Das Problem, unter welchen Bedingungen eine Hypothese oder Theorienmodifikation als methodologisch akzeptabel gilt, wird in der wissenschaftstheoretischen Tradition als die Frage des Ad-Hoc-Charakters von Hypothesen diskutiert. Das gleichartige Problem tritt aber auch in Lakatos' Methodologie wissenschaftlicher Forschungsprogramme auf, welche von methodologisch zulässigen Theorienänderungen die Vorhersage 'neuer Tatsachen' verlangt. Über diesen Begriff der neuen Tatsache und damit der Adäquatheitsbedingungen für wissenschaftliche Erklärungen hat sich eine weitgefächerte Debatte entsponnen. In diesem Papier wird der Versuch unternommen, die Forderung der unabhängigen Testbarkeit einer Hypothese, (...) welche im Rahmen der Diskussion des Ad-hoc-Charakters von Hypothesen eine wichtige Rolle spielt, auch für die Frage der Spezifizierung von 'neuen Tatsachen' fruchtbar zu machen. Ich argumentiere zugunsten der Bedingung, daß eine Hypothese als methodologisch akzeptabel gelten sollte, wenn sie zumindest zwei unabhängige Tatsachen erklärt. Ein derartiger Ansatz verlangt die Kennzeichnung dessen, was als 'eine Tatsache' zu gelten hat. Die Schwierigkeit einer derartigen Kennzeichnung ist ein notorisches Problem jedes Kriteriums, das auf unabhängige Testbarkeit zielt. Eine Klärung dieses Problems wird über das Konzept der empirischen Generalisierung versucht. Als 'eine Tatsache' im methodologischen Sinne gilt demnach ein gesetzmäßiger Zusammenhang zwischen zwei Meßgrößen. Dies erlaubt weiterführend eine Klärung des Problems, was methodologisch als 'ein Experiment' zu werten ist, d. h. was als Reproduktion desselben und was als andersartiges Experiment gelten soll. Mit Hilfe dieser Klärungen wird unter anderem der Ad-hoc-Charakter der Lorentzschen Kontraktionshypothese sowie das Problem der Gleich- oder Verschiedenartigkeit von Michelson-Morley- und Kennedy-Thorndike-Experiment untersucht. (shrink)

Das Problem, unter welchen Bedingungen eine Hypothese oder Theorienmodifikation als methodologisch akzeptabel gilt, wird in der wissenschaftstheoretischen Tradition als die Frage des Ad-Hoc-Charakters von Hypothesen diskutiert. Das gleichartige Problem tritt aber auch in Lakatos' Methodologie wissenschaftlicher Forschungsprogramme auf, welche von methodologisch zulässigen Theorienänderungen die Vorhersage 'neuer Tatsachen' verlangt. Über diesen Begriff der neuen Tatsache und damit der Adäquatheitsbedingungen für wissenschaftliche Erklärungen hat sich eine weitgefächerte Debatte entsponnen. In diesem Papier wird der Versuch unternommen, die Forderung der unabhängigen Testbarkeit einer Hypothese, (...) welche im Rahmen der Diskussion des Ad-hoc-Charakters von Hypothesen eine wichtige Rolle spielt, auch für die Frage der Spezifizierung von 'neuen Tatsachen' fruchtbar zu machen. Ich argumentiere zugunsten der Bedingung, daß eine Hypothese als methodologisch akzeptabel gelten sollte, wenn sie zumindest zwei unabhängige Tatsachen erklärt. Ein derartiger Ansatz verlangt die Kennzeichnung dessen, was als 'eine Tatsache' zu gelten hat. Die Schwierigkeit einer derartigen Kennzeichnung ist ein notorisches Problem jedes Kriteriums, das auf unabhängige Testbarkeit zielt. Eine Klärung dieses Problems wird über das Konzept der empirischen Generalisierung versucht. Als 'eine Tatsache' im methodologischen Sinne gilt demnach ein gesetzmäßiger Zusammenhang zwischen zwei Meßgrößen. Dies erlaubt weiterführend eine Klärung des Problems, was methodologisch als 'ein Experiment' zu werten ist, d. h. was als Reproduktion desselben und was als andersartiges Experiment gelten soll. Mit Hilfe dieser Klärungen wird unter anderem der Ad-hoc-Charakter der Lorentzschen Kontraktionshypothese sowie das Problem der Gleich- oder Verschiedenartigkeit von Michelson-Morley- und Kennedy-Thorndike-Experiment untersucht. (shrink)

In the methodology of scientific research programs (MSRP) there are important features on the problem of prediction, especially regarding novel facts. In his approach, Imre Lakatos proposed three different levels on prediction: aim, process, and assessment. Chapter 5 pays attention to the characterization of prediction in the methodology of research programs. Thus, it takes into account several features: (1) its pragmatic characterization, (2) the logical perspective as a proposition, (3) the epistemological component, (4) its role in the appraisal (...) of research programs, and (5) its place as a value for scientific research. -/- The notion of “novel facts” is highly relevant in his conception, where several aspects are involved: the directions of novel facts, the different kinds of novelty, and the transition from six possible options of “novel facts” to four choices. Thereafter, the prediction of novel facts as the criterion of appraisal is considered. On the one hand, this requires analyzing the theoretical, empirical, and heuristic possibilities of appraisal; and, on the other, whether there is an overemphasis on the role of prediction in methodology of scientific research programs. As a consequence, there is an analysis of Lakatos’ criterion of appraisal in MSRP and economics. (shrink)

Lakatos’s approach to prediction and novel facts is of considerable interest. Prediction appears in his conception in at least three different levels: a) as an important aim of the research programs; b) as a procedure -a key method- for increasing our scientific knowledge both theoretically and empirically; and c) as the way to assess the scientific character of knowledge claims -means for evaluating results-. At all these levels he envisions a close connection between prediction and novel (...) class='Hi'>facts. The paper has four aims. First, to examine his concept of “prediction” in Lakatos’s MSRP, taking into account different aspects (semantical, logical, epistemological, methodological and axiological). Second, to clarify the notion of “novel facts”, which requires the consideration of the various ways in which new facts can be understood. Third, to examine the prediction of novel facts as criterion of appraisal (theoretical, empirical and heuristical). Fourth, to explore Lakatos’s approach (i.e., the concept of prediction linked to novel facts) in connection with the field of economics, in order to shed new light on issues that have been discussed in recent years. (shrink)

