Karl Raimund Popper, (1902-1994) a leading apostle of antiinductivism, holds that the main problem of philosophy of science is the problem of demarcation. Accordingly, the demarcation principle distinguishes science from non-science. To Popper, logic, metaphysics and psychoanalysis are likely to fall into the non-science group. Principle of induction has been accepted even though resentfully as the chief tool of scientific investigation by the positivists as well as the scientists in general. Popper rejects the positivistic approach and on the (...) contrary proposes falsifiablity to furnish his iconoclastic project. This paper intends to indentify the problem of his very approaches in order to hold that in spite of some difficulties in the problem of induction itself, as the identifier of science, we do not have any alternative to save science from metaphysics. Finally, Popper’s so-called demarcation criterion is extensively examined here with a view to defend material aspect of inductive generalization. Philosophy and Progress, Vol#67-68; No#1-2; Jan-Dec 2020 P 33-48. (shrink)

It is argued that two aspects of the progress of mature science characterize, at least in combination, no other fields; hence, that these aspects can usefully serve as a demarcation criterion. Scientific progress is: (1) cumulative, regardless of crisis or revolution, from the viewpoint of concrete applications; (2) capable of unrestricted growth towards universal coerciveness of argument and evidence. Before these aspects of progress are discussed, some clarifications are made and corrections offered to Kuhn's view of the nature of (...) scientific progress across revolutions; afterwards, the suggested criterion is used to distinguish, concretely, various fields from science. Finally, it is shown that the "style" of scientific progress is not a useful demarcation criterion. (shrink)

This paper contrasts and compares strategies of model-building in condensed matter physics and biology, with respect to their alleged unequal susceptibility to trade-offs between different theoretical desiderata. It challenges the view, often expressed in the philosophical literature on trade-offs in population biology, that the existence of systematic trade-offs is a feature that is specific to biological models, since unlike physics, biology studies evolved systems that exhibit considerable natural variability. By contrast, I argue that the development of ever more sophisticated experimental, (...) theoretical, and computational methods in physics is beginning to erode this contrast, since condensed matter physics is now in a position to measure, describe, model, and manipulate sample-specific features of individual systems – for example at the mesoscopic level – in a way that accounts for their contingency and heterogeneity. Model-building in certain areas of physics thus turns out to be more akin to modeling in biology than has been supposed and, indeed, has traditionally been the case. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the ′criterion of demarcation′ that Karl Popper put forward, while trying to show that it can be safely said that it is still standing. In doing so, I turn to two main objections to it: a Lakatos-Kuhn vision on the growth of science, and the famous Quine-Duhem thesis. The point that I hopefully made here is that the basic message of this prescriptive method is as respectful as ever, and, although not the subject of (...) this paper, for special emerging fields of knowledge, such us urbanism – my main field of interest, falsifiability can offer the right scientific attitude. (shrink)

This paper is based on a criterion recently proposed by Richard Fumerton for demarcating philosophy of mind and cognitive science. I suggest to extend it to a demarcation criterion between philosophy and science in general, and put it in the context of the historical changes of boundaries between the philosophical and the scientifi c fi eld. I point to a number of philosophical claims and approaches that have been made utterly obsolete by the advancement of science, and conjecture that (...) a similar thing may happen in the future with today’s philosophy of mind: under the supposition that cognitive science manages to progress very successfully in a certain direction, our concepts for mental states could change, and the type of philosophical interest we put in them, thus reshaping thewhole debate on the subject. (shrink)

Interest in the demarcation problem is undergoing a boom after being shelved and even given up for dead. Nevertheless, despite current philosophical discussions, there are no substantial advances i...

Laudan’s argument against the possibility of a demarcation criterion for scientific theories rests on establishing that any criterion must be a necessary and sufficient condition. But Laudan’s argument at most establishes that any criterion must provide a necessary condition and a possibly different sufficient condition. His own claims suggest that such a criterion is possible.

Descartes’s doctrine of clarity and distinctness states that whatever is clearly and distinctly perceived is true. This paper looks at his early doctrine from Rules for the Direction of the Mind, and its application to the demarcation problem of curves in Descartes’s Geometry. This paper offers and defends a novel account of the demarcation criterion of curves: a curve is geometrical just in case it is clearly and distinctly perceivable. This account connects Descartes’s rationalist epistemological programme with his (...) ontological views about mathematics. (shrink)

This paper reviews how research on the demarcation problem has developed, starting from Popper’s criterion of falsifiability and ending with recent naturalistically oriented approaches. The main differences between traditional and contemporary approaches to the problem are explicated in terms of six postulates called the traditional assumptions. It is argued that all of the assumptions can be dismissed without giving up on the demarcation problem and that doing so might benefit further discussions on pseudoscience. Four present-day research movements on (...) evaluating the boundaries of science are introduced: (1) philosophy of pseudoscience, (2) social epistemology of dissent, (3) agnotology, and (4) evaluation of expertise. Researchers working within these areas have abandoned some or all traditional assumptions. (shrink)

In this paper, we reject commonly accepted views on fundamentality in science, either based on bottom-up construction or top-down reduction to isolate the alleged fundamental entities. We do not introduce any new scientific methodology, but rather describe the current scientific methodology and show how it entails an inherent search for foundations of science. This is achieved by phrasing metaphysical assumptions into falsifiable statements and define as fundamental those that survive empirical tests. The ones that are falsified are rejected, and the (...) corresponding philosophical concept is demolished as a prejudice. Furthermore, we show the application of this criterion in concrete examples of the search for fundamentality in quantum physics and biophysics. (shrink)

