Data Fabrication and Falsification and Empiricist Philosophy of Science

Scientists have rules pertaining to data fabrication and falsification that are enforced with significant punishments, such as loss of funding, termination of employment, or imprisonment. These rules pertain to data that describe observable and unobservable entities. In this commentary I argue that scientists would not adopt rules that impose harsh penalties on researchers for data fabrication or falsification unless they believed that an aim of scientific research is to develop true theories and hypotheses about entities that exist, including unobservable ones. This argument presents a challenge for constructive empiricists, such as van Fraassen. Constructive empiricists need to be able to explain why rules pertaining to data fabrication and falsification do not threaten their philosophy of science.     

先验哲学的超验意境——从《夜之颂》看诺瓦利斯的独特精神诉求

《夜之颂》是德国早期浪漫主义作家诺瓦利斯的代表作。在这篇作品中,他将夜的概念引申到哲学和宗教范畴中,通过本体超验,勾画出夜精神不朽的宗教寓意和现实寓意。超验是这部作品的点睛之笔,作者通过体验夜的不同意境,表达了内心世界对完美精神的追求。     

国内后现代科学哲学研究现状述评

自上世纪90年代中期至今,后现代科学哲学研究一直是我国科学哲学领域的一大亮点。本文将对国内后现代科学哲学研究的现状作一简要概括和评述,以期对后现代科学哲学研究在新世纪的广泛展开能有所助益。一　后现代科学哲学的概念国内的后现代科学哲学研究始于20世纪90年代中期,是伴随着科学实在论研究的深入而展开的。目前,国内学术界关于后现代科学哲学(postmodernphilosophyofscience)主要存在两种不同的理解和界定。一种观点认为,后现代科学哲学是20世纪中叶以后在后现代主义思潮的影响下,“后现代性”向科学哲学渗入的结果;后现代科学哲学…     

胡塞尔先验哲学的交互主体性转折

在本世纪,语言哲学对古典心智哲学的批评常常被理解为哲学范式一个不可逆的决定性转向,即从主体哲学转向了交互主体性哲学。这一转向在阿佩尔和哈贝马斯的著作中不断得到认同。因此,阿佩尔鲜明地倡导先验哲学向交互主体性哲学的转折。不是单个的、自我-意识自我,而是语言共同体,即交互主体性,才应被看作为基本的先验框架。阿佩尔和哈贝马斯都认为,哲学范式的这一转变对现象学提出了一个决定性的挑战,并且,从他们的立场出发,讨论的结果经常是否定性的。他们把胡塞尔的现象学看成是古典主体哲学最后一次也许是最有力的尝试,并竭力揭示其唯我论的荒谬和困境,希望借此来显示他们自己的倾向的合理性。简而言之,他们声称,胡塞尔所运用的真理和意义概念无视其内在的交互主体性特征;胡塞尔的理论不能解释那种表征交互主体性的特定的主体-主体的对称性关联,它完全受制于一种唯我论的、定位于主体-客体的意向性概念;并且最后,胡塞尔自主的主体性概念也是不可接受的,因为自我-意识和个体性远非自我一般(sui generis),而只是那个更为基础的社会化过程的产物。     

An Empiricist Conception of the Relation Between Metaphysics and Science

It is widely acknowledged that metaphysical assumptions, commitments and presuppositions play an important role in science. Yet according to the empiricist there is no place for metaphysics as traditionally understood in the scientific enterprise. In this paper I aim to take a first step towards reconciling these seemingly irreconcilable claims. In the first part of the paper I outline a conception of metaphysics and its relation to science that should be congenial to empiricists, motivated by van Fraassen’s work on ‘stances’. There has been a considerable about of recent work devoted to van Fraassen’s ‘stance’ view, but it has not on the whole been noticed that the view has the potential to motivate a general empiricist conception of the relation between science and metaphysics. In the second and third sections I discuss two examples from biology to illustrate this conception: metaphysical punctuationism, and its relation to and influence on the thesis of punctuated equilibrium; and dialectical biology as defended by Levins and Lewontin.

     

The Science of Philosophy

If philosophy consists of conceptual analysis, is it thereby debarred from being a science? This article argues that it is not and that philosophy so conceived is a science. The argument takes the form of careful attention to the meaning of “science,” “experiment,” “empirical,” and related words. Philosophy is a formal science. This does not mean it is not part of the humanities. The role of observation in other kinds of science is investigated. There is more methodological homogeneity in the various sciences, including philosophy, than has been recognized, despite some clear differences. Seeing this helps restore philosophy to its rightful place in the academic firmament.     

Naturalistic and Transcendental Moments in Kant's Moral Philosophy

During the 1760s and 1770s, Kant entertained a naturalistic approach to ethics based on the supposed psychological fact of a human love for freedom. During the critical period, especially in the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant clearly rejected such an approach. But his attempt at a metaphysical foundation for ethics in section III of the Groundwork was equally clearly a failure. Kant recognized this in his appeal to the “fact of reason” argument in the Critique of Practical Reason, but thereby gave up on any attempt to ground the fundamental principle of morality at all. So it is of interest to see how far we might now proceed along the lines of his original naturalistic approach.     

