We offer a framework for organizing the literature regarding the debates revolving around infinite idealizations in science, and a short summary of the contributions to this special issue.

In this essay, I provide an overview of the debate on infinite and essential idealizations in physics. I will first present two ostensible examples: phase transitions and the Aharonov– Bohm effect. Then, I will describe the literature on the topic as a debate between two positions: Essentialists claim that idealizations are essential or indispensable for scientific accounts of certain physical phenomena, while dispensabilists maintain that idealizations are dispensable from mature scientific theory. I will also identify some attempts at finding (...) a middle ground between the essentialists and dispensabilists camps. Finally, I will raise questions for future research on essential and infinite idealizations via the notion of exploration. (shrink)

This chapter examines some of the philosophical literature on idealizations in science and the epistemic challenges idealizations potentially pose for astrophysical methodology, particularly its use of computer simulations. We begin by surveying philosophical literature on idealization connected to (1) kinds of idealizations deployed in science, (2) the aims of idealization in science, and (3) various strategies for de-idealization. Using collisional ring galaxy simulations as a case study, we examine how these three themes play out in the context of (...) astrophysical computer simulations. Ultimately, we argue that deploying deidealization strategies is central to bolstering epistemic confidence in simulations in astrophysics. We conclude with some remarks on the role of idealization in the context of astrophysical computer simulations more generally. (shrink)

On standard accounts of scientific theorizing, the role of idealizations is to facilitate the analysis of some real world system by employing a simplified representation of the target system, raising the obvious worry about how reliable knowledge can be obtained from inaccurate descriptions. The idealizations involved in the Aharonov–Bohm effect do not, it is claimed, fit this paradigm; rather the target system is a fictional system characterized by features that, though physically possible, are not realized in the actual world. The (...) point of studying such a fictional system is to understand the foundations of quantum mechanics and how its predictions depart from those of classical mechanics. The original worry about the use of idealizations is replaced by a new one; namely, how can actual world experiments serve to confirm the AB effect if it concerns the behavior of a fictional system? Struggle with this issue helps to account for the fact that almost three decades elapsed before a consensus emerged that the predicted AB effect had received solid experimental support. Standard accounts of idealizations tout the role they play in making tractable the analysis of the target system; by contrast, the idealizations involved in the AB effect make its analysis both conceptually and mathematically challenging. The idealizations required for the AB effect are also responsible for the existence of unitarily inequivalent representations of the canonical commutation relations and of the current algebra, representations which an observer confined to the electron’s configuration space could invoke to ‘explain’ AB-type effect without the need to posit a hidden magnetic field. The goal of this paper is to bring to the attention of the philosophers of science these and other aspects of the AB effect which are neglected or inadequately treated in literature. (shrink)

On standard accounts of scientific theorizing, the role of idealizations is to facilitate the analysis of some real world system by employing a simplified representation of the target system, raising the obvious worry about how reliable knowledge can be obtained from inaccurate descriptions. The idealizations involved in the Aharonov–Bohm effect do not, it is claimed, fit this paradigm; rather the target system is a fictional system characterized by features that, though physically possible, are not realized in the actual world. The (...) point of studying such a fictional system is to understand the foundations of quantum mechanics and how its predictions depart from those of classical mechanics. The original worry about the use of idealizations is replaced by a new one; namely, how can actual world experiments serve to confirm the AB effect if it concerns the behavior of a fictional system? Struggle with this issue helps to account for the fact that almost three decades elapsed before a consensus emerged that the predicted AB effect had received solid experimental support. Standard accounts of idealizations tout the role they play in making tractable the analysis of the target system; by contrast, the idealizations involved in the AB effect make its analysis both conceptually and mathematically challenging. The idealizations required for the AB effect are also responsible for the existence of unitarily inequivalent representations of the canonical commutation relations and of the current algebra, representations which an observer confined to the electron’s configuration space could invoke to ‘explain’ AB-type effect without the need to posit a hidden magnetic field. The goal of this paper is to bring to the attention of the philosophers of science these and other aspects of the AB effect which are neglected or inadequately treated in literature. (shrink)

Phronesis has become a buzzword in contemporary medical ethics. Yet, the use of this single term conceals a number of significant conceptual controversies based on divergent philosophical assumptions. This paper explores three of them: on phronesis as universalist or relativist, generalist or particularist, and natural/painless or painful/ambivalent. It also reveals tensions between Alasdair MacIntyre’s take on phronesis, typically drawn upon in professional ethics discourses, and Aristotle’s original concept. The paper offers these four binaries as a possible analytical framework for classifying (...) and evaluating accounts of phronesis in the medical ethics literature. It argues that to make sense of phronesis as a putative ideal in professional medical ethics—for example, with the further aim of crafting interventions to cultivate phronesis in medical ethics education—the preliminary question of which conception of phronesis is most serviceable for the aim in question needs to be answered. The paper identifies considerable lack of clarity in the current discursive field on phronesis and suggests how that shortcoming can be ameliorated. (shrink)