Lakatos’s approach to prediction and novel facts is of considerable interest. Prediction appears in his conception in at least three different levels: a) as an important aim of the research programs; b) as a procedure -a key method- for increasing our scientific knowledge both theoretically and empirically; and c) as the way to assess the scientific character of knowledge claims -means for evaluating results-. At all these levels he envisions a close connection between prediction and novel (...) class='Hi'>facts. The paper has four aims. First, to examine his concept of “prediction” in Lakatos’s MSRP, taking into account different aspects. Second, to clarify the notion of “novel facts”, which requires the consideration of the various ways in which new facts can be understood. Third, to examine the prediction of novel facts as criterion of appraisal. Fourth, to explore Lakatos’s approach in connection with the field of economics, in order to shed new light on issues that have been discussed in recent years. (shrink)

Why did Copernicus's research programme supersede Ptolemy's?’, Lakatos and Zahar argued that, on Zahar's criterion for ‘novel fact’, Copernican theory was objectively scientifically superior to Ptolemaic theory. They are mistaken, Lakatos and Zahar applied Zahar's criterion to ‘a historical thought-experiment’—fictional rather than real history. Further, in their fictional history, they compared Copernicus to Eudoxus rather than Ptolemy, ignored Tycho Brahe, and did not consider facts that would be novel for geostatic theories. When Zahar's criterion is applied to (...) real history, the results are distinctly different. Finally, most of the historical and conceptual problems in applying Zahar's criterion to the Copernican Revolution primarily arise from a deep difficulty in Lakatos's programme: the necessity of individuating research programmes and identifying their originators. 1 Working closely with David Dahl was crucial in developing this paper. Robert Westman's valiant effort to keep me on the historical straight and narrow drastically limited my tendency to a priori historical pronouncements. The Vassar Philosophy Department, John Tompsich, and Jean Sterling were also helpful. (shrink)

In this paper, we outline a new method for evaluating the human impact of machine-learning applications. In partnership with Underwriters Laboratories Inc., we have developed a framework to evaluate the impacts of a particular use of machine learning that is based on the goals and values of the domain in which that application is deployed. By examining the use of artificial intelligence in particular domains, such as journalism, criminal justice, or law, we can develop more nuanced and practically relevant understandings (...) of key ethical guidelines for artificial intelligence. By decoupling the extraction of the facts of the matter from the evaluation of the impact of the resulting systems, we create a framework for the process of assessing impact that has two distinctly different phases. (shrink)

While many philosophers of science have accorded special evidential significance to tests whose results are "novel facts", there continues to be disagreement over both the definition of novelty and why it should matter. The view of novelty favored by Giere, Lakatos, Worrall and many others is that of use-novelty: An accordance between evidence e and hypothesis h provides a genuine test of h only if e is not used in h's construction. I argue that what lies behind the (...) intuition that novelty matters is the deeper intuition that severe tests matter. I set out a criterion of severity akin to the notion of a test's power in Neyman-Pearson statistics. I argue that tests which are use-novel may fail to be severe, and tests that are severe may fail to be use-novel. I discuss the 1919 eclipse data as a severe test of Einstein's law of gravity. (shrink)

If novels can be arguments, that fact should shape logic or argumentation studies as well as literary studies. Two senses the term ‘narrative argument’ might have are (a) a story that offers an argument, or (b) a distinctive argument form. I consider whether there is a principled way of extracting a novel’s argument in sense (a). Regarding the possibility of (b), Hunt’s view is evaluated that many fables and much fabulist literature inherently, and as wholes, have an analogical argument (...) structure. I argue that a better account is that some novels inherently exhibit a transcendental argument structure. (shrink)

Could there be genuinely novel colours — that is, visual qualities having a hue that bears a resemblance relation to red, green, yellow, and blue, yet is neither reddish, nor greenish, nor yellowish, nor blueish?1 And if there could be such colours, what would it be like to see them? How would the colours look? In his article,"Epiphenomenal Qualia,"2 Frank Jackson presents a philosophical thought experiment that raises these questions . Jackson asks us to imagine a perceiver named Fred (...) who is like us except that he has the ability to see a hue we cannot see. Jackson's question is: "What is the new colour or colours like?"3 Jackson argues that all the physical information about Fred, including the physiology of his brain and visual system, and his dispositions to behaviour, would not enable us to answer this question. The totality of physical information would still leave out something about Fred's experience, namely, what the extra hue is like from the subjective perspective of Fred. And if at some point we became able to see this extra hue , we would learn something that we did not know as a result of having all the physical information about Fred: We would learn how the extra hue looks and thereby learn just what it was that made Fred's experience different from ours. Jackson calls his argument "the knowledge argument." In his view, the argument is similar to Thomas Nagel's in his article "What is it Like to Be a Bat?,"4 but both its point and ultimate conclusion are different. Nagel argues that facts about what conscious experience is like for some creature are essentially connected to the subjective perspective of the creature. The problem that Nagel poses is, how could such facts be revealed in anything objective and physical about the creature? How could the objective characterization indicate what it is like to be the creature ? The point of Jackson's argument, however, is not that we would not know what it is like to be Fred even if we knew everything physical about him ; it is rather that there is still something we do not know about Fred's experience — a property that it has — even when we have all the physical information about him: We do not know how the extra hue that Fred sees looks to Fred, and so we do not know all that there is to know about how Fred's experience of seeing the extra hue differs from his experience of seeing red, green, yellow, and blue.5 Jackson's conclusion is also stronger than Nagel's. (shrink)

