A special version of arguments from hypocrisy, those known as tu quoque arguments, is introduced and developed. These are arguments from what one’s opponent would do, were conditions different, so they are what we call subjunctive tu quoque arguments. Arguments of this form are regularly taken to be fallacious, but the authors discuss conditions for determining when hypothetical inconsistency is genuinely relevant to criticizing a speaker’s assertion or proposed action and when it is not relevant.

The title of this book, Thought and Nature, despite its common sound, is entirely appropriate. Arthur Collins pursues various strands of rationalist philosophy and does so through a series of themes held together by a general interest. This interest is the intertwining of epistemology and ontology, the relation of thought and nature. This loose focus enhances the book’s readability since it holds together what are otherwise independent essays and at the same time does not overwork a single theme by merely (...) playing it out in different settings. Moreover, as an exercise in the history of philosophy this approach has the benefit of not oversimplifying the evolution of ideas, a tendency some contemporary historians of philosophy have with respect to the development and demise of rationalism. The issue here is significant, for, as Collins maintains: “When we come to consider philosophy after Descartes, the stark contrast and opposition between rationalism and empiricism withers away”. (shrink)

Did the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S. cause the values of teenagers in the U.S. to change? Did their previously important self-esteem and self-actualization values become less important and their survival and safety values become more important? Changes in the values of teenagers are important for practitioners, managers, marketers, and researchers to understand because high school students are our current and future employees, managers, and customers, and research has shown that values impact work and consumer-related attitudes and (...) behaviors. Further, studies that compared higher to lower performing for-profit and not-for-profit companies have found that higher performing organizations had strong values that permeated their organizations [Collins J. C., and J. I. Porras: 1994, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies (New York, Harper Business); O’Reilly, C. A. and J. A. Chatman: 1996, in B. M. Staw and L. L. Cummings (eds.), Research in Organizational Behavior, vol. 18 (JAI Press, Greenwhich, CT), pp. 157–200; O’Reilly, C. A.: 1989, California Management Review 31(4), 9–25; Posner, B. Z., and W. H. Schmidt: 1996, Public Personnel Management, 25(3), 277–298; Rousseau, D.: 1990, Group and Organization Studies 15(4), 448–460; Schein, E. H.: 2004, Organizational Culture and Leadership. San Francisco, Jossey Bass)]. While one study of adults found value changes, no known studies have explored if the values of teenagers also changed post-9/11. This study filled that research gap by exploring the values of a random sample of 1000 U.S. teenagers in grades 9 to 12 pre- and post-9/11, using a demographic questionnaire and the Rokeach Value Survey. The research results indicated that teenage survival, safety, and security values (a world at peace, freedom, national security, and salvation) increased in importance while their self-esteem and self-actualization values (a sense of accomplishment, inner harmony, pleasure, self-respect, and wisdom) decreased in importance, mirroring the changes for adults. The meaning of these findings for practitioners, managers, marketers and researchers was discussed. (shrink)

in her 2010 paper, "the new politics of community," Dr. Collins's argument on community as conceptually and practically a political construct provides a vital connection to the American philosophical tradition, particularly the work of W. E. B. Du Bois and John Dewey. In my response to her paper, I combine components of her argument with her earlier work in black feminist epistemology. I tie these insights to Du Bois's and Dewey's arguments regarding how communities develop. These are then connected to (...) the work by transnational feminist Chandra Mohanty and political scientist Benedict Anderson on imagined communities. I use these to develop a framework for thinking of some communities as communities of epistemic... (shrink)

Thirteen essays, both appreciative and informative, on the man and his philosophy. Simon, Collins, Anderson, Ward, and other leading Thomists are represented. They give us a comprehensive picture of Maritain's interests, his importance and his influence.--B. P. H.

