Enactivism and ecological psychology converge on the relevance of the environment in understanding perception and action. On both views, perceiving organisms are not merely passive receivers of environmental stimuli, but rather form a dynamic relationship with their environments in such a way that shapes how they interact with the world. In this paper, I suggest that while enactivism and ecological psychology enjoy a shared specification of the environment as the cognitive domain, on both accounts, the structure of the environment, itself, (...) is unspecified beyond that of contingent relations with the species-typical sensorimotor capacities of perceiving organisms. This lack of specification creates a considerable gap in theory regarding the organization of organisms as coupled with their environments. I argue that this gap can be filled by drawing from resources in developmental systems theory, namely, specifying the environmental state-space as a developmental niche that shapes and is shaped by individual organisms over developmental and, on a population scale, evolutionary time. Defining the environment as an organism’s developmental niche makes it clearer how and why certain contingencies have arisen, in turn, strengthening a joint appeal to both enactivism and ecological psychology as theories asserting complementarity between organisms and their environments. (shrink)

The world is a complex place, and this complexity is an obstacle to our attempts to explain, predict, and control it. In Power and Influence, Richard Corry investigates the assumptions that are built into the reductive method of explanation—the method whereby we deal with complexity by studying the components of a complex system in relative isolation and use the information so gained to explain or predict the behaviour of the complex whole. He investigates the metaphysical presuppositions built into the reductive (...) method, seeking to ascertain what the world must be like in order that the method could work. Corry argues that the method assumes the existence of causal powers that manifest causal influence—a relatively unrecognised ontological category, of which forces are a paradigm example. The success of the reductive method, therefore, is an argument for the existence of such causal influences. The book goes on to show that adding causal influence to our ontology gives us the resources to solve some traditional problems in the metaphysics of causal powers, laws of nature, causation, emergence, and possibly even normative ethics. What results, then, is not just an understanding of the reductive method, but an integrated metaphysical worldview that is grounded in an ontology of power and influence. (shrink)

Leo Corry tells the story behind the idea of number, from the early days of the Pythagoreans, up until the turn of the twentieth century. He presents an overview of how numbers were handled and conceived in classical Greek mathematics, in the mathematics of Islam, in European mathematics of the middle ages and the Renaissance, during the scientific revolution, all the way through to the mathematics of the 18th to the early 20th century.

Jean-Pierre Dupuy argues that our failure to prevent the looming climate catastrophe results from a faulty metaphysics of time: because we believe the present can proceed down one of the many branches that extend into the future, some of which bypass the catastrophe, we do not think it is absolutely urgent to take drastic action now. His solution to this problem of demotivation is “enlightened doomsaying” in “projected time”, which means that we affirm the coming catastrophe as something real in (...) the future rather than being a mere possibility; thus, we regard it seriously enough that we are motivated to take the needed actions to prevent it. One potential obstacle to this proposal is that it requires the forming of consensus and coordination with the powerful players who benefit from our current path and whose apparently near-total grip on this catastrophic future may itself discourage action. We then consider an alternative model based on Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy of the present–future relation. Although it has the branching structure that Dupuy is wary of, it may not suffer from the same problem of demotivation on account of the way it conceives the complex structure of the present event. For this reason, the Deleuzian model may be more suited to motivating action in a world where the future must be fought for rather than unanimously agreed upon. (shrink)

Connecting several strands of Aristotle's thought, Zoli Filotas sheds light on one of the axioms of Aristotle's ethics and political philosophy - that every community has a ruler - and demonstrates its relevance to his ideas on personal relationships. Aristotle and the Ethics of Difference, Friendship, and Equality reveals a pluralistic theory of rule in Aristotle's thought, tracing it through his corpus and situating it in a discussion among such figures as Gorgias, Xenophon, and Plato. Considering the similarities and (...) differences among various forms of rule, Filotas shows that for Aristotle even virtuous friends must exercise a version of rule akin to that of slaveholders. He also explores why Aristotle distinguishes the hierarchical rule over women from both the mastery of slaves and the political rule exercised by free and equal citizens. In doing so, he argues that natural and social differences among human beings play a complex, and troubling, role in Aristotle's reasoning. Illuminating and thought-provoking, this book reveals Aristotle's ambivalence about political relations and the equal treatment they involve and offers an engaging inquiry into how he understood the common structures of human relationships. (shrink)

