“What characterizes the act of justice is not resort to a court and to judges; it is not the intervention of magistrates. What characterizes the juridical act, the process or the procedure in the broad sense, is the regulated development of a dispute. And the intervention of judges, their opinion or decision, is only ever an episode in this development. What defines the juridical order is the way in which one confronts one another, the way in which one struggles. The (...) rule and the struggle, the rule in the struggle, this is the juridical.” - Michel Foucault Penal Theories and Institutions is the title Michel Foucault gave to the lectures he delivered at the Collège de France from November 1971 to March 1972. In these lectures Michel Foucault presents for the first time his approach to the question of power that will be the focus of his research up to the writing of Discipline and Punish and beyond. His analysis starts with a detailed account of Richelieu’s repression of the Nu-pieds revolt and then goes on to show how the apparatus of power developed by the monarchy on this occasion breaks with the system of juridical and judicial institutions of the Middle Ages and opens out onto a “judicial State apparatus”, a “repressive system”, whose function is focused on the confinement of those who challenge its order. Michel Foucault systemizes the approach of a history of truth on the basis of the study of “juridico-political matrices” that he had begun in the previous year’s lectures and which is at the heart of the notion of “knowledge-power”. In these lectures Foucault develops his theory of justice and penal law. The appearance of this volume marks the end of the publication of the series Foucault’s courses at the Collège de France. (shrink)

The perturbative treatment of realistic quantum field theories, such as quantum electrodynamics, requires the use of mathematical idealizations in the approximation series for scattering amplitudes. Such mathematical idealizations are necessary to derive empirically relevant models from the theory. Mathematical idealizations can be either controlled or uncontrolled, depending on whether current scientific knowledge can explain whether the effects of the idealization are negligible or not. Drawing upon negative mathematical results in asymptotic analysis (failure of Borel summability) and renormalization group theory (...) (failure of asymptotic safety), we argue that the mathematical idealizations applied in perturbative quantum electrodynamics should be understood as uncontrolled. This, in turn, leads to the problematic conclusion that such theories do not have theoretical models in the natural understanding of this term. The existence of unquestionable empirically successful theories without theoretical models has significant implications both for our understanding of the theory-model relationship in physics and the concept of empirical adequacy. (shrink)

Definitional and axiomatic theories of truth -- Objects of truth -- Tarski -- Truth and set theory -- Technical preliminaries -- Comparing axiomatic theories of truth -- Disquotation -- Classical compositional truth -- Hierarchies -- Typed and type-free theories of truth -- Reasons against typing -- Axioms and rules -- Axioms for type-free truth -- Classical symmetric truth -- Kripke-Feferman -- Axiomatizing Kripke's theory in partial logic -- Grounded truth -- Alternative evaluation schemata -- Disquotation -- Classical (...) logic -- Deflationism -- Reflection -- Ontological reduction -- Applying theories of truth. (shrink)

Williams and J. Fraser have recently argued that effective field theory methods enable scientific realists to make more reliable ontological commitments in quantum field theory than those commonly made. In this paper, I show that the interpretative relevance of these methods extends beyond the specific context of QFT by identifying common structural features shared by effective theories across physics. In particular, I argue that effective theories are best characterized by the fact that they contain intrinsic empirical limitations, and (...) I extract from their structure one central interpretative constraint for making more reliable ontological commitments in different subfields of physics. While this is in principle good news, this constraint still raises a challenge for scientific realists in some contexts, and I bring the point home by focusing on Williams’s and J. Fraser’s defense of selective realism in QFT. (shrink)

Why do people endorse conspiracy theories? There is no single explanation: different people have different attitudes to the theories they say they believe. In this paper, I argue that for many, conspiracy theories are serious play. They’re attracted to conspiracy theories because these theories are engaging: it’s fun to entertain them (witness the enormous number of conspiracy narratives in film and TV). Just as the person who watches a conspiratorial film suspends disbelief for its duration, (...) so many conspiracy theorists do not believe the theories they endorse; rather, they suspend disbelief in them. I argue that the serious play hypothesis explains some characteristic features of conspiracy theories, such as their gamification and the kind of relationship they have to evidence. (shrink)

