This book is about some topical philosophical and methodological prob lems that arise in the study of behavior and mind, as well as in the treatment of behavioral and mental disorders. It deals with such questions as 'What is behavior a manifestation of?', 'What is mind, and how is it related to matter?', 'Which are the positive legacies, if any, of the major psychological schools?', 'How can behavior and mind best be studied?', and 'Which are the most effective ways of (...) modifying behavioral and mental processes?' These questions and their kin cannot be avoided in the long run because they fuel the daily search for better hypotheses, experimental designs, techniques, and treatments. They also occur in the critical examination of data and theories, as well as methods for the treatment of behavioral and mental disorders. All students of human or animal, normal or abnormal behavior and mind, whether their main concern is basic or applied, theoretical or em pirical, admit more or less tacitly to a large number of general philosophi cal and methodological principles. (shrink)

pt. I. Matter: 1. Philosophy as worldview ; 2. Classical matter: bodies and fields ; 3. Quantum matter: weird but real ; 4. General concept of matter: to be is to become ; 5. Emergence and levels ; 6. Naturalism ; 7. Materialism -- pt. II. Mind: 8. The mind-body problem ; 9. Minding matter: the plastic brain ; 10. Mind and society ; 11. Cognition, consciousness, and free will ; 12. Brain and computer: the hardware/software dualism ; 13. Knowledge: (...) genuine and bogus -- pt. III. Appendices: 14. Appendix A: Objects ; 15. Appendix B. Truths. (shrink)

"I regard it as a truly seminal work in this field." — Professor William A. Wallace, author of Causality and Scientific Explanation. Non-technical and clearly written, this book focuses on the place of the casual principle in modern science. The author defines the terminology, describes various formulations, examines the two primary critiques of causality, and more.

The aim of this article is to elucidate the notions of explanation and mechanism, in particular of the social kind. A mechanism is defined as what makes a concrete system tick, and it is argued that to propose an explanation proper is to exhibit a lawful mechanism. The so-called covering law model is shown to exhibit only the logical aspect of explanation: it just subsumes particulars under universals. A full or mechanismic explanation involves mechanismic law statements, not purely descriptive ones (...) such as functional relations and rate equations. Many examples from the natural, biosocial, and social sciences are examined. In particular, macro-micro-micro-macro social relations are shown to explain other wise puzzling macro-macro links. The last part of the article relates the author's progress, over half a century, toward understanding mechanism and explanation. (shrink)

This article addresses the following problems: What is a mechanism, how can it be discovered, and what is the role of the knowledge of mechanisms in scientific explanation and technological control? The proposed answers are these. A mechanism is one of the processes in a concrete system that makes it what it is — for example, metabolism in cells, interneuronal connections in brains, work in factories and offices, research in laboratories, and litigation in courts of law. Because mechanisms are largely (...) or totally imperceptible, they must be conjectured. Once hypothesized they help explain, because a deep scientific explanation is an answer to a question of the form, "How does it work, that is, what makes it tick—what are its mechanisms?" Thus, by contrast with the subsumption of particulars under a generalization, an explanation proper consists in unveiling some lawful mechanism, as when political stability is explained by either coercion, public opinion manipulation, or democratic participation. Finding mechanisms satisfies not only the yearning for understanding, but also the need for control. Key Words: explanation • function • mechanism • process • system • systemism. (shrink)

In this paper we will demonstrate that a computational system can meet the criteria for autonomy laid down by classical enactivism. The two criteria that we will focus on are operational closure and structural determinism, and we will show that both can be applied to a basic example of a physically instantiated Turing machine. We will also address the question of precariousness, and briefly suggest that a precarious Turing machine could be designed. Our aim in this paper is to challenge (...) the assumption that computational systems are necessarily heteronomous systems, to try and motivate in enactivism a more nuanced and less rigid conception of computational systems, and to demonstrate to computational theorists that they might find some interesting material within the enactivist tradition, despite its historical hostility towards computationalism. (shrink)

Building on the original formulation of the autopoietic theory (AT), extended enactivism argues that living beings are autopoietic systems that extend beyond the spatial boundaries of the organism. In this article, we argue that extended enactivism, despite having some basis in AT’s original formulation, mistakes AT’s definition of living beings as autopoietic entities. We offer, as a reply to this interpretation, a more embodied reformulation of autopoiesis, which we think is necessary to counterbalance the (excessively) disembodied spirit of AT’s original (...) formulation. The article aims to clarify and correct what we take to be a misinterpretation of AT as a research program. AT, contrary to what some enactivists seem to believe, did not (and does not) intend to motivate an extended conception of living beings. AT’s primary purpose, we argue, was (and is) to provide a universal individuation criterion for living beings, these understood as discrete bodies that are embedded in, but not constituted by, the environment that surrounds them. However, by giving a more explicitly embodied definition of living beings, AT can rectify and accommodate, so we argue, the enactive extended interpretation of autopoiesis, showing that although living beings do not extend beyond their boundaries as autopoietic unities, they do form part, in normal conditions, of broader autopoietic systems that include the environment. (shrink)

