Philosophy of science pays meagre attention to the social sciences and humanities. It deals with basic questions in the natural sciences like Hempel, or general epistemology like e.g. Putnam and Kripke. Popper is the main exception.

Logical positivism had an important impact on the Danish intellectual climate before World War Two. During the thirties close relations were established between members of the Vienna Circle and philosophers and scientists in Copenhagen. This influence not only affected Danish philosophy and science; it also impinged on the cultural avant-garde and via them on the public debate concerning social and political reforms. Hand in hand with the positivistic ideas you find functionalism emerging as a new heretical language in art, architecture, (...) and design. Not surprisingly, you may say, since the logical positivists’ wishes of stripping philosophy of metaphysics is spiritually similar to the functionalists’ desire to get rid of symbols and ornaments. One event more than anything confirmed the connection between the Vienna Circle, Denmark, and the rest of the Nordic countries. For a short while Copenhagen became the centre for the Circle’s activities when in 1936 the 2nd Inter national Congress for the Unity of Science was held there between June 21 and 26. A photograph, taken during the conference, shows many of the participants sitting in the hall of Carlsberg’s honorary mansion where Niels Bohr was living at the time. Among the audience you find Otto Neurath , Carl Gustav Hempel and Karl Popper , but also some of the more prominent Danish scientists and scholars whose world views were congenial with the logical positivists. (shrink)

This paper is devoted to analysis of co-called paradox of confirmation formulated by C. G. Hempel in the 1930s. In particular, the author proposes a solution of this puzzle. The proposal consists in refining the concept of confirmation by adding a clause that if A confirms a hypothesis h, the former must be a logical consequence of a latter, eventually derived with the help of additional assumptions. This leads to an additional constraint requiring that confirmations act relatively to sets (...) of reference. Finally, if h and h’ are logically equivalent, a sentence A confirms both to the same degree if and only if related sets of reference are the same. (shrink)

The article is an attempt to reconstruct and reconsider critically the ethical views of J. Hempel as formulated in his early works.

Traces of the coherence theory are to be found in rationalistic epistemological systems of Leibniz, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel and Fichte. However, the first fully advanced coherence theory was proposed by Bradley in XIX century. He was followed by Joachim, McTaggart, and particularly Blanshard and Ewing. The coherence theory later became popular among philosophers of the Vienna Circle, notably in Neurath and Hempel.2 Recently, Rescher tried to combine various proposals of coherentists into one fully unified view.

