Probably the most distinctive feature of synthetic biology is its being “synthetic” in some sense or another. For some, synthesis plays a unique role in the production of knowledge that is most distinct from that played by analysis: it is claimed to deliver knowledge that would otherwise not be attained. In this contribution, my aim is to explore how synthetic biology delivers knowledge via synthesis, and to assess the extent to which this knowledge (...) is distinctly synthetic. On the basis of distinctions between knowledge-how and knowledge-why, and between syntheses that succeed and syntheses that fail, I argue that the contribution of synthesis to knowledge is best understood when syntheses are construed as experimental interventions that aim at probing causal relationships between properties of the entities that are combined through these syntheses and properties of their target products. The distinctiveness of synthetic biology in its quest for knowledge through synthesis stems from its ability to sample at will a space of empirical possibilities that is not only huge but also that has been so scarcely sampled by nature. (shrink)

This article focuses on the frontier between the technological domain of production of artefacts and the naturalistic domain of the sciences of life and cognition. It shows that, since the 1940s, this frontier has become the place of production of an innovative kind of scientific knowledge??synthetic knowledge.? The article describes the methodology and the main characteristics of synthetic knowledge, and formulates a hypothesis on its epistemological genealogy. Accordingly, it characterizes synthetic knowledge as one (...) of the most advanced expressions of a heterodox tradition of research which, since the 1930s, has been promoting the development of a ?non-representationalist???constructivist??science. (shrink)

Synthetic biology is an increasingly high-profile area of research that can be understood as encompassing three broad approaches towards the synthesis of living systems: DNA-based device construction, genome-driven cell engineering and protocell creation. Each approach is characterized by different aims, methods and constructs, in addition to a range of positions on intellectual property and regulatory regimes. We identify subtle but important differences between the schools in relation to their treatments of genetic determinism, cellular context and complexity. These distinctions tie (...) into two broader issues that define synthetic biology: the relationships between biology and engineering, and between synthesis and analysis. These themes also illuminate synthetic biology's connections to genetic and other forms of biological engineering, as well as to systems biology. We suggest that all these knowledge-making distinctions in synthetic biology raise fundamental questions about the nature of biological investigation and its relationship to the construction of biological components and systems. (shrink)

Synthetic biologists aim to generate biological organisms according to rational design principles. Their work may have many beneficial applications, but it also raises potentially serious ethical concerns. In this article, we consider what attention the discipline demands from bioethicists. We argue that the most important issue for ethicists to examine is the risk that knowledge from synthetic biology will be misused, for example, in biological terrorism or warfare. To adequately address this concern, bioethics will need to broaden (...) its scope, contemplating not just the means by which scientific knowledge is produced, but also what kinds of knowledge should be sought and disseminated. (shrink)

Synthetic biology presents a challenge to traditional accounts of biology: Whereas traditional biology emphasizes the evolvability, variability, and heterogeneity of living organisms, synthetic biology envisions a future of homogeneous, humanly engineered biological systems that may be combined in modular fashion. The present paper approaches this challenge from the perspective of the epistemology of technoscience. In particular, it is argued that synthetic-biological artifacts lend themselves to an analysis in terms of what has been called ‘thing knowledge’. As (...) such, they should neither be regarded as the simple outcome of applying theoretical knowledge and engineering principles to specific technological problems, nor should they be treated as mere sources of new evidence in the general pursuit of scientific understanding. Instead, synthetic-biological artifacts should be viewed as partly autonomous research objects which, qua their material-biological constitution, embody knowledge about the natural world—knowledge that, in turn, can be accessed via continuous experimental interrogation. (shrink)

Synthetic biology is an umbrella term that covers a range of aims, approaches, and techniques. They are all brought together by common practices of analogizing, synthesizing, mechanicizing, and kludging. With a focus on kludging as the connection point between biology, engineering, and evolution, I show how synthetic biology’s successes depend on custom-built kludges and a creative, “make-it-work” attitude to the construction of biological systems. Such practices do not fit neatly, however, into synthetic biology’s celebration of rational design. (...) Nor do they straightforwardly embody Richard Feynman’s “last blackboard” statement that without creating something it cannot be understood. Reflecting further on the relationship between synthetic construction and knowledge making gives philosophy of science new avenues of insight into scientific practice. (shrink)

Synthetic biology is an increasingly high‐profile area of research that can be understood as encompassing three broad approaches towards the synthesis of living systems: DNA‐based device construction, genome‐driven cell engineering and protocell creation. Each approach is characterized by different aims, methods and constructs, in addition to a range of positions on intellectual property and regulatory regimes. We identify subtle but important differences between the schools in relation to their treatments of genetic determinism, cellular context and complexity. These distinctions tie (...) into two broader issues that define synthetic biology: the relationships between biology and engineering, and between synthesis and analysis. These themes also illuminate synthetic biology's connections to genetic and other forms of biological engineering, as well as to systems biology. We suggest that all these knowledge‐making distinctions in synthetic biology raise fundamental questions about the nature of biological investigation and its relationship to the construction of biological components and systems. BioEssays 30:57–65, 2008. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

