This volume is dedicated to the centennial anniversary of Minkowski's discovery of spacetime.

Should physicists deal with the question of the reality of Minkowski space (or any relativistic spacetime)? It is argued that they should since this is a question about the dimensionality of the world at the macroscopic level and it is physics that should answer it.

In criminal trials the state must establish, to a particular standard of proof, the defendant's guilt. The most widely used and important standard of proof for criminal conviction is the ‘beyond a reasonable doubt' standard. But what legitimates this standard, rather than an alternative? One view holds the standard of proof should be determined or justified – at least in large part – by its consequences. In this spirit, Laudan uses crime statistics to estimate risks the average citizen runs of (...) being violently victimised and falsely convicted. He argues that since the former risk is higher, and the aggregate harms are worse, the standard of proof should be substantially lowered. He presents a formula for calculating the preferred standard. In this article I outline various ways Laudan's uses of crime statistics are flawed, and explain how he substantially overestimates risks of victimhood and underestimates costs of false convictions. I also explain why his formula is mistaken, and illuminate consequences Laudan neglects. I conclude that, even if consequences determine the appropriate standard of proof, Laudan's arguments fail to show the standard is too high. I conclude by suggesting that the inadequacies of Laudan's reasoning might be good news for consequence-based justifications of the standard of proof. (shrink)

This essay presents a unified account of safety, sensitivity, and severe testing. S’s belief is safe iff, roughly, S could not easily have falsely believed p, and S’s belief is sensitive iff were p false S would not believe p. These two conditions are typically viewed as rivals but, we argue, they instead play symbiotic roles. Safety and sensitivity are both valuable epistemic conditions, and the relevant alternatives framework provides the scaffolding for their mutually supportive roles. The relevant alternatives condition (...) holds that a belief is warranted only if the evidence rules out relevant error possibilities. The safety condition helps categorise relevant from irrelevant possibilities. The sensitivity condition captures ‘ruling out’. Safety, sensitivity, and the relevant alternatives condition are typically presented as conditions on warranted belief or knowledge. But these properties, once generalised, help characterise other epistemic phenomena, including warranted inference, legal verdicts, scientific claims, reaching conclusions, addressing questions, warranted assertion, and the epistemic force of corroborating evidence. We introduce and explain Mayo’s severe testing account of statistical inference. A hypothesis is severely tested to the extent it passes tests that probably would have found errors, were they present. We argue Mayo’s account is fruitfully understood using the resulting relevant alternatives framework. Recasting Mayo’s condition using the conceptual framework of contemporary epistemology helps forge fruitful connections between two research areas—philosophy of statistics and the analysis of knowledge—not currently in sufficient dialogue. The resulting union benefits both research areas. (shrink)

Conciliatory views of peer disagreement hold that when an agent encounters peer disagreement she should conciliate by adjusting her doxastic attitude towards that of her peer. In this paper I distinguish different ways conciliation can be understood and argue that the way conciliationism is typically understood violates the principle of commutativity of evidence. Commutativity of evidence holds that the order in which evidence is acquired should not influence what it is reasonable to believe based on that evidence. I argue that (...) when an agent encounters more than one peer, and applies the process of conciliation serially, the order she encounters the peers influences the resulting credence. I argue this is a problem for conciliatory views of disagreement, and suggest some responses available to advocates of conciliation. (shrink)

As there have still been attempts to regard gravity, a 100 years after Einstein's general relativity, not as a manifestation of the non-Euclidean geometry of spacetime, but as a physical field, it is high time to face the ultimate judge -- the experimental evidence -- to settle this issue once and for all. Two rulings of the ultimate judge are reminded -- the experimental fact that falling particles do not resist their fall rules out the option that gravity may be (...) a force, and the experiments that confirmed the relativistic effects are impossible in a three-dimensional world, which also implies that gravity is indeed manifestation of the geometry of the real spacetime. It is also stressed that not only are attempts to impose a kind of scientific democracy in physics doomed to failure, but such attempts might, in the end, hamper the advancement of fundamental physics. (shrink)

Theoria, Volume 87, Issue 1, Page 136-151, February 2021.

That abortion is the unjust killing of an innocent human person is the contention of the authors of this book. It does not intend to be a comprehensive defence of a pro-life position; rather, it ad...

