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1.
The development of a defensible and fecund notion of emergence has been dogged by a number of threshold issues neatly highlighted
in a recent paper by Jaegwon Kim. We argue that physicalist assumptions confuse and vitiate the whole project. In particular,
his contention that emergence entails supervenience is contradicted by his own argument that the ‘microstructure’ of an object
belongs to the whole object, not to its constituents. And his argument against the possibility of downward causation is question-begging and makes false assumptions about causal
sufficiency. We argue, on the contrary, for a rejection of the deeply entrenched assumption, shared by physicalists and Cartesians
alike, that what basically exists are things (entities, substances). Our best physics tells us that there are no basic particulars,
only fields in process. We need an ontology which gives priority to organization, which is inherently relational. Reflection
upon the fact that all biological creatures are far-from-equilibrium systems, whose very persistence depend upon their interactions
with their environment, reveals incoherence in the notion of an ‘emergence base’. 相似文献
2.
Nicholas Maxwell 《Journal for General Philosophy of Science》2002,33(2):381-408
There is a need to bring about a revolution in the philosophy of science, interpreted to be both the academic discipline,
and the official view of the aims and methods of science upheld by the scientific community. At present both are dominated
by the view that in science theories are chosen on the basis of empirical considerations alone, nothing being permanently
accepted as a part of scientific knowledge independently of evidence. Biasing choice of theory in the direction of simplicity,
unity or explanatory power does not permanently commit science to the thesis that nature is simple or unified. This current
‘paradigm’ is, I argue, untenable. We need a new paradigm, which acknowledges that science makes a hierarchy of metaphysical
assumptions concerning the comprehensibility and knowability of the universe, theories being chosen partly on the basis of
compatibility with these assumptions. Eleven arguments are given for favouring this new ‘paradigm’ over the current one.
This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date. 相似文献
3.
Bryan Pickel 《Philosophical Studies》2010,147(2):193-211
I defend the view that ordinary objects like statues are identical to the pieces of matter from which they are made. I argue
that ordinary speakers assert sentences such as ‘this statue is a molded piece of clay’. This suggests that speakers believe
propositions which entail that ordinary objects such as statues are the pieces matter from which they are made, and therefore
pluralism contradicts ordinary beliefs. The dominant response to this argument purports to find an ambiguity in the word ‘is’,
such that ‘is’ in these sentences means the same as ‘constitutes or is constituted by’. I will use standard tests for ambiguity
to argue that this strategy fails. I then explore and reject other responses to the argument. 相似文献
4.
Patrick McGivern 《Synthese》2008,165(1):53-75
I discuss arguments about the relationship between different “levels” of explanation in the light of examples involving multi-scale
analysis. I focus on arguments about causal competition between properties at different levels, such as Jaegwon Kim’s “supervenience
argument.” A central feature of Kim’s argument is that higher-level properties can in general be identified with “micro-based”
properties. I argue that explanations from multi-scale analysis give examples of explanations that are problematic for accounts
such as Kim’s. I argue that these difficulties suggest that some standard assumptions about causal competition need to be
revised. 相似文献
5.
Adam Toon 《Synthese》2010,172(2):301-315
6.
Sean Crawford 《Synthese》2008,160(1):75-96
Quine introduced a famous distinction between the ‘notional’ sense and the ‘relational’ sense of certain attitude verbs. The
distinction is both intuitive and sound but is often conflated with another distinction Quine draws between ‘dyadic’ and ‘triadic’
(or higher degree) attitudes. I argue that this conflation is largely responsible for the mistaken view that Quine’s account
of attitudes is undermined by the problem of the ‘exportation’ of singular terms within attitude contexts. Quine’s system
is also supposed to suffer from the problem of ‘suspended judgement with continued belief’. I argue that this criticism fails
to take account of a crucial presupposition of Quine’s about the connection between thought and language. The aim of the paper
is to defend the spirit of Quine’s account of attitudes by offering solutions to these two problems.