Evidence that confirms a scientific hypothesis is said to be ‘novel’ if it is not discovered until after the hypothesis isconstructed. The philosophical issues surrounding novel confirmation have been well summarized by Campbell and Vinci [1983]. They write that philosophers of science generally agree that when observational evidence supports a theory, the confirmation is much stronger when the evidence is ‘novel’... There are, nevertheless, reasons to be skeptical of this tradition... The notion of novel confirmation is (...) beset with a theoretical puzzle about how the degree of confirmation can change without any change in the evidence, hypothesis, or auxiliary assumptions... There have not yet appeared any obviously satisfactory solutions to these problems Much of the literature on novel confirmation relies on the Bayesian analysis of conditional probabilities. Let H represent a hypothesis, E an event that confirms the hypothesis, and B some relevant background information. Denote by Pr the conditional probability of x given y. There are various plausible measures of the degree of support that E lends to H. Among these are: Degree of support = Pr Degree of support = Pr – Pr Degree of support = Pr – Pr Degree of support = Pr – Pt In the work cited, Campbell and Vinci offer a somewhat more involved Bayesian interpretation. Formula is discussed by Gardner [1981] who points out that under this formulation there can be no role for novelty. 'The function Pr contains no third slot in which to insert a temporal relation between the invention of H and the inventor's learning E. Obviously, then, this relation could not possibly affect E's support of H.' Formula, on the other hand, suggests a role for novelty. Bayes's Theorem allows us to rewrite the formula as Degree of support = Pr x [Pr – 1] We can use 1/Pr as a measure of the novelty of E. Then shows that the degree of support increases with novelty of E. In the paper already cited, Campbell and Vinci discuss shortcomings of this analysis. Formula expresses an alternative offered by Howson [1984]. In that formula, Pr represents the probability of H assuming that only B – {E} is known. This allows for the possibility of non-novel facts generating support for hypotheses. Niiniluoto [1984] argues for a variant along the lines of, in which we account for the possibility that the theorist was unaware that his hypothesis entails E. One problem in deciding among these approaches is that the choice of a definition for the degree of support appears arbitrary. What kind of argument could justify the choice of one definition over another? It is our position that there can be no basis for addressing this question in the absence of an explicit model of the process by which hypotheses are generated. Only in the presence of such a model can the various conditional probabilities be given meaningful interpretations. We provide such models in Sections 1, 2 and 4. The simple model of Section 1, incorporating strong assumptions, yields the conclusion that novelty is irrelevant. When these assumptions are relaxed in the later sections, novelty becomes relevant for a variety of reasons. It is at least potentially the case that scientists have more information about their own abilities than is publicly available, and this information might influence their decisions about whether even to attempt novel prediction. If this is so, then it should be incorporated into the model of hypothesis generation. This requires an explicit discussion of how scientists respond to incentives and how the incentives themselves evolve, which in turn takes us into the realm of economic theory. We have addressed these issues in another paper, written for an audience of economists. The results of this research are summarized in Section 3. (shrink)

This chapter explores the evidence for the existence of such new colour experiences and what their philosophical ramifications would be. I first define the notion of ‘novel colours’ and discuss why I think that this is the best name for such colours, rather than the numerous other names that they have sometimes been given in the literature. I then introduce the evidence and arguments for thinking that experiences as of novel colours exist, along with objections that people have (...) had to that evidence and to those arguments. To do so, I outline some facts about ordinary, non-novel colours before considering whether experiences as of novel colours, exist. Then I discuss the potentially significant ramifications the existence of novel colour experiences would have for theories of the metaphysics of colour, theories of the nature of colour experience, and for theories of the nature of perception more generally. (shrink)

Philosophers have long been tempted by the idea that objects and properties are abstractions from the facts. But how is this abstraction supposed to go? If the objects and properties aren't 'already' there, how do the facts give rise to them? Jason Turner develops and defends a novel answer to this question: The facts are arranged in a quasi-geometric 'logical space', and objects and properties arise from different quasi-geometric structures in this space.

The key word in amy account of the different ways that visual details are presented by novels and films is "assert." I wish to communicate by that word the force it has in ordinary rhetoric: an "assertion" is a statement, usually an independent sentence or clause, that something is in fact the case, that it is a certain sort of thing, that it does in fact have certain properties or enter into certain relations, namely, those listed. Opposed to asserting there (...) is mere "naming." When I say, "The cart was tiny; it came onto the bridge," I am asserting that certain property of the cart of being small in size and that certain relation of arriving at the bridge. However, when I say "The green cart came onto the bridge," I am asserting nothing more than its arrival at the bridge; the greenness of the cart is not asserted but slipped in without syntactic fuss. It is only named. Textually, it emerges by the way. Now, most film narratives seem to be of the latter textual order: it requires special effort for films to assert a property or relation. The dominant mode is presentational, not assertive. A film doesn't say, "This is the state of affairs," it merely shows you that state of affairs. Of course, there could be a character or a voice-over commentator asserting a property or relation; but then the film would be using its sound track in much the same way as fiction uses assertive syntax. It is not cinematic description but merely description by literary assertion transferred to film. Filmmakers and critics traditionally show disdain for verbal commentary because it explicates what, they feel, should be implicated visually. So in its essential visual mode, film does not describe at all but merely presents; or better, it depicts, in the original etymological sense of that word: renders in pictorial form. I don't think that this is mere purism or a die-hard adherence to silent films. Film attracts that component of our perceptual apparatus which we tend to favor over the other senses. Seeing, after all, is believing. Seymour Chatman, professor in the department of rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley, is the author of The Later Style of Henry James and Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. His contribution to Critical Inquiry, "Reply to Barbara Herrnstein Smith" appeared in the Summer 1981 issue. (shrink)

Debates concerning the units and levels of selection have persisted for over fifty years. One major question in this literature is whether units and levels of selection are genuine, in the sense that they are objective features of the world, or merely reflect the interests and goals of an observer. Scientists and philosophers have proposed a range of answers to this question. This Element introduces this literature and proposes a novel contribution. It defends a realist stance and offers a (...) way of delineating genuine levels of selection by invoking the notion of a functional unit. (shrink)

Many areas of philosophy employ a distinction between factual and non-factual (descriptive/non-descriptive, cognitive/non-cognitive, etc) uses of language. This book examines the various ways in which this distinction is normally drawn, argues that all are unsatisfactory, and suggests that the search for a sharp distinction is misconceived. The book develops an alternative approach, based on a novel theory of the function and origins of the concept of truth. The central hypothesis is that the main role of the normative notion of (...) truth is to encourage speakers to argue, with long-run behavioural advantages. This offers a fresh perspective on many debates about realism in contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

