Few people, if any, still argue that science in all its aspects is a value-free endeavor. At the very least, values affect decisions about the choice of research problems to investigate and the uses to which the results of research are applied. But what about the actual doing of science? -/- As Science, Values, and Objectivity reveals, the connections and interactions between values and science are quite complex. The essays in this volume identify the crucial values that play a role (...) in science, distinguish some of the criteria that can be used for value identification, and elaborate the conditions for warranting certain values as necessary or central to the very activity of scientific research. -/- Recently, social constructivists have taken the presence of values within the scientific model to question the basis of objectivity. However, the contributors to <I>Science, Values, and Objectivity</I> recognize that such acknowledgment of the role of values does not negate the fact that objects exist in the world. Objects have the power to constrain our actions and thoughts, though the norms for these thoughts lie in the public, social world. -/- Values may be decried or defended, praised or blamed, but in a world that strives for a modicum of reason, values, too, must be reasoned. Critical assessment of the values that play a role in scientific research is as much a part of doing good science as interpreting data. (shrink)
This open access book examines the many contributions of Paul Lorenzen, an outstanding philosopher from the latter half of the 20th century. It features papers focused on integrating Lorenzen's original approach into the history of logic and mathematics. The papers also explore how practitioners can implement Lorenzen’s systematical ideas in today’s debates on proof-theoretic semantics, databank management, and stochastics. Coverage details key contributions of Lorenzen to constructive mathematics, Lorenzen’s work on lattice-groups and divisibility theory, and modern set theory and Lorenzen’s (...) critique of actual infinity. The contributors also look at the main problem of Grundlagenforschung and Lorenzen’s consistency proof and Hilbert’s larger program. In addition, the papers offer a constructive examination of a Russell-style Ramified Type Theory and a way out of the circularity puzzle within the operative justification of logic and mathematics. Paul Lorenzen's name is associated with the Erlangen School of Methodical Constructivism, of which the approach in linguistic philosophy and philosophy of science determined philosophical discussions especially in Germany in the 1960s and 1970s. This volume features 10 papers from a meeting that took place at the University of Konstanz. (shrink)
In recent decades, English has become the uncontestable lingua franca of philosophy of science and of most other areas of philosophy and of the humanities. To have a lingua franca produces enormous benefits for the entire scientific community. The price for those benefits, however, is paid almost exclusively by non-native speakers of English. Section 1 identifies three asymmetries that individual NoNES researchers encounter: ‘publication asymmetry’, ‘resources asymmetry’, and ‘team asymmetry’. Section 2 deals with ‘globalized parochialism asymmetry’: thanks to English being (...) a lingua franca, a special perspective, mostly US and British, is being globalized and is replacing European topics and approaches. This has serious consequences for history of philosophy as well as for philosophical theory: thinkers of the past tend to be dealt with on the global level at best only if and insofar they are translated into English. Similarly, the theoretical agenda of globalized philosophy of scien... (shrink)
The short answer to this question is a firm and unambiguous “yes and no”. The long answer will take the whole talk. Indeed, it could easily take an entire book. It is therefore unavoidable to take recourse here and there to simplifying shortcuts and polemical exaggerations, in order to get the message clear.
This volume honors and examines the founders of the philosophy of logical empiricism. Historical and interpretive essays clarify the scientific philosophies of Carnap, Reichenbach, Hempel, Kant, and others, while exploring the main topics of logical empiricist philosophy of science.
Leading biologists and philosophers of biology discuss the basic theories and concepts of biology and their connections with ethics, economics, and psychology, providing a remarkably unified report on the “state of the art” in the philosophy of biology.