Summary Opinion is divided as to whether chemistry is reducible to physics. The problem can be given a satisfactory solution provided three conditions are met: that a science not be identified with its theories; that several notions of theory dependence be distinguished; and that quantum chemistry, rather than classical chemistry, be compared with physics. This paper proposes to perform all three tasks. It does so by analyzing the methodological concepts concerned as well as by examining the way a chemical rate (...) constant is derivable with the help of the quantum atomic theory. The conclusion is that chemistry, and in particular quantum chemistry, is not a part of physics although it is certainly based on the latter. (shrink)

Entries cover the major branches and doctrines of modern philosophy.

There are two possible realist defense strategies against the pessimistic meta-induction and Laudan’s meta-modus tollens: the selective strategy, claiming that discarded theories are partially true, and the discontinuity strategy, denying that pessimism about past theories can be extended to current ones. A radical version of discontinuity realism is proposed by Gerald Doppelt: rather than discriminating between true and false components within theories, he holds that superseded theories cannot be shown to be even partially true, while present best theories are demonstrably (...) completely true. I argue that this position, running counter both the cumulativity of science and fallibilism, is untenable; it cannot account for the success of past theories, nor for the failures of current theories, and rather than shutting the door to the pessimistic historical objections it opens it wide. The best strategy, instead, joins the selective idea there was both some truth and some falsity in discarded theories, like in current ones, with the moderate discontinuity idea that the truth rate in present best theories is much greater than in past ones. (shrink)

PHILOSOPHY: BEACON OR TRAP* There was a time when everyone expected almost everything from philosophy. It was the time when philosophers drew confidently ...

The word 'materialism' is ambiguous: it designates a moral doc trine as well as a philosophy and, indeed, an entire world view. Moral materialism is identical with hedonism, or the doctrine that humans should pursue only their own pleasure. Philosophical ma terialismis the view that the real worId is composed exclusively of material things. The two doctrines are logically independent: hedonism is consistent with immaterialism, and materialism is compatible with high minded morals. We shall be concerned ex c1usively with philosophical (...) materialism. And we shall not confuse it with realism, or the epistemological doctrine that knowIedge, or at any rate scientific knowledge, attempts to represent reality. Philosophical materialism is not a recent fad and it is not a solid block: it is as old as philosophy and it has gone through six quite different stages. The first was ancient materialism, centered around Greek and Indian atomism. The second was the revival of the first during the 17th century. The third was 18th century ma terialism, partly derived from one side of Descartes' ambiguous legacy. The fourth was the mid-19th century "scientific" material ism, which flourished mainly in Germany and England, and was tied to the upsurge of chemistry and biology. The fifth was dialec tical and historical materialism, which accompanied the consolida tion of the socialist ideology. And the sixth or current stage, evolved mainly by Australian and American philosophers, is aca demic and nonpartisan but otherwise very heterogeneous. Ancient materialism was thoroughly mechanistic. (shrink)

Deployment Realism resists Laudan’s and Lyons’ objections to the “No Miracle Argument” by arguing that a hypothesis is most probably true when it is deployed essentially in a novel prediction. However, Lyons criticized Psillos’ criterion of essentiality, maintaining that Deployment Realism should be committed to all the actually deployed assumptions. But since many actually deployed assumptions proved false, he concludes that the No Miracle Argument and Deployment Realism fail. I reply that the essentiality condition is required by Occam’s razor. In (...) fact, there is a simpler formulation of essentiality which escapes Lyons’ criticisms and rescues the No Miracle Argument and Deployment Realism from their purported historical counterexamples: a hypothesis is essential when it has no proper parts (in Yablo’s sense) sufficient to derive the same prediction. Although essentiality so conceived cannot be detected prospectively, this is just natural, and it is not a problem but an advantage for Deployment Realism. (shrink)

