'the oldest biography of Spinoza', La Vie de Mr. Spinosa, which in the manuscript copies is often followed by L'Esprit de M. Spinosa. Margaret Jacob, in her Radical Enlightenment, contended that the Traite was written by a radical group of Freemasons in The Hague in the early eighteenth century. Silvia Berti has offered evidence it was written by Jan Vroesen. Various discussions in the early eighteenth century consider many possi ble authors from the Renaissance onwards to whom the work might (...) be attributed. The Trois imposteurs has attracted quite a bit of recent attention as one of the most significant irreligious clandestine writings available in the Enlightenment, which is most important for understanding the develop ment of religious scepticism, radical deism, and even atheism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Scholars for the last couple of decades have been trying to assess when the work was actually written or compiled and by whom. In view of the widespread distribution of manu scripts of the work all over Europe, they have also been seeking to find out who was influenced by the work, and what it represented for its time. Hitherto unknown manuscripts are being turned up in public and private libraries all over Europe and the United States. (shrink)

Johannes Daubert est la figure centrale du Cercle de Munich ainsi que le premier véritable lecteur et critique de Husserl. Ses manuscrits contiennent, en plus d'une critique de la phénoménologie husserlienne, une conception originale de la phénoménologie laissant notamment une place importante aux analyses perceptives. Le présent article s'intéresse d'abord aux thèmes du donné et de l'évidence en tant qu'ils sont des motifs centraux à la fois chez Husserl et Daubert, pour ensuite relever, à partir d'une étude des (...) manuscrits pertinents, la particularité des analyses daubertiennes concernant ces thèmes, ainsi que les contraintes ou limites que la phénoménologie doit s'imposer pour notamment se distinguer du rationalisme.Johannes Daubert is the central figure of the Munich Circle as well as the first real critical reader of Husserl. His manuscripts contain, in addition to a critique of the husserlian phenomenology, an original conception of phenomenology leaving a significant place to the perceptive analyses. This article is initially concerned with the topics of the given and of the evidence as they are central themes in Husserl's and Daubert's works, for then raising, starting from a study of the relevant manuscripts, the peculiarity of the daubertian analyses concerning these topics, as well as the constraints or limits that the phenomenology must impose itself to be distinguished from the Rationalism. (shrink)

Despite extensive discussion of naïve realism in the wider philosophical literature, those influenced by the phenomenological movement who work in the philosophy of perception have hardly weighed in on the matter. It is thus interesting to discover that Edmund Husserl’s close philosophical interlocutor and friend, the early twentieth-century phenomenologist Johannes Daubert, held the naive realist view. This article presents Daubert’s views on the fundamental nature of perceptual experience and shows how they differ radically from those of Husserl’s. The (...) author argues, in conclusion, that Daubert’s views are superior to those of Husserl’s specifically in the way that they deal with the phenomenon of perceptual constancy. (shrink)

In manuscripts of 1930-1 Johannes Daubert, principal member of the Munich board of realist phenomenologists, put forward a series of detailed criticisms of the idealism of Husserl’s Ideas I. The paper provides a sketch of these criticisms and of Daubert’s own alternative conceptions of consciousness and reality, as also of Daubert’s views on perception, similar, in many respects, to those of J. J. Gibson.

Economists are often called upon as expert witnesses by the parties involved in antitrust litigation. One challenge they may face in US federal courts is compliance with the Daubert standard of admissibility of expert testimony. The interplay between model applicability and the Daubert standard is analyzed, suggesting the importance of distinguishing between weak applicability claims, those that state that a model’s critical assumptions are shared by the target, and strong applicability claims, those that connect empirical models and quantitative (...) market features. Recent antitrust cases in which expert testimonies based on economic models have been assessed following the Daubert standard are examined using this framework. Some normative implications are drawn concerning how to improve judges’ assessment of model-based arguments. (shrink)

As is well-known Edmund Husserl's Logical Investigations (1900-1901) had their first, broader impact not on those who attended Husserl's lectures and seminars in Göttingen but on the students of Theodor Lipps, the psychologist and philosopher at the University of Munich.

