Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Philosophy Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Philosophy of Science

Institution
Keyword
Publication Year
Publication
Publication Type
File Type

Articles 691 - 720 of 879

Full-Text Articles in Philosophy

Nietzsche’S Aesthetic Critique Of Darwin, Charles H. Pence Jan 2011

Nietzsche’S Aesthetic Critique Of Darwin, Charles H. Pence

Faculty Publications

Despite his position as one of the first philosophers to write in the “post- Darwinian” world, the critique of Darwin by Friedrich Nietzsche is often ignored for a host of unsatisfactory reasons. I argue that Nietzsche’s critique of Darwin is important to the study of both Nietzsche’s and Darwin’s impact on philosophy. Further, I show that the central claims of Nietzsche’s critique have been broadly misunderstood. I then present a new reading of Nietzsche’s core criticism of Darwin. An important part of Nietzsche’s response can best be understood as an aesthetic critique of Darwin, reacting to what he saw as …


Co-Creation Of Experiential Qualities, Vuk Uskoković Jan 2011

Co-Creation Of Experiential Qualities, Vuk Uskoković

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Cognitive sciences have been interminably in search for a consistent philosophical framework for the description of perceptual phenomena. Most of the frameworks in usage today fall in-between the extremes of constructivism and objective realism. However, whereas constructivist cognitive theories face difficulties when attempting to explain the experiential commonality of different cognitive entities, objectivistic theories fail in explaining the active role of the subject in the formation of experiences. This paper undertakes to compare and eventually combine these two major approaches to describing cognitive phenomena. It is argued that constructivist explanations inevitably refer to a ‘hidden’ ontological source of experience, and …


The Exploratory Value Of Agent-Based Models In Social Science, Ricardo Andress Rivera Jan 2011

The Exploratory Value Of Agent-Based Models In Social Science, Ricardo Andress Rivera

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

N/A


The Relationship Between Divided Government And Real Per Capita Gross State Product, Adrian Christopher Villasenor Jan 2011

The Relationship Between Divided Government And Real Per Capita Gross State Product, Adrian Christopher Villasenor

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This paper analyzes the relationship between divided government and real per capita gross state product in U.S. states using a panel study of data from all of the contiguous U.S. states, except Nebraska, for the period of 1990 to 2007. Some literature can be found on the relationship between divided government and economic growth at the national level. There is a lack of study of this relationship at the state level. Real per capita gross state product is the dependent variable in this study. Divided government, partisan control of the governor's office, partisan control of the state legislature, combined federal …


Towards A Critical Philosophy Of Science: Continental Beginnings And Bugbears, Whigs, And Waterbears, Babette Babich Dec 2010

Towards A Critical Philosophy Of Science: Continental Beginnings And Bugbears, Whigs, And Waterbears, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Continental philosophy of science has developed alongside mainstream analytic philosophy of science. But where continental approaches are inclusive, analytic philosophies of science are not – excluding not merely Nietzsche’s philosophy of science but Gödel’s philosophy of physics. As a radicalization of Kant, Nietzsche’s critical philosophy of science puts science in question and Nietzsche’s critique of the methodological foundations of classical philology bears on science, particularly evolution as well as style (in art and science). In addition to the critical (in Mach, Nietzsche, Heidegger but also Husserl just to the extent that continental philosophy of science tends to depart from a …


Early Continental Philosophy Of Science, Babette Babich Oct 2010

Early Continental Philosophy Of Science, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

No abstract provided.


