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Why Is Observation Important To Science?, Robert G. Hudson
Why Is Observation Important To Science?, Robert G. Hudson
Digitized Theses
I believe observation is valued by scientists because it is an objective source of information. Objective here can mean (at least) two things. First, observation could be objective in that it is an assured source of truths about the world, truths whose meaning is the same for everyone regardless of their personal theoretical vantage points. I criticize this construal of observational objectivity in chapter one. The guilty doctrine, which I entitle 'empiricistic epistemological foundationalism', is shown to be untenable on, in part, historical grounds. The historical episode I deploy for this task is the early stages of quantum theory, an …
Aspects Of Victorian Psychologism, John F. Metcalfe
Aspects Of Victorian Psychologism, John F. Metcalfe
Digitized Theses
In this essay I present revisionary readings of four Victorian philosophers. I argue that each of them is fundamentally committed to a naturalistic philosophical project called psychologism. The psychologistic readings that this critical stance generates offer resources that may be exploited by contemporary philosophers pursuing their own naturalistic projects.;In the first chapter I sketch the structure and main points of the essay. In the second chapter I suggest that Mansel's Kantian psychologism manages to evade the criticisms of Husserl. This serves to highlight the distance between psychologism and contemporary logic. In the third chapter I argue that Whewell embraces a …
Assertoric Validity In Journalistic News Judgment, Hendrik Overduin
Assertoric Validity In Journalistic News Judgment, Hendrik Overduin
Digitized Theses
The thesis defended in this dissertation is that there is an objective, assertoric validity condition, or rationality constraint, on journalistic news judgments about reports that refer to events or states of affairs.;The dissertation locates such judgments in a Habermasian context of communicative action in which they are seen as making a unique, objective validity claim through the illocutionary force of published news narratives.;It is argued that neither truth of the information content of reports judged to be newsworthy, nor alleged qualities of the events reported, nor journalistic conventions can establish the validity of news judgments.;Using concepts from the mathematical theory …
Science And The Systematicity Of Nature: A Critique Of Nancy Cartwright's Doctrine Of Nature And Natural Science, Philip Ellery Catton
Science And The Systematicity Of Nature: A Critique Of Nancy Cartwright's Doctrine Of Nature And Natural Science, Philip Ellery Catton
Digitized Theses
Whether nature is or is not systematic sounds at first like an idle metaphysical question, but considered in relation to (i) the aims of science and (ii) the methods of appraisal of scientific theories, it can be given clear (and quite plainly empirical) content. It is also necessary to ask the question in order to study (iii) the relation of causation, laws of nature, and theoretical structure.;(i) Aims. The doctrines (1) that science aims to provide explanations, (2) that science achieves success in this aim, (3) that explanation involves unification, and (4) that the principles on which explanations, properly so-called, …
The Role Of Natural Constraints In Computational Theories Of Vision, Peter Alan Morton
The Role Of Natural Constraints In Computational Theories Of Vision, Peter Alan Morton
Digitized Theses
The thesis examines the philosophical implications of the computational theory of early vision developed by Marr. According to Marr, early visual processes consist of sequences of "modular" computational mechanisms. These processes rely on functional relations between rates of change in stimulus magnitudes which result from certain contingent, global properties--natural constraints--of the physical world.;Marr argues that explanations of early vision must have three distinct levels of description: computational, algorithmic and physical. In Chapter 1 I defend the explanatory significance of this distinction in levels. In fulfilling its role in describing the dependence of visual processes on natural constraints, the computational level …
Psychoanalytic Explanation: A Cognitivist Approach, Aldo Mosca
Psychoanalytic Explanation: A Cognitivist Approach, Aldo Mosca
Digitized Theses
A cognitivist approach is applied in this thesis to the psychoanalytic explanation of neurosis. The received approaches to psychoanalysis, the reductionist and the hermeneutic, are discussed and rejected. The reductionist approach explains neurotic symptoms as discharges of psychic energy; it is characterized by a teleological mode of reasoning, and endures in the mentalistic thesis that neurotic symptoms are to be explained as wish-fulfillments. The hermeneutic approach is centered on the claim that symptoms are symbols of unconscious thoughts, and that psychoanalytic explanation must be understood as a deciphering of seemingly incomprehensible texts.;The cognitivist approach is applied, first, by construing both …