The call for papers for this conference claims that 'the founders of modern philosophy of science, including Sir Karl Popper… saw it as part of their role to explain the authority of science’. It continues by declaring that 'A key motive for Popper's "demarcation criterion" distinguishing science from "pseudo-science" was to restrict the authority of science to disciplines which used the scientific method.' However, a closer look at Popper’s writing shows that this widespread view is incorrect. In fact, Popper (...) declares in the postscript to the Logic of Scientific Discovery: [I]t is all guesswork, doxa rather than epistēmē… Science has no authority… It represents… our hope of emancipating ourselves from ignorance and narrow-mindedness, from fear and superstition. And this includes… the superstitious belief in the authority of science itself. After briefly defending my contention, with reference to the work of Bartley and some of Popper's statements elsewhere, I will argue that Popper is better understood as attempting to demarcate inquiry from non-inquiry. I also hope to show that this humbler goal is worthwhile, especially when it comes to resisting calls to teach so-called ‘creation science’ in schools. Unfortunately, Popper has become associated with the relatively simplistic view that falsifiability is a demarcation criterion. But Popper recognized, even in the first edition of Logic of Scientific Discovery, that falsifiability alone does not suffice. He was cognisant of the problem posed by Duhem's thesis, and therefore stated: A system such as classical mechanics may be ‘scientific’ to any degree you like; but those who uphold it dogmatically—believing, perhaps, that it is their business to defend such a successful system against criticism as long as it is not conclusively disproved—are adopting the very reverse of that critical attitude which in my view is the proper one for the scientist. This would appear to be why Popper wrote of 'the non-existence of scientific method' above and beyond 'the one method of all rational discussion, and therefore of the natural sciences as well as of philosophy… stating one's problem clearly and examining its various proposed solutions critically'. In short, the critical approach is a crucial part of the demarcation puzzle. In the remainder of the talk, I will develop this solution to the demarcation problem in response to several possible criticisms. Chief among these is that 'creation scientists' do inquire but only with narrow scope. To address this criticism, I will draw on some of my recent work on the roles of criticism and dogmatism in science ; and in particular, I will consider if looking at matters from the group level can help. (shrink)

While medicine is solidly grounded on scientific areas such as biology and chemistry, some argue that it is in its essence not a science at all. With medicine playing a substantial societal role, addressing questions about the scientific nature of medicine is of obvious urgency. This paper takes on such a task and starts by consulting the literature on the “demarcation” problem in the philosophy of science. Learning from failures of earlier approaches, it proposes that we adopt a Deflated (...) Approach, which acknowledges that “science” is a family resemblance concept that admits differences of degrees to nonscientific undertakings. Then, drawing on Paul Hoyningen-Huene’s ; account of systematicity and Alexander Bird’s analysis of examples from the history of medicine, the paper argues that medicine meets the requirement for systematicity on all dimensions and thereby qualifies as a science. The paper then considers and defuses two objections. First, it is shown that nonepistemic differences linked to the distinctive duality of medicine do not warrant thinking that medicine is not science. Second, against some recent criticism, the paper uses homeopathy as an example to show that systematicity can succeed as a demarcation criterion. (shrink)

: Any precise version of H-D needs to handle various problems, most notably, the problem of selective confirmation: Precise formulations of H-D should not have the consequence that where S confirms T, for any T', S confirms T&T'. It is the perceived failure of H-D to solve such problems that has lead John Earman to recently conclude that H-D is "very nearly a dead horse". This suggests the following state of play: H-D is an intuitively plausible idea that breaks down (...) in the attempt to give it a precise formulation. Indeed I think that fairly captures the view among specialists in the field of confirmation theory. Here I argue that the truth about H-D is largely the reverse: H-D can be given a precise formulation that avoids the longstanding technical problems, however, it relies on a fundamentally unsound philosophical intuition. The bulk of this paper involves reviewing the problems affecting previous attempts at giving precise formulations of H-D and displaying some recent versions that can handle these problems. It then briefly explains why the basic intuition behind H-D is itself unsound, namely, because H-D involves a tacit assumption of inductive scepticism. Finally, the historical relation between H-D and the positivists' quest for a criterion of empirical significance will be reconsidered with the surprising result that having glossed H-D as fundamentally unsound it is concluded that a sound version of the criterion of empirical significance is now available. The demarcation criterion, the positivists' philosopher's stone that serves to separate claims with empirical significance from claims lacking empirical significance having finally been found, it is argued that we should regard empirical significance as just one among a variety of virtues and not follow the positivists in taking it to be a sin qua non for all meaningful statements. (shrink)

Philosophical discussions regarding the status of emotion as a scientific domain usually get framed in terms of the question whether emotion is a natural kind. That approach to the issues is wrongheaded for two reasons. First, it has led to an intractable philosophical impasse that ultimately misconstrues the character of the relevant debate in emotion science. Second, and most important, it entirely ignores valence, a central feature of emotion experience, and probably the most promising criterion for demarcating emotion from cognition (...) and other related domains. An alternate philosophical hypothesis for addressing the issues is pro- posed. It is that emotion is a naturally occurring valenced phenomenon that is.. (shrink)