This paper examines the plays of African-American playwright Adrienne Kennedy, Funnyhouse of a Negro (1962) and The Owl Answers (1963), which remain important for their engagement with notions of African-American identity, resistance and agency through their attention to mixed race female characters or mulattos who experience bodily and psychological traumas that demonstrate the abuse of the colonized on a deeply visceral level. Kennedy's plays have remained controversial because of their failure to comply with the nationalistic orientation of the Black Arts (...) Movement (BAM) of 1960s America. I aim to examine these plays through a framework of postcolonial-feminist performance analysis that finds its way back to histories of colonization and slavery, enabling through such returns, a compelling critique of the manoeuvrings of racial hierarchies and power imbalances. As well, I argue that Kennedy's protagonists are de-essentialized fractured beings who fail to embody either White superiority or Black nationalist pride, as they oscillate between two polarities. Such failure (on the part of Kennedy's mulattos) allows for a strategic de-essentialization of identity that interrogates fixed categorization. As well, through a form that is fluid, fragmented and blurs the distinctions among history, memory, space and time, her works impart political agency to the characters and enable an empowered sense of the ‘self-in-process.’. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article discusses some common narratives found in discourses on national identity in Russia and Japan, and their temporal transformations reflecting the needs of a nation as it becomes a colonial empire. National identity discourse is examined from the viewpoint of national antagonism arising from an external threat. Russian and Japanese intellectuals, with their vastly different historical and cultural heritage, have dwelled upon similar issues pertaining to modernization of the state and adoption or rejection of foreign ideas and ways of (...) life. There are several themes in Russian and Japanese discourses on national identity that share a significant overlap, particularly themes of national uniqueness and a ‘special path’, deterministic worldviews, imperial cosmopolitanism/messianism and criticism of ‘Western’ philosophical systems and concepts. This article elucidates the shared aspects of these narratives and philosophical inquiries in Russia and Japan and puts them into a historical context. (shrink)

Annotation Redefines globalization as merely the framework of the current political debate on the future of world power.

The author considers the specifics of “trading zones” as a cognitive model for the study of interdisciplinary interaction which is aimed to compensate lack of understanding between different scientific and non-scientific practices. It is argued that “trading zones” represents the unity of its intellectual, material and social components that creates the «communications area» for joint activities to produce new creative products. It is emphasized that the understanding of the mechanism of formation and functioning of the “trading zone” is a matter (...) of epistemology. It is also claimed that “trading zones” provide the mediation in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary researches. (shrink)

Ernst Haeckel formulated his biogenetic law, famously stating that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, in 1872. The Russian evolutionist Alexei Sewertzoff, and the Swiss-born zoologist Adolf Naef were among those who revised Haeckel’s law, thus changing the course of evolutionary theory and of developmental biology. Although Sewertzoff and Naef approached the problem in a similar way and formulated similar hypotheses at a purely descriptive level, their theoretical viewpoints were crucially different. While Sewertzoff laid the foundations for a Darwinian evolutionary morphology and is (...) regarded as a forerunner of the modern synthesis, Naef was one of the most important figures in “idealistic morphology”, which is usually seen as a type of anti-Darwinism. Both Naef and Sewertzoff aimed to revise Haeckel’s biogenetic law and came to comparable conclusions at the empirical level. This paper is an attempt to explain how their fundamentally different theoretical backgrounds influenced their views on the relationship between ontogeny and phylogeny. (shrink)

