Stephen Read - Johannes Buridanus: Summulae de Practica Sophismatum - Journal of the History of Philosophy 45:1 Journal of the History of Philosophy 45.1 157-158 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Reviewed by Stephen Read University of St. Andrews Fabienne Pironet, editor. Johannes Buridanus: Summulae de Practica Sophismatum. Artistarium 10–9. Turnhout: Brepols 2004. Pp. xlix + 193. Paper, €40.00. John Buridan was an unusual figure in fourteenth-century logic and philosophy. Logic was at that time largely the (...) preserve of the young, who would lecture on logic while studying in higher faculties such as theology, before moving on to lecture in their maturity on philosophy and theology. Two notable exceptions are the Englishman Walter Burley and the Frenchman from Picardy, John Buridan. Already active in the Arts Faculty at Paris in the late 1320s, Buridan was still there thirty years later. In the meantime, among other works on metaphysics, ethics, politics, and natural philosophy, he.. (shrink)

Catarina Dutilh Novaes - Johannes Buridanus: Summulae de Propositionibus - Journal of the History of Philosophy 45:1 Journal of the History of Philosophy 45.1 155-156 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Reviewed by Catarina Dutilh Novaes Fordham University Ria van der Lecq, editor. Johannes Buridanus: Summulae de Propositionibus. Artistarium 10–1. Turnhout: Brepols, 2005. Pp. xxv + 131. Paper, €40.00. John Buridan is now believed to be among the most influential later medieval philosophers, his philosophical analyses showing (...) considerable acumen over a wide range of fields. His logical masterpiece, the lengthy Summulae de Dialectica is composed of eight treatises, plus a treatise on.. (shrink)

In order to elucidate his logical analysis of modal quantified propositions (e.g. ‘all men are necessarily mortal’), the 14th century philosopher John Buridan constructed a modal octagon of oppositions. In the present paper we study this modal octagon from the perspective of contemporary logical geometry. We argue that the modal octagon contains precisely six squares of opposition as subdiagrams, and classify these squares based on their logical properties. On a more abstract level, we show that Buridan’s modal octagon precisely captures (...) the interaction between two classical squares of opposition, viz. one for the quantifiers and one for the modalities. Finally, we argue that several aspects of our contemporary formal analyses were already hinted at by Buridan himself. (shrink)

1. T. - Die metaphysischen Urgesetze der Melodik.

In this paper, we explore the extent to which issues of simulation model validation take on novel characteristics when the models in question become particularly complex. Our central claim is that complex simulation models in general, and global models of climate in particular, face a form of confirmation holism. This holism, moreover, makes analytic understanding of complex models of climate either extremely difficult or even impossible. We argue that this supports a position we call convergence skepticism: the belief that the (...) existence of a plurality of different models making a plurality of different forecasts of future climate is likely to be a persistent feature of global climate science. (shrink)

Informally, structural properties of mathematical objects are usually characterized in one of two ways: either as properties expressible purely in terms of the primitive relations of mathematical theories, or as the properties that hold of all structurally similar mathematical objects. We present two formal explications corresponding to these two informal characterizations of structural properties. Based on this, we discuss the relation between the two explications. As will be shown, the two characterizations do not determine the same class of mathematical properties. (...) From this observation we draw some philosophical conclusions about the possibility of a ‘correct’ analysis of structural properties. (shrink)

Episodic memory has been analyzed in a number of different ways in both philosophy and psychology, and most controversy has centered on its self-referential,autonoeticcharacter. Here, we offer a comprehensive characterization of episodic memory in representational terms and propose a novel functional account on this basis. We argue that episodic memory should be understood as a distinctive epistemic attitude taken toward an event simulation. In this view, episodic memory has a metarepresentational format and should not be equated with beliefs about the (...) past. Instead, empirical findings suggest that the contents of human episodic memory are often constructed in the service of the explicit justification of such beliefs. Existing accounts of episodic memory function that have focused on explaining its constructive character through its role in future-oriented mental time travel do justice neither to its capacity to ground veridical beliefs about the past nor to its representational format. We provide an account of the metarepresentational structure of episodic memory in terms of its role in communicative interaction. The generative nature of recollection allows us to represent and communicate the reasons why we hold certain beliefs about the past. In this process, autonoesis corresponds to the capacity to determine when and how to assert epistemic authority in making claims about the past. A domain where such claims are indispensable are human social engagements. Such engagements commonly require the justification of entitlements and obligations, which is often possible only by explicit reference to specific past events. (shrink)