Significant associations have been found between specific human leukocyte antigen (HLA) alleles and organ transplant rejection, autoimmune disease development, and the response to infection. Traditional searches for disease associations have conventionally measured risk associated with the presence of individual HLA alleles. However, given the high level of HLA polymorphism, the pattern of amino acid variability, and the fact that most of the HLA variation occurs at functionally important sites, it may be that a combination of variable amino acid sites shared (...) by several alleles (shared epitopes) are better descriptors of the actual causative genetic variants. Here we describe a novel approach to genetic association analysis in which genes/proteins are broken down into smaller sequence features and then variant types defined for each feature, allowing for independent analysis of disease association with each sequence feature variant type. We have used this approach to analyze a cohort of systemic sclerosis patients and show that a sequence feature composed of specific amino acid residues in peptide binding pockets 4 and 7 of HLA-DRB1 explains much of the molecular determinant of risk for systemic sclerosis. (shrink)

In the decades since the Science Wars of the 1990s, climate science has become a crucible for the negotiation of claims about reality and expertise. This negotiation, which has drawn explicitly on the ideas and techniques of science and technology studies, has taken place in genres of fiction as well as non-fiction, which intersect in surprising ways. In this case study, I focus on two interwoven strands of this history. One follows Michael Crichton’s best-selling 2004 novel, State of Fear (...) and its reception by neo-conservatives as a commentary on the mis-uses of facts to stoke fear about anthropogenic climate change. The other considers Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway’s 2010 publishing success Merchants of Doubt as the inverse, a demonstration of the forms of disinformation that have been used to undermine scientific consensus around climate change. I show that both Crichton’s as well as Oreskes and Conway’s approaches were critiqued by academic STS even as their accounts constituted the most high-profile performances of its stakes and the politics of knowledge since the Science Wars. In highlighting the STS practices deployed by each, as well as how those practices were differently linked to accusations of fear-mongering and a perversion of the purity of STS, I demonstrate the need for a reflexive history of STS. Such an approach, I argue, can better consider the social life of STS ideas and practices amidst calls for more politically-engaged approaches to knowledge production. (shrink)

This is a shot at expressing a few of the problems that arise when you try to understand how novels are read. I shall be trying to formulate them in very ordinary language: the subject is becoming fashionable, and most recent attempts seem to me quite unduly fogged by neologism and too ready to match the natural complexity of the subject with barren imitative complications. Of course you may ask why there should be theories of this kind at all, and (...) I can only say that they are needed because of what we have missed by always meditating on what we have read and can survey, as it were, from a distance which allows us to think it's keeping still, rather than upon the ways in which, as we read, we deal with the actual turbulence of a text. Much of what I say will seem obvious enough, but it may throw some light on a fact that we all know so intimately that we don't bother to ask questions about it: the fact of plurality, of which the plurality of our own interpretation is evidence. There are interesting side issues: why do some novels seem to be more plural than others, and why, on the whole, do the ones that seem most plural so often turn out to be fairly recent, not to say modern? Also, perhaps, how do interpretations alter in time? And what's wrong with the sorts of theories we already have? . . . For the natural or naive way of reading - a matter of recognition, the medium being a virtual transparency - is neither natural nor naive. It is conditioned and arbitrary, a false return to "story" - to the "wisdom", as Benjamin calls it, of folklore, a pretence that everybody can agree on a particular construction of reality. It is, however, no more apposite to condemn this on moral grounds than to condemn texts that reject narratives, that reject story, theme, closure, authority, that trap us into contemplation of their own opacity, on the ground that this is deceptive. It seems right to allow into the plurality of readings the naive among the rest, though such a text as Ford's is so evidently not naive that naive readers of it would probably soon grow impatient. It calls for virtuosity elaborately built on the basis of naive competence, a development on productive capacity. Even to think of what that virtuosity entails is to encounter novel problems. It is harder to describe it than to do it, like riding a bicycle. But it is worth trying, because of the errors that accumulate in the absence of serious discussion - false notions of plurality, a too simple view of the history of interpretation, even culpable negligence in the reception of new and difficult work. These are problems that arise from problems native to novels - they are the problems of modern criticism, its scope and responsibilities. We know them about as well, as Dowell knew the Ashburnhams. But that is another sad story. Frank Kermode is King Edward VII Professor of English at Cambridge University. He is the author ofThe Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction, Continuities, Modern Essays, andShakespeare, Spenser, Donne: Renaissance Essays. His contributions to Critical Inquiry are "A Reply to Denis Donoghue" , "A Reply to Joseph Frank" , and "Secrets and Narrative Sequence". (shrink)

Model organisms, the use of green fluorescent proteins, and orthogonal transfer RNA are examples of artificial causes being used in biology. Recent work characterizing the research interests of biologists in terms of a common set of values has ruled out artificial causes as biologically interesting. For instance, Kenneth Waters argues that biologists are primarily interested in causes that actually obtain. Similarly, Marcel Weber argues that biologists are primarily concerned with biologically normal interventions. Both views express a widely received attitude about (...) the interests and goals of biologists as being primarily concerned with the contingent facts of our world. While I agree with this general attitude about the contingent nature of biology, I argue that neither view fully accounts for the diversity that distinguishes the discipline. Along with actual and biologically normal causes, biologists are also interested in artificial causes for technological and observational purposes. I maintain that research interest in artificial causes provides some pragmatic reasons for thinking that research programs in cellular biology aren’t driven by a common core set of values. (shrink)

Most of the existing classification techniques concentrate on learning the datasets as a single similar unit, in spite of so many differentiating attributes and complexities involved. However, traditional classification techniques are required to analyze the datasets prior to learning, and if not doing so, they loss their performance in terms of accuracy and AUC. To this end, many of the machine learning problems can be very easily solved just by carefully observing human learning and training nature and then mimicking the (...) same in the machine learning. In response to these issues, we present a comprehensive suite of experiments carefully designed to provide conclusive, reliable, and significant results to the problem of efficient learning. This paper proposes a novel, simple, and effective machine learning paradigm that explicitly exploits this important similar-to-different (S2D) human learning strategy and implements it based on two algorithms (C4.5 and CART) efficiently. The framework not only analyzes the data sets prior to implementation, but also carefully allows classifier to have a systematic study so as to mimic the human training technique designed for efficient learning. Experimental results show that the method outperforms the state-of-the-art methods in terms of learning capability and breaks through the gap between human and machine learning. In fact, the proposed similar-to-different (S2D) strategy may also be useful in efficient learning of real-world complex and high-dimensional data sets, especially which are very typical to learn with traditional classifiers. (shrink)

