such as the Ship of Theseus Problem and the issue of mereological essentialism. The author shows by his use of formal techniques that classical philosophical problems are amenable to rigorous treatment, and the book represents a synthesis of issues and methods from the analytical tradition and from the older continental realist tradition of Brentano and the early Husserl. (shrink)

: This paper examines the debate in the late 19th and early 20th centuries over the acceptability of atomic and molecular physics. It focuses on three prominent figures: Maxwell, who defended atomic physics, Ostwald, who initially rejected it but changed his mind as a result of experiments by Thomson and Perrin, and Duhem, who never accepted it. Each scientist defended the position he did in the light of strongly held methodological views concerning empirical evidence. The paper critically evaluates each of (...) these methodological positions. (shrink)

Included is a famous nineteenth-century debate about scientific reasoning between the hypothetico-deductivist William Whewell and the inductivist John Stuart Mill; and an account of the realism-antirealism dispute about unobservables in science, with a consideration of Perrin's argument for the existence of molecules in the early twentieth century.

Frederick Kronz constructs interesting examples in an attempt to show deficiencies in my concept of evidence and the advantages in Carnap's positive relevance idea. His discussion raises general questions of importance in developing an adequate account of scientific evidence questions about the relationship between evidence and belief and the role of emphasis in determining evidence. His examples are challenging, but do they work?

ABSTRACTCatholic Christianity possesses a distinctive power, which has remained latent and undertheorised for a long time: the power to adapt itself to cultural traditions. In theology, it has often been seen as accidental, even when it was manifest in practice, especially in local traditions. Since Vatican II, inculturation has been actively encouraged, and new approaches were developed in missiology and ecclesiology. In this article, Christianity’s power of adaptation is presented as central to the ‘salvific event’ itself. Human beings need to (...) be formed by concrete traditions in order to be human. A redemption that would stamp out their attachment to tradition would amount to their destruction. The relative autonomy of traditional life in relation to God, would, so to speak, constitute a problem for God, if he wanted to provide humankind with a divine assistance geared to its real needs. The incarnation, and the founding of a ‘kingdom of heaven’, populated by human beings from different traditions, can... (shrink)

Poellner here offers a comprehensive interpretation of Nietzsche's later ideas on epistemology and metaphysics, drawing extensively not only on his published works but also his voluminous notebooks, largely unpublished in English. He examines Nietzsche's various distinct lines of thought on the traditionally central areas of philosophy and shows in what specific sense Nietzsche, as he himself claimed, might be said to have moved beyond these questions. He pays considerable attention throughout both to the historical context of Nietzsche's writings and to (...) subsequent developments in philosophy--English-language as well as Continental. (shrink)

A success-to-truth inference has always been at the heart of scientific realist positions. But all attempts to articulate the inference have met with very significant challenges. This paper reconstructs the evolution of this inference, and brings together a number of qualifications in an attempt to articulate a contemporary success-to-truth inference which is realistic. I argue that this contemporary version of the inference has a chance, at least, of overcoming the historical challenges which have been proffered to date. However, there is (...) a price to pay: the developments which help the realist answer the historical challenges also serve to increase the number of non-historical challenges. (shrink)

Conceptions of self? management and the labor managed firm have not been well received by economists. They have, however, proved to be a continuing interest in the socialist movement from Marx onwards. Prychitko claims that by examining the humanist side of Marx, a socialist case can be made both for the LMF and markets in a postmodern world. Such a case rests upon an assumption that self? management confers competitive advantage by enhancing information sharing. The case, though interesting, is not (...) yet made. (shrink)

In dieser zwischen 1135 und 1139 verfaßten Schrift, der er zwei Titel gab: Ethica oder Scito te ipsum, erörtert Abaelard die Frage nach dem Guten und dem Bösen, vor allem aber erstmals die Bedeutung des Gewissens für die Selbstbestimmung des Menschen. Er unterscheidet zwischen der Schwäche des Menschen, die durch Selbstbeherrschung überwunden werden kann, und der Sünde, die darin besteht, sich den eigenen Schwächen zu unterwerfen. Seine These, das Gewissen sei die oberste Instanz der Moral und die Moralität oder Verwerflichkeit (...) einer Handlung bestimme sich daher aus der Gesinnung des Handelnden, führte ihn zu der Folgerung, daß derjenige, der böse handelt, ohne es doch selbst zu wissen, dadurch noch nicht schuldig wird - sondern erst dann, wenn er entgegen besserer Einsicht, die ihm aufgegeben und möglich ist, das Böse wählt. Diese Behauptung stieß bei den Zeitgenossen und der Kirche auf Kritik und führte zur Verurteilung Abaelards auf dem Konzil von Sens ; wirkungsgeschichtlich gewann sie gleichwohl große Kraft und Bedeutung, da durch diesen Gedanken die überkommene Doxa, allein der Verstoß gegen moralisch geltende Regeln gebe den Maßstab dafür ab, ein Individuum der Sünde zu bezichtigen, dahingehend zu relativieren, daß nur der sich schuldig macht, der auch wußte, daß er eine Verfehlung begeht. Aus diesem Grund zählt die Schrift zu den bedeutendsten Werken der Weltliteratur. Die Ausgabe präsentiert sie erstmalig in einer vollständigen deutschen Übersetzung. Beigegeben sind der lateinische Text und eine kompetente Einleitung, die die besondere Stellung dieser Schrift im Gesamtwerk Abaelards prägnant vor Augen führt. (shrink)