Many accounts of scientific modelling assume that models can be decomposed into the contributions made by their accurate and inaccurate parts. These accounts then argue that the inaccurate parts of the model can be justified by distorting only what is irrelevant. In this paper, I argue that this decompositional strategy requires three assumptions that are not typically met by our best scientific models. In response, I propose an alternative view in which idealized models are characterized as holistically distorted representations that (...) are justified by allowing for the application of various modelling techniques. (shrink)

This paper analyzes two ways idealized biological models produce factive scientific understanding. I then argue that models can provide factive scientific understanding of a phenomenon without providing an accurate representation of the features of their real-world target system. My analysis of these cases also suggests that the debate over scientific realism needs to investigate the factive scientific understanding produced by scientists’ use of idealized models rather than the accuracy of scientific models themselves.

Recently philosophers of science have begun to pay more attention to the use of highly idealized mathematical models in scientific theorizing. An important example of this kind of highly idealized modeling is the widespread use of optimality models within evolutionary biology. One way to understand the explanations provided by these models is as a censored causal explanation: an explanation that omits certain causal factors in order to focus on a modular subset of the causal processes that led to the explanandum. (...) In this paper, I first argue that the censored causal model approach fails to establish a permanent explanatory role for optimality models in biology and mischaracterizes the explanatory virtues of biological optimality modeling. In addition, I argue that many biological optimality explanations cannot be characterized as censored causal explanations. In response, I propose an alternative approach that analyzes optimality models’ reliance on synchronically representing a system’s constraints and tradeoffs as well as their employment of various kinds of idealization in order to provide equilibrium explanations. (shrink)

In “A Tension in the Strong Program: The Relation between the Rational and the Social”, Shahram Shahryari (2021) advances the following thesis: In his Strong Program in the sociology of science, David Bloor blames traditional philosophy of science for adopting a dualist strategy in explaining scientific developments, as it employs rational explanation for successful science and social explanation for flawed science. Instead, according to Bloor, all scientific developments should be explained monistically, i.e. in terms of social causes. This is also (...) referred to as the Symmetry Principle, and it is a key tenet in the Strong Program. The author detects a tension here, as Bloor apparently asserts that traditional philosophy of science deploys two kinds of explanation, and simultaneously insists that there is only one kind, i.e. social explanation. (shrink)

A recent article in the Annual Review of Psychology heralds the arrival of a renaissance in psychology that is improving research practices in the field. The present article evaluates this new epoch in light of Michael Polanyi’s thought. While the reforms the renaissance celebrates are invaluable to psychology in its reliance on probabilities for hypothesis testing, they under appreciate the central place of personal judgments in research, portraying them instead and primarily as sources of error that must be curtailed by (...) a narrow range of methods. Valuing the place of personal participation in probability judgments may embolden psychologists to accredit inquiries that more openly rely on discernment to declare truth and are better suited to the I-Thou relations that distinguish human psychology from the study of matter in motion. (shrink)

In his article, “The Strong Program and Asymmetrical Explanation of the History of Science: A Reply to Collin” (Shahryari 2022b), Shahram Shahryari responds to my comments (in Collin 2022) upon his original article, “A Tension in the Strong Program: The Relation between the Rational and the Social” (Shahryari 2022a). I believe that in this new contribution, Shahryari changes the subject as compared to our original discussion. Hence, before I comment upon his recent contribution, I want to recapitulate briefly (...) the content of that discussion. (shrink)

Modal ontological arguments argue from the possible existence of a perfect being to the actual (necessary) existence of a perfect being. But modal ontological arguments have a problem of symmetry; they can be run in both directions. Reverse ontological arguments argue from the possible nonexistence of a perfect being to the actual (necessary) nonexistence of a perfect being. Some familiar points about the necessary a posteriori, however, show that the symmetry can be broken in favour of the ontological argument.

Modal epistemologists parse modal conditions on knowledge in terms of metaphysical possibilities or ways the world might have been. This is problematic. Understanding modal conditions on knowledge this way has made modal epistemology, as currently worked out, unable to account for epistemic luck in the case of necessary truths, and unable to characterise widely discussed issues such as the problem of religious diversity and the perceived epistemological problem with knowledge of abstract objects. Moreover, there is reason to think that this (...) is a congenital defect of orthodox modal epistemology. This way of characterising modal epistemology is however optional. It is shown that one can non-circularly characterise modal conditions on knowledge in terms of epistemic possibilities, or ways the world might be for the target agent. Characterising the anti-luck condition in terms of epistemic possibilities removes the impediment to understanding epistemic luck in the case of necessary truths and opens the door to using these conditions to shed new light on some longstanding epistemological problems. (shrink)