A continuous family of static spherically symmetric solutions of Einstein’s vacuum field equations with a spatial singularity at the origin \ is found. These solutions are parametrized by a real valued parameter \ and such that the radial horizon’s location is displaced continuously towards the singularity ) as \ increases. In the extreme limit \, the location of the singularity and horizon merges leading to a null singularity. In this extreme case, any infalling observer hits the null singularity at the (...) very moment he/she crosses the horizon. This fact may have important consequences for the resolution of the fire wall problem and the complementarity controversy in black holes. An heuristic argument is provided how one might avoid the Hawking particle emission process in this extreme case when the singularity and horizon merges. The field equations due to a delta-function point-mass source at \ are solved and the Euclidean gravitational action corresponding to those solutions is evaluated explicitly. It is found that the Euclidean action is precisely equal to the black hole entropy. This result holds in any dimensions \. (shrink)

The consensus is that the novel—along with painting, sculpture, and architecture—should be categorized as a non-performing art. In this essay, I argue that such categorization is misguided: In fact, there is good reason to categorize the novel as a performing art. I begin by showing that x is a performing art if the following conditions are satisfied: x is an art and to fully appreciate a work of x, it is necessary to experientially engage with a performance or (...) a performance-like object. I then demonstrate that in the case of the novel, these conditions are actually satisfied. (shrink)

Resumen: Entre 1842 y 1870, la narrativa chilena presenta un paulatino proceso de desarrollo que oscila entre la novela -cuando no el cuento- y el folletín. Lastarria califica su cuento “El mendigo” como “novela histórica”. A su vez, Alberto Blest Gana luego de publicar folletines en diversos periódicos de la época toma nítida distancia de ese tipo de “novela popular cuando en 1862 reflexiona acerca de la novela propiamente tal y al declarar -en 1864- que solo pretende ser un novelista (...) al estilo de Balzac. No obstante, el folletín de filiación europea presentará -hacia 1870- una precisa fórmula como es la denominada “novela indiana” que critica Zorobabel Rodríguez. Por lo mismo, proponemos que en las instancias fundacionales de la narrativa nacional se anticipa la tendencia de recurrir al folletín poniendo de relieve el motivo del amor imposible que no puede superar obstáculos de diversa índole, sean ellos sentimentales, estamentales, políticos o historiográficos. Nuestra hipótesis es que en el curso de la novela chilena liberal, de sello romántico sentimental, esta estructura modélica no es ajena a la narrativa nacional, hecho que permite dar curso a la narración -entre otros- de acontecimientos propios de la conquista, la independencia y la República.: Between 1842 and 1870, the Chilean narrative presents a gradual development process that oscillates between the novel -if not the short story- and the folletin. Lastarria describes his story “El mendigo” as an “historical novel”. At the same time, Alberto Blest Gana wins after publishing brochures in various newspapers of the time, he takes a clear distance from that type of "popular novel” when in 1862 he reflects on the novel itself and in declaring -in 1864- that it only pretends to be a Balzac-style novelist. However, the European affiliation booklet will present -by 1870- a precise formula such as the so-called “Indian novel” criticized by Zorobabel Rodríguez. For the same reason, we propose that in the foundational instances of the national narrative the tendency to resort to the newsletter is anticipated, highlighting the reason for impossible love that cannot overcome obstacles of various kinds, whether they are sentimental, social class, political or historiographic. Our hypothesis is that in the course of the liberal Chilean novel, with a sentimental romantic stamp, this model structure is no stranger to the national narrative, a fact that allows the narration -among others- of events of the conquest, independence and the Republic. (shrink)

The paper sets out a version of a correspondence theory of truth that deals with a number of problems such theories traditionally face, problems associated with the names of Bradley, Meinong, Camap, Russell, Wittgenstein and Moore and that arise in connection with attempts to analyze facts of various logical forms. The line of argument employs a somewhat novel application of Russell's theory of definite descriptions. In developing a form of "logical realism" the paper takes up various ontological issues (...) regarding classes, causal laws, modality, predication, negation and relations. It does so in connection with critical discussions of alternative views recently proposed by Armstrong, Bergmann, Lewis and Putnam. (shrink)

This article is a limited defense of copyrights for the contents of factual compilations. The form of protection that I propose, under which the collective factual content of such compilations is protected, differs from an approach that protects individual facts and from the currently accepted approach (as articulated in Feist v. Rural Telephone), under which only selections and arrangements of individual facts are protected. Although I accept that there are sound economic justifications for refusing to copyright individual (...) class='Hi'>facts, my justifications differ from those that have traditionally been offered. The traditional justifications are: 1) that the monopolization costs of protecting individual facts are too great, because facts are too valuable as components for future works to have access to them limited by property rights, and 2) that facts fail the independent creation requirement for copyright protection, because they are not authored by anyone. Both of these justifications fail. Monopolization costs can at most justify limited terms for copyrights in facts. And, far from failing the independent creation requirement, facts (properly understood as representations of reality rather than reality itself) are as much works of authorship as novels are. I argue that transaction and enforcement costs are the real reasons that individual facts are not copyrightable. Furthermore, some components of factual works - specifically, ground breaking and explanatorily powerful theories like Einstein's theory of relativity - should be copyrightable if our sole concerns were transaction, enforcement and monopolization costs. Instead such theories are not protectable because any work that borrows them is their complement (in the sense that its production makes them more desirable), provided that the work acknowledges the theories' true provenance. This is because it is only through dissemination in other works that such theories can undergo the test of truth. But nothing about the uncopyrightability of the components of factual works stands in the way of copyrights for the collective factual content conveyed by such works. It might appear that protecting collective content is no different from the Feist approach, in which selections and arrangements of facts alone are protected. After all, collective factual content is created by selecting and arranging individual facts. If individual facts are not protected, then the selections and arrangements, it seems, must be. But this is a fallacy. Protecting a fictional story is not the same as protecting the methods of selection and arrangement used to generate the story from unprotected elements of character, plot, and setting. Likewise, protecting the collective factual content of a database is not the same as the Feist method. The collective content of databases, I argue, should be protected in the same manner that fictional stories are. Such an approach, far diverging from traditional copyright principles, follows from them. (shrink)