In the 2005 Kitzmiller v Dover Area School Board case, a federal district court ruled that Intelligent Design creationism was not science, but a disguised religious view and that teaching it in public schools is unconstitutional. But creationists contend that it is illegitimate to distinguish science and religion, citing philosophers Quinn and especially Laudan, who had criticized a similar ruling in the 1981 McLean v. Arkansas creation-science case on the grounds that no necessary and sufficient demarcation criterion was possible (...) and that demarcation was a dead pseudo-problem. This article discusses problems with those conclusions and their application to the quite different reasoning between these two cases. Laudan focused too narrowly on the problem of demarcation as Popper defined it. Distinguishing science from religion was and remains an important conceptual issue with significant practical import, and philosophers who say there is no difference have lost touch with reality in a profound and perverse way. The Kitzmiller case did not rely on a strict demarcation criterion, but appealed only to a “ballpark” demarcation that identifies methodological naturalism as a “ground rule” of science. MN is shown to be a distinguishing feature of science both in explicit statements from scientific organizations and in actual practice. There is good reason to think that MN is shared as a tacit assumption among philosophers who emphasize other demarcation criteria and even by Laudan himself. (shrink)

Advocates of extended cognition argue that the boundaries of cognition span brain, body, and environment. Critics maintain that cognitive processes are confined to a boundary centered on the individual. All participants to this debate require a criterion for distinguishing what is internal to cognition from what is external. Yet none of the available proposals are completely successful. I offer a new account, the mutual manipulability account, according to which cognitive boundaries are determined by relationships of mutual manipulability between the properties (...) and activities of putative components and the overall behavior of the cognitive mechanism in which they figure. Among its main advantages, this criterion is capable of (a) distinguishing components of cognition from causal background conditions and lower-level correlates, and (b) showing how the core hypothesis of extended cognition can serve as a legitimate empirical hypothesis amenable to experimental test and confirmation. Conceiving the debate in these terms transforms the current clash over extended cognition into a substantive empirical debate resolvable on the basis of evidence from cognitive science and neuroscience. (shrink)

Philosophers of science have given up on the quest for a silver bullet to put an end to all pseudoscience, as such a neat formal criterion to separate good science from its contenders has proven elusive. In the literature on critical thinking and in some philosophical quarters, however, this search for silver bullets lives on in the taxonomies of fallacies. The attractive idea is to have a handy list of abstract definitions or argumentation schemes, on the basis of which one (...) can identify bad or invalid types of reasoning, abstracting away from the specific content and dialectical context. Such shortcuts for debunking arguments are tempting, but alas, the promise is hardly if ever fulfilled. Different strands of research on the pragmatics of argumentation, probabilistic reasoning and ecological rationality have shown that almost every known type of fallacy is a close neighbor to sound inferences or acceptable moves in a debate. Nonetheless, the kernel idea of a fallacy as an erroneous type of argument is still retained by most authors. We outline a destructive dilemma we refer to as the Fallacy Fork: on the one hand, if fallacies are construed as demonstrably invalid form of reasoning, then they have very limited applicability in real life. On the other hand, if our definitions of fallacies are sophisticated enough to capture real-life complexities, they can no longer be held up as an effective tool for discriminating good and bad forms of reasoning. As we bring our schematic “fallacies” in touch with reality, we seem to lose grip on normative questions. Even approaches that do not rely on argumentation schemes to identify fallacies fail to escape the Fallacy Fork, and run up against their own version of it. (shrink)

The aim of the present paper is to show how Plato suggested demarcating between knowledge and other kinds of human intellectual activities. The article proposes to distinguish between two ways of such a demarcation. The first, called `the external demarcation', takes place when one differentiates between knowledge and non-knowledge, the rational and non-rational or the reasonable and non-reasonable. The second, called `internal', marks the difference within knowledge itself and could be illustrated by the difference between the so called (...) hard and soft sciences. The analyses lead tothe following conclusions. Plato refers to the whole of human intellectual activity as doxa, which is divided into two spheres. The first of them is knowledge proper whose criterion is phronesis. Three other kinds of doxa are derived from knowledge proper: 1) the traditional peri phuseos investigation (called also sophia); 2) popular doxai concerning virtues; 3) wisdom of the antilogikoi. The difference represents the external demarcation. There may be, however, a difference in the scope of knowledge proper (the internal demarcation). If the peri phuseos investigators were able to explain the field of values, the result of their investigation could be acknowledged as knowledge, although it would still be characterized as inferior due to its being based on senses. What is interesting about knowledge proper is that it is not firm and reliable but only hypothetical. It does not determine the skeptical reading of the Phaedo but it indicates that Plato has just begun his own philosophical project (which is still in progress) and the knowledge presented in the dialogue is his first positive suggestion how to solve the problem of demarcation. (shrink)

In this paper I will argue that a profile of the pseudo-sciences can be gained from the scientific pretensions of the pseudo-scientist. These pretensions provide two yardsticks which together take care of the charge of scientific prejudice that any suggested demarcation of pseudo-science has to face. To demonstrate that my analysis has teeth I will apply it to Freud and modern-day Bach-kabbalists. Against Laudan I will argue that the problem of demarcation is not a pseudo-problem, though the discussion (...) will bear out that Laudan's replacement question, namely the question whether someone's theory is well-confirmed, is not, as Lugg claimed, independent of the question as to whether that person is a pseudo-scientist. I further argue that my prototype pseudo-scientists do not have the shortcomings highlighted in Thagard's recent analysis of pseudo-science. (shrink)