Thinking On The Edge: Heidegger, Derrida, And The Daoist Gateway (Men), Steven Burik Oct 2010

Thinking On The Edge: Heidegger, Derrida, And The Daoist Gateway (Men), Steven Burik

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Steven Bunk Many philosophical interpretations of the Daoist classics have proceeded, or continue to proceed, to read into these works the quest for a transcendental, foundational principle, a permanent moment of rest beyond the turmoil of everchanging things. The metaphysics that may be understood to be at work in such interpretations is what Heidegger and Derrida have called philosophy as ontotheology. It is argued here that Heidegger, Derrida, and the classical Daoists are better understood not so much as metaphysical and essentialist thinkers but as advocates of a profoundly inner-worldly way of thinking. In arguing for such a different approach, …


Psychologists Gone Wild: The Politics Of Scientific Psychology, Ibpp Editor Jun 2010

Psychologists Gone Wild: The Politics Of Scientific Psychology, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

With power on the line in science, one should expect controversy beyond the substantive. In scientific psychology—whether discovering human nature or discovering what can be said about it—the search for the what of human nature becomes a mask for human nature.


Inductions, Red Herrings, And The Best Explanation For The Mixed Record Of Science, P.D. Magnus Jun 2010

Inductions, Red Herrings, And The Best Explanation For The Mixed Record Of Science, P.D. Magnus

Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

Kyle Stanford has recently claimed to offer a new challenge to scientific realism. Taking his inspiration from the familiar Pessimistic Induction (PI), Stanford proposes a New Induction (NI). Contra Anjan Chakravartty’s suggestion that the NI is a ‘red herring’, I argue that it reveals something deep and important about science. The Problem of Unconceived Alternatives, which lies at the heart of the NI, yields a richer anti-realism than the PI. It explains why science falls short when it falls short, and so it might figure in the most coherent account of scientific practice. However, this best account will be antirealist …


Interactive Kinds, Muhammad Ali Khalidi Jun 2010

Interactive Kinds, Muhammad Ali Khalidi

Publications and Research

This paper examines the phenomenon of 'interactive kinds' first identified by Ian Hacking. An interactive kind is one that is created or significantly modified once a concept of it has been formulated and acted upon in certain ways. Interactive kinds may also 'loop back' to influence our concepts and classifications. According to Hacking, interactive kinds are found exclusively in the human domain. After providing a general account of interactive kinds and outlining their philosophical significance, I argue that they are not confined to the human realm, but that they can also occur elsewhere. Hence, I conclude by arguing that interactive …


Scientific Realism And Anti-Realism In Martin Heidegger's Philosophy Of Science, Archie Fields Iii May 2010

Scientific Realism And Anti-Realism In Martin Heidegger's Philosophy Of Science, Archie Fields Iii

Honors Capstone Projects and Theses

No abstract provided.


Das ‚Problem Der Wissenschaft‘ Oder Nietzsches Philosophische Kritik Wissenschaftlicher Vernunft, Babette Babich May 2010

Das ‚Problem Der Wissenschaft‘ Oder Nietzsches Philosophische Kritik Wissenschaftlicher Vernunft, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

No abstract provided.


Cold War Origins Of The International Federation For Information Processing, Ksenia Tatarchenko Apr 2010

Cold War Origins Of The International Federation For Information Processing, Ksenia Tatarchenko

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

The International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) was born as a nongovernmental federation with the main goal of bringing together computer professionals from countries in the East and West. This article examines the Cold War context of the IFIP's origins and the mechanisms its founders used to reconcile computing and politics and to construct computing as an international discipline.


Evolution And The Second Law Of Thermodynamics: Effectively Communicating To Non-Technicians, Alexander Schreiber, Steven Gimbel Jan 2010

Evolution And The Second Law Of Thermodynamics: Effectively Communicating To Non-Technicians, Alexander Schreiber, Steven Gimbel

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Given the degree of disbelief in the theory of evolution by the wider public, scientists need to develop a collection of clear explanations and metaphors that demonstrate the working of the theory and the flaws in antievolutionist arguments. This paper presents tools of this sort for countering the anti-evolutionist claim that evolutionary mechanisms are inconsistent with the second law of thermodynamics. Images are provided to replace the traditional misunderstanding of the law, i.e., “everything always gets more disordered over time,” with a more clear sense of the way in which entropy tends to increase allowing a thermally isolated system access …


