The call for papers for this conference claims that 'the founders of modern philosophy of science, including Sir Karl Popper… saw it as part of their role to explain the authority of science’. It continues by declaring that 'A key motive for Popper's "demarcation criterion" distinguishing science from "pseudo-science" was to restrict the authority of science to disciplines which used the scientific method.' However, a closer look at Popper’s writing shows that this widespread view is incorrect. In fact, Popper declares (...) in the postscript to the Logic of Scientific Discovery: [I]t is all guesswork, doxa rather than epistēmē… Science has no authority… It represents… our hope of emancipating ourselves from ignorance and narrow-mindedness, from fear and superstition. And this includes… the superstitious belief in the authority of science itself. After briefly defending my contention, with reference to the work of Bartley and some of Popper's statements elsewhere, I will argue that Popper is better understood as attempting to demarcate inquiry from non-inquiry. I also hope to show that this humbler goal is worthwhile, especially when it comes to resisting calls to teach so-called ‘creation science’ in schools. Unfortunately, Popper has become associated with the relatively simplistic view that falsifiability is a demarcation criterion. But Popper recognized, even in the first edition of Logic of Scientific Discovery, that falsifiability alone does not suffice. He was cognisant of the problem posed by Duhem's thesis, and therefore stated: A system such as classical mechanics may be ‘scientific’ to any degree you like; but those who uphold it dogmatically—believing, perhaps, that it is their business to defend such a successful system against criticism as long as it is not conclusively disproved—are adopting the very reverse of that critical attitude which in my view is the proper one for the scientist. This would appear to be why Popper wrote of 'the non-existence of scientific method' above and beyond 'the one method of all rational discussion, and therefore of the natural sciences as well as of philosophy… stating one's problem clearly and examining its various proposed solutions critically'. In short, the critical approach is a crucial part of the demarcation puzzle. In the remainder of the talk, I will develop this solution to the demarcation problem in response to several possible criticisms. Chief among these is that 'creation scientists' do inquire but only with narrow scope. To address this criticism, I will draw on some of my recent work on the roles of criticism and dogmatism in science ; and in particular, I will consider if looking at matters from the group level can help. (shrink)

In his review of Phillip Grier’s anthology, Dialectic and Contemporary Science, Darrel Christensen expresses his regret that I “did not find occasion… to give more attention… to the sorts of well-informed and pointed criticism that E. McMullin raised.. in ‘Is the Progress of Science Dialectical?’” In that book it would hardly have been possible or appropriate, for me to have done so, because I did not write it, and although the editor invited me to respond to the authors who contributed, (...) Ernan McMullin was not one of them. The paper to which Christensen refers was presented to the first meeting of the Hegel Society of America in 1970, at which I was present; but after so long an interval of time I cannot now remember if or how, I responded to it. So far as my recollection serves, my own paper, although distributed to those attending the meeting, was not read and was not fully discussed. So there may well be some need for taking up Christensen’s challenge, even at this late hour. (shrink)

Stanford’s argument against scientific realism focuses on theories, just as many earlier arguments from inconceivability have. However, there are possible arguments against scientific realism involving unconceived (or inconceivable) entities of different types: observations, models, predictions, explanations, methods, instruments, experiments, and values. This paper charts such arguments. In combination, they present the strongest challenge yet to scientific realism.

Increasing global economic integration and recent military interventions in the name of human rights have forced questions of global justice into political discussions. Is the unequal distribution of wealth across the globe just? What's wrong with imperialism? Are the most indebted countries obligated to pay back their loans to international financ.