Building on an illustrative case of a systemic environmental threat and its multi‐stakeholder response, this paper draws attention to the changing political impacts of corporations in the digital age. Political Corporate Social Responsibility (PCSR) theory suggests an expanded sense of politics and corporations, including impacts that may range from voluntary initiatives to overcome governance gaps, to avoiding state regulation via corporate political activity. Considering digitalization as a stimulus, we explore potential responsibilities of corporations toward public goods in contexts with functioning (...) governments. We show that digitalization—in the form of transparency, surveillance, and data‐sharing—offers corporations’ scope for deliberative public participation. The starry sky beetle infestation endangering public and private goods is thereby used to illustrate the possibility of expanding the political role of corporations in the digital sphere. We offer a contribution by conceptualizing data‐deliberation as a Habermasian variation of PCSR, defined as the (a) voluntary disclosure of corporate data and its transparent, open sharing with the public sector (b) along with the cooperation with governmental institutions on data analytics methods for examining large‐scale datasets (c) thereby complying with existing national and international regulations on data protection, in particular with respect to privacy and personal data. (shrink)

The recent detection of gravitational waves by the LIGO team has rightly been hailed as “the crowning achievemen of classical physics”. This detection, which came at the end of a decade-long quest, involved 950 investigators, and cost around one billion US dollars, was the scientific star of the year 2015. What, if any, is the philosophical impact of this scientific breakthrough, which Albert Einstein had anticipated one century earlier? To answer this question we start by examining the central equations of (...) Einstein’s theory of gravitation, also known as general relativity. Subsequently we analyze the special case of a hollow sphere, in an attempt to answer the question of the reality and even materiality of space or, rather, spacetime. As well, the view that gravitation is a manifestation of the curvature of spacetime is discussed, and the reality of gravitational waves is regarded as the coup de grâce to that view. (shrink)

In this paper we explore Ronald N. Giere’s contributions to the scientific realism debate. After outlining some of his general views on the philosophy of science, we locate his contributions within the traditional scientific realism debate. We argue that Giere’s scientific perspectivism is best seen as a form of carte blanche realism, that is: a view according to which science is a practice aiming at truth, and can warrantably claim to have attained it, to a certain degree; however, it does (...) not place our confidence invariably in some specific feature of scientific representations. (shrink)

According to ontological reductionism, molecular chemistry refers, at last, to the quantum ontology; therefore, the ontological commitments of chemistry turn out to be finally grounded on quantum mechanics. The main problem of this position is that nobody really knows what quantum ontology is. The purpose of this work is to argue that the confidence in the existence of the physical entities described by quantum mechanics does not take into account the interpretative problems of the theory: in the discussions about the (...) relationship between chemistry and physics, difficulties are seen only on the side of chemistry, whereas matters highly controversial on the side of physics are taken for granted. For instance, it is usually supposed that the infinite mass limit in the Born-Oppenheimer approximation leads by itself to the concept of molecular framework used in molecular chemistry. We will argue that this assumption is implicitly based on an interpretative postulate for quantum mechanics, which, in turn, runs into difficulties when applied to the explanation of the simplest model of the hydrogen atom. (shrink)

Nearly all philosophers have dealt with the outcomes of scientific research, and have overlooked its philosophical presuppositions, such as those of rationality and realism. Although these presuppositions are mostly tacit and thus easily overlooked, actually they are supremely important, since some of them favor research whereas others hamper it. For instance, whereas subjectivism leads to navel gazing and uncontrolled fantasy, realism encourages us to explore the world and check our conjectures. This book examines science in the making, a process it (...) illustrates with many examples from the natural, social, and biosocial sciences. Therefore it centers on the research process and its philosophical presuppositions. It claims that the latter constitutes a sort of matrix for conceiving and nurturing scientific projects. (shrink)

This paper is dedicated to extending and adapting to modal logic the approach of fractional semantics to classical logic. This is a multi-valued semantics governed by pure proof-theoretic considerations, whose truth-values are the rational numbers in the closed interval $[0,1]$. Focusing on the modal logic K, the proposed methodology relies on three key components: bilateral sequent calculus, invertibility of the logical rules, and stability (proof-invariance). We show that our semantic analysis of K affords an informational refinement with respect to the (...) standard Kripkean semantics (a new proof of Dugundji’s theorem is a case in point) and it raises the prospect of a proof-theoretic semantics for modal logic. (shrink)

This article presents a new semantics for classical propositional logic. We begin by maximally extending the space of sequent proofs so as to admit proofs for any logical formula; then, we extract the new semantics by focusing on the axiomatic structure of proofs. In particular, the interpretation of a formula is given by the ratio between the number of identity axioms out of the total number of axioms occurring in any of its proofs. The outcome is an informational refinement of (...) traditional Boolean semantics, obtained by breaking the symmetry between tautologies and contradictions. (shrink)