This dissertation is an interdisciplinary study of scientific change. The undulatory theory of light replaced the emission theory of light in the early nineteenth century, triggering an "optical revolution" and vigorous debates among physicists in Britain from the 1830s to the 1850s. In this study I give the first full account of this extended episode of scientific change, drawing on methods and concepts from history, sociology and philosophy of science. The interdisciplinary account of the episode provides a basis for criticizing (...) the existing models of scientific change in the philosophy of science. ;Previous historical studies of the "optical revolution" pay little attention to the period after the 1830s. Because the cognitive superiority of the undulatory theory had become obvious in the early 1830s, some historians have implicitly assumed that any controversy would soon come to a natural end. I, however, document that intensive debates continued from the 1830s until the end of the 1850s, and that emissionists even enjoyed temporary victories in their fights with undulationists. The narrative reveals the historical complexities of this episode: the debates extended long after the cognitive superiority of the undulatory theory should have become apparent by modern standard, the results of the debates did not necessarily coincide with modern cognitive judgements, and individual agents played decisive roles in determining how long a debate lasted and how it would end. ;On the basis of the historical narrative, I provide a philosophical analysis of the practices of theory appraisal and experiment appraisal that constituted the main theme of the controversy. Instead of merely identifying the criteria of evaluation employed in this episode, I pay special attention to how individual agents actually applied these criteria in concrete situations, what kinds of strategies or tactics they employed for the applications of these criteria, and how they created favorable conditions, both cognitive and social, for successfully applying these criteria. Individual agents' efforts in selecting application strategies and in creating favorable conditions made the practices of appraisal complicated, exhibiting various features that are incomprehensible if we limit ourselves merely to studying the criteria of evaluation. ;I finally discuss a different approach to scientific change. The existing philosophical models of scientific change merely analyze the final product of science--scientific theories, and ignore the impact of social factors and the role of individual agents. I suggest we concentrate on the process of knowledge production, and pay attention to individual agents's practices in this process, as well as to the relevant cognitive and social factors that influence individual agents. Following this new approach, scientific change is understood as an evolution that involves interactions among three elements: theory, experiment, and human agent. (shrink)

This article considers claims that biology should seek general theories similar to those found in physics but argues for an alternative framework for biological theories as collections of prototypical interlevel models that can be extrapolated by analogy to different organisms. This position is exemplified in the development of the Hodgkin‐Huxley giant squid model for action potentials, which uses equations in specialized ways. This model is viewed as an “emergent unifier.” Such unifiers, which require various simplifications, involve the types (...) of heuristics discussed in Wimsatt’s writings on reduction, but with a twist. Here, the heuristics are used to generate emergent rather than reductive explanations. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, 1017 Cathedral of Learning, Pittsburgh, PA 15260; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

The need to find an intrinsic characterization of what makes a relation between events causal arises not only in local theories of causation like Salmon's process theory but also in global approaches like Lewis' counterfactual theory. According to the localist intuition, whether a process connecting two events is causal should depend only on what goes on between the events, not on conditions that hold elsewhere in the world. If such intrinsic characterizations could be found, an identification of the causal (...) relation in the actual world (though not in other possible worlds) with physical processes may be feasible (the a posteriori identification). I consider recent proposals made for intrinsic characterizations of causality and conclude that none of them is able to deliver the intended result. (shrink)

The title refers to theories that require a certain sort of relation between X and an experience of S in order that S perceive X. The relation might be causal, counterfactual, doxastic, or otherwise. It is argued against such theories that there are possible cases in which X stands in the required relation to an experience of S and S does not perceive X and cases in which X is perceived though it does not stand in the required (...) relation. (shrink)

Theories of Truth provides a clear, critical introduction to one of the most difficult areas of philosophy. It surveys all of the major philosophical theories of truth, presenting the crux of the issues involved at a level accessible to nonexperts yet in a manner sufficiently detailed and original to be of value to professional scholars. Kirkham's systematic treatment and meticulous explanations of terminology ensure that readers will come away from this book with a comprehensive general understanding of one (...) of philosophy's thorniest set of topics. -/- Included are discussions of the correspondence, coherence, pragmatic, semantic, performative, redundancy, appraisal, and truth-as-justification theories. There are also chapters or sections of chapters on the liar paradox, three-valued logic, Field's critique of Tarski, Davidson's program, Dummett's theory of linguistic competence, satisfaction, recursion, the extension/intension distinction, and an explanation of how theories of justification, properly understood, differ from theories of truth. -/- A persistent theme is that philosophers have too often failed to recognize that not all theories of truth are intended to answer the same question. When the various questions are made distinct, it is apparent that many of the "debates" in this field are really cases of philosophers talking past one another. There is much less disagreement within the field than has commonly been thought. (shrink)