Modeling user behaviors as sequential learning provides key advantages in predicting future user actions, such as predicting the next product to purchase or the next song to listen to, for the purpose of personalized search and recommendation. Traditional methods for modeling sequential user behaviors usually depend on the premise of Markov processes, while recently recurrent neural networks have been adopted to leverage their power in modeling sequences. In this paper, we propose integrating attention mechanism into RNNs for better modeling sequential (...) user behaviors. Specifically, we design a network featuring Attention with Long-term Interval-based Gated Recurrent Units to model temporal sequences of user actions. Compared to previous works, our network can exploit the information of temporal dimension extracted by time interval-based GRU in addition to normal GRU to encoding user actions and has a specially designed matrix-form attention function to characterize both long-term preferences and short-term intents of users, while the attention-weighted features are finally decoded to predict the next user action. We have performed experiments on two well-known public datasets as well as a huge dataset built from real-world data of one of the largest online shopping websites. Experimental results show that the proposed ALI-GRU achieves significant improvement compared to state-of-the-art RNN-based methods. ALI-GRU is also adopted in a real-world application and results of the online A/B test further demonstrate its practical value. (shrink)

This book examines the threat that climate change poses to the projects of poverty eradication, sustainable development, and biodiversity preservation. It offers a careful discussion of the values that support these projects and a critical evaluation of the normative bases of climate change policy. This book regards climate change policy as a public problem that normative philosophy can shed light on. It assumes that the development of policy should be based on values regarding what is important to respect, preserve, and (...) protect. What sort of climate change policy do we owe the poor of the world who are particularly vulnerable to climate change? Why should our generation take on the burden of mitigating climate change that is caused, in no small part, by emissions from people now dead? What value is lost when natural species go extinct, as they may well do en masse because of climate change? This book presents a broad and inclusive discussion of climate change policy, relevant to those with interests in public policy, development studies, environmental studies, political theory, and moral and political philosophy. (shrink)

This paper compares and contrasts the concept of a stance with that of a paradigm qua disciplinary matrix, in an attempt to illuminate both notions. First, it considers to what extent it is appropriate to draw an analogy between stances and disciplinary matrices. It suggests that despite first appearances, a disciplinary matrix is not simply a stance writ large. Second, it examines how we might reinterpret disciplinary matrices in terms of stances, and shows how doing so can provide us with (...) a better insight into non-revolutionary science. Finally, it identifies two directions for future research: “Can the rationality of scientific revolutions be understood in terms of the dynamic between stances and paradigms?” and “Do stances help us to understand incommensurability between disciplinary matrices?”. (shrink)

We have three goals in this paper. First, we outline an ontology of stance, and explain the role that modes of engagement and styles of reasoning play in the characterization of a stance. Second, we argue that we do enjoy a degree of control over the modes of engagement and styles of reasoning we adopt. Third, we contend that maximizing one’s prospects for change also maximizes one’s rationality.

Global ethics focuses on the most pressing contemporary ethical issues - poverty, global trade, terrorism, torture, pollution, climate change and the management of scarce recourses. It draws on moral and political philosophy, political and social science, empirical research, and real-world policy and activism. The Routledge Handbook of Global Ethics is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, problems and debates in this exciting subject, presenting an authoritative overview of the most significant issues and ideas in global ethics. The 31 (...) chapters by a team of international contributors are structured into six key parts: normative theory conflict and violence poverty and development economic justice bioethics and health justice environment and climate ethics. Covering the theoretical and practical aspects of global ethics as well as policy, The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Global Ethics provides a benchmark for the study of global ethics to date, as well as outlining future developments. It will prove an invaluable reference for policy-makers, and is essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy, international relations, political science, environmental and development studies and human rights law. (shrink)

Global ethics focuses on the most pressing contemporary ethical issues - poverty, global trade, terrorism, torture, pollution, climate change and the management of scarce recourses. It draws on moral and political philosophy, political and social science, empirical research, and real world policy and activism. The Handbook of Global Ethics brings together leading international scholars to present concise and authoritative overviews of the most significant issues and ideas in global ethics. The essays are structured into six key topics: normative theory; conflict (...) and violence; poverty and development; economic justice; bioethics and health; environment and climate ethics. Covering the theoretical and practical aspects of global ethics as well as policy, the Handbook provides a benchmark for the study of global ethics to date, as well as outlining future developments. It will prove an invaluable reference for policy-makers and for students and scholars in philosophy, international relations, political science, environmental and development studies and human rights law. (shrink)

Confronts the Janus-faced myth of technology as both the object of dread and the source of hope, which leads both to the demonic final solution and to the merciful, healing sacrifice.

