Games and Decision Making, Second Edition, is a unique blend of decision theory and game theory. From classical optimization to modern game theory, authors Charalambos D. Aliprantis and Subir K. Chakrabarti show the importance of mathematical knowledge in understanding and analyzing issues in decision making. Through an imaginative selection of topics, Aliprantis and Chakrabarti treat decision and game theory as part of one body of knowledge. They move from problems involving the individual decision-maker to progressively more complex (...) problems such as sequential rationality, auctions, and bargaining. By building each chapter on material presented earlier, the authors offer a self-contained and comprehensive treatment of these topics. Successfully class-tested in an advanced undergraduate course at the Krannert School of Management and in a graduate course in economics at Indiana University, Games and Decision Making, Second Edition, is an essential text for advanced undergraduates and graduate students of decision theory and game theory. The book is accessible to students who have a good basic understanding of elementary calculus and probability theory. (shrink)

The paper studies equilibrium contracts under adverse selection when there is repeated interaction between a principal and an agent over an infinite horizon, without commitment across periods. We show the second-best contract is offered in a perfect Bayesian equilibrium of the infinite horizon model. Unlike the equilibrium contracts in the finite-horizon, the equilibrium contracts in the infinite horizon are not subject to either the ratchet effect or take-the-money-and-run strategy, but rely on a carrot and stick strategy. We study two important (...) applications, one of which is about the optimal regulation of a publicly-held firm. This application has a mixture of both moral hazard and adverse selection. The other application is to the problem of optimal nonlinear pricing when the valuation of the buyers are drawn from a continuum. (shrink)

This paper is historical and is devoted to an old controversy in the Indian philosophical tradition with the Vedantins (and others) holding that cognitive states are self-revealing and the Nyaya taking the opposite position. I have summarized the major Vedantin arguments for their viewpoint and offered a critique from the Nyaya perspective. This throws light on a major philosophical controversy in the Indian tradition, a controversy that has not been studied in-depth in the Western tradition. Notably the problem of induction, (...) a major problem in contemporary epistemology, has been studied in-depth in the Western tradition since its introduction by David Hume in the 18th century but the said problem has been studied deeply in Indian tradition for centuries earlier. I have argued in my Classical Indian Philosophy of Induction (2010) that the older Indian contribution on this problem is fully relevant for the very best that contemporary philosophers have offered on this. I hope that this paper will draw the attention of contemporary Western epistemologists who would get involved in this critically important epistemological debate and address a lacuna in the Western tradition. (shrink)

Never before, in any anthology, have contemporary epistemologists and philosophers of language come together to address the single most neglected important issue at the confluence of these two branches of philosophy, namely: Can we know facts from reliable reports? Besides Hume's subversive discussion of miracles and the literature thereon, testimony has been bypassed by most Western philosophers; whereas in classical Indian theories of evidence and knowledge philosophical debates have raged for centuries about the status of word-generated knowledge. `Is the response (...) "I was told by an expert on the subject" as respectable as "I saw" or "I inferred" in answer to "How do you know?"' is a question answered in diverse and subtle ways by Buddhists, Vaisesikas and Naiyayikas. For the first time this book makes available the riches of those debates, translating from Sanskrit some contemporary Indian Pandits' reactions to Western analytic accounts of meaning and knowledge. For advanced undergraduates in philosophy, for researchers - in Australia, Asia, Europe or America - on epistemology, theory of meaning, Indian or comparative philosophy, as well as for specialists interested in this relatively fresh topic of knowledge transmission and epistemic dependence this book will be a feast. After its publication analytic philosophy and Indian philosophy will have no excuse for shunning each other. (shrink)

In the Buddhist view there can be no affirmation without negation and positive universals that in the Nyaya view are independent and eternal common characters shared by all members of a natural class should be replaced by difference from others that is a negative entity and a non-entity, e.g. what is meant by a cow is not that it is possessed of cow-ness but that it is not a non-cow. Udayana points out that cognition of a negative entity presupposes cognition (...) of what is negated, the negatum. Thus, cognition of cow if the same as not-not cow presupposes cognition of not-cow, but cognition of not-cow presupposes cognition of cow; hence the Buddhist view is open to the charge of mutual dependence. This difficulty does not arise in the Nyaya view. Even if there is no affirmation without negation, negation is not necessarily the content of affirmation. So far as common experience goes, cognition of positive entities does not always require cognition of negative entities, e.g. a cow may be recognized as a cow and possessed of cow-ness without reference to non-cows. (shrink)