The present volume comprises thirteen of the papers delivered at RICAN 5, which was held in Rethymnon, Crete, on May 25-26,2009. The theme of the volume, ' The Construction of the Real and the Ideal in the Ancient Novel, ' allows the contributors the freedom to use their skills to examine the real and the ideal either individually or in conjunction or in interaction. The papers offer a wide and rich range of perspectives: a political reading of prose fiction in (...) Late Period Egypt ; the presence of robbers and murderers in ideal fiction ; the interaction between illusion and reality in novelistic ekphrasis ; divine loves as real precedents for human loves ; comical elements in Heliodorus' Aethiopika ;myths as paradigms for the inexperienced lovers in the Greek novels ; moral ideas in the Odyssey and the Greek novels in relation to moralizing interpretations of Homer ; the reality of the basic plot of Callirhoe in the light of historical events and Aristotle's Poetics ; the interaction between fictionality and reality in Daphnis and Chloe ; entrapment and insu fficient understanding of reality in the Satyrica ; fantasy, physical and ideal landscapes in Apuleius' Metamorphoses ; bridging the gap between Photis and Isis in Apuleius ; the gendered aesthetics of the Greek novels viewed through the lens of the mimetic theory of Dionysius of Halicarnassus. (shrink)

In this essay, I provide an overview of the debate on infinite and essential idealizations in physics. I will first present two ostensible examples: phase transitions and the Aharonov–Bohm effect. Then, I will describe the literature on the topic as a debate between two positions: Essentialists claim that idealizations are essential or indispensable for scientific accounts of certain physical phenomena, while dispensabilists maintain that idealizations are dispensable from mature scientific theory. I will also identify some attempts at finding a (...) middle ground between the essentialists and dispensabilists camps. Finally, I will raise questions for future research on essential and infinite idealizations via the notion of exploration. (shrink)

A review of the chemical education research literature suggests that the term constructivism is used in two ways: experience-based constructivism and discipline-based constructivism. These two perspectives are examined as an epistemology in relation to the teaching and learning of the concept of idealization in chemistry. It is claimed that experience-based constructivism is powerless to inform the origin of such concepts in chemistry and while discipline-based constructivism can admit such theoretical concepts as idealization it does not offer any unique perspectives (...) that cannot be obtained from other models. Chemical education researchers do not consistently appeal to constructivism as an epistemology or as a teaching/learning perspective and it is shown that, while it draws attention to worthwhile teaching/learning strategies, it cannot be considered as foundational to chemical education research and tends to be used more as an educational label than as an undergirding theory. (shrink)

A review of the chemical education research literature suggests that the term constructivism is used in two ways: experience-based constructivism and discipline-based constructivism. These two perspectives are examined as an epistemology in relation to the teaching and learning of the concept of idealization in chemistry. It is claimed that experience-based constructivism is powerless to inform the origin of such concepts in chemistry and while discipline-based constructivism can admit such theoretical concepts as idealization it does not offer any unique perspectives (...) that cannot be obtained from other models. Chemical education researchers do not consistently appeal to constructivism as an epistemology or as a teaching/learning perspective and it is shown that, while it draws attention to worthwhile teaching/learning strategies, it cannot be considered as foundational to chemical education research and tends to be used more as an educational label than as an undergirding theory. (shrink)

Werner Jaeger's classic three-volume work, originally published in 1939, is now available in paperback. Paideia, the shaping of Greek character through a union of civilization, tradition, literature, and philosophy is the basis for Jaeger's evaluation of Hellenic culture.Volume I describes the foundation, growth, and crisis of Greek culture during the archaic and classical epochs, ending with the collapse of the Athenian empire. The second and third volumes of the work deal with the intellectual history of ancient Greece in the (...) Age of Plato, the 4th century B.C.--the age in which Greece lost everything that is valued in this world--state, power, liberty--but still clung to the concept of paideia. As its last great poet, Menander summarized the primary role of this ideal in Greek culture when he said: "The possession which no one can take away from man is paideia.". (shrink)

A philosophical exploration of the ideal of intellectual integrity drawing on Samuel Butler's semi-autobiographical Bildungsroaman, The Way of All Flesh; and relating this to C.S. Peirce's idea of the scientific attitude and Percy Bridgman's reflections on the conditions needed for this ideal to flourish.