Permutation invariance is often presented as the correct criterion for logicality. The basic idea is that one can demarcate the realm of logic by isolating specific entities—logical notions or constants—and that permutation invariance would provide a philosophically motivated and technically sophisticated criterion for what counts as a logical notion. The thesis of permutation invariance as a criterion for logicality has received considerable attention in the literature in recent decades, and much of the debate is developed against the background of ideas (...) put forth by Tarski in a 1966 lecture (Tarski 1966/1986). But as noted by Tarski himself in the lecture, the permutation invariance criterion yields a class of putative ‘logical constants’ that are essentially only sensitive to the number of elements in classes of individuals. Thus, to hold the permutation invariance thesis essentially amounts to limiting the scope of logic to quantificational phenomena, which is controversial at best and possibly simply wrong. In this paper, I argue that permutation invariance is a misguided approach to the nature of logic because it is not an adequate formal explanans for the informal notion of the generality of logic. In particular, I discuss some cases of undergeneration of the criterion, i.e. the fact that it excludes from the realm of logic operators that we have good reason to regard as logical, especially some modal operators. (shrink)

Nudging and sludging are forms of choice architecture that shape behavior. While it is generally believed that nudging should improve well-being and sludging should decrease it, there has been debate about how to distinguish between the two. Some have suggested that the difference lies in the ease with which behaviors are facilitated or hindered, but this criterion does not consider the normative distinction (nudges have a positive connotation and sludges a negative one) or the impact on well-being. This paper proposes (...) a normative approach to defining nudging and sludging that takes into account both well-being and the principle of autonomy. According to our proposal, the concept of nudging should involve interventions that aim to increase well-being while respecting individuals’ freedom of choice, while sludging involves interventions that decrease well-being while also respecting autonomy, whether intentionally or unintentionally. (shrink)

Spontaneous mirror self-recognition is achieved by only a limited number of species, suggesting a sharp “cognitive Rubicon” that only few can pass. But is the demarcation line that sharp? In studies on monkeys, who do not recognize themselves in a mirror, animals can make a difference between their mirror image and an unknown conspecific. This evidence speaks for a gradualist view of mirror self-recognition. We hypothesize that such a gradual process possibly consists of at least two independent aptitudes, the (...) ability to detect synchronicity between self- and foreign movement and the cognitive understanding that the mirror reflection is oneself. Pigeons are known to achieve the first but fail at the second aptitude. We therefore expected them to treat their mirror image differently from an unknown pigeon, without being able to understand that the mirror reflects their own image. We tested pigeons in a task where they either approached a mirror or a Plexiglas barrier to feed. Behind the Plexiglas an unknown pigeon walked at the same time toward the food bowl. Thus, we pitched a condition with a mirror-self and a foreign bird against each other, with both of them walking close toward the food bowl. By a detailed analysis of a whole suit of behavioral details, our results make it likely that the foreign pigeon was treated as a competitor while the mirror image caused hesitation as if being an uncanny conspecific. Our results are akin to those with monkeys and show that pigeons do not equal their mirror reflection with a conspecific, although being unable to recognize themselves in the mirror. (shrink)

Popper's well-known demarcation criterion has often been understood to distinguish statements of empirical science according to their logical form. Implicit in this interpretation of Popper's philosophy is the belief that when the universe of discourse of the empirical scientist is infinite, empirical universal sentences are falsifiable but not verifiable, whereas the converse holds for existential sentences. A remarkable elaboration of this belief is to be found in Watkins's early work on the statements he calls “all-and-some,” such as: “For every (...) metal there is a melting point.” All-and-some statements are both universally and existentially quantified in that order. Watkins argued that AS should be regarded as both nonfalsifiable and nonverifiable, for they partake in the logical fate of both universal and existential statements. This claim is subject to the proviso that the bound variables are “uncircumscribed” ; i.e., that the universe of discourse is infinite. (shrink)

What differentiates scientific research from non-scientific inquiry? Philosophers addressing this question have typically been inspired by the exalted social place and intellectual achievements of science. They have hence tended to point to some epistemic virtue or methodological feature of science that sets it apart. Our discussion on the other hand is motivated by the case of commercial research, which we argue is distinct from (and often epistemically inferior to) academic research. We consider a deflationary view in which science refers to (...) whatever is regarded as epistemically successful, but find that this does not leave room for the important notion of scientific error and fails to capture distinctive social elements of science. This leads us to the view that a demarcation criterion should be a widely upheld social norm without immediate epistemic connotations. Our tentative answer is the communist norm, which calls on scientists to share their work widely for public scrutiny and evaluation. (shrink)

