Philosophy of Science Commons^™

Hobbes, Definitions, And Simplest Conceptions, Marcus P. Adams

Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

Several recent commentators argue that Thomas Hobbes’s account of the nature of science is conventionalist. Engaging in scientific practice on a conventionalist account is more a matter of making sure one connects one term to another properly rather than checking one’s claims, e.g., by experiment. In this paper, I argue that the conventionalist interpretation of Hobbesian science accords neither with Hobbes’s theoretical account in De corpore and Leviathan nor with Hobbes’s scientific practice in De homine and elsewhere. Closely tied to the conventionalist interpretation is the deductivist interpretation, on which it is claimed that Hobbes believed sciences such as optics …

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 …

What Scientists Know Is Not A Function Of What Scientists Know, P.D. Magnus

Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

There are two senses of ‘what scientists know’: An individual sense (the separate opinions of individual scientists) and a collective sense (the state of the discipline). The latter is what matters for policy and planning, but it is not something that can be directly observed or reported. A function can be defined to map individual judgments onto an aggregate judgment. I argue that such a function cannot effectively capture community opinion, especially in cases that matter to us.

Causal Explanation Of Human Behavior In The Social Sciences, Maria R. Zavada

Department of Philosophy: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The social sciences have something to offer our understanding of human behavior. However, the social sciences have been subjected to a great deal of criticism, both internally and externally. Cultural anthropology provides a microcosm of the problems within the social sciences and serves as an apt case study. There are many problems with the social sciences, some as fundamental as whether or not the social sciences are indeed sciences, and others that address specific issues with goals, methods, and data collection.

Using anthropology as a case study, I articulate the connection between the methodological problems in anthropology and the philosophical …

The Fine-Tuning Of Nomic Behavior In Multiverse Scenarios, Max Lewis Edward Andrews

Masters Theses

The multiverse hypothesis (the view that there is not just one world or universe in existence, bur rather that there are many) is the leading alternative to the competing fine-tuning hypothesis (the laws of physics and constants are fine-tuned for the existence of life). The multiverse dispels many aspects of the fine-tuning argument by suggesting that there are different initial conditions in each universe, varying constants of physics, and the laws of nature lose their known arbitrary values; thus, making the previous single-universe argument from fine- tuning incredibly weak. The position that will be advocated will be that a form …

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 Degeneration Of The Human Mind: An Analysis Of Alzheimer’S Disease, A Kuhnian Perspective, Genevieve Ilg

Spring 2013, Kuhn's Philosophy of Science

In 1906, a German physician, Dr. Alois Alzheimer, specifically identified a collection of brain cell abnormalities (and the formation of plaque in the brain) as a disease, which forever changed the way scientists view degenerative cognitive disorders. Today, this brain disease bears his name, and is one of the most common diseases among the aging population. The discovery of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) can be seen as a revolutionary, paradigmatic shift in regards to scientific discovery from a Kuhnian perspective. In that vein, the discovery presents philosophical implications for the notion of personhood and how those suffering from AD are treated …

Science And Religion Take Practice: Engaging Science As Culture, James K.A. Smith

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

This article argues that current paradigms in the theology/science conversation effectively treat “science” as if it were equivalent to “nature”—with detrimental effects for the encounter between Christian theology and the natural sciences. In contrast, I suggest that recognizing science as culture has important implications for reconfiguring the theology/science dialogue.

Defending The Multiple Realization Argument Against The Identity Theory, David Barrett

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A classic argument in the philosophy of mind is that the identity theory is false because mental state types are multiply realized in brain state types. In this dissertation I provide a detailed elaboration of the argument and a defense of it against a few of its prominent contemporary critics. Finally I offer empirical evidence from inter-species differences in humans and monkeys, and also from a case of extensive neural plasticity, which shows that mental state types are multiply realized in brain state types.

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 …

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

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

N/A

Does The Mind Extend Out Into The World, Andrew D. Kishino

CMC Senior Theses

The extended mind debate juggles the possibilities of whether or not the mind extends out into the world. Today, with the rise in technology, we have an additional claim that our tools are responsible for extending our minds. The internet, smart phones, and other tools give us a foothold in the extended mind debate by providing real world examples of how our mind is perceived as extending out into the world. In discovering where the divide between mind and environment exists we can come up with a conclusion whether or not the mind truly extends out into the world.

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

Selected Works Temporary Series

No abstract provided.

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

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 …

The Power Of Flowers: The Philosophy Of Organism Of The Maya, Juan Ferret

Selected Works Temporary Series

No abstract provided.

A Natural History Of The Mind : Edwards, Emerson, Thoreau, Melville, Michael Edmund Jonik

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This project examines how eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American writers drew on European natural science and philosophy - specifically in terms of concepts of form, perception, and experience - to open new possibilities for thinking the relationship between the mind and the physical world. In each of the moments of American intellectual history here considered - the natural theology of Calvinism, the idealistic natural history of Transcendentalism, and the movement towards an evolutionary process-philosophy of Pragmatism - "place" becomes not only geographical location, but a dynamic field of interactions of natural historical, literary, theological, and philosophical knowledge. I trace this through …

Realist Ennui And The Base Rate Fallacy, P.D. Magnus, Craig Callender

Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

The no‐miracles argument and the pessimistic induction are arguably the main considerations for and against scientific realism. Recently these arguments have been accused of embodying a familiar, seductive fallacy. In each case, we are tricked by a base rate fallacy, one much‐discussed in the psychological literature. In this paper we consider this accusation and use it as an explanation for why the two most prominent ‘wholesale’ arguments in the literature seem irresolvable. Framed probabilistically, we can see very clearly why realists and anti‐realists have been talking past one another. We then formulate a dilemma for advocates of either argument, answer …

Demonizing Science And Industry, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

The author discusses the perception that leaders in science and industry seeking power or setting down confining constraints to personal behavior as well as the converse of “…following where one’s heart and soul leads.” The author continues by positing that both sets of beliefs offer similar types of mental constraints.