An important aspect of the debate between the A-theory and the B-theory of time relates to the supposed implications of each for some of the most basic human attitudes and stances. The asymmetry in our attitudes towards past and future events in our life (pleasant and unpleasant), and towards the temporal limits of our existence, that is, toward birth and death, is supposedly considered differently by the two theories. I argue that our attitudes are neither justified nor discredited by (...) anything which is in debate between the A-Theory and the B-theory, and therefore that neither theory of time is supported by the asymmetry in our attitudes. (shrink)

This book is a synthetic historiography of present-day international relations theory, a critical analysis of the continuing diversity and complexity of enduring themes through a sustained focus on the analysis of the empirical evidence accumulated by social scientists. Special attention is given to key historical changes in theoretical approaches over the past half-century with full recognition of the contestation over state-based theory, and the changing fortunes of contemporary approaches. The book suggests that viable theories must transcend current intellectual fashion, (...) and attempts to bring together theory and practice while demonstrating the difficulty of assessing competing theories. It addresses multiple strands of thought and assumes that their development cannot be understood in isolation from each other. (shrink)

In this paper the topic of the relations between scientific theories and scientific models is tackled by considering the former as hypothetical scientific representations and the latter as fictive scientific representations. A classification of the models is also proposed.

It seems that the above account of explanation-strategy in the area of temperature adaptation underscores many of the points made earlier. First, it discloses the fruitful interaction of classical, evolutionary, and molecular approaches. Secondly, it indicates that biological characterizations are not rival accounts to chemical ones. Thirdly, it stresses the importance of the DNA sequence order in chemical explanations of biological organisms.One feature which this area does not seem to reveal, which genetics does, is the development of a biological (that (...) is, non-chemical) theory which would explain temperature adaptation in nonchemical terms. What this shows is that one should not always expect systematization at the biological level, in the sense of being able to refer many phenomena to a small number of basic principles. The future development of laws and theories in biological terms in this area is, of course, not precluded by the fact that none have yet been discovered. The case does indicate that physical and chemical language and theories are extremely useful in biological investigations, and the physicochemical approach may well be the best approach in this area. In any event, ultimate reduction of the biological to the chemical seems to be a foregone non-controversial conclusion here as elsewhere. (shrink)

This article takes as its starting point the observation that neoliberalism is a concept that is ‘oft-invoked but ill-defined’. It provides a taxonomy of uses of the term neoliberalism to include: (1) an all-purpose denunciatory category; (2) ‘the way things are’; (3) an institutional framework characterizing particular forms of national capitalism, most notably the Anglo-American ones; (4) a dominant ideology of global capitalism; (5) a form of governmentality and hegemony; and (6) a variant within the broad framework of liberalism as (...) both theory and policy discourse. It is argued that this sprawling set of definitions are not mutually compatible, and that uses of the term need to be dramatically narrowed from its current association with anything and everything that a particular author may find objectionable. In particular, it is argued that the uses of the term by Michel Foucault in his 1978–9 lectures, found in The Birth of Biopolitics, are not particularly compatible with its more recent status as a variant of dominant ideology or hegemony theories. It instead proposes understanding neoliberalism in terms of historical institutionalism, with Foucault’s account of historical change complementing Max Weber’s work identifying the distinctive economic sociology of national capitalisms. (shrink)

Theories of Theories of Mind brings together contributions by a distinguished international team of philosophers, psychologists, and primatologists, who between them address such questions as: what is it to understand the thoughts, feelings, and intentions of other people? How does such an understanding develop in the normal child? Why, unusually, does it fail to develop? And is any such mentalistic understanding shared by members of other species? The volume's four parts together offer a state of the art survey (...) of the major topics in the theory-theory/simulationism debate within philosophy of mind, developmental psychology, the aetiology of autism and primatology. The volume will be of great interest to researchers and students in all areas interested in the 'theory of mind' debate. (shrink)