To seek to elucidate Husserl's phenomenology by contrasting it with that of the Munich phenomenologist Johannes Daubert is to betray an intention to explain something well-known by reference to something that is wholly obscure. Thus most philosophers are somehow aware of Edmund Husserl. But Johannes Daubert?

A test for the admissibility of expert evidence, partly derived from Daubert, has recently been introduced into English criminal law by the unusual mechanism of aPractice Direction.This article compares the Daubert trilogy and the English Practice Direction as responses to the problem of epistemic deference by juries to experts. Juries areoften justified in deferring to experts as to the relevance of the underlying evidence examined by the expert, including what inferences can be drawn from it. There is a (...) concern, however, that juries may also defer to experts’ claims about the weight of their own evidence: how strongly or confidently those inferences can be stated. Overly deferential jurors may place excessive weight on forensic science evidence that rests on shaky foundations. The new English admissibility regime (drawing on recommendations by the Law Commission) appears better tailored than Daubert to address this issue about the strength of inferences presented by expert witnesses. As a result, however, it places considerable demands in judges, advocates and expert witnesses, and how successful it will be in practice remains to be seen. (shrink)

Johannes Daubert he was an acknowledged leader, and in some respects the founder, of the early phenomenological movement, and was considered – as much by its members as by Husserl himself – the most brilliant member of the group. In Daubert’s unpublished writings we find a series of reflections on Lask, and on Neo-Kantianism, which form the subject-matter of this paper. They range over topics such as the ontology of the ‘Sachverhalt’ or state of affairs, truthvalues (Wahrheitswerte) and (...) the value of truth, negative judgments and the copula, and the relation between perception and judgment. (shrink)

In Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court made its first major pronouncement on the evaluation of scientific evidence, calling on judges to act as gatekeepers for scientific knowledge and validity, despite lack of scientific training among judges. Daubert offers the science studies community a case study for examining how judges engage in boundary-work and construct scientific validity. In constructing scientific validity under Daubert, judges must evaluate the scientific method behind a particular scientific claim, (...) and will look to the parties' experts and the relevant scientific community for assistance. To combat the oft-cited problem of the battle of the experts, judges may be tempted to obtain assistance from court-appointed neutral experts, an inquisitorial system in the civil law tradition of many European countries. The judicial evaluation of scientific evidence, the resulting construction of scientific validity, and the push for a greater use of court-appointed experts reveal judges' desire to segregate "objective" scientific facts from aspects of the legal process that are infused with adversaries' values. Yet the scientific and judicial construction of validity mixes empirical results and research methods with the personal, political, and institutional values of judges and scientists. (shrink)

In many toxic-tort cases - notably in Oxendine v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc, and in Joiner v. G.E., - plaintiffs argue that the expert testimony they wish to present, though no part of it is sufficient by itself to establish causation "by a preponderance of the evidence," is jointly sufficient to meet this standard of proof; and defendants sometimes argue in response that it is a mistake to imagine that a collection of pieces of weak evidence can be any stronger (...) than its individual components. This article draws on the epistemological theory I first presented in 1993 in Evidence and Inquiry, and then amplified and refined in 2003 in Defending Science - Within Reason. This theory of evidence shows that, under certain conditions, a combination of pieces of evidence none of which is sufficient by itself really can warrant a casual conclusion to a higher degree than any of its components alone. When my account is applied to the very complex congeries of evidence typically proffered to prove general causation in these toxic-tort cases, it improves on the influential "Bradford Hill criteria" for assessing causation; and it suggests answers to questions frequently raised in such cases: e.g., whether epidemiological evidence is essential for proof of causation, and whether such evidence should be excluded if it is not statistically significant. Moreover, the argument of this paper reveals that by obliging courts to screen each item of expert testimony individually for reliability, the atomism implicit in Daubert will sometimes stand in the way of an accurate assessment of the worth of complex causation evidence. (shrink)

