Structural Realism, Scientific Change, and Partial Structures

Scientific change has two important dimensions: conceptual change and structural change. In this paper, I argue that the existence of conceptual change brings serious difficulties for scientific realism, and the existence of structural change makes structural realism look quite implausible. I then sketch an alternative account of scientific change, in terms of partial structures, that accommodates both conceptual and structural changes. The proposal, however, is not realist, and supports a structuralist version of van Fraassen’s constructive empiricism (structural empiricism).     

Some Naturalistic Comments on Frege’s Philosophy of Mathematics

This paper compares Frege’s philosophy of mathematics with a naturalistic and nominalistic philosophy of mathematics developed in Ye (2010a, 2010b, 2010c, 2011), and it defends the latter against the former. The paper focuses on Frege’s account of the applicability of mathematics in the sciences and his conceptual realism. It argues that the naturalistic and nominalistic approach fares better than the Fregean approach in terms of its logical accuracy and clarity in explaining the applicability of mathematics in the sciences, its ability to reveal the real issues in explaining human epistemic and semantic access to objects, its prospect for resolving internal difficulties and developing into a full-fledged theory with rich details, as well its consistency with other areas of our scientific knowledge. Trivial criticisms such as “Frege is against naturalism here and therefore he is wrong” will be avoided as the paper tries to evaluate the two approaches on a neutral ground by focusing on meta-theoretical features such as accuracy, richness of detail, prospects for resolving internal issues, and consistency with other knowledge. The arguments in this paper apply not merely to Frege’s philosophy. They apply as well to all philosophies that accept a Fregean account of the applicability of mathematics or accept conceptual realism. Some of these philosophies profess to endorse naturalism.     

Mirrors and Misleading Appearances

Although philosophers have often insisted that specular perception is illusory or erroneous in nature, few have stressed the reliability and indispensability of mirrors as optical instruments. The main goal of this paper is to explain how mirrors can contribute to knowledge and at the same time be a source of systematic errors and misleading appearances. To resolve this apparent paradox, I argue that mirrors do not generate perceptual illusions or misperceptions, by defending a view of mirrors as transparent and invisible visual media. I then consider the reasons for which mirrors are said to be misleading. Contrary to the illusory account, I defend a nonperceptual approach to the errors attributable to mirrors, which analyses the kind of errors generated by the use of mirrors in terms of false judgments. I further show that a nonperceptual view of errors extends to all of the cases in which a sensorimotor adaptation is required, such as perception through magnifying or inversing lenses.     

The World Council of Churches and Pentecostals

This article recalls the history of the relationships between the World Council of Churches (WCC) and Pentecostal churches from the early years of the WCC until today. One of the greatest challenges currently facing the WCC is the shift in focus of Christianity to the South and the East, a phenomenon to which emerging Pentecostal and charismatic churches and communities are contributing. Alongside global cultural trends in the context of globalization, Pentecostal and charismatic piety and spirituality are increasingly affecting the older churches as well. While some see this negatively, many see it as an expression of adaptation to new challenges necessary for the survival of these churches. The article shows how the changing ecclesial context led to the WCC to explore new avenues for building relationships such as a Joint Consultative Group and the Global Christian Forum.     

Neighbors,relatives, and friends: Finding constructive approaches to religious others

The way we approach, describe and interpret the faiths of others impact significantly on the relationship between different religious traditions. This article develops resources from Christian theology to show how it provides important elements for the development of constructive relationships. It also offers some comments on the present proposals put forward by the ELCA. By emphasizing how religious traditions orient and transform believers, it points to how practices can appear as meaningful across traditional borders. To develop constructive relationships with religious others is, fundamentally, a way to practice belief in God as love.     

What can debunking do for us (sceptics and nihilists)?

Debunking arguments in metaethics are often presented as particularly challenging for non‐naturalistic versions of moral realism. The first aim of this paper is to explore and defend a response on behalf of non‐naturalism. The second aim of the paper is to argue that although non‐naturalism’s response is satisfactory, this does not mean that debunking arguments are metaethically uninteresting. They have a limited and indirect role to play in the exchange between non‐naturalists and moral error theorists. In the end, debunking arguments can do less for sceptics and nihilists than what is commonly thought, but not nothing.     

