Berkeley, Newton, Explanation, and Causation -/- I argue in this paper that Berkeley’s conception of natural law explanations, which echoes Newton’s, fails to solve a fundamental problem, which I label “explanatory asymmetry"; that the model of explanation Berkeley uses fails to distinguish between explanations and justifications, particularly since Berkeley denies real (efficient causes) in non-minded nature. At the end I suggest Berkeley might endorse a notion of understanding, say in astronomy or mechanics, which could be distinguished from explanation.

This paper critiques the new mechanistic explanatory program on grounds that, even when applied to the kinds of examples that it was originally designed to treat, it does not distinguish correct explanations from those that blunder. First, I offer a systematization of the explanatory account, one according to which explanations are mechanistic models that satisfy three desiderata: they must 1) represent causal relations, 2) describe the proper parts, and 3) depict the system at the right ‘level.’ Second, I argue that (...) even the most developed attempts to fulfill these desiderata fall short by failing to appropriately constrain explanatorily apt mechanistic models. -/- *This paper used to be called "The Emperor's New Mechanisms". (shrink)

Classical computational modellers of mind urge that the mind is something like a von Neumann computer operating over a system of symbols constituting a language of thought. Such an architecture, they argue, presents us with the best explanation of the compositionality, systematicity and productivity of thought. The language of thought hypothesis is supported by additional independent arguments made popular by Jerry Fodor. Paul Smolensky has developed a connectionist architecture he claims adequately explains compositionality, systematicity and productivity without positing any language (...) of thought, and without positing any operations over a set of symbols. This architecture encodes the information represented in linguistic trees without explicitly representing those trees or their constituents, and indeed without employing any representational vehicles with constituent structure. In a recent article, Fodor (1997; Connectionism and systematicity, Cognition , 62, 109-119) argues that Smolensky's proposal does not work. I defend Smolensky against Fodor's attack, and use this interchange as a vehicle for exploring and criticising the “Language of Thought” hypothesis more generally and the arguments Fodor adduces on its behalf. (shrink)

The current antireductionist consensus rests in part on the indefensibility of the deductive-nomological model of explanation, on which classical reductionism depends. I argue that the DN model is inessential to the reductionist program and that mechanism provides a better framework for thinking about reductionism. This runs counter to the contemporary mechanists’ claim that mechanism is an alternative to reductionism. I demonstrate that mechanists are committed to reductionism, as evidenced by the historical roots of the contemporary mechanist program. This view shares (...) certain core commitments with reductionism. It is these shared commitments that constitute the essential elements of the reductionist program. (shrink)

Scientists, both modern and contemporary, commonly try to discern patterns in nature. They also frequently use arguments by analogy to construct an understanding of the natural mechanisms responsible for producing such patterns. For Robert Boyle, the famous clock at Strasbourg provided a perfect paradigm for understanding the connection between these two scientific activities. Unfortunately, it also posed a serious threat to his realistic pretensions. All sorts of internal mechanisms could produce precisely the same movements across the face of a clock. (...) Given God's immense creative capacities, Boyle realized that standard epistemological constraints could never ensure, not even to the least degree of probability, that scientific theories about the unobservable mechanisms of nature were descriptively accurate. Like most moderns, he fortified his epistemology theologically in order to retain his realistic stance. John Locke, however, took counsel from Ecclesiastes to repudiate Boyle's realism, while Samuel Clarke mobilized biblical images to dismiss the clockwork paradigm altogether.A contemporary review of this modern controversy reveals that there is still much to learn from the clock at Strasbourg. Among other things, the realism/antirealism issue is of central importance to understanding today's science, Nancey Murphy's protests notwithstanding. Moreover, the kind of realistic stance that is essential, not only to the truth but to the very intelligibility of certain types of scientific explanation, demands more than the critical realism of Ian Barbour. To be taken seriously, the models used in such contexts must be taken literally. (shrink)