As against the Buddhist view that everything is momentary Udayana argues that recognitive perception, such as that this is the same pot I saw before, provides evidence for permanence. Such recognitive perception is common experience and cannot be set aside without compelling evidence. The Buddhist objects that such experience is not reliable; even a burning flame is recognized to be the same, but it is clear from fuel consumption that it is not. Udayana agrees that in the case of a (...) burning flame it cannot be the same flame because then it would have to have opposed features (such as being fueled by more oil before and less oil now). But there is no compelling evidence for the claim that the pot or I would have to have opposed features if enduring. The Buddhist claim that anything enduring must have opposed features such as being both capable and incapable of being productive is groundless. Such features are not opposed and may be explained as being due to availability or non-availability of auxiliary causal conditions and so on. (shrink)

The phenomenon of consciousness has always been a central question for philosophers and scientists. Emerging in the past decade are new approaches to the understanding of consciousness in a scientific light. This book presents a series of essays by leading thinkers giving an account of the current ideas prevalent in the scientific study of consciousness. The value of the book lies in the discussion of this interesting though complex subject from different points of view ranging from physics, computer science to (...) the cognitive sciences. Reviews of controversial ideas related to the philosophy of mind from western and eastern sources including classical Indian first person methodologies provide a breadth of coverage that has seldom been attempted in a book before. Additionally, chapters relating to the new approaches in computational modelling of higher order cognitive function and consciousness are included. The book is of great value for established as well as young researchers from a wide cross-section of interdisciplinary scientific backgrounds, aiming to pursue research in this field, as well as an informed public. * Presents the latest developments in the scientific study of consciousness * Critically reviews different theoretical and philosophical explanations related to the subject * An important book for both students and researchers in designing research projects on consciousness. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Remembering Jitendra Nath MohantyArindam Chakrabarti (bio)The only philosopher in the global history of philosophy who read and taught (in the original Sanskrit, German, and English) Patañjali, Vyāsa, Śaṅkara, Gangeśa, Kant, Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger, Frege, Wittgenstein, Hume, McTaggart, Russell, Davidson, and Dummett with equal expertise, depth, and hermeneutic originality is no more. Jitendra Nath Mohanty, who passed away on the 7th of March 2023, was emeritus professor of philosophy (...) at Temple University, Philadelphia. In the last decade of his life, he used to spend long periods in his home in Kolkata, the city where he studied as an undergraduate. Born in in 1928 in Cuttack, Orissa, India, Mohanty ranked first in all public examinations and in his B.A. at Presidency College, Kolkata and his M.A. examination at the University of Calcutta. After receiving a Ph.D. from the University of Göttingen in 1954, he came back to India and continued his traditional-style tutelage under two great Sanskrit Pandits: Ananta Tarkatirtha (for Navya Nyāya) and Mahamahopadhyaya Yogendranath Bagchi (for Advaita Vedānta). In his long academic career, he taught at the University of Burdwan, the University of Calcutta, the New School for Social Research, the University of Oklahoma, Emory University, and Temple University and held visiting professorships at All Souls College Oxford and Jadavpur University, Kolkata.JNM was trained equally thoroughly in three distinct traditions and styles of philosophy. Even great modern Indian philosophers of the twentieth century, such as K. C. Bhattacharya, B. N. Seal, R. D. Ranade, Radhakrishnan, B. K. Matilal, Daya Krishna, and R. C. Gandhi, could claim scholarly fluency in at most two traditions (of course the "Indian tradition" itself is a maddeningly complex plurality of traditions often sharing very little in common—e.g., Abhidharma Buddhism and Mādhva Dualist Vedānta). But Mohanty was well-versed in and collected insights and inspiration from European (Continental) Phenomenology, and Analytic Anglo-American Philosophy and several of the diverse Sanskrit Indian Philosophical schools of thought. More importantly, as can be demonstrated in detail, it is his expertise in the pluralistic yet both logically and phenomenologically rigorous styles of classical Indian philosophies that made him uniquely capable of doing the bridgework between continental and analytic philosophies of the West—between Husserl and Frege, for example. [End Page 1]Within philosophy in general his interests ranged from metaphysics to epistemology, ethics, social philosophy, philosophy of physics (especially Time), Logic, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophy of language and mind. Among his numerous publications, the following books achieved bench-mark status in their respective fields: Gaṅgeśa's Theory of Truth: Containing the Text of Gaṅgeśa's Prāmāṇya (jñapti) vāda (Santiniketan: Visva-Bharati, India, 1966); Reason and Tradition in Indian Thought: An Essay on the Nature of Indian Philosophical Thinking (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992); Classical Indian Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2002); The Self and its Other (Oxford University Press, 2000); Logic, Truth, and the Modalities (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999; Jadavpur University, Kolkata, 1999); The Concept of Intentionality (St. Louis: Warren H. Green, 1972); Phenomenology: Between Essentialism and Transcendental Philosophy (Northwestern University Press, 1997); Husserl and Frege (Indiana University Press, 1982); Edmund Husserl's Theory of Meaning (Springer, 1976); and The Philosophy of Edmund Husserl: A Historical Development (Yale University Press, 2008). His charming and inspiring intellectual autobiography was published in 2012 by Oxford University press with the title Between Two Worlds: East and West, an Autobiography. Some of his classic papers are collected in the volume edited with an introduction by Purushottama Billimoria: J. N. Mohanty: Essays on Indian Philosophy Traditional and Modern (New York and New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002). Philosophy East and West is going to publish a special issue devoted to JNM's life-time achievements in different branches and traditions of philosophy. [End Page 2]Arindam Chakrabarti Philosophy Department, University of Hawai'[email protected] © 2024 University of Hawai'i Press... (shrink)

