Ethnic minority groups have been shown to obtain poorer final year degree outcomes than their majority group counterparts in countries including the US, the UK and The Netherlands. Obtaining a lower degree classification may limit future employment prospects of graduates as well as opportunities for higher level study. To further investigate this achievement gap, we analysed performance levels across three academic years of study of 3,051 Black, Asian and White students from a UK University. Analyses of covariance investigated effects of (...) ethnicity and work placement experience (internships) on first, second and final year marks, whilst statistically controlling for a number of factors thought to influence achievement, including prior academic performance. Results demonstrated superior achievement of White students consistently across all years of study. Placement experience reduced, but did not eliminate, the size of the achievement gap exhibited by final year students. Sex, parental education and socioeconomic status had no significant main effects. Female students showed a more complex pattern of results than males, with Black females not showing the same final year uplift in marks as their Asian and White counterparts. Implications and possible explanations are discussed. (shrink)

In this book K. Brad Wray provides a comprehensive survey of the arguments against scientific realism. In addition to presenting logical considerations that undermine the realists' inferences to the likely truth or approximate truth of our theories, he provides a thorough assessment of the evidence from the history of science. He also examines grounds for a defence of anti-realism, including an anti-realist explanation for the success of our current theories, an account of why false theories can be empirically successful, and (...) an explanation for why we should expect radical changes of theory in the future. His arguments are supported and illustrated by cases from the history of science, including a sustained study of the Copernican Revolution, and a study of the revolution in early twentieth century chemistry, when chemists came to classify elements by their atomic number rather than by their atomic weight. (shrink)

Argues against D. Hume's (1825) treatise "Of Miracles," which is often used to disprove the existence of psi. Hume states that a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature which are proved to be true by common experience, and that the only sufficient testimony for a miracle would be testimony whose falsehood would be even more miraculous than the miracle itself. The primary objections to Hume's argument are that (1) it is tautological, since it presupposes the nonexistence of (...) miraculous events, and (2) as a metaphysical statement, it is inappropriate when considering empirical evidence, which should be judged by its own rule. (shrink)

We examine the sub-field of philosophy of science using a new method developed in information science, Referenced Publication Years Spectroscopy (RPYS). RPYS allows us to identify peak years in citations in a field, which promises to help scholars identify the key contributions to a field, and revolutionary discoveries in a field. We discovered that philosophy of science, a sub-field in the humanities, differs significantly from other fields examined with this method. Books play a more important role in philosophy of science (...) than in the sciences. Further, Einstein’s famous 1905 papers created a citation peak in the philosophy of science literature. But rather than being a contribution to the philosophy of science, their importance lies in the fact that they are revolutionary contributions to physics with important implications for philosophy of science. (shrink)

Context: Metaphysics of perception explores fundamental questions regarding the structure and status of the perceived world or appearance(s. By virtue of perception, the apparent world comes to existence. This, however, does not mean that the apparent world is a projection of mind, that it exists “in the head.” Implications: PL-metaphysics reconciles realism with constructivism. As such, it might be considered either an alternative to constructivism or an improvement and completion of this position. Constructivist content: The article refers to non-Cartesian movements (...) in contemporary philosophy, including radical constructivism, enactive and embodied cognition. Keywords: Perception, metaphysics, radical constructivism, realism, appearance, Jerzy Perzanowski, Plato, Gottfried Willhelm Leibniz, Ernst von Glasersfeld. (shrink)

Aristotle claims man is a political animal and that the polis exists by nature. Taking literally his analogy between the legislator and the craftsman, Aristotle's critics contend that he 'blunders' because the polis is artificial, devised by a legislator/founder and imposed on a people. We defend Aristotle's claims by showing, first, how Aristotle's claim that man is by nature an animal possessing logos -- speech/reason -- grounds his account of the natural development of the polis out of the earliest partnerships (...) (which the critics concede are natural); second, that the person who first brought people together in a polis may well have done so without realizing the scope of his actions; and, finally, that the developmental process is clearly one of praxis (action), not poisis (making, the imposition of a form on matter). Aristotle's claims are evidenced by the Homeric hero Philoctetes, whom one critic takes to disprove Aristotle's theses. (shrink)

Context: Although second-order cybernetics was proposed as a new way of cybernetic investigations around 1970, its general status and its modus operandi are still far from obvious. Problem: We want to provide a new perspective on the scope and the currently available potential of second-order cybernetics within today’s science landscapes. Method: We invited a group of scholars who have produced foundational work on second-order cybernetics in recent years, and organized an open call for new approaches to second-order cybernetics. The accepted (...) contributions are discussed and mapped. We also investigate the relations between second-order cybernetics and second-order science. Results: We present a coherent outlook on the scope of second-order cybernetics today, identify a general methodology of science and show that second-order cybernetics can be used in a large number of disciplines that go well beyond purely scientific domains. These results are based on a new epistemic mode “from within,” which can be traced back directly to von Foerster. We also arrived at the conclusion that from its early years onwards second-order cybernetics was developed in two different ways, so that second-order cybernetics and second-order science operate in different domains. Implications: Both the coherent perspective of the scope of second-order cybernetics with a new five-part agenda and the outline for a general methodology of science based on a new epistemic mode that was created within and for second-order cybernetics demonstrate the growing importance of reflexivity in science, which, so far, has not been widely recognized. (shrink)

Práce, která uvádí do živé problematiky vědecké estetiky, řeší v první části problémy a úkoly estetiky, obrací se k jejímu předmětu, ke krásnu a umění, obírá se významem signální teorie pro estetiku, poměrem člověka k obrazu astavbě i pokrokem v hudbě a umění vůbec. Do druhé části jsou zařazeny vybrané kapitoly jednak z dějin řecké, jednak z české estetiky.

The ability of the mind to conceptualize what is not present is essential. It allows us to reason counterfactually about what might have happened had events unfolded differently or had another course of action been taken. It allows us to think about what might happen – to perform 'Gedankenexperimente' (thought experiments) – before we act. However, the cognitive and neural mechanisms mediating this ability are poorly understood. We suggest that the frontopolar cortex (FPC) keeps track of and evaluates alternative choices (...) (what we might have done), whereas the anterior lateral prefrontal cortex (alPFC) compares simulations of possible future scenarios (what we might do) and evaluates their reward values. Together, these brain regions support the construction of suppositional scenarios. (shrink)

This Introduction provides a rationale for a collection of new paper on Thomas Kuhn. Scholarship on Kuhn has changed dramatically in the last 20 years for numerous reasons. First, scholars studying Kuhn no longer focus narrowly on Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Scholars have been giving careful consideration to Kuhn’s later work. Second, many scholars have been drawing on the vast unpublished resources at the Thomas S. Kuhn Archive at MIT. Third, with the 50th anniversary of the publication of Structure in (...) 2012, there were quite a number of conferences held which led to the publication of a number of volumes reflecting on Kuhn’s impact in philosophy and history of science. These three developments have contributed significantly to our collective understanding of Kuhn and his theories of scientific change and scientific knowledge. Though Kuhn’s position in the philosophy of science can be difficult to gauge, by objective measures Kuhn’s impact is undeniable. Kuhn’s influence outside philosophy of science is also astounding, especially in the social sciences. So it is beyond dispute that Kuhn has had a profound and wide-ranging impact on scholarship. (shrink)

Patrick Lee, professeur de philosophie à l'Université franciscaine de Steubenville, vient de publié un livre excellent sur la question de l'avortement : Abortion and Unborn Human Life . L'A. en présente le contenu et en commente l'actualité ainsi que la pertinence.