Harry Collins' central argument about experimental practice revolves around the thesis that facts can only be generated by good instruments but good instruments can only be recognized as such if they produce facts. This is what Collins calls the experimenters' regress. For Collins, scientific controversies cannot be closed by the ‘facts’ themselves because there are no formal criteria independent of the outcome of the experiment that scientists can apply to decide whether an experimental apparatus works properly or not.No one seems (...) to have noticed that the debate is in fact a rehearsal of the ancient philosophical debate about skepticism. The present article suggests that the way out of radical skepticism offered by the so-called mitigated skeptics is a solution to the problem of consensus formation in science.Keywords: Argumentation; Skepticism; Sociology of science; Philosophy of science; Scientific controversies. (shrink)

The measurement of science and technology is now fifty years old. It owes a large part of its existence to the work of the National Science Foundation and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in the 1950s and 1960s. Given the centrality of S&T statistics in science studies, it is surprising that no history of the measurement exists in the literature. This article outlines such a history. The history is cast in the light of social statistics. Like social statistics, (...) S&T indicators are produced mainly by governments but differ in a number of aspects. First, they have not been developed to control individuals. Second, they have taken shape from the start at the international level. Third, they reflect a consensus among states and their organizations. This article shows that this specificity is due to the sociopolitics that drives S&T measurement. (shrink)

If anyone in Victoria’s reign had tried to put himself outside the mystique of that society and, from outside, coldly to dissect the word gentleman, we can guess what would have happened to him. Wherever he had found confusion he would have been told ‘But of course you can’t understand. That is because you yourself are not a gentleman’ .In recent years the phrase “innovation studies” has come to be used by a group of scholars to name what was previously (...) called science and technology studies, then science, technology and innovation studies . What is “innovation studies”? Some years ago Ian Fagerberg and Bart Vespagen produced analyses that “defined” the field by way of bibliometric data . Now, these same researchers have produced an argumentation that, in principle, gives a kind of coherence to the field. Innovation Studies: Evolution & Future Cha .. (shrink)

The author analyzes recent Polish debates on researching silenced aspects of national history and the problem of the "collective guilt". One of the major questions arising in these debates is: does the study of "white spots" from the past lead to a trauma of continuous collective self-blame? In Poland, a specialized institution, the Institute of National Memory, was founded in 1998, engaging in research, documentation and public education on events related to German and Soviet occupation during WWII and the activity (...) of political police under communism. Polish debates on the past got particularly inflamed after the discovery made by the historian J.T.Gross on the participation of Poles in the massacre of Jewish inhabitants of the town of Jedwabne in 1941. His book published in 2000 provoked a heated debate in which methodological, political and moral arguments were used on both sides. This case also occasioned a polemic between two prominent historians, identifying two basic visions of national history: the "monumental" one, recognizing only the heroic deeds that the nation takes pride in, and the "skeptical" one, which looks for silenced and shameful facts. Though both participants in the polemic opt for the third vision, the "objective" history which dispassionately seeks the truth, one of them stresses the role of the monumental history in maintaining the cohesion of the national community, while the other emphasizes that the collective acknowledgement of the nation's crimes can be a basis for national pride.. U ovom clanku autor analizira debate koje se u Poljskoj vode oko istrazivanja precutanih aspekata nacionalne istorije i problema "kolektivne krivice". Jedno od osnovnih pitanja koja se u tim debatama namecu glasi: da li se istrazivanje "belih mrlja" iz proslosti moze, ili cak mora, pretvoriti u traumu neprekidnog kolektivnog samooptuzivanja? U Poljskoj je 1998. osnovana specijalizovana ustanova, Institut nacionalnog pamcenja, koji se bavi istrazivanjem, dokumentacijom i javnom edukacijom o dogadjajima vezanim za nemacku i sovjetsku okupaciju tokom II svetskog rata i delovanje politicke policije za vreme komunizma. Poljske debate o proslosti posebno je rasplamsalo otkrice istoricara J.T. Grosa o ucescu Poljaka u istrebljenju jevrejskog stanovnistva gradica Jedvabne 1941. godine. U zaostrenoj polemici koju je Grosova knjiga, objavljena 2000. godine, izazvala u strucnoj i siroj javnosti korisceni su argumenti metodoloske, politicke i moralne prirode. Ovaj slucaj je takodje posluzio kao povod za polemiku dvojice istaknutih istoricara u kojoj su identifikovane dve osnovne vizije nacionalne istorije: "monumentalna", koja priznaje samo herojska dela kojima se nacija ponosi, i "skepticna", koja traga za precutanim cinjenicama zbog kojih se treba stideti. Iako se oba ucesnika u polemici zalazu za trecu, "objektivnu" istoriju koja ce bez strasti tragati za istinom, jedan od njih naglasava ulogu monumentalne istorije u ocuvanju kohezivnosti nacionalne zajednice, dok drugi istice da i kolektivno priznanje sopstvenih zlocina moze biti osnova za nacionalni ponos. (shrink)

