The goal of this paper is to analyse the role of convention in interpreting physical theories—and, in particular, how the distinction between the conventional and the non-conventional interacts with judgments of equivalence. We will begin with a discussion of what, if anything, distinguishes those statements of a theory that might be dubbed “conventions”. This will lead us to consider the conventions that are not themselves part of a theory’s content, but are rather applied to the theory in interpreting it. Finally, we will consider the idea that what conventions to adopt might, itself, be regarded as a matter of convention.
{"title":"Equivalence and Convention","authors":"Neil Dewar","doi":"10.1017/psa.2023.148","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/psa.2023.148","url":null,"abstract":"The goal of this paper is to analyse the role of convention in interpreting physical theories—and, in particular, how the distinction between the conventional and the non-conventional interacts with judgments of equivalence. We will begin with a discussion of what, if anything, distinguishes those statements of a theory that might be dubbed “conventions”. This will lead us to consider the conventions that are not themselves part of a theory’s content, but are rather applied to the theory in interpreting it. Finally, we will consider the idea that what conventions to adopt might, itself, be regarded as a matter of convention.","PeriodicalId":54620,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135368682","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 Epistemic stances are collections of attitudes, values, aims, and policies relevant to assessing evidence, eventuating in belief or agnosticism regarding the output of scientific investigations. If in some cases conflicting stances promoting scientific realism and antirealism, respectively, are rationally permissible, this would seem to undermine the possibility of resolving certain debates between realists and antirealists. In this paper I reply to two concerns about this conception of stances, to the effect that: (1) a stance underlying realism is, in fact, rationally obligatory for realists, given certain natural assumptions; and (2) this sort of permissivism would validate pseudoscience and science denialism.
{"title":"Resolving Debates about Scientific Realism: The Challenge from Stances","authors":"Anjan Chakravartty","doi":"10.1017/psa.2023.141","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/psa.2023.141","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Epistemic stances are collections of attitudes, values, aims, and policies relevant to assessing evidence, eventuating in belief or agnosticism regarding the output of scientific investigations. If in some cases conflicting stances promoting scientific realism and antirealism, respectively, are rationally permissible, this would seem to undermine the possibility of resolving certain debates between realists and antirealists. In this paper I reply to two concerns about this conception of stances, to the effect that: (1) a stance underlying realism is, in fact, rationally obligatory for realists, given certain natural assumptions; and (2) this sort of permissivism would validate pseudoscience and science denialism.","PeriodicalId":54620,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135567075","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 The modern Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics describes an emergent multiverse. The goal of this paper is to provide a perspicuous characterisation of how the multiverse emerges making use of a recent account of (weak) ontological emergence. This will be cashed out with a case study that identifies decoherence as the mechanism for emergence. The greater metaphysical clarity enables the rebuttal of critiques due to Baker (2007) and Dawid and Thébault (2015) that cast the emergent multiverse ontology as incoherent; responses are also offered to challenges to the Everettian approach from Maudlin (2010) and Monton (2013).
现代埃弗雷特对量子力学的解释描述了一个新兴的多元宇宙。本文的目的是利用最近对(弱)本体论涌现的描述，为多元宇宙如何出现提供一个清晰的特征。这将通过一个案例研究来证明，该案例研究将退相干识别为涌现的机制。更大的形而上学清晰度可以反驳Baker(2007)和david and th bault(2015)提出的批评，这些批评将新兴的多元宇宙本体视为不连贯的;作者还对莫德林(2010)和蒙顿(2013)对埃弗里特方法提出的挑战作出了回应。
{"title":"Incoherent? No, Just Decoherent: How Quantum Many Worlds Emerge","authors":"Alexander Franklin","doi":"10.1017/psa.2023.155","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/psa.2023.155","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The modern Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics describes an emergent multiverse. The goal of this paper is to provide a perspicuous characterisation of how the multiverse emerges making use of a recent account of (weak) ontological emergence. This will be cashed out with a case study that identifies decoherence as the mechanism for emergence. The greater metaphysical clarity enables the rebuttal of critiques due to Baker (2007) and Dawid and Thébault (2015) that cast the emergent multiverse ontology as incoherent; responses are also offered to challenges to the Everettian approach from Maudlin (2010) and Monton (2013).","PeriodicalId":54620,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135567089","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 The founder of conservation biology, Michael Soulé, set out a vision for conservation biology that was explicitly value-laden, analogous to cancer-biology. In so doing, he drew on the writings of Aldo Leopold, known among philosophers primarily for his land ethic. Employing and extending the work of Anderson (2004) and Clough (2020), I argue that the Leopoldian views that Soulé was drawing on were the product of the coevolution of descriptive and evaluative beliefs over the course of Leopold’s life, grounded in his experiences, resulting in tested and reliable – albeit defeasible – values underlying conservation biology.