Infinite idealizations appear in our best scientific explanations of phase transitions. This is thought by some to be paradoxical. In this paper I connect the existing literature on the phase transition paradox to work on the concept of indispensability, which arises in discussions of realism and anti-realism within the philosophy of science and the philosophy of mathematics. I formulate a version of the phase transition paradox based on the idea that infinite idealizations are explanatorily indispensable to our best science, (...) and so ought to attract a realist attitude. I go on to offer a solution to the paradox by drawing a distinction between two types of indispensability: constructive and substantive indispensability. I argue that infinite idealizations are constructively indispensable to explanations of phase transitions, but not substantively indispensable. This helps to resolve the paradox, I maintain, since realist commitment tracks substantive, and not constructive, indispensability. (shrink)

I present a fictional and somewhat unpleasant tutorial. In it a use of the term “ideal political theory” is connected with the reflective equilibrium method: an ideal theory requires no adaptation of specific moral judgments to fit with the theory. I have not been in a tutorial closely resembling this, I should say.

Much of the scientific literature on vegetarian nutrition leaves one with the impression that vegan diets are significantly more risky than omnivorous ones, especially for individuals with high metabolic demands (such as pregnant or lactating women and children). But nutrition researchers have tended to skew their study populations toward new vegetarians, members of religious sects with especially restrictive diets and tendencies to eschew fortified foods and medical care, and these are arguably the last people we would expect to thrive (...) on vegan diets. Researchers also have some tendency to play up weakly confirmed risks of vegan dietsvis-à-vis equally weakly confirmed benefits. And, in spite of these methodological and rhetorical biases, for every nutrient which vegans are warned to be cognizant of, there is reason to believe that they are not at significantly greater risk of nutritional deficiency than omnivores. (shrink)

The essays in this collection all treat in some way the conservative’s vision of society as it is variously manifested in literary art, its scholarship, and its transmission through classical modes of liberal learning. Responding in part to the postmodernist turn in literary study, Literature and the Conservative Ideal examines the ways in which conservatism has been depicted in literature, as well as how its tendencies might restore literature’s potential as an artistic reflection of the universal human (...) condition. (shrink)

While the use of so-called idealizations in science has been widely recognized for many years, the philosophical problems that arise from this use have received relatively little attention. Even a cursory reading of the philosophical literature devoted to these problems reveals that the following questions remain unanswered: In general, what, if any, are the distinguishing characteristics of idealizations? More specifically, do idealizations have any distinguishing syntactic or semantic characteristics? In addition to these questions there exist the following pragmatic questions, (...) questions relating to the ways in which idealizations are used in science: How are idealizations used in explanations?. Do these explanations have any peculiar characteristics—characteristics not shared by deductive-nomological explanations? If we assume that idealizations are false or “do not obtain,” how is it that they can have any explanatory power?. Further, there are questions of more general philosophic concern. How do the problems of idealizations relate to those of simplicity, for an idealization seems to be, in some sense, a type of simplification? How do the problems of ideal laws and theories relate to the general problems of scientific laws and theories? (shrink)

Plato’s Republic and More’s Utopia served as models for most of the literary utopias written between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, dystopian novels began to displace their positive counterparts. Five dystopian fictions published between 1891 and 1949—Jerome’s “The New Utopia”, Wells’s The Sleeper Awakes, Zamyatin’s We, Huxley’s Brave New World, and Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four—exhibit many common themes, such as isolation, totalitarianism, technology in service of the state, rigid social organization, uniformity and social control. (...) In the twenty-first century, some of these characteristics of fictional dystopian societies have become realities in the form of unseen technological surveillance and control. Nevertheless, utopia lives on as an ideal, for instance in philosophical transhumanism. (shrink)

How on Earth can Humans be perfect? The striving for perfection has always occupied a central place in ancient Greek culture. This dynamics urged the Greeks on to surpass themselves in different fields, from sculpture and architecture over athletics to philosophy. In this volume, an international group of scholars examines how the ideal of perfection was conceived and pursued in Late Antiquity, both within philosophical circles and Christianity. Their studies yield a fascinating panorama of various attempts to bridge the unbridgeable (...) and assimilate our frail, imperfect human nature as far as possible to divine perfection. (shrink)

In this article we argue that idealizations and limiting cases in models play an exploratory role in science. Four senses of exploration are presented: exploration of the structure and representational capacities of theory; proof-of-principle demonstrations; potential explanations; and exploring the suitability of target systems. We illustrate our claims through three case studies, including the Aharonov-Bohm effect, the emergence of anyons and fractional quantum statistics, and the Hubbard model of the Mott phase transitions. We end by reflecting on how our case (...) studies and claims compare to accounts of idealization in the philosophy of science literature such as Michael Weisberg’s three-fold taxonomy. (shrink)