The concept of explanation is central to scientific practice. However, scientists explain phenomena in very different ways. That is, there are many different kinds of explanation; e.g. causal, mechanistic, statistical, or equilibrium explanations. In light of the myriad kinds of explanation identified in the literature, most philosophers of science have adopted some kind of explanatory pluralism. While pluralism about explanation seems plausible, it faces a dilemma Explanation beyond causation, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 39–56, 2018). Either there is nothing that (...) unifies all instances of scientific explanation that makes them count as explanations, or there is some set of unifying features, which seems incompatible with explanatory pluralism. Different philosophers have adopted different horns of this dilemma. Some argue that no unified account of explanation is possible. Others suggest that there is a set of necessary features that can unify all explanations under a single account Explanation beyond causation, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 74–95, 2018; Strevens in Depth: an account of scientific explanation, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2008). In this paper, we argue that none of the features identified by existing accounts of explanation are necessary for all explanations. However, we argue that a unified account can still be provided that accommodates pluralism. This can be accomplished, we argue, by reconceiving of scientific explanation as a cluster concept: there are multiple subsets of features that are sufficient for providing an explanation, but no single feature is necessary for all explanations. Reconceiving of explanation as a cluster concept not only accounts for the diversity of kinds of explanations, but also accounts for the widespread disagreement in the explanation literature and enables explanatory pluralism to avoid Pincock’s dilemma. (shrink)

In Romans 5, St. Paul claims that death came into the world through Adam's sin. Many have taken this to foist on us a fundamentalist reading of Genesis. If death is the result of human sin, then, apparently, there cannot have been death in the world prior to human sin. This, however, is inconsistent with contemporary evolutionary biology, which requires that death predates the existence of modern humans. Although the relationship between Romans 5, Genesis, and contemporary science has been much (...) discussed—often with goal of dissipating the idea that the two are in conflict—the specific issue of death entering the world through sin has remained difficult to resolve. I argue that the Eastern Orthodox tradition has the resources to respect both Romans 5 and contemporary science. Appealing to a broadly Irenaean notion of soul‐making, and to the idea of theosis, opens up space for an understanding of these passages that is both scientifically informed and Orthodox. (shrink)

Biologists and economists use models to study complex systems. This similarity between these disciplines has led to an interesting development: the borrowing of various components of model-based theorizing between the two domains. A major recent example of this strategy is economists’ utilization of the resources of evolutionary biology in order to construct models of economic systems. This general strategy has come to be called evolutionary economics and has been a source of much debate among economists. Although philosophers have developed literatures (...) on the nature of models and modeling, the unique issues surrounding this kind of interdisciplinary model building have yet to be independently investigated. In this paper, we utilize evolutionary economics as a case study in the investigation of more general issues concerning interdisciplinary modeling. We begin by critiquing the distinctions currently used within the evolutionary economics literature and propose an alternative carving of the conceptual terrain. We then argue that the three types of evolutionary economics we distinguish capture distinctions that will be important whenever resources of model-based theorizing are borrowed across distinct scientific domains. Our analysis of these model-building strategies identifies several of the unique methodological and philosophical issues that confront interdisciplinary modeling. (shrink)

Alvin Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism makes the case that the conjunction of evolutionary theory and naturalism cannot be rationally believed, as, if both evolutionary theory and naturalism were true, it would be highly unlikely that our cognitive faculties are reliable. I present Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism and survey a theory of meaning espoused by Robert Brandom, known as semantic inferentialism. I argue that if one accepts semantic inferentialism, as it is developed by Brandom, then Plantinga's motivation for the (...) evolutionary argument against naturalism is undermined. (shrink)