This article considers an apparent Achilles heel for Kant’s transcendental idealism, concerning his account of how synthetic a priori knowledge is possible. The problem is that while Kant’s distinctive attempt to explain synthetic a priori knowledge lies at the heart of his transcendental idealism, this explanation appears to face a dilemma: either the explanation generates a problematic regress, or the explanation it offers gives us no reason to favour transcendental idealism over transcendental realism. In the article, (...) I consider G. E. Moore’s version of the problem, which I argue has not yet received an adequate response. Instead, I offer a way out of this dilemma by focusing on the normativity rather than the metaphysics of the mind. (shrink)

Following Hans-Jörg Rheinberger’s epistemological concept we show how a generic element of synthetic biology, the “biological switch”, can be integrated into an experimental system. Here synthetic biology is assumed to be a technoscience. Hence, the biological switch becomes a technoscientific research object. Consequently, the experimental system has to be analyzed in a technoscientific experimental setting, showing differences in comparison with the former. To work out the specific properties of the technoscientific experimental system, biological switching behavior is compared with (...) the scientific research object laser light in its classical setting. For the analyses, both the laser light and bistability, enabling a biological switch, are considered as epistemic things connected by the same theoretical concept of phase transitions. The so-called Schlögl model is used to model both biological switching behavior and induced emission of radiation and becomes an epistemic thing in itself. It becomes clear that the answer, whether one is dealing with the emission of laser light or with bistable switching behavior, is linked to the perspective taken. The technoscientific orientation towards applications and the development of basic scientific theories require different perspectives on one and the same epistemic thing, here also represented by the model. The research objects of synthetic biology as a technoscience thus also enter into the corresponding experimental systems as techno-epistemic objects. Their analysis leads to a more complete understanding of what constitutes synthetic biology. (shrink)

This paper contends that the first argument of Hume's "Of scepticism with regard to reason" entails that humans have no knowledge as Hume understands knowledge. In defending this claim, we also see how Hume's argument anticipates an important aspect of an extremely influential 20th century development: the collapse of the analytic/synthetic distinction.

The recent proposal by Douglas and Savulescu for an ethics of knowledge provokes a renewed consideration of an enduring issue. Yet, the concept raises significant challenges for procedural and substantive justice. Indeed, the operationalisation of ‘an ethics of knowledge’ could be as alarming as what it seeks to prevent. While we can acknowledge that there is, and surely always will be, potential for misuse of beneficial science and technology, a contemplated conception of what we ought to not know, (...) devise or disseminate sets before us an enormously complex task. This essay challenges an ethics of knowledge to respond to concerns of procedural and substantive justice. While the concept has a certain appeal, it does not appear to adequately address certain fundamental issues as it is currently presented. Here, the author invites consideration of two primary points: (1) who should decide, based on whose interests? and (2) could such an exercise actually be effective in achieving its goal? (shrink)

KANT’S GOAL IN THE TRANSCENDENTAL DEDUCTION was to demonstrate that the categories are applicable to objects of sensible intuition. He carried out this task by disclosing the necessity of a transcendental synthesis. In the Transcendental Deduction in the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason transcendental synthesis has two subspecies: synthesis intellectualis and synthesis speciosa. The distinction between the two types of transcendental synthesis is also mirrored in the structure of the proof of the B Deduction. As several commentators (...) have noted, the B Deduction in fact contains two parts. Each part seems to provide an account of a distinctive kind of transcendental synthesis. The first part provides an account of intellectual synthesis while the second part provides an account of figurative synthesis. (shrink)

This paper links two domains of recent interest in science and technology studies, complexity and ignorance, in the context of knowledge practices observed among synthetic biologists. Synthetic biologists are recruiting concepts and methods from computer science and electrical engineering in order to design and construct novel organisms in the lab. Their field has taken shape amidst revised assessments of life’s complexity in the aftermath of the Human Genome Project. While this complexity is commonly taken to be an (...) immanent property of biological systems, this article presents an epistemological view of complexity according to which complexity relates to a specific scientific theory or model and refers to that which exceeds the theory or model’s explanatory power. This epistemological view allows us to narrate a particular story about the changing relationship between biology and synthetic biology in the last decade and accounts for early knowledge practices in synthetic biology that “ignored” biology. This article further argues that while the failure of ignorance to produce clear-cut results for synthetic biologists has led practitioners back to biology, the entanglements between different pragmatic orientations and ways of knowing trouble the implications of this return for assessments of the complexity of biological systems. (shrink)