It has been more than 20 years since the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. on the admissibility of scientific expert witness testimony in legal proceedings. It is time, perhaps, to look back at the history of Daubert decisions to determine whether it and its progeny have lived up to their collective promises to keep bad science out of the courtroom, while allowing in good, especially where the mind and brain sciences are (...) concerned.In this essay, I argue that, although the decision in Daubert describes a general test for the admissibility of scientific evidence, it has not been applied consistently to data and conclusions drawn from the behavioral sciences.... (shrink)

On June 28, 1993, the United States Supreme Court ruled on the admissibility of expert scientific opinion and evidence in federal court cases. The importance of the case can be measured by the interest it stimulated. The scientific community turned out in particular force to register its views. At the heart of the controversy was a debate over the nature of scientific knowledge and its relation to law. More than any other Supreme Court case in recent memory, the amici seemed (...) to view the Daubert case both as posing a potential challenge to basic scientific premises and as an opportunity to reclaim a lost prerogative to determine how science is applied in courts. (shrink)

On June 28, 1993, the United States Supreme Court ruled on the admissibility of expert scientific opinion and evidence in federal court cases. The importance of the case can be measured by the interest it stimulated. The scientific community turned out in particular force to register its views. At the heart of the controversy was a debate over the nature of scientific knowledge and its relation to law. More than any other Supreme Court case in recent memory, the amici seemed (...) to view the Daubert case both as posing a potential challenge to basic scientific premises and as an opportunity to reclaim a lost prerogative to determine how science is applied in courts. (shrink)

This paper explores some of the important parallels between recent reforms to legal rules for the admissibility of scientific and expert evidence, exemplified by the US Supreme Court's decision in Daubert v Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. in 1993, and similar calls for reforms to medical practice, that emerged around the same time as part of the Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) movement. Similarities between the “movements” can be observed in that both emerged from a historical context where the quality of medicine (...) and legal approaches to science were being subjected to growing criticism, and in the ways that proponents of both movements have used appeals to “folk epistemologies” of science to help legitimate their reform aspirations. The term folk epistemology is used to describe the weaving together of formal and informal images of scientific method with normative and pragmatic concerns such as eradicating “junk science”, and promoting medical best practice. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the unfocused breadth of these aspirations the implications of these “reforms” for medical and legal practice have not been straightforward, although they do represent an important new set of rhetorical resources to critique and or legitimate expertise in medical and legal domains. Discussion closes, by noting the growth of calls for these movements to reciprocate in areas where law and medicine intersect, such as medical negligence litigation. (shrink)

We examine the relationship between scientific knowledge and the legal system with a focus on the exclusion of expert testimony from trial as ruled by the Daubert standard in the US.We introduce a simple framework to understand and assess the role of judges as “gatekeepers”, monitoring the admission of science in the courtroom. We show how judges face a crucial choice, namely, whether to limit Daubert assessment to the abstract reliability of the methods used by the expert witness (...) or also to check whether the application of those methods was correct. Undesirable outcomes result from both choices, thereby giving rise to the “gatekeeper’s dilemma.” We illustrate the dilemma by analyzing in some detail two well-known cases of Daubert challenges to economic experts. Finally, we present reasons for the absence of straightforward solutions to the dilemma and for its likely endurance. (shrink)

This essay addresses the question: What is the probative value of including neuroscience data in court cases where the defendant might have had a traumatic brain injury? That is, this essay attempts to articulate how well we can connect scientific data and clinical test results to the demands of the Daubert standard in the United States’ court system, and, given the fact that neuroimaging is already being used in our courts, what, if anything, we should do about this fact. (...) Ultimately, I am not sure that there are completely satisfactory answers to this query at this particular time in our legal history. I briefly rehearse the recent use of brain research in our legal system, summarize how neuroscience data regarding TBI and its relation to poor behavioral outcomes are currently used in the courtroom, review challenges with using these data, and highlight fundamental tensions between how the legal system views the causes of behavior and how medicine, neuroscience, and psychology do. Until these tensions are resolved, it is unclear the place neuroscience data should have in courts. (shrink)

