Philosophy of Science Commons^™

Evotext: A New Tool For Analyzing The Biological Sciences, Grant Ramsey, Charles H. Pence

Faculty Publications

We introduce here evoText, a new tool for automated analysis of the literature in the biological sciences. evoText contains a database of hundreds of thousands of journal articles and an array of analysis tools for generating quantitative data on the nature and history of life science, especially ecology and evolutionary biology. This article describes the features of evoText, presents a variety of examples of the kinds of analyses that evoText can run, and offers a brief tutorial describing how to use it.

Tests For Intrinsicness Tested, Kelvin J. Mcqueen, René Van Woudenberg

Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research

Various tests have been proposed as helps to identify intrinsic properties. This paper compares three prominent tests (we call them Perfect Duplication, Real Change, and Lonely) and shows that they fail to pass adequate verdicts on a set of three properties. The paper examines whether improved versions of the tests can reduce or remove these negative outcomes. We reach the sceptical conclusion that whereas some of the tests must be discarded as inadequate because they don’t yield definite results, the remaining tests depend for their application on the details of fundamental particle physics so much so that they cannot be …

Explanatory Proofs And Beautiful Proofs, Marc Lange

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

This paper concerns the relation between a proof’s beauty and its explanatory power – that is, its capacity to go beyond proving a given theorem to explaining why that theorem holds. Explanatory power and beauty are among the many virtues that mathematicians value and seek in various proofs, and it is important to come to a better understanding of the relations among these virtues. Mathematical practice has long recognized that certain proofs but not others have explanatory power, and this paper offers an account of what makes a proof explanatory. This account is motivated by a wide range of examples …

Christian Faith And The Scientific Explanation Of Religion, Donald H. Wacome

Northwestern Review

The cognitive theory of religion seems to threaten to debunk religion, including Christianity, as irrational. The cognitive theory explains human religiosity as an accident, a mere byproduct, of the interaction of mental mechanisms evolved for other purposes. The threat to religion can be neutralized by finding good reasons for religious beliefs which can be identified independent of the operation of the cognitive mechanisms the theory posits. Christian faith should be understood not as sub-rational belief, but as trust in the God who resurrected Jesus Christ. Our natural religiosity, like our natural morality, has no necessary connection to God, but God …

Book Review: Philosophy Of Science: Key Concepts, David B. Levy

Touro University Libraries Publications and Research

The author reviews the book Philosophy of Science: Key Concepts.

The Physicist - Philosophers: The Legacy Of James Clerk Maxwell And Herrmann Von Helmholtz, Peter Skiff

Faculty Books & Manuscripts

One of the most effective, and most mysterious, tools of modern theoretical physics is a mathematical method including what is here called “field theory.” The success of this procedure in unraveling the “zoology” of fundamental particles and their behavior is a marvel. The philosophical context of this marvel is the source of endless academic controversy. The core of the method is a blend of mathematics and description created by “physicist-philosophers,” from Maxwell and Helmholtz to Einstein and Schrödinger. This book tries to unravel the mystery, or at least chronicle it.

The Confluence Of Philosophy And Biology: An Excavation Of Philosophical Issues In Molecular And Developmental Biology, Patrick Johnson Mendie, Emmanuel Bassey Eyo (Ph.D)

Journal of Health Ethics

Philosophical evaluations have played an influential role in the growth and development of molecular and developmental biology to ensure that every individual is born healthy, born wanted and has the privilege to fulfil his or her potentials for a life free from disease and disability. This is why it becomes necessary for biologists to carefully understand human genes, evolution, cells and general human anatomy to fulfil this project. During this process, they are faced with challenges where they also lack the foundation on how to solve them. This challenge gave birth to a philosophical excavation of molecular and developmental biology. …

Mechanistic Abstraction, Worth Boone, Gualtiero Piccinini

Philosophy Faculty Works

We provide an explicit taxonomy of legitimate kinds of abstraction within constitutive explanation. We argue that abstraction is an inherent aspect of adequate mechanistic explanation. Mechanistic explanations—even ideally complete ones—typically involve many kinds of abstraction and therefore do not require maximal detail. Some kinds of abstraction play the ontic role of identifying the specific complex components, subsets of causal powers, and organizational relations that produce a suitably general phenomenon. Therefore, abstract constitutive explanations are both legitimate and mechanistic.