Transcendental Arguments and Practical Reason in Indian Philosophy

This paper examines some Indian philosophical arguments that are understandable as transcendental arguments—i.e., arguments whose conclusions cannot be denied without self-contradiction, insofar as the truth of the claim in question is a condition of the possibility even of any such denial. This raises the question of what kind of self-contradiction is involved—e.g., pragmatic self-contradiction, or the kind that goes with logical necessity. It is suggested that these arguments involve something like practical reason—indeed, that they just are arguments against the primacy of “theoretical reason.” This characterization illuminates a characteristically Indic appeal to ordinary language.

Practical Intentionality and Transcendental Phenomenology as a Practical Philosophy

This paper will deal with the problem of practical intentionality in the transcendental phenomenology of Husserl. First, through an analysis of a passage found in Logical Investigations, I will show Husserl's earlier position with respect to the problem of practical intentionality. I will then go on to critically assess this position and, with reference to some of Husserl's works written after the 1920's, prove that every intentionality should be regarded as a practical intentionality. Correspondingly, transcendental phenomenology should also be characterized as a practical philosophy. I make this statement with the following two senses in mind; transcendental phenomenology is a practical philosophy, first, in the sense that it investigates the various forms of practical intentionality and, second, in the sense that transcendental intentionality as the grounding source of transcendental phenomenology is also a kind of practical intentionality.     

International Union of History and Philosophy of Science Division of Logic,Methodology and Philosophy of Science (IUHPS/DLMPS)

International Union of History and Philosophy of Science Division of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science (IUHPS/DLMPS)Bulletin no. 16     

The Science to Save Us from Philosophy of Science

Are knowledge and belief pivotal in science, as contemporary epistemology and philosophy of science nearly universally take them to be? I defend the view that scientists are not primarily concerned with knowing and that the methods of arriving at scientific hypotheses, models and scenarios do not commit us having stable beliefs about them. Instead, what drives scientific discovery is ignorance that scientists can cleverly exploit. Not an absence or negation of knowledge, ignorance concerns fundamental uncertainty, and is brought out by retroductive (abductive) inferences, which are roughly characterised as reasoning from effects to causes. I argue that recent discoveries in sciences that coped with under-structured problem spaces testify the prevalence of retroductive logic in scientific discovery and its progress. This puts paid to the need of finding epistemic justification or confirmation to retroductive methodologies. A scientist, never frightened of unknown unknowns, strives to advance the forefront of uncertainty, not that of belief or knowledge. Far from rendering science irrational, I conclude that catering well for the right conditions in which to cultivate ignorance is a key to how fertile retroductive inferences (true guesses) arise.     

Hegel on Space: A Critique of Kant's Transcendental Philosophy

This paper considers Hegel's views on space and his account of Kant's theory of space. I show that Hegel's discussions of space exhibit a deep understanding of Kant's apriority argument in the first Critique , commit him to the central premise of that argument, and separate his concerns from the familiar problem of the neglected alternative. Nevertheless, Hegel makes two objections to Kant's theory of space. First, he argues that the theory is internally inconsistent insofar as Kant's identification of space with an a priori intuition is incompatible with the doctrine of productive imagination in the transcendental deduction of the categories. Second, Hegel argues that the apriority argument is insufficiently critical insofar as it relies upon an unexamined theory of subjectivity as a set of representational capacities. I conclude by outlining Hegel's strategy for undermining the assumptions concerning subjectivity that give form to Kant's transcendental philosophy. Because Hegel's positive views on space depend upon his articulation of an alternate notion of subjectivity, the account of Hegel's position on space offered here remains incomplete. On the other hand, considering Hegel's discussions of space demonstrates both the nature and the importance of his examination of subjectivity in the Phenomenology.     

科学哲学

本文首先讨论科学哲学的起源与重要性。其次,本文考察如下基本问题：理论客体的实在论性、理论与经验的区分、科学解释、归纳、科学检验等等。本文所涉及的观点包括实在论与反实在论、科学解释的不同模型、证实主义与证伪主义、亚决定论、整体论、被理论渗透的经验、不可公度性等等。本文所涉及的学派包括逻辑经验（实证）主义、实在论及关于科学的实用主义、历史（科学史）转向与相对主义。最后,笔者会谈一谈科学哲学的新近发展方向及笔者对其在中国与西方将来发展的前瞻。     

On Heidegger's Root and Branch Reformulation of the Meaning of Transcendental Philosophy

Over the past decades there has been increasing interest in the idea that Heidegger was a “transcendental philosopher” during the late 1920s. Furthermore, a consensus has started to emerge around the idea that Heidegger must be thought of as a transcendental thinker during this time. For the most part this means to first experience how Heidegger's work inherits this term from Kant or Husserl so that one can then experience how Heidegger creatively adapts this inheritance. The aim of this paper is to show that such an approach is unhelpful. The aim of this paper is instead to show that transcendental philosophy bears a wholly renewed meaning in Heidegger's fundamental ontology and that this meaning must be understood in an intrinsic connection with the fundamental-ontological problem of transcendence. Articulating this connection will show how Heidegger makes transcendental philosophy properly phenomenological.