Theory and Reality : an Introduction to the Philosophy of Science / Peter Godfrey-Smith
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Philosophical Theory-Construction and the Self-Image of Philosophy
Open Journal of Philosophy, 2014, 4, 231-243 Published Online August 2014 in SciRes. http://www.scirp.org/journal/ojpp http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojpp.2014.43031 Philosophical Theory-Construction and the Self-Image of Philosophy Niels Skovgaard Olsen Department of Philosophy, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany Email: [email protected] Received 25 May 2014; revised 28 June 2014; accepted 10 July 2014 Copyright © 2014 by author and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Abstract This article takes its point of departure in a criticism of the views on meta-philosophy of P.M.S. Hacker for being too dismissive of the possibility of philosophical theory-construction. But its real aim is to put forward an explanatory hypothesis for the lack of a body of established truths and universal research programs in philosophy along with the outline of a positive account of what philosophical theories are and of how to assess them. A corollary of the present account is that it allows us to account for the objective dimension of philosophical discourse without taking re- course to the problematic idea of there being worldly facts that function as truth-makers for phi- losophical claims. Keywords Meta-Philosophy, Hacker, Williamson, Philosophical Theories 1. Introduction The aim of this article is to use a critical discussion of the self-image of philosophy presented by P. M. S. Hacker as a platform for presenting an alternative, which offers an account of how to think about the purpose and cha- racter of philosophical theories. -
The Polarization of Reality †
AEA Papers and Proceedings 2020, 110: 324–328 https://doi.org/10.1257/pandp.20201072 The Polarization of Reality † By Alberto Alesina, Armando Miano, and Stefanie Stantcheva* Evidence is growing that Americans are voters have been illustrated in the political sci- polarized not only in their views on policy issues ence literature. Bartels 2002 shows that party and attitudes toward government and society identification shapes (perception) of economic but also in their perceptions of the same factual indicators that can be seen as the government’s reality. In this paper, we conceptualize how to “performance indicators” e.g., unemployment think about the polarization of reality and review or inflation , with Republicans( being more opti- recent papers that show that Republicans and mistic than) Democrats on economic variables Democrats as well as Trump and non-Trump during the Reagan presidency.1 Similar results voters since (2016 view the same reality through about the importance of partisan assessment a different lens. Perhaps) as a result, they hold of the government’s performance in shaping different views about policies and what should perceptions of economic indicators is found in be done to address different economic and social Conover, Feldman, and Knight 1987 . More issues. recently, Jerit and Barabas 2012( shows) that The direction of causality is unclear. On the people perceive the same reality( in a) way consis- one hand, individuals could select into political tent with their political views and that learning affiliations on the basis of their perceptions of is selective: partisans have higher knowledge reality. On the other hand, political affiliation for facts that corroborate their world views and affects the information one receives, the groups lower knowledge of facts that challenge them. -
The Implications of Naturalism As an Educational Philosophy in Jordan from the Perspectives of Childhood Education Teachers
Journal of Education and Practice www.iiste.org ISSN 2222-1735 (Paper) ISSN 2222-288X (Online) Vol.7, No.11, 2016 The Implications of Naturalism as an Educational Philosophy in Jordan from the Perspectives of Childhood Education Teachers Omar Khasawneh Ahmed Khaled Mohammad Al Momani Al Ain University of Science and Technology Al Ain, United Arab Emirates & Yarmouk University- Jordan Abstract The purpose of this study was to identify the educational implications of naturalism as an educational philosophy from the Jordanian childhood education teachers' perspectives. Each philosophy simply represents a unique conviction concerning the nature of the teaching/learning process. This study could serve as a grounded theory for Jordanian childhood teachers to comprehend the need for a clear educational philosophy within the Jordanian educational system. In addition, this research study would draw Jordanian childhood teachers' interest to be acquainted more with the educational principles of such philosophical theory. The researchers employed a questionnaire consisted of twenty one items, which correspond to the educational principles of naturalism. The quantitative approach is used to gather data as one of the techniques and descriptive due to its suitability for this study. The study findings revealed that Jordanian childhood education teachers' perspectives toward the implications of naturalism as an educational philosophy were positive for all domains; curriculum, aims, and activities. Based on the findings, the researchers provided some relevant recommendations. Keywords : Naturalism, Educational Philosophy, Childhood Education Teachers, Jordan. 1. Introduction Teachers’ educational philosophies and their value systems influence their teaching styles and the way they deal with their students. So, the impact of teachers’ beliefs and values on teaching and learning is evident in each classroom (Conti, 2007). -
Notes on Pragmatism and Scientific Realism Author(S): Cleo H
Notes on Pragmatism and Scientific Realism Author(s): Cleo H. Cherryholmes Source: Educational Researcher, Vol. 21, No. 6, (Aug. - Sep., 1992), pp. 13-17 Published by: American Educational Research Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1176502 Accessed: 02/05/2008 14:02 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=aera. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We enable the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. http://www.jstor.org Notes on Pragmatismand Scientific Realism CLEOH. CHERRYHOLMES Ernest R. House's article "Realism in plicit declarationof pragmatism. Here is his 1905 statement ProfessorResearch" (1991) is informative for the overview it of it: of scientificrealism. -
