Journal for General Philosophy of Science

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  1. Eduardo Castro, Defending the Indispensability Argument: Atoms, Infinity and the Continuum.
  2. Alexander Gebharter, Solving the Flagpole Problem.
    In this paper I demonstrate that the causal structure of flagpole-like systems can be determined by application of causal graph theory. Additional information about the ordering of events in time or about how parameters of the systems of interest can be manipulated is not needed.
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  3. Valeriano Iranzo & Ignacio Martínez de Lejarza, On Ratio Measures of Confirmation.
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  4. Gerhard Müller-Strahl, Metaphysik des Mechanismus Im Teleologischen Idealismus.
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  5. Manuel Bächtold, Saving Mach's View on Atoms.
    According to a common belief concerning the Mach-Boltzmann debate on atoms, the new experiments performed in microphysics at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries confirmed Boltzmann’s atomic hypothesis and disproved Mach’s anti-atomic view. This paper intends to show that this belief is partially unjustified. Mach’s view on atoms consists in fact of different kinds of arguments. While the new experiments in microphysics refute indeed his scientific arguments against the atomic hypothesis, his epistemological arguments are unaffected. In this regard, (...)
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  6. W. Balzer & V. Kuznetsov, Die Tripelstruktur der Begriffe.
    We introduce a precise model for the theory of concepts in philosophy of science. In this model we connect the level of description, the level of reality and the level of set theoretic systems. On the one hand we describe a general frame for the collection of concepts, and on the other hand the „local“ structure of a concept. We specialize this frame to scientific concepts, scientific theories, and to the appertaining structuralist constructions from philosophy of science.
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  7. James Blachowicz, The Constraint Interpretation of Physical Emergence.
    I develop a variant of the constraint interpretation of the emergence of purely physical (non-biological) entities, focusing on the principle of the non-derivability of actual physical states from possible physical states (physical laws) alone. While this is a necessary condition for any account of emergence, it is not sufficient, for it becomes trivial if not extended to types of constraint that specifically constitute physical entities, namely, those that individuate and differentiate them. Because physical organizations with these features are in fact (...)
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  8. Ulrich Charpa, Darwin, Schleiden, Whewell, and the “London Doctors”: Evolutionism and Microscopical Research in the Nineteenth Century.
    This paper discusses some philosophical and historical connections between, and within, nineteenth century evolutionism and microscopical research. The principal actors are mainly Darwin, Schleiden, Whewell and the “London Doctors,” Arthur Henfrey and Edwin Lankester. I demonstrate that the apparent alliances—particularly Darwin/Schleiden (through evolutionism) and Schleiden/Whewell (through Kantian philosophy of science)—obscure the deep methodological differences between evolutionist and microscopical biology that lingered on until the mid-twentieth century. Through an understanding of the little known significance of Schleiden’s programme of microscopical research and (...)
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  9. Cord Friebe, Martin Carrier: Raum-Zeit.
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  10. Francisco José Soler Gil & Manuel Alfonseca, Fine Tuning Explained? Multiverses and Cellular Automata.
    The objective of this paper is analyzing to which extent the multiverse hypothesis provides a real explanation of the peculiarities of the laws and constants in our universe. First we argue in favor of the thesis that all multiverses except Tegmark’s “mathematical multiverse” are too small to explain the fine tuning, so that they merely shift the problem up one level. But the “mathematical multiverse" is surely too large. To prove this assessment, we have performed a number of experiments with (...)
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  11. Stefan Gruner, Software Engineering Between Technics and Science.
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  12. Phyllis Illari & Jon Williamson, In Defence of Activities.
    In this paper, we examine what is to be said in defence of Machamer, Darden and Craver’s (MDC) controversial dualism about activities and entities (Machamer, Darden and Craver’s in Philos Sci 67:1–25, 2000). We explain why we believe the notion of an activity to be a novel, valuable one, and set about clearing away some initial objections that can lead to its being brushed aside unexamined. We argue that substantive debate about ontology can only be effective when desiderata for an (...)
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  13. Nicholaos Jones, Don't Blame the Idealizations.
    Idealizing conditions are scapegoats for scientific hypotheses, too often blamed for falsehood better attributed to less obvious sources. But while the tendency to blame idealizations is common among both philosophers of science and scientists themselves, the blame is misplaced. Attention to the nature of idealizing conditions, the content of idealized hypotheses, and scientists’ attitudes toward those hypotheses shows that idealizing conditions are blameless when hypotheses misrepresent. These conditions help to determine the content of idealized hypotheses, and they do so in (...)