Contents Preface General Introduction 1 | Science and Pseudoscience Introduction Karl Popper, Science: Conjectures and Refutations Thomas S. Kuhn, Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Research? Imre Lakatos, Science and Pseudoscience Paul R. Thagard, Why Astrology Is a Pseudoscience Michael Ruse, Creation-Science Is Not Science Larry Laudan, Commentary: Science at the Bar---Causes for Concern Commentary 2 | Rationality, Objectivity, and Values in Science Introduction Thomas S. Kuhn, The Nature and Necessity of Scientific Revolutions Thomas S. Kuhn, Objectivity, Value Judgment, and (...) Theory Choice Ernan McMullin, Rationality and Paradigm Change in Science Larry Laudan, Kuhn’s Critique of Methodology Helen E. Longino, Values and Objectivity Kathleen Okruhlik, Gender and the Biological Sciences Commentary 3 | The Duhem-Quine Thesis and Underdetermination Introduction Pierre Duhem, Physical Theory and Experiment W. V. Quine, Two Dogmas of Empiricism Donald Gillies, The Duhem Thesis and the Quine Thesis Larry Laudan, Demystifying Underdetermination *Colin Howson and Peter Urbach, The Duhem Problem Commentary 4 | Induction, Prediction, and Evidence Introduction Peter Lipton, Induction Karl Popper, The Problem of Induction Wesley C. Salmon, Rational Prediction Carl G. Hempel, Criteria of Confirmation and Acceptability Peter Achinstein, Explanation v. Prediction: Which Carries More Weight? *Nelson Goodman, The New Riddle of Induction Commentary 5 | Confirmation and Relevance: Bayesian Approaches Introduction Wesley C. Salmon, Rationality and Objectivity in Science *Deborah G. Mayo, A Critique of Salmon’s Bayesian Way *Alan Chalmers, The Bayesian Approach Paul Horwich, Therapeutic Bayesianism Commentary 6 | Models of Explanation Introduction Rudolf Carnap, The Value of Laws: Explanation and Prediction Carl G. Hempel, Two Basic Types of Scientific Explanation Carl G. Hempel, The Thesis of Structural Identity Carl G. Hempel, Inductive-Statistical Explanation Peter Railton, A Deductive-Nomological Model of Probabilistic Explanation *Philip Kitcher, Explanatory Unification *James Woodward, The Manipulability Conception of Causal Explanation Commentary 7 | Laws of Nature Introduction A. J. Ayer, What Is a Law of Nature? Fred I. Dretske, Laws of Nature D. H. Mellor, Necessities and Universals in Natural Laws Nancy Cartwright, Do the Laws of Physics State the Facts? Commentary 8 | Intertheoretic Reduction Introduction Ernest Nagel, Issues in the Logic of Reductive Explanations Paul K. Feyerabend, How to Be a Good Empiricist *Jerry A. Fodor, Special Sciences Philip Kitcher, 1953 and All That: A Tale of Two Sciences Commentary 9 | Empiricism and Scientific Realism Introduction Grover Maxwell, The Ontological Status of Theoretical Entities Bas C. van Fraassen, Arguments Concerning Scientific Realism Alan Musgrave, Realism versus Constructive Empiricism Larry Laudan, A Confutation of Convergent Realism *Juha T. Saatsi, On the Pessimistic Induction and Two Fallacies Ian Hacking, Experimentation and Scientific Realism David B. Resnik, Hacking’s Experimental Realism *Martin Carrier, What Is Right with the Miracle Argument Arthur Fine, The Natural Ontological Attitude Alan Musgrave, NOA’s Ark---Fine for Realism Commentary Glossary Bibliography Name Index Subject Index. (shrink)

Vision of the Historical role of Poland in Jan Hempel’s Sermons The article presents the vision of the role of Polish nation presented in two works written by Jan Hempel – Polish Sermons and Piast Sermons. The main purpose of the article is to provide the reader with Hempel’s reinterpretation of the role of Poles elaborated by the authors of the Romantic period who regarded Polish nation as the God’s chosen people. Hempel, being a lifelong critic (...) of Christianity, thought of Poland as the Antichrist of nations. With this view in mind he interpreted Polish history and the role of Polish nation in the history of world. Author of the article presents Hempel’s vision of the aforementioned role of Polish nation and seeks its sources in the writings of other thinkers. (shrink)

Time is often said to play in quantum mechanics an essentially different role from position: whereas position is represented by a Hermitian operator, time is represented by a c-number. This discrepancy has been found puzzling and has given rise to a vast literature and many efforts at a solution. In this paper it is argued that the discrepancy is only apparent and that there is nothing in the formalism of quantum mechanics that forces us to treat position and time differently. (...) The apparent problem is caused by the dominant role point particles play in physics and can be traced back to classical mechanics. (shrink)

This paper explores the fact that linear opinion pooling can be represented as a Bayesian update on the opinions of others. It uses this fact to propose a new interpretation of the pooling weights. Relative to certain modelling assumptions the weights can be equated with the so-called truth-conduciveness known from the context of Condorcet's jury theorem. This suggests a novel way to elicit the weights.

Time is often said to play in quantum mechanics an essentially different role from position: whereas position is represented by a Hermitian operator, time is represented by a c-number. This discrepancy has been found puzzling and has given rise to a vast literature and many efforts at a solution. In this paper it is argued that the discrepancy is only apparent and that there is nothing in the formalism of quantum mechanics that forces us to treat position and time differently. (...) The apparent problem is caused by the dominant role point particles play in physics and can be traced back to classical mechanics. (shrink)