M. K. Gandhi's a series of talks delivered to ashramites at Sabarmati during 1926 and 1927, provides a singular instance in Indian intellectual thought in which the Bhagavad Gita's message of action is transformed into a theory of non-violent resistance. This essay argues that Gandhi's reading of the Gita has to be placed within an identifiable general understanding of the political that emerged among the so-called in the Congress towards the beginning of the twentieth century. Gandhi, we argue, wrested from (...) the their vocabulary and their pre-eminent political text, the Gita, and put them to use in the cause of non-violent politics. But, more importantly, his discourses on the Gita after 1920 suggest an acceptance, on his part, of politics as it actually was. This is where he departed from the projects of Tilak or Aurobindo. The Gita, in Gandhi's hand, became a talismanic device that allowed the satyagrahi his or her involvement in political action while providing protection from the necessary and unavoidable venality of politics and its propensity to violence. (shrink)

Among his generation of intellectuals, the eighteenth-century German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder is recognized both for his innovative philosophy of language and history and for his passionate criticism of racism, colonialism, and imperialism. A student of Immanuel Kant, Herder challenged the idea that anyone--even the philosophers of the Enlightenment--could have a monopoly on truth. In Herder: Aesthetics against Imperialism, John K. Noyes plumbs the connections between Herder's anti-imperialism, often acknowledged but rarely explored in depth, and his epistemological investigations. Noyes argues (...) that Herder's anti-rationalist epistemology, his rejection of universal conceptions of truth, knowledge, and justice, constitutes the first attempt to establish not just a moral but an epistemological foundation for anti-imperialism. Engaging with the work of postcolonial theorists such Dipesh Chakrabarty and Gayatri Spivak, this book is a valuable reassessment of Enlightenment anti-imperialism that demonstrates Herder's continuing relevance to postcolonial studies today. (shrink)

In Rahul Banerjee and Bikas K. Chakrabarti (eds.), Progress in Brain Research, 168: 215-246. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Electronic offprint available upon request.