La critique de la religion est pour l'essentiel terminée : voilà ce que Marx écrivait en 1843. Le début du XXIe siècle semble lui donner tort. Fondamentalistes de tous poils qui relèvent la tête veulent imposer leurs brigades des moeurs et réglementer la liberté de la parole, djihadistes qui font régner la terreur au Levant, terroristes qui manient la AK47 au nom d'Allah, camions qui foncent dans des foules pacifiques et tuent des dizaines de personnes : ceux qui pensaient que (...) nous étions définitivement entrés dans un monde désenchanté en sont pour leurs frais. Denis Collin s'inscrit dans cette tradition philosophique pour laquelle vivre sous la conduite de la raison, c'est s'émanciper de la servitude religieuse et défendre le libre esprit et le libre examen. Il s'agit donc ici de revenir aux principes afin d'examiner ce qu'il en est du fait religieux aujourd'hui et de proposer quelques lignes d'une bataille à mener sur le terrain des idées. (shrink)

Concepts are the constituents of thoughts. Therefore, concepts are vital to any theory of cognition. However, despite their widely accepted importance, there is little consensus about the nature and origin of concepts. Thanks to the work of Lawrence Barsalou, Jesse Prinz and others concept empiricism has been gaining momentum within the philosophy and psychology literature. Concept empiricism maintains that all concepts are copies, or combinations of copies, of perceptual representations—that is, all concepts are couched in the codes of perceptual representation (...) systems. It is widely agreed that any satisfactory theory of concepts must account for how concepts semantically compose (the compositionality requirement) and explain how their intentional content is determined (the content determination requirement). In this paper, I argue that concept empiricism has serious problems satisfying these two requirements. Therefore, although stored perceptual representations may facilitate some traditionally conceptual tasks, concepts should not be identified with copies of perceptual representations. (shrink)

Despite its intrinsic plausibility, the sensitivity principle has remained deeply unpopular on the grounds that it violates an even more plausible closure principle. Here we show that sensitivity does not, in general, violate closure. Sensitivity only violates closure when combined with further auxiliary premises—regarding which of an agent’s commitments constitute that agent’s beliefs—which are optional for the sensitivity theorist.

Philosophe, l'auteur tente de resituer le mouvement de la pensée d'Hannah Arendt, ses grandes articulations et ce qui fait d'elle un auteur majeur et précurseur.

When a patient lacks sufficient capacity to make a certain treatment decision, whether because of deficits in their ability to make a judgement that reflects their values or to make a decision that reflects their judgement or both, the decision must be made by a surrogate. Often the best way to respect the patient’s autonomy, in such cases, is for the surrogate to make a ‘substituted’ judgement on behalf of the patient, which is the decision that best reflects the patient’s (...) values and identity-infused beliefs as they were when the patient last possessed capacity. It is by now well-known that there is troubling evidence that surrogates do only slightly better than chance at making accurate substituted judgements. The use of a patient preference predictor, an algorithm that predicts patient preferences based on characteristics like the patient’s age, gender, socioeconomic status and education level, could help. Rid and Wendler have done important work making a moral case for using the PPP.1 If it were shown to enhance accuracy, it is not at all obvious what objections there could be to its use. Yet several subtle criticisms of the PPP have emerged in the literature. In their feature article, Jardas, Wasserman and Wendler select six of the most prominent objections to the PPP in the literature and defend the PPP against them.2 Along the way they make significant contributions to broader issues concerning the proper uses of statistical evidence and limits on the kinds of preferences there can be reasons of autonomy to respect. Since I found the authors’ answers to the final two objections—that the PPP relies on naked statistical evidence and that it uses non-endorsed reasons—to be especially interesting and provocative, I will examine those answers and raise a few questions about …. (shrink)

Résumé La ville productive, au-delà de l’usine industrielle représente le territoire de la vie ET du travail de l’ère postfordiste. Des multitudes de précaires/intermittents produisent la ville même par de nouvelles formes de vie, d’expérimentations, d’affects et de création, perçus comme autant de bruits parasites et non fonctionnels par les institutions. De Paris à Rio en passant par Buenos Aires, nous interrogeons ce rapport conflictuel fondamentalement biopolitique entre le contrôle des espaces urbains par les pouvoirs institués et les appropriations subjectives (...) de territoires de la ville par les multitudes constituantes de nouvelles formes de démocratie. (shrink)

