Well-known debates among statistical inferential paradigms emerge from conflicting views on the notion of probability. One dominant view understands probability as a representation of sampling variability, another prominent view understands probability as a measure of belief. The former generally describes model parameters as fixed values, in contrast to the latter. We propose there are actually two versions of a parameter within both paradigms: a fixed, unknown value which generated the data and a random version to describe the uncertainty in estimating the unknown value. An inferential approach based on confidence distributions deciphers seemingly conflicting perspectives on parameters and probabilities.
{"title":"An exploration of parameter duality in statistical inference","authors":"S. Thornton, M. Xie","doi":"10.1017/psa.2023.174","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/psa.2023.174","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Well-known debates among statistical inferential paradigms emerge from conflicting views on the notion of probability. One dominant view understands probability as a representation of sampling variability, another prominent view understands probability as a measure of belief. The former generally describes model parameters as fixed values, in contrast to the latter. We propose there are actually two versions of a parameter within both paradigms: a fixed, unknown value which generated the data and a random version to describe the uncertainty in estimating the unknown value. An inferential approach based on confidence distributions deciphers seemingly conflicting perspectives on parameters and probabilities.","PeriodicalId":54620,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy of Science","volume":"143 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138973288","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Scientists and philosophers alike debate whether various systems such as plants and bacteria exercise cognition. One strategy for resolving such debates is to ground claims about nonhuman cognition in evidence from mathematical models of cognitive capacities. In this paper, I show that proponents of this strategy face two major challenges: demarcating phenomenological models from process models and overcoming underdetermination by model fit. I argue that even if the demarcation problem is resolved, fitting a process model to behavioral data is, on its own, not strong evidence for any cognitive process, let alone processes shared with humans.
{"title":"On Cognitive Modeling and Other Minds","authors":"J.P. Gamboa","doi":"10.1017/psa.2023.168","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/psa.2023.168","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Scientists and philosophers alike debate whether various systems such as plants and bacteria exercise cognition. One strategy for resolving such debates is to ground claims about nonhuman cognition in evidence from mathematical models of cognitive capacities. In this paper, I show that proponents of this strategy face two major challenges: demarcating phenomenological models from process models and overcoming underdetermination by model fit. I argue that even if the demarcation problem is resolved, fitting a process model to behavioral data is, on its own, not strong evidence for any cognitive process, let alone processes shared with humans.","PeriodicalId":54620,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy of Science","volume":"90 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138973234","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Imitating nature is an ever more popular strategy in many fields of science and engineering research, from ecological engineering to artificial intelligence. But while biomimetics and related fields have recently attracted increased attention from philosophers, there has been relatively little engagement with what I suggest we see as their basic epistemological presupposition: that we may acquire knowledge from nature. I argue that emphasizing and exploring this presupposition opens up a new approach to epistemology, based on a shift from a conventional epistemological relationship to nature as object of knowledge to a biomimetic relationship to nature as source of knowledge.
{"title":"Biomimetic Epistemology","authors":"Henry Dicks","doi":"10.1017/psa.2023.173","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/psa.2023.173","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Imitating nature is an ever more popular strategy in many fields of science and engineering research, from ecological engineering to artificial intelligence. But while biomimetics and related fields have recently attracted increased attention from philosophers, there has been relatively little engagement with what I suggest we see as their basic epistemological presupposition: that we may acquire knowledge from nature. I argue that emphasizing and exploring this presupposition opens up a new approach to epistemology, based on a shift from a conventional epistemological relationship to nature as object of knowledge to a biomimetic relationship to nature as source of knowledge.","PeriodicalId":54620,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy of Science","volume":"86 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138971362","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Two types of formal models—landscape search tasks and two-armed bandit models—are often used to study the effects that various social factors have on epistemic performance. I argue that they can be understood within a single framework. In this unified framework, I develop a model that may be used to understand the effects of functional and demographic diversity and their interaction. Using the unified model, I find that the benefit of demographic diversity is most pronounced in a functionally homogeneous group, and decreases with the increase of functional diversity.
{"title":"Landscapes and Bandits: A Unified Model of Functional and Demographic Diversity","authors":"Alice C.W. Huang","doi":"10.1017/psa.2023.169","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/psa.2023.169","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Two types of formal models—landscape search tasks and two-armed bandit models—are often used to study the effects that various social factors have on epistemic performance. I argue that they can be understood within a single framework. In this unified framework, I develop a model that may be used to understand the effects of functional and demographic diversity and their interaction. Using the unified model, I find that the benefit of demographic diversity is most pronounced in a functionally homogeneous group, and decreases with the increase of functional diversity.","PeriodicalId":54620,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy of Science","volume":"14 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138972548","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
An influential heuristic for thinking about climate adaptation asserts that “natural” adaptation strategies are the best ones. This heuristic has been roundly criticized but is difficult to dislodge in the absence of an alternative. We introduce a new heuristic that assesses adaptation strategies by looking at their maturity, power, and commitment. Maturity is the extent to which we understand an adaptation strategy’s effects. Power is the size of the effect an adaptation strategy will have. Commitment is the degree to which an adaptation strategy is difficult to test or reverse.