The present article discusses the computational tools (both conceptual and material) used in various attempts to deal with individual cases of FLT, as well as the changing historical contexts in which these tools were developed and used, and affected research. It also explores the changing conceptions about the role of computations within the overall disciplinary picture of number theory, how they influenced research on the theorem, and the kinds of general insights thus achieved. After an overview of Kummer’s contributions and (...) its immediate influence, I present work that favored intensive computations of particular cases of FLT as a legitimate, fruitful, and worth-pursuing number-theoretical endeavor, and that were part of a coherent and active, but essentially low-profile tradition within nineteenth century number theory. This work was related to table making activity that was encouraged by institutions and individuals whose motivations came mainly from applied mathematics, astronomy, and engineering, and seldom from number theory proper. A main section of the article is devoted to the fruitful collaboration between Harry S. Vandiver and Emma and Dick Lehmer. I show how their early work led to the hesitant introduction of electronic computers for research related with FLT. Their joint work became a milestone for computer-assisted activity in number theory at large. (shrink)

In the present article two possible meanings of the term mathematical structure are discussed: a formal and a nonformal one. It is claimed that contemporary mathematics is structural only in the nonformal sense of the term. Bourbaki's definition of structure is presented as one among several attempts to elucidate the meaning of that nonformal idea by developing a formal theory which allegedly accounts for it. It is shown that Bourbaki's concept of structure was, from a mathematical point of view, a (...) superfluous undertaking. This is done by analyzing the role played by the concept, in the first place, within Bourbaki's own mathematical output. Likewise, the interaction between Bourbaki's work and the first stages of category theory is analyzed, on the basis of both published texts and personal documents. (shrink)

One of the most powerful tools in science is the analytic method, whereby we seek to understand complex systems by studying simpler sub-systems from which the complex is composed. If this method is to be successful, something about the sub-systems must remain invariant as we move from the relatively isolated conditions in which we study them, to the complex conditions in which we want to put our knowledge to use. This paper asks what this invariant could be. The paper shows (...) that the kinds of thing that a Humean might point to – behaviour, laws, and dispositions – cannot play the role required of the invariant in question. Nor, indeed, can non-Humean causal powers of the kind advocated by contemporary metaphysicians such as Ellis and Lierse. The paper suggests that the analytic method presupposes a kind of entity that does not appear in standard ontologies – a metaphysically substantial notion of causal influence. This notion of causal influence is one that Cartwright has also seen the need for, though she does not seem to take the notion as seriously as she should. (shrink)

Jacques Derrida’s and Gilles Deleuze’s philosophies of justice share many similar features. For both, justice involves an overturning of law by extralegal means, made possible by an “undecidability” in the judgment-making process. To distinguish their conceptions of justice, we examine their implicit modes of non-classical reasoning with regard to “otherness,” building from Routley and Routley and Daniel Smith, to conclude that Derrida’s thinking on justice is at least paracomplete (or analetheic) while Deleuze’s is just paraconsistent (or dialetheic).

Open peer commentary on the article “Beyond Individual-Centred 4E Cognition: Systems Biology and Sympoiesis” by Mads Julian Dengsø & Michael David Kirchhoff. Abstract: A move to sympoiesis entails a conceptual overhaul of autopoiesis, a key facet of the enactive approach to cognition. In this commentary, I invite more systematic thinking about the concept of autopoiesis and enactivist commitments to it, given the inconsistencies regarding individuality raised in the target article.

New nursing researchers are faced with a smorgasbord of competing methodologies. Sometimes, they are encouraged to adopt the research paradigms beloved of their senior colleagues. This is a problem if those paradigms are no longer of contemporary methodological relevance. The aim of this paper was to provide clarity about current research paradigms. It seeks to interrogate the continuing viability of positivism as a guiding paradigm for nursing research. It does this by critically analysing the methodological literature. Five major paradigms are (...) addressed: the positivist; the interpretivist/constructivist; the transformative; the realist; and the postpositivist. Acceptance of interpretivist, transformative or realist approaches necessarily entails wholesale rejection of positivism, while acceptance of postpositivism involves its partial rejection. Postpositivism has superseded positivism as the guiding paradigm of the scientific method. The incorporation in randomized controlled trials of postpositivist assumptions indicates that even on the methodological territory that it once claimed as its own, positivism has been rendered redundant as an appropriate paradigm for contemporary nursing research. (shrink)