Ujedinjenje velikih teorija fizike − teorije relativnosti, kvantne mehanike i fizike svemira i čestica − ostaje snom fizike i filozofije znanosti i na početku 21. stoljeća. Sve se one u pogledu konačnih zakona svemira slažu da je početak bio, te da su konačni zakoni oni koji su već vladali u početku evolucije svemira. Početak svemira podrazumijeva njegovo stvaranje i nužno upućuje na Stvoritelja−religijskog Boga, na uspostavljanje mosta između moderne kozmologije i religije. U tome se podudaraju klasične kozmologije s modernim kozmološkim (...) modelima astročestične teorijske fizike, odnosno mišljenja vodećih modernih kozmologa: Einsteina, Weinberga, Penrosea, Hawkinga i drugih. Naglašavamo da su i veliki svjetski kongresi iz povijesti znanosti u 21. stoljeću naročito reafirmirali komplementarni odnos znanosti i religije kao pravog puta za univerzalnim horizontom svijeta u 21. stoljeću. Situaciju odnosa znanosti i religije, Einstein je izvrsno opisao slikom: »Znanost bez religije je kljasta, a religija bez znanosti slijepa« . Stvaranje svijeta u Knjizi postanka , napose u Prvome izvještaju o stvaranju jest Božje stvaranje: Bog stvara riječju ili djelovanjem − trenutačno i u stvarnome vremenu − u fazama stvaranja što se mjere u danima. Knjigu postanka rese svi moderni početni kozmološki uvjeti i parametri: postanak, početak i kraj svemira, vrijeme i prostor, struktura i evolucija svemira, uloga i značenje života u svemiru. Ovakva teološka kozmologija, sa svim živim bićima u njoj i njihovom hijerarhijom s čovjekom kao kraljem, koliko god u znanstvenome pogledu bila jednostavnom i kratkom pričom, može biti uzorom modernim kozmološkim modelima jer svemir što ga je stvorio Bog jest svemir tvari i života. Mogli bismo reći da kozmološke modele i simulacije, kao i velike pokuse u fizici visokih energija, izvodimo da bismo dokučili kako je Bog stvarao. S druge strane, u suvremenoj fizici, pogotovo u modernoj kozmologiji, pojam Boga se često »efektivno« iskorištava u definiranju pojedinih problema ili u interpretacijama računa, što ne valja promatrati kao osiromašenje teološke ili vjerske uzvišenosti toga pojma kakvu nalazimo u Newtona, Petrića, Boškovića, Kanta ili P. Daviesa.U članku se pregledno osvrćemo na principe i tzv. »velike uspjehe« što su nastali na mostu povezivanja suvremene kozmologije i religije: »sudjelujući« svemir i princip antropičnosti, te izazovni teorijski proboji u kozmologiji naših dana u sektoru M–teorije koji govore i o suparničkim scenarijima stanja svemira prije−velikog praska. Upitat ćemo se da li suvremena upućenost fizike i religije proizlazi možda iz karakteristične »eksperimentalne nemoći« moderne kozmologije koja trpi teški tehnički problem: iznalaženje golemih energija za eksperimentalna opažanja čestica kakve fizika Big Banga zahtijeva? To su, primjerice, energije oko 1019 GeV koje odgovaraju trenu od 10−43 sekunde nakon Velikog praska. U članku se, na kraju, na Kantovu tragu, promišlja jesu li suvremeni teorijski proboji što se čine u kvantoj kozmologiji na Planckovoj skali relevantni i za Kantovu kozmološku skalu − onu do koje se dolazi jednostavnim proširenjem kategorija do neuvjetovanog, što sintezu odvodi do stupnja što nadilazi svako moguće iskustvo.Uniting the great theories of physics – i.e. the theory of relativity, quantum mechanics and astroparticle physics – continues to remain a dream of both physics and the philosophy of science even at the beginning of the 21st century. In respect of the ultimate laws of the universe they all agree that there was a beginning and that the ultimate laws are those that have already ruled at the beginning of the evolution of the universe. The beginning of the universe implies its creation and necessarily points to a Creator – a religious God, to building a bridge between modern cosmology and religion. In regard to the above classical cosmologies correspond to the modern cosmological models of astroparticle theoretical physics, i.e. the reflections of the leading modern cosmologists: Einstein, Weinberg, Penrose, Hawking and others. The author highlights that even great international symposia on the history of science keep on reaffirming the complementary relation between science and religion as the true and only path to a universal horizon of the world in the 21st century. Einstein describes the state of affairs of the relation between science and religion exceptionally well with the following words: »Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind« . The creation of the world described in Genesis, particularly in The Beginning, is God’s creation: God creates by the agency of words or actions – immediately and in real time – in the phases of creation measured in days. Genesis is adorned by all the modern initial cosmological conditions and parameters: creation, the beginning and end of the universe, time and space, the structure and evolution of the universe, the role and meaning of life in the universe. Irrespective of the extent to which, scientifically speaking, it is a simple and short narrative, this theological cosmology – including all the living creatures in it and their hierarchy with man as king – can indeed serve as a role model to the modern cosmological models, since the universe created by God is a universe of matter and life. We can say that we design cosmological models and conduct simulations and great experiments in the high energy physics in order to reach and understand the way in which God created. On the other hand, however, in contemporary physics in general and in modern cosmology in particular, the concept of God is frequently »effectively« used either in defining certain problems or in interpreting scientific calculations, which must not be viewed as the impoverishment of the theological or religious eminence of the concept as can be found in Newton, Petrić, Bošković, Kant or Davies.This paper also surveys the principles and the so-called »great successes« achieved on the bridge that connects contemporary cosmology and religion: ‘participatory’ universe and the anthropic principle, as well as the challenging theoretical advances in today’s cosmology in the field of M−theory which also discuss rival ideas of the pre-big bang scenarios. The author also poses the following question: does the contemporary crossroad of physics and religion perhaps issue from modern cosmology’s peculiar »experimental helplessness« taking shape in a grave technical problem, i.e. finding immense energies for experimental particle observations required by the physics of the Big Bang? These energies are, for example, approximate to 1019 GeV , which corresponds to 10−43 of a second after the Big Bang. A thinking in the paper was finally concluded, on the Kant’s trail, whether the contemporary theoretical advances achieved in quantum cosmology at Planck’s scale are also relevant for Kant’s cosmological scale – the one arrived at by a simple expansion of the categories to the unconditioned, which brings synthesis to a point that surpasses all possible experience. (shrink)