The task of this article is to interrogate the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) model to develop a more robust understanding of a prominent trend in the charter school movement and education policy more generally. To accomplish this task, this article details the findings of a synthetic analysis that examines the KIPP model as a Hegelian whole concept operative in a specific mode of social reality. The guidance for this analysis is grounded in a rather straightforward research question. (...) Given the prominence that the KIPP model has achieved in the charter school movement in the United States, what can a synthetic analysis tell us about not only KIPP, but also the larger charter school movement? (shrink)

In this short contribution we explore the historical roots of recent synthetic approaches in biology and try to assess their real potential, as well as identify future hurdles or the reasons behind some of the main difficulties they currently face. We suggest that part of these difficulties might not be just the result of our present lack of adequate technical skills or understanding, but could spring directly from the nature of the biological phenomenon itself. In particular, if life is (...) conceived as autonomy in open-ended evolution, which would help to explain the highly complex and dynamic organization of the simplest known organisms (i.e., genetically-instructed cellular metabolisms), external synthetic implementations of such systems, or interventions on them, are bound to interfere with some of their characteristic transformation processes, both at the ontogenetic and phylogenetic scales. In any case, this will prove very revealing and productive, technologically and scientifically speaking, since the knowledge gathered from those implementations/interventions will be extremely valuable in establishing our capacities and limitations to fully comprehend, utilize, and expand the living domain as we know it today. (shrink)

I examine the positive and negative features of synthetic biology (‘SynBio’) from a utilitarian ethical perspective. The potential beneficial outcomes from SynBio in the context of medicine are substantial; however it is not presently possible to predict precise outcomes due to the nascent state of the field. Potential negative outcomes from SynBio also exist, including iatrogenesis and bioterrorism; however it is not yet possible to quantify these risks. I argue that the application of a ‘precautionary’ approach to SynBio is (...) ethically fraught, as is the notion that SynBio-associated knowledge ought to be restricted. I conclude that utilitarians ought to support a broadly laissez-faire stance in respect of SynBio. (shrink)

Synthetic biology is a field of research that concentrates on the design, construction, and modification of new biomolecular parts and metabolic pathways using engineering techniques and computational models. By employing knowledge of operational pathways from engineering and mathematics such as circuits, oscillators, and digital logic gates, it uses these to understand, model, rewire, and reprogram biological networks and modules. Standard biological parts with known functions are catalogued in a number of registries (e.g. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Registry of (...) Standard Biological Parts). Biological parts can then be selected from the catalogue and assembled in a variety of combinations to construct a system or pathway in a microbe. Through the innovative re-engineering of biological circuits and the optimization of certain metabolic pathways, biological modules can be designed to reprogram organisms to produce products or behaviors. Synthetic biology is what is known as a “platform technology”. That is, it generates highly transferrable theoretical models, engineering principles, and know-how that can be applied to create potential products in a wide variety of industries. Proponents suggest that applications of synthetic biology may be able to provide scientific and engineered solutions to a multitude of worldwide problems from health to energy. Synthetic biology research has already been successful in constructing microbial products which promise to offer cheaper pharmaceuticals such as the antimalarial synthetic drug artemisinin, engineered microbes capable of cleaning up oil spills, and the engineering of biosensors that can detect the presence of high concentrations of arsenic in drinking water. One of the potential benefits of synthetic biology research is in its application to biofuel production. It is this application which is the focus of this entry. The term “biofuel” has referred generally to all liquid fuels that are sourced from plant or plant byproducts and are used for energy necessary for transportation vehicles (Thompson 2012). Biofuels that are produced using synthetic biological techniques re-engineer microbes into biofuel factories are a subset of these. (shrink)

This paper will make the case that we can find in Kant’s Second Analogy a substantive response to Hume’s argument on induction. This response is substantive insofar as it does not merely consist in independently arguing for the opposite conclusion, but rather, it identifies and exploits a gap in this argument. More specifically, Hume misses the possibility of justifying the uniformity of nature as a synthetic a priori proposition, which Kant looks to establish in the Second Analogy. Note that (...) the focus on the paper is on Kant’s identification of the form that a solution to Hume’s inductive scepticism must take. In making this point, my paper will look to establish two lemmas: Kant identifies synthetic a priori judgments as a means of justifying metaphysical knowledge in a way that circumvents Hume’s dichotomy between matters of fact and relations of ideas; the Second Analogy looks to establish the uniformity of nature of as a synthetic a priori proposition. However, my paper generally abstains from the question of the tenability of Kant’s argument in the Second Analogy. Doing justice to this latter discussion would require more space than I am able to offer here. My paper therefore has a conditional bearing on the philosophical issue of inductive scepticism. If one believes Kant’s Second Analogy to be philosophically cogent, then Kant offers a successful justification of induction against Hume’s scepticism. If not, then at least one can still admire Kant’s identification of the gap in Hume’s argument, which, to a degree, can be exploited independently of Kant’s system. (shrink)