Can failure be aesthetic or artistic? How can failure be described as an aesthetic phenomenon or as a work of art? Starting from a concept of aesthetic experience and presence this paper seeks answers to said question in four steps. After defining the event ›failure‹ (I), its aesthetic potential is determined (II), and distinguished from failure as art and the artfulness of failure (III). Finally, the significance of the aesthetic experience of failure for its existential understanding is examined (IV).

The fundamental question whether, or in which sense, science informs us about the real world has pervaded the history of thought since antiquity. Is what science tells us about the world determined unambiguously by facts or does the content of any scientific theory in some way depend on the human condition? "Sokal`s hoax" added a new dimension to this controversial debate, which very quickly came to been known as "Science Wars". "Knowledge and the World" examines and reviews the broad range (...) of philosophical positions on this issue, stretching from realism to relativism, to expound the epistemic merits of science, and to address the central question: in which sense can science justifiably claim to provide a truthful portrait of reality? This book addresses everyone interested in the philosophy and history of science, and in particular in the interplay between the social and natural sciences. (shrink)

The paper discusses modelling uncertainties in climate models and how they can be addressed based on physical principles as well as based on how the models perform in light of empirical data. We ar...

Simulation modeling, the core thesis of Calculated Surprises, is transforming the established conception of mathematical modeling in fundamental ways. These transformations feed back into philosophy of science, opening up new perspectives on longstanding oppositions. The book integrates historical features with both practical case studies and broad reflections on science and technology.

This paper examines a looming reproducibility crisis in the core of the hard sciences. Namely, it concentrates on molecular modeling and simulation (MMS), a family of methods that predict properties of substances through computing interactions on a molecular level and that is widely popular in physics, chemistry, materials science, and engineering. The paper argues that in order to make quantitative predictions, sophisticated models are needed which have to be evaluated with complex simulation procedures that amalgamate theoretical, technological, and social factors (...) – leading to problems with reproducibility. Thus, for methodological reasons, the predictive success causes a reproducibility problem. (shrink)

This book is the first to trace the origins and significance of positivism on a global scale. Taking their cues from Auguste Comte and John Stuart Mill, positivists pioneered a universal, experience-based culture of scientific inquiry for studying nature and society—a new science that would enlighten all of humankind. Positivists envisaged one world united by science, but their efforts spawned many. Uncovering these worlds of positivism, the volume ranges from India, the Ottoman Empire, and the Iberian Peninsula to Central Europe, (...) Russia, and Brazil, examining positivism’s impact as one of the most far-reaching intellectual movements of the modern world. Positivists reinvented science, claiming it to be distinct from and superior to the humanities. They predicated political governance on their refashioned science of society, and as political activists, they sought and often failed to reconcile their universalism with the values of multiculturalism. Providing a genealogy of scientific governance that is sorely needed in an age of post-truth politics, this volume breaks new ground in the fields of intellectual and global history, the history of science, and philosophy. (shrink)

We claim that adjustable parameters play a crucial role in building and applying simulation models. We analyze that role and illustrate our findings using examples from equations of state in thermodynamics. In building simulation models, two types of experiments, namely, simulation and classical experiments, interact in a feedback loop, in which model parameters are adjusted. A critical discussion of how adjustable parameters function shows that they are boon and bane of simulation. They help to enlarge the scope of simulation far (...) beyond what can be determined by theoretical knowledge, but at the same time undercut the epistemic value of simulation models. (shrink)