ArgumentThis article gives the background to a public lecture delivered in Hebrew by Edmund Landau at the opening ceremony of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1925. On the surface, the lecture appears to be a slightly awkward attempt by a distinguished German-Jewish mathematician to popularize a few number-theoretical tidbits. However, quite unexpectedly, what emerges here is Landau's personal blend of Zionism, German nationalism, and the proud ethos of pure, rigorous mathematics – against the backdrop of the situation of Germany (...) after World War I. Landau's Jerusalem lecture thus shows how the Zionist cause was inextricably linked to, and determined by political agendas that were taking place in Europe at that time. The lecture stands in various historical contexts - Landau's biography, the history of Jewish scientists in the German Zionist movement, the founding of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and the creation of a modern Hebrew mathematical language. This article provides a broad historical introduction to the English translation, with commentary, of the original Hebrew text. (shrink)

This article explores the changing relationships between geometric and arithmetic ideas in medieval Europe mathematics, as reflected via the propositions of Book II of Euclid’s Elements. Of particular interest is the way in which some medieval treatises organically incorporated into the body of arithmetic results that were formulated in Book II and originally conceived in a purely geometric context. Eventually, in the Campanus version of the Elements these results were reincorporated into the arithmetic books of the Euclidean treatise. Thus, while (...) most of the Latin versions of the Elements had duly preserved the purely geometric spirit of Euclid’s original, the specific text that played the most prominent role in the initial passage of the Elements from manuscript to print—i.e., Campanus’ version—followed a different approach. On the one hand, Book II itself continued to appear there as a purely geometric text. On the other hand, the first ten results of Book II could now be seen also as possiblytranslatable into arithmetic, and in many cases even as inseparably associated with their arithmetic representation. (shrink)

For Deleuze, the creation and conveyance of meaning requires not a strict fidelity to an original idea, message or image but rather its deformation. The forces causing such disfigurations operate in gesture, vocalisation and text, with one level sometimes disrupting the others. Among them, gesture plays an especially important role, given Deleuze’s attention to bodily experience. He locates it in theatre, painting and cinema, particularly in the works of Carmelo Bene, Francis Bacon and Jerry Lewis. In these cases, instead of (...) conveying a recognisable message, a deformative gesture sends a shock wave that scrambles normal meaning assignments and codings. Yet, although gesture is a main channel for these communication disruptive forces, their origin may lie elsewhere, namely, in a ‘pick-up’ of influences resulting from an inter-affective encounter between heterogeneous bodies. (shrink)

This article proposes a via media between intellectualism and nonrationalism on the question of how, according to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, a virtuous person determines the goal ( telos ) for action ( praxis ). The author argues that, according to Aristotle, the goal is set neither by discursive reasoning nor by well-formed nonrational desires but, rather, by practical intellect ( nous ), which is a capacity for nondiscursive perception ( aisthēsis ) of a singular action as choiceworthy in itself. He (...) argues that for Aristotle the activity of nous completes and perfects the operation of prudence ( phronēsis ) or excellent practical thinking, and that this operation essentially includes a distinctively intellectual desire, which is required both for the correct perception of final actions and for the movement of the deliberating agent to act. (shrink)

This paper takes up Huw Price׳s challenge to develop a retrocausal toy model of the Bell-EPR experiment. I develop three such models which show that a consistent, local, hidden-variables interpretation of the EPR experiment is indeed possible, and which give a feel for the kind of retrocausation involved. The first of the models also makes clear a problematic feature of retrocausation: it seems that we cannot interpret the hidden elements of reality in a retrocausal model as possessing determinate dispositions to (...) affect the outcome of experiments. This is a feature which Price has embraced, but Gordon Belot has argued that this feature renders retrocausal interpretations “unsuitable for formal development”, and the lack of such determinate dispositions threatens to undermine the motivation for hidden-variables interpretations in the first place. But Price and Belot are both too quick in their assessment. I show that determinate dispositions are indeed consistent with retrocausation. What is more, I show that the ontological economy allowed by retrocausation holds out the promise of a classical understanding of spin and polarization. (shrink)

