Philosophy of Science Commons^™

The Vector Of Scientific Disciplinarity: An Exploration Of Scientific Disciplines And The Future Of Interdisciplinary Research, Emma K. Garrison

Senior Theses

The disciplinarity of science and the future of interdisciplinarity in science is deeply connected with understanding the scope of scientific practice as well as the demarcation and organization of scientific disciplines. These topics, explored through the structure of their subjects, theories, methods, and interpretation, lead to the conclusion that science and its disciplines are largely defined by the integration of philosophical principles into the ethos of the practices rather than by any specific criteria. The ways in which different disciplines behave and interpret philosophies impact how those disciplines are organized and categorized, resulting in deep philosophical and perspective divides between …

Probability Of Naturalism And Metanormative Realism, Curtis Howd

Theses

Darwin’s Theory of Evolution can be mobilized to provide epistemological challenges to metanormative realism. It is argued that, since natural selection selects for behaviors adequate for survival and fecundity, our psychologies must be shaped by this same process. A-type challenges point to the improbability of the vast number of true normative beliefs given that they evolved to track survival and fecundity, not truth. B-type debunking arguments point to the improbability of the hypothesis that evolution would track truth given that there are a multitude of defeaters for this hypothesis. I will argue that both a-type and b-type arguments fail to …

Art's Truth: An Aid To Ethical Sensibility, Nova Quaoser

CMC Senior Theses

In this paper I explore the philosophical implications of decision theory and deliberation on ethics, paying special attention to how vicious individuals yearn for a separate philosophical account. Drawing largely on Fricker, McDowell, Paul, and Nussbaum I discuss how transformative experiences open a window for understanding moral development in terms of habituation in the Aristotelian sense, and further how the vicious individual’s failure to deliberate may be remedied via a transformation through art.

The Problem Of Nomological Impossibility For Epistemic Structural Realism, Patrick Manzanares

The Hilltop Review

The philosophical view known as Epistemic Structural Realism appeals to the concept of ‘structure’ in order to defend a version of Scientific Realism that nevertheless respects historical considerations of ontological discontinuity between successive scientific theories. It seems that the structures of some scientific theories are only continuous with the structures of successor theories when the former are characterized as nomologically impossible idealizations of the latter, since this continuity involves allowing some quantity in the formal structure of the successor theory to tend towards some physically unrealizable limit. But if this is the case, then the earlier theory cannot be physically …

Epistemological Realism And Onto-Relations, Max Lewis Edward Andrews

Eleutheria: John W. Rawlings School of Divinity Academic Journal

The traditional concept of knowledge is a justified true belief. The bulk of contemporary epistemology has focused primarily on that task of justification. Truth seems to be a quite obvious criterion—does the belief in question correspond to reality? My contention is that the aspect of ontology is far too separated from epistemology. This onto-relationship of between reality and beliefs require the epistemic method of epistemological realism. This is not to diminish the task of justification. I will then discuss the role of inference from the onto-relationships of free invention and discovery and whether it is best suited for a foundationalist …

Epistemological-Scientific Realism And The Onto-Relationship Of Inferentially Justified And Non-Inferentially Justified Beliefs, Max Lewis Edward Andrews

Max L.E. Andrews

The traditional concept of knowledge is a justified true belief. The bulk of contemporary epistemology has focused primarily on that task of justification. Truth seems to be a quite obvious criterion—does the belief in question correspond to reality? My contention is that the aspect of ontology is far too separated from epistemology. This onto-relationship of between reality and beliefs require the epistemic method of epistemological realism. This is not to diminish the task of justification. I will then discuss the role of inference from the onto-relationships of free invention and discovery and whether it is best suited for a foundationalist …

State Of The Field: Why Novel Prediction Matters, P.D. Magnus, Heather Douglas

Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

It has become commonplace to say that novel predictive success is not epistemically special. Its value over accommodation, if it has any, is taken to be superficial or derivative. We argue that the value of predictive success is indeed instrumental. Nevertheless, it is a powerful instrument that provides significant epistemic assurances at many different levels. Even though these assurances are in principle dispensable, real science is rarely (if ever) in the position to confidently obtain them in other ways. So we argue for a pluralist instrumental predictivism: novel predictive success is important for inferences from data to phenomena, from phenomena …

Removing The Classical Landmark: Assessing An Epistemology Governed By Methodological Naturalism, Kegan Shaw