Process And Mind: Exploring The Relationship Between Process Philosophy And The Nonlinear Dynamical Systems Science Of Cognition, Larry A. Moralez

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This work examines the relationship between Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy and the nonlinear dynamical systems framework for studying cognition. I argue that the nonlinear dynamical systems approach to cognitive science presupposes many key elements of his process philosophy. The process philosophical interpretation of nature posits events and the dynamic relations between events as the fundamental substrate of reality, as opposed to static physical substances. I present a brief history of the development of substance thought before describing Whitehead’s characterization of nature as a process. In following, I will examine the both the computational and nonlinear dynamical systems frameworks for …

Is Genetic Drift A Force?, Charles H. Pence

Faculty Publications

One hotly debated philosophical question in the analysis of evolutionary theory concerns whether or not evolution and the various factors which constitute it (selection, drift, mutation, and so on) may profitably be considered as analogous to “forces” in the traditional, Newtonian sense. Several compelling arguments assert that the force picture is incoherent, due to the peculiar nature of genetic drift. I consider two of those arguments here—that drift lacks a predictable direction, and that drift is constitutive of evolutionary systems—and show that they both fail to demonstrate that a view of genetic drift as a force is untenable. I go …

Rewriting, Recapturing, Reenvisioning: Writing Assessment Revisited In The Hermeneutic Sphere, Judith Ann Fourzan

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Dissertation explores the use of hermeneutics in reconsidering the role of writing assessment in composition. The traditional view of writing assessment is negative. In order to change this traditional view and enable composition faculty to utilize writing assessment and a valuable and necessary tool, a hermeneutic sphere offers the best framework upon which to recast writing assessment as part of composition and writing. A hermeneutic sphere is an interpretive methodology that allows for the investigation of any and all aspects of the subject at hand - in this case, writing assessment. The hermeneutic sphere works much like a heuristic …

Becoming What We Are: Virtue And Practical Wisdom As Natural Ends, Keith Buhler

Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy

This dissertation is about ethical naturalism. Philippa Foot and John McDowell both defend contemporary neo-Aristotelian ethics but each represents a rival expression of the same. They are united in the affirmation that virtue is ‘natural goodness’ for human beings. Nevertheless, they are divided in their rival conceptions of ‘nature.’ McDowell distinguishes second nature or the "space of reasons" from first nature or the “realm of law.” Foot rejects this division.

On Foot's naturalism, natural goodness is just as much a feature of first nature as health is, even though human practical reasoning is unique in the biological world. I defend …

Ecological Laws And Their Promise Of Explanations, Viorel Pâslaru

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Marcel Weber (1999) argued that the principle of competitive exclusion is a law of ecology that could explain phenomena (1) by direct application, or (2) by describing default states. Since he did not offer an account of explanation by direct application of laws, I offer an interpretation of explanation by direct application of laws based on a proposal by Elgin and Sober (2002). I show that in both cases it is the descriptions of mechanisms that explain phenomena, and not the laws. Lev Ginzburg and Mark Colyvan (2004) argued Malthus’ Law of Exponential Growth is the first law of ecology, …

Scientific Fictionalism And The Problem Of Inconsistency In Nietzsche, Justin Remhof

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In this article, I begin to develop Nietzsche’s scientific fictionalism in order to make headway toward resolving a central interpretive issue in his epistemology. For Nietzsche knowledge claims are falsifications. Presumably, this is a result of his puzzling view that truths are somehow false. I argue that Nietzsche thinks knowledge claims are falsifications because he embraces a scientific fictionalist view according to which inexact representations, which are false, can also be accurate, or true, and that this position is not inconsistent.

Fish Sentience And The Precautionary Principle, Robert C. Jones

Animal Sentience

Key (2016) argues that fish do not feel pain based on neuroanatomical evidence. I argue that Key makes a number of conceptual, philosophical, and empirical errors that undermine his claim.

No Evidence That Pain Is Painful Neural Process, Riccardo Manzotti

Animal Sentience

Key (2016) claims that fish do not feel pain because they lack the neural structures that have a contingent causal role in generating and feeling pain in mammals. I counterargue that no conclusive evidence supports the sufficiency of any mammalian neural structure to produce pain. We cannot move from contingent necessity in mammals to necessity in every organism.

Ethical Considerations Facing The Regulation Of Self-Driving Cars In The United States, Richard Mancuso

CMC Senior Theses

Self-driving cars are here. Once an advanced technology that seemed futuristic, they are now closer than most believe. Many of the largest automobile manufacturers are working on autonomous vehicle technology of their own. Perhaps most well-known, though, are the cars being developed by Tesla and Google. Both companies have well-developed prototypes of fully autonomous vehicles, meaning they require no human input or supervision, and Tesla has promised widespread, consumer availability of this technology in the next one to two years.

Along with the availability of this technology to the public and transportation companies like Uber and Lyft, comes a need …

What Would The Babel Fish Say?, Monica Gagliano

Animal Sentience

Starting with its title, Key’s (2016) target article advocates the view that fish do not feel pain. The author describes the neuroanatomical, physiological and behavioural conditions involved in the experience of pain in humans and rodents and confidently applies analogical arguments as though they were established facts in support of the negative conclusion about the inability of fish to feel pain. The logical reasoning, unfortunately, becomes somewhat incoherent, with the arbitrary application of the designated human criteria for an analogical argument to one animal species (e.g., rodents) but not another (fish). Research findings are reported selectively, and questionable interpretations are …

Book Review On The Philosophical Challenge From China (Edited By Brian Bruya), Hans Van Eyghen

Comparative Philosophy

In this paper, I review the book The Philosophical Challenge from China, edited by Brian Bruya. I critically discuss each of the 13 contributions.

