Ethics and Science: Is Plausibility in the Eye of the Beholder?

This paper argues that morality is objective in a specific sense that accords with a broadly expressivist stance in metaethics. The paper also explains that although there is a kind of subjectivity in moral inquiry, the same holds for other kinds of normative inquiry, including epistemic and even scientific inquiry, and moreover that this kind of subjectivity is no threat to morality’s objectivity. The argument for the objectivity of morality draws strong parallels between ethics, epistemology, and science, but does not depend on equally strong parallels between ethics and mathematics. I argue that there is more to learn from a comparison between ethics and mathematics than I used to think, but the difference between the issues that come up in thinking about objectivity in ethics and those that come up in thinking about objectivity in mathematics is substantial, and we cannot carry over results from the philosophy of mathematics to the case of morality.     

The good, the bad and the ugly

This paper discusses the neo-logicist approach to the foundations of mathematics by highlighting an issue that arises from looking at the Bad Company objection from an epistemological perspective. For the most part, our issue is independent of the details of any resolution of the Bad Company objection and, as we will show, it concerns other foundational approaches in the philosophy of mathematics. In the first two sections, we give a brief overview of the “Scottish” neo-logicist school, present a generic form of the Bad Company objection and introduce an epistemic issue connected to this general problem that will be the focus of the rest of the paper. In the third section, we present an alternative approach within philosophy of mathematics, a view that emerges from Hilbert’s Grundlagen der Geometrie (1899, Leipzig: Teubner; Foundations of geometry (trans.: Townsend, E.). La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1959.). We will argue that Bad Company-style worries, and our concomitant epistemic issue, also affects this conception and other foundationalist approaches. In the following sections, we then offer various ways to address our epistemic concern, arguing, in the end, that none resolves the issue. The final section offers our own resolution which, however, runs against the foundationalist spirit of the Scottish neo-logicist program.     

Continuous Grey Scales Versus Sharp Contrasts: Styles of Representation in Italian Clinical Cytogenetics Laboratories

In some circumstances, scientists of the same discipline visualize and view differently the same scientific object. The question of representational difference, which has usually been connected to scientific revolutions or controversies, is framed here using the concept of “style,” addressing the plurality of scientific traditions within a well-established scientific field. Using ethnomethodology we will examine the divergences of representational practices that, beyond the apparent consensus of a scientific community, are present throughout the procedure of chromosomes preparation. The ethnographic data was gathered through participant observation and in-depth interviews in several Italian clinical cytogenetic laboratories. The concept of style emerges through the examination of the two alternate, and sometimes conflicting, ways of configuring the complex texture of practice, instrumental mediation, epistemic virtues, and expertise involved in scientific representation of chromosomes. Resonating with the recent debate on objectivity, it tries to articulate the concept of “epistemic virtue” outside an internalised scientific self through an aesthetic, analytical, instrumental, and ontological preferences in the current manners to produce and see the same research object.     

Integrating Power to Advance the Study of Connective and Productive Disciplinary Engagement in Mathematics and Science

Abstract

Engle and Conant’s productive disciplinary engagement (PDE) framework has significantly advanced the study of learning in mathematics and science. This artilce revisits PDE through the lens of critical education research. Our analysis synthesizes two themes of power: epistemic diversity, and historicity and identity. We argue that these themes, when integrated into PDE, strengthen it as a tool for design and analysis of disciplinary learning in relation to power and personhood, and describe the broadened framework of connective and productive disciplinary engagement (CPDE). By comparing and contrasting the use of PDE and CPDE in relation to two cases of classroom learning—for science, Warren et al.’s metamorphosis and for mathematics, Godfrey and O’Connor’s measurement—we demonstrate how CPDE surfaces issues of history, power, and culture that may otherwise be overlooked by PDE alone. In particular, we analyze how CPDE makes visible unseen identities and generative resources of disciplinary knowing and doing among minoritized students. We discuss how the revised framework redresses epistemic injustice experienced by minoritized learners held to the narrow rubric of western epistemologies and compels close attention to the diversity of human activity in mathematics and science. Further, we elaborate how it provides a structure for teachers, teacher educators, and researchers to design and analyze learning environments as safeguarding the rightful presence of minoritized learners in STEM classrooms and beyond.     

First Order Common Knowledge Logics

In this paper we investigate first order common knowledge logics; i.e., modal epistemic logics based on first order logic with common knowledge operators. It is shown that even rather weak fragments of first order common knowledge logics are not recursively axiomatizable. This applies, for example, to fragments which allow to reason about names only; that is to say, fragments the first order part of which is based on constant symbols and the equality symbol only. Then formal properties of "quantifying into" epistemic contexts are investigated. The results are illustrated by means of epistemic representations of Nash Equilibria for finite games with mixed strategies.     

