European Journal for Philosophy of Science最新文献

The degreed view is an influential account in the debate on quantum value indefiniteness, linking the gradedness of quantum properties to quantum indeterminacy. This paper challenges the connection between degrees and indeterminacy by presenting an example of a graded quantum property that does not entail metaphysical indeterminacy. Through an investigation of two graded approaches to location in quantum mechanics, the paper argues that while the first account, degreed instantiation of exact location, is indeterminate, the second account, degreed quantum location, is not. This indicates that indeterminacy and degrees are not inherently linked, offering a novel perspective on quantum ontology. The paper advocates adopting a graded view of quantum properties without indeterminacy, potentially leading to a paradigm shift in understanding quantum phenomena.

We rigorously describe the relation in which a credence function should stand to a set of chance functions in order for these to be compatible in the way mandated by the Principal Principle. This resolves an apparent contradiction in the literature, by means of providing a formal way of combining credences with modest chance functions so that the latter indeed serve as guides for the former. Along the way we note some problematic consequences of taking admissibility to imply requirements involving probabilistic independence. We also argue, contra (Hawthorne et al., The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 68(1), 123–131 2017), that the Principal Principle does not imply the Principle of Indifference.

Research about the evolution of morality suffers from the lack of a clear, agreed-upon concept of morality. In response to this, recent accounts have become increasingly pluralist and pragmatic. In this paper, I argue that 1) both the concept of morality and the broader understanding of what makes us moral include ethical and metaethical assumptions; 2) there is no uncontroversial descriptive notion available, and therefore settling on a particular concept inevitably entails such assumptions; and 3) what is lacking is a reflection on the role that ethical and metaethical assumptions play, suggesting that the debate would benefit from making them explicit. Claims about “the true origin of morality” can fruitfully be analyzed as “mixed claims”: claims that combine a causal-historical hypothesis (e.g., about the evolution of a certain ability, such as empathy or joint intentionality) with ethical or metaethical assumptions about which abilities or norms make us moral. Making such assumptions explicit advances the epistemic aims of transparency and comparability, and thereby helps to avoid rash conclusions regarding, for instance, the nature of moral progress. Finally, it helps to unpack the normative knowledge shared by behavioral scientists and comparative psychologists and to give this knowledge its proper place in research.

The extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH), the hypothesis that an extraterrestrial civilization (ETC) is active on Earth today, is taboo in academia, but the assumptions behind this taboo are faulty. Advances in biology have rendered the notion that complex life is rare in our Galaxy improbable. The objection that no ETC would come to Earth to hide from us does not consider all possible alien motives or means. For an advanced ETC, the convergent instrumental goals of all rational agents – self-preservation and the acquisition of resources – would support the objectives of removing existential threats and gathering strategic and non-strategic information. It could advance these objectives by proactively gathering information about and from inhabited planets, concealing itself while doing so, and terminating potential rivals before they become imminently dangerous. Other hypotheses of ETC behavior, including the zoo/interdict hypothesis and the dark forest hypothesis also undercut the claim that the ETH is highly improbable, and the ETH overturns none of our well-tested scientific knowledge. It follows that evidence offered in its support need not be extraordinary. The fact that most reports of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) have natural or human explanations does not count against the ETH. Inference to the best explanation offers a way to find evidence for the hypothesis and some evidence exists, some of it taking the form of reliable witness reports. The most plausible alternative explanation for some UAP declines in probability over time. A hypothesis that does not contradict well-established facts or theories, is not highly improbable for other reasons, and explains otherwise unexplained evidence is a rational hypothesis. Since the ETH meets this test, it should be evaluated alongside other possibilities when the case-specific evidence warrants it.

Critics frequently target Ernest Nagel’s model of reduction for its purported inadequacy in addressing the issue of approximation. In response, proponents of Nagel’s model have integrated approximations into the more comprehensive Generalized Nagel-Schaffner model, or the GNS model. However, this article contends that the pertinent criticisms and responses are both misplaced: There are no barriers to Nagel’s model incorporating approximations, and it assimilates them in a manner distinctly dissimilar to the approach of the GNS model. Indeed, Nagel’s model is fundamentally static, providing invariant formal and informal conditions for reduction; and it is the dynamic history of science that fulfills relevant conditions for reduction, thereby achieving different degrees of reductive success. Consequently, approximations are essentially extraneous to Nagel’s model, since they pertain chiefly to temporally based scientific knowledge and concern merely the means (e.g., approximate or exact deductions) of fulfilling the conditions for reduction within specific problem contexts. This article also develops a Nagelian treatment of approximation, demonstrating how distinctive types of approximations aid in fulfilling various conditions for reduction and contribute to different degrees of reductive success. Two case studies are presented to illustrate the Nagelian treatment: The first examines the specific heat ratio anomaly within the traditional endeavor of reducing thermodynamics to statistical mechanics, and the second addresses the consumption puzzle in the context of reducing macroeconomics to microeconomics.