{"title":"The coevolution of descriptive and evaluative beliefs in Aldo Leopold’s thinking","authors":"Roberta L Millstein","doi":"10.1017/psa.2023.133","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/psa.2023.133","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The founder of conservation biology, Michael Soulé, set out a vision for conservation biology that was explicitly value-laden, analogous to cancer-biology. In so doing, he drew on the writings of Aldo Leopold, known among philosophers primarily for his land ethic. Employing and extending the work of Anderson (2004) and Clough (2020), I argue that the Leopoldian views that Soulé was drawing on were the product of the coevolution of descriptive and evaluative beliefs over the course of Leopold’s life, grounded in his experiences, resulting in tested and reliable – albeit defeasible – values underlying conservation biology.","PeriodicalId":54620,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135567091","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 This paper concerns the diachronic rationality norms for comparative confidence judgements , i.e. judgements of the form ‘I am at least as confident in p as I am in q ’. Specifically, it identifies, characterises and evaluates an intuitively compelling learning rule called ‘comparative conditionalisation’ that specifies how agents should revise their comparative confidence judgements in the face of novel evidence.
{"title":"Comparative Learning","authors":"Benjamin Eva","doi":"10.1017/psa.2023.99","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/psa.2023.99","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper concerns the diachronic rationality norms for comparative confidence judgements , i.e. judgements of the form ‘I am at least as confident in p as I am in q ’. Specifically, it identifies, characterises and evaluates an intuitively compelling learning rule called ‘comparative conditionalisation’ that specifies how agents should revise their comparative confidence judgements in the face of novel evidence.","PeriodicalId":54620,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135567126","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 This paper recapitulates earlier work in which I argued for the disunity of science, the plurality of partly incommensurable ways in which the world can be conceptualised for scientific purposes. It then aims to show how this plurality is intelligible, even to be expected, from the perspective of a process philosophy that sees the world as largely disorganised, but as allowing the emrgence of pockets of stability, most notably the stability provided by biological organisms. It incidentally aims to demonstrate the importance to one another of science and metaphysics.
{"title":"The Disunity of Science and the Unity of the World Presidential Address, PSA 2022","authors":"John Dupré","doi":"10.1017/psa.2023.135","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/psa.2023.135","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper recapitulates earlier work in which I argued for the disunity of science, the plurality of partly incommensurable ways in which the world can be conceptualised for scientific purposes. It then aims to show how this plurality is intelligible, even to be expected, from the perspective of a process philosophy that sees the world as largely disorganised, but as allowing the emrgence of pockets of stability, most notably the stability provided by biological organisms. It incidentally aims to demonstrate the importance to one another of science and metaphysics.","PeriodicalId":54620,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135616247","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 I characterize a role for “environments” as ecological scaffolding of organism development in the evolution of novelty. I interpret Rainey’s bacterial experimental system for empirically modeling evolutionary transition to multicellularity as an ecological-developmental problem in terms of a formal model of Kauffman’s concept of evolution into the “adjacent possible.” I propose a scenario to interpret scaffolds dynamically, treating them as organisms modeled in the same way as the developing systems they scaffold, rather than as fixed constraint boundary conditions. The scenario suggests avenues for mathematically modeling scaffolding dynamics.