Philosophy of Social Science
Philosophy of Social Science Philosophy of Social Science A New Introduction Edited by Nancy Cartwright and Eleonora Montuschi 1 1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © The several contributors 2014 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted First Edition published in 2014 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2014938929 ISBN 978–0–19–964509–1 (hbk.) ISBN 978–0–19–964510–7 (pbk.) Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. -
Generics Analysis Canberra Plan.Pdf
Philosophical Perspectives, 26, Philosophy of Mind, 2012 CONCEPTS, ANALYSIS, GENERICS AND THE CANBERRA PLAN1 Mark Johnston Princeton University Sarah-Jane Leslie2 Princeton University My objection to meanings in the theory of meaning is not that they are abstract or that their identity conditions are obscure, but that they have no demonstrated use.3 —Donald Davidson “Truth and Meaning” From time to time it is said that defenders of conceptual analysis would do well to peruse the best empirically supported psychological theories of concepts, and then tailor their notions of conceptual analysis to those theories of what concepts are.4 As against this, there is an observation — traceable at least as far back to Gottlob Frege’s attack on psychologism in “The Thought” — that might well discourage philosophers from spending a week or two with the empirical psychological literature. The psychological literature is fundamentally concerned with mental representations, with the mental processes of using these in classification, characterization and inference, and with the sub-personal bases of these processes. The problem is that for many philosophers, concepts could not be mental items. (Jerry Fodor is a notable exception, we discuss him below.) We would like to set out this difference of focus in some detail and then propose a sort of translation manual, or at least a crucial translational hint, one which helps in moving between philosophical and psychological treatments of concepts. Then we will consider just how, given the translation, the relevant -
Citizen Science: Framing the Public, Information Exchange, and Communication in Crowdsourced Science
University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 8-2014 Citizen Science: Framing the Public, Information Exchange, and Communication in Crowdsourced Science Todd Ernest Suomela University of Tennessee - Knoxville, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the Communication Commons, and the Library and Information Science Commons Recommended Citation Suomela, Todd Ernest, "Citizen Science: Framing the Public, Information Exchange, and Communication in Crowdsourced Science. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2014. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/2864 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Todd Ernest Suomela entitled "Citizen Science: Framing the Public, Information Exchange, and Communication in Crowdsourced Science." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Communication and Information. Suzie Allard, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Carol Tenopir, Mark Littmann, Harry Dahms Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) Citizen Science: Framing the Public, Information Exchange, and Communication in Crowdsourced Science ADissertationPresentedforthe Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Todd Ernest Suomela August 2014 c by Todd Ernest Suomela, 2014 All Rights Reserved. -
Pragmatic Realism†
Revista de Humanidades de Valparaíso Año 4 / 2016 / 2do semestre / N° 8 Págs. 107 - 122 ISSN 0719-4234 / eISSN 0719-4242 Pragmatic Realism† Hasok Chang* Abstract In this paper I seek to articulate and develop Roberto Torretti’s advocacy of pragmatic realism. At the core of Torrietti’s view is a rejection of the notion that the truth of scientific theories consists in their correspondence to the world. I propose to understand correspondence in that sense as a metaphorical notion. I articulate a notion of pragmatist coherence, on the basis of which I make new coherence theories of truth and reality. Then it becomes possible to say that pragmatic realism consists in the pursuit of true knowledge of reality, in a way that is also consonant with Torretti’s pluralism. Keywords: pragmatism, realism, pluralism, coherence, truth, reality Realismo Pragmático Resumen En este trabajo intento articular y desarrollar la defensa que Roberto Torretti hace del realismo pragmático. En el núcleo de la visión de Torretti existe un rechazo a la idea de que la verdad de las teorías científicas consista en su correspondencia con el mundo. Propongo entonces entender la correspondencia como una noción metafórica. Articularé una noción de coherencia pragmática sobre la cual establezco una nueva teoría de la coherencia entre verdad y realidad. __________________En consecuencia, resultará posible afirmar que el realismo pragmático † Recibido: octubre 2016. This paper is partly based on a presentation entitled “Pragmatist Coherence as the Source of Truth and Reality,” given at the sixth biennial conference of the Society for Philosophy of Science in Practice (SPSP) on 17 June 2016 at Rowan University. -
Stick to What You Know
