Perhaps the most influential historian of science of the last century, Alexandre Koyré, famously argued that the icon of modern science, Galileo Galilei, was a Platonist who had hardly performed experiments. Koyré has been followed by other historians and philosophers of science. In addition, it is not difficult to find examples of Platonists in contemporary science, in particular in the physical sciences. A famous example is the icon of twenty century physics, Albert Einstein. This paper addresses two questions related (...) to the Platonism of modern physical science. The first is: How is Galileo’s Platonism compatible with the fact that he did perform experiments? The solution to this apparent paradox can be found in Plato’s late dialogue Timaeus. In the dialogue the world has been created by a divine craftsman according to an original plan. The task of the scientist is not primarily to describe the material world, but to reconstruct the original plan. This view has later been known as “God’s Eye View”. The second question is: If a God’s Eye View is unattainable, how is it possible to give a “rational reconstruction” of Galileo’s Platonism? The key-word is idealisation. It is further argued that idealisation is intimately related to technology. Technology is required to realize ideal experimental conditions, and the results are in its turn implemented in technology. The implication is that the quest for unity in science, based on physics as the basic science, should be replaced by the recognition of the diversity of the sciences. (shrink)

상대성 이론에 대한 라이헨바흐의 철학적 분석을 대표하는 저술은 그의 1924년 저서 『상대성 이론의 공리화』이다. 이 책은 상대성 이론에서 제시된 시공간에 대한 일 종의 ‘합리적 재구성(rational reconstruction)’을 담고 있으며, 그는 이러한 재구 성을 통해 상대성 이론이 제시한 중요한 철학적 문제인 ‘시공간의 객관성’ 문제를 해 명하고자 했다. 우선 나는 논문 2장에서 라이헨바흐의 구성적 공리체계 속 공리와 정 의 및 단순성의 의미에 대해 논함으로써 이 체계가 갖는 ‘경험적 특성’을 밝힌다. 논문 3장에서 나는 ‘일치(coincidence)’에 대한 라이헨바흐의 해명 및 그가 구성적 공리체 계를 통해 (...) 재구성한 상대론적 시공간의 주요 내용을 기술한다. 이상의 논의를 통해 나는 라이헨바흐가 합리적 재구성을 통한 철학적 해명 과정에서 시공간의 물리적 객 관성에 관해 이론의 창시자였던 아인슈타인과는 다른 철학적 결론에 이르렀음을 보일 것이다. 논문 4장에서 나는 라이헨바흐의 구성적 공리화가 갖는 의의를 평가했던 주 요 철학적 논자들의 입장을 검토한다. 그중에서도 특히 나는 신칸트주의적 관점에서 라이헨바흐의 구성적 공리체계가 갖는 의의를 비판한 철학자 토머스 리크먼의 입장을 검토한 후, 이와 같은 리크먼의 부정적인 평가가 라이헨바흐의 구성적 공리체계에 대 한 일종의 오해에서 비롯되었음을 보인다. 리크먼의 주장과 달리 라이헨바흐는 강체 막대와 시계가 갖는 구조적 복잡성을 최소화하기 위해 빛 공리들과 물질 공리들을 분 리하였으며, 그는 물질 공리들과 계량적 공리들이 더 이상 적용되지 않는 일반 상대성 이론에 이르러서도 빛 신호로 구성된 위상적 공리들은 여전히 적용됨으로써 시공 간의 객관성이 유지됨을 보이고자 했다. 논문의 결론에서 나는 물리학자와 철학자의 이와 같은 의견 차이가 이후 물리적 기하학의 경험적 결정 가능성에 대한 아인슈타인 -라이헨바흐 논쟁으로 이어졌음을 지적하며 논의를 끝맺는다. (shrink)

Donald Green and Ian Shapiro discover a curious gulf between the prestige of rational choice approaches and the dearth of solid empirical findings. But we can understand neither the prestige of rational choice theory nor its pathologies unless we see it as a variant of the equilibrium analysis found in physics, economics, and biology. Only such a global perspective on rational choice theory will reveal its core assumptions and the likely shape of its future in political (...) science. In this light, the growing dominance of rational choice theory in political science is all but inevitable and its pathologies are all but inescapable. (shrink)

It is a platitude that thought implies a subject and an object: the subject is the thinker, or the thinking mind, and the object is that which is thought about. This is probably the most elementary fact of consciousness, comprehensible alike to the child, the unreflecting man of affairs, and the philosopher, and it forms the natural startingpoint for philosophy. And indeed, one of the great divisions between philosophical systems is that which separates subjectivism on one hand from objectivism on (...) the other. Subjectivism professes to interpret the object in terms of the subject, and objectivism professes to interpret the subject in terms of the object. (shrink)

