Different researchers from psychology and neuroscience state that navigation involves the manipulation of cognitive maps and graphs. In this paper, I will argue that navigating – specifically, journey planning – can be conceived as a process of practical reasoning. First, I will argue that journey planning constitutes a case of means-end reasoning involving inferences with cartographic representations. Then, I will argue that the output of journey planning functions as an instrumental belief in means-end reasoning. More specifically, journey planning can deliver (...) an instrumental rule that plays a normative role in spatial cognition. This approach motivates a pluralist conception of practical reasoning, stating that inferences might run through different representational formats and processes. (shrink)

This volume explores the potential of employing a relational paradigm for the purposes of interdisciplinary exchange. Bringing together scholars from the social sciences, philosophy and theology, it seeks to bridge the gap between subject areas by focusing on real phenomena.Although these phenomena are studied by different disciplines, the editors demonstrate that it is also possible to study them from a common relational perspective that connects the different languages, theories and perspectives which characterize each discipline, by going beyond their differences (...) to the core of reality itself. As an experimental collection that highlights the potential that exists for cross-disciplinary work, this volume will appeal to scholars across a range of field concerned with critical realist approaches to research, collaborative work across subjects and the manner in which disciplines can offer one another new insights. (shrink)

One of the most influential methodological contributions of twentieth‐century philosophy was the approach known as conceptual analysis. The majority of experimental philosophy papers are doing cognitive science. They are revealing surprising new effects and then offering explanations those effects in terms of certain underlying cognitive processes. The best way to get a sense for actual research programs in experimental philosophy is to look in detail at one particular example. This chapter considers the effect of moral considerations (...) on intuitions about intentional action, as an example. Working in conceptual analysis aimed to develop analyses of concepts, and in that context, the obvious proposal would be that people should be aiming for simple analyses of concepts. The chapter also focuses on the study of intuitions about knowledge. Experimental philosophy has sought to capture the patterns in people's intuitions through theories about underlying cognitive processes. (shrink)

Some Key Controversies in the Philosophy of Science Larry Laudan. the mouths of my realist, relativist, and positivist. (By contrast, there is at least one person who hews to the line I have my prag- matist defending.) But I have gone to some  ...

"This book is an attempt at a not too technical scientists' philosophy of science" - Preface.

Philosophers of science traditionally have ignored the details of scientific research, and the result has often been theories that lack relevance either to science or to philosophy in general. In this volume, leading philosophers of biology discuss the limitations of this tradition and the advantages of the "naturalistic turn"—the idea that the study of science is itself a scientific enterprise and should be conducted accordingly. This innovative book presents candid, informal debates among scholars who examine the (...) benefits and problems of studying science in the same way that scientists study the natural world. Callebaut achieves the effect of face-to-face engagement through separate interviews with participants. Contributors include William Bechtel, Robert Brandon, Richard M. Burian, Donald T. Campbell, Patricia Churchland, Jon Elster, Ronald N. Giere, David L. Hull, Philip Kitcher, Karin Knorr Cetina, Bruno Latour, Richard Levins, Richard C. Lewontin, Elisabeth Lloyd, Helen Longino, Thomas Nickles, Henry C. Plotkin, Robert J. Richards, Alexander Rosenberg, Michael Ruse, Dudley Shapere, Elliott Sober, Ryan Tweney, and William Wimsatt. "Why can't we have both theoretical ecology and natural histories, lovingly done?"—Philip Kitcher "Don't underestimate the arrogance of philosophers!"—Elisabeth Lloyd. (shrink)

The papers in this volume are offered in celebration of the 200th anni versary of the pub 1 i cat i on of Inmanue 1 Kant's The MetaphysicaL Foundations of NatupaL Science. All of the es says (including the Introduction) save two were written espe ci ally for thi s volume. Gernot Bohme' s paper is an amended and enlarged version of one originally read in the series of lectures and colloquia in philosophy of science offered by (...) Boston University. My own paper is a revised and enlarged version (with an appendix containing completely new material) of one read at the biennial meeting of the Philosophy of Sci ence Association held in Chicago in 1984. Why is it important to devote this attention to Kant's last published work in the philosophy of physics? The excellent essays in the volume will answer the question. I will provide some schematic com ments designed to provide an image leading from the general question to its very specific answers. Kant is best known for hi s monumental Croitique of Pure Reason and for his writings in ethical theory. His "critical" philosophy requires an initial sharp division of knowledge into its theoretical and practical parts. Moral perfection of attempts to act out of duty is the aim of practical reason. The aim of theoretical reason is to know the truth about ma terial and spiritual nature. (shrink)