To explain the menstrual cycle and menopause, human biologists during the past several decades have developed new models of the evolutionary origins and maintenance of female reproductive patterns that address both ultimate and proximate causation. Hypotheses proposed for these processes generally offer explanations for menstruation or for menopause, but not for both; ultimately, these explanations must be integrated. Reviewing current explanations, this paper offers an energetics-based evolutionary rationale compatible with past adaptations of Homo sapiens and with ecological patterns in small-scale, (...) preindustrial social systems in which food resources vary and sometimes are scarce. (shrink)

In this work, a neo-classical relativistic mechanics theory is presented where the spin of an electron is an inherent part of its world space-time path as a point particle. The fourth-order equation of motion corresponds to the same covariant Lagrangian function in proper time as in special relativity except for an additional spin energy term. The theory provides a hidden-variable model of the electron where the dynamic variables give a complete description of its motion, giving a classical mechanics explanation of (...) the electron’s spin, its dipole moments, and Schrödinger’s zitterbewegung, These features are also described mathematically by quantum mechanics theory, of course, but without any physical picture of an underlying reality. The total motion of the electron can be decomposed into a sum of a local spin motion about a point and a global motion of this point, called here the spin center. The global motion is sub-luminal and described by Newton’s Second Law in proper time, the time for a clock fixed at the spin center, while the total motion occurs at the speed of light c, consistent with the eigenvalues of Dirac’s velocity operators having magnitude c. The local spin motion is an inherent perpetual motion, which for a free electron is periodic at the ultra-high zitterbewegung frequency and its path is circular in a spin-center reference frame. In an electro-magnetic field, this spin motion generates magnetic and electric dipole energies through the Lorentz force on the electron’s point charge. The electric dipole energy corresponds to the spin-orbit coupling term involving the electric field that appears in the corrected Pauli non-relativistic Hamiltonian, which has long been used to explain the doublet structure of the spectral lines of the excited hydrogen atom. Pauli’s spin-orbit term is usually derived, however, from his magnetic dipole energy term, including also the effect of Thomas precession, which halves this energy. The magnetic dipole energy from Pauli’s and Dirac’s theory is twice that in the neo-classical theory, a discrepancy that has not been resolved. By defining a spin tensor as the angular momentum of the electron’s total motion about its spin center, the fundamental equations of motion can be re-written in an identical form to those of the Barut–Zanghi electron theory. This allows the equations of motion to be expressed in an equivalent form involving operators applied to a state function of proper time satisfying a neo-classical Dirac–Schrödinger spinor equation. This state function produces the dynamic variables from the same operators as in Dirac’s theory for the electron but without any probability implications. It leads to a neo-classical wave function that satisfies Dirac’s relativistic wave equation for the free electron by applying the Lorentz transformation to express proper time in the state function in terms of an observer’s space-time coordinates, showing that there is a close connection between the neo-classical theory and quantum mechanics theory for the electron’s dynamics. (shrink)

The point of departure for all discussions of nonstatistical explanation in the philosophy of science has been the deductive‐nomological or covering law model of explanation that was given its most influential exposition by Carl Hempel, who was also the pioneering figure in the discussion of statistical explanation (see statistical explanation). On this account, to explain a particular event, we cite other particular events together with a general law or laws which "cover" what we want to explain. For example, we might (...) explain why a balloon expanded when placed on a radiator, by citing the fact that the radiator was hot together with the relevant laws relating heat to expansion. (shrink)

On a rational model of science (cf. Lakatos or Laudan), to decide on the appropriate type of explanation of a given scientific change requires a normative assessment made by reference to the model. Showing that a transition fits the model, displays it to be rational and thereby explains it. On the strong programme in the sociology of scientific knowledge (cf. Bloor and Barnes), normative assessment is irrelevant to explanation. All changes require the same type of explanation (the symmetry thesis); namely, (...) a sociological one. The symmetry thesis is false. Scientific change can be explained rationally but without extensive normative assessment using the minimal rationality model (minirät). However, explaining scientific progress as opposed to mere change, requires a maximal rationality model (maxirat) which involves normative assessment. (shrink)