Objectives: Evidence based patient choice seems based on a strong liberal individualist interpretation of patient autonomy; however, not all patients are in favour of such an interpretation. The authors wished to assess whether ideals of autonomy in clinical practice are more in accordance with alternative concepts of autonomy from the ethics literature. This paper describes the development of a questionnaire to assess such concepts of autonomy.Methods: A questionnaire, based on six moral concepts from the ethics literature, was (...) sent to aneurysm patients and their surgeons. The structure of the questionnaire was assessed by factor analysis, and item reduction was based on reliability.Results: Ninety six patients and 58 surgeons participated. The questionnaire consisted of four scales. Two of the scales reflected the paternalistic and consumerist poles of the liberal individualist model, one scale reflected concepts of Socratic autonomy and of procedural independence, and the fourth scale reflected ideals of risk disclosure.Discussion: The Ideal Patient Autonomy Scale is a 14 item normative instrument. It is clearly distinct from the generally used psychological preference questionnaires that assess preferences for physician-patient roles. (shrink)

Two approaches to understanding the idealizations that arise in the Aharonov–Bohm effect are presented. It is argued that a common topological approach, which takes the non-simply connected electron configuration space to be an essential element in the explanation and understanding of the effect, is flawed. An alternative approach is outlined. Consequently, it is shown that the existence and uniqueness of self-adjoint extensions of symmetric operators in quantum mechanics have important implications for philosophical issues. Also, the alleged indispensable explanatory role of (...) said idealizations is examined via a minimal model explanatory scheme. Last, the idealizations involved in the AB effect are placed in a wider philosophical context via a short survey of part of the literature on infinite and essential idealizations. (shrink)

Werner Jaeger's classic three-volume work, originally published in 1939, is now available in paperback. Paideia, the shaping of Greek character through a union of civilization, tradition, literature, and philosophy is the basis for Jaeger's evaluation of Hellenic culture.Volume I describes the foundation, growth, and crisis of Greek culture during the archaic and classical epochs, ending with the collapse of the Athenian empire. The second and third volumes of the work deal with the intellectual history of ancient Greece in the (...) Age of Plato, the 4th century B.C.--the age in which Greece lost everything that is valued in this world--state, power, liberty--but still clung to the concept of paideia. As its last great poet, Menander summarized the primary role of this ideal in Greek culture when he said: "The possession which no one can take away from man is paideia.". (shrink)

Science is popularly understood as being an ideal of impartial algorithmic objectivity that provides us with a realistic description of the world down to the last detail. The essays collected in this book—written by some of the leading experts in the field—challenge this popular image right at its heart, taking as their starting point that science trades not only in truth, but in fiction, too. With case studies that range from physics to economics and to biology, _Fictions in Science_ reveals (...) that fictions are as ubiquitous in scientific narratives and practice as they are in any other human endeavor, including literature and art. Of course scientific activity, most prominently in the formal sciences, employs logically precise algorithmic thinking. However, the key to the predictive and technological success of the empirical sciences might well lie elsewhere—perhaps even in scientists’ extraordinary creative imagination instead. As these essays demonstrate, within the bounds of what is empirically possible, a scientist’s capacity for invention and creative thinking matches that of any writer or artist. (shrink)

Realist thinkers in political philosophy often criticize ideal theorists for neglecting or eliminating the fact of politics in their work. This is supposed to be problematic because we should never expect to overcome politics. Any theory that attempts to do so is said to be unrealistic, naïve, and impractical. Although much has been said in the dispute between realists and ideal theorists in recent years, this particular line of criticism, which should be distinguished from other criticisms of ideal theory, has (...) not been clearly or explicitly addressed by ideal theorists in the literature. I deal with this issue by examining the ideal theory of John Rawls, which has been a prominent target of realist criticisms. My aim is to see where politics exists, or might exist, in Rawls’s theory, and whether this politics satisfactorily answers to the various aspects of the realist’s critique. My analysis suggests that there may be no inherent or necessary conflict between ideal theory and real politics, after all. (shrink)