Books Reviewed in this Article: Reason, Truth and History. By Hilary Putnam. Pp.xii, 222, Cambridge University Press, 1982, £15.00 , £4.95 . Fundamentals of philosophy. By David Stewart and H. Gene Blocker. Pp.xiii, 378, New York, Macmillan, 1982, £12.95. Modern Philosophy: An Introduction. By A.R. Lacey. Pp.vii, 246, London and Boston, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982, £7.95 , £3.95 . Merleau‐Ponty's Philosophy. By Samuel B. Mallin. Pp.xi, 302, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1979, £14.20. Thought and Object: Essays (...) on Intentionality. Edited by Andrew Woodfield. Pp.xvi, 316, Oxford, Clarendon Pressl Oxford University Press, 1982, £16.00. Philosophical Ethics: An Introduction to Moral Philosophy. By Tom L. Beauchamp. Pp.xv, 396, New York & London, McGraw‐Hill, 1982, £14.25. The Limits of Obligation. By James S. Fishkin. Pp.viii, 184, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1982, £12.95. Religion and the One: Philosophies East and West. By Frederick Copleston. Pp.281, London, Search Press, 1982, £10.50. Religious Experience and Christian Faith. By F.W. Dillistone. Pp.viii, 120. London, SCM Press, 1982, £4.95. Exploring Inner Space: Scientists and Religious Experience. By David Hay. Pp.256, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1982, £2.95. Judaism and Psychoanalysis. Edited by Mortimer Ostrow. Pp.ix, 305, New York, Ktav, 1982, $20.00. Ecclesial Reflection: An Anatomy of Theological Method. By Edward Farley. Pp.xix, 380, Philadelphia, Fortress Press, 1982, $29.95. The Pastoral Nature of the Ministry. By Frank Wright. Pp.89, London, SCM Press, 1980, £2.50. Power and Authority in the Catholic Church. By Charles Dahm in collaboration with Robert Ghelardi. Pp.xviii, 334, Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press, 1981, £12.35. Religion in Sociological Perspective. By Bryan Wilson. Pp.vii. 187, Oxford University Press, 1982, £8.50. Myth, Religion and Society: Structuralist Essays. By M. Detienne, L. Gernet, J.‐P. Vernant and P. Vidal‐Naquet. Pp.xviii, 306, Cambridge University Press, 1981, £20.00 , £6.95 . Seven Theories of Human Society. By Tom Campbell. Pp.244, Oxford, Clarendon Press: Oxford University Press, 1981, £10.00. The Aims of Education Restated. By John White. Pp.xi, 177, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982, £8.95 , £4.95 . Love and Meaning in Religious Education: An Incarnational Approach to Teaching Christianity. By D.J. O'Leary and T. Sallnow. Pp.147, Oxford University Press, 1982, £3.50. Servant and Son: Jesus in Parable and Gospel. By J. Ramsey Michaels. Pp.xiii, 323, Atlanta, John Knox Press, 1981, £7.80. Parables for Now. By Edmund Flood. Pp.98, London, Darton, Longman and Todd, 1981, £2.50. More Parables for Now. By Edmund Flood. Pp.102, London, Darton, Longman and Todd, 1981, £2.50. Councils and Synods: With other Documents relating to the English Church, Vol.1 , A.D. 871–1204. Edited by D. Whitelock, M. Brett and C.N. Brooke. Pp.1 xxix, xii, 1151, Oxford University Press, 1981, £65.00. The Architectural History of Canterbury Cathedral. By Francis Woodman. Pp.xviii, 282, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981, £35.00. The Correspondence of Erasmus, Volume VI. Translated by R.A.B. Mynors and D.F.S. Thomson, annotated by Peter G. Bietenholz. Pp.xxii, 448, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1982, £56.25. Erasme: Vie de Jean Vitrier et de John Colet. Edited by Andrd Godin. Pp.160, Angers, Editions Moreana, 1982, $7.00. Erasme, lecteur d'Origène. By André Godin. Pp.ix, 724, Geneva, Librairie Droz, 1982, no price given. Thomas More: history and providence. By Alistair Fox. Pp.xi, 271, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1982, no price given. Thomas More: Essays on the Icon. Edited by D. Grace and B. Byron. Pp.129, Melbourne, Dove Communications, 1980, no price given. The Cambridge Connection and the Elizabethan Settlement of 1559. By W.S. Hudson. Pp.x, 158, Durham , Duke University Press, 1980, $14.75. Faith by Statute: Parliament and the Settlement of Religion, 1559. By Norman L. Jones. Pp.viii, 245 , London, Royal Historical Society, 1982, £17.52. Richard Hooker and the Politics of a Christian England. By Robert K. Faulkner. Pp.x, 190, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1981, £15.75. Icon and Conquest. By Bernadette Bucher. Pp.xvii, 220, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1981, £9.95. The Wooden Churches of Eastern Europe: An Introductory Survey. By David Buxton. Pp.viii, 405, Cambridge University Press, 1982, £42.50. American Catholics: A History of the Roman Catholic Community in the United States. By James Hennessey. Pp.xii, 397, New York, Oxford University Press, 1981, £13.50. Peter Maurin: Prophet in the Twentieth Century. By Marc H. Ellis. Pp.191, Ramsey, New Jersey and Leominster, England, Paulist Press/Fowler Wright Books, 1981, £7.45. The Newman Movement: Roman Catholics in American Higher Education, 1883–1971. By John Whitney Evans. Pp.xvi, 248, Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press, 1980, $14.95. Priests and People in Pre‐Famine Ireland, 1780–1845. By S.J. Connolly. Pp.338, Dublin, Gill & Macmillan, 1982, £17.00. The Nonconformist Conscience: Chapel and Politics, 1870–1914. By D.W. Bebbington. Pp.x, 193, London, George Allen and Unwin, 1982, £10.00. Heinrich Pesch: sein Leben und seine Lehre. By Franz H. Mueller. Pp.220, Cologne, J.P. Bachem, 1980, no price given. Beyond Survival: Reflections on the Future of Judaism. By Dow Marmur. Pp.xix, 218, London, Darton, Longman and Todd, 1982, £7.95. (shrink)

