This article revisits Karl Popper’s falsificationist methodology with respect to three tasks. The first is to illuminate and systematize Popper’s methodological views in light of his core epistemological commitments. A second and related objective is to gauge which aspects of falsificationism should be identified as “conventionalist”—a label that Popper himself uses (albeit with qualifications) but that is compromised by and, thus, stands in need of elucidation because of Popper’s idiosyncratic understanding of conventionalism. Third, by elaborating Popper’s virtue-epistemological, dialogical model of (...) rationality, I show how Popper’s conventionalism, fallibilism, and critical rationalism form a coherent system. This system allows Popper to accord science the status of a privileged source of knowledge—without naïve appeal to authority. My systematization of Popper’s views yields an intrinsically and exegetically more satisfactory reading of Popper’s falsificationism than usual presentations. Thanks to its marked flexibility and methodological liberalism, it bypasses many standard objections but still offers sound and relevant methodological advice. With its “virtue-methodological” thrust, Popper sketches an original and promising approach to methodology, the fertility of which deserves further exploration for contemporary debates. (shrink)

The present paper revisits the debate between realists about gravitational energy in GR and anti-realists/eliminativists. I re-assess the arguments underpinning Hoefer’s seminal eliminativist stance, and those of their realist detractors’ responses. A more circumspect reading of the former is proffered that discloses where the so far not fully appreciated, real challenges lie for realism about gravitational energy. I subsequently turn to Lam and Read’s recent proposals for such a realism. Their arguments are critically examined. Special attention is devoted to the (...) adequacy of Read’s appeals to functionalism, imported from the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

In the following paper, I review and critically assess the four standard routes commonly taken to establish that gravitational waves possess energy-momentum: the increase in kinetic energy a GW confers on a ring of test particles, Bondi/Feynman’s Sticky Bead Argument of a GW heating up a detector, nonlinearities within perturbation theory, taken to reflect the fact that gravity contributes to its own source, and the Noether Theorems, linking symmetries and conserved quantities. Each argument is found to either to presuppose controversial (...) assumptions or to be outright spurious. I finally examine the standard interpretation of binary systems, according to which orbital decay is explained in terms of the system’s energy being via GW energy- momentum transport. I contend that a better interpretation, drawing only on the general-relativistic Equations of Motions and the Einstein Equations, is available - and in fact preferable; thereby also an inference to the best explanation for the vindication of GW energy-momentum is blocked. (shrink)

What constitutes a scientific discovery? What role do discoveries play in science, its dynamics and social practices? Must every discovery be attributed to an individual discoverer (or a small number of discoverers)? The paper explores these questions by first critically examining extant philosophical explications of scientific discovery—the models of scientific discovery, propounded by Kuhn, McArthur, Hudson, and Schindler. As a simple, natural and powerful alternative, we proffer the “change-driver model”: in a nutshell, it takes discoveries to be cognitive scientific results (...) that have epistemically advanced science. The model overcomes the shortcomings of its precursors, whilst preserving their insights. We demonstrate its intensional and extensional superiority, especially with respect to the link between scientific discoveries and the dynamics of science, as well as the award system of science. Both as an illustration, and as an application to a recent scientific and political controversy, we apply the considered models of discovery to one of the most momentous discoveries of science: the expansion of the universe. We oppose the 2018 proposal of the International Astronomers’ Union as too simplistic vis-`a-vis the historical complexity of the episode. The change- driver model yields a more nuanced and circumspect verdict: (i) The redshift-distance relation shouldn’t be named the “Hubble-Lemaître Law”, but “Slipher-Lundmark-Hubble-Humason Law”; (ii) Its interpretation in terms of an expanding universe, however, Lemaître ought to be given credit for; but (iii) The establishment of the expansion of the universe, as an evidentially sufficiently warranted result, is a communal achievement, emerging in the 1950s or 1960s. (shrink)

The paper takes up Bell's “Everett theory” and develops it further. The resulting theory is about the system of all particles in the universe, each located in ordinary, 3-dimensional space. This many-particle system as a whole performs random jumps through 3N-dimensional configuration space – hence “Tychistic Bohmian Mechanics”. The distribution of its spontaneous localisations in configuration space is given by the Born Rule probability measure for the universal wavefunction. Contra Bell, the theory is argued to satisfy the minimal desiderata for (...) a Bohmian theory within the Primitive Ontology framework. TBM's formalism is that of ordinary Bohmian Mechanics, without the postulate of continuous particle trajectories and their deterministic dynamics. This “rump formalism” receives, however, a different interpretation. We defend TBM as an empirically adequate and coherent quantum theory. Objections voiced by Bell and Maudlin are rebutted. The “for all practical purposes”-classical, Everettian worlds exist sequentially in TBM. In a temporally coarse-grained sense, they quasi-persist. By contrast, the individual particles themselves cease to persist. (shrink)

