Cet article propose une étude conceptuelle d’une pratique scientifique. L’analyse phylogénétique, méthode phare en biologie de l’évolution, permet d’inférer les relations évolutives entre différentes espèces ou organismes. De nos jours, elle fait souvent intervenir l’usage de données moléculaires, dont les résultats sont appelés des phylogénies moléculaires. Comment caractériser cette pratique? Nous commençons par une présentation de la méthode, en la découpant en quatre étapes : l’identification puis l’alignement de séquences homologues ; la construction puis l’interprétation d’un arbre phylogénétique. Nous montrons (...) que l’analyse phylogénétique n’est pas une expérimentation, et donc n’appartient pas au « style de laboratoire », tel que défini par Hacking. Elle ne correspond pas non plus à une méthode typique des sciences historiques, telle que décrite par Cleland. Bien que la correspondance de l’analyse phylogénétique avec ces catégorisations ne soit que partielle, nous défendons l’utilité de chacune de ces confrontations pour souligner des aspects distincts de cette pratique. Nous remettons aussi en cause l’idée d’une séparation méthodologique nette entre sciences expérimentales et sciences historiques. (shrink)

Cet article propose une étude conceptuelle d’une pratique scientifique. L’analyse phylogénétique, méthode phare en biologie de l’évolution, permet d’inférer les relations évolutives entre différentes espèces ou organismes. De nos jours, elle fait souvent intervenir l’usage de données moléculaires, dont les résultats sont appelés des phylogénies moléculaires. Comment caractériser cette pratique? Nous commençons par une présentation de la méthode, en la découpant en quatre étapes : l’identification puis l’alignement de séquences homologues ; la construction puis l’interprétation d’un arbre phylogénétique. Nous montrons (...) que l’analyse phylogénétique n’est pas une expérimentation, et donc n’appartient pas au « style de laboratoire », tel que défini par Hacking. Elle ne correspond pas non plus à une méthode typique des sciences historiques, telle que décrite par Cleland. Bien que la correspondance de l’analyse phylogénétique avec ces caté... (shrink)

Cet article propose une étude conceptuelle d’une pratique scientifique. L’analyse phylogénétique, méthode phare en biologie de l’évolution, permet d’inférer les relations évolutives entre différentes espèces ou organismes. De nos jours, elle fait souvent intervenir l’usage de données moléculaires, dont les résultats sont appelés des phylogénies moléculaires. Comment caractériser cette pratique? Nous commençons par une présentation de la méthode, en la découpant en quatre étapes : (1) l’identification puis (2) l’alignement de séquences homologues (descendants d’un ancêtre commun) ; (3) la construction (...) puis (4) l’interprétation d’un arbre phylogénétique. Nous montrons que l’analyse phylogénétique n’est pas une expérimentation, et donc n’appartient pas au « style de laboratoire », tel que défini par Hacking. Elle ne correspond pas non plus à une méthode typique des sciences historiques, telle que décrite par Cleland. Bien que la correspondance de l’analyse phylogénétique avec ces catégorisations ne soit que partielle, nous défendons l’utilité de chacune de ces confrontations pour souligner des aspects distincts de cette pratique. Nous remettons aussi en cause l’idée d’une séparation méthodologique nette entre sciences expérimentales et sciences historiques. (shrink)

This article is a study of the role and use of evidence in the evaluation of claims in the historical sciences. In order to do this, I develop a “snapshot” approach to Toulmin schemas. This framework is applied to the case of Archezoa, an initially supported then eventually rejected hypothesis in evolutionary biology. From this case study, I criticize Cleland’s “smoking gun” account of the methodology of the historical sciences. I argue that Toulmin schemas are conceptually precise tools that allow (...) for the building of enriched reconstructions of evidential reasoning. From the application of this framework, I discuss three ways in which the construction and use of facts in the historical sciences are theory-laden. Despite its inherent limits, TS are heuristically useful tools to identify epistemic moves that could be further investigated. It also sheds light on the positive roles of speculation in the historical sciences. Finally, I argue that it provides a context-specific and individuated understanding of hypothesis evaluation in the historical sciences. Overall, I think the application of Toulmin schemas to cases of evidential reasoning in the historical sciences is a promising descriptive and heuristic tool for philosophers of science. (shrink)