In postwar Western culture, the myth of Antigone has been the subject of noted literary, literary-critical, dramatic, philosophical, and philological treatments, not least due to the strong influence of one of the key plays of the twentieth century, Jean Anouilh’s Antigone. The rich discussion of the myth has often dealt with its most famous formulation, Sophocles’ Antigone, but has paid less attention to the broader ancient context; the epic sources (the Iliad, Odyssey, Thebaid, and Oedipodea); the other tragic versions (Aeschylus’s (...) Seven Against Thebes and his lost Eleusinians; Euripides’s Suppliants, Phoenician Women, and Antigone, of which only a few short fragments have been preserved); and the responses of late antiquity. This paper analyses the basic features of this nearly thousand-year-long ancient tradition and shows how they connect in surprising ways – sometimes even more directly than Sophoclean tragedy does – with the main issues in some unique contemporary traditions of its reception (especially the Slovenian, Polish and Argentine ones): the question of burying the wartime (or postwar) dead and the ideal of reconciliation. (shrink)

I offer a reply to criticisms of the Strong Programme presented by Stephen Kemp who develops some new lines of argument that focus on the ‘monism’ of the programme. He says the programme should be rejected for three reasons. First, because it embodies ‘weak idealism’, that is, its supporters effectively sever the link between language and the world. Second, it challenges the reasons that scientists offer in explanation of their own beliefs. Third, it destroys the distinction between successful and unsuccessful (...) instrumental action. Kemp is careful to produce quotations from the supporters of the programme as evidence to support his case. All three points deserve and are given a detailed response and the interpretation of the quoted material plays a significant role in the discussion. My hope is that careful exegesis will offset the numerous misinterpretations that are current in the philosophical literature. Particular attention is paid to what is said about the normative standards involved in the application of empirical concepts. The operation of these standards in the face of the negotiability of all concepts is explored and misapprehensions on the topic are corrected. The work of Wittgenstein, Popper, Kuhn and Hesse is used to illustrate these themes.Keywords: Strong Programme; Social constructionism; Idealism; Monism; Finitism; Relativism. (shrink)

Contemporary global events, such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the unresolved conflict in the Middle East, and the pessimistic relationships with Muslim countries, pose challenges for Muslims living in the United States in all walks of life. In addition, Muslims encounter daily struggles to live within a society that follows considerably dissimilar beliefs, norms, and way of life. Therefore, Islamic schools and other organizations emerged in response to those challenges. There are several debates in the literature about (...) Islamic schools; among those debates is whether Islamic schools segregate Muslim students, inspire religious intolerance, and rejection of social pluralism's ideals. In addition, there are debates of whether Islamic schools are capable of developing a strong Muslim identity skilled to tackle future challenges. Discussing these debates is considered the first step to critically tackling the challenges meeting Islamic schools, their relevance, and their continuity in a way that benefits Muslim generations and the American society. Furthermore, such debates draw attention to the impediments facing the success of these schools and the possible strategies to resolve problematic issues. This article explores each of these debates in detail. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss expected and reported effects on care provider-patient relations of the introduction of electronic patient records (EPRs) in consultation settings by reviewing exemplary studies and literature on the subject from the past decade. We argue that in order for such assessments to be meaningful, talk of effects of “the” EPR needs to be replaced by an “unpacking” of EPR systems into their constituent parts and functionalities, the effects of which need to be assessed individually. Following (...) from this principle, the paper discusses EPR systems ranging from simple data entry and retrieval systems to more sophisticated multi-user and multifunctional on-line systems. On a second level, our analysis of the literature is informed by the question which model of ideal patienthood underlies the assessment of effects of EPRs. To this end, we identify three “models of patienthood” implicit in writing about benefits and drawbacks of EPRs for patients: the autonomy, the consumer, and the holistic models, and argue that assumptions concerning these models need to be reflected upon more critically to improve understanding of what exactly EPR use does to the doctor-patient relationship. (shrink)