The paper focuses on the ethical aspects of NATO aggression, exerted against the FRY, actually Serbia, in the period from March to June 1999. The paper has been conceived as a critical dialogue with J?rgen Habermas, or rather the positions presented by him in a text entitled?Bestialit?t und Humanit?t: Eine Krieg an der Grenze zwischen Recht und Moral?. Following a short presentation of Habermas?s point of view, in the introduction to her paper the author discusses the moral implications of, as (...) he points out,?the surgical precision of the air-strikes, as well as the programmatic sparing of the civilian population?, which are, according to him, the characteristics of this aggression with?a highly legitimating effect?. She then focuses on the key and declaratively moral argument that served to justify the aggression - the protection of human rights of Kosmet Albanians and the prevention of the humanitarian catastrophe they had been allegedly exposed to. After analyzing this argument thoroughly, in several steps, the author concludes that the aggression was not, as Habermas claimed, a?war on the border between law and morality?, but that it was actually beyond the borders of both law and morality and was deeply situated into a domain of interest-driven armed acts of the US foreign policy. Predmet ovog rada su eticki aspekti agresije NATO na SRJ, odnosno Srbiju, sprovodjene od marta do juna 1999. godine. Rad je koncipiran kao svojevrstan kriticki dijalog sa J. Habermasom, odnosno njegovim stavovima iznesenim u tekstu?Bestijalnost i humanost - rat na granici prava i morala?. Nakon kraceg prikaza Habermasovog stanovista, u uvodnom delu rada autorka razmatra moralne implikacije njegovog stava o hirurskoj preciznosti bombardovanja i principu postede civilnog stanovnistva kao karakteristikama ove agresije od, kako tvrdi ovaj autor, visokog legitimirajuceg znacaja. Potom se usredsredjuje na kljucni, deklarativno moralni argument kojim se agresija opravdavala - zastita ugrozenih ljudskih prava kosmetskih Albanaca i sprecavanje humanitarne katastrofe kojoj su, kako se tvrdilo, bili izlozeni. Temeljnom analizom ovog argumenta, koju autorka sprovodi u nekoliko koraka, ona zakljucuje da agresija nije bila, kako je Habermas tvrdio, rat na granici prava i morala, vec s onu stranu i prava i morala, situirana duboko u domen interesno motivisanih oruzanih akata americke spoljne politike. PR Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 43007. (shrink)