In this book Philip Clayton defends the rationality of religious explanations by exploring the parallels between explanatory effects in the sciences and the explanations offered by religious believers, students of religion, and theologians. Clayton begins by surveying the types of religious explanation, offering a synopsis of the most significant competing positions. He then critically examines recent important developments in the philosophy of science regarding the nature of scientific explanations—including the work of Popper, Hempel, Kuhn, and Lakatos in the natural sciences (...) and Habermas, Weber, and Schütz in the social sciences. Clayton outlines the process of rational evaluation in these disciplines, defining the explanatory quest as the attempt to make sense of or bring coherence into subjective and intersubjective worlds. He briefly discusses explanations in philosophy and then turns to the explanatory role of individual religious experience, drawing on a coherence theory of meaning and on the conclusions from his discussion of science. Based on his defense of the doubting or “secular” believer, he concludes by advocating a model of theology in which questions about the truth of a religious tradition are intrinsic to its theology. “A valuable exposition of the thesis that the explanatory work of theology possesses formal similarities with that of the physical sciences, the social sciences, and philosophy. Clayton exhibits an impressive command of a broad area of scholarship, and his reflections are balanced and carefully argued.” –Michael J. Buckley, S.J., professor of religion at the Jesuit Theological Seminary and author of _At the Origins of Modern Atheism_ “I know of no philosopher writing today who has dealt in as informed and thoughtful a way with the broad subject of this book. Clayton guides the reader through important discussions with ease, illuminating the path all along the way.” –Josiah B. Gould, professor of philosophy at the State University of New York, Albany. (shrink)

Vaccine mandates are coercive because they impose penalties, such as fines, criminal sanctions, or job loss. However, they are not as coercive as physical force. Mandates c...

We want to consider anew the question, which is recurrent along the history of philosophy, of the relationship between rationality and mathematics, by inquiring to which extent the structuration of rationality, which ensures the unity of its function under a variety of forms, could be considered as homeomorphic with that of mathematical thought, taken in its movement and made concrete in its theories. This idea, which is as old as philosophy itself, although it has not been dominant, has still been (...) present to some degree in the thought of modern science, in Descartes as well as in Kant, Poincaré or Einstein. It has been often harshly questioned, notably in the contemporaneous period, due to the failure of the logistic programme, as well as to the variety of “empirical” knowledges, and, in a general way, to the character of knowledges that show them as transitory, evolutive and mind-built. However, the analysis of scientific thought through its inventive and creative processes leads to characterize this thought as a type of rational form whose configurations can be detailed rather precisely. In this work we shall propose, first, a quick sketch of some philosophical requirements for such a research programme, among which the need for an harmonization, and even a conciliation, between the notions of rational, of intuitive grasp and of creative thought. Then we shall examine some processes of creative scientific thought bearing on the knowledge and the understanding of the world, distinct from mathematics although keeping tight relations with them. Contemporary physical theories are privileged witnesses in this respect, for in them the rational thought of phenomena makes an intrinsic use of mathematical thought, which contributes to the structuration of the formers and to the expression of their concepts. The General Theory of Relativity and the Quantum Theory are exemplar to this, as they directly reveal what can be called the “drag of physical thought par the mathematical form”, which makes possible to overcome the limitations of the physical knowledge previously adquired. This process is tightly related to the modalities and to the stucture of the rational thought underlying it. This is what we would like to show. (shrink)

The introduction of the concept of the field of rationality and its correlates (the field of potentiality and the formal field) by Józef Życiński and Michał (Michael) Heller opened up space for the philosophical explanation of the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in capturing regularities built into the physical reality. The presented study is a response to the clear incentive of these authors towards the development of the understanding and applicability of these concepts. It is argued that identifying symmetries within the (...) field of rationality not only helps to articulate the fundamental role of symmetries in physics but also provides a better grasp on the issue of potentialities for the emergence of complexity in the Universe. Additionally, some global properties of this field can be more deeply comprehended. By indicating the drawbacks and limitations of this approach, perspectives for further inquiry into the meaning and usefulness are suggested. (shrink)

The book is drawn from the Tarner lectures, delivered in Cambridge in 1993. It is concerned with the ultimate nature of reality, and how this is revealed by modern physical theories such as relativity and quantum theory. The objectivity and rationality of science are defended against the views of relativists and social constructionists. It is claimed that modern physics gives us a tentative and fallible, but nevertheless rational, approach to the nature of physical reality. The role of subjectivity (...) in science is examined in the fields of relativity theory, statistical mechanics and quantum theory, and recent claims of an essential role for human consciousness in physics is rejected. Prospects for a 'Theory of Everything' are considered, and the related question of how to assess scientific progress is carefully examined. (shrink)

This opinion revolves around the discussion of matters that are beyond the realm of space-time. For instance, it discusses parallel universes, wormholes, and extrasensory perception or psi. Rationality is operationally defined. The opinion throws light on the manner in which the lines of rationality become unclear when it takes into consideration extrasensory phenomena. In addition, it contends that psychiatric disorders such as Schizophrenia are the result of contact from different parallel universes. Hence, Schizophrenia according to this paper is not a (...) disorder by itself but rather just a communication of messages from an alternate reality. Also, another psychological disorder called Dissociative Identity Disorder is also the result of different souls in one person or communication from different souls from parallel universes. Whether atoms are conscious or not is debatable but can be a possibility due to their eerie and unpredictable nature. The concept of parallel universes introduces a paradoxical manner of thinking, which is dealt with in the paper. The paper concerns itself with issues in quantum physics, clubbed with extrasensory perception in parapsychology. It subtly emphasizes rational thinking in the debate about space-time and beyond. Rationality as a concept is dealt with from different angles. Finally, quantum cognition is used to explain an all too familiar, pervasive yet inexplicable domain of knowledge, which is human behaviour. (shrink)

