Philosophers and statisticians have been debating on causality for a long time. However, these discussions have been led quite independently from each other. An objective of this paper is to pursue a fruitful dialogue between philosophy and statistics. As is well known, at the beginning of the 20th century, some philosophers and statisticians dismissed the concept of causality altogether. It will suffice to mention Bertrand Russell (1913) and Karl Pearson (1911). Almost a hundred years later, causality still represents a central (...) topic both in philosophy and statistics. In the social sciences, including research on public health, most studies are concerned with the possible causes, determinants, factors, etc. of a set of observations. In particular, for planning or policy reasons, it is important to know what causes which effects. In order to attain causal knowledge, many social scientists appeal to statistical modelling to confirm or disconfirm their hypotheses about possible causal relations among the variables they consider, taking care of controlling for relevant covariates and especially for possible confounding factors. To what extent can a statistical model say something about causal relations among variables? In this paper, we will attempt an answer by examining a special class of statistical models, i.e. structural models. The discussion, however, will not be confined to a mere examination of statistical methods, since a considerable effort will be made to consider causality from an epistemological perspective. To put it otherwise, this paper does not address the nature of causation itself, nor the analysis of various causal structures, nor the elaboration of complex causal structures; rather, we will be concerned with the question of how we come to uncover causal relations by means of statistical modelling. The practice of statistical modelling raises substantial issues of ontological nature.. (shrink)

The two demonstrate a profound shared passion, a way of literally being one with a medium and speaking about it with a dazzling lyricism interspersed with dryly ironic remarks, fueled by a conviction that inspires them to traverse history. Their point of intersection is obvious. Duras, a writer, is also a filmmaker, and Godard, a filmmaker, has maintained a distinctive relationship with literature, writing and speech."--Cyril Béghin, back cover.

This book addresses central issues in the philosophy and metaphysics of science, namely the nature of scientific theories, their partial truth, and the necessity of scientific laws within a moderate realist and empiricist perspective. Accordingly, good arguments in favour of the existence of unobservable entities postulated by our best theories, such as electrons, must be inductively grounded on perceptual experience and not their explanatory power as most defenders of scientific realism claim. Similarly, belief in the reality of dispositions such as (...) causal powers which ground the natural necessity of scientific laws must be based on experience. Hence, this book offers a synthetic presentation of an original metaphysics of science, namely a metaphysics of properties, both categorical and dispositional, while at the same time opposing strong versions of necessitarism according to which laws are true in all possible worlds. The main theses and arguments are clearly presented in a non-technical way. Thus, on top of being of interest to the specialists of the topics discussed, it is also useful as a textbook in courses for third year and more advanced university students. (shrink)

Samuel Moyn’s books center around dramatic turns in the history of political thought. The Last Utopia argued that it was not until the 1970s that human rights became the centerpiece of our vision o...

A scientific mathematical law is causal if and only if it is a process law that contains a time derivative. This is the intrinsic criterion for causal laws we propose. A process is a space-time line along which some properties are conserved or vary. A process law contains a time variable, but only process laws that contain a time derivative are causal laws. An effect is identified with what corresponds to a time derivative of some property or magnitude in a (...) process law, whereas the other terms correspond to the cause(s). According to our criterion, causes are simultaneous with their effects and causality has no temporal direction. Several examples from natural and social disciplines support the applicability of our criterion to all scientific laws. Various objections to our proposal are presented and refuted. The merits our intrinsic theory of causality vis-à-vis the Salmon–Dowe conserved quantity theory are discussed. (shrink)

The concept of contextual emergence has been introduced as a speci?c kind of emergence in which some, but not all of the conditions for a higher-level phenomenon exist at a lower level. Further conditions exist in contingent contexts that provide stability conditions at the lower level, which in turn accord the emergence of novelty at the higher level. The purpose of the present paper is to propose that consciousness is a contextually emergent property of self-sustaining systems. The core assumption is (...) that living organisms constitute self-sustaining embodiments of the contingent contexts that accord their emergence. We propose that the emergence of such systems constitutes the emergence of content-bearing systems because the lower-level processes of such systems give rise to and sustain the macro-level whole in which they are nested, while the emergent macro-level whole constitutes the context in which the lower- level processes can be for something . Such embodied functionality is necessarily and naturally about the contexts that it has embodied. It is this notion of self- sustaining embodied aboutness that we propose to represent a type of content capable of evolving into consciousness. (shrink)