Rethinking Mechanistic Explanation, Stuart Glennan

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Philosophers of science typically associate the causal-mechanical view of scientific explanation with the work of Railton and Salmon. In this paper I shall argue that the defects of this view arise from an inadequate analysis of the concept of mechanism. I contrast Salmon's account of mechanisms in terms of the causal nexus with my own account of mechanisms, in which mechanisms are viewed as complex systems. After describing these two concepts of mechanism, I show how the complex-systems approach avoids certain objections to Salmon's account of causal-mechanical explanation. I conclude by discussing how mechanistic explanations can provide understanding by unification.

How Do We Know There Is A Population-Environment Problem?, Peter J. Taylor

Working Papers on Science in a Changing World

Five fictional friends of the author have agreed to meet and talk, hoping that he was right when he claimed that discussion crossing the usual boundaries of their fields would enrich their different inquiries and concerns. Ecolo, a natural and human ecologist, breaks the ice. He wants to marshall scientific knowledge to persuade others of the seriousness of the population problem. He is questioned by Philoso, whose philosophical bent leads her to observe the models that people use and to ask how they support the claims they make. In turn, the other three join in: Activo, an activist who is …

The Nature Of Science: A Perspective From The Philosophy Of Science, Juli T. Eflin, Stuart Glennan, George Reisch

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

In a recent article in this journal, Brian Alters (1997) argued that, given the many ways in which the nature of science (NOS) is described and poor student responses to NOS instruments such as Nature of Scientific Knowledge Scale (NSKS), Nature of Science Scale (NOSS), Test on Understanding Science (TOUS), and others, it is time for science educators to reconsider the standard lists of tenets for the NOS. Alters suggested that philosophers of science are authorities on the NOS and that consequently, it would be wise to investigate their views of current NOS tenets. To that end, he conducted a …

Scientific Discipline And The Origins Of Race: A Foucaultian Reading Of The History Of Biology, Ladelle Mcwhorter

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Foucault's "power-knowledge" is a controversial concept. Brought into English-speaking theoretical circles less than two decades ago, its meaning and range of applicability are still in dispute. While no one denies that some fields of social scientific knowledge (such as criminology) intersect institutionally with mechanisms of power, these intersections do not seem, to many, to constitute any essential relation of "mutual reinforcement" between knowledge and power. If, in rare cases, politics and scientific research are admitted to be mutually constitutive, the results of their mingling are typically dismissed as propaganda or pseudo-science. A few thinkers are willing to allow the entirety …

Husserl's Position Between Dilthey And The Windelband-Rickert School Of Neo-Kantianism, John E. Jalbert

Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

The controversy and debate over the character of the relationship between the natural and human sciences (Natur- und Geisteswissenschaflen) became a central theme for philosophical reflection largely through the efforts of theorists such as Wilhelm Dilthey and the two principal representatives of the Baden School of Neo-Kantians, Wilhelm Windelband and Heinrich Rickert. These turn of the century theorists are major figures in this philosophical arena, but they are by no means the only participants in the effort to grapple with this issue.

"Is Human Understanding Finite?", Peter Brian Medawar

Special Collections: Oregon Public Speakers

No abstract provided.

Dialectical Laws And Elementary Catastrophes, Martin Zwick

Complex Systems Faculty Publications and Presentations

In the newly developed Catastrophe Theory of Rene Thorn and E.C. Zeeman, it is possible to find mathematical interpretation of certain aspects of Hegelian and Marxist dialectics. Specifically, the three "classical" dialectical principles, (1) the transformation of quantity into quality, ( 2) the mutual interpenetration(or - the unity and struggle) of opposites, and (3) the negation of the negation, can be modeled using the seven "elementary catastrophe " given by Thom , especially the catastrophe known as the "cusp." Far from being an empty metaphysics or scholasticism, as critics have argued , these principles embody genuine insights into a class …

Scholasticism An Intellectual Basis And Unifying Principle Of Modern Science, Alice V. Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Amid the almost uninterrupted disintegration of systems during the last three centuries, the philosophy of St. Thomas has alone been able to stand the shock of criticism; it alone has proved sufficiently solid and comprehensive to serve as an intellectual basis and unifying principle for all the new facts and phenomena brought to light by modern science.

An Oration, Delivered Before The Two Societies Of The South Carolina College, James Henry Hammond

Rare Books

An Oration, Delivered Before the Two Societies of the South-Carolina College on the Fourth of December, 1849, is a speech by James Henry Hammond discussing history, Francis Bacon, and other philosophers and statesmen. The speech includes some of Hammond's pro-slavery views.