On a rational model of science (cf. Lakatos or Laudan), to decide on the appropriate type of explanation of a given scientific change requires a normative assessment made by reference to the model. Showing that a transition fits the model, displays it to be rational and thereby explains it. On the strong programme in the sociology of scientific knowledge (cf. Bloor and Barnes), normative assessment is irrelevant to explanation. All changes require the same type of explanation (the symmetry thesis); namely, (...) a sociological one. The symmetry thesis is false. Scientific change can be explained rationally but without extensive normative assessment using the minimal rationality model (minirät). However, explaining scientific progress as opposed to mere change, requires a maximal rationality model (maxirat) which involves normative assessment. (shrink)

Bayesian Rationality (Oaksford & Chater 2007) illustrates the strengths of Bayesian models of cognition: the systematicity of rational explanations, transparent assumptions about human learners, and combining structured symbolic representation with statistics. However, the book also highlights some of the challenges this approach faces: of providing psychological mechanisms, explaining the origins of the knowledge that guides human learning, and accounting for how people make genuinely new discoveries.

This Open Access book addresses the epistemological and ontological significance as well as the scope of new mechanism. In particular, this book addresses the issues of what is "new" about new mechanism, the epistemological and ontological reasons underlying the adoption of mechanistic instead of other modelling strategies as well as the possibility of mechanistic explanation to accommodate a non-trivial notion of emergence. Arguably, new mechanism has been particularly successful in making sense of scientific practice in the molecular life sciences. But (...) what about other sciences? This book enlarges the context of analysis, addressing the issue of the putative compatibility between the current ways of conceiving new mechanism and actual scientific practices in quantum physics, chemistry, biochemistry, developmental biology and the cognitive sciences. (shrink)

This paper proposes a model ofratio decidendi as a justification structure consisting of a series of reasoning steps, some of which relate abstract predicates to other abstract predicates and some of which relate abstract predicates to specific facts. This model satisfies an important set of characteristics ofratio decidendi identified from the jurisprudential literature. In particular, the model shows how the theory under which a case is decided controls its precedential effect. By contrast, a purely exemplar-based model ofratio decidendi fails to (...) account for the dependency of precedential effect on the theory of decision. (shrink)

Critics of contemporary metaphysics argue that it attempts to do the hard work of science from the ease of the armchair. Physics, not metaphysics, tells us about the fundamental facts of the world, and empirical psychology is best placed to reveal the content of our concepts about the world. Exploring and understanding the world through metaphysical reflection is obsolete. In this paper, I will show why this critique of metaphysics fails, arguing that metaphysical methods used to make claims about the (...) world are similar to scientific methods used to make claims about the world, but that the subjects of metaphysics are not the subjects of science. Those who argue that metaphysics uses a problematic methodology to make claims about subjects better covered by natural science get the situation exactly the wrong way around: metaphysics has a distinctive subject matter, not a distinctive methodology. The questions metaphysicians address are different from those of scientists, but the methods employed to develop and select theories are similar. In the first section of the paper, I will describe the sort of subject matter that metaphysics tends to engage with. In the second section of the paper, I will show how metaphysical theories are classes of models and discuss the roles of experience, common sense and thought experiments in the construction and evaluation of such models. Finally, in the last section I will discuss the way these methodological points help us to understand the metaphysical project. Getting the right account of the metaphysical method allows us to better understand the relationship between science and metaphysics, to explain why doing metaphysics successfully involves having a range of different theories, to understand the role of thought experiments involving fictional worlds, and to situate metaphysical realism in a scientifically realist context. (shrink)

A representation is a remnant of previous experience that allows that experience to affect later behavior. This paper develops a metatheoretical view of representation and applies it to issues concerning representation in animals. To describe a representational system one must specify the following: thedomainor range of situations in the represented world to which the system applies; thecontentor set of features encoded and preserved by the system; thecodeor transformational rules relating features of the representation to the corresponding features of the represented (...) world; themedium, or the representation's physical instantiation; and thedynamics, or how the system changes with time. In part because of the behaviorist assumption that the hypothetical, covert changes occurring in an organism during learning correspond to the overt physical changes that are observed, issues of representation in animal behavior have been largely ignored as irrelevant or misleading. However, it can be inferred that representations, acting as models of environmental regularities, operate at many levels of behavioral functioning, both cognitive and noncognitive. Objections to the use of this concept in explanations of animal behavior, based on the claim that it is indeterminate and on behaviorist considerations of parsimony, can be answered. Animal representations may be specialized in terms of tasks and species. Data from tasks involving spatial memory, delayed matching-to-sample, and sequence learning suggest some foundations for a general theory of animal representations. (shrink)