Emerging as a hot topic in the mid-twentieth century, causality is one of the most frequently discussed issues in contemporary philosophy. Causality has been a central concept in philosophy as well as in the sciences, especially the natural sciences, dating back to its beginning in Greek thought. David Hume famously claimed that causality is the cement of the universe. In general terms, it links eventualities, predicts the consequences of action, and is the cognitive basis for the acquisition and the use (...) of categories and concepts in the child. Indeed, how could one answer why-questions, around which early rational thought begins to revolve, without hitting on the relationships between reason and consequence, cause and effect, or without drawing these distinctions? But a comprehensive definition of causality has been notoriously hard to provide, and virtually every aspect of causation has been subject to much debate and analysis. _Thinking about Causes_ brings together top philosophers from the United States and Europe to focus on causality as a major force in philosophical and scientific thought. Topics addressed include: ancient Stoicism and moral philosophy; the case of sacramental causality; traditional causal concepts in Descartes; Kant on transcendental laws; the influence of J. S. Mill's politics on his concept of causation; plurality in causality; causality in modern physics; causality in economics; and the concept of free will. Taken together, the essays in this collection provide the best current thinking about causality, especially as it relates to the philosophy of science. (shrink)
This is an introduction to the English translation of Hogo Dingler's (1881-1954) grounsbreaking paper "Methodik statt Erkenntnistheorie und Wissenschaftslehre". Dingler is the founder of operationalism in physics and relatively little know in the Anglophone world.
Das Thema dieser Überlegungen ist die deutsche Philosophie und sind deutsche Philosophen im Nationalsozialismus. (Für unsere politisch korrekten Ohrenspitzer(innen): es war keine Frau dabei.)1 Vorweg sei gesagt, verbrecherische Schurken finden wir unter ihnen nicht, anders als bei z. B. Juristen und Medizinern. ,,Auschwitz" wurde nicht von Philosophen betrieben. Die Praxisferne der Philosophie hat manchmal eben auch Vorteile. Teil I beschäftigt sich mit Philosophie und Philosophen im „Dritten Reich" im allgemeinen. Teil II stellt eine Fallstudie (Oskar Becker) vor, während der dritte (...) Teil ansatzweise eine noch skizzenhafte und vielleicht kontroverse Antwort auf die Frage versucht, welche philosophischen Umstände es begünstigt haben, daß Philosophen zu Naziphilosophen wurden, und welche dies vielleicht eher verhindert haben. (shrink)
Jonas' philosophical biology is an attempt to overcome the dualism, i.e., the alienation between man and world, which characterizes both Gnostic thinking and the Heiddegerian existentialist approach that Jonas had applied in its interpretation. This dualism leads both approaches to despise or, at least, to neglect nature.Jonas' philosophical biology is intended to provide an insight into the phenomenon of life that is more than a mere reflection of scientific epistemology. Rather, it regards itself as a cognitively significant approach towards the (...) living in its own right. At the same time, philosophical biology is not intended as an alternative to the scientific enterprise, but instead as a desirable and even necessary complement of it. In developing philosophical biology, Jonas additionally aims at securing a place for man in the order of the living that is more than just locating him somewhere in the order of primates. (shrink)
n this article the author develops a critique of reductionism in biological sciences from three different points of view. The first is related to the problem of reduction in the context of scientific theories. More specifically, reduction deals with a special form of intertheoretic relationship between molecular biology and the rest of biology. The second meaning of reductionism has to do with the significance of its genetic outfit for the ontogeny of an organism, i.e. its development from zygote to its (...) final or adult structure and function. Third, closely related to this more biological topic are questions about the anthropological consequences of the application of reductionistic methodologies for the explanation and evaluation of human behaviour. (shrink)
The paper - originally a lecture in the "40th Anniversary Lecture Series 2001-2002" of the University of Pittsburgh (attached to the Italian text)- gives a survey of the development of philosophy of science in Germany and of the role tthe Pittsburgh Center for Philosophy of Science plays in this development.