In this paper, it is argued that metaphysics, conceived as an inquiry into the ultimate nature of mind-independent reality, is a rationally indispensable intellectual discipline, with the a priori science of formal ontology at its heart. It is maintained that formal ontology, properly understood, is not a mere exercise in conceptual analysis, because its primary objective is a normative one, being nothing less than the attempt to grasp adequately the essences of things, both actual and possible, with a view to (...) understanding as far as we can the fundamental structure of reality as a whole. Accordingly, it is urged, the deliverances of formal ontology have a modal and epistemic status akin to those of other a priori sciences, such as mathematics and logic, rather than constituting rivals to the claims of the empirical sciences, such as physics. (shrink)

Among the great ironies of quantum mechanics is not only that its conceptual foundations seem strange even to the physicists who use it, but that philosophers have largely ignored it. Here, Bernard d'Espagnat argues that quantum physics--by casting doubts on once hallowed concepts such as space, material objects, and causality-demands serious reconsideration of most of traditional philosophy. On Physics and Philosophy is an accessible, mathematics-free reflection on the philosophical meaning of the quantum revolution, by one of the world's (...) leading authorities on the subject. D'Espagnat presents an objective account of the main guiding principles of contemporary physics-in particular, quantum mechanics-followed by a look at just what consequences these should imply for philosophical thinking. The author begins by describing recent discoveries in quantum physics such as nonseparability, and explicating the significance of contemporary developments such as decoherence. Then he proceeds to set various philosophical theories of knowledge--such as materialism, realism, Kantism, and neo-Kantism--against the conceptual problems quantum theory raises. His overall conclusion is that while the physical implications of quantum theory suggest that scientific knowledge will never truly describe mind-independent reality, the notion of such an ultimate reality--one we can never access directly or rationally and which he calls "veiled reality"--remains conceptually necessary nonetheless. (shrink)

The unusual applicability of mathematics to the description of the physical reality still remains a major investigative task for philosophers, physicists, mathematicians and cognitive scientists. The presented article offers a critical analysis of the philosophical motivations and development of a major attempt to resolve this task put forward by two prominent Polish philosophers: Józef Życiński and Michał Heller. In order to explain this particular property of mathematics Życiński has first introduced the concept of the field of rationality together with the (...) field of potentiality to be followed by Heller’s formal field and the field of categories. It turns out that these concepts are fully intelligible once located within philosophical stances on the relations between mathematics and physical reality. It will be argued that in order to achieve more extended conceptual clarification of the precise meaning of the field of rationality, further advancements in the understanding of the nature of the human mind are required. (shrink)

The basic task of the essay is to exhibit science as a rational enterprise. I argue that in order to do this we need to change quite fundamentally our whole conception of science. Today it is rather generally taken for granted that a precondition for science to be rational is that in science we do not make substantial assumptions about the world, or about the phenomena we are investigating, which are held permanently immune from empirical appraisal. According to (...) this standard view, science is rational precisely because science does not make a priori metaphysical presuppositions about the world forever preserved from possible empirical refutation. It is of course accepted that an individual scientist, developing a new theory, may well be influenced by his own metaphysical presuppositions. In addition, it is acknowledged that a successful scientific theory, within the context of a particular research program, may be protected for a while from refutation, thus acquiring a kind of temporary metaphysical status, as long as the program continues to be empirically progressive. All such views unite, however, in maintaining that science cannot make permanent metaphysical presuppositions, held permanently immune from objective empirical evaluation. According to this standard view, the rationality of science arises, not from the way in which new theories are discovered, but rather from the way in which already formulated theories are appraised in the light of empirical considerations. And the fundamental problem of the rationality of science--the Humean problem of induction--concerns precisely the crucial issue of the rationality of accepting theories in the light of evidence. In this essay I argue that this widely accepted standard conception of science must be completely rejected if we are to see science as a rational enterprise. In order to assess the rationality of accepting a theory in the light of evidence it is essential to consider the ultimate aims of science. This is because adopting different aims for science will lead us, quite rationally, to accept different theories in the light of evidence. I argue that a basic aim of science is to explain. At the outset science simply presupposes, in a completely a priori fashion, that explanations can be found, that the world is ultimately intelligible or simple. In other words, science simply presupposes in an a priori way the metaphysical thesis that the world is intelligible, and then seeks to convert this presupposed metaphysical theory into a testable scientific theory. Scientific theories are only accepted insofar as they promise to help us realize this fundamental aim. At once a crucial problem arises. If scientific theories are only accepted insofar as they promise to lead us towards articulating a presupposed metaphysical theory, it is clearly essential that we can choose rationally, in an a priori way, between all the very different possible metaphysical theories that can be thought up, all the very different ways in which the universe might ultimately be intelligible. For holding different aims, accepting different metaphysical theories conceived of as blueprints for future scientific theories will, quite rationally, lead us to accept different scientific theories. Thus it is only if we can choose rationally between conflicting metaphysical blueprints for future scientific theories that we will be in a position to appraise rationally the acceptability of our present day scientific theories. We thus face the crucial problem: How can we choose rationally between conflicting possible aims for science, conflicting metaphysical blueprints for future scientific theories? It is only if we can solve this fundamental problem concerning the aims of science that we can be in a position to appraise rationally the acceptability of existing scientific theories. There is a further point here. If we could choose rationally between rival aims, rival metaphysical blueprints for future scientific theories, then we would in effect have a rational method for the discovery of new scientific theories! Thus we reach the result: there is only a rational method for the appraisal of existing scientific theories if there is a rational method of discovery. I shall argue that the aim-oriented theory of scientific inquiry to be advocated here succeeds in exhibiting science as a rational enterprise in that it succeeds in providing a rational procedure for choosing between rival metaphysical blueprints: it thus provides a rational, if fallible, method of discovery, and a rational method for the appraisal of existing scientific theories--thus resolving the Humean problem. In Part I of the essay I argue that the orthodox conception of science fails to exhibit science as a rational enterprise because it fails to solve the Humean problem of induction. The presuppositional view advocated here does however succeed in resolving the Humean problem. In Part II of the essay I spell out the new aim-oriented theory of scientific method that becomes inevitable once we accept the basic presuppositional viewpoint. I argue that this new aim oriented conception of scientific method is essentially a rational method of scientific discovery, and that the theory has important implications for scientific practice. (shrink)