A gravitational model is proposed that relates the terrestrially measured value of the gravitational constantG directly to the density and angular velocity of the galaxy. The model indicates a constant scalar value forG within most regions of our galaxy, but predicts thatG will be different in other galaxies and zero in intergalactic space. The model offers explanations for galactic cluster stability, discrepancies in terrestrial measurements ofG, and atomic particle stability. The model also provides a causal relationship between strong, electromagnetic, weak, (...) and gravitational interactions. The two postulates required for the proposed model reduce to two assumptions made in GRT in regions whereG is constant; these postulates are consistent with the existence of a 2.7 K blackbody background radiation. (shrink)

This paper argues that the semantic facts about ‘because’ are best explained via a metaphorical treatment of metaphysical explanation that treats causal explanation as explanation par excellence. Along the way, it defends a commitment to a unified causal sense of ‘because’ and offers a proprietary explanation of grounding skepticism. With the causal metaphor account of metaphysical explanation on the table, an extended discussion of the relationship between conceptual structure and metaphysics ends with a suggestion that the semantic facts about ‘because’ (...) tell against grounding-causation unity. (shrink)

In this essay I defend functional explanations in sociobiology against the charge that they are exercises in speculative story-telling. I distinguish proximate and ultimate biological functions, and discuss their role in functional explanations. I characterize functional explanations as a kind of "consequence explanation", and argue that sociobiologists need to justify a "functional fact" in addition to a "consequence law". Two methods used to supply evidence for functional hypotheses, the technique of optimality analyses and the comparative method, are discussed and illustrated (...) with examples. I argue that adequate evidence for hypothesis about the function of a trait can be provided by the method of comparison, but not by optimality analyses. The comparative method contains an inductive phase that provides independent warrant for, and so serves to establish the high probability of, functional hypotheses. Independent warrant cannot be provided by optimality analyses alone: the model-building approach itself mandates the sacrifice of the truth of a hypothesis to its predictive power. I conclude that while the sociobiologist may wish to employ the optimality analysis as a heuristic strategy, reliable functional explanations are better sought through the use of the comparative method. (shrink)

One problem facing those who attempt to reconcile divine foreknowledge with human freedom is to explain how a temporal God can have knowledge of the future, if the future does not exist. In her recent book, The Dilemma of Freedom and Foreknowledge , Linda Zagzebski attempts to provide an explanation by making use of a fourdimensional model in which the past, present and future exist. In this note I argue that the model Zagzebski offers to support the coplausibility of divine (...) foreknowledge and human freedom is inconsistent with the A-theory of time she propounds. (shrink)

In this book, T. L. Short corrects widespread misconceptions of Peirce's theory of signs and demonstrates its relevance to contemporary analytic philosophy of language, mind and science. Peirce's theory of mind, naturalistic but nonreductive, bears on debates of Fodor and Millikan, among others. His theory of inquiry avoids foundationalism and subjectivism, while his account of reference anticipated views of Kripke and Putnam. Peirce's realism falls between 'internal' and 'metaphysical' realism and is more satisfactory than either. His pragmatism is not verificationism; (...) rather, it identifies meaning with potential growth of knowledge. Short distinguishes Peirce's mature theory of signs from his better-known but paradoxical early theory. He develops the mature theory systematically on the basis of Peirce's phenomenological categories and concept of final causation. The latter is distinguished from recent and similar views, such as Brandon's, and is shown to be grounded in forms of explanation adopted in modern science. (shrink)