The Identical Rivals Response To Underdetermination, P.D. Magnus, Greg Frost-Arnold Jan 2010

The Identical Rivals Response To Underdetermination, P.D. Magnus, Greg Frost-Arnold

Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

The underdetermination of theory by data obtains when, inescapably, evidence is insufficient to allow scientists to decide responsibly between rival theories. One response to would-be underdetermination is to deny that the rival theories are distinct theories at all, insisting instead that they are just different formulations of the same underlying theory; we call this the identical rivals response. An argument adapted from John Norton suggests that the response is presumptively always appropriate, while another from Larry Laudan and Jarrett Leplin suggests that the response is never appropriate. Arguments from Einstein for the special and general theories of relativity may …


God And Time: Relative Timelessness Reconsidered, Alan G. Padgett Jan 2010

God And Time: Relative Timelessness Reconsidered, Alan G. Padgett

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Mechanisms (Oxford), Stuart Glennan Jan 2010

Mechanisms (Oxford), Stuart Glennan

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Mechanism is undoubtedly a causal concept, in the sense that ordinary definitions and philosophical analyses explicate the concept in terms of other causal concepts such as production and interaction. Given this fact, many philosophers have supposed that analyses of the concept of mechanism, while they might appeal to philosophical theories about the nature of causation, could do little to inform such theories. On the other hand, methods of causal inference and explanation appeal to mechanisms. Discovering a mechanism is the gold standard for establishing and explaining causal connections. This fact suggests that it might be possible to provide an analysis …


Equations Without Equations: Challenges On A Way To A More Adequate Formalization Of Causality Reasoning In Physics, Juan Ferret Jan 2010

Equations Without Equations: Challenges On A Way To A More Adequate Formalization Of Causality Reasoning In Physics, Juan Ferret

Selected Works Temporary Series

No abstract provided.


Ontological Status Of Relational Quantum Mechanics, Juan Ferret Jan 2010

Ontological Status Of Relational Quantum Mechanics, Juan Ferret

Selected Works Temporary Series

No abstract provided.


The Flow Of Nectar And Blood: Maya Philosophy And World Vision, Juan Ferret Jan 2010

The Flow Of Nectar And Blood: Maya Philosophy And World Vision, Juan Ferret

Selected Works Temporary Series

No abstract provided.


The Ontological Status Of Systems At The Juncture Of Quantum Mechanics And Relativity, Juan Ferret Jan 2010

The Ontological Status Of Systems At The Juncture Of Quantum Mechanics And Relativity, Juan Ferret

Selected Works Temporary Series

No abstract provided.


Quantum Mechanics And Ethical Antirealism: A Counter-Analogy To Boyd, Justin Lawson Jan 2010

Quantum Mechanics And Ethical Antirealism: A Counter-Analogy To Boyd, Justin Lawson

Philosophy

In his paper How to Be a Moral Realist Boyd attempts to show how cases of ethical indeterminacy can be accounted for from an ethical realist’s standpoint. Boyd describes cases of extensional vagueness in the life-sciences which arise from knowable and definite underlying structures and draws an analogy to ethics to argue his case. This paper argues that an equally compelling analogy can be drawn between another type of scientific indeterminacy – that in quantum mechanics – and the related ethical cases. Because quantum mechanical uncertainty (on the Copenhagen interpretation) is a real and not merely epistemic limitation on physical …


Late Pragmatism, Logical Positivism, And Their Aftermath, David Ingram Jan 2010

Late Pragmatism, Logical Positivism, And Their Aftermath, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Developments in Anglo-American philosophy during the first half of the 20th Century closely tracked developments that were occurring in continental philosophy during this period. This should not surprise us. Aside from the fertile communication between these ostensibly separate traditions, both were responding to problems associated with the rise of mass society. Rabid nationalism, corporate statism, and totalitarianism (Left and Right) posed a profound challenge to the idealistic rationalism of neo-Kantian and neo-Hegelian philosophies. The decline of the individual – classically conceived by the 18th-century Enlightenment as a self-determining agent – provoked strong reactions. While some philosophical tendencies sought to …


The Flow Of Nectar And Blood: Maya Philosophy And World Vision, Ferret Jan 2010

The Flow Of Nectar And Blood: Maya Philosophy And World Vision, Ferret

Departmental Papers (Philosophy)

No abstract provided.