{"title":"A New Heuristic for Climate Adaptation","authors":"Kate Nicole Hoffman, K. Kovaka","doi":"10.1017/psa.2023.163","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/psa.2023.163","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 An influential heuristic for thinking about climate adaptation asserts that “natural” adaptation strategies are the best ones. This heuristic has been roundly criticized but is difficult to dislodge in the absence of an alternative. We introduce a new heuristic that assesses adaptation strategies by looking at their maturity, power, and commitment. Maturity is the extent to which we understand an adaptation strategy’s effects. Power is the size of the effect an adaptation strategy will have. Commitment is the degree to which an adaptation strategy is difficult to test or reverse.","PeriodicalId":54620,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy of Science","volume":"2010 33","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139001991","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper examines constraints and their role in scientific explanation. Common views in the philosophical literature suggest that constraints are non-causal and that they provide non-causal explanations. While much of this work focuses on examples from physics, this paper explores constraints from other fields, including neuroscience, physiology, and the social sciences. I argue that these cases involve constraints that are causal and that provide a unique type of causal explanation. This paper clarifies what it means for a factor to be a constraint, when such constraints are causal, and how they figure in scientific explanation.
{"title":"Causal Constraints in the Life and Social Sciences","authors":"Lauren Ross","doi":"10.1017/psa.2023.165","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/psa.2023.165","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper examines constraints and their role in scientific explanation. Common views in the philosophical literature suggest that constraints are non-causal and that they provide non-causal explanations. While much of this work focuses on examples from physics, this paper explores constraints from other fields, including neuroscience, physiology, and the social sciences. I argue that these cases involve constraints that are causal and that provide a unique type of causal explanation. This paper clarifies what it means for a factor to be a constraint, when such constraints are causal, and how they figure in scientific explanation.","PeriodicalId":54620,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy of Science","volume":"45 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138602374","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this paper, we challenge the standard interpretation of pain asymbolia (PA), a neuropsychiatric condition that causes unusual reactions to pain stimuli. The standard interpretation asserts that PA subjects experience pain but lack important features of the experience. However, the paper argues that the clinical evidence for PA does not support this interpretation and that the arguments put forward by the defenders of the standard interpretation end up making self-contradicting claims. Finally, we suggest that the best interpretation of the available evidence is to take a deflationist stance toward PA, at least until further evidence becomes available.
{"title":"Pain Asymbolia is Not Pain","authors":"Trevor Griffith, Adrian Kind","doi":"10.1017/psa.2023.167","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/psa.2023.167","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In this paper, we challenge the standard interpretation of pain asymbolia (PA), a neuropsychiatric condition that causes unusual reactions to pain stimuli. The standard interpretation asserts that PA subjects experience pain but lack important features of the experience. However, the paper argues that the clinical evidence for PA does not support this interpretation and that the arguments put forward by the defenders of the standard interpretation end up making self-contradicting claims. Finally, we suggest that the best interpretation of the available evidence is to take a deflationist stance toward PA, at least until further evidence becomes available.","PeriodicalId":54620,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy of Science","volume":"32 38","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138601584","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Recent developments in generalized probability theory have renewed a debate about whether regularity (i.e., the constraint that only logical contradictions get assigned probability 0) should be a necessary feature of both chances and credences. Crucial to this debate, however, are some mathematical facts regarding the interplay between the existence of regular generalized probability measures and various cardinality assumptions. We improve on several known results in the literature regarding the existence of regular generalized probability measures. In particular, we give necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of regular generalized probability measures defined on the whole powerset of any sample space.
{"title":"Totality, Regularity and Cardinality in Probability Theory","authors":"Paolo Mancosu, Guillaume Massas","doi":"10.1017/psa.2023.159","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/psa.2023.159","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract\u0000 Recent developments in generalized probability theory have renewed a debate about whether regularity (i.e., the constraint that only logical contradictions get assigned probability 0) should be a necessary feature of both chances and credences. Crucial to this debate, however, are some mathematical facts regarding the interplay between the existence of regular generalized probability measures and various cardinality assumptions. We improve on several known results in the literature regarding the existence of regular generalized probability measures. In particular, we give necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of regular generalized probability measures defined on the whole powerset of any sample space.","PeriodicalId":54620,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy of Science","volume":" 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138615653","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Fitness has taken center stage in debates concerning how best to identify evolutionary transitions in individuality (ETIs). An influential framework proposes that an ETI occurs only when fitness is exported from constituent particles to a collective. We reformulate the conceptual structure of this framework as involving three steps. The culminating step compares “counterfactual” fitnesses against a long-run measure of fitness. This comparison assumes that collective-level fitness mereologically supervenes on particle fitness. However, if this assumption is rigorously enforced, the proposed conditions for identifying ETIs prove to be too weak. We here suggest an alternative model of ETIs centered around traits.
{"title":"“From Fitness-Centered to Trait-Centered Explanations: What Evolutionary Transitions in Individuality Teach Us About Fitness”","authors":"Peter Takacs, Guilhem Doulcier, Pierrick Bourrat","doi":"10.1017/psa.2023.161","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/psa.2023.161","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Fitness has taken center stage in debates concerning how best to identify evolutionary transitions in individuality (ETIs). An influential framework proposes that an ETI occurs only when fitness is exported from constituent particles to a collective. We reformulate the conceptual structure of this framework as involving three steps. The culminating step compares “counterfactual” fitnesses against a long-run measure of fitness. This comparison assumes that collective-level fitness mereologically supervenes on particle fitness. However, if this assumption is rigorously enforced, the proposed conditions for identifying ETIs prove to be too weak. We here suggest an alternative model of ETIs centered around traits.","PeriodicalId":54620,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy of Science","volume":" 8","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138617560","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"PSA volume 90 issue 5 Cover and Front matter","authors":"","doi":"10.1017/psa.2023.171","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/psa.2023.171","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":54620,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy of Science","volume":"1440 ","pages":"f1 - f7"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139019341","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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