Conspiracy theories should be neither believed nor investigated - that is the conventional wisdom. I argue that it is sometimes permissible both to investigate and to believe. Hence this is a dispute in the ethics of belief. I defend epistemic ‘oughts’ that apply in the first instance to belief-forming strategies that are partly under our control. I argue that the policy of systematically doubting or disbelieving conspiracy theories would be both a political disaster and the epistemic equivalent of (...) self-mutilation, since it leads to the conclusion that history is bunk and the nightly news unbelievable. In fact (of course) the policy is not employed systematically but is only wheeled on to do down theories that the speaker happens to dislike. I develop a deductive argument from hard-to-deny premises that if you are not a ‘conspiracy theorist’ in my anodyne sense of the word then you are an ‘idiot’ in the Greek sense of the word, that is, someone so politically purblind as to have no opinions about either history or public affairs. The conventional wisdom can only be saved (if at all) if ‘conspiracy theory’ is given a slanted definition. I discuss some slanted definitions apparently presupposed by proponents of the conventional wisdom (including, amongst others, Tony Blair) and conclude that even with these definitions the conventional wisdom comes out as deeply unwise. I finish up with a little harmless fun at the expense of David Aaronvitch whose abilities as a rhetorician and a popular historian are not perhaps matched by a corresponding capacity for logical thought. (shrink)

Thirty years after the conference that gave rise to The Structure of Scientific Theories, there is renewed interest in the nature of theories and models. However, certain crucial issues from thirty years ago are reprised in current discussions; specifically: whether the diversity of models in the science can be captured by some unitary account; and whether the temporal dimension of scientific practice can be represented by such an account. After reviewing recent developments we suggest that these issues can (...) be accommodated within the partial structures formulation of the semantic or model-theoretic approach. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to provide a characterization of ability theories of practice and, in this process, to defend Pierre Bourdieu’s ability theory against Stephen Turner’s objections. In part I, I outline ability theorists’ conception of practices together with their objections to claims about rule following and rule explanations. In part II, I turn to the question of what ability theorists take to be the alternative to rule following and rule explanations. Ability theorists have offered, and been (...) ascribed, somewhat different answers to this question, just as their replies, or positive accounts, have been heavily criticized by Turner. Due to this state of the debate, I focus on the positive account advanced by a single—and highly famous—ability theorist of practice, Pierre Bourdieu. Moreover, I show that despite Turner’s claims to the contrary, his arguments do not refute Bourdieu’s positive account. (shrink)

Additive theories of rationality, as I use the term, are theories that hold that an account of our capacity to reflect on perceptually-given reasons for belief and desire-based reasons for action can begin with an account of what it is to perceive and desire, in terms that do not presuppose any connection to the capacity to reflect on reasons, and then can add an account of the capacity for rational reflection, conceived as an independent capacity to ‘monitor’ and (...) ‘regulate’ our believing-on-the-basis-of-perception and our acting-on-the-basis-of-desire. I show that a number of recent discussions of human rationality are committed to an additive approach, and I raise two difficulties for this approach, each analogous to a classic problem for Cartesian dualism. The interaction problem concerns how capacities conceived as intrinsically independent of the power of reason can interact with this power in what is intuitively the right way. The unity problem concerns how an additive theorist can explain a rational subject's entitlement to conceive of the animal whose perceptual and desiderative life he or she oversees as ‘I’ rather than ‘it’. I argue that these difficulties motivate a general skepticism about the additive approach, and I sketch an alternative, ‘transformative’ framework in which to think about the cognitive and practical capacities of a rational animal. (shrink)

Quantum mechanics, with its revolutionary implications, has posed innumerable problems to philosophers of science. In particular, it has suggested reconsidering basic concepts such as the existence of a world that is, at least to some extent, independent of the observer, the possibility of getting reliable and objective knowledge about it, and the possibility of taking (under appropriate circumstances) certain properties to be objectively possessed by physical systems. It has also raised many others questions which are well known to those involved (...) in the debate on the interpretation of this pillar of modern science. One can argue that most of the problems are not only due to the intrinsic revolutionary nature of the phenomena which have led to the development of the theory. They are also related to the fact that, in its standard formulation and interpretation, quantum mechanics is a theory which is excellent (in fact it has met with a success unprecedented in the history of science) in telling us everything about what we observe, but it meets with serious difficulties in telling us what is. We are making here specific reference to the central problem of the theory, usually referred to as the measurement problem, or, with a more appropriate term, as the macro-objectification problem. It is just one of the many attempts to overcome the difficulties posed by this problem that has led to the development of Collapse Theories, i.e., to the Dynamical Reduction Program (DRP). As we shall see, this approach consists in accepting that the dynamical equation of the standard theory should be modified by the addition of stochastic and nonlinear terms. The nice fact is that the resulting theory is capable, on the basis of a unique dynamics which is assumed to govern all natural processes, to account at the same time for all well-established.. (shrink)