A tort. Marcuse est d'abord un philosophe qui s'inspire de la grande tradition de la philosophie allemande, celle de Kant, Hegel et Marx. Commentateur scrupuleux de Hegel, Marcuse en produit une lecture critique vivifiante, loin des idées toutes faites sur ce maître éminent. Fidèle à Marx - mais pas aux marxisme standard, ce qui lui a valu l'hostilité de tous les gardiens du temple marxiste - il lie étroitement la critique sociale à la théorie analytique de Freud. Bref avec Marcuse, (...) c'est tout un pan de la culture moderne que nous sommes invités à reparcourir. Mais Marcuse est aussi l'un des penseurs de la théorie critique. Son objet, c'est la société industrielle avancée, la nôtre. On pourrait croire que ses oeuvres décrivent notre présent alors qu'elles ont été écrites voilà un demi-siècle et plus. La "désublimation répressive", l'utilisation du principe de plaisir au profit de la domination, c'est bien quelque chose qui a pris aujourd'hui une ampleur que l'on pouvait à peine soupçonner au moment où Marcuse écrit Eros et civilisation ou L'homme unidimensionnel. Comment ne pas voir que l'extension indéfinie du marketing et des techniques de la communication produisent cette uni-dimensionnalité de la pensée que Marcuse analyse et dénonce si vigoureusement? Enfin Marcuse est un philosophe de la culture. L'art et le sens du beau sont, pour lui, essentiellement libérateurs. S'il continue de penser nécessaires l'émancipation politique et la transformation des rapports sociaux, il sait que la libération humaine est celle de l'individu qui doit reprendre possession de lui-même en se débarrasser de l'aliénation. Il ne s'agit pas de dessiner un avenir plus rationnel mais surtout la perspective d'une vie plus libre et plus belle. (shrink)

In order to delimit the field of theoretical biology, the author distinguishes in empirical biology a substructure and a superstructure. Empirical biology cannot be constituted without a minimum of reference to philosophical ideas such as the principle of identity ; having regard to its objective, which is explanation by means of physico-chemical models, it does not easily avoid ontological aspirations. Further, experimental research makes great use of scientific theories. Finally, the elaboration of the empirical data of biology may find its (...) fulfilment in an ontological science, philosophical biology, which is a branch of the philosophy of nature. Philosophical biology, superstructure of experimental biology, is a discipline intermediate between the special sciences of life, defined in an empirical sense, and metaphysics.Um den Bereich der theoretischen Biologie abzugrenzen, unterscheidet der Autor in der positiven Biologie eine “Infrastruktur” und eine “Suprastruktur”. Die positive Biologie kann nicht ohne ein Minimum von Beziehungen zu den philosophischen Begriffen aufgebaut werden, wie z.B. zu dem Prinzip der Identität ; ihrem Ziele nach betrachtet, welches in der Erklärung durch physiko-chemische Grundbegriffe besteht, kann sie sich nicht gut den ontologischen Ansprüchen entziehen. Darüber hinaus bedient sich die experimentelle Forschung weitgehend der wissenschaftlichen Theorien. Zum Schluss kann die Bearbeitung der empirischen Erkenntnisse in der Biologie ihre Vollendung in einer ontologischen Wissenschaft, die philosophische Biologie, welche ein Zweig der Philosophie der Natur ist, finden. Die philosophische Biologie, die der experimentellen übergeordnet ist, steht als Disziplin zwischen den besonderen Wissenschaften vom Leben, verstanden im empirischen Sinne, und der Metaphysik. (shrink)

In front of dominant speeches on the world-city the global or generic city, we set the hypothesis of news territorialisations and of redefining of the locations of cities in the search for the assertion of productive sped cities. The example of the new development of the industrial-harbour fallow lands marks exactly that it exists today, according to cities, either a production completely standardizing of the city or specific valuations.

Trata-se de mostrar como a “colisão” da lógica com sua aplicação, no cenário do Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus de Wittgenstein, pode ser enxergada a partir do problema da incompatibilidade das cores. Exploraremos algumas soluções nos moldes tractarianos, verificando em que medida elas não satisfazem algumas exigências da obra. Também apresentaremos uma tentativa de solução do próprio Wittgenstein para o problema, mostrando como o filósofo percebe que tal solução não é satisfatória.