Popper’s (1983, 2002) philosophy of science has enjoyed something of a renaissance in the wake of the replication crisis, offering a philosophical basis for the ensuing science reform movement. However, adherence to Popper’s approach may also be at least partly responsible for the sense of “crisis” that has developed following multiple unexpected replication failures. In this article, I contrast Popper’s approach with that of Lakatos (1978) as well as with a related but problematic approach called naïve methodological falsificationism (NMF; Lakatos, 1978). The Popperian approach is powerful because it is based on logical refutations, but its theories are noncausal and, therefore, potentially lacking in scientific value. In contrast, the Lakatosian approach considers causal theories, but it concedes that these theories are not logically refutable. Finally, NMF represents a hybrid approach that subjects Lakatosian causal theories to Popperian logical refutations. However, its tactic of temporarily accepting a ceteris paribus clause during theory testing may be viewed as scientifically inappropriate, epistemically inconsistent, and “completely redundant” (Lakatos, 1978, p. 40). I conclude that the replication “crisis” makes the most sense in the context of the Popperian and NMF approaches because it is only in these two approaches that the failure to replicate a previously corroborated theory represents a logical refutation of that theory. In contrast, such replication failures are less problematic in the Lakatosian approach because they do not logically refute theories. Indeed, in the Lakatosian approach, replication failures can be temporarily ignored or used to motivate theory development.

In this article, I sketch out the contours of a political philosophy of experimentation. Drawing on the work of Joseph Rouse, Hans Radder, Gilbert Hottois, and Jerome Ravetz, I argue that such a political philosophy of experimentation already exists, but has often been rendered invisible. Mainstream Anglophone philosophy of science often focuses on epistemological questions, typically at the expense of political questions about science. I argue that such a politicization of philosophy of science can be linked to the topic of experimentation, which transforms epistemological questions about representations of the world into political questions about interventions in the world. In the first section of the article, I examine the work of a number of political philosophers of experimentation in order to make explicit what I mean by a "political" philosophy of experimentation. In the second section of the article, I present a systematized argument why a philosophy of experimentation should be political. Finally, in the last section, I map out more explicitly the set of questions that are central to such a political philosophy of experimentation, in particular questions about what I call the politics of interaction, referring to how science and society should interact; the politics of organization, referring to how science should be organized; and the philosopher as political activist, referring to the question of whether philosophers should also act on their theories.

This article mainly investigates whether common Bayesian confirmation measures are affected by stopping rules. The results indicate that difference measure d, log-ratio measure r, and log-likelihood measure l are not affected by non-informative stopping rules, but affected by informative stopping rules. In contrast, Carnap measure (tau ), normalized difference measure n, and Mortimer measure m are affected by (non-)informative stopping rules sometimes but sometimes aren’t. Besides, we use two examples to further illustrate that confirmation measures d, r, and l are better than (tau ,n), and m.

Despite its being one of Roger Penrose’s greatest contributions to spacetime physics, there is a dearth of philosophical literature on twistor theory. The one exception to this is Bain (2006)—but although excellent, there remains much to be said on the foundations and philosophy of twistor theory. In this article, we (a) present for philosophers an introduction to twistor theory, (b) consider how the spacetime–twistor correspondence interacts with the philosophical literature on theoretical equivalence, and (c) explore the bearing which twistor theory might have on philosophical issues such as the status of dynamics, the geometrisation of physics, spacetime ontology, the emergence of spacetime, and symmetry-to-reality inferences. We close with an elaboration of a variety of further opportunities for philosophical investigation into twistor theory.

A growing number of linguistic attempts to explain how languages change use cultural-evolutionary models involving selection or drift. Developmental constraints and biases, which take center stage in evolutionary developmental biology or evo-devo, seem to be absent within this framework, even though linguistics is home to numerous notions of constraint. In this paper, we show how these evo-devo concepts could be applied to linguistic change and why they should. This requires some conceptual groundwork, due to important differences between linguistic and biotic evolution. In biological evolution, development generates the organism's variable traits on which selection and drift act. In linguistic evolution by analogy, we say development generates the linguistic variants on which selection and drift can act. “Linguistic development” then picks out how individual speakers produce and comprehend language. It involves much more than just learning. Using this broad notion of development, we distinguish between different types of bias that could operate in the processes of linguistic innovation and transmission, which correspond to genetic mutation and biological reproduction, respectively. Having thus sharpened our conceptual toolbox, we then reanalyze two well-documented cases of linguistic change and show that, in both these cases, linguists have only considered Neo-Darwinian evolutionary explanations, falsely deploying an exclusive disjunction of selection and drift. We show that there is at least a third relevant alternative in these examples, namely developmental constraint or bias in the sense we explicate here.