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  1. Machine Learning, Misinformation, and Citizen Science.Adrian K. Yee - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (56):1-24.
    Current methods of operationalizing concepts of misinformation in machine learning are often problematic given idiosyncrasies in their success conditions compared to other models employed in the natural and social sciences. The intrinsic value-ladenness of misinformation and the dynamic relationship between citizens' and social scientists' concepts of misinformation jointly suggest that both the construct legitimacy and the construct validity of these models needs to be assessed via more democratic criteria than has previously been recognized.
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  2. Sisyphean Science: Why Value Freedom is Worth Pursuing.Tarun Menon & Jacob Stegenga - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (48):1-24.
    The value-free ideal in science has been criticised as both unattainable and undesirable. We argue that it can be defended as a practical principle guiding scientific research even if the unattainability and undesirability of a value-free end-state are granted. If a goal is unattainable, then one can separate the desirability of accomplishing the goal from the desirability of pursuing it. We articulate a novel value-free ideal, which holds that scientists should act as if science should be value-free, and we argue (...)
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  3. Minimal model explanations of cognition.Nick Brancazio & Russell Meyer - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (41):1-25.
    Active materials are self-propelled non-living entities which, in some circumstances, exhibit a number of cognitively interesting behaviors such as gradient-following, avoiding obstacles, signaling and group coordination. This has led to scientific and philosophical discussion of whether this may make them useful as minimal models of cognition (Hanczyc, 2014; McGivern, 2019). Batterman and Rice (2014) have argued that what makes a minimal model explanatory is that the model is ultimately in the same universality class as the target system, which underpins why (...)
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  4.  5
    On the consistency of relative facts.Eric G. Cavalcanti, Andrea Di Biagio & Carlo Rovelli - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (4):1-7.
    Lawrence et al. have presented an argument purporting to show that “relative facts do not exist” and, consequently, “Relational Quantum Mechanics is incompatible with quantum mechanics”. The argument is based on a GHZ-like contradiction between constraints satisfied by measurement outcomes in an extended Wigner’s friend scenario. Here we present a strengthened version of the argument, and show why, contrary to the claim by Lawrence et al., these arguments do not contradict the consistency of a theory of relative facts. Rather, considering (...)
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  5. Testability and Viability: Is Inflationary Cosmology “Scientific”?Richard Dawid & Casey McCoy - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (4):51.
    We provide a philosophical reconstruction and analysis of the debate on the scientific status of cosmic inflation that has played out in recent years. In a series of critical papers, Ijjas et al. have questioned the scientificality of the current views on cosmic inflation. Proponents of cosmic inflation have in turn defended the scientific credentials of their approach. We argue that, while this defense, narrowly construed, is successful against Ijjas et al., the latter's reasoning does point to a significant epistemic (...)
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  6.  3
    Efficiency and fairness trade-offs in two player bargaining games.David Freeborn - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (4):1-23.
    Recent work on the evolution of social contracts and conventions has often used models of bargaining games, with reinforcement learning. A recent innovation is the requirement that every strategy must be invented either through through learning or reinforcement. However, agents frequently get stuck in highly-reinforced “traps” that prevent them from arriving at outcomes that are efficient or fair to the both players. Agents face a trade-off between exploration and exploitation, i.e. between continuing to invent new strategies and reinforcing strategies that (...)
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  7.  5
    Appearance and reality: Einstein and the early debate on the reality of length contraction.Marco Giovanelli - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (4):1-30.
    In 1909, Ehrenfest published a note in the Physikalische Zeitschrift showing that a Born rigid cylinder could not be set into rotation without stresses, as elements of the circumference would be contracted but not the radius. Ignatowski and Varićak challenged Ehrenfest’s result in the same journal, arguing that the stresses would emerge if length contraction were a real dynamical effect, as in Lorentz’s theory. However, no stresses are expected to arise, according to Einstein’s theory, where length contraction is only an (...)
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  8.  30
    Epistemic possibilities in climate science: lessons from some recent research in the context of discovery.Joel Katzav - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (4):1-21.
    A number of authors, including me, have argued that the output of our most complex climate models, that is, of global climate models and Earth system models, should be assessed possibilistically. Worries about the viability of doing so have also been expressed. I examine the assessment of the output of relatively simple climate models in the context of discovery and point out that this assessment is of epistemic possibilities. At the same time, I show that the concept of epistemic possibility (...)