It is shown that the logical truth of instances of the T-schema is incompatible with the formal nature of logical truth. In particular, since the formality of logical truth entails that the set of logical truths is closed under substitution, the logical truth of T-schema instances entails that all sentences are logical truths.

Abstract I argue that the two primary motivations in the literature for positing seemings as sui generis mental states are insufficient to motivate this view. Because of this, epistemological views which attempt to put seemings to work don’t go far enough. It would be better to do the same work by appealing to what makes seeming talk true rather than simply appealing to seeming talk. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-12 DOI 10.1007/s11406-012-9363-8 Authors T. Ryan Byerly, Department of Philosophy, Baylor (...) University, Waco, TX, USA Journal Philosophia Online ISSN 1574-9274 Print ISSN 0048-3893. (shrink)

In the 2005 Kitzmiller v Dover Area School Board case, a federal district court ruled that Intelligent Design creationism was not science, but a disguised religious view and that teaching it in public schools is unconstitutional. But creationists contend that it is illegitimate to distinguish science and religion, citing philosophers Quinn and especially Laudan, who had criticized a similar ruling in the 1981 McLean v. Arkansas creation-science case on the grounds that no necessary and sufficient demarcation criterion was possible and (...) that demarcation was a dead pseudo-problem. This article discusses problems with those conclusions and their application to the quite different reasoning between these two cases. Laudan focused too narrowly on the problem of demarcation as Popper defined it. Distinguishing science from religion was and remains an important conceptual issue with significant practical import, and philosophers who say there is no difference have lost touch with reality in a profound and perverse way. The Kitzmiller case did not rely on a strict demarcation criterion, but appealed only to a “ballpark” demarcation that identifies methodological naturalism as a “ground rule” of science. MN is shown to be a distinguishing feature of science both in explicit statements from scientific organizations and in actual practice. There is good reason to think that MN is shared as a tacit assumption among philosophers who emphasize other demarcation criteria and even by Laudan himself. (shrink)

Agent-relative consequentialism is thought attractive because it can secure agent-centred constraints while retaining consequentialism's compelling idea—the idea that it is always permissible to bring about the best available outcome. We argue, however, that the commitments of agent-relative consequentialism lead it to run afoul of a plausibility requirement on moral theories. A moral theory must not be such that, in any possible circumstance, were every agent to act impermissibly, each would have more reason to prefer the world thereby actualized over the (...) world that would have been actualized if every agent had instead acted permissibly. (shrink)