The focus of this article is a question that has been neglected in debates about digitalization: Could machines replace human scientists? To provide an intelligible answer to it, we need to answer a further question: What is it that makes (or constitutes) a scientist? I offer an answer to this question by proposing a new demarcation criterion for science which I call “the discoverability criterion”. I proceed as follows: (1) I explain why the target question of this article is (...) important, and (2) show that it leads to a variant of the demarcation problem of science. (3) By arguing that it is probably an essential feature of science that we can make scientific discoveries, I suggest a novel way of dealing with this problem by proposing a new demarcation criterion. Before introducing it, (4) I analyze an exemplary case of a real scientific discovery, and (5) argue that scientific discovery processes have a general underlying structure. (6) I introduce my discoverability criterion for science and present my master argument that helps us understand which criteria have to be fulfilled in order to decide whether machines can replace human scientists or not. (7) I conclude by answering the article’s target question and bringing forward a take-home message. (shrink)

Finding the demarcation criterion for the identification of scientific knowledge is the most important task of normative epistemology. Pseudoscience is not a harmless leisure activity, it can pose a danger to the functioning of liberal democratic societies and the well-being of their citizens. First, there is an outline of how to define science instrumentally without slipping into the detrimental heritage of conceptual essentialism. The second part is dedicated to Popper’s falsification criterion and the objections of its opponents, which eventually (...) led to the abandonment of “naïve” falsificationism. Then I present two promising solutions to the problem, namely the ostensive definition of pseudoscience and the cognitive research of pseudoscientific thinking. In conclusion, I suggest to further extend the typology of alternatives to science to include parascience. (shrink)

In Systematicity, Paul Hoyningen-Huene answers the question "What is science?" by proposing that scientific knowledge is primarily distinguished from other forms of knowledge, especially everyday knowledge, by being more systematic. "Science" is here understood in the broadest possible sense, encompassing not only the natural sciences but also mathematics, the social sciences, and the humanities. The author develops his thesis in nine dimensions in which it is claimed that science is more systematic than other forms of knowledge: regarding descriptions, explanations, predictions, (...) the defense of knowledge claims, critical discourse, epistemic connectedness, an ideal of completeness, knowledge generation, and the representation of knowledge. He compares his view with positions on the question held by philosophers from Aristotle to Nicholas Rescher. The book concludes with an exploration of some consequences of Hoyningen-Huene's view concerning the genesis and dynamics of science, the relationship of science and common sense, normative implications of the thesis, and the demarcation criterion between science and pseudo-science. (shrink)

Controversy over the possibility of detecting design in natural sciences: According to intelligent design theory, certain biological and cosmic phenomena are designed by an intelligent being and this design is scientifically detectable. However, critics refuse to regard this theory as scientific, thereby suggesting that it does not deserve serious discussion in scientific circles. The article presents main methodological objections to intelligent design theory, indicating its unscientific or pseudoscientific character and impossibility of scientific design detection. Critics try to show that this (...) theory: 1) violates the principle of methodological naturalism ; 2) is empirically untestable; 3) it does not invoke natural laws, says nothing about the designer and the designing mechanism; 4) it does not offer predictions; 5) it is an argument from ignorance, and 6) it does not lead to fruitful research program and hence is not useful for science. These objections will be analyzed from the perspective of methodological thesis of design theorists that the sufficient condition of design inference are the characteristic effects leaved by the activity of the designer, which indicate the final cause, although they do not have to be the basis for determining the designer’s identity. If this thesis is sound, then the objections that intelligent design theory is not scientific are rebutted or weakened. Moreover, it turns out that, basically, detecting design of supernatural beings does not differ from detecting design of natural beings. For that reason, there is no qualitative difference between these two procedures and both can be regarded as scientific. (shrink)

My intention here is to show that the rhetorical approach to economics is based on a doctrine (the McCloskeyian doctrine) which, at least in some respect, is flawed. I will argue that Donald McCloskey fails to establish three central thesis which this doctrine articulates: first, that the rhetorical approach can explain the success of economics, a fact that I will clearly challenge; second, that only “insiders” can and should set the scientific standards in economics, an idea I will vigorously reject; (...) and third, that philosophical epistemology and methodology is useless for economists because the only thing philosophers are interested in is to find a demarcation criterion, and since this is impossible, philosophy of economics should be completely ignored by economists.; hence, I will argue here that McCloskey’s account of methodology is not grounded. (shrink)

This paper deals with the COVID 19 pandemic problems from the point of view of political epistemology. It analyses the validity of conspiracy theories related to the origin, existence, and premeditation of COVID 19, as well as the effectiveness and legitimacy of the vaccines developed to stop its advance. To this end, the development of the work focuses on what we call the problem of the "formulation" that underlies conspiracy theories, analyzing it in two related dimensions. The first dimension of (...) an epistemic nature provides a demarcation criterion for the rationality of theories based on the falsification criterion. The second dimension accentuates a political aspect analyzed from the standard of the reasonableness of such views. Both factors point out that conspiracy theories around the pandemic leave the world aside, whether in terms of the empirical basis that supports it or the democratic public space necessary for its development deliberation. From this approach, these views result in irrational and unreasonable ones to different degrees. (shrink)

Biosmiotics is trying to extend semiotic concepts to biological phenomena and demarcate the biological sphere from the non-biological sphere using the applicability or inapplicability of semiotics as the demarcation criterion. We could call it antireductionsit in the first part of its enterprise as the world of life is interpreted in quasi-human terms; and we coulld call it reductionist in the second part of its enterprise as, for example, causality is excluded from the semiotic sphere. This article promotes a view (...) according to which applicability of semiotic concepts cannot serve as a demarcation criterion to partition reality plainly because the extensions of the concepts of semiosis, cogntion, subjectivity, and -- surprisingly -- causality, coincide. Both positive and negative lessons will be taken from Jakob von Uexküll's ideas by both developing and criticizing them. (shrink)