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  9.  2
    On the condition of Setting Independence.Thomas Müller & Tomasz Placek - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (4):1-20.
    Quantum mechanics predicts non-local correlations in spatially extended entangled quantum systems, and these correlations are empirically very well confirmed. This raises philosophical questions of how nature could be that way, prompting the study of purported completions of quantum mechanics by hidden variables. Bell-type theorems connect assumptions about hidden variables with empirical predictions for the outcome of quantum correlation experiments. From among these assumptions, the Setting Independence assumption has received the least formal attention. Its violation is, however, central in the recent (...)
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  10.  21
    Three arguments for wave function realism.Alyssa Ney - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (4):1-18.
    Wave function realism is an interpretative framework for quantum theories which recommends taking the central ontology of these theories to consist of the quantum wave function, understood as a field on a high-dimensional space. This paper presents and evaluates three standard arguments for wave function realism, and clarifies the sort of ontological framework these arguments support.
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  11.  30
    The sky is blue, and other reasons quantum mechanics is not underdetermined by evidence.David Wallace - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (4):1-29.
    I criticize the widely-defended view that the quantum measurement problem is an example of underdetermination of theory by evidence: more specifically, the view that the unmodified, unitary quantum formalism (interpreted following Everett) is empirically indistinguishable from Bohmian Mechanics and from dynamical-collapse theories like the GRW or CSL theories. I argue that there as yet no empirically successful generalization of either theory to interacting quantum field theory and so the apparent underdetermination is broken by a very large class of quantum experiments (...)
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  12. Respecting boundaries: theoretical equivalence and structure beyond dynamics.William J. Wolf & James Read - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (4):1-28.
    A standard line in the contemporary philosophical literature has it that physical theories are equivalent only when they agree on their empirical content, where this empirical content is often understood as being encoded in the equations of motion of those theories. In this article, we question whether it is indeed the case that the empirical content of a theory is exhausted by its equations of motion, showing that (for example) considerations of boundary conditions play a key role in the empirical (...)
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  13. Autonoesis and the Galilean science of memory: Explanation, idealization, and the role of crucial data.Nikola Andonovski - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (3):1-42.
    The Galilean explanatory style is characterized by the search for the underlying structure of phenomena, the positing of "deep" explanatory principles, and a view of the relation between theory and data, on which the search for "crucial data" is of primary importance. In this paper, I trace the dynamics of adopting the Galilean style, focusing on the science of episodic memory. I argue that memory systems, such as episodic and semantic memory, were posited as underlying competences producing the observable phenomena (...)
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  14.  21
    Correction to: Science and policy in extremis: the UK’s initial response to COVID‑19.Jonathan Birch - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (3):1-1.
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  15.  6
    Mechanisms and the problem of abstract models.Natalia Carrillo & Tarja Knuuttila - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (3):1-19.
    New mechanical philosophy posits that explanations in the life sciences involve the decomposition of a system into its entities and their respective activities and organization that are responsible for the explanandum phenomenon. This mechanistic account of explanation has proven problematic in its application to mathematical models, leading the mechanists to suggest different ways of aligning abstract models with the mechanist program. Initially, the discussion centered on whether the Hodgkin-Huxley model is explanatory. Network models provided another complication, as they apply to (...)
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  16.  4
    Critique of pure Bayesian cognitive science: A view from the philosophy of science.Vincenzo Crupi & Fabrizio Calzavarini - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (3):1-17.
    Bayesian approaches to human cognition have been extensively advocated in the last decades, but sharp objections have been raised too within cognitive science. In this paper, we outline a diagnosis of what has gone wrong with the prevalent strand of Bayesian cognitive science (here labelled pure Bayesian cognitive science), relying on selected illustrations from the psychology of reasoning and tools from the philosophy of science. Bayesians’ reliance on so-called method of rational analysis is a key point of our discussion. We (...)
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  17.  17
    Lakatosian and Euclidean populations: a pluralist approach to conceptual change in mathematics.Matteo De Benedetto - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (3):1-25.
