Epistemology Factualized: New Contractarian Foundations for Epistemology

Many epistemologists are interested in offering a positive account of how it is that many of our common sense beliefs enjoy one or another positive epistemological status (e.g., how they are warranted, justified, reasonable, or what have you). A number of philosophers, under the influence of Wittgenstein and/or J. L. Austin, have argued that this enterprise is misconceived. The most effective version of this argument is to be found in Mark Kaplan’s paper “Epistemology on Holiday”. After explaining what this criticism amounts to and why it is important, I then respond to it. My response is based upon, and is intended to display the explanatory power of, a contractarian account of our practice of epistemic appraisal.     

意向性的计算解释

当代心智哲学和认知科学中,意向性是颇受关注且又不断引发争论的中心概念之一。直观上,意向性系指心智状态或过程具有的"关于性",即心智的内容是关于或表征某种东西的。许多哲学家认为,意向性是大多数(甚至所有)心智状态的标志。倘若意向性确是一种真实的现象,则以理解心智现象为己任的认知科学,就有责任用科学上合适的方式来解释心智状态的这一特质。     

邪教释义

本文从历史学、语言学、社会学、宗教学、心理学及政治学、法学等不同方面诠释了邪教的含义。作者认为,审慎研读法律细则,中国官方界定的邪教不能等同于西方英语文化圈通行的cult（膜拜团体）或法语、德语文化圈通行的cult—sect（膜拜教派)。其准确含义可以解释为,具有严重犯罪性质的伪似宗教组织(Pseudo Religion) 。     

《易经》“用”字试解

《易经》卦爻辞中"用"字句有两种句法格式,一是"用+名词或名词性词组",二是"用+动词或动词性词组"。从"用"字词义与词性的发展来看,有一个从具体义向抽象义,从实词向虚词转变的过程,而《易经》文本正是此一过程的过渡阶段。通过对《易经》"用"字含义和用法的分析,我们可以纠正对某些含"用"字卦爻辞的误解与误读。     

The Deductive-Nomological Account of Metaphysical Explanation

The paper explores a deductive-nomological account of metaphysical explanation: some truths metaphysically explain, or ground, another truth just in case the laws of metaphysics determine the latter truth on the basis of the former. I develop and motivate a specific conception of metaphysical laws, on which they are general rules that regulate the existence and features of derivative entities. I propose an analysis of the notion of ‘determination via the laws’, based on a restricted form of logical entailment. I argue that the DN-account of ground can be defended against the well-known objections to the DN-approach to scientific explanation. The goal of the paper is to show that the DN-account of metaphysical explanation is a well-motivated and defensible theory.     

心理学解释的层次与衔接问题

心理学解释(psychological explanation)及其相关问题的探讨,是当代心理学哲学的一个重要论域,也是心理学方法论的核心理论问题。对心理现象的本质、特征及其作用机制的探讨,历来是哲学家与科学家孜孜以求的共同事业。在从不同视角、基点、逻辑理路对心灵及其与大脑的关系进行探析的过程当中,形成了不同的研究范式、概念框架和解释原则。我们既可以从较高的、个人的解释层次     

Experimental Philosophy of Explanation Rising: The Case for a Plurality of Concepts of Explanation

This paper brings together results from the philosophy and the psychology of explanation to argue that there are multiple concepts of explanation in human psychology. Specifically, it is shown that pluralism about explanation coheres with the multiplicity of models of explanation available in the philosophy of science, and it is supported by evidence from the psychology of explanatory judgment. Focusing on the case of a norm of explanatory power, the paper concludes by responding to the worry that if there is a plurality of concepts of explanation, one will not be able to normatively evaluate what counts as good explanation.     

Unique Events: The Underdetermination of Explanation

The paper explicates unique events and investigates their epistemology. Explications of unique events as individuated, different, and emergent are philosophically uninteresting. Unique events are topics of why-questions that radically underdetermine all their potential explanations. Uniqueness that is relative to a level of scientific development is differentiated from absolute uniqueness. Science eliminates relative uniqueness by discovery of recurrence of events and properties, falsification of assumptions of why-questions, and methodological simplification e.g. by explanatory methodological reduction. Finally, an overview of contemporary philosophical disputes that hinge on issues of uniqueness emphasizes its philosophical significance.     

The Facticity of Explanation and Its Consequences

This paper argues that, contrary to the views of Nancy Cartwright and Brian Ellis, explanations are factive: if a statement is taken to be an explanation, it also has to be accepted as true. Taking explanations to be true, in turn, seems to imply that all the entities posited in explanations are real. But this is precisely what some philosophers, such as Cartwright and Ellis, want to deny. What these philosophers do not want to deny, however, is that such statements do explain. As a result, they see themselves forced to reject the facticity of explanation, a strategy that is unacceptable in my view. In order to avoid the further conclusion that all of the entities explanations posit exist, I propose to separate truth from ontology: explanations can be true, but the truth of these explanations alone does not commit us to the entities that these explanations posit. To determine where the ontological commitments of our statements lie, we must instead start with a criterion (a necessary and sufficient condition) for what exists. For instance, if all and only entities with causal powers are real, then this tells us that the only entities our true statements are committed to are entities with causal powers.     

The Logic of Causal Explanation An Axiomatization

Three-valued (strong-Kleene) modal logic provides the foundation for a new approach to formalizing causal explanation as a relation between partial situations. The approach makes fine-grained distinctions between aspects of events, even between aspects that are equivalent in classical logic. The framework can accommodate a variety of ontologies concerning the relata of causal explanation. I argue, however, for a tripartite ontology of objects corresponding to sentential nominals: facts, tropes (or facta or states of affairs), and situations (or events). I axiomatize the relations and use canonical models to demonstrate completeness.     

Testing Inference To The Best Explanation

Inference to the Best Explanation has become the subject of a livelydebate in the philosophy of science. Scientific realists maintain, while scientificantirealists deny, that it is a compelling rule of inference. It seems that anyattempt to settle this debate empirically must beg the question against theantirealist. The present paper argues that this impression is misleading. A methodis described that, by combining Glymour's theory of bootstrapping and Hacking'sarguments from microscopy, allows us to test IBE without begging any antirealistissues.