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University of New Hampshire

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Full-Text Articles in Philosophy of Science

The Forms Of Representation: How To Be A Kantian Realist, Willem A. Devries Jan 2025

The Forms Of Representation: How To Be A Kantian Realist, Willem A. Devries

Faculty Publications

Sellars argued that Kant did not make certain distinctions concerning space and time, and because of this adopted his transcendental idealism. Once these distinctions are made, the path to realism remains open. Sellars' argument is not entirely clear. This essay attempts to clarify the argument, showing why Sellars believed he could remain a scientific realist while also adopting a Kantian style epistemology.

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Judging Our New Judges: Why We Must Remove Artificial Intelligence From Our Courtrooms Now, Kieran Duffy Newcomb Jan 2024

Judging Our New Judges: Why We Must Remove Artificial Intelligence From Our Courtrooms Now, Kieran Duffy Newcomb

Honors Theses and Capstones

In this paper, I explore some of the ways in which artificial intelligence might enhance the sentencing process through recidivism prediction technology. Notably, this technology can increase the accuracy of risk predictions and the speed with which sentencing decisions are reached. I then show, however, that the recidivism prediction technology is likely to turn into what data scientist Cathy O’Neil calls a Weapon of Math Destruction. The potential harmfulness of this technology is due not to the inherent nature of the technology, but the symbiotic relationship it will have with our already harmful criminal justice system. I argue that the …

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“Wilfrid Sellars And Liberal Naturalism”, Willem A. Devries Jan 2022

“Wilfrid Sellars And Liberal Naturalism”, Willem A. Devries

Faculty Publications

An examination of Wilfrid Sellars' somewhat problematic relation to liberal naturalism

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“Images, Objects, And Conceptual Change” An Author Meets Critics Session On Robert Brandom’S From Empiricism To Expressivism: Brandom Reads Sellars, Willem A. Devries Jan 2017

“Images, Objects, And Conceptual Change” An Author Meets Critics Session On Robert Brandom’S From Empiricism To Expressivism: Brandom Reads Sellars, Willem A. Devries

Faculty Publications

Robert Brandom has strongly criticized Wilfrid Sellars' claim that the Scientific Image will replace the Manifest Image.  But I think that Brandom has not yet sealed the deal: there is another construal of Sellars’s distinction that could survive Brandom’s arguments. It is not a construal that is obvious on the face of it nor can I claim that it is clearly the construal that Sellars had in mind. But it is a construal of Sellars’s doctrine that is intrinsically interesting. And it is a construal that, given Brandom’s endorsement of Sellars on categories, and given, further, Brandom’s own distinctively Hegelian …

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“Images, Descriptions, And Pictures: Personhood And The Clash”, Willem A. Devries Jan 2016

“Images, Descriptions, And Pictures: Personhood And The Clash”, Willem A. Devries

Faculty Publications

It is central to PSIM that there is a clash between the manifest and the scientific images that is to be resolved, essentially, by the victory of the scientific. It is a dramatic story — the Bildungsroman of the truth itself. The longstanding conflict over teaching evolution versus “creation science” in the schools shows that Sellars has put a finger on an important tension in modern culture. But I’ve come to believe that Sellars has not accurately captured the structure of the tension nor how we should envision its ultimate resolution. Since the dramatic narrative of PSIM is so central …

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Brandom's Two-Ply Error, Willem A. Devries, Paul Coates Jan 2009

Brandom's Two-Ply Error, Willem A. Devries, Paul Coates

Faculty Publications

In his Tales of the Mighty Dead, Robert Brandom discusses at some length Wilfrid Sellars’s two-ply account of observation.  Much of Brandom’s discussion is pithy and revealing, but we would like to draw attention to two problems with his treatment of ‘looks’-statements that make it a less than faithful representation of Sellars’s analysis.  Furthermore, to the extent that Brandom falls short of a truly Sellarsian account of ‘looks’-statements, he also prevents his readers from appreciating fully Sellars’s critique of Cartesianism.

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Getting Beyond Idealisms, Willem A. Devries Jan 2009

Getting Beyond Idealisms, Willem A. Devries

Faculty Publications

Wilfrid Sellars is known as a scientific realist.  His battles against the epistemologically motivated idealism of the empiricist tradition are familiar.  Less well known are the extraordinary measures he took to avoid falling into a different kind of idealism —metaphysically motivated idealism.  Here is the story.

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Examining Recent Expert Elicitation Judgment Guidelines: Value Assumptions And The Prospects For Rationality, Patricia Fleming Mar 2001

Examining Recent Expert Elicitation Judgment Guidelines: Value Assumptions And The Prospects For Rationality, Patricia Fleming

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment (1990-2002)

This paper was presented at the VALDOR Symposium, Stockholm, June 1999. The author examines the value assumptions in the U.S. Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission guidance on the use of expert judgment relating to high level nuclear waste disposal site selection.

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