    Lakatos’ (Lakatos, 1976) model of mathematical conceptual change has been criticized for neglecting the diversity of dynamics exhibited by mathematical concepts. In this work, I will propose a pluralist approach to mathematical change that re-conceptualizes Lakatos’ model of proofs and refutations as an ideal dynamic that mathematical concepts can exhibit to different degrees with respect to multiple dimensions. Drawing inspiration from Godfrey-Smith’s (Godfrey-Smith, 2009) population-based Darwinism, my proposal will be structured around the notion of a conceptual population, the opposition between (...)
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  18. Socially responsible science: Exploring the complexities.Inmaculada de Melo-Martín & Kristen Intemann - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (3):1-18.
    Philosophers of science, particularly those working on science and values, often talk about the need for science to be socially responsible. However, what this means is not clear. In this paper, we review the contributions of philosophers of science to the debate over socially responsible science and explore the dimensions that a fruitful account of socially responsible science should address. Our review shows that offering a comprehensive account is difficult. We contend that broad calls for socially responsible science that fail (...)
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  19.  5
    How do networks explain? A neo-hempelian approach to network explanations of the ecology of the microbiome.José Díez & Javier Suárez - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (3):1-26.
    Despite the importance of network analysis in biological practice, dominant models of scientific explanation do not account satisfactorily for how this family of explanations gain their explanatory power in every specific application. This insufficiency is particularly salient in the study of the ecology of the microbiome. Drawing on Coyte et al. (2015) study of the ecology of the microbiome, Deulofeu et al. (2021) argue that these explanations are neither mechanistic, nor purely mathematical, yet they are substantially empirical. Building on their (...)
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  20.  13
    Pandemics and flexible lockdowns: In praise of agent-based modeling.Igor Douven - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (3):1-27.
    Philosophers have recently questioned the methodological status of agent-based modeling. Meanwhile, this methodology has been central to various studies of the COVID-19 pandemic. Few agent-based COVID-19 models are accessible to philosophers for inspection or experimentation. We make available a package for modeling the COVID-19 pandemic and similar pandemics and give an impression of what can be achieved with it. In particular, it is shown that by coupling an agent-based model to a standard optimizer we are able to identify strategies for (...)
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  21.  5
    Should social pragmatic communication disorder be included in DSM-5? On uncertainties, pragmatic considerations, and the psychiatric kind debate.Anne-Marie Gagné-Julien & Andréanne Bérubé - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (3):1-21.
    In this paper, we want to take a critical stance towards Tsou’s recent proposal that a neuro-oriented version of the homeostatic property cluster kind model (MPCK) should be an ideal for the DSM. Our strategy will be to discuss the creation of the Social Pragmatic Communication Disorder (SPCD) in DSM-5 to show the limits of MPCK as an ideal for the next DSM deliberations over a set of diagnoses revisions. We argue that an ideal model for the DSM should address (...)
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  22.  11
    Classicality and Bell’s theorem.Márton Gömöri & Carl Hoefer - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (3):1-24.
    A widespread view among physicists is that Bell’s theorem rests on an implicit assumption of “classicality,” in addition to locality. According to this understanding, the violation of Bell’s inequalities poses no challenge to locality, but simply reinforces the fact that quantum mechanics is not classical. The paper provides a critical analysis of this view. First we characterize the notion of classicality in probabilistic terms. We argue that classicality thus construed has nothing to do with the validity of classical physics, nor (...)
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  23.  14
    Social kinds: historical and multi-functional.Francesco Guala - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (3):1-15.
    The notion of multi-functional kind is introduced to explain how social scientists may be able to draw inferences across historically unrelated societies or cultures. Multi-functional kinds are neither eternal nor purely historical, support non-trivial inductive generalisations, and allow to overcome scepticism about the inductive potential of multiply realised (functional) properties. Two examples, from monetary economics and anthropology, provide support for a pluralistic ontology of the social world.
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  24.  11
    Distinguishing two (unsound) arguments for quantum social science.Rasmus Jaksland - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (3):1-21.
    Quantum mechanics supersedes classical mechanics, and social science, some argue, should be responsive to this change. This paper finds that two rather different arguments are currently being used to argue that quantum mechanics is epistemically relevant in social science. One, attributed to Alexander Wendt, appeals to the presence of quantum physical effects in the social world. The other, attributed to Karen Barad, insists on the importance of quantum metaphysics even when quantum effects are negligible. Neither argument, however, is sound. Consequently, (...)