Whether defended or criticized, Darwinism is generally considered a scientific theory. However, Popper contests this point. According to him, Darwinism (defined as the explanation of evolution by natural selection) is less a scientific theory than a metaphysical research program: a theoretical framework that has a heuristic function for science, but that does not fulfill the necessary condition for any science, namely testability. In terms of deconstructing Darwinism, Popper’s position is therefore interesting. It raises the question of the scientificity of Darwinism. (...) More generally, it raises the question of the scientificity of the debate on the mechanisms of evolution: what type(s) of argument(s) does this debate bring into play? Can this debate be reduced to an opposition between a scientifically founded theory (Darwinism) and other theories of evolution that are purely philosophical, or even ideological? First, I analyze Popper’s position. According to him, Darwinism is rationally defensible, but difficult to test because it is not capable of making precise and sufficiently specific predictions. Darwinism is therefore more metaphysical than scientific, even if it has a heuristic function for science. Moreover, Popper proposes an improvement of Darwinism by asserting that it must give a more important place to the activity of organisms in evolution. In a second step, I discuss Popper’s position, taking into account the criticisms that this position has generated. As regards the non-testability of Darwinism, it appears that the tests proposed in the literature do not meet the defects pointed out by Popper. On the metaphysical character of Darwinism, I discuss Popper’s assertion on two levels: on the possibility of a clear demarcation between science and non-science, and on the value of the demarcation criterion proposed by Popper. Finally, on the improvement of Darwinism, I attempt to underline the originality of the Popperian proposal. (shrink)

On one influential view, the problems that should attract medical attention involve a disorder, because the goals of medical practice are to prevent and treat disorders. Based on this view, if there are no mental disorders then the status of psychiatry as a medical field is challenged. In this paper, I observe that it is often difficult to establish whether the problems that attract medical attention involve a disorder, and argue that none of the notions of disorder proposed so far (...) offers a successful demarcation criterion between medical and non-medical problems. As an illustration, I consider why delusions are considered pathological and whether they attract medical attention in virtue of being pathological, where ‘pathological’ stands for ‘being caused by a disorder’. Although there are several promising answers to what makes delusions pathological, available accounts of the pathological nature of delusions fail to distinguish delusions from other irrational beliefs that are not typically thought of as pathological; and cannot explain why delusions typically attract medical attention whereas other irrational beliefs do not. (shrink)

Assessing the scientific status of theories of consciousness is often a difficult task. In this paper, I explore the dialectic between the Integrated Information Theory, e1003588, 2014; Tononi et al. Nat Rev Neurosci, 17, 450-61, 2016) and a recently proposed criticism of that theory: the ‘unfolding argument’. I show that the phenomenology-first approach in consciousness research can lead to valid scientific theories of consciousness. I do this by highlighting the two reasons why the unfolding argument fails: first, phenomenology-first theories are (...) grounded, not circular. Second, falsificationism does not provide an adequate demarcation criterion in philosophy of science. I conclude that this specific debate has significance for how, in general, consciousness researchers test and criticize theories of consciousness, and how dismissing the phenomenology-first methodology in favour of a third person-based methodology means endorsing a position in philosophy of mind that has already been challenged. (shrink)

In this article, a comparative analysis of Karl Popper’s falsifiability theory and Ludwig Wittgenstein’s theory of meaning in the context of the historical-philosophical approach to the problem of new knowledge formation and justification is undertaken. An assumption is made that the constellation of fact is connected with the possibility of the emergence of an epistemological field. Researchers have repeatedly addressed this issue; however, one important detail received no due attention: Popper’s counter-arguments regarding Wittgenstein’s view on semantic paradoxes show the fundamental (...) difference of these philosophers’ views on the sign and the signified, which contributes to the analysis of new knowledge formation. Arguments that concern both early and late periods of Wittgenstein’s philosophy are used in this study. The uncertainty of the demarcation criterion allowed analyzing Wittgenstein’s position as to how and why different rules of inference form different epistemological fields. (shrink)

Beyond intuitions: A biological interpretation of cognition How can the study of cognition become an ordinary science that is intrinsically connected to the other natural sciences? Since the cognitive revolution in and around psychology, ‘cognition’ has become the standard term to refer to the processes that make us – humans – intelligent. The interpretation of this cognitive domain and cognition itself, however, has never become really clear. First, cognition is a mental concept that is conceptually linked with theories and ideas (...) that are not self-evidently connected to the world as described by the natural sciences. In addition, cognition tends to remain a phenomenon that we recognize ‘on sight’, without the need for an explicit demarcation criterion, a ‘mark of the cognitive’. In this paper, I abandon this intuition-based demarcation of cognition and propose an unequivocal biological one. This biological demarcation does not build on our current intuitions concerning cognition and in any many cases will not be in line with these. As a consequence, the direct conceptual connection between cognition and the traditional notion of ‘mind’ will be cut and the term ‘cognition’ will acquire a fundamentally different meaning. However, the term ‘cognition’ can and will be maintained, as with its new meaning it still refers to the processes that make us humans – as well as other organisms – intelligent: it still covers the scientific domain that its original form was meant to cover, although now with some additional areas. The proposal states that cognition is to be interpreted as the interactions between organisms and their environments together with the organismal structures specifically involved in this interaction. This proposal gives a specific material foundation to cognitive phenomena, which can act as the empirical basis for existing and new cognitive theory formation that will place human cognition unequivocally in the wider framework of living organizations. Some of the implications of the proposal will be further illustrated by differentiating between agents and organisms. When organisms rather than agents form the focal point for cognition, due consideration can be given to ongoing research on intelligence in bacteria, plants and fungi, as well as research concerning the fundamental roles played by nervous systems in animals. (shrink)

