The paper, as a continuation of the paper Hanzel , provides a methodological generalization of Newton’s method of theory construction as applied in Book I and Book III of his Principia. It reconstructs also the method of measures applied in those books. Finally, it shows how the term “harmonic law” changes its meaning in the Principia.

The paper, as a continuation of the paper Hanzel , provides a methodological generalization of Newton’s method of theory construction as applied in Book I and Book III of his Principia. It reconstructs also the method of measures applied in those books. Finally, it shows how the term “harmonic law” changes its meaning in the Principia.

The aim of the paper is to discuss the views, which approach the qualitative and quantitative methods in social sciences as either separable, or irreconcilable. First, the author gives an outline of those views and shows, how they deal with various aspects of the qualitative/quantitative divide. Next, he tries to identify the roots of that divide in the works of Herbert Blumer. Further, his analysis of the categories of quantity, quality, and measure is designed to show that the divide in (...) question is based on a wrong, one-sided understanding of the qualitative as well as quantitative approaches, which in fact can neither be separated nor conceived of as contradictory. (shrink)

The paper tries to provide an alternative to C. G. Hempel’s approach to scientific laws and scientific explanation as given in his D-N model. It starts with a brief exposition of the main characteristics of Hempel’s approach to deductive explanations based on universal scientific laws and analyzes the problems and paradoxes inherent in this approach. By way of solution, it analyzes the scientific laws and explanations in classical mechanics and then reconstructs the corresponding models of explanation, as well as the (...) types of scientific laws appearing in it. The paper makes an attempt to provide a new approach to scientific laws and scientific explanations. Based on my paper Hanzel I give a brief overview of Hempel’s approach to scientific laws and scientific explanation, as well as of its failures and paradoxes. As a way out, I analyze the scientific laws and explanations in classical mechanics and then reconstruct the corresponding models of explanation, as well as the types of scientific laws appearing in it. Finally, I provide a differentiated typology of scientific laws and scientific explanations. (shrink)

The article analyses the relation of E. V. Ilyenkov to the phenomenon of language. His approach, it is shown, had its roots in his explication of notion of ideal which led him to assign priority to work with respect to language at a general level as well as at the level ontogenesis of human infants. Two additional factors shaped his approach to the phenomenon of language. The first was his negative approach to disciplines investigating the structure of language: mathematical logic, (...) logical semantics, and philosophy of language. The second was his treatment of Hegel’s philosophy from which he took over only those features that were appropriated and further developed by Marx. The article gives an analysis of Ilyenkov’s view on the educational process of deafblind children and it shows that this view contradicted the views on that process presented in the works of Meshcheryakov and Sirotkin. Finally, the article provides a characterization of work, language and of their relation. (shrink)

I shall compare John McDowell’s Mind and World with Hegel’s later philosophy in the Science of Logic and the Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences in Outline. I begin by presenting McDowell’s epistemology. I then delineate the most important aspects of Hegel’s epistemology and, because McDowell claims that he draws on Kant’s views on the relation between receptivity and spontaneity, their relation to Kant’s epistemology. Here, I suggest that even if Hegel’s epistemology displays idealistic features which determine the construction of the category-clusters (...) in the Science of Logic and Encyclopedia, these clusters can make a valuable contribution to epistemology once subjected to a realistic reinterpretation. Next I compare Hegel’s epistemology with that of McDowell and show that under this reinterpretation Hegel’s epistemology can be used to overcome the limitations of the epistemology presented by McDowell. Finally I propose a return to the reconstruction of categories as the direction towards which the future development of epistemology should go. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to investigate, from the point of view of philosophy of science and philosophy of social science, the turn in the ape language project as accomplished in the works of Sue Savage- Rumbaugh and her collaborators. In this project took place a highly interesting turn from the orientation of research on natural sciences to that on humanities. We shall analyze all the relevant works of Savage-Rumbaugh from the point of view of the two central levels (...) of ALP: its scientific level and the methodological level. (shrink)

The paper deals with the concepts of measure and measurement from the point of view of philosophy as well as natural and social science. First, Hegel´s approach to these concepts is analysed. Then Hegel´s concepts are compared to Marx´s economic works where the concepts of external, inherent and manifest measure are exemplified. Finally, Newton´s Principia are compared with Marx´s economical works and their similarities and differences are outlined.