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  14. Aki Lehtinen, On the Impossibility of Amalgamating Evidence.
    It is argued in this paper that amalgamating confirmation from various sources is relevantly different from social-choice contexts, and that proving an impossibility theorem for aggregating confirmation measures directs attention to irrelevant issues.
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  15. Peter Mittelstaedt, On the Meaning of the Constant “C” in Modern Physics.
    In modern physics, the constant “c” plays a twofold role. On the one hand, “c” is the well known velocity of light in an empty Minkowskian space–time, on the other hand “c” is a characteristic number of Special Relativity that governs the Lorentz transformation and its consequences for the measurements of space–time intervals. We ask for the interrelations between these two, at first sight different meanings of “c”. The conjecture that the value of “c” has any influence on the structure (...)
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  16. Michel Morange, How Evolutionary Biology Presently Pervades Cell and Molecular Biology.
    The increasing place of evolutionary scenarios in functional biology is one of the major indicators of the present encounter between evolutionary biology and functional biology (such as physiology, biochemistry and molecular biology), the two branches of biology which remained separated throughout the twentieth century. Evolutionary scenarios were not absent from functional biology, but their places were limited, and they did not generate research programs. I compare two examples of these past scenarios with two present-day ones. At least three characteristics distinguish (...)
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  17. Nicola Mößner, Photographic Evidence and the Problem of Theory-Ladenness.
    Scientists use visualisations of different kinds in a variety of ways in their scientific work. In the following article, we will take a closer look at the use of photographic pictures as scientific evidence. In accordance with Patrick Maynard’s thesis, photography will be regarded as a family of technologies serving different purposes in divergent contexts. One of these is its ability to detect certain phenomena. Nonetheless, with regard to the philosophical thesis of theory-ladenness of observation, we encounter certain reservations concerning (...)
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  18. Emma Ruttkamp-Bloem, Re-Enchanting Realism in Debate with Kyle Stanford.
    In this article, against the background of a notion of ‘assembled’ truth, the evolutionary progressiveness of a theory is suggested as novel and promising explanation for the success of science. A new version of realism in science, referred to as ‘naturalised realism’ is outlined. Naturalised realism is ‘fallibilist’ in the unique sense that it captures and mimics the self-corrective core of scientific knowledge and its progress. It is argued that naturalised realism disarms Kyle Stanford’s anti-realist ‘new induction’ threats by showing (...)
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  19. Anthony S. Travis, Raphael Meldola and the Nineteenth-Century Neo-Darwinians.
    Raphael Meldola (1849–1915), an industrial chemist and keen naturalist, under the influence of Darwin, brought new German studies on evolution by natural selection that appeared in the 1870s to the attention of the British scientific community. Meldola’s special interest was in mimicry among butterflies; through this he became a prominent neo-Darwinian. His wide-ranging achievements in science led to appointments as president of important professional scientific societies, and of a local club of like-minded amateurs, particularly field naturalists. This is an account (...)
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  20. Michael Wolff, Vollkommene Syllogismen Und Reine Vernunftschlüsse: Aristoteles Und Kant. Eine Stellungnahme Zu Theodor Eberts Gegeneinwänden. Teil.
    In an earlier article (s. J Gen Philos Sci 40:341–355, 2009), I have rejected an interpretation of Aristotle’s syllogistic which (since Patzig) is predominant in the literature on Aristotle, but wrong in my view. According to this interpretation, the distinguishing feature of perfect syllogisms is their being evident. Theodor Ebert has attempted to defend this interpretation by means of objections (s. J Gen Philos Sci 40:357–365, 2009) which I will try to refute in part [1] of the following article. I (...)
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  21. Julie Zahle & Finn Collin, ENPOSS 2012: The First Conference of the European Network for the Philosophy of the Social Sciences (Copenhagen, September 21–23, 2012). [REVIEW]
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  22. Mark Zelcer, Against Mathematical Explanation.
    Lately, philosophers of mathematics have been exploring the notion of mathematical explanation within mathematics. This project is supposed to be analogous to the search for the correct analysis of scientific explanation. I argue here that given the way philosophers have been using “explanation,” the term is not applicable to mathematics as it is in science.
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  23. Frank Zenker & Holger Andreas, Perspectives on Structuralism, Munich, Germany, 16–18 February 2012.
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