Provides a survey of the development of speech act theory from Aristotle through Reid and Peirce to Edmund Husserl, Anton Marty, Johannes Daubert, Adolf Reinach, and finally to Austin and Searle. A special role is played by Husserl's theory of objectifying acts (meaning, roughly, acts of naming or stating) and of the efforts by his followers to extend this theory to cover phenomena such as questioning and commanding. These efforts culminated in the work of Adolf Reinach, who developed the (...) first systematic theory of speech acts in connection with his monograph of 1913 on “The A Priori Foundations of the Civil Law”. (shrink)

Rehearing Daubert on remand from the Supreme Court, Judge Kozinski introduced a fifth "Daubert factor" of his own: that expert testimony is based on "litigation-driven science" is an indication that it is unreliable. This article explores the role this factor has played in courts' handling of scientific testimony, clears up an ambiguity in "litigation-driven" and some uncertainties in "reliable," and assesses the reasons courts have given for reading such research with suspicion. This analysis reveals that research that is (...) litigation-driven in the stronger of the two senses distinguished is inherently less likely to be evidentially reliable; but also that it is so hard to determine whether research is litigation-driven in this strong sense that this new Daubert factor is not as helpful as Judge Kozinski imagined. (shrink)

In Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Daubert charged Merrell Dow with creating a drug (Bendectin) that caused birth defects in two infants. In charging Merrell Dow, Daubert relies upon the testimony of a scientific expert who “reanalyzed” a number of studies to show that Bendectin was the cause of said defects. Merrell Dow objected, contending that the “reanalysis” method was not based upon reliable science, to which the judge agreed. Upon appeal, the United States Supreme Court (...) was charged with determining what scientific testimony is reliable enough to be admitted as evidence in court. This paper describes, not only the legal and definitional issues surrounding the Daubert cases but how the Daubert case could be used to prompt discussion about a variety of “what is X?” questions, e.g. “what is science?”, “what is an expert?”, “what is knowledge?”. (shrink)

In Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Daubert charged Merrell Dow with creating a drug (Bendectin) that caused birth defects in two infants. In charging Merrell Dow, Daubert relies upon the testimony of a scientific expert who “reanalyzed” a number of studies to show that Bendectin was the cause of said defects. Merrell Dow objected, contending that the “reanalysis” method was not based upon reliable science, to which the judge agreed. Upon appeal, the United States Supreme Court (...) was charged with determining what scientific testimony is reliable enough to be admitted as evidence in court. This paper describes, not only the legal and definitional issues surrounding the Daubert cases but how the Daubert case could be used to prompt discussion about a variety of “what is X?” questions, e.g. “what is science?”, “what is an expert?”, “what is knowledge?”. (shrink)

A number of logicians and philosophers have turned their attention in recent years to the problem of developing a logic of interrogatives. Their work has thrown a great deal of light on the formal properties of questions and question-sentences and has led also to interesting innovations in our understanding of the structures of performatives in general and, for example, in the theory of presuppositions. When, however, we examine the attempts of logicians such as Belnap or Åqvist to specify what, precisely, (...) a question is, or what it is to ask or raise a question, then what we are offered is somewhat less illuminating. Two alternative reductionist accounts seem in particular to have gained most favor: questions are identified either as special sorts of statements, or as special sorts of requests. As we hope will become clear in what follows, neither of these accounts is even nearly adequate; and matters are not improved if questions are identified, by force majeure, as combinations of statements and requests. (shrink)

Contents: List of Contributors VII; Roberto Poli: Foreword IX-X; Roberto Poli: The Brentano puzzle: an introduction 1; Dallas Willard: Who needs Brentano? The wasteland of philosophy without its past 15; Claire Ortiz Hill: Introduction to Paul Linke's 'Gottlob Frege as philosopher' 45; Paul F. Linke: Gottlob Frege as philosopher 49; John Blackmore: Franz Brentano and the University of Vienna Philosophical Society 1888-1938 73; Alf Zimmer: On agents and objects: some remarks on Brentanian perception 93; Liliana Albertazzi: Perceptual saliences and nuclei (...) of meaning 113; Jan Srzednicki: Brentano and the thinkable 139; Claire Ortiz Hill: From empirical psychology to phenomenology. Edmund Husserl on the 'Brentano puzzle' 151; Serena Cattaruzza: Brentano and Boltzmann: the Schubladenexperiment 169; Karl Schuhmann: Johannes Daubert's theory of judgement 179; Evelyn Dölling: On Alexius Meinong's theory of signs 199; Robin Rollinger: Linguistic expressions and acts of meaning: comments on Marty's philosophy of language 215-225. (shrink)

