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Full-Text Articles in Philosophy of Science
Probability Of Naturalism And Metanormative Realism, Curtis Howd
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 …
Constraints And Explanation, Alexander Bolano
Constraints And Explanation, Alexander Bolano
Theses
For the past 40 years, causal-mechanical approaches to explanation in science have been the received view. In this paper, I will argue that causal-mechanical approaches to explanation are not the whole story; there is a notable class of explanations that I call constraining explanation. Constraining explanation do not work by describing some causal structure; rather they work by highlighting mathematical constraints on what kinds of structure there can be. Constraining explanations are different that causal explanations because they give a kind of modal knowledge that causal-mechanical explanation alone cannot give.