This book proposes an original theory of epistemic justification that offers a new way to relate justification to the epistemic goal of truth-conducive belief.

Introduction Jarrett Leplin Hilary Putnam seems to have inaugurated a new era of interest in realism with his declaration that realism is the ...

Leplin attempts to reinstate the common sense idea that theoretical knowledge is achievable, indeed that its achievement is part of the means to progress in empirical knowledge. He sketches the genesis of the skeptical position, then introduces his argument for Minimalist Scientific Realism -- the requirement that novel predicitons be explained, and the claim that only realism about scientific theories can explain the importance of novel prediction.

Pursuant to criticism, this paper revisits the relation between the theses of empirical equivalence and evidential underdetermination. I argue against some antirealist strategies for fixing the empirical commitments of underdetermined theories.

Discover how philosophy is essential to the creation, development, application and study of international lawNew for this editionUpdated to cover recent developments in international law, including the 2008 world financial crisis and its effect on international economic and financial law, and the Obama administrations approach to international law in the war on terror Each chapter includes suggestions for further reading, including the most current sources from 2016Anthony Carty tracks the development of the foundations of the philosophies of international law, (...) covering the natural, analytical, positivist, realist and postmodern legal traditions. You'll learn how these approaches were first conceived and how they shape the network of relationships between the signatories of international law.Key featuresExplores four areas: contemporary uncertainties; personality in international law; the existence of states and the use of force; and international economic/financial lawThe historical introduction gives you an overview of the development of the philosophy of international law, from late-scholastic natural law to the gradual dominance of legal positivism, and to the renewed importance of natural law theory in legal philosophy todayRevises the agenda for international lawyers: from internal concerns with the discipline itself outwards to the challenges of international society. (shrink)

A realist interpretation of successful science is defended against a historical induction to the ultimate failure of current science from the failure of theories which once excelled by current standards. The defense requires (1) restrictions on the forms of success which realism, by its own lights, must explain, (2) referential stability through theory changes where the rejected theory achieves such success, and (3) degrees of truth for scientific statements.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1984.

Some recent theories in theoretical physics are not subject to epistemic evaluation by empiricist standards of evidential warrant. The advantage of these theories is not pragmatic but explanationist; they fail to yield testable consequences that distinguish them from earlier theories. But this is essentially a technological limitation, rather than a theoretical defect. There is an explanation, itself confirmed by empiricist standards, of the unconfirmability of these theories. This paper considers what epistemic stance is proper in this situation, and explores the (...) prospects for justifiable change to an explanationist methodology capable of warranting theories that transcend the range of our experience. (shrink)

The following paper will attempt (i) to set forth a form of materialism that is ‘Spinozistic’ in maintaining that there is a conceptual, but not an ontological distinction between mental and physical phenomena; (ii) to undermine objections to this based on (a) ‘functionalism’ and (b) the conception of (and identity conditions for) an event that has been advocated by Goldman, Brandt, and Kim; and (iii) to explain why, according to the identity ‘theory’, the apparent failure of the indiscernibility of identicals (...) is merely apparent. (shrink)

The following paper will attempt (i) to set forth a form of materialism that is ‘Spinozistic’ in maintaining that there is a conceptual, but not an ontological distinction between mental and physical phenomena; (ii) to undermine objections to this based on (a) ‘functionalism’ and (b) the conception of (and identity conditions for) an event that has been advocated by Goldman, Brandt, and Kim; and (iii) to explain why, according to the identity ‘theory’, the apparent failure of the indiscernibility of identicals (...) is merely apparent. (shrink)

In a paper in an earlier issue of this journal I endeavoured to show that Nonius Marcellus’ three glossarial sources known as ‘Gloss. iii’, ‘Alph. Verb’ and ‘Alph. Adverb’ were compiled by a lexicographer who paid attention to both metre and sense when excerpting works of Republican poetry. That compiler always excerpted quotations of poetry such that they consisted of, or began or ended with, a metrically complete verse. That method has produced quotations of high quality that are, on several (...) counts, considerably more transparent and more reliable than those preserved by less diligent sources. (shrink)

Why be a scientific realist? The predominant motivation is explanationist: we need realism to understand the successfulness of science. Why be an antirealist? The predominant motivation is skeptical: theory systematically exceeds the reach of empirical warrant. Antirealists deny that explanatory power is evidential; realists deny that the reach of empirical warrant summarily terminates at the boundary of the observable. But these counterarguments are mere protection of philosophical stances to which the adversaries independently incline.

This paper identifies a neglected manuscript, Viterbo, Centro Diocesano di Documentazione, Capitolare 51, as the extant archetype of the Libri Romani version of the glossary of Placidus. It first demonstrates that R is the parent of the three witnesses to the Libri Romani text used by editors, and it considers the implications of the neglected manuscript for future editions of the text. It then corroborates the importance of R by tracing its travels in humanistic and antiquarian circles in Italy in (...) the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. This history provides a framework for future research on the textual transmission of the Libri Romani text of Placidus. (shrink)

This essay attempts to reconceptualize temporality as it relates to ethics, by interrupting dominant anthropological notions of time—most particularly the temporal coherence of narrative unity—which are homogeneous and empty. Eschewing the more commonly understood notion of anthropology as ethnographic thick description, this essay is a practice of anthropological hermeneutics by which I take a cue from my Muscovite interlocutors to disrupt dominant anthropological conceptions of temporal unity within which action is considered to take place, and in so doing, reveal temporalization (...) as the process by which ethical action becomes possible. (shrink)