Somewhat traumatized by the Galileo Affair the Church until recently showed low profile in the conflicts with science, evolutionary theory included. The talk presents a categorization of possible relationships between science and religion by distinguishing between "Galilean conflicts", which are about mutually exclusive statements about matters of fact, and Freudian conflicts where an empirical science tries to explain away religion as a phenomenon in its own right. In the light of this distinction I deal with the reactions of the Church (...) since 1859, particularly with the ambiguous position of the present Pope. (shrink)
In theoretical matters, ecclesiastical claims to knowledge have lead to various conflicts with science. Claims in orientational matters, sometimes connected to attempts to establish them as a rule for legislation, have often been in conflict with the justified claims of non-believers. In addition they violate the Principle of Autonomy of the individual, which is at the very heart of European identity so decisively shaped by the Enlightenment. The Principle of Autonomy implies that state legislation should not interfere in the life (...) of individual citizens, as long as his or her actions do not violate the rights of others. This paper—using the example of the theory of evolution—rejects ecclesiastical claims to theoretical knowledge as completely unfounded and preposterous. In the case of orientational knowledge—using the example of euthanasia—ecclesiastical claims to (universalizable) knowledge are shown to be unfounded as well. The Church’s position with respect to euthanasia and a range of other bio-ethical topics, such as pre-marital sex, contraception, abortion, indissolubility of marriage, and homosexuality, rests on a very peculiar ethical position. This ethical position is the natural right theory, which—far from being universalizable—is shared by very few people. Among other things, this position presupposes the belief in God as the creator of nature, and the assumption that ethical norms can be derived from this premise. Thus ecclesiastical knowledge claims, cannot be justified in a way which could be reasonably supposed to be universally acceptable. Kant (see the quote) was the first to require this sort of justification. Claims that fail to implement Kant’s stipulations should be eliminated by what I would like to call “Kant’s razor”. (shrink)
This Open Access volume is based on the 'Early Carnap in Context’ workshop that took place in Konstanz in 2017 and looks at Rudolf Carnap’s philosophy, documented in his recently released diaries, from a combination of historical, cultural and philosophical perspectives. It enables further evaluation of the diaries and traces newly found interrelationships and their systematic definition. From a cultural and historical point of view, Logical Empiricism and Carnap’s pivotal opus, The Logical Structure of the World, did not evolve in (...) a vacuum. This applies equally in a history of philosophy context as well as under consideration of contemporary historical and cultural influences such as the socio-cultural setting in Vienna and Prague, the correlation between Logical Empiricism and Bauhaus modernism, the connection to the Life Reform Movement or the Youth Movement with its own life philosophy. Pursuing Carnap’s progression on a micro level of history and referring the results back to Carnap’s philosophy is now facilitated by recent access to his Diaries from 1908–1935. These shorthand records, reading lists, travel reports and notes constitute a valuable source for the research of networks and social movements which left their mark on him. (shrink)
The act of interpretation occurs in nearly every area of the arts and sciences. That ubiquity serves as the inspiration for the fourteen essays of this volume, covering many of the domains in which interpretive practices are found. Individual topics include: the general nature of interpretation and its forms; comparing and contrasting interpretation and hermeneutics; culture as interpretation seen through Hegel’s aesthetics; interpreting philosophical texts; methodologies for interpreting human action; interpretation in medical practice focusing on manifestations as indicators of disease; (...) the brain and its interpretative, structured, learning and storage processes; interpreting hybrid wines and cognitive preconceptions of novel objects; and the importance of sensory perception as means of interpreting in the case of dry German Rieslings. In an interesting turn, Nicholas Rescher writes on the interpretation of philosophical texts. Then Catherine Wilson and Andreas Blank explicate and critique Rescher’s theories through analysis of the mill passage from Leibniz’s _Monadology._. (shrink)
This volume honors and examines the founders of the philosophy of logical empiricism. Historical and interpretive essays clarify the scientific philosophies of Carnap, Reichenbach, Hempel, Kant, and others, while exploring the main topics of logical empiricist philosophy of science.
Leading biologists and philosophers of biology discuss the basic theories and concepts of biology and their connections with ethics, economics, and psychology, providing a remarkably unified report on the “state of the art” in the philosophy of biology.
Following the philosophical work of Jürgen Mittelstrass, the papers presented in this volume justify this thesis and differentiate it in both its historical and its systematic dimension (including its practical philosophical implications).