There is quite a bit of disagreement in cognitive science regarding the role that consciousness and control play in explanations of how people do what they do. The purpose of the present paper is to do the following: (1) examine the theoretical choice points that have lead theorists to conflicting positions, (2) examine the philosophical and empirical problems different theories encounter as they address the issue of conscious agency, and (3) provide an integrative framework (Wild Systems Theory) that addresses these (...) problems and potentially naturalizes conscious agency. It does so by grounding conscious and control in the notion of self-sustaining energy-transformation systems (i.e., living systems), versus computational or self- organizing systems, as is the case in information processing theory and dynamical systems theory, respectively. Given its assertion that content (and consciousness) emerges in self-sustaining systems, Wild Systems Theory may also provide a sound theoretical basis for a science of consciousness in general. (shrink)

There is quite a bit of disagreement in cognitive science regarding the role that consciousness and control play in explanations of how people do what they do. The purpose of the present paper is to do the following: (1) examine the theoretical choice points that have lead theorists to conflicting positions, (2) examine the philosophical and empirical problems different theories encounter as they address the issue of conscious agency, and (3) provide an integrative framework (Wild Systems Theory) that addresses these (...) problems and potentially naturalizes conscious agency. It does so by grounding conscious and control in the notion of self-sustaining energy-transformation systems (i.e., living systems), versus computational or self- organizing systems, as is the case in information processing theory and dynamical systems theory, respectively. Given its assertion that content (and consciousness) emerges in self-sustaining systems, Wild Systems Theory may also provide a sound theoretical basis for a science of consciousness in general. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis paper makes a claim about Constant’s intellectual sources in order to throw additional light on the nature of his liberalism. It assesses Constant’s views against the background of a tradition of political rationalism. Constant both criticized and inherited that tradition. This paper shows how this process of critical re-appropriation occurred principally with two figures that had a particular significance for Constant: the very Francophile William Godwin and Nicolas de Condorcet. Constant resisted these authors’ desire to replace a consent-based decision-making (...) model by a truth-based decision-making model, and condemned their tendency to enrol individual judgment at the service of a politics of truth. At the same time, Constant did not renounce completely to their dream of bringing certainty into politics. As this double-move shows, it is not clear to what extent Constant succeeded in distancing himself from this tradition of political rationalism in order to establish what I call a rationalist liberalism. This problematic intellectual lineage not only challenges received interpretations of Constant’s liberalism either in terms of ‘scepticism’ or ‘pluralism.’ It should also invite us to reconsider the widespread idea according to which the French liberal tradition had a common and exclusive source in Montesquieu. (shrink)

After a presentation of some relevant aspects of Chakravartty's semi-realism (A Metaphysics for scientific realism. Knowing the unobservable. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007), this paper addresses two difficulties that appear to be inherent to important components of his proposed metaphysics for scientific realism. First, if particulars and laws are concrete structures, namely actual groupings of causal properties as the semirealist contends, the relation between particulars and laws becomes also a relation between particulars with some annoying consequences. This worry—and some others—are (...) resolved if laws are taken to be statements and particulars are construed not only as groupings of properties, but things that contain a non-conceptual ingredient which can be given in perceptual awareness. Second, on the semirealist's view of particulars it becomes difficult to defend an epistemological version of scientific realism according to which we have good reasons to believe that the same things are referred to despite the fact that successive theories may attribute different properties to them. (shrink)

Metzinger’s claim that there are no such things as selves has given rise to a lot of discussions. By examining the notion of self used by Metzinger, I want to clarify what he means when saying that nobody ever was or had a self. Furthermore, I want to examine if there could be a notion of ‘self’ which is compatible with the Self- Model Theory of Subjectivity (SMT). I will argue that there is a notion of self which is not (...) only compatible with the SMT, but that the SMT also provides the theoretical framework for developing such a notion. (shrink)

Writing from a scientifically and philosophically informed perspective, the authors provide a critical overview of the conceptual difficulties encountered in many current neuroscientific and psychological theories.

In this paper I argue in favour of a moderate and selective version of scientific realism with respect to the existence of some physical theoretical objects and the truth of some statements about them. The analysis of common sense or ordinary experience reveals that existence and truth assertions concerning familiar objects are warranted if they satisfy what we call the criteria of presence and invariance. Ordinary objects exemplify a form or a structure determined by constant and changing features with respect (...) to the variation of the conditions of observation and a content given in sensory presence. It is claimed that some theoretical physical objects that possess a structure or a form determined by invariant and variable characteristics relatively to a specified group of transformations and a content provided by observations on which the measurement of those characteristics is grounded can also be justifiably asserted to exist. We further show that this defence of scientific realism in physics doesn't fall prey to the objections that have been raised against the usual vindication of scientific realism based on the no-miracle argument. Some standard objections to scientific realism, such as the underdetermination of theories by observations and the pessimistic meta-induction, are examined and shown to be unconvincing. (shrink)