Spontaneous localization theories are a class of quantum theories which solve the so-called measurement problem by non-linearly and stochastically modifying the Schrödinger dynamics. In this paper I briefly explain where these theories are coming from, what their driving ideas and main features are, and how they were historically developed. Also, I discuss their empirical and ontological adequacy, as well as their relativistic extensions and their experimental confirmation.

While COVID-19 spreads aggressively and rapidly across the globe, many societies have also witnessed the spread of other viral phenomena like misinformation, conspiracy theories, and general mass suspicions about what is really going on. This study investigates how exposure to and trust in information sources, and anxiety and depression, are associated with conspiracy and misinformation beliefs in eight countries/regions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected in an online survey fielded from May 29, 2020 to June 12, 2020, resulting (...) in a multinational representative sample of 8,806 adult respondents. Results indicate that greater exposure to traditional media is associated with lower conspiracy and misinformation beliefs, while exposure to politicians and digital media and personal contacts are associated with greater conspiracy and misinformation beliefs. Exposure to health experts is associated with lower conspiracy beliefs only. Higher feelings of depression are also associated with greater conspiracy and misinformation beliefs. We also found relevant group- and country differences. We discuss the implications of these results. (shrink)

Quassim Cassam has argued that psychological and epistemological analyses of conspiracy theories threaten to overlook the political nature of such theories. According to Cassam, conspiracy theories are a form of political propaganda. I develop a limited critique of Cassam's analysis.This paper advances two core theses. First, acceptance of conspiracy theories requires a rejection of epistemic authority that renders conspiracy theorists susceptible to co-option by certain political programs while insulating such programs from criticism. I argue that the (...) contrarian nature of conspiracy theories partially accounts for the prominence of such theories in populist movements.Second, the contrarian nature of conspiracy theories partially accounts for their attractiveness, especially among those to whom populism already appeals. I argue that for those who resent what appears from their perspective as the shaping of the epistemic landscape by alien perspectives, conspiracy theorizing may facilitate the reassertion of epistemic autonomy. (shrink)

Some axiomatic theories of truth and related subsystems of second-order arithmetic are surveyed and shown to be conservative over their respective base theory. In particular, it is shown by purely finitistically means that the theory PA ÷ "there is a satisfaction class" and the theory FS of [2] are conservative over PA.

Libertarian theories of the normative core of the corporation hold in common the view that is the responsibility of publicity held corporations to return profits to shareholders within the bounds of certain moral side-constraints. Side-constraints may be either weak (grounded in the rules of the game) or strong (grounded in rights). This essay considers libertarian arguments regarding the normative core of the corporation in the context of global capitalism and in the light of actual corporate behavior. First, it is (...) argued the weak side-constraints view is conceptually incoherent when applied in a global context. Second, it is argued that proponents of the libertarian strong side-constraints view lack an adequate theory of rights. Third, both the weak side-constraints view and the strong side-constraints view are shown to be unsatisfactory insofar as they fail to adequately address the coercive power of corporations. The main conclusion of this essay is that a viable libertarian theory of the corporation has yet to be articulated. (shrink)

Why we get the world wrong -- Intuitive theories of the physical world -- Matter : what is the world made of? How do those components interact? -- Energy : what makes something hot? What makes something loud? -- Gravity : what makes something heavy? What makes something fall? -- Motion : what makes objects move? What paths do moving objects take? -- Cosmos : what is the shape of our world? What is its place in the cosmos? -- (...) Earth : why do continents drift? Why do climates change? -- Intuitive theories of the biological world -- Life : what makes us alive? What causes us to die? -- Growth : why do we grow bigger? Why do we grow older? -- Inheritance : why do we resemble our parents? Where did we get our traits? -- Illness : what makes us ill? How does illness spread? -- Adaptation : why are there so many lifeforms? How do they change over time? -- Ancestry : where do species come from? How are they related? -- How to get the world right. (shrink)