: Usually, when studying schematism we devote almost exclusive attention to the study of the modifications that the categories suffer when combined with time. Instead, we have focused our attention on the determinations that time receives when combined with the categories. Departing from the definition of the transcendental schemata as “determinations of time”, an attempt is made to establish the various determinations that time receives from each one of the categories, as these perform the determination of time in schematism. The (...) categories of quantity allow us to think of time as a series of homogeneous unities; the categories of quality show each instant of time as a receptacle able to receive the different intensities of the real; the categories of relation establish a rule-dependent order on the flow of time; finally, the categories of modality determine the whole of time forming a collective unity that gathers or embraces each one of the instants of time preserving its specificity. (shrink)

This paper examines a fundamental philosophical difference between two radical postcognitivist theories that are usually assumed to offer the same view of cognition; namely the autopoietic theory and the enactive approach. The ways these two theories understand cognition, it is argued, are not compatible nor incompatible but rather incommensurable. The reason, so it is argued, is that while enactivism, following the traditional stance held by most of the cognitive theories, understands cognitive systems as constituting a natural kind, the autopoietic theory (...) understands them as constituting only a conventional kind. Additionally, the paper shows that AT’s conventionalist stance about cognition, far from being an undesirable or useless position, offers some methodological virtues that might be timely and welcome in the agitated and revolutionary climate of current cognitive science. (shrink)

Traditional medicines -- Modern medicine -- Disease -- Diagnosis -- Drug -- Trial -- Treatment -- Prevention -- Iatroethics -- Science or technology, craft or service?

Individualism comes in at least ten modes: ontological, logical, semantic, epistemological, methodological, axiological, praxiological, ethical, historical, and political. These modes are bound together. For example, ontological individualism motivates the thesis that relations are n-tuples of individuals, as well as radical reductionism and libertarianism. The flaws and merits of all ten sides of the individualist decagon are noted. So are those of its holist counterpart. It is argued that systemism has all the virtues and none of the defects of individualism and (...) holism. One such virtue is the ability to recognize that individualism is a system rather than an unstructured bag of opinions--which raises the question whether thorough and consistent individualism is at all possible. Key Words: holism • individualism • system • systemism. (shrink)

An objective and relational theory of local time is expounded and its philosophical implications are discussed in Sect. 2. In Sect. 3 certain physical and metaphysical questions concerning time are taken up in the light of that theory. The basic concepts of the theory are those of event, reference frame, chronometric scale, and time function. These are subject to four axioms: existence of events, frames and scales; time is a real valued function; the set of events is compact; and any (...) duration can be subdivided into two contiguous durations. Several theorems are derived, among them the one of the asymmetry of time. And a number of concepts are defined, such as those of time order, instant, and time coordinate. It is argued that the theory, though untestable, belongs to the background of a number of scientific theories. It is also shown that it includes all relational theories of time. The usual confusion between the asymmetry of time and the direction of irreversible processes is clarified. Time reversal is interpreted either as a purely formal operation or as a convenient way of describing motion reversed processes. Time orders are shown to be both relative and objective, apart from the choice of the positive direction, which is conventional. The various attempts to define the direction of time in terms of irreversible processes are shown to be logically untenable and methodologically undesirable. A number of metaphysical questions, such as the one of the reality and the fundamental character of time, are tackled. Finally the occasion is seized to extoll the advantages of systematization over both ordinary language discussions and open context analyses. (shrink)

The question of the animal is one of the most intensely debated in the contemporary philosophical arena. The present article makes the case that Husserl’s phenomenological approach offers a stimulating and open-ended perspective on this discussion. The animal, indeed, is an instance of extreme otherness, which pushes phenomenology to its limits. The paper opens with an outline of the methodological issues raised by the question of the animal. It then examines what the animal—at this point, taken as a whole—and the (...) human being have in common and what Husserl sees as the main differences between them. A critical aspect here is the question of personhood. Finally, Sect. 3 traces Husserl’s progression from a general concept of animality to detailed and nuanced phenomenological descriptions of different animals and their intra- and inter-specific relationships. Husserl understands that the threshold that joins and divides human beings and animals is difficult to pin down, because there is more than one threshold: it is plural. (shrink)

Aharonov and Bohm showed that, far from being merely a mathematical tool, the vector potential \ can have a microphysical effect even when irrotational, in which case the magnetic field is null. Still, at first sight there is something weird about this situation. Do we have to admit a new force? I argue that there is no paradox in the potentials-formulation of electrodynamics, for it shows that, while “\” represents a vanishing magnetic field, it alters the motion of charged matter (...) dragged by the electric field. (shrink)