The paper investigates the status of gravitational energy in Newtonian Gravity, developing upon recent work by Dewar and Weatherall. The latter suggest that gravitational energy is a gauge quantity. This is potentially misleading: its gauge status crucially depends on the spacetime setting one adopts. In line with Møller-Nielsen’s plea for a motivational approach to symmetries, we supplement Dewar and Weatherall’s work by discussing gravitational energy–stress in Newtonian spacetime, Galilean spacetime, Maxwell-Huygens spacetime, and Newton–Cartan Theory. Although we ultimately concur with Dewar (...) and Weatherall that the notion of gravitational energy is problematic in NCT, our analysis goes beyond their work. The absence of an explicit definition of gravitational energy–stress in NCT somewhat detracts from the force of Dewar and Weatherall’s argument. We fill this gap by examining the supposed gauge status of prima facie plausible candidates—NCT analogues of gravitational energy–stress pseudotensors, the Komar mass, and the Bel-Robinson tensor. Our paper further strengthens Dewar and Weatherall’s results. In addition, it sheds more light upon the subtle link between sufficiently rich inertial structure and the definability of gravitational energy in NG. (shrink)

Giuseppe Franco hat mich mit süditalienischer Liebenswürdigkeit dazu eingeladen, einen kleinen Beitrag zum vorliegenden Hommage-Band zu schreiben, in dem ich von meiner „intellektuellen Beziehung“ zu Dir und „von der Bedeutung des Kritischen Rationalismus“ für meinen „eigenen Denkweg“ berichte. Kennengelernt haben wir einander vor inzwischen 53 Jahren kurz nach Deinem Dienstantritt an der Mannheimer Wirtschaftshochschule. Ich studierte damals in Wien, vor allem bei Bela Juhos, der in einer Art Dachkammer der Alten Universität seine Seminare, z. B. eines über „Wissenschaftstheorie und Quantenmechanik“ (...) mit maximal zehn älteren Studenten und bereits habilitierten Wissenschaftsphilosophen abhielt, sowie beim Altmeister Victor Kraft, dessen Privatissime-Veranstaltungen in seiner Wohnung in der Walfischgasse von noch weniger, handverlesenen Geistesschaffenden besucht wurden. (shrink)

mechanism" is frequently encountered in the social science literature, but there is considerable confusion about the exact meaning of the term. The article begins by addressing the main conceptual issues. Use of this term is the hallmark of an approach that is critical of the explanatory deficits of correlational analysis and of the covering-law model, advocating instead the causal reconstruction of the processes that account for given macro-phenomena. The term "social mechanisms" should be used to refer to recurrent processes generating (...) a specific kind of outcome. Explanation of social macro-phenomena by mechanisms typically involves causal regression to lower-level elements, as stipulated by methodological individualism. While there exist a good many mechanism models to explain emergent effects of collective behavior, we lack a similarly systematic treatment of generative mechanisms in which institutions and specific kinds of structural configurations play the decisive role. Key Words: causal regression • correlational analysis • emergent effects • micro-macro processes • social mechanisms • structural determinants. (shrink)

Radioactivity accompanied by ionizing radiation has always existed on the Earth, as well as in space, and so in every living tissue there are traces of radioactivity. With the discovery of the said radiation and identifying its effects on the human body, the fear of this phenomenon appeared. At high doses radiation causes serious tissue damages, while at small doses it can cause cancer and induce genetic defects. The best antidote for fear is knowledge. It is important to know the (...) margins safety of radiation for human life. As a result, the topic of radioactive contamination of the environment has now become one of the most significant. In recent years the radon problem is a subject of a wide debate of geologists, geophysicists, ecologists, physicians, specialists in radiometry, and, of course, philosophers and sociologists, since the need for assessing the potential radon danger concerns human lives, human functions in society, and human future. (shrink)

What constitutes a scientific discovery? What role do discoveries play in science, its dynamics and social practices? The paper explores these questions by first critically examining extant philosophical explications of scientific discovery—the models of scientific discovery, propounded by Kuhn, McArthur, Hudson, and Schindler. As an alternative, we proffer the “change-driver model”. In a nutshell, it conceives of discoveries as problems or solutions to problems that have epistemically advanced science. Here we take a problem to be generated by a datum that (...) we want to account for and make sense of—by putting it in contact with our wider web of scientific knowledge and understanding. The model overcomes the shortcomings of its precursors, whilst preserving their insights. We demonstrate its intensional and extensional superiority, especially with respect to the link between scientific discoveries and the dynamics of science, as well as with respect to its reward system. Both as an illustration, and as an application to a recent scientific and political controversy, we apply the considered models of discovery to one of the most momentous discoveries of science: the expansion of the universe. We oppose the 2018 proposal of the International Astronomical Union as too simplistic vis-à-vis the historical complexity of the episode, and as problematically reticent about the underlying—and in fact crucial—philosophical-conceptual presuppositions regarding the notion of a discovery. The change-driver model yields a more nuanced and circumspect verdict: (i) The redshift-distance relation shouldn’t be named the “Hubble-Lemaître Law”, but “Slipher-Hubble-Humason Law”; (ii) Its interpretation in terms of an expanding universe, however, Lemaître ought to be given credit for; (iii) The Big Bang Model, establishing the expansion of the universe as an evidentially fully warranted result in the 1950s or 1960s (and a communal achievement, rather than an individually attributable one), doesn’t qualify as a discovery itself, but was inaugurated by, and in turn itself led to, several discoveries. (shrink)