As the final installment of Public Culture’s Millennial Quartet, Cosmopolitanism assesses the pasts and possible futures of cosmopolitanism—or ways of thinking, feeling, and acting beyond one’s particular society. With contributions from distinguished scholars in disciplines such as literary studies, art history, South Asian studies, and anthropology, this volume recenters the history and theory of translocal political aspirations and cultural ideas from the usual Western vantage point to areas outside Europe, such as South Asia, China, and Africa. By examining new archives, (...) proposing new theoretical formulations, and suggesting new possibilities of political practice, the contributors critically probe the concept of cosmopolitanism. On the one hand, cosmopolitanism may be taken to promise a form of supraregional political solidarity, but on the other, these essays argue, it may erode precisely those intimate cultural differences that derive their meaning from particular places and traditions. Given that most cosmopolitan political formations—from the Roman empire and European imperialism to contemporary globalization—have been coercive and unequal, can there be a noncoercive and egalitarian cosmopolitan politics? Finally, the volume asks whether cosmopolitanism can promise any universalism that is not the unwarranted generalization of some Western particular. Contributors. Ackbar Abbas, Arjun Appadurai, Homi K. Bhabha, T. K. Biaya, Carol A. Breckenridge, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Ousame Ndiaye Dago, Mamadou Diouf, Wu Hung, Walter D. Mignolo, Sheldon Pollock, Steven Randall. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Breaking EarthAlexis Rider (bio) and Paul A. Harris (bio)“He takes all that, the strata and the magma and the people and the power, in his imaginary hands. Everything. He holds it. He is not alone. The earth is with him. Then he breaks it.”― N. K. Jemisin, The Fifth SeasonBreaking Earth, a collection of visual and written essays brought together for this special issue of SubStance, is a disruptive (...) engagement with concepts and terms that have become touchstones for the geologic/planetary turn in the inhumanities. The project took initial inspiration in conversations the co-editors had about N. K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy, in which geologic and human power interweave in complex webs among bodies born of chiasmic crossings of Anthro-progeny and Geo-orogeny. Conceived as a companion almanac to Jemisin’s trilogy—though references to that work are intentionally oblique—the volume pursues new ways of reading, and being with, the geos of this planet. In doing so, Breaking Earth seeks to reframe and deepen the discussions, both historical and philosophical, around the relationship between geology and humanity.The notion of the Anthropocene has, for several decades, monopolized said discussions. Since its articulation in the early 2000s, the concept has been equal parts galvanizing and problematic in thinking with the Earth (Crutzen). Proposed by an atmospheric chemist, incorporated (with caveats) into the geologic deep time of the planet by geologists, and taken up with vigor by humanists, social scientists, and artists, the Anthropocene has, for better or worse, broken significant new ground in Earth-oriented thought.The term’s core proposals—that humans are a geologic force and we have entered a wholly new period of Earth history—has compelled scholars to engage with a geologic tradition of mapping and classifying the history of said forces along a temporal scale. This tradition—exemplified in the International Chronostratigraphic Chart (ICC) below (Figure 1)—relies on the translation of messiness and difference into abstracted orderly categories of strata and type. Of course, no geologist would claim that the ICC is a direct representation of the materiality of the rocky Earth we live on, so full of faults, fissures, and unconformities. But as writers, [End Page 3] artists, and activists have made clear, the repositioning of humans-as-strata is far riskier than imposing abstract order on a cliff face: it dangerously flattens out the messiness of human history and difference—obfuscating the uneven histories of extraction and oppression to which the mining of geophysical energies and resources is so clearly bound. The Anthropocene has therefore helped reveal the immense pitfalls of conflating a species with the geologic, and made clear the need for humanists—both within the academy and beyond—to develop a language and method for thinking about the changing Earth. Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 1.International Chronostratigraphic Chart (ICC), International Commission on Stratigraphy, 2023, www.stratigraphy.org.At the same time, the very act of attempting to identify the Anthropocene within stratigraphic nomenclature has usefully challenged old and brittle binaries. Contemporary rhetoric around how to conceive of change—backed often by disciplinary boundary-keeping—exemplifies such divisions. Take, for example, the grammatical distinction between political, social forces and physical, environmental forcings (Hulme). These seemingly inane suffixes recast agency and allow the natural and social worlds to exist in two separate spheres (albeit ones that overlap via extraction) where human action is more wholly filled with intent. Breaking this distinction via a reconceptualization of geologic agency underpins [End Page 4] what scholars, including Pratik Chakrabarti and Kathryn Yusoff, have been articulating so clearly: rocks have politics. To unpack this carefully and fully, however, requires moving beyond the collapse of anthropos into geos: there is too much texture, history, and action lost in such a sweeping and simple formulation.This collection takes these problematics of the Anthropocene as self-evident: it critically engages with the chronostratigraphic logic that implicitly upholds a view of time, history, and knowledge which operationalizes the extractive carbon capital economies fueled by colonialism and slavery. This assertion bears emphasizing, given the announcement from the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) in the summer of 2023 that the origin of... (shrink)