The article analysis the views approaching quantitative and qualitative methods in social sciences as separable or irreconcilable. First, we characterize these views and show how they deal with this divide and how they view the aspects of the latter. Next, we identify the works of Herbert Blumer as the basis of that divide and subject them to an analysis. Finally, by means of categories like quantity, quality, and measure, we show that the qualitative-quantitative divide is based on a wrong approach (...) to these categories and the quantitative and qualitative methods. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to analyze the main contributions of Wesley C. Salmon to the philosophy of science, that is, his concepts of causation, common cause, and theoretical explanation, and to provide a critique of them. This critique will be based on a comparison of Salmon's concepts with categories developed by Hegel in his Science of Logic, and which can be applied to the issues treated by Salmon by means of the above given three concepts. It is the (...) author's contention that by means of Hegelian categories it becomes possible to provide a critique of Salmon's philosophy of science and at the same time to enlarge the concept framework of philosophy of science. (shrink)

I shall compare John McDowell’s Mind and World with Hegel’s later philosophy in the Science of Logic and the Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences in Outline. I begin by presenting McDowell’s epistemology. I then delineate the most important aspects of Hegel’s epistemology and, because McDowell claims that he draws on Kant’s views on the relation between receptivity and spontaneity, their relation to Kant’s epistemology. Here, I suggest that even if Hegel’s epistemology displays idealistic features which determine the construction of the category-clusters (...) in the Science of Logic and Encyclopedia, these clusters can make a valuable contribution to epistemology once subjected to a realistic reinterpretation. Next I compare Hegel’s epistemology with that of McDowell and show that under this reinterpretation Hegel’s epistemology can be used to overcome the limitations of the epistemology presented by McDowell. Finally I propose a return to the reconstruction of categories as the direction towards which the future development of epistemology should go. (shrink)

Acknowledgements Several persons institutions and were helpful in writing this book. Chapter 3 was written at the University of Potsdam in Germany, ...

The paper tries to provide an alternative to Hempel’s approach to scientific laws and scientific explanation as given in his D-N model. It starts with a brief exposition of the main characteristics of Hempel’s approach to deductive explanations based on universal scientific laws and analyzes the problems and paradoxes inherent in this approach. By way of solution, it analyzes the scientific laws and explanations in classical mechanics and then reconstructs the corresponding models of explanation, as well as the types of (...) scientific laws appearing in it. Finally, it compares this reconstruction with the approaches of J. Woodward and C. Hitchcock, C. Liu and with the views of M. Thalos on analytic mechanics. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show the incompleteness of the exclusively logico-syntactical and logico-semantical approaches to one of the core issues of philosophy of science, namely, scientific laws and scientific explanation in C. G. Hempel’s works. I start with a brief exposition of the main characteristics of Hempel’s approach to deductive explanations based on universal scientific laws and then analyze the problems and paradoxes inherent in this approach. Next, I trace these characteristics back to Hempel’s and Carnap’s attempts (...) to ground the concepts of scientific law and explanation exclusively on logic , which led to a highly normative approach alienated from the practice of real science. (shrink)

The paper reconstructs the three main stages in the development of Carnap’s semantics in the years 1935–1947. It starts with Carnap’s approach to metalogic in his Zirkelprotokolle (1931) and his Logische Syntax der Sprache (1934) from the point of view of one-level approach to the relation between metalanguage and its object-language. It then analyzes Tarski’s turn to semantics in his paper presented at the Paris conference in September 1935, as well as the implications of his view for Carnap’s approach to (...) semantics from 1935 until 1943. Finally, it analyzes Church’s rediscovery of Frege and its impact on Carnap’s shift to the extension/intension distinction in his semantics in the years 1943–1947. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to analyze the main contributions of Wesley C. Salmon to the philosophy of science, that is, his concepts of causation, common cause, and theoretical explanation, and to provide a critique of them. This critique will be based on a comparison of Salmon’s concepts with categories developed by Hegel in his Science of Logic and which can be applied to issues treated by Salmon by means of the above given three concepts. It is the author’s (...) contention that by means of Hegelian categories it becomes possible to provide a critique of Salmon’s philosophy of science and at the same time to enlarge the concept framework of philosophy of science. (shrink)