July 2008 saw a conclusion to a case which began with a request to the Common Services Agency for the Scottish Health Service under the Freedom of Information Act 2002 and culminated in a hearing in front of the House of Lords as Court of Appeal. The outcome, however, can be considered both a triumph and a failure for data protection law.This paper analyzes the House of Lords decision to determine whether the judgment has provided more legal clarity in an (...) area in which guidance is still very much required. (shrink)

Recent developments around the sharing economy bring to the fore questions of governability and broader societal benefit—and subsequently the need to explore effective means of public governance, from nurturing, on the one hand, to restriction, on the other. As sharing is a predominately urban phenomenon in modern societies, cities around the globe have become both locus of action and central actor in the debates over the nature and organization of the sharing economy. However, cities vary substantially in the interpretation of (...) potential opportunities and challenges, as well as in their governance responses. Building on a qualitative comparative analysis of 16 leading global cities, our findings reveal four framings of the sharing economy: ‘societal endangerment,’ ‘societal enhancement,’ ‘market disruption,’ and ‘ecological transition.’ Such framings go hand in hand with patterned governance responses: although there is considerable heterogeneity in the combination of public governance strategies, we find specific configurations of framings and public governance strategies. Our work reflects the political and ethical debates on various economic, social, and moral issues related to the sharing economy, and contributes to a better understanding of the field-level institutional arrangements—a prerequisite for examining moral behavior of sharing economy organizations. (shrink)

Klein, Renate The practice of surrogacy in Australia has been controversial since its beginning in the late 1980s. In 1988, the famous 'Kirkman case' in the state of Victoria put surrogacy on the national map. This was a two-sisters surrogacy - Linda and Maggie Kirkman and the resulting baby Alice - in which power differences between the two women were extraordinarily stark: Maggie was the glamorous and well spoken woman of the world; Linda who carried the baby, was the (...) demure school teacher in child-like frocks and pig tails. Their IVF doctor applauded altruistic surrogacy. He called it 'gestational surrogacy' and proclaimed that if the so-called surrogate mother didn't use her own eggs, thus wasn't the baby's 'genetic' mother, no attachment would ensue! This statement is haunting us to this day. It is patently absurd: as a baby grows in a woman's body over the nine months of the pregnancy, it is hard to see why the 24/7 presence of the baby inside her body, its growth, its interaction with her would be any different whether s/he has the mother's genes! (shrink)

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE Vol. 5, number 1, Autumn 1991, pp. 79-87. R.M. Nugayev. -/- The fundamental laws of physics can tell the truth. -/- Abstract. Nancy Cartwright’s arguments in favour of phenomenological laws and against fundamental ones are discussed. Her criticisms of the standard cjvering-law account are extended using Vyacheslav Stepin’s analysis of the structure of fundamental theories. It is argued that Cartwright’s thesis 9that the laws of physics lie) is too radical to accept. A model (...) of theory change is proposed which demonstrates how the fundamental laws of physics can, in fact, be confronted with experience. -/- . (shrink)

Precision medicine and digital phenotyping are two prominent data-based approaches within digital medicine. While precision medicine historically used primarily genetic data to find targeted treatment options, digital phenotyping relies on the usage of big data deriving from digital devices such as smartphones, wearables and other connected devices. This paper first focusses on the aspect of data type to explore differences and similarities between precision medicine and digital phenotyping. It outlines different ways of data collection and production and the consequences thereof. (...) Second, it shows how these sorts of data influence dominant beliefs in the field: The field of precision medicine relying on the dominant understanding of ‘genetic determinism’ imported from genetics, digital phenotyping building on the logic of ‘data fundamentalism’. In the end, the analysis shows how digital data informs potentials as well as challenges of precision medicine and digital phenotyping: a better health care for individuals connected with individualisation and responsibilisation for all, with a prognosed shift from reactive to preventive medicine. Additionally, data-based approaches might facilitate epistemological and ontological redirections for the whole field of medicine that will also affect knowledge production and a reassessment of the value of different types of knowledge with all its consequences. Institutionally, it might lead to shifts in distribution of power to experts in big data related technologies, i.e. private companies. (shrink)

This paper offers a contribution to ecophilosophy from the perspective of the scientific research of the environment. The problem considered in the paper deals with a specific issue of environmental risk, namely, the problem of radon ionizing radiation and the highest permissible security norms of it. This problem, now rarely discussed in ecological communities, is one of more important for humankind’s health and safe existence. The awareness of harmful and beneficial biological effects of various environmental factors is a basic step (...) towards ensuring the security of public health. The admissible norms of radon radiation are different in different countries. The article suggests possible causes of these differences and puts forward the thesis that today’s science alone is not a sufficient ground of resolving ecological problems. (shrink)

Includes bibliographical references and index.