We initiate a systematic study of the class of theories without the tree property of the second kind — NTP2. Most importantly, we show: the burden is “sub-multiplicative” in arbitrary theories ; NTP2 is equivalent to the generalized Kimʼs lemma and to the boundedness of ist-weight; the dp-rank of a type in an arbitrary theory is witnessed by mutually indiscernible sequences of realizations of the type, after adding some parameters — so the dp-rank of a 1-type in any (...) theory is always witnessed by sequences of singletons; in NTP2 theories, simple types are co-simple, characterized by the co-independence theorem, and forking between the realizations of a simple type and arbitrary elements satisfies full symmetry; a Henselian valued field of characteristic is NTP2 if and only if the residue field is NTP2 , so in particular any ultraproduct of p-adics is NTP2; adding a generic predicate to a geometric NTP2 theory preserves NTP2. (shrink)

The relationship between logics with sets of theorems including contradictions (“inconsistent logics”) and theories closed under such logics is investigated. It is noted that if we take “theories” to be defined in terms of deductive closure understood in a way somewhat different from the standard, Tarskian, one, inconsistent logics can have consistent theories. That is, we can find some sets of formulas the closure of which under some inconsistent logic need not contain any contradictions. We prove this (...) in a general setting for a family of relevant connexive logics, extract the essential features of the proof in order to obtain a sufficient condition for the consistency of a theory in arbitrary logics, and finally consider some concrete examples of consistent mathematical theories in Abelian logic. The upshot is that on this way of understanding deductive closure, common to relevant logics, there is a rich and interesting kind of interaction between inconsistent logics and their theories. We argue that this suggests an important avenue for investigation of inconsistent logics, from both a technical and a philosophical perspective. (shrink)

This book argues that the question posed by virtue theories, namely, “what kind of person should I be?” provides a more promising approach to moral questions than do either deontological or consequentialist moral theories where the concern is with what actions are morally required or permissible. It does so both by arguing that there are firmer theoretical foundations for virtue theories, and by persuasively suggesting the superiority of virtue theories over deontological and consquentialist theories on (...) the question of explaining morally bad behavior. Virtue theories can give a richer account by appealing to the kinds of dispositions that make certain bad choices appear attractive. This richer account also exposes a further advantage of virtue theories: they provide the best kinds of motivations for agents to become better persons. (shrink)

Conspiracy theories have a bad reputation. This is especially true in the academy and in the media. Within these institutions, to describe someone as a conspiracy theorist is often to imply that his or her views should not be taken seriously. Perhaps this accounts for the fact that philosophers have tended to ignore the topic, despite the enduring appeal of conspiracy theories in popular culture. Recently, however, some philosophers have at least treated conspiracy theorists respectfully enough to try (...) to articulate where they go wrong.I begin this paper by clarifying the nature of conspiracy theories. I then argue against some recent critiques of conspiracy theories. Many criticisms of conspiracy theories are unfounded. I also argue that unwillingness to entertain conspiracy theories is an intellectual and moral failing. I end by suggesting an Aristotelian approach to the issue, according to which the intellectual virtue of realism is a golden mean between the intellectual vices of paranoia and naivety. (shrink)

A major theme in the study of degree structures of all types has been the question of the decidability or undecidability of their first order theories. This is a natural and fundamental question that is an important goal in the analysis of these structures. In this paper, we study decidability for theories of upper semilattices that arise from the theory of numberings. We use the following approach: given a level of complexity, say \, we consider the upper semilattice (...) \ of all \-computable numberings of all \-computable families of subsets of \. We prove that the theory of the semilattice of all computable numberings is computably isomorphic to first order arithmetic. We show that the theory of the semilattice of all numberings is computably isomorphic to second order arithmetic. We also obtain a lower bound for the 1-degree of the theory of the semilattice of all \-computable numberings, where \ is a computable successor ordinal. Furthermore, it is shown that for any of the theories T mentioned above, the \-fragment of T is hereditarily undecidable. Similar results are obtained for the structure of all computably enumerable equivalence relations on \, equipped with composition. (shrink)

Discusses the philosophical question concerning the exact relationship between the body and the mind and provides analysis of conflicting theories.