This book probes the extreme variation in discourses on violence and punishment. Its comprehensive examination brings together normative political-theoretical discourses on punishment, historical changes in violence and punishment, and perspectives on punishment from political powers, world religions, literature and film, criminology, and theodicy.

Despite "what has probably been the most vigorous campaign ever waged against the concept of relativistic mass" p. 51) it is argued that the relativistic increase of the mass is an experimental fact.

My aim here is to show that approximate truth as a paraconsistent notion can be successfully incorporated into the analysis of scientific unification, thus advancing towards a more realistic representation of theory development that takes into account the controversies that often loom alongside the progress of research programmes. I support my analysis with a case study of the recent debate in ecology centred around the existence of the paradox of enrichment and the controversy between ecological models of predation that employ (...) prey-dependent and ratio-dependent functional responses. These models were initially proposed as equally good representations of the basic aspects of predator–prey dynamics. However, both models generated inconsistent observational consequences and, therefore, introduced a contradiction within predator–prey theory. I argue that by accepting these models as approximately true representations of predator–prey dynamics we can convey how the available observational data have been successfully systematized in a consistent way under them. This first step in resolving the controversy relied on building a series of contrastive arguments based on both models’ derivations about population dynamics and the available empirical data. The heightening of this contrast between the models, in turn, was also essential in defining a limiting function which can be used to integrate both models and reach a new unified expression of predator–prey dynamics. (shrink)

Truth and Compassion offers an integral and inter-disciplinary view on truth and compassion, their mutual connectedness, the meaning of their cultivation, and the devastating consequences of their neglect and destruction. The authors analyze their various forms, their origins, and concrete ways and attempts of their repression. Essays focus on the attention to truth and compassion under communism, but this is only one of its segments. As a whole, topics range from basic theological and philosophical analysis to concrete historiographic treatments of (...) particular cases. The central message is that speaking about grievances, communication, dialogue, empathy, and solidarity are necessary for living in truth and compassion. (Series: Theology East-West / Theologie Ost-West, Vol. 20) [Subject: Philosophy, Ethics Studies]~. (shrink)

This paper discusses the polemical question of whether explanations that produce understanding must be true. It argues positively for the role of truth in reaching explanatory understanding, by presenting three lines of criticism of alternative accounts. The first is that by rejecting truth as a criterion for evaluating explanations, any non-factual account thereby effectively cuts ties with the central theories of explanations, which provide at least partial criteria for explanatory understanding. The second line of criticism is that some of the (...) most well-known non-factual accounts implicitly operate over a notion of partial-truth, and as such, they do not provide a valid alternative. The final critical argument is that, in the place of truth evaluations, these accounts often offer a multiplicity of other criteria, and by changing a unitary criterion such as truth for a collection of other requirements, these non-factive theories introduce a level of ad hoc-ness, which diminishes their normative value. (shrink)