This book puts forward a new role for mathematics in the natural sciences. In the traditional understanding, a strong viewpoint is advocated, on the one hand, according to which mathematics is used for truthfully expressing laws of nature and thus for rendering the rational structure of the world. In a weaker understanding, many deny that these fundamental laws are of an essentially mathematical character, and suggest that mathematics is merely a convenient tool for systematizing observational knowledge. The position developed in (...) this volume combines features of both the strong and the weak viewpoint. In accordance with the former, mathematics is assigned an active and even shaping role in the sciences, but at the same time, employing mathematics as a tool is taken to be independent from the possible mathematical structure of the objects under consideration. Hence the tool perspective is contextual rather than ontological. Furthermore, tool-use has to respect conditions like suitability, efficacy, optimality, and others. There is a spectrum of means that will normally differ in how well they serve particular purposes. The tool perspective underlines the inevitably provisional validity of mathematics: any tool can be adjusted, improved, or lose its adequacy upon changing practical conditions. (shrink)

COVID-19 has substantially affected our lives during 2020. Since its beginning, several epidemiological models have been developed to investigate the specific dynamics of the disease. Early COVID-19 epidemiological models were purely statistical, based on a curve-fitting approach, and did not include causal knowledge about the disease. Yet, these models had predictive capacity; thus they were used to ground important political decisions, in virtue of the understanding of the dynamics of the pandemic that they offered. This raises a philosophical question about (...) how purely statistical models can yield understanding, and if so, what the relationship between prediction and understanding in these models is. Drawing on the model that was developed by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, we argue that early epidemiological models yielded a modality of understanding that we call descriptive understanding, which contrasts with the so-called explanatory understanding which is assumed to be the main form of scientific understanding. We spell out the exact details of how descriptive understanding works, and efficiently yields understanding of the phenomena. Finally, we vindicate the necessity of studying other modalities of understanding that go beyond the conventionally assumed explanatory understanding. (shrink)

This article discusses the educational significance of the moral demand for respect. In Ethics and Education, Richard Peters presents a conception of educational respect that was recently taken up by Krassimir Stojanov. This article responds to both Peters' and Stojanov's contributions and proposes another understanding of educational respect: to respect children is to treat them in a way that enables them to see themselves as persons endowed with dignity; that is, as having the equal standing to make claims on others.

In this paper we investigate with a case study from chemistry under what conditions a simulation can serve as a surrogate for an experiment. The case-study concerns a simulation of H2-formation in outer space. We find that in this case the simulation can act as a surrogate for an experiment, because there exists comprehensive theoretical background knowledge in form of quantum mechanics about the range of phenomena to which the investigated process belongs and because any particular modelling assumptions as can (...) be justified. If these requirements are met then direct empirical validation may even be dispensable. We conjecture that this is not the case in the absence of comprehensive theoretical background knowledge. (shrink)

The English language has adopted the word Tardis for something that looks simple from the outside but is much more complicated when inspected from the inside. The word comes from a BBC science fiction series, in which the Tardis is a machine for traveling in time and space, that looks like a phone booth from the outside. This paper claims that simulation models are a Tardis in a way that calls into question their transferability. The argument is developed taking Molecular (...) Modeling and Simulation as an example. There, simulation models are force fields that describe the molecular interactions and that look like simple and highly modular mathematical expressions. To make them work, they contain parameters that are adjusted to match certain data. The role of these parameters and the way they are obtained is seriously under-appreciated. It is constitutive for the model and central for its applicability and performance. Hence, the model is more than it seems so that working with adjustable parameters deeply affects the ontology of simulation models. This is particularly crucial for the transferability of the models: the information on how a model was trained is like luggage the model must carry on its voyage. (shrink)

Anhand einer klinischen Vignette wird ausgeführt, dass das psychoanalytische Geschehen sich in mehreren Dimensionen entfaltet. Drei solcher Dimensionen – als Bedeutung (Erkenntnis), Berührung (Kontakt) und Bewegung (Ereignis) bezeichnet – werden beschrieben und deren dimensionale Charakteristik auf die Sinnesqualitäten des Sehens, des Berührungssinnes und des Hörens bezogen. Es wird gezeigt, dass sie Raum und Zeit auf je eigene Weise konstituieren und somit einander inkommensurable, durch keine logische oder dialektische Operation in eine Einheit überführbare Aprioritäten darstellen. Mit deren Unvereinbarkeit ist auch auf (...) Grenzen theoretisch-begrifflicher Bemächtigung verwiesen, womit die Frage nach der Reichweite metapsychologischer Begriffe, etwa des Begriffs des Unbewussten, aufgeworfen ist. Von hier aus wird in einem Ausblick nach der Begegnung als organisierendem Phantasma der analytischen Situation gefragt und – auf dem Weg einer Erörterung des Begegnungsbegriffs bei Martin Buber – versucht, Begegnung dimensional näher zu bestimmen. (shrink)