Ecological approach gives new meaning to the original concept of economic rationality that was created by representatives of the Ukrainian school of physical economy – Serhii Podolinskyi (1850-1891), Volodymyr Vernadskyi (1863-1945) and Mykola Rudenko (1920-2004). It propose a theory of the sustainable development of mankind, which included an original version of thermodynamics, in which labor energy is the result of the transformation of solar energy. Humanity is gradually taking control of the changes in the balance of energy exchange between humanity (...) and the rest of nature, and physical economics is a tool for discovering the limits of such control. The cycles of global energy transformation include cosmic, biological, social and spiritual stages, and the economy acts as the material basis and the place of concentration of these transformations. The threat of technogenic self-destruction of humanity actualizes the need to establish a dynamic and harmonious self-reproduction by humanity of these cycles. (shrink)

How should the “physical” in “physicalism” be understood? I here set out systematic criteria of adequacy, propose an account, and show how the account meets those criteria. The criteria of adequacy focus on the idea of rational management: to vindicate philosophical practice, the account must make it plausible that we can assess various questions about physicalism. The account on offer is dubbed the “Ideal Naturalist Physics” account, according to which the physical is that which appears in an ideal (...) theory that both meets the explanatory goals of physics and is naturalist in a sense to be explained. The combination of these two provides a satisfying account of the physical that meets the criteria of adequacy and can be used to predict puzzle cases as well. (shrink)

Most recently, what I have been working on in connection with it is the larger picture of the role of the editor in professional communication. Since the basic context for this is not philosophical communication in particular but rather scientific communication in general—ultimately professional communication in general—I've been exchanging some ideas with one of the main editors for the American Physical Society, which is the major professional society for physicists, and it has been most helpful in expanding my understanding of (...) the editorial role, which is clearly the single most important factor in the publication system at this point. I don't get into that in what follows below, but the basic frame for the discussion is adjusted to make that a part of what is considered. (shrink)

Book notice Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-2 DOI 10.1007/s11016-011-9589-2 Authors Vassilis Sakellariou, Department of Philosophy and History of Science, University of Athens, University Campus, Athens, 15771 Greece Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.

En la epistemología actual, hay dos actitudes opuestas en relación con las ciencias empíricas.Por una parte, aparecen como herramienta esencial para el avance del conocimiento. Por otro lado, existe duda sobre las bases metafísicas y epistemológicas de esa confianza en el saber científico, lo cual ha llevado a la ciencia por caminos de escepticismo y pragmatismo. Este trabajo se propone aportar filosóficamente a la racionalidad y al estatuto ontológico de la física, teniendo como punto de partida algunas obras del filósofo (...) de la ciencia Evandro Agazzi. El artículo que aquí se presenta introduce al pensamiento de Agazzi y a asuntos nucleares de su epistemología. Posteriormente, define los conceptos de “rigor” y “objetividad” según los entiende Agazzi,finalmente, establece criterios de rigor y objetividad para la física, mostrando de qué manera se verifican en dos experimentos clásicos. Con base en estas ideas, se demuestra que la física, como ciencia que es, cuenta con criterios de rigor y objetividad que le permiten un alcance efectivo de lo real, respondiendo así al desafío formalista y pragmatista. Así pues, el artículo no se agota en una descripción del pensamiento de Agazzi, sino que aplica sus ideas al ámbito concreto de la física, explicitando ideas que no han sido lo suficientemente explicitadas por el filósofo italiano. El artículo comienza introduciendo al pensamiento de Agazzi y a asuntos nucleares de su epistemología. Posteriormente, define los conceptos de rigor y objetividad según los entiende Agazzi, y, finalmente, establece criterios de rigor y objetividad para la física, mostrando de qué manera se verifican en dos experimentos clásicos. Con base en estas ideas, se demuestra que la física, como ciencia que es, cuenta con criterios de rigor y objetividad que le permiten un alcance efectivo de lo real, respondiendo así al desafío formalista y pragmatista. Así pues, el artículo no se agota en una descripción del pensamiento de Agazzi, sino que aplicará sus ideas al ámbito concreto de la física, explicitando ideas que no han sido lo suficientemente explicitadas por el filósofo italiano. (shrink)