Building on recent work by Delia Graff Fara and Ora Matushansky on appellative constructions like ‘Mirka called Roger handsome’, I argue that if Millianism about proper names is true, then the quantifier ‘something’ in ‘Mirka called Roger something’ is best understood as a kind of substitutional quantifier. Any adequate semantics for such quantifiers must explain both the logical behavior of ‘Mirka called Roger something’ and the acceptability of ‘so’-anaphora in ‘Mirka called Roger something, and everyone so called is handsome’. Millianism (...) about proper names is inconsistent with such quantifiers being standard non-substitutional second-order quantifiers. But this is not the only option for Millianism: I provide two different propositional semantics for substitutional quantification, each of which is adequate in the sense above, given Millianism. One of these is based on Tobias Rosefeldt’s work on non-nominal quantification, and I identify in what way Rosefeldt’s semantics is substitutional. (shrink)

Abstract.The German zoologist and geneticist Ludwig Plate was a pupil and successor of the “German Darwin” Ernst Haeckel as the director of the Institute of Zoology at Jena University. Plate campaigned for a revival of the original Darwinism. His research program, which he labelled “old-Darwinism”, proclaimed the synthesis of selectionism with “moderate Lamarckism” and orthogenesis.This article reconstructs and analyses Plate’s “old-Darwinian” synthesis and sheds light on Plate’s controversial biography, especially his conflict with Haeckel.

We present the negative phenomena of understanding in relation to scientific explanations. We begin by formulating the distinction between genuine understanding and lack of understanding, to define the epistemic category of misunderstanding. We illustrate misunderstanding with a short meta-philosophical study on the current debates about distinctively mathematical explanations.

We present the negative phenomena of understanding in relation to scientific explanations. We begin by formulating the distinction between genuine understanding and lack of understanding, to define the epistemic category of misunderstanding. We illustrate misunderstanding with a short meta-philosophical study on the current debates about distinctively mathematical explanations.

In the early 1960s, American philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn contributed to a “crisis of rationality” with his hypothesis that science develops by means of paradigm shifts. He challenged the positivist concept of cumulative and continuous scientific progress. According to Kuhn, the relation between two succeeding scientific traditions ‘separated by a scientific revolution’ is characterized by conceptual incommensurability that constrains the interpretation of science as a cumulative, steadily progressing enterprise. Thomas Kuhn’s philosophy was heavily criticized by German-American biologist Ernst Mayr (...) as unapplicable to the history of biology. Mayr, one of the most outstanding evolutionary biologists of the 20th century and a “co-architect” of the so-called Modern Synthesis (contemporary Darwinism), published extensively on the history and philosophy of biology as he thought that theoretical biology cannot progress without proper philosophy of science. Being convinced of the progressive development of Darwinism, Mayr pointed out that Kuhn’s concept of scientific revolutions does not reflect conceptual changes in evolutionary biology. Here we summarize Mayr’s critiques of Kuhn and, based on our own research, take Mayr’s side in the controversy between two great thinkers. (shrink)

In this study, I reconstruct and compare Alain Badiou’s Being and Event (2005) and Graham Priest’s One (2014), arguing that the ontologies pursued within the two texts are intriguingly analogous in a number of ways. Both Badiou and Priest are committed to thinking through classically ontological problems without denying the validity of the paradoxes they raise; both regard Plato’s Parmenides as an early and formative account of these paradoxes; both establish conclusions to the effect that unity – or “oneness” – (...) is indeed a contradictory phenomenon; and both, as a corollary of this conclusion, develop frameworks which confer ontological prominence upon "the void" and "emptiness" respectively, thereby arriving at what appears to be a shared ontological nihilism. In this comparative study, I not only enquire whether the frameworks adopted by Badiou and Priest really do lead to nihilist conclusions, but also attempt to clearly outline their trajectories of thought for the benefit of those who might be tempted to dismiss their seemingly outlandish theses out of hand. (shrink)

This essay is not about what love is. It is about what self-ascriptions of love do. People typically self-ascribe romantic love when a nexus of feelings, beliefs, attitudes, values, commitments, experiences, and personal histories matches their conception of romantic love. But what shapes this conception? And (how) can we adjudicate amongst conflicting conceptions? -/- Self-ascriptions of love do not merely describe the underlying nexus of attitudes and beliefs. They also change it. This essay describes how conceptions of love affect romantic (...) experience. I limn distinctions between love and obsessive infatuation and explore ways language can cultivate queer romantic preferences. Since conceptions of love are shaped, often implicitly, by terms available in one’s linguistic community, the resulting nexus of concepts and conceptions manifests linguistic luck. I suggest ways we might sculpt the language of love to better understand—and change—ourselves. Love can help us flourish and so can our “love” language. (shrink)