What is a natural kind ? As we shall see, the concept of a natural kind has a long history. Many of the interesting doctrines can be detected in Aristotle, were revived by Locke and Leibniz, and have again become fashionable in recent years. Equally there has been agreement about certain paradigm examples: the kinds oak, stickleback and gold are natural kinds, and the kinds table, nation and banknote are not. Sadly agreement does not extend much further. It is impossible (...) to discover a single consistent doctrine in the literature, and different discussions focus on different doctrines without writers or readers being aware of the fact. In this paper I shall attempt to find a defensible distinction between natural and non-natural kinds. (shrink)

My purpose in what follows is not so much to defend the basic principle of utilitarianism as to indicate the form of it which seems most promising as a basic moral and political position. I shall take the principle of utility as offering a criterion for two different sorts of evaluation: first, the merits of acts of government, social policies, and social institutions, and secondly, the ultimate moral evaluation of the actions of individuals. I do not take it as implying (...) that the individual should live his life on the basis of constant evaluations of this sort. For there are different levels of decision making each with its appropriate criteria. For example, we each inevitably make many of our decisions from the point of view of our own personal self-fulfilment and this cannot regularly take a directly utilitarian form, nor should the utilitarian want it to do so. His claim is at most that we should sometimes review our life from the point of view of a kind of impersonal moral truth of a universalistic utilitarian character. (shrink)

It is fortunate for my purposes that English has the two words ‘almighty’ and ‘omnipotent’, and that apart from any stipulation by me the words have rather different associations and suggestions. ‘Almighty’ is the familiar word that comes in the creeds of the Church; ‘omnipotent’ is at home rather in formal theological discussions and controversies, e.g. about miracles and about the problem of evil. ‘Almighty’ derives by way of Latin ‘omnipotens’ from the Greek word ‘ pantokratōr ’; and both this (...) Greek word, like the more classical ‘ pankratēs ’, and ‘almighty’ itself suggest God's having power over all things. On the other hand the English word ‘omnipotent’ would ordinarily be taken to imply ability to do everything; the Latin word ‘omnipotens’ also predominantly has this meaning in Scholastic writers, even though in origin it is a Latinization of ‘ pantocratōr ’. So there already is a tendency to distinguish the two words; and in this paper I shall make the distinction a strict one. I shall use the word ‘almighty’ to express God's power over all things, and I shall take ‘omnipotence’ to mean ability to do everything. (shrink)

Recent and puzzling experimental results suggest that people’s judgments as to whether or not an action was performed intentionally are sensitive to moral considerations. In this paper, we outline these results and evaluate two accounts which purport to explain them. We then describe a recent experiment that allegedly vindicates one of these accounts and present our own findings to show that it fails to do so. Finally, we present additional data suggesting no such vindication could be in the offing and (...) that, in fact, both accounts fail to explain the initial, puzzling results they were purported to explain. (shrink)

Green agrees with Kant on the abstract character of moral law as categorical imperatives and that intentional dispositions are central to a moral justification of punishment. The central problem with Kant's account is that we are unable to know these dispositions beyond a reasonable estimate. Green offers a practical alternative, positing moral law as an ideal to be achieved, but not immediately enforceable through positive law. Moral and positive law are bridged by Green's theory of the common good through the (...) dialectic of morality. Thus, Green appears to offer an alternative that remains committed to Kantian morality whilst taking proper stock of our cognitive limitations. Unfortunately, Green fails to unravel fully Kant's dichotomy of moral and positive law that mirrors Green's solution, although Green offers a number of improvements, such as the importance of the community in establishing rights and linking the severity of punishment to the extent that a criminal act threatens the continued maintenance of a system of rights. (shrink)

Originally published in 1949. This meticulously researched book presents a comprehensive outline and discussion of Aristotle’s mathematics with the author's translations of the greek. To Aristotle, mathematics was one of the three theoretical sciences, the others being theology and the philosophy of nature . Arranged thematically, this book considers his thinking in relation to the other sciences and looks into such specifics as squaring of the circle, syllogism, parallels, incommensurability of the diagonal, angles, universal proof, gnomons, infinity, agelessness of the (...) universe, surface of water, meteorology, metaphysics and mechanics such as levers, rudders, wedges, wheels and inertia. The last few short chapters address ‘problems’ that Aristotle posed but couldn’t answer, related ethics issues and a summary of some short treatises that only briefly touch on mathematics. (shrink)