{"title":"Modeling Scaffolded Development into the Adjacent Possible Environment","authors":"James Griesemer","doi":"10.1017/psa.2023.144","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/psa.2023.144","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract I characterize a role for “environments” as ecological scaffolding of organism development in the evolution of novelty. I interpret Rainey’s bacterial experimental system for empirically modeling evolutionary transition to multicellularity as an ecological-developmental problem in terms of a formal model of Kauffman’s concept of evolution into the “adjacent possible.” I propose a scenario to interpret scaffolds dynamically, treating them as organisms modeled in the same way as the developing systems they scaffold, rather than as fixed constraint boundary conditions. The scenario suggests avenues for mathematically modeling scaffolding dynamics.","PeriodicalId":54620,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135567109","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 Racial discrimination is a multi-dimensional concept. Yet, subjective measures of racial discrimination focus on particular dimensions (interpersonal over institutional, attributable over ambiguously attributable). I argue that there is path dependence in the development and validation of subjective measures, such that existing scales prevent the development of scales that are better for some purpose. Path dependence can occur when researchers: (1) adopt a coherentist view of measurement, namely, in iteratively refining constructs and measures and (2) employ current psychometric validation practices. The main take-away is that norms are needed to evaluate the initial refinement of the construct rather than taking it for granted.
{"title":"Path-Dependence in Measurement: A Problem for Coherentism","authors":"Morgan Thompson","doi":"10.1017/psa.2023.147","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/psa.2023.147","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Racial discrimination is a multi-dimensional concept. Yet, subjective measures of racial discrimination focus on particular dimensions (interpersonal over institutional, attributable over ambiguously attributable). I argue that there is path dependence in the development and validation of subjective measures, such that existing scales prevent the development of scales that are better for some purpose. Path dependence can occur when researchers: (1) adopt a coherentist view of measurement, namely, in iteratively refining constructs and measures and (2) employ current psychometric validation practices. The main take-away is that norms are needed to evaluate the initial refinement of the construct rather than taking it for granted.","PeriodicalId":54620,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135565464","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 I examine three arguments that purport to show that connectionist, associationist architectures cannot achieve key features of human thought. Hume anticipated each of these three arguments and provided a unified strategy for responding to each, the “externalist gambit”. On this account, external natural language provides the necessary structure for associationist systems to achieve those features of thought that their opponents take them to lack. The externalist gambit provides a promising avenue for today’s defenders of connectionism about the human mind.
{"title":"Hume’s Externalist Gambit","authors":"Hayley Clatterbuck","doi":"10.1017/psa.2023.139","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/psa.2023.139","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract I examine three arguments that purport to show that connectionist, associationist architectures cannot achieve key features of human thought. Hume anticipated each of these three arguments and provided a unified strategy for responding to each, the “externalist gambit”. On this account, external natural language provides the necessary structure for associationist systems to achieve those features of thought that their opponents take them to lack. The externalist gambit provides a promising avenue for today’s defenders of connectionism about the human mind.","PeriodicalId":54620,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135616248","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 I argue that ML models used in science function as highly idealized toy models. If we treat ML models as a type of highly idealized toy model, then we can deploy standard representational and epistemic strategies from the toy model literature to explain why ML models can still provide epistemic success despite their lack of similarity to their targets.
{"title":"Do ML models represent their targets?","authors":"Emily Sullivan","doi":"10.1017/psa.2023.151","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/psa.2023.151","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract I argue that ML models used in science function as highly idealized toy models. If we treat ML models as a type of highly idealized toy model, then we can deploy standard representational and epistemic strategies from the toy model literature to explain why ML models can still provide epistemic success despite their lack of similarity to their targets.","PeriodicalId":54620,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135567093","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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