Currently, under the law of intellectual property, IP owners may exclude from use or production substances and processes that we would ordinarily consider to be products of nature. This has helped companies monopolize disease genes, and thus diagnostic testing for those diseases, and “biosimilar” products, pharmaceutical materials that mimic biological materials. Extending the current paradigm to the world of synthetic biology and nanotechnology will create further injustices in the delivery of health care to billions of people around the world. (...) As such, I advocate heading this trend off at the pass. Scientists ought to conduct basic research into the building blocks of biology and matter in the open, publishing their results, releasing knowledge into the public domain upstream so that beneficial innovation can be produced without fear of downstream litigation, and so that what ought to remain in the public domain as a matter of right (products of nature) does not become unjustly monopolized. (shrink)

According to rationalists, synthetic a priori propositions convey new knowledge, whereas analytic propositions are non-informative or vacuous conceptual truths. However, as we argue in this article, each a priori proposition is necessarily true because of its semantic constituents and the way they are combined, and hence can be transformed into its equivalent analytic form. So each synthetic a priori proposition conveys only non-informative conceptual truths like analytic propositions.

This paper concentrates on some aspects of the history of the analytic-synthetic distinction from Kant to Bolzano and Frege. This history evinces considerable continuity but also some important discontinuities. The analytic-synthetic distinction has to be seen in the first place in relation to a science, i.e. an ordered system of cognition. Looking especially to the place and role of logic it will be argued that Kant, Bolzano and Frege each developed the analytic-synthetic distinction within the same conception (...) of scientific rationality, that is, within the Classical Model of Science: scientific knowledge as cognitio ex principiis . But as we will see, the way the distinction between analytic and synthetic judgments or propositions functions within this model turns out to differ considerably between them. (shrink)

In the present paper I shall deal with Adam Smith's application of the analytic-synthetic method, which he considered to be the scientific method par excellence. I shall concentrate on some shortcomings in Smith's arguments and endeavour to explain them as resulting from a particular interpretation of the aforesaid method. The peculiarity of Smith's interpretation was that he omitted the analysis and that he thought the synthesis reflects the composition of an object out of pre-existing elements which are endowed with (...) ‘essential qualities’. I shall then try to show that this methodological concept presupposed the view that society is a compound of independent individuals, i.e. an aggregate of Robinson Crusoes. Finally I shall discuss possible political reasons for this view. On the systematic level, I shall argue that political and scientific partisanship do not necessarily stand in contradiction to objective knowledge, and on the historical level, I shall plead for a ‘Social History of Ideas’.1. (shrink)

In a recent article in this journal [Phil. Math., II, v.4 (1989), n.2, pp.?- ?] J. Fang argues that we must not be fooled by A.J. Ayer (God rest his soul!) and his cohorts into believing that mathematical knowledge has an analytic a priori status. Even computers, he reminds us, take some amount of time to perform their calculations. The simplicity of Kant's infamous example of a mathematical proposition (7+5=12) is "partly to blame" for "mislead[ing] scholars in the direction (...) of neglecting the temporal element"; yet a brief instant of time is required to grasp even this simple truth. If Kant were alive today, "and if he had had a little more mathematical savvy", Fang explains, he could have used the latest example of the largest prime number (391,581 x 2 216,193 - 1) as a better example of the "synthetic a priori" character of mathematics. The reason Fang is so intent upon emphasizing the temporal character of mathematics is that he wishes to avoid "the uncritical mixing of ... a theology and a philosophy of mathematics." For "in the light of the Computer Age today: finitism is king!" Although Kant's aim was explicitly "to study the 'human' ... faculty", Fang claims that even he did not adequatley emphasize "the clearly and concretely distinguishable line of demarcation between the human and divine faculties.". (shrink)

In a recent article in this journal Phil. Math., II, v.4 (1989), n.2, pp.? ?] J. Fang argues that we must not be fooled by A.J. Ayer (God rest his soul!) and his cohorts into believing that mathematical knowledge has an analytic a priori status. Even computers, he reminds us, take some amount of time to perform their calculations. The simplicity of Kant's infamous example of a mathematical proposition (7+5=12) is "partly to blame" for "mislead[ing] scholars in the direction (...) of neglecting the temporal element"; yet a brief instant of time is required to grasp even this simple truth. If Kant were alive today, "and if he had had a little more mathematical savvy", Fang explains, he could have used the latest example of the largest prime number (391,581 x 2 216,193 - 1) as a better example of the "synthetic a priori" character of mathematics. The reason Fang is so intent upon emphasizing the temporal character of mathematics is that he wishes to avoid "the uncritical mixing of ... a theology and a philosophy of mathematics." For "in the light of the Computer Age today: finitism is king!" Although Kant's aim was explicitly "to study the 'human' ... faculty", Fang claims that even he did not adequatley emphasize "the clearly and concretely distinguishable line of demarcation between the human and divine faculties.". (shrink)