Roughly, instrumentalism is the view that science is primarily, and should primarily be, an instrument for furthering our practical ends. It has fallen out of favour because historically influential variants of the view, such as logical positivism, suffered from serious defects. -/- In this book, however, Darrell P. Rowbottom develops a new form of instrumentalism, which is more sophisticated and resilient than its predecessors. This position—‘cognitive instrumentalism’—involves three core theses. First, science makes theoretical progress primarily when it furnishes us (...) with more predictive power or understanding concerning observable things. Second, scientific discourse concerning unobservable things should only be taken literally in so far as it involves observable properties or analogies with observable things. Third, scientific claims about unobservable things are probably neither approximately true nor liable to change in such a way as to increase in truthlikeness. -/- There are examples from science throughout the book, and Rowbottom demonstrates at length how cognitive instrumentalism fits with the development of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century chemistry and physics, and especially atomic theory. Drawing upon this history, Rowbottom also argues that there is a kind of understanding, empirical understanding, which we can achieve without having true, or even approximately true, representations of unobservable things. In closing the book, he sets forth his view on how the distinction between the observable and unobservable may be drawn, and compares cognitive instrumentalism with key contemporary alternatives such as structural realism, constructive empiricism, and semirealism. -/- Overall, this book offers a strong defence of instrumentalism that will be of interest to scholars and students working on the debate about realism in philosophy of science. (shrink)

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.

In this paper I argue that hope is best understood as a compound psychological state. When we take hope according to the details of this account, we are in a good position to understand why it is a political virtue of persons. I also argue that securing the institutional bases of hope is a virtue of state institutions, particularly in states in transition from severe injustice. And, finally, when the bases are secure, a person who fails to hope for the (...) political future is in that regard prima facie blameworthy. (shrink)

Nell’ambito della filosofia della scienza, il dibattito tra realismo scientifico e antirealismo scientifico ricopre un ruolo di straordinaria importanza. In questo ambito, le posizioni filosofiche elaborate non sono poche. The Instrument of Science di Darrell P. Rowbottom presenta e difende una nuova variante della celebre posizione nota come strumentalismo, di chiaro orientamento antirealista. Questa nuova proposta viene denominata strumentalismo cognitivo (cognitive instrumentalism). Nello specifico, gli obbiettivi dell’autore sono due: definire in modo preciso lo strumentalismo cognitivo, chiarendone le tesi costituenti, (...) e mostrare che questa visione è almeno tanto plausibile quanto lo sono le più accreditate teorie realiste della scienza. (shrink)

Anthropogenic climate change is a global process affecting the lives and well-being of millions of people now and countless number of people in the future. For humans, the consequences may include significant threats to food security globally and regionally, increased risks of from food-borne and water-borne as well as vector-borne diseases, increased displacement of people due migrations, increased risks of violent conflicts, slowed economic growth and poverty eradication, and the creation of new poverty traps. Principles of justice are statements of (...) what persons are owed either by others or by institutions and policies. Climate change gives rise to many concern of justice. This article briefly summarizes some of the most important of these, including claims to have climate change mitigated, claims regarding the sharing of the costs of climate change mitigation, claims for investment into adaptation, and claims to be compensated. (shrink)

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.”.

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.

Presents a methodological basis for a philosophy of concrete actuality. Also breaks new ground in its mediation between two varied traditions of speculative philosophy.

When a doctor tells you there’s a one percent chance that an operation will result in your death, or a scientist claims that his theory is probably true, what exactly does that mean? Understanding probability is clearly very important, if we are to make good theoretical and practical choices. In this engaging and highly accessible introduction to the philosophy of probability, Darrell Rowbottom takes the reader on a journey through all the major interpretations of probability, with reference to real–world (...) situations. In lucid prose, he explores the many fallacies of probabilistic reasoning, such as the ‘gambler’s fallacy’ and the ‘inverse fallacy’, and shows how we can avoid falling into these traps by using the interpretations presented. He also illustrates the relevance of the interpretation of probability across disciplinary boundaries, by examining which interpretations of probability are appropriate in diverse areas such as quantum mechanics, game theory, and genetics. Using entertaining dialogues to draw out the key issues at stake, this unique book will appeal to students and scholars across philosophy, the social sciences, and the natural sciences. (shrink)