Modifying images for scientific publication is now quick and easy due to changes in technology. This has created a need for new image processing guidelines and attitudes, such as those offered to the research community by Doug Cromey (Cromey 2010). We suggest that related changes in technology have simplified the task of detecting misconduct for journal editors as well as researchers, and that this simplification has caused a shift in the responsibility for reporting misconduct. We also argue that the concept (...) of best practices in image processing can serve as a general model for education in best practices in research. (shrink)

The world appears to conscious creatures in terms of experienced sensory qualities, but science doesn't find sensory experience in that world, only physical objects and properties. I argue that the failure to locate consciousness in the world is a function of our necessarily representational relation to reality as knowers: we won't discover the terms in which reality is represented by us in the world as it appears in those terms. Qualia -- arguably a type of representational content -- will therefore (...) not be found in the physical world as characterized in experience or science. Instead, consciousness constitutes a subjective, representational reality for cognitive systems such as ourselves, and the physical world is a represented objective reality. I suggest that naturalistic approaches to explaining consciousness should acknowledge the non-objectivity of experience, and be constrained by evidence that consciousness accompanies certain sorts of behaviour-controlling representational functions carried out by complex, physically instantiated mind-systems. I evaluate a variety of current hypotheses about consciousness, and suggest that a mature science of representation may help explain why, perhaps as matter of representational necessity, experience arises as a natural but not objectively discoverable phenomenon. (shrink)

We introduce the notion T does not omit obstructions. If a stable theory does not admit obstructions then it does not have the finite cover property . For any theory T, form a new theory $T_{\rm Aut}$ by adding a new unary function symbol and axioms asserting it is an automorphism. The main result of the paper asserts the following: If T is a stable theory, T does not admit obstructions if and only if $T_{\rm Aut}$ has a model companion. (...) The proof involves some interesting new consequences of the nfcp. (shrink)

Ted T. Aoki, the most prominent curriculum scholar of his generation in Canada, has influenced numerous scholars around the world. Curriculum in a New Key brings together his work, over a 30-year span, gathered here under the themes of reconceptualizing curriculum; language, culture, and curriculum; and narrative. Aoki's oeuvre is utterly unique--a complex interdisciplinary configuration of phenomenology, post-structuralism, and multiculturalism that is both theoretically and pedagogically sophisticated and speaks directly to teachers, practicing and prospective. Curriculum in a New Key: The (...) Collected Works of Ted T. Aoki is an invaluable resource for graduate students, professors, and researchers in curriculum studies, and for students, faculty, and scholars of education generally. (shrink)

Can a rule be followed by one person who has lived all his life in as complete isolation from other human beings as is consistent with his mere physical survival? This question divides philosophers as sharply today as it did over thirty years ago when, prompted by their reading of Wittgenstein, they first asked it. My aim here is to suggest a way of reconciling the two opposing sides in the current debate. I also hope to explain why it was (...) that Wittgenstein did not concern himself with the complexities I am about to discuss, which none the less are, I believe, at the root of the difficulties we experience when we try to understand what Wittgenstein said about following a rule and to think clearly about this question. (shrink)

Ronald Dworkin argues on the basis of a theory of well-being that critical paternalism is self-defeating. People must endorse their lives if they are to benefit. This is the endorsement constraint and this paper rejects it. For certain kinds of important mistakes that people can make in their lives, the endorsement constraint is either incredible or too narrow to rule out as much paternalism as Dworkin wants. The endorsement constraint cannot be interpreted to give sensible judgements when people change their (...) minds about the value of their lives. And the main argument for the endorsement constraint, which is based on the value of integrity, does not support Dworkin's anti-paternalism. (shrink)

The book, Against Fairness, by philosopher Stephen T. Asma is reviewed. Concepts of favoritism and justice are explored.

‘Every particular Thou is a glimpse through to the eternal Thou; by means of every particular Thou the primary word addresses the eternal Thou … the Thou that by its nature cannot become It .’.