This essay explores Edmund Husserl's significance for contemporary truth theory. Focusing on his Logical Investigations, it argues that early Husserl's conception of truth unsettles a common polarity between epistemic and nonepistemic approaches. Unlike contemporary epistemic conceptions of truth, he gives full weight to “truth makers” that have their own being: objective identity, perceptible objects, and states of affairs. Yet, unlike contemporary nonepistemic conceptions, he also insists on the intentional givenness of such truth makers and on the complexity of the experiences (...) within which propositional truth claims arise. To develop this argument, the essay explains how early Husserl's conception of truth builds on his phenomenology of intentional experience and knowledge. By emphasizing an objective identity between what is signitively meant and intuitively given, Husserl's approach provides a way to resituate propositional truth within a broader and more dynamic conception of truth. (shrink)

This dissertation is a critique of synthetic ethical naturalism (SEN). SEN is a view in metaethics that comprises three key theses: first, there are moral properties and facts that are independent of the beliefs and attitudes of moral appraisers (moral realism); second, moral properties and facts are identical to (or constituted only by) natural properties and facts (ethical naturalism); and third, sentences used to assert identity or constitution relations between moral and natural properties are expressions of synthetic, a (...) posteriori necessities. The last of these theses, which distinguishes SEN from other forms of ethical naturalism, is supported by a fourth: the semantic contents of the central moral predicates such as 'morally right' and 'morally good' are fixed in part by features external to the minds of speakers (moral semantic externalism). Chapter 1 introduces SEN and discusses the most common motivations for accepting it. The next three chapters discuss the influential "Moral Twin Earth" argument against moral semantic externalism. In Chapter 2, I defend this argument from the charge that the thought experiment upon which it depends is defective. In Chapters 3 and 4, I consider two attempts to amend SEN so as to render it immune to the Moral Twin Earth argument. I show that each of these proposed amendments amounts to an abandonment of SEN. Chapter Five explores Richard Boyd's proposal that moral goodness is a "homeostatic property cluster." If true, Boyd's hypothesis could be used to support several metaphysical, epistemological, and semantic claims made on behalf of SEN. I advance three arguments against this account of moral goodness. In the sixth chapter, I argue that moral facts are not needed in the best a posteriori explanations of our moral beliefs and moral sensibility. Because of this, those who accept a metaphysical naturalism ought to deny the existence of such facts or else accept skepticism about moral knowledge. In Chapter 7, I consider a counterargument on behalf of SEN to the effect that moral facts are needed in order to explain the predictive success of our best moral theories. I show that this argument fails. (shrink)

There are currently serious concerns that published scientific findings often fail to be reproducible, and that some solutions may be gleaned by attending the several methodological and sociological recommendations that could be found in the literature. However, researchers would also arrive at some answers by considering the advice of the philosophy of science, particularly semantics, about theses on truth related to scientific realism. Sometimes scientists understand the correspondence thesis of truth as asserting that the next unique empirical confirmation of a (...) hypothesis suffices to attribute truth to it provisionally. Such empiricist bias is not necessarily at the core of CTT, but Mario Bunge proposed the synthetic thesis of truth, based on CTT, to explicitly avoid the bias. STT requires considering a hypothesis corroborated, both by purely empirical confirmation and external consistency or compatibility with the bulk of existing background knowledge. While a capricious understanding of CTT could be rigged to recommend the “one shot game” in hypothesis testing, STT clearly demands the use of multiple approaches, empirical as well as theoretical, and it asserts that a scientific test is effective to the extent to which it is neither purely empirical, nor viewed in isolation. Pattern consistency together with an understanding of causal relations make confirmed hypotheses robust and more reliable. The militancy of the double mechanism of hypothesis control of STT can help mitigate the reproducibility crisis. Earl Werner’s research program in community ecology is an example of the use of STT criteria, which leads to the development of reliable, cross-checked, ecological results, with high predictive capacity. (shrink)