Due to the intense selection pressure against inbreeding, humans are expected to possess psychological adaptations that regulate mate choice and avoid inbreeding. From a gene’s-eye perspective, there is little difference in the evolutionary costs between situations where an individual him/herself is participating in inbreeding and inbreeding among other close relatives. The difference is merely quantitative, as fitness can be compromised via both routes. The question is whether humans are sensitive to the direct as well as indirect costs of inbreeding. Using (...) responses from a large population-based sample (27,364 responses from 2,353 participants), we found that human motivations to avoid inbreeding closely track the theoretical costs of inbreeding as predicted by inclusive-fitness theory. Participants were asked to select in a forced choice paradigm, which of two acts of inbreeding with actual family members they would want to avoid most. We found that the estimated fitness costs explained 83.6% of participant choices. Importantly, fitness costs explained choices also when the self was not involved. We conclude that humans intuit the indirect fitness costs of mating decisions made by close family members and that psychological inbreeding avoidance mechanisms extend beyond self-regulation. (shrink)

This book deals with the history of the problem whether or not time can fully exist without the mind. This has been a vital issue in the philosophy of time, with intriguing arguments and solutions, from Aristotle to the present.

The main aim of the presented paper is to look for an answer as to whether and how euthanasia reflected is in ethics of social consequences. Ethics of social consequences is a contemporary Slovak ethical theory with an original approach to delimitating moral agency. The paper puts this definition to the test while considering the main focus of the paper – responding to the question of whether euthanasia and end of life can be understood as a moral uncertainty. The intention (...) is to find out whether the definition is clear and adequate to withstand the basic arguments against euthanasia. Since ethics of social consequences is a consequentialist ethical theory, another partial goal is to analyse the fitness of such a position to be used in bioethical inquires. (shrink)

The paper consists of two parts. The first contains the paradox of Truth-teller, i.e. a sentence which asserts own truth. The paradox appears when we apply logic of rejection to the Truth-teller sentence. The Truth-teller paradox is symmetric with respect to the Liar paradox. The second part considers a sentence which asserts own provability. This sentence is unprovable on the base of rejection logic. This leads to counterparts of the Gödel incompleteness theorems and other metamathematical results.

A serious difficulty for theories of consciousness is to go beyond mere correlation between physical processes and experience. Currently, neural workspace and sensorimotor contingency theories are two of the most promising approaches to make any headway here. This paper explores the relation between these two sets of theories. Workspace theories build on large-scale activity within the brain. Sensorimotor theories include external processes in their explanations, stressing the sensorimotor contingencies that arise from our interaction with the environment. Despite the basic differences, (...) we argue that workspace- and sensorimotor theories are complementary rather than competitive. By combining these theories, a number of problems that hamper them individually may be overcome and their strengths combined: Workspace theories have more to offer for explaining how there can be consciousness in the first place, while sensorimotor theories are strong in making sense of the specific phenomenal character of experiences. (shrink)

En rendant compte de la récession économique, les médias se sont surtout penchés sur les effets de la crise sur les pays riches, sans beaucoup se soucier des nombreuses populations qui vivent dans ce qu’on avait coutume d’appeler le tiers-monde. Selon les analyses actuellement en vogue, le fléchissement de ces « économies émergentes » pourrait s’avérer moins grave que prévu. Pourtant, cette perspective, qui se contente d’analyser les répercussions de la crise sur les pays dans leur ensemble, masque l’hétérogénéité de (...) son impact en fonction des classes sociales. En tenant compte de la distribution des revenus, on s’aperçoit que le ralentissement mondial touche de façon disproportionnée les secteurs les plus vulnérables : les immenses cohortes de travailleurs sous-payés, sous-éduqués et privés de ressources qui constituent les strates inférieures surpeuplées de l’économie mondiale.fr. (shrink)

Political relations in today’s world are in a deep, perhaps even radically threatening disequilibrium; similarly, humanity’s home—the Earth—is treated with disdain and contempt despite its increasingly angry protests. Moreover, the rules and principles by which most of the world runs its economic affairs and strives to “modernize” its life are founded on a set of market laws devoid of all social context and only serve to deepen the dangerous contrasts between small islands of wealth and a sea of humanity doomed (...) to poverty and alienation. (shrink)

Wprowadzenie -- Roman ingarden -- Antoni kępiński -- Karol wojtyła -- Władysław stróżewski -- Józef tischner.