The paper reconstructs three main stages in the development of Carnap’s approach to language in the years 1931 – 1947. It starts with Carnap’s approach to metalogic in his Viennese Zirkelprotokolle and his Logische Syntax der Sprache from the point of view of one-level approach to the relation between metalanguage and its object-language. It then analyzes Tarski’s turn to semantics in his paper presented at the Paris conference in September 1935, as well as the implications of his view for Carnap’s (...) approach to semantics from 1935 until 1943. Finally, it analyzes Church’s rediscovery of Frege and its impact on Carnap’s shift to the extension/intension distinction in his semantics in the years 1943 – 1947. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to investigate, from the point of view of philosophy of science and philosophy of social science, the turn in the ape language project as accomplished in the works of Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and her collaborators. In this project a highly interesting turn from the orientation of research on natural sciences to that on humanities took place. We shall analyze all the relevant works of Savage-Rumbaugh from the point of view of the three central levels of (...) ALP: its scientific, metascientific and methodological levels. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to reconstruct the concept of natural necessity upon which the empirical causal type of a scientific law rests and to enlarge the notion of the conditions of a scientific law. According to regularity theory, what counts in the investigation of causation is the universality of causal proposition. So in this theory priority is given to the explication of the concept “scientific law”. Such an explication was provided by Popper in the first edition of his (...) Logik der Forschung. He defines here the concept “scientific law” by distinguishing between strictly universal propositions and numerical propositions. Later Popper, drawing upon W. Kneale´s criticism, proposed another definition of natural necessity. He expounds his revised view in Chapter X* of the new appendices of the Logic of Scientific Discovery by means of the famous moa-example. He views statement “All moas die before the age of fifty years” as not physically necessary because its truth depends on the presence of conditions different from singular initial conditions. Ba distinguishing between singular initial conditions and modification conditions I, contrary to Popper, claim that that statement can be viewed as naturally necessary. (shrink)

The book discusses methodological issues relating to the philosophy of science and the natural and social sciences. It reconstructs the methods of measurement and scientific explanation, the relation of data, phenomena and mechanisms, the problem of theory-ladenness of explanation and the problem of historic explanation. From the sciences chosen for methodological analysis are those of early classical mechanics, early thermodynamics, Bohr's theory of atom, early quantum mechanics, research into great apes and political economy.

The book "Idealization XIV: Models in Science" offers a detailed ontological, epistemological and historical account of the role of models in scientific practice. The volume contains contributions of different international scholars who developed many aspects of the use of idealizations and models both in the natural and the social sciences. This volume is particularly relevant because it offers original contributions concerning one of the main topic in philosophy of science: the role of models in such branches of the sciences and (...) the humanities like comparative historical sociology, economics, history, linguistics and political philosophy. -/- Contributors are: Giacomo Borbone, Krzysztof Brzechczyn, Mieszko Ciesielski, Adam Czerniak, Xavier de Donato Rodríguez, José L. Falguera, Adolfo García de la Sienra, Lidia Godek, Igor Hanzel, Łukasz Hardt, Krzysztof Kiedrowski, Barbara Konat, Zenonas Norkus, Piotr Przybysz, Piotr Szwochert. (shrink)

This position paper advocates combining formal epistemology and the new paradigm psychology of reasoning in the studies of conditionals and reasoning with uncertainty. The new paradigm psychology of reasoning is characterized by the use of probability theory as a rationality framework instead of classical logic, used by more traditional approaches to the psychology of reasoning. This paper presents a new interdisciplinary research program which involves both formal and experimental work. To illustrate the program, the paper discusses recent work on the (...) paradoxes of the material conditional, nonmonotonic reasoning, and Adams’ Thesis. It also identifies the issue of updating on conditionals as an area which seems to call for a combined formal and empirical approach. (shrink)