Paul Hoyningen-Huene argues that what makes scientific knowledge special is its systematic character, and that this can be used to solve the demarcation problem. He labels this STDC: “Systematicity Theory’s Demarcation Criterion.” This paper argues that STDC fails, because there are areas of intellectual activity that are highly systematic, but that the great majority of scientists and historians and philosophers of science do not accept as scientific. These include homepathy, creationism, and climate change denial. I designate these activities (...) “facsimile sciences” because they mimic the appearance of science but are not, by the standards of philosophers and scientists, scientific. This suggests that we need additional criteria to demarcate science from non-science and/ or nonsense. (shrink)

On the basis of his unpublished thesis ‘Gewohnheit und Gesetzerlebnis in der Erziehung’ a historical reconstruction is given of the genesis of Popper's ideas on induction and demarcation which differs radically from his own account in Unended quest. It is shown not only that he wholeheartedly endorses inductive epistemology and psychology but also that his ‘demarcation’ criterion is inductivistic. Moreover it is shown that his later demarcation thesis arises not from his worries about, on the one hand, (...) Marxism and psychoanalysis and, on the other hand, Einstein's physics, but rather from his urgent preoccupation with providing pedagogy with a psychological foundation, which has its sources in Karl Bühler's cognitive psychology as well as, surprisingly, Adler's Characterology. Aside from Adler some lesser known psychologists, such as Karl Groos, will also be seen to have played a formative role on Popper's early thinking. (shrink)

Kim :1099–1112, 2013) defends a logicist theory of numbers. According to him, numbers are adverbial entities, similar to those denoted by “frequently” and “at 100 mph”. He even introduces new adverbs for numbers: “1-wise”, “2-wise”, and so on. For example, “Fs exist 2-wise” means that there are two Fs. Kim claims that, because we can derive Dedekind–Peano axioms from his definition of numbers as adverbial entities, it is a new form of logicism. In this paper, I will, however, argue that (...) his theory is vulnerable to an analogue of the so-called Bad Company objection to neo-Fregeanism. This means that we cannot be sure that numbers are actually given to us by Kim’s definition; for, we don’t know whether it is indeed a good definition. So, unless Kim, or somebody else, provides a demarcation criterion between good and bad adverbial definitions, Kim’s theory will remain incomplete. (shrink)

Unlike almost all other philosophers of science, Karl Popper sought to contribute to natural philosophy or cosmology – a synthesis of science and philosophy. I consider his contributions to the philosophy of science and quantum theory in this light. There is, however, a paradox. Popper’s most famous contribution – his principle of demarcation – in driving a wedge between science and metaphysics, serves to undermine the very thing he professes to love: natural philosophy. I argue that Popper’s philosophy of (...) science is, in this respect, defective. Science cannot proceed without making highly problematic metaphysical assumptions concerning the comprehensibility and knowability of the universe. Precisely because these assumptions are problematic, rigour requires that they be subjected to sustained critical scrutiny, as an integral part of science itself. Popper’s principle of demarcation must be rejected. Metaphysics and philosophy of science become a vital part of science. Natural philosophy is reborn. A solution to the problem of what it means to say a theory is unified is proposed, a problem Popper failed to solve. In The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Popper made important contributions to the interpretation of quantum theory, especially in connection with Heisenberg's uncertainty relations. Popper's advocacy of natural philosophy has important implications for education. (shrink)

There are several theses in political science that are usually explicitly called ‘laws’. Other theses are generally thought of as laws, but often without being explicitly labelled as such. Still other claims are well-supported and arguably interesting, while no one would be tempted to call them laws. This situation raises philosophical questions: which theses deserve to be called laws and which not? And how should we decide about this? In this paper we develop and motivate a strategy for thinking about (...) laws in political science which integrates two core concepts: spatio-temporal stability and social mechanisms. The proposed strategy is a set of guidelines that political scientists can use to reflect on and argue about specific cases within their discipline, not a clear-cut demarcation criterion. We defend and motivate this strategy and apply it to two cases (one with respect to state repression, one about parliamentary elections). After we have developed and motivated our strategy for political science, we show that our proposal is relevant for other disciplines in the social sciences. We explain how our views fit into critical realism and embed them in the debate on laws in general philosophy of science and in the philosophy of the social sciences. (shrink)

Intelligent Design creationism is often criticized for failing to be science because it falls afoul of some demarcation criterion between science and non-science. This paper argues that this objection to Intelligent Design is misplaced because it assumes that a consistent non-theological characterization of Intelligent Design is possible. In contrast, it argues that, if Intelligent Design is taken to be non-theological doctrine, it is not intelligible. Consequently, a demarcation criterion cannot be used to judge its status. This position has (...) the added advantage of providing reasons to reject Intelligent Design creationism without invoking potentially philosophically controversial demarcation criteria. (shrink)