Human consciousness and reasoning summarize all physical data into laws and create the mathematical theories that lead to predictions. However, the human element that creates the theories is totally absent from the laws and theories themselves. Accordingly, human consciousness and rationality are outside the bounds of science since they cannot be detected by purely physical devices and can only be “detected” by the self in humans. One wonders if notions of information, function, and purpose, can provide explanations of such nonphysical (...) aspects of creation. (shrink)

The discipline area of physical education has historically struggled for legitimacy, sometimes being seen as a non-serious pursuit in educational terms compared to other subjects within the school curriculum. This book represents the first attempt in nearly 30 years to offer a coherent philosophical defence and conceptualisation of physical education and sport as subjects of educational value, and to provide a philosophically sound justification for their inclusion in the curriculum. The book argues that rather than relegating the body to ‘un-thinking’ (...) learning, a person’s essential being is not confined to their rationality but involves an embodied dimension. It traces the changing conceptions of the body, in philosophy and theology, that have influenced our understanding of physical education and sport, and investigates the important role that embodiment and movement play in learning about, through and in physical education. Physical education is defended as a vital and necessary part of education because the whole person goes to school, not just the mind, but the thinking, feeling and acting facets of a person. It is argued that physical education has the potential to provide a multitude of experiences and opportunities for students’ to become aware of their embodiment, explore alternative modes of awareness and to develop insights into and new modes of being not available elsewhere in the curriculum, and to influence moral character through the support of a moral community that is committed to that practice. Representing a sophisticated and spirited defence of the educational significance and philosophical value of physical education and sport, this book will be fascinating reading for any advanced student or researcher with an interest in physical education, the philosophy of sport, or the philosophy of education. (shrink)

Examples from Archimedes, Galileo, Newton, Einstein, and others suggest that fundamental laws of physics were—or, at least, could have been—discovered by experiments performed not in the physical world but only in the mind. Although problematic for a strict empiricist, the evolutionary emergence in humans of deeply internalized implicit knowledge of abstract principles of transformation and symmetry may have been crucial for humankind's step to rationality—including the discovery of universal principles of mathematics, physics, ethics, and an account of free (...) will that is compatible with determinism. (shrink)

This chapter provides a few approaches aiming to review the interpretation of matter, nature and the universe by trying to reframe the physical sciences in the context that has taken shape: arrangement, communication and information. In relation to what has just been presented, action regards more a mechanical type of physics with forces, arrangement, movements and orientations. Rational mechanics is the result. The existence of the two types of physics is associated with two great scientists. First of (...) all, Galileo, who established the principle of relativity and the addition of velocities by perfecting mathematical physics. Second, Planck, who elaborated the famous formula “E = hv” to account for blackbody radiation. If the distinction between a physics of communication and a physics of arrangement is applicable, then it must be validated in quantum theory and the description of the universe. Classical mechanics and relativistic cosmology describe arrangements of matter. Quantum physics describes communications. (shrink)

Donald Davidson's argument for the nonlawlike nature of psycho-physical generalizations is discussed and refuted. It is shown that his appeals to the rational and holistic character of intentional description do not support his conclusion of anomalism. An alternative methodological role is suggested for the concept of rationality in application to current empirical research in cognitive psychology.

It is demonstrated that Maxwellian electrodynamics was created as a result of the old pre-Maxwellian programmes’s reconciliation: the electrodynamics of Ampère–Weber, the wave theory of Young–Fresnel and Faraday’s programme. Maxwell’s programme finally superseded the Ampère–Weber one because it assimilated the ideas of the Ampère–Weber programme, as well as the presuppositions of the programmes of Young–Fresnel and Faraday. Maxwell’s victory became possible because the core of Maxwell’s unification strategy was formed by Kantian epistemology. Maxwell put forward as a basic synthetic principle (...) an idea that radically differed from that of rival approaches by its open, flexible and contra-ontological character. “Action at a distance”, “incompressible fluid”, “molecular vortices” were contrived analogies for Maxwell, capable only of directing the researcher to the “right” mathematical relations Kantian epistemology subsequently enabled Helmholtz and Hertz to arrive at a version of Maxwell’s theory that served as a heuristical basis for the discovery of radio waves. Finally, though neither of Einstein’s relativistic ideas came directly from Kant, they were made possible by the Kantian worldview that had permeated Einstein’s thinking. The Maxwellian revolution can be described in terms of Habermas’s communicative rationality encouraging the establishment of mutual understanding between the various scientific communities. Maxwell’s programme constituted a progressive step in respect to its rivals because it constituted a basis of communication and interpenetration between the main paradigms of 19th century physics. (shrink)

