Very few scientists today question the fact that information, together with matter and energy, is one of the three constructs forming the ontology of the universe. However, there is still a long way to go before in order to establish the interrelations between information and energy and information and matter, as Einstein did between matter and energy. In this paper, after introducing the energy, matter, information model, which covers the three constructs and their relationships, we illustrate real examples—two qualitative and (...) two quantitative—of the interrelations between energy and information. This closes the open question with respect to the interrelationship between energy and information. (shrink)

Low‐energy, pulsed electromagnetic fields (PEMFs) have reversed therapeutically resistant pathologic processes in the musculo‐skeletal system. Their development as a non‐thermal therapeutic agent is based on 30 years of study of the electro‐biological properties of connective tissues. Specific energy characteristics in applied PEMFs produce selected biological effects by modifying synthetic and other behavioral patterns of target cells; some mechanisms of action are defined. The technology appears safe and effective in clinical treatment of un‐united fractures, avascular necrosis of bone, and chronic, refractory (...) tendinitis. An expanding, rational use in biomedical science is predicted. (shrink)

This entry examines a set of ancient Chinese texts – with their associated literary and ideological tendencies – that had come to be seen as distinctive by the early Han period. This set constitutes one of the standard referents of “Daoism,” a word whose difficulties command attention in their own right. The ancient writers we could label “Daoists” were united by no single text, founder, agenda, or concept; grouped together, they show tendencies towards dissidence, paradox, and humor that distinguish them (...) from moralistic and technocratic rivals. These writers engaged a variety of themes and practices familiar from the early Chinese religious environment; alongside the eccentricities of Daoist writers themselves, the distinctiveness of this environment makes it challenging to put them in philosophical dialogue with other religious traditions. Buddhist uses of the Daoist heritage illustrate its potential relevance to a range of other religious perspectives. (shrink)

Outlines many different types of human understanding, and shows how scientific explanations enable us to understand the universe in which we live. It reflects on the great increases in scientific understanding during the past century, and exhibits the value of such understanding as we move into the twenty‐first century. The author recognizes the serious issues concerning values that face humanity at this time, and does not believe that science alone can solve these problems. He argues nevertheless that increased scientific understanding (...) can furnish the information we all need to formulate a responsible social policy. (shrink)

Political polarisation in the United States offers opportunities to explore how beliefs about candidates – that they could save or destroy American society – impact people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviour. Participants forecast their future emotional responses to the contentious 2020 U.S. presidential election, and reported their actual responses after the election outcome. Stronger beliefs about candidates were associated with forecasts of greater emotion in response to the election, but the strength of this relationship differed based on candidate preference. Trump supporters’ (...) forecast happiness more strongly related to beliefs that their candidate would save society than for Biden supporters. Biden supporters’ forecast anger and fear were more strongly related to beliefs that Trump would destroy society than vice versa. These forecasts mattered: predictions of lower happiness and greater anger if the non-preferred candidate won predicted voting, with Biden supporters voting more than Trump supporters. Generally, participants forecast more emotion than they experienced, but beliefs altered this tendency. Stronger beliefs predicted experiencing more happiness or more anger and fear about the election outcome than had been forecast. These findings have implications for understanding the mechanisms through which political polarisation and rhetoric can influence voting behaviour. (shrink)

Ethics support staff help others to deal with moral challenges. However, they themselves can also experience moral challenges such as issues regarding (breaching) confidentiality when practicing ethics support. Currently there is no insight in these confidentiality issues and also no professional guidance for dealing with them. To gain insight into moral challenges related to Moral Case Deliberation (MCD), we studied a) beliefs and experiences of MCD facilitators regarding breaching confidentiality, b) considerations for (not) breaching confidentiality, and c) needs for an (...) ethics support tool. Data collection consisted of qualitative research methods: six semi-structured interviews; analyses of a) two recorded MCD sessions, and b) a focus group with MCD facilitators. Findings: MCD facilitators mention different conceptions and interpretations of confidentiality and various moral challenges. Questions concerning confidentiality ultimately cause reflections on roles and responsibilities of facilitators. Needs for ethics support vary from seeking advice to procedural and sometimes normative guidance for MCD facilitators. Education for MCD facilitators should focus on developing a concrete tool that stimulates awareness and reflection(skills). (shrink)

C. S. Lewis sets out to disentangle this knotty issue but wisely adds that in the end no intellectual solution can dispense with the necessity for patience and ...