Du film Her de Spike Jonze à 2001 L’Odyssée de l’espace de Stanley Kubrick, et des androïdes de Philip K. Dick à l’utopie intergalactique de la Culture de l’écrivain Iain M. Banks, il est impossible de comprendre aujourd’hui l’intelligence artificielle sans s’intéresser à ses puissants imaginaires. Ceux-ci, nourrissant bien des fantasmes de la Silicon Valley, sont essentiels à décrypter pour ne pas les subir, voire pour se les approprier et mieux les détourner, en faire des antidotes contre les multinationales (...) du numérique, puis cultiver grâce à eux nos propres machines rebelles de quelque futur. (shrink)

Perceptual disjunctivism is a controversial thesis about perception. One familiar characterization of the thesis maintains that there is no common epistemic kind that is present in both veridical and non-veridical cases of perception. For example, the good case, in which one sees a yellow lemon, and the bad case, in which one hallucinates a yellow lemon, share a specific first-person phenomenology, being indistinguishable from the first-person point of view; however, seeing a yellow lemon and hallucinating a yellow lemon do not, (...) according to the disjunctivist, share a common epistemic kind. There are two types of disjunctivism: epistemological vs. metaphysical. John McDowell, 243–255, 2011, Philosophical Explorations, 16, 259–279, 2013) has articulated, refined, and defended one kind of disjunctivism. Tyler Burge, 1–78, 2005, Philosophical Explorations, 13, 43–80, 2011) has objected to many forms of disjunctivism, arguing that they are all inconsistent with the proximality principle in the vision sciences. PP requires an ability-general kind in common between relevantly similar perceptual states, such as seeing a yellow lemon and hallucinating a yellow lemon, which disjunctivism denies. Against the background of this debate some analytic epistemologists, such as Michael Martin, Alan Millar, 176–198, 2007), Berit Brogaard, 46–73, 2011), Duncan Pritchard, and Heather Logue, 105–133, 2013) remain attracted to some version of disjunctivism. Brogaard and Pritchard each have gone on to articulate and defend a version. Pritchard’s, for example, defends epistemological disjunctivism. Martin, Millar, and Logue, by contrast, have defended the idea that the disjunctivist is right about something, but perhaps not wholly correct about the nature of perception. In what follows, I articulate and defend the view that an interesting kind of disjunctivism is to be found through a reading of the Nyāya School of classical Indian philosophy. I articulate a version of perceptual disjunctivism informed by Nyāya perceptual theory that is not derivable from any single Nyāya philosopher. The view I offer is inspired by work on disjunctivism both in Anglo-analytic philosophy and in Nyāya scholarship, such as by Dasti and Phillips, 535–540, 2010), Ganeri, 541–550, 2010), Dasti, 1–15, 2012), Phillips, Vaidya, 562–585, 2013), and Schiller, 1–18, 2019). Importantly, the causal account I offer is distinct from Grice’s single-factor causal theory of perception by crucially involving a multi-factor causal theory of perception. My work on Nyāya perceptual theory derives primarily from Jaysankar Shaw’s account of Nyāya on the sources of knowledge, which is distinct from Stephen Phillips’ well-known account of Nyāya epistemology. Shaw’s theory has been developed and refined through textual analysis and dialectical engagement with the twentieth century Nyāya Pundit Philosopher, Viśvabandhu Tarkatīrtha. Like other modern Nyāya scholars, such as B. K. Matilal, A. Chakrabarti, 1–8, 2010), M. Chadha, J. Ganeri, and S. Phillips, 104–113, 2001, 2012), J. Shaw’s account shows how Nyāya epistemology is a living and continuing form of Indian philosophy. My goal here is twofold. On the one hand, I articulate multi-factor causal disjunctivism and show how it can be applied to the McDowell-Burge debate over the viability of disjunctivism and naïve realism. On the other hand, I aim to start a cross-cultural epistemological conversation with those that have contributed to the Anglo-analytic debate in anthologies, such as Haddock and Macpherson, Byrne and Logue, and introductions, such as Soteriou. The hope is that a cross-cultural epistemological investigation into disjunctivism will lead to better epistemic theorizing about the nature of perception. (shrink)