Contrary to common belief, acceptance of Newtonian causation does not commit one to a mechanistic, materialistic, or deterministic understanding of the world. I argue that the Newtonian view can be assimilated to contemporary theoretical alternatives in psychology. This means that, given the Newtonian understanding of causation, it is possible for such alternatives to be scientific - to treat of causes - without requiring either mechanism, materialism, or mathematical formalizations. I argue that we best understand Newtonian causation as formal causation. I (...) do this by discussing the history of Newton's theory of causation and comparing his theory to Bacon's. I also compare Newton's theory of causation to Aristotle's, arguing that when we speak of formal causes we speak of our descriptions rather than the nature of things. We may accurately impute various elements of our scientific descriptions to the nature of things, but when we speak of formal causes, we are speaking of the patterns we use to describe the changes we observe rather than the nature of things themselves. Since any science must use such patterns, even alternative psychologies use Newtonian causation - if they are genuinely scientific alternatives. However, mathematics is not the only discipline that offers such patterned explanations. Moral explanations offer an alternate model for causal explanation. (shrink)

Our best philosophical and scientific pictures of the world organize material objects into a hierarchy or levels or layers- microparticles at the bottom, molecules, cells, and persons at higher layers. Are objects at higher layers identical to the sums of objects at lower layers that constitute them? (Note that this question is different from the question of whether composition- as opposed to constitution- is identity.).

Starting from simple topological arguments due to Dirac on the classical rotational properties of extended rigid bodies, we abstract the concept of a finite-size spinor (FSS). The FSS is a concept distinct from both point spinors (e.g., electrons) and composite spinors (e.g., nuclei), and suggests a new model for baryons. The FSS offers a natural explanation of “threeness” for the quarks, excludes the existence of free quarks, denies the operational definition of quark spin statistics, and, moreover, leads to the dual (...) model of hadronic interactions. (shrink)

One problem facing those who attempt to reconcile divine foreknowledge with human freedom is to explain how a temporal God can have knowledge of the future, if the future does not exist. In her recent book, "The Dilemma of Freedom and Foreknowledge," Linda Zagzebski attempts to provide an explanation by making use of a four-dimensional model in which the past, present and future exist. In this note I argue that the model Zagzebski offers to support the coplausibility of divine foreknowledge (...) and human freedom is inconsistent with the A-theory of time she propounds. (shrink)

Berkeley's theory of signification is explicated and analyzed. Signification: (1) replaces abstract general ideas in the recognition of similar ideas, (2) replaces causation as the relation between ideas of sense and their external sources, (3) replaces substance in the account of sensible objects. Its supposedly simple character cannot be maintained. There are at least three different kinds of signification: signification within categories, Signification across categories, And ontological signification. Berkeley's immaterialistic metaphysics, Relying heavily upon the theory of signification, Is fantastic but (...) fascinating. It is important as a part of a continuous epistemological inquiry of almost two centuries. (shrink)

Malebranche argues that ideas are representative beings existing in God. He defends this thesis by an inference to the best explanation of human perception. It is well known that Malebranche’s theory of vision in God was forcefully rejected by philosophers such as Arnauld, Locke, and Berkeley. However, the notion that ideas exist in God was not the only controversial aspect of Malebranche’s approach. Another controversy centered around Malebranche’s view that ideas are to be understood as posits in an explanatory theory. (...) Opponents of this approach, including Arnauld and Locke, held that our talk about ideas was not explanatory but instead merely descriptive: we use the word ‘idea’ to describe phenomena that we observe by reflecting on our own minds. This controversy has not received much attention from scholars, but in the present paper I will show that it was an explicit and important subject of concern for Malebranche, Arnauld, Locke, and Berkeley and that attention to this controversy can illuminate several aspects of these philosophers’ work. (shrink)