Aristotle is essentially human; that is, for all possible worlds metaphysically consistent with our own, if Aristotle exists, then he is human. This is a claim about the essential property of an object. The claim that objects have essential properties has been hotly disputed, but for present purposes, we can bracket that issue. In this essay, we are interested, rather, in the question of whether properties themselves have essential properties (or features) for their existence. We call those who suppose they (...) do “property essentialists”; those who do not, “property anti-essentialists,” or “quidditists.” We offer two complementary arguments. Our total argument is under-girded by two assumptions: transworld identity theory and “received view” counterfactual semantics, a la David Lewis. We then argue that, if one presumes that these are true, then one risks running headlong into paradox if one also accepts property anti-essentialism. That's the first argument. By contrast, if one accepts these same assumptions in conjunction with property essentialism, then the paradox is avoided. This is the second argument. We take it that our arguments work to show that, between property essentialism and quidditism, the property essentialist is on better footing. Plausibly, properties themselves do have essential properties for their existence. (shrink)

This paper explores the conception of self proposed by Thomas Nagel. It is argued that more must be said to clarify the place of a subjective point of view in the objective world than is said by semantic diagnosis. The paper discusses the semantic diagnosis and Nagel’s reasons for finding it unsatisfactory. A metaphysical solution to the problem is presented and the place of subjective point of view in an objective world is explained. It is then analyses whether the austere (...) view of contextual or subjective information can account for information about the qualitative character of experience. (shrink)

Explanatory power is a complex theoretical virtue, not reducible to empirical strength or adequacy, which includes other virtues as its own preconditions. Since this virtue provides one of the main criteria by which theories are evaluated, it presents thus a challenge to any empiricist account of science. After a critical account of attempted explications of the concept of scientific explanation, this chapter offers a pragmatic account that identifies explanations with answers to why‐questions. Since such questions are set by the questioner, (...) and have their family of relevant direct answers determined by the presuppositions, values, and interests involved in the questioning, that makes explanation relative to contextual factors. On this understanding, evaluations of scientific explanation cannot play the role required for their use in support of scientific realism––and, incidentally, the large array of standard puzzles in the literature on this subject are solved. (shrink)

Some environmental ethicists and economists argue that attributing infinite value to the environment is a good way to represent an absolute obligation to protect it. Others argue against modelling the value of the environment in this way: the assignment of infinite value leads to immense technical and philosophical difficulties that undermine the environmentalist project. First, there is a problem of discrimination: saving a large region of habitat is better than saving a small region; yet if both outcomes have infinite value, (...) then decision theory prescribes indifference. Second, there is a problem of swamping probabilities: an act with a small but positive probability of saving an endangered species appears to be on par with an act that has a high probability of achieving this outcome, since both have infinite expected value. Our paper shows that a relative concept of infinite value can be meaningfully defined, and provides a good model for securing the priority of the natural environment while avoiding the failures noted by sceptics about infinite value. Our claim is not that the relative infinity utility model gets every detail correct, but rather that it provides a rigorous philosophical framework for thinking about decisions affecting the environment. (shrink)

This chapter defines "epistemology," introduces the key epistemological questions, and briefly outlines how the field has evolved over time. It serves as the introduction to the edited collection, Introduction to Philosophy: Epistemology (a volume in the Introduction to Philosophy open textbook series edited by Christina Hendricks).

Offers a novel approach, in terms of causal processes and causal interactions, to the fundamental philosophical problems raised by David Hume in the eighteenth century. His classic critique initiated a lively philosophical controversy that continues today. The author shows how twentieth‐century science, especially quantum mechanics with its challenges to determinism, has opened a new way to attack Hume's problems.

