Science provides us with representations of atoms, elementary particles, polymers, populations, genetic trees, economies, rational decisions, aeroplanes, earthquakes, forest fires, irrigation systems, and the world’s climate. It's through these representations that we learn about the world. This entry explores various different accounts of scientific representation, with a particular focus on how scientific models represent their target systems. As philosophers of science are increasingly acknowledging the importance, if not the primacy, of scientific models as representational units of science, it's important to (...) stress that how they represent plays a fundamental role in how we are to answer other questions in the philosophy of science. This entry begins by disentangling ‘the’ problem of scientific representation, before critically evaluating the current options available in the literature. (shrink)

On the face of it ‘deterministic chance’ is an oxymoron: either an event is chancy or deterministic, but not both. Nevertheless, the world is rife with events that seem to be exactly that: chancy and deterministic at once. Simple gambling devices like coins and dice are cases in point. On the one hand they are governed by deterministic laws – the laws of classical mechanics – and hence given the initial condition of, say, a coin toss it is determined whether (...) it will land heads or tails.2 On the other hand, we commonly assign probabilities to the different outcomes a coin toss, and doing so has proven successful in guiding our actions. The same dilemma also emerges in less mundane contexts. Classical statistical mechanics (which is still an important part of modern physics) assigns probabilities to the occurrence of certain events – for instance to the spreading of a gas that is originally confined to the left half of a container – but at the same time assumes that the relevant systems are deterministic. How can this apparent conflict be resolved? (shrink)

Roman Frigg and James Nguyen present a detailed statement and defense of the fiction view of scientific models, according to which they are akin to the characters and places of literary fiction. They argue that while some of the criticisms this view has attracted raise legitimate points, others are myths. In this chapter, they first identify and then rebut the following seven myths: that the fiction view regards products of science as falsehoods; that the fiction view holds that models (...) are data-free; that the fiction view is antithetical to representation; that the fiction view trivializes epistemology; that the fiction view cannot account for the use of mathematics in the modeling; that the fiction view misconstrues the function of models in the scientific process; and that the fiction view stands on the wrong side of politics. As a result, they conclude that the fiction view of models, suitably understood, remains a viable position. (shrink)

Consider a gas confined to the left half of a container. Then remove the wall separating the two parts. The gas will start spreading and soon be evenly distributed over the entire available space. The gas has approached equilibrium. Why does the gas behave in this way? The canonical answer to this question, originally proffered by Boltzmann, is that the system has to be ergodic for the approach to equilibrium to take place. This answer has been criticised on different grounds (...) and is now widely regarded as flawed. In this paper we argue that these criticisms have dismissed Boltzmann’s answer too quickly and that something almost like Boltzmann’s answer is true: the approach to equilibrium takes place if the system is epsilon-ergodic, i.e. ergodic on the entire accessible phase space except for a small region of measure epsilon. We introduce epsilon-ergodicity and argue that relevant systems in statistical mechanics are indeed espsilon-ergodic. (shrink)

Some environmentalists have argued that an effective ecological conscience may be rooted in a perspective that is either anthropocentric or sentiocentric. But, neither seems to have had any substantial effect on the ways in which our species treats nature. In looking to successfully awaken the ecological conscience, the focus should be on extending moral consideration to the land (wherein doing so includes all of the soils, waters, plants, animals, and the collectivity of which these things comprise) by means of coming (...) to love the land. Coming to love the land involves coming to view the land’s interests as our own—and, conferring upon the land a kind of moral patient-hood. In order to perceive the land’s “subjectivity,” and so, to come to love the land, we must relearn the way to look at the land by viewing its personality through the lens of he or she who can already do so, i.e., the nature writer. (shrink)

Let us begin with a characteristic example. Consider a gas that is confined to the left half of a box. Now we remove the barrier separating the two halves of the box. As a result, the gas quickly disperses, and it continues to do so until it homogeneously fills the entire box. This is illustrated in Figure 1.