Diese Festgabe zum 60. Geburtstag Seiner Exzellenz Bischof Dr. Alois Schwarz ist Zeichen dankbarer Ruckschau, wachsamen Innehaltens in der Gegenwart und fundierte Reflexion uber die brennenden Erfordernisse der Zukunft. Die Zusammenstellung der Beitrage spiegelt die Themen der unter anderem ausgehend vom Bildungshaus Stift St. Georgen am Langsee in den letzten zehn Jahren gesetzten Initiativen wider. Im Zentrum steht die Auseinandersetzung mit den Rahmenbedingungen fur ethisches Wirtschaften, eine wertorientierte Unternehmensfuhrung und eine der Realwirtschaft dienende Finanzwirtschaft. Die von software-systems.at Finanzdatenservice und SEFO (...) initiierten Congressreihen Finance & Ethics und Finance & Science wurden vom Jubilar von Beginn an mitgetragen. Der Auftrag fur die Zukunft liegt in der Entwicklung adaquater Bildungsmoglichkeiten. Mit dem vorliegenden Band beginnt eine neue Forschungsreihe, die 2010 mit der Buchreihe Finance & Ethics begonnen wurde.". (shrink)

Im Hörsaal zeigt sich das europäische Philosophieren jederzeit mündlich und beweglich. Viele pilgerten zwischen 1970 und 1984 nach Paris, wo Michel Foucault dreizehn umfangreiche Vorlesungen hielt. Sein Publikum erstaunte vor dem Wechsel an Themen, Texten und Bildern. Foucault sprach über Machtverhältnisse, Strafregime und diskursive Ordnungen, er thematisierte die Sexualität, das Wahrsagen und wie gut zu leben sei. Seine Anekdoten und Geschichten faszinieren noch in den gedruckten Transkriptionen aller 150 Vorlesungsstunden. Der Essay »Foucault im Hörsaal« versucht den Nachvollzug des mündlichen Foucault (...) und testet den Zusammenhang der mündlich vorgetragenen Gedankenentwicklung. Warum taucht dort - und nur dort - die Figur des Ödipus auf? Es gibt viele rote Fäden im Vortrag Foucaults, der explizit experimentierend ist und sich vom Charakter seiner Bücher deutlich absetzt. Foucault hat Vorlesungen eher wie politische Interventionen als lebhafte Ansprachen gestaltet; er adressiert seine Zuhörer als Zeitgenossen mit offenem Erwartungshorizont. -- Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Interdisciplinary research within the field of sustainability studies often faces incompatible ontological assumptions deriving from natural and social sciences. The importance of this fact is often underrated and sometimes leads to the wrong strategies. We distinguish between two broad approaches in interdisciplinarity: unificationism and pluralism. Unificationism seeks unification and perceives disciplinary boundaries as conventional, representing no long-term obstacle to progress, whereas pluralism emphasizes more ephemeral and transient interdisciplinary connections and underscores the autonomy of the disciplines with respect to one another. (...) Both approaches have their merits and pitfalls. Unification runs the risk of scientific imperialism, while pluralism can result in insurmountable barriers between disciplines. We made a comparison of eight distinct interdisciplinary attempts at integration of knowledge across social and natural sciences. The comparison was carried out as four pairwise comparisons: environmental economics versus ecological economics, environmental history versus historical ecology, resilience theory versus political ecology, and socio-biology versus actor-network theory. We conclude by showing that none of these prominent eight interdisciplinary fields in and of itself manages to provide, in a satisfactory way, such an integrated understanding of sustainability. We argue for pluralism and advocate complex ways of articulating divergent ontological assumptions. This is not equivalent to pursuing knowledge unification either through scientific imperialism or by catering to the requirements of narrow practical utility. It means prioritizing interdisciplinary integration by simultaneously acknowledging the role of societal and natural factors in accounting for sustainability issues. (shrink)