On the basis of an analysis of everyday experience and practice, criteria of legitimate assertions of existence and truth are offered. A specific object, like a newspaper, can be asserted to exist if it has some invariant characteristics and is present in actual perception. A statement, like “This newspaper is black and white,” can be accepted as true if it is well-established in some empirical domain. Each of these criteria provides a sufficient condition for acceptance of existence and truth, respectively, (...) at the empirical level. Following Herman Weyl, it is argued that these criteria can be extended to the scientific theoretical level to support a selective and moderate version of scientific realism according to which entities like the electromagnetic and gravitational fields, but not crystalline spheres or some topological manifolds, can legitimately be asserted to exist. (shrink)

In this paper, I briefly present the regularity and necessity views and assess their difficulties. I construe scientific laws as universal propositions satisfied by empirically successful scientific models and made — approximately — true by the real systems represented, albeit partially, by these models. I also conceive a scientific theory as a set of models together with a set of propositions, some of which are laws. A scientific law is a universal proposition or statement that belongs to a scientific theory. (...) Scientific laws also are laws of nature since we can provide arguments in favour of natural causal powers that ground the truth of laws. I argue that the truth of counterfactual conditional statements and the occurrence of regularities in nature provide good reasons to believe that real causal powers exist in nature and that the truth of scientific laws is based on a metaphysics of nature. (shrink)

Explanationist strategies for defending epistemological scientific realism make heavy use of a particular version of inference to the best explanation known as the no-miracle argument. I consider ESR to be a genuinely philosophical—non-naturalistic—thesis which contends that there are strong arguments to believe in some non-observational claims made by scientific theories that are partially observationally correct. In this paper, I examine the grounds of the strength of these arguments from what I call a contemplative perspective which focuses on the end products, (...) i.e. theories, of the scientific activity as opposed to the pragmatist view which considers science to be primarily an activity. I briefly rehearse the main difficulties of the no-miracle argument and of inference to the best explanation in general. I argue that a convincing defence of ESR should be based on the empirically ascertained reality of causal connections between theoretical entities which possess properties that are in principle observable and the results of measurements or observations. The knowledge of those causal connections may well deliver an—even the best—explanation of the appearances. But belief in the existence of some unobservable entities is mainly justified by their empirically attested causal role, not on their possible explanatory function. (shrink)

A long-standing theme in discussion of perception and thought has been that our primary cognitive contact with individual objects and events in the world derives from our perceptual contact with them. When I look at a duck in front of me, I am not merely presented with the fact that there is at least one duck in the area, rather I seem to be presented withthisthing (as one might put it from my perspective) in front of me, which looks to (...) me to be a duck. Furthermore, such a perception would seem to put me in a position not merely to make the existential judgment that there is some duck or other present, but rather to make a singular, demonstrative judgment, that that is a duck. My grounds for an existential judgment in this case derives from my apprehension of the demonstrative thought and not vice versa. (shrink)

This article argues that Thomas Kuhn's views on the existence of the world have undergone significant change in the course of his philosophical career. In Structure, Kuhn appears to be committed to the existence of the ordinary empirical world as well as the existence of an independent metaphysical world, but realism about the empirical world is abandoned in his later writings. Whereas in Structure the only relative worlds are the scientific worlds inhabited by the practitioners of various paradigms, the later (...) Kuhn puts the non-scientific worlds of particular groups or cultures on the same footing as the paradigm-related scientific worlds. The article shows that, on what Ian Hacking called the "new-world problem", the later Kuhn has moved to a more radical antirealist position. It is also argued that the earlier and later solutions to the "new-world problem" face insuperable difficulties, which render Kuhn's account of scientific change implausible. (shrink)

After a brief presentation of what I take to be the representational démarche in science, I stress the fundamental role of true judgements in model construction. The success and correctness of a representation rests on the truth of judgements which attribute properties to real targeted entities, called “ontic judgements”. I then present what van Fraassen calls “the Loss of Reality objection”. After criticizing his dissolution of the objection, I offer an alternative way of answering the Loss of Reality objection by (...) showing that the contact of our models with reality is grounded on the truth of ontic judgements. I conclude by examining. doi: 10.5007 / 1808-1711.2011v15n3p461. (shrink)

In his Scientific Representation. Paradoxes of Perspective, Bas van Fraassen offers a pragmatic account of scientific representation and representation tout court. In this paper I examine the three conditions for a user to succeed in representing a target in some context: identification of the target of the representational action, representing the target as such and correctly representing it in some respects. I argue that success on these three counts relies on the supposed truth of some predicative assertions, and thus that (...) truth is more fundamental than representation. I do this in the framework of a version of the so-called “structural” account of representation according to which the establishment of a homomorphism by the user between a structure abstracted from the intended target and some relevant structure of the representing artefact is a necessary condition of success for representing the target in some respects. Finally, on the basis of a correspondence view of truth, I show that it is possible to address what van Fraassen calls “the loss of reality objection”. (shrink)