See also chapters four and five of Word and Object (Quine, 1960) and ‘Intensions Revisited’ (Quine, 1977). 相似文献
7.
Gerald Vision 《Topoi》2010,29(2):109-123
Although a number of truth theorists have claimed that a deflationary theory of ‘is true’ needs nothing more than the uniform
implication of instances of the theorem ‘the proposition that p is true if and only if p’, reflection shows that this is inadequate. If deflationists can’t support the instances when replacing the biconditional
with ‘because’, then their view is in peril. Deflationists sometimes acknowledge this by addressing, occasionally attempting
to deflate, ‘because’ and ‘in virtue of’ formulas and their close relatives. I examine what I take to be the most promising
deflationist moves in this direction and argue that they fail. 相似文献
8.
Stephen Finlay 《Synthese》2010,177(1):67-89
Some intuitive normative principles raise vexing ‘detaching problems’ by their failure to license modus ponens. I examine
three such principles (a self-reliance principle and two different instrumental principles) and recent stategies employed
to resolve their detaching problems. I show that solving these problems necessitates postulating an indefinitely large number
of senses for ‘ought’. The semantics for ‘ought’ that is standard in linguistics offers a unifying strategy for solving these
problems, but I argue that an alternative approach combining an end-relational theory of normativity with a comparative probabilistic semantics for ‘ought’ provides a more satisfactory solution. 相似文献
9.
Matthew Ratcliffe 《Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences》2006,5(1):31-52
This paper disputes the claim that our understanding of others is enabled by a commonsense or ‘folk’ psychology, whose ‘core’ involves the attribution of intentional states in order to predict and explain behaviour. I argue that interpersonal understanding is seldom, if ever, a matter of two people assigning intentional states to each other but emerges out of a context of interaction between them. Self and other form a coupled system rather than two wholly separate entities equipped with an internalised capacity to assign mental states to the other. This applies even in those instances where one might seem to adopt a ‘detached’ perspective towards others. Thus ‘folk psychology’, as commonly construed, is not folk psychology. 相似文献
10.
11.
E.J. Lowe 《Erkenntnis》1998,48(2-3):191-208
I propose a fourfold categorisation of entities according to whether or not they possess determinate identity-conditions and
whether or not they are determinately countable. Some entities – which I call ‘individual objects’ – have both determinate
identity and determinate countability: for example, persons and animals. In the case of entities of a kind K belonging to
this category, we are in principle always entitled to expect there to be determinate answers to such questions as ‘Is x the
same K as y?’ and ’How many Ks are there satisfying condition C?’, even if we may sometimes be unable in practice to discover
what these answers are. But other entities apparently lack either determinate identity, or determinate countability, or both.
In these terms I try to explain certain important ontological differences between familiar macroscopic objects and various
rather more esoteric entities, such as the ‘particles’ of quantum physics, quantities of material stuff, and tropes or property
instances.
This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date. 相似文献
12.
In the following I take issue with the allegation that liberalism must inevitably be guilty of ‘abstract individualism’. I
treat Michael Sandel’s well-known claim that there are ‘loyalties and convictions whose moral force consists partly in the
fact that living by them is inseparable from understanding ourselves as the particular persons we are’ as representative of
this widely held view. Specifically, I argue: (i) that Sandel’s account of the manner in which ‘constitutive’ loyalties function
as reasons for action presupposes the possibility of there being (what I call) ‘underivable particular obligations’, but that
such obligations are, in fact, a logical impossibility; and (ii) that Sandel’s account of the self as necessarily ‘encumbered’
presupposes an account of personal identity which confuses identification with definition, and which is, therefore, fundamentally
flawed.
For their constructive and insightful comments on an earlier draft of this paper, I owe a special debt of gratitude to the
following: Clare Chambers, Roger Crisp, Cécile Fabre, Paul Kelly, David Lloyd-Thomas. Thanks also go to Res Publica’s two anonymous referees. 相似文献
13.
