AFTER ARGUING THAT LAUDAN’S ACCOUNT OF THE ROLE OF CONCEPTUAL CONSIDERATIONS IN THEORY APPRAISAL IS INADEQUATE AND UNSATISFYING IN A NUMBER OF RESPECTS, I SUGGEST SOME OF THE WAYS IN WHICH WE MIGHT MOVE TO DEVELOP AN ALTERNATIVE ACCOUNT. THIS ALTERNATIVE PRESUPPOSES A PROBLEM-SOLVING METHODOLOGY AND, UNLIKE THE LAUDANIAN APPROACH, AWARDS A CRUCIAL ROLE TO EMPIRICAL RESEARCH IN THE RESOLUTION OF THE CONCEPTUAL PROBLEMS TROUBLING A THEORY. THREE WAYS IN WHICH A THEORY MAY ENHANCE THE CONCEPTUAL RESOURCES WHICH IT SUPPLIES (...) FOR EMPIRICAL PROBLEM SOLVING ARE CONSIDERED: THE FINE-TUNING OF THEORETICAL CONCEPTS; THE APPROPRIATION OF THE CONCEPTUAL RESOURCES OF THEORIES IN OTHER DOMAINS; AND THE ACHIEVEMENT OF GREATER CONSILIENCE. REFERENCE IS MADE TO SEVERAL HISTORICAL CASES IN WHICH SUCH ENHANCEMENT ACTUALLY OCCURRED. (shrink)

It is in the scholium of thePrincipiaon time, space, place and motion that Newton delivers what is — arguably — a reluctant kiss of betrayal to empiricism. Right there, ‘in the main body of his chief work,’ as E.A. Burtt observes, the deed is done: ‘When we come to Newton's remarks on space and time … he takes personal leave of his empiricism.’ Reichenbach registers the event less charitably, dismissing the ‘crude reification of space that Newton shares with the epistemologically (...) unschooled mind in its naive craving for realism.’ Injury is then added to insult as Reichenbach holds Newtonian mechanics to task for arresting the analysis of the problems of space and time for more than two centuries. (shrink)

Slippery slopes crop up with startling frequency when controversial moral issues are debated. Generally, those who mount this line of argument appeal to some grim, highly undesirable state of affairs which would—they allege—inevitably ensue were society to sanction certain activities. Their reasoning is often fallacious, offering little more than an easy out for those reluctant to address problematic moral issues with the care and honesty they demand.

Quantified modal logic and propositional attitudes have long been regarded as sites susceptible to referential opacity — that curious affliction first diagnosed by Quine. In this paper I suggest a way of alleviating the symptoms of referential opacity as they manifest themselves in fictional contexts, contexts in which we are confronted by discourse about fiction. Indeed, a case might be made against Quine that it is fictional, rather than quotational, contexts which are the referentially opaque contexts par excellence. For whether (...) we take a Fregean line on the matter and consider the obliquity of fictional terms as due to shift of reference, or a Quinean line and consider their opacity as due to failure of reference, their non-standard occurrence is clear and avowed. Moreover, as the non-standardness or non-vulgarity of terms in fictional contexts is by design and not due to some mere accident of orthography, they seem in many ways to be both more interesting and potentially more revealing. (shrink)