At the beginning of the 21st century, biology will try to address the function of a large number of new genes. From the perspective of technologies applied today to functional genomics, this task appears to be more complex than the effort invested in the sequencing of the human genome. Conceptually, a high-throughput approach permitting correlation between newly discovered genes and functional properties of their protein products has yet to be developed. To address relationships between tens of thousands of genes and (...) their cognate proteins, novel interdisciplinary technologies need to emerge. In this paper, a new idea of immunomics is presented and an experimental strategy is outlined to circumvent some of the restrictions associated with methodologies currently in use. It is proposed that cloned segments of genomic DNA are used for genetic immunization to obtain a large collection of antibodies, and to generate microarrays of these antibodies for tracing differentially expressed cellular proteins. (shrink)

In a nutshell, this dissertation builds a bridge between an informal psychological model of emotions on the one hand, and implementation of emotions in robots and virtual characters on the other hand. This is done by formalizing a psychological model of emotions. With that we1 mean translating the concepts used in the psy- chological model to a logical language with unambiguous semantics. The resulting formalization of emotions will give rise to theorems that can be proved to be true. These theorems (...) are properties of the formal model and can be checked against the original psychological model of emotions. If they match, this will mean that the formalization is truthful with respect to the psychological model. The description of the model of emotions in this formal language can then be used as a foundation for implementing emotions in robots and virtual characters. (shrink)

Steels & Belpaeme (S&B) are clearly interested in the possible test their models may provide for human language theories. However, they only superficially address the assumptions underlying their own agent architecture, while these are of crucial relevance to the topic of human language. These assumptions fit an Augustinian picture of language, which Wittgenstein challenges in his Philosophical Investigations. It is too early to draw conclusions regarding human language evolution from such models.

As one of the earliest English religious reformers of the 1520s, William Tyndale sought to influence ecclesiological reform in England through a vernacular printing campaign. Beginning with an English translation of the New Testament, Tyndale extended European ecclesiological controversy into England by offering the English people a distinct and radical ecclesiology that was built upon “a congregation.” This study examines the body of Tyndale’s printed works to illuminate the variety of methodologies he developed and utilized to gain public consensus for (...) his understanding of congregation and church in hopes that lexical reform in English would initiate ecclesiological reform in England. Over time, and perhaps because of Thomas More’s criticisms, Tyndale found that the best way to appeal to the public was by lexical flexibility. Contrary to his historiographical reputation, Tyndale embraced the public’s traditional fondness for church so that he did not have to sacrifice his theological preference for congregation. (shrink)

Book reviewed: Carr, Wilfred, For Education: Towards Critical Educational Inquiry.

Non-invasive brain stimulation promises innovative experimental possibilities for psychology and neurosci- ence as well as new therapeutic and palliative measures in medicine. Because of its good risk–benefit ratio, non-invasiveness and reversibility as well as its low effort and cost it has good chances of becoming a wide- spread tool in science, medicine and even in lay use. While most issues in medical and research ethics such as informed consent, safety, and potential for misuse can be handled with manageable effort, the (...) real promise of brain stimulation does raise one prominent moral worry: it may lay the foundation of reliable, precise and stable manipulations of the mind. This article addresses this worry and concludes that it is not the possibility of manipulation, but the shift in our understanding of our mind which stands in need of careful consideration. (shrink)

To date, much of the work on Responsible Innovation (RI) has focused on the ‘responsible’ part of RI. This has left the ‘innovation’ part in need of conceptual innovation of its own. If such conceptual innovation is to contribute to a coherent conception of RI, however, it is crucial to better understand the relation between responsibility and innovation first. This paper elucidates this relation by locating responsibility and innovation within Emmanuel Levinas’ phenomenology. It structures his work into three ‘stages’, each (...) described in terms of their leading experience and objectivation regime. This analysis identifies a need for constant innovation of political and technological systems, originating from and motivated by our responsibility to others. It also shows the relation between responsibility and innovation to be threefold: foundational, ethical and structural. These insights could help RI to avoid some pitfalls of ‘regular’ innovation, and provide moral grounding for important aspects of RI. (shrink)