The Confucian idea of “ ming 命 (destiny)” holds that in the course and culmination of human life, there exists some objective certainty that is both transcendent and beyond human control. This is a concept of ultimate concern at the transcendental theoretical level in Confucianism. During its historical development, Confucianism has constantly offered humanist interpretations of the idea of “destiny”, thinking that the transcendence of “destiny” lies inherently within the qi endowment and virtues of human beings, that the certainty of (...) “destiny” is in essence contingency at the beginning of life and linear irreversibility towards its end, and that to live in light of ethics and physical rules — having a “commitment to human affairs” — means putting “destiny” into practice. As all these facts show, the Confucian ultimate concern regarding human life is full of rational awareness. (shrink)

The book is drawn from the Tarner lectures, delivered in Cambridge in 1993. It is concerned with the ultimate nature of reality, and how this is revealed by modern physical theories such as relativity and quantum theory. The objectivity and rationality of science are defended against the views of relativists and social constructionists. It is claimed that modern physics gives us a tentative and fallible, but nevertheless rational, approach to the nature of physical reality. The role of subjectivity (...) in science is examined in the fields of relativity theory, statistical mechanics and quantum theory, and recent claims of an essential role for human consciousness in physics are rejected. Prospects for a 'Theory of Everything' are considered, and the related question of how to assess scientific progress is carefully examined. (shrink)

Our present knowledge in the field of dynamical systems, information theory, probability theory and other similar domains indicates that the human brain is a complex dynamical system working in a strong chaotic regime in which random processes play important roles. In this environment our mental life develops. To choose a logically ordered sequence from a random or almost random stream of thoughts is a difficult and energy consuming task. The only domain in which we are able to do this with (...) a full success is mathematics. Leibniz’s life ambition was to extend this success, with the help of what he called _characteristica universalis_, to other areas of human activity. The belief that this is possible lies at the basis of Leibniz’s rationalist system. Reasoning within his system, Leibniz claimed that also fundamental laws of physics can be deduced from the “first principles”. Just as linguistic or conceptual units are at the basis of the _charactersistica universalis_, his monads are responsible for physical activity of material bodies. When this rationalistic strategy is applied to the philosophy of space and time, it leads to their radically relational conception. Leibniz’s rationalistic approach to philosophy and science arouses out sympathy but it was Newton’s mathematical-empirical method that turned out to be effective in human endeavour to understand the functioning of the physical world. Successes of the Newtonian method compel us to revise our concept of rationality. (shrink)

If mental anomalism is to be interpreted as a thesisunique to psychology, the anomalousness must begrounded in some feature unique to the mental,presumably its rational nature. While the ground forsuch arguments from normativity has been notoriouslyslippery terrain, there are two recently influentialstrategies which make the argument precise. The firstis to deny the possibility of psychophysical bridgelaws because of the different constitutive essences ofmental and physical laws, and the second is to arguethat mental anomalism follows from the uncodifiabilityof rationality. In (...) this paper I argue that bothstrategies fail – the latter because it conflates primafacie and all things considered rationality and theformer because it rests on a false premise, theprinciple of the rational character of belief. Idistinguish four different formulations of thisprinciple and argue that those formulations which areplausible cannot support the argument for mentalanomalism. (shrink)

This paper concerns the rational reconstruction of physical theories initially advanced by F. P. Ramsey and later elaborated by Rudolf Carnap. The Carnap–Ramsey reconstruction of theoretical knowledge is a natural development of classical empiricist ideas, one that is informed by Russell's philosophical logic and his theories of propositional understanding and knowledge of matter ; as such, it is not merely a schematic representation of the notion of an empirical theory, but the backbone of a general account of our knowledge (...) of the physical world. Carnap–Ramsey is an illuminating approach to epistemological problems that remain with us, one whose difficulties are shared by accounts that have sought to replace it. 1 Introduction 2 Russell's theory of propositional understanding 3 Ramsey's primary and secondary systems 4 Carnap's reconstruction of the language of science and an observation of Newman 5 Extension of the foregoing to constructive empiricism 6 Putnam's model-theoretic argument and the semantic view of theories 7 The problem clarified and resolved. (shrink)

According to logical positivism, so the story goes, metaphysical questions are meaningless, since they do not admit of empirical confirmation or refutation. However, the logical positivists did not in fact reject as meaningless all questions about for example, the structure of space and time. Rather, key figures such as Reichenbach and Schlick believed that scientific theories often presupposed a conceptual framework that was not itself empirically testable, but which was required for the theory as a whole to be empirically testable. (...) For example, the theory of Special Relativity relies upon the simultaneity convention introduced by Einstein that assumes that the one-way speed of light is the same in all directions of space. Hence, the logical positivists accepted an a priori component to physical theories. However, they denied that this a priori component is necessarily true. Whereas for Kant, metaphysics is the a priori science of the necessary structure of rational thought about reality , the logical positivists were forced by the history of science to accept that the a priori structure of theories could change. Hence, they defended a notion of what Michael Friedman calls the ‘relativised’ or the ‘constitutive’ a priori. Carnap and Reichenbach held that such an a priori framework was conventional, whereas Schlick seems to have been more of a realist and held that the overall relative simplicity of different theories could count as evidence for their truth, notwithstanding the fact that some parts of them are not directly testable. All this is part of the story of how the verification principle came to be abandoned, and how logical positivism transmuted into logical empiricism. (shrink)