The relationship between science, law and justice has become a pressing issue with US Supreme Court decisions beginning with Daubert v. Merrell-Dow Pharmaceutical. How courts review scientific testimony and its foundation before trial can substantially affect the possibility of justice for persons wrongfully injured by exposure to toxic substances. If courts do not review scientific testimony, they will deny one of the parties the possibility of justice. Even if courts review evidence well, the fact and perception of greater judicial (...) scrutiny increases litigation costs and attorney screening of clients. Mistaken review of scientific evidence can decrease citizen access to the law, increase unfortunate incentives for firms not to test their products, lower deterrence for wrongful conduct and harmful products, and decrease the possibility of justice for citizens injured by toxic substances. This book introduces these issues, reveals the relationships that pose problems, and shows how justice can be denied. (shrink)

English summary: Adolf Reinach (1883-1917) was one of the most outstanding disciples of Husserl. In contrast to the idealistic phenomenology of transcendental constitution developed and expounded by Husserl in Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, he endeavored to develop and establish the principles of a realistic phenomenology. This volume makes it possible to access the theoretical side of his thought, presenting both published and posthumous texts. French text. French description: Adolf Reinach (1883-1917) fut l'un des disciples les plus remarquables de (...) Husserl, dont il fut le collegue a Gottingen, et l'un des plus notables representants de la phenomenologie munichoise avec Johannes Daubert. A l'encontre de la phenomenologie idealiste de la constitution transcendantale elaboree puis exposee par Husserl dans les Idees directrices de 1913, il suivit la voie frayee par les Recherches logiques pour developper et fixer les principes d'une phenomenologie realiste. Le foyer principal en est le concept d'etat de choses (Sachverhalt), correlat objectuel du jugement dont il tente de caracteriser le statut ontologique et d'elucider le mode de donation a la conscience--a savoir l'acte de visee et l'evidence. La methode en est exclusivement l'intuition des essences--consideree comme un passage de la realite effective a la pure possibilite -, a l'exclusion de toute reduction conduisant a la sphere transcendantale. Enfin, il procede a une desubjectivation de la notion kantienne d'a priori, qu'il arrache aux structures de la subjectivite pour l'ancrer dans les etats de choses eidetiques. Il contribue ainsi a situer la phenomenologie vis-a-vis de la philosophie medievale et des premices de la philosophie analytique, lui assignant une place dans une lignee qui part de Gregoire de Rimini pour aboutir a Meinong, Frege et Russell. Le present volume, Phenomenologie realiste, est un recueil visant a rendre accessible aux lecteurs francais le versant theoretique de sa pensee, et se compose a la fois de textes publies et posthumes--presentes ici dans un ordre thematique, et non chronologique. (shrink)

L’apport de la phénoménologie allemande à l’éthique a souvent été réduit aux intentionnalités et aux vécus axiologiques et affectifs, tels qu’ils furent décrits par Husserl. Or, cet apport est limité du fait que Husserl définissait d’abord l’intentionnalité comme un rapport à un objet dont nous sommes conscients. Dans ce qui suit, nous proposons d’emprunter une autre voie pour penser l’apport de la phénoménologie à l’éthique, en étudiant la phénoménologie des actes sociaux que les phénoménologues munichois développèrent en réponse à la (...) phénoménologie husserlienne. Cette phénoménologie des actes sociaux permet de considérer, de juger et de critiquer, d’un point de vue éthique, les façons dont nous entrons en relation intentionnelle non pas avec des objets éthiques, mais avec autrui. Notre propos suivra principalement les idées développées par Reinach, Pfänder, Daubert et Scheler, et prendra pour fil directeur les actes d’adresser un impératif et une invitation à autrui. (shrink)