On What There is—Infinitesimals and the Nature of Numbers

Abstract

This essay will be divided into three parts. In the first part, we discuss the case of infintesimals seen as a bridge between the discrete and the continuous. This leads in the second part to a discussion of the nature of numbers. In the last part, we follow up with some observations on the obvious applicability of mathematics.     

THE SENSE OF BEAUTY

This paper proposes an integrative psychoanalytic model of the sense of beauty. The following definition is used: beauty is an aspect of the experience of idealisation in which an object(s), sound(s) or concept(s) is believed to possess qualities of formal perfection. The psychoanalytic literature regarding beauty is explored in depth and fundamental similarities are stressed. The author goes on to discuss the following topics: (1) beauty as sublimation: beauty reconciles the polarisation of self and world; (2) idealisation and beauty: the love of beauty is an indication of the importance of idealisation during development; (3) beauty as an interactive process: the sense of beauty is interactive and intersubjective; (4) the aesthetic and non-aesthetic emotions: specific aesthetic emotions are experienced in response to the formal design of the beautiful object; (5) surrendering to beauty: beauty provides us with an occasion for transcendence and self-renewal; (6) beauty's restorative function: the preservation or restoration of the relationship to the good object is of utmost importance; (7) the self-integrative function of beauty: the sense of beauty can also reconcile and integrate self-states of fragmentation and depletion; (8) beauty as a defence: in psychopathology, beauty can function defensively for the expression of unconscious impulses and fantasies, or as protection against self-crisis; (9) beauty and mortality: the sense of beauty can alleviate anxiety regarding death and feelings of vulnerability. In closing the paper, the author offers a new understanding of Freud'semphasis on love of beauty as a defining trait of civilisation. For a people not to value beauty would mean that they cannot hope and cannot assert life over the inevitable and ubiquitous forces of entropy and death.     

Epistemic justification in the context of pursuit: a coherentist approach

The aim of this paper is to offer an account of epistemic justification suitable for the context of theory pursuit, that is, for the context in which new scientific ideas, possibly incompatible with the already established theories, emerge and are pursued by scientists. We will frame our account paradigmatically on the basis of one of the influential systems of epistemic justification: Laurence Bonjour’s coherence theory of justification. The idea underlying our approach is to develop a set of criteria which indicate that the pursued system is promising of contributing to the epistemic goal of robustness of scientific knowledge and of developing into a candidate for acceptance. In order to realize this we will (a) adjust the scope of Bonjour’s standards—consistency, inferential density, and explanatory power, and (b) complement them by the requirement of a programmatic character. In this way we allow for the evaluation of the “potential coherence” of the given epistemic system.     

On the Epistemic Foundation for Iterated Weak Dominance: An Analysis in a Logic of Individual and Collective attitudes

This paper proposes a logical framework for representing static and dynamic properties of different kinds of individual and collective attitudes. A complete axiomatization as well as a decidability result for the logic are given. The logic is applied to game theory by providing a formal analysis of the epistemic conditions of iterated deletion of weakly dominated strategies (IDWDS), or iterated weak dominance for short. The main difference between the analysis of the epistemic conditions of iterated weak dominance given in this paper and other analysis is that we use a semi-qualitative approach to uncertainty based on the notion of plausibility first introduced by Spohn, whereas other analysis are based on a quantitative representation of uncertainty in terms of probabilities.     

The Natural Shiftiness of Natural Kinds

Abstract

The Philosophical search for Natural Kinds is motivated by the hope of finding ontological categories that are independent of our interests. Other requirements, of varying importance, are commonly made of kinds that claim to be natural. But no such categories are to be found. Virtually any kind can be termed natural' relative to some set of interests and epistemic priorities. Science determines those priorities at any particular stage of its progress, and what kinds are most natural' in that sense is always a real and lively scientific question. The general philosophical problem of scientific realism is also real; but between the scientific and the metaphysical, the ‘Problem of Natural Kinds’ sits otiose.     

Exploring the Stability of Belief: Resiliency and Temptation

Abstract

Belief allows us to coordinate our thought with our action. As Ramsey famously puts it, belief is a map by which we steer. For belief to play its role, on the one hand it must be stable under certain kinds of informational change; on the other hand it must be sensitive to changing evidence. Keeping belief stability in mind, we can ask about the norms that govern belief change in circumstances where there is epistemic pressure on us to change our belief. One such circumstance involves interpersonal conflict—in cases of disagreement with others. Another such circumstance involves intrapersonal conflict—the case of epistemic temptation. In this paper, I focus on a particular epistemic temptation case to explore what is rationally permitted and what is rationally required for us to do in the name of stability of belief.     

Is there a problem about intentionality?

One of the functions of scientific knowledge is to provide the theories and laws we need in order to understand the world. My article deals with the epistemic aspect of understanding, i.e., with understanding as unification. The aim is to explicate what we have to do in order to make our scientific knowledge contribute to an increase of the degree to which the particular events we have observed, fit into our world-picture. The analysis contains two parts. First I define the concept of scientific epistemic explanation. Explanations of these type are the appropriate instruments for increasing the degree of unification of the particular events we have observed. In the second, largest part of the article I analyze the construction process of scientific epistemic explanations, focusing on the application of scientific theories.     