In this article, we aim at presenting a thorough and comprehensive explanation of the mathematical and theoretical relation between all the aspects of Ptolemaic planetary models and their counterparts which are built according to Kepler’s first two laws. Our article also analyzes the predictive differences which arise from comparing Ptolemaic and these ideal Keplerian models, making clear distinctions between those differences which must be attributed to the structural variations between the models, and those which are due to the specific parameters (...) Ptolemy determined in the Almagest. We expect that our work will be a contribution for a better understanding not only of the Ptolemaic theories for planetary longitudes through a clearer perception of the way in which Keplerian features are present—or absent—in Ptolemy’s models, but also for a more balanced judgement of different aspects of the contribution of the first two laws of Kepler to the modern astronomical revolution. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss how, given the complexity of biological systems, reliance on theoretical models in the development and testing of biological theories leads to an uncomfortable form of anti-realism. I locate the source of this discomfort in the uniqueness and hence diversity of biological phenomena, in contrast with the simplicity and uniformity of the subject matter of physics. I have argued elsewhere that the use of theoretical models creates an unresolvable tension between the explanatory strength and predictive power (...) of hypotheses, and I review this argument again here. My discussion parallels that of Nancy Cartwright, who claims that the use of ceteris paribus laws in physics creates an antagonism between truth and explanation that requires theoretical models to figure centrally in scientific explanation, thereby precluding realism. I argue instead that in biology it is the use of theoretical models that creates this conflict, and conclude that adequate biological explanation cannot rely on the modeling approach alone. Finally, I claim that if we accept the semantic view of theories, which makes theoretical models an integral part of our conception of theories, we must accept anti-realism as well. (shrink)

Taking a cue from remarks Thomas Kuhn makes in 1990 about the historical turn in philosophy of science, I examine the history of history and philosophy of science within parts of the British philosophical context in the 1950s and early 1960s. During this time, ordinary language philosophy's influence was at its peak. I argue that the ordinary language philosophers' methodological recommendation to analyze actual linguistic practice influences several prominent criticisms of the deductive-nomological model of scientific explanation and that these criticisms (...) relate to the historical turn in philosophy of science. To show these connections, I primarily examine the work of Stephen Toulmin, who taught at Oxford from 1949 to 1954, and Michael Scriven, who completed a dissertation on explanation under Gilbert Ryle and R.B. Braithwaite in 1956. I also consider Mary Hesse's appeal to an ordinary language-influenced account of meaning in her account of the role of models and analogies in scientific reasoning, and W.H. Watson's Wittgensteinian philosophy of science, an early influence on Toulmin. I think there are two upshots to my historical sketch. First, it fills out details of the move away from logical positivism to more historical- and practice-focused philosophies of science. Second, questions about linguistic meaning and the proper targets and aims of philosophical analysis are part and parcel of the historical turn, as well as its reception. Looking at the philosophical background during which so-called linguistic philosophers also had a hand in bringing these questions to prominence helps us understand why. (shrink)

Using data from nonwestern, and chiefly nonliterate, groups but relating his material to utopian, revivalistic, and sectarian movements in western societies, the anthropologist author has analyzed over a dozen cases, having in common a group of people under cultural stress who, finding their lives unsatisfactory, form a new ideal of human integrity and combine to create a new man in a new social order. After identifying the key elements of these millenarian situations, the author defines and relates his terms. He (...) discusses various problematic aspects, such as the role of the prophet and the significance of money. Several kinds of explanation are sketched. In one he lays out a typical millenarian pattern, or sequence of events, and finds himself, having glimpsed a kind of millennium, embarked on the first phase of a millenarian movement. In another scheme, four general types of explanation are examined: the psycho-physiological, the ethnographic, the Marxist, and the Hegelian. Finally, four "primary situations" and twelve "oppositions" are suggested as possible components in a millenarian model, no particular case, of course, requiring the full set. At every point the book invites discussion, clarification, amplification. It is coherent and illuminating but always open-ended, admirably fulfilling its stated purpose of posing problems and stimulating thought, rather than providing answers. The current complex of rebellions is never mentioned, but no one could read it without thinking of those who proclaim new values and who feel that, if only they could smash our present social order, a new and perfect one would arise from the ashes. The book would provide an apt conceptual frame for a study of our troubled times.--L. G. (shrink)

Rival causal and interpretive approaches to explaining social phenomena have important ethical differences. While human actions can be explained as a result of causal mechanisms, as a meaningful choice based on reasons, or as some combination of the two, it is morally important that social scientists respect others by recognizing them as persons. Interpretive explanations directly respect their subjects in this way, while purely causal explanations do not. Yet although causal explanations are not themselves expressions of respect, they can be (...) used in respectful ways if they are incorporated into subjects’ self-directed projects. This can occur when subjects correctly understand and freely adopt researchers’ goals through a process of informed consent. It can also occur when researchers correctly understand and adopt their subject’s goals, using their research to empower those they study. (shrink)