In this chapter, I aim to clarify the concept of ESP so that we can ask whether it is even logically possible for anything to satisfy this concept. If ESP is not logically possible, then it would be pointless to conduct experiments trying to discover whether it exists. If, on the other hand, it is logically possible, then its existence or otherwise is an empirical question, a question that can be decided only by looking at the empirical evidence for and (...) against. Questions concerning the logical possibility of ESP are most pressing in the case of precognition. Thus the latter part of this chapter will focus on precognition in particular. What’s more, because worries about precognition often revolve around the possibility of ‘backwards causation’—situations in which an effect comes before its cause—I will pay particular attention to the role that causation plays in the concept of ESP. (shrink)

One of the most powerful tools in science is the analytic method, whereby we seek to understand complex systems by studying simpler sub-systems from which the complex is composed. If this method is to be successful, something about the sub-systems must remain invariant as we move from the relatively isolated conditions in which we study them, to the complex conditions in which we want to put our knowledge to use. This paper asks what this invariant could be. The paper shows (...) that the kinds of thing that a Humean might point to – behaviour, laws, and dispositions – cannot play the role required of the invariant in question. Nor, indeed, can non-Humean causal powers of the kind advocated by contemporary metaphysicians such as Ellis and Lierse. The paper suggests that the analytic method presupposes a kind of entity that does not appear in standard ontologies – a metaphysically substantial notion of causal influence. This notion of causal influence is one that Cartwright has also seen the need for, though she does not seem to take the notion as seriously as she should. (shrink)

The continental philosophy of non-classical logics is a relatively new field that seeks to determine whether any aspects of certain continental philosophers’ thinking can be characterized in terms of non-classical logics. Some of the main figures that have been examined so far are Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, and François Laruelle. Although many of these studies are grounded in the writings of Graham Priest, who wrote some of the seminal texts in the field, Jc Beall’s work also features prominently (...) in a number of cases. After surveying this field and highlighting Beall’s influence within it, I claim that it can be substantially expanded by making further uses of Beall’s writings, especially ones that introduce non-classical logics in ways that are especially suitable for this particular field of study and also that discuss such topics as negation, subclassical logics, logical pluralism, and glutty futures. (shrink)

Linguists have seen creating dictionaries of endangered languages as a key activity in language maintenance and revival work. However, like any approach to language engineering, there are concerns to address. The first is the tension between language documentation and language maintenance2. The second is the role of literacy. A lot of effort has been put into vernacular literacy, on the assumption that it assists language maintenance, as well as language documentation. In some respects this is a dubious assumption, because writing (...) a language does not necessarily lead to speaking it or maintaining the language. Moreover, in some cases putting effort into writing the language can detract from efforts to encourage learners to speak the language. It is certain that much more effort should be put into oral language development. (shrink)

This issue of Science in Context presents a collection of historical studies on various aspects of science and its practice as developed in Latin-American contexts. Relatively few scholars working in the history of science, and even in the more general field of “science studies,” have devoted their research to this field. Likewise, relatively little research has been done by scholars of Latin American studies on the cultural, political, and social impact of science, a field that is usually considered to be (...) one of the central, defining aspects of modern, Western civilization. (shrink)

To compare Merleau-Ponty’s and Deleuze’s phenomenal bodies, I first examine how for Merleau-Ponty phenomena appear on the basis of three levels of integration: 1) between the parts of the world, 2) between the parts of the body, and 3) between the body and its world. I contest that Deleuze’s attacks on phenomenology can be seen as constructive critiques rather than as being expressions of an anti-phenomenological position. By building from Deleuze’s definition of the phenomenon and from his more phenomenologically relevant (...) writings, we find that phenomena for him are given to the body under exactly the opposite conditions as for Merleau-Ponty, namely that 1) the world’s differences 2) appear to a disordered body that 3) comes into shocking affective contact with its surroundings. I argue that a Deleuzian theory of bodily-given phenomena is better suited than Merleau-Ponty’s model in the task of accounting for the intensity of phenomenal appearings. (shrink)

The ArgumentRecent studies in the philosophy of mathematics have increasingly stressed the social and historical dimensions of mathematical practice. Although this new emphasis has fathered interesting new perspectives, it has also blurred the distinction between mathematics and other scientific fields. This distinction can be clarified by examining the special interaction of thebodyandimagesof mathematics.Mathematics has an objective, ever-expanding hard core, the growth of which is conditioned by socially and historically determined images of mathematics. Mathematics also has reflexive capacities unlike those of (...) any other exact science. In no other exact science can the standard methodological framework usedwithinthe discipline also be used to study the nature of the discipline itself.Although it has always been present in mathematical research, reflexive thinking has become increasingly central to mathematics over the past century. Many of the images of the discipline have been dictated by the increase in reflexive thinking which has also determined a great portion of the contemporary philosophy and historiography of mathematics. (shrink)