The anti-realist argument from underconsideration focuses on the fact that, when scientists evaluate theories, they only ever consider a subset of the theories that can account for the available data. As a result, when scientists judge one theory to be superior to competitor theories, they are not warranted in drawing the conclusion that the superior theory is likely true with respect to what it says about unobservable entities and processes. I defend the argument from underconsideration from the objections of Peter (...) Lipton. I argue that the inconsistency that Lipton claims to find in the argument vanishes once we understand what the anti-realist means when she claims that scientists are reliable. I also argue that collapsing the distinction between relative and absolute evaluations, as Lipton recommends, has its costs. Finally, I briefly examine Richard Boyd's influential defence of realism. (shrink)

The article touches upon the problem of concept “Indian tradition of rationality”. The author recalls a genetic link of the concept with Western philosophy. She notices the complexity of its application to Indian material, gives some examples in which the use of Western concepts of “reason”, “methods of cognition”, etc., leads to a distortion of the text’s meaning, and when an application of the criteria of Western logic to analysis of Indian philosophical discourse gives the readers an impression of its (...) absurdity. However, according to the author’s mind, the difficulties with the applying of Western concepts are not the sufficient grounds to abandon them. This conclusion follows from the presence of comparative studies by researchers belonging to both traditions (for example, B.K. Matilal, J. Mohanty, A. Chakrabarti, etc.), who compare successfully Western and Indian kinds of logico-epistemological type of rationality. The difficulties just bring up the questions about new instrumental concepts and methods of comparative studies more adequate to Indian culture. There are two possible directions for the studies of Indian tradition of rationality in connection with the revision of contents of the concepts in Western post- modern philosophy. In the first of them the concept of rationality can not to be used at all, then the phenomenology of practices of Indian discourse becomes the subject of research, i.e. the discourse images in different contexts (religious, philosophical, scientific), its explicit and implicit foundations and aims, which aren’t coincide with Western ones. In the second case Indian rationality can be analyzed in accordance with the criteria of transversal reason and transversal rationality. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:429 THE HUME LITERATURE FOR 1985 The Hume literature from 1925 to 1976 has been thoroughly covered in my book Fifty Years of Hume Scholarship: A Bibliographical Guide (Edinburgh University Press, 1978; £9.50), which also lists the main earlier writings on Hume. (The book is still in print.) Publications of the years 1977 to 1984 were listed in previous issues of Hume Studies. What follows here will bring the (...) record up to the end of 1985. Readers are invited to inform me of any omissions, and keenly requested to send me offprints of their own articles and reviews. Hardly any do so at present, and it would greatly ease the labour of collection. The intention is to maintain a complete bibliographical record of critical work on Hume, by the regular publication in Hume Studies of this annual bibliography, with addenda consisting of items omitted through ignorance in previous years. References to recently appearing reviews (of books from earlier lists) are given at the end. The following abbreviations of journal titles are used here: APQ American Philosophical Quarterly HPQ History of Philosophy Quarterly JHI Journal of the History of Ideas JHP Journal of the History