A quick look into the index of Brentano’s Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint reveals that all references to “abstract terms” occur only in the appendix (taken from Brentano’s “Nachlass” essays). What should we make of this? Was it the case that the inquiry into abstract, as well as non-existent, objects came as an afterthought to Brentano? Or was he all too aware of the consequences of such investigations? Furthermore, was it largely the absence of such inquirythat prompted Husserl and his (...) early students in Göttingen, such as Daubert and Reinach, to develop a deep ontological commitment to entities he refers to as “abstract” or “ideal”? (shrink)

The epistemological analysis offered in this paper reveals that a combination of pieces of evidence, none of them sufficient by itself to warrant a causal conclusion to the legally required degree of proof, may do so jointly. The legal analysis offered here, interlocking with this, reveals that Daubert’s requirement that courts screen each item of scientific expert testimony for reliability can actually impede the process of arriving at the conclusion most warranted by the evidence proffered.

Peer review and publication is one of the factors proposed in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. as indicia of the reliability of scientific testimony. This Article traces the origins of the peer-review system, the process by which it became standard at scientific and medical journals, and the many roles it now plays. Additionally, the Author articulates the epistemological rationale for pre-publication peer-review and the inherent limitations of the system as a scientific quality-control mechanism. The Article explores recent changes (...) in science, in scientific publishing, and in the academy that have put the system under strain. The Author argues that Justice Blackmun's advice to courts - that peer-reviewed publication is relevant, but is not dispositive - is of little practical help. Instead, the Author suggests questions that courts should ask in assessing the significance of the fact that testimony is, or is not, based on peer-reviewed publication and illustrates with reference to another Bendectin case, Blum v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., where some of these questions were asked. (shrink)

Abstract: This paper responds to the question posed in the announcement of the conference at Brooklyn Law School at which it was presented: if and how [the inquiry into the reliability of proffered scientific testimony mandated by Daubert] relates to 'truth,' and whose view of the truth should prevail. The first step is to sketch the legal history leading up to Daubert, and to explore some of the difficulties Daubert brought in its wake; the next, to develop (...) an account of truth in the sciences that combines a full acknowledgment of the fallibility and incompleteness of the scientific enterprise with a robustly objective conception of truth - which helps us understand why the legal system often gets less than the best out of science; and finally, exploring the concept of legal truth, to show how false scientific clams sometimes get entrenched as legally reliable. (shrink)

In this paper I criticize the current standards for the acceptability of expert testimony in current US legislation. The standards have been the subject of much academic literature after the Frye and Daubert cases. I expose what I call the Paradox of Proof, and argue that the historical and current standards have sidestepped the problem of determining who is an expert and who is not in a court of law. I then investigate the problem of recognizing expertise from the (...) layperson’s standpoint, and suggest what courses of action the future research ought to take on the problem of identifying expertise. (shrink)

The first section of this paper explains why assessing the worth of expert testimony poses special epistemological difficulties. The second traces the history of the various rules and procedures by means of which the U.S. legal system has tried to ensure, or at least control, the quality of the expert testimony on which it so often relies—from the Frye Rule, the Federal Rules of Evidence, and the Daubert trilogy to recent constitutional cases regarding the appearance of forensic witnesses in (...) court and experiments with court-appointed experts and scientific education for judges. The third and final section suggests some lessons to be learned from the limited success of these efforts, and explores what might be better strategies going forward. (shrink)

This article analyses the epistemic status of law and its presumption of being a science in relation with the so-called demarcation criterion proposed by different philosophers of science. Such criteria are the main analytical elements to differentiate scientific discourses from those who are not and the ones who pretend to be. In relation to those, pseudoscience and law are treated, to finally conclude with the exposition of the case of Daubert v. Merrill Dow Pharmaceuticals, in which a judicial process (...) defined demarcation criteria. This paper shows how the demarcation criteria of science and the concept of pseudoscience cannot be applied to law science given its own rationality. (shrink)