Environmental scaffolding refers to the ways in which agents make use of features of the environment to augment and enhance their cognitive behavior. Recent discussion on the notion of affective scaffolding extends this perspective to investigate how agents’ affective states are supported by environmental scaffolds. This paper builds on such discussion by exploring how elements of nature, such as forests, oceans, and gardens, function as affective scaffolds. Empirical research demonstrates that the presence of natural elements has a positive impact on (...) health and wellbeing, as well as a modulatory effect on stress response mechanisms. I argue that there are specific characteristics to these types of scaffolds which can be surveyed to shed philosophical light on this research. I suggest that natural environments scaffold our affective lives by enabling, enhancing, and promoting a specific bodily affective profile characterized by restorativeness and immersion attentiveness. An analysis of this scaffolding can aid in understanding the relationship between nature and affect, in turn identifying a new application for the scaffolded mind framework. (shrink)

For over 20 years, Jaegwon Kim’s Causal Exclusion Argument has stood as the major hurdle for non-reductive physicalism. If successful, Kim’s argument would show that the high-level properties posited by non-reductive physicalists must either be identical with lower-level physical properties, or else must be causally inert. The most prominent objection to the Causal Exclusion Argument—the so-called Overdetermination Objection—points out that there are some notions of causation that are left untouched by the argument. If causation is simply counterfactual dependence, for example, (...) then the Causal Exclusion Argument fails. Thus, much of the existing debate turns on the issue of which account of causation is appropriate. In this paper, however, I take a bolder approach and argue that Kim’s preferred version of the Causal Exclusion Argument fails no matter what account one gives of causation. Any notion of causation that is strong enough to support the premises of the argument is too strong to play the role required in the logic of the argument. I also consider a second version of the Causal Exclusion Argument, and suggest that although it may avoid the problems of the first version, it begs the question against a particular form of non-reductive physicalism, namely emergentism. (shrink)

Organisms live not as discrete entities on which an independent environment acts, but as members of a reproductive lineage in an ongoing series of interactions between that lineage and a dynamic ecological niche. These interactions continuously shape both systems in a reciprocal manner, resulting in the emergence of reliably co-occurring configurations within and between both systems. The enactive approach to cognition describes this relationship as the structural coupling between an organism and its environment; similarly, Developmental Systems Theory emphasizes the reciprocal (...) nature of structurally coupled systems in its analysis of organisms as developmental processes embedded within a developmental system. Through an enactive-developmental systems framing, this paper identifies the organizational features of cognizing systems in order to motivate a picture of how organism and environment co-determine and co-construct one another. I argue that organisms can be characterized as self-organizing, operationally closed, plastic systems ecologically embedded within a developmental system. In virtue of this organizational makeup, organisms actively engage in the modulation and assessment of their coupling with their environment: cognitive strategies that entail contextualized responses to variations across the web of interactions that comprises the developmental system. (shrink)

French philosopher Gilles Deleuze wrote two 'logic' books: Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation and The Logic of Sense. However, in neither of these books nor in any other works does Deleuze articulate in a formal way the features of the logic he employs. He certainly does not use classical logic. And the best options for the non-classical logic that he may be implementing are: fuzzy, intuitionist, and many-valued. These are applicable to his concepts of heterogeneous composition and becoming, affirmative (...) synthetic disjunction, and powers of the false. In The Logic of Gilles Deleuze. Volume 1: Basic Principles, Corry Shores examines the applicability of three non-classical logics to Deleuze's philosophy, by building from the philosophical and logical writings of Graham Priest, the world's leading proponent of dialetheism. Through so doing, Shores demonstrates how Deleuze's logic is best understood as a dialetheic, paraconsistent, many-valued logic. (shrink)