Philosophers have usually highlighted how the weakness and paucity of historical evidence underdetermine the choice between rival historical explanations. Focusing underdetermination on the link between theory and evidence comes, I argue, with three assumptions: competing hypotheses are easy to generate, investigators agree on the constitution and interpretation of the evidence and a plurality of hypotheses is a useful evil to reach consensus. The last assumption implies that the sustained coexistence of incompatible hypotheses is considered as a scientific failure. I argue (...) that this negative vision of sustained disagreement has monistic undertones. By drawing from a case study in evolutionary biology, this paper defends a form of scientific pluralism. Firstly, I show that underdetermination is not only found at the inferential level but also at the level of the constitution and interpretation of the evidence, on the choice of investigative scaffolds and when interpreting background theories. Because of that, competing hypotheses exhibit a degree of methodological incommensurability. While catastrophic from a monistic standpoint, I defend that scientific pluralism gives a different, and I think richer, account of such situations. On the plus side, competing approaches benefit from their sustained coexistence and interaction. I argue that this generates direct and indirect epistemic goods independently of whether the controversy is solved. Scientific pluralism also shifts our attention from achieving consensus to managing disagreement. The challenge becomes to maintain the conditions for fruitful interactions in a community with incommensurable approaches and heterogeneous expertise. (shrink)

The six articles that comprise Book 2, Distinction 1, Question 1 of Aquinas' Writings on the "Sentences" of Peter Lombard represent his earliest and most succinct account of creation. These texts contain the essential Thomistic doctrines on the subject, and are here translated into English for the first time, along with an introduction and analysis. In Article One Aquinas argues, against Manichean dualism, that there is one ultimate cause of all created being; in so doing he gives three proofs (...) for the existence of the Creator and the essential features of his answer to the problem of evil. Thomas establishes his definition of creation in Article Two, providing the needed distinctions between philosophical and theological senses of creation. Emanationism and the problem of whether there can be any intermediary causes in God's act of creation are the subject of Article Three. The next article demonstrates that although God is the cause of all created being, nevertheless creatures are true causes in nature. Article Five argues that it is from revelation alone that we know that the world had a temporal beginning, and that the philosophical arguments that purport to show either the necessity or impossibility of the temporal beginning are not persuasive. A detailed exposition of the meaning of the first sentence of the Bible, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," follows in Article Six. (shrink)

Abstract Freedom in the sense of free will is a multiway power to do any one of a number of things, leaving it up to us which one of a range of options by way of action we perform. What are the ethical implications of our possession of such a power? The paper examines the pre-Hobbesian scholastic view of writers such as Peter Lombard and Francisco Suárez: freedom as a multiway power is linked to the right to liberty understood (...) as a right to exercise that power, and to liberation as a desirable goal involving the perfection of that power. Freedom as a power, liberty as a right, and liberation as a desirable goal, are all linked within this scholastic view to a distinctive theory of law as constituting, in its primary form of natural law, the normative recognition of human freedom. Hobbes's denial of the very existence of freedom as a power led him to a radical revision both of the theory of law and of the relation of law to liberty. Law and liberty were no longer harmonious phenomena, but were left in essential conflict. One legacy of Hobbes is the attempt to base a theory of law and liberty not on freedom as a multiway power, but on rationality. Instead of an ethics of freedom, we have an ethics of reason as involving autonomy. The paper expresses some scepticism about the prospects for such an appeal to reason as a replacement for multiway freedom. (shrink)

The essay on thirteenth-century ethics will trace the history of three major themes in moral philosophy and theology, namely the morality of individual acts, virtue, and happiness. Both Peter Lombard’s rejection of Abelard’s focus on intention and the Fourth Lateran Council’s remarks on confession caused thinkers such as William of Auvergne and Philip the Chancellor to develop a way of classifying acts and determining responsibility for such acts. Thomas Aquinas and clarified and changed the technical vocabulary but adopted (...) much from their views on knowledge and moral responsibility. A similar development took place in the understanding of virtue. Philip and others discussed the nature and unity of the virtues in the context of a patristic inheritance that was largely influence by Stoicism. Thomas Aquinas was among the first to discuss the connection between specifically distinct virtues, bringing to bear Aristotle’s description of prudence in Book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics. Moreover, whereas previous thinkers had primarily distinguished between political and theological virtues, Thomas distinguished more carefully between both infused and acquired moral virtues, and theological virtues that are only infused. He explained that the intellectual virtues, although better in themselves, are inferior to the moral virtues when it comes to making a good human being. Debates over the role of happiness in ethics were related to such distinctions. Early generations had focused primarily on the role that moral and theological virtue plays in its role as leading to happiness in heaven. In contrast, some Aristotelians seem to emphasize the priority of intellectual virtue over moral virtue, and consequently the life of the philosopher over the life of the citizen. Thomas Aquinas distinguished between the different perfections of intellectual and moral virtue, and distinguished carefully between the imperfect happiness of this life and the perfect happiness of the next. Although Thomas brought these issues together in an admirable synthesis, few of his contemporaries thought that he had successfully addressed these issues. (shrink)

Commentaire sur les Sentences de Pierre le Lombard (Selections) -- Commentaire de douze livres de la Métaphysique d'Aristote (Selection) -- Commentaire des dix livres de l'Éthique à Nicomaque d'Aristote (Selections) -- Commentaire des huit livres de la Politique d'Aristote, ou Traité de la vie civile (Selections) -- Commentaires de l'Écriture. Sur Mt 20, 24-26 ; Mt 22, 15-22 ; Rm 13, 1-7 ; Jn 8, 3-11.