Although Kuhn is much more an antirealist than a realist, the earlier and later articulations of realist and antirealist ingredients in his views merit close scrutiny. What are the constituents of the real invariant World posited by Kuhn and its relation to the mutable paradigm-related worlds? Various proposed solutions to this problem (dubbed the "new-world problem" by Ian Hacking) are examined and shown to be unsatisfactory. In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, the stable World can reasonably be taken to be (...) made up of ordinary perceived objects, whereas in Kuhn's later works the transparadigmatic World is identified with something akin to the Kantian world-in-itself. It is argued that both proposals are beset with insuperable difficulties which render Kuhn's earlier and later versions of antirealism implausible. (shrink)

Although Kuhn is much more an antirealist than a realist, the earlier and later articulations of realist and antirealist ingredients in his views merit close scrutiny. What are the constituents of the real invariant World posited by Kuhn and its relation to the mutable paradigm-related worlds? Various proposed solutions to this problem (dubbed the "new-world problem" by Ian Hacking) are examined and shown to be unsatisfactory. In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, the stable World can reasonably be taken to be (...) made up of ordinary perceived objects, whereas in Kuhn's later works the transparadigmatic World is identified with something akin to the Kantian world-in-itself. It is argued that both proposals are beset with insuperable difficulties which render Kuhn's earlier and later versions of antirealism implausible. (shrink)

This paper is devoted to an analysis of some aspects of Bas van Fraassen’s views on representation. While I agree with most of his claims, I disagree on the following three issues. Firstly, I contend that some isomorphism between the representor and what is represented is a universal necessary condition for the success of any representation, even in the case of misrepresentation. Secondly, I argue that the so-called “semantic” or “model-theoretic” construal of theories does not give proper due to the (...) role played by true propositions in successful representing practices. Thirdly, I attempt to show that the force of van Fraassen’s pragmatic - and antirealist - “dissolution” of the “loss of reality objection” loses its bite when we realize that our cognitive contact with real phenomena is achieved not by representing but by expressing true propositions about them. (shrink)

In this paper, I criticize Putnam’s argument, which contends that scientific realism implies adherence to a God’s eye point of view. I also show that some sort of God’s eye point of view in a weak sense, i.e. interest-free, is indeed accessible to humans and that a moderate version of scientific realism is philosophically defensible.

Representation and models have been the focus of considerable interest in philosophy of science for several decades. But the publication in 2008 of Bas van Fraassen’s important book Scientific representation: Paradoxes of perspective gave a novel and strong impetus to the study of their role in the dynamic of scientific knowledge, as attested by the growing quantity of papers and conferences related to representation. In science, knowing necessarily involves representing—phenomena at least and perhaps more for the scientific realist—by means of (...) mathematical structures. Even if these structures are not, as van Fraassen aptly insists, mental ideas, scientific activity is still evolving within the modern Cartesian “épistèmè de la representation” as Michel Foucault famously put it.This book is a welcome collection of exciting papers which grew out of a Workshop on representation and models organized on 11–12 March in Ferrol, at the University of A Coruña . Most papers are devoted to .. (shrink)

After a brief presentation of what I believe to be the main features of the modelling démarche in science, I will focus on the basic following question: how can an abstract entity - a model - possibly represent an existing observable entity, which is phenomenally accessible to us, but which is not abstract? This is what Bas van Fraassen calls the loss of reality objection. Instead of proposing a pragmatic dissolution of this objection as van Fraassen does, I will argue (...) that scientific representing necessarily involves a homomorphism between structures and thus that, in a strict technical sense of representation, phenomena are not represented by our models but only as having some specific properties belonging to the domains of our representing structures. Yet, our contact with phenomenal entities is secured by propositions that are true in a correspondence sense. The truth of these - ontic - propositions which state that phenomenal entities possess some precise properties is the soil on which the informative content of our successful representations rest. (shrink)

After a brief presentation of what I take to be the representational démarche in science, I stress the fundamental role of true judgements in model construction. The success and correctness of a representation rests on the truth of judgements which attribute properties to real targeted entities, called “ontic judgements”. I then present what van Fraassen calls “the Loss of Reality objection”. After criticizing his dissolution of the objection, I offer an alternative way of answering the Loss of Reality objection by (...) showing that the contact of our models with reality is grounded on the truth of ontic judgements. I conclude by examining. (shrink)