This book provides a new argument for the tensed theory of time and emergentism about the self. This argument derives in part from theories which establish our nature as rational and emotional beings whose behavior is responsive to reasons which are facts. It is argued that there must be reasons, hence facts, that can only be captured by tensed and/or first-personal language if our behavior is to be by and large rational and appropriate. This establishes the tensed theory (...) of time and emergentism or dualism about the self, given the physical body can plausibly be fully described non-first-personally. In the course of this discussion the book also clarifies and defends a notion of fact and responds to McTaggart’s paradox and Wittgenstein’s private language argument. (shrink)

The emergence of economic inequality has often been linked to individual differences in mental or physical capacities. By means of an agent-based simulation this paper shows that neither of these is a necessary condition. Rather, inequality can arise from iterated interactions of fully rational agents. This bears consequences for our understanding of both inequality and rationality. In a setting of iterated bargaining games, we claim that expected utility maximizing agents perform suboptimally in comparison with other strategies. The reason for (...) this lies in complex feedback effects between an agents’ action and the quality of beliefs used to calculate expected utility. Consequentially, we argue that the standard notion of rationality as maximizing expected utility is insufficient, even for certain standard cases of economic interaction. (shrink)

This book discusses the basic foundations of theoretical biology. Contrary to the objects of theoretical physics, the biological object contains a kind of ontological duality and refers to a fundamental wholeness of a living system. The rational interpretation of wholeness is considered by the author as a true basis for fundamental principles of development of theoretical biology and for understanding its link to physics, to psychology, and to semiotics. The rational holistic approach in application to theoretical (...) biology can be substantiated through the clarification of internal logic of organization and description of biological systems. This logic will provide an understanding of the place of life in the Universe. The main goal of this book is to introduce the view that in the potentially infinite system of human knowledge, a proper clarification of the place of Man in the Universe is possible only via understanding of the phenomenon of life. (Imprint: Nova Biomedical). (shrink)

The current notions of bounded rationality in economics share distinctive features with Simon’s original notion of bounded rationality, which still influences the theoretical and experimental research in the fields of choice, judgment, decision making, problem solving, and social cognition. All these notions of bounded rationality are in fact equally rooted in the information-processing approach to human cognition, expressing the view that reasoning is disembodied and that it can be reduced to the processing of abstract symbolic representations of the environment. This (...) is in contrast with the last three-decade advancements in cognitive psychology, where a new view on human cognition has emerged under the general label of ‘embodied cognition’, demonstrating that cognition and reasoning are grounded in the morphological traits of the human body and the sensory-motor system. In this paper we argue that embodied cognition might reform the current notions of bounded rationality and we propose a number of arguments devoted to outline a novel program of research under the label of ‘embodied rationality’: reasoning is situated as it arises from the ongoing interaction between the subject and the environment; reasoning, not being exclusively a mental phenomenon, constitutively relies on the physical resources provided by the environment; the sensory-motor system provides the building blocks for abstract reasoning, automatic thinking is rooted in the evolutionary coupling between the morphological traits of the human body and the environment. (shrink)

Suicide prevention is a National Health Service priority in the United Kingdom. People with mental illness are seen to represent one of the most vulnerable groups for suicide and recent British Government policy has focused on prevention and management of perceived risk. This approach to suicide prevention is constructed under a biomedical model of psychiatry, which maintains that suicidal persons suffer from some form of disease or irrational drive towards self-destruction. Many react to the idea of self-inflicted death with instinctive (...) revulsion, which has prevented serious discussion of the concept of rational suicide, particularly in relation to those with schizophrenia. The idea that there may be circumstances in which suicide can be viewed as rational is discussed within the biomedical approach to ethics and wider literature primarily in relation to physical disease, terminal states and chronic pain. It is not deemed a viable choice for those who are considered ‘non-autonomous’ due to the controlling forces of mental illness. I propose that suicide is not a consequence of mental illness per se, and that it may be seen as a rational response to a realistic perspective on the course and consequences of living with schizophrenia. The denial of dialogue about the validity of suicidal ideation for people with schizophrenia has led to negative consequences for people with serious mental illness in terms of justice and recognition of person-hood. (shrink)

In this paper, I will argue that a prominent theory of rationality could ground an argument for the existence of a self. Specifically, a self that is only captured in first- personal beliefs, and which is hence distinct from the physical body, in so far as the latter can be captured in third-personal beliefs. First-personal beliefs are beliefs characteristically expressed with first-personal utterances. Perry has argued that first- personal beliefs are necessary for certain actions. On closer examination, the appropriate conclusion (...) of Perry's arguments is that first-personal beliefs are necessary for rational actions. If one adopts a popular view of rationality according to which it consists in the coherence of one's attitudes, one can give first-personal beliefs a unique role in rationality without giving them a unique content. However, recently it has been argued that rationality consists in responding appropriately to the world. According to this latter theory of rationality, a belief is only necessary for a rational action in so far as one must have a belief in order to be aware of and respond to the world. On this latter theory, if first-personal beliefs are to have a unique role in rationality, first-personal beliefs must capture something unique about the world. The conclusions of the paper are twofold. Firstly, we ought to see the problems surrounding essential first-personal beliefs as bound up with rationality. Secondly, if we follow current trends in the philosophical study of rationality we could be led into conflict with common responses to these problems and towards the existence of a non-physical self. (shrink)