Libertarianism needs a theory of class. This claim may meet with resistance among some libertarians. A few will say: “The analysis of society in terms of classes and class struggles is a specifically Marxist approach, resting on assumptions that libertarians reject. Why should we care about class?” A greater number will say: “We recognize that class theory is important, but libertarianism doesn't need such a theory, because it already has a perfectly good one.”.

One of the first frameworks developed for understanding the relation of science and technology to the economy has been the linear model of innovation. The model postulated that innovation starts with basic research, is followed by applied research and development, and ends with production and diffusion. The precise source of the model remains nebulous, having never been documented. Several authors who have used, improved, or criticized the model in the past fifty years rarely acknowledged or cited any original source. The (...) model usually was taken for granted. According to others, however, it comes directly from V. Bush’s Science: The Endless Frontier. This article traces the history of the linear model, suggesting that it developed in three steps corresponding to three scientific communities looking at science analytically. The article argues that statistics is a main reason the model is still alive despite criticisms, alternatives, and having been proclaimed dead. (shrink)

Ted Warfield has argued that if Ockhamism and Molinism offer different responses to the problems of foreknowledge and prophecy, it is the Molinist who is in trouble. I show here that this is not so – indeed, things may be quite the reverse.

An important contribution to the foundations of probability theory, statistics and statistical physics has been made by E. T. Jaynes. The recent publication of his collected works provides an appropriate opportunity to attempt an assessment of this contribution.

Statements of identity with a plural subject, of the form ‘They are the same person ,’ as illustrated in each of the answers to the above two questions, give rise to a philosophical problem.

Quentin Smith contends that modern science provides enough evidence ‘to justify the belief that the universe began to exist without being caused to do so.’ There was a time when such a claim would have been dismissed because it conflicts with a principle absolutely fundamental to all human thought, including science itself. As Thomas Reid expressed the matter: That neither existence, nor any mode of existence, can begin without an efficient cause is a principle that appears very early in the (...) mind of man; and it is so universal, and so firmly rooted in human nature, that the most determined scepticism cannot eradicate it. (shrink)

It is not easy to see how self-deception is possible because the man who deceives himself seems to be required to play two incompatible roles, that of deceiver and that of deceived. This makes self-deception sound about as difficult as presiding at one's own funeral. Many attempts have been made to remove the air of paradox from self-deception. These attempts are all unsuccessful, and they are best seen as expressions of philosophical puzzlement rather than as actual solutions. In particular, the (...) whole of the literature on self-deception is vitiated by two serious confusions. First, deception is confused with deceit; secondly, it is wrongly assumed that every case of deceiving oneself is automatically a case of self-deception and so self-deception proper becomes confused with other things. (shrink)

Students of the history of ethics sometimes find themselves tempted by moderate or extreme versions of an approach that might roughly be called ‘historicist’. This temptation may result from the difficulties of approaching historical texts from a ‘narrowly philosophical’ point of view. We may begin, for instance, by wanting to know what Aristotle has to say about ‘the problems of ethics’, so that we can compare his views with those of Aquinas, Hume, Kant, Sidgwick, and Rawls, and then decide what (...) is true or false in each theorist's position. But this narrowly philosophical attitude soon runs into difficulties, and writers on the history of ethics often warn us against it. (shrink)

J. S. Mill's distinction between higher and lower pleasures is often thought to conflict with his commitment to psychological and ethical hedonism: if the superiority of higher pleasures is quantitative, then the higher/lower distinction is superfluous and Mill contradicts himself; if the superiority of higher pleasures is not quantitative, then Mill's hedonism is compromised.

This is the one and only book by the pioneer of the identity theory of mind. The collection focuses on Place's philosophy of mind and his contributions to neighboring issues in metaphysics and epistemology. It includes an autobiographical essay as well as a recent paper on the function and neural location of consciousness.

Responsibility is often thought of as primarily a legal concept. Even when it is moral responsibility that is at issue, it is assumed that it is above all in moralities based on law-centered patterns and models that responsibility takes center stage, so that responsibility is a legal concept at its core, and is applicable to the realm of private morality only by extension and analogy.