The argument from agreement: How universal values undermine moral realism

The most popular argument against moral realism is the argument from disagreement: if there are mind‐independent moral facts, then we would not expect to find as much moral disagreement as we in fact do; therefore, moral realism is false. In this paper, I develop the flipside of this argument. According to this argument from agreement, we would expect to find lots of moral disagreement if there were mind‐independent moral facts. But we do not, in fact, find much moral disagreement; therefore, moral realism is false. I defend the argument, explain the empirical evidence that supports it, and show what makes this challenge novel and powerful.     

The meta-ethical significance of experiments about folk moral objectivism

The meta-ethical commitments of folk respondents – specifically their commitment to the objectivity of moral claims – have recently become subject to empirical scrutiny. Experimental findings suggest that people are meta-ethical pluralists: There is both inter- and intrapersonal variation with regard to people’s objectivist commitments. What meta-ethical implications, if any, do these findings have? I point out that current research does not directly address traditional meta-ethical questions: The methods used and distinctions drawn by experimenters do not perfectly match those of meta-ethicists. However, I go on to argue that, in spite of this mismatch, the research findings should be of interest to moral philosophers, including meta-ethicists. Not only do these findings extend the field of moral psychology with new data and hypotheses, but they also provide tentative evidence that touches on the adequacy of theses in moral semantics and moral metaphysics. Specifically, they put pressure on arguments in support of moral realism.     

Perception and its objects

Early modern empiricists thought that the nature of perceptual experience is given by citing the object presented to the mind in that experience. Hallucination and illusion suggest that this requires untenable mind-dependent objects. Current orthodoxy replaces the appeal to direct objects with the claim that perceptual experience is characterized instead by its representational content. This paper argues that the move to content is problematic, and reclaims the early modern empiricist insight as perfectly consistent, even in cases of illusion, with the realist contention that these direct objects of perception are the persisting mind-independent physical objects we all know and love.

Shared structure need not be shared set-structure

Recent semantic approaches to scientific structuralism, aiming to make precise the concept of shared structure between models, formally frame a model as a type of set-structure. This framework is then used to provide a semantic account of (a) the structure of a scientific theory, (b) the applicability of a mathematical theory to a physical theory, and (c) the structural realist’s appeal to the structural continuity between successive physical theories. In this paper, I challenge the idea that, to be so used, the concept of a model and so the concept of shared structure between models must be formally framed within a single unified framework, set-theoretic or other. I first investigate the Bourbaki-inspired assumption that structures are types of set-structured systems and next consider the extent to which this problematic assumption underpins both Suppes’ and recent semantic views of the structure of a scientific theory. I then use this investigation to show that, when it comes to using the concept of shared structure, there is no need to agree with French that “without a formal framework for explicating this concept of ‘structure-similarity’ it remains vague, just as Giere’s concept of similarity between models does ...” (French, 2000, Synthese, 125, pp. 103–120, p. 114). Neither concept is vague; either can be made precise by appealing to the concept of a morphism, but it is the context (and not any set-theoretic type) that determines the appropriate kind of morphism. I make use of French’s (1999, From physics to philosophy (pp. 187–207). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) own example from the development of quantum theory to show that, for both Weyl and Wigner’s programmes, it was the context of considering the ‘relevant symmetries’ that determined that the appropriate kind of morphism was the one that preserved the shared Lie-group structure of both the theoretical and phenomenological models. I wish to thank Katherine Brading, Anjan Chakravartty, Steven French, Martin Thomson-Jones, Antigone Nounou, Stathis Psillos, Dean Rickles, Mauricio Suarez and two anonymous referees for valuable comments and criticisms, and Gregory Janzen for editorial suggestions. Research for this paper was funded by a generous SSHRC grant for which I am grateful