This booklet deals in the form of "impromptus" with philosophy and philosophers in the "Third Reich" and the interesting story of post-war German philosophy to just ignore this topic.
Ce chapitre reprend, en l’enrichissant, un article antérieur sur la philosophie de la biologie de l’empirisme logique, en en examinant les thèses centrales telles qu’elles sont exprimées lors des rencontres de Prague, de Paris et de Copenhague, rencontres décisives pour le développement du mouvement et son rayonnement dans le monde occidental. Je montre que l’empirisme logique n’a pas contribué au développement de la philosophie de la biologie, comme il l’a fait pour celui de la philosophie de la physique ou des (...) mathématiques. Les raisons de cet échec sont triples: 1o) les empiristes logiques n’avaient qu’une vague connaissance des sciences biologiques; 2o) ils se sont focalisés sur un cadre stérile, l’antivitalisme et le réductionisme, qu’ils prenaient pour la philosophie de la biologie; 3o) cela les a empêchés de traiter des véritables problèmes de la biologie. Entre les différentes sections de ce chapitre, j’insère des « intermezzos» qui replacent différents protagonistes de ces rencontres dans un contexte plus large. (shrink)
Grünbaum's three chief fields of research were space-time philosophy, the methodological credentials of psychoanalysis, and reasons given in favor of the existence of God. Grünbaum defended the so-called conventionality thesis of physical geometry. He partially followed Hans Reichenbach in this respect but developed a new ontological argument for the conventionality claim in addition. In addressing the physical basis of the direction of time, Grünbaum advocated that there is a physical basis for the distinction between the past and the future, but (...) no such basis for the idea of a ‘present’ moving through time. His main claim in scrutinizing Freud’s theory methodologically was that supporting the causal claims Freud made would have required data that go beyond the clinical setting. Finally, Grünbaum worked on the philosophy of religion and set out to undermine arguments for the existence of God. (shrink)
Michael Ende’s bestseller/The Neverending Story/is set in a magical world called “Fantastica”. In Fantastica, there are heroes and villains, just as in the world of universities and academies. There is even an entity, or better: a non-entity of shaky existence, das Nichts, the Nothingness – loved by some philosophers like Martin Heidegger. In Fantastica Nothingness is able to create trouble and destruction. The same is true in the land of academic history and philosophy of science – let us call it (...) “HOPOSia”. In HOPOSia, particularly in its Anglophone provinces, Nothingness of knowledge and information has succeeded in building up strong opinions about the topic “Mach and Relativity”, and has created confusion and disinformation. However, you may slightly relax; our story in HOPOSia is less cruel so far and more peaceful than what happens in Fantastica. Sometimes it has even entertaining aspects. There are similarities, though: If there had not been lies and manipulation of believes, our story would have ended years ago. It went on instead and will possibly do so forever. (shrink)
I give a revision (“reload”) of an earlier paper on logico-empiricism’s philosophy of biology by checking its central theses against the background of the international conferences of Prague (1934), Paris (1935), and Copenhagen (1936), so important for the development of logical empiricism and its spread in the western world. My theses are that logical empiricism did not contribute in the same way to the development of philosophy of biology, as it did e.g. to the development of philosophy of mathematics or (...) physics. The reasons for this failure were: (1) logical empiricists were unexperienced in biological science. (2) They concentrated on an unproductive ('ideological') framework (anti-vitalism, reduction) that they took to be philosophy of biology. (3) This prevented them from dealing with actual problems of biological science. Between the various sections of the paper, I insert “intermezzos” that present several conference participants in a wider historical context (Great War, persecution, language). (shrink)
The paper - originally a lecture in the "40th Anniversary Lecture Series 2001-2002" - gives a survey of the development of philosophy of science in Germany and of the role tthe Pittsburgh Center for Philosophy of Science plays in this development. An Italian version was published in 2006: “Un difficile ritorno a casa: la Filosofia della Scienza in Germania”, in: Bollettino della Società Filosofica Italiana, Nr. 189 n.s. (settembre - dicembra 2006), 37-50.