Chan Buddhist philosophy as expressed in the Blue Cliff Record and related gongan case commentarial literature is primarily based on the notion of the instantaneous pivot moment, in which a master creates a profound turnaround experience reflecting his own liberation so as to reveal the deficient tendencies of his dialogue partner in a way that leads both parties to enhance their spiritual awareness. What are the implications of the pivot experience for understanding the overall Chan view of time and (...) space? From the standpoint of temporality, Chan emphasizes the unity of momentary experience and continuity unbound yet not oblivious to sequential limitations. In terms of spatiality, the Chan pivot is a universal experience but is realized in particular manifestations of natural phenomena as perceived by an awakened observer. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Literature in MindH. G. Wells and the Evolution of the Mad ScientistAnne StilesIn 1893, H. G. Wells's article "Man of the Year Million" dramatically predicted the distant evolutionary future of mankind:The descendents of man will nourish themselves by immersion in nutritive fluid. They will have enormous brains, liquid, soulful eyes, and large hands, on which they will hop. No craggy nose will they have, no vestigial ears; their (...) mouths will be a small, perfectly round aperture, unanimal, like the evening star. Their whole muscular system will be shriveled to nothing, a dangling pendant to their minds.2The editors at Punch evidently found this prediction hilarious, publishing a poem and accompanying sketch ridiculing Wells's lopsided future humans (Figure 1, p. 318). But not everyone was laughing.As ridiculous as Wells's bodiless, large-headed "human tadpoles" may seem, they were based on the most rigorous evolutionary science of their day. Wells, a lower-middle-class academic prodigy, received a prestigious [End Page 317] Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 1."1,000,000 A.D.," Punch, or the London Charivari, 25 November 1893, 250.[End Page 318]government scholarship to attend the Normal School of Science in South Kensington (later absorbed into the University of London). Though Wells left South Kensington in 1887 without earning his degree, he was greatly inspired by his biology teacher, famed physiologist Thomas Huxley. Wells absorbed Huxley's pessimistic take on late-Victorian evolutionary theory, particularly his emphasis on the inherent brutality of natural selection.Huxley's pessimism surfaces in Wells's dystopian scientific romances, which imaginatively probe the consequences of evolutionary theory run amok.3 Beginning with the eponymous mad-scientist villain of The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896) and continuing with alien invasion narratives like The War of the Worlds (1897–98) and The First Men in the Moon (1901), Wells depicts brains becoming steadily larger and more powerful as bodies grow smaller and more useless, emotions increasingly muted, and conscience all but silenced. Wells's nightmarish vision of the massively over-evolved brain unites these three works, as the ruthlessly intellectual biologist Moreau morphs into the amoral, top-heavy Martians and lunar inhabitants.Wells's malevolent mad scientists and extraterrestrials owe an intellectual debt not only to Huxley, but also to discussions of genius and insanity in late-Victorian issues of Mind (1876–present).4 The now-familiar trope of the mad scientist in fact traces its roots to the clinical association between genius and insanity that developed in the mid-nineteenth century. Authors like Scottish journalist and materialist philosopher John Ferguson Nisbet, English eugenicist Francis Galton, and Austrian Jewish physician Max Nordau—all of whose works were reviewed in Mind—argued that mankind had evolved larger brains at the expense of muscular strength, reproductive capacity, and moral sensibility.5 Wells drew upon these arguments in his fiction and even contributed his own article to Mind, a philosophical reflection on science entitled "Scepticism of the Instrument" (1904).In its unique role as "the first English journal devoted to Psychology and Philosophy." Mind was an ideal venue for an inherently interdisciplinary [End Page 319] subject like the clinical study of genius.6 The journal's first editor, George Croom Robertson, was particularly concerned that articles in Mind rise "above the narrowing influences of modern specialism."7 This disciplinary breadth attracted contributors from all fields, including fiction writers and literary critics like George Henry Lewes, Grant Allen, Andrew Lang, and, of course, H.G. Wells. During the same period, literary works probed ideas discussed in Mind, such as the nature of the soul, the possibility of free will, and the ramifications of biological determinism. In the four decades following its auspicious start, Mind provided a venue where scientists, philosophers and literary authors could find intellectual common ground.In this essay, the early fiction of H.G. Wells will serve as a case study of cross-fertilization between literature and scientific ideas discussed in Mind. The goals of this exploration are threefold: to gain a better understanding of the journal's history and influence; to investigate why Victorians associated genius with insanity; and to illuminate the shared... (shrink)

The epistemology of disagreement has developed around a highly idealized notion of epistemic peers. The analysis of examples in the literature has somewhat entrenched this idealization, when using cases of extant philosophical disputes between named interlocutors. These examples make it hard to emphasize the ordinary ways in which discussants, as disciplinary colleagues, may be wrong. Overlooking these possibilities is probably made easier by widespread attitudes in philosophy about the importance of genius or raw intelligence in doing philosophy. The use (...) of such internal examples needlessly limits consideration of the full range of epistemically relevant features of disagreements.L’épistémologie du désaccord s’est développée autour d’une notion idéalisée de pairs épistémiques. L’analyse d’exemples dans la littérature a quelque peu enraciné cette idéalisation, surtout lorsque les exemples étudiés sont des désaccords tirés du canon philosophique contemporain et qu’ils opposent des interlocuteurs identifiés. Il est difficile, pour des raisons socio-professionnelles, de souligner les manières ordinaires par lesquelles ces collègues disciplinaires peuvent se tromper. Il est probablement d’autant plus facile de négliger ces possibilités que les attitudes concernant l’importance du génie dans la pratique de la philosophie sont fort répandues dans le domaine. L’utilisation de ces exemples limite donc la prise en compte de toutes les caractéristiques épistémiquement pertinentes des désaccords. (shrink)