Cognitive science views thought as computation; and computation, by its very nature, can be understood in both rational and mechanistic terms. In rational terms, a computation solves some information processing problem (e.g., mapping sensory information into a description of the external world; parsing a sentence; selecting among a set of possible actions). In mechanistic terms, a computation corresponds to causal chain of events in a physical device (in engineering context, a silicon chip; in biological context, the nervous system). (...) The discipline is thus at the interface between two very different styles of explanation—as the papers in the current special issue well illustrate, it explores the interplay of rational and mechanistic forces. (shrink)

Most philosophers of physics are eliminativists about causation. Following Bertrand Russell’s lead, they think that causation is a folk concept that cannot be rationally reconstructed within a worldview informed by contemporary physics. Against this thesis, I argue that physics contributes to shaping the concept of causation, in two ways. 1. Special Relativity is a physical theory that expresses causal constraints. 2. The physical concept of a conserved quantity can be used in the functional reduction of the notion (...) of causation. The empirical part of this reduction makes the hypothesis that the transference of an amount of a conserved quantity is a necessary and sufficient condition for causation. This hypothesis is defended against several objections from physics: that amounts of energy do not possess the appropriate identity conditions required for being able to be transmitted, that there is no universal principle of the conservation of energy in General Relativity, and that there are at least two types of physical systems in which causation does not involve any transference: entangled systems in quantum mechanics and the Aharanov-Bohm effect. In order to show that physics provides means to elaborate the concept of causation it is important to avoid certain misunderstandings. In particular, the claim that there is causation in a physical world does not mean that causation is an additional ingredient of the "furniture" of the world, over and above the ingredients identified by physics. (shrink)

Quine takes physics to be the ultimate arbiter of what there is. [AL 1/29/2004].

In the history of science, the birth of classical chemistry and thermodynamics produced an anomaly within Newtonian mechanical paradigm: force and acceleration were no longer citizens of new cited sciences. Scholars tried to reintroduce them within mechanistic approaches, as the case of the kinetic gas theory. Nevertheless, Thermodynamics, in general, and its Second Law, in particular, gradually affirmed their role of dominant not-reducible cognitive paradigms for various scientific disciplines: more than twenty formulations of Second Law—a sort of indisputable intellectual wealth—are (...) conceived after 1824 Sadi Carnot’s original statement and a multitude of entropy functions are proposed after 1865 Clausius’ former definition. Furthermore, at the end of nineteenth century, thermodynamics extended its cognitive domain to chemistry. Mainly thanks to Gibbs, a brand new discipline—chemical thermodynamics or physical chemistry—gradually affirmed its role inside the scientific community. This paper reports the former results of collaborative research program in the History and Epistemology of Science as well as Nature of Science Teaching aimed at retracing the foundations of the physical chemistry. Specifically, the research is structured in three parts: historical-epistemic reflections on fundamental thermodynamic concepts and principles—such as reversible process, heat, temperature, thermal equilibrium and Clausius’ Second Law—that play a structural role inside modern physical chemistry; panoramic overview on the entropy, whose polysemy makes it one of the most demanding concepts for scholars, teachers and students while approaching thermodynamics; conceptualization of chemical equilibrium as complex entity according to the dual epistemological approach offered by Gibbs’ thermodynamic model and the kinetic standpoint by Guldberg and Waage. In particular, the present work details an original reading of thermodynamic principles with the aim of setting forth a rationalized multidisciplinary substrate whereon the foundational concepts of reversible process and thermal equilibrium can be set. (shrink)

What it is about mood, as a specific type of affect, that makes it not easily amenable to standard models of rationality? It is commonly assumed that the cognitive rationality of an affective state is somehow depended upon how that state is related to what the state is about, its so called intentional object; but, given that moods do not seem to bear an intentional relation to an object, it is hard to see how they can be in the offing (...) for rational assessment. In the first part of the paper I outline three ways of attributing intentionality to moods, raising for each one of them a series of problems, thus casting doubt on the viability of an intentionalist grounding for the rationality of moods. I then move to an examination of the view of moods as background feelings, which are intimately related to how we perceive the world; however, in my view, that approach fails to provide standards of assessment that would permit appraising the mood itself as rational or irrational. Finally, I look at an account of moods as mechanisms whose function is to monitor the balance between environmental demands and one’s physical or psychological resources. That is a promising way to proceed in our exploration of mood states; it faces though some formidable phenomenological challenges. All in all, defending the rationality of moods calls for a rethinking of the assumptions that are prevalent in the current literature over the representational dimension of affective states. (shrink)