Patients suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases, frequently exhibit expiratory airflow limitation. We propose a mathematical model describing the mechanical behavior of the ventilated respiratory system. This model has to simulate applied positive end-expiratory pressure effects during expiration, a process used by clinicians to improve airflow. The proposed model consists of a nonlinear two-compartment system. One of the compartments represents the collapsible airways and mimics its dynamic compression, the other represents the lung and chest wall compartment. For all clinical conditions (...) tested, the mathematical model simulates the removal of expiratory airflow limitation at PEEP lower than 70–80% of intrinsic end-expiratory pressure, i.e. the end-expiratory alveolar pressure without PEEP. It also shows the presence of an optimal PEEP. The optimal PEEP contributes to decrease PAet from 7.4 ± 0.9 to 5.4 ± 0.9 hPa. This simplistic mathematical model gives a plausible explanation of the expiratory airflow limitation removal with PEEP and a rationale to the practice of PEEP application to airflow limited patients. (shrink)

Made famous by Ernst Mayr (1961), the distinction between proximate and ultimate causation in biological explanation is widely seen as a key tenet of evolutionary theory and a central organizing principle for evolutionary research. The study of immediate, individual-level mechanistic causes of development or physiology (“proximate causation”) is distinguished from the study of historical, population-level statistical causes in evolutionary biology (“ultimate causation”). Since evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) is a field that explicitly uses so-called “proximate” sciences such as developmental biology, morphology, (...) and embryology in the study of evolution, it challenges the standard construal of the proximate-ultimate distinction and its associated account of causation. The exact nature of the challenge and its ramifications for the viability of the distinction more broadly are contested, but these conceptual questions are central to the status and significance of evo-devo in contemporary evolutionary biology. (shrink)

This essay explores the nature and neurological basis of creativity in technical production. After presenting a model of expert technical cognition based in cognitive anthropology and cognitive psychology, the authors propose that craft production has three inherent sources of novelty — procedural drift, serendipitous error and fiddling. However, these are quite limited in their creative potential, which may help explain the virtual absence of innovation over the long millennia of the Palaeolithic. Innovation can be far more rapid and effective via (...) invention, which requires folk theories of causation and adequate working memory capacity, all fairly recent evolutionary developments. The neurological basis of expert technical cognition lies in well-known cortical and sub-cortical structures, but recent research has established a provocative role for the cerebellum in the formulation of novel arrangements. (shrink)

Languages are transmitted from person to person and generation to generation via a process of iterated learning: people learn a language from other people who once learned that language themselves. We analyze the consequences of iterated learning for learning algorithms based on the principles of Bayesian inference, assuming that learners compute a posterior distribution over languages by combining a prior (representing their inductive biases) with the evidence provided by linguistic data. We show that when learners sample languages from this posterior (...) distribution, iterated learning converges to a distribution over languages that is determined entirely by the prior. Under these conditions, iterated learning is a form of Gibbs sampling, a widely-used Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm. The consequences of iterated learning are more complicated when learners choose the language with maximum posterior probability, being affected by both the prior of the learners and the amount of information transmitted between generations. We show that in this case, iterated learning corresponds to another statistical inference algorithm, a variant of the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm. These results clarify the role of iterated learning in explanations of linguistic universals and provide a formal connection between constraints on language acquisition and the languages that come to be spoken, suggesting that information transmitted via iterated learning will ultimately come to mirror the minds of the learners. (shrink)

Abstract: Hilary Putnam has reformulated his model-theoretic argument as an argument against indirect realism in the philosophy of perception. This new argument is reviewed and defended. Putnam’s new focus on philosophical theories of perception (instead of metaphysical realism) makes better sense of his previous responses to the objection from the causal theory of reference. It is argued that the model-theoretic argument can also be construed as an argument that holders of a causal theory of reference should adopt direct realism in (...) the philosophy of perception. (shrink)