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  25.  16
    General Relativity, MOND, and the problem of unconceived alternatives.Abhishek Kashyap - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (3):1-18.
    Observational discrepancies in galactic rotation curves and cluster dispersion data have been interpreted to imply the existence of dark matter. Numerous efforts at its detection, however, have failed to turn up any positive result. As a dynamical theory is always operative on the assumed mass distribution to predict kinematic observations, some scientists see the discrepancy as telling against General Relativity. Among the many theories that seek to modify gravity, those that are built on Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND), or yield MOND (...)
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  26.  66
    Genetically caused trait is an interactive kind.Riin Kõiv - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (3):1-25.
    In this paper I argue that the extent to which a human trait is genetically caused can causally depend upon whether the trait is categorized within human genetics as genetically caused. This makes the kind genetically caused trait an interactive kind. I demonstrate that this thesis is both conceptually coherent and empirically plausible. I outline the core rationale of this thesis and demonstrate its conceptual coherence by drawing upon Waters’ (2007) analysis of genetic causation. I add empirical plausibility to the (...)
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  27.  16
    Scientific experiments beyond surprise and beauty.Anatolii Kozlov - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (3):1-22.
    Some experimental results in science are productively surprising or beautiful. Such results are disruptive in their epistemic nature: by violating epistemic expectations they mark the phenomenon at hand as worthy of further investigation. Could it be that there are emotions beyond these two which are also useful for the epistemic evaluation of scientific experiments? Here, I conduct a structured sociological survey to explore affective experiences in scientific experimental research. I identify that learning the results of an experiment is the high (...)
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  28.  2
    Moralisation of medicines: The case of hydroxychloroquine.Elisabetta Lalumera - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (3):1-19.
    The concept of moralisation of health behaviours was introduced in social psychology to describe the attribution of moral properties to habits and conditions like smoking or being a vegetarian. Moral properties are powerful motivators for people and institutions, as they may trigger blame, stigma, and appraisal, as well as the polarisation of interest and scientific hype. Here I extend the concept and illustrate how medicines and treatments can be seen as if they had moral properties, too, when they come to (...)
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  29.  7
    Motivationalism vs. interpretationalism about symmetries: some options overlooked in the debate about the relationship between symmetries and physical equivalence.Joanna Luc - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (3):1-33.
    In the recent philosophical debate about the relationship between symmetries and physical equivalence, two approaches have been distinguished: motivationalism and interpretationalism. In this paper, I point out that there are variants of interpretationalism that have not been taken into account by the proponents of motivationalism. I also argue that some of these overlooked variants of interpretationalism are not prone to the motivationalists’ criticism and overall are the most attractive positions available.
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  30.  10
    Attention as a patchwork concept.Henry Taylor - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (3):1-25.
    This paper examines attention as a scientific concept, and argues that it has a patchwork structure. On this view, the concept of attention takes on different meanings, depending on the scientific context. I argue that these different meanings vary systematically along four dimensions, as a result of the epistemic goals of the scientific programme in question and the constraints imposed by the scientific context. Based on this, I argue that attention is a general reasoning strategy concept: it provides general, non-specific (...)
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  31.  5
    Afactivism about understanding cognition.Samuel D. Taylor - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (3):1-22.
    Here, I take alethic views of understanding to be all views that hold that whether an explanation is true or false matters for whether that explanation provides understanding. I then argue that there is (as yet) no naturalistic defence of alethic views of understanding in cognitive science, because there is no agreement about the correct descriptions of the content of cognitive scientific explanations. I use this claim to argue for the provisional acceptance of afactivism in cognitive science, which is the (...)
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  32.  17
    Taking model pursuit seriously.HyeJeong Han - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (2):1-24.
    This paper aims to develop an account of the pursuitworthiness of models based on a view of models as epistemic tools. This paper is motivated by the historical question of why, in the 1960s, when many scientists hardly found QSAR models attractive, some pharmaceutical scientists pursued Quantitative Structure–Activity Relationship (QSAR) models despite the lack of potential for theoretical development or empirical success. This paper addresses this question by focusing on how models perform their heuristic functions as epistemic tools rather than (...)
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  33.  6
    Decoherence, appearance, and reality in agential realism.Rasmus Jaksland - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (2):1-18.