of Philosophy JP Journal of Philosophy PAS Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society PB Philosophical Books PQ Philosophical Quarterly PR Philosophical Review RIP Revue Internationale de Philosophie RM Review of Metaphysics TLS Times Literary Supplement 430 Other abbreviations should be obvious enough, and mainly follow the British Standard (no. 4148). AGASSI, J. "The Unity of Hume's Thought", Hume Studies (10th Anniv. Issue), 87-109. AUSTIN, W. H. "Philo's Reversal", Phil. Topics 13, no. 2, 103-12. BADIA CABRERA, M. A. "Hume's Natural History of Religion: Positive Science or Metaphysical Vision of Religion", Diálogos 20, 71-8. BAIER, A. Postures of the Mind, ch. 10 ("Promises, Promises, Promises"), ch. 11 ("Civilizing Practices"). London, etc. BEHAN, D. P. "Hume's Labyrinth", HPg 2, 309-22. BENNETT, D. "Hume's Pride", in B. Vermazen, Essays on Davidson, 89-91. Oxford. BIRO, J. L. "Hume and Cognitive Science", HPQ 2, 257-74. BLANDINO, G. "Le causalitate. Discussion sur le criticas de D. Hume" [in Interlingua, with French and English], Aquinas 28, 247-57. BRICKE, J. "Locke, Hume and the Nature of Volitions", Hume Studies (10th Anniv. Issue), 15-51. BROOKS, D. "Hume's Bundle Theory of the Mind", S. African J. Phil. 4, 75-84. BROOKS, D. H. M. "Strawson, Hume, and the Unity of Consciousness", Mind 94, 583-6. CAMPBELL, K. "John Passmore and Hume's Moral Philosophy", Hume Studies 11, 109-24. CAPALDI, N. "The Historical and Philosophical Significance of Hume's Theory of the Self", in A.J. Holland, Philosophy, Its History and Historiography, 271-85, Dordrecht, etc. 431 CARLSON, G. R. "Hume and the Moral Realists", Australas. J. Phil. 63, 407-18. CHAKRABARTI, T. K. "Hume's Definitions of Cause", J. Indian Council Phil. Res., 67-75. CHEN, W. -S. Article (in Chinese) on Hume on personal identity, in Phil. Rev. (Taiwan) 8, 123-42. CLARK, S. R. L. "Hume, Animals and the Objectivity of Morals", P£ 35, 117-33. CLERO, J. P. La philosophie des passions chez David Hume. (301 pp.) Paris. DANIEL, S. C "The Problem of Identity of Objects in Hume's Philosophy", Indian Phil. Q. 12, 1916. DAVIE, W. "Hume on Morality, Action, and Character", HPQ 2, 337-48. DEWITT, R. "Hume's Probability Argument of I, iv, 1", Hume Studies 11, 125-40. DONNICI, R. "Husserl sull' etica di Hume. Dalle lezioni inedite del 1902", Rivista di storia della filosofia 40, 449-70. ENC, B. "Hume on Causal Necessity: A Study from the Perspective of Hume's Theory of Passions", HPQ 2, 235-56. FERREIRA, M.J. "Hume's Naturalism - 'Proof and Practice", P£ 35, 45-57. FLAGE, D.E. "Hume on Memory and Causation", Hume Studies (10th Anniv. Issue), 168-88. [11 (1985) 166-72] FLAGE, D.E. "Perchance to Dream: A Reply to Traiger", Hume Studies 11, 173-82. (on Traiger 1985b) FLAGE, D.E. "Hume's Ethics", Phil. Topics 13, no. 3, 71-88. FLEW, A. "Impressions and Experiences: Public or Private?", Hume Studies 11, 183-91. 432 FOGELIN, R.J. Hume's Skepticism... (shrink)

In this book K. Brad Wray provides a comprehensive survey of the arguments against scientific realism. In addition to presenting logical considerations that undermine the realists' inferences to the likely truth or approximate truth of our theories, he provides a thorough assessment of the evidence from the history of science. He also examines grounds for a defence of anti-realism, including an anti-realist explanation for the success of our current theories, an account of why false theories can be empirically successful, and (...) an explanation for why we should expect radical changes of theory in the future. His arguments are supported and illustrated by cases from the history of science, including a sustained study of the Copernican Revolution, and a study of the revolution in early twentieth century chemistry, when chemists came to classify elements by their atomic number rather than by their atomic weight. (shrink)