Vol 7 No 1 Contents Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Vol 7 No 1 Information Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Vol 7 No 1 Cover Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Towards A Framework For Reproductive Violence”, Caitlyn Kelty-Huber

All Student Scholarship

Since the inception of ecofeminist discourse in the 1970’s, ecofeminists and feminists alike have been divided on their stances toward the ethics of consuming the bodies and by-products of other animals. A powerful cohort of ecofeminists, in part comprised by such scholars as Marti Kheel, Lori Gruen, Greta Gaard, and Carol J. Adams, have done a tremendous amount of work to situate a concern for more-than-human animals within ecofeminism and beyond. Unfortunately, as Cusack highlights, feminism’s failure to both recognize the parallel oppression of “dairy” cows and female farmed animals, and to thoughtfully incorporate that knowledge into feminist praxis has …

Thinking Nature, "Pierre Maupertuis And The Charge Of Error Against Fermat And Leibniz", Richard Samuel Lamborn

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to defend Pierre Fermat and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz against the charge of error made against them by Pierre Maupertuis that they errantly applied final causes to physics. This charge came in Maupertuis’ 1744 speech to the Paris Academy of Sciences, later published in different versions, entitled Accord Between Different Laws Which at First Seemed Incompatible. It is in this speech that Maupertuis lays claim to one of the most important discoveries in the history of physics and science, The Principle of Least Action. From the date of this speech up until the end …

Darwin’S Dice: The Idea Of Chance In The Thought Of Charles Darwin, Charles H. Pence

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

John Stuart Mill On Taxonomy And Natural Kinds, P.D. Magnus

Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

The accepted narrative treats John Stuart Mill's Kinds as the historical prototype for our natural kinds, but Mill actually employs two separate notions: Kinds and natural groups. Considering these, along with the accounts of Mill's 19th-century interlocutors, forces us to recognize two distinct questions. First, what marks a natural kind as worthy of inclusion in taxonomy? Second, what exists in the world that makes a category meet that criterion? Mill's two notions offer separate answers to the two questions: natural groups for taxonomy, and Kinds for ontology. This distinction is ignored in many contemporary debates about natural kinds and is …

A Consensus On The Definition And Knowledge Base For Computer Graphics, Michael Alden Roller

Open Access Dissertations

Despite several decades of historical innovation, measurable impacts, and multiple specializations the existing knowledge base for Computer Graphics (CG) lacks consensus, and numerous definitions for it have been published based on distinct contexts. Disagreement among post-secondary academics has divided CG programs into three contextual areas that emphasize different topics. This division has resulted in the decontextualization of CG education, and CG programs now face several challenges in meeting the needs of industry. Employing the Delphi Method, this investigation explored the perceptions among post-secondary educators and industry professionals about the definition of CG and how it is identified in terms of …

Course Syllabus (Fa15) Coli 211 Literature & Psychology: "Material Aesthetics", Christopher Southward

Comparative Literature Faculty and Student Scholarship

An examination of questions concerning aesthetic experience from the standpoint of the structural and functional logics of the capitalist mode of production

What Difference Does It Make? An Essay Review Of Beyond Versus: The Struggle To Understand The Interaction Of Nature And Nurture; James Tabery; Mit Press: Cambridge, Ma, 2014, Peter J. Taylor

Working Papers on Science in a Changing World

Beyond versus makes its contribution to the thriving industry of books that clarify or recast nature-nurture issues through seven conceptual moves. The first is to posit a divide between sociological and philosophical inquiry. As Tabery depicts them, commentators on the science invoked in nature-nurture debates often focus on the racist or other political views of disputants or on their flawed understanding of scientific concepts. Tabery, in contrast, as a philosopher of science, explains past and present disagreements as stemming from “a disagreement concerning how explanation works in science.” (The other moves include explanatory and terminological divides, connecting associations to mechanisms, …

The Spirit Molecule: Dmt, Brains, And A Theoneurological Model To Explain Spiritual Experiences, Shaun Smith

Masters Theses

This thesis attempts to address the philosophical implications of the N, N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) research of Dr. Rick Strassman. Strassman concludes that the psychedelic properties of DMT represent a proper biological starting point for discussing spiritual and near-death experiences. My research attempts to incorporate philosophical elements from the philosophy of mind and philosophy of religion/mysticism to give an accurate account of some of the philosophical issues worth exploring for future research. One of the essential patterns in this thesis is to trace the research and conclusions of Strassman, compare them with the philosophical issues in the contemporary philosophy of mind and …