    This paper reconsiders what implications quantum decoherence has for Karen Barad’s agential realism. In contrast with the recent claim of Thomas Everth and Laura Gurney (2022), this paper argues that decoherence supports rather than defeats the holist, relational ontology of agential realism. Indeed, decoherence offers an explanation for how a quantum system can remain entangled and superposed in principle while it nevertheless in practice appears classical to a local observer. Decoherence shows why the appearance of classicality is not an objection (...)
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  34.  6
    Extrapolating from experiments, confidently.Donal Khosrowi - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (2):1-28.
    Extrapolating causal effects from experiments to novel populations is a common practice in evidence-based-policy, development economics and other social science areas. Drawing on experimental evidence of policy effectiveness, analysts aim to predict the effects of policies in new populations, which might differ importantly from experimental populations. Existing approaches made progress in articulating the sorts of similarities one needs to assume to enable such inferences. It is also recognized, however, that many of these assumptions will remain surrounded by significant uncertainty in (...)
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  35.  7
    The information-theoretic view of quantum mechanics and the measurement problem(s).Federico Laudisa - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (2):1-26.
    Until recently Jeffrey Bub and Itamar Pitowsky, in the framework of an information-theoretic view of quantum mechanics, claimed first that to the measurement problem in its ordinary formulation there correspond in effect two measurement problems (simply called the big and the small measurement problems), with a different degree of relevance and, second, that the analysis of a quantum measurement is a problem only if other assumptions – taken by Pitowsky and Bub to be unnecessary ‘dogmas’ – are assumed. Here I (...)
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  36.  8
    Should physical symmetries guide metaphysics? Two reasons why they should maybe not.Cristian López - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (2):1-23.
    Symmetry-based inferences have permeated many discussions in philosophy of physics and metaphysics of science. It is claimed that symmetries in our physical theories would allow us to draw metaphysical conclusions about the world, a view that I call ‘symmetry inferentialism’. This paper is critical to this view. I claim that (a) it assumes a philosophically questionable characterization of the relevant validity domain of physical symmetries, and (b) it overlooks a distinction between two opposing ways through which relevant physical symmetries become (...)
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  37.  12
    Diagnosing errors in climate model intercomparisons.Ryan O’Loughlin - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (2):1-29.
    I examine error diagnosis (model-model disagreement) in climate model intercomparisons including its difficulties, fruitful examples, and prospects for streamlining error diagnosis. I suggest that features of climate model intercomparisons pose a more significant challenge for error diagnosis than do features of individual model construction and complexity. Such features of intercomparisons include, e.g., the number of models involved, how models from different institutions interrelate, and what scientists know about each model. By considering numerous examples in the climate modeling literature, I distill (...)
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  38.  15
    Masking, extrinsicness, and the nature of dispositions: the role of niche signals in muscle stem cells.Javier Suárez - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (2):1-29.
    I investigate the intrinsic/extrinsic nature of stemness in muscle stem cells (MSC) by relying on recent research on quiescence, with the aim of shedding light on the nature of dispositions and deriving some consequences about stem cells. First, I argue why the study of quiescence is the best available way to establish any claim about the intrinsicness/extrinsicness of stemness at least is some stem cells. Drawing on that, I argue that MSC’s stem capacities result from the combination of intrinsic cues (...)
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  39. Epistemological scientism and the scientific meta-method.Petri Turunen, Ilmari Hirvonen & Ilkka Pättiniemi - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (2):1-23.
    This paper argues that the proponents of epistemological scientism must take some stand on scientific methodology. The supporters of scientism cannot simply defer to the social organisation of science because the social processes themselves must meet some methodological criteria. Among such criteria is epistemic evaluability, which demands intersubjective access to reasons. We derive twelve theses outlining some implications of epistemic evaluability. Evaluability can support weak and broad variants of epistemological scientism, which state that sciences, broadly construed, are the best sources (...)
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  40.  16
    Teaching philosophy of science that matters.Joeri Witteveen & Sara Green - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (2):1-10.
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  41. Against Methodological Continuity and Metaphysical Knowledge.Simon Allzén - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (1):1-20.
    The main purpose of this paper is to refute the metaphysicians ‘methodological continuation’ argument supporting epistemic realism in metaphysics. This argument aims to show that scientific realists have to accept that metaphysics is as rationally justified as science given that they both employ inference to the best explanation, i.e. that metaphysics and science are methodologically continuous. I argue that the reasons given by scientific realists as to why inference to the best explanation is reliable in science do not constitute a (...)