The unification tradition embraces the idea that scientific explanation consists in showing that apparently disparate phenomena can be seen to be fundamentally similar. Michael Friedman and Philip Kitcher, who accept different versions of this tradition, are contemporary proponents of the view. The causal tradition, advanced by Michael Scriven, and embraced in a modified version by the author, says – roughly and briefly – that to explain an event is to identify its cause. This chapter explores the possibility of rapprochement between (...) these two dominant traditions regarding scientific explanation that have generally been seen as mutually incompatible. It shows how progress in the development of both approaches has eradicated many – perhaps all – of the grounds for conflict between them. (shrink)

The ontic conception sees a scientific explanation as an exhibition of the ways in which what is to be explained fits into natural patterns or regularities in the world. The classic form of the epistemic conception takes scientific explanations to be arguments; and the modal conception says that a good explanation shows that what did happen had to happen. This chapter originally appeared just prior to the publication of Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World. It contains a (...) highly condensed summary of some of the main discussions, including that of criteria of adequacy, in that book. Whereas Ch. 18 focuses on causal considerations, this chapter focuses on the concept of explanation. (shrink)

What ethically justifies the provision of invasive and irreversible treatments to minors? In this commentary, I examine this question in response to Moti Gorin's article “What Is the Aim of Pediatric ‘Gender‐Affirming’ Care?,” which critiques autonomy‐based arguments for justification of gender‐affirming care in minors. Minors generally lack sufficient autonomy to make significant medical decisions or major life decisions. For this reason, parents are generally their decision‐makers, working with medical professionals to choose treatments that serve the best interests of the minor. (...) Medical care in minors is justified by beneficence, not autonomy, and this should be no different for gender‐affirming care. This severely undermines autonomy‐based arguments for provision of gender‐affirming care to minors. Given the lack of conclusive evidence for benefit, the nature of the treatment, and the fact that gender dysphoria in minors resolves spontaneously in most cases, there is presently insufficient justification for provision of such care to minors. (shrink)

In this paper, we outline a theory of the nature of self-directed agents. What is distinctive about self-directed agents is their ability to anticipate interaction processes and to evaluate their performance, and thus their sensitivity to context. They can improve performance relative to goals, and can, in certain instances, construct new goals. We contrast self-directedness with reactive action processes that are not modifiable by the agent, though they may be modified by supra-agent processes such as populational adaptation or external design.Self-directedness (...) lies at the nexus of issues concerning the evolution and nature of intentionality, intelligence, and agency. It provides some insight into the evolution of intelligence because it helps explain how organisms are able to manage variable interaction processes, e.g., a hunting strategy that varies with prey type, ground condition, and hunger level. Simple self-directed organisms like bumblebees manage variability in one or a few dimensions. (shrink)

Scientific theories do much more than answer empirical questions. This can be understood along empiricist lines only if those other aspects are instrumental for the pursuit of empirical strength and adequacy, or serving other aims subordinate to these. This chapter accordingly addresses four main questions: Does the rejection of realism lead to a self‐defeating scepticism? Are scientific methodology and experimental design intelligible on any but a realist interpretation of science? Is the ideal of the unity of science, or even the (...) practice of using distinct theories in conjunction, intelligent on an empiricist view? What sense can an empiricist position accord to those theoretical virtues––such as simplicity, coherence, explanatory power––that are not reducible to empirical strength or adequacy? The answers to these questions rely strongly on the pragmatics of scientific inquiry, and advocate a ‘Clausewitz doctrine’ of experimentation as a continuation of theorizing by other means. (shrink)

This chapter parodies Aquinas’ Five Ways to prove the existence of God by displaying similar arguments reminiscent of those often given in support of scientific realism. This is followed by a parody of scientific realists’ attempts to defend themselves against objections to such arguments.

The opposition between empiricism and realism with respect to science is old: it appeared clearly in the seventeenth century sense of superiority of the ‘mechanical philosophy’ to Scholastic metaphysics, and continued for the next three centuries’ debates over the philosophical foundations of physics. Empiricist views developed by the logical positivists of Vienna and Berlin were defeated by the emergence of scientific realism in the mid‐twentieth century. This defeat was largely due to the inadequacy of the positivist theories of meaning and (...) language. To present a viable empiricist account of science, we need conceptions of theory structure, truth, and empirical adequacy that are essentially independent of a theory's linguistic formulation. Correlative to this discussion of the relationship between theory and world is the question what it is to accept a scientific theory––how much belief is involved? And what is involved other than belief? The position to be developed here will view scientific activity as one of construction rather than discovery: construction of models that must be adequate to the observable phenomena, and not discovery of the truth about postulated unobservable parts of nature. Acceptance of a scientific theory so viewed will have an irreducible pragmatic dimension in addition to involving only a modest amount of belief. (shrink)