The address presents the recently discovered second, Roman commentary of St. Thomas Aquinas on Peter Lombard’s Liber sententiarum and offers some reflections on work to be done by scholars in the study of this text. The first part of the address presents the manuscript and its circumstances to argue for the authenticity of the text. The second part briefly describes the character and content of Thomas’ Lectura romana. The third part addresses a concern expressed by Frs. Dondaine (...) and Torrell that a rationalist tendency in the text’s consideration of the Trinity raises questions of its authenticity. (shrink)

The author offers, first, an account of St. Thomas Aquinas’s Aristotelian-inspired understanding of the object of a moral act and of what morally that species contributes to the act of which it is a part. Then, with special (but not sole) attention to two passages in Aquinas cited frequently by the proponents of the new natural law theory—that is, Summa theologiae 2-2.64.7 and the commentary on Peter Lombard’s Sentences 2.40.1.2—the author argues that a close analysis of Aquinas’s remarks (...) on objects and intentions does not support the claim that the new natural law theory is Thomistic. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 13.1 (Spring 2013): 79–104. (shrink)

The Doctrine of Temporal Parts (sometimes abbreviated herein as 'DTP') asserts that, for each portion (including infinitely small portions) of the smallest period of time during which a material object exists, there is an object-a temporal part of the material object in question-which exists at that and at no other time. In "Things Change," Mark Heller offers an argument for DTP, and responds to a objection, the "No-Change" objection, to that doctrine.2 My goal in this paper is to undermine both (...) Heller's argument in favor of DTP and his response to that criticism. (shrink)

This article examines different medieval explanations of the causes of moral goodness, principally the end of the agent and the object of the action. Special attention is given to Thomas Aquinas, who considers the end (that which is willed) to be not only the origin of moral goodness, but also its main criterion. Peter Abelard, whose ethics I argue to be non-subjectivist, had developed a similar theory, though the vocabulary he uses is not very refined. By contrast, for Albert (...) and Duns Scotus, the end is accidental to the moral act. The importance of this study is to shed light on the subjective and objective criteria by which to evaluate the morality of actions. (shrink)

v. 1. Editorial introduction -- v. 2. The English and Latin texts (i) -- v. 3. The English and Latin texts (ii).

The Doctrine of Temporal Parts (sometimes abbreviated herein as 'DTP') asserts that, for each portion (including infinitely small portions) of the smallest period of time during which a material object exists, there is an object-a temporal part of the material object in question-which exists at that and at no other time. In "Things Change," Mark Heller offers an argument for DTP, and responds to a objection, the "No-Change" objection, to that doctrine.2 My goal in this paper is to undermine both (...) Heller's argument in favor of DTP and his response to that criticism. (shrink)

The Cistercian Humbert de Preuilly played an important role as an early intellectual guide for the members of his Order. He delivered his lectures on the Sentences at Paris around 1290, from which we have the first Cistercian commentary on the Sentences in the form of Conclusiones that summarize the views of Giles of Rome in Book I and of Thomas Aquinas in Books II-IV. Preserved in some 46 manuscripts, Humbert's Conclusiones super librum Sententiarum clearly served as an introduction (...) to systematic theology for the White Monks. This article presents a new catalogue of manuscripts, a transcription of the Prologue and the tabula questionum. (shrink)

This chapter elaborates on an intuitive criterion much discussed by ancient Greek philosophers regarding the conditions under which an object can be said to change. Heraclitus and Parmenides both denied the possibility of change. Heraclitus believed that changes are constantly occurring. Consequently, he needed to sever the connection between the idea that a thing changes and the idea that a change occurs, a connection expressed by the claim that a change occurs just in case a thing changes. Heraclitus was a (...) temporal parts theorist; therefore, to accept his view means abandoning the idea that the things that come into and go out of existence are also things that can alter. Parmenides, on the other hand, believed that nothing can become what it is not; therefore, nothing can change. (shrink)