NOUS^ 39:3 (2005) 359–396 Stick To What You Know JONATHAN SUTTON Southern Methodist University 1. Introduction I will be arguing that a subject’s belief that p is justified if and only if he knows that p: justification is knowledge. I will start by describing two broad classes of allegedly justified beliefs that do not constitute knowledge and which, hence, cannot be what they are often taken to be if my view is correct. It is far from clear what my view is until I say a lot more about the relevant concept or concepts of justification that concern me. The following section describes several concepts of justification that epistemologists have employed, and, in particular, identifies the two concepts of justification that I claim are coextensive with the concept of knowledge. One of those is the deontological conception of justification: I will be arguing that one ought not believe that p unless one knows that p. I imagine that the major opposition to my view will be that it is simply obvious that there are justified false beliefs, a feeling that I try to dispel in the lengthy section on concepts of justification before I finally get around to giving the main arguments in favor of my view. A view as unorthodox as mine demands more than a single argument: I offer four in the third section. Everyone allows that many people have many unjustified beliefs, and everyone has some unjustified beliefs, but such beliefs appear to be far more prevalent on my view than on more orthodox views. -
Philosophical Intuitions – Philosophical Analysis A
PHILOSOPHICAL INTUITIONS – PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS A Dissertation presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School at the University of Missouri-Columbia In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy By JAMES F. MCBAIN JR. Dr. Peter J. Markie, Dissertation Supervisor AUGUST 2008 © Copyright by James F. McBain Jr. All Rights Reserved The undersigned, appointed by the Dean of the Graduate School, have examined the dissertation entitled PHILOSOPHICAL INTUITIONS—PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS presented by James F. McBain Jr., A candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, And hereby certify that, in their opinion, it is worthy of acceptance. ____________________________________ Professor Peter J. Markie ____________________________________ Professor Paul Weirich ____________________________________ Professor Donald Sievert _____________________________________ Professor Matthew McGrath _____________________________________ Professor Todd R. Schachtman This work is dedicated to Elizabeth I. McBain and in loving memory of James F. McBain Sr. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation has been a long time coming. I have received enormous encouragement and support from so many for so long. First, I would like to thank Dr. Peter J. Markie for his never ending support and belief in me. Dr. Markie not only has helped me through this project, but has shown me what it means to be a philosopher and a teacher. I can never adequately express my gratitude. None of this would have ever been possible if it were not for him. I would also like to thank the members of my committee – Dr. Paul Weirich, Dr. Donald Sievert, Dr. Matthew McGrath, and Dr. Todd Schactman. The feedback they gave me helped this work become what it has. -
Musings on the Theory of Everything and Reality (PDF)
Lecture Notes 7: Musings on the Theory of Everything and Reality 1 Is a \Theory of Everything" Even Possible? In Lecture Notes 6, I described the ongoing quest of theoretical physicists to day in uncovering the “theory of everything” that describes Nature. Nobody knows yet what that theory is — it would have to somehow reconcile the conflict between quantum theory and general relativity, i.e., it would have to be a theory of “quantum gravity” — but people are certainly trying, and many optimistic people even feel that we’re “almost there.” I personally have no idea if we’re close at all, because I am definitely not an expert on any candidate theory of quantum gravity. However, I do feel that we’ve come a long way in the past 100 years. And, when I marvel at the progress we’ve made, it makes me feel that, some day, we will finally have the correct theory of quantum gravity. Whether that day is 50 years from now or 500 years I won’t try to guess. But it seems like we can understand the Universe. In deed, as Einstein once mused: “The most incomprehensible thing about the Universe is that it is comprehensible.” But is the Universe really comprehensible? We can certainly understand aspects of the Universe today, but could we someday understand everything about it? The prospect of understanding everything — not only the laws of physics, but also the state of every single object in the (possibly infinite) Universe — probably seems rather bleak. After all, we humans are only only small, finite systems in an incredibly vast (possibly infinite) Universe, so maybe complete knowledge of every system in the Universe is impossible to attain. -
Immanuel Kant's Theory of Knowledge: Exploring the Relation Between
Immanuel Kant’s Theory of Knowledge: Exploring the Relation between Sensibility and Understanding Wendell Allan Marinay Kant’s critique of reason does not provide an ultimate justification of knowledge, is not the last word in philosophy but is an initial thesis aimed at successfully solving the challenge posed by two warring schools of thought during Kant’s time: empiricism and rationalism.1 Following the ancient-Greek’s nothing-in-the-mind-without-passing-through-the- senses (Aristotle), Immanuel Kant’s inquiry of knowledge starts with the things “seen” or “experienced.”2 Such inquiry entails the materials and a process by which there can (probably) be known. It probes into or upon the constitution of human reason – an epistemic investigation from within yet necessarily involving from without. This is so because “in the mind we have the pure forms of sensible intuition and the pure concepts of an object in general. Extraneous to the mind we have the unknown and unknowable source of the matter for these forms, the source of that out of which our contentful experience is made.”3 Kant mentions two faculties of the mind that are involved in the knowing process, namely, sensibility and understanding. “He distinguishes between the receptive faculty of sensibility, through which we have intuitions, and the active faculty of understanding, which is the source of concepts.”4 Through the former, the objects are “given” while 1 Otfried Höffe. Immanuel Kant trans. Marshall Farrier (New York: State University of New York Press, 1994), 55. 2 We should not be misled that by starting with things seen or experienced, knowledge would mean like a result of or is consequent to such experience.