While Karl Popper’s philosophy of science has only few followers among modern philosophers, it is easily the view of science with the biggest impact on practicing scientists. According to Peter Medawar, Nobel laureate and eminent physiologist, Popper was the greatest authority ever on the scientific method. He praised the “great strength of Karl Popper’s conception of the scientific process,” a main reason for the praise being “that it is realistic—it gives a pretty fair picture of what goes on in real (...) life laboratories” (Medawar 1990, p. 100). Either explicitly or (more often) implicitly, many scientists subscribe to some version of simplified Popperianism, usually by adopting the demarcation criterion that a .. (shrink)

My aim in this chapter is to clarify the nature of the shift in Feyerabend’s philosophical thinking in the 1970s, focusing on issues of realism, relativism, and pluralism. Contra-Preston, I argue that realism-relativism is a misleading variable for characterizing Feyerabend’s shift in the 1970s. Rather, I characterize this shift as Feyerabend’s expansion of pluralism and suggest that this shift appears in Feyerabend’s publications starting in the late-1960s (e.g., Feyerabend 1968b, 1969b, 1970a, 1970c). Adopting the terminology of Brown and Kidd (2016), (...) this shift is characterized by a move from arguments for pluralism within science to broader arguments for pluralism in society. I argue that this shift was largely due to: (1) Feyerabend’s rejection of an empiricist demarcation criterion for science in the mid-1960s, and (2) Feyerabend’s incorporation of Mill’s arguments for pluralism into his own publications starting in 1970. This shift can be characterized as a broadening or expanding the scope of Feyerabend’s arguments for pluralism from contexts of scientific knowledge to the broader context of social or cultural (including ethical) knowledge. I articulate this argument with reference to the framework for classifying Feyerabend’s works formulated by Brown and Kidd (2016). Against Brown and Kidd (and Preston), I argue that realism-relativism is a red-herring as a variable for distinguishing Feyerabend’s early and middle works. Brown and Kidd’s distinction between pluralism within science and pluralism in society is a more useful variable for characterizing Feyerabend’s shift in thinking in the 1970s. Whereas Preston (1997) and Brown and Kidd (2016) identify the beginning of Feyerabend’s pluralism in society phase in 1978 with the publication of Science in a Free Society (Feyerabend 1978), I suggest that the relevant shift occurs much earlier, and it appears in Feyerabend’s publications starting in 1970 (Feyerabend 1970a, 1970b). On this understanding, Feyerabend’s philosophical shift (c. 1970) should be viewed as an expansion (or broadening) of the scope of application of his pluralist arguments, inspired by Mill’s ethical arguments for pluralism in society (Mill 1859/1977). (shrink)

While the term “metaphilosophy” enjoys increasing popularity in Kant scholarship, it is neither clear what distinguishes a metaphilosophical theory from a philosophical one nor to what extent Kant’s philosophy contains metaphilosophical views. In the first part of the article, I will introduce a demarcation criterion and show how scholars fall prey to the fallacy of extension confusing Kant’s philosophical theories with his theories about philosophy. In the second part, I will analyze eight elements for an “imperfect definition” of philosophy (...) outlining the scope of Kant’s explicit metaphilosophy against the backdrop of recent metaphilosophical research: scientific concept of philosophy, philosophy as an activity, worldly concept, philosophy as a science, philosophy as an architectonic idea, philosophy as a social practice and the appropriate holding-to-be-true, reason as the absolute condition and subject of philosophy, and methodology of philosophy. I will put these elements together for an attempt to give an imperfect definition of philosophy – something that Kant promised but never did – in the conclusion. (shrink)

What counts as scientific ideology for Canguilhem and Kuhn is functionally distinct. However, in this article I argue that metaphysical and other non-scientificbeliefs brought about by scientists into their research traditions and that Kuhn sees as generating scientific change coincide closely with Canguilhem’s conception of scientific ideology. Kuhn failed to describe clearly those ideological and metaphysical elements influencing the work of science. He chose to focus on psychological factors intrinsic to paradigms and present in paradigm shifts and in scientific revolutions (...) and also in the internal mechanisms of science itself such as the discovery process. Canguilhem triangulated scientific ideologies with the traditional demarcation criterion between science and non-science and with the intertwining of practice, theory, and external (social) beliefs in scientific thought while distancing himself from the psychological dynamic in science characteristic in Kuhn’s work. Their views are complementary. (shrink)

On the basis of his unpublished thesis 'Gewohnheit und Gesetzerlebnis in der Erziehung' (1926-7) a historical reconstruction is given of the genesis of Popper's ideas on induction and demarcation which differs radically from his own account in Unended quest. It is shown not only that he wholeheartedly endorses inductive epistemology and psychology but also that his 'demarcation' criterion is inductivistic. Moreover it is shown that his later demarcation thesis arises not from his worries about, on the one (...) hand, Marxism and psychoanalysis and, on the other hand, Einstein's physics, but rather from his urgent preoccupation with providing pedagogy with a psychological foundation, which has its sources in Karl Buhler's cognitive psychology as well as, surprisingly, Adler's Characterology. Aside from Adler some lesser known psychologists, such as Karl Groos, will also be seen to have played a formative role on Popper's early thinking. (shrink)