A dispositional property is a tendency, or potency, to manifest some characteristic behaviour in some appropriate context. The mainstream view in the twentieth century was that such properties are to be explained in terms of more fundamental non-dispositional properties, together with the laws of nature. In the last few decades, however, a rival view has become popular, according to which some properties are essentially dispositional in nature, and the laws of nature are to be explained in terms of these fundamental (...) dispositions. The supposed ability of fundamental dispositions to ground natural laws is one of the most attractive features of the dispositional essentialist position. In this paper, however, I cast doubt on the ability of dispositional essences to ground the laws of nature. In particular I argue that the dispositional essentialist position is not able to coherently respond—sympathetically or otherwise—to Cartwright's challenge that there are no true general laws of nature. (shrink)

Kenneth Silver has recently argued that backwards causation is common in the context of social institutions. I consider this claim in detail and conclude that backwards causation is not the most plausible interpretation of what is going on in the cases Silver considers. Nonetheless, I show that these cases can teach us some interesting lessons about institutional facts. In particular, I argue that in order to avoid contradiction due to conflicting declarations in these cases, we must conclude that the properties (...) involved in institutional facts are relational properties. (shrink)

Deleuze never explicitly formulates his philosophy of logical truth‐values. It thus remains an open question as to the number and types he held there to be. Despite his explicit comments on these matters, additional textual evidence suggests that in his thinking on the event, he favored a third truth‐value, holding either the analetheic view that some truth‐bearers can be truth‐valueless or the dialetheic view that some truth‐bearers can be both true and false. I first argue that taking a logical approach (...) to Deleuze's thinking is feasible, despite his and others' claims that might suggest otherwise. Next, I examine his explicit statements to show that they cannot be taken at face value and that, rather, we need to transpose his claims into contemporary terminology in order to accurately assess them. I lastly turn to his Leibniz‐inspired philosophy of time to argue that the affirmations involved in this conception strongly suggest a dialetheic tendency in his thinking. (shrink)

The typical college lecture hall is a highly artificial environment: windowless, fluorescent-lit, and technology-heavy. It all but necessitates treating students as mental receptacles, where learning is a matter of passive absorption of knowledge, and where it is increasingly difficult to hold students’ attention. Natural environments, such as forests and public parks, provide a striking comparison—they free us from technological distractions, invigorate our senses, and encourage physical in addition to mental exploration. What’s more, research in environmental psychology suggests that natural environments (...) restore our ability to focus and pay attention. This article investigates how natural environments might support successful learning in virtue of how such environments can restore our attentional capacities. (shrink)

A process philosophical interpretation of Deleuze's theories of time encounters problems when formulating an account of Deleuze's portrayal of temporality in The Time-Image, where time is understood as having the structure of instantaneity and simultaneity. I remedy this shortcoming of process philosophical readings by formulating a phenomenological interpretation of Deleuze's second synthesis of time. By employing Deleuze's logic of affirmative synthetic disjunction in combination with his differential calculus interpretation of Spinoza's and Bergson's duration, this phenomenological interpretation portrays time as given (...) to our awareness in immediacy rather than through a continuous process of unfolding. The viability of this alternate approach calls into question the claims that Deleuze is strictly a process philosopher and anti-phenomenologist. (shrink)

Can we attribute individual extreme weather events to human‐induced climate change? In this chapter I will be turning a philosophical eye on this question, asking what concept (or concepts) of causation are being employed by scientists and asking which concept of causation is most appropriate. I will show that scientists, politicians, and journalists have made a number of mistakes in their thinking about the causal links between individual extreme events and climate change, and argue that scientists should be less hesitant (...) when it comes to attributing such events to climate change. (shrink)

This paper proposes a revision of our understanding of causation that is designed to address what Hartry Field has suggested is the central problem in the metaphysics of causation today: reconciling Bertrand Russell’s arguments that the concept of causation can play no role in the advanced sciences with Nancy Cartwright’s arguments that causal concepts are essential to a scientific understanding of the world. The paper shows that Russell’s main argument is, ironically, very similar to an argument that Cartwright has put (...) forward against the truth of universal laws of nature. The paper uses this insight to develop an account of causation that does justice to traditional views yet avoids the arguments of Russell. (shrink)

Can we attribute individual extreme weather events to human-induced climate change? In this chapter I will be turning a philosophical eye on this question, asking what concept (or concepts) of causation are being employed by scientists and asking which concept of causation is most appropriate. I will show that scientists, politicians, and journalists have made a number of mistakes in their thinking about the causal links between individual extreme events and climate change, and argue that scientists should be less hesitant (...) when it comes to attributing such events to climate change. (shrink)