Necessitarianism, as we shall use the term, is the view that natural properties and causal powers are necessarily connected in some way. In recent decades the most popular forms of necessitarianism have been the anti-Humean powers-based theories of properties, such as dispositional essentialism and the identity theory. These versions of necessitarianism have come under fire in recent years and I believe it is time for necessitarians to develop a new approach. In this paper I identify unexplored ways of positing (...) metaphysically necessary connections in nature, using the concepts of grounding and essential dependence. For example, I show that one could be a necessitarian by insisting that the properties of things necessarily ground their powers, and that one can maintain this while rejecting dispositional essentialism. Using different combinations of claims about grounding and essential dependence, I map out a spectrum of new positions and compare them to previous theories of natural modality. Some of these positions are compatible with Humean metaphysics while others are not. The overall aim of the paper is to provide a new metaphysical framework for understanding theories of powers and thereby launch a new necessitarian research programme. (shrink)

Conspiracy theories are a popular topic of conversation in everyday life but are often frowned upon in academic discussions. Looking at the recent spate of philosophical interest in conspiracy theories, The Philosophy of Conspiracy Theories looks at whether the assumption that belief in conspiracy theories is typically irrational is well founded. -/- The Philosophy of Conspiracy Theories is aimed at both the philosopher and the non-philosopher. It is a qualified defence of belief in conspiracy (...) class='Hi'>theories: belief in conspiracy theories can be rational in some circumstances. It covers such issues as: who might be considered a qualified conspiracy theorist; how do we analyse claims of disinformation; is our reliance on official theories a good reason to be suspicious of rival conspiracy theories; and what should we do when official theories and conspiracy theories are in conflict? -/- Matthew Dentith is a New Zealand-based philosopher whose research includes analyses of why we have grounds to be suspicious of official theories, the reliability of the transmission of rumours, and the role of trust in the acceptance of theories. (shrink)

The last century has seen many disciplines place a greater priority on understanding how people reason in a particular domain, and several illuminating theories of informal logic and argumentation have been developed. Perhaps owing to their diverse backgrounds, there are several connections and overlapping ideas between the theories, which appear to have been overlooked. We focus on Peirce’s development of abductive reasoning [39], Toulmin’s argumentation layout [52], Lakatos’s theory of reasoning in mathematics [23], Pollock’s notions of counterexample [44], (...) and argumentation schemes constructed by Walton et al. [54], and explore some connections between, as well as within, the theories. For instance, we investigate Peirce’s abduction to deal with surprising situations in mathematics, represent Pollock’s examples in terms of Toulmin’s layout, discuss connections between Toulmin’s layout and Walton’s argumentation schemes, and suggest new argumentation schemes to cover the sort of reasoning that Lakatos describes, in which arguments may be accepted as faulty, but revised, rather than being accepted or rejected. We also consider how such theories may apply to reasoning in mathematics: in particular, we aim to build on ideas such as Dove’s [13], which help to show ways in which the work of Lakatos fits into the informal reasoning community. (shrink)

We investigate a notion called uniqueness in power κ that is akin to categoricity in power κ, but is based on the cardinality of the generating sets of models instead of on the cardinality of their universes. The notion is quite useful for formulating categoricity-like questions regarding powers below the cardinality of a theory. We prove, for universal theories T, that if T is κ-unique for one uncountable κ, then it is κ-unique for every uncountable κ; in particular, it (...) is categorical in powers greater than the cardinality of T. (shrink)

This book is written primarily for psychology and education students whose programs include a course in child psychology, child development, or theories of development. The text may also be used to supplement courses on child development organized thematically or chronologically. Instructors of graduate courses in child development may wish to consider this text as a primary synthesis containing more source material and source citations than others of its kind. The primary aim of the book is to describe what developmental (...) theories are, what they can do, where they come from, how they work, and how they can be used to explain human nature. (shrink)

We introduce a notion of complexity for interpretations, which is used to prove some new results about interpretations of sequential theories. In particular, we give a new, elementary proof of Pudlák's theorem that sequential theories are connected. We also demonstrate a counterexample to the infinitary distributive law $a \vee \bigwedge_{i \in I} b_i = \bigwedge_{i \in I} (a \vee b_i)$ in the lattice of chapters, in which the chapters a and b i are compact. (Counterexamples in which a (...) is not compact have been found previously.). (shrink)