B. Brogaard 《Synthese》2006,152(1):47-79
Russell’s new theory of denoting phrases introduced in “On Denoting” in Mind 1905 is now a paradigm of analytic philosophy. The main argument for Russell’s new theory is the so-called ‘Gray’s Elegy’
argument, which purports to show that the theory of denoting concepts (analogous to Frege’s theory of senses) promoted by
Russell in the 1903 Principles of Mathematics is incoherent. The ‘Gray’s Elegy’ argument rests on the premise that if a denoting concept occurs in a proposition, then
the proposition is not about the concept. I argue that the premise is false. The ‘Gray’s Elegy’ argument does not exhaust
Russell’s ammunition against the theory of denoting concepts. Another reason Russell rejects the theory is, as he says, that
it cannot provide an adequate account of non-uniquely denoting concepts. In the last section of the paper, I argue that even
though Russell was right in thinking that the theory of denoting concepts cannot provide an adequate account of non-uniquely
denoting concepts, Russell’s new theory does not succeed in eliminating the occurrence of all denoting concepts, as it requires
a commitment to the existence of variables that indirectly denote their values. However, the view that variables are denoting
concepts is unproblematic once the ‘Gray’s Elegy’ argument is blocked. 相似文献
14.
Eran Tal 《Synthese》2011,182(1):117-129
This paper draws attention to an increasingly common method of using computer simulations to establish evidential standards
in physics. By simulating an actual detection procedure on a computer, physicists produce patterns of data (‘signatures’)
that are expected to be observed if a sought-after phenomenon is present. Claims to detect the phenomenon are evaluated by
comparing such simulated signatures with actual data. Here I provide a justification for this practice by showing how computer
simulations establish the reliability of detection procedures. I argue that this use of computer simulation undermines two
fundamental tenets of the Bogen–Woodward account of evidential reasoning. Contrary to Bogen and Woodward’s view, computer-simulated
signatures rely on ‘downward’ inferences from phenomena to data. Furthermore, these simulations establish the reliability
of experimental setups without physically interacting with the apparatus. I illustrate my claims with a study of the recent
detection of the superfluid-to-Mott-insulator phase transition in ultracold atomic gases. 相似文献
15.
The paper defends a combination of perdurantism with mereological universalism by developing semantics of temporary predications
of the sort ’some P is/was/will be (a) Q’. We argue that, in addition to the usual application of causal and other restrictions
on sortals, the grammatical form of such statements allows for rather different regimentations along three separate dimensions,
according to: (a) whether ‘P’ and ‘Q’ are being used as phase or substance sortal terms, (b) whether ‘is’, ‘was’, and ‘will
be’ are the ‘is’, ‘was’, ‘will be’ of identity or of constitution, and (c) whether ‘Q’ is being used as a subject or predicate
term. We conclude that this latitude is beneficial, as it conforms with linguistic reality (i.e., the multiple uses actually
in place) and also enables one to turn what is ordinarily perceived as a problem for universalist perdurantism viz., a commitment
to all sorts of weird and gerrymandered temporally extended entities, into an advantage, for the richness in questions allows
us to make sense of the many different readings of sentences of the same grammatical form. 相似文献
16.
Joshua Gert 《The Journal of Ethics》2012,16(1):15-34
Alan Goldman’s Reasons from Within is one of the most thorough recent defenses of what might be called ‘orthodox internalism’ about practical reasons. Goldman’s
main target is an opposing view that includes a commitment to the following two theses: (O) that there are such things as
objective values, and (E) that these values give rise to external reasons. One version of this view, which we can call ‘orthodox
externalism’, also includes a commitment to the thesis (I) that rational people will be motivated by any reason they have
of which they are aware. Goldman himself embraces (I), and deploys it frequently in his criticisms of orthodox externalism.
But there is logical space for an externalist view that includes a commitment to (O) and (E), but that denies (I). The resulting
“hyperexternalist” view holds that some reasons need not motivate us, even if we are rational. In this paper I argue that
Goldman’s criticisms of orthodox externalism leave hyperexternalism untouched, and that his specific criticisms of my own
version of hyperexternalism do not work. In light of Goldman’s criticisms of orthodox externalism and my own criticisms of
Goldman’s view, hyperexternalism emerges as the favored option. 相似文献
17.