I answer Alvin Plantinga's challenge to provide a ‘proper’ de jure objection to religious belief. What I call the ‘sophisticates’ evidential objection' concludes that sophisticated Christians lack epistemic justification for believing central Christian propositions. The SEO utilizes a theory of epistemic justification in the spirit of the evidentialism of Richard Feldman and Earl Conee. I defend philosophical interest in the SEO against objections from Reformed epistemology, by addressing Plantinga's criteria for a proper de jure objection, his anti-evidentialist arguments, and the (...) relevance of ‘impulsional evidence’. I argue that no result from Plantinga-style Reformed epistemology precludes the reasons I offer in favour of giving the SEO its due philosophical attention. (shrink)

First, I argue that scientific progress is possible in the absence of increasing verisimilitude in science’s theories. Second, I argue that increasing theoretical verisimilitude is not the central, or primary, dimension of scientific progress. Third, I defend my previous argument that unjustified changes in scientific belief may be progressive. Fourth, I illustrate how false beliefs can promote scientific progress in ways that cannot be explicated by appeal to verisimilitude.

Thomas Aquinas, one of the "founding fathers" of just war theory, offers an account of virtuous warfare in practice. The author argues that Aquinas's approach to warfare, with its emphasis on justice and charity, is helpful in providing a coherent moral account of war to which Christians can subscribe. Particular attention is given to the role of charity, since this virtue is the distinguishing characteristic of the Christian soldier. Charity compels him to soldier justly, and by fighting justly, he is (...) elevated by God to friendship with God. Notable features of this approach are its emphasis on the criteria for judging whether a war is just and its relativizing of the criteria for proper combat behavior. (shrink)

Darrell P. Arnold, Traditions of Systems Theory. Major Figures and Contemporary Developments, London/New York, Routledge, 2014. Mark Losoncz.

_Popper’s Critical Rationalism_ presents Popper’s views on science, knowledge, and inquiry, and examines the significance and tenability of these in light of recent developments in philosophy of science, philosophy of probability, and epistemology. It develops a fresh and novel philosophical position on science, which employs key insights from Popper while rejecting other elements of his philosophy. Central theses include: Crucial questions about scientific method arise at the level of the group, rather than that of the individual. Although criticism is vital (...) for science, dogmatism is important too. Belief in scientific theories is permissible even in the absence of evidence in their favour. The aim of science is to eliminate false theories. Critical rationalism can be understood as a form of virtue epistemology. (shrink)

We argue that the inference from dispositional essentialism about a property (in the broadest sense) to the metaphysical necessity of laws involving it is invalid. Let strict dispositional essentialism be any view according to which any given property’s dispositional character is precisely the same across all possible worlds. Clearly, any version of strict dispositional essentialism rules out worlds with different laws involving that property. Permissive dispositional essentialism is committed to a property’s identity being tied to its dispositional profile or causal (...) role, yet is compatible with moderate interworld variation in a property’s dispositional profile. We provide such a model of dispositional essentialism about a property and metaphysical contingency of the laws involving it. (shrink)

Popper’s Critical Rationalism presents Popper’s views on science, knowledge, and inquiry, and examines the significance and tenability of these in light of recent developments in philosophy of science, philosophy of probability, and epistemology. It develops a fresh and novel philosophical position on science, which employs key insights from Popper while rejecting other elements of his philosophy.

First, I answer the controversial question ’What is scientific realism?’ with extensive reference to the varied accounts of the position in the literature. Second, I provide an overview of the key developments in the debate concerning scientific realism over the past decade. Third, I provide a summary of the other contributions to this special issue.