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

During the first four decades of the nineteenth century a debate raged over the nature of light. Following proposals of Isaac Newton made early in the eighteenth century, many physicists accepted the theory that light is composed of tiny particles subject to mechanical forces (see newton). At the beginning of the nineteenth century Thomas Young and Augustin Fresnel revived a competing theory originally suggested by Christiaan Huygens in the seventeenth century, according to which light consists not of particles, but of (...) waves in a medium called the ether. In both cases theorists postulated entities ‐ particles and waves in an ether ‐ that could not be observed. Yet theorists on both sides gave arguments for the existence of these entities and the properties they ascribed to them. They did so on the basis of what they could observe. How was this possible? (shrink)

Seven essays explore issues of scientific methodology in various episodes of science from Newtonian physics of the 17th and 18th century to quantum mechanics in the 20th. Addressed to scholars of the history and philosophy of science, but also accessible to general readers. Annotation copyright Book.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.3 (2002) 219-227 [Access article in PDF] The Practical Kinds Model as a Pragmatist Theory of Classification Peter Zachar Pragmatist theories of scientific classification are intended to be pluralistic models that recognize different ways of cutting up the world as valuable, but do not require us to adopt whatever-goes relativism or metaphysical antirealism. How ironic that my application of pragmatism to psychopathology has been (...) charged with not being sufficiently pluralistic because it tries to fit all psychiatric disorders into the Procrustean bed of practical kinds. The Practical Kinds Model in General As a point of clarification, the practical kinds model is not a description of a type of category combined with an argument that all psychiatric disorders should be seen as belonging to that type. If it were that kind of model, I would fully agree with Haslam that practical kinds, fuzzy kinds, and discrete kinds are all potential types of psychiatric disorders. Like Nick Haslam, I believe that there are many different things in the DSM-IV and the ICD-10, and they cannot neatly be classified as the same type of thing.Rather than identifying a type of category, the practical kinds model is a general theory of scientific classification. It is a nonessentialistic theory. Essentialism is the view that things have real essences. In the Aristotelian version of essentialism, an essence is an internal structure, and it is the internal structure that makes anything be the kind of thing it really is. In this classical category model, category members either have the essence or they do not, and everything that has the appropriate essence is a member of that category. The world is supposed to therefore have a well-defined structure, and the job of the scientist is to discover that structure. Ian Hacking (1999) has termed this view of categorization inherent structurism.The practical kinds model does not deny that things have internal structures; it only denies that internal structure by itself determines category membership. Internal structure is an important consideration in identifying categories, but external criteria can always play a role. External or relational criteria play more important roles in some cases than they do in others, but they cannot be eliminated once and for all. Essentialistic theories, which favor an almost exclusive focus on inherent structures, have the advantage of being more parsimonious, but they do so by ignoring real complexity.The best way to illustrate this point is to examine a category whose identification is heavily weighted in terms of internal criteria, or an inherent structure, such as a chemical element. [End Page 219] For example, hydrogen is defined as the element that has an atomic number of 1. This means that it has one proton in its nucleus and normally one electron orbiting its nucleus. The atomic number reflects an internal property, and anything that has an atomic number of 1 is hydrogen. The same is true for the other elements. Anything that has an atomic number of 79 is gold; anything that has an atomic number of 19 is potassium, and so on. Also part of the essentialistic view is the notion that all the important properties of an element are systematically (or lawfully) related to its internal structure.It would be foolish to deny the practical utility of the atomic theory of chemistry. But even in this strongest of cases, external criteria can potentially play a role in how we decide to carve up the world and what we identify as the relevant categories. The point can be clearly illustrated with a Gedanken experiment based on the ideas of Donnellan (1983). Assume that we were to make contact with extraterrestrial life, and the result of that contact was our initiation into a larger galactic community like those portrayed on Star Trek or Babylon 5. Fortunately for us, it turns out that all planets in the community use a gold-based currency, just like we do on Earth. What we call gold, however, is too common to be the galactic basis of a currency, but a particular isotope... (shrink)