There are currently serious concerns that published scientific findings often fail to be reproducible, and that some solutions may be gleaned by attending the several methodological and sociological recommendations that could be found in the literature. However, researchers would also arrive at some answers by considering the advice of the philosophy of science, particularly semantics, about theses on truth related to scientific realism. Sometimes scientists understand the correspondence thesis of truth as asserting that the next unique empirical confirmation of a (...) hypothesis suffices to attribute truth to it provisionally. Such empiricist bias is not necessarily at the core of CTT, but Mario Bunge proposed the synthetic thesis of truth, based on CTT, to explicitly avoid the bias. STT requires considering a hypothesis corroborated, both by purely empirical confirmation and external consistency or compatibility with the bulk of existing background knowledge. While a capricious understanding of CTT could be rigged to recommend the “one shot game” in hypothesis testing, STT clearly demands the use of multiple approaches, empirical as well as theoretical, and it asserts that a scientific test is effective to the extent to which it is neither purely empirical, nor viewed in isolation. Pattern consistency together with an understanding of causal relations make confirmed hypotheses robust and more reliable. The militancy of the double mechanism of hypothesis control of STT can help mitigate the reproducibility crisis. Earl Werner’s research program in community ecology is an example of the use of STT criteria, which leads to the development of reliable, cross-checked, ecological results, with high predictive capacity. (shrink)

This paper attempts to sort out some of the current tensions and ambiguities inherent in the field of bioethics as it continues to mature. In particular it focuses on the question of the methodological relevance of theory or ethical principles to the domain of clinical ethics. I offer an approach to reasoning about moral conflict that combines the insights of contemporary moral theorists, the philosophy of American pragmatism, and the skills of rhetorical deliberation. This synthetic approach locates a proper (...) role for moral theory in the practice of clinical ethics, thus linking abstract philosophical ideas about morality, humanity, suffering, and health to specific deeds, actions, and decisions in the concrete lives of particular individuals. The aim of this synthetic approach of bioethical inquiry is a rapprochement between theoretical knowledge in moral philosophy and the contextualized, relational, and practical understanding of what morality demands of us in our daily lives. I argue for a conception of bioethical inquiry that takes morality to be a study of certain practical, socially embedded concerns about matters of right and wrong, good and evil, as well as a study of the moral theories by which these actual concerns can be explored and critically evaluated. (shrink)

In the most recent edition of Language, Truth and Logic , Professor A. J. Ayer still maintains that pure mathematics is analytic, being in fact merely a vast system of tautology. He is much more confident about this than are most contemporary professional mathematicians who have investigated the foundations of their subject. Following the breakdown of the efforts both of Frege and of Russell and Whitehead to derive pure mathematics from logic, i.e. to prove that the denial of any one (...) proposition of mathematics would necessarily be self-contradictory, Hilbert attempted to prove the more modest thesis that pure mathematics is consistent, i.e. that no two propositions of mathematics can contradict each other; but in 1931 Gödel discovered that even this thesis was undecidable according to the “rules of the game.” As Weyl has recently lamented, “From this history one thing should be clear: we are less certain than ever about the ultimate foundations of mathematics.” The sense in which Ayer uses the terms analytic and tautology implies also that in his view the activities of pure mathematicians lead to nothing new. It is true that he remarks that “there is a sense in which analytic propositions do give us new knowledge. They call attention to linguistic usages of which we might otherwise not be conscious, and they reveal unsuspected implications in our assertions and beliefs.” But, he continues, “we can also see that there is a sense in which they may be said to add nothing to our knowledge. For they may be said to tell us what we know already. ” This denial of novelty in mathematics is as typical of contemporary positivism as the prophecy of Comte that the composition of the stars would never be revealed to us and the objections of Mach to the atomic hypothesis were characteristic of nineteenth century positivism. Indeed, one wonders why the term positivism should have been appropriated by successive philosophers whose common outlook could be so much more fittingly described as negativism. (shrink)

I try to show that there is much sap (synthetic a priori) knowledge although one may not find many, or even any, sap true statements in most natural languages. Reasons are given for the difficulty of expressing sap truths in natural languages, but it is argued that these are not necessary features of language as such. There are, then, sap true statements in some possible languages.Admission of the sap gives one a way of distinguishing logical from metaphysical possiblity. (...) Something is metaphysically impossible just in case it is a sap truth that it is impossible. I argue that the realm of logically possible entities is vastly larger than the realm of metaphysically possible entities.My.defence of the sap begins with a partial defence of the analytic/synthetic distinction. In particular, I attack the intentionality circle argument,Quine's indeterminacy thesis and some applications of the Kripke/Putnam theory of meaning for natural kind terms. Without being a conclusive defence of the analytic/synthetic distinction, this section makes the defence of the sap more secure. Arguments are then mounted in direct defence of the sap by showing that the purported reduction of sap truths to analytic truths is mistaken. Examples are adduced to show that, even where expressions of natural language fail, one can stipulate usage in ways that allow expression of sap truths. I then consider and reply to various objections, giving an example of the sort of meaning theory which illegitimately legislates the analyticity of any purported sap true statement. (shrink)