Mechanisms, Causes, And The Layered Model Of The World, Stuart Glennan Jan 2010

Mechanisms, Causes, And The Layered Model Of The World, Stuart Glennan

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Most philosophical accounts of causation take causal relations to obtain between individuals and events in virtue of nomological relations between properties of these individuals and events. Such views fail to take into account the consequences of the fact that in general the properties of individuals and events will depend upon mechanisms that realize those properties. In this paper I attempt to rectify this failure, and in so doing to provide an account of the causal relevance of higher-level properties. I do this by critiquing one prominent model of higher-level properties – Kim’s functional model of reduction – and contrasting it …


Aristotle On Pure And Simple Stuff, Tiberiu Popa Jan 2010

Aristotle On Pure And Simple Stuff, Tiberiu Popa

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

A view that has been entertained traditionally by Aristotelian scholars is that the four simple bodies in the sublunary world (earth, water, air, and fire) cannot exist independently; a consequence of this view is the general belief that all homoeomers or uniform bodies have to be compounds. i would like to suggest that, while Aristotle consistently maintains that the four basic opposites (hot, cold, moist, dry) cannot exist independently, this is not always the case with the four simple bodies. My central claim is that Meteorology IV – Aristotle’s ‘chemical treatise’ – provides evidence that, contrary to the traditional interpretation …


Darwinian Populations And Natural Selection, Grant Ramsey, Hope Hollocher, Agustín Fuentes, Charles H. Pence, Edwin Siu Jan 2010

Darwinian Populations And Natural Selection, Grant Ramsey, Hope Hollocher, Agustín Fuentes, Charles H. Pence, Edwin Siu

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Dispositions, Propensities And The Change Of Conditions, Alejandra Olivas-Davila Jan 2010

Dispositions, Propensities And The Change Of Conditions, Alejandra Olivas-Davila

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this paper is to draw a clear line that allows us to thoroughly differentiate dispositions from propensities as well as the big problem that clouds both views. I will attempt to offer an account of the main issues that this properties face. I start by offering a general account of dispositions. In this account I offer a brief analysis of what it is to be a disposition. The distinction between categorical and dispositional property is explored. I move on to explain the evolution of the conditional analysis, as well as the problems it faces. The next point …


On Relational Quantum Mechanics, Oscar Acosta Jan 2010

On Relational Quantum Mechanics, Oscar Acosta

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

A problem facing quantum mechanics is that there are a number of views or interpretations available that purport to 'explain' quantum mechanics. In this paper I discuss and analyze the view of relational quantum mechanics by Carlo Rovelli in the context of theoretical underdetermination. I will show that even though Rovelli offers a view that consolidates some of the aspects of competing theories it still falls short of breaking out of the theoretical underdetermination. The criteria that I have used to consider a theory successful in this context is one that increases the predictive output of quantum theory. Lacking an …


Ecological Explanation Between Manipulation And Mechanism Description, Viorel Pâslaru Dec 2009

Ecological Explanation Between Manipulation And Mechanism Description, Viorel Pâslaru

Philosophy Faculty Publications

James Woodward offers a conception of explanation and mechanism in terms of interventionist counterfactuals. Based on a case from ecology, I show that ecologists’ approach to that case satisfiesWoodward’s conditions for explanation and mechanism, but his conception does not fully capture what ecologists view as explanatory. The new mechanistic philosophy likewise aims to describe central aspects of mechanisms, but I show that it is not sufficient to account for ecological mechanisms. I argue that in ecology explanation involves identification of invariant and insensitive causal relationships and descriptions of the mechanistic characteristics that make these relations possible.