When making decisions, humans can observe many kinds of information about others' activities, but their effects on performance are not well understood. We investigated social learning strategies using a simple problem-solving task in which participants search a complex space, and each can view and imitate others' solutions. Results showed that participants combined multiple sources of information to guide learning, including payoffs of peers' solutions, popularity of solution elements among peers, similarity of peers' solutions to their own, and relative payoffs from (...) individual exploration. Furthermore, performance was positively associated with imitation rates at both the individual and group levels. When peers' payoffs were hidden, popularity and similarity biases reversed, participants searched more broadly and randomly, and both quality and equity of exploration suffered. We conclude that when peers' solutions can be effectively compared, imitation does not simply permit scrounging, but it can also facilitate propagation of good solutions for further cumulative exploration. (shrink)

Resumen Este trabajo tiene dos objetivos. Desde el punto de vista conceptual, nos proponemos contribuir al conocimiento del concepto de voz y su construcción conversacional a partir de la (des)afiliación y el (des)alineamiento en el proceso de validación o rechazo de la voz de los participantes. Desde el punto de vista práctico, esperamos contribuir al desarrollo de los métodos de la investigación participativa, entendidos en ciencias sociales como una metodología de investigación y aprendizaje colectivo, a partir del análisis crítico de (...) un caso. Para ello, adoptamos sobre el análisis de la interacción verbal un punto de vista discursivo que nos permite definir el concepto de voz como un conjunto de regularidades semióticas que indexicalizan una trayectoria biográfica a través de los discursos sociales que la componen. De este modo, la voz individual es producto de la trayectoria social -y discursiva- del hablante, la cual, al recibir validación o rechazo de los demás participantes, se pone a prueba en cada interacción. En ese sentido, proponemos que la (des)afiliación y el (des)alineamiento conversacionales permiten validar o rechazar las dimensiones de voz propuestas por el hablante. Exploraremos esta hipótesis en un corpus de reuniones de un proyecto de investigación participativa desarrollado en Buenos Aires, Argentina, con la participación de investigadoras e investigadores académicos y dirigentes sindicales, deteniéndonos especialmente en el caso de una de las participantes, que abandonó el proyecto al poco tiempo de comenzar. (shrink)

The “lost generation,” or the generation of the cultural revolution, is unique in world history: it is the result of the demiurgical will of one man, Mao Zedong, to create a whole generation “revolutionary successors” entirely devoted to the cause of socialism and to the realization of Maoist ideals. Even though Mao’s endeavor ended in complete failure, the mark it left on the young people who experienced it was deep enough to form a very specific and particularly self-conscious generation. Awareness (...) of being part of a certain generation is not limited this particular group and is more widespread in China than in most countries. Articles and books on generational phenomena are also particularly numerous in China, and the subject is frequently dealt with among observers and scholars outside the People’s Republic. But the criteria used to define different generations are not always clear and well founded. Moreover, the definition of the concept of generation itself is disputed and many social scientists, especially in the United States, reject its use outside the realm of kinship. We feel, therefore, obliged to clarify first what we mean by this concept and why it can be useful. This should help us answer our main questions: How do we define the “generation of the Cultural Revolution”? What is its role today’s Chinese politics and what could it be in the near future? (shrink)

It has been argued that there is a problem oftemporary intrinsics, the problem of explaininghow it is possible for things to possesssuccessively contrary properties, if a certaintheory about time, ``eternalism'', is true. Inthis paper, I consider whether there really issuch a problem and survey some standardsolutions to it. I argue for one of them, onewhich has been offered by Mark Johnston andPeter van Inwagen, and which I call the``exemplification-solution''''. I consider avariant on that solution offered by E.J. Lowe(and Sally Haslanger), (...) and I argue that thisvariant should be rejected. (shrink)

In this book Thomas Wren uncovers and assesses the largely hidden philosophical assumptions about human motivation that have shaped contemporary psychological ...

INTRODUCTION Although the writings of Thomas Reid are very fertile and interesting, his life is biographically barren in comparison to such seventeenth - and ...

L’article s’emploie à comparer la doctrine de l’Incarnation dans les trois grandes œuvres spéculatives de saint Thomas : Scriptum super Sententiis, Summa contra Gentiles, Summa theologiae. Il examine d’abord le plan suivi dans les trois ouvrages pour traiter ce thème ; puis la façon dont saint Thomas remédie à deux lacunes de la christologie du Lombard (convenances de l’Incarnation, mystères de la vie du Christ) ; ensuite, les deux opinions christologiques du Lombard rejetées par les docteurs (...) parisiens et concernant, l’une, l’âme séparée du corps et, l’autre, la question de savoir si, durant le triduum mortis, le Christ était un homme ; enfin, dix-sept des articuli in quibus. Malgré son caractère pointilliste, cette recherche permet d’explorer les aspects essentiels de la christologie de saint Thomas, de souligner les progrès de sa pensée et aussi de relever quelques positions problématiques de son enseignement. (shrink)