This paper attempts to shed light on three sets of issues that bear directly on our understanding of Locke and Kant. The first is whether Kant believes Locke merely anticipates his distinction between analytic and synthetic judgments or also believes Locke anticipates his notion of synthetic a priori cognition. The second is what should we as readers of Kant and Locke should think about Kant’s view whatever it turns out to be, and the third is the nature of (...) Kant’s justification for the comparison he draws between his philosophy and Locke’s. I argue (1) that Kant believes Locke anticipates both the analytic-synthetic distinction and Kant’s notion of synthetic a priori cognition, (2) that the best justification for Kant’s claim draws on Locke’s distinction between trifling and instructive knowledge, (3) that the arguments against this claim developed by Carson, Allison, and Newman fail to undermine it, and (4) that Kant’s own justification for his claim is quite different from what many commentators have thought it was (or should have been). (shrink)

The problem of synthetic judgements touches on the question of whether philosophy can draw independent statements about reality in the first place. For Kant, the synthetic judgements a priori formulate the conditions of the possibility for objectively valid knowledge. Despite the principle fallibility of its statements, modern science aims for objective knowledge. This gives the topic of synthetic a priori unbroken currency. This paper aims to show that a modernized version of transcendental philosophy, if it (...) is to be feasible at all, must “bid farewell” to the concept of being “free of empiricism” or the “purity” of the a priori. Approaches to this end can already been found in Kant’s reflections on non-pure synthetic knowledge. Moreover, the a priori validity of knowledge does not exclude the possibility that it can be discovered empirically. In keeping with Kant, Fries and Nelson anticipated this separation (usually first attributed to Reichenbach) between the validity and discovery context of knowledge and pointed out that the a priori could be discovered empirically, but never proven. There are currently still good reasons why transcendental philosophical concepts are of fundamental importance for modern science, although it must not be overlooked that even within the framework of a modernized transcendental philosophy, several unsolved problems remain or are raised. For example, the irredeemability of the universal validity and necessary claims of the a priori, the problem of a clear demarcation between the phenomenal and noumenal world. Moreover, the “beautiful structure” or the Kantian system, which constituted its persuasive power, is lost. (shrink)

In this paper I propose to read and understand gestures as logical tools within a synthetic paradigm of knowledge. This interpretation of gesture is drawn from a new pragmatist reading of reasoning in general, and synthetic reasoning in particular. Complete gestures are actions with a beginning and an end that bear a meaning. It is our regular way to embody vague ideas into singular actions with general meaning. The tool is forged by a dense blending of icons, (...) indices, and symbols and by a complexity of phenomenological characteristics as feelings, actual actions, general concepts and habits. The paper illustrates this new way to look at gestures and different kinds of complete and incomplete gestures. (shrink)

In 2014, an international group of scholars from various fields analysed the “societal dimensions” of synthetic biology in an interdisciplinary summer school. Here, we report and discuss the biologists’ observations on the general perception of synthetic biology by non-biologists who took part in this event. Most attendees mainly associated synthetic biology with contributions from the best-known public figures of the field, rarely mentioning other scientists. Media extrapolations of those contributions appeared to have created unrealistic expectations and irrelevant (...) fears that were widely disconnected from the current research in synthetic biology. Another observation was that when debating developments in synthetic biology, semantics strongly mattered: depending on the terms used to present an application of synthetic biology, attendees reacted in radically different ways. For example, using the term “GMOs” rather than the term “genetic engineering” led to very different reactions. Stimulating debates also happened with participants having unanticipated points of view, for instance biocentrist ethicists who argued that engineered microbes should not be used for human purposes. Another communication challenge emerged from the connotations and inaccuracies surrounding the word “life”, which impaired constructive debates, thus leading to misconceptions about the abilities of scientists to engineer or even create living organisms. Finally, it appeared that synthetic biologists tend to overestimate the knowledge of non-biologists, further affecting communication. The motivation and ability of synthetic biologists to communicate their work outside their research field needs to be fostered, notably towards policymakers who need a more accurate and technical understanding of the field to make informed decisions. Interdisciplinary events gathering scholars working in and around synthetic biology are an effective tool in addressing those issues. (shrink)

This article addresses Kant's distinction between a synthetic and an analytic method in philosophy. I will first consider how some commentators have accounted for Kant's distinction and analyze some passages in which Kant defined the analytic and the synthetic method. I will suggest that confusion about Kant's distinction arises because he uses it in at least two different senses. I will then identify a specific way in which Kant accounts for this distinction when he is differentiating between mathematical (...) and philosophical syntheses. I will examine Kant's arguments in the Critique of Pure Reason with the latter sense of the distinction in mind. I will evaluate if he uses the analytic or the synthetic method and if the synthetic method is able to identify, without a previous consideration of some sort of given knowledge, sufficient conditions for deriving some aspects of our knowledge. (shrink)