The Aristotelian tradition in science, dominant before the advent of modern science, saw real modalities in nature: necessity, possibility, contingency, potentiality, and essence. Throughout the modern period and the early twentieth century, empiricists struggled to maintain that there was nothing to be found between matters of actual fact on the one hand and relations between ideas or words on the other. Probability has the logical form of a modality, but until the twentieth century, it could be construed as a measure (...) of ignorance, or of actual proportions and frequencies, not a basic parameter in nature itself. That changed with the advent of quantum mechanics and the admission of indeterminism as a theoretical possibility. The legitimacy of irreducible probabilities was admitted in the modelling of natural processes. The challenge to the empiricist now is to interpret probability as it appears there, and this includes the larger challenge of displaying an empiricistically acceptable role for modalities in general in the scientific image. This chapter provides a systematic critique of frequentist and propensity interpretations of physical probability, but also characterizes the models of probability theory as constructible from families of sequences constrained by limiting frequencies. This formal agreement with a certain kind of ’ideal frequency’ account is embedded in a philosophical view of modalities in general that turns on an account of the language of science on the level of pragmatics. (shrink)

What is the empirical content of a theory? If a theory is identified with one of its linguistic formulations, the only available answers allow for no non‐trivial distinction between empirical and non‐empirical content. The restriction of such a formulated theory to a narrow ‘observational’ vocabulary is not a description of the observable part of the world but a hobbled and hamstrung description of its entire domain, still with non‐empirical implications. Viewing a theory as identified through the family of its models––the (...) structures it makes available for modelling the phenomena––yields a new approach. The distinctions so made are illustrated with Newton's physics, absolute versus relative motion, nineteenth‐ century ether theory of electromagnetism, and quantum mechanics. A hermeneutic circle in the interpretation is noted, and the theory‐independence of the observable/unobservable distinction maintained. (shrink)

This innovative text is psychologically informed, both in its diagnosis of inferential errors, and in teaching students how to watch out for and work around their natural intellectual blind spots. It also incorporates insights from epistemology and philosophy of science that are indispensable for learning how to evaluate premises. The result is a hands-on primer for real world critical thinking. The authors bring a fresh approach to the traditional challenges of a critical thinking course: effectively explaining the nature of validity, (...) assessing deductive arguments, reconstructing, identifying and diagramming arguments, and causal and probabilistic inference. Additionally, they discuss in detail, important, frequently neglected topics, including testimony, including the evaluation of news and other information sources, the nature and credibility of science, rhetoric, and dialectical argumentation. The treatment of probability uses frequency trees and a frequency approach more generally, and argument reconstruction is taught using argument maps; these methods have been shown to improve students’ reasoning and argument evaluation. (shrink)

Coauthored by Philip Kitcher, deals critically with the view – whose most influential proponent is Bas van Fraassen – that the traditional problems of scientific explanation can be resolved by means of pragmatic considerations alone. This approach, elaborated in 1980 in The Scientific Image, has found much favor among philosophers of science. As this chapter reveals, however, the traditional problems do not disappear when the resources of pragmatics are brought to bear. The authors show that if van Fraassen introduces constraints (...) that allow him to avoid the “anything goes” theory of explanation, then he must face what he would regard as the unacceptable supposition that there is an objective virtue of theories distinct from their saving of the phenomena. (shrink)

Examines the role played by the Aristotelian logic in Neoplatonic philosophers. To start with, it is remarked that Aristotelian Organon was regarded not only as a corpus of logical texts but also as an introduction to philosophy. Focuses on several Neoplatonic Aristotelian commentators, from Alexander of Aphrodisias to Byzantine thinkers, presenting both the characteristics of their works and their lack of interest in discussing their own philosophical view. Finally, it is observed that, although not original, these commentaries provide a rather (...) reliable and correct investigation of Aristotle. (shrink)

In contrast with the different views of some recent scholars, Ch. 7 constitutes an important attempt to point out the importance played by non‐discursive thought in Plotinus and Proclus in several ways. Firstly, the differences between the doctrines of Plotinus and Proclus are investigated. Secondly, it is considered the role of the ‘Loving Intellect’ in both Plotinus’ and Proclus’ philosophy. Thirdly, it is indicated how the One plays a crucial role in the mystical experience and how this kind of experience (...) may be an evidence of the activity of the One. Finally, it is shown how some problems and difficulties of Plotinus’ philosophy may be explained through reference to the mystical experience. (shrink)