Autorzy artykułu argumentują, że libertarianie (tacy jak Murray Rothbard, Stephan Kinsella), którzy jednocześnie podpisują się pod zasadą proporcjonalności w obronie własności prywatnej oraz pod poglądem, iż posiadanie prawa własności prywatnej oznacza posiadanie prawa do jej obrony, popadają tym samym w dylemat polegający na tym, iż jeżeli jedynym sposobem obrony prawa własności prywatnej jest jego nieproporcjonalna obrona, to to własności tej - wbrew temu, co ów pogląd głosi - nie towarzyszy prawo do jej obrony. Najlepiej uzasadnionym sposobem wyjścia z tego dylematu (...) jest osłabienie peremptoryjności praw własności prywatnej, czyli skonceptualizowanie tychże praw jako absolutnych jedynie w słabym sensie tego słowa (korzystając z dystynkcji zaproponowanej przez Matthew H. Kramera). Z kolei libertarianie, którzy tak jak Walter Block chcieliby wybrnąć z rzeczonego dylematu poprzez zastąpienie zasady proporcjonalności zasadą delikatności, popadają w innego rodzaju problemy (nieintuicyjność moralną czy ogólną niekoherencję), co jest tylko kolejnym argumentem na rzecz tezy, iż osłabienie wymogów praw własności prywatnej jest najlepiej uzasadnionym sposobem przezwyciężenia rozważanego tu dylematu. (shrink)

In “Evictionism and Libertarianism,” published in this journal, Walter Block defends the view that, although the fetus is a human being with all the rights to its body, it may nonetheless be evicted from the woman’s body as a trespasser, provided the pregnancy is unwanted. We argue that this view is untenable: the statement that the unwanted fetus is a trespasser does not follow from the premises that the fetus uninvitedly resides in the woman’s body and that the woman is (...) a full self-owner. For this statement to follow, one more statement would have to be true; namely, the woman would have to hold her self-ownership rights specifically against the fetus, and for this to be the case, the fetus would have to have a correlative duty to the woman to abstain from interfering with her body. This statement, however, is false. (shrink)

So far, color-naming studies have relied on a rather limited set of color stimuli. Most importantly, stimuli have been largely limited to highly saturated colors. Because of this, little is known about how people categorize less saturated colors and, more generally, about the structure of color categories as they extend across all dimensions of color space. This article presents the results from a large Internet-based color-naming study that involved color stimuli ranging across all available chroma levels in Munsell space. These (...) results help answer such questions as how English speakers name a more complex color set, whether English speakers use so-called basic color terms (BCTs) more frequently for more saturated colors, how they use non-BCTs in comparison with BCTs, whether non-BCTs are highly consensual in less saturated parts of the solid, how deep inside color space basic color categories extend, or how they behave on the chroma dimension. (shrink)

Michel Tournier was a philosopher before being a novelist. And even when he decided to become a novelist, he introduced himself as a « smuggler of philosophy ». But it is impossible to take full measure of this statement without considering the one and only philosophical text he ever published, in 1946: « L’Impersonnalisme ». This article, which he considered to be his « system of the world », is here presented in its historical and philosophical context.

The sequent system LDJ is formulated using the same connectives as Gentzen's intuitionistic sequent system LJ, but is dual in the following sense: (i) whereas LJ is singular in the consequent, LDJ is singular in the antecedent; (ii) whereas LJ has the same sentential counter-theorems as classical LK but not the same theorems, LDJ has the same sentential theorems as LK but not the same counter-theorems. In particular, LDJ does not reject all contradictions and is accordingly paraconsistent. To obtain a (...) more precise mapping, both LJ and LDJ are extended by adding a "pseudo-difference" operator which is the dual of intuitionistic implication. Cut-elimination and decidability are proved for the extended systems and , and a simply consistent but -inconsistent Set Theory with Unrestricted Comprehension Schema based on LDJ is sketched. (shrink)

This paper aims to contribute to our understanding of the notion of coherence by explicating in probabilistic terms, step by step, what seem to be our most basic intuitions about that notion, to wit, that coherence is a matter of hanging or fitting together, and that coherence is a matter of degree. A qualitative theory of coherence will serve as a stepping stone to formulate a set of quantitative measures of coherence, each of which seems to capture well the aforementioned (...) intuitions. Subsequently it will be argued that one of those measures does better than the others in light of some more specific intuitions about coherence. This measure will be defended against two seemingly obvious objections. (shrink)

Ifeel that Iam apartof, but separatefrom an 'out there' world. 2. Ifeel that my perception of the world mingles with feelings of past experience. 3. My experienceof the world is selective and purposeful. 4. I am thinking ahead allthe timeintrying ...