In this paper, an account of two novel ontologies is given to point to the need to revise the status of facts in school curriculum. It is argued that schooling is in dire need of re-enchantment. The way to re-enchant schooling is to re-enliven the world we inhabit. We need to fall head over heels in love with the world again. In order to do that, we need to shake up our conception of “the hard and cold (...) class='Hi'>facts of the world” to make the latter come alive radiating vibrancy and luminosity out into the world. Facts have to be liberated from their “cold and hard” status and become things that captivate us with their uniqueness and dynamism. To the extent that facts enchant (instead of merely re/present the world), working with them leads to educative experience. To work out how to let the facts do that, two thinkers and two ways to reconceptualize ‘facts’ are discussed: Graham Harman and his objects, and Ken Wilber and his holons. (shrink)

This essay does not aim to investigate film-novel relationships per se, although the fact that the two genres now share certain generative procedures may be further evidence that fiction in print and on film lie to a great extent in a unified field not only of diegesis but also of structure. A diachronic or historical approach to the theory of fictional generators would show that, with the shifts which have occurred on present-day aesthetic thought, much of what once was (...) considered to be a static analysis of retrospective rules or established forms could now be regarded as the disguised beginning of generative theory. Aristotle's seemingly static doctrines of dramatic structure, involving such notions as peripeteia, discovery, or unity of action, to the extent that dramatists had consciously or unconsciously followed such doctrines, obviously served the production of their works, as well as their later analysis. In fact, any sort of artistic intentionality constitutes a kind of "generator," as does the deliberate adherence to outward forms as rhyme schemes, stanzas, cantos, or chapters. As we shall see, it is not always easy to distinguish between generative formulas and self-imposed forms or limits, such as the sonnet with its fourteen lines, its quatrains, and its tercets. Although the most advanced practitioners of generative theory, like Jean Ricardou, seem to view their work as a radical break with the past and the discovery of an entirely new domain of fiction, literary history would provide innumerable examples of precedents, from antiquity through the Grands Rhétoriqueurs, the Gongorists and Baroque poets, and many subsequent groups of writers down to and including the pre-modern and modern periods. Bruce Morrissette has published widely on French fiction of the classical period, Rimbaud and the Symbolist movement, the Nouveau Roman and Robbe-Grillet, and on contemporary film. He is the Sunny Distinguished Service Professor and Chairman of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago. He translated Alain Robbe-Grillet's "ARTISTS ON ART: Order and Disorder in Film and Fiction" for the Autumn 1977 issue of Critical Inquiry. (shrink)

This article discusses the similarities and differences between what might be called two »crises of historical consciousness« in the late 17th and the late 20th, the first engendered by a combination of philosophical scepticism with new techniques for questioning the credibility of historical sources and detecting forgeries, the second in our crisis. The result is a widespread cultural relativism to which the debates on colonialism and feminism as well as the practice of anthropology and literary theory have contributed. In both (...) periods, the debate about epistemology is linked to the opening of the frontier between history and fiction and the rise of a hybrid genre of historical novel/novelistic exemplified by St. Real and Defoe in the first crisis, and by Eco, Keneally and many others today. (shrink)

This historical-biographical novel fleshes out the facts of Nietzsche's life with fictional treatment. Using untraditional narrative techniques and interweaving medical reports, actual letters, and original new text, the novel takes the last years of Nietzsche's life, the years of insanity, as a frame for the entire life.

In their Every Thing Must Go, Ladyman and Ross defend a novel version of Neo- Russellian metaphysics of causation, which falls into three claims: (1) there are no fundamental physical causal facts (orthodox Russellian claim), (2) there are higher-level causal facts of the special sciences, and (3) higher-level causal facts are explanatorily emergent. While accepting claims (1) and (2), I attack claim (3). Ladyman and Ross argue that higher-level causal facts are explanatorily emergent, because (a) (...) certain aspects of these higher-level facts (their universality) can be captured by renormalization group (RG) explanations, and (b) RG explanations are not reductive explanations. However, I argue that RG explanation should be understood as reductive explanations. This result undermines Ladyman and Ross’s RG-based argument for the explanatory emergence of higher-level causal facts. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:From the Dutch Novel Messire (2008) by Els LaunspachEls LaunspachTranslated by Laura Vroomen (bio)The rooftops have just appeared out of the November night. First the white frames become visible, then the roof tiles, the walls and the gaping holes of the windows. A cluster of ravens alights on the far side of the tower. Three birds think better of it and fly from the eaves to the oak (...) tree. They are all awaiting the new day, as I am. The last remaining leaves on the trees—at night their vague contours can fool you into thinking it is summer—are shrivelled and yellow, the colour of the torches that are now being lit behind some castle windows. The mist presses against the walls of the watch house. Slowly, the dark-grey light turns a cooler shade.’How could he convey his experiences with a lump of charcoal? He threw it down on the table. His fingers had turned black and the characters, conceived with such conviction, were crude, with smudges everywhere. Yet he picked up his makeshift writing tool once more, this time to record two facts.‘I have lost my books. Cromwell sent Rich to take them away.’His books in Rich’s hands, his solace disappearing from view behind that pleated cloak. Naturally, their contents were all in his head. But his books were his friends; fellow travellers, silent witnesses, comrades. All gone, even God’s [End Page 249] word. Only a single sheet of paper remained, but what he wanted to tell his daughter Margaret, how the day began, refused to take shape.‘It’s funny,’ he had wanted to write. ‘I used to say that I’d wanted to be a monk, remember? Now I’ve got what I wanted. Peace and quiet. Few sounds penetrate my tower, save for the croaking of the ravens and the occasional cooing dove. I can meditate and pray and ponder to my heart’s content. The cries of the rowers and the seamen seem very distant, somewhere down below. No interruptions. At times the wind rattles the window and howls through the slit in the wall. I can hear John-a-Wood moving his stool or dropping a cup on the floor—wood and tin on stone. I have found my place in the world, Margaret. I have become pure spirit, just as I had wished. Still, I’m plagued by doubt and bad dreams.’ No, there was no need for them to know that. His family was worried enough as it was. The more steadfast he became, the more they worried. Humour no longer helped either. His eldest child’s letters pierced right through it.So now everything was laid bare. No more digression or embellishment; charcoal did not allow it. He had been reduced to straight talking, to facts. His days had become pure routine. Rise at six and pray. At times it felt as if he were in his own chapel at home, until he heard the rattling of John’s keys. The door would open: barley gruel and a jug of fresh water. The first and only smile of the day, unless he had a visitor. Then he was alone again to study and think.Now that his books were gone, there was every opportunity for thinking. Having had visitors just the week before, he could not expect any for a while. At the time he had not been able to summon the energy to listen and respond; his neck was stiff, turning his head painful. Howard had been there, asking question after question in an attempt to offer him a way out, when all he wanted was to enjoy the fire. Firewood and visitors went hand in hand, unbeknownst to Norfolk. The prisoner wanted to be alone and enjoy the fire. He wanted to close his eyes and not have to turn his head, to lose himself completely in the heat.So now he did not study after breakfast, but wrote a letter instead. Writing, debate and analysis were his reason for living, so he felt compelled to keep working, even here, even with a useless lump of charcoal. But prayer... (shrink)

