Online research in philosophy

(Chapter 5 of Across the Boundaries, forthcoming, from Oxford University Press) This chapter argues that previous accounts of extrapolation, either by reference to capacities or mechanisms, do not adequately address the challenges confronting extrapolation. It then begins the account of how the mechanisms-approach can be developed so as to do better. The central concept in this account is what I term comparative process tracing.

Any account of extrapolation from animal models to humans must confront two basic challenges: explain how extrapolation can be justified even when there are causally relevant differences between model and target, and explain how the suitability of a model can be established given only limited information about the target. We argue that existing approaches to extrapolation—either in terms of capacities or mechanisms—do not adequately address these challenges. However, we propose a further elaboration of the mechanisms approach that provides a better (...) treatment of this issue. The central concept in our proposal is what we term comparative process tracing. (shrink)

This is a review of the literature in the philosophy of medicine published in China from 1930 to 1980. The topics dealt with include the relationship between medicine and philosophy, the basic concepts of medicine, etiology and causality, the bearing of psychology on physiology and pathology, epistemology in diagnostics, methodology of medical sciences, philosophical and methological problems in traditional Chinese medicine, philosophical problems in health policy, and medical ethics.

Systems involving many interacting variables are at the heart of the natural and social sciences. Causal language is pervasive in the analysis of such systems, especially when insight into their behavior is translated into policy decisions. This is exemplified by economics, but to an increasing extent also by biology, due to the advent of sophisticated tools to identify the genetic basis of many diseases. It is argued here that a regularity notion of causality can only be meaningfully defined for systems (...) with linear interactions among their variables. For the vastly more important class of nonlinear systems, no such notion is likely to exist. This thesis is developed with examples of dynamical systems taken mostly from mathematical biology. It is discussed with particular reference to the problem of causal inference in complex genetic systems, systems for which often only statistical characterizations exist. (shrink)

Drawing on the intellectual tradition of the leading comparative political science scholar, Giovanni Sartori, the contributors examine the theoretical and methodological basis of: Concept Analysis, Comparative Political Analysis and Qualitative Methods.

The author argues for the importance of non-Markovian causality in the social sciences because Markovian conditions often cannot be satisfied. Two theorems giving conditions for non-Markovian causes to be transitive are proved. Applications of non-Markovian causality in psychology and economics are outlined.

The social sciences must be biological ones, owing simply to the fact that they focus on the causes and effects of the behavior of members of a biological species, Homo sapiens. Our improved understanding of biology as a science and of the biological realm should enable us therefore to solve several of the outstanding problems of the philosophy of social science. The solution to these problems leaves most of the social and behavioral sciences pretty much as it finds them, though (...) it does provide improved understanding of their scope, limits, and methods. Key Words: biology • natural selection • Darwinism • models • narratives • history. (shrink)