God and Dispositional Essentialism: An Account of the Laws of Nature

It is common to appeal to governing laws of nature in order to explain the existence of natural regularities. Classical theism, however, maintains the sovereignty thesis: everything distinct from God is created by him and is under his guidance and control. It follows from this that God must somehow be responsible for natural laws and regularities. Therefore, theists need an account of the relation between (i) regularities, (ii) laws, and (iii) God. I examine competing accounts of laws of nature and conclude that dispositional essentialism provides the most satisfactory explanation of the relation between (i), (ii) and (iii).     

Vagueness and the Laws of Metaphysics

This is a paper about the nature of metaphysical laws and their relation to the phenomenon of vagueness. Metaphysical laws are introduced as analogous to natural laws, and metaphysical indeterminism is modeled on causal indeterminacy. This kind of indeterminacy is then put to work in developing a novel theory of vagueness and a solution to the sorites paradox.     

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.

     

Introduction: The Role of Process Metaphysics in Our World of Science

This article applies the analytic rigor of philosophy to the vexed topic of business strategy, and uses the objective, public evidence of business strategy as an existence proof for the possibility of free will and purpose in the private realm of subjective intentionality. The first part distinguishes three types of intentionality in philosophy—purposive intentionality, referential intentionality, and the problematic intentionality of a godlike, miraculous “inner intender.” After rejecting this third type of intentionality, and noting that its rejection saves the first two types of intentionality from guilt by association, the second part draws parallels with three types of strategy in business: purposive, referential, and godlike. The first defines the goals and objectives of a company; the second picks out and targets consumers in market driven strategy; and the third, with the help of philosophical reflections, demands a rethinking of the function of leadership without reliance on a single, godlike leader. In the third part of this article, the existence proof from the public world of business is used to shed light on the possibility of intentionality in the private world of subjective intentionality. Finally, the article draws conclusions for its three audiences: for the philosophers, with credit to Nietzsche who saw it all, a greater clarity about intentionality and free will; for business people, greater clarity about the importance of purposiveness and strategic intent; and for business philosophers, a demonstration showing how—through strategy and intentionality—we can both create value and give meaning to the lives of our employees, ourselves, and our customers.     

Behavioral Laws in Histories of Psychology: Psychological Science,Metascience, and the Psychology of Science

Histories of psychology frequently include statements that explicitly or implicitly express behavioral laws. Usually these "meta-historical generalizations" provide "covering laws" for explanatory accounts, contextual frames, or paradoxical con- trasts. These abstract propositions come from many sources, vary immensely in scientfic validity, and are found in several psychological publications besides histories, including book reviews, obituaries, journal articles, monographs, and trade books. Not only could the authors of these nomothetic claims make better use of empirical results in the metasciences, but these assertions themselves offer an inventory of valuable hypotheses that should inspire future research in the behavioral sciences and especially in the psychology of science.     

Aim-Oriented Empiricism and the Metaphysics of Science

Philosophia - Over 40 years ago, I put forward a philosophy of science based on the argument that physics, in only ever accepting unified theories, thereby makes a substantial...     

针刺作用四大规律的统一与现代针灸学理论的发展

探求事物的内在联系或内在统一性是科学活动的重要目标。针刺作用的四大规律：针刺作用的双向调节规律、针刺手法作用的基本规律、针刺时间作用的基本规律、针刺作用的时效规律,其所涉及的影响因素各不相同,但这四大作用规律在“机能状态”这个基本环节获得了统一。     

Humeanism without Humean Supervenience: A Projectivist Account of Laws and Possibilities

Acceptance of Humean Supervenience and thereductive Humean analyses that entail it leadsto a litany of inadequately explained conflictswith our intuitions regarding laws andpossibilities. However, the non-reductiveHumeanism developed here, on which law claimsare understood as normative rather than factstating, can accommodate those intuitions. Rational constraints on such norms provide aset of consistency relations that ground asemantics formulated in terms offactual-normative worlds, solving theFrege-Geach problem of construing unassertedcontexts. This set of factual-normative worldsincludes exactly the intuitive sets ofnomologically possible worlds associated witheach possible set of laws. The extension ofthe semantics to counterfactual and subjunctiveconditionals is sketched. Potential objectionsinvolving subjectivity, mind-dependence, andnon-factuality are discussed.     

Neuroscience, the Person, and God: An Emergentist Account

Strong forms of dualism and eliminative materialism block any significant dialogue between the neurosciences and theology. The present article thus challenges the Sufficiency Thesis, according to which neuroscientific explanations will finally be sufficient to fully explain human behavior. It then explores the various ways in which neuroscientific results and theological interpretations contribute to an overall theory of the person. Supervenience theories, which hold that mental events are dependent on their physical substrata but not reducible to them, are explained. Challenging the determinism of "strong" supervenience, I defend a version of "soft" supervenience that allows for genuine mental causation. This view gives rise in turn to an emergentist theory of the person. Still, I remain a monist: there are many types of properties encountered in the world, although it is only the one nature that bears all these properties. The resulting position, emergentist monism , allows for diversity within the context of the one world. This view is open at the top for theological applications and interpretations while retaining the close link to neuroscientific study and its results. Theology offers an interpretation of the whole world based on a yet higher order of emergence, although the notion of God moves beyond the natural order as a whole. It therefore supplements the natural scientific study of the world without negating it.     

宗教、科学与教育——解析近代中国的非基督教运动

近代中国曾经发生过两次规模巨大的反基督教运动:一次是1900年的义和团运动,一次是1922年至1927年的非基督教运动。从思想文化史的角度审视,非基督教运动的广度和深度远远超过义和团运动。义和团运动是中国民众对列强侵略的激愤抗争,带有浓重的盲目排外色彩。而非基督教运动则是中国知识阶层对宗教文化的理性批判。     

The Contingency of Creation and Modern Science

The Bible reveals a free, contingent act of the triune, personal God as the origin of the world. This paper explores the fruitfulness of taking the contingency of creation as the starting-point for our thinking about the natural world. We will see that the contingency of creation implies a conception of the natural order which is in harmony with modern science. It is the foundation for the experimental method and the use of mathematics, provides an understanding of contingent laws of nature, shows that natural order is open to historical evolution, and makes room for chance and novelty.     

进化论、认知科学与道德原则的形成

生物学自然主义以不同于传统的超越主义伦理学的进路对道德原则的形成进行了探讨.进化论为其提供了经验基础;认知科学为其提供了科学证据;来自经济学的实验则对自然选择下的利他何以可能的问题进行了分析.在此基础上,论证了道德原则形成的神经生物学基础,说明了自然主义进路的可行性.