Masters Theses

This paper proposes to assess the naturalist project in epistemology with an eye towards exposing the project as deficient for serving as a robust epistemological project. Epistemologists treasure a certain family of questions and burden themselves with a number of specific concerns the most important of which, I think, cannot be answered by the epistemological naturalist. Ignoring these questions, I will argue, essentially amounts to a dismissal of the principle tension that primarily motivates and properly guides epistemological theorizing. This tension is the familiar appearance vs. reality distinction and characterizes what I am calling the classical landmark or boundary-stone for …

The Untenability Of A Priori Prior Probabilities In Objective Bayesian Conditionalization, C.S. Arledge

Senior Honors Theses

The problem of theory confirmation has been an issue in the philosophy of science for decades. Many valiant attempts have been made to formulate a generally accepted criterion for determining the validity of a scientific theory. Bayesian probability theory has been utilized in numerous attempts to examine the epistemic nature of theory confirmation and Jonathan Weisberg offers a formulation of Bayesian Conditionalization that he believes to be both objective and successful.

In this paper I intend to show the defects in Weisberg’s theory of objective Bayesian confirmation by utilizing the arguments of both W.V. Quine and Bas van Fraassen to …

The Reasonable Effectiveness Of Mathematics In The Natural Sciences, Nicolas Fillion

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

One of the most unsettling problems in the history of philosophy examines how mathematics can be used to adequately represent the world. An influential thesis, stated by Eugene Wigner in his paper entitled "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences," claims that "the miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve." Contrary to this view, this thesis delineates and implements a strategy to show that the applicability of mathematics is very reasonable indeed.

I distinguish three forms of the …

The Quantum Dialectic, Logan Kelley

Pitzer Senior Theses

A philosophic account of quantum physics. The thesis is divided into two parts. Part I is dedicated to laying the groundwork of quantum physics, and explaining some of the primary difficulties. Subjects of interest will include the principle of locality, the quantum uncertainty principle, and Einstein's criterion for reality. Quantum dilemmas discussed include the double-slit experiment, observations of spin and polarization, EPR, and Bell's theorem. The first part will argue that mathematical-physical descriptions of the world fall short of explaining the experimental observations of quantum phenomenon. The problem, as will be argued, is framework of the physical descriptive schema. Part …

Una Reflexión Entorno A “El Espíritu De La Ilustración” De Tzvetan Todorov., Mariado Hinojosa

Mariado Hinojosa

Tomando como referencia la obra de Tzvetan Todorov, el presente artículo reflexiona brevemente sobre algunos de los presupuestos heredados de la Ilustración y que marcaron profundamente el horizonte social, cultural y político del pasado siglo XX.

Know Thyself, Raam P. Gokhale

Raam P Gokhale

An Imagined Dialog on Eastern and Western Philosophy and the Nature of Knowledge

Pain And Human Dependence (Dolor Y Dependencia Humana), Fernando Estrada

Fernando Estrada

This paper is a study of medical philosophy. The subject is studied from the author's own experience. On the basic sources of inspiration the works of Fernando Pessoa, Karl Kraus and Friedrich Nietzsche, raise the limits and scope of medical knowledge and experience of pain and disease.

John Langshaw Austin: Evolution, Communication And Language Daily (John Langshaw Austin: Evolución, Comunicación Y Lenguaje Cotidiano) Spanish, Fernando Estrada

Fernando Estrada

In this paper the main purpose is to expose the relevance of focus of John L. Austin and their opposition a conception type on the communication. Austin elaborates - in its own terms - to “linguistic phenomenology,” with which revises some places thrashed critically. Those “you force illocutionary” and those “speech acts,” they will be central concepts in this analytic company. In the perspective of Austin should not make a mistake communication with information. The work that here develop it proposes some usually notices in defense of the normative functions of the language ordinary.

Philosophy, Rationality And Argumentation (Libro: Filosofía, Racionalidad Y Argumentación) Spanish, Fernando Estrada

Fernando Estrada

My interest is to understand the problems with some careful handling of the issues, I believe, relevant. Aristotle, Sophocles, Descartes, Hobbes, Kant, Foucault, Popper and other thinkers, are analyzed in their own texts, or in other cases of individual straight to interpret the problems they posed. It is "the freedom the individual, "" democracy "," body "," man, "language" "Ethics," "rationality," "the argumentacin" etc.. For the reader is book support, a resource for which he is challenged to read reseados texts, a letter with ways to analyze in different directions to locate each one that cause you most concern

"Is Human Understanding Finite?", Peter Brian Medawar

Special Collections: Oregon Public Speakers

No abstract provided.