Epistemic injustice in mathematics

We investigate how epistemic injustice can manifest itself in mathematical practices. We do this as both a social epistemological and virtue-theoretic investigation of mathematical practices. We delineate the concept both positively—we show that a certain type of folk theorem can be a source of epistemic injustice in mathematics—and negatively by exploring cases where the obstacles to participation in a mathematical practice do not amount to epistemic injustice. Having explored what epistemic injustice in mathematics can amount to, we use the concept to highlight a potential danger of intellectual enculturation.

     

The rationality of metaphysics

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.     

Mathematical symbols as epistemic actions

Recent experimental evidence from developmental psychology and cognitive neuroscience indicates that humans are equipped with unlearned elementary mathematical skills. However, formal mathematics has properties that cannot be reduced to these elementary cognitive capacities. The question then arises how human beings cognitively deal with more advanced mathematical ideas. This paper draws on the extended mind thesis to suggest that mathematical symbols enable us to delegate some mathematical operations to the external environment. In this view, mathematical symbols are not only used to express mathematical concepts??they are constitutive of the mathematical concepts themselves. Mathematical symbols are epistemic actions, because they enable us to represent concepts that are literally unthinkable with our bare brains. Using case-studies from the history of mathematics and from educational psychology, we argue for an intimate relationship between mathematical symbols and mathematical cognition.     

A Model for Structural Changes of Belief

The paper suggests a way of modeling belief changes within the tradition of formal belief revision theories. The present model extends the scope of traditional proposals, such as AGM, so as to take care of “structural belief changes” – a type of radical shifts that is best illustrated with, but not limited to, instances of scientific discovery; we obtain AGM expansions and contractions as limiting cases. The representation strategy relies on a non-standard use of a semantic machinery. More precisely, the model seeks to correlate knowledge states with interpretations of a given formal language L, in such a way that the epistemic state of an agent at a given time gives rise to a picture of how things could be, if there weren’t anything else to know. Interpretations of L proceed along supervaluational ideas; hence, the model as a whole can be seen as a particular application of supervaluational semantics to epistemic matters. Presented by Hannes Leitgeb     

Public Engagement with Climate Change as Scientific Citizenship: A Case Study of World Wide Views on Global Warming

World Wide Views (WWViews) is an innovative participatory methodology that scales up formal public engagement in response to global environmental issues that transcend the boundaries of the nation-state. In September 2009, WWViews on Global Warming enrolled 4,400 lay participants from across 38 countries to discuss global climate policy. The most remarkable outcome was how consistently people from across different political regions and social groups called for a stringent global climate policy. Drawing on scientific citizenship as an analytic lens, this result is positioned, not as a straightforward input into global policy but as an output from a highly formalized process. What forms of citizenship are embodied, projected, and negotiated in WWViews? What are the implications of these tacit forms of citizenship for the types of epistemic agency that emerge as a result? WWViews participants were situated as consumers of scientific knowledge tasked with responding to a limited slate of policy options that they had no role in creating, vetting, or altering. WWViews also projected an image of the global citizen shorn of any meaningful geographical, cultural, or political particularity. Effectively tethering the epistemic capacities of its participants to dominant scientific meanings, WWViews offered limited opportunity for alternative issue-framings or perspectives to emerge. Organizers and researchers of formal public engagement should be attentive to the potential for these initiatives, once scaled up to the global, to impose scientistic issue-framings and correspondingly limited models of epistemic agency.     

Adult age differences in attentional selectivity and capacity

Abstract

This paper reviews empirical research on adult age differences in the use of attention during visual search and classification tasks. This research suggests that the selective aspect of attention, in the sense of the ability to discriminate relevant and irrelevant information, is relatively resistant to age-related change. The capacity aspect of attention, in the sense of the limited processing resources that underlie task performance, appears to undergo age-related decline. Questions remain, however, regarding whether capacity-reduction explanations of age differences in cognitive performance have any advantages over explanations based on task complexity. Recent analyses of ageing and attention emphasise the potential contribution of formal models of cognitive performance.     

The cognitive structure of surprise: looking for basic principles

We develop a conceptual and formal clarification of notion of surprise as a belief-based phenomenon by exploring a rich typology. Each kind of surprise is associated with a particular phase of cognitive processing and involves particular kinds of epistemic representations (representations and expectations under scrutiny, implicit beliefs, presuppositions). We define two main kinds of surprise: mismatch-based surprise and astonishment. In the central part of the paper we suggest how a formal model of surprise can be integrated with a formal model of belief change. We investigate the role of surprise in triggering the process of belief reconsideration. There are a number of models of surprise developed in the psychology of emotion. We provide several comparisons of our approach with those models.