The growing academic literature on ‘food sovereignty’ has elaborated a food producer-driven vision of an alternative, more ecological food system rooted in greater democratic control over food production and distribution. Given that the food sovereignty developed with and within producer associations, a rural setting and production-side concerns have overshadowed issues of distribution and urban consumption. Yet, ideal types such as direct marketing, time-intensive food preparation and the ‘family shared meal’ are hard to transcribe into the life realities in many non-rural, (...) non-farming households, and it is unclear, in turn, how such realities can fit into models of food sovereignty. A particular practical and research gap exists in how to engage the overwhelming need for food options served under time constraints and (often) outside of the home or a full-service restaurant. The over-generalized vilification of ‘fast food’ should be replaced by a framework that allows us to distinguish between unhealthy, corporate fast foods and both traditional and emerging alternatives that can serve to extend the tenets of food sovereignty further into food processing, distribution and consumption. This article analyzes existing conceptualizations of fast food, explores fast food historically, and studies how food sovereignty can operationalize its tenets and priorities in situations where fast food is an unquestionable necessity. (shrink)

Purpose. Considers the possibility of establishing the Hospitality Philosophy as an independent field of philosophical knowledge. Theoretical basis. Theoretical basis for this issue is the numerous philosophical researches on the topic of hospitality (anthropological, phenomenological, ethical, social-philosophical etc.) and the analysis of its essence and paradigmatic antinomy in the historicalphilosophical way. Scientific novelty. The article attempts to revitalise the notion of philotechnics (φιλοτεχνία) as 'the art of taking care of the guest's welfare' as a possible basic concept of contemporary philosophy (...) of hospitality, which is able to reflect its nature most concisely, including its utilitarian and extra-utilitarian functions – not only a high service level, but also a “humane” attitude towards the guest. Findings. It has been summarized that modern hospitality as a specific human activity needs its own philosophy, which would comprehensively analyze the concept, study the facets and forms of its manifestations, define the worldview paradigm, form a methodology and be able to lead to an understanding of the goals of hospitality, to orient modern hospitality models to achieve certain and clear quality indicators while respecting historically verified value constants. (shrink)

La presente investigación consiste en el análisis de la obra del escritor y filósofo Fabrice Hadjadj, desde la perspectiva de uno de los conceptos clave en ella: la «carne». La importancia de la carne para entender al hombre es una intuición desarrollada por Hadjadj en contraposición al espiritualismo dominante de la nueva era tecnológica. Nos encontramos en una era post-ideológica que se caracteriza por el dominio de lo tecnológico. Además, otra de las grandes novedades de nuestro tiempo es la conciencia (...) mayoritaria de la posibilidad de extinción de la especie humana. La crisis actual es profunda, antropológica: se trata de la pérdida de sentido de lo «humano». Esta crisis se ve agravada por una visión cada vez más desencarnada del hombre o espiritualista, lo que supone una ruptura antropológica que es promovida por el impacto de las tecnologías en nuestra lógica. Según Hadjadj, es este espiritualismo lo que contribuye más profundamente a diluir lo humano y acelerar la deriva poshumana de los nuevos tiempos. Nuestro trabajo, además de despejar cuál es el sentido de la carne para Hadjadj, así como el porqué de su particular relevancia para la nueva era, muestra algunas de las principales consecuencias de esa ruptura antropológica que promueve el uso de las tecnologías. La finalidad de esta investigación es mostrar cómo una visión antropológica centrada en la carne como la que propone Hadjadj, constituye una poderosa alternativa (si no la única) para resistir a la tentativa de que el espiritualismo tecnológico acabe devorando lo humano. (shrink)

Models are of central importance in many scientific contexts. The roles the MIT bag model of the nucleon, the billiard ball model of a gas, the Bohr model of the atom, the Gaussian-chain model of a polymer, the Lorenz model of the atmosphere, the Lotka- Volterra model of predator-prey interaction, agent-based and evolutionary models of social interaction, or general equilibrium models of markets play in their respective domains are cases in point.