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  42.  8
    Nested modalities in astrophysical modeling.Elena Castellani & Giulia Schettino - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (1):1-20.
    In the context of astrophysical modeling at the solar system scale, we investigate the modalities implied by taking into account different levels of detail at which phenomena can be considered. In particular, by framing the analysis in terms of the how-possibly/how-actually distinction, we address the debated question as to whether the degree of plausibility is tightly linked to the degree of detail. On the grounds of concrete examples, we argue that, also in the astrophysical context examined, this is not necessarily (...)
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  43.  14
    What are side effects?Austin Due - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (1):1-21.
    Side effects are ubiquitous in medicine and they often play a role in treatment decisions for patients and clinicians alike. Philosophers and health researchers often use side effects to illustrate issues with contemporary medical research and practice. However, technical definitions of ‘side effect’ differ among health authorities. Thus, determining the side effects of an intervention can differ depending on whose definition we assume. Here I review some of the common definitions of side effect and highlight their issues. In response, I (...)
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  44.  15
    Predictivism and model selection.Alireza Fatollahi - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (1):1-28.
    There has been a lively debate in the philosophy of science over _predictivism_: the thesis that successfully predicting a given body of data provides stronger evidence for a theory than merely accommodating the same body of data. I argue for a very strong version of the thesis using statistical results on the so-called “model selection” problem. This is the problem of finding the optimal model (family of hypotheses) given a body of data. The key idea that I will borrow from (...)
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  45.  9
    Overstating the effects of anthropogenic climate change? A critical assessment of attribution methods in climate science.Laura García-Portela & Douglas Maraun - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (1):1-24.
    Climate scientists have proposed two methods to link extreme weather events and anthropogenic climate forcing: the probabilistic and the storyline approach. Proponents of the first approach have raised the criticism that the storyline approach could be overstating the role of anthropogenic climate change. This issue has important implications because, in certain contexts, decision-makers might seek to avoid information that overstates the effects of anthropogenic climate change. In this paper, we explore two research questions. First, whether and to what extent the (...)
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  46.  15
    Irrational methods suggest indecomposability and emergence.Hamed Tabatabaei Ghomi - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (1):1-21.
    This paper offers a practical argument for metaphysical emergence. The main message is that the growing reliance on so-called irrational scientific methods provides evidence that objects of science are indecomposable and as such, are better described by metaphysical emergence as opposed to the prevalent reductionistic metaphysics. I show that a potential counterargument that science will eventually reduce everything to physics has little weight given where science is heading with its current methodological trend. I substantiate my arguments by detailed examples from (...)
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  47. Objectivity, value-free science, and inductive risk.Paul Hoyningen-Huene - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (1):1-26.
    In this paper I shall defend the idea that there is an abstract and general core meaning of objectivity, and what is seen as a variety of concepts or conceptions of objectivity are in fact criteria of, or means to achieve, objectivity. I shall then discuss the ideal of value-free science and its relation to the objectivity of science; its status can be at best a criterion of, or means for, objectivity. Given this analysis, we can then turn to the (...)
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  48.  17
    Experimental criteria for accessing reality: Perrin’s experimental demonstration of atoms and molecules.Jonathon Hricko & Ruey-Lin Chen - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (1):1-25.
    This paper develops an approach to the scientific realism debate that has three main features. First, our approach admits multiple criteria of reality, i.e., criteria that, if satisfied, warrant belief in the reality of hypothetical entities. Second, our approach is experiment-based in the sense that it focuses on criteria that are satisfied by experiments as opposed to theories. Third, our approach is local in the sense that it focuses on the reality of particular kinds of entities. We apply this approach (...)
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  49.  5
    Correction to: Model templates within and between disciplines: from magnets to gases – and socio-economic systems.Tarja Knuuttila & Andrea Loettgers - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (1):1-2.
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  50.  7
    Generalized frameworks: Structuring searches for new physics.Adam Koberinski - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (1):1-23.
    Many areas of frontier physics are confronted with the crisis of a lack of accessible, direct evidence. As a result, direct model building has failed to lead to any new empirical discoveries. In this paper I argue that these areas of frontier physics have developed common methods for turning precision measurements of known quantities into potential evidence for anomalies hinting at new physics. This method of framework generalization has arisen as a sort of model-independent method for generalizing beyond known physics (...)