Though others have surveyed the different methods in comparative religious ethics, relatively little attention has been given to different approaches to pedagogy. The field of comparative religious ethics has now reached a level of maturity so that there are a variety of ways such courses can be taught. In this review I consider the approaches to comparative religious ethics found in four recent texts by Jacob Neusner, Darrell Fasching and Dell deChant, Regina Wolfe and Christine Gudorf, and Sumner Twiss (...) and Bruce Grelle. In the essay I note the strengths and weaknesses of each text, with special attention given to how the texts might work in the classroom. I then argue that the different texts reflect different understandings of the goal of teaching comparative religious ethics, and I make these goals explicit in order to help teachers decide how they might approach the teaching in this growing field. (shrink)

Devoted to making available, in English, contributions to philosophical comprehension originating in German, _Contemporary German Philosophy_ will be a yearbook following volumes reviewing the 1960-80 period. _CGP_'s aim is in no sense to displace the German language as a medium for philosophical discourse, but rather to provide for the reader who is more at home in English some points of access to such of the more pivotal recent and contemporary contributions originating in German as can lend themselves to translation. In (...) the selection of German-language articles for translation, some preference is given to authors whose work for the most part has not yet appeared in English. Original articles by German scholars also will be featured, and there will be reviews and comments by a worldwide body of scholars concerned with German philosophical traditions. _CGP_ is open to the full range of philosophical interests and orientations to which philosophy in the German language and tradition contributes. It is open as well to items which consider the bearings of insights within such allied fields as mathematics, political science, historiography, and linguistics upon philosophical issues. The term "contemporary" is intended to refer, not to any particular style of doing philosophy, but to philosophical literature of recent origin. (shrink)

Devoted to making available, in English, contributions to philosophical comprehension originating in German, _Contemporary German Philosophy_ will be a yearbook following volumes reviewing the 1960-80 period. _CGP_'s aim is in no sense to displace the German language as a medium for philosophical discourse, but rather to provide for the reader who is more at home in English some points of access to such of the more pivotal recent and contemporary contributions originating in German as can lend themselves to translation. In (...) the selection of German-language articles for translation, some preference is given to authors whose work for the most part has not yet appeared in English. Original articles by German scholars also will be featured, and there will be reviews and comments by a worldwide body of scholars concerned with German philosophical traditions. _CGP_ is open to the full range of philosophical interests and orientations to which philosophy in the German language and tradition contributes. It is open as well to items which consider the bearings of insights within such allied fields as mathematics, political science, historiography, and linguistics upon philosophical issues. The term "contemporary" is intended to refer, not to any particular style of doing philosophy, but to philosophical literature of recent origin. (shrink)

Devoted to making available, in English, contributions to philosophical comprehension originating in German, _Contemporary German Philosophy_ will be a yearbook following volumes reviewing the 1960-80 period. _CGP_'s aim is in no sense to displace the German language as a medium for philosophical discourse, but rather to provide for the reader who is more at home in English some points of access to such of the more pivotal recent and contemporary contributions originating in German as can lend themselves to translation. In (...) the selection of German-language articles for translation, some preference is given to authors whose work for the most part has not yet appeared in English. Original articles by German scholars also will be featured, and there will be reviews and comments by a worldwide body of scholars concerned with German philosophical traditions. _CGP_ is open to the full range of philosophical interests and orientations to which philosophy in the German language and tradition contributes. It is open as well to items which consider the bearings of insights within such allied fields as mathematics, political science, historiography, and linguistics upon philosophical issues. The term "contemporary" is intended to refer, not to any particular style of doing philosophy, but to philosophical literature of recent origin. (shrink)

Devoted to making available, in English, contributions to philosophical comprehension originating in German, _Contemporary German Philosophy_ will be a yearbook following volumes reviewing the 1960-80 period. _CGP_'s aim is in no sense to displace the German language as a medium for philosophical discourse, but rather to provide for the reader who is more at home in English some points of access to such of the more pivotal recent and contemporary contributions originating in German as can lend themselves to translation. In (...) the selection of German-language articles for translation, some preference is given to authors whose work for the most part has not yet appeared in English. Original articles by German scholars also will be featured, and there will be reviews and comments by a worldwide body of scholars concerned with German philosophical traditions. _CGP_ is open to the full range of philosophical interests and orientations to which philosophy in the German language and tradition contributes. It is open as well to items which consider the bearings of insights within such allied fields as mathematics, political science, historiography, and linguistics upon philosophical issues. The term "contemporary" is intended to refer, not to any particular style of doing philosophy, but to philosophical literature of recent origin. (shrink)