A patient suffering from a severe illness that is entering its terminal stage is forced to develop a coping process. Of all the coping patterns, the religious one stands out as being a psychological resource available to all patients regardless of culture, learning, and any age. Religious coping interacts with other values or practices of society, for example the model of a society that takes care of it's elder members among family or in an institutionalized environment or the way the (...) health system offers or not psychological support for a terminally ill patient. Health care providers should have at least some psychological coping patterns training because not all patterns of religious coping are equally effective, and some have been described as increasing the level of stress or producing other negative psychological effects on the patient. This article aims to review the complex models of religious coping that are unanimously accepted in psychooncology, arguments in favor of religious coping, the types of patients that use this model, ethical dilemmas that could be reinterpreted using religious arguments. Finally, we will also discuss the need of Romanian patients to embrace a religious coping in case of an incurable illness, and also the support that they can receive from both curative and palliative health care providers.  . (shrink)

У статті висвітлюються різні погляди на поняття справедливості. Зосереджується увага на неоднозначному тлумаченні цієї філософської категорії. Розглянуто процес реалізації принципів справедливості в різні історичні епохи. При цьому враховується характер політичних і суспільних устроїв. Сфокусовано погляд на основні принципи нових підходів до теоретичного осмислення і практичного втілення принципів справедливості на прикладі концепцій Платона, Арістотеля, Джона Ролза.

Review of: Peter Smith, Explaining chaos. Cambridge: Cambridge univeristy Press, 1998. ISBN 0 521 47747 6.

De Neys is right to criticize the exclusivity assumption in dual-process theories, but he misses the original sin underlying this assumption, which his working model continues to share. Conflict paradigms, in which experimenters measure how one cognitive process interferes (or does not interfere) with another, license few inferences about how the interfered-with process works on its own.

In recent publications we have drawn attention to the fact that if the dynamics of a model is structurally unstable, then the presence of structural model error places in-principle limits on the model’s ability to generate decision-relevant probability forecasts. Writing with a varying array of co-authors, Eric Winsberg has now produced at least four publications in which he dismisses our points as unfounded; the most recent of these appeared in this journal. In this paper we respond to the arguments of (...) Winsberg and his co-workers, and we point out that their criticisms fail. We take this as an opportunity to restate and explain our arguments, and to point to fruitful directions for future research. (shrink)

From a historical perspective the reflection of opposites is a creative strategy of coping with infinite regress. The lawfulness of law is only a particular version of the general paradox that occurs when a distinction is applied to itself. Common legal techniques of avoiding the paradox of self-reference amount to evacuating it or to building hierarchies. Modern strategies futurize the problem under the paradigms of autonomy and procedurality. With increasing complexity legal self-descriptions all the more cling to the ideals of (...) completeness, coherence, and accurate generalisation. However, one can retrace antinomical structures: The legal system is at the same time incomplete, caught in multiple binds, and inadequate from case to case due to highly selective concepts. The law keeps producing conflicts that again must be legally resolved. (shrink)

Consider the claim: Our actions are free if and only if we could have done otherwise; or the claim, We are essentially mental substances because we can exist without our bodies. Both of these claims, along with countless others, employ a notion of possibility. If this notion is to have a place in philosophy, we must be able to justify our modal claims. We need an epistemology of possibility. It is often assumed that the imagination is the key here. The (...) assumption is this; if I can imagine that a proposition is the case, then p is possible. Suppose I am wondering whether Kant Critique could float above my desk; if I can imagine this book floating, then it is possible. But is the imagination a guide to the modal status of propositions? ;To answer this question we must first consider what it is to imagine a proposition. We can distinguish five main methods of imagining: to imagine is to form a mental image, to evoke experiences, to suppose, to pretend, or it is to tell a story. Can any of these methods provide us with a guide to possibility? I contend that only the last two methods are up to this task insofar as they provide us with evidence of p's modal status. Moreover, how good that evidence is depends on our ability to satisfy the requirements of completeness, coherence, and accuracy. Finally, I argue that we will have the best evidence for the possibility of p, if we combine these two methods. For by combining our evoked experiences with a story, we will generate experiences of p, the best possible explanation of a world in which p is true, and an account of p's truth that complements this explanation. Thus, given explanationist standards, we will have what we need to be justified in concluding that p is possible. (shrink)