This paper explores the use of Popper's philosophy of science by cladists in their battle against evolutionary and numerical taxonomy. Three schools of biological systematics fiercely debated each other from the late 1960s: evolutionary taxonomy, phenetics or numerical taxonomy, and phylogenetic systematics or cladistics. The outcome of that debate was the victory of phylogenetic systematics/cladistics over the competing schools of thought. To bring about this "cladistic turn" in systematics, the cladists drew heavily on the philosopher K.R. Popper in (...) order to dress up phylogenetic systematics as a hypothetico-deductivist, indeed falsificationist, research program that would put an end to authoritarianism. As the case of the "cladistic revolution" demonstrates, scientists who turn to philosophy in defense of a research program read philosophers with an agenda in mind. That agenda is likely to distort the philosophical picture, as happened to Popper's philosophy of science at the hands of cladists. (shrink)

The survey sums up some of the most important contributions to the philosophy of mathematics and physics made by the Belgian philosophers Renoirte, Dockx, Devaux, Ladrière, Hirsch, Apostel and Ruytinx. It is shown that most Belgia philosophers of science are more interested in giving a critical account of the actual practice of the working scientist than in sketching speculative and idealized pictures of science. This frame of mind is also affected by the allegiance that Positivism in its (...) widest sense commands in Belgium together with Gonseth's Idoneism and Piaget's genetic epistemology. The survey also refers to the seminal ideas of the new rhetorics developed by Prof. Perelman whose school in the philosophy of law has obtained important results in the analysis of the historian's and lawyer's reasoning. (shrink)

Although macroevolution has been the subject of sustained attention in the history and philosophy of science (HPS) community, only in recent years have science educators begun to more fully engage with the topic. This chapter first explores how science educators have conceptualized macroevolution and how their perspectives align with the views from HPS. Second, it illustrates how science educators’ limited engagement with HPS scholarship on macroevolution has influenced construct delineation, measurement instrument development, and educational arguments (...) about which aspects of macroevolution are most important for students to learn. Third, it discusses how scientific debates about the causal factors responsible for macroevolutionary patterns have been exploited by creationists and have impacted the teaching of evolution. Finally, it emphasizes that the rich perspectives that HPS has to offer on the important topic of macroevolution have yet to be integrated into science education scholarship. (shrink)

This article defends methodological and theoretical pluralism in the social sciences. While pluralistic, such a philosophy of social science is both pragmatic and normative. Only by facing the problems of such pluralism, including how to resolve the potential conflicts between various methods and theories, is it possible to discover appropriate criteria of adequacy for social scientific explanations and interpretations. So conceived, the social sciences do not give us fixed and universal features of the social world, but rather contribute (...) to the task of improving upon our practical knowledge of on-going social life. After arguing for such a thorough-going pluralism based on the indeterminacy of social action, I defend it from the post-modern and hermeneutic objections by suggesting the possibility of an epistemology of interpretive social science as a form of practical knowledge. (shrink)

Debunking arguments against both moral and mathematical realism have been pressed, based on the claim that our moral and mathematical beliefs are insensitive to the moral/mathematical facts. In the mathematical case, I argue that the role of Hume’s Principle as a conceptual truth speaks against the debunkers’ claim that it is intelligible to imagine the facts about numbers being otherwise while our evolved responses remain the same. Analogously, I argue, the conceptual supervenience of the moral on the natural speaks presents (...) a difficulty for the debunker’s claim that, had the moral facts been otherwise, our evolved moral beliefs would have remained the same. (shrink)

Galileo’s impractical science Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-3 DOI 10.1007/s11016-011-9534-4 Authors David Marshall Miller, Department of Philosophy, Duke University, 201 West Duke, Durham, NC 27708, USA Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.

The main thesis is that the study of science must itself be a science. the only viable philosophy of science is a naturalized philosophy of science.

In lieu of a programmatic argument about the general relations of history of science and philosophy of science, this essay offers a particular topic in the history of philosophy of science that should be of interest to both historians and philosophers of science. It argues that questions typical of contemporary history of science could illuminate the recent history of philosophy of science and analytic philosophy. It also suggests that the history (...) of scientific philosophy is a particularly fruitful arena for historians of science interested in issues of marginal science. (shrink)

Le savant et la science -- Le raisonnement mathématique -- La mécanique nouvelle -- La science astronomique.

This text deals with a number of topics in philosophy, philosophy of science and philosophy of mind. It includes essays on the laws of nature, biological aspects of the philosophy of mind, and the social aspects of rationality.