This paper presents an analysis of interviews, focus groups and workshops with employees in the technical administration in the municipality of Copenhagen in the year after it won a prestigious Smart City award. The administration is interpreted as a ‘most likely’ to succeed in translating the idealised version of the smart city into a workable bureaucratic practice. Drawing on the work of Orlikowski and Gash, the empirical analysis identifies and describes two incongruent ‘technological frames’ that illustrates different ways of making (...) sense of data and the smart city within this single organisational unit. One is called the experimentalist’s credo and it is characterised by inspiration from the development of an Internet of Things as well as a readiness to learn from the open source community in software development. The other is called the data-owners vocation and it is characterised by a more situated approach that interprets data as strategic and political. It is argued that the existence of these frames provides two insights relevant for the literature on smart cities. First, they illustrate that one should be careful not to reify the smart city as a phenomenon that can be criticised in generic terms. Second, they suggest that even if there exists a transition toward the implementation of a technocratic smart city paradigm across public administrations, this paradigm is not unique in its focus on markets and evidence in governance. (shrink)

This paper offers a novel argument for superspace substantivalism. _Superspace_ is a modified spacetime represented formally through combining ordinary spatial dimensions with anticommuting dimensions whose coordinates are labelled in Grassmann numbers rather than real numbers. At supersymmetric worlds, physical laws exhibit _supersymmetry_—viz., a symmetry that transforms bosons into fermions and vice versa. _Superspace substantivalism_ is the thesis that, at supersymmetric worlds, among the most fundamental structures is superspace. Initially, the focus will be on a prevalent doctrine in the philosophy of (...) physics literature which I call the _mimetic ideal_. On the mimetic ideal, interpreting physical theories aims primarily at specifying their _ontology_, namely at achieving accurate _reference_ (in natural-language accounts of those theories) or _representation_ (in model-theoretic portrayals of those theories) with respect to aspects of physical reality. However, I show that the mimetic ideal doesn’t seem able to account for important aspects of physics practice (Sect. 2 ). In Sect. 3, therefore, I articulate and defend a new, _diegetic ideal_, according to which the interpretation of physical theories should aim at _perspectival coordination_ between interpreters and practising physicists. Perspectival coordination, in the context of interpreting physical theories, means that interpreters and practising physicists share a perspective or a point of view on some aspect of physical reality described by that theory. In Sect. 4, I apply this analysis to the study of supersymmetric quantum field theories (QFTs): reframing the realist framework which underlies Baker’s (2020) agnosticism, I examine the exciting upshot that superspace substantivalism is true. I conclude with some reflections on what perspectival coordination means for realism (Sect. 5 ). (shrink)

It has been recently debated whether there exists a so-called “easy road” to nominalism. In this essay, I attempt to fill a lacuna in the debate by making a connection with the literature on infinite and infinitesimal idealization in science through an example from mathematical physics that has been largely ignored by philosophers. Specifically, by appealing to John Norton’s distinction between idealization and approximation, I argue that the phenomena of fractional quantum statistics bears negatively on Mary Leng’s proposed path (...) to easy road nominalism, thereby partially defending Mark Colyvan’s claim that there is no easy road to nominalism. (shrink)

The focus in the literature on scientific explanation has shifted in recent years towards modelbased approaches. The idea that there are simple and true laws of nature has met with objections from philosophers such as Nancy Cartwright (1983) and Paul Teller (2001), and this has made a strictly Hempelian D-N style explanation largely irrelevant to the explanatory practices of science (Hempel & Oppenheim, 1948). Much of science does not involve subsuming particular events under laws of nature. It is increasingly (...) recognized that science across the disciplines is to some degree a patchwork of scientific models, with different methods, strategies, and with varying degrees of successful prediction and explanation. And so accounts of scientific explanation have reflected this change of perspective and model-based approaches have flourished in the explanation literature (Batterman, 2002b; Bokulich, 2008; Craver, 2006; Woodward, 2003). (shrink)

With great sympathy for Roman Ingarden and his work, Edith Stein edited his book project The Literary Work Of Art. In the letters she exchanges with him shereflects on relationship between reality and ideality: she writes that those who do not see the world as a reality must be fools. The political events in the 1930s had an impact on phenomenology. While Edmund Husserl dissociates himself from his protégé Martin Heidegger with regard to the content of his philosophy as well (...) as with regard to his ideology, Edith Stein distances herself more and more from the phenomenological method, seeing it as removed from reality, and she eventually become a Carmelite nun. Roman Ingarden, on the other hand, reconsiders interpreting phenomenology as aesthetic theory. Literature and film are being re-analysed in terms of phenomenological mediality and as factors of human communication. (shrink)

This article reviews the recent literature on idealization, specifically idealization in the course of scientific modeling. We argue that idealization is not a unified concept and that there are three different types of idealization: Galilean, minimalist, and multiple models, each with its own justification. We explore the extent to which idealization is a permanent feature of scientific representation and discuss its implications for debates about scientific realism.