I reconstruct Aristotle’s analytical procedure in Prior Analytics I.45 and its metalogical implications. Aristotle’s analysis unfolds three groups of syllogisms: symmetrically analysable, asymmetrically analysable, and non-analysable syllogisms. From the first and the third group could be extracted 27 combinations of the two mutually non-derivable deductive rules. Aristotle’s reduced deductive system in APr. I.7 with the two moods in the first figure (traditionally called Barbara and Celarent) follows this pattern. I demonstrate that the deductive system with Barbara and Celarent is just (...) one of 27 possible complete deductive systems with the two mutually non-derivable syllogistic rules. On top of that, given the fact that there are two combinations of mutually non-derivable conversion rules, I conclude that Prior Analytics hides in itself 54 complete deductive systems with a minimal number of mutually non-derivable rules. Finally, it is commented what might be the role of analysis; to what extent Aristotle could be aware of possibilities presented here; why he still prefers only one deductive system to many others with the same deductive power. (shrink)

The conceptual spaces approach has recently emerged as a novel account of concepts. Its guiding idea is that concepts can be represented geometrically, by means of metrical spaces. While it is generally recognized that many of our concepts are vague, the question of how to model vagueness in the conceptual spaces approach has not been addressed so far, even though the answer is far from straightforward. The present paper aims to fill this lacuna.

This article compares inference to the best explanation with Bayes’s rule in a social setting, specifically, in the context of a variant of the Hegselmann–Krause model in which agents not only update their belief states on the basis of evidence they receive directly from the world, but also take into account the belief states of their fellow agents. So far, the update rules mentioned have been studied only in an individualistic setting, and it is known that in such a setting (...) both have their strengths as well as their weaknesses. It is shown here that in a social setting, inference to the best explanation outperforms Bayes’s rule according to every desirable criterion. 1 What Is Inference to the Best Explanation?2 Judging the Rules—By Which Lights?3 From an Individualistic to a Social Perspective 3.1 The Hegselmann–Krause model 3.2 A probabilistic extension of the Hegselmann–Krause model 3.3 Simulations4 Results and Discussion5 Interpretation6 Conclusion. (shrink)

With the passage of the Physician Payment Sunshine Act as part of the federal health care reform law, pharmaceutical manufacturers are now required to disclose a wide range of payments made by manufacturers to physicians. We review current state regulation of pharmaceutical marketing and consider how the federal sunshine provision will affect existing marketing regulation. We analyze the legal and practical implications of the Physician Payment Sunshine Act.

In 2008 pharmaceutical companies spent over $12 billion on product promotion and detailing aimed at U.S. health care practitioners. Drug and device manufacturers rely on a workforce of detailers and physician speakers to reach health care practitioners and nudge their prescribing habits. To prevent undue influence and protect the public fisc, a number of states began regulating these marketing practices, requiring companies to disclose all gifts to practitioners, prohibiting the commercialized sale of prescription data, and prohibiting certain gifts altogether. The (...) 2010 enactment of the Physician Payment Sunshine Act marks the first Congressional involvement in the regulation of disclosure related to pharmaceutical marketing. Overall, the Act improves transparency in pharmaceutical marketing to physicians and expands the regulation of disclosure of pharmaceutical marketing activities in important substantive ways. (shrink)

Bayesians have traditionally taken a dim view of the Inference to the Best Explanation, arguing that, if IBE is at variance with Bayes ' rule, then it runs afoul of the dynamic Dutch book argument. More recently, Bayes ' rule has been claimed to be superior on grounds of conduciveness to our epistemic goal. The present paper aims to show that neither of these arguments succeeds in undermining IBE.