The author argues Ayn Rand made a genuinely novel, but often overlooked and underappreciated, contribution in her synthesis of Aristotelianism and liberalism. Aristotelianism, a philosophy of flourishing, and liberalism, a politics of freedom, have been viewed throughout history as largely incompatible doctrines, often understandably so. The author discusses the history of these concepts, especially their tensions, as a backdrop to further explore and contextualize the work of Rand, who argued that Aristotelian ideas about flourishing and liberal ideas about freedom (...) are natural allies, and in fact strengthen each other. Rand’s “Aristotelian liberalism” is a fruitful synthesis. (shrink)

This chapter introduces a novel account of fake news and explains how it differs from other definitions on the market. The account locates the fakeness of an alleged news report in two main aspects related to its production, namely that its creators do not think to have sufficient evidence in favor of what they divulge and they fail to display the appropriate attitude towards the truth of the information they share. A key feature of our analysis is that it (...) does not require that fake news must be circulated with the intention to deceive one’s audience. In this way, our account overcomes a potential limitation of the current philosophical discussion about fake news, which appears to individuate the main problem with this phenomenon in the fact that fake news consumers are misled and misinformed. In contrast, the proposed analysis shows that an additional (and perhaps equally fundamental) problem uncovered by the spread of fake news is a widespread pathological relationship with information, one on which we consume information not to satisfy our interest in the truth but to strengthen our social identities and quench our hunger for social recognition. (shrink)

At several places in this paper we have made use of a well-known rhetorical device: an argument was made; a character —dubbed “fictional reader” — was then evoked who voiced some objections against that particular argument; and finally, we answered those objections, thus bringing to a close, at least temporarily, our argument. The use of this device raises a question: “How is the presence of the ‘fictional reader” to be understood?” Is it a “mere” rhetorical tool, or does this character (...) designate some particular target? For instance, depending on the context, it could be seen as aimed at different straw men: traditionally minded sociologists, Whiggish historians, well-intentioned philosophers of science. Actually, none of these characters is behind the “fictional reader”. Rather, it refers, potentially, to any of the scientific actors (Milstein, Schwaber, Koprowski, Cohn, and so on) who inhabit our set of narratives. In other words, the “fictional reader” is an icon for the “native” reader/writer who simultaneously produces and questions the products of that particular literary activity known as scientific texts, by explicitly and implicitly raising the issue of the distinction between fact and technique.By following actors in their disputes about the novelty of K & M's contribution, it became apparent that it is not exactly clear which of the different elements of “hybridoma technology” should be regarded as “novel.” Was it the use of the P3 myeloma line? Was it the theoretical framework related to the notion of allelic exclusion? Was it ...? In each and every case, arguments can be made for or against the existence of a certain continuity or discontinuity with previous work. And in each case, the determination of novelty, as translated through the continuity/discontinuity issue, appeared to be hanging on the previous attribution of an epistemological status to the object that had allegedly been discovered: was it a fact or a technique?If one focuses on the relatively narrow network of immunogenetics, it could be argued that within that particular evidential context a series of “facts” had been established which, when transferred to other fields, such as the virological research being pursued in Koprowski's institute, were translated into a technique. However, as we have seen, even from an immunogenetic point of view the production of monoclonal antibodies can be viewed as being simultaneously a fact and a technique to establish that fact. Not only, as he himself noted,139 was Milstein not seeking to develop a technique for the production of monoclonal antibodies when the original experiments were carried out, but the significance later imputed to those experiments was not immediately attributed to them. The paper was seen as one among other papers that used cell fusion techniques to dissect the genetic control of antibody diversity. Distinctions that now appear crucial (e.g.: were the fusion partners two myelomas or a myeloma and a spleen cell?) were easily overlooked. At some point, around 1977, the production of monoclonal antibodies became a goal in itself, no longer linked to the initial immunogenetic network. The transformation of [MILSTEIN 75] into the foundational event of “hybridoma technology” was thus achieved. This transformation did not flow naturally from the original experiments. Rather, it involved specific investments which mobilized the activity of a large number of other scientific and industrial actors.140A tentative generalization can be deduced from our case study. The dichotomy between fact and technique that underlines much of contemporary science studies seem to be fundamentally misconceived, insofar as the determination of what counts as a fact and what counts as a technique is not possible on a priori grounds. Historians and sociologists of science are confronted with a field of heterogeneous interventions where particular pieces of work are constituted as discrete entities and simultaneously attributed a technical or a factual identity. “Novelty” and “innovation” are precisely the result of such polymorphic attributional processes. (shrink)

The view that truth is the norm of assertion has fallen out of fashion. The recent trend has been to think that knowledge is the norm of assertion. Objections to the knowledge view proceed almost exclusively by appeal to alleged counterexamples. While it no doubt has a role to play, such a strategy relies on intuitions concerning hypothetical cases, intuitions which might not be shared and which might shift depending on how the relevant cases are fleshed out. In this paper, (...) I reject the knowledge view on principled grounds. More specifically, by appeal to a principle which is motivated independently of the debate over the norms of assertion and which is already accepted by many proponents of the knowledge view, I show the knowledge view to be false while simultaneously accounting for why it might seem to be true. In doing so, I provide a novel defence of the unfashionable truth view. (shrink)

This paper will examine a novel argument in favour of entity grounding over fact-only grounding. The idea of this argument, roughly speaking, is that the proponents of fact-only grounding cannot provide a unified account of grounds of identity, whereas the proponents of entity grounding can. In this paper, I will give a response to this argument. Specifically, I will argue that the problem which this argument raises to the proponents of fact-only grounding is also a problem with which the (...) proponents of entity grounding are faced. Therefore, this argument fails to show that entity grounding is superior to fact-only grounding. Moreover, I will suggest that the failure of this argument points to a general lesson about the issue of grounds of identity facts. (shrink)