Moral encroachment holds that the epistemic justification of a belief can be affected by moral factors. If the belief might wrong a person or group more evidence is required to justify the belief. Moral encroachment thereby opposes evidentialism, and kindred views, which holds that epistemic justification is determined solely by factors pertaining to evidence and truth. In this essay I explain how beliefs such as ‘that woman is probably an administrative assistant’—based on the evidence that most women employees at the (...) firm are administrative assistants—motivate moral encroachment. I then describe weaknesses of moral encroachment. Finally I explain how we can countenance the moral properties of such beliefs without endorsing moral encroachment, and I argue that the moral status of such beliefs cannot be evaluated independently from the understanding in which they are embedded. (shrink)

Tarot cards are a rich and fascinating art form. They are also an excellent tool for inquiry. I show why tarot has value, regardless of the user’s beliefs about magic. And I explain how novice or skeptical tarot users can appreciate (and create) that value by focusing on the card’s images, rather than consulting texts or expert guides. This is because, on a naturalistic conception, tarot’s zetetic value—that is, its value to inquiry—stems from its artistic properties.

Demonstratives and Indexicals In the philosophy of language, an indexical is any expression whose content varies from one context of use to another. The standard list of indexicals includes pronouns such as “I”, “you”, “he”, “she”, “it”, “this”, “that”, plus adverbs such as “now”, “then”, “today”, “yesterday”, “here”, and “actually”. Other candidates include the tenses … Continue reading Demonstratives and Indexicals →.

This chapter argues that the choice of trust conceptualisations in the context of consumer Internet of Things (IoT) can have a significant impact on the understanding and implementations of a user’s private data protection. Narrow instrumental interpretations of trust as a mere precondition for technology acceptance may obscure important moral issues such as malleability of user’s privacy decisions, and power imbalances between suppliers and consumers of technology. A shift of focus in policy proposals from trust to the trustworthiness of technology (...) can be the first step on the way to addressing these moral concerns. It is argued that complexity of IoT systems, comprised of technological artefacts and institutional data-collecting entities, warrants the moral value of distrust as a prima facie assumption for technological design and regulatory measures. Such a conceptual perspective highlights importance of technological measures that can minimise reliance on trust in consumer IoTs and regulatory measures aimed to improve transparency of IoT architectures. (shrink)

According to a common conception of legal proof, satisfying a legal burden requires establishing a claim to a numerical threshold. Beyond reasonable doubt, for example, is often glossed as 90% or 95% likelihood given the evidence. Preponderance of evidence is interpreted as meaning at least 50% likelihood given the evidence. In light of problems with the common conception, I propose a new ‘relevant alternatives’ framework for legal standards of proof. Relevant alternative accounts of knowledge state that a person knows a (...) proposition when their evidence rules out all relevant error possibilities. I adapt this framework to model three legal standards of proof—the preponderance of evidence, clear and convincing evidence, and beyond reasonable doubt standards. I describe virtues of this framework. I argue that, by eschewing numerical thresholds, the relevant alternatives framework avoids problems inherent to rival models. I conclude by articulating aspects of legal normativity and practice illuminated by the relevant alternatives framework. (shrink)

I apply James Woodward’s interventionist theory of causation to organic chemistry, modelling three different ways that chemists are able to manipulate the reaction conditions in order to control the outcome of a reaction. These consist in manipulations to the reaction kinetics, thermodynamics, and whether the kinetics or thermodynamics predominates. It is possible to construct interventionist causal models of all of these kinds of manipulation, and therefore to account for them using Woodward’s theory. However, I show that there is an alternate, (...) more illuminating way of thinking about the third kind of reaction control, according to which chemists are thought of as manipulating which causal system is instantiated. I show that our ability to manipulate which system is instantiated is an important part of our ability to control the world, as is therefore especially relevant to interventionism. Thus, considering examples from organic chemistry leads to the identification of an important extension to Woodward’s theory. Finally, this investigation into reaction control in organic chemistry also has a more general implication: it suggests that interventionism results in a version of pragmatism about causation. (shrink)