The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues released its first report, New Directions: The Ethics of Synthetic Biology and Emerging Technologies, on December 16, 2010.1 President Barack Obama had requested this report following the announcement last year that the J. Craig Venter Institute had created the world’s first self-replicating bacterial cell with a completely synthetic genome. The Venter group’s announcement marked a significant scientific milestone in synthetic biology, an emerging field of research that aims to (...) combine the knowledge and methods of biology, engineering, and related disciplines in the design of chemically synthesized DNA to create organisms with novel or enhanced .. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Wilfrid Sellars argued that Kant’s account of the conceptual structures involved in experience can be given a linguistic turn so as to provide an analytic account of the resources a language must have in order to be the bearer of empirical knowledge. In this paper I examine the methodological aspects of Kant’s transcendental philosophy that Sellars took to be fundamental to influential themes in his own philosophy. My first aim here is to clarify and argue for the plausibility (...) of what I claim is Sellars’ interpretation of Kant’s ‘analytic’ transcendental method in the first Critique, based ultimately on non-trivial analytic truths concerning the concept of an object of our possible experience. Kant’s ‘transcendental proofs’ thereby avoid a certain methodological trilemma confronting the candidate premises of any such proof, taken from Sellars’ 1970s undergraduate exam question on Kant. In part II of the essay I conclude by highlighting in general terms how Kant’s method, as interpreted in the analytic manner explained in part I, was adapted by Sellars to produce some of the more influential aspects of his own philosophy, expressed in terms of what he contends is their sustainable reformulation in light of the so-called linguistic turn in twentieth-century philosophy. (shrink)

In this essay, I show how the virtues, for Maximus the Confessor, contribute to the formation of a positive orientation toward (a deep and abiding desire for) the relevant epistemic goods (e.g., contemplation of God in and through nature, illumination of divine truths, wisdom, and experiential knowledge of God). The first section offers a brief overview of how three character-based virtue epistemologies envision the role of the intellectual virtues in the cognitive life. The second section draws attention to Maximus’s (...) understanding of the relationship between the virtues and the relevant epistemic goods. The third section argues that a relationship of this sort entails a seamless connection (though without confusion) between the practical and contemplative aspects of deiform existence. The fourth section clarifies how select virtues foster within the self a praiseworthy desire for the relevant epistemic goods. (shrink)

This paper concentrates on some aspects of the history of the analyticsynthetic distinction from Kant to Bolzano and Frege. This history evinces considerable continuity but also some important discontinuities. The analytic-synthetic distinction has to be seen in the first place in relation to a science, i.e. an ordered system of cognition. Looking especially to the place and role of logic it will be argued that Kant, Bolzano and Frege each developed the analytic-synthetic distinction within the same conception of (...) scientific rationality, that is, within the Classical Model of Science: scientific knowledge as cognitio exprincipiis. But as we will see, the way the distinction between analytic and synthetic judgments or propositions functions within this model turns out to differ considerably between them. (shrink)

Synthetic biology, as an engineering approach to biological systems, has the potential to disruptively innovate the development of vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics. Data accessibility and differences in data-usage capabilities are important factors in shaping this innovation landscape. In this paper, the data that underpin synthetic biology responses to the COVID-19 pandemic are analyzed as positional information goods—goods whose value depends on exclusivity. The positionality of biological data impacts the ability to guide innovations toward societally preferred goals. From both (...) an ethical and economic point of view, positionality can lead to suboptimal as well as beneficial situations. When aiming for responsible innovation (i.e. embedding societal deliberation in the innovation process), it is important to consider hurdles and facilitators in data access and use. Central governance and knowledge commons provide routes to mitigate the negative effects of data positionality. (shrink)

In his essay “Logical Empiricism”, in the anthology Twentieth Century Philosophy, Professor Feigl writes: “All forms of empiricism agree in repudiating the existence of synthetic a priori knowledge.” Schlick makes the same point even more forcibly: “The empiricism which I represent believes itself to be clear on the point that, as a matter of principle, all propositions are either synthetic a posteriori or tautologous; synthetic a priori propositions seem to it to be a logical impossibility.” The (...) denial of synthetic a prioris is a major thesis of the logical empiricist position, being found in the writings of most of the leaders of the movement. The reason for its importance is fairly clear. It provides a formula on which the empiricists can base their critique of traditional philosophy. To use Ayer's phrase, denial of the synthetic a priori results in “the elimination of metaphysics”. The philosophical tradition to which the empiricists are opposed and whose “metaphysics” they wish to eliminate can be called, somewhat loosely, rationalism. (shrink)