Philosophies of the Sciences Philosophies of the Sciences A Guide Edited by Fritz Allhoff A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication This edition first published 2010 © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s publishing program has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business to form Wiley-Blackwell. Registered Office John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom Editorial Offices 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services, and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell. 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Set in 10.5/13pt Minion by Graphicraft Limited, Hong Kong Printed in Singapore 01 2010 Contents Notes on Contributors vii List of Figures xii Unit 1: Introduction 1 1 Philosophies of the Sciences 3 Fritz Allhoff 2 Philosophy of Science 9 Richard DeWitt Unit 2: Philosophy of the Exact Sciences 39 3 Philosophy of Logic 41 Otávio Bueno 4 Philosophy of Mathematics 68 Otávio Bueno 5 Philosophy of Probability 92 Aidan Lyon Unit 3: Philosophy of the Natural Sciences 127 6 Philosophy of Physics 129 Richard DeWitt 7 Philosophy of Chemistry 163 Joachim Schummer 8 Philosophy of Biology 184 Matthew H. Haber, Andrew Hamilton, Samir Okasha, and Jay Odenbaugh vi Contents 9 Philosophy of Earth Science 213 Maarten G. Kleinhans, Chris J.J. Buskes, and Henk W. de Regt Unit 4: Philosophy of the Behavioral and Social Sciences 237 10 Philosophy of the Cognitive Sciences 239 William Bechtel and Mitchell Herschbach 11 Philosophy of Psychology 262 Edouard Machery 12 Philosophy of Sociology 293 Daniel Little 13 Philosophy of Economics 324 Daniel M. Hausman Index 356 Notes on Contributors Fritz Allhoff is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Western Michigan University and a Research Fellow in the Centre for Applied Ethics and Public Philosophy at the Australian National University. At Western Michigan University, he is also an adjunct Assistant Professor in the Mallinson Institute for Science Education and the Director of the History and Philosophy of Science Working Group. He has held visiting fellowships at the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh and at the Brocher Foundation (Geneva, Switzerland). He has research and teaching interests in the history and philosophy of biology, from Darwin through contemporary debates. William Bechtel is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy and the interdisciplinary programs in Science Studies and Cognitive Science at the University of California, San Diego. His research has sought to characterize mechanistic explanations, the processes by which they are developed and evaluated, and the ways they are represented. His current focus is on dynamical activity in self-organizing and sustaining mechanisms in biology, especially ones exhibiting oscillations. His recent books include Discovering Cell Mechanisms (2006) and Mental Mechanisms (2008). Otávio Bueno is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Miami. His research concentrates in philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophy of logic, and he is currently developing a fictionalist conception that is empiricist about science and nominalist about mathematics. He has held visiting professorships or fellowships at Princeton University, the University of York (UK), the Uni- versity of Leeds, and the University of São Paulo. He has published papers in journals such as Philosophy of Science, Synthese, Journal of Philosophical viii Notes on Contributors Logic, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Analysis, Erkenntnis, and History and Philosophy of Logic. Chris J.J. Buskes is a Lecturer in the Philosophy of Science at the Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands. His work focuses on epistemology and general philosophy of science, with a special interest in the philosophy of biology. Among his publications is The Genealogy of Knowledge (1998), which offers a critical appraisal of evolutionary approaches to epistemology and philosophy of science. His latest book Evolutionair Denken (Evolutionary Thinking, 2006), aimed at a general public, was awarded the 2007 Socrates Goblet for the most stimulating Dutch book on philosophy and is now being translated into Spanish, German, and Polish. Henk W. de Regt is a Lecturer in Philosophy of Science at the Faculty of Philosophy, VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands. His present research focuses on the topics of scientific understanding and values in science. He has published in journals such as Philosophy of Science, Synthese, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, and Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. De Regt is co-founder and member of the Steering Committee of the European Philosophy of Science Association, co-founder of the Society for the Philosophy of Science in Practice, and editor-in-chief of the Dutch philosophy journal Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte. Richard DeWitt is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Fairfield University. His areas of specialization include the history and philosophy of science, logic, and the philosophy of mind. His recent publications include work on many valued and fuzzy logics, especially the question of the axiomatizability of fuzzy logics; a publication (with R. James Long) involving medieval logic; and an introductory book on the history and philosophy of science. Matthew H. Haber is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philo- sophy at the University of Utah. His research in philosophy of biology has focused on conceptual issues in systematics, including phylogenetic inference, the nature of biological taxa and hierarchies, foundational issues in nomenclature and classification, and the structure of phylogenetic think- ing. He also has research interests looking at the overlap of philosophy of Notes on Contributors ix biology and applied bioethics, most notably concerning the ethics of part- human embryonic research. Andrew Hamilton is an Assistant Professor in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University, where he is active in the Center for Biology and Society, the Center for Social Dynamics and Complexity, and the International Institute for Species Exploration. His research focuses on the conceptual and theoretical foundations of the biological sciences, particu- larly evolutionary theory and systematics. Hamilton’s work has appeared in philosophy, history, and science journals, including Philosophy of Science, Biological Theory, Isis, and PLoS Biology. Daniel M. Hausman is the Herbert A. Simon Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His work lies mainly at the intersection between economics and philosophy and addresses issues concerning methodology, rationality, causality, and ethics; and he was the co-founder of the journal Philosophy and Economics. Among his many publications, The Inexact and Separate Science of Economics (1992), Economic Analysis, Moral Philosophy, and Public Policy (jointly with Michael McPherson, 2006), and The Philosophy of Economics: An Anthology (3rd edn., 2007) address general philosophical questions concerning economics. Mitchell Herschbach is a PhD candidate in Philosophy and Cognitive Science at the University of California, San Diego. His dissertation integrates research from analytic philosophy of mind, phenomenology, cognitive science, developmental psychology, and neuroscience about human social understanding, particularly our folk psychological