Political philosophers working on ideal and non-ideal theory sometimes seem to be stuck in a bind: while ideal theory risks being too ideal to be useful in the real world, non-ideal theory risks being so non-ideal that it stops far short of justice. In this paper, I highlight a third – and equally unappealing – possibility: that non-ideal theory, precisely because of its obvious engagement with real-world problems, might fail to recognize the unacceptable ways in which it is itself problematically (...) idealized. I highlight this problem through the case-study of adaptive preferences. Although work in adaptive preferences obviously fits into non-ideal theory, the actual work being done in the literature is idealized in that it takes only the circumstances and needs of adults into account. In the best case, this means that the needs of one of our most vulnerable populations – that is, children – are ignored. In the worst case, where the needs of children and adults conflict, the needs of children will be actively frustrated. In this way, non-ideal theory can fail to approximate justice precisely because it fails to recognize the idealizations that it itself employs. (shrink)

Ideal for introductory ethics courses, The Moral Life: An Introductory Reader in Ethics and Literature, Fifth Edition, brings together an extensive and varied collection of ninety-one classical and contemporary readings on ethical theory and practice. Integrating literature with philosophy in an innovative way, this unique anthology uses literary works to enliven and make concrete the ethical theory or applied issues addressed. It also emphasizes the personal dimension of ethics, which is often ignored or minimized in ethics anthologies. The (...) readings are enhanced by chapter introductions, study questions, suggestions for further reading, and biographical sketches. The fifth edition adds ten new readings, eight of which appear in two new chapters: Feminist Ethics and the Ethics of Care and Global Economic Justice. An updated Companion Website at www.oup.com/us/pojman provides self-quizzes, essay questions, and helpful links for students and reading summaries, a test bank, and PowerPoint-based lecture slides for instructors. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss expected and reported effects on care provider-patient relations of the introduction of electronic patient records (EPRs) in consultation settings by reviewing exemplary studies and literature on the subject from the past decade. We argue that in order for such assessments to be meaningful, talk of effects of “the” EPR needs to be replaced by an “unpacking” of EPR systems into their constituent parts and functionalities, the effects of which need to be assessed individually. Following (...) from this principle, the paper discusses EPR systems ranging from simple data entry and retrieval systems to more sophisticated multi-user and multifunctional on-line systems. On a second level, our analysis of the literature is informed by the question which model of ideal patienthood underlies the assessment of effects of EPRs. To this end, we identify three “models of patienthood” implicit in writing about benefits and drawbacks of EPRs for patients: the autonomy, the consumer, and the holistic models, and argue that assumptions concerning these models need to be reflected upon more critically to improve understanding of what exactly EPR use does to the doctor-patient relationship. (shrink)

In the Soviet scientific literature of 1920‒30 the concept of probability was holly debated. The frequency concept which was proposed by R. von Mises became popular among Soviet physicists belonging to the L.I. Mandelstam community. Landau and Lifshitz were also close to this concept in their famous course of theoretical physics. A.Khinchin, a mathematician who cooperated with Kolmogorov, opposed to the frequency conception. In this paper we try to demonstrate that the frequency position was connected with the anthropomorphous approach (...) to physics, whereas Khinchin’s positions implied the criticism of anthropomorphism and put forward the ideal of objective knowledge. (shrink)

When censorship was reformed during the era of Joseph II publishing and the book trade underwent a liberalisation. Enlightenment conceptions helped create the image of the ideal reader—someone who reads to acquire knowledge or to improve his spiritual life. During the reign of Joseph II reading spread to all social strata, but readers’ preferences did not follow a reading ideal. This is demonstrated by significant urban-rural disparities. The publishing projects of the Protestant elite met with failure in the distribution phase (...) and with the indifference country people displayed towards spiritual literature. This relates to several other social phenomena such as literacy and living conditions. Archival sources, which are relevant to lending library research, indicate the reading preferences of the urban classes. An uncontrollable reading mania targeted literature and short political and anticlerical writing, which triggered public discussions on the dangers of uncontrolled reading. The print medium helped shape a “reading public“, whose reading activities occupied an area between mainstream cultural consumption and the dissemination of political news. (shrink)