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  51.  22
    From naturalness to materiality: reimagining philosophy of scientific classification.David Ludwig - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (1):1-23.
    The notion of natural kinds has been widely criticized in philosophy of science but also appears indispensable for philosophical engagement with classificatory practices. Rather than addressing this tension through a new definition of “natural kind”, this article suggests materiality as a substitute for naturalness in philosophical debates about scientific classification. It is argued that a theory of material kinds provides an alternative and more inclusive entry point for analyzing classificatory practices, which is specified through an account of “restricted malleability” of (...)
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  52.  8
    A fine-grained distinction of coarse graining.Kohei Morita - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (1):1-22.
    This paper aims to distinguish two main types of coarse graining, and reveal the relationship between the notions of coarse graining and emergence. In physics, some forms of coarse graining seem to be indispensable to show a physical property, and the other merely changes our descriptions of the system. To clarify the notion of coarse graining, this article investigates the cases of the renormalization group method and irreversibility, both of which have been important topics in philosophy of science, and the (...)
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  53.  17
    Patchworks and operations.Rose Novick & Philipp Haueis - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (1):1-21.
    Recent work in the philosophy of scientific concepts has seen the simultaneous revival of operationalism and development of patchwork approaches to scientific concepts. We argue that these two approaches are natural allies. Both recognize an important role for measurement techniques in giving meaning to scientific terms. The association of multiple techniques with a single term, however, raises the threat of proliferating concepts (Hempel, 1966). While contemporary operationalists have developed some resources to address this challenge, these resources are inadequate to account (...)
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  54.  19
    The old evidence problem and the inference to the best explanation.Cristina Sagrafena - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (1):1-18.
    The Problem of Old Evidence (POE) states that Bayesian confirmation theory cannot explain why a theory H can be confirmed by a piece of evidence E already known. Different dimensions of POE have been highlighted. Here, I consider the dynamic and static dimension. In the former, we want to explain how the discovery that H accounts for E confirms H. In the latter, we want to understand why E is and will be a reason to prefer H over its competitors. (...)
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  55.  9
    Irrational methods suggest indecomposability and emergence.Hamed Tabatabaei Ghomi - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (1):1-21.
    This paper offers a practical argument for metaphysical emergence. The main message is that the growing reliance on so-called irrational scientific methods provides evidence that objects of science are indecomposable and as such, are better described by metaphysical emergence as opposed to the prevalent reductionistic metaphysics. I show that a potential counterargument that science will eventually reduce everything to physics has little weight given where science is heading with its current methodological trend. I substantiate my arguments by detailed examples from (...)
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  56.  6
    Contextualist model evaluation: models in financial economics and index funds.Melissa Vergara-Fernández, Conrad Heilmann & Marta Szymanowska - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (1):1-23.
    Philosophers of science typically focus on the epistemic performance of scientific models when evaluating them. Analysing the effects that models may have on the world has typically been the purview of sociologists of science. We argue that the reactive (or “performative”) effects of models should also figure in model evaluations by philosophers of science. We provide a detailed analysis of how models in financial economics created the impetus for the growing importance of the phenomenon of “passive investing” in financial markets. (...)
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  57.  12
    Pursuitworthiness in the scheme of futures.Veli Virmajoki - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (1):1-26.
    In this paper, I argue that analyzing pursuitworthiness in science requires that we study possible futures of science. The merits of different criteria of pursuitworthiness need to be assessed against scenarios of the future of science. Different criteria recognize and ignore different scenarios. As a consequence, different criteria enable us to manage different future possibilities. While it might be impossible to predict the future of science, there are still many interesting things we can say about the possible futures of science. (...)
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  58.  6
    Reactivity and good data in qualitative data collection.Julie Zahle - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (1):1-18.
    Reactivity in qualitative data collection occurs when a researcher generates data about a situation with reactivity, that is, a situation in which the ongoing research affects the research participants such that they, say, diverge from their routines when the researcher is present, or tell the researcher what they think she wants to hear. In qualitative research, there are two basic approaches to reactivity. The traditional position maintains that data should ideally be collected in situations without any reactivity. In other words, (...)
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