In this paper, I argue that Berkeley’s master argument is not the worst argument in the world—more like third or fourth.

Ontology is the philosophical discipline which aims to understand how things in the world are divided into categories and how these categories are related together. This is exactly what information scientists aim for in creating structured, automated representations, called 'ontologies,' for managing information in fields such as science, government, industry, and healthcare. Currently, these systems are designed in a variety of different ways, so they cannot share data with one another. They are often idiosyncratically structured, accessible only to those who (...) created them, and unable to serve as inputs for automated reasoning. This volume shows, in a nontechnical way and using examples from medicine and biology, how the rigorous application of theories and insights from philosophical ontology can improve the ontologies upon which information management depends. (shrink)

Most mainstream psychologists consider philosophy irrelevant to their work, but see themselves as realists. Various opposition movements embrace philosophy but reject realism, either completely or partially, despite upholding ideas consistent with a realist philosophy. Many on both sides see the Tower of Babel that constitutes psychology as a sign of healthy diversity, not fragmentation. We argue that relations among the three factors – philosophy, realism and fragmentation – deserve closer scrutiny. With philosophy’s core method of conceptual analysis deprioritized, both mainstream (...) psychology and the opposition fracture into an array of “partial realisms”, falling away from a realism that is thoroughly consistent. These are the source of psychology’s fragmentation. The conceptual neglect and resulting confusions can be seen in psychology’s recent replicability crisis, and in the widespread adoption of a representationalist approach to the mind/brain. We argue that the metatheoretical coherence and methodological maturity required for genuine scientific progress involves a consistent adherence to realism. We spell out what that involves and consider several reasons why this has been so difficult for psychology. (shrink)

David Stove was a philosopher strong on argument and polemic. His work on the logical intepretation of probability led to a defence of induction in The Rationality of Induction (1986). It resulted too in his denunciation of Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos and Feyeraband as irrationalists because of their "deductivism" (the thesis that the only logic is deductive logic). Stove also defended controversial views on the intelligence of women and on Darwinism. The article surveys his life and work.

Postmodernism is not so much a theory as an attitude. It is an attitude of suspicion – suspicion about claims of truth and about appeals to rational argument. Its corrupting effects must be answered by finding a better alternative, which must include a defence of the objecvity of both reason and ethics. Natural law thinking is necessary for the latter.

The present essay is devoted to the application of ontology in support of research in the natural sciences. It defends the thesis that ontologies developed for such purposes should be understood as having as their subject matter, not concepts, but rather the universals and particulars which exist in reality and are captured in scientific laws. We outline the benefits of a view along these lines by showing how it yields rigorous formal definitions of the foundational relations used in many influential (...) ontologies, illustrating our results by reference to examples drawn from the domain of the life sciences. (shrink)

The teaching of the Aquinas Academy in its first thirty years was based on the scholastic philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, then regarded as the official philosophy of the Catholic Church. That philosophy has not been so much heard of in the last thirty years, but it has a strong presence below the surface. Its natural law theory of ethics, especially, still informs Vatican pronouncements on moral topics such as contraception and euthanasia. It has also been important in Australia in the (...) High Court’s deliberations on the Mabo case. It is argued that some officially-sanctioned deductions on particular cases have not been correct, but that any attempt to do without a natural law foundation of ethics would throw out the baby with the bathwater. The sense of the basic objective worth of persons that is the centre of natural law ethics is essential to any ethics better than a simple “might is right” approach. (shrink)