Among the many philosophers who hold that causal facts1 are to be explained in terms of—or more ambitiously, shown to reduce to—facts about what happens, together with facts about the fundamental laws that govern what happens, the clear favorite is an approach that sees counterfactual dependence as the key to such explanation or reduction. The paradigm examples of causation, so advocates of this approach tell us, are examples in which events c and e— the cause and its effect— both occur, (...) but: had c not occurred, e would not have occurred either. From this starting point ideas proliferate in a vast profusion. But the remarkable disparity among these ideas should not obscure their common foundation. Neither should the diversity of opinion about the prospects for a philosophical analysis of causation obscure their importance. For even those philosophers who see these prospects as dim—perhaps because they suffer post-Quinean queasiness at the thought of any analysis of any concept of interest—can often be heard to say such things as that causal relations among events are somehow “a matter of” the patterns of counterfactual dependence to be found in them. (shrink)

We explore the developmental paradox of false belief understanding. This paradox follows from the claim that young infants already have an understanding of false belief, despite the fact that they consistently fail the elicited-response false belief task. First, we argue that recent proposals to solve this paradox are unsatisfactory because they (i) try to give a full explanation of false belief understanding in terms of a single system, (ii) fail to provide psychological concepts that are sufficiently fine-grained to capture the (...) cognitive requirements for the various manifestations of false belief understanding, and (iii) ignore questions about system interaction. Second, we present a dual-system solution to the developmental paradox of false belief understanding that combines a layered model of perspective taking with an inhibition-selection-representation mechanism that operates on different levels. We discuss recent experimental findings that shed light on the interaction between these two systems, and suggest a number of directions for future research. (shrink)

We introduce a quantum state representation of the information being processed in neuronal structures. The movement of information from one such structure to a second is characterized as a measurement of the first structure by the second. The value of such a measurement is an observable property of matter. The associated collapsed quantum state, a dual encoding of that measurement, is a non-observable property of matter. The quantum measurement collapse process itself is shown to be a form of experience of (...) the measurement process in terms of which a model and explanation of consciousness is formulated. Using model neurons we show how neuronal information processing effects may be given a quantum characterization. The techniques developed are employed to frame a model of qualia. (shrink)

Background -/- Ontology Design Patterns (ODPs) are representational artifacts devised to offer solutions for recurring ontology design problems. They promise to enhance the ontology building process in terms of flexibility, re-usability and expansion, and to make the result of ontology engineering more predictable. In this paper, we analyze ODP repositories and investigate their relation with upper-level ontologies. In particular, we compare the BioTop upper ontology to the Action ODP from the NeOn an ODP repository. In view of the differences in (...) the respective approaches, we investigate whether the Action ODP can be embedded into BioTop. We demonstrate that this requires re-interpreting the meaning of classes of the NeOn Action ODP in the light of the precepts of realist ontologies. -/- Results -/- As a result, the re-design required clarifying the ontological commitment of the ODP classes by assigning them to top-level categories. Thus, ambiguous definitions are avoided. Classes of real entities are clearly distinguished from classes of information artifacts. The proposed approach avoids the commitment to the existence of unclear future entities which underlies the NeOn Action ODP. Our re-design is parsimonious in the sense that existing BioTop content proved to be largely sufficient to define the different types of actions and plans. -/- Conclusions -/- The proposed model demonstrates that an expressive upper-level ontology provides enough resources and expressivity to represent even complex ODPs, here shown with the different flavors of Action as proposed in the NeOn ODP. The advantage of ODP inclusion into a top-level ontology is the given predetermined dependency of each class, an existing backbone structure and well-defined relations. Our comparison shows that the use of some ODPs is more likely to cause problems for ontology developers, rather than to guide them. Besides the structural properties, the explanation of classification results were particularly hard to grasp for 'self-sufficient' ODPs as compared with implemented and 'embedded' upper-level structures which, for example in the case of BioTop, offer a detailed description of classes and relations in an axiomatic network. This ensures unambiguous interpretation and provides more concise constraints to leverage on in the ontology engineering process. (shrink)