Bruno Latour equates criticism with an iconoclastic urge that is underpinned by the project of modernity. Latour's attack on iconoclastic criticism is therefore closely linked to his rejection of the modern framework. This paper examines Latour's analysis of modernity and the ways in which he connects criticism to the project of modernity. Through our analysis of Latour's reading of an episode from U.R. Anantha Murthy's novel Bharathipura, we argue that critique is actually an integral part of a truly democratic (...) knowledge-making process as well as politics. (shrink)

Just as different sciences deal with different facts—say, physics versus biology—so we may ask a similar question about normative theories. Is normative political theory concerned with the same normative facts as moral theory or different ones? By developing an analogy with the sciences, we argue that the normative facts of political theory belong to a higher— more coarse-grained—level than those of moral theory. The latter are multiply realizable by the former: competing facts at the moral level (...) can underpin the same facts at the political one. Consequently, some questions that moral theories answer are indeterminate at the political level. This proposal offers a novel interpretation of John Rawls’s idea that, in public reasoning, we should abstract away from comprehensive moral doctrines. We contrast our distinction between facts at different levels with the distinction between admissible and inadmissible evidence and discuss some implications for the practice of political theory. (shrink)

In God and Phenomenal Consciousness, Yujin Nagasawa bridges debates in two distinct areas of philosophy: the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of religion. First, he introduces some of the most powerful arguments against the existence of God and provides objections to them. He then presents a parallel structure between these arguments and influential arguments offered by Thomas Nagel and Frank Jackson against the physicalist approach to phenomenal consciousness. By appealing to this structure, Nagasawa constructs novel objections to Jackson's (...) and Nagel's arguments. Finally, he derives, from the failure of these arguments, a unique metaphysical thesis, which he calls 'non-theoretical physicalism'. Through this thesis, he shows that although this world is entirely physical, there are physical facts that cannot be captured even by complete theories of the physical sciences. (shrink)

Dispositionalism, perhaps the most popular variant of non-Humean metaphysics, submits that dispositions, powers, or capacities, are part of the furniture of the world. In this book I advance an original approach to dispositionalism revolving around the notion of Dispositional Reality; the novelty lies in the fact that the account, unlike most alternatives on the market, does not require the reification of objects, facts, properties, nor their dispositional essences – and is in fact compatible with a far more deflationary approach (...) to dispositions, while still being true to the non-Humean spirit of the proposal. This power metaphysics without powers allows one to dispel several puzzles in recent literature, or recast them under a new light. Albeit with its own peculiarities, this proposal constitutes a variant of explanatory dispositionalism, according to which realism about dispositions ought not to be understood as an ontological inflation, but as an explanatory inversion within the nomic and modal family. Some of these explanations are hereby attempted, and a study of various types of non-causal explanation will be provided. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 25.2 (2001) 376-379 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Cervantes, the Novel, and the New World Cervantes, the Novel, and the New World, by Diana de Armas Wilson; 254 pp. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001, $74.00. In Cervantes, the Novel, and the New World, Diana de Armas Wilson describes and analyzes the link between the birth of the New World in European consciousness (...) and the expression of that consciousness in the novels of Cervantes. Those of us whose teaching includes works from both Peninsular and Spanish American literature have long felt the need for a study that goes beyond a cataloging of Cervantes's references to the world beyond Europe, and those Cervantine scholars among us have variously hinted at and side-stepped the fullness of this issue. As it was with those exemplary figures of the age of exploration she examines, it is to Professor de Armas Wilson's great credit that she has risen to the challenge. Her analysis is well-organized, reasoned, thoughtful, and readable.De Armas Wilson's knowledge of previous and current research in Cervantine studies as well as genre, colonial and postcolonial, and gender studies is impressive. She also admits to participating "in the kinds of critique currently associated with cultural studies, although not without reservations regarding the alleged presentism of that discipline or its tendency to turn primary texts into commodities." I would respond that de Armas Wilson's concerns and techniques in this study are precisely the tools we need to help us define "cultural studies" to our students and to ourselves as scholars of various literatures and cultures.To begin her study, de Armas Wilson mentions many of Cervantes's literary and personal references to geographies, customs, and other contacts with the [End Page 376] world outside Spain. The first chapter, "The Americanist Cervantes," focuses on that material and includes a brief review of recent research--the latest "grande escrutinario" (Don Quijote, Part I, Chapter VI)--regarding what works might have been in Cervantes's library and/or the texts potentially available to him. Professor de Armas Wilson looks at Cervantes's references and the texts available to him through three lenses: imitation, influence, and intertextuality. She sees these methodologies as interdependent and argues that: "the intertextual practices in this book--based on a revised concept of intertextuality that includes the notion of agency and participates in a historical project--are as American as its central topic." (Finding myself in the process of completing this review on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, I can only wonder what texts will not be influenced by the "historical project" of this day.)In the second chapter, "The Novel about the Novel," de Armas Wilson surveys Cervantes's status in Continental and Anglo-American criticism, reminding her readers of the polemic between scholars of the ancient novel and those who, bent on refusing to accept the Greco-Roman works as novels, designate them "romances." De Armas Wilson's contention that the Persiles is a "long exemplary novel," is convincingly depicted. Her arguments are based on the fact of the fictional time of the Persiles being within fifty years of the time when Cervantes wrote it, "its self-conscious theorizing, its rationalizing of 'miracles,' and its avowed imitation of Heliodorus' Aethiopica." She is not alone in arguing that Heliodorus' novel is the antithesis of a romance of chivalry. On these bases de Armas Wilson speaks not only to those who may not have recognized the importance of the Persiles because it has been called a romance (an often "despised or despicable" genre), but also to those of us who view consideration of the Persiles essential to an understanding of Don Quijote, if not a key to comprehending the major goals of all of Cervantes's works and his expression of the consciousness of his day.De Armas Wilson continues by arguing for "coevolutionary histories of the novel as alternatives to evolutionary ones." She bases her argument on echoes of widely disseminated accounts of happenings in the New World, (most significantly those of... (shrink)