I evaluate the extent to which we could learn something about how we should be conducting collaborative research in science from the research on groupthink. I argue that Solomon has set us in the wrong direction, failing to recognize that the consensus in scientific specialties is not the result of deliberation. But the attention to the structure of problem-solving that has emerged in the groupthink research conducted by psychologists can help us see when deliberation could lead to problems for a (...) research team. I argue that whenever we need to generate alternative solutions or proposals, groupthink is a genuine threat, and research teams would be wise to allow individuals opportunities to work alone. But the benefits of team work emerge when scientists seek to evaluate the various proposals generated, and determine a course of action. Then the group is less prone is groupthink, and the interaction of group members can be an epistemic asset. (shrink)

I present a history of Kuhn’s discovery of paradigms, one that takes account of the complexity of the discovery process. Rather than emerging fully formed in Structure , the concept paradigm emerged through a series of phases. Early criticism of Structure revealed that the role of paradigms was unclear. It was only as Kuhn responded to criticism that he finally articulated a precise understanding of the concept paradigm. In a series of publications in the 1970s, he settled on a conception (...) of a paradigm as a concrete exemplar that functions as a guide to future research. (shrink)

I examine the citation patterns to a revolutionary scientific paper, Hess’ “History of Ocean Basins”, which played a significant role in the plate tectonics revolution in the geosciences. I test two predictions made by the geoscientist Menard (in Science: growth and change. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1971): (1) that the peak year of citations for Hess’ article will be 1968; and (2) that the rate of citations to the article will then reach some lower level, continuing on accumulating citations at (...) some regular but unimpressive rate. Drawing on data covering the period from 1962 to 2019, I show that Menard was close with respect to the first prediction. But I also show that things are less clear with respect to the second prediction. I explain why the data are less clear with respect to the second prediction. (shrink)

This Introduction provides a rationale for a collection of new paper on Thomas Kuhn. Scholarship on Kuhn has changed dramatically in the last 20 years for numerous reasons. First, scholars studying Kuhn no longer focus narrowly on Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Scholars have been giving careful consideration to Kuhn’s later work. Second, many scholars have been drawing on the vast unpublished resources at the Thomas S. Kuhn Archive at MIT. Third, with the 50th anniversary of the publication of Structure in (...) 2012, there were quite a number of conferences held which led to the publication of a number of volumes reflecting on Kuhn’s impact in philosophy and history of science. These three developments have contributed significantly to our collective understanding of Kuhn and his theories of scientific change and scientific knowledge. Though Kuhn’s position in the philosophy of science can be difficult to gauge, by objective measures Kuhn’s impact is undeniable. Kuhn’s influence outside philosophy of science is also astounding, especially in the social sciences. So it is beyond dispute that Kuhn has had a profound and wide-ranging impact on scholarship. (shrink)

Social epistemology is a wide-ranging field of study concerned with investigating how various social factors, practices, and institutions affect our prospects of gaining and spreading knowledge. Philosophers working in social epistemology have focused on a range of topics, including trust and testimony, the effects of social location on knowing, and whether or not groups of people can have knowledge that is not reducible to the knowledge of the individual members of the group. Much of the work in social epistemology is (...) not concerned specifically with science and scientists but, rather, with knowing agents in general. This chapter will be concerned narrowly with the social epistemology of scientific knowledge. After a brief discussion of Thomas Kuhn's contribution to the social epistemology of science, the chapter addresses the following issues: the ideal epistemic community; collaboration and trust; social values and bias; and science policy and expertise. The chapter ends with a brief discussion of methodology in the social epistemology of science. (shrink)

I critically examine Rorty's social epistemology, specifically his claim that the end of inquiry is solidarity.

The article examines Thomas Kuhn's work in the history of science with special attention to its relevance to subsequent developments in social epistemology. The article begins with a discussion of Kuhn's historical work, and the so-called historical turn in philosophy of science. It then examines Kuhn's views on textbook science, followed by an analysis of Kuhn's views on the relationship between the history of science and the philosophy of science. Then it discusses Kuhn's contributions to our understanding of the social (...) dimensions of scientific inquiry. Finally, it discusses his influence on the social epistemology of science and the sociology of science. (shrink)