The main thesis of the paper is that in the case of modern statistics, the differences between the various concepts of models were the key to its formative controversies. The mathematical theory of statistical inference was mainly developed by Ronald A. Fisher, Jerzy Neyman, and Egon S. Pearson. Fisher on the one side and Neyman–Pearson on the other were involved often in a polemic controversy. The common view is that Neyman and Pearson made Fisher's account more stringent mathematically. It is (...) argued, however, that there is a profound theoretical basis for the controversy: both sides held conflicting views about the role of mathematical modelling. At the end, the influential programme of Exploratory Data Analysis is considered to be advocating another, more instrumental conception of models. Introduction Models in statistics—‘of what population is this a random sample?’ The fundamental lemma Controversy about models Exploratory data analysis as a model-critical approach. (shrink)

This contribution defends two claims. The first is about why thought experiments are so relevant and powerful in mathematics. Heuristics and proof are not strictly and, therefore, the relevance of thought experiments is not contained to heuristics. The main argument is based on a semiotic analysis of how mathematics works with signs. Seen in this way, formal symbols do not eliminate thought experiments (replacing them by something rigorous), but rather provide a new stage for them. The formal world resembles the (...) empirical world in that it calls for exploration and offers surprises. This presents a major reason why thought experiments occur both in empirical sciences and in mathematics. The second claim is about a looming aporia that signals the limitation of thought experiments. This aporia arises when mathematical arguments cease to be fully accessible, thus violating a precondition for experimenting in thought. The contribution focuses on the work of Vladimir Voevodsky (1966–2017, Fields medalist in 2002) who argued that even very pure branches of mathematics cannot avoid inaccessibility of proof. Furthermore, he suggested that computer verification is a feasible path forward, but only if proof is not modeled in terms of formal logic. (shrink)

"Fritsche's book, which is closely researched, carefully argued, and philologically rigorous, will become an indispensable point of reference for further debates on Heidegger's ambiguous political and ethical legacy."—Richard Wolin, author of The Politics of Being "Unquestionably, Fritsche has a highly unusual command of the Heideggerian idiom, which he uses to very good effect."—Tom Rockmore, author of On Heidegger's Nazism and Philosophy.

Philosophical arguments often assume that the folk tends towards moral objectivism. Although recent psychological studies have indicated that lay persons’ attitudes to morality are best characterized in terms of non-objectivism-leaning pluralism, it has been maintained that the folk may be committed to moral objectivism _implicitly_. Since the studies conducted so far almost exclusively assessed subjects’ metaethical attitudes via explicit cognitions, the strength of this rebuttal remains unclear. The current study attempts to test the folk’s implicit metaethical commitments. We present results (...) of a newly developed Implicit Association Test (IAT) for metaethical attitudes which indicate that the folk generally tend towards moral non-objectivism on the implicit level as well. We discuss implications of this finding for the philosophical debate. (shrink)

Both thought experiments and simulation experiments apparently belong to the family of experiments, though they are somewhat special members because they work without intervention into the natural world. Instead they explore hypothetical worlds. For this reason many have wondered whether referring to them as “experiments” is justified at all. While most authors are concerned with only one type of “imagined” experiment – either simulation or thought experiment – the present chapter hopes to gain new insight by considering what the two (...) types of experiment share, and what they do not. A close look reveals at least one fundamental methodological difference between thought and simulation experiments: while thought experiments are a cognitive process that employs intuition, simulation experiments rest on automated iterations of formal algorithms. It will be argued that this difference has important epistemological ramifications. (shrink)

Interdisciplinary research in the fields of forestry and sustainability studies often encounters seemingly incompatible ontological assumptions deriving from natural and social sciences. The perceived incompatibilities might emerge from the epistemological and ontological claims of the theories or models directly employed in the interdisciplinary collaboration, or they might be created by other epistemological and ontological assumptions that these interdisciplinary researchers find no reason to question. In this paper we discuss the benefits and risks of two possible approaches, Popperian optimism and Kuhnian (...) pessimism, to interdisciplinary knowledge integration where epistemological and ontological differences between the sciences involved can be expected. (shrink)