Online research in philosophy

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• Postdoc, University of Athens
• PhD, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 2008.

• 17th/18th Century Philosophy

• 17th/18th Century Philosophy
• Philosophy of Physical Science
• General Philosophy of Science

Hylarie Kochiras is currently a visiting scholar at the Department of Philosophy & History of Science (ΜΙΘΕ) of the University of Athens. She held a European Institutes for Advanced Study (EURIAS) fellowship during 2011-2012 at Bucharest’s New Europe College, and was a postdoctoral fellow during 2010-2011 at the University of Pittsburg’s Center for Philosophy of Science during 2010-2011. She was, previously Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University at Buffalo (2008-2010), following her Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research focuses early modern philosophy of science. Contact: kochiras(at)nec.ro.

9 items found. Sort by: publication yearfirst authorviewingsaddition date Hylarie Kochiras (forthcoming). Causal Language and the Structure of Force in Newton’s System of the World. HOPOS. Although Newton carefully eschews questions about gravity’s causal basis in the published Principia, the original version of his masterwork’s third book contains some intriguing causal language. “These forces”, he writes, “arise from the universal nature of matter”. Such remarks seem to assert knowledge of gravity’s cause, even that matter is capable of robust and distant action. Some commentators defend that interpretation of the text – a text whose proper interpretation is important, since Newton’s reasons for suppressing it strongly suggest that (...) he continued to endorse its ideas. This paper argues that the surface appearance of Newton’s causal language is deceptive. What does Newton intend with his causal language if not a full causal hypothesis? His remarks actually indicate a way of considering the force mathematically, something he contrasts to the structure of the force as it really is, in nature. In explaining that, he identifies a significant disjunction between the physical force itself and mathematical ways of considering it, and the text’s signifiance lies in its view of the force’s structure and in the questions raised about the relationship between mathematical representations and the physical world. (shrink) Isaac Newton in 17th/18th Century Philosophy   My bibliography     Export citation   Hylarie Kochiras (2012). By Ye Divine Arm: God and Substance in De Gravitatione. Religious Studies 2012 (September):1-30. This article interprets Newton’s De gravitatione as presenting a reductive account of substance, on which divine and created substances are identified with their characteristic attributes, which are present in space. God is identical to the divine power to create, and mind to its characteristic power. Even bodies lack parts outside parts, for they are not constructed from regions of actual space, as some commentators suppose, but rather consist in powers alone, maintained in certain configurations by the divine will. This interpretation (...) thus specifies Newton’s meaning when he writes that bodies subsist ‘through God alone’; yet bodies do qualify as substances, and divine providence does not extend so far as occasionalism. (shrink) Divine Providence in Philosophy of Religion Isaac Newton in 17th/18th Century Philosophy Philosophy of Science, Misc Direct download (2 more)     My bibliography     Export citation   Hylarie Kochiras (2012). Spiritual Presence and Dimensional Space Beyond the Cosmos. Intellectual History Review 22 (1):41-68. This paper examines connections between concepts of space and extension on the one hand and immaterial spirits on the other, specifically the immanentist concept of spirits as present in rerum natura. Those holding an immanentist concept, such as Thomas Aquinas, typically understood spirits non-dimensionally as present by essence and power; and that concept was historically linked to holenmerism, the doctrine that the spirit is whole in every part. Yet as Aristotelian ideas about extension were challenged and an actual, infinite, dimensional (...) space readmitted, a dimensionalist concept of spirit became possible—that asserted by the mature Henry More, as he repudiated holenmerism. Despite More’s intentions, his dimensionalist concept opens the door to materialism, for supposing that spirits have parts outside parts implies that those parts could in principle be mapped onto the parts of divisible bodies. The specter of materialism broadens our interest in More’s unconventional ideas, for the question of whether other early modern thinkers, including Isaac Newton, followed More becomes a question of whether they too unwittingly helped usher in materialism. This paper shows that More’s attack upon holenmerism fails. He illegitimately injects his dimensionalist concept of spirit into the doctrine, failing to recognize it as a