Gerald Doppelt claims that Deployment Realism cannot withstand the antirealist objections based on the “pessimistic meta-induction” and Laudan’s historical counterexamples. Moreover it is incomplete, as it purports to explain the predictive success of theories, but overlooks the necessity to explain also their explanatory success. Accordingly, he proposes a new version of realism, presented as the best explanation of both predictive and explanatory success, and committed only to the truth of best current theories, not of the discarded ones. Elsewhere I criticized (...) his new brand of realism. Here instead I argue that Doppelt has not shown that Deployment Realism cannot solve the problems raised by the history of science, explaining explanatory success does not add much to explaining novel predictive success, and Doppelt is right that truth is not a sufficient explanans, but for different reasons, and this does not refute Deployment Realism, but helps to detail it better. In a more explicit formulation, the realist IBE concludes not only to the truth of theories, but also to the reliability of scientists and scientific method, the order and simplicity of nature, and the approximate truth of background theories. (shrink)

Criticisms à la Laudan can block the “no miracles” argument for the (approximate) truth of whole theories. Realists have thus retrenched, arguing that at least the individual claims deployed in the derivation of novel predictions should be considered (approximately) true. But for Lyons (2002) there are historical counterexamples even to this weaker “deployment” realism: he lists a number of novel predictions supposedly derived from (radically) false claims. But if so, those successes would seem unexplainable, even by Lyons’ “modest surrealism” or (...) other surrogates to realism. In fact, I argue, some of those predictions were an easy guess, or independently probable in the light of available evidence; hence, they are no counterexamples to deployment realism, for the no miracles argument wouldn’t apply to them. In other instances, pace Lyon, the prediction was actually false, and could be reinterpreted as true only by interpreting as true also the claim from which it was derived; or again, a false claim was employed in the derivation of a true prediction, but inessentially, the essential role being played by a weaker true claim. But as soon as the paradoxical air of such historical cases is explained away in any of these manners, they cease to represent counterexamples to deployment realism. If, as I suggest, all of them can be dealt with by these strategies, a theoretical claim can still be assumed to be true if it is crucial in deriving an improbable novel prediction. (shrink)

Up until recently social scientists took it for granted that their task was to account for the social world as objectively as possible: they were realists in practice if not always in their methodological sermons. This situation started to change in the 1960s, when a number of antirealist philosophies made inroads into social studies. -/- This paper examines critically the following kinds of antirealism: subjectivism, conventionalism, fictionism, social constructivism, relativism, and hermeneutics. An attempt is made to show that these philosophies (...) are false and are causing serious damage to social studies. -/- Next the subjective interpretation of probability is analyzed as a case of subjectivism. An approach to the subjective perception of justice is sketched as an example of the objective study of subjective experience. -/- Finally, the three main varieties of realism — naive, critical, and scientific — are outlined. It is argued that the scientific attitude involves scientific realism, which is put in practice even by scholars who, like Weber and Simmel, called themselves antirealists. (shrink)

Original research is of course what scientists are expected to do. Therefore the research project is in many ways the unit of science in the making: it is the center of the professional life of the individual scientist and his coworkers. It is also the means towards the culmination of their specific activities: the original publication they hope to contribute to the scientific literature. The scientific project should therefore be of central interest to all the students of science, particularly the (...) philosophers and sociologists of science. We shall focus on the preliminary evaluation of research projects—the specific task of referees—and will emphasize the problem of their scientificity—the chief concern of scientific gatekeepers. In the past such an examination aimed only at protecting the taxpayer from swindlers and incompetent amateurs, such as the inventors of continuous motion artifacts. In recent times a similar issue has resurfaced with regard to some of the most prestigious and most handsomely funded projects, namely work on string theory and many-worlds cosmology. Indeed, some of their faithful have claimed that these theories are so elegant, and so full of high-grade mathematics, that they should be exempted from empirical tests. This claim provoked the spirited rebuttal of the well-known cosmologists Ellis and Silk, which the present paper is intended to reinforce. Indeed, we shall try to show why empirical testability is necessary though insufficient for a piece of work to qualify as scientific. Finally, the present paper may also be regarded as an indirect contribution to the current debate over the reliability of quantitative indicators of scientific worth, such as the h-index of scientific productivity. But we shall touch only tangentially on the sociological, political, and economics of research teams: our focus will be the acquisition of new scientific knowledge. (shrink)