This paper presents a number of apparent anomalies in rational choice scenarios, and their translation into the logic of everyday
reasoning. Three classes of examples that have been discussed in the context of probabilistic choice since the 1960s (by Debreu,
Tversky and others) are analyzed in a non-probabilistic setting. It is shown how they can at the same time be regarded as
logical problems that concern the drawing of defeasible inferences from a given information base. I argue that initial appearances
notwithstanding, these cases should not be classed as instances of irrationality in choice or reasoning. One way of explaining
away their apparent oddity is to view certain aspects of these examples as making particular options salient. The decision
problems in point can then be solved by ‘picking’ these options, although they could not have been ‘chosen’ in a principled
way, due to ties or incomparabilities with alternative options. 相似文献
18.
Daniel Cohnitz 《Journal for General Philosophy of Science》2006,37(2):373-392
Summary In their paper, ‘When are thought experiments poor ones?’ (Peijnenburg and David Atkinson, 2003, Journal of General Philosophy of Science 34, 305-322.), Jeanne Peijnenburg and David Atkinson argue that most, if not all, philosophical thought experiments are “poor”
ones with “disastrous consequences” and that they share the property of being poor with some (but not all) scientific thought
experiments. Noting that unlike philosophy, the sciences have the resources to avoid the disastrous consequences, Peijnenburg
and Atkinson come to the conclusion that the use of thought experiments in science is in general more successful than in philosophy
and that instead of concocting more “recherché” thought experiments, philosophy should try to be more empirical. In this comment
I will argue that Peijnenburg’s and Atkinson’s view on thought experiments is based on a misleading characterization of both,
the dialectical situation in philosophy as well as the history of physics. By giving an adequate account of what the discussion
in contemporary philosophy is about, we will arrive at a considerably different evaluation of philosophical thought experiments.
For I am convinced that we now find ourselves at an altogether decisive turning point in philosophy, and that we are objectively justified in considering that an end has come to the fruitless conflict of systems. We are already at the present time, in my opinion, in possession of methods which make any such conflict in principle unnecessary. What is now required is their resolute application. (Schlick, ‘The Turning Point in Philosophy’, 1930/1959, p. 54).相似文献
19.
Jeffrey Grupp 《Sophia》2006,45(1):5-23
I discuss the relations between God and spatial entities, such as the universe. An example of a relation between God and a
spatial entity is the relation,causes. Such relations are, in D.M. Armstrong’s words, ‘realm crossing’ relations: relations between or among spatial entities and
entities in the realm of the spatially unlocated. I discuss an apparent problem with such realm crossing relations. If this
problem is serious enough, as I will argue it is, it implies that God cannot be the creator of the universe I also discuss
that if God cannot be the creator of the universe, then God does not exist. 相似文献
20.
Boltzmann’s Bildtheorie, which asserts that scientific theories are ‘mental pictures’ having at best a partial similarity
to reality, was a core element of his philosophy of science. The aim of this article is to draw attention to a neglected aspect
of it, namely its significance for the issue of scientific explanation and understanding, regarded by Boltzmann as central
goals of science. I argue that, in addition to being an epistemological view of the interpretation of scientific theories
Boltzmann’s Bildtheorie has implications for the nature of scientific understanding. This aspect has as yet been ignored because
discussion of the Bildtheorie has been restricted to the realism-instrumentalism debate. To elucidate my analysis of Boltzmann’s
Bildtheorie concrete examples are presented, and the pragmatist and Darwinist roots of Boltzmann’s view are discussed.
Moreover, I propose to use Boltzmann’s ideas as a starting-point for developing a novel analysis of the notion of scientific
understanding, of which a brief impression is given. It shows that the study of Boltzmann’s philosophy is not only of historical
interest but can be relevant also to modern philosophy of science and to the methodology of theoretical physics.
This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date. 相似文献