consequence of the non-dimensionalist concept of spirit, which in itself secures indivisibility. The interpretive consequence for Newton is that there is no prima facie reason to suppose that the charitable interpretation takes him to deny holenmerism. (shrink) 17th/18th Century Philosophy, Miscellaneous in 17th/18th Century Philosophy History of Western Philosophy, Misc Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy, Miscellaneous in Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy Direct download (2 more)     My bibliography     Export citation   Peter Machamer, J. E. Mcguire & Hylarie Kochiras (2012). Newton and the Mechanical Philosophy: Gravitation as the Balance of the Heavens. Southern Journal of Philosophy 50 (3):370-388. We argue that Isaac Newton really is best understood as being in the tradition of the Mechanical Philosophy and, further, that Newton saw himself as being in this tradition. But the tradition as Newton understands it is not that of Robert Boyle and many others, for whom the Mechanical Philosophy was defined by contact action and a corpuscularean theory of matter. Instead, as we argue in this paper, Newton interpreted and extended the Mechanical Philosophy's slogan “matter and motion” in reference (...) to the long and distinguished tradition of mixed mathematics and the study of simple machines. (shrink) Isaac Newton in 17th/18th Century Philosophy Direct download (4 more)     My bibliography     Export citation   Hylarie Kochiras (2011). Gravity's Cause and Substance Counting: Contextualizing the Problems. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 42 (1):167-184. This paper considers Newton’s position on gravity’s cause, both conceptually and historically. With respect to the historical question, I argue that while Newton entertained various hypotheses about gravity’s cause, he never endorsed any of them, and in particular, his lack of confidence in the hypothesis of robust and unmediated distant action by matter is explained by an inclination toward certain metaphysical principles. The conceptual problem about gravity’s cause, which I identified earlier along with a deeper problem about individuating substances, is (...) that a decisive conclusion is impossible unless certain speculative aspects of his empiricism are abandoned. In this paper, I situate those conceptual problems in Newton’s natural philosophy. They arise from ideas that push empiricism to potentially self-defeating limits, revealing the danger of allowing immaterial spirits any place in natural philosophy, especially spatially extended spirits supposed capable of co-occupying place with material bodies. Yet because their source ideas are speculative, Newton’s method ensures that these problems pose no threat to his rational mechanics or the profitable core of his empiricism. They are easily avoided by avoiding their source ideas, and when science emerges from natural philosophy, it does so with an ontology unencumbered by immaterial spirits. (shrink) Isaac Newton in 17th/18th Century Philosophy Direct download (3 more)     My bibliography     Export citation   Hylarie Kochiras (2009). Gravity and Newton's Substance Counting Problem. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 40 (3):267-280. A striking feature of Newton’s thought is the very broad reach of his empiricism, potentially extending even to immaterial substances, including God, minds, and should one exist, a non-perceiving immaterial medium. Yet Newton is also drawn to certain metaphysical principles—most notably the principle that matter cannot act where it is not—and this second, rationalist feature of his thought is most pronounced in his struggle to discover ‘gravity’s cause’. The causal problem remains vexing, for he neither invokes primary causation, nor accepts (...) action at a distance by locating active powers in matter. To the extent that he is drawn to metaphysical principles, then, the causal problem is that of discovering some non-perceiving immaterial medium. Yet Newton’s thought has a third striking feature, one with roots in the other two: he allows that substances of different kinds might simultaneously occupy the very same region of space. I elicit the implications of these three features. For Newton to insist upon all three would transform the causal question about gravity into an insoluble problem about apportioning active powers. More seriously, it would undermine his means of individuating substances, provoking what I call ‘Newton’s Substance Counting Problem’. (shrink) History of Science in General Philosophy of Science Isaac Newton in 17th/18th Century Philosophy Direct download (3 more)     My bibliography     Export citation   Hylarie Kochiras, Locke's Philosophy of Science. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. This article examines questions connected with the two features of Locke's intellectual landscape that are most salient for understanding his philosophy of science: (1) the profound shift underway in disciplinary boundaries, in methodological approaches to understanding the natural world, and in conceptions of induction and scientific knowledge; and (2) the dominant scientific theory of his day, the corpuscular hypothesis. Following the introduction, section 2 addresses questions connected to changing conceptions of scientific knowledge. What does Locke take science (scientia) and scientific (...) knowledge to be generally, why does he think that scientia in natural philosophy is beyond the reach of human beings, and what characterizes the conception of human knowledge in natural philosophy that he develops? Section 3 addresses the question provoked by Locke's apparently conflicting treatments of the corpuscular hypothesis. Does he accept or defend the corpuscular hypothesis? If not, what is its role in his thought, and what explains its close connection to key theses of the Essay? Since a scholarly debate has arisen about the status of the corpuscular hypothesis for Locke, Section 3 reviews some main positions in that debate. Section 4 considers the relationship between Locke's thought and that of a figure instrumental to the changing conceptions of scientific knowledge, Isaac Newton. (shrink) John Locke in 17th/18th Century Philosophy Direct download     My bibliography     Export citation   Hylarie Kochiras (2006). Belief Contexts and Epistemic Possibility. Principia 10 (1):1-20. Although epistemic possibility figures in several debates, those debates have had relatively little contact with one another. G. E. Moore focused squarely upon analyzing epistemic uses of the phrase, ‘It’s possible that p’, and in doing so he made two fundamental assumptions. First, he assumed that epistemic possibility statements always express the epistemic position of a community, as opposed to that of an individual speaker. Second, he assumed that all epistemic uses of ‘It’s possible that p’ are analyzable in terms (...) of knowledge, not belief. A number of later theorists, including Keith DeRose, provide alternative accounts of epistemic possibility, while retaining Moore’s two assumptions. Neither assumption has been explicitly challenged, but Jaakko Hintikka’s analysis provides a basis for doing so. Drawing upon Hintikka’s analysis, I argue that some epistemic possibility statements express only the speaker’s individual epistemic state, and that contra DeRose, they are not degenerate community statements but a class in their own right. I further argue that some linguistic contexts are belief- rather than knowledge-based, and in such contexts, what is possible for a speaker depends not upon what she knows, but upon what she believes. (shrink) Epistemic Possibility in Epistemology Epistemological States and Properties, Misc in Epistemology Direct download (5 more)     My bibliography     Export citation   Hylarie Kochiras (2006). Freud Said--Or Simon Says? Informed Consent and the Advancement of Psychoanalysis as a Science. Medicine, Health Care, and Philosophy 9 (2):227-241. Is it ever permissible to publish a patient’s confidences without permission? I investigate this question for the field of psychoanalysis. Whereas most medical fields adopted a 1995 recommendation for consent requirements, psychoanalysis continues to defend the traditional practice of nonconsensual publication. Both the hermeneutic and the scientific branches of the field justify the practice, arguing that it provides data needed to help future patients, and both branches advance generalizations and causal claims. However the hermeneutic branch embraces methods tending to undermine (...) the reliability of such claims, while the scientific branch aims to improve the field’s empirical base – in their words, to advance psychoanalysis as a science. The scientific branch therefore has the stronger claim to the traditional practice, and it their claim that I consider. An immediate concern arises. We seem unable to answer the applied ethical question without first determining which ethical theory is correct; for defenders of the practice appeal variously to therapeutic privilege, principlism, and utilitarianism, while opponents wage autonomy-based arguments. The concern turns out to be unfounded, however, because all of these ethical approaches fail to justify the traditional practice. The more promising defenses fail partly because even the scientific branch of the field lacks empirically sound methods for establishing its causal claims and generalizations, often appealing to authority instead. I conclude that it is currently unethical for analysts to continue publishing their patients’ confidences without permission, and I suggest that the field help future patients by attending to its methodological problems. (shrink) Autonomy in Applied Ethics in Applied Ethics Health Care Ethics in